A/N: So I got pretty bored of all the "Jareth comes back when Sarah's in college" and "whisk Sarah away to the Underground" and the "Sarah always falls in love with Jareth" fics. And I decided to be unconventional and controversial and we'll see how well I do. Cheers, ya'll.
-----------
"Mom, really, we're not going to die of hunger on our way back to Boston. Maybe you should worry about yourself, for a change?"
"Alan, let a mother dote upon her son." A woman, old in every way but for her sparkling, emerald eyes, delicately transferred chocolate chip cookies from the baking sheet to a growing pile on the paper plate. A tiny hand, belonging to a little, golden haired girl, reached eagerly for the treat. Sarah obliged.
"There you are, Eloise."
Eloise trotted happily over to her mother, possessing the same golden hair as her daughter. Donna took her child's unoccupied hand in her own as she smiled at Sarah.
"Really, Sarah, you'll spoil Eloise's dinner."
"A grandmother's prerogative," Sarah retorted.
Alan chuckled. "Since we obviously won't be allowed to leave the house without those cookies, could you pick up the pace a bit, Mom? Rush hour won't put itself off just for you."
Sarah sniffed. She handed the saran wrap covered plate of cookies to her granddaughter. "Don't let Daddy have any of those cookies, Eloise. He's being a mean man." She waggled her index finger in front of the girl's nose. Eloise giggled.
"Mom! That's not fair," Alan spluttered.
"Hah! So you do like my cookies!"
Donna gently extricated the plate from Eloise as she slowly began to guidethe young girltowards the front door. "Thank you, Sarah, for the lovely afternoon. Alan, darling, if you would be so kind as to leave your mother before she decides to give you a thrashing, would you open the door for us ladies?"
Alan did as he was told. "I swear, our next child better be a boy. I'm not spending the next years of my life being pushed around by women."
The laughter of the small family moved into the outside air. Sarah went to the doorway, and waved goodbye.
When her father and stepmother died, they had left the house to Sarah, who in a heartbeat had convinced her husband of two years to move to her childhood home. Once settled, Sarah discovered she was pregnant with her first child. Eleanor was born, and three years later, Sarah gave birth to her second child, Alan. Both children were raised in Sarah's house, transformed into a happy place with loving parents.
Eleanor and Alan fed off of their mother's imagination, the spectacular stories she told were a tradition every night before bed. They each had fond memories of sitting on the front porch, while their mother sat next to their father, clasping his hand, then freeing it suddenly,standing to act out fantastic characters and scenes. The good days, the children liked to say.
Then they had grown up, gone to college, gotten married. Eleanor had two children of her own, now, though even her eldest was too young to remember when his grandfather had passed three years ago.
Visits to their childhood home were rare, but whenever they came, Sarah welcomedher children and theirswith open arms, to stall her loneliness for a short while. As the yellow sedan backed out of the driveway and into the street, she breathed a sigh, and retreated into her home.
She idled the few short hours before sunset in her rocking chair, set conveniently before the television set in the living room, listening to the weather reports, and breaking news as she knitted a hat for Eleanor's five year old son, Peter. Sarah found that, though knitting was often boring, it was a good way to spend time doing absolutely nothing while still doing something.
Supper was not a fanfare event. A sandwich and a can of applesauce satisfied her slight hunger nicely, and Sarah decided to spend the hour or so before bed reading.
When Sarah lay down to sleep she was not in the least tired. Snippets of words ran through her mind; tired and old, perhaps, but nowhere near dull. Imagery rose up in her mind's eye, imagery that refused to be translated into dreams.
Midnight came and went, and Sarah was still very much awake.
She rolled over to face the digital clock face sometime later: 12:59.57. She watched the seconds tick by: 58…59…13:00. Sarah shot up like a rocket, her silver braid flying over her shoulder.
"Hello, Sarah."
Surprisingly, Sarah was not alarmed to see the King of Goblins perched quite comfortably at the end of her bed, gloved hands meticulously folded over his left knee. But she wanted to be cautious, and just in case: "You have no power over me."
"Indeed, I don't, Sarah. I'm just here for a little midnight chat."
"It's a bit past midnight, if you had noticed," Sarah waved her hand towards her clock.
Jareth pointed. "Look again." The clock face read 12:00.
"Clever. Since, in my old age, I am not as nimble as I was—and thus cannot run away from you—what do you want to talk about?"
"Your charming family." The Goblin King grinned viciously.
"Harm a hair on their heads and I'll—"
"I wouldn't dream of it. Let's start with your husband, shall we? What was his name, where was he from? How many women had he bedded before you?"
"Your jibes are meant to embarrass a fifteen year old girl, Jareth. I am no longer the child you harassed when I ran the Labyrinth. There is little you can do to upset an eighty-six year old woman who is nearing the end of her days. Amancio Erikson was a good husband, a Catholic. His mother was a half Hispanic who taught high school in the Bronx. His father was a business man who worked in Manhattan. Because he was Catholic he stayed celibate until he married me."
"Are you sure?"
"Jareth, even if you had some sort of ill news about Amancio, I wouldn't care."
"Did you love him," he jeered.
"Dearly."
Jareth sobered.
"Where did your children attend school?"
"Eleanor and Alan went to schools in Manhattan. Manci worked for a good company, with good benefits and good pay, so we were able to live in better districts, and send our children to better kept and funded high schools. For university Eleanor went to Colombia, to study architecture, and Alan went to Harvard, to study law."
"Your children seem to have very different interests."
"My children are very different people."
"Tell me, did it hurt, the first time you ever slept with your husband."
"Excuse me?"
"Come, you said it yourself, there is little I can do to upset you."
"Fine, Jareth. If you so wish to know, I will divulge such trivial information." Sarah waved her hand, the moonlight's illusion casting dark shadows onto the folds in the old woman's skin. "It always hurts, the first time for a woman."
"You haven't answered my question. Did he hurt you?"
"He didn't hurt me, oh great king, thank you very much. Yes, it did hurt."
"It wouldn't have if you chose me over your baby half-brother. He was only half your kin, when I could have been all yours."
Sarah ignored Jareth's obvious insinuation. "Toby was my brother, nonetheless. You were a strange apparition in a strange land. I was fifteen, I did not understand what you wanted from me. Despite how desperate I was for some knight in shining armor to take me away, you were not a knight."
Like Sarah, Jareth cast away her implication. "How is the boy, by the way?"
"Toby has his own family. He even has two beautiful twin granddaughters, Melanie and Phoebe. His wife is a stubborn lady, with a firm hand and a good heart. His only child, his son, Mark, is an extraordinarily bright fellow. He works for the space program as an astrophysicist. He always wanted to be an astronaut, but an accident when he was a little boy left him with a limp all his life."
"What kind of accident." The Goblin King's voice was soft.
"His mother was driving him to soccer practice, but she was blind-sided by another car. Mark was caught in the back seat. His leg bent the wrong way, and the doctors couldn't get to him in time to set the bone properly. Space goers, right now anyway, must be in top physical condition. Mark took the next best thing."
"How old are his daughters?"
"They're ten years old, but Phoebe never lets anyone forget that she's a full twelve minutes older."
Jareth laughed. The sound was melodious, deep, a rushing river in Sarah's ears.
"Children are so strange. Age means everything to them until they finally realize it isn't going to stop when they're sixteen, or twenty. Life is ever moving them forward whether they like it or not, and Time will always change them into shriveled, mindless fools."
"I am pleased, then, that you like to keep shriveled, mindless fools company in the dark hours of the night. Surely, I must be flattered."
"You should be flattered by my presence always, Sarah."
"You sidestepped my accusation."
"I sidestep everything but a little."
Sarahremained silentfor a moment. Her family was marvelous; her children had grown up wonderfully and had families of their own. She had three precious grandchildren, one strong and willful nephew, who had given her two great-nieces, both well on their way to becoming very pretty girls.
She had loved a man.
Her life story had been written. The epilogue her family would write for her.
"I have been very blessed," she finally told Jareth, "with children and grandchildren and a nephew and great-nieces. My cookie recipe has been taught to Eleanor, and I've given Alan his father's favorite fountain pen. I have given myfamily my stories. I am happy, fulfilled by my life."
Sarah paused for a while. Jareth looked into her eyes, the same ones he had stared into when the woman in front of him had been passionate and young. The same ones he had stared into as he offered her the world.
The young woman had aged, gone on without him. Jareth would only admit to a little jealousy; he had been quite taken with the younger Sarah. But her passion had not disappeared as she had gotten older, only been tamed, devoted to her husband and her son and daughter. Sarah was possibly even more brilliant than she had been seven decades earlier.
Her sharp mind now sat in a frail body, one ready to give way beneath the stress of daily human life. A pity, really. Not even weary of the world, and yet the world is weary of her. How Jareth loved irony.
"You didn't just come to catch up on seventy years of silence, did you, Jareth?"
"Not just, Sarah. I came to keep you company in your last moments."
"How generous," she whispered.
They sat in easy silence until the hour had gone by. Sarah had fallen asleep. Jareth stood from his seat at the end of the bed, reaching to gently brush a strand of hair behind Sarah's ear.
"I'd have spun you Valentine evenings," he whispered, and then he was gone.
Sarah's childhood home, where all her adventures had begun, was also where the last adventure would begin.
-----------
A/N: I hope Sarah's history wasn't too cliché. If you care, the names I all chose for their relevant meanings—except "Mark." That name I just happen to like.
Please do take the time to critic. This is my first Labyrinth story. If you like it, I may post the other one-shot I came up with.