The Lost and The Lonely

Thank you to my reviewers and caughtinblackeyes for the poke needed to get me to update.. this has been sitting on my hard drive for a while with a few more chapters but don't expect an update until after christmas i'm re-editing this and going in a different direction than originally intended...


Chapter Three
The Tragedy

The book sat innocently in the middle of the small white vanity. Sarah stared at it from her position huddled against the head board of her bed. It hadn’t been there earlier when she had gotten home from school and decided to take a nap. She worriedly looked to the door of her room but the lock was still turned. Her eyes darted back to the book as if expecting it to move in the half second it took to check the door. She didn’t know what was going on but in the weeks since leaving the Underground she had packed away several things that reminded her of her strange adventure.

The butterflies that multiplied in her stomach and threatened to carry her off at the sight of the music box had made her decision easy. The small dancing lady was packed away right on top of the tissue wrapped red leather bound book, or at least it had been. This was the third time the book had mysteriously appeared on her vanity the last time she had really flipped out and accused Karen of snooping through her room. This time the locked door made her blood run cold, Karen had been telling the truth.

’Oh Gods, I thought it was over! I thought I was finished with the Underground.’
Dread filled her with her next thought. Would she have to give up her last link to the Underground? ’No, don’t tell me I have to give up my friends too! It’s not fair!’

’One wonder’s what your bas..’

’No Sari, don’t think about him! Concentrate on the book.’ She admonished herself as his voice came back to haunt her. So often in the last few weeks his voice drifted across her thought. She just wanted it to stop. Why, why did he haunt her so. The end of the year dance was coming up and several of her guy friends had asked her to go with them , but every time she thought of going something in side her chest began to ache. She put her hand on her chest, over her heart, just thinking about him brought on the dull ache. Jareth. Even his name was sexy.

She had spent the night with her friend Genie one Saturday night and they had watched a movie with a sexy scene in it and Sarah had automatically put Jareth in the role. She’d had her first erotic dream that night. She had been so embarrassed in the morning when Genie had brought it up. She said Sarah had been moaning in her sleep. Of course Genie had taken to teasing her about it until she saw how serious Sarah was taking it, then she admitted to having masturbated for a while now. They had spent the rest of the day, until Sarah had left to go home, talking about sex. Sarah felt much more educated now and just knowing she had a friend to talk to about these disturbing dreams made her feel better. It made her feel more normal but of course she hadn’t told Genie that the guy she was lusting over just happened to be the Goblin King.

Sounds from downstairs brought her mind back to the present. The book was still sitting there so innocently, she sighed and slowly stood and walked over to it. She would ask Hoggle about it later she decided as she reached for the book to put it into the top drawer of her vanity. She usually called on him after dinner, it could wait until then. As she slid her hands away from the book she felt a strange warmth enter her hands. Before she could snatch her hands away the warmth spread up her arms. She gasped and took several steps back until the back of her knees hit her bed where she fell ungracefully and slid down to the floor. Her eyes never left the drawer where the book now resided.

The warmth moved up her arms and into her chest. It spread down the rest of her body and her skin began to tingle in a pleasantly distracting way. Her breathing hitched as she tore her eyes away from the open drawer to stare down at her hands. They looked perfectly normal as she open and closed them, but they felt, She felt, strangely energized. Sarah swallowed hard as she took stock of what she was feeling.

Her heart was racing, but that could be from the shock. Her breathing was too rapid, again that could be from simple shock. Other than feeling like she had just drunk a gallon of coffee she realized that she felt better than she had in weeks. The worn out exhaustive feeling that she had been battling since returning from the long trek of the Labyrinth was finally gone. She put her hand to her head like she thought it would feel different with the every increasing headache gone. She stood back up and walked slowly back to her vanity.

“Sarah! I’ve been calling you! Get down stairs now, something’s happened!” Karen’s screeching voice called through the door.

“Huh? Wha?” Sarah shook her head and looked to the door. Karen sounded panicked. Something had happened. ’Gods no, Toby!’

*

Sarah sat on her bed staring off into space thinking of all the changes that had taken place in the last few days. She was holding Toby’s candy-striped night hat in clutched in one hand over her heart and the Labyrinth book over that in the other. Grief welled up in her but she didn’t cry. Couldn’t cry. All of her tears had been spent earlier at the funerals. Her father, the only constant in her life and her little brother, the little goblin she had only just discovered her love for, dead. Killed in a freak accident.

Robert and Toby Williams shot, dead, in a convenience store robbery gone horribly, terribly wrong. They had been there for butter of all things, for the dinner rolls. Robert, her father, her rock, for so long it had been just the two of them, gone. Toby, her brother, colicky bawling little snot, so innocent, so blameless, gone. Over and over her mind repeated the same thing, different phrases of the same thought. Gone, gone, all gone.

Everyone she cared for and that had cared for her, Gone. Buried. Six feet under. She shuddered at the remembrance of the dirt hitting the small, her breath hitched, so tiny, coffin.

She was so cold, not even the warmth suffusing her from the book could warm her anymore. It tried, it almost felt caring at times but now the warmth just settled low in her stomach, as if it could keep the core of her warm maybe she wouldn’t be so numb. The last few days the book had been her only source of comfort. She hadn’t even called to Hoggle. Didn’t know how to tell him without saying the words. She couldn’t say the words, it would make it to real. But it was real, she blinked hard at the sight in her mind. That tiny silver coffin lowering into the ground. The soft strains of Amazing Grace being sung in the background. Real. Too Real. A tear ran down her cheek, she refused to wipe it away.

It was real. They were dead, who would hug her now? Her father was gone. Who would she hug? Toby was gone. How desperately she wanted a hug right now. Hoggle would hug her, and she could bury her face in Ludo’s big chest, he would hug her. Softly she whispered the words as she finally focused her gaze up at the mirror.

“Hoggle, Ludo, I need you.”

*

Jareth sat at the big stone table surrounded by advisors and representatives from all over his kingdom. They had been at this for days, arguing amongst themselves. He couldn’t quite figure why he was there other than Zekiel had he had needed to make an appearance. He thought back to that conversation.

“The people are worried Jareth. With the fall of the Labyrinth they no longer feel safe. Your presence alone will comfort them. Show them you aren’t dying, that you are still strong. Still the King they all know and love to hate!”

And so he had showed. He was tired though and the ever increasing throbbing in his head was getting harder to ignore. He wasn’t prepared for it when the bond pulled at him. Luckily all of his training from the High Court came naturally after all these years. His face showed no emotion other than a narrowing of his eyes. Grief threatened to overwhelm him. Not his own grief but hers. Sarah. She was grieving like he had never witnessed before. Plenty of people had cried in his presence before, when you were King you had the unfortunate job of not only ordering others into battle but sometimes of informing loved ones of the loss of those soldiers. Or ordering others to be put to death, loved ones would threaten and beg and finally grieve when he couldn’t be swayed in his decisions but never had he been witness to this consuming dark well of sorrow.

He motioned to the others around the table for silence.

“We will break here for luncheon, we will meet back here in two hours. You are dismissed,” he then turned to a small page waiting by the door. “Fetch my brother to me, now.”

Several minutes later the room was empty of all save the King. Zekiel entered and took the seat next to Jareth, whose face was covered with one leather gloved hand, massaging his temples.

“What progress on the book?” Jareth asked through gritted teeth.

“I have found the link, finally, but I’ve been unable to stem the flow of magic. I will need your help,” Zekiel studied his brother noting the pale complexion, well paler than usual. “Brother, are you alright? What has happened?”

“Something is wrong, I don‘t know what. I’ll be alright in a moment,” he sighed. His voice was strained with the effort to control sort through his emotions. He had to find a way to contain what he felt from her if he wanted to function in his normal capacity.

Zekiel sat back and cursed to himself. There was more to this than Jareth had said, he was sure. He knew whatever it was that Jareth was withholding from him was going to be an even bigger mess than this thing with the book. He cursed again and shot Jareth a defiant look as the King narrowed his eyes and him. Well if this is how Jareth wanted to play it he had no choice but to accept the king’s silence. He was frustrated because until then he had no clue how to help his King.

*

“Sarah, what is it? Tell Hoggle what’s wrong,” Hoggle patted the crying girl on the back. Like every other male in the known universe he was unable to deal with a crying female.

“M-my father, and my brother,” she sobbed.

“Sarah sad,” Ludo intoned from behind her.

She threw herself into the large furry arms and continued to sob.

“Oh dear!” Hoggle finally realized nothing short of death could have driven his Sarah into this state.

The two friends sat on the small bed cuddled together offering comfort to their human.

The shadows in the room grew longer but neither cared. Hoggle had been spraying fairy’s on the Eastern wall when she called. Jareth had thankfully been ignoring him since all of this had happened. The King had never really taken the time to notice a lowly dwarf like him before Sarah. Now, thankfully, with all that was happening to the Labyrinth the King was much to busy.

“Sarah, sweetling, you come home with me tonight. Ludo will stay. Y-you shouldn’t be alone right now. No, no you need your friends,” Hoggle mumbled on as he puttered around and grabbed a few of the things he had seen Sarah use getting ready for bed at night. He had come to love this human as he would’ve his own child if his missus hadn’t died in the attempt.

“Sarah come.” Ludo cooed into her hair as she nodded.

Sarah just didn’t want to be here anymore. There was nothing left here for her. If she stayed Karen would send her to live with her mother and her mother wanted her even less than Karen did. The last place she had been really happy was in the Underground. And if she wasn’t running against a clock in the Great Maze she just might grow to love it.

Hoggle and Ludo exchanged a telling gaze as both creatures vowed to keep the human girl away from their King. Hoggle lived on the northwestern edge of the Goblin Kingdom not far from a human village. If he could keep her from the village for a while she need never know how her defeat of the Labyrinth was causing it’s destruction. Gazing at his girl’s grief stricken form huddled against the gentle beast he didn’t think that would be a problem. He sighed and transported them all back to his home.

tbc