Sarah fought to keep her eyes open. She knew her time was coming soon. But she wasn't ready for it just yet. She had to do one last thing before she left her world. She waited, waited patiently; she knew he would come.
She let her eyes wander around her hospital room; the only sound was the steady beep of the monitor by her bedside. The stark white was a great contrast to the myriad of brightly colored flowers that adorned her room. Crowding every extra tabletop, even the floor next to her bed were nearly dozens of vases full of flowers. Sweet perfumes filled the air, intoxicating and mystical.
But it brought her no joy. Very soon now she would pass over, leaving everything behind.
She sighed, reaching her frail fingertips to her temple, remembering the long, lustrous black hair she once had in her youth. Now it fell only to her thin shoulders in waves of silver and gray.
Her two grown sons now carried the youth and beauty their mother once had. They were her pride and joy from the moment she brought them into this world. This world she would soon be leaving.
She loved her children just as much as she loved their father. She did not find it at all ironic that he was British, tall, and had a well-kept head of golden blonde hair. He was a fine actor, just as she was back in her day. Days that brought her fame, wealth, and happiness as the actress she always dreamed of being.
She lived her life to the fullest extent, yet was careful not to take anything for granted. She took in the glamour, and counted just as many blessings of prosperity and happiness. She had small roles first, earning her a means to get by. Then the offers began to seep in slowly yet steadily. Before she knew it, she was winning Golden Globes, then a SAG award, and finally she was able to take home several Oscars. She won world-wide recognition, yet somehow managed to keep a level head on her shoulders.
She never once wondered how she managed to do that. She knew exactly how she did it, and now she was finally coming to terms with the one who made her who she was in her final hour.
She was angry when she first found out. She was still young, not even sixty years. Cancer. It was only a matter of time before it spread throughout her body, and then it would be too late. Treatment would have been too risky at her late stage, and after much thought, she decided this was the only way. She would have done it with or without the consent of her family. She signed the papers personally and with witnesses.
She was becoming wearier with each passing moment. It was only a matter of time.
She sighed again, closing her eyes, easing herself into the pillows. She wanted to be alone now, without her family, while she waited.
Her breathing was becoming shallow. Now was the time.
Sarah closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. She knew what must be done, the name that must be said; she'd imagined saying it for so long. "Jareth… Goblin King…"
She had remembered a storm, the lightning and thunder that preceded his visit; the owl bursting into the room and a sparkling shower of magic that announced his arrival. She held her breath now, but even this was beginning to strain her frail body.
She finally opened her eyes.
He looked exactly as he had the first time he appeared to her in her parent's bedroom when she was only fifteen years old. She had not seen him since her time in the Labyrinth.
"Sarah." His voice was low, still seductive, with the slightest trace of malice. He leaned casually against the wall, his arms folded over his chest. "You still remember me after all these long years. How touching." He nearly sneered at his last remark.
"I never forgot, Jareth," Sarah's voice a mere whisper.
He regarded coolly for a moment. "So," he uncrossed his arms and casually made his way over to her deathbed. "What do you wish of me?" His mismatched eyes gleamed with secretive mirth as he regarded Sarah in her frail and weakened state. "Do you wish for your youth? A cure, perhaps? Or are you finally coming to your senses and wishing yourself away to me?" He smirked knowingly and cocked his head at her.
Sarah frowned and cast her eyes downward. "No. I accept my fate. I am ready to die."
Jareth's smile immediately faded and he flinched noticeably. "What a pity."
She closed her eyes and leaned her head back with a sigh. "I did not call you to make a wish worthy only for young girls."
"Why the devil am I here then, Sarah?" the Goblin King demanded sharply.
"I wanted to tell you something, I wanted to make a promise," she responded, her voice shaking.
The Goblin King tilted his head. "A promise?" he repeated in a distant tone, his eyes narrowing. "What kind of a promise?"
"First," she began hesitantly, "first I must tell you my feelings. My thoughts that I've long kept hidden."
"What do you mean?" The Goblin King looked astonished for a moment. "What thoughts?"
"Jareth," she nearly choked out. "If there is one, single regret I have," she hesitated for a moment, finding her courage. "I have lived my life… I love my husband and my children, but… I am not entirely happy. I do not wish for this now, but if I could go back anytime after that night in the Labyrinth… then I would have called for you." She paused, letting him assimilate this, but his face remained expressionless. "Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?"
Jareth's face suddenly fell. His eyes narrowed suspiciously and he started back, discouraged and equally baffled. "You tell me this now," he accused. "You purposely tell me this now," his lips were set in a cruel line. "And on your deathbed no less. You little fool…"
"I am no fool," Sarah snapped, taken aback from his sudden hostility. But she had been well prepared for something like this. She really could not blame him for his reaction. Her manner softened as his words slowly sank in. "I know what you were trying to offer me. Perhaps I was too young to understand, perhaps I was too stubborn. But then perhaps I also knew right from wrong."
Jareth turned back to Sarah, his face slightly more composed. "Did you still believe in all of that after my Labyrinth?"
"I believed in myself, yet I never trusted myself either."
He raised one sculpted eyebrow in question.
She had nearly forgotten how truly magnificent he was. "I resisted for so long. Yet, I knew if I let myself give into my temptation," she looked up with weary, tear-filled eyes, "there would be no going back."
He blinked and breathed heavily through his aquiline nose. "What is this promise you wish to make, Sarah?"
He stood next to her, but didn't look down. He kept his a cold mask on his beautiful face, but his eyes betrayed him. Even through the mist of her eyes she could see a profound disappointment in them; he was clearly struggling with this sudden confession.
She had to hurry. There was not much time…
"Do you believe in reincarnation, Jareth?"
Now he looked down at her, his arched eyebrows nearly furrowing together in confusion. "I beg your pardon?"
"Reincarnation," she repeated. "When the soul returns from the afterlife to this earthly world." She reached out to him, her weak hand trembling. But he would have none of it. Jareth withdrew from her touch and turned away, walking back to the window.
She stared at him helplessly. "Please…" She could feel herself becoming tired, distant. "I'm dying," she choked. "Did you not want me once so badly that you broke nearly every rule of common decency to keep me? Will you not even hear me out now? Grant me this one last thing, Jareth. Please."
Her last word was dripping with intense desperation that he could not ignore any further.
The Goblin King was and always had been very much in love with Sarah. To hear this from her now was infuriating, to say the least. But it also brought a little flicker of joy and comfort that he lacked in his life for so long. His polished black leather boots rang on the tile as he came to her bedside again. He finally reached out to her, and caressed her soft cheek with one gloved finger. She had aged beautifully, even when she so close to her death.
Suddenly, it finally hit him that his beloved Sarah was truly dying. He remembered when she defeated him so long ago. He was angry and bitter, but never lost hope that she would somehow return to him. When she began to pursue her dreams of the stage and the screen with zeal and fierce determination, he slowly grew proud of his Sarah. He alone took credit for the fact that she had grown from a spoiled little girl to a practical and equally wise young woman. He spent every spare moment watching her from his crystals and from the shadows of her world.
But he stopped watching her completely when she took a husband. He was not in the least amused that he was the closest human being to ever resemble him. It should have been him, and he never fully recovered from her decision to marry. It only infuriated him once again, and became just as bitter as he had been before. Out of his misery, he proceeded to shut himself away from the world of his Labyrinth.
But he did manage to bring himself to conjure one crystal to look upon her children. Even if he did have the power to take them, he couldn't bring himself to. Her half-brother Toby was different. Her sons were Sarah's own flesh and blood, and when he caught one glance at the both of them, it nearly broke his own heart. They should have been his children.
Yet for nearly fifty years he never stopped hoping…
His precious Sarah was dying now. He sat on her bed next to her frail body and savored the feel of her, the fading nearness of her…
Filled with remorse and heartache, he gently wrapped his arms around her and rested his cheek against her forehead.
"Will you forget me?" she murmured. "When I am dead and gone?" Her chest was tight with the urge to weep.
"Don't say such things," he chided quietly. Even when she was old and dying, he still saw a young and spirited fifteen year old girl. "I shall never forget you, my Sarah."
She shuddered underneath his touch, underneath his soft words. She could still feel his magic, his intoxicating warmth surrounding her…
He held her tighter, seeming to fight against Death itself with his grasp. "Can't you see you will be branded into my memory while you are at peace?" He smoothed his fingers over her cheek once more. "Why did you betray your own heart, Sarah?"
"I will not be at peace, Jareth. Forgive me," her voice was quiet, but dripping with deep fervor. "Forgive me for what I have done."
One gloved hand rested on her cheek, stroking it pensively. "Yes... I forgive you…"
She fought to breathe, hands closing almost too hard around his arms, holding her. His hand caressed her cheek lovingly. "I swear…" she took a deep, shaky breath, "I swear to you I will return," she told him desperately.
Jareth sat silently, his eyes staring ahead almost trance-like. He was in a state of numb shock and felt as if his heart had nearly stopped at her promise. But it was Sarah's that refused to beat any longer. He held her until she closed her eyes, lost her breath, and wilted in his arms. She was dead.
He continued to smooth her cheek with his gentle hands absently. He trembled slightly, but after a long moment of silence accompanied by a long, shrill beep of the infernal machine next to her bed, he dropped his head into her neck. He did not weep; he did not even shed a single tear. He only breathed in her scent deeply, clutching her lifeless form to him.
His breathing was ragged and shallow but he managed to hiss into her ear as if she were still alive, "I will come for you. You will return… and when you do, I will come to claim you. You will belong to no one but me, as you yourself have promised." His face collapsed into an expression of enraged pain and of equal passion. "I will not rest until I find you, and through your own bloodline you will be reborn. You will return to me!"
His hand reached under her chin and her tilted her head back to kiss her lifeless lips. His kiss was not gentle. After a long moment, he tore himself away, afraid he would have broken every frail bone in her dead body if he held her any tighter.
He stood and looked down at her. She was beginning to lose any color she had left in her body. But she was still so lovely, even when her skin was turning cold from Death's touch. With eyes filling with bitter tears, he settled her back into her overstuffed pillows; his cold, pained mask put back into place.
As he stroked her cheek one last time, the nurses of the hospital came flying into the room.
Jareth stepped back and made him invisible to them. As the nurses rushed to Sarah's bedside, he continued to move away, keeping his eyes on the lifeless form of his precious love. He began to disappear completely from the room. There was nothing more to be done here.
But it was far from over. Now the Goblin King was determined to begin his search. She had promised him, and with his magic, he sealed that oath. He bound her to return to him from her own family bloodline. One of her own descendents would soon be reborn into the Sarah Williams he once worshipped and adored.
He waited. He waited patiently. Sometimes he was calm and sure, but more often than not, he was enraged beyond belief at the amount of time that had gone by. He locked himself in his Castle once again and waited for his Sarah to become reborn. But every time he felt another child of her line being born, it was never her.
He found it increasingly strange that every one of her descendents were males. Some were dark like her, others were blonde; others didn't survive their second week. But they were all males, not one female was born into her line.
Years had passed and no sign of one girl. But even if there had been one, he would have known if it was her. Yet it remained the same. Year after year, one decade after another. Soon, a century had passed. No birth of a girl in one century, or even within the next.
The Goblin King would often sit at his window overlooking his Labyrinth. It was here his hope would somewhat be regained. Sarah had once been here… centuries ago.
But on this one particular night when the moon did not appear in the velvet sky, the darkness took over, and he began to lose hope.
"Where have you gone?" he asked the still air.
The air did not respond.
"You swore to me."
Silence.
"And I bound you to it."
His self-control was slipping. How much longer would he wait? He rested his hands on the ledge of the balcony and ducked his head. His hissed through his teeth, feeling a sharp and sudden loss in his heart. Had the magic not worked? Was his magic fading now?
No, he still had some of his former power left. But the years of waiting had left him weak and anxiously obsessive.
Years had passed after that night… and now he felt it. He finally felt that sudden wave of pure, innocent female energy. A girl had finally been born.
And it was five hundred years later that Sarah Williams finally returned to the world of the living.
AN: So that didn't take too long. I was inspired to start this as soon as possible. This is not the sequel for A New Life. This is the new crossover I had mentioned and I hope this works. Enjoy!
Shalom y Amor