Chapter 14: To Comfort a King
Sarah woke in the morning suddenly. She sat bolt upright, listening hard, trying to figure out what had awakened her. There was dead silence. No lights, no noises other than the usual ones. She sniffed the air for smoke. She was seized with a strong and sudden feeling that someone needed her. She went out into the hallway and reached for the phone, planning to call her parents and see if anything had happened. Turning to glance into her dark room, she saw a flash of light from the crystal Jareth had left behind, and she hung up the phone again.
Picking up the crystal, she peered into it -- and found to her shock that she could see Jareth again. He was not looking at her this time. He was draped bonelessly over his throne, head in his hands. His posture and the lines of his body all bespoke the worst sort of despair, and the expression on his face when he raised his head was full of bleak hopelessness.
Watching, Sarah felt a sympathetic lump form in her throat. What could have happened to the laughing, teasing, flirting Jareth of last night? As she watched, a single silver tear slipped down his face, and his shoulders trembled as if he were trying to stifle a sob.
Sarah's eyes filled and she reached out, wanting to touch him through the crystal. She stroked it once with a gentle fingertip and whispered his name.
His head jerked up and he wiped his eyes quickly as he glared around the empty room. Sarah's hand flew to cover her mouth. He'd heard her? Then he looked right at Sarah through the crystal, and she knew he could see her. His face softened, going from defensive anger back to sorrow. He blinked once, sighed, and turned away. As if it were an afterthought, he reached back one gloved hand and tapped the air near the crystal.
Sarah's crystal popped like a bubble. It was gone, and so was Jareth.
Her bedside alarm rang loudly in the stillness, and she jumped to turn it off. "Well," she said ironically to the empty air, "I'm sure awake now!"
As she showered and dressed, she kept wondering what could have happened to Jareth? It was obvious she had caught him in a rather personal moment, and she felt bad for having intruded on his privacy even if it was accidental. He was a king, after all -- was he going to be angry with her for having seen him in a moment of weakness?
He had left her so suddenly last night, after their kiss, that Sarah couldn't help but think she had pushed him too far. Who kisses a woman and then apologizes for it? she asked herself as she pulled on her shoes. Especially when it was obvious the woman was a willing party to it.
Oh, dear. Sarah sat up straight, blinking. That was it, surely. He hadn't been making advances to her -- he'd been merely responding to her advances, and had accidentally let her go too far. She must have read far too much into his flirting, and assumed that something that was a natural part of his personality was instead meant for her alone.
That didn't fit in with his bleak despair from the morning, though.
Horribly confused, Sarah decided not to think about it for a while. But with nothing to do (having finished her Management project yesterday) and with Paris coming home soon (she always dragged herself in on Sunday morning, looking bushed) Sarah wasn't too keen about staying in the apartment.
She braided her hair as usual, and then snapped her fingers suddenly. She'd drive home for the day to see Toby! It was only a two-hour drive, and she hadn't had the gas money to make the trip for most of the semester. Since Jareth had been so good as to stock her fridge, though, she decided to splurge on filling the gas tank and go.