A tribute to the late, great David Bowie. I thought it was a hoax. I hoped it was. But it wasn't.

Sarah Foster, nee Williams, was quite surprised one day when she looked in the mirror to see a familiar face staring back at her that was not her own. A fox with a plumed hat sat perched on the bed behind her, but when she turned around, there was no one there.

"Didymus?" she asked the empty space.

The fox in the mirror spoke. "We need you, milady. The king needs you."

Sarah shook her head, disbelieving. When she was fifteen, she'd had a strange dream of running through a labyrinth to win back her brother from a terrible tyrant of a king. Stranger still was that she had carried on afterwards, pretending that the denizens of the labyrinth were in actual fact, quite real. This had landed her in therapy when her stepmother found her babbling to her own reflection in her vanity mirror as if she were talking to someone other than herself.

"No," she said, staring straight into the fox's beady eyes. "It was a dream, a nightmare. The meds, the therapy…it wasn't real. You aren't real. And neither is the Goblin King."

"I assure you, milady, we are quite real." argued the fox. "You made us thus."

"If that were true, every child's fantasy would be a reality somewhere."

"They are indeed. But yours is in danger, milady. We need your help."

"I am not a child anymore, Didymus! I have a family of my own now, I can't just go gallivanting off…that's just it! I can't go gallivanting off because it's not real!" Picking up an enameled jewelry box, she hurled it at the mirror, which shattered with a satisfying crack.

She went about her day as if nothing had happened. She saw the kids off to school, said goodbye to her husband as they both went off to work. As she drove, she couldn't help the feeling that there was something very wrong. Why had her childhood imaginary friends surfaced after thirty-odd years? Moreover, why did she care? They were the creations of a bored and overdramatic teenage girl who hadn't yet managed to separate fantasy from reality. The months she'd spent in therapy after the mirror incident had taught her that. They had also taught her that reality was what really mattered. She had become completely down-to-earth overnight—quite an adjustment for the rest of her family who had been used to her antics—and now, thirty years on, she was on her way to a boring office job where she would sit at a desk for eight hours staring at a computer screen until she got a headache.

She had wanted to be an actress.

Go back to your room, a distant voice said to her. Play with your toys and your costumes. An encouraging tone, rather than the spiteful one which had first uttered those words to her. But the voice was most definitely his.

She slammed on the brakes.

A van stopped mere inches from the rear bumper of her car with an angry honk. The driver leaned out the window and swore at her.

"Keep it together, dammit." she growled to herself through her teeth. She eased on the gas and continued driving.

She made it to work in one piece and shuffled inside through the snow.

Sarah had been sitting at her desk and staring out the window for the past hour. Unlike past snowfalls, she wasn't thinking about what a pain it would be to scrape off her car and dig it out from the snow pile that had built up around it. She was just…staring. Watching the flakes settle on the windowsill, the street, the cars. It was beautiful.

She realized what she was doing and stopped herself with a sharp intake of breath. Then she got up and walked away. As she went out of her office, she caught a glimpse of a face staring at her in the reflection of the glass door.

"Snap out of it," she said to herself. "Look. There is nothing in the mirror. It's just your imagination."

Sarah was leaning on the sink in the ladies' room on a disused floor of the building. She had gone out to sit in the lounge area on her floor for a while, but soon enough her coworkers were sending odd looks her way. It took her longer than she would have liked to realize that she was muttering to herself. She had made a hasty retreat to the floor above, unused since the building was converted into offices.

She turned the taps and water the color of apple juice spurted out in sporadic bursts. She waited until it ran almost clear and splashed some on her face.

"Get a hold of yourself," she told her reflection, stopping just short of slapping herself across the face. She closed her eyes just as an ominous rumble sounded from behind her. Just the pipes, she told herself, although she knew exactly what it was.

She opened her eyes to find Ludo behind her, nine feet tall and easily five wide. Didymus and Hoggle stared back at her from the mirror.

"I tried to tell you this morning, milady, but you wouldn't listen. This is a matter of grave importance. The king is asking for you." explained Didymus in a rush, as though he were out of breath.

"Sorry to have to do this, Sarah." said Hoggle. "The king ain't been himself since you left. Bogged half of Goblin City within a week. Now he mostly just …he's askin' for you, not demanding."

"You need to come to him," insisted Didymus. "Ludo?"

"Sorry," rumbled Ludo.

Sarah felt herself being lifted up, and before she knew what was happening, was thrust headfirst through the mirror.

She was in the Underground. The group lay in a heap, Sarah in the middle, Ludo behind her and Hoggle and Didymus pulling her hands.

"There isn't a moment to lose!" cried Didymus, getting to his feet. "The King is waiting!"

The four began running towards the castle, which wasn't too far away. Sarah winced at the pain in her knees. When had she started getting…old?

"Stop, stop. Please," she panted. Planting her hands on her aching knees, she doubled over, gasping for air. And then she noticed.

The labyrinth was gone.

Rubble, brick, and dead vines were scattered here and there across their path. What remained of the goblin city was decrepit and deserted—though a few skeletons lay scattered here and there. The sky was red—not a pale orange-red like the first time she'd been here, but the deep crimson red of blood. The whole of the Underground had an apocalyptic air about it, and there was a faint but cloying metallic scent.

That couldn't be good.

"Okay," she said. "Let's go."

They pressed onward and were at the castle sooner than she expected. There were no guards at the door. The place was completely abandoned.

"Where is he?"

"In his chambers, milady." said Didymus, panting for breath. "He hasn't seen anyone in quite some time."

Sarah raced up the stairs, leaving her friends in the entrance hall to face the Goblin King alone. That was just how it had to be done.

The man sprawled out on a chaise by the embers of a dying fire looked nothing like the imposing and arrogant Goblin King she'd faced off with thirty years before. He looked sick and exhausted and quite a bit older. His hair, while still blond, had thinned. Large purple rings had settled under his eyes. His face, bare and pale, looked sunken, and beneath his skin she could see crisscrossing veins. He had grown even thinner. A dim glow surrounded him, almost as if he were…fading.

"You asked to see me, Goblin King?" she asked, peeking around the door.

With a labored breath, he propped himself up on his elbows so that he could see her.

"Jareth…my name is Jareth." he wheezed.

"Sorry," she corrected herself. "You asked to see me, Jareth?"

"Yes," he said tersely, or as tersely as he could manage.

Sarah crossed the room and pulled up a footstool by the side of the chaise. "They told me I had to come. Didymus and Hoggle and Ludo…they dragged me back here, actually. They said you were…" What? Hurt? In danger? Both? She decided to leave her statement unfinished.

"I wanted to see you again…to ask for your help." His voice was barely more than a whisper. "I am…dying."

"What…but I thought you were immortal."

"Sort of. I am tied to two people Aboveground. You, and a rather singular gentleman whose name I have never known. The fact of the matter is…" he broke off mid-sentence to have a coughing fit, dry and wheezy, which left him gasping for air. Sarah wished there were oxygen tanks Underground…and just like that, there was one sitting beside her. She placed the mask over Jareth's face and soon his breathing became even again. After a time he pushed the mask away gently, indicating that he wanted to speak.

"The fact of the matter is rather hard to explain. The simple explanation is that this man…he…created me, in a sense. Made me what I am. He is a part of me, and I of him."

"And me?"

"You sort of…adopted me. You made me your own. Your companion." He coughed again. "I only played the part you wished me to…and I'm sorry for that."

"What is it that you want me to do, then?"

Jareth made an effort to sit up, which only made him double over. Sarah eased him back down and placed a throw pillow behind his head. "I want you to…keep us safe. The man has died, and it appears I am fading with him. But there is a way…" he deftly produced a crystal and held it out to her. "To keep us both alive in spirit. In here. Within a crystal, we will be safe forever. Ageless. Timeless. Immortal."

She took the crystal from him and nodded wordlessly. "What do I have to do?" she asked. She was too shocked to refuse.

"Wait," he placed a weakening hand on her arm. "Before I go…I want to tell you…"

"Yes?"

"To live, precious. Be the Sarah I knew when first I met you, those many years ago." He pointed in the vague direction of her heart. "I know she's still in there somewhere. Let her out to play, every so often."

"Jareth," Sarah's eyes welled with tears. "That's…that's so sweet."

He returned her tears with a small, faint smile. If she had blinked, she would have missed it. "Now, Sarah, are you ready?"

"Yes," she nodded.

He removed one glove and placed his bare hand on the crystal, overlapping with hers. His skin felt like an electric current ran through it. He muttered some Fae words and then was gone.

Sarah gazed inside the crystal. Jareth was there, extending his hand to a man who was somehow constant, yet ever-changing. He seemed to look different with every passing second, yet she could tell it was still him.

The pair looked back at her, an identical pair of mismatched blue eyes gazing into her green ones. They smiled at her, and she gave a watery smile in return.

It was cold and dark. Sarah stood next to her car in the parking lot. A moment ago she had been sitting near a warm fireplace in the Goblin King's—Jareth's—castle. He had worked his magic on her one last time.

The Underground and the Labyrinth were gone. She knew that just as well as if he'd told her. But he and the strange man would live on together in a world he'd created inside the crystal she now held in her hands. Carefully, she took off her scarf, wrapped the crystal in it, and got in the car. Nestling the bundle safely in the glove compartment, she turned the key in the ignition and headed towards home.

I'll just leave that where it is.

Godspeed, Starman.