As Sarah opened her eyes she winced at the burning fire she was confronted with. A mammoth fireplace, carved in black stone burned scarlet embers before her. For a moment she was taken with the beauty of it. The stone had been carved to resemble branches of trees, encasing the fireplace like some great burning forest.
"Do you like it?" She stilled, Jareth's voice lurching her from her trance. She kept her back to him, unwilling him to see her moment of weakness as tears burned in her eyes.
"It's just a fireplace." She whispered back. She heard him hum his agreement, flinching as a gloved hand was placed upon her shoulder. She jerked away from his touch, turning to face him in the dim glow. For some reason she had expected him to be in his full armoured regalia, triumphant and intimidating. But now he was a thin white shirt, open to the chest with dark breeches. She found that he was less frightening and almost a little human. He stared at her for a moment, as if he was unsure what to do with her. With a start he motioned towards the room.
"This will be your chamber for the time being." He said quietly. Sarah followed the direction of his hand, glancing around the room. It was smaller than she expected, only the cavernous fireplace and a large four-poster bed taking up most of the space. In the dark light she thought she could make out another door carved into the wall and a small window casting a beam of moonlight onto the stone.
Sarah made no motion of acknowledging his words, merely turning her gaze to the floor.
"Is there anything else you need?" He asked, and Sarah could not help the defiant laugh that fell from her.
"No. I think you've done enough." Her words were clipped and short, almost spat from her mouth. She could feel Jareth bristle at the hostility.
"Your stay can be pleasurable for the both of us if you would allow your stubbornness to wane for a moment." Sarah looked up at him, watching the shadows of the flames flicker across his face.
"Stay? You say it like it's not permanent. Like I haven't left everything I know and love behind to save all of the children you'd happily snatch." Jareth's brow furrowed, regarding her like he was scolding a schoolchild.
"You have no idea about the duties I must perform." He said, his voice low and cold.
"I know enough. You snatch children, babies, and turn them into goblins." She ground out, heart pounding in fury. She stilled as Jareth's face broke through the mask of indifference it had held, giving way to peals of laughter.
"What? What's so funny?" She cried out, confused at the change of temperament.
"Oh Sarah...You precious thing. We do not turn children into goblins. Never have, never will. What a waste of a child that would be." He smiled, teasing, taunting.
"Then what do you do with them? You said Toby would be one of you forever, what else does that mean?"
"We rehome them. The forgotten and the lost, the unwanted and the sickly. We give them new lives with families that want them very much. Toby was...different. I think I would have raised the boy as my own."
"You're a liar." Sarah whispered. Please let it be a lie. She had given her life for this, please let it all be a lie.
"No, Sarah. If you remember quite rightly, you're the liar here. You told them the wrong words. You stopped the children that needed us from reaching us. All the abused and lonely children that would have found a happy home here. You could have helped them. Yet you stopped them."
Sarah closed her eyes, tying to turn his words into white noise. She had given everything for this. Everything that she had was gone, all to save them. Children that didn't need saving?
"Toby wasn't sick or abused. He was loved."
Jareth tutted admonishingly.
"He had a sister who hated him. Who would rather banish him to another land than look after him for one more night."
Jareth stepped closer to her, leaning over to whisper in her ear.
"You're not the heroine you like to think yourself as precious. You didn't stop the children from being banished. You stopped them from being saved." He found her gaze as he loomed over her, relishing in her realisation.
"You're the villain in this tale, not me." As the whisper fell from his lips Sarah's eyes widened, her breath coming in short bursts.
"Stupid girl. You never once stopped to think about it, did you?" Sarah found her arm swinging, palm connecting with a swift crack in the silent room against the pale flesh of Jareth's cheek. The silence engulfed them as his eyes narrowed.
"Strike me again, Sarah. And I fear the next breath you take will be your last." He breathed, trying to contain the fury flooding through him. Sarah, still clinging to her thin thread of defiance, raised a cynical eyebrow.
"You'll kill me, Goblin King? I don't think you will." He was silent, a nerve twitching in his jaw as he regarded her.
"How much trouble have you gone through to find me and keep me? For whatever twisted reasons you have you want me. You want me now just as you wanted me back then." She whispered back, trying to maintain the gaze of his mismatched eyes. The small smile he gave her startled her.
"In that notion you are right. I have gone through much trouble for you, Sarah. And even now you don't seem to appreciate it. I could never kill you. But I could make your life extremely difficult if you continue to behave in such a manner." Sarah turned her head towards the orange glow of the fireplace.
"You make it sound like you're doing me a favour." She scoffed. Jareth rounded on her, a low growl emitting from his throat.
"Was I not there for you?" He glowered, finger pointed accusingly at her. Sarah gave him a quizzical stare.
"For every human boy that broke your heart, for every tear you spilled, was I not there for you?" And all at once she understood what he was talking about. The whispers in the nights and the phantom caresses against her skin…She had deemed them to be figments of her imagination. But now he had confirmed her worst fears. She blushed in the heated room.
"I never asked you to do that."
She could almost swear his eyes turned black in that moment.
"You didn't say the words, no. But can you deny that it was what you wanted? That you wished for my presence?" Yet still she shook her head, denying it.
"I never…"
"I saw you, Sarah. I saw your pain, and I tried to ease it. Yet still, you refuse me."
She snapped.
"I never moved on because of you, my whole life I've spent thinking about you and the Labyrinth! You caused my pain in the first place." So quick she could scarcely believe that he had moved, Jareth had her pinned against the wall, wrists crushed by his hands as they were held. The whisper of his breath against her neck sent a shiver down her spine.
"Can you honestly say, precious, that you were a happy little girl?" She didn't answer, choosing instead to struggle against his hold. He pressed her body further against hers.
"I read your words, Sarah. I read every letter in your book and do you wish to know the impression I was left with?" He held her tight in the moonlight.
"That you loved it. Every second of it." He released her, taking a few paces back and straightening his shirt. Sarah tried to catch her breath; the crushing weight of his body against her chest had made it difficult to breathe. A thought crossed her mind, but before she could process the words, her tongue betrayed her.
"Why did you stop?"
"Stop what?" Jareth scowled, still irritated. Sarah shrugged, and crossed her arms over her body, holding herself in comfort.
"You were there sometimes. I could feel you. And that day in the graveyard I asked you to take me away... And you didn't. Why not?"
Jareth's face softened, an expression she was wholly unused to seeing.
"You were in mourning. I thought it best that you complete that period without my interference. And I did not take you because you had no idea what giving yourself to me would mean."
Sarah shook her head in disbelief.
"I ran your labyrinth. I knew what it meant."
"You ran my labyrinth, yes. But you were the fighting for the babe. Now it means something else entirely."
"You had a chance to have me. Which is what you've wanted, all this time, and you didn't take me. Why?" She pressed, wanting to understand.
"Taking advantage of your sorrow…it wouldn't have been right."
Sarah stilled. Did he really not take her for fear if her own well-being? But then the memory of their deal hit her like a lightening bolt
"So you trapped me. That makes sense." She steeled, her words slicing through the air. Jareth waved her away, tired of the argument.
"You left me no choice." He sighed.
"There's always a choice!"
"And this is yours!" He yelled back at her, wincing as she shirked away from his words. Running a hand over his face he tried to soften his voice.
"I gave you a chance, Sarah. I gave you a chance to recount your words and think on the consequences. You could have done so and all would have been well. But you didn't, you chose this."
"Well, don't count on me doing it again." She whispered.
Jareth only smirked, choosing instead to gaze out of the window.
"I don't."
She sniffed disdainfully.
"Would you have left me alone? If I'd have told people the right words, are you saying you would have let me be?" Jareth paused, not wanting to face her, instead trying to observe the stars.
"I don't know the answer to that, Sarah." After a moment she nodded, turning her body away from him to observe the room around her.
"Is it so terrible? The notion of living your life in this world?" At the sound of his voice she stilled. It was softer than she'd ever heard it, delicate in it's honesty.
"I didn't want this." She whispered back, trying hard not to let her voice tremble.
"I know." He returned. Moving away from the window he stood before her, and she thought she saw his hand twitch, as if he had made to touch her before thinking better of it.
"I'll say it again. This does not have to be an unpleasant arrangement." In that moment, Sarah believed him. Yet she could not bring herself to offer a truce of any kind to the man who had stolen her away from her world.
"Well, I won't make it easy for you." Jareth grinned in the dim light, as if he were expecting such an answer.
"You wouldn't be my Sarah if you did."
"Yours? I'll never be yours, Jareth." He looked at her in confusion.
"I thought my terms were clear." His voice was careful, as if unwilling to push the subject matter. Sarah shook her head.
"We'll build a new world together, that's what you said." She repeated.
"With you by my side…as my Queen." To his surprise she only gave him a smirk that could match his own.
"Of course. Why did I think you'd settle anything less?" Jareth started towards the door, suddenly weary of the bickering. Sarah called out to him.
"But it's tough luck, I won't do it." Jareth stopped in his tracks, placing his hands on hips and bowing his head in exasperation.
"It's too late for that." And standing in the darkness of the castle Sarah knew he was right.
"Go to Hell." She bit out, crossing the room to sit on the edge of the bed. Jareth's body stiffened. Despite everything he had done for the girl before him, she was still so proud, so wrapped up in her own world that she would deny him? A sneer crossed his face as he had one last tainted thought.
"I'm sure I'll enjoy the journey. But one last thing, Sarah…you are untouched, yes?" He said, full well knowing the answer. He just wanted to see her guard fall and make her squirm, even just for a moment.
Sarah stopped twisting the maroon silk sheets in her hands, turning to gaze at him.
"Excuse me?" She said, incredulous at his audacity.
"Your virginity remains intact?" He explained, his voice clipped in its clinical demeanour. She could almost blame the burning in her cheeks on the roaring fire, but she knew that in the dim light she had turned scarlet.
"How dare you-"
"Yes, I know." He smiled. Sarah still gazed at him, eyes wide and burning with a ferocity that she had rarely felt in her short life.
"If we are to build this world with you at my side, well, the law states I can only marry one who is untouched." As he explained a tiny shard of hope slithered into her heart.
"I have. Sex I mean, I've had sex." She said hurriedly, doing her best to keep her voice from shaking. Jareth's mouth twitched into a small smirk.
"Sarah-"
"I have." She carried on, clinging to the delicate lie.
"I know you are lying." His taunted, and she knew that somehow he knew the truth.
"Prove it."
"I will pin you to that bed and examine you myself if you'd prefer?" He said lightly, as if he were offering her a cup of tea before bed. Her blush only deepened further.
"You wouldn't."
"Then stop the lies."
There was a moment of silence as she tried to quell the burning fire across her cheeks.
"Fine. I haven't." She admitted begrudgingly. Jareth gave a curt nod, turning towards the door. But one thought plagued Sarah, and once more before she could think she found herself speaking.
"So you wont…I mean, you wont…" Her tongue faltered as she tried to say the words, her gaze unconsciously flickering to the bed on which she sat. Jareth had stilled by the door, his hand falling from the handle. When he turned to her she was shocked to see the resignation and hurt plain across his face.
"What, force you? Do you really think me that monstrous?" His voice could barely be heard over the crackling flames, but she remained resilient in the face of the man who had tricked and betrayed her.
"I don't know anymore."
His eyes flashed with some indescribable emotion before he turned his face away.
"Well, I suppose you'll grow to learn."
"I hate you." Sarah whispered, not caring if he heard. And by the way his hand tensed on the doorknob she knew he had.
"I bid you goodnight. I'm sure you still have many questions but tonight is not the night for answers, I think. I'll see you in the morning." He waited for just a moment longer, still hopeful that she would say something, anything, to suggest some sort of truce. As the silence engulfed them both he left the room, not caring as the door slammed shut behind him.