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It's been years since she's seen him, and he doesn't seem to have aged at all. He's still inhumanly beautiful, with his shock of blond hair and mismatched eyes, the too-tight pants - surely any human would get taken in for public indecency - and flowing, feathery shirts, the glassy bauble of an offered dream proffered to a child who surely just wished someone away.
It takes her breath away, and she can't bring herself to speak out as the child looks torn and, ultimately, reaches out to take hold of the bauble. Jareth sighs, disappearing between one moment and the next, and Sarah wonders if she imagined the weariness in his eyes
*
The next time she sees him, there's no child in sight, and he's sitting on a bench in front of the "lake" in the park, watching the waterfowl with a distant expression. People wandering by on the path seem to not notice him and his completely out-of-place clothing, so she doesn't call out in case it's a spell her voice would break.
Though she has somewhere to be, she just stands and watches for a while, until he turns and looks over his shoulder, meeting her eyes— And then he's gone again, and this time she knows she wasn't imagining the weariness.
*
The third time she sees him, she's walking off her annoyance over her step-mom calling her up and blaming her for all of Toby's weirdness, and it's only chance that she spots him through the green of the trees.
She carefully worms between the branches, because curiosity has always been the one vice she's never managed to beat off, and stops before she breaks cover, because he's sitting on the ground in what would, to anyone else, be irreplaceable clothing and playing with a pair of dirty, unkempt, and far too young street children. His hands are gentle, his laughter soft, and she had no idea he could be like this.
He looks up, somehow knowing she's there, and quirks his lips. She surprises herself by smiling back, and quietly squirming her way back out of the foliage.
*
She stops counting after the fifth time she sees him, though she plans to someday ask him why he's Earthside so often. (Then again, maybe it's his way of de-stressing. Goodness knows the goblins must be a trying people to rule over.)
Usually, he's calm, if not wistful and faintly maudlin. This time, he's in high dudgeon, rage as thorough a cloak as any of the feather-laden things she's seen him wearing. So she doesn't approach him, but watches him pace about, and after a while, goes home. She returns later, to find him no longer pacing but still furious, and silently leaves a basketful of cookies and a small bottle of good rum nearby.
She knows he noticed, and she's always thought it's the sentiment that counts, even if he doesn't bother with them.
*
She's tipsy and full of grief and rage and she has no idea how he knew where she was, but when he says nothing, merely sits beside her, she just hiccups and tips back the shot.
He does gently take her hand after she slams the shot glass back onto the bar's surface, and somehow she can tell that he's grieving Toby's senseless death as well. She forgets, sometimes, that Toby is the only reason she knows him. (She wonders if he'd been randomly appearing to Toby over the years. It would explain a few things.)
She gestures to the bartender for another shot, and when she looks back at the bar, he's set one of his dream-baubles down in front of her. He still says nothing, and she knows he's not expecting anything. It's an invitation, nothing more.
So she looks him in the eye, reading the lonely weariness there, and she damns her sixteen-year-old self because maybe, if she'd known what she was passing up, Jareth wouldn't have cause to look so worn down and Toby wouldn't be dead and she might not have learned that all adulthood is is work and grief and brief moments of happiness because nothing measures up to a wondrous memory.
She slams back the shot, picks up the bauble, and nods.