Title: A Faded Memory

Author: Devlyne (Originally published as BelleAngeli)

Published: 07-20-03 (Re-Post 9/18/2015)

Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth, Jareth or Sarah. Nor do I in any way resemble Jim Henson, The Jim Henson Company, Henson Creature Shop or Disney.

A/N: Revised 9/18/2015

Chapter 5: Having Forgotten to Live

A tingling chill ran through Sarah's flesh at the feel of his gloved fingertips on her cheek. She could not help the shiver that ran along her spine and left her quaking before him. Jared; the Goblin King himself sat at the edge of her bed with an odd look on his sharp features. Oh, that smile which displayed rows of white teeth was present but there was nothing joyful in it. There was fear that instead of waking from her dreams, she had only continued them.

If Sarah just sat there a while and grounded herself, he would be gone. Jareth would return to the place dreams faded to and she could continue on with her normal, boring life. Her eyes squeezed closed and head tilted away from him. This was all a dream and Jareth an illusion of her wishful mind. He was not currently sitting on the edge of her bed. He wasn't there at all. This was all a dream. Jareth was an illusion. He wasn't there. Over and over the words repeated themselves in Sarah's mind as she tried to wish him away.

"Sarah, why are you making that face?"

That soft male voice cut across the silence in her bedroom disturbing her concentration. She could feel the gloved fingertips upon her chin as he drew her eyes to his. No, Sarah would not look at him. If she looked at him then she had to acknowledge that he was there and real; it was not something she could afford to do. Her sanity and the grounds she'd built her life on needed Jareth to be an illusion. They would shatter and become unstable otherwise.

"You aren't here, you aren't real." Sarah whispered over and over again.

She closed her eyes so hard that tears began to seep about the edges of the lids to soothe the burning. He would be gone when she looked again. He had to be gone when she looked again. Sarah could smell the leather of his gloves and feel it brushing against her chin still. And when her eyes opened, Jareth had moved closer, still there though he shouldn't be. He wasn't real and he couldn't look at her the way he was looking at her now. There was pity in his eyes; Sarah hated him for his pity.

"Don't look at me like that." Tears rimmed her eyes and spilled across her cheeks as she fought to regain control of herself. "You can't look at me like that, it's not fair."

That mantra continued to repeat itself over and over in Sarah's head. Jareth is not real. Jareth is not here. There was a part of Sarah that had already given up her disbelief though she fought it. Jareth was here and he was sitting next to her. The pity in his eyes was real and the haughty smile on his lips just part of his mask. How many more times would she wander being declaring him unreal and declaring him real before it set in? He was real and here.

There was a tilt to Jareth's head as he considered the woman before him. Was this his Sarah grown in to this cowering creature? It gave him no joy to see tears on her cheeks or fear in her eyes. It was not an emotion he had inspired so it had no place on her face. His smile curved wider until it finally reached his eyes and the blue seemed to dance and swirl with it.

"Oh, but Sarah, I am. I am real and I am here." His hand cupped her chin once more and leather brushed the underside. "I'll look at you any way I please; you hold no power over me." There was such mirth in that gaze and Sarah thought she might shrivel beneath his words.

He leaned in close to her then and in her haste to back away, Sarah's head bumped against the wall behind her. His fingers tightened at the dull thud from the wall to prevent anything worse from happening. She was a caged animal before him and he was uncertain how to act. Before, Jareth would have been loud and brash in his declarations but now he held back. If he scared her away this time it was unlikely that he would ever be able to get her back. No, for once in his long life, the Goblin King acted with caution.

Jareth's lips brushed hers in a chaste kiss before he drew back and his hand dropped away. There was now a thoughtful look in the man's eyes as he regarded her. His smile slipped just a bit before returning in full force. That odd sparkle, which Sarah equated with trouble, lit Jareth's eyes and he rose from the bed. He had thought to leave her here but now there was a game to play. Yes, this would be an enjoyable game. He would win her trust again and torment her with his affection.

"How long have you been looking in to mirrors, Sarah? How long have you been looking for a face that wasn't there?" There was amusement in his tone; his words laced with it.

The face that Sarah had been looking for hadn't graced her mirror in half a dozen years now. In all that time, Jareth had never once allowed her to see him. He had vanished back in to the Labyrinth and kept his observations from afar. There were limits to his powers in her world which was something Sarah should be grateful for. If there hadn't been limits, he would never have let her fall so far before coming here. She was rotting in this place and he felt sorrow at it. Where was her bright soul?

Sarah frowned at his question. Had she been gazing in mirrors looking for his face? "You don't exist. I can't look for something that doesn't exist, Jareth." And yet, some part of her had been looking.

It was hard to falter before her declaration. Now Jareth was certain that Sarah was feebly trying to convince herself that he did not exist. She knew he did and soon enough that last little rebellion would fall away. He would not allow her to continue to rot in a place that killed and oppressed dreams. Sarah did not belong in this world; she belonged to the Labyrinth. He would make her see this.

What had become of the little girl Jareth had so admired? She had been so vibrant and full of life the last time they'd met. He could still see the seeds of that vibrancy within her; if only she would stop denying it to herself. There was no use for someone like Sarah to try so hard to fit in when it was impossibility. Dreamers stood out and up so that they could achieve their dreams. He felt disappointment that Sarah had been so quick to let them die. Jareth had thought better of her when she'd been young. He had thought she was the type of person that he could keep as a companion.

"Tsk, tsk, Sarah. I keep telling you, I'm real. I'm here." His arms opened wide as he gestured to the entire room and then himself. "What will it take to convince you?"

Jareth was little better than the doctors he now regarded as evil. He saw the error in his own ways when they'd first met. What he had wanted was not to make her a companion but to preserve and cage her soul so that only he could see it. A soul that would not have grown or changed because he would have kept it exactly as it was. And when Sarah's spirit had finally broken and that soul had turned to ash he would have set her aside for another. In time, her empty shell would have meant nothing to him. That was the problem with having so much time on his hands; people and objects had so little value.

The doctors had managed that well enough on their own. He moved from the bed to her dressing table and lifted the orange bottle between two fingers. Pills and mantras caged the dreamer's soul in this place. The dreamer heard it repeated that she was crazy so often that she believed. It was a far more effective cage than anything Jareth could have thought up. He admired and loathed them for it. Had it been anyone but Sarah would Jareth have cared at all?

His dreamer believed them and it was with irritation that Jareth fought hard to break the spell. They, the doctors and her parents, had cured her of her dreams and pronounced her fit to move in society. It was an involuntary reflex of anger that saw the bottle crushed in his hand. He gazed at the plastic shards and white pills spilled on the carpet at his feet. They were stains on the off color carpet and Jareth lifted a booted foot to grind them to dust.

Stormy blue eyes turned to the woman on the bed as that feral smile returned to his lips. "Oh, but I am real. I will convince you of it." His finger shaken at her in a scolding manner; he would convince her.

Sarah watched the pills spill from between his fingers and drop to the carpet. She was certain that there had been more pills in that bottle yesterday. It had only been a dream last night, hadn't it? What Sarah had seen in the mirror was only a hallucination? The idea that Jareth might have arrived to save her life was unfathomable. He had come out of hiding or had broken her spell on him to come here. No, she could not allow herself to believe that. To do so would be to admit that Jareth was real. He wasn't. Was he?

"How do you intend to do that?" Her dark eyes were upon his form and Jareth felt their weight. "How do you intend to convince me, with magic?"

It was to be a challenge then. Jareth let that feral smile widen across his lips and stalked from the vanity toward her. This was why he had let her go that day. This is the spirit that he had been so close to caging for his own delight. That tiny little piece of rebellion which sparked an ember in her eyes was returning. Love. The Goblin King knew nothing of love but he knew how seeing that ember in Sarah's eyes made him feel. It made him feel alive. The world stopped tilting on its axis and Jareth finally had a clear direction to go in. He would make her see.

Sarah was watching him as though she expected a reply. What reply could he give her to that question? "I will show you. I will show you everything you have set aside. I will remind you." It was the simplest answer that Jareth could give.

Part of Jareth ached because he was afraid she would die here. It was a nightmare to think that Sarah would die an old, spiritless lady lying in a hospital bed. His smile faded as that image passed across his mind and it took several moments to push it away. That is not how Sarah would live and die; he would not let her. She could disagree all she wanted. He would let her kick, scream and throw any fit she liked. He would still not allow it. She would see; he would make her see.

"For six years, you have banished me, Sarah. For six years, you have denied my existence to yourself." His hand extended to touch her cheek and caress. "Your will has grown weak. Does it surprise you that I have broken free? I have been waiting for this moment all that time. I will not let them keep you in this prison. It's time to come home."

Silence fell between them and Jareth began to steel himself as he awaited the protest that was coming. Sarah had gone still and was staring at Jareth with the oddest look on her face and in her eyes. Had what he'd said been that extraordinary? No. The protest started with the shaking of her head and one hand pushing back the covers of her bed. Sarah had risen to her feet and began to pace back and forth between the bed and vanity table.

"You..." There was more that Sarah wanted to say but it was a struggle to let it out. "You're not real." Her hands moved as she spoke lifting and falling in frantic motions. "I can't go somewhere with you if you're not real, Jareth. Why can't you understand that?"

Jareth wanted to point out the irony of his understanding if he were real or not. A creature that was not real could not understand that it was not real. And a creature that was real would not understand that it wasn't real, because it was real. Right? For a moment his head spun as he tried to grasp that line of thought again. While he righted himself mentally, Sarah sat down at the vanity and began to look through the drawer. The pills were gone; they should have been. Had he not just crushed the bottle?

Her eyes lifted to his face in regard as she spoke. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

She was mistaking him. Sarah thought that he had made an offer or a demand. He had not; he had told her what was going to happen. She could not stay in this place and let herself shrivel and dwindle in its cage. She would not. His eyes were on her as she continued to dig through that drawer before at last coming up with another bottle. There were more pills in it and he felt his heart sink at the sight.

"If I take one of these, you'll go away."