A/N: Late, I know. Sorry

Chapter 14: Almost, But Not Quite

After an entire night of crying for Sarah and staring off into space for Jareth, it was finally time for the guests to go home.

Playing the role of gracious host, Jareth stood outside in the afternoon sun saying good-bye to every single person that had shown up for his party. It was terrible.

Everybody had seen or heard about the kiss he had "shared" with Marina so, of course, everyone was mad at him. Marina hadn't looked at him when she had said good-bye. Camiya hadn't even said good-bye to him. She hadn't acknowledged his existence at all.

He understood why in a sense, but then, he didn't understand. He got that they were all 'siding with Sarah' but he and Sarah weren't an official couple, so how did it all work?

He didn't get it and his brain was beginning to hurt from trying to understand so he just smiled, shook hands, said his good-byes, and waved as, one-by-one, everyone left.

Once that was taken care of, he turned to Sarah, who had been seeing their guests off alongside him.

She glared at him for a brief second then turned quickly and began to walk away. This time, Jareth wasn't going to let her walk away. He was tired of being left out of the loop and in the shadows!

He followed her, calling "Sarah! Sarah, wait!"

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

Sarah, on the other hand, was only out there because it was a part of her routine to say good-bye to all of her friends and other guests next to Jareth.

When they had all left and Jareth had looked at her, she couldn't stand looking at him because every time she did she thought of the previous night. So, she walked away from him only to hear "Sarah! Sarah, wait!" behind her.

She sighed in anger and turned around. "What Jareth?! I don't want to talk to you!"

"But we need to talk, Sarah."

"No we don't! You've made your intentions clear!"

Jareth was confused again. "Intentions? What?! Sarah, what are you talking about?"

Sarah couldn't believe that he had the gall to actually act stupid. She huffed and turned around to leave once more, when she felt his hand grab her arm and gently turn her around.

She forced herself to look down, even when he gently held her chin and turned her face so that she had to look at him. Sarah hesitantly looked up into his eyes and felt tears well up again for what seemed like the millionth time in only a few days when he said, "Sarah."

That's all he had to say. Just her name.

The tears created a waterfall, flowing down her face as she yanked it away and pulled away from him. "I can't believe you kissed her."

Jareth felt his eyes grow big and his mouth drop a bit. Had she actually been hurt when Marina had kissed him? Was he getting to her after all? "Sarah, I didn't …."

"No Jareth! I don't want to hear your excuses. I'm not going to fall for any of your tricks! I saw you kiss her! I can't believe you would do that!"

"Wait! You mean, you felt something when you saw that?"

Sarah couldn't believe him! Jareth couldn't believe what he was hearing!

"Sarah, I … " Jareth began

Sarah shook her head "No, Jareth. You know, right now, I don't want to see you. I don't want to be near you. I don't even want to think about you. Just please, go. Go somewhere. Anywhere but here."

Jareth was hurt. "You … You want me to leave?"

Sarah turned her face away and wiped a couple tears away. Camiya had suggested this.

"Yes. Yes I do." Sarah looked at him, not in the eyes, but at his face in general. It hurt, but she knew that she had to look at him to get the message across. "At least for a little while."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"You know, Sarah" Camiya had said, "I think that there's only one thing for you two to do right now."

Sarah wiped her face and said "What?"

Camiya looked her dead in the eye and said, completely serious, "I think that we need to build a closet that we can heat up and cool down manually. Then, we throw you and Jareth into it, lock the door, and turn up the heat. That will then force the two of you to remove layer after layer until finally … " Camiya let Sarah figure out the rest.

Sarah turned bright red and looked down "As nice as that sounds, just thinking of Jareth right now is making me see red and hurt inside. I don't think I could follow through with … the closet idea."

The two women slowly looked at each other, then laughed so hard that they were crying and clutching their sides for fifteen minutes straight.

After calming down, Camiya looked at Sarah again and said, "Honestly Sarah, in all seriousness, I think you two need a break right now. Maybe one of you should go away for a bit. If that doesn't work, then you can go back to the closet idea!"

The girls giggled a bit more, but Sarah had considered the idea of leaving for awhile.

That night, she dreamt of heated closet, but there were three people in it, not two. Inside, dream-Sarah was sitting in a corner sweating bullets as dream-Jareth and dream-Marina made out on the other side. Finally, dream-Sarah disappeared all together and dream-Jareth never noticed. Not once.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

The next morning, Sarah awoke to find a note on her night stand.

Sarah,

I've been thinking about what you said yesterday, and I agree.

Time apart is probably what we need. At least, if you think so, then I'm willing to comply.

I'm staying with one of my cousins. I'll be here for about a month. A month and a half at the longest. He's invited me to stay for as long as I need.

You have the run of the castle. I'll be working from here.

I'm sorry that I hurt you. I honestly never meant to … but you don't want excuses, huh?

Well, see you in a month.

Love,

Jareth

Sarah couldn't believe that he had actually left. She didn't know whether to be happy that she had time to herself or depressed.

She chose to just pretend that he was somewhere in the castle, but in a meeting or something. Sure, that wouldn't last for a month or more, but it would do for now.

Sarah hoped that things would work out. She didn't think she could stand any more of this emotional confusion.

A/N: Wow, this chapter was short. Oh well, I'm supposed to be doing homework right now anyway so it's the best I could do.

Ok, so not the end yet, but we're slowly getting there. lol Pretty much, I'm trying to kill time in the plot. We need to jump from December/January to like March/April.

Also, the closet idea does not belong to me! It all belongs to Alexandraya! She gave me this idea in like the second review and I've been trying to find the right place to put it so thank you Alexandraya! It's a totally awesome idea and if I didn't have the rest of this already planned out then I would have totally used it ;)

So, I'm not sure when I'll be able to update again because I've got lots of stuff to do this week and weekend so maybe one week without an update. Sorry. I'll see what I can do.

Please review! I absolutely LOVE IT when you do! It makes my day, night, whatever!