FicWad

Chapter 20 - Close
Sarah slowly woke up early the next day with this lingering feeling of utter deliciousness. It had been quite the night, to put it mildly. She langorouosly turned over only to find that she had been sleeping on top of the blankets and she was still completely clothed from the day before. She quickly looked down to check - even the blouse was still intact.

It was all a dream. Incredible… She got up in search of Jareth; something that spectactular couldn’t just go unanswered! He was on the couch, wearing yesterday’s suit as well and still asleep, looking a bit disheveled himself. She smiled, walking over to him, and stroked his hair. Had he been there, too? Was that why it had been so real? It would certainly explain his apparent exhaustion, not to mention his haste to go to sleep. She decided against waking him and turned to go - it was only then that she noticed the odd long roll of papers on the coffee table. Curiously picking it up, she unrolled the inner scroll and suddenly needed to sit down on the floor. In dumb shock, she scoured page after page after page of classified information. It was impossible. Where had they come from?! She could only think of one possible explanation as the implications and legal repercussions began to mount in her frantic brain. She got up and knelt beside the couch. “Jareth,” she shook his arm. He slowly opened his eyes and lazily smiled up at her, reaching out to stroke her face.

“Good morning, love.”

“Where the hell did you find these?!” she held up one of the blueprints.

“Does it matter?” he answered calmly. “Consider them an early birthday present.”

“It matters a great deal; I could go to jail just for owning them! Now where did they come from?”

He groggily sat up and rubbed one eye with the inside of his palm.

“The South Mesa. It looked like some of your colleagues were out there running tests on some kind of flying machine I’ve never seen before.”

“South Mesa…why were you even out there? Whatever possessed you to take them?! If anyone ever traces this back to me-”

He leaned in and silenced her panicked questions with a deep kiss, making her melt into him before he pulled away.

“After all this time you still have so little faith in me? My distance was to protect you last night. I was an owl and they didn’t see where I went - I got into a blind spot and disappeared. These are only a copy. Their machine seemed to utilize energy in a way that was completely foreign to me and I thought that perhaps their notes would help you with your own device. I cannot sit idly by and let unthinking people steal away your dreams.” He got down on the floor and they spread them out together. He had been right about it being unique - Sarah had never seen such a set of blueprints in her life!

“And to think that all this time it’s been us,” she finally said with a rueful smirk.

“Beg your pardon?”

“There have been stories circulating for decades about alien spacecraft being cited flying over the mesas out there. It’s this project that everybody’s been seeing. The military or the Secret Service must be funding this the way it’s been hushed up.” The truly incredible thing was getting to see the equations that were used to come up with the antigravity projectors but there were plenty of ‘mundane’ things as well such as energy use and storage. It looked like the entire top was one of the new kinds of solar cells. Something like this could potentially run indefinitely without ever having to come down to refuel if it was used as a drone. Indefinite power…she suddenly started looking over the third one again then ran to get her briefcase. In a matter of minutes the entire floor was strewn with paper. Jareth watched with pleased interest from the recliner as Sarah made feverish notes, rifling through papers, holding some together, comparing others. She kept at it for a couple of hours and he brought her breakfast and tea so she wouldn’t have to be interrupted; progress was obviously being made. Around 9:00 she suddenly lay down on the pile of paper with a huge grin on her face, triumphantly holding up a single page. He plucked it out of her grasp and looked it over. On it was a complete engineering diagram for the car battery with notes. At long last, she had done it!

“Bravo, darling! I knew you could do it. All you needed was a little help.”

Sarah had begun to get up but on a whim Jareth knelt and lay down beside her, making her laugh.

“I believe this calls for a celebration. How about by starting with finding colorful ways to destroy this excessive mass of tree pulp below us? Well, after this, of course,” he leaned over her, propped up on his elbows, and proceeded to start kissing her, slowly, languorously, over and over, his fine silky mane partially blocking out the light so it felt even more private. Sarah was so completely absorbed in what he was doing to her that she completely failed to notice what he was actually doing. After a couple of minutes, he pulled back with a satisfied smirk that initially puzzled her - until she followed his gaze and looked down at herself. And jumped! She was wearing the ivory velvet dress he had purchased for her and she was cleaned and primped from head to foot! She stared up at him, amazed. “Couldn’t do that before, love, but I certainly can now. You trust me enough to undress you, so…” he lazily smiled, running a finger across the top hem. It was almost criminal how he could just make her brain stop. She grabbed his hand playfully.

“I don’t mean to complain but could it be a little more practical? With this project complete, the rest of my day is free and we’re definitely going somewhere.”

Jareth didn’t even bat an eye - and in the next moment she was in jeans and one of her more casual blouse tops. The green matched her eyes. He was dressed to go, too.

“That’s better, Glitter-Boy,” she lightly teased him, looking at the floor where they were - it was just covered with the stuff, albeit it was dissolving. She pulled him down against and rolled him over, taking him a bit by surprise, before resuming the necessarily brief makeout session.

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The confiscated copy documents as well as half a ream of processing notes Sarah no longer needed were made into confetti via her paper shredder and Jareth dumped the basket over her head while she wasn’t looking, citing a similar ritual at the end of a football game. This quickly escalated into an all-out confetti war in her apartment which ended in a standoff between confetti down his pants and in her microwave. Jareth sulkily agreed to clean up the mess and soon they were on the road.

As they were zooming west on I-70 with an Enya CD in the deck, Jareth found himself thinking for the umpteenth time that, for Earth, this was a fairly pretty view. The Rocky Mountains were a lot more visible out here than they were the closer one got to them, stretching away as far as the eye could see both north and south. The weather was turning cooler and a bit windy but the sun was shining warm and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky by the time they turned off south, following those grand peaks. The idea that vehicular travel could take a while had been a bit annoying at first one the initial novelty had worn off but, for the most part, Jareth had adapted to this quirk of human existence pretty quickly. However, at the moment, he was fighting down the immature impulse to ask, ‘are we there yet?’

Suddenly, as if in answer to his question, an immense striated ruddy rock formation that jutted sideways out of the earth loomed up ahead on the right-hand side of the road. It looked almost alien to the landscape.

“Is that it?” he pointed out the window. Sarah kept her eyes on the road but answered him, smiling.

“Yep. That’s Red Rocks park and amphitheater. Since you seem to enjoy wandering around strange geological formations, I thought this might appeal to you. There are a few good hiking trails once we get up in the complex.” Sarah turned off the highway and onto a tiny two-lane road that meandered past Seven Ladders Rock.

The formations were breath-taking up-close; huge slabs of sedimentary rock thrust up stories high, all of the oddly similar layers starkly visible. Sparse trees and short grasses grew in the semi-arid red soil, even in a few crags in the sheer rock-face itself The place felt very ancient, much older than the surrounding landscape. It would be a joy to explore this place freely but Jareth had a sinking feeling he knew what all that red rock was colored with.

As Sarah pulled into the parking lot at the Trading Post and unbuckled to get out, she suddenly noticed that her companion was eying the red gravel just outside with a considerable level of trepidation. “Jareth, what’s the matter?”

He turned to face her. “Most of the ruddy coloring in this formation and all the rocks and earth in this area is from ferrous iron, isn’t it.” It was a statement, not a question. Sarah’s eyes went wide and she gasped in realization.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry! I didn’t think about it at all since this place is mostly natural. You can’t be here at all, can you? We should go.”

“Not so hasty, darling,” he said, eyebrows furrowed at the visitor’s center, which was also made of the same rock. He seemed to be thinking it out and presently came to a decision and nodded. “I should be able to handle some trekking out here but I won’t be able to go as far; we’ll have to take only a short route. And some personal protection is definitely in order.” He looked down at this clothes and in the next moment there was a spray of glitter in the car: his black leather gloves had reappeared, his dark blue cotton shirt - buttoned up to the neck - was tucked tightly into his black jeans, and the jeans were squeezed into his knee-high black boots. The two-inch heels were now ridiculously visible and the contrast with his more earthly attire made them look for all the world like women’s go-go boots. He looked satisfied. “There. Completely impermeable almost up to the face, and I can keep the air still in my immediate vicinity. I’ll clean us both for dust before we re-enter the car.”

Sarah was just smiling. “There is no way you are going out in public in those boots; they just look too silly with what you’re wearing.”

He looked at her levelly. “Sarah, it took me 1,200 years to wear in these boots; I’m not about to alter them.”

“Well, it’s either that or I’ll have to buy you a pair of overpriced sneakers in the gift shop and I can guarantee you’re not going to be comfortable in those even if they fit correctly. You’re too spoiled.”

Jareth looked down at his beloved boots with regret. “I suppose I could just bespell the outsides a bit…” He closed his eyes, grimacing, and pointed. When in Rome… In a flash they changed into black cowboy boots. With silver stitching. Of course. The heels were as high as ever. Upon seeing what he’d done, Sarah just bust up laughing - and stopped short at the feeling of something suddenly covering her head. She quickly felt it with her hand and took the thing off to look at it: he had made her a white cowboy hat with clear rhinestones. She looked back at him again - he had made himself a black one and had a neck bandana to match. Sarah just covered her eyes with one hand, shaking her head, still smiling.

“You just don’t get it, do you?”

He took her hat and put it back on her, carefully adjusting the chin strap, moving her hand out of the way. “There’s just no pleasing you, dear,” he sighed with a little smile of his own.

“I mean, seriously, you look like a bandit from a western melodrama! All you’re missing is a fake mustache!”

Jareth suddenly sneered a pretty convincing ‘bad guy’ smile and in one swift move pulled Sarah across the front of the sedan to his lap, her legs barely missing the stick-shift, securing her waist with one arm while the other hand trailed up to stroke her neck, making her breath quicken. “It would appear I have the heroine in my dastardly clutches. But I don’t think she’s going to cry out…” he ducked in and started slowly dragging hot kisses from the hollow of her throat to the nape of her neck, “…for help.”

Sarah moaned softly, giving into his embrace, collapsing against him while his smooth gloved hands roamed her torso. At a sharp little thrill of pleasure she suddenly snapped to and remembered they were in a parking lot! She quickly straightened, shoving his hands off.

“Jareth, we’re in public!” she shout-whispered, turning pink. “And the cabin of the car is practically glowing!” She lunged across to the driver’s side door controls and closed all the windows, taking the key out of the ignition. Fortunately for them, it seemed that the only person who had even noticed was a three-year-old girl, and her mother wasn’t paying any attention to what she was blabbering about as she pointed behind her.

Once the sparkles had subsided, they exited the vehicle and headed up the stairs to the Trading Post. They were instantly glommed onto as tourists by the staff and Jareth effortlessly lied his way through their polite inquisition, making up most of his information on the spot, while Sarah hurriedly dug through pamphlets for a decent trail map and a geologic history guide to the place. In a few minutes they were out of the building and on Ship Rock Road, heading to the amphitheater.

Jareth was right that the Red Rocks formation felt old: it was a part of the only remaining features of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains, which were raised out of a primordial ocean and eroded to nothing. All that was left were parts of the alluvial fan - the deposits washed down the mountainside, hence why the striations were diagonal. Even this much would not be visible had it not been dragged to the surface by the rising of the current mountain range; most of this formation was still buried under thousands of feet of solid rock.

But mostly, it was a place of rugged, natural beauty. They carefully followed the ramp over Ship Rock and meandered their way down into the amphitheatre. Jareth was used to thinking of amphitheatres as an ‘old world’ phenomena, but this one just fit perfectly into the down-slope of the rock. A handful of other people were there, exercising by running up and down the stairs and the seating area, which was mostly just bigger stairs. The place had a modern stage for performers that was carefully barricaded from the public.

“Sarah, what do people normally perform out here?” he asked as they started to climb the stairs on the far side by Creation Rock.

“Mostly rock music - yeah, I know, but it isn’t meant as a pun. A lot of famous bands have played this venue over the years. They used to have theater and opera way back-in-the-day but I don’t think that’s done much anymore. There’s more information once we get to the top. How are you holding out?”

“Mostly alright, I think, but after this we’ll have to go back.”

Sarah nodded, slowing her pace a bit for him so he wouldn’t push himself too hard. Once they got to the top of the amphitheatre, there was a fantastic view, one that Sarah never tired of: the suburbs of Denver with plenty of trees in the neighborhoods, swaths of untouched wild, Green Mountain to the south, Sloan’s Lake to the north. The sense of wide-open space from up here was incredible, nothing like where she had grown up. They made a quick stop in the Visitor’s Center and got a bite to eat at the grill but Jareth was obviously flagging a little bit by now and rather than force him to trudge all that way back in a somewhat weakened state, Sarah forced him to wait for her up there and drove to the upper parking lot to retrieve him. He revived in minutes in the confines of the car with the vents closed, even though he had to zap it clean of iron-contaminated dust.

The rest of the day was spent in sight-seeing around Denver: the Capital area and the colonnade, the botanical gardens, the natural history museum. It was like taking a little kid on a field trip; Jareth just seemed to absorb everything, learning everything, want to do everything. They were just burning through the remainder of his ‘cash’. It was a gratifying day but exhausting to Sarah. And the more they saw the more she began to have misgivings about giving him hope. This world was her home and she loved it. The thought of voluntarily leaving… she wasn’t honestly sure she could really go through with it and she was starting to feel very low. Jareth in comparison was in unusually high spirits, teasing her, flirting with her, trying to make out in any place that was even remotely private and a few that were rather public, brazenly ignoring the stares they got from random passers-by who happened to notice the sudden inexplicable glitter storm in their immediate vicinity. How could she possibly tell him? But she had to - soon. He seemed blithely oblivious to her internal consternation as he did his best to seduce her back into her apartment, kissing her all the way through unlocking the door, getting inside, closing it behind them, and dropping the glamour he was wearing. Sarah finally came up for air.

“Jareth,” she panted, catching her breath, “we need to talk.”

He smiled, smoothing a few strands of hair away from her face with his thumb. “I quite agree. We need to start making plans.”

Sarah closed her eyes for a moment and took a steadying breath. This was not going to be easy. Jareth belatedly noticed that her half-smile was a little sad as she took him by the hand and led him over to the couch, sitting with him. She was having a hard time even looking at him and in a flash Jareth suddenly understood as if a bucket of ice water had just been poured over him. His lips quirked into a little sardonic smile.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were a horrible tease.”

Sarah finally made eye contact out of surprise. “What?”

“You still intend to abandon me. After everything, everything we’ve gone through you’re still going to go through with it,” he shook his head in disbelief.

“…you stopped reading me ages ago!”

“I don’t have to!” he snapped bitterly. “I can feel your doubt and I see the resolve and cold, hard logic in your eyes. Well, go on then! Tell me it’s all been a joke, that I have no hope, that there’s no reason at all for me to have to sit here and placidly take this! But be warned, Sarah,” he crooned, suddenly pulling her close and burying his face in her hair, inhaling deeply against the nape of her neck, causing fabulous tingles all the way to her extremities, “I may not play as you wish in return.” He lightly nipped the skin, just sharp enough to shock her alert again. She pulled out of his embrace.

“Would you just calm down long enough to let me speak?!”

“What point is there?” he laughed humorlessly. “I already know what you’re going to say.”

“No, you don’t!”

He just looked at her flatly, folding his arms. “Prove me wrong.”

Sarah let out an exasperated sigh. “J, it’s not so simple as all that. In fact, it’s just terrible because I do care about you.”

“How sweet,” he oozed icily. Sarah nearly slapped his face but caught herself just in time.

“Jareth,” she said his name through clenched teeth, “you once begged me to hear you out when I would have rather just walked away and now you’re going to listen to me! I only said I would think about it. And that’s what I’ve been doing. I’ve been thinking about this all day long, and at first I thought I could do it, but the closer I get to this for real the scarier it gets and I just don’t know if I can really go through with this. I mean, I want to be with you, but you’re asking me to lose everything - my family, my friends, my job, my world! Haven’t you thought at all about how hard that would be for me to do for any reason?”

Jareth slowly exhaled, some of the tension going out of his frame, taking her hands in his and looking seriously into her eyes. “If we’re ever going to be able to be together, one of us must lose, Sarah. I am sorry, but the world will not be fair in this and, in the long-run, I sincerely believe it would be easier for you - I would not ask it otherwise.”

Sarah balked at the remark. He merely put up a hand to stop her temporarily.

“My turn, love. I understand you want to keep what you know, but think about this realistically. Yes, I could continue to pretend to be human and even feign premature aging, and at the ‘end’ of our lives we could stage our deaths and go live in my world. I know that’s what you desire, my darling, and it would be truly idyllic, except for two things. Firstly, you forget: when we first make love, you will cease to be completely human. You will take on certain sidhe attributes and they will come so naturally that you won’t notice the difference at all in a very short period of time. But I assure you that other humans will, especially those who have known you before. Glamour can only hide so much. They’ll know - instinctively - that you’re not one of them. Second, regardless of any of my emotions, I must consider my office and the empty throne which I should be occupying. We’ve discussed this thoroughly, why it’s important. I know the unknown can be daunting but if you actually care about me as you claim you will understand that this is necessary.”

“And if you actually loved me, you would be concerned about my feelings, my happiness!”

“Sarah,” he said gently, “let me share something with you that may help. I am willing to admit that I may not be as mature as you are at certain times,” he wryly smiled, “but I have been around the block many more times than you have, and I believe I possess a bit more perspective of the situation. I have watched hundreds upon hundreds of years of human civilization go by, and while human mortality was initially off-putting to me, I slowly began to realize that there was a beauty and a function to the seeming fleetingness of mankind. The sidhe world is almost static. We are like statues; not doing much during our lives but nevertheless lasting for millennia. In comparison, mankind is like a great big machine with many interconnected parts, all moving at breakneck speed. You wear out much faster like this but the build of the mechanism is such that the parts are interchangeable; if one of you dies, another immediately fills the gap. Your world will continue to run whether you are here or not; time devours all men but it also heals the wounds. It is already the nature of your world, your species - why not just take advantage of the fact?”
Sarah simply could not believe what she was hearing and felt herself turn ice-cold with fury. She got up and angrily paced a short distance away, trying to get her emotions back under control. Jareth watched her carefully with concern.

“You must see that it is so” he said calmly. “We simply have no choice.”

“Jareth, when are you going to get it?!” she screamed, spinning to face him. “Are you ever going to get it? Or is your head really that far out in space?! I’m not leaving, okay? I’m not going with you. You’re such a high-and-mighty asshole to think for even one second that your life is more important than mine! And the thing that kills me is that you really believe it. To you, my mortal life here is expendable! What about my mission here, huh? You know, my life’s work? You really think I’m going to drop that and passively let myself be whisked away just because you acted domineering? It makes me sick! And you’re so desperate for things to ‘get back to normal’ that you’re willing to permanently tear me away from people that I love, from my family, or did you forget that’s how we met?” she spat venomously. His look had turned black as death - darkness had even begun to emanate from his normally invisible aura - but Sarah was too enraged at him to even notice or care. Her lips twisted into a cruel little smile.

“I wish you were out of this apartment building. Right now.” He vanished instantaneously. “And you can’t come back in,” she added quietly, her voice almost starting to break as her anger began to give way to sorrow and relief. The travesty was over. She should’ve known better, known that it would’ve never worked. She shouldn’t have gotten so involved. It wasn’t even her problem; she had bested him fair and square, she owed him nothing. It would have been better if she had just wished him away in some dark corner of that café and let him fend for himself at home. She had let herself get mixed up in this mess. And lord knows what he had done to her physically. And mentally, and emotionally, her brain added as all the conflicting feelings began to surface. She had almost loved him, dammit! He just had to come here and ruin my life all over again, she thought blearily, turning off all the lights and making her way to the bedroom, suddenly exhausted. Screw her toilette for just one night; she needed rest badly. Things would look better in the morning. And if they didn’t she knew someone who was going to pay.

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Jareth found himself standing outside the front door of Sarah’s apartment complex as soon as she said the words, the scathing retort he was about to unleash dying in his throat. He angrily cranked the door handle but it merely spun in his grasp and attempted to pass through it ephemerally to no avail. He couldn’t even see inside her rooms with a scrying crystal, the inside only showing the grey mist of the inbetween. He smashed it against the door in a fit of temper and took two quick paces away before his emotions caught up with him and he suddenly had to sit down right where he was to keep from fainting from the sheer shock of what had just happened. Sarah had just kicked him out. If it wasn’t so direly serious he would’ve laughed. He felt a headache coming on.

Well, you just blew everything, genius, now what? his brain seemed to be saying with all that dull throbbing. He sighed and simply sat there for a moment to collect himself before willing away the pain, allowing himself to feel it briefly. He had the vague feeling that he deserved it and whatever else the universe could dish out at this point; he was officially a failure. He had failed his kingdom, he had failed Sarah, and, ultimately, he had failed himself. Belatedly he realized that he was still attired in Underground clothing and quickly changed so he wouldn’t be conspicuous. He wasn’t ready to resign himself to his owl form just yet…

No. He wasn’t a failure unless he gave up. As long as he drew breath he would try as hard at he could to get back, he thought, hauling himself to his feet. Even if all he was going back to was a dungeon. He owed his family that much. Her family! How could I have been so blind, so stupid?! he thought to himself as he paced around the building to the side where the windows to Sarah’s corner apartment were visible. All the lights were off. He thought of getting her attention by throwing gravel at her bedroom window but thought better of it - with no further plan he would no doubt wind up strung up by his toes at least. No, he needed to think this out. He paced out into the urban night.