Chapter Fifteen: Coming Apart.
The inter-family meeting did not get off to a good start. Leshia hadn't been sure how to seat people in the informal receiving room so she had left it up to individual digression; the only part of that plan that had worked smoothly was the fact that she and Oran ended up next to each other. Karen, Robert, and Toby had clustered together on a sofa, looking nervous but prepared to listen with open minds. Linda had thrown herself into a high-backed chair, pressing deep into its overstuffed cushions as though they would somehow protect her; for the woman who had taught her daughter how to unleash her imagination, she seemed to be having an awfully hard time accepting a fanciful reality. The stilted, somewhat separated seating arrangement would have been perfectly fine if Imm and Laim hadn't plopped down on either side of Sarah, both strangely poker-faced. The human half of the room seemed to have become tense at that, as though it were a declaration that Sarah was no longer one of them. To make matters worse, Jareth had refused a seat and was stalking around the room, hovering over each person in turn and generally making everyone uncomfortable.
Linda fixed her eyes on her daughter, as though she was the only safe thing to look at in the entire room. "What's going on, baby-doll?"
Sarah closed her eyes for a moment, trying not to let the nickname bother her. Linda's voice had changed, the cadence had dropped and she had lost the hard edge from her tone; it was once more the honeyed voice that Sarah remembered from her childhood. She could remember being enraptured by that voice as a child, comforted by its warm folds, like towels fresh out of the dryer. The problem was that Linda was only a gentle and concerned mother some of the time, less and less these days it seemed. "I haven't told you very much about," she paused, struggling, "the last ten years, have I?" Had she really shut her mother out for that long? But she'd had to, Linda had hurt Sarah and her father more than either of them could say, and had continued hurting them throughout the years.
"No," she shook her head slowly, almost regretfully, "I suppose you haven't."
"It started twenty-four years ago, Sarah," Jareth whispered in her ear, "not ten."
"Which would make this story vaguely creepier than it already is," she whispered back. "Let's try not to scare my mother any more than we have to, okay?"
He didn't answer, but placed both hands on her shoulders, standing behind her like a guard.
Over the next hour Sarah found herself stumbling through an uninterrupted narration of what had happened in the Labyrinth, looking at no one in particular and feeling incredibly wretched that she had to tell this story in front of Toby. Jareth didn't say a word throughout her story, didn't move from where he was standing, but she felt the changing pressure of his hands, the moments of tenseness, relaxation, and even reassurance. She was thankful for his concern, but she knew the next story would be even harder to tell. Re-hashing the events of five years ago was very low on her list of desired things to do, but it was suddenly just pouring out of her: he erratic and confusing relationship with Jareth, meeting his family, finding out what he had done to Toby, and finally what had happened when she had confronted him over it. "That was five years ago," she finished her tale quietly. "It's time to set things right."
Linda looked shell-shocked, silent for perhaps the first time that Sarah could remember. Slowly, though, her agitation became clear. "This is hard to swallow," she said, the sharp edge creeping back into her voice, "and I don't like it."
"You don't like it?" Karen snorted. "At least you're not actively involved in this mess. You have no idea what it's like for us to be back here after what happened last time!"
"I take offense at that, madam," Oran said quietly, his voice deep and smooth but holding an unmistakable warning. "My home is not usually a house of horrors."
"Karen has always been overly critical and disdainful of others," Linda chimed in, ignoring the fact that she had been the one to start complaining.
Sarah turned away from the conversation, uninterested in listening to the escalating argument.
Imm bumped shoulders with her, finally breaking the blank expression that he'd been wearing. "Your mother's not quite how I pictured her," he said lowly, exchanging looks with Laim.
"She wasn't always… confrontational and callous," Sarah replied quietly. "She was actually a wonderful mother before the divorce. After my father caught her cheating on him though, it was like she was a completely different person. I swear that guy she's dating is toxic; the longer she stays with him, the worse she becomes. I can barely even reconcile the haughty woman you're seeing with the gentle mother who raised me."
"Life has a way of changing people," Jareth murmured sagely. He had moved from his position behind her shoulders, coming to stand in front of her and the Twins.
"I'm surprised you didn't say anything," she said quietly to Jareth. "You seemed pretty mad out there by the tapestry."
"Make no mistake, I will be talking to Linda," he replied, a strange glint in his eye, "at length and in great detail, but only when the time is right."
Sarah didn't like the sound of that. She was also a little worried that he had said 'Linda' not 'your mother'. It was as though he were disassociating the two women in any way possible.
"Stop this foolishness at once!" Leshia's voice cracked through the room like a whip. In a peripheral sort of way, Sarah had noticed that the argument had been getting louder by the second, but the room was suddenly plunged into silence. She had never heard Leshia raise her voice before, it seemed so unnatural for the calm woman, but there was no mistaking the commanding air that had taken her over. "I know I am not the only one here capable of seeing sense." She took a deep, calming breath, then continued, "We are all from different worlds; we barely know each other, and we do not understand one another. But, for the time being, we must cooperate, if for no other reason than that we are all stuck in this situation together. Discord will only undermine what we hope to achieve; we must lay our differences aside for the now."
Oran almost visibly came back to himself, smoothing out from the heated words and returning to calmness once more. "My Leshia is right, we all helped to create this problem so we all need to be here, working together, in order to fix it."
"Except for me," Linda interjected hotly. "I have nothing to do with any of this!"
Sarah was used to being ignored by her mother, but the fact that Linda had so readily rejected any involvement, not once pausing to think of her own daughter, hurt. She knew her expression never changed to reflect it, but the men at her sides both tensed, frowning, and Jareth's expression bled from brooding to positively dark.
"It is true," Oran carried on, oblivious to what was happening on the other side of the room, "that you simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But perhaps," he mused, "you were meant to be here for other reasons."
After several more protracted and extremely uncomfortable moments of conversation, everyone agreed that it would probably be best if the human half of the gathering could simply be shown to some rooms for a little time to reflect on the situation. As Leshia and Oran disappeared down the hall, her family silently following them, Sarah found herself staying precisely where she was, and wasn't particularly surprised to find that Jareth and the Twins stayed with her.
"What will happen to them?" Sarah finally asked, waving a hand to the doorway that everyone had just exited through.
Laim shrugged. "Well, father is certainly annoyed, but I doubt he's going to take those humans to the gallows over it, if that's what you're worried about." 'Those humans' not 'your family'. Laim had taken his older brother's lead and was disassociating her from them.
"No." Sarah turned her attention to Jareth. "You told me once that being Underground changed a person, infused them with magic to the point where they would have to remain Underground in order to survive." She took a deep breath, dreading the possibilities. "If that's true, what will happen to them?"
Jareth began to pace, restless and wild. "They will change," he said in an even tone. "Perhaps slowly, over the great length of many days or even years, but they will change, Sarah. Just as you have and will continue to do."
Sarah's heart felt heavy. How many more sacrifices would everyone have to make? Her family didn't know the danger being Underground posed to them, didn't understand that if they stayed too long they wouldn't be able to return Above. And no one had bothered to tell them that fact either, she noted suspiciously. She cleared her throat, shaking the thought from her mind. "There's no… grace period at all?" she asked, dreading the answer.
"It differs from person to person," Jareth shrugged. "Robert could adapt in an instant, whereas it might take Karen literally decades before any sort of change makes itself apparent." He pivoted in mid-stride, turning to face her. "The problem is how saturated in magic this realm is, in comparison with your own realm. Your bodies aren't used to magic, or only possess latent power, and once you come into contact with a fresh source you begin to need it in order to survive. The changes that are wrought within you are created by magic, pure and simple, but they need that magic to fuel them. If you were to return Above, where it is so hard to come by, those changes would feed off the power within you, rather than out of the environment; you would literally wither away over time."
"That's assuming that the two realms stay separate," Imm interjected seriously.
Laim nodded. "Things are beginning to break through, Jareth; the spaces between the worlds are growing thin. It may not be long at all before the two realms are one again."
"Then no one would have to worry about which world to live in," Imm shrugged. "There would no longer be a choice."
"We left the mortal realm for a reason," Jareth snarled.
Something fierce lit in the Twins' eyes, but they refrained from commenting.
"I don't think you're in any shape to make sure that things stay the way they are, Jareth," Sarah said quietly.
"You doubt my power?" he asked dangerously.
"No," she replied evenly, "I doubt your control. You've only just regained consciousness, and even that has been a bit spotty. What if you slipped back into a coma while trying to fix this? What would that do to you, or the rest of us for that matter?"
Jareth shuddered, as though appalled by the thought, but didn't speak.
"These are trying days," Laim murmured, "but we must pick our priorities. Jareth" he turned to his older brother, "you cannot rule until you are whole again. How could you possibly hope to lead and protect your people without having full control of yourself?"
Jareth's anger didn't deflate, but he nodded his head in acknowledgment. "Well said, my regal little prince."
Jareth watched as Imm and Laim led Sarah in search of the rooms that her family had been shown to; she probably wanted to speak with them in private, although based on how hard it had been for her to recount the important events of the last ten years, he wasn't sure exactly what it was that she was hoping to say to any of them. He wanted to go with her, all the same, didn't want to leave her alone, but he would respect her desire for privacy and attend to pressing matters of his own.
Like Linda.
Just the thought of her set his blood to boiling. He had encountered the woman many times in the past as he had watched Sarah grow; the woman had never bothered him then, and after the divorce she had rarely been a part of her daughter's life at all. How had the loving mother he had glimpsed changed so drastically into the oblivious and self-centered woman he had met today? It was a curious question, but the answer didn't concern him; the only thing that mattered was making clear to Linda the very fine line she was walking and the fact that her daughter's good graces may be the only thing able to save her fool head.
Linda was easy enough to find, with the help of a crystal; the bobble was fragile and small, but he was glad to see that the power wasn't lost to him. With a jolt Jareth realized that he didn't readily recognize the room she had been placed in. No one ever came to the Castle Beyond the Goblin City, they waited until he went back to K'shent Mier or visited at Castle Aryn to see him. It had always been just the King, some goblins, Amyl, and the staff at this place. It was strange to think of how many people were suddenly in residence, and how many rooms he might possibly end up seeing for the first time since creating the castle because of it.
He shook his head, herding his wandering thoughts back to Linda. It was time for them to have a little chat before Sarah could interrupt.
"Well… that went splendidly," Leshia turned to her husband, a sarcastic smile touching her sage-colored lips. It had taken them the better part of half an hour to find suitable rooms for Sarah's family, and the venture had proven to be more exhausting then it should have. She knew they weren't exactly in their prime anymore, but the fact that her and her husband were resting on a sofa after such a menial task seemed almost silly.
"You have a strange definition of splendid," Oran ran a hand through his silvery hair, sighing.
Leshia frowned. "This isn't like you, husband-mine; compassion has always been your strength, and yet you argued so quickly and openly."
He sighed again, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to pull her close. "My control is thin and my temper is much too close to the surface. We have a chance to erase the damage that has been done, and yet all those humans can do is argue amongst themselves!" He took a deep breath. "We are at our most fractured when our unity is needed the greatest."
"Spitting in the face of Fate is never easy, darling," she snuggled into his side, "but we have done it before. I dare say it has become something of a speciality in this family. Everything will work out in the end," she soothed, "it might be a long and trying road, but everything will be fine, you'll see."
Oran shook his head, absently stroking a hand over his wife's hair. "I wish I could share in your optimism."
A/N: References from Dramatic Orchestrations: the baby-doll nickname and Linda's 'honeyed voice', chapter 11; I really only did a sort of light-brush re-cap in this chapter because, by this point in the story, I would hope that no one really needs it.
Okay, I have to admit that I'm actually feeling a little bad about Sarah's mom being an annoying/heartless floozy and the fact that her name is Linda. I personally know a Linda who is very supportive and understanding, and I am very proud to call her my mother. Not that it bears any relevance to the story, but I felt like I had to get that out into the universe.
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Disclaimer: I own the laptop this story was written on, the vague sort of premise that it follows, the story that came before it, and Jareth's family. All else belongs to Henson.