"Without Your Heartbeat"

by,

Sarah Cartwright

[Disclaimer: All rights to "Labyrinth" and said characters -excluding the ones I introduce from my own imagination- belong to Lucasfilms and Henson.

Prologue:

"You have no power over me!" Sarah declared softly, almost in a whisper.

At the moment Jareth felt his heart shatter. He had no choice: she had won and she didn't want him, so he gave her what she wanted…

As he flew away from her house in his owl form, he felt tears sting his eyes as the weight upon his heart threatened to crush him. He had watched her for years, playing on her bridge, pretending she was a princess. He had waited for years for her to call him into her life and now it was over.

When he had finally returned to the Underground and resumed his proper form, he wistfully listened to himself breathe her name, soft and long, pronounced with a sigh and heavy sorrow. Her name felt so sacred, so precious upon his lips he repeated it continually has he paced through the halls of his castle; each time uttered with an increasing tenderness.

It was then that he began to realize why she had left and he cursed her for it. After all, if he could only have spoken to her with all the kindness and gentleness he hid within his soul, she would never have rejected him: he would have been her prince (king, at least), the man her girlish heart had dreamed of everyday on her little bridge. –Did she think he didn't know about her fantasies?—But, no, she preferred to see him as vile and cruel, the greatest fiend she could imagine, and so, because she wished it, that is what he became.

Oh, he was cruel, indeed –he was still the Goblin King, after all— and gentleness never came easily for him, except for when he was looking in her eyes. Something in her eyes pulled and tugged mercilessly at his heart. She had defeated him long before she entered the Labyrinth, for she had awakened a warmth within his being the first time he saw her. The game was never about Toby; it was about Jareth being able to win Sarah. He thought he had won with the illusion of the ball, when she was in his arms dancing with him, then she left and the agony ripping through his soul was unbearable.

Her eyes were so cruel: they were so innocent and pure, too young to see him for who he was behind the sneers and scorn, too young to understand that even Goblin Kings fell in love. Even so, not even her youth could deny how she felt when she was in his arms. She could tell herself that it was all part of Jareth's spell, but deep in her heart, she would always know the truth.

And it was in that moment, that precious gleam within Sarah's eyes, that Jareth rested his hopes. He no choice but to put faith in it: eternity without Sarah was far too long.