What Dreams May Come

I  do not own Labyrinth in any way...  I wish
Jareth would give me my dreams and let me own him. :)

What Dreams May Come

Chapter  1

The sun was just setting as Sarah Williams pulled
her truck into the driveway, tapping the garage door remote clipped to the visor
above her head.  Her head swayed in time with the song playing on the radio as
she sang along, doing a female’s rendition

“Dream walkin', pillow talkin', he's callin' my
name again

Day's breakin' I ain't wakin' up, I'm sleepin' in,

I'm on a roll now, gotta know how this dream
ends.”

She turned off the truck as the last of the song
faded out, popping the bed liner lid with the inside switch. She turned off the
lights and tapped the remote to close the garage with one hand as she opened the
door with the other.  She went to the back of the truck and pulled out a bag of
groceries, her purse and portfolio.  Holding the bag of groceries on one knee,
she closed the lid and headed toward the door of her small cottage through the
thickening darkness of the late October evening. 

She paused at the door struggling one handed with
her keys, as she flipped them this way and that to disentangle the many key
chains that hung together upon the rings.  With a muttered curse, she finally
freed the key she wanted and opened the door with a click. 

Once through the door she dropped everything
heavily on the counter and let out a sigh as she kicked off her pumps at the
door.  Home, finally.  As much as she hated to admit with each year that passed
she was becoming more of a homebody.  She adored the peace that surrounded this
cottage, nestled in the Appalachian Mountains.  Fortunately, these days, she
could and did her work from home, unless she HAD to go to Louisville to see her
agent. 

There was an otherworldly charm here that allowed
her a sense of wondnd gnd gave her a sense of freedom.  She could dream here,
allow her fantasies to come to life.  It gave her inspiration, and kept her from
losing her child’s heart.  This place freed her somehow and brought her work to
life.

She unbuttoned her jacket as she moved into the
room, flipping on the light over the cook top as she passed it.  It was enough
light to see by.  She threw the jacket onto the back of a chair a few feet
away.  ng bng back to the bag of groceries she quickly emptied it into the
refrigerator and pulled out a cold wine cooler. 

Picking up her portfolio she went to the living
room and literally dropped into a chair, spilling some of the cooler on the
upholstery.  The edges of her lips quirked up into a mischievous grin, alcohol
abuse.

 “Ah me girlie, with a last name of Williams
thet’s gotta be a sin.” 

She leaned her head back as she dropped the
portfolio into her lap and rubbed her aching neck muscles.  As much as she loved
kids, the book signings could be draining.  But it was their enthusiasm, their
belief, the shining innocence in their eyes that gave her energy.  To bring even
one of them closer to the real truths of the world: that good should always
triumph evil, that love should always be true, that dreams are worth fighting
for, made her feel as close to complete as she’d ever get.

She straightened again, and looked down at the
portfolio in her lap.  She had to look them over tonight, these final proofs for
her latest book, “Sir Didymus Saves the Day”.   She pulled the sheets out of the
case with a gentle care.  As she flipped through the pages, she thought of her
friends Underground. 

As she’d grown older, she’d slowly lost the
ability to call them to her.  The onset of adulthood and responsibility had
slowly taken them from her.  Karen had talked her father into kicking her out
soon after her 16^th birthday.  She’d taken a job and gotten a studio
apartment.  She quit school and started working full time just to pay her
bills.  The child she’d fought so very hard to save, no longer knew she
existed.  She took the test for her GED the same day that her classmates
graduated from high school.

As the responsibilities piled up, her ability to
talk to her friends Underground dwindled.  But, she never lost her ability to
dream.  In fact, it was her dreams that got her where she was today, that and
her Grandmother’s love. 

“Granny” Williams had been one hell of a lady. 
She’d been known by everyone in this sleepy Eastern Kentucky town. She had been
something of a mountain herb witch.  People were as likely to come and see her
with a sick child as they were a doctor.  She’d been a feisty old lady.  She had
been brutally honest; her temper could be kindled and burned out in the space of
a minute. 

When she’d found out Sarah had been kicked out and
was living on her own, she’d come to Connecticut and brought her here.  She, who
had never set foot outside Pike County, Kentucky, got in her truck and drove to
Connecticut only to have a fight on her hands the moment she arrived.  Sarah had
argued that she was fine.  The woman had just looked at her, a strange light in
her eyes.  “No arguin’ Sarah, you’re comin’ home with me.”  The argument had
ended.  When Granny Williams made up her mind, you were done for.

When she died, just over a year ago, she’d left
everything she owned to Sarah.  This cottage, a hundred acres of prime
timberland, and a wide knowledge of folklore and history were passed to Sarah as
they had been from her Grandmother’s own father.  Most people don’t know it, but
Eastern Kentucky is steeped in beliefs of the Old Country.  The belief in the
ways of magick and of the Fair folk is almost a racial memory there.  It’s
stirred easily. 

While the people may be Christian, they are
Christian with an almost pagan attitude on life.  There is a deep belief in
family, honor, and honesty.  But more importantly, at least in Sarah’s mind, was
their ability to dream, to believe, to not think that all there was ever going
to be in this life was another day in the dark coal mines where they made their
living.

She’d had had vivid dreams for what now seems like
forever.  They’d started after the night she’d gone Underground.  She could see
the destruction she’d caused at her leaving.  It seemed theyrinyrinth itself had
heaved and broken.  She had been so ashamed.  Every night she slept and every
night she dreamed of him, watching him as though watching through one of those
crystals he used to enhance his magic.  The curse the labyrinth, itself, laid
upon her as the magicks around it crumbled at Jareth’s defeat, to have to see
him forever in her dreams but never be able to touch him.

Sarah moved to her work room upstairs. It was a
large open loft area with nothing blocking a view to below, scribblings and
sketches pinned to the walls, some decorating the floor.  The moon outside was
rising, its light poured in through the large unobstructed windows of this
room.  She sat down and began to sketch, sitting the wine cooler on the table
beside her.  Not Hoggle, or Didymus, not Ludo or the fierys, but Jareth, the
Goblin King. 

The Sidhe were hard to draw, but satisfying.  They
had so many subtle features that had to be brought out.  A perfect tilt of the
head, a wing-like angling of the eyebrows, a certain hardness about the eyes,
but yet a mirth deep within that you will miss if you are not watching to see
it.  Jareth is especially hard to draw, for each action holds a secret, each
hard look a heart break.  But she knew his face, his hands, the tilt of the head
like no other.  He was the first thing that she had seen upon falling into dream
every night since she was fifteen. 

She drew his face, his hair, that strong nose,
those cold, mismatched eyes, his hands covered with their black leather gloves.
  She set a knowing smirk upon his impudent lips.  He stood holding a feathered
mask in one hand and a glass of wine in the other, watching the dancers at a
ball.  The longer she drew, the more enraptured she became.  When she finally
looked up, to view the large clock on the living room wall it read 13:30. 

She smiled tiredly at the clock, remembering her
decision to have it made.  The day in this house was 26 hours long.  It was a
replica of the one that Jareth had used at the beginning of her 13 hour
adventure there, well, twelve really since he’d taken an hour away.  It kept her
grounded in the world that she wanted to exist within these four walls. 

Funny, how twelve hours could change your whole
life, your whole being for that matter.   It was more than time for bed, she was
getting maudlin, and she never wanted her friends in Underground to see her
sad.  She’d made a point to make sure they only saw her happy, happy to be with
them, happy to be in their lives, happy to share her dreams with them.

She moved through her nightly routine,
haphazardly. She brushed her teeth as she combed out her hair.  She hopped on
one foot as she struggled out of her pants and then slid her silk shell over her
head. She changed into a pair of knit shorts and a battered flannel shirt that
was three sizes too big.  She crawled into bed, stretching one last time before
she pulled Lancelot into a loose embrace and drifted to slumber to dream.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The sight that met her when she reached
underground was one she was not ready for.  The images in her mind’s eye were
almost more than she could take.  She slept fitfully, trying to decide whether
to run or stay. 

The city around Jareth’s castle lay burning.  It
lit up the sky like nothing she’d seen in Underground before.  A riot of
monstrous creatures ran the streets, eating anything that stood in their paths.
 She ran through the castle doors to find Jareth lying on the floor in the
throne room, unmoving.  A man in black armor was towering over him. She could
feel the layers of protection that Jareth had wrapped around himself being
stripped away.  She could feel his magic being drained from him

“Jareth,” she moaned softly, the word drifting to
the edges of her room.

The pain was agonizing.  She couldn’t stand it
anymore she had to do something.  It felt like the layers of her skin were being
peeled away.  In a way, it was.  The tie, her link to him, forged by the
Labyrinth in those last moments, was buried deep beneath these protections. 
Buried so deeply in fact, that she doubted he was even aware. She could feel him
on some level that she had never really understood.

She had not known during her time Underground what
a truly complicated man he was.  She did not have a chance to gaze at all his
different sides, she’d seen only what he wanted her to see.   But through her
dreams, she’d seen all his sides.  She’d even seen him gazing at her through one
of his crystals, as she slept.  But, that had only happened once.  He’d thrown
the crystal against the wall after a moment with such wrath that she’d woken up
screaming. 

She’d been lost to him from the first dream.  It
happened the same night she’d defeated him, no, not him, his labyrinth.  She
would never believe that she, a simple mortal girl, could have defeated someone
like he had proven himself to be.  If he had made a single mistake at all, it
had been to force her to choose between her brother and himself.  Had he offered
to release the boy in return for her staying forever, she’d have never
challenged him.

She’d been lost to him to the point that she
wanted no one else, and had never made a particular effort to find someone. 
Sure she’d dated like all teens do.  She’d even gotten serious with a couple of
those guys.  She’d tried to break the Underground’s hold upon her.  She fought
the dreams, she taught herself to get by on sleep with no dreams.  For brief
amounts of time, she would wake herself just as a dream cycle began.

Not dreaming is dangerous to the human psyche.  If
done over long periods of time, it can lead to psychosis.  She was never able to
continue it long enough to cause lasting damage. Always, just as she thought she
might have gained her freedom from Underground, it would reassert its grip over
her, over her dreams.  Whomever the unfortunate man in her life was, would
vanish within the week. 

Even now at age 21, she went out only when she had
to, and came home as soon as possible.  Over the time that she wasn’t writing or
drawing, she was sleeping and watching, learning to control the dreams so that
she could in a fashion still visit her friends.   She visited them faithfully at
least once a week. But normally, she spent her days watching him.  Watching,
learning….obsessing.  The dreams had become her life.  She lived in them to the
exclusion of eating, of socializing… of living any kind of normal life.

She’d watched his world crumble and hisnfulnful
rebuilding of it.  She’d helped the only way she’d known how.  Through her
stories, she’d brought a new generation to knowledge of Underground.  She’d
brought belief, if only through the children her stories touched.  Their belief
added to the healing of his city, his Labyrinth.  While she held a joy in
knowing that the children she touched were learning the real values of life as
she knew them, she also knew that she was aiding him, even if he never knew the
truth.  That was the true happiness that she received, knowing that life
Underground was flourishing again.

She’d watcthrothrough her dreams.  She’d watched
as he seemed to get his life back on track.  He regained his honor, his pride. 
He had whole platoons of women to choose from, throwing themselves at him.  She
watched him bed them and leave them, ripping a whole in her heart each time he
kissed them, caressed them, made love to them.  What she never understood is why
he never kept one of them.  There were a few she had thought he could make it
with.  But he never gave them a chance.  He seemed to have some bar that he
measured them by and not one ever attained its height. 

And now six years later, she lay here in a dream,
watching his world crumble again.  Everything he gained was falling to ruin. 
She could not allow it.  She had to stop it.  She had to stop this monster that
was slowly killing him, but she didn’t know how.  She’d never been able to truly
interact in her dreams, at least not physically.  She could form a misty version
of herself, and talk to the inhabitants of the Labyrinth. But she couldn’t touch
them or hug them…or save them.  There had to be a way…there had to be.

She felt his last protection spell give way and
she watched the man in the black armor raise his sword.

“Noooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!”  Her mind screamed
agonizing in the pain she only now felt emanating from him. 

She’d watched him too long, loved him too long,
even if only from afar to watch him be killed.  She reached with all her power
and all her strength.  She placed her mental hands on his shoulders and with
every ounce of strength she had she pulled.  She watched as the sword made its
cascading arc downward toward his chest and pulled even harder.  Just as it
touched his chest, Jareth’s body vanished.

She had him.  “Come on Jareth.  Come to me.  Don’t
fight me.  I can’t lose you here in the space between.” She mumbled to herself,
still fully locked in her dream.  It was as though she’d separated her mind one
part moving Jareth, one part holding the dream.  As she towed Jareth closer, she
watched the knight in Jareth’s Castle begin to curse.  She was going to have to
wake up as soon as Jareth got to Aboveground with her, but she wanted, needed to
see what action this creature would take next.  She had to be alert to the
possibility that he might trace Jareth to her. 

Not that she had a clue what she’d do if he did
come after her.  She’d never had a need to test what she could do while
dreaming.  And she had no power at all awake.  This disbelieving world outside
these walls was too much for high magical powers, unless one was purely a
creature of magic, as Jareth and all his kind were.  Even here, in this
superstitious landscape she resided in, there was only enough belief for little
magicks.  She had no idea of how she was doing what she was doing right now as a
matter of fact.  All she could do was believe, believe that she could bring him
out of the mists and into her home, safe, or at least safer, than he was in
Underground.

She woke at the last possible second, as she felt
him enter her world. A sharp breeze came crashing around the house, shaking it
to the very foundations.  She heard him land roughly on her couch. 

“Damn!”  Why did she have to be so clumsy?  She
tore out of her bed, grabbing her robe as she ran into the living room, finally
succeeding in pulling on her robe as she stopped stunned at the sight before
her.  She moved to him quickly, but quietly. 

She bent over the man that had been so
unceremoniously dumped on her couch, gently and carefully laying a hand on his
head,    He was out cold and running a fever if Fae body temperature was
supposed to run like a humans.  He was shivering violently. 

“Why the hell did I wait so long?”  She whispered
quietly to herself.

“How were you supposed to know that you could do
this?  Her reasonable side responded.

“I should have known, that’s the point!”  The more
guilty side retorted.

While second guessing herself mentally, she was
moving between the rooms.  She pulled out a small first aid kit from beneath the
sink and a blanket from the bedroom.  She grabbed a couple of dishtowels from
the sink, soaking one down with hot water the other with cold.  She went back to
the living room. 

She placed the cold cloth on his forehead, and
covered him with the blanket, moving it back and forth when she needed to clean
a wound or bandage one.  Her couch was soaked in blood, there were puddles of it
on the floor.  She almost gave into despair.  And then, she straightened her
shoulders, determined that she could save him, she set to her task.

She looked up only occasionally as she worked on
his wounds, checking only to make sure that his chest was still rising and
falling.  She removed his armor, carefully loosening the straps that held it to
his body and then cut his clothes away from his body rather than try to disrobe
him and possibly injure him further.  She tried to ignore the amount of blood
she was washing off of him.  She had finally just gone and gotten a bowl of
water instead of constantly getting up to rinse the towel she bathed him with. 
She bandaged his injuries, using butterfly bandages to try to close the worst of
his wounds.  She worked feverishly, thinking only that she had to work faster
and faster to keep his very life from draining out of him.

Finally she could do no more.  She looked up at
the clock and then out the window to see a new day dawning.  She’d been at this
for hours. It was only now that she felt she could possibly move him.  First she
wiped up the blood from the floor. She gently placed him upon the wood floor
then she threw the destroyed cushions behind the couch.  She pulled out her
spare bed and then carefully brought him back up onto it.  She went and got
another blanket then placed it over him.  She went to the kitchen for another
bowl and filled it with cold water and placed another cool compress upon his
forehead.  A wave of exhaustion took her and pulled her down into the darkness
even as she heard the bowl she’d been holding crash to the floor as it slipped
from her grip.  She crumpled to the floor next to where he lay.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Gregori cursed as Jareth’s body vanished from in
front of him.  How had he summoned the strength for that?  It should not have
been possible. Daanna was not going to be pleased.  His curses strengthened and
then silenced as he head the doors of the throne room open behind him.  He
turned, slowly, removing his helm and bowed, with a grace that should not have
possible while encased in armor, to the woman entering the room.

“Daanna.”  He spoke as he rose from his bow.  He
watched her walk toward him, her brocade skirts lifted so as to not drag their
lace hems in the blood that covered the floor.  She walked over the goblin’s
bodies gracefully as she moved to him.  She lowered her eyes and gave him a
small flirtatious smile.

“Have you a gift for me, my Lord?”  She raised her
eyes as she approached him, bringing her hands to rest on the front of his blood
drenched armor.

“Have I not given you enough, my Lady?  You have
an entire kingdom at your disposal.”  Gregori responded, looking into her deep
blue eyes.  He reached out to touch her midnight tresses.  She might be mortal,
but she was lovely, so lovely.  He watched as her eyes narrowed and became
harder.  She was even lovelier when she was angry.

“What of its King, my Lord?”  Her voice was
harder, a bit louder.  “You promised me his heart… still beating in my hands.”

It would seem that we underestimated him, Daanna. 
He vanished away at the last possible moment.  I have no idea how.  He should
have had no strength left to him.  I stripped everything away.  Yet, somehow, he
pulled enough together to do a Vanishing.” 

Daana’s eyes turned cold as he spoke.  “You failed
me.”

Gregori pulled her roughly to him.  “I did not
fail you.  I have given you everything that was his.  We have his kingdom, his
title.  We, together, will rule his lands.  Using the power that lies within the
Labyrinth, we can gain more strength and more lands.  In truth, we have
committed an act that was far more successful than killing him would have been
and far more satisfying.  This place was his strength.  It is ours now to
command. If he lives, which I doubt, he can only watch as we rule.”

“I wanted his heart.”  Daanna whispered into the
vaults of her own mind.  “Explain to me what happened.” She said forcefully. 
“Perhaps you missed something.  Your attentions were focused solely on the task
at hand.  Perhaps there is something else.”

Gregori looked down at her, passion burning in his
eyes.  The battle had aroused him as nothing else ever could.  “Explanations can
wait.”  He took her lips roughly, even while sliding one hand beneath her legs
and pulling her up to him.

She responded to his kiss, the look in his eyes
burning through her.  He was right.  Explanations could wait.  She wrapped her
fingers into his blonde tresses, reveling in the feel of the blood in his hair. 
He was walking now.  She whispered directions to the royal bed chamber and then
took his lips in another kiss that grew more heated with each step they took.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*'spa/span>

Jareth awakened as the sun passed its zenith and
managed to hit him full in the eyes where he lay.  He started as he woke,
groaning loudly, his body screaming with pain.  He opened his eyes slowly, in
case he had watchers.  This did not seem to be a prison.  Looking around a bit
more fully, he took in the room where he lay.  There was a large stone fire
place to his right with a very large sward hanging above the mantelpiece.  The
blade radiated the chill of Cold Iron.  To his left, there was a small table and
chairs and another room beyond.  In front of him, a chair and a large book case
with two doorways, one to either side.  One seemed to lead up to the room he
could see above, the other to another room.

He sat up slowly, catching cloth as it fell from
his head.  He started to move off the bed, swinging his legs out from beneath
the blanket covering him.  He looked down to place his feet, stopping them just
before he slammed into the girl lying on the floor below him and the glass where
she lay.   “A mortal girl?”  His quiet voice seemed to reverberate in the
silence of the room.

How had he gotten here?  He closed his eyes as a
wave of dizziness struck him.  He had been fighting the Bane Sidhe and his
army.  But, his goblins had been no match for the other Sidhe’s trolls and
redcaps.  By the time their leader had reached his castle, he had been drained
to the core by a battle of magicks instigated by someone be the the walls.  He
had fought still, paying no heed to each hit the other made, and then there had
been darkness, darkness and pain.  He remembered nothing else.  Somehow he had
gotten here, Aboveground, with her.  He let out a quivering sigh as he moved to
the other side of the bed and slid off of it, only then realizing that he was
covered with Aboveground bandages, anry lry little else.  His clothing had been
cut away and he was left with just was required for decency.

Jareth stood for a long moment, willing his legs
and body to cooperate as he started to move around the bed to where the girl
lay.  He looked down at the girl with a cross of confusion and irritation on his
face.  The confusion for how he had gotten here, the irritation for the fact
that she had seen him weak.  She must have called upon him to take away a child
or herself and the Labyrinth had answered her call, when he had not done so
himself.  The call may have been what saved his life, but he had hardly crossed
to Aboveground as the Goblin King, creature of fear and legend.  He tried not to
look at her at all as he bent and lifted her from the floor to the bed.

Her weight was slight.  A worried thought passed
through his mind.  ‘Was she unwell?”  This place where she lived was small and
seemed not to have much of value inside of it.  The sword on the mantle worried
him as well. ‘Does she have Fae enemies?’  He definitely did not need to be
involved in a dispute with another Fae for the girl.  If she belonged to
another, he could not take her or her child.  He reached out to pull her face
toward him once he got her settled on the bed, but pulled back quickly when he
met something wet and sticky on her face.   He reached again, this time touching
her chin and tilted her face toward him; a long gash lay across her cheek, the
glass from the floor still within it.  He gazed at the face his eyes widening. 
“Sarah.”

Without thinking about it, he took the rag that
had been in his hand and carefully brushed the glass from her wound, his mind
swirling with thoughts about the girl he tended.  His hands shook with
conflicting emotions.  She had grown into a beautiful woman.  She had denied
him.  Was she in trouble, is that why she called him?  Why should he help her
after the way she destroyed him before?  But overriding all of it, why the hell
did he care anyway?  She was mortal.  He was Sidhe.  They had played a game. 
She had won.  She went home, leaving him and Underground forever.

He carefully pushed all thought away, and schooled
his face into a semblance of calm.  He wrapped the blanket around him to
preserve some sense of propriety.  Then he leaned forward.  “Sarah.”

He spoke softly, his fingertips hovering just
above her face.  “Come on, girl, wake up for me.  Damn it, Sarah, wake up.”  His
voice took on a clipped edge that could be construed as arrogance…or worry.

His words were met with a fluttering of eyelids. 
Her eyes opened slowly, showed with sleep and confusion.  They widened as they
locked on his own mismatched eyes and held.  Jareth could feel the fear rolling
off of her in waves.  “Jareth?”  She breathed.

He pulled back, desperately trying to maintain
control against the onslaught of her emotions.  A quirky thought passed through
his mind.  ‘Well, at least she knows who I am.’   “That is Your Majesty, girl. 
I don’t remember ever being on a first name basis with you.”

Sarah’s eyes narrowed, he could feel her anger
rising.  “If you can call me Sarah, I will call you Jareth.”

A blood vessel in his jaw began to pulse as he
clamped his teeth together.  Sarah shook her head and held up both hands. 
“Never mind, it’s not worth an argument, your Majesty.”  A wave of concern
passed over him as Sarah looked at him, her eyes softening.  “Why are you up? 
You should be resting.  You’re still in pain.”

Finally, he could take no more.  Her emotions were
swinging so rapidly.  He couldn’t keep up and they were overwhelming his
senses.  He stood, then, and  walked away from the bed.  He brought himself to
his full height, the blanket slipping from his shoulders.  He turned back to
face her, his eyes cold and shuttered.  Sarah could feel a building cold rage
within him.  ‘Oh shit, here it comes.’

“What have you done to me?  Why am I here?!  Are
you aiding my enemies now, ting to overwhelm me with your petty mortal
emotions?  Then do you plan to kill me with your cold iron weapon?!”

Sarah cringed back, very nearly trying to crawl
into the back of the couch, as she watched infainfamous temper explode.

He moved faster than she could register and
suddenly he was standing there, his hand wrapped in her hair, pulling her face
back to force her to look into his eyes, the fear and confusion he felt
radiating from her fueling his rage.  He pulled harder.  “Stop it.  NOW! 
Sarah.  No more games.  You’ve been caught.”

Sarah whimpered.  This was not the Jareth she had
faced all those years ago.  His rage had been controlled.  This was the Jareth
she had seen only a few times over the past 6 years.  There was no sanity left
in his eyes.  She could almost feel the blood boiling inside his body.  Her fear
level went up a notch.  He’d kill her, without a doubt.

Jareth felt it as her fear spiked.  He had to get
control or he’d kill her.  Had to get control.  He needed answers.  But first he
needed to clear his head.  There was only one way his headld cld clear, she had
to be unconscious, unable to project.  He raised his hand to backhand her.

Sarah watches as he raised his hand to bring it
across her face.   It was coming with tremendous force.  With his strength,
powered by rage, he’d kill her.  That was her last thought as she blacked out,
fear overwhelming her entirely.

Jareth blinked as her eyes slid closed before his
hand touched her.  Her entire body went limp.  The emotional onslaught died away
as her eyes rolled back and slid shut.  His hand dropped her head.  He brought
to her face, allowing it to harmlessly brush her cheek. ‘What the…’  He ran his
long fingers through his hair as he looked at the girl lying before him.  What
had just happened?  Did she hate him this much?  He could feel his chest rising
and falling with ragged breathes.  None of this made sense.

He turned from her.  He had to get out of here. 
He raised his hand to summon a crystal.  He’d go back to Underground and regroup
there.  He looked at his hand and concentrated.  Nothing.  He tried again. 
Still nothing.  He stared at his hand; the entire world seemed to spin for a
moment.  Gone, his magic was gone.  He turned to face the girl lying on the bed.

“What the hell have you done to me?!”  He screamed
at her unconscious form.

He, of course, got no answer.