As The World Falls Down

Time stopped in a painful shudder as the being smiled at me and took my hand to kiss. So similar...so so similar. Same smile, hair a little tamer but still shone with his unusual lustre. Everything... except this eyes. Even I may have been fooled this morning looking at him. But not now. This was Shade himself.

"Miss Williams. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance." He smiled, and it was all wrong. It was not a pleasant expression. "I was delighted with the painting, far better than I could ever have imagined."

Rage filled me swiftly, my smile brittle as I fought the swell of emotion that demanded I knock him to his arse and demand the location of Jareth. His sly word play only made it worse. Barely a second in the real world had passed since his ill-spoken words before Aster was there at my side, her cool hand a soothing balm to my anger, easing emotions inside me that were not entirely mine until they rested at a simmer below the surface.

"I'm certainly glad you are pleased." I forced the words from my lips. "If you will please excuse me?" I turned to leave with a pleasant nod to them both I was infinitely proud of.

"Sarah, Mr Valarais has requested to commission you again." Mr Langton said before I could make good of my escape.

Valarais – that bastard, I thought. The goblin word for Labyrinth. He was trying to catch me out. The warning I had felt about the damn painting and it being out of my control came back ten fold. He had to know I knew something more than mere imagination. He was testing me for a reaction I had no intention of giving. Donning my best professional voice, I addressed them both with an edge of finality I knew I drew from the magic resting inside me rather than from myself.

"I will not be taking on any more commissions at this moment Mr Langton, I currently have far more than necessary and wish to give them my upmost attention. I am sorry Mr Valarais; you will have to find someone else for your commission."

"I can pay most handsomely Miss Williams."

I almost laughed at Mr Langton's expressions as they ranged from shocked, to pleading and back again with barely a moment between them. He eventually took the hint of my gaze that he should leave and Aster convinced him more by taking his arm and getting him to gallantly lead the way to the wine before she became parched indefinitely.

"I think we both no my refusal is not a matter of finance." I braved maintaining eye contact; even as I wanted to do nothing more than hide under the table cover to the left of my foot just as Hoggle was doing at the moment.

"And what is the reason you would refuse me?" It was a challenge. One that a nip to my ankle from Hoggle pleaded with me not to rise to.

"I do not enjoy painting fruit, and most certainly not on the scale you required." Haughty. I could do haughty it seemed with some believability.

"I have other things I should like you to paint from that frankly wonderful imagination you have. I asked for a simple peach, and you gave me a dreamscape that drew me in. It was magical. Truly." Shade edged forward, closer towards me until I had to tilt back my head to maintain eye contact. It was intimidation, pure and simple, and a trait he and his brother shared. While Jareth standing so brazenly over me had ignited my soul and left me trembling in innocent anger and beautiful tremors, Shade left me cold to the bone.

"I told you Mr Valarais, I do not currently have the time. If you should like to leave your card with my agent however, I shall endeavour to contact you once my schedule has become freer. I shall of course understand if you choose to commission an artist currently available, I have several I can suggest."

"No, no. I shall wait Miss Williams. I have all the time in the world." He smiled and my heart lurched, the blood draining from my face as an image of the golden clock forced its way into my mind as it lost its final seconds, the echoing beat of its hands ceasing. As with the beat of a heart, lost forever into silent death. Misery engulfed me at the thought, the crystal glass shattering in my hand as Shade disappeared into the shadows unseen, my blood mixing with expensive champagne on the beautiful white marble floor.

~~~

"He knows."

I nodded mutely, stock still and chilled from his blatant words, I barely felt it as Aster washed the blood away from my hand and applied the dressings. No stitches for me, apparently Jareth's magics made me more than a little immortal...well, mostly. In a few short hours, I would no longer feel the pinch of the sliced skin, the ache of pierced tendons.

"What do we do now Aster?" I asked quietly, the street lights reflecting on rain soaked windows as Mr Langton drove us home. This was not a conversation he needed to hear. When she simply hugged me, I knew no answers would be immediately forthcoming. The sound of the rain was soothing in the dark night and as the long days and nights finally caught up with me, I gave into the drugging darkness that beckoned and sank into its warmth willingly.

Sarah...

Dancing slowly in an empty room...the world span in soft beauty, of glittering frost that beckoned the touch of my fingers yet stung me with its wintry severity.

Much like my beautiful King, I mused with a soft smile as I drifted on soft feet around the abandoned hall. Sadness filled me slowly at a place once so full of riotous life now left barely breathing. Ivory coloured chairs lay toppled, silk scarves discarded, crystal glasses shattered...

I had caused so much destruction the last time I was here. With a young girl's determination, I had focused only on my task...and doing the right thing. But the loneliness desolateness of this once vibrant room brought tears to my eyes.

"If only I had been older..." I whispered, my breath coming out in a cloud of frigid white.

"What would you have done Sarah?"

His voice. His heat. The scent of all that was inherently HIM, stilled my heart and the tears I had been fighting fell in vain. This was a cruel trick of my weary mind, he was hidden somewhere, trapped by his own brother. He was not in my mind. He was not there, not where I had first felt the tremors of an innocent longing, torn in two between what was right and what wasn't.

My breath left me and I crumpled to the floor in a pool of evening scarlet, a sunset on this wintry land as I prayed to wake up before I could torment myself further,

Arms, strong and warm crept around my shoulders, crossed over my heart and pulled me against a body that was so real I sobbed.

"Shh..." Lifted from the floor, I was settled in his lap and cradled as I poured out my grief. My guilt.

"I am so sorry. This is my fault."

"Sarah..." He chuckled, and more of my tears fell at the sound. It was him, his scent soothed, his heart beat strong and steady beneath his shirt beside my ear and when he tilted my trembling chin up to look into my eyes, I knew beyond a doubt. "You were not ready to be my Queen, no matter how much I wanted you then, it compares little to now."

"Where are you? We need to find you, Sha..." His fingers swiftly silenced my lips, begging me not to continue.

"You must not mention his name Sarah. This is tentative magic you use to reach me in your dream." Jareth's fingers brushed a long curl away from my cheek, his thumb tracing my skin with a care that left me bereft when he returned to simply hold me. "I cannot tell you exactly where I am, I only know that I am in his home. Trapped to simply watch his happy and vindictive existence as he moves around tormenting me."

I took his hand back from resting on my waist and gazed at the scarred knuckles and scratches I had not noticed before in my shock. "What happened to you..." I kissed the swellings and cuts gently and smiled a little inside when his breathing grew a little rough. I was not the only one affected by proximity then. His mismatched eyes darkened when I licked my lips, my hand drifting up to touch the face that had eluded my dreams and only comforted me in shadows.

Soft, warm, his hair the texture of the beautiful feather I kept hidden in my journal. So many memories, so many moments and expressions I could understand more now I was older, now I was wrapped in his arms and able to look at him without the labyrinth gilded clock dictating my movements, my decisions. I had seen my seconds ticking away, and made a choice. But now, I would at least make one that left us both in no doubt of my decision this time.

Straightening slowly, my pulse raced as I leant closer and tentatively met his soft lips with mine. My eyes closed, I could feel a little swell of panic flood me as he remained as still as stone and I pulled back, mortified that I could have judged this so wrong. Tears pricked my eyes once more.

"I'm sorry...I..." I shook my head as his arms tightened around me and he forced me to look at him.

"You silly, beautiful girl..." He whispered, adding to my shame a moment before he crushed me against his chest and took my lips with a passion I could never have imagined. Strong fingers wiped away my tears as he teased my lips with his tongue, begging for entry. I reciprocated, duelled with him as he left me breathless. The sound of glass shattering as it was swept to the floor startled me, returning my senses enough to know I was being lifted, and pressed against the icy oak of the table. Frost sizzled to nothingness against the bare skin of my back, my dress no protection but his warmth as he followed me was equally as devastating. Fire and ice...

Without Jareth's fire, the wonderful and crazy world I had experienced years before was now dead and dying without him to warm it.

Just as I had been. Each pill, each session with the pious therapist of my Step mother's acquaintance had frozen my heart. And as my King kissed me, warmed me, I could feel it crack...

"You must wake my love..." Jareth whispered his breath soft at my neck from where his kisses had rendered me weak, and deliciously so. But his words made my heart ache. I did not want to leave him.

"Please...not yet." He kissed me, gently, but with a desperate longing, a loneliness that crushed me. A loneliness I could...that I would...cure. "Stay safe Jareth, please. We will find you..."

A slap to the cheek woke my lax body with a sharp start and I looked into several terrified faces of the Labyrinth world, and my pale sweating agent.

"What the hell is going on?" Mr Langton blustered, some colour returning to his pallid cheeks.

"I fell asleep." I murmured, my voice still choked with tears and the pain of leaving him to his captivity.

"Oh, really Sarah? Do you usually turn into the Snow Queen when you slumber?" He was yelling now, I had never seen him yell before. "And what about this lot?"

He waved his hand towards the escaped goblins sitting on my small sofa, and a line of fairies making use of my easel as a safe place to stay out of reach of Hoggle. Evidently some prejudices were a bit engrained.

"I say dear fellow, there really is no cause to yell at M'lady." Sir Didymus gallantly defended me, and Aster helped me to stand. My reflection in the mirror was not what I expected. Mr Langton had a right to be scared and furious perhaps. Dressed in deepest scarlet, my skin glistened with slowly melting frost, my long mahogany hair was stiff with the chill of it and my lips and skin had taken on a most unbecoming pale blue that had no doubt concerned him. But right at that moment, I couldn't care for another's concerns.

Touching the mark that shone in dark lividity between my neck and shoulder, I smiled as warmth flooded me from within, my skin glowing with the vitality of Jareth's magic and returning me to normal. Meeting Mr Langton's wide eyes, I swiftly beckoned to Aster to help me get him seated before he fell.

"What are you?"

"Human." He shook his head and I stopped him. "No less, maybe a little more. I think perhaps we should tell you a story." I looked to Hoggle, smiled as he gruffly and begrudgingly pulled a stool over and set his ungainly little body upon it.

"One night, not so very long ago there was a young girl who gave the Goblins certain words..."

~~~

"What do we do with him Sarah? He hasn't said a word for two hours." Aster whispered, stood across from me in the hallway she watched me with sad eyes as I studied the painting, the clock face shrouded in frost, the hands seemingly stiff, frozen. I couldn't fathom the meaning, not that I had been able to decipher the many different scenery changes this canvas desired to show me, but this one stuck in my mind...

"The hands have been frozen Aster." I said absently, wincing in slight discomfort as the glare from the setting sun struck through the window of my bedroom and blinded me. "Gosh that is a bit bright..."

I looked to Aster in horror...

"Have we lost a day? A whole damn day?" I screamed as I ran to the window just as the sun disappeared behind the cityscape and dusk descended.

"No...oh god, no we haven't." Aster was smiling, as were all of my companions short of an almost comatose Mr Langton. Even Hoggle had a look of glee on his face. "We have gained a night...a repeat so to speak."

"Remember though Sarah, time from the labyrinth is fickle. It will likely take this time back from you later." Hoggle added sadly and I knew what he said was true. The clocks in Jareth's kingdom were indeed fickle. But I would not overlook the fact the Labyrinth was trying to tell me something.

"The unveiling." I pondered. Why would the labyrinth magic give me back a night...what could I possibly do differently? Shade? Surely not. Even as I rebuffed the thought, I knew without a doubt it was the answer.

"What if it is a trap?" We all turned as one towards the quiet voice of my agent, still sitting cradling a cushion to his chest, a tiny fairy perched on the tasselled edge smiling sweetly at him.

"It could be. But then Shade would not have known about the clock painting. Noone outside this room does. And since it is in my personal apartments, I doubt he has. You can only transport to a place you have already been correct?" I mused while they nodded at me, stalling for a little time to gather some courage. There was a part of me that wanted to run away, escape the insanity once more enfolding in my life, but then I thought of him. I thought of all he had lost and endured since I had defeated his labyrinth, I thought of the dreams I had, the truths hidden there, the evidence of his watching over me over these past few years as he waited for me to grow into the Queen he needed. I owed him so much, but a deep rooted feeling of responsibility was not what drove me. I wanted him; I wanted the words he had implored me with.

Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave.

"I do love you Jareth..." I whispered under my breath as I watched night descend, and the rain begin in earnest.

Another try for this night. I had an idea at least of where I went wrong the first time.

~~~

"I'd like you to meet someone." Mr Langton's words, only the faintest tremor within them belayed the fact we knew this event had happened before. When he turned, I still almost gasped. He was so similar it hurt. But the evil in his eyes – so different to the cool severity of Jareth – was unmistakable. "Miss Williams, this is the buyer of that frankly astounding peach."

The bastard took my hand to kiss and I forced myself to remain pleasant, maybe even a little more than pleasant. My idea wasn't the best, indeed Hoggle had threatened me with creating an oubliette right there in my own apartment before I had bribed him with a gold necklace and he had grown quiet with joy for long enough for me to be out the door with Aster.

"Miss Williams. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I was delighted with the painting, far better than I could ever have imagined."

"Well thank you, Mr?"

"Mr Valarais, Sarah. This is Mr Shane Valarais." Mr Langton pleasantly confirmed. Evidently the fairy that had been smiling at him so sweetly in my studio had erased some of Mr Langton's fears, nerves, and overbearing nature for us to repeat this evening.

"Mr Valarais, a pleasure." I was trying for serene; I must have succeeded as he smiled his viciously cold smile and offered me an arm to take.

"I was wondering if I could commission you for another work Miss Williams." He led me around the room slowly, his gait gentlemanly, watchful though. "I have a large manor house I have a need to fill with beautiful paintings that are filled with your kind of vibrancy."

So you can torment my King with all he once ruled. Bastard. I smiled, delighted.

"Certainly Mr Valarais." I patted his arm gently where we were linked. "I do have several other projects in my schedule, however they are not urgent. I can perhaps start on one for you tomorrow if you gave me an idea of what you desired."

"I was thinking something along the lines of a throne room, all sandstone and sunsets."

I stumbled, my heels catching on my dress and pitching me forward. His strong arms wrapped around me and I cringed a little inside at the thought of him even touching me. Forcing myself to take a deep breath and continue on this path, I gave him my best smile and caressed his arm softly.

"I am sorry Mr Valarais, I think it might be the champagne. I am not much of a drinker." He smiled and nodded towards the door.

"Do you require some air?"

"No, I will be fine in a moment." We sat in the alcove by the gallery door, the cool air truly calming me. I reminded myself it was good for the illusion if he believed I stumbled over a dream...a memory. It would help me get closer to him faster. If Aster and Hoggle were correct, and the Labyrinth took time back from us, then I would only be left with a day and a half before the midnight stroke into my twenty first birthday. If I could convince Shade in that time I believed he might be my Jareth...

I fought the nausea in my stomach that rose at the thought. I had to get to Shade's mansion. It was the only way to find my King. I caught Aster's all too knowing eyes and pained expression as she fought her uncertainty. She couldn't fathom my intentions and it drove the fairy's protective instincts through the roof.

"I shall begin the painting in the afternoon when the sun is right in the studio, and bring it to you the day after?" I smiled coyly, wishing I could see my own expression to ensure it was right. I had never acted coy and alluring in my life and I did not need that to fail me now.

"Perhaps we could have dinner Miss Williams, in my home to thank you for the quick commission?"

"I would be delighted." I fairly bubbled with excitement on the outside even as my heart ached. Jareth would be beside himself, looking out of those mirrors.

With his promise of a car being round to collect me at eight the day after next, I indicated to my otherworldly companions and Mr Langton that we were leaving. I needed to escape. And shower.

~~~

"It is precisely as I remember it." She whispered, knowing even before she saw him that it was Jareth's arms that held her in her sleep. Barely there in strength at first, his being solidified as magic seeped from her heart to strengthen her King.

"Why did you paint it Sarah?" His voice was pained as he looked upon all he had lost. He lamented, grieved the loss of his Kingdom and all within, but if it was all he ever got back from the devastation, his beautiful Sarah would be enough. Even as he uttered it, he knew it wasn't all the truth. The labyrinth was HIM, the Goblin city and the tunnels, the steady, unyielding walls were all a part of him. He was the labyrinth, but his Sarah was the centre. She was the Castle he protected, the very heart of him. When she had chosen to leave, she had taken his heart with him. The castle now held no life, the walls began to lose their strength, the gardens and greenery began to wither beneath the depth of his sorrow.