Summary: Ten years after Sarah had her adventure in the Labyrinth, she is on her way to becoming a writer. The Labyrinth is a thing of the past which causes most of her nightmares. She questions whether the place really existed or whether it was just a dream. She severs off all ties to that world, by covering her vanity mirror, forgetting about her friends and not saying HIS name. Meanwhile, Jareth is still angry that a mortal girl could beat his Labyrinth… but more than anything, he's nursing a broken heart. But, somehow, Sarah ends back up in the Labyrinth. Coincidence or just destiny? JarethXSarah.
Disclaimer: I DO NOT OWN THE LABYRINTH OR ANY OF THE CHARACTERS. THEY BELONG TO JIM HENSON (R.I.P). I DO NOT HAVE ANY AFFILIATIONS WITH ANY OF THE COMPANIES THAT HELPED TO BRING LABYRINTH TO FILM, AND I AM CERTAINLY NOT GETTING PAID FOR THIS. AS MUCH AS I WOULD LIKE TO OWN ANY SONG IN THIS FAN FIC, I DO NOT. THE SONG REFERENCED IN THIS CHAPTER IS DAVID BOWIE'S.
Just let me rule you and I can give you everything.
He marched towards his throne, kicking sniffling goblins as he passed. He took his usual position on his throne; one leg over the arm of the throne, the other touching the floor. Jareth, King of the Goblins, ruler of the Underground for over a thousand years.
Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave.
He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. The same words swirling around his head; as they had done for ten human years. His riding crop in hand, he whipped a passing goblin which shrieked in shock. He smirked at what he had just done.
You have no power over me.
She was the stuff that nightmares were made up of. He was certain of it. His smile faltered and a low, rough growl erupted from his lips. One girl had beaten his Labyrinth and that one girl made him fall in love for the first time… and shattered his heart without a goodbye. He'd poured his heart out to her, only for her to ignore him and concentrate on her lines. Her words echoed in his head. He'd offered her everything: immortality, his kingdom, her dreams, himself, his love. But… it just wasn't enough…
Sarah lay in her bed staring at the ceiling. She was thinking about applying for a job at the local paper, in the hopes of kick starting her writing career. She surveyed her room to take her mind off it. Most of her toys had been moved out of her room and into the attic, although some stuffed toys remained. She looked over at her vanity mirror, which was draped with a black silk cloth. She had covered that up after her adventure in the Labyrinth… after her visit from Hoggle, Ludo and Sir Didymus… after that last reflection of Him appeared staring back at her with a look she wasn't sure of. Was it anger? Or was it sadness? She couldn't tell.
But the question that really bugged her was whether it was a dream. She hadn't uncovered the mirror in ten years. If it was a dream, it shouldn't matter; she would be able to uncover it. But that was the thing, she just wasn't sure. She thought paranoia had set in again. This was the first time she had thought about it for several weeks. The nightmares had stopped then, but she was almost certain that they would continue again, and soon.
She looked over at her window, seeing the dark sky contrast against the white of her net curtains and the beige of her curtains. A breeze lifted the net curtains, which immediately caught her attention.
I don't remember opening the window. I never keep the window open. Not after… she thought.
She slowly jumped off her bed, making her way over to the window. But as she lifted up the net curtains, the funny thing was, the window wasn't open. Sarah shook her head and dismissed the incident, blaming a lack of sleep for her hallucination. So she returned to her bed, sitting on the edge with her chin rested in her hands.
But a flash of white caught her eye. Her eyes opened and she lifted her head.
It couldn't be… No. It wasn't.
Deciding her brain was telling her she was tired, she slowly changed into her pyjamas and crawled into bed. As soon as her head graced the pillow, she was sound asleep. But it wasn't a dreamless sleep…
Jareth stared at the ceiling of his room as he lay in his bed having just abruptly woken up in the early hours of the morning with thoughts of a recent goblin spat that threatened an uprising, or in the least, a pitiful goblin civil war (if civil could be a term applied to goblins). The ceiling was bewitched to look like the night's sky, though not the Labyrinth's sky, the sky in Her world. Shimmering silver stars contrasted against a velvet black sky made Jareth sigh. Everything from Her world seemed to remind him of Her.
Maybe everything in her world is as beautiful as she… No. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever laid eyes on. Everything in her world had nothing on her, but still seemed to have a shine, a sparkle that made the Underground look like an extension of the Bog of Eternal Stench.
For ten years she had haunted his dreams, his chest ached. He constantly thought of her as shattering his heart until it was gone; now there was just a hollow, empty cavern in his chest that ached. He was sure it would cave in if he continued to pine over her. Eventually, he thought, he could no longer live if the cavern caved in, and he would just simply fade away as many other Fae chose to do if they believed they had no purpose for life anymore.
But he was stronger than that; he had his subjects to think about, his city and his Labyrinth. Besides, he enjoyed life too much that he simply wouldn't want to fade away even if he could. She wasn't completely gone, she was still alive. Her heart was still beating, her lungs still breathing so that meant that he could carrying on living, because she was.
She was a complete contradiction. He wanted revenge; he wanted to see her suffer for hurting him, leaving him, destroying his Labyrinth that he had to re-build. On the other hand, he loved her. Granted not from the first time he set eyes on her, he was intrigued by her and her beauty at first meeting, but as soon as he saw her determination, her longing to get her brother back, and that small space of time in the crystal, at the ball…
There's such a sad love, deep in your eyes,
A kind of pale jewel.
Open and closed, within your eyes, I'll place the sky…
Within your eyes.
His eyes immediately opened. He refused to hear that song, any note, and any lyric. He banned that tune from his brain. He often found himself subconsciously humming the tune to himself, still seeing her looking for him – no, searching for him – but then, she remembered her true goal and left him to stare sadly after her.
Jareth snapped from his daze and conjured a crystal. He stared into it, seeing the dawn breaking over the Labyrinth. It glistened with the morning dew but was quickly replaced with the castle's private garden which was alive with colour.
"Ah, the peach trees are beginning to blossom again. Spring is finally here," he softly murmured to himself.
He needed other things to occupy his mind, but as soon as he thought that, his eyelids began to droop, to fall back into a sleep he was so rudely awoken from. But not from a last lingering thought…
Sarah…
Sarah awoke suddenly. She had dreamt that she was trapped in a bubble. She tried and tried to escape but she couldn't. There were people dressed elegantly in masks staring and laughing at the girl's fruitless attempts to run. Then she saw a figure, a more of a silhouette of a person. She was turned her attentions to finding out who the stranger was. Then he had said her voice.
Sarah…
She turned to look at her alarm clock.
3am? What? It's not f-
She stopped her track of thought. She hadn't said that in ten years and she wasn't going to start using it again. Her mind flitted towards Toby. She hadn't said goodnight to Toby. He stopped asking for fairy tales when Sarah stopped believing in them, so she had taken up to just tucking him into bed and saying goodnight. But as he reached eleven, it had become a regular thing that she would forget to say goodnight to him. She had said that she was getting too old for the fairy stories, along with her stuffed toys. In actual fact, it was to get rid of any reminders of the Labyrinth.