For Keeps
By: InuLvr7
Sarah's been out of the Labyrinth for 6 months, and her seemingly instant maturity hasn't gone unnoticed. When Jareth shows up, seeking to understand how she beat him, things progress down a path neither could have anticipated. JS
Disclaimer: Not mine. I own some perfume, a tooth brush, and some make up.
All Standard Disclaimers Apply
Chapter One:
"Honestly, Stephen, I couldn't even begin to know how to answer that question," the ever spunky brunette replied with a dramatic hair toss. The young man with blonde hair and hazel eyes sitting in the driver's seat next to her laughed before sombering up again. He looked at her with his eyes hardened.
"Sarah," he said, "I'm serious. You've acted differently since school started; you're a lot different than you were before we became friends. I want to know: are you seeing somebody?" Sarah sighed in the passenger's seat next to him. She did not want to end her Friday in an argument with Stephen.
"What would you care, Stephen?" she said, closing her eyes momentarily. Stephen's jaw clenched.
"I'm your friend. Doesn't that give me enough of a prerogative?" he asked bitterly. Sarah set her jaw firmly.
"No. It doesn't," she said as they pulled into the driveway of her house. "Thanks for the ride, Stephen. If I am seeing somebody, that's my love life, and my love life is my business." She stepped out of the car, hoisting a heavy backpack on and leaving a bewildered junior staring after her. Stephen had become her friend as they had to rehearse together for the upcoming production of Grease. She had landed Sandy's role two months after she solved the Labyrinth, and he had luckily snagged Danny's role. Personally, she would have preferred Gentlemen Prefer Blondes or Moulin Rouge, but whatever. Sarah strode into her house and locked the door behind her. "I'm home!" she shouted as she kicked her shoes off by the door.
"Sarah," Irene said, not bothering to hide the surprise in her voice as she came down the stairs in a towel, "you're home early."
"Well, I know you and Dad wanted to go out tonight, and rehearsals were only until four thirty today," Sarah replied as she walked up to meet her on the stairs. Irene looked at the clock by the front door.
"It's only four forty- five. Did Stephen give you a ride home again?" Irene questioned with a wiggle of her eyebrows. Sarah passed by her without blinking an eye.
"Yes, and he was very rude," she replied as she reached her room.
"Did he make a pass at you?" Her father suddenly poked his head outside of the master bedroom door.
"No," Sarah said firmly as she shook her head. "And I do not want to talk about this any further," she added as she entered her room, closing the door behind her. Sarah set her backpack down by her bed and sat down in front of her vanity. She took out her brush and set to work on her long, lustrous locks of nearly espresso colored hair. Sarah had changed this past summer, enough that guys had really started noticing her. With her new maturity, Irene had decided that Sarah deserved some "womanly" pampering. So they had gone off to the salon and had Sarah's eyebrows waxed and purchased enough make up for Sarah to be the picture of perfection for the next two years. After she had finished perfecting her hair, she sighed and applied the light pink lip gloss.
She hadn't realized it until this past week, but her make up was styled the exact same way it had been for Jareth's masquerade in the Crystal Ballroom. She took out her homework with a heavy sigh and set to work. After about an hour, she realized that she had only done nine problems. Everytime she started on one, her mind would wander to a certain man with mismatched eyes.
"Honey!" her dad called. "We're leaving. Toby's asleep for the night! Make sure you wake him up at nine and give him his medicine!"
"Will do!" she called down. She heard the door shut and their car start through the open window in her room. She turned back to the incomplete work in front of her. "Why is it that once I'm alone, my thoughts can only linger on one person?" she questioned herself aloud as she glanced at her watch. It was a little after six, so she had three hours until she had to give Toby his medicine. He was out cold on... well, cold medicine...
"I ask myself the same question."
Sarah whipped around in her seat to face the man who constantly flitted about in her thoughts. "Jareth," she said. The astonishment that racked through her body was evident in her voice.
"Sarah, don't be afraid," he said carefully, staying where he was in front of the open window. He was dressed in clothes similar to the ones he had worn when he had first appeared in her home, except that the clothes he had on now were not adorned with crimson, but, instead, midnight blue.
"Do I look afraid?" she said, closing her eyes for a second before answering, much as she had when she had asked how he had been generous in the labyrinth. Jareth smiled wryly.
"I suppose not," he said before starting to walk towards her. "I want to understand you, Sarah."
Sarah looked at him in bewilderment. "You want to what?" she sputtered as she stood up, knocking over the chair she had been sitting in. He stood now before her, his eyes raking apprecciatively over her body. Not much had changed about her in the six months she had been back, except that she now wore clothes to accentuate her curvy figure. And she had gone up a cup size, or two. To Sarah, that didn't count, but to all of the guys, King of the Goblins included, it did. Jareth obviously noticed and liked the change.
"I want to understand you, Sarah," he repeated.
"Why?" she asked, incredulous to whatever his motivation was. She knew he couldn't possibly have been there for Toby, and as she had said, he had no power over her.
"You do ask a lot of questions," he replied. Sarah looked up at him and, as she had been the first time, was startled to look at his face. His high cheekbones and facial structure were practically carved from living marble, and his eyes- His eyes of cerulean blue and chocolate brown were like two pools of drowning lust. She could feel herself being sucked into them. Sarah turned away, blushing.
"You haven't answered," she said, her eyes still on the floor. He raised an eyebrow before speaking in his distinctly British accent.
"I haven't decided to answer," he said offhandedly. Sarah looked back into his eyes and realized that he was possibly the most gorgeous man she had ever seen. He made Stephen seem like Toby, and he didn't frighten her anymore. Sarah stepped away from him and sat back on her bed.
"If you want to understand me, you're doing a hell of a job," she said sarcastically. Jareth looked at her incredulously.
"Sarah," he said with surprise, "how you have changed."
"People tend to do that."
He smirked and crossed his arms over his chest. "Yes, they do," he replied, almost mockingly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she said, her temper flaring.
"That," he said with the smirk still present on his face, "is self- evident." Sarah suddenly decided she didn't like him towering over her with a smirk that promised sex or violence- or possibly both. Either way, she wasn't ready for either.
"You can sit down, you know," she said abruptly.
"Where?" he asked suspiciously. The turn in conversation was a little too fast for him, but if she asked him to sit on the floor, he'd laugh at her.
"The bed," she said, almsot as if he was stupid. He crossed over to the bed and sat down cautiously. "Much better," she said. "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer."
"I'll say it again, Sarah. I want to understand you," Jareth said. He stared at her with an intensity that Sarah was completely aware of.
"If you want to understand me, then it'll take a lot more than just talking tonight," she said, mimicking his fold of arms across the chest from earlier. Jareth arched an eyebrow.
"I'm not willing to go that far to understand you," he said with a slightly perverted glint in his eyes. Sarah's nose wrinkled as she understood the implication of what he and she had said.
"I did not mean it that way, Jareth," she said firmly. Her jaw clenched as she stared stubbornly at him. He looked away briefly, but when he looked back at her his gaze was predatory- piercing, haunting, but still beautiful.
"I'm sure," he smirked. "But, Sarah, what did you mean?"
"Nothing," she replied. Sarah suddenly had the idea that here in her room, an angry Goblin King would be quite funny rather than scary, as he had been in the Underground.
"I won't be defied, Sarah," Jareth said, his voice taking on that regal edge. Her eyes sparked as she recognized the steely glint in his voice.
"You already have been," she smirked.
"So what is the point in doing it again?"
"It's fun," Sarah replied. Jareth laughed at that, and Sarah shivered as she felt his laughter like a piece of hot velvet sliding down her spine. "Why don't you start trying to understand me by getting to know me," she said carefully.
"How?" Sarah sighed. It would be a long story-
"Well, my real mother was an actress, and I guess that rubbed off... Oh! And I've always been fond of fairy tales..." Jareth listened intently as Sarah told him her life story. He knew the gist of it, but hearing it from her was different. He hadn't understood why Sarah had beaten him. How could a mere mortal beat his awesome Labyrinth? Beat him? Listening to her, he was beginning to understand. Once she set herself to a task, she did it. She may get distracted, but that didn't stop her. She was as stubborn as he was. They both also had nasty tempers.
"And then I got the lead in Grease- which is running next weekend," she finished up. Jareth glanced at the clock on her wall and waved his hand. All the ligths in the room turned on and illuminated the darkness that had set in as the sun set.
"I think you should go give Toby his medicine now," he said. Sarah looked at the clock.
"Ten???" she gasped, jumping off the bed. Sarah took off down the hall to give Toby his medicine. Jareth stared after her. This girl was so very different from the one that had wished her younger brother away. He wondered briefly what would have happened if she hadn't remembered the right words to say to get the baby back. If, instead, she had said those three little words... Jareth shook the thoughts away. 'What if' never solved anything.
"Jareth?"
He looked up from his reverie. Sarah stood in the doorway, looking at him with concerned eyes. He hadn't even noticed her walking back...
"I think it's time I leave," he said, standing up, his regality regained in the movement. He seemed very much again Sarah's adversary of old. Sarah had the foreboding though that this was an entirely different sort of a battle. "But this is not over, Sarah. I'll be back on the morrow." And with that, the Goblin King was gone.
"I need to start seeing some normal people." Sarah's breathing stilled as soon as the thought crossed her mind. She shook it off as she changed into her pajamas. She was just changing her shirt when Jareth popped back in.
"And Sarah-" Sarah yelped as he appeared right in front of her bra and flannel pajama pant- clad body. He smirked as he stared down at her. "Never mind." He disappeared again, but his laughter rang throughout the room. Sarah stood in shock as she stared where his delectable body had previously stood.
"You-" she gritted her teeth and quickly pulled the shirt down over her head. She turned off the lights and crawled underneath the covers. "What the hell just happened?"
Okay! There's the prologue. I'm sort of pleased, erm, whatever. I'm happy with it, I guess. Next chapter is just gonna skip off to the school's rehearsals on the Tuesday a month later. But ummm. okay. I do hate this chapter. It sucks, to me, but it got fixed. (Thank you, my lovely, lovely beta.)