A/N: I'm on a roll, and with very little reviewage to encourage me. What a pity!
Disclaimer: Yes, yes, its ours precious! I mean, um, no, its not.
When Hoggle spoke the words, it wasn't his voice that Sarah heard. Instead, it was a voice from the past; deep, drawling, and with all the commanding tone that only a true king can muster. A wind flew around her room, rustling papers and pulling at her hair and clothes. Sara realized that although Hoggle's mouth was now shut and the dwarf himself was cringing against the wall, the voice was still there, booming, growing ever louder, repeating the phrase over and over
GO HOME NOW
until it felt like it would split her in half. Like a battering ram, the voice entered her mind and broke down the doors there. Now the voice was joined by her own voices, freed from their prison and screaming their own warning in her mind, YOU KNOW WHATS WRONG, SARAH, YOU HAVE TO GO TO HER, YOU HAVE TO GO TO HER, YOU HAVE TO GO TO HER!
It was too much; Sarah threw her fists over her ears and slid down the doorframe until she was huddled on the floor. "Please, I can't take anymore, please stop!" she screamed. With that the wind suddenly ceased and HIS voice was gone, replaced by total silence and a terrified dwarf's gaze upon her.
Hoggle ran toward her and threw is small arms around her shoulders. "You ain't hurt, are you Sarah?" he cried, his fists clenched in rage. Damn you Jareth, he thought, stop using me to hurt her! To his shock Sarah wrapped her arms around him as well and clung to him for a long moment, sobbing into his shirt. When she let go there wasn't fear in her eyes but anger and determination. She wiped away the tears and stood up.
Once on her feet, Sarah sprang into action. She would go home, and she would do it tonight. I should never have left; I should never have trusted him. HIS voice was back, but much softer now, and only in her mind, where it was joined by her own persistent inner voice, which had never really gone away. 'That's it, young Sarah, go home. Go home as fast as you can.' She heard the words as though they had been whispered in her ear.
"Why is HE warning me, Hoggle?" she asked, pulling an overnight bag down from the closet.
"I don't know," the dwarf answered, a bit confused himself, "I guess you'll have to ask him. I didn't even know it was a warning."
Sarah had been throwing clothes into the bag, but stopped when she heard this and looked at Hoggle. "Why did you bring me the message, then, if you didn't know what it was?"
"Because Jareth told me to." He answered simply, and Sarah smiled. Some things never changed. Oh well, whatever the reason, she supposed she should be grateful for the message. It had snapped her out of her denial, that was for sure. She walked over to small friend and hugged him once again, this time placing a quick kiss on the top of his head. His response was not what she expected.
"Oh no!" he cried, and huddled himself into a ball with his eyes squelched shut, as if waiting to be picked up and dropped by invisible fingers. But no fingers were forthcoming, and he opened one tentative eye to find nothing but a confused Sarah watching him. He stood back up and smiled sheepishly, as she turned away to finish her task.
"Thank you Hoggle," she said as she fastened the top of the bag she had been packing. "Go back now, and give HIM a message from me." Hoggle braced himself, expecting to hear the worst. "Tell him I said thank you, and I'm going." Hoggle stared blankly for a moment, and then nodded and jumped back through the mirror.
Sarah had no idea why the Goblin King, once her great nemesis, would be helping her now. But she wouldn't question it now, she didn't have time. Sarah thought for a minute. It was already two o'clock, and it was at least a ten hour drive back to her home town from here. In her current state she would most likely wreck. No, she would have to fly. It might take just as long but at least she would get there in one piece.
The voice had been quiet but now she heard it again, not shouting, but urgent, 'Hurry, Sarah, time is short!' Sarah spared herself a small smile at the memory of the phrase, the same phrase in the same voice but coming from, or so she was beginning to believe, not quite the same man. It was what he told her as she started the labyrinth, her greatest challenge. But no, it hadn't been her greatest challenge, had it. The real challenge had been later, and the real foe. Now she was hurrying to face that foe again.
She grabbed the telephone and dialed the first airline number she saw in the book. She had a feeling that a last minute ticket was going to be costly, and she wasn't mistaken. She pulled three credit cards out of her wallet and maxxed them all out to pay for the trip, and this was just one way. She couldn't worry about that now. She would hitchhike later if she had to, for now all that mattered was getting to Maya. The next flight was in three hours, which left her barely enough time to get to the airport and get through security. She used the phone again, this time to call a cab, grabbed her bag and went downstairs to wait. She sat on the couch, nervously ringing her hands, when she heard the voice again. 'Get up Sarah! What are you doing? You have to go, NOW.'
Don't you think I want to? She didn't actually speak the words, so much as think them. She had a feeling he could hear her, though, just the same. I can't just teleport myself wherever, you know, unless you know something I don't. The voice was silent, but she could feel the impatience mounting. Well, she was getting impatient too. She stood up and walked to the window, but there was no cab. She began pacing the floor, lost in thought.
"If he's hurt her, I'll kill him. If he's touched her, I'll kill him." She mumbled under her breath. 'Just get to her, save her. Don't think about him, think about her.' This brought tears to her eyes, and in her mind she felt the hands on her shoulders, comforting. The hands, for the first time she really thought about them. They weren't quite normal were they? No, not every young girl had a pair of invisible hands to help her deal with life. Why had she never thought about this before? Why had she never even questioned it? And now, here they were, accompanied by the voice, HIS voice. Did they go together? Were they all part of the same entity? If so, that would mean that it had been HIM all this time, comforting her when she needed it. It would mean it had been HIM who had helped her that night, so long ago. He had been the one holding her hands while she confronted her father. On some level she had thought perhaps they were imaginary, or some guardian angel, a guiding spirit. Never this, never HIM! She reeled at the thought. Why? Why would he have been helping her? He was the enemy, wasn't he? Her mind reeled at the implications of this new revelation, and she thought she might faint, but ironically the hands steadied her.
'Shhh…Sarah, don't think about it now. All will be explained. For now you have one problem only.' Right. One problem she should have taken care of once and for all long ago. She resumed her pacing and a short time later heard the cab blow its horn outside.
Hoggle finally found the King, sitting in a window overlooking the garden, a crystal in hand, seemingly deep in thought. His eyes were closed and he seemed to be concentrating on something far, far away. Hoggle hated to disturb him, but he needed to let him know the deed was done.
"Yer Majesty?" he began tentatively, "I brung her the message, just like you asked." No response. "She sent a message back to you."
"Yes, I know, Hogsbreath, thank you." Of course you know, Hoggle thought, why bother tell you anything? But he merely bowed and turned to walk away. "Oh, and Hoghead?" Hoggle froze. "Yes, Yer Majesty?"
"She kissed you again, didn't she?" No point in denying it. Might as well face his doom. "Er…um…yes, Yer Majesty." Jareth simply nodded and continued with, well, whatever it was he was doing. Hoggle turned and hurried away, before his cranky monarch had time to think about it any more.
It had only been eight hours since the fateful phone call home that had started all of this, but it seemed like years to Sarah. The long lines through security, the endless flight, even waiting for the cab that was to carry her on the last leg of her journey, had all in one way or another felt like an eternity.
And all along the way, the voice had been there, hurrying her, as if there was anything she could have done to make things go faster. For the most part, though, it had left her alone to deal with her own voices. Her's were less forgiving, blaming her for leaving, blaming her for not making him pay long ago, even blaming her for ever having let it happen in the first place. More than once, hot tears welled up in her eyes and she had to fight the urge to cry outright. The hands were there of course, trying to comfort her as they always had, but now she was wary even of them.
Now she was in the back of a cab that was stopped in front of a house that she knew all too well. The windows were all dark; it was after eleven o'clock, but somehow she knew that at least one creature still stirred in those darkened rooms. She got out of the cab and shoved a handful of bills at the driver, not stopping to count them. She spared herself a moment to stop on the curb to collect her thoughts, but the voice was not so generous. 'Go, Sarah, go now! There is no time to lose!'
The urgency in the voice got her moving again and she strode purposely to the door, her key already in hand. Once inside she dropped her bag on the floor and crept quietly up the stairs, not wanting to awaken anyone, or warn them. She reached the door to Maya's room and stopped, listening. At first she heard nothing, but then, in the dark, there was a small, stifled plea. The sound of a confused little girl begging the man she trusted most in the world to stop hurting her. Sarah knew that sound, that cry, all too well. She felt herself trembling, and suddenly she was four years old again. She saw it all as though it were happening again for the first time, as it was happening to the little one on the other side of the door. The memories flooded back to her and threatened to overwhelm her. She wanted to vomit, but she fought it, and the hands were there to steady her. This time she accepted them graciously and threw open the door.
What she saw on the other side defied all description. It was like looking at herself nineteen years earlier. Maya with tears in her eyes, and her father there with her, his slithering hands everywhere. Cold rage burned so strongly that Sarah could no longer comprehend that any other emotion existed. Richard looked up to see his elder daughter enter the room and his face went pale. Perhaps it was the shock of being caught, but more than likely it was the look in her eyes. He had seen it before, and it had terrified him. It terrified him now as well.
He hadn't seen the gun yet, and afterwards, Sarah couldn't remember how she had gotten it. She supposed she had taken it from Karen's purse when she came inside, but if so she had blocked that out. He saw it now, though, as she raised it and leveled it at his forehead. She walked forward slowly until its cold barrel touched his greasy skin.
"You despicable bastard," she spat, "I told you I would kill you for this. You should have listened."
