...I'm terribly sorry, I'm an extremely horrible person?

The Chapters of Life

Chapter Nine: Faith

But I've got to think twice

Before I give my heart away

And I know all the games you play

Because I play them too

George Michael, Faith

"She's in the oubliette."

A cackle of laughter.

"Shut up. She should not have gotten as far as the oubliette."

A moment of silence.

"She should have given up by now…"

"She'll never give up!"

A sharp look.

"Won't she? The dwarf's about to lead her back to the beginning. She'll give up once she realizes that she has to start all over again."

And a feeling of…

relief.

"Well, laugh."

The room filled with laughter once more, the goblins jumping up and down, stamping their feet, cackling with glee. Admist the chaos, nobody noticed a cape being pulled off the walls, a hat put on after hesitation, a mask hidden under the hat, the side door opened so quietly. Nobody noticed anyone missing, even the tallest of them, even the brightest of them.

He had to go trap them, and remind the dwarf of his duties.

He had to make sure the girl would lose.

He had to… see the girl again.

J Y S

"A rather literal man, your father, wasn't he?"

Jareth glanced at the fey king standing on the hill, looking down at his labyrinth in morbid fascination. "That's one way to describe him."

"No – but I mean – look! It's a labyrinth, so he went ahead and built an actual, physical labyrinth. Direct and to the point."

"He had to deal with humans," Jareth offered. "Humans would have been confused like hell if he'd just dropped them on a plain surface and told them to find their way."

"True," Harel conceded. He shook himself. "Well, then…"

Understanding his hesitation, Jareth nodded towards his castle. "Let's work from there, shall we? It'd be more comfortable, and we might be spending a long time working on this."

"I appreciate your trust in me," Harel began as they walked down the hill. "The fact that you're allowing me to delve into the magic in your labyrinth fills me with gratitude."

Jareth shrugged as he opened the door. "I trust you," he said simply. "And besides, after the barest glimpse at a labyrinth, a fey king would know its most intimate workings."

Once inside, Harel looked at the walls in fascination. "Even if the magic is becoming stagnant, the inner workings are excellent."

"But the magic remains stagnant," Jareth said. "And I need to remedy that."

"Of course. And I'm glad to be of help. I have to warn you, though, it may take months – and you need to finish it before running any Games in your labyrinth, including means no wished away children… and any other Game."

Knowing that Harel was referring to the Game with Sarah, Jareth simply nodded. "Let's go." Without saying anything more, Jareth led the way through the labyrinth, the walls parting easily for their king.

J Y S

Sarah looked around.

She was in her world history class, her pen twirling in her fingers as she jotted down some words every now and then. Every once in a while she took a look around the class, as if suspecting that she might have missed something the last time she looked around.

Nope.

Still no Keith.

She supposed she should be rather relieved at that. After all, she was still wary of the blond boy after their last meeting in the park. At the same time, however, he remained a mystery to her – a question she could not even discern, let alone find an answer for.

For one, like why he acted so familiar with her.

For two, like why the hell he looked so much like –

"Miss Williams?"

A smile snapping into place, she looked up. "Yes, Mr.Elliot?"

"Could you collect the essays from the students and put them on my desk? Thank you."

She stood up and began to go from desk to desk, glancing down at each cover page of the essays as she collected them.

No Keith.

Sarah gave a mental sigh. She was going to have to talk to somebody about this, she realized. She hated not knowing the answers.

Only after school could Sarah catch Thomas, biking home as he always did. "Thomas!"

Thomas glanced behind at the girl running to catch up, and braked. "Sarah? What's up? Is anything wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," Sarah huffed, stopping next to him. "I just wanted to ask you – do you know where Keith is?"

He furrowed his brows. "He wasn't at school?"

"Nope," Sarah shook her head, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious when he grinned at her.

"I was wondering if he would come – but hate to tell you this, Sarah, but he rarely comes to school. Remember?"

"I didn't think you were being actually serious," Sarah muttered. "Although I suppose that would explain why I haven't noticed his presence in my class until now."

Thomas' grin widened. "You notice him very much now, though, don't you?"

"Shut up." Sarah raked her hand through her hair. "I was just wondering – I had a question I wanted to ask."

"You might have to wait a while," Thomas said. "He comes only once in a while. And no, I don't have his phone number, although even if I did, I'm not sure I should be handing them out to girl-turn-stalkers."

"I'm going to hit you soon," Sarah warned. She turned half away, focusing on the road ahead, trying to organize her thoughts. If Keith was doing this on purpose, he was doing a marvellous job, she thought sourly. There was nothing else that could drive someone more crazy than presenting a problem without a solution, then disappearing.

Thomas nudged her. "Hey, all right? I didn't think you actually had to ask something that desperately – what's wrong? Is it school-related?"

She shook her head. "No, it's… not. It's all right. I just wanted to know something." It occurred to her then how vague she sounded, and she flushed slightly, knowing what she sounded like. Yet she really couldn't give a better answer, because she didn't know, herself.

"Miss him?" Thomas raised an eyebrow.

Ignoring his remark, Sarah turned to him abruptly. "How do you know him, then?" she asked, her eyes narrowing. "If he rarely comes to school, then you must know him from outside school?"

Thomas looked startled by her question. "He's somewhat of a childhood friend," he said. "We used to play together when we were in elementary school – back then, he actually came to school, and even without that, I'd see him because we were neighbors. He's moved now, though, and I really don't know where he lives."

"I wasn't going to stalk him, so you can relax," Sarah said sourly. She shook herself. "All right, just wondering. I suppose he'll be here next week, or something."

"All right," Thomas agreed, and they walked home together, him dragging the bicycle behind them.

That afternoon, Sarah went to the park again, like she had always done – but for a different reason.

She sat on the grass, just breathing in the fresh air and watching the scenery. After a moment, with a soft sigh, she took out Le Petit Prince from her backpack and began to read it.

"…But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain field down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat…"

The fox gazed at the little prince, for a long time.

"Please – tame me!" he said.

"I want to, very much," the little prince replied. "But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand."

"One only understands the things that one tames," said the fox. "Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things already made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends anymore. If you want a friend, tame me…"

"What must I do, to tame you?" asked the little prince.

"You must be very patient," replied the fox. "First you will sit down at a little distance from me – like that – on the grass…"

"Boo."

Startled, Sarah raised her head – right into a pair of mischevious eyes that belonged to the boy sitting down at a little distance away from her on the grass.

"You," she said, too startled to realize what she just said.

Keith leaned back, smiling a little. "Me," he agreed.

Flustered, Sarah shut the book with a thud. "Hi."

He raised an eyebrow.

"You weren't in school today," Sarah blurted out.

"Ah." He nodded. "That."

She put the book down, beside her. Beginning to feel a little self-conscious, she hugged her knees to herself, keeping her eyes off his enigmatic ones. "How come?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I don't like to go to school."

"Your parents don't say anything about it? Or were you roaming around?"

There was a pause.

"I don't have parents," Keith said softly. "Both of them passed away, a long time ago."

Sarah froze in the middle of putting her book away into her backpack. Immediately she dropped both things and turned to him, only to remember a second later that her action might have embarassed him. Feeling a strange constriction in her chest, she took two tries to say, "I'm sorry."

"That's all right." He leaned back completely now, so that he was lying on the ground. All she could see were his legs, drawn up. "It was a long time ago. I barely knew enough to miss them. And I have my foster parents."

She hesitated, feeling rather as though it would be rude to probe him now. But school was school (and curiosity was curiosity). "They, um, don't say anything?"

He just seemed grateful that she didn't ask the inevitable "What happened?" question. Still lying down, he answered, "Nope. They're technically not my foster parents – my true guardians are somewhere in Europe right now. They're… homestay parents? Caretakers? People who let me live in their house in return for money from my guardians." He laughed a little at himself.

Sarah couldn't bring herself to laugh with him, though she knew that historionic sympathy from her would not be welcome right now. "Who are your guardians, then? And… the… your caretakers don't care if you're in school?"

"They gave up, so to speak," Keith said lightly. "My guardians are my uncle and his wife. I've barely seen them, much like my parents."

"Oh." She bit her lips.

"Hey." He brought himself up once more. "Don't worry about it. I know it's a bit unusual story, but I don't feel bad or in need to empathy or anything. I only don't go around advertising my upbringing only because it makes the listeners uncomfortable, not me."

Unconsciously, Sarah wound her hair in her fingers, biting her lips. "Okay."

Keith laid back down. "The sky is very pretty today," he said, in his light tone once more.

She glanced up, almost nervously. "It's very blue. It matches your eyes," she suddenly said.

A laughter came from the general direction of the boy. "I do believe that is the second most flattering compliment I've ever received on my eyes – they look like the sky."

"Well, they do," Sarah said, feeling a bit more comfortable.

"Mmm-hmm," was his reply.

They sat together in companionable silence for moments.

"I didn't see you here before," Sarah finally said. "Now I see you every day. Did you use to come here often?"

"I did," Keith answered. "And I do believe I've seen you here before – just maybe without you realizing it."

A breeze went through the trees then, rustling the leaves, and Sarah shivered.

"I should go," she said slowly.

"Should you?"

A strange question, Sarah thought, though in truth there had not been anything too strange about it. The strangeness had been not so much the meaning of the words, but the way he had said them…

"Yes, I should." She said firmly.

Keith turned to her then. "Would you?"

"I would. I mean, I will."

He smiled then. "All right. I'll see you later, then."

Sarah wondered if she should dare, but decided to ask. "Come to school tomorrow. You shouldn't miss school."

Somehow, he managed to give a bow that was elegant despite the fact that he was sitting on the grass. "I shall try, my lady."

As she walked away, it occurred to Sarah that Keith never acted like a teenaged human boy.

J Y S

"Was it all real?"

Sarah absent-mindedly thought that this situation was very strange indeed. She was lying comfortably in bed, above the bed covers… with a goblin king also comfortably settled in right beside her.

How had she ended up in this position? Well, that was certainly an interesting question…

Earlier in the evening, a white barn owl had charged into her room, waking up a cranky teenager. The owl tried to convince her that throwing a pillow was animal cruelty, but the girl seemed determined that the owl did not count as an actual animal. After a brief bickering, the two had settled down to practice the crystal juggling, though both were getting less and less interested in it since the first lesson and were increasingly more interested in talking.

And since there was nowhere else for him to sit on – actually, the girl being a teenager, it was impossible to see the floor at all from the junk that cluttered the space – the owl, who looked startlingly less like an owl and more like a goblin king now, had taken his usual seat at the foot of her bed. She had sat down on the foot of the bed on the other side as they began their practice.

And somehow, both had gotten way too lazy to attempt any more teaching and learning. The girl had thrown down the crystal and leaned back, sprawled across the bed, and protested exhaution. He had remained sitting for a while as they continued to talk. But then, somehow, for some strange reason – the girl had claimed it was too much stress on her neck to be constantly looking up, or he had become tired as well as night wore on – he had leaned back as well. And now… well, here they were.

A rather scandalous position, the back of her mind noted. Yet the rest of her mind was much more concerned with other, more important things.

Like the question she had just asked.

Jareth lazily turned his head – he didn't mind the position he was in – so that he could look better at the girl. "If you're asking about the Run through the Labyrinth, shouldn't the fact that a goblin king is beside you right now be enough proof?"

"I don't mean that." Sarah waved a hand. "I know it happened. I meant… the book."

"Ah." Jareth turned his head back, staring up at the ceiling. "The book."

Neither was talking about "The Labyrinth", and both knew it.

Jareth considered that he was lying on a small, teenaged, mortal bed, yet did not feel out of place at all. That was a strange thought for him.

"It exists, so I suppose it's real," he finally said.

Sarah wasn't ready to let go at that. "Did you write it?" she asked softly.

There was silence. Then he sighed and turned to her, fully, now. "Yes, I wrote it."

Involuntarily, her eyes traveled to where the olive green leather-bound book was lying on her bookshelf.

"In a way," he added.

She turned to look at him as well, blinking. "In what way?"

He gave a smile that revealed his teeth, as if in amusement. "I don't use pen and ink to write."

"Magic," she muttered.

He shrugged.

Sarah began to toy with the corner of her bed cover. "I mean, though… Did you… Did all those things that you described in the book… happen?"

"Yes," he said after a pause. "It was real."

"How many goblins do you kick in a day?" she asked at that, arching her eyebrows.

He gave a small, half-snort laugh at that. "It varies. Quite a many, however."

"I figured."

There was another pause. Sarah turned her head, to find the goblin king staring at him with unreadable eyes. Wonderingly, she stared back at him.

Seconds passed. A soft sigh escaped his lips, so soft, that she wasn't sure if she had heard right. Then he closed his eyes. "It was real."

There was something in it, Sarah knew; there was nothing in it, so far as she could tell. She didn't know what to say; she felt she had to say something.

It took two tries, her voice having somehow disappeared from sudden flutters that began in her stomach. "Jareth?" It was a soft sound, more close to a sigh than a question.

He shook his head, his eyes still closed. A small, twisted smile appeared on his mouth, that looked bitter to Sarah.

Sarah began to push herself into a sitting position, suddenly uncomfortable, then stopped. Her heart was speeding up, and she felt a strange sensation beginning in her body. She felt awkward now, the easiness of her earlier situation having gone completely.

She couldn't look at him; she could not take her eyes away from him.

His head was tilted back now, his neck exposed, his eyes still closed. He looked peaceful, but anyone who was not flustered may have noticed that his breathing was anything but.

Without knowing why, without even realizing what she was doing, she reached out to him. Her fingers hovered just above his eyes, as if afraid.

He opened his eyes.

A smoldering pair of blue looked straight at him. Her breath caught, and she began to snatch her fingers back.

He caught them before she could retreat fully, still staring at her. Emotions were flickering across his face, emotions that Sarah could not tell but, inexplicably, understood. Her face flushed as she pulled on her hand, her eyes avoiding his.

He did not let go.

Slowly, almost gently he pulled her hand, so that she was pulled towards him. He hesitated, just once, before leaning forward to kiss her hand.

Something had happened – was happening, she knew. A shiver seemed to be traveling from her hand to her entire self. She stopped trying to pull away, staring at him.

Jareth closed his eyes briefly. Uncertainty was stirring in his body, but something stronger was storming him. He didn't want to think as if he was losing control, now, after all this time, didn't want to think he was chasing her away by getting too close… But more than anything, he didn't want to think at all, not now, not here.

Abruptly, he pulled her to him, pushing himself up just a little bit at the same time, so that his face hovered just above her confused one. Her lips parted, as if in shock; she looked up at him, once, before looking away, blood creeping up her cheek.

His hand shook, with pure strain from trying to be as gentle as possible, as he reached down and touched her cheek; his entired body shook, from the sheer desire to be as close to her as possible and the feverish fear that she might bolt any time, that he might hurt and scare her.

"Sarah," he whispered. Look at me, he willed her. Look at me…

She did, just a flicker of her eyes back up at him, then she turned her entire face away, almost shrinking back away from him…

He followed her, leaning into her even more as she seemed to back away. Their foreheads touched. His breaths, uneven, floated across the surface of her face.

Then he was burying his face into her shoulder, sighing – letting go of the pressure that had been building and pushing at him.

Sarah could feel the tension drain out of the air, but still, still the flutters in her body would not stop, even though nothing was happening.

Long after he left, with a soft good night, the flutters would continue. They would not stop, for the rest of her life. Yet they hadn't begun any recently; they had been there before.

She had just learned what they were, what emotion they represented. The first sleepless night she spent in her childhood bed, not tossing and turning but lying still and looking up at the ceiling, not thinking but feeling.

That was the night the goblin king left not a human girl but a young woman.

I'm sorry!! I'm sorry!! I... don't even have any good excuse that might explain the huge, gigantic gap in updates... I would like to try, though...

Firstly, I won't insult nor bore you by recounting all the messy stuff that's been happening in life.

But to go just a little bit back, to make a long story short, I had a short-term disease rather notorious for being contagious, and during the time I was confined in my room, I had this brilliant idea of actually finishing this story, and set right to it. Honestly, I worked almost all day, every day (which doesn't mean much, because how much is there to do when you're stuck at home?), and actually got a lot done; unfortunately, I jumped ahead and worked on the numerous chapters after this one.

Which meant I had quite a few chapters written, but none I could post.

And as I wrote those chapters, I kept having to go back and forth to ensure that everything fit nicely together. After a while, I decided that I was just going to have to finish the first drafts of every chapter before I could resume posting. It didn't look too bad then; I figured I'd be able to finish in a week and start updating in a timely manner.

Then, very unfortunately, I got better. And life came back with the added surplus of work I missed during those days, and everything was rather chaotic for awhile. Which, of course, does not excuse this atrocity, but I'm just trying to beg some sympathy, whining pitifully. ;)

Apart from that, this chapter just refused to get written. I had to straighten out a lot of plot, which further delayed this chapter because I didn't want any discontinuity.

Not to mention, this was the transition chapter in this story. This - and the next chapter - is the point in which changes happen, Sarah grows up, etc. And quite frankly, I had no idea how I could manage that. I'm hoping this final draft showed that.

Now at least I can promise without fear of going back on my word that I will be able to update reguarly (for real, really!) and that I will be actually able to finish story, please god. Many of the future chapters are written and revised, and it's a matter of filling in the holes between them.

Anyways! So that was the vague version of my story. I'm so, so sorry for the insane wait... I wouldn't be surprised if you've all give up on this new writer and forgotten about me. I would like to ask for a second chance, though, please. The good parts in this story are coming up, really!

If you could give this story a second chance, I would be your slave forever. ;)