Sarah tumbled downwards, her mouth open in a silent scream. At first her eyes had been closed, but the strength of the wind had forced them open to stare in horror at the crashing surf zooming upwards in her vision.
Everything was happening fast, so fast. She barely had time to think. Her brain was trying to shut itself down; her vision was trying to go black. It took every bit of strength Sarah had left to keep herself conscious.
As she plummeted, only one thought had time to make itself known. It flashed in front of her eyes, then disappeared: I guessed wrong. Amidst the sea of regrets and worries, all hope was lost. She had nothing left. Her eyes began to flutter closed.
No longer did she hold to consciousness; she let go, her body wanting to shield her from the pain of impact. The roaring waves were only feet below when everything faded to black…
And maybe death wasn't as painful as Sarah had feared it would be, because she didn't feel the impact. It felt like she was floating. A gentle light pressed against her eyelids.
It didn't matter that the light felt welcoming; she didn't want to open her eyes. The instant she opened them, she would have to accept the fact that she'd failed miserable, and now she was dead.
…Of course, being dead, she shouldn't still have eyes to open. Or any sort of a body, but she very clearly still did have one.
Puzzled and still shaky, Sarah dared to crack her eyes open, no more than a slit. She gazed around for a few seconds, still utterly confused and disoriented. All she managed to discern was that she was in some sort of a room. So she opened her eyes a little bit wider.
And seeing where she was, a small, relieved smile tugged at the edge of Sarah's mouth.
She was in Jareth's throne room, sprawled on the floor at his feet. And he, arrogant as ever, was lounging in his throne, tapping his cane against his elegant black boot. He was also looking at her with dark, angry eyes.
Sarah didn't let the fact that her hair was in wild knots around her face or the fact that her nightgown had been blown up around her hips bother her. She was far too relieved to be alive.
She dared a wobbly grin up at Jareth's scowling face. His expression didn't change, but he arched a single eyebrow down at her. Sarah, however, didn't feel like dealing with his questions right then.
Instead, she managed to whisper, "Took you long enough, you bastard."
And then, utterly drained, she passed out at his feet.
…
Consciousness took a long time in returning. In that strange way that people who are only still half-awake have, Sarah could tell only that she was in a soft, comfortable bed and that the morning sun was shining into the room, and immediately assumed that she was safe in her room at home. She slowly rolled onto her stomach and pressed her face deep into the plush pillow. Inhaling contentedly, she thought drowsily that her pillow didn't usually smell of fresh flowers.
Sarah pulled the covers up all the way to her chin and snuggled against them. At that moment, she was just alert enough to realize that she didn't have satin sheets and, in fact, never had.
It wasn't until Sarah opened her eyes all the way and observed the room around there – the same room, in fact, that she had slept in after being semi-forced to come to Jareth's castle – that the events of the previous night and the enormity of what she had done crashed back down upon her.
"Oh, god," she whispered, sitting straight up in the bed and clutching the covers to her chest. "I… actually did it."
Though there was wonder and relief in her words, Sarah suddenly felt terrified. Though she had been lucky and had been rescued from her faux suicidal plunge, there was no doubt that what she had done would change her life forever. Of course, she reasoned, her life had already been changed forever when Jareth had stolen her brother away – both times. And though she didn't know what would happen now, what the outcome of all of this would be, mightn't it be for the better? Oughtn't it?
Her only real regret was in knowing the pain that this would cause for her father and for Ruth. After all, not only had they lost their baby son in a method that had ensured them no sense of closure, but now they were losing her, possibly forever. As far as they knew, it was forever. As far as they knew, Sarah had killed herself.
She swallowed back her shame at doing this to them; after all, what was done was done. She couldn't go back. All she could do was do the best she could in the situation she was now embroiled in.
As she stared blankly into space, lost in thought, a dry voice sounded from the doorway.
"Awake, are we, then?"
Startled, Sarah turned towards the sound of the voice to find Jareth leaning insolently against the mahogany doorframe, his arms crossed.
Though her first instinct was to stutter incoherently while drinking in his image, her second instinct wasn't far behind and was, to her mind, much more dignified.
"Yes," she answered calmly. "Yes, we are quite awake now."
"My apologies for not sitting by your side and tending you while you swooned," he said in mock-regret, "but running a realm does make its demands on your time."
Sarah had been preparing – hoping, in fact – to be able to have a polite conversation with him, but his tone raised her hackles. She folded her arms and tilted her head to the side. "Oh, certainly. Why, I can just imagine how your time is filled – disciplining goblins and amusing yourself with your numerous captives. My goodness, you certainly are a busy, busy man."
Jareth snorted and shoved himself away from the doorframe. "I only came to check if you were still alive. Clearly, I needn't have bothered. Good day, then." He turned briskly on his heel and started to walk away.
Sarah, however, remembering why she was there, stopped him with a pleading, "Wait! Please, wait." He paused but didn't turn around, clearly only a half-second from tapping his foot impatiently. Still sitting in the bed, Sarah licked her lips, more unsure of herself than she wanted to admit. "I just wanted to say," she managed, "thank you. For saving me."
Jareth did not move, but she sensed a slight lessening of the tension in his position, as though he were no longer poised to take flight. "Well, I couldn't let you go and do an idiotic thing like killing yourself until I'd found out why. I'm quite meddlesome that way."
Since she didn't want him to know that she hadn't intended to kill herself – not yet, anyway – Sarah stopped herself from setting him straight on that score. "I'm really grateful to you," was her only response, and it was completely sincere.
He turned his head and looked back over his shoulder at her. Was it just her imagination, or did he look almost… affectionate? "I was always aware that you weren't the quickest girl around, but I never thought you'd be a fool enough to take a flying leap off a cliff like that. Did you think it would be a romantic way to die? I can assure you, if you'd fallen only a few more feet, it not only would not have been romantic, it would have been quite the mess."
"I'm aware," Sarah said stiffly. Clearly the affection she'd thought she'd seen in his eyes had been just her imagination. "And, again, thank you."
Now he turned around entirely and walked back to her door, gazing at her with hooded eyes. "How could you have been so weak? You, of all people. You, who found such pleasure in lecturing me about the virtues of logic and maturity."
"How can you ask me that?" she asked, her anger only half-feigned. "After what you did to me? You steal my brother and throw me in some sort of alternate universe, but you don't bother to alter my memory, so I'm left every day, every second, knowing what's terribly wrong with my life, but with no possible way of fixing it? You leave me in pain day in, day out. You do all this, and then you have the nerve to ask me how I could be so weak?" As she spoke, her frustration grew. By the end of her speech, she was no longer faking her anger.
He stalked over the edge of the bed and glared down at her. "You deserved it. Or have you so conveniently forgotten why I did that?"
Climbing to her knees so she could look him in the eyes, Sarah's fists clenched. "Of course I haven't! You think that I don't look in the mirror every day and know what I did? That because of me, my friend is dead? I know it damn well and it tears me up inside!"
"Then," Jareth said abruptly, "I assume that I don't need to use magic to keep you in my castle this time. Surely even you would not be so scatterbrained as to try to escape again."
"No," Sarah said through clenched teeth. "I'll stay."
"Good." Jareth turned and started for the door, but before he got there, he paused and glanced back at her. "Oh. And welcome back." Then he was gone, but the sound of his boots clicking against the stone floor echoed back to Sarah for several moments longer.
For her part, Sarah sank back onto the bed with a long, deep sigh. The whirlwind exchange of words with Jareth had left her drained. He was exhausting to even look at, much less to trade barbs with. For a long moment, she stared down at the bed, going over the encounter in her head, testing the force of her anger.
Finally, she exhaled a shaky breath and said, her voice echoing through the silent chamber, "Well, that could have gone worse." Ignoring the slight trembling of her legs, she slid off the bed and onto the floor. It looked like she was going to be here for a while; the first thing she needed to do was find some clothes.
Despite Sarah's most determined efforts, she couldn't find a scrap of clothing anywhere in the room. She looked in the likely places: the wardrobe, the chest of drawers, the closet; knowing Jareth's delight at vexing her, she looked in the unlikely places too: under the bed, on top of the canopy, in plain sight – even outside. And yet, her efforts yielded no fruit. Not so much as a pair of gloves.
She sat down in the middle of the floor, a frown creasing the space between her eyes. It was possible that he simply hadn't had time to think of the necessity of her having clothes yet, but even as she told herself that, she dismissed it out of hand. Jareth always seemed to know exactly what he was about, and if he hadn't left her real clothes to wear…
"What?" she muttered. "Can't want me to walk around naked, can he?" Not caring to answer that question, she reminded herself that she did, at least, have her nightgown on. It wasn't much, but it would at least keep her covered until she could – politely, of course – remind him that she was in need of more clothing.
That would be, of course, assuming that Jareth intended to come back and not just leave her to her own devices about the castle. "Couldn't be!" Sarah said out loud, glancing around the luxurious room again. "He wouldn't just leave me alone like that. Not after –" She bit her lip. Not after what happened last time.
Sarah climbed back to her feet, brushing away the thin layer of dust that clung to her nightgown. "Well, Jareth?" she called out as loudly as she could without screaming. "What are you going to do with me? Leave me here to starve?"
There was no answer – not that Sarah truly expected one. All the same, voicing her complaints made her feel just the slightest bit better. After all, she wasn't completely helpless. She could leave her room and wander around the castle; she was still intrigued by the little of it she had seen the last time while searching for "Anna," and perhaps she'd find some food somewhere. At the very least, it would be interesting.
Resolutely, Sarah walked towards the door, trying not to flinch as she stepped off of the burgundy carpet and onto the cold stone floor. Her toes instinctively tried to curl, but she forced her feet to stay flat as she padded out of the door and into the hall. Remembering that on her last trip through, she'd turned left out of the door, she purposefully turned right and strode down the hall.
Not wanting to waste her time opening every single door she came across, Sarah skipped the first few doors on both sides. Besides which, she remembered, things in the Labyrinth didn't work that way. It was half-instinct and half-irrational. With that in mind, she closed her eyes, walked a bit further, and picked a door at random.
Though she almost expected it to be locked, the knob turned easily and the door slid open. Cautiously, Sarah poked her head in the door and looked around. She sighed with disappointment. It was just an empty room.
She closed the door gently behind her and continued wandering down the hall, choosing doors every minute or so and peeking inside. For the most part, she didn't see anything too interesting. The most interesting room she came across seemed to have some sort of fairy dance going on inside; she would have loved to stay and watch, but the fairies all turned and glared at her, so she apologized sheepishly and left as quickly as she could.
After about an hour, Sarah was starting to feel slightly frustrated. She was getting hungry and her feet were aching from her aimless wanderings. She could turn around and go find her room again, she reasoned, but it would take her at least twenty minutes to walk back. Jareth's castle seemed to be a great deal larger on the inside than it looked on the outside. In the end, though, she decided that perhaps she should head back after all – after checking one last door.
The door she wanted to open was perhaps slightly smaller and dingier than the others, but she decided that it was more likely to hold something valuable. Holding her breath, feeling more than slightly apprehensive, Sarah slowly reached out and turned the handle.
The door didn't open.
Sarah frowned and jiggled the handle. Still nothing. This might have discouraged some people, but Sarah was now more convinced than ever that something worthwhile must lie behind the door.
Grabbing the door handle with both hands, Sarah threw her shoulder against the door. It shuddered, but held strong. She winced and massaged her aching shoulder. Releasing the door handle, Sarah backed up until she was against the opposite wall.
Her feet pattering loudly against the floor, Sarah launched herself at the door with all of her weight. She crashed against the door, and things got very hazy for a moment. Next thing she knew, she was lying on the floor, and the door was cracked open.
Clutching her rib cage, which now hurt more than her shoulder, Sarah used the wall to lever herself to her feet and again grasped the door handle.
Though she pushed as hard as she could, the door slid open slowly, creakily, as though it hadn't been opened in hundreds of years. Finally the door was open wide enough for Sarah to slip through if she held her breath. On the other side of the door, she glanced around for a few seconds, trying to figure out what was going on.
Then her mouth fell open in shock.
Though she'd seen this place only once before, she recognized it almost immediately.
It was a ballroom – a circular room with stairs running the diameter and ornate chandeliers with ropes and strings of crystal beads hanging down all over the place, tangling with each other into rainbows of light.
It looked exactly as it had that night, twelve years ago, when for a short time, a forgetful girl in a white dress had whirled in the arms of a man who had looked down at her with eyes that burned. Exactly as it had been – but for one thing. It was completely empty.
Smiling sadly, Sarah slowly moved until she was standing in the center of the room. Despite her aching feet, shoulder, and ribs, and despite her growling stomach, she wanted, just for a few seconds, to feel again like she had that long-ago night: full of hope and promise for the future.
She let her eyes slide closed and brought her arms up: her right as though it were resting over another's hand, her left resting on a shoulder she could only wish were there. She would never know how alone she looked at that moment, a dancer with no partner.
Swaying back and forth to music only she could hear, Sarah began to whisper under her breath, "One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three…" Starting with small steps, she slowly widened her strides until, all by herself, she was gracefully waltzing around the ballroom.
As she danced on and the rhythm became as natural to her as breathing, she ceased whispering the count and moved in silence. And after a few minutes, Sarah could almost convince herself that she felt a strong hand clenching her own, a warm shoulder's muscle flexing below her palm.
She sighed to herself. It had been so long since anyone had touched her, even in her imagination, that she positively craved the touch, the warmth of another. Not wanting to destroy the illusion, Sarah kept her eyes closed and continued to dance in the arms of her phantom lover.
Gliding back and forth on the ballroom floor, a dreamy smile spread over her face. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt so completely comfortable and graceful – or even wanted.
At that thought, she laughed quietly to herself. Wanted, yes, but only in her imagination. And a woman could not live on imagination alone.
With that in mind, she opened her eyes, prepared to face the emptiness, the fact that she was all alone, and that the warm skin she felt under her hands was nothing more than her wishful thinking.
A pair of eyes, one blue, one brown, were gazing calmly into hers.
Sarah choked back a shriek of surprise. "You – it was – was you…" She tried to pull her hands away, but Jareth captured his right hand in his and wouldn't let go. There was an expression in his face that she couldn't ever remember seeing before.
Though he looked at her intently, all he said was, "Thank you for the dance." He sketched a slight, but polite bow, and released her hand.
"I…" Sarah licked her lips. What was she going to say? A dozen responses came to mind:
"It was my pleasure."
"May I please have something to eat?"
"Jareth, I really need some clothes."
"Why was this door so hard to open?"
"Why did you really save my life?"
"Do you hate me, Jareth?"
In the end, though, feeling the blush on her face, all Sarah managed to say was, "Where is my brother, Jareth?"
He blinked, a cool mask settling over his face. "Beg pardon?"
"My brother," Sarah repeated, feeling as though she had just missed an opportunity that might never come again. "Toby. Where is he?"
Jareth crossed his arms, but didn't speak.
"I'm sure you remember Toby," she said, trying to keep irritation from her voice. "A skinny teenage boy… Came here to rescue a crush of his. Where is he? Where are they?"
The haughty expression on Jareth's face never altered. "She is no longer here."
"Where—"
"Your brother made it through the Labyrinth with flying colors."
Sarah stared at him incredulously. "Really? He did?"
Jareth shrugged nonchalantly. "I didn't bother to make it as difficult for him as I did for you."
"Why not?" She paused. "Not that I wanted—"
He cut her off grimly. "I find I just don't care so much anymore. In any case," he continued, smoothly blocking any questions she might have had, "since he made it, I sent the girl on home, of course. I had no reason to keep her."
"Oh. O—oh," Sarah managed. "And Toby? What happened to him?"
"Single-minded, aren't you?"
She shook her head in disbelief. "Jareth, haven't you – did you ever have any family? Friends? Anyone you cared about?"
"Family? Friends?" He sneered, though the edge of his mouth twitched just slightly. "Never had any, nor did I ever desire any."
"Then…" She gestured helplessly. "Where did you come from? Who raised you?"
"My dear lady," he said, pronouncing the endearment as though it were something loathsome, "I am the King of the Goblins. I do not live a mortal life as you know it. I was not born and I will not die – not in any way you could possibly understand. I did not become, I just am."
Sarah pursed her lips sardonically. "Are you trying to say that you're a god, Jareth? The God, perhaps?" She laughed harshly, but the sound died in her throat when she saw the look on his face.
She had never seen a face go so grey and brittle-looking before, but Jareth looked as though he would shatter if she pushed him over. "Don't joke," he said in a clipped voice, "not about that." He glanced at the ceiling with a look that, in another man, she would have interpreted as nervousness.
Sarah shook her head confusedly. "I don't understand. You joke about everything."
"Not everything." Jareth leaned closer to her, presumably to speak in a lower voice. "You think I'm beholden to no one?" He sighed, frustrated. "This is what I've tried to make you understand all this time. I have my place, Sarah, and I don't aspire to anything more. I have my duties. They're not always pleasurable, but they are my duties. They are my purpose. I need nothing more. Why should I waste time – oh, I don't know – petting puppies and being nice to people? You always said that I took pleasure in abducting the innocent; you act as though I have a choice in the matter. What choice is there?" he asked, his voice growing ever more frustrated. "I was created for a specific purpose – by whom or what I do not know, nor do I care to guess – and that purpose is to rule this kingdom and deal with it when you mortals foolishly, selfishly wish away those about whom you care. That is all. That is my place, and I don't care to tempt fate by meddling with it overmuch."
By the end of his angry outburst, Sarah's eyes were as wide as they'd ever been. Never had she heard him talk for so long…or so seriously. He'd revealed more to her in those few sentences than she'd managed to puzzle out in her twelve long years of wondering.
She longed to put her hand on his shoulder, to comfort him even though he didn't actually appear to be in any sort of pain, but all she did was breathe, amazed, "What a terribly sad life you've lived…"
He blinked frostily. "When you return to your room, you'll find adequate supplies awaiting you there. Excuse me."
Jareth was almost to the door before Sarah called after him.
"My brother, Jareth!"
He paused only briefly. "Somewhere in the castle, I'd imagine. You can bloody well find him yourself."
And then he was gone.
…
Author's Note: Well, that took an unexpected turn. And by "unexpected," I mean that I had no idea that Jareth was going to go all philosophical on me till it actually happened. But I do so love it when Jareth and Sarah fight. So expect more of that. Lots more. … And don't pout at me, because they're the type of couple who totally would fight all the time, and you know it.
So… Will Sarah ever find her brother (at this point, even I kind of want him to go away… He's keeping them apart, and that annoys me!)? Will she ever learn to stop talking at the times when she should clearly just grab Jareth and kiss him? And how on earth is this story ever going to end if they can't stop fighting for two seconds? Stay tuned while I try to figure it out myself…
