Three Things Sarah Lost In Finding Herself (Sarah/Jareth, Sarah/OC, PG)
Title: Three Things Sarah Lost In Finding Herself
Paring:Sarah/OC, Sarah/Jareth
Fandom:The Labyrinth (1986)
Rating:PG/ Angry Green Wombat
Disclaimer:Not my universe. Just borrowing.
Notes:For the longest time, I've wanted to write something for this pairing, but nothing I did seemed right. Then one night I couldn't sleep, so I wrote instead. I hope you like it -- it cost me a good night's rest.
Subnotes:For Nadia, who liked my stories, even when I didn't.
First posted on 19 August 2008.
She was twenty-three when she met the man she knew she’d spend her life with. He’d introduced himself in the University bookstore while she was picking out textbooks, and he’d commented on one of the poets she needed to read. From there they’d hit it off. She had coffee, dinner, and then breakfast with him -- she was happy.
He was a handsome man, and she loved touching him constantly -- his hair (sandy blonde), and also his hands (callused slightly, from playing the guitar). He gave her silly nicknames and called her every night before bed to ask about her day. She would comb her fingers through his hair when he got headaches, or hum songs to him as he was falling asleep.
It occurred to her that she’d become a part of him -- or maybe, he of her -- and it was strangely comforting to know that there was someone in the world she needed. But it was also painful sometimes. She had dreams where he died or went away and she would wake up with her stomach knotted and her eyes teary. She never told him this.
After two and a half years of dating, he bought her a ring, and asked her to stay with him always. She thought she might be too young to be married, but accepted, and they moved into an apartment together three months later.
Six months after that, they were married.
●
When she felt the first kick, her heart raced; she woke up in a panic, grabbing for his hand, telling him to place it on her tummy. They remained huddled and awake for hours, just listening and feeling for signs of life within her, wondering how much longer their little daughter would make them wait. Sometimes they’d talk to her, even though they knew she could not hear them.
Her father would play her songs on his guitar, sometimes making up new lyrics so that she would know he loved her, although they hadn’t met yet. Her mother would tell her stories about fairies, and goblins, and all sorts of magical creatures that children ought to know about.
When she was born, she was their sunshine. Her hair grew in a pale morning gold, and curled itself around her face like vines. Everyone said she was beautiful, and her parents would agree with them.
Then one day, she got a cough.
They buried her in a small cemetery on a hillside and stayed with her until the sun set.
●
He told her that she reminded him too much of her.
He said it hurt him everyday to look at her, and remember what was lost.
He left one night and never came back.
●
Sarah drove her small car off the edge of the hillside cemetery some three days after. The rescue workers managed to pull her from the wreckage, and doctors did all they could to keep her alive from several severe injuries. She slipped into a coma during surgery from the head trauma, and fell into her dreams.
That’s when he came to her.
Hello, Sarah.
He was taller than she remembered him being, still beautiful with his silver-blonde hair and the sharp eyes of neither blue, nor brown. He stood before her in a void of black like some figure in a dream, dressed in robes that might be considered solemn by his usual tastes, and bearing an expression of graveness that she could barely stomach to see.
He waited for her in the dark, standing perfectly still as though he’d been carved of stone, but she made no effort to move to him. Her legs felt heavy and stiff, and her stomach was knotted and sore. She felt ugly, sick, and so very tired.
It is done. You do not have to stay here anymore.
I don’t have anywhere else to go.
Of course you do, Sarah. There are two choices before you even now.
He held up his hands, and there was no magic as there had been before -- no tricks of light, or shinning crystal balls, or peaches that could send her into dreams of dancers and masquerades. There were only two hands, each one palm up as though waiting to be filled with something, like the hands of a beggar.
He offered his right hand.
They could save you,he said. You could awaken, and everything will start again. You will go back into the world as you are, to re-experience it. You will live until it is your time to die, and perhaps there will be happiness, or perhaps not.
Then, he offered his left hand.
Or, you could come with me, and perhaps there will be happiness, or perhaps not.
She looked at him with her eyes red and wet; misery lurched its way up from her stomach into her throat. She felt as though the world had gotten a little smaller, as though the darkness had wound itself tightly around her like a noose.
She asked, Would either choice give my daughter back to me?
What’s done, is done.
For a long while, she sat in the darkness sobbing quietly. He said nothing and offered her no comfort, nor did he urge her to make a decision. It seemed like he had all the time in the world to wait for her to choose, and if she decided to spend it crying, then she could. It was a comfort in itself.
Afterwards, she pulled her legs up so that she could rest her cheek against her knees. She thought about things for a long time, and soon the pain and fatigue of her body lessened until she could stand. She looked at him from across the void, and his eyes were unchanging -- betraying nothing. The choice was hers alone.
Okay,she said. I’ve made up my mind…
●
Toby awoke at three in the morning with a horrible feeling pooled in the pit of his stomach. His wife awoke shortly after he did -- jarred into consciousness when the phone rang. She watched her husband answer it, and listened to the one-sided conversation, and when it was over he hung up the phone and cried.
His sister had died today.
In her sleep.