Easy Come, Hard to Go

AN: Ok… so now that things are getting back to normal around here, kinda, if things were ever normal around me, I might be able to continue writing this story damnit. I applaud those of you, if there are any left, which have been with me from the beginning. Those of you who are brand spanking new, well welcome to my carnival of chaos. Enjoy… Oh and nothing is mine, except what I have created… Oh and just in case some of you are wondering, they had me delete my other AN I had posted… That’s why this is 36… :)

Chapter 36

Happiness sometimes eludes even the best of people. She is a slippery little eel that makes her time worthwhile. It snakes its way around most of the world, dodging even the most noble of men when it wants to. It smiles on so very few, especially in times like this, which sometimes we don’t even know if it’s worth believing in. Hope seems to be the shining light that so few people grasp onto, that it is indeed a dying breed. But, even dying breeds have its days.

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

“What do you mean there is something wrong?” Toby looked from Owen to Jareth.

“There is no way to sugar coat such things Toby,” Owen regretfully replied, “there seems to be a problem with the baby.”

“But, she’s already been through so damn much.” Zach shook his head as he gripped Findore for support for them both.

“It’s,” Toby began.

“Definitely not fair,” Jareth sighed into the arms of Crystal.

“Is… is she, does she not have a chance?” Nerk asked appearing at Jareth’s side tears in his eyes.

“Now everyone, let’s not get too hasty with bad moods. Siress is a great man and doctor. Chloe will help in any way she can, and Sarah, well that’s enough said right there,” Crystal retorted, “Everyone just needs to calm down and relax. Just take a deep breath and we definitely aren’t doing any good waiting in the hallway. Our emotions will just add to the mess of things.”

“Crystal is right,” Owen nodded, “We should all go somewhere else. Maybe relax a little with some tea or something. Anywhere but here.”

“But,” Jareth began.

“But nothing,” Toby piped up to everyone’s surprise, “They are right Jareth. Let’s let them do what they are here for. Sarah will do the rest.”

The group nodded in reassurance and began the decent into the dining hall for some much needed relaxation. *Please, PLEASE, by the gods…* Jareth stopped and bowed his head. *Let them be ok…*

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

“Ok Chloe,” Siress said as he strapped the last strap of the heart monitor into the machine, “you can let her go now.”
Sarah lay on her back, not moving, strapped to a birthing bed. She was unconscious, but muttering in her sleep. A bite block in her mouth made most of the words she was muttering uncatchable, but ‘Jareth’ and ‘baby’ were said many times.
She tossed her head so violently, the whole bed shook.

“I think she’s going to have another one.” Chloe cried to Siress, who had left the bedside only a moment to check the monitor tape on the babies fading heartbeat.

“By the gods,” Siress shook his head in disbelief, “she’s going to stroke out if we can’t get her blood pressure under control.”

The pair watched in horror as her body racked in spasms, the bed shaking with such force that Siress called up metal legs for it to stand on with his magic. The vitals monitor screamed in distress as her heartbeat turned frantic and the oxygen in her blood dipped dangerously low. Then, as quick as it had started, the monitor went back to its rhythmic beating. Sarah’s body relaxed so much, the bite block slipped from her mouth.

“Her hearts still beating, I can hear it,” Chloe said in disbelief, “why is her body so relaxed?”

“I unfortunately do not have an answer for that Chloe.”

“She’s breathing perfect,” Chloe called from beside Sarah, watching her breaths being taken in and out, “she’s not even reacting to the contraction that is happening.”

Siress reached between Sarah’s legs and felt for her progress.

“She’s at six centimeters. She dilated two more in just twelve minutes,” Siress retracted his hand and stared at Chloe, “if she moves this fast, we will have a baby in mere hours.”

“Should I go get Jareth?” Chloe asked looking from the noble doctor to the sleeping beauty.

Siress shook his head. “She’s not stable. This may be a false alarm. Until we can get her awake and conscious, I don’t want him in here. He’s a walking bomb waiting for the right moment to go off right now.”

“So what do we do Siress?”

“I don’t know Chloe. We need to wait I guess.”

“But with the toxemia we don’t have that kind of time!” Chloe blurted out.

“There is nothing left to do Chloe!” Siress yelled. “She’s not responsive! Her vitals may look good, but her body is giving off that something is still very wrong! Don’t tell me you can’t sense it!”

“Of course I can!” Chloe yelled back. “It’s the baby! Gasping for air! While your ass sits around waiting for her to get responsive, their little lives hang in the balance!”

Siress looked up at Chloe.

“What?” She blushed a little. “I didn’t mean to yell, I’m just,”

“You said their, like as in two?”

Chloe looked at Sarah and back at Siress.

“You didn’t know?”

“Sarah never had an ultrasound. If there are two,” Siress began.

“What? I don’t get what you’re getting at.” Chloe looked at Siress is confusion.

“You only sense distress from one, correct?” Siress asked quietly, looking at Sarah for some sort of sign that she was
with them.

Chloe gasped. “You don’t think,”

“It is possible.” Siress said darkly. “She took the baby out when she was with Micheal. Her womb would have been able and ready. She was with him an awful long time and took a major beating.”

“But Siress, her body was pregnant the whole time. She was just covering it up with her magic. He couldn’t have gotten her pregnant again.” Chloe retorted.

Siress sighed. “Then maybe the gene was passed from Jareth. He was a twin himself. Good and Evil balance each other out,”

“But right now,” Sarah yelled from the table, “One is trying to rip the other one apart!”

Chloe and Siress jumped at the sudden outbreak from the table. Sarah sat upright, gripping her stomach in sheer evident pain. She was paler than the moon, her eyes red and bloodshot. She heaved when she breathed and every breath look like a labor to do.

“Siress,” Sarah gasped between moans of pain, “Get them the fuck OUT OF ME!”

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

Dreaming for Sarah had never been a real problem. Her whole life she was told that if she was given the choice, everyone knew she would rather live in the world in her head rather than the real one. That had always been very true until now.
A lovely stroll in the gardens, that’s what she was enjoying. Her hand secured in her lovers. Jareth smiling, those pointed fae teeth shining in the summer light. His laugh made her warm inside and she had blushed profusely when her water had broke.

Everything seemed to be going fine, and when she kissed Jareth’s hand goodbye and told him ‘everything would be ok’, she truly believed that things would. But, when the door closed behind him and his aura left hers, she literally slammed into a brick wall. The worst headache she ever felt in her life was all the sudden running rampant inside her skull. She grabbed the sides of her head and screamed like she was dying as Chloe picked her up and began to shackle her hands and feet to the birthing bed.

“Sarah,” Siress said in his professional doctor voice, “I know this is really hard for you right now, but I need you to relax. You’re going to start having seizures if you don’t,” and that’s when it happened.

BAM!

Like a sudden burst of sun through rain clouds on a March day, the pain swelled and her body jerked beyond her control. She didn’t even have the energy to fight it. With tears in her eyes and the voices of her worried friends in her ears, she succumbed to darkness… only to awake to utter and total darkness.

Sarah tried to talk, tried to scream, and tried to move to no avail. She looked but everywhere her head turned there was nothing but darkness. She began to wonder if maybe she was lost in the birthing room, if the process of giving birth was too much for her body to handle. Sarah, the bitch, the kind hearted, down to earth, head in the clouds, Queen of the Underground, had been defeated by the very thing her body was made to do.

*Please let the baby be ok…*

The thought made her body shiver. All the things that Jareth had been through as of late, this was just one more thing that none of them deserved.

*Of all the things. Why can’t he just be happy?* she thought. *Why can’t we all just be happy damnit*

Sarah tried to shake her head in disbelief. The gods were a cruel, cruel species, and for everyone to sit back and just watch things like this unfold, well, that was just not fair.

“Life is not fair Sarah. When will you learn that?”

Sarah seemed to jump in the pitch black darkness that encircled her as the voice rang out from everywhere around her. It was a masculine voice that had a feminine feel. The crystalline tones told her it was definitely fae of some kind. She searched the darkness, straining for some sort of form in the light.

“You will not find me, mortal. I have no truer form than what I am now.”

*And that would be what?*

“Hold your tongue mortal! You might be a very special girl, one that is worthy obviously of my presence, hence me being here, but your tongue will be your down fall with me.”

Sarah sighed in frustration.

*You, and I don’t care who you are, cannot expect me to sit by while I am dying or whatever I am doing, while my unborn child is dying at the same time.!*

“I would care, the lovely maiden Sarah, who I am!”

*Then why don’t you tell me who you are, oh mysterious one?*

The heat in the room escalated and a small light began to emit out of the corner of Sarah’s eye.

“I am everything, young Sarah. Your dreams, your hopes, the good, the evil. The very ground you walk on, the very air
you breath. The beloved Jareth, King of Goblins, his twin Micheal, the goblins, all are me. I, my young and so unmannered child, am the mother of all things.”

*A God?*

“Not a god, you clueless girl! The gods are no one. Mere interpretations of me, and bad at that. Mercy has never been my strong point, something you might consider again before you speak.”

*But if you’re not a god, then what the hell are you?”

The glittering form in front of Sarah stopped shimmering and as it did, the shape continuously shifted into a wide range of things. Animals, people, plants, and trees. It seemed not able to make up its mind which it liked more. Finally the shifted stopped and standing in front of Sarah was a regal, beautiful woman. She was at least eight feet tall, dwarfing Sarah and casting a nasty look down her nose at her.

“I,” she bent down as she spoke, “Am Khaos.”

Sarah shocked by the beauty, by all that was happening, gasped a little gasp.

*Like the creator of the universe?*

“Yes, my child. But more like time itself.”

Sarah suddenly felt much underdressed, even though she couldn’t tell even if she had clothes on, which made her feel like blushing even more.

“You, my little spitfire,” Khaos talked as she walked in a path back and forth, trailing flowers and butterflies in her wake, “have made quite the stir in the Underworld since you’ve arrived.”

*I’m sorry to interrupt, but why in creation would you care about the Underworld so much?*

Khaos looked at Sarah, her dark blue eyes piercing into Sarah’s soul.

“Fae’s are the first born of my mortal children. They have magic because I saw fit for them to have it. Good and Evil are always in balance, so I knew the risks I had taken when I let them have free will.” Khaos seemed to sigh to herself. “It was a choice I had to live with forever. Power is a wonderful thing when in the hands of the right person. But, when it gets in the wrong hands, it can be devastating.”

Sarah sat in silence, somehow knowing this had to do with a big part of her life. Why else would the ruler of the universe come to her?

“And twins, well they are sacred in their own right.” Khaos said letting her head fall a little. “Heracles and Iphicels can testify to that.”

Sarah reached to her belly and rubbed it softly.

*I carry twins, don’t I?*

Gaia turned to Sarah and nodded slightly.

“You carry twins, my lovely Sarah.” The entity seemed to soften a little. “And a big decision must be made.” Gaia again began pacing. “You, my fair daughter, have a special right of your own. Obviously, a mortal who posses magic is very rare indeed,” Khaos looked straight at Sarah, “you know not what importance you play as of yet.”

*But, I’m just, well, Me.* Sarah sighed.

Khaos stopped in front of Sarah, the flowers she trailed circling around her.

“You are a Queen of the Underground.” Khaos spoke as if it were a great title to have. “The birth place of the gods, it is not to be taken so lightly.”

*I thought the Gods were born from Olympus?*

“Silly girl, with dreams and thoughts of hope in your head. Stories. Mere stories.” Khaos looked at Sarah’s belly and smiled. “The children you carry are of great consequence. A mere mortal enticing a fae king into submission is no easy task. And to posses magic on top of it all, astounding. But the fight in your soul, the very thing that makes you you, is the most precious of all. But, that makes no difference now. I come to you out of pity, perhaps of love also. The children you carry are the epitome of Good and Evil. As we speak the evil and closing his icy grip on the good.”

Sarah looked astounded.

*The babies,*

“Are fighting for their right to survive. Know this, my lady, that if both are born and survive, great hardships will arise. Not very different from the one suffered by the father himself.” Khaos turned a very knowing eye on Sarah. “The very root of sorrow and hope lies within your womb. So I say to you Sarah, mere mortal yet Queen of the God’s home, what say you about this?”

*I say,* Sarah let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding *I say that as long as there is hope, there is a chance.*

“Heed this warning, my brave young one. There will be death at the hands of the son. And it will be the fathers, just as in the past.” Khaos seemed to be rushing her words. “History does have a way of repeating itself.”

*I won’t let that happen.*

Khaos laughed. It wasn’t a laugh Sarah would ever forget, it would haunt her dreams forever.

“Destiny is a path already carved,” Khaos began.

*And with hope, is easily changes* Sarah finished for her.

Khaos, looking taken aback at being over stepped nodded and bowed to Sarah.

“Heed my warning, young Queen of the Faes.” Her voice remained and her body shimmered into nothingness. “You may not have all three. Life is not, as you say, fair.”

Sarah began to retort when a bright flash of light hit her face. She winced at the sudden intrusion, and when she opened
her eyes back up, Siress and Chloe were arguing.

“Siress,” she calmly began, “get them the fuck OUT OF ME!”

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

AN: Ok guys, there ya go. The next chappy of the story. It’s was kinda hard getting back into things, I’m not going to lie. But once you get going, you can’t stop. :) Love you all and please R&R!!