Chapter Twenty-One: Give Me One Reason
Sarah breathed a sigh of relief when her feet touched down on the shadowed grass under her oak tree. The rest of the park spread out around her, dark and gently moonlit. To others, the empty expanse might have seemed eerie. Sarah, though—well, she was getting used to popping in and out of the place at night. It was fey but comfortably familiar; a fit transition between the Aboveground and the wilder Underground.
The girl carefully disengaged herself from the Goblin King and drew back from him, just a few paces. They watched each other, gazes measured.
Perhaps we are both wary of the dangers of speaking our minds.
"I did not argue with you because we needed to leave Idunn," Jareth began gravely. "But now that we've left—we are returning to the Labyrinth."
"No," Sarah replied simply.
"Take my hand."
"No. We need to talk and I'd like to talk here. You can force me to leave, I suppose, but I will not make it pleasant for you."
Jareth growled low in his throat, a sound of intense frustration, but he didn't move. They remained in their places, illuminated by the moon's glow; Sarah's dress shimmered and Jareth's pale skin and hair became luminous. Slowly, Sarah remembered something.
"Oh. You can't take me by force, can you? You still need my consent to take me anywhere, don't you? The 'no power' clause still applies."
Her companion flinched and glared at her, fuming but still silent. It was true—his hands were tied.
"What might we discuss here that we could not discuss in a more comfortable location?" Jareth finally asked, voice tight with controlled resentment.
"It's not the topic that would be different," Sarah replied frankly. "It's the manner in which the conversation would be conducted."
"Do tell."
"This is neutral ground. I'm not stepping foot in the Goblin Kingdom until some things are clearly defined."
Jareth raised his upturned eyebrows, the markings underneath them glittering in the half-light. He folded his arms with studied calm, containing none of the jerkiness of anger.
"Have at it, then," he said. "And do hurry—I'd rather not be standing in a damp field all night."
Sarah didn't quite buy his nonchalance; realizing this, she was bemused by the fact that she could read him so well. She almost smiled. The one thing that Jareth valued more than his fury was his dignity. He wasn't going to rage against her when there was nothing he could do; that would reveal weakness, and that would never do.
"What's this?" she said abruptly, holding the pendant of her necklace toward him, its horns between her thumb and forefinger.
"A piece of worked metal," he replied laconically. Sarah ground her teeth—so this would be his revenge for her recalcitrance. This, she decided, will take awhile.
"Don't lie to me," she spoke. Relatively calmly. Jareth shifted his weight from one foot to the other.
"I'm not lying," he insisted, sounding vaguely offended. "It is plain metal, no different from that you would find in the jewelry of your own world. Unlike my own pendant, it contains no magical properties, no powers allowing control over the Labyrinth. It is a necklace, nothing more."
"It is more." Sarah plowed onward, eyes narrowing. "A simple necklace wouldn't save me from anything. Why, when Gunnar saw it, did he react the way he did? What brought the word queen into the discussion?"
A pause. Jareth looked like he wanted to laugh, but Sarah's ferocious countenance stopped him.
"Ah. That. I suppose that the particular form of the pendant may be rather symbolic."
"Rather symbolic?"
"As I said. Try not to repeat me, Sarah." Yes, one corner of his mouth definitely twitched. He so loved to torment her. "I am a king, but I do not wear a crown as other rulers do. My pendant is generally seen as my emblem of office. Thus, if you wear a similar object..." He smiled. "You understand."
Sarah stared at him incredulously. He looked back at her mildly.
"Alright. Okay. This is the problem." She took a deep, quieting breath. "No matter what you might think, this is not just a piece of metal. Why did you give this thing, this symbol, to me? Please. Tell me."
"You are confusing the object with the reality behind it," Jareth said, his humor fading into something drier. "I gave the necklace to you because it is an outward sign of something not immediately visible. It was meant to protect you from those who mean you harm."
"What reality?" Sarah cried, exasperated. "Are you saying that I am actually the Queen of the fucking Goblins?"
"Well," he said, looking down and idly inspecting his fingernails, "Not just the fucking goblins. I should think that the others would go along with the fucking ones. If you like."
He turned his pale eyes toward her, now completely solemn, watching her with their distorted pupils. Something shifted behind them.
"You cannot change what you are, not now. Refusing the symbol—or accepting it—will make no difference."
"Is this just another trick?" Sarah whispered, head tilted up to return his gaze. "Another way to lure me back? Because I won't go, not until I'm certain of myself. And you can't force me. You have no power over me."
Jareth didn't flinch this time.
"There are many kinds of power," he said quietly. A breeze stirred his thistledown hair, blowing strands across his face and around his shoulders. "But perhaps not." He laughed bitterly. "No, I can't force you. Thrice-rejected am I—your answer is clear."
"No!" she exclaimed, something like alarm in her voice. "I'm not... rejecting. Not now."
"Then what was it, then?"
"I need clarification. I need to know what I'm doing. What you're doing. Why you're doing this."
"Doing what?" he enunciated clearly, voice devoid of emotion.
"Why would I be a queen? Why did you teach me, why did you call me in my dreams? Why did you give me magic in the first place?" Her voice rose, becoming more and more agitated. Desperate, even—the weight of all her doubts and questions poured from her in a torrent. "Why did you ever care?"
"I don't know," he replied softly.
"Yes, you do know!" Sarah yelled. "No one does all of this on a whim, not even you!"
Silence.
"Do you love me?" she asked, barely audible, barely daring to say it. Wanting to know, not knowing why.
"...love?" The Goblin King spoke the word carefully, the way that a person would pronounce a foreign phrase. As if it were unfamiliar. "Has love ever had anything to our predicament?"
"I don't know," she admitted in her turn, still quiet.
Please, she thought.
"I knew you before you wished your brother away," Jareth mused, an apparent non sequitur. Sarah didn't dare interrupt. "I heard you speak my name in the world Above and, curious, I came to see. You were a spoiled child, an angry child, and foolhardy in the Labyrinth." He paused, face unreadable. "But promising. You were almost grown. What are a few years to me? I thought you might make a pretty plaything, but then you broke free of the dream."
Goblin masks and figures twirling, clock on the wall and the great weight of her hair piled on her head, disoriented and confused and the people were laughing...
"It was a trap."
"Of course it was a trap. You stumbled into every trap in your path—and then you found your way out of each of them." He shook his head. "I suppose that I was intrigued. I was intrigued. And then, at the end of everything, you resisted still. You'd never done that before."
"Before?" mouthed Sarah, forehead creasing. "What do you mean, I'd never..?"
Jareth smiled thinly.
"Isn't that the story? You, at first, were every pale-faced and dark-haired girl that had ever invoked me, every dreamer lost in herself. I'd seen you hundreds of times, thousands of times, over the years. To the Shining Ones and the other fae, I am a bogeyman—but, mostly to humans, I am remembered as a dream. You were just the Girl, a facet of the Girl named Sarah. And then..."
When his voice halted, Sarah held her breath.
"You solved a puzzle that I didn't even know existed. The Fae simply win their siblings when they find my castle. You found the castle, you made a leap of faith to save your brother, and then you landed in the ruins of a nightmare-room. You confronted me, spoke those words, and completed a ritual. And somehow became an equal. Not the Girl, but something... unique."
The Goblin King, the king himself, looked away then, casting his eyes to the side. Sarah felt herself drawn closer, closer, floating in a cloud of silver silk.
"Why, then , the magic?" she coaxed softly, feeling an odd power infuse her in the wake of Jareth's reticence.
"I..."
She froze.
"I needed to make sure you came back."
"Why?"
"Revenge. A need to assert my will. Longing. Curiosity. Boredom. Desire. All these things and none of them."
"Then that's hardly an answer." Her hands placed themselves flat on his chest, resting lightly on either side of his pendant. They rose and fell with his breath.
"Even I, after millennia of existence, find things hidden to me."
This was new—the Goblin King, familiar and strange at the same time, acidity and amusement stripped away to reveal the plain truth. He retained an odd gravitas despite this admission of fallibility, thoughtful and unembarrassed, still and cold and beautiful.
"Do you love me?" she asked again, voice a whisper, hands circling around him under his coat. She wanted—needed—to know. He let out a shuddering sigh.
"I have read of love, heard people speak of it. But I do not know what love is."
The world had narrowed to the two of them standing beneath the black sky and the rustling oak leaves. The night leeched color from the land, leaving only subtle gradations of gray.
"I want to run my fingers through the length of your hair and lay kisses down the length of your throat," he said idly. "I want to wrap my arms around your waist and I want to feel you shiver when I murmur into your ear. I want to watch you lick your lips when you're thinking though a problem, and I want to hear you ask annoying question about magic when I don't want to be bothered. I want to fuck you until you are incapable of speech. I want you to sleep beside me with your body curled around mine. I want to drape you in diamonds and nothing else. I want to teach you all the magic you need or want to know, so you can face the Underground someday at the height of your power—so you can show those pretentious court lap dogs that you are not to be toyed with.
"I find that the days are less dull when you are around to cause trouble. I find, I think, that I do not want you to leave again.
"Perhaps this is love. I do not know."
The world stopped breathing.
To Sarah, there was utter silence; the sound of the crickets, if they still chirped, did not reach her ears, nor did the creaking of the tree behind her. She could neither move nor speak; she simply stared with prickling eyes.
This is our battle. Toby, everything else, was merely window dressing. At the heart of everything lies this.
Who has won?
He laughed a bitter little laugh, heavy with self-mocking.
"And so I am felled by a snip of a girl. How demeaning."
Who has won?
"Let's call it a truce, shall we?" Sarah replied in a faltering tone. She pressed her face against his chest, finding her legs rather shaky. Her arms tightened around his waist and his rose to wrap around her own. They stood there, unspeaking, because neither could think of what to say.
And where does this leave us?
Toby, Karen, her father, Linda, Dinah and Aaron and Benjamin. Graduation, summer vacation, college. All she loved, all she had looked forward to, was arrayed in her mind against the Underground—Hoggle and Ludo and Sir Didymus, Addie Otherwood and Daedalus, Antonius and Benedict and Plassa, Lord Fellmarch and the leader of the trolls, Pidgin. Callista and Gabriel.
Jareth.
"I can't simply abandon the Aboveground," Sarah commented finally, voice muffled. Jareth gripped her tighter, an almost imperceptible change. She lifted her face away from his skin.
"I'm not going to let you go," he told her matter-of-factly, in the same tone that one would say the sun feels nice today or I'm hungry. He seemed to mean it literally—he was actually refusing to release her from his grasp.
"I never said I wanted you to!" Sarah exclaimed, suddenly angry again. "Does everything between us have to be a power struggle?"
"Would you want it any other way?"
Sarah was, by nature, blunt. And she was tired of his answering-questions-with-questions bullshit.
"Look," she replied. "I can't just leave everything that I have here. My mother did that to me, and I'm still messed up because of it. On the other hand, if I just told you to go to hell and leave me alone, then I'd be miserable for the rest of my life. I don't know why—it's probably unhealthy, whatever the reason—but it's the truth." Her voice grew steadily in volume again. "You're an unmitigated bastard and God knows that I can't stand you, but you're a sexy unmitigated bastard and you're my sexy unmitigated bastard. Okay?"
A pause.
"I'm flattered," said Jareth, voice arid. Sarah stifled a hysterical giggle.
"Why do I have to make a choice between the Aboveground and Underground?" asked Sarah, plowing on with her tirade despite a rising desire to just stand there with her face buried in his coat. "I mean, there's more overlap than I ever realized before. Jeremy lives in New York, and Callista reads Douglas Adams books and Gabriel obviously spends time up here—he owns a pair of jeans for Christ's sake. Why does it have to be so final, one way or another?"
"What are you proposing?" he asked, countenance skeptical.
"I don't know! I'll live up here, sneak off in my spare time, something. It'll be easier after I go to college, I won't have dad and Karen looking over my shoulder all the time..." Sarah halted and sighed. "This is ridiculous."
"I do not think that I approve of this idea," Jareth said evenly. "Of you living Aboveground. I think that is quite in opposition to my plans."
"Deal with it. This is the way things are, your Majesty. This is what equality means. I don't have to comply with your plans. So we'll have to... compromise."
"Compromise." His tone was absolutely dripping with contempt, as if the one word disgusted him beyond all other things. Considering Jareth, it probably did.
"Yep." Sarah raised her eyebrows. "What'll it be?"
Jareth's jaw tightened and his mouth narrowed, eyes growing hooded. He leveled this expression at her for several moments, but Sarah remained steadfast.
"Compromise," he repeated, this time rolling the word off of his tongue, playing with the syllables. Still thoughtful, musing. "Compromise—that means, I think, that we both make concessions in order to reach a mutually agreeable proposal?"
"Yes," Sarah replied, hesitant.
"I do not think that you are making any concessions."
"Your point?"
"If I agree to this idea—and this is an 'if', mind you—I think that I deserve to be compensated during those times in which you are present in the Labyrinth."
He smiled at her very delicately, revealing his slightly pointed teeth.
"What do you have in mind?" Sarah inquired, despite having a pretty good idea of what he was implying.
"Well, just off the top of my head, I would say gratuitous amounts of sex."
"Er." Sarah's mouth went dry and something low in her stomach lurched. "I think I could agree to that."
Damn straight I could agree to that.
"Deal, then?" he asked.
"One more thing."
Jareth was starting to look ticked off again. Sarah spoke quickly.
"Just a little thing—Gabriel told me that someone had bespelled my family so that they wouldn't notice my absence. Could you, um, fix them? Or at least tell me how?"
He muttered something low under his breath and pulled away from her a few steps, holding out his hand. Sarah looked at it distrustfully.
"We are going to your house," he told her. "Do try to rein in your paranoia."
"Fine," she said defensively, taking his offered hand. "Sorry."
"Hmph," was his reply.
Then, without any fanfare, they were standing in the foyer of the Williams' old Victorian house. The transition was so abrupt that Sarah was knocked off balance out of sheer surprise.
All the lights were out; everyone was asleep. Much to Sarah's relief.
Jareth was already striding up the stairs, his boot-heels making emphatic clops on each tread. Sarah rushed up after him in her quieter slippers, gathering her heavy skirts as well as she could manage.
"Quiet!" she hissed to him, as he began to click down the upstairs hallway. "You're going to wake them!"
Which would be a nightmare of momentous proportions. Sarah could imagine it now—Dad and Karen waking to find a thirty-something man standing in the corridor with their teenage daughter, both dressed in archaic finery. Karen would gasp and her Dad would go all accusatory and angry, and then Jareth would be Jareth and do something horrible...
"I should think not," Jareth replied, tone derisive and mildly offended. "I am better at this than that."
He continued down the hall, reaching the doors of the master bedroom. Sarah finally caught up with him as he nudged them open, slipping through the thin opening. Sarah hung back, watching him, unable to get through without opening them further. Karen and Robert Williams were fast asleep, Robert bare-chested with an arm thrown across the pillow. Karen had her head on his chest, face calm and relaxed. Neither one stirred.
Jareth surveyed them peremptorily before summoning a crystal in one hand. He tossed it toward them, where it hung overhead before dissolving into a soft shimmering rain. It fell upon the sleeping pair before dissolving. Robert shifted slightly, but did not wake.
Sarah didn't speak until they were both out in the hall again.
"So?" she asked.
"They won't be surprised when they awake and see you, but they won't wonder where you have been in the past few days either. You are safe."
"Thank you," Sarah said, honestly. Then she chuckled softly. "It seems like such a banal thing to worry about, after all I've been through. What could they do? Ground me?"
"One should never be quick to give up simplicity," Jareth commented idly. "Your parents don't need to know this." His gaze shifted, mouth twisting wryly. He nodded his head towards something behind Sarah.
"Sarah?" called a piping voice, sleepy but still clear. Sarah twirled around to find Toby standing outside of his bedroom door, wearing footie pajamas covered in primary-colored dinosaurs. Her old stuffed toy, Lancelot, was clutched in one of his hands.
He registered the presence of both the girl and the Goblin King without fear.
"Toby!" she whispered, alarmed and pleased in equal parts. "What are you doing up?"
"I heard a noise," he said petulantly. "Why do you have clothes like that?"
"We were at a party," Jareth supplied smoothly. "Sarah just came back to say good night to you."
"Oh." He adjusted his grasp on Lancelot. "Hello," he addressed to Jareth. "I know you."
"And I know you."
"You're funny."
Sarah's lips twitched. Jareth sent her a don't-you-dare sort of glare.
"Come 'ere, kid," Sarah told Toby, moving forward to scoop him up. He locked his arms around her neck, allowing her to carry him back into his room. Sarah plopped him back down on his bed.
"You should go back to sleep. Don't worry, I'll see you in the morning. 'k?"
"Okay."
"Goodnight." Sarah kissed him on the top of his head and helped him struggle back under the covers. "Don't mention this to Mom and Dad, alright?"
"I won't. Good night." He hugged her tight around the shoulders once before snuggling under his blankets. "Good night, Gob'in King," he called to Jareth. Sarah blinked and stared back down at her brother, but he had his eyes closed now. She shrugged and rose, more than a little surprised.
"He remembers you," Sarah told Jareth, outside of Toby's door. Jareth wasn't at all perturbed.
"I'm very memorable."
"Modest, too," Sarah mumbled. "You don't think he'll tell my parents, do you?"
"He hasn't yet," he replied disinterestedly. He studied Sarah for a moment. "I'm beginning to become impatient. Do we have a deal?"
Sarah pretended to think it over for a moment, just to be difficult. In reality, she'd pretty much made up her mind.
"I think so. Unless you piss me off. Then I retain the right to sleep alone."
"Naturally," Jareth said, tapping his foot, looking harried. "Agreed?"
"Agreed."
"Shall we?" he asked, offering her his arm.
"I think that it's a school night, you know..."
"Good gods, woman!"
Sarah decided that she probably shouldn't press him any farther. She was beginning to enjoy toying with him—maybe as much as he enjoyed toying with her. But he was still a lot more unpredictable than she was, so she'd take it easy for now.
Sarah took his arm.
"Let's go," she said simply.
They flickered out of existence in the Aboveground.
They materialized directly into Jareth's bedroom. Sarah smiled broadly, meeting Jareth's self-satisfied smirk.
Perhaps, Sarah thought as he began to helpfully assist her out of her clothes, tomorrow will be strange. But I'll worry about tomorrow tomorrow. Right now, I'm going to enjoy this.
She eased his coat off his shoulders just after he finished unlacing her bodice. She slid her fingers under his shirt before he could begin working on her corset, feeling a profound sense of satisfaction when she revealed the smooth, marble-white surface underneath.
Tonight was going to be fun.
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A/N: And so goes the last full chapter. Jareth was amazingly hard to write, but I did my best to achieve Jarethness-tempered-with-actual-emotion. Hopefully I reached a good balance of power between our heroine and the Goblin King. Only an epilogue left, which will wrap things up.
Thanks to reviewers, and sorry if I miss anyone: Acantha Mardivey, GoldenUsagi, Gwen, Innogen, Calendar, Kathleen, Shadow, Eleanora Rose, Midnight Lady, Gravidy, Dark Avalon, Isoveed, jazzy021, Amora-Ryuko, Velf, Tellergirl, Angelwingz202, Solea, Mej, Cyberquest1, Caged Bird, Dendy, Lady Ione Athene, Labellily, The Old Fart, Cariah Delonne, Fuzzy, Second Star to the Right, Moonjava, LadyLuck321, Cyber Keiko, Melody, Earthbrat, Draegon-Fire, Secret Heart, Angeloneous, Chibi Oniyuri, ItsACrystalNothingMore, Bex Drake, Lhiata, and Jumping-Jo.