Rites of Passage by Betty Bokor
Jareth/Sarah. When Sarah is called to save the King, her life takes a whole new course, again.
Spoilers: The movie, the book, and some of the Return series.
Disclaimer: The Labyrinth original characters belong to The Jim Henson Company and Lucasfilms Ltd. This was written strictly for the purpose of entertainment. No attempt at copyright infringement has been made.
A.N. The King is about to wake up and Sarah is not sure she is ready.
Rites of Passage
Chapter 5
Keene looked at the King and then at Sarah. "How's he doing?"
"Everything was as you expected, except the fever. It's still very high."
"We need to hurry. We'll start in a minute," he assured her.
"Are they coming?" Shawn asked him.
"Didymus went to tell them. I'll wait. They want to be here for this."
"Okay," Shawn replied and then turned to Sarah and spoke swiftly. "So, quick reminder in case you're not sure: the High King is addressed as Your Majesty; the Queen doesn't like that, so you address her as Lady Anwen, or just Ma'am. Try not to talk to them unless they talk to you. Clear?"
Sarah looked lost.
"The High King and Queen are on their way. Do you understand?"
She nodded.
"When they're here, Jareth is Your Highness; we don't use Royal Highness. The rest of the time he is Your Majesty." He looked at her trying to gauge her reaction. "Okay?"
She nodded again.
A few seconds later a man and a woman entered the room hurriedly.
"We're here. Let's do this," the man said in a commanding voice.
The lady walked to the other side of the bed and sat on the edge. She stretched a hand and held her son's hand.
Sarah observed as Keene seemed to be ready to inject a vial of liquid in the King's arm, but she saw no needle. The liquid disappeared from the vial and a small pale red mark appeared on the arm. She imagined how many of her patients would enjoy such a device instead of the usual syringe.
As soon as Keene was done, the mood in the room seemed to relax. Shawn decided to introduce Sarah.
"Your Majesty, Lady Anwen, this is Sarah Williams, the doctor from Aboveground who is collaborating with Keene."
They both acknowledged her and thanked her for her services, but soon turned their attention back to their son. The High King sat in an armchair by the bed and patted his wife's arm in a reassuring manner.
Sarah took that time to study them. They both looked to be around their sixties, but they were still beautiful. He had white hair, short and well kept, and very deep blue eyes. He bore similar marks to those of Jareth's on his eyelids and wore gloves, too. She could see the familial resemblance, but the High King had probably never been as slim as his son was. He was a big man.
The Queen was exquisite.
Sarah closed her eyes and wondered where that word had come from and why she had applied it to her. This place seemed to bring back her old dreamy self.
She looked at the Queen again. She was a slender woman, visibly shorter than the High King. Her silky, light blonde hair barely touched her shoulders. Her eyes were lighter than her husbands'; they made Sarah think of water, crystalline and pure.
Keene checked Jareth every few minutes and registered the results in some kind of chart. Everybody else remained quiet. Sarah noticed sir Didymus and Hoggle close to the door, but did not dare talk to them.
They had not been there for more than twenty minutes, when something seemed to agitate everybody around Sarah at the same time.
The High King stood up and declared. "I'll take care of the wisher. Anwen, you go wait for the child. Is everything ready, Shawn?"
"Yes, sir. I'll make sure everyone is in the right place."
Before Sarah could say a word, the three had left the room in a hurry. Hoggle and Didymus were gone, too. She looked at Keene.
He smiled at her. "Someone wished someone else away. You'll get used to it if you hang around here for a while. When the right words are said, all of us can feel it, more than hear the words. It's a little unnerving at the beginning."
"So, you don't know it's about to happen?" Sarah asked, thinking of her little red book.
"Jareth and the goblins can hear the words, even before they are right. I think they can feel the intention…"
Sarah looked at the King. He had heard her.
Suddenly, Hoggle came in running towards Keene.
"They need you," he said almost breathless. "It's not a child; it's an old guy and he's in pretty bad shape."
Keene nodded and turned to Sarah. "I have to go. Please, keep checking up on him and fill this." He handed her the chart and pointed to a small bottle on the nightstand. "The poison will take a few more days to clear his system completely and he'll be in severe pain when he wakes up. That's the one symptom we can't eliminate yet." And then he was gone.
She was stunned. She was alone with the King of the Goblins and she was not sure if she wanted him to wake up any time soon.
The first thing that Jareth felt was the pain. His head was pounding and his body seemed to be on fire. He did not try moving because he feared the pain could increase. He took a deep breath and that was when he felt it. It took him a few seconds to recognize the sensation. He had not felt it in almost ten years. He enjoyed it for a while. It helped with the pain; it was soothing.
Then, he suddenly realized that such a feeling could only mean that Sarah was close… Or was it possible to have more than one soul mate? Sarah could not be there. There had to be another explanation.
He opened his eyes and there she was, standing by his bed, looking at her watch.
"What are you doing here?" he asked with a certain amount of annoyance in his voice. The last time he had seen her, she had hurt him badly. He did not want to go back to that time of his life.
Sarah was startled by his voice. She had been distracted, thinking of what Hoggle had said. An old man?
She turned to look at him, unable to say a word.
"Sarah…" he said warningly. "What are you doing here?"
"I… I came to help," she recovered and answered with resolve. "I'm a doctor. They needed help finding out what poisoned you-"
"You're a doctor?" he asked with a smirk.
"Yes and I'm taking care of you. Your doctor is busy with something else." She got closer to him. "Now, are you in any pain?"
He looked at her without losing the smirk. He slowly sat up in bed.
She noticed the effort it took for him to do so. She knew he was in pain. "Okay, so that's a yes. You need to drink this." She picked up the little bottle from the nightstand and opened its cap. "Keene left it for you. It'll help manage the pain."
Surprisingly, he obeyed her and drank the dark liquid. As she was putting the bottle back in its place, Jareth pull the covers off and got up. He walked slowly toward one of the windows and looked out. It looked gloomy outside.
"What are you doing? I didn't say you could get up," Sarah said confidently, the same way she did with any other patient.
He kept looking out the window as he answered. "What makes you think I need your permission?"
She decided to approach him. "You're still sick. You need to be back in bed."
He laughed softly and she could hear the contempt in his voice.
She looked at him as she got closer. His shirt covered up to the top of his legs. He was wearing thin gray pants below it; they seemed to be made of some soft fabric.
She smiled. That looked like what she remembered of him.
As she reached him, he climbed up the windowsill and sat on it with his back against the side.
Sarah panicked and stretched to grab his arm. Through the window she could now see the labyrinth down below. Really down below. And he was not well yet. He could get dizzy and fall.
"Don't do that. It's dangerous," she said as she grabbed him.
He raised his arm almost violently to dislodge her hand. "What are you doing? Who gave you permission to touch me?" He asked with amused disdain.
She was taken aback. "I'm just worried. You can fall out of there; you're not well yet. You could get hurt."
He smiled, pleased with the idea that she was worrying about him. "If I fell, I'd just fly away…" He said with a gesture of his other hand, "but, if you're that concerned, by all means, grab away," he offered his gloved hand to her with a wider smile.
She hesitated, but her fears won the battle and she held his right hand with her own right hand as she placed her left hand close to his elbow, for added security.
He looked down at her hands and smirked again. Then, he went back to looking out the window.
"What are you really doing here, Sarah?" he asked after a while. He did not look at her.
Sarah had been fighting many different emotions to be ready to answer. Being so close to him was unnerving. She took a minute and then said, "I told you. I'm helping. This is what I do aboveground." She paused. "Your father gave permission for me to return."
He nodded slightly as if he acknowledged he understood. "Where's everybody else?" he asked, suddenly seeming to notice that they were alone.
"There was someone wished away."
"I thought so," he said, still looking out.
"They said it was an old man… What did that mean? Not a child?"
He turned to face her. "Children aren't the only ones who are wished away, Sarah. You should know that. If someone can be abused, it certainly can be wished away, too." There was anger in his voice and Sarah felt it was directed at the abusers.
She looked down. "Do they become goblins, too, like the children?"
"The children don't become goblins. They're adopted by the fae."
Sarah looked at him, surprised. "But you said Toby would become one of you, forever," she argued.
He smirked. "Do you think I'm a goblin, Sarah?"
"Oh!" She was stunned. She had not thought of that.
"Nevertheless, not all of them are wished away. There are cultures in your world where the elder walk away from society when they think they aren't useful to their people anymore, when they feel they have become a burden. This is another option they can take."
"You mean they wish themselves away to here?"
"Sometimes. This one must have been in trouble if Keene was called to him."
"How do you know-"
"I got you, didn't I? Only a wished away in trouble would have forced Keene to leave you in his place."
Sarah was not sure if she should feel offended. She decided to change the subject. "Your parents-" She did not want to be rude. "I thought the fae could not age… and that they were immortal."
He laughed. "Immortal in the sense that we do not die of old age, but we're not immune to being killed… We're just stronger, we heal faster, we're more handsome…" he looked at her with a sly smile to check her reaction.
"More full of yourselves…"
He laughed again. "To answer your question, we can decide when to stop the physical aging; it's part of our magic. I thought it wouldn't help my position here if I looked twenty, so I chose this appearance. My parents have changed many times during the years. I suppose that when you're over five thousand years old, you don't feel like looking twenty either."
"Five thousand! I can't imagine that at all. How old are you?" she asked and immediately regretted it.
He did not even blink. After all, his chances with her were none. "I'll be one thousand, six hundred and twenty-eight years old in a month… If those bastards don't kill me before then," he added in a low voice.
She was about to reply, when the doors opened and Shawn came in. He looked at Jareth on the window and Sarah holding his arm and smiled.
"I see Your Majesty's magic is all back," he said as he approached.
"You walk a dangerous line sometimes, my friend," Jareth said as he climbed down to hug him. "I didn't think I'd make it this time, Shawn," he said very seriously.
"I'm just glad it's over. We need to talk; much has happened these last days. But your parents will be here soon, they need time with you, too."
He nodded and turned to Sarah. "Shawn, why don't you show Sarah to her room? It looks like Keene has kept her busy. She probably needs to rest."
She did not get a chance to agree. The High King and Queen came into the room and Shawn pulled her out and closed the doors behind them.
"We've prepared a room for you. I know that you're done helping Keene, but the High King has something else to ask of you." He started walking down the hallway and Sarah followed him. "He'll want to talk to you later. Why don't you get some rest, take a bath, whatever you need…? I'll come get you in a couple of hours."
"What does he want?" Sarah asked.
Shawn hesitated. "He has to discuss it with Jareth, first."
"I need to know. Everything keeps hitting me by surprise. I'd like to be prepared for once."
He stopped in front of a pair of wooden doors and opened them. He led her in and closed the doors. "This is your room. If you pull this cord, someone will be sent to help you. Everything you could need has been-"
"Shawn," she begged.
He looked at her for a few seconds. "Okay," he gave in, "but you can't let them know I told you."
Sarah nodded emphatically.
"He wants you to keep Jareth aboveground for a few days."
