Author's Note: The characters of Jareth, Sarah, Toby, Hoggle, Ludo, Didymus, etc. belong to the wonderful Jim Henson company, and I claim no rights to them. The goblins are another story, but any resemblance to any real goblins, living or (while improbable) dead, is purely coincidental and unintentional... except for Shove, because he wouldn't leave me alone until I put him in the story.
In the morning, she found the room had been tidied, albeit a bit badly, and the goblins she saw poking their long noses around the corners of things all regarded her cautiously, as if they'd suddenly noticed something about her that they hadn't seen before. She tried to ignore them, and the way her lips were still tingling, by focusing on her book. Generous and cruel, she thought, as she read further on. The Goblin King, according to this legend, was the result of a liaison between a Lord of the Unseelie and a Lady of the Seelie Courts. Doomed forever to be distrusted by both the Dark and the Light, he was given his kingdom when the world was still young, and the goblins were in desperate need of a leader. He was seldom mentioned in stories, because goblins themselves were distasteful as a subject, and were looked down on by just about everyone. How lonely, she thought, one would be if everyone rejected you for reasons you could never control. He was variously described as a "cruel tormentor" of those who would give up their children, and just as often as a benefactor to the same children he took, finding them homes, or helping them survive by turning them into goblins. She got the opinion that he was looked down on by the light as a necessary evil, and spat on by the dark because he never killed either those children that he took, or those who attempted to win them back by attempting to solve his Labyrinthine kingdom. Those who attempted it, and failed, often returned home broken and miserable. There were a few accounts, buried in another book she'd found, of him killing, but each time he'd been provoked by a particularly terrible example of parenthood. Somehow, she found she could not fault him for removing those who would harm children.
All of this, of course, she weighed against what she already knew of him. She knew he could be terrible and cruel, but she supposed she'd deserved that for being as selfish and awful as she had been, to wish Toby away in the first place. And, after all, hadn't that been what she was expecting? He had performed the role well. It was only at the end when he'd slipped a bit from what she thought he was supposed to be, to something more dangerous, but less cruel. He'd been seductive, and demanding, and she hadn't really understood what he was offering her at the time. After all, she'd been so caught up in living the story that she probably would have done the same thing even if he'd been standing on his head and yodeling show tunes, she thought. And her final revelation, that he had no power over her, seemed somewhat anticlimactic, in retrospect. She'd traveled so far, only to throw it in his face that he was not the "boss of" her (as Toby so often put it).
The following year, Sarah applied for a single room, and got it, and she and Mary parted ways, rather gladly on both sides; although Sarah suspected that the goblins would never quite leave poor Mary alone anymore, once they'd discovered what an excellent source of fun she'd proved to be. Sarah dived into her studies, pouring over ancient books, looking for clues and truths. She forgot to eat, sometimes, she was so frantic for knowledge, but the goblins often brought her things they'd stolen from the commissary that weren't too dirty or bruised or what have you. Sleep, for Sarah, had never been particularly restful, and at night her dreams were dizzy with stairs and candles and upside down rooms and people in masks whirling past. In her dreams she searched ever more frantically, always feeling eyes on her, or someone just behind her, just before she woke up.
One night, she fell asleep with her head pillowed on her book, and dreamed that she was falling into a deep dark hole filled with hands. Instead of catching her, though, they just carefully lowered her until she was falling a short distance into a very dark room, and a trapdoor was swinging closed somewhere far above her. It was neither cold, nor hot here, neither wet, nor dry. But it was very, very dark. She stood up, and groped around in the dark until she found a wall, and then carefully sliding her feet forward she followed the perimeter of the room. In the dark, she could not tell where she had started from, however, and the walls were so uneven that they gave no clue. The room might have been infinitely big, or incredibly small and she had no way of knowing.
She was in the oubliette. It's a place you put people, to forget about 'em.
He wanted to forget about her. But she hadn't done anything! She almost thought that it wasn't fair, but realized that fair never had figured into any of it. Was it fair of her to wish away a helpless baby to a kingdom of goblins? Was it fair of her to have relegated him to the role of villain when she hadn't even known his name? Was it fair that he was forced to spend an eternity ruling a kingdom of creatures that could never be his equals, and always denied the trust or friendship of those who were? It was no wonder he was cruel, for life had been cruel to him. It was no wonder that he viewed his cruelty as generosity, for wasn't it kinder to be cruel to those who wouldn't understand or welcome kindness?
She had defeated him, yes. She had chosen to undo the wrong she had done to her brother, to rescue him from the fate she had so carelessly wished for him. But who would rescue the Goblin King? She'd had the option, then, she felt, and had tossed it away. What else could she have done though? She had been so young, her brother so little, she hadn't known what she was giving up, and wouldn't have been prepared to accept it if even if she had. Was that fair?
All she knew was that she didn't want him to forget her. If she could ever right the wrong she'd done him, she would try, but he had to remember her.
Hours passed, or minutes, or days, or seconds. She couldn't tell in the dark, and her heart was beating so fast she couldn't measure time by it either. Her throat caught on a sob, and she tumbled to the center of the oubliette, crying out his name.
"Jareth!" she cried, until she was nearly hoarse, and then she fell to her knees and sobbed out her frustration and regret. "Please, don't forget me," she begged.
And a pair of warm arms lifted her up and wrapped around her, pulling her against a male chest. She twined her fingers in the loose collar of his shirt, and cried until she could not cry anymore, while his gloved hands soothed her back and arms and smoothed over her hair. She'd never before been so close to him, and even through the pain she could feel the solidity of him, the warmth that radiated from his body. She could hear the strange beat of his heart beneath his skin and realized it was thudding as fast as hers. His hands were gloved, but his shirt was open and her cheek rested against the bare skin there. She held on to him, breathed in the scent of cedar and leather and his own wild, dark magic. "Don't forget me," she whispered sleepily, her tears finally exhausted, and her eyes drifting shut. Gloved fingers tilted her head back and a pair of soft lips brushed hers briefly, sending a shock through her body and causing her to sit up at her desk with her hand pressed to her mouth.
She stared around at the walls of her room in confusion and, breathless, felt her lips tingle with the afterimage of his lips on hers, and the echo of his harsh whisper in her ears: "I can't."