Chapter Nine: I Ask For So Little
This was the moment he had planned for—the moment when everything would change. He held it mapped out in his head; all of the ways that their actions and reactions could splinter the moment, sending it spiralling in different directions. He had already been here once before, so he knew what she would do. His decision had been made, and he knew how he would act. Now that it was finally time for action, Jareth knew that he was ready.
He was wrong.
Nothing could have prepared him for the crashing waves of sensation that hit him all in the space of a second. He had not even known how numb he had been until he felt the thawing effect of her warmth. Somehow, she could always burn away the nothingness that had come before.
As soon as he stepped into the stolen moment, her scent stung him, and it was like she had never been gone. And the noise. For so long, all he had heard was a muffled silence, so that now, even the simple night noises of his world sounded like a roar in his ears.
Hands. They were moving over his body with an urgency he had forgotten, touching him; making him feel. She slid her hands from the skin of his stomach up to his chest, raking him with her nails as they moved, waking his numbed nerves.
This was not observing from a comfortable distance. This was not removed intelligence. All of his careful preparation was lost.
The King fought for control. He could control this, just as he always did. He could detach. But then he felt her mouth crushed up against his, moving in an unstudied rhythm, and it was like an irresistible force reaching down to drag him from a watery grave. There was no power that could have stopped the flood of emotions that engulfed him—he no longer desired control. She was kissing him back to life. He was alive again.
And then, time ticked over to the next second and she began to fall. The door. It was gone.
His first thought: let her fall.
The idea rattled around in the dark absence in his chest, trying to find a place to take hold. It would only be fair, after all. She had shown no remorse about plunging him into the depths of the abyss. He could let her fall; he knew that he could. It was one of the possibilities he had seen on the strings.
It wouldn't even be a decision, really. He simply needed to do nothing; let her fall. No-one could accuse him of any wrong doing-the blame would lie solely at the feet of the cruel laws that governed this reality. She would fall, and her breakable body would hit the hard stones again. Time moved slowly, or maybe it was just his thoughts that were moving so sluggishly. She was surely too close to the ground for him to be able to save her, anyway.
But then his arms were moving against the quicksand of gravity, shooting forward to wrap themselves around her body and pull her up against him. For a minute, he felt her heart pressed up against his and it seemed as though the two muscles were racing each other. Then, he stood her upright, making sure that her weight was supported by her shaky legs before he let her go. He backed away from her; moving to a safe distance.
The girl blinked, looking over her shoulder to where the thick slab of door was laying at her feet. Her eyes widened, then looked up again to where he was standing a few steps away. "What happened?"
He made no reply.
She took a small step towards him, but he slid backwards the same distance. "Jareth? What's going on?"
He avoided her gaze. The words would not come.
"Are you alright?" She moved forwards again and continued to follow him as he backed up, even when his back hit the wall opposite his bedroom. She tilted her head to the side, in the way she always did when she was trying to find the solution to a difficult puzzle. "Is it your hand?"
Two small hands reached down and gently took hold of his bandaged hand. She pulled the hand towards her, and tenderly kissed his battered knuckles with lips that had been bruised by their shared passion.
It hurt to look at her; his Sarah. She was standing there quietly, holding his hand, looking up at him. The blacks of her eyes were wider than usual, giving them a darker appearance. His Sarah, her dark hair messed in tangles. His Sarah, with flushed skin. She was surrounded by a pure light that was difficult to look at directly.
And what of him? Was he anything but a beast? He alone knew the darkness of his thoughts; the shadowed void of his heart. But he had been given the chance to change. He knew what he had to do, even as it cut him to the bone. This would be the hardest and the best decision he had ever made.
He pulled his wounded hand from hers. As his hand slipped out of her hold, he felt his skin brush against her fingers, and it tingled at every point of contact. When he spoke, his voice sounded raspy. "Go, Sarah."
"What's going on?" Her face was closed, confused. "Something's changed."
More than she could possibly know. "You need to go, Sarah. Now."
"But why?"
"It's simple, really. I've had my fun, and now I'm done with you." He was pleased to hear that his voice was stronger now. Twisting the truth was his specialty, after all.
She opened her mouth to say something, but she made no sound. In was hard to see in the flickering torchlight, but it appeared as though her eyes were slowly welling with water, and the small droplets threatened to spill out from under her lids every time she blinked. Each drop was like a shard of ice piercing his heart.
Her shoulders slumped. Still facing him, she took a step backwards; away. Slower still, she took another, and then she turned and started running.
He let her go. With each passing second, the distance between them grew larger, and with every step she took, the ache in his heart grew stronger. The King stood tall, watching her leave. He held his head fixed at its usual arrogant angle until he was sure that there was no way she could observe him. Then, he collapsed back against the wall, no longer trusting in his ebbing strength for support. Slowly, with his back leaning heavily against the wall, his weary bones slid down until they rested on the cold floor.
The Guardians had cut out a part of him, and now he was even more certain of what they had removed. It was so like them—they were always so concerned about maintaining balance. They had taken his constant companion, the voice that had served him in the absence of a conscience for so long. They had taken away the pure simplicity of the hunt. They had taken the Beast. No longer bound to the Beast, they had freed him of an endless life of following a single thread.
And now, for the first time, he felt that he might be something more than an animal. He had done the right thing, he knew it. Now all that was left to do was to sit here and wait until the cold, hard thing that was his heart turned to stone. "Be happy, Sarah," he whispered into the nothingness.
All of a sudden, something flicked him on the ear.
"You idiot," she said, but her voice sounded strangely affectionate. "Is this you trying to be noble?"
His heart stuttered. She had returned.
"Come on. Get up." She reached her hand down and helped him stand to his feet. "You're not very good at it, you know."
He stood, dazed. "What?"
"The whole self-sacrificing thing," she said, brushing some dirt off his shoulder.
"Yes, well. Trust me, it's new." Somewhere inside him, hope broke loose its bonds and stretched, glad to be free. "Sarah? Is that really you? Have you really come back to me?"
"Of course it's me," she said. "And who wouldn't come back? You were crying loud enough to wake the dead."
"I was not," he said, quickly wiping at his face. "I would never."
One of her eyebrows raised markedly, and the moment hung tense in the air. Then she started laughing. It was a pleasant sound, not weighted down by any trace of bitterness or mockery. The laugh was like rain to a dry river bed.
Unbidden, a smile broke out on his face.
She closed the distance between them and kissed him. It was a kiss, nothing more. And yet, the simple act seemed more like an unspoken promise of something more important.
He pulled his head back, staring at her with wonder. "Sarah… is this really what you mean to do?"
Her eyes looked straight at him, and he could see the spark dancing there. She was looking at him with such open tenderness that his heart leaped. "Yes," she said. "I do." Then she took his hand and led him through the open space where his bedroom door had been.
The King had often wondered why humans described their love by talking about fire. But for the rest of the night, he felt their passion blaze through his veins like molten lava, and he knew.
Above them, in the night's sky, the stars sung.
Yay! Alternate ending! Let me know what you think about this (second) ending. Hopefully it's satisfying to everyone who requested an ending more fitting to Gothic Romance (Alas, poor genre, how I have baffled thee!).
Stay tuned for the epilogue, in which none of your questions will be answered—unless you want to ask, "…and what happened then?"