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Chapter Three: And he had given her certain powers.

And then he disappeared, before she could yell at him. She threw the crystal at the window anyway, but it didn’t break or sail through the open—the window was now closed. She frowned.

“Damn it, did you have to come back now?” she snarled to herself.

Jareth smiled to himself. “Yes,” he whispered, now safely back on his bed and in an excellent mood. “Yes I did.”

She glared at the small crystal, lying innocently on her floorboards, and slowly walked over to pick it up, a grimace on her otherwise lovely face.

“I hate you, Jareth,” she growled in a low tone. “I despise you. I don’t even know words strong enough to express my complete loathing of you.” She flung the window open and threw the crystal out it as hard as she could, watching with grim, angry satisfaction as its tiny glitter flew through the night.

Jareth smiled, knowing her small act of defiance would eventually prove useless. After all, love and hate were only two sides of the same coin...and flipping a coin was so easy.

Particularly when you have practice, he mused to himself, twirling the crystal she had just tried to disown in his fingers.

* * *

Sarah woke the next morning, determined to think that she had imagined the entire episode. She didn’t open her eyes yet, but lay in bed, mentally convincing herself that somehow her imagination, or her dreams, or something had run away with her, and she had imagined the whole thing. Jareth had never been there; Jareth had never offered to take her to the con.

She refused to even think about accepting his offer. It boasted far too many risks. And she didn’t really want to see him again anyway. She was sure of it.

She opened her eyes at last, staring up at the canopy of her bed for a moment before levering herself up and glancing at her bedside table.

Jareth’s crystal ball sat calmly in the middle of it, on a small stand that made it look almost like a snow globe. The music box with the dancing pair began playing softly in the background.

She snarled. Jareth would be dead when she got her hands on him next.

Jareth almost capered when he saw her expression. It was everything he had hoped and more. He hoped, secretly, that she would take a few more tries to discover that no matter how she tried to get rid of the crystal, it would always return to her. The same, of course, went for the music box, though he was just as pleased that she hadn’t tried to destroy it yet. Perhaps she still valued that memory...even if she wouldn’t admit it to herself.

He went to his duties with a new spring in his step, even as Sarah kicked the crystal ball out of her sight and went to prepare for school. It was a bright new day, and he was glad to be alive.

* * *

He waited until lunch to check in on her again, knowing that she would have few chances for interactions with her peers until then, since she took pains to keep herself secluded. But lunchtime...

Ah, lunchtime. He had learned this slowly, but now he could feel it ingrained in his bones. Lunch was the time and place where reputations could be made or lost, and minor catfights—in the guise of witty remarks and a well-timed expression—often broke out. He had watched more than a few with interest.

Sarah usually sat at a small table in a dark corner, but today it was taken. It was cold outside, and just drizzly enough to keep everyone indoors—which left a pretty problem for his fair heroine. There would barely be enough seats, and with her usual niche taken, she would have to go somewhere.

Sarah knew this intrinsically, but watched carefully for a solution as she passed slowly through the lunch line. Jocks and preps, elite intellectuals, stoners, partygoers... She had no clique of her own, so today she would have to pretend.

She chose a seat at the end of the table of the town royalty, one of the few places that remained unfilled. A pair of empty seats separated them, but she could already feel the sneering looks directed at her, warning her to leave their property.

She ignored them.

She was halfway through her lunch when she suddenly heard a disturbance further up the table, though she refused to look up to see what it was.

“Susan!” one of the girls called—she thought she recognized it as the voice of Melissa, the reigning queen. “Oh Susan, do look up!”

This school is not that large, Sarah thought to herself in irritation. It is not that hard to learn one name.

But she continued picking at the school’s poor attempt at meatloaf. It looked more like cow shit to her, but it was, at least, still classified as food. She did not look up.

“Susan! Oh, Josh, get her. I have a question.” The male in question (a jock, of course) looked up and grinned at his monarch, now fluttering her hand at him. “Sure.”

Sarah felt a “gentle” push on her arm that almost knocked her sideways. “Hey, you. Susan. Melissa wants to talk to you,” the lumbering hulk said.

Sarah kept a smooth expression on her face, but Jareth saw through it. He knew that she was seething inside, as was he. While she only had options of diplomacy through a harsh tongue lashing available to her, he was fighting off the urge to drop her entire table into the Bog of Eternal Stench.

Headfirst.

“That. Is not. My name.” She said the words slowly, articulating each syllable precisely in order to prevent any misunderstanding from the more intellectually challenged at the table.

Melissa sighed gustily and waved her hand again. “Oh well. It doesn’t matter.”

The expression on Sarah’s face, though it lasted only for a split second, suggested that it did matter, and Jareth grinned suddenly, waiting for the fireworks.

“Mother said that you were going to the prom,” Melissa began, eyes sparkling with cruelty as she gazed upon her prey. She sent a sly look to the other almost-women clustered around her, and slight smiles broke out among the group. “She said that you even had a dress already.”

Sarah took a breath, cursing, once again, the fact that her stepmother and Melissa’s mother went to the same aerobics class. It invariably meant irritating confrontations like this one, usually over the same old, worn-out high school trivia.

Like school dances.

“That was my stepmother’s idea, not mine,” she answered coolly. “I have never intended to go, and still do not intend to do so.”

One of Melissa’s friends rolled her eyes and mouthed something to the blond prima donna. Sarah didn’t catch it, but Jareth did, and almost broke the crystal sitting in his fist, snarling suddenly in rage.

Worthless slut. Leave her be.

Melissa shot the girl a glare, leaving her momentarily chastened, and tried to continue with her fun. “Oh, but you must—” she began.

“I must do nothing,” Sarah interrupted. “Though I choose to go to class now. Good-bye.” The separation became final as she rose, disposed of her tray, and left the room.

Jareth’s grin returned, and he promised himself that he would think up something particularly unpleasant for that shrew and her covey of harpies.

He wondered for a moment whether he should let her in on the planning, but then decided to give her a few days before he intruded on her again.

Physically, at least.

* * *

Sarah slammed the front door when she arrived home from school and stormed up the stairs. Toby, in his playpen in the living room, began to cry, but she ignored him as well as her stepmother, who tried to intercept her for slamming the door and “upsetting the baby.”

Three years old wasn’t a baby anymore. It was a menace, even though she generally liked her half brother.

She slammed her bedroom door too and ignored her stepmother until she finally went away. Then, at last, she moved away from the door and dropped her bag onto her bed, glancing disinterestedly up the bed.

Where Jareth’s crystal laid on her pillow. The same one that her head had rested on when he had attacked her and forced her to lay beneath him. She was sure that that particular placement was intentional.

And she was right. Jareth beamed at her glower, relayed faithfully through his own crystal. He’d always known that women caught onto the subtle messages like that.

Sarah went to the window and flung it open, intending to send the crystal sailing through it a second time, though she paused with her hand on the casement. The image of his crystal—she would not call it hers—appearing by her side that morning interrupted her thoughts, and she snarled silently at the conclusion.

Jareth would just keep returning it. Of course he would, the arrogant prick.

She tried to block out the memory of his warm, masculine body hanging so closely above hers the previous night, but failed. The man might be an asshole, but she couldn’t deny that he was attractive.

Physically, at least. And only in the depths of her mind, where no one but her would be privy to the admission.

Jareth smiled wolfishly at her blush, her sudden stillness. “Thinking of me, are you? Don’t worry, my sweet—I’ll come back to claim you soon enough.”

Sarah stuffed the crystal into an old shoebox in the back of her closet, determined to forget it. As long as it was in her room, hopefully he would ignore it. It wasn’t like he could spy on her all the time.

* * *

“There’re plenty of leftovers in the fridge for when you get hungry, Sarah, but Toby can’t eat everything you can; he’s still young—”

Sarah tried not to sigh with impatience, waiting for her father to finish his instructions and leave for his annual Christmas party. “I know, Dad, I’ve fed him before,” she interrupted, trying futilely to stem his unnecessary directions.

“He’ll need to eat by six if you’re going to get him bathed and changed before his bedtime at eight-thirty.” Her father was impervious to her unspoken pleas of silence. She really didn’t know why he couldn’t accept that she was intelligent enough to take care of Toby for one night without an essay’s worth of instructions.

Sarah’s stepmother eyed her critically, not missing the teen’s contempt. “Dear, we’re going to be late if you don’t hurry up,” she prodded her husband, giving Sarah a look that promised consequences if she slipped up once in her son’s care.

Her father blustered for another few moments, reminding her of the numbers to reach them if anything happened, to keep the doors and windows locked, and—

Her stepmother finally bustled him out the door, closing it firmly behind them.

Sarah slumped against the banister for a moment, relieved to be free of her parents for the evening, though it meant she had to give up some of her own time to care for the energetic toddler that her brother had become. The thought of her brother made her smile, however, and she bounded up the stairs to his room, thinking of some games she could play with him before bed.

He always slept better after a good hour’s romping.

“Hey Toby, wanna play?” she asked, throwing open the door to his room. “What about—you.”

The Goblin King turned to smile at her, bouncing her tiny charge on his hip.