She wakes, sweating, gasping, heart pounding, a familiar scream trapped in her throat. She sits up; already, reality is returning. She does not need to look around her at the familiar surroundings. She knows where she is, where she was, and where she yearns to be. She knows she's still stuck here, in this world where she doesn't want to be, alone without her friends or anyone else who ever may have truly cared for her.
Toby had been a baby at the time she had sacrificed everything to save him. Of course he doesn't remember. It's not his fault, or so she tells herself time and again. It's her own fault. She should have found another way. She should have made another deal. She keeps trying, keeps trying every way she can find to call back to him, but he will not answer. He doesn't even come when she takes kids in her care and tries to offer them to him -- not that she'll actually let him take them, and perhaps that's why he doesn't come.
Because he knows she doesn't want to make a deal. She doesn't want the children to actually be taken. She can sacrifice them no more than she was able to sacrifice her own brother all those years ago.
Or maybe she did hurt him. Maybe she hurt him so badly he can not come now, or ever again. Maybe he hates her. Maybe her determination to save her brother made the only man who ever loved her hate her. Maybe it even did worse... He had looked so weak and forlorn in those last few minutes.
But no. NO! Hoggle had said he was doing well, still thriving, still being a maniacal tyrant back before his visits had stopped. Jareth stopped those visits, Sarah knows. She knows he is to be feared and is a fierce foe, but she knows too that he will never truly harm her. He loved her. She was just too young and naive to see it at the time, and she'd not been able to allow any harm to come to her brother.
She should have found another way. She would now, if she could only get the chance again. She would find a way to both save the baby and the King. She wonders, not for the first time, what Jareth's life had been like when he had been a baby. After all, he is the only human amongst Goblins, or at least he appears (mostly) human. Majestic, supernatural even, but still mostly human. Was he a baby left behind?
Drawing her knees up to her, Sarah considers what she could have done differently. She plays it different so many times over and over again in her dreams. Had she not gone down when the Helping Hands had tried to help, as she'd dreamed just now, what would have changed? Could she have reached him, loved him, been his Queen? She weeps in darkness.
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ninetydegrees
Different
2025-02-24 23:27 (UTC)She wakes, sweating, gasping, heart pounding, a familiar scream trapped in her throat. She sits up; already, reality is returning. She does not need to look around her at the familiar surroundings. She knows where she is, where she was, and where she yearns to be. She knows she's still stuck here, in this world where she doesn't want to be, alone without her friends or anyone else who ever may have truly cared for her.
Toby had been a baby at the time she had sacrificed everything to save him. Of course he doesn't remember. It's not his fault, or so she tells herself time and again. It's her own fault. She should have found another way. She should have made another deal. She keeps trying, keeps trying every way she can find to call back to him, but he will not answer. He doesn't even come when she takes kids in her care and tries to offer them to him -- not that she'll actually let him take them, and perhaps that's why he doesn't come.
Because he knows she doesn't want to make a deal. She doesn't want the children to actually be taken. She can sacrifice them no more than she was able to sacrifice her own brother all those years ago.
Or maybe she did hurt him. Maybe she hurt him so badly he can not come now, or ever again. Maybe he hates her. Maybe her determination to save her brother made the only man who ever loved her hate her. Maybe it even did worse... He had looked so weak and forlorn in those last few minutes.
But no. NO! Hoggle had said he was doing well, still thriving, still being a maniacal tyrant back before his visits had stopped. Jareth stopped those visits, Sarah knows. She knows he is to be feared and is a fierce foe, but she knows too that he will never truly harm her. He loved her. She was just too young and naive to see it at the time, and she'd not been able to allow any harm to come to her brother.
She should have found another way. She would now, if she could only get the chance again. She would find a way to both save the baby and the King. She wonders, not for the first time, what Jareth's life had been like when he had been a baby. After all, he is the only human amongst Goblins, or at least he appears (mostly) human. Majestic, supernatural even, but still mostly human. Was he a baby left behind?
Drawing her knees up to her, Sarah considers what she could have done differently. She plays it different so many times over and over again in her dreams. Had she not gone down when the Helping Hands had tried to help, as she'd dreamed just now, what would have changed? Could she have reached him, loved him, been his Queen? She weeps in darkness.
The End