New Crystals, Old Dreams- Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I do NOT own any of these characters…I am merely borrowing from the immense supernova glow of Jim Henson's mind to add a little flicker to my story!

She was sure that sleep would never find her that night.  Sarah was nearly out of breath as she took the last of her things from their attic hiding spots and placed them back in all their rightful places.  How could her father do this to her?  How could he lock away memories?  Or perhaps that was exactly the problem?  He was afraid that these things weren’t her memories, but merely part of her delusion.

'Oh dad…how could you?’  The last thing she pulled out of the box was the fragile music doll.  It had been packed with little care, not that she expected care from her stepmother, and now stood there in her magnificent dress sans her left arm.  Sarah searched for the lost arm and found it at the bottom of the box in one piece.  Vowing to glue it back on, she turned her mind from the bitterness and focused on the miniature dancing girl that she had been dressed up like at the Crystal Fae Ball.  She cranked the lever a bit and watched as the girl twirled to the lilting melody that Jareth had weaved into a song that night.

Suddenly, Sarah returned to that night in her choppy memory.  The blurred, masked figures were twirling around in a morbid masquerade that left her feeling dizzy, confused and very alone.  She was looking around hopefully for the one face she recognized, Jareth, but only caught glimpses of him as he used that annoying Fae ability of popping around the room at will.  Oh, but that moment she had seen him and he had taken her up into his arms…she had been very ready to surrender in the gentle comfort of his arms.

She was pretty damn sure that she would have given everything up to be with that glimmering, chivalrous version of Jareth.  He was charming and debonair, what more could a girl ask for, but sadly, that was not the true Jareth.  He was the villain, not the knight in shinning armor come to save her.

The song had stopped, though the notes still echoed like a ghost song in her mind.  She looked back at the now unmoving figurine and she felt the warm tears come running down her cheeks.  What the hell was this?  Did she miss the Underground?  All her friends there?  Or…dare she think it…Jareth?  She cranked the music doll up again and rested her head down on the table top of her vanity, letting that magical night wash over her again and damning herself for not accepting all that he had to offer.

A hand on her shoulder woke her up. 

"Mmmm…Jareth…" She purred unknowingly in her sleep.  The hand snapped back and she heard the door to her room close.  Being too tired to get up and investigate she went back to sleep and her wonderful dream of Jareth.  Getting her hands tangled in all that wild hair would be so much fun.

"Sarah…Sarah, darling wake up."  Her eyes snapped open.  She could feel the slight dribble of drool on her arm where her head had lain.  'Damn saliva…what the hell good is it anyways?  All it does is embarrass you!'

She turned to meet the gaze of her father and was slightly peeved when she saw the grin on his face.  Making sure that her face left no doubt of her irritation, she turned on him.  He should know by now that she was NOT a morning person.

"What!?"  His grin never faltered.

"You have a red streak across your face.  It’s very becoming."  That sarcastic bastard, but she couldn’t help the laughter when she looked at herself.  She turned to the mirror and saw that she indeed had a red streak from her right temple all the way down to her cheek.

"Well, I guess I need a shower huh?" She joked, taking a mocking sniff of herself.

"Yeah, you're pretty rank."

"Dad!?!"  He just laughed and started to head out the door when he noticed a few things in the room that shouldn’t have been there.  Her father turned back around, the pure shock and surprised terror glazed his eyes as he glanced over the room.  Everything that had been stored away in the attic was back.  Somehow she had remembered that things were missing and she had found everything and put it back.

"Sarah…?"  His voice shook on her name, he didn’t seem able to say anything more than that.  She couldn’t say she hadn’t expected this, but she swore to herself that she would play it calm.  It wouldn’t help her to act like a neglected teenager anymore.

"Yes Dad?"  She could feel the spiteful words vying for a chance to be spoken, but she bit them back.

"Where did you find all your things?"

"The attic, where you shoved them."  It was said so nonchalant, but she knew the venom that was insinuated in those words was unmistakable.  Her father tried to walk up to her and explain.

"Sarah, I…"  A slender hand went up to signal him to stop talking.  If he didn’t stop now, she wasn’t certain she would be able to control her tongue. 

"I really don’t want to talk about this right now dad.  Right now all I want to do is take a shower and try to calm myself down and perhaps even wake up a little.  As you can imagine I didn’t get much sleep last night."  His head just hung low, defeated by her words.  He knew he had no chance of trying to explain himself to Sarah, especially when she’d just woken up. 

"Ok, I will be downstairs when you are ready to talk."  She nodded and he left the room.  Down to the breakfast that she could smell.  Down to that bacon and eggs way of life.  Her life wasn’t going to be that simple.  It wasn’t ever going to be bacon and eggs.  The way she was feeling right now it was more along the lines of liver and onions.

She took her shower and then headed down herself.  The bacon and eggs were cold, of course, but Toby was sitting there waiting for her.  He wasn’t quite as annoying these days.

"Hello Sawah."  Toby still couldn’t get his r's down.  She walked over to the almost eight year old and ruffled his dirty blonde hair, making a mental note to buy a present for his rapidly approaching birthday.

"Hello there Toby.  How are you doing this morning?"  His blue eyes twinkled with delight at her being home.  He had always hated it when they had to leave her there at her apartment, always wanting to stay with her.

"I'm doin' pwetty good Sawah.  How have you been?"  Though he lisped the r’s a bit, he sounded like an intelligent little boy.

"I have been doing pretty good myself little one, but I have had some problems with my memory lately.  Some of it seems to have been erased."  His little face twisted up in confusion.

"How could it be ewased?  You can't take an ewaseah to a bwain…can you?"  He looked terrified at the thought.

"Oh no, no Toby.  No erasers.  There were just people that made me forget a few things that I didn’t want to."  His head titled with the need for knowledge.

"Like what Sawah?"  She leaned in closer to Toby.

"Toby, do you remember the Goblin King?  Do you remember being in his castle with all the goblins and I was trying to find you?"  His eyes filled with terror.

"They awen't comin' back are they!?!  I don’t wanna go back thewe.  It wasn’t a fun place."  Sarah was joyous with the news.  She thought for sure he was too young to remember that, but perhaps something as momentous as being in the Underground couldn’t simply be forgotten.  That brought a twinge of remorse to her already bruised heart…she had.  She had forgotten.  Forgotten it all, along with her friends.

"No Toby they won't come back for you.  I just wanted verification that I wasn’t crazy."  He laughed.

"You awen't cwazy!"  She didn’t have time to continue the conversation with her little brother cause her father walked into the kitchen with 'evil bitch' in tow.  She groaned and rolled her eyes, mentally preparing herself for the moronic onslaught that was about to be dished out on her.

"So I guess it's not going to be when I'm ready?"  It was her step-mother's turn to scoff and roll her eyes at Sarah from above her long, narrow nose.  She always managed to look like a retarded bird of some sort when she did that.  Her father came and sat down by her.

"I am sorry dear, but these things need to be said and Claire--I, want to get it out of the way."  So this was step-mother dearest's idea?  Surprise, surprise.

"Ok, I have one question and one question only.  It's really simple so it won't be too hard for you."  She directed that last part at the witch bitch to the left of her father.  "Why the HELL did you send me to that psyche ward of a high school?"  Her step- mother took her chance to answer.

"Because you were spouting off idiocy about some mythical place called the Underground and talking about how you fought a Goblin King and made friends with a dwarf and a giant monster with horns!  What did you expect us to do?  We couldn’t very well keep you around to scare off our friends!"  Sarah eyed her coldly.

"You mean YOUR friends!?  You MADE dad send me to that place didn’t you?"  Her smug smirk and upturned chin was all she needed as a reply.  Sarah burst out of her seat and sent a blazing open palm right against her step-mother's cheek.  There was a gasp and the sound of her father calling her, but she was storming to her room with little care to the fact that she was acting like the teenager she’d sworn she wouldn’t.

She ran in and slammed the door shut, locking it.  Then she threw herself on the bed and covered her head with the nearest pillow.  Then she shot up.

"Woah…déjà vu."  There was pounding on her door.  It was her father and he sounded furious.

"Sarah Williams!  You open this door right now!"

"NO!"

"I can't believe you hit Claire like that!"  Disbelief pulled at her face…well damn, some things never changed.

"Wow, you really care about ME!  You could care less about sending your child away for almost seven years, but a little slap to the Bitch Whore from Hell and your god damn panties are in a twist!"  The pounding stopped.

"Sarah…" He sounded exasperated.  That just made her snap even more.

"Don’t worry, you won't have to worry about me anymore!"  She turned to the mirror on her vanity and said the words that could either doom her to a fate she didn’t even want to think of or the only place where she would ever truly be free.

"I wish…"  The pounding started on her door again at the sound of those words.

"Sarah, don't do this!  You know that was all a dream!  It was a delusion created by you when you were a child!"  Her focus went back to the mirror.

"I wish…"

"SARAH!"

"I wish the goblins would come and take me away…"  She looked back at the door one last time.  One last look at her life here in the Aboveground.  "Right now."

Her window was thrown open and the owl swooped in.  The curtains hid it for a moment and when they fell back there he was.  It was Jareth.  He looked exactly the same.  He was wearing his regal armored formal ware.  Just like that first night they had met. 

She walked up to him and looked up into his mismatched eyes and he smiled.  She couldn’t tell if it was sinister or sincere.  Sarah could only guess that was a perk of being the Goblin King, keeping people on their toes.

"Hello Sarah."

(A/N:  Thank you to those who have begun reading my story.  I truly hope that you like it and want to continue with it.  I love reviews.  I love hearing what people think about the story!  So go for it…you know you wanna…review!  ::HINTHINT::)