The night of the performance came, and she pushed the letters as far back into her mind as she could. She focused solely on being who she was supposed to be, a character. She didn't try to find him in the audience, she didn't take her mind off of her performance for one minute. She was too professional to worry about such things. Until the show was over, there was no audience. Only her, the rest of the cast and crew, and the stage.
It wasn't until she was getting congratulations from the other cast members after the show that she remembered her previous engagement. She politely excused herself from the celebrations and walked to the coffee shop.
When she got there, there was only one other customer in the shop, and there was no mistaking him. He had picked out a nice little table for two by a window. Sarah ordered her coffee and sat down across from him. He pulled out her last letter from his coat and placed it on the table.
"You gave me very little time to prepare," he started.
"So did you," Sarah interrupted. "Fifteen years ago."
Jareth sighed. "If you're going to keep bringing that up, then why am I even bothering to make amends?"
"First impressions are important," she replied. "It's hard to forgive a kidnapper who almost killed you multiple times over the course of a few hours."
"It might be easier if you let me apologize for it."
"What's there to say? 'Oh, I'm sorry I kidnapped your baby brother! And all those death traps and blades and sending a city out to attack you was just a misunderstanding!'?"
"Would you prefer to discuss this in private, Sarah?"
"No, actually. I want you out in the open where you can't try anything to magically persuade me into forgiving you. I want you to show me you've changed on your own. No magic, no peaches, no glitter, nothing!"
"You're not making this easy."
"Well maybe next time you'll think before putting fourteen-year-olds through that kind of nonsense!"
"Will you SHUT UP AND LET ME TALK? I'M TRYING TO SHOW YOU HOW I'VE CHANGED AND JUST HOW SORRY I AM BUT YOU'RE NOT LETTING ME!" If him yelling wasn't what made Sarah go quiet, then the the awkward stares from everyone who happened to be within earshot did.
"I'm sorry," he began. The tone of his voice showed that it was for the yelling, and nothing more, yet. "But, at the same time, I need you to understand some things before you can see just how sorry I am."
He looked at Sarah with a serious gaze. The young woman was speechless.
"I apologize in advance if my methods of making you understand are against your idea of how I can prove just how pitiful I am." He grabbed Sarah's hand, and Sarah grabbed her coffee with her free hand, just in time for Jareth to teleport them both into the Labyrinth, straight to the throneroom. Sarah was about to throw the still very, very hot coffee into the Goblin King's face, but Jareth stopped her with a single word.
"Look," he said, pointing out the window.
What Sarah saw absolutely shocked her. The Labyrinth lay in ruins of its former glory. It used to sparkle, but now it had all turned dull, covered in dust. The swamps and bogs had dried up, and the stench had drifted in its evaporation. Citizens of the Goblin City and beyond were lined up outside the castle walls, waiting for food to be given to them in rations.
"What happened?" Sarah asked.
As much as Jareth wanted to say "You happened," he couldn't. It would have been lies.
"After you left, I was overrun with all sorts of negative emotions," he said. "Anger, sadness, grief, guilt, the lot of them. In my emotional distress, not only was I unable to perform my duties as king, but the Labyrinth itself decayed with my emotional state."
"So, stop being such a stick in the mud and fix it," Sarah said, bluntly. The words struck like an arrow through Jareth's heart.
"'Just fix it'?" he said. "You think that fifteen years of emotional torment is so easily solved by 'just fix it?'"
"Well, what do you want me to do about it?" Sarah asked. "Pity you? Feel sorry for you? News flash, glitter brain, but I don't have magical powers. I can't fix your Labyrinth for you!"
"I brought you here to help me fix it," Jareth corrected. "Not to fix it for me."
"And how am I supposed to do that?" Sarah asked him, giving him her best 'I've given up on logic with you' persona.
Jareth looked at the young woman with a solemn face. "I was hoping you could cheer me up."
"Well, keep hoping, Jareth," Sarah told him. "Because I-"
"I was being serious," he interrupted. "You are one of the few things that can cheer me up enough for the Labyrinth to sense my emotions and return itself to its former glory."
Sarah stopped talking. She stared out of the window for a moment, and turned back to the Goblin King.
"I was hoping that merely seeing you would have cheered me up enough," Jareth said. "At the very least, you replying to my letters gave me enough hope to fix the throneroom to be presentable. There used to be cobwebs and rats."
After all the emotional recollection, Jareth had tired himself out enough to fall back into his throne. Sarah stood where she was, by the window, trying to process everything that she had just witnessed, combined with Jareth's story.
"So, what do I have to do?" she asked.
"Just be here when I need you," he said, exhausted.