Sarah had requested clothing before spilling her guts to the king. "Dignity," she had said, "I need every ounce I can get." Jareth had a bound full of remarks regarding Sarah's dignity, but decided he'd let her go ahead and have some—as if he were doing her a favor. He was king, the only one that should be allowed the luxury of dignity.
After she had changed, while she made him look away, they were back on the bed. Her hair was still big against her cheeks despite the removal of ribbons. Her eyes still held glitter which glinted in the moonlight. Her lips were still swollen, and Jareth tried to hide the fact that he was ecstatic about a small, dark bruise forming where her neck met her body. She probably didn't realize it existed, yet.
"Okay." She dropped her gaze to her fingers. "Where do I begin?" She looked back to him, reluctance tangible within her face.
"When did you start? How long after the Labyrinth?" He reached up moving her bangs once more this this night. They were always falling in her eyes.
She flinched away from his hand. "It was six months." She sighed. "I remember the day exactly."
"Very well." He leaned against his head board lacing his hands in his lap. "Why?"
"It was there." She smiled at him hoping he would accept her answer. She knew he wouldn't though, especially since she had a made such a big deal about telling him in the first place.
"Sarah, you have made me far too impatient. Now, the truth, and the reasons." He fought the tiredness that was overcoming him. He was not going to sleep now. Ha! The idea was laugh worthy. Sarah was about to tell him something he had been longing to know for ages—so it seemed.
"Fine, Jareth." Her voice was hard, but resigned. "It was six months after the labyrinth." She let a smile pull at her cheeks. "Six months after I had beaten you." Jareth scoffed.
The mood changed. Sarah's rebellion left when she spoke next. "Six months after your offering. That's when it started. That's when I became Alice and fell down a never ending rabbit hole." She had no idea if he knew what she was talking about. Alice, heh, he was probably thinking that was the chick that gave her the pot to begin with. She rolled her eyes as she continued. "It was shortly after my sixteenth birthday. My friend had said it would be a right of passage." She laughed. "Her name was Ramla. She was crazy, quite crazy, which was why I thought I could tell her about the labyrinth."
Jareth grinned and inclined an eyebrow, "She didn't believe you? How precious."
"No, she did. She believed every ounce of it." She ran a hand across her forehead. Her eyes drifted away falling inside her thoughts. Ramla's voice was there from five years ago laughing in Sarah's ears. Ramla was still in Sarah's life, a far off girl that had put the use of drugs behind her years ago. She was always so strange now that Sarah thought about it. She was the kind of girl with tarot cards and random prophecies. Then again, Sarah was the kind of girl that wore costumes as she acted out fairy stories.
"Interesting, she believed in a Goblin King?" Jareth found himself amused by this Ramla. Though she was the inclination for Sarah's behavior, the fact she believed Sarah said something else about her.
Sarah was quiet. "She believed in everything. I doubt she does now. We still speak through letters—we attend different universities—but we're not as close as we used to be. She grew up—"
"While you remained childish." They were harsh words that he knew weren't exactly true. Sarah had grown. She was an adult in many ways, but he was sure this Ramla girl had grown into the world, where as Sarah, grew away.
"Sure, fine," She deepened her voice in mock of Jareth, "I remained childish." Her face fell back into seriousness. "In other words, she changed."
"But she is the one responsible for your current situation?" Jareth waited. Would she agree?
"You're trying to trap me into blaming her and going off on how all this isn't fair, right?" He smiled. "God, you're getting too easy, Jareth. You need to up your game."
"Ugh, back to the story," he probed cracking his knuckles.
Sarah laughed. "Now, you are the one being childish." He gave her a glare that told her she best continue or the consequences would not be fun and may or may not involve a bog of stench. So she went back to the story, quickly.
"Ramla believed me, and that was all I needed. I needed someone to be there and listen to the tales with awe and ask questions about my friends, and to just believe it as much as I did…because I didn't, Jareth." She sighed. "I didn't think any of it was real. I kept thinking I was crazy. I had convinced myself it had been some elaborate subconscious devising to save me from myself of solitude and boredom."
Jareth interjected: "But your friends, Hoggle, Ludo, and Sir Didymus. They had to convince you it was all true." His voice lacked emotion, just arrogant amusement.
"Oh, don't get me wrong, in the moments I visited with them, I was certain once more it was all true. That you were the Goblin King—not a manifestation of a girl longing for some prince with a white steed. I was sure Hoggle was a true Goblin. One of your many subjects, my real best friend." Her hand ran through her hair. "But as soon as they left and I went to sleep, I'd awake later and assume it had all been some continuing dream. All of it. You were fake. The labyrinth a clever ruse my mind played on me. It was the worst, real nightmare."
Jareth rolled his eyes. "Sarah, I feel as though you are trying to distract from what I want to know. And in case that detail has slipped your mind, it is why you began to use your plants in dangerous ways."
"Ramla, got me started—"
"So, you've said. Blame her and be done with it Sarah. I sense this is where you're going anyways." The King's patience was flying out the window. Just tell me, dammit.
"I won't blame her, Jareth. She told me if I did it, then I would escape the pull it always had on me." She looked away. "That's why I did it at first. I wanted to escape the labyrinth. Any time I wanted to call on my imaginary friends, I just got high instead. Then, the world got darker. You know, I had to grow up. And, it was like, I just…" She was having trouble finding the words. "Then I started doing even more because I felt like I was getting closer to the labyrinth without touching it. Like, I was always seeing it from a distance, a safe distance that didn't threaten my sanity."
"So, you began using to escape the labyrinth, and you used more to be near the labyrinth." He smiled realizing what this confession of hers meant despite the fact that she didn't say the proper words. She had missed him. Well, perhaps he was reading too much into it, but she was missing something, and that something was within his labyrinth. He could live with that because for her to touch his labyrinth, she had to touch him—not in the literal sense. If she wanted near his magic, she had to come near him, let him in.
Then he realized something else. It wasn't the drug Miss Williams was addicted too, but the feeling of magic from the labyrinth which she could only replicate with the treatment. He slightly felt guilty within his gut; however, he reasoned with himself. Sarah had the choice to stay in the labyrinth and she chose not to. Her addiction was her own fault.
"I wanted to escape to the labyrinth." She finally spoke at last. "In the Aboveground there is only this or that. No magic. In the end, once you've seen what I've seen it was quite mundane and unsatisfying."
"So, you fashioned your own little world." He turned his head to the side.
She nodded with a loud sigh. "Then it grew to the point that if something was going terrible, I just lit up and began imagining. I did other things every-once-in-a-while that would make the feeling stronger, but that was only during trying times."
"Trying times? Sounds as though my labyrinth spoiled you, Sarah. What trying times could you have had?" His mouth thinned in a half smile, his eyes half lidded from tiredness. Hers' felt the same, but his question had awoken her.
The idea of never seeing you again. Her eyes darted across the room. "You know, Jareth, teenage stuff. Growing up, getting a job, living on your own. It wasn't the fairy tale story I wanted."
"So, my Sarah, why didn't you just wish yourself away a long time ago? Why wait so long?" He reverted his own eyes hating the fact that she didn't exactly wish herself away on her own.
"Come, Jareth. You should be the expert on that. I have my pride." She laughed. "How ridiculous would it be to come running back to you?" She laughed harder. "Oh, Jareth, human life is just too simple for me. Please, take me. I'm yours!" She busted into giggles over the mocking of a more pathetic self.
"I do not find that amusing, Sarah." Jareth tapped his hand on his knee. "Aside from all your assuredness of keeping your pride, dignity, or whatever you are deciding to call it now, you did wish yourself away—"
"But you're taking me back tomorrow." She blurted out before she could stop herself. She watched his reaction. He didn't move, a little to her dismay.
"Yes, I am taking you back tomorrow." His mood dropped twenty degrees. That fact had slipped his mind. Sarah was leaving. He had the urge to do something violent. Not to Sarah, despite an act of hers a few days prior. Jareth wanted to boss some Goblin's around. Yeah, that sounded perfect. Strike fear into the hearts of the unworthy.
That's just what Jareth needed.
"What day is it?" Sarah laid down on her pillow next to Jareth. There was something almost natural in the way her head fell heavy on his arm. A certain warmness filled her chest.
"Day?" Jareth could feel her heart beat. It was slow and strong. So lovely. He angled towards her, his eyes gazing into hers. There was a new softness there within them—the anger there replaced by…something else. His finger fell to her jaw tracing the line from ear to chin.
Sarah shifted her gaze without moving. "In my world, what is the day?" His hands were always so distracting, so nice.
Jareth smiled and gathered his wits about him. The lack of sleep was causing him to do strange things. At least that's what he would blame it on later, the lack of sleep. Even within the reluctance of his own mind, he wouldn't admit it. Admit what? "I suppose it's been almost a week since you've wished yourself away in your world." He slid into a laying position as sunny rays were sliding through the windows. An orange gleam took over the room shedding shines of brightness across the floor.
"I see." She sighed slipping to the crook of his shoulder without thought. She sighed closing her eyes when his hand landed on her arm. "I will turn twenty soon. A day in my time."
Jareth kissed her on the forehead loving the way the sun made he look like an angel. A stray of hair wound itself lovingly around his fingers. "How shall we celebrate?" His voice was a whisper. His mind slightly gone.
"I don't know." Sarah's own voice was breathy and faint. There was an awareness of hands tightening on her, but the sun blinded her to the feelings surrounding her. It wasn't long until she was out.
Jareth fell too, asleep that is. Despite the fact that he knew he would be waking shortly for a meeting he decided was a mistake in scheduling. His last thought as he slipped off into a dreamless slumber was of pure serenity. There wasn't anger, or frustration. There wasn't lust or annoyance. Just pure peace. Sarah.