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You remind me of the babe

The goblins didn't really ever notice that time never started again after Sarah won. Their King had stopped time so often that they never paid any attention to it any more. It was the same with the Labyrinth. It had long been used to the mercurial moods of its Fae caretaker, and was thus mostly unaffected.

So even with time brought screeching to a standstill, in the Labyrinth and the lands touching it, there were seasons and things grew and died and life passed on. At least as much as it could in the eternal landscape of the Underground.

No one can blame you for walking away.

Sarah had nearly forgotten about the Underground. After all, one hardly ever remembers how one learned something. When pressed for recollection, Sarah would simply say that she had just started appreciating her younger half-brother more. She didn't remember when that happened, much less why. She simply absorbed the lesson she had conquered the Labyrinth to get, and wrote the entire experience off as a dream caused by the 102 degree fever she had woken up with on the floor of her parent's bedroom after that stormy night.

If she ever noticed the quiet giggles in the shadows or the distant barn owl perpetually perched at just the right height to always stare into her window, she never said a word or reacted in any way. Such things were simply mundanities in the life of Sarah Williams.

How you turned my world, you precious thing.

Jareth threw yet another crystal at the wall of his chambers. Its powdery fragments joined countless others on the floor, an unmelting snowfall of fae-wrought glass. The debris had accumulated to its present state though the passing of years, or what would be years if Jareth released his iron control on Time. As it was, he had held the spell for so long that he didn't even know what day or year it should be.

The time-spell didn't stretch all the way throughout Faerie. Only the Labyrinth and a few adjoining allied lands lay under its mantle, and as such were completely cut off from the rest of the Underground, the spell forming an impenetrable bubble that suited Jareth's dark mood.

It's as it should be, Jareth thought to himself, the Labyrinth still lives and its peoples thrive. And I am alone. I...

He gritted his teeth as the old pain and rage rose up in his chest again, remembering that while humans seemed to forget everything all too easily, the memories of the Fae are long. In the short years since Sarah's departure, Jareth had gotten to sit up in his tower and see as the mortal girl he loved (yes, loved) aged and forgot him, forgot all of them.

Tears fell upon his un-gloved hands, and Jareth succumbed once again to the agony of his broken heart.

As the world falls down.

The pitiful beep of the heart monitor was the only sound in the room.

Sarah kind of liked it that way. Anything else generally meant that Toby was there, swearing he'd find a way to cure her, or her mother, sobbing theatrically into Jeremy's shoulder as he stood there stoically comforting her. His odd detachment seemed so familiar that Sarah was inexplicably comforted by it. Karen was okay, since she never seemed to dwell on Sarah's imminent demise. Instead, she brought news and books and small, easy jobs Sarah could do without really thinking, something that was becoming more and more difficult each day. Her father was the worst, since he never said or did anything except stare at her with self-directed guilt in his eyes.

It was cancer. Terminal.

It would be overly dramatic of her to think that cancer couldn't possibly have any other prognosis, but Sarah knew that it was her own stubbornness and refusal to notice anything wrong that had gotten her into the mess she was in, and this time those same qualities wouldn't be able to get her out like they always had. Sarah was well and truly screwed and she knew it.

The forlorn beeping of her heart monitor turned to an incessant, shrill tone, and Sarah closed her eyes and smiled. For the first time in months, there was no pain.

The babe with the power.

When Sarah came to, she was in a temple. The ceiling was open to the sky and arcane pictographs marched their way up walls and over archways. Sarah knew immediately, especially after suddenly and surprising recognition of some of the pictographs, that she wasn't in Kansas anymore.

"Well, you finally got here. I was thinking I'd have to go down there and pick you up myself if you took much longer."

Female. That was Sarah's first impression of the voice that spoke, seemingly from insubstantial air. But as the echoes faded away, she wasn't quite sure if her first impression had really been the right one.

Turning around, she saw a hooded woman sitting carefully on a three-legged, wooden stool. The hood covered her face, and her clothes were a spot of darkness in an otherwise well-lit area.

Sarah narrowed her eyes, "I'm dead, aren't I?"

The woman's smile was just barely visible under the shadows of her hood, "You did indeed, and considering who you are, you now have a choice. You can go to whatever counts as your afterlife, or live an immortal life in the Underground."

Sarah blinked and opened her mouth to ask was the Underground was, only to have memories suddenly slam into her consciousness before she managed to even get a syllable out. Once her mind cleared, she couldn't believe that she had forgotten the Labyrinth. Everything that had happened. The Fireys, Hoggle, Ludo, Didymus, and... Jareth.

"I have a choice?" Sarah asked.
The woman nodded, "Since you have been to Faerie as a mortal, yes, you get a choice."

"Fine," Sarah said, "I chose the Labyrinth."

The other woman raised her eyebrow in surprise, "You could go somewhere else, you know."

Sarah smiled sadly, "Death seems to have lent me new perspective."

The woman tilted her head curiously to the side, "Oh?"

"I left him once." Sarah said, "And I didn't understand what he was asking me. I do now."

"Him?" the woman asked.

"Jareth, the Goblin King" Sarah replied, "He loves me, or at least he did." she paused, "I couldn't go with him before because I had a life. I had responsibilities. Hundreds of things were pulling me back. But they aren't now. So I'm choosing him, I'm choosing the Labyrinth."

There was silence for a few moments, then the woman smiled kindly, her eyes twinkling, "Good choice."

The world blurred and Sarah blinked. In the space of her eyes closing, she found herself moved to an unfamiliar chamber, which had what looked like snow littering the floor everywhere.

She almost didn't recognize the figure on the bed. It didn't look even remotely like the Goblin King that she had known. But eventually she saw the wild blond hair, now matted and dirty, and realized where she was.

"Jareth?" she began hesitantly, only to stop for lack of something to say.

"Go away," he said, his voice rough and low, "Stop tormenting me."

"It's me, Jareth," Sarah said, unsure of how to deal with a depressed Goblin King.

"Sarah is dead, as well you know, shade. So leave me be."

Sarah smirked, "Well, Goblin King, I know I'm dead. And now I'm both dead and here. So don't make me regret my choice and make me go find that nice, creepy lady and tell her that you don't want me."

Jareth turned very slowly, moving like a man trying very hard not to break. He lurched off the bed, walking hesitantly towards her, and Sarah was struck by just how much he had faded during the years she had spent growing up without him. His face was gaunt. Where before he had sharp cheekbones and aristocratic features, now those same features wouldn't have looked different if given on loan to an Egyptian mummy. He was much thinner, and his skin, while pale before, seemed almost translucent now. Almost as if he was beginning to fade from the inside-out.

He reached out an un-gloved hand towards her, his fingers shaking. When he touched her cheek, it felt like a flower petal blown against her face by the wind, but Jareth let out whimpering sob at the touch on her face and crumpled into himself, and onto Sarah, whose arms came up around him in surprise at his sudden collapse. As she linked her hands around his back in order to hold him upright, Jareth shuddered and she felt his tears soaking her shoulder.

Sarah didn't know how long she spent acting as a crying towel for Jareth. Frankly, she didn't want to think about it, because thinking about it would lead to thinking about the cause. And she already knew what the cause was. The fact that she caused this proud creature to break down into actual tears made Sarah's gut twist uncomfortably. Goblin Kings, in her mind, weren't supposed to cry. They were supposed to be strong and mischievous and damn sneaky about everything they did so that they would always win.

Jareth's muscles tensed suddenly, and Sarah squeaked as he grabbed her about the waist and pulled her onto the bed with himself leaning back against the headboard. He tucked her underneath his chin and wrapped his arms more securely around her while his legs arranged themselves to provide Sarah with a seat. When he was done, Sarah couldn't have escaped even if she had wanted to, Jareth was so wrapped around her. When he finally spoke, his voice was hoarse, but blissfully clear of tears.

"You chose me."

Sarah nodded, though she knew it hadn't been a question.

Jareth continued, "For the mortals who have been to the Underground, there's always a choice after death. That choice is either immortal life in the Underground or the ability to travel on to whatever afterlife they believed in. And you chose the Underground."

"Yeah," Sarah said, "I figured I'd get too bored in Heaven."

Jareth laughed, "You most certainly would, precious," he buried his face in the crook between her neck and shoulder, inhaling deeply, "You could have gone anywhere else in Faerie, but you chose here. You chose me."

Sarah said nothing for a while, then spoke, "Dying helped me remember you. But it also freed me from everything that had pulled me back the last time."

Jareth's breath hitched.

"So you won't have to worry about me leaving again," Sarah said, "I'm not the girl I was before."

Slowly, a smirk grew on Jareth's face and he looked her up and down, "Oh I know, precious."

I'll paint you mornings of gold, I'll spin you valentine evenings.

The goblins didn't notice Time restarting at first, at least until all the weather that had accumulated around the edge of the time-spell decided to hit them all at once, but hey, that meant going inside and getting free beer. But the Labyrinth noticed, and as she settled back into her centuries long doze, her metaphysical psyche was tinged with the tiniest bit of smugness.