* * *
And the Thunder Rolled
by Edmondia Dantes
Disclaimer: They still don't belong to me. Deal.
AN: Deepest, most sincere apologies for the lateness. Yes, this is the last chapter. Please don't lynch me.
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-Chapter Ten-
He could not look. Not at his daughter, not at his wife, not at that wild-eyed stranger.
Not at anything.
And yet, somehow, he was staring. And his daughter met his gaze, her eyes narrowed and chillingly cold. She looked disconcertingly like her mother, so much so that his breath caught jaggedly in his throat.
He managed to force the usual words past his trembling lips just the same. "You have to do what you think is right." Like get the hell out of here.
A rich chuckle, deep and velvet. He didn't like the sound. "I agree," the dark one purred, sliding his arms around Sarah's waist.
His daughter giggled, but it sounded less girlish than it should. He guessed she was growing up too fast - or something like that. A pity that he hadn't bothered to find out, wasn't it?
"I don't fucking want to agree with you!" he snapped, fighting the sudden urge to strangle the infuriating man.
Crystalline quiet, before his wife... his wife, spoke up. "Sarah?"
Even without looking, he knew her chin would rise proudly, her eyes would take on a dangerous gleam, and the room would still as if in patient expectation for the storm.
"Whatever I do, it doesn't have anything to do with you, Karen!" she spat.
He winced at the words. "Sarah!" How stupid for him to finally take up the role of parent-in-charge. She needed no parents now.
"She is in the right," the stranger countered coolly. Robert's stomach churned. Bastard, he hissed mentally, and got the strange impression that the weirdo had heard him.
"And who are you to speak for her?" he snapped, feeling trapped.
A small, half-hysterical laugh bubbled from his daughter's rubied lips. "You mean I didn't tell you?"
He couldn't think. So his wife spoke in his stead. "Tell us what, Sarah?"
She cast a soft, predatory look up at that... thing beside her. And an equally soft, sly smile curved her face as she said, softer than a sigh, "I'm engaged, daddy."
His vision went crimson.
* * *
Her father was trying to kill her fiancé.
Her father was being silly.
Her fiancé... was being a jerk.
Sad, really. Her father had no absolutely no chance whatsoever.
Jareth seemed highly amused by the fact that his future father-in-law was swearing him up and down and inside out.
"Madam, I suggest you control your husband." Cool distaste, laced with the velvet undercurrent of laughter, shadowed the words.
Karen stared up at them, her eyes glazed with tears, lips moving but no sound coming out.
Her father, scarlet-faced, shouting hoarsely.
How... vulgar. Nearly repugnant, even.
Had they no restraint, no poise, no control?
Sarah's stomach twisted oddly.
And Jareth's breath was warm and honey-flavored when he leaned to whisper in her ear. No, not whisper - another song, the only true way he could express himself at all, it seemed, the only thing that revealed himself save for his strange, wild eyes.
"It's only forever,
Not long at all..."
The lifetime of a golden boy - raised as a prince. The lifetime of an ordinary boy - raised as any other child.
"The lost and the lonely..."
The meaningless babble of her father and stepmother, the poor duo lost and rejoined by the same pair of hands that circled her waist.
"No one can blame you
For walking away..."
The steady thudding of her footsteps as she fled yet again, away from people, away from family, away from life itself.
"Too much rejection
No love injection..."
Staring, heartbroken, as her father introduced his new girlfriend, angelic smiles wreathing both of their faces.
Watching as the starry-eyed boy she'd admired for the past month swept by on the arm of a dark-skinned beauty.
"Life can be easy,
It's not always swell..."
Laughing at his side beneath the moonlight.
Shielding herself in his arms as they hurled threats and cutlery through the air.
"Don't tell me truth hurts, little girl,
'Cause it hurts like hell..."
It did. It hurt so much she wanted to die, to drown herself in self-pity, to fling herself off of the nearest cliff without so much as a second thought.
He knew, didn't he?
"But down in the underground
You'll find someone true..."
The most marvelous creature she had ever seen. Teasing, infuriating, deliciously dark.
Her antithesis.
"Down in the underground
A land serene
A crystal moon..."
The most wonderful place her worshipful eyes had ever fallen upon, ruled over by the most exquisite of villains.
"It's only forever,
It's not long at all..."
An invitation.
Could she take eternity?
"The lost and the lonely..."
She drowned outside, her voice muffled by a thousand other, harsher tones, not ready to accept the freedom of her soul.
"That's underground..."
Could she do it?
"Underground," he finished, the warmth and gentleness of his welcome coiling around her like silk over her skin.
One last glance at the two bedraggled figures, once-known, once-beloved.
One glance at her soulmate.
She chose.
* * *
"...Very well."
The words stilled all action in the room, freezing tears in their place, widened eyes in their fury.
"Sarah?"
Terror lingered in the simple utterance of her name.
She looked up, and her eyes were sad yet sparkling with anger and cold, cruel resolve.
"Get out," she hissed.
And they were gone.
Sarah handed her brother to her lover, crumpled to the ground, and broke out into miserable sobs.
* * *
Light swirled around them - and they were home again.
Neither dared breathe a word. What was there to say?
They were together at last - but their reunion was hollow, and echoed dully in nothingness.
Their children were missing.
Their daughter was sleeping with the Goblin King.
They would never see their firstborn son again.
And it was all their fault.
They stood in the wreckage of their ruined home and wept for their lost lives.
* * *
They stared at one another, his head tilted impishly to the side, her dark hair sliding over her face to tease at her red-rimmed eyes.
"I hate you," she whispered brokenly, tears streaming down her exquisite face.
"I know," he replied, and kissed her again.
* * *
Toby Williams slept peacefully on, and dreamt of milk and honey.
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-Fin.-
AN: That's it. Done. Finito. No more. I officially wash my hands of this headache-inducing, brain-twisting, odd monstrosity. No sequel. No merchandising. Zilch. Nada.
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