DISCLAIMER: I DON'T OWN ANY OF THESE CHARACTERS.

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"There are things that it's quite effective against--I just don't happen to be one of them."

Then Jareth grinned and disappeared.

"Wait!" Sarah called suddenly.

He faded back into view, looking at her with one eyebrow raised in question.

"I would have the pleasure of a walk on the Irish moor on All Hallow's Eve?"

He grinned, and suddenly they were no longer standing in her room, but on a low rising hill. The moon was bright overhead, though not full, and the land spread out around them. Jareth extended his hand to her, and she took it. They walked the deserted lands, like something out of a fairytale. Long past the village and far-flung country houses, they were.

So Sarah gasped when she suddenly saw dancing lights spring up in the distance. It shocked her, All Hallow's Eve and Old World though it was. A faint tune reached her ears, and even from far away, she could make out flitting shadows as they moved across the lights.

"What are they?" she asked, captivated.

"Otherworldly revelers, obviously. Would you like to join them, Sarah?" he whispered in her ear. "They would welcome us."

"Welcome me or you?"

"Most are delighted to welcome wayward people to their dances. They might or might not be the type to try and lure you away afterward." He grinned. "However, they wouldn't dare. And they would most definitely welcome me."

Enchanted as Sarah was by the distant lights, she was still reluctant. "No. No, let's have our own dance, right here," she said, the idea suddenly seizing her.

Jareth extended his arm.

"You know," she began in an offhand tone as she took his arm, "I wish I was wearing that dark green dress that's in my suitcase?" No sooner had Sarah said it than the dress appeared on her--as was the suspected result. "Some music couldn't hurt," she added hopefully.

"Demanding, aren't we?" But he tossed a crystal up into the air, where it shattered in a cloud of glitter. A rather haunting melody suddenly lingered in the space around them.

Then they began to spin and twist over the land, the music never leaving them, no matter where they moved. The moon rose higher in the sky, casting light on the distant clouds and making the world around them all the more brilliant. Twirling around in this enchanted place, Sarah wondered if she had ever experienced a more perfect moment. It was only him and her, and only now; nothing else mattered.

Though several times out of the corner of her eye, she thought she caught occasional glimpses of faces watching them--here one minute, and gone the next. But Jareth didn't acknowledge them, so neither did she. And they kept their distance (rather a good deal of distance, actually).

So others from the Underground were curious about who else was about on this evening. Perhaps curious about what Jareth was doing out here. Perhaps curious what about what a human was doing out here. Perhaps curious about what they were doing out here together.

But Sarah ignored them. What did it matter? She was on the arm of the Goblin King.

-----

It was sometime before dawn when they stopped their impromptu, private ball. The barest fringe of the eastern sky was slowly shading into a light blue. They merely stood now, watching the night in silence.

Perhaps he had sensed a change in her, for when he asked, "You will be coming?" it didn't seem to be so much a question as a statement.

Sarah leaned on his arm. "Yes. Tomorrow."

Suddenly they were standing back in her room at the inn. "When you call," he said. Then he disappeared.

-----

Sarah was woken by the knocking on her door. She groggily remembered that she had asked the landlady to wake her up at ten. Stumbling to the door, she realized that she was still wearing her dress, not even having taken it off before falling into bed.

"Thank you, Mrs. O'Brien," she said as she opened the door.

"My goodness, dearie, you look positively exhausted. Didn't you sleep well?"

"I suppose not," Sarah said. Then she laughed. "I feel like I was spirited away to a mad dance all night."

-----

Sarah packed her bags and left the inn. She arranged for someone else to take her rented car back to the city. Now there was only one thing left to do.

She took a small, already wrapped brown packet out of her suitcase, and mailed it at the local post office. There was no return address, but Toby would know who it was from. Though she had told him that she would send him no souvenirs, she wasn't really--at least not a souvenir of this trip.

Carefully wrapped, and placed inside a small box was a crystal. It was the one that Jareth had given her, the one that she had never looked into. Sarah didn't know if it would show Toby anything, but she had no need of it. She could always get another. But then, she no longer needed something that would merely show her her dreams.

-----

The last anyone saw of Sarah was a young woman carrying her suitcase and walking along a dusty road, which she finally left for the moors themselves. Most gave her no notice, though some queer looks were earned. Of course, no one actually saw her disappearance. And even people here would never truly guess what became of her.

She said the words, and he came.

And she left, whisked away forever to a world of fantasy and dreams, whim and wishes.

But it was real.