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. Sarah has been kissed...
Rites of Passage
Chapter 9
After kissing Sarah, Jareth laid his head back on the pillow and closed his eyes. Why, why, why had he kissed her? Just to add one more detail to the list of all the things he would have to forget this time? The first time, it had been very hard to let her go, because he had had to abandon the idea of ever sharing his life with his soul mate, but the fact that she was still a child had helped. In all, there were not many memories of meaningful interaction and she had not provoked any physical reaction in him.
But, now, he knew her far better; she was bright, strong, independent, kind… everything that could have made her a perfect queen. And she had become a beautiful woman, with a kind of beauty that seemed to call him, to beckon him, to ask of him to leave everything behind just to love her.
However, that was something he would never get to do. His war plan was slowly coming to fruition and soon he would be able to perform his final task, one that would probably end up with him dead, but that would at the same time end the war and give his father a complete victory.
He had spent months planning every move and then putting them into action. He was fairly certain his enemy had not yet deduced what his intention was and that gave him the advantage. He was going to win this time…
But loving Sarah had no place in that scenario, so kissing her was a mistake, one that would haunt him for long. The softness of her lips, the warmth coming from her body, the perfume that filled the air around her… All those things he would have to give up. Wouldn't it have been better not to experience them at all in the first place?
Hopefully, she would not see anything else beyond a kiss goodnight in it and nothing else would come out of it.
Now he had to make his best effort to go to sleep without becoming aware, again, of the sensations her arm on his chest provoked; without allowing his body to react to the closeness of her body. He had to be strong, because too many depended on him and because he had no right to hurt her just to suit his own desires. And he would hurt her if he told her of his feelings, if he used her to satisfy his cravings, if he tried to lure her into his arms just to leave her behind a day later. He had no right.
Nevertheless, he could not stop his mind from imagining how that would be; how it would feel…
Could she have been the mother of his child? Or was it true what everybody had started thinking by now, that he could not breed a child of his own? How many times had he been forced to make love to ‒have intercourse with?‒ other women just hoping to get an heir? Perhaps that was the reason why it had not worked; a child was supposed to be born out of his parents' love…
He had tried. Many times over the centuries, he had chosen women he liked, that he found agreeable and with fine qualities. Many other times he had simply agreed to bring into his home women who had been chosen for him by others, and, yet, it had never worked out. He had even put more care into choosing after the whole Mizumi affair; the fact that he had allowed her to hurt him so deeply had helped him learn a valuable lesson. And the Labyrinth itself had been brought to life amidst all that pain… But he had never let anyone else get close enough to him to have a chance to hurt him. It had not happened again, until Sarah.
In any case, it was not like he could take Sarah with him now. Even if he had six months to try, how would he ever be able to give her up if it didn't work? Once he made love to her, he would be chained to her forever.
The sole idea took his breath away…
He tried to calm down. He had to think of something else.
How would Sarah's child look like?
With that thought, he finally began to fall asleep.
Sarah had been falling asleep herself; it had been sudden and a thought had crossed her mind that he had used his magic to make her sleepy because he did not want to keep on talking… but she had been too tired to think it further… until he kissed her.
The brief, gentle kiss had awakened her the same way a slap on her face would have.
He had kissed her.
Okay; it had been just a little kiss goodnight, the kind your date gives you when dropping you home, when you don't want to push things further too fast… but a kiss was a kiss, no matter what.
Maybe he had meant it as a way to say he had enjoyed the evening with her. Maybe he had felt sorry for her and her boring life. Maybe he had been grateful because she was helping him.
It didn't matter. What mattered was that it had been… beautiful.
She had been kissed before…How could she put it? More deeply? Whatever. She had been well kissed before, but she had never felt the exhilaration this little kiss had brought up. She was giddy. Her body was tingling from head to toe. She wanted more.
She looked up to see his features illuminated by the soft moonlight coming through the window and the changing colors of the fire burning in the fireplace.
He was extraordinarily beautiful, but now she could see a lot more of him. He was not the same one she had met long ago. His character had fleshed out; his personality was more defined. And she could feel strong abs under her hand… and his lips were soft and warm…
She sighed with pleasure. Only until her brain had to ruin it.
So what if he had kissed her? What could come out of that? Was she going to leave it all behind to follow him? Would he ask such a sacrifice out of her? Did he even care about her or had the kiss just been a polite gesture?
She took a deep breath. Which would be worse? Did she want him to like her or not?
She thought about it. Just because she had been dreaming of him for almost ten years, it did not mean that reality with him would be dreamy. He had obviously had many women in his life; how did she compare? Could a human be his wife? Would he want her to? Would she have to prove herself?
Wait. Was he going to take her to his kingdom and keep her in his bed for six months in the hopes that she would bear him a child? That didn't sound that bad…
Oh, goodness! She was going insane. Where was her feminine pride? She was much more than a womb. She had a profession, a career. She had done well for herself. She was independent, self-sufficient. She would not tie herself to a despot who just needed to use her…
Wow… That was unfair to him, too. She was not thinking clearly in any way. She had to get away from his body to think straight. Just not now. Maybe tomorrow, when she did not need his warmth against her so much. Because of the lack of heating, of course. When the power came back, she would be okay.
She simply needed to survive until the morning without doing anything she would later regret.
She sighed again. He moaned a little, but she was fairly certain that he was already sleeping.
She decided to ask him a question to prove it.
"Your Majesty, what's the thing that you most regret?" she asked.
"Regret?" he repeated drowsily.
"Yeah, what do you regret?" she tried again.
"Mmm… Never meeting our child…" he mumbled, still sounding hazy and without opening his eyes.
She tried to see his face in the moonlight. His breathing had changed rhythm and she was sure he was now asleep.
Did he just say our child or a child? Our child… Oh… She was having visions, or auditory hallucinations, if she tried to be precise. He had not said anything like that. Maybe she was dreaming already.
Our child… Had he really said it?
She needed to sleep, right now. She should leave the thinking for tomorrow.
