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100fandomhell2022-08-17 09:58 pm
apachefirecat) wrote in 100fandomhell2022-08-17 09:58 pm
Entry tags:
Fandom #13: Labyrinth, "Not of This World"
Title: Not of This World
Author: Apache Firecat
Rating: PG-13/T
Fandom: Labyrinth
Wordcount or Timestamp: 6,883
She was tired. She was beyond tired, and she had been so for years now. The doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong, but she knew. She had always known. This was not the world where she belonged. It was the world where she had been born, but was not the world where she belonged, and it seemed the more she struggled to survive in it, and especially the older she grew, lamenting away within its boring, mundane confines, the ever more tired she became.
It didn't help that she never slept well at night. If she wasn't dreaming about the tortures her stepmother's doctors had put her through trying to rid her mind of the fantastic journey she had had as a young girl through a land they swore could not and did not exist, she was dreaming of him. It had been so long since she had had a good dream. She'd once frequently dreamed that he was still going to come again for her, that he was going to rescue her still from the cruelty that was this miserable, human life, and not hold her baby brother for hostage, not that, knowing what she now knew, knowing the type of person Toby had become, so sickeningly much like her stepmother and even her own father, she wouldn't have gladly given him the baby to keep if she had only understood then what she had long since learned.
Sarah sighed and laid down the book she'd been trying to read. She'd been enjoying it, but tonight, the words just seemed a jumble of foreign letters. Any language she could have found in the world where she should be would have been just as foreign as the plain English written in the novel she was casting aside. There were, in fact, many languages other than her native English that she could have understood with ease, especially in comparison to currently trying that thick book.
It was a Nordic noir, a crime mystery genre that, whenever she sank herself into a good one normally, swept her away to another time and place, something she so desperately needed while remaining stuck in the world in which she had been, in this horrid place where she did not, had never, and would never belong. The heroes were usually savage, blonde heartthrobs who reminded her of him. The one in her current book definitely made her think of the King, even down to the fact that one of his beautiful eyes was blue and the other green. Yet she simply could not seem to make her mind concentrate that night.
What she'd really like to do was throw a fit. She'd like to go on a throwing, slinging, knock-down, drag-out, quite possibly even killing fit. That was why she liked the night shift in this company. Even if she was to surrender to the desire to start cussing and kicking things, there were very few people to notice, and the ones who were there usually didn't seem to care. They'd just chalk it up to her needing to let out some frustration. There was a couple of good-looking guys even who might offer her a drink after they got off work, but she'd tell them no. She always declined any invitations to go out, and had for most of her life. This place was not where she belonged. She knew that and had since her time in the kingdom where she did belong. She didn't want to be here, so why bother trying to find a mate? She only wanted to find a way home to him.
She sighed, leaning back in her chair and feeling the little wheels on its bottom turning. Going home should not be too much to ask, but clearly, it was. She'd been trying to find a way back for years now, had practically devoted her entire life to finding a way to return to him, but she had yet to find it. Every time she'd thought she had found a portal to that realm down below in the Underground -- the only thing she had at first had to go on as to its location, and even that only because of his songs --, it had turned out not only to be non-existent but for all its witnesses to either be dead, crazed, or full of denial.
Sarah always knew when they were full of denial, because she knew the look from her own experiences of being forced to lie. She wasn't the first girl he'd taken; her brother had not been the first baby. She didn't know why it was always girls, because he was actually looking for a King. Perhaps he'd thought, with his enormous, if well-deserved, ego, that the females would swoon easier to him, but she'd known a few males, too, who would have gladly been putty in his very capable, very regal hands. To be the King of such an awful, little race of ugly beings, Jareth had always been a man of such beauty that he could have easily wooed anybody.
Goodness knew she had almost fallen for him so many times, almost surrendered to him, almost allowed him to keep her brother even though he'd only been a baby, all because of the way his handsome face, beautiful eyes, and sensual, lithe body had captivated her. There had been something in his voice, too, something so regal and so sexy. It had been almost impossible for her to deny him when he'd crooned to her, almost... If it hadn't been for Toby, she would have never left that place. She would have stayed where she belonged. She would have married the one being in the world who had ever moved her in that special, erotic fashion. But instead she had given it all up to protect her brother, her brother who --
Sarah cursed underneath her breath and grabbed her phone as it buzzed in her pocket. She'd forgotten to turn the thing off. She wasn't even really supposed to have it in her cubicle, but she had to have something to keep her awake when the hours were long and boring and the books just weren't cutting it. Besides, that little phone was what connected her to the Cloud, and she had so much information stored there. Of course, she also had hard copies hidden away in her apartment and her bank vault, but when none of her coworkers were paying attention, she spent as much time pursuing that information in vain hopes that she'd missed something before as she did reading -- actually, it was probably far more than the amount of time she spent with her nose stuck in a book.
Unless that book happened to be one of the medieval texts she'd scourged up online and spent good money to retrieve. They were always listed as fiction, but the details were so uncannily like the actual ones she knew to be true that there was no denying the author had to have some kind of link to the Underground. She'd tried looking them up to, many of them women, but it had always been dead ends. Most of them were either in mental hospitals or dead. There had been a few who had still spoken of the King, but whatever they'd had to say had always proven to be gibberish. Jareth didn't turn into a huge Goblin when angered or defeated nor was his dick the size of a Goblin. His trousers had always made it clear that he was well-endowed, but nobody would have been able to walk with a thing that huge between their legs...
Sarah shook her head slightly, forcing her attention back to the task at hand. She had silenced her phone, but then she had fallen into staring at the snowy white owl whose picture filled her phone's wallpaper. She had never found a single image that truly depicted Jareth. There were huge Trolls and Goblins aplenty, and although there had also been some images of lost Kings and Princes, none of them had ever come close to doing the real man justice. Why, most of them had not even been blonde, let alone possessed eyes of two different colors!
But now her phone was growing dull again from lack of use, and her mother's image, from one of her plays, settled onto its screen instead. Her mother was wearing a sequined gown that was vaguely familiar of the one Sarah had found herself in in the ballroom although she knew her mother's dress was fake whereas hers had been very, very real. She could still hear the swooshing of the sparkling cloth and feel the weight of its jewels. She could still hear the other courtiers' laughter and feel the burning glances they had given her with jealousy and, she was quite certain, no small amount of hatred when he had chosen to dance with her instead of any of them.
She had thought, at the time, that that had all been a dream, but in looking back, she knew it had felt far too real to not be so. She had felt his body press against hers as he had led her in her very first dance. She had felt her heartbeat quicken every time he had touched her, smiled at her, and most especially when he had whispered into her ear. "Forget about the baby."
She blinked, barely holding back tears. She should have forgotten about the baby! She should have just let him have Toby! Surely whatever life Toby would have had if they had stayed there in the Goblin City, even if he himself had become a Goblin as many of the legends warned instead of the next King, would have been far superior than the life he had managed to build for himself in this world. He had definitely proven to be his mother's child. What time he wasn't trying to rob people of their fortunes, he was out cruising drunk on the ocean or the streets. What little time he could not be found doing any of those three things, and often while he was doing some of those as well, he was popping in and out of one unlucky woman's bed after another.
He wasn't trying to find love. She'd thought that once and had tried to steer him towards a wholesome girl she'd actually thought would make a fine wife for him. She had ended up causing that poor girl to lose every bit of the fortune her father had left her as well as respect she'd had in society. Toby had left her penniless at the altar. Sarah had gone years after that experience not talking to her brother, but after her own father's death, she had began to relent. She would never relent where her stepmother was concerned, but she did check on Toby occasionally -- and he always asked her for money or even drugs every time she tried to reach out to her brother. At least if he'd been a Goblin, he wouldn't have been hyped on drugs.
He was who had called her, she thought, blinking, looking down at her screen. No doubt he wanted something, something she would not give him. She'd buy him groceries occasionally and even more occasionally take him out to eat, but she would never again give him money for every dime she gave him seemed to go straight to his filthy habits.
She stared at her mother's picture beyond the notification that her brother had called and wondered about the aging star. She had made quite a name for herself on Broadway. Sarah had tried to follow in her steps once, but she had never been able to focus on any play but one. The Labyrinth, or rather, its owner, consumed everything in her, almost every waking thought every day until this very night. She couldn't escape him. She couldn't escape the longing she still felt for him, for that world, for everything he had offered her...
She gazed at her mother thoughtfully and wondered if perhaps her mother had somehow been born in that lost and forbidden kingdom so far away. If not her mother, could there have been another ancestor who had been born there? Could she have been more than all the other girls the King had wooed while attempting to steal away their babies? Was that why, after all these decades, she still could not let go of the Goblin City, its King, and her fervent desire to have never left its magical walls?
Sarah shook her head. No. She knew better. Although she still toyed with the thought on occasion, she had always known better. She had been the first of her people to have gone there, the first to have broken his heart, the first to have surrendered every dream she could have lived out there in determined sacrifice to stop at nothing to save her brother, a man to whom she could now barely even stand to talk. She had given up everything for Toby Williams, but most of all, she had given up her only true chance at love.
Oh, there had been men after Jareth and boys before him, boys after him too for a real man was an even rarer gem than a helpful Dwarf or a loyal, English-speaking dog Knight. Real men were few and far between. Her brother wasn't one; he'd rather live his entire life on dope. Her father had not been one; he had always let women rule over him and force him to hurt others, even his own daughter. Her boss wasn't one; he was just another pig and often made remarks to her and the other female workers for which, she felt certain, Jareth would have had his tongue if not where they were concerned then at least where she was.
Sarah put her phone back into her pocket and held her face in her cupped hands for a long moment. She had known real men even in this land. She had broken one of their hearts when he had tried so hard to woo her away from the insanity that had been her past. For a time, she hadn't felt bad about breaking up with him after hearing him admit to one of his friends that she was crazy but that he hoped that his love could cure her of the insanity of Goblins, Fieries, and non-existent Kings of which she was constantly babbling. Breaking up with Richard was what had led her to becoming even more introverted, having as little interaction as she possibly could with the rest of her world (not that this was her world!), and putting every waking moment she could, every ounce of energy, and every dollar she could spare into her hunt for the truth about Jareth and his entire Kingdom.
Richard had not deserved her loyalty, she thought, not if he was going to talk so demeaningly about her behind her back, but she had never intended to hurt him. She should have known better honestly, because the entire time she had been with him, she had still been waiting and hoping every night that Jareth would come, whisking into her bedroom, and whisking her away from everything that was in this boring, normal, human world. She could never have loved Richard. Her heart had been taken since she'd been only fifteen years of age.
Like Richard, her stepmother's doctors had tried so hard to convince her that she was crazy and that she could have and actually, deep down, even wanted a normal life. They had all been wrong, and no method that had tried, even electromagnetic therapy, had worked. The heart wanted what it wanted, as the renowned poet had once said, and she had always wanted Jareth. She had loved him before she could understand what love actually was. She would always love him, even if she never got to see him again.
She felt like crying, but she wasn't about to cry here. Everyone who learned of her past immediately thought she was insane, which, she was quite certain, was another reason why none of the doctors she herself had chosen as she'd grown older could really be bothered to do much to cure her of her chronic fatigue. Perhaps she should take off the next few nights and try to rest and get her emotions back under her control, but that would mean less money for her research, even less opportunity to find him...
She could leave early tonight possibly, but there was a bad storm raging outside. The wind had already shaken the office a couple of times, and it would be almost impossible to catch a cabby out there. Heck, it would probably be like the last time she'd tried to catch a ride late one night when it had been storming. She'd already walked two blocks in the wind and rain when she had finally spied a cab pulled to the curb. She'd ran to it, opened the door, and jumped in only to have the cab driver look up at her and from around a mouthful of doughnut tell her he was on break and wasn't going back to work until after the storm had dispersed.
"It isn't fair." The words she'd once uttered so often slipped out underneath her breath before she even realized what she was saying. She froze upon speaking them. She could hear Jareth's sensual voice in her mind. "You say that so often. I wonder what your basis of comparison is?"
"I just want to find you," she whispered, leaning forward in her chair and pulling up a browser. She tried not to search for him and his kingdom while on duty, mostly because she didn't want her bosses to discover her past and create a reason to dismiss her for it, as so many of her other jobs had. She needed the money to live, to eat, and most especially to keep her own private research going.
"Why can't I find you?" she whispered. She had a side gig where she literally found missing relatives and friends of people seeking to reconnect with their lost family members and loved ones. There had never been anyone she couldn't find, having first learned with looking up her own mother, no one but Jareth. Because you're not of this world. She found herself, as usual, answering her own questions. Because you're so much better than anything this world has to offer.
The wind blew so hard that she could feel the building rocking slightly in it. She heard soft, low, hissing laughter, laughter that reminded her of a better and easier time, of a time long ago, but she knew she was being foolish. It wasn't the Goblins laughing. As many times as she had tracked down that hissing laughter, it had never been the Goblins. It was probably just one of her co-workers watching something on YouTube.
Sarah returned to typing on her computer. The lights flickered. She glanced over her monitor, but kept typing. Even if the power did cut off, the back-up generators would come on almost automatically. The computers wouldn't even have time to shut down before they were back on. But when she looked back to her computer screen, she saw flickering images. The laughter sounded again, closer this time. It was all she could do to refrain from making a fool of herself and looking over her shoulder, but there, on her computer screen right before her, were faces.
There were at least a dozen of them, all green, round, and ugly. Some wore helmets. Others didn't, but there was no mistaking what every single one of the faces she saw were. Sarah jumped up and looked swiftly around her, but there was nobody else working near her. All the other cubicles around hers was empty. There wasn't another person for several rows of desks. Could it be Toby playing some kind of cruel trick on her? He had just called.
Yet she couldn't help leaning closer to her computer. She saw the little, green faces peering back at her as though searching, but after all this time, all these many years of hunting, how could finding them again possibly be this easy? "Jareth?" she whispered questioningly. Thunder rolled outside.
The Goblins' gazes sharpened in, almost as though they were zeroing in on her. Sarah reached out with trembling fingers, but her fingertips only touched her monitor's cool screen. "How?" she whispered. "How do I get back to him? How do I come home?"
They had visited her once, before her stepmother had taken her away from her childhood home, before the doctors had began. Sir Didymus, Hoggle, Ludo, even the Fieries and the Goblins had been there. Everyone had come to see her except Jareth, and he was the one for whom she had always longed the most. "Can you tell him I'm sorry?" she whispered fervently to her computer screen, her tears beginning to stream down her face. "Please tell him I'm sorry! Please tell him -- "
There was a sudden clinking of porcelain. Sarah snatched back and away from her desk and saw one of her co-workers looking at him from wide eyes in a pale face. He pushed his spectacles back onto the bridge of his nose and all but ran to his desk several rows away. She didn't care. She couldn't be bothered to care anymore about these people, or about this job. Not if she was finally finding a way to communicate with the Goblins, to reach out to the only actual friends she'd ever known, to finally find her way back into the Labyrinth, back to him...
"Please," she begged, "tell me how!" She quickly tapped her computer, making certain her volume was on full blast. She had sworn long ago that she would not be too proud to beg for another chance. She would do whatever it took to be able to be reunited with the man she loved, the man who had haunted her every thought for so, so many years now...
But how, she suddenly questioned, could she be certain this was not some kind of a cruel hallucination? It had been some time since the last time she'd thought she'd seen someone who wasn't actually there, but it had been known to happen. It had once happened pretty regularly. She was staying up on her medications -- she hadn't missed a dose --, but maybe they needed adjusting... Especially with as exhausted as she was constantly feeling, it would make a great deal more sense if she was hallucinating again rather than that they would come to her again after all these decades.
Still she could not help begging. "Please tell me! I'll do anything!"
"Sarah -- " Her lead was behind her, no doubt having been alerted by Jeremy, Tommy, or whatever his name was, the little nerd fifteen years her junior who had witnessed her pleading with her computer screen a few minutes earlier.
"I'll do anything!" The words fell from her mouth before she could stop them. She could see the Goblins stirring there before her on the screen, but the light was beginning to fade. She saw their eyes searching for her as if they could hear her but not see her. They began to mouth something, but she could not hear them. She clicked frantically with her mouse, trying to somehow save the scene that was appearing through her word documents, browser, and other app windows. Her sound was on one hundred percent of her volume, but she still could not hear a single word they were saying.
"Miss Williams -- " the voice behind her snapped urgently, but Sarah had no more time for these people. She clicked. She pounded the keyboard, but they were already vanishing...
"PLEASE DON'T GO!" she cried out.
"MISS WILLIAMS!" There was a hand on the back of her chair now, but she couldn't help weeping as the Goblins vanished from her sight. Her team lead was screaming at her some kind of bold demands, and she was probably fired. She didn't care. She only cared about the fact that, after decades of searching, she had just seen a window into the world of which she craved being a part.
"That was my home!" she tried to explain, trembling, but she already knew nobody would understand. Nobody ever understood.
And had it really been the Goblins she had just seen, or was it just another hallicinuation like the ones she used to have so frequently? If she wasn't careful, they'd come for her now with the straight jackets. In fact, she was rather certain she could hear sirens sounding somewhere outside. She knew she could hear her colleagues speaking in various volumes about her "condition", which, evidently, had remarked on the one time he had visited her here at work.
But right now, she couldn't care about Toby. He was why she had sacrificed everything before, and she would not make the same mistake again! "PLEASE," she shouted, surrendering all dignity, "JUST GIVE ME ONE MORE CHANCE! I LOVE YOU, JARETH!"
It was at that exact moment, as the clocks struck one o'clock, that a single, white feather floated down onto her keyboard. Her boss was still yelling at her, but all Sarah could hear was the pounding beat of her own heart and words crooned to her long ago. "Stop! Look what I'm offering you. Your dreams."
She didn't need her dreams. She only needed one dream; she only needed him. With trembling fingers, she touched the feather, confirming that it was real. She'd been such a fool, so wrapped up in her own family drama, her need to protect her brother and find her mother, to become like her mother, that she had never seen, the one time she'd been allowed to be in the City previously, all that she had been sacrificing. Yes, he could make her a Queen, as the other girls had said. She could rule the kingdom beside him until he had a successor. But she didn't care about any of that. All she cared about was finding him again, finally telling him how she truly felt, how she'd always felt, loving him, allowing him to love her...
"YOU ARE MY DREAM!" she cried. Grabbing the feather and completely ignoring her team lead and colleagues, Sarah raced out into the night. It had been storming, Sarah remembered as the winds tore at her blouse, much like this the night he had came and taken Toby. The words! It finally dawned on her what the Goblins had been saying! She had to say the words!
Which meant, as she had known for some time, she had to have a sacrifice. The King could not leave without someone there to take his place. She didn't care about leaving. She wanted to stay in the Goblin City forever, but she also knew that as long as Jareth did not have a successor, she would not be able to stay or even gain entrance... She turned and ran, her words from long ago coming back to her on that night. "Feet, don't fail me now!"
When it had happened before, when he had called her into his kingdom before, she had had no clue what to do. She had not even know who or what he was or understood everything she'd been preparing to surrender so freely to save her annoying brother who had never once appreciated the sacrifices she had made for him. But she's done her homework this time and has been waiting for oh so long for this night to happen again, for him to call her back to his side where she belonged, where she had always belonged...
Maybe she was crazy, Sarah relented as she ran, her feet pounding the slick, wet pavement. She fell, jumped back to her feet, and continued to run. She could hear him singing to her now. She could feel his eyes upon her, just as she had so many times when trying to find her way out of the labyrinth. She never should have ran away from him then; she should have ran to him, as she's doing now.
He had been offering her her dreams in exchange for his own freedom. He had not set the rules, and he'd had no choice but to abide by them. But there were ways around the rules, she knew. She had learned, and now, clearly, she could see, there were still ways to reach him. She ran that night not as though Toby's life depended on it but as though her own did. Perhaps her actual life didn't depend on it, but every chance she'd ever have at happiness and true love was caught up in this moment. She ran.
The wind tore at her clothes and hair. Shrouded figures on the street, people she'd always dismissed as being homeless for one reason or another, called out to her. Now she wondered about them, but she didn't slow. She didn't slow until she reached the hospital, collected her dignity, and walked calmly pass the security guards. She refrained from breaking back into a run as she walked pass the nurses' desks and nodded to several of them, the doctors, and even the orderlies as she made her way.
There was a reason why she volunteered time and work at this hospital. There had always been a reason, because she had always known that, if she ever did get the opportunity to return to the land where she belonged, she would have to make a sacrifice. She would have to say the words again, and she would have to have someone over whom to say them. That was why she had spent hours at this hospital too, doing research but slightly different research from that which she spent every other waking hour that she wasn't at work doing.
She knew these children, perhaps not them themselves, but she knew their histories. She knew their stories. She knew who had parents and who didn't, whose parents were loving and whose parents weren't... She knew the ones who had been almost aborted and the ones who were headed, without a doubt, for the orphanage. She knew who had chances at a good life and whose chances were slim at best. And in the back, she knew the crying, squirming girl child, the one the hospital staff had tried to place out of view of any reporters who got in pass the guards, was going to have the least chance of successfully building a life than any of the other babies. She had been born to a mother hyped on drugs, the father was unknown, and the child wasn't expected to survive even one week of living in this wretched world.
Sarah had left the door open, but she didn't care. Anyone could chance upon her now and have her arrested. She could easily spend the rest of her life in an asylum like so many of the others who had been wooed by the King. She cared about none of this, however, as she lifted the crying baby high into the air and quickly, fervently, her voice not sounding unlike the laughter of a Goblin's, spoke the words. "Goblin King! Goblin King! Wherever you may be, take this child of mine far away from me!"
She stilled, with the baby in her arms, but nothing happened except that the child had stopped crying. She looked down at Sarah and kicked her little feet. Sarah waited, but nothing happened. No orderlies, nurses, or guards came rushing in, but so, too, did no Goblins or owls come sweeping to her rescue. She stared at the baby who stared back down at her through big, blue eyes. Slowly Sarah took the child down and actually held her, rocking her, against her chest as she considered the situation.
That was not, she recalled, exactly how it had happened with her and Toby. When she had said those words, nothing had changed. Some of the other girls to whom had talked had tried saying those very words. One had ever gotten pregnant and had another child in case it had to be a baby she offered the Goblin King. The words, Sarah realized, the very ones that were written in the old textbooks were not correct.
What had she said, then, that had brought the Goblins and Jareth to Toby and herself? What words had she used to convince them to come get her brother? And why had she been able to convince them so readily to come get her brother? There had been other girls, thousands of other girls. What if she was wrong? What if Jareth didn't actually love her?
No! she told herself sternly. She had to believe. She believed in nothing in this world, but she knew everything in theirs to be real and genuine on some level or another. "Nothing is what it seems," she whispered, recalling the lesson Hoggle had taught her so long ago. She stamped her foot but managed to keep from screaming her frustrations.
The baby began to cry again. Hadn't the doctors said that the child wouldn't even make a sound? She seemed to recall that being one of their concerns in getting her to be able and willing to thrive, but she didn't care. She wasn't here for the child. She was here to use the child to get to Jareth and to earn that second chance she'd always deserved. She wasn't like the other girls; she truly had fallen in love with him and had never stopped trying to find a way back to him. She had truly hurt him only because she had believed she had to save Toby, not because she had been frightened of him or the other creatures in the Labyrinth.
No, her mind had been all wrapped up in saving her brother after she had so unwittingly sacrificed him. But what had she said? She chewed her bottom lip, trying her best to remember, but it had been so long ago and she had endured so much suffering since then. "Oh, please come get her! Please come get me!" she cried.
The storm roared as if in protest. The hospital doors were blown open by an especially powerful gust of wind. The lights blinked out. Sarah heard hissing, inhuman laughter and then, scant seconds later, the low hum of the hospital's powerful generator as it kicked on. The lights came flooding back on, but Sarah was already looking at the baby, the baby who she knew would not survive this world but trusted Jareth with all his magic and wonderful creatures would help thrive.
The baby would be so much better there. They both would be. Suddenly, Sarah knew the answer. Staring at the child, she lifted her again into the air and whispered with sincerity, "I wish the Goblins would come and take you away. Right now."
There was a roar that sounded like it came from the basement. The generator cut off. Emergency lights cut on, and it was by their strange glows that Sarah watched what happened next. The baby was gone, taken right out of her hands, and she was not alone. She could not quite explain it, but she knew the Goblins were truly in the room with her this time. She turned toward the open doors just in time to see the man who had haunted her dreams for almost her entire life emerge from the shadows.
"Sarah." His voice was a cunning, sensual purr. The way he spoke her name swept over her in waves of ecsasy. She wanted to rush to him, but she knew how powerful he was. And he was a King after all.
She had dreamed, for so many years, of throwing herself at him when she finally managed to reach him again, of covering him in kisses and pledging her undying love to him. She had dreamed of the words she would say as she begged his forgiveness and confessed how much she had always regretted hurting him but had felt she'd had no other choice in order to save her brother. But now, suddenly, none of that seemed right.
Instead, as Jareth held out a gloved hand and the guards and their drawn guns were suddenly frozen in place, she bowed. She lowered herself before him, her actions speaking volumes of the power he did indeed hold over her. Her long, dark hair fell to one side of her face as she dropped to her knees before him. "I'm sorry."
There was so much more she wanted to say, but suddenly, she was scared. What if he didn't accept her apology? She had literally thrown away everything he had been offering her like the selfish brat she had been back then. Did she really have any right to expect him to just accept her apology? It was completely unfair of her to expect him to accept her back at all, let alone to still love her, and how conceited had she been all these years to believe he, a King of such endless power and beauty, could have ever really loved her out of all the thousands of girls to venture through his labyrinth? She quivered before him, not daring to look up and see the fury in his beautiful eyes.
"Please... Please forgive me."
She blinked rapidly as a gloved hand emerged before her face, before her tear-filled eyes. "Arise," he ordered. She took his hand immediately. His fingers wrapped around hers, warm, tight, and reassuring. He guided to her feet, and slowly she lifted her eyes to his. "Queen Sarah."
She was breathless. Were her dreams, her heart's most treasured desires, actually coming true at long last? She must be dreaming! She must be hallucinating again!
Jareth pulled her to him, and she went willingly. He cupped her face, and his touch was as gentle, powerful, and erotic as she remembered it always having been before. He stroked her face and caressed her hair. Gazing into her eyes, he whispered, "Are you sure this is what you want?"
"Oh, yes!" she cried, and when his lips touched hers, Sarah's entire being was suddenly flooded not only with passion, heat, and love but also with so much knowledge. All her fears were swept away as her dreams were achieved. She could hear Hoggle and Sir Didymus shouting with glee. There were many, other, little voices also raising in congratulations and happy exclamations. Ludo moaned with joy, and rocks rumbled across the Kingdom. The baby, held somewhere behind her, shrilled with delight.
Despite the legends, Sarah suddenly understood, Jareth had not been seeking merely for a successor. He had been searching for his bride, for the one woman who would choose to stand beside him no matter what disasters or creatures came, the one woman who could love not just him but his people as well, the one woman who would fight to earn her place to be beside him. He had been searching and waiting, Sarah knew, for her. He was glad she was the one for he had also always loved her with sincerity, which was why just saying the traditional words had never worked when she had spoken them.
They were finally going to get their happily ever after, Sarah realized as she kissed him back in full, their happy future full of love of which he, too, had been dreaming and waiting. They weren't the only ones. His subjects, her true friends, would also be blessed and had been waiting for their union. Even the child she had chosen, not him, would be blessed. She would learn to grow and thrive in this kingdom and would one day succeed them on the Goblin throne.
Queen, she remembered as their tongues danced joyously and lovingly together. He had called her Queen. He loved her truly, and this was her destiny! Suddenly she was no longer tired. The exhaustion that had plagued her for centuries was the furthest thing from her mind. Instead, her heart, her very soul, thrilled for this was where she had always belonged, and she was with the one she had always been intended to wed. She had read somewhere long ago that soul mates were truly built for each other. She knew those prophesized words to be true: She'd been made for Jareth, and he for her, and this, in each other's arms, was where their destiny had always and would always excel.
"WELCOME HOME!"
"QUEEN SARAH!"
"HIP! HIP! HOORAY!"
In her heart, Sarah celebrated with her subjects and friends, but with her mouth, she only kept kissing the man who would soon be her husband, the man who had been her King since first entering her life, the man who had offered her everything so long ago, the man by whose side she couldn't wait to spend the rest of her eternity living happily ever after.
The End
Author: Apache Firecat
Rating: PG-13/T
Fandom: Labyrinth
Wordcount or Timestamp: 6,883
She was tired. She was beyond tired, and she had been so for years now. The doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong, but she knew. She had always known. This was not the world where she belonged. It was the world where she had been born, but was not the world where she belonged, and it seemed the more she struggled to survive in it, and especially the older she grew, lamenting away within its boring, mundane confines, the ever more tired she became.
It didn't help that she never slept well at night. If she wasn't dreaming about the tortures her stepmother's doctors had put her through trying to rid her mind of the fantastic journey she had had as a young girl through a land they swore could not and did not exist, she was dreaming of him. It had been so long since she had had a good dream. She'd once frequently dreamed that he was still going to come again for her, that he was going to rescue her still from the cruelty that was this miserable, human life, and not hold her baby brother for hostage, not that, knowing what she now knew, knowing the type of person Toby had become, so sickeningly much like her stepmother and even her own father, she wouldn't have gladly given him the baby to keep if she had only understood then what she had long since learned.
Sarah sighed and laid down the book she'd been trying to read. She'd been enjoying it, but tonight, the words just seemed a jumble of foreign letters. Any language she could have found in the world where she should be would have been just as foreign as the plain English written in the novel she was casting aside. There were, in fact, many languages other than her native English that she could have understood with ease, especially in comparison to currently trying that thick book.
It was a Nordic noir, a crime mystery genre that, whenever she sank herself into a good one normally, swept her away to another time and place, something she so desperately needed while remaining stuck in the world in which she had been, in this horrid place where she did not, had never, and would never belong. The heroes were usually savage, blonde heartthrobs who reminded her of him. The one in her current book definitely made her think of the King, even down to the fact that one of his beautiful eyes was blue and the other green. Yet she simply could not seem to make her mind concentrate that night.
What she'd really like to do was throw a fit. She'd like to go on a throwing, slinging, knock-down, drag-out, quite possibly even killing fit. That was why she liked the night shift in this company. Even if she was to surrender to the desire to start cussing and kicking things, there were very few people to notice, and the ones who were there usually didn't seem to care. They'd just chalk it up to her needing to let out some frustration. There was a couple of good-looking guys even who might offer her a drink after they got off work, but she'd tell them no. She always declined any invitations to go out, and had for most of her life. This place was not where she belonged. She knew that and had since her time in the kingdom where she did belong. She didn't want to be here, so why bother trying to find a mate? She only wanted to find a way home to him.
She sighed, leaning back in her chair and feeling the little wheels on its bottom turning. Going home should not be too much to ask, but clearly, it was. She'd been trying to find a way back for years now, had practically devoted her entire life to finding a way to return to him, but she had yet to find it. Every time she'd thought she had found a portal to that realm down below in the Underground -- the only thing she had at first had to go on as to its location, and even that only because of his songs --, it had turned out not only to be non-existent but for all its witnesses to either be dead, crazed, or full of denial.
Sarah always knew when they were full of denial, because she knew the look from her own experiences of being forced to lie. She wasn't the first girl he'd taken; her brother had not been the first baby. She didn't know why it was always girls, because he was actually looking for a King. Perhaps he'd thought, with his enormous, if well-deserved, ego, that the females would swoon easier to him, but she'd known a few males, too, who would have gladly been putty in his very capable, very regal hands. To be the King of such an awful, little race of ugly beings, Jareth had always been a man of such beauty that he could have easily wooed anybody.
Goodness knew she had almost fallen for him so many times, almost surrendered to him, almost allowed him to keep her brother even though he'd only been a baby, all because of the way his handsome face, beautiful eyes, and sensual, lithe body had captivated her. There had been something in his voice, too, something so regal and so sexy. It had been almost impossible for her to deny him when he'd crooned to her, almost... If it hadn't been for Toby, she would have never left that place. She would have stayed where she belonged. She would have married the one being in the world who had ever moved her in that special, erotic fashion. But instead she had given it all up to protect her brother, her brother who --
Sarah cursed underneath her breath and grabbed her phone as it buzzed in her pocket. She'd forgotten to turn the thing off. She wasn't even really supposed to have it in her cubicle, but she had to have something to keep her awake when the hours were long and boring and the books just weren't cutting it. Besides, that little phone was what connected her to the Cloud, and she had so much information stored there. Of course, she also had hard copies hidden away in her apartment and her bank vault, but when none of her coworkers were paying attention, she spent as much time pursuing that information in vain hopes that she'd missed something before as she did reading -- actually, it was probably far more than the amount of time she spent with her nose stuck in a book.
Unless that book happened to be one of the medieval texts she'd scourged up online and spent good money to retrieve. They were always listed as fiction, but the details were so uncannily like the actual ones she knew to be true that there was no denying the author had to have some kind of link to the Underground. She'd tried looking them up to, many of them women, but it had always been dead ends. Most of them were either in mental hospitals or dead. There had been a few who had still spoken of the King, but whatever they'd had to say had always proven to be gibberish. Jareth didn't turn into a huge Goblin when angered or defeated nor was his dick the size of a Goblin. His trousers had always made it clear that he was well-endowed, but nobody would have been able to walk with a thing that huge between their legs...
Sarah shook her head slightly, forcing her attention back to the task at hand. She had silenced her phone, but then she had fallen into staring at the snowy white owl whose picture filled her phone's wallpaper. She had never found a single image that truly depicted Jareth. There were huge Trolls and Goblins aplenty, and although there had also been some images of lost Kings and Princes, none of them had ever come close to doing the real man justice. Why, most of them had not even been blonde, let alone possessed eyes of two different colors!
But now her phone was growing dull again from lack of use, and her mother's image, from one of her plays, settled onto its screen instead. Her mother was wearing a sequined gown that was vaguely familiar of the one Sarah had found herself in in the ballroom although she knew her mother's dress was fake whereas hers had been very, very real. She could still hear the swooshing of the sparkling cloth and feel the weight of its jewels. She could still hear the other courtiers' laughter and feel the burning glances they had given her with jealousy and, she was quite certain, no small amount of hatred when he had chosen to dance with her instead of any of them.
She had thought, at the time, that that had all been a dream, but in looking back, she knew it had felt far too real to not be so. She had felt his body press against hers as he had led her in her very first dance. She had felt her heartbeat quicken every time he had touched her, smiled at her, and most especially when he had whispered into her ear. "Forget about the baby."
She blinked, barely holding back tears. She should have forgotten about the baby! She should have just let him have Toby! Surely whatever life Toby would have had if they had stayed there in the Goblin City, even if he himself had become a Goblin as many of the legends warned instead of the next King, would have been far superior than the life he had managed to build for himself in this world. He had definitely proven to be his mother's child. What time he wasn't trying to rob people of their fortunes, he was out cruising drunk on the ocean or the streets. What little time he could not be found doing any of those three things, and often while he was doing some of those as well, he was popping in and out of one unlucky woman's bed after another.
He wasn't trying to find love. She'd thought that once and had tried to steer him towards a wholesome girl she'd actually thought would make a fine wife for him. She had ended up causing that poor girl to lose every bit of the fortune her father had left her as well as respect she'd had in society. Toby had left her penniless at the altar. Sarah had gone years after that experience not talking to her brother, but after her own father's death, she had began to relent. She would never relent where her stepmother was concerned, but she did check on Toby occasionally -- and he always asked her for money or even drugs every time she tried to reach out to her brother. At least if he'd been a Goblin, he wouldn't have been hyped on drugs.
He was who had called her, she thought, blinking, looking down at her screen. No doubt he wanted something, something she would not give him. She'd buy him groceries occasionally and even more occasionally take him out to eat, but she would never again give him money for every dime she gave him seemed to go straight to his filthy habits.
She stared at her mother's picture beyond the notification that her brother had called and wondered about the aging star. She had made quite a name for herself on Broadway. Sarah had tried to follow in her steps once, but she had never been able to focus on any play but one. The Labyrinth, or rather, its owner, consumed everything in her, almost every waking thought every day until this very night. She couldn't escape him. She couldn't escape the longing she still felt for him, for that world, for everything he had offered her...
She gazed at her mother thoughtfully and wondered if perhaps her mother had somehow been born in that lost and forbidden kingdom so far away. If not her mother, could there have been another ancestor who had been born there? Could she have been more than all the other girls the King had wooed while attempting to steal away their babies? Was that why, after all these decades, she still could not let go of the Goblin City, its King, and her fervent desire to have never left its magical walls?
Sarah shook her head. No. She knew better. Although she still toyed with the thought on occasion, she had always known better. She had been the first of her people to have gone there, the first to have broken his heart, the first to have surrendered every dream she could have lived out there in determined sacrifice to stop at nothing to save her brother, a man to whom she could now barely even stand to talk. She had given up everything for Toby Williams, but most of all, she had given up her only true chance at love.
Oh, there had been men after Jareth and boys before him, boys after him too for a real man was an even rarer gem than a helpful Dwarf or a loyal, English-speaking dog Knight. Real men were few and far between. Her brother wasn't one; he'd rather live his entire life on dope. Her father had not been one; he had always let women rule over him and force him to hurt others, even his own daughter. Her boss wasn't one; he was just another pig and often made remarks to her and the other female workers for which, she felt certain, Jareth would have had his tongue if not where they were concerned then at least where she was.
Sarah put her phone back into her pocket and held her face in her cupped hands for a long moment. She had known real men even in this land. She had broken one of their hearts when he had tried so hard to woo her away from the insanity that had been her past. For a time, she hadn't felt bad about breaking up with him after hearing him admit to one of his friends that she was crazy but that he hoped that his love could cure her of the insanity of Goblins, Fieries, and non-existent Kings of which she was constantly babbling. Breaking up with Richard was what had led her to becoming even more introverted, having as little interaction as she possibly could with the rest of her world (not that this was her world!), and putting every waking moment she could, every ounce of energy, and every dollar she could spare into her hunt for the truth about Jareth and his entire Kingdom.
Richard had not deserved her loyalty, she thought, not if he was going to talk so demeaningly about her behind her back, but she had never intended to hurt him. She should have known better honestly, because the entire time she had been with him, she had still been waiting and hoping every night that Jareth would come, whisking into her bedroom, and whisking her away from everything that was in this boring, normal, human world. She could never have loved Richard. Her heart had been taken since she'd been only fifteen years of age.
Like Richard, her stepmother's doctors had tried so hard to convince her that she was crazy and that she could have and actually, deep down, even wanted a normal life. They had all been wrong, and no method that had tried, even electromagnetic therapy, had worked. The heart wanted what it wanted, as the renowned poet had once said, and she had always wanted Jareth. She had loved him before she could understand what love actually was. She would always love him, even if she never got to see him again.
She felt like crying, but she wasn't about to cry here. Everyone who learned of her past immediately thought she was insane, which, she was quite certain, was another reason why none of the doctors she herself had chosen as she'd grown older could really be bothered to do much to cure her of her chronic fatigue. Perhaps she should take off the next few nights and try to rest and get her emotions back under her control, but that would mean less money for her research, even less opportunity to find him...
She could leave early tonight possibly, but there was a bad storm raging outside. The wind had already shaken the office a couple of times, and it would be almost impossible to catch a cabby out there. Heck, it would probably be like the last time she'd tried to catch a ride late one night when it had been storming. She'd already walked two blocks in the wind and rain when she had finally spied a cab pulled to the curb. She'd ran to it, opened the door, and jumped in only to have the cab driver look up at her and from around a mouthful of doughnut tell her he was on break and wasn't going back to work until after the storm had dispersed.
"It isn't fair." The words she'd once uttered so often slipped out underneath her breath before she even realized what she was saying. She froze upon speaking them. She could hear Jareth's sensual voice in her mind. "You say that so often. I wonder what your basis of comparison is?"
"I just want to find you," she whispered, leaning forward in her chair and pulling up a browser. She tried not to search for him and his kingdom while on duty, mostly because she didn't want her bosses to discover her past and create a reason to dismiss her for it, as so many of her other jobs had. She needed the money to live, to eat, and most especially to keep her own private research going.
"Why can't I find you?" she whispered. She had a side gig where she literally found missing relatives and friends of people seeking to reconnect with their lost family members and loved ones. There had never been anyone she couldn't find, having first learned with looking up her own mother, no one but Jareth. Because you're not of this world. She found herself, as usual, answering her own questions. Because you're so much better than anything this world has to offer.
The wind blew so hard that she could feel the building rocking slightly in it. She heard soft, low, hissing laughter, laughter that reminded her of a better and easier time, of a time long ago, but she knew she was being foolish. It wasn't the Goblins laughing. As many times as she had tracked down that hissing laughter, it had never been the Goblins. It was probably just one of her co-workers watching something on YouTube.
Sarah returned to typing on her computer. The lights flickered. She glanced over her monitor, but kept typing. Even if the power did cut off, the back-up generators would come on almost automatically. The computers wouldn't even have time to shut down before they were back on. But when she looked back to her computer screen, she saw flickering images. The laughter sounded again, closer this time. It was all she could do to refrain from making a fool of herself and looking over her shoulder, but there, on her computer screen right before her, were faces.
There were at least a dozen of them, all green, round, and ugly. Some wore helmets. Others didn't, but there was no mistaking what every single one of the faces she saw were. Sarah jumped up and looked swiftly around her, but there was nobody else working near her. All the other cubicles around hers was empty. There wasn't another person for several rows of desks. Could it be Toby playing some kind of cruel trick on her? He had just called.
Yet she couldn't help leaning closer to her computer. She saw the little, green faces peering back at her as though searching, but after all this time, all these many years of hunting, how could finding them again possibly be this easy? "Jareth?" she whispered questioningly. Thunder rolled outside.
The Goblins' gazes sharpened in, almost as though they were zeroing in on her. Sarah reached out with trembling fingers, but her fingertips only touched her monitor's cool screen. "How?" she whispered. "How do I get back to him? How do I come home?"
They had visited her once, before her stepmother had taken her away from her childhood home, before the doctors had began. Sir Didymus, Hoggle, Ludo, even the Fieries and the Goblins had been there. Everyone had come to see her except Jareth, and he was the one for whom she had always longed the most. "Can you tell him I'm sorry?" she whispered fervently to her computer screen, her tears beginning to stream down her face. "Please tell him I'm sorry! Please tell him -- "
There was a sudden clinking of porcelain. Sarah snatched back and away from her desk and saw one of her co-workers looking at him from wide eyes in a pale face. He pushed his spectacles back onto the bridge of his nose and all but ran to his desk several rows away. She didn't care. She couldn't be bothered to care anymore about these people, or about this job. Not if she was finally finding a way to communicate with the Goblins, to reach out to the only actual friends she'd ever known, to finally find her way back into the Labyrinth, back to him...
"Please," she begged, "tell me how!" She quickly tapped her computer, making certain her volume was on full blast. She had sworn long ago that she would not be too proud to beg for another chance. She would do whatever it took to be able to be reunited with the man she loved, the man who had haunted her every thought for so, so many years now...
But how, she suddenly questioned, could she be certain this was not some kind of a cruel hallucination? It had been some time since the last time she'd thought she'd seen someone who wasn't actually there, but it had been known to happen. It had once happened pretty regularly. She was staying up on her medications -- she hadn't missed a dose --, but maybe they needed adjusting... Especially with as exhausted as she was constantly feeling, it would make a great deal more sense if she was hallucinating again rather than that they would come to her again after all these decades.
Still she could not help begging. "Please tell me! I'll do anything!"
"Sarah -- " Her lead was behind her, no doubt having been alerted by Jeremy, Tommy, or whatever his name was, the little nerd fifteen years her junior who had witnessed her pleading with her computer screen a few minutes earlier.
"I'll do anything!" The words fell from her mouth before she could stop them. She could see the Goblins stirring there before her on the screen, but the light was beginning to fade. She saw their eyes searching for her as if they could hear her but not see her. They began to mouth something, but she could not hear them. She clicked frantically with her mouse, trying to somehow save the scene that was appearing through her word documents, browser, and other app windows. Her sound was on one hundred percent of her volume, but she still could not hear a single word they were saying.
"Miss Williams -- " the voice behind her snapped urgently, but Sarah had no more time for these people. She clicked. She pounded the keyboard, but they were already vanishing...
"PLEASE DON'T GO!" she cried out.
"MISS WILLIAMS!" There was a hand on the back of her chair now, but she couldn't help weeping as the Goblins vanished from her sight. Her team lead was screaming at her some kind of bold demands, and she was probably fired. She didn't care. She only cared about the fact that, after decades of searching, she had just seen a window into the world of which she craved being a part.
"That was my home!" she tried to explain, trembling, but she already knew nobody would understand. Nobody ever understood.
And had it really been the Goblins she had just seen, or was it just another hallicinuation like the ones she used to have so frequently? If she wasn't careful, they'd come for her now with the straight jackets. In fact, she was rather certain she could hear sirens sounding somewhere outside. She knew she could hear her colleagues speaking in various volumes about her "condition", which, evidently, had remarked on the one time he had visited her here at work.
But right now, she couldn't care about Toby. He was why she had sacrificed everything before, and she would not make the same mistake again! "PLEASE," she shouted, surrendering all dignity, "JUST GIVE ME ONE MORE CHANCE! I LOVE YOU, JARETH!"
It was at that exact moment, as the clocks struck one o'clock, that a single, white feather floated down onto her keyboard. Her boss was still yelling at her, but all Sarah could hear was the pounding beat of her own heart and words crooned to her long ago. "Stop! Look what I'm offering you. Your dreams."
She didn't need her dreams. She only needed one dream; she only needed him. With trembling fingers, she touched the feather, confirming that it was real. She'd been such a fool, so wrapped up in her own family drama, her need to protect her brother and find her mother, to become like her mother, that she had never seen, the one time she'd been allowed to be in the City previously, all that she had been sacrificing. Yes, he could make her a Queen, as the other girls had said. She could rule the kingdom beside him until he had a successor. But she didn't care about any of that. All she cared about was finding him again, finally telling him how she truly felt, how she'd always felt, loving him, allowing him to love her...
"YOU ARE MY DREAM!" she cried. Grabbing the feather and completely ignoring her team lead and colleagues, Sarah raced out into the night. It had been storming, Sarah remembered as the winds tore at her blouse, much like this the night he had came and taken Toby. The words! It finally dawned on her what the Goblins had been saying! She had to say the words!
Which meant, as she had known for some time, she had to have a sacrifice. The King could not leave without someone there to take his place. She didn't care about leaving. She wanted to stay in the Goblin City forever, but she also knew that as long as Jareth did not have a successor, she would not be able to stay or even gain entrance... She turned and ran, her words from long ago coming back to her on that night. "Feet, don't fail me now!"
When it had happened before, when he had called her into his kingdom before, she had had no clue what to do. She had not even know who or what he was or understood everything she'd been preparing to surrender so freely to save her annoying brother who had never once appreciated the sacrifices she had made for him. But she's done her homework this time and has been waiting for oh so long for this night to happen again, for him to call her back to his side where she belonged, where she had always belonged...
Maybe she was crazy, Sarah relented as she ran, her feet pounding the slick, wet pavement. She fell, jumped back to her feet, and continued to run. She could hear him singing to her now. She could feel his eyes upon her, just as she had so many times when trying to find her way out of the labyrinth. She never should have ran away from him then; she should have ran to him, as she's doing now.
He had been offering her her dreams in exchange for his own freedom. He had not set the rules, and he'd had no choice but to abide by them. But there were ways around the rules, she knew. She had learned, and now, clearly, she could see, there were still ways to reach him. She ran that night not as though Toby's life depended on it but as though her own did. Perhaps her actual life didn't depend on it, but every chance she'd ever have at happiness and true love was caught up in this moment. She ran.
The wind tore at her clothes and hair. Shrouded figures on the street, people she'd always dismissed as being homeless for one reason or another, called out to her. Now she wondered about them, but she didn't slow. She didn't slow until she reached the hospital, collected her dignity, and walked calmly pass the security guards. She refrained from breaking back into a run as she walked pass the nurses' desks and nodded to several of them, the doctors, and even the orderlies as she made her way.
There was a reason why she volunteered time and work at this hospital. There had always been a reason, because she had always known that, if she ever did get the opportunity to return to the land where she belonged, she would have to make a sacrifice. She would have to say the words again, and she would have to have someone over whom to say them. That was why she had spent hours at this hospital too, doing research but slightly different research from that which she spent every other waking hour that she wasn't at work doing.
She knew these children, perhaps not them themselves, but she knew their histories. She knew their stories. She knew who had parents and who didn't, whose parents were loving and whose parents weren't... She knew the ones who had been almost aborted and the ones who were headed, without a doubt, for the orphanage. She knew who had chances at a good life and whose chances were slim at best. And in the back, she knew the crying, squirming girl child, the one the hospital staff had tried to place out of view of any reporters who got in pass the guards, was going to have the least chance of successfully building a life than any of the other babies. She had been born to a mother hyped on drugs, the father was unknown, and the child wasn't expected to survive even one week of living in this wretched world.
Sarah had left the door open, but she didn't care. Anyone could chance upon her now and have her arrested. She could easily spend the rest of her life in an asylum like so many of the others who had been wooed by the King. She cared about none of this, however, as she lifted the crying baby high into the air and quickly, fervently, her voice not sounding unlike the laughter of a Goblin's, spoke the words. "Goblin King! Goblin King! Wherever you may be, take this child of mine far away from me!"
She stilled, with the baby in her arms, but nothing happened except that the child had stopped crying. She looked down at Sarah and kicked her little feet. Sarah waited, but nothing happened. No orderlies, nurses, or guards came rushing in, but so, too, did no Goblins or owls come sweeping to her rescue. She stared at the baby who stared back down at her through big, blue eyes. Slowly Sarah took the child down and actually held her, rocking her, against her chest as she considered the situation.
That was not, she recalled, exactly how it had happened with her and Toby. When she had said those words, nothing had changed. Some of the other girls to whom had talked had tried saying those very words. One had ever gotten pregnant and had another child in case it had to be a baby she offered the Goblin King. The words, Sarah realized, the very ones that were written in the old textbooks were not correct.
What had she said, then, that had brought the Goblins and Jareth to Toby and herself? What words had she used to convince them to come get her brother? And why had she been able to convince them so readily to come get her brother? There had been other girls, thousands of other girls. What if she was wrong? What if Jareth didn't actually love her?
No! she told herself sternly. She had to believe. She believed in nothing in this world, but she knew everything in theirs to be real and genuine on some level or another. "Nothing is what it seems," she whispered, recalling the lesson Hoggle had taught her so long ago. She stamped her foot but managed to keep from screaming her frustrations.
The baby began to cry again. Hadn't the doctors said that the child wouldn't even make a sound? She seemed to recall that being one of their concerns in getting her to be able and willing to thrive, but she didn't care. She wasn't here for the child. She was here to use the child to get to Jareth and to earn that second chance she'd always deserved. She wasn't like the other girls; she truly had fallen in love with him and had never stopped trying to find a way back to him. She had truly hurt him only because she had believed she had to save Toby, not because she had been frightened of him or the other creatures in the Labyrinth.
No, her mind had been all wrapped up in saving her brother after she had so unwittingly sacrificed him. But what had she said? She chewed her bottom lip, trying her best to remember, but it had been so long ago and she had endured so much suffering since then. "Oh, please come get her! Please come get me!" she cried.
The storm roared as if in protest. The hospital doors were blown open by an especially powerful gust of wind. The lights blinked out. Sarah heard hissing, inhuman laughter and then, scant seconds later, the low hum of the hospital's powerful generator as it kicked on. The lights came flooding back on, but Sarah was already looking at the baby, the baby who she knew would not survive this world but trusted Jareth with all his magic and wonderful creatures would help thrive.
The baby would be so much better there. They both would be. Suddenly, Sarah knew the answer. Staring at the child, she lifted her again into the air and whispered with sincerity, "I wish the Goblins would come and take you away. Right now."
There was a roar that sounded like it came from the basement. The generator cut off. Emergency lights cut on, and it was by their strange glows that Sarah watched what happened next. The baby was gone, taken right out of her hands, and she was not alone. She could not quite explain it, but she knew the Goblins were truly in the room with her this time. She turned toward the open doors just in time to see the man who had haunted her dreams for almost her entire life emerge from the shadows.
"Sarah." His voice was a cunning, sensual purr. The way he spoke her name swept over her in waves of ecsasy. She wanted to rush to him, but she knew how powerful he was. And he was a King after all.
She had dreamed, for so many years, of throwing herself at him when she finally managed to reach him again, of covering him in kisses and pledging her undying love to him. She had dreamed of the words she would say as she begged his forgiveness and confessed how much she had always regretted hurting him but had felt she'd had no other choice in order to save her brother. But now, suddenly, none of that seemed right.
Instead, as Jareth held out a gloved hand and the guards and their drawn guns were suddenly frozen in place, she bowed. She lowered herself before him, her actions speaking volumes of the power he did indeed hold over her. Her long, dark hair fell to one side of her face as she dropped to her knees before him. "I'm sorry."
There was so much more she wanted to say, but suddenly, she was scared. What if he didn't accept her apology? She had literally thrown away everything he had been offering her like the selfish brat she had been back then. Did she really have any right to expect him to just accept her apology? It was completely unfair of her to expect him to accept her back at all, let alone to still love her, and how conceited had she been all these years to believe he, a King of such endless power and beauty, could have ever really loved her out of all the thousands of girls to venture through his labyrinth? She quivered before him, not daring to look up and see the fury in his beautiful eyes.
"Please... Please forgive me."
She blinked rapidly as a gloved hand emerged before her face, before her tear-filled eyes. "Arise," he ordered. She took his hand immediately. His fingers wrapped around hers, warm, tight, and reassuring. He guided to her feet, and slowly she lifted her eyes to his. "Queen Sarah."
She was breathless. Were her dreams, her heart's most treasured desires, actually coming true at long last? She must be dreaming! She must be hallucinating again!
Jareth pulled her to him, and she went willingly. He cupped her face, and his touch was as gentle, powerful, and erotic as she remembered it always having been before. He stroked her face and caressed her hair. Gazing into her eyes, he whispered, "Are you sure this is what you want?"
"Oh, yes!" she cried, and when his lips touched hers, Sarah's entire being was suddenly flooded not only with passion, heat, and love but also with so much knowledge. All her fears were swept away as her dreams were achieved. She could hear Hoggle and Sir Didymus shouting with glee. There were many, other, little voices also raising in congratulations and happy exclamations. Ludo moaned with joy, and rocks rumbled across the Kingdom. The baby, held somewhere behind her, shrilled with delight.
Despite the legends, Sarah suddenly understood, Jareth had not been seeking merely for a successor. He had been searching for his bride, for the one woman who would choose to stand beside him no matter what disasters or creatures came, the one woman who could love not just him but his people as well, the one woman who would fight to earn her place to be beside him. He had been searching and waiting, Sarah knew, for her. He was glad she was the one for he had also always loved her with sincerity, which was why just saying the traditional words had never worked when she had spoken them.
They were finally going to get their happily ever after, Sarah realized as she kissed him back in full, their happy future full of love of which he, too, had been dreaming and waiting. They weren't the only ones. His subjects, her true friends, would also be blessed and had been waiting for their union. Even the child she had chosen, not him, would be blessed. She would learn to grow and thrive in this kingdom and would one day succeed them on the Goblin throne.
Queen, she remembered as their tongues danced joyously and lovingly together. He had called her Queen. He loved her truly, and this was her destiny! Suddenly she was no longer tired. The exhaustion that had plagued her for centuries was the furthest thing from her mind. Instead, her heart, her very soul, thrilled for this was where she had always belonged, and she was with the one she had always been intended to wed. She had read somewhere long ago that soul mates were truly built for each other. She knew those prophesized words to be true: She'd been made for Jareth, and he for her, and this, in each other's arms, was where their destiny had always and would always excel.
"WELCOME HOME!"
"QUEEN SARAH!"
"HIP! HIP! HOORAY!"
In her heart, Sarah celebrated with her subjects and friends, but with her mouth, she only kept kissing the man who would soon be her husband, the man who had been her King since first entering her life, the man who had offered her everything so long ago, the man by whose side she couldn't wait to spend the rest of her eternity living happily ever after.
The End