Author's Note: Credit for a certain attack that Jareth uses is given to Andre Norton and Mercedes Lackey, authors of The Halfblood Chronicles. I have a weakness for seeing powerful villains destroyed in painfully simple ways.

Chapter Six: Strength

Underground. No place in particular.
In the moment between life and death.

They say that when you die your entire life flashes before your eyes.

Sarah saw two lives, neither of which was hers.

-Flash-

She was climbing the steps of a stage, her name up in lights as she was declared the best singer/actress of the year.

-Flash-

She was celebrating her birthday with her family, her whole family. Her father, step-mother, and birth mother crowded around a grinning Toby as he held up her cake.

-Flash-

She was holding a newborn baby, her nephew, tickling his tiny toes before handing him to his proud father and exhausted wife.

-Flash-

She was sitting in her bedroom, which had not changed an iota, combing silver-gray hair and humming an old familiar tune that was fading away like her aged memory, fading away into darkness...

The darkness which was alive and calling to her. Come away...come away... It beckoned persuasively, yet Sarah hesitated in confusion. What was happening?

That's right, she was dying.

-Flash-

She was climbing the stairs to a great throne, bowing over a leather hand that pulled her forward and offered her an equal measure of power and respect.

-Flash-

She was walking down a long aisle, surrounded by cheering magical creatures, and at the end of the aisle Jareth waited with a reassuring smile that still managed to look devilishly wicked. He held two glittering rings in his hand.

-Flash-

She was holding a newborn baby, her son, tickling his tiny toes before handing him to his proud father, who embraced her as he beheld the product of their love for the first time.

-Flash-

She was sitting in her bedroom, an unfamiliar room of grace and power, combing silver-gray hair and humming an old familiar tune, and a voice just out of sight took up the melody, lulling her into comforting darkness...

Come away... It beckoned and Sarah moved closer dreamily. And then-

She was falling, falling down into the darkness of an oubliette. It was a trick; not a dream but a place to forget about her. A place to forget herself...

She was falling...falling...

Falling in love...

And the music followed after.

Underground. The Castle Beyond the Goblin City.
The moment after the fall of the White Queen.

The door exploded inwards as Jareth used the last of Sarah's magic to break through it. Rage danced in his eyes but the Red King gave him only the most cursory of glances.

"You're too late," he chuckled, letting Sarah's body crumple to the floor. "Too late. The White Queen is dead." He lifted a hand and the earth trembled in response. "The power of the Underground is mine!"

Jareth was at Sarah's side in an instant, lifting her into his arms and gently stroking the bruises on her neck. He shook her limp body, calling to her frantically.

"It's no use," the Red King laughed, raising his other arm to create a swirling rainbow of glitter that danced around him in a blinding halo of light. "I am truly a king now! For who but a king could do...this!" He clenched his fist and the entire castle jumped as if it were a small pebble kicked aside. He laughed again and the twinkling lights spun faster, enclosing him in a veritable cocoon of multicolored streamers.

Blinded as he was, quite literally, by his newfound power, he didn't see the former Goblin King's fist until it connected with the side of his head.

The lightshow winked out like a snuffed candle as the Red King landed on his face. He rolled over quickly to stare at Jareth in complete astonishment. Astonishment that melted into a dark anger as he stood slowly, the two men glaring murderously at each other.

At that moment, Ludo lumbered into the room, Hoggle and Didymus clinging to his broad back. The shaggy beast took one look at the scene before him, determined that Jareth had things well in hand, and shuffled over to Sarah's inert form.

The Red King moved faster than lightning, pinning Jareth against the wall by the throat. "I'll kill you the same way I killed her," he snarled. "Won't that be romantic, hm?" When Jareth merely glared at him silently, he tightened his grip on his victim's pale neck, shaking the former king angrily. "Aren't you afraid of me, worthless king? You were defeated in all your glory by a pathetic little girl and now you stand on death's door with only a drop of magic left. Surely you don't think you stand a chance against me now?"

A smirk appeared on Jareth's lips and he stared straight into the man's eyes with such a look that he seemed every inch the Goblin King. "How much magic do you think it takes," he said very quietly, "to stop a heart?"

The Red King's eyes widened in realization as he felt the faintest pulse of power against his hand where it gripped Jareth's neck. The last of the borrowed magic gone, it was a snowy owl that watched triumphantly as the Red King staggered backwards, mouth open in a soundless scream as he clutched his chest. Before his body hit the floor, a fiery shadow zoomed through the window, enveloping him in a blazing fireball that burned brilliantly before fading away so that nothing, not even ash, was left.

With the avian equivalent of a sigh, the bird cocked its head towards the other side of the room, where Sarah's three friends had gathered around her body. Then it let out a startled squawk.

Hoggle was kissing Sarah.

Underground. The Castle Beyond the Goblin City.
The moment before the fall of the Red King.

Ludo lumbered into the room, Hoggle and Didymus clinging to his broad back. The shaggy beast took one look at the scene before him, determined that Jareth had things well in hand, and shuffled over to Sarah's inert form.

"My lady!" Didymus scampered down and lifted one of her hands.

As he climbed down more slowly, Hoggle yelled to the dog, "Well? Is she al'right?"

Didymus replaced Sarah's hand gently by her side with horrified dignity. "My...lady..." He stuttered in shock.

Ludo sat down suddenly, nearly squashing Hoggle. "Sawah...dead?" he whimpered.

Hoggle hurried around the bulk of fur, wringing his hands when he saw Sarah. "Oh dear, oh dear," he mumbled. "She told me what ta do, she did. Powerful Aboveground healing. She told me to." He looked to Didymus with pleading desperation.

Didymus, for his part, was looking at the dwarf as if he had taken leave of his senses. All he got out of it was Aboveground healing. "Well, go on then, man," he said finally. "Save her, if thou canst!"

"Oh dear, oh dear," Hoggle mumbled under his breath, dropping to his knees beside Sarah's head. Pinching her nose carefully between two of his thick fingers, he took a deep breath...

Hoggle was lifted bodily from Sarah and thrown head over heels across the room. Luckily, being a sturdily built dwarf, the tumble did little to harm him. He climbed unsteadily to his feet and shook his head blearily, only to see an enraged Jareth storming towards him.

"And just what do you think you were doing, Hoggle?" he roared.

Hoggle gaped at him dumbly. "Yer…yer majesty?"

Jareth scowled. "Get out of my castle, all of you!" He gestured to Ludo and Didymus. "You filthy little, perverted, hateful-"

A weak cough. "Jareth..."

He reversed direction so quickly that Hoggle blinked his eyes deliberately open and shut a few times in the aftermath of the king's wrath.

Across the room, Sarah was breathing shallowly, looking battered but alive. He knelt beside her, cradling her face in his hands. She started to smile at him, but then her eyes drifted shut and she fell limp again. Jareth checked her pulse frantically; she was merely unconscious. He sat back on his heels, relieved almost to the point of weeping.

"How?" he asked in a strangled voice.

Hoggle drew himself up proudly. "CPR," he declared, before high-tailing it out of the room with Ludo and Didymus hot on his heels.