Work Text:
Title: "Love's Royal Flourish"
Author: Kat Lee
Dedicated To: With endless love to my Queen Cindy, the most gorgeous Queen who's ever lived, who broke my heart with her death -- I love you, my darling girl, and I will miss you forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rating: PG/K+
Summary: Sarah's ready.
Disclaimer: All recognizable characters, names, codenames, places, items, fandoms, titles, and etc. are always © & TM their respective owners, not the author, and are used without permission. Any and all original characters and everything else is © & TM the author and may not be reproduced in any way without the author's express, written permission. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
She had buried all but one in her family before he had come for her again. Her father had been the first one whom she had had to lay into the cold, hard ground. Her stepmother had not tarried long in the world without him, but she had survived long enough that she and Sarah had at last been able to make their peace together. But this, this was the hardest of them all.
She stood by her brother's casket long after all the other faces in their lives had left, all but the one that had not appeared. She did not think he would show. It was not for him that she lingered. She lingered, instead, just to be close to Toby again, to feel his cold, pale, and lifeless fingers underneath her own.
She clutched at his hands as the lights in the morgue began to dim. She held tighter to his casket with her other hand when she heard the telltale sounds of little feet beginning to scamper closer. She felt, rather than saw, their King's approach, and when Jareth stood in all his magnificent glory directly behind her, she still did not turn to look upon him.
She knew exactly what she would see: the most handsome and sensual man ever to walk any universe, the man who had haunted her every dream from the moment she had flown, with him, out of his kingdom with her brother, the man whom she had secretly loved all this time and whose handsome face had been so crest-fallen when she had lied to him about their love to save their brother that Sarah had felt as though a part of her own soul had died then. She had waited for him, hoping foolishly and believing all the while that he would never come to her again, that she would never again be given the chance to love him as she'd wanted to all those years before, when she'd been only a mere slip of a girl, that she would die without ever feeling his touch once more.
He was here with her at last, and yet, still, she stood with her back cold and rigid to him. She clung to her brother's hand, bent her head, and kissed his corpse's fingers. "He's here now, Toby," she whispered to him. "He came."
Jareth had reached for her, but when she whispered those words to her brother's still and lifeless form, his fingers stopped just short of touching her shoulder. "Sarah." His voice was strangled with all the dark and depressing emotions within him himself. He had known she was hurting, had known even before he'd looked into his crystal ball back inside of his labyrinth that something terrible had happened to her brother, the only being she held with more love than he himself.
If only there had been a way for them before without her having to lose her brother, they never would have parted. If only he hadn't needed the child so badly to escape his labyrinth, she would have loved him freely even then. If only they were not cursed to be in two different worlds, until now, they could have been together all this time, and then . . . Perhaps then, he could have saved her from this pain.
But no, the King thought dismally, there was no way to save her from this. Death came for every one in time; it had come for Toby at last. Even with all the power he wielded, the power to conquer worlds, to be and do anything he chose, to make mere mortals die with fright with but one look, he could not have saved the child, not unless he had chosen to stay with him all those years ago. But he had not. She had not, and now finally, what had to come to pass had done so.
"You can do it, can't you?" she whispered urgently, tears filling her dark eyes. She trembled slightly before him, not from his power or from the undeniable pull between them. She trembled, he knew, from fear caused by what had already happened. "You can save him? Make him a Goblin or . . . or whatever?" She shook before him, and his valiant heart melted all over again in the sight of her fragile beauty.
"Ah, Sarah," he breathed. She turned to him; their eyes met. He quaked inside. How could he tell her, when she loved him so and had such belief in him, that there was nothing he or any one else could do now to save the being who mattered most in all the worlds to her? How could he hurt her even more than she was already hurting now? How could he vanquish her one last shred of hope?
"Sarah," he spoke her name again, holding out his hands before him. He had never felt so helpless in all of his existence.
But thank whatever God chose to show them the smallest slip of mercy, she understood without his having to speak another word. She understood, and with a loud sob that wrenched not only his heart but the hearts of all his subjects nearby (Jareth could always tell when his people hurt even when they spoke not a word and meant no more to him than Hogwart), she rushed into his waiting arms. The impact of her body flying to his made him rock back on the high heels of his black, leather boots, but then Jareth caught himself and her in the same moment.
He held to her tightly, stroking her hair and back. He rocked her gently. He kissed her hair and promised not things he could not deliver but that this would be the last moment she would ever hurt. Her heart would never break again; he would see to it personally, now that she was able to love him freely at last.
"Take me away," she whispered as his Goblins made strange sounds. If she heard them, she showed no sign, and he was glad of that for concern her human ears might mistake their sounds for laughter. It was a strange sort of hissing noise that they were making, but Jareth knew it was no laughter. He had taught his subjects better than to laugh when some one for whom they all cared was hurting.
They cried instead as they wrapped the boy who could have been his successor in their dark magics. They would keep the lad forever so that Sarah could look upon him whenever she chose, but they could not bring him back to life. Such a feat was even beyond their powerful magics.
"Jareth?" Sarah whispered urgingly, her forehead pressed against his long, pale throat. He held her closer and, once he made sure her brother was well taken care of, he twirled his thick cloak, created in a shade of purple so dark and royal that it appeared almost black, around them both. The mortal world which had hurt Sarah so grievously slowly melted away beneath them. She would never feel its pain and agony again.
As they reemerged into his own kingdom, Jareth made another silent vow, much akin to the one he'd made just a handful of years before when he had allowed her to walk away from him and back into a world which he had known, even then, held only pain for her. He vowed once more that he would keep her safe, but this time, too, he promised that she would never feel another moment of sorrow from hereon. He would keep her safe, happy, and loved. He would give her all that he possessed, all that she could ever want save the return of her once happy family. He would give her a new family too, one that was happier and stronger and loved even better than the first.
He held her close against him and gently, almost reverently, kissed his crying love's forehead. It would all have to wait, he knew. It would have to wait until she was better, until she had finally stopped crying the tears she now believed would never cease to flow, until she was ready to accept all that he had to offer. He felt his loyal subjects closing in around them again, saw Hoggle's mouth move in words he wished to voice but they all knew Sarah was not yet ready to hear. "Welcome home, Sarah."
For the first time since he had known him, Jareth inclined his head in a nod of respect and approval to the little, smelly Dwarf. The old thing looked at him in shock, but then Jareth closed his eyes and hugged Sarah again. She wasn't ready to hear it, but she was home at last. She was home, and she would never hurt again.
He would make certain of it, just as his magics now reached back to her old home and closed her life there. Her courageous heart beat strongly against his chest as he made a glamour back in the morgue. The funeral director would find her laying on the floor beside her brother's coffin. The doctors of her old world would rule that she had died from a heart attack. Her life there was now, Jareth thought with bittersweet glee, officially closed. Now, she could rule beside him forever more, and now, too, once she had stopped crying and put her brother's death as well behind her as such a thing could ever go . . . Now, she would never feel anything new except for joy, happiness, and loving for she was his and he always cherished all that was his, though none more so than this love she held for him and he returned for her, this love for which they had both waited a lifetime and, unlike her parents and her brother, unlike all the inferior loves she had felt before, would never, ever die and forever more bring her the pleasure that a Queen, his Queen, should know.
The End