Sarah, once called Sarah Williams but discarded the name when she became Queen of the Goblins, Jareth's consort and Beloved of the King and the Labyrinth, co-ruler of the Underground, stared rather stupidly at a plastic stick with two little red lines blazing with audacity through a window confirming a rather permanent aspect of her future.
"Well, screw me sideways. Oh wait, he already did that."
Sarah slide down the wall and landed with a light thump on the cold marble floor, leaning her dark head into her free hand and heaving a great sigh. She studied her blue fuzzy socked feet and wiggled her toes while she tried to put actual, coherent words to her very scattered thoughts.
Pregnant. Pregnancy. Motherhood. Maternity. Baby. Life. Nine months of intense sickness and bloating and mood swings and waddling like a great fat whale- Sarah pushed her head up and swung herself up into an upright stance and began pacing like a champion. She almost made no sound, her feet slightly shushing on the floor as she absently placed one foot in front of the other, her unbuttoned over shirt billowing when she made a circuit, and her khaki shorts whispering together in the now brisk pace she set.
So she was going to have a baby. It wasn't the end of the world. Lots of women got pregnant and had kids, happened all the time. A lot all the time, if the rising population numbers were anything to go by in the Aboveground. But Underground... How many people of Jareth's, and now her own, kind had children? The discussion hadn't cropped up in the time they had been together. Aside from their marriage and Sarah's establishment as Queen, they hadn't talked about what the future would be like. Just performing the day-to-day tasks and rituals of being monarchs had eaten up most of their time, when they weren't being newlyweds. And they both dearly loved that time.
It was strange she hadn't thought of this before, Sarah mused as she sat down on the wide edge of the Jacuzzi-like creation she had shaped not too long after she moved in with Jareth. She had taken one long look at his bathroom and rolled up her proverbial sleeves and gotten to work. She was totally new to her latent magic and often her trial-and-error ways had the new Queen and King sleeping in a different part of the castle; once because she completely blew the section off, another because she translocated the entire room to somewhere else in the Labyrinth and it took Jareth a week to find it. He was not happy at the time. They'd had a rather...heated discussion, Jareth arguing that she could find a less important space to practice her power on, one that didn't involve everyday use and in close proximity to living situations and Sarah arguing back that she needed the personal motivation to accomplish something that would make them both happy and would further her progress in magic in the long run. In the end Sarah continued her experiments and Jareth continued his grumbling.
Finally, after at least a month's battle with her power and the difficulty incorporating human trivialities in a world of magic, Sarah won through hardships unnumbered the perfect bathroom. Even Jareth had been impressed and spent a fair amount of time exploring this new world of man/magic made inventions. The Jacuzzi had not only hot and cold nozzles but also spigots designated for Sarah's body wash and other needful cleanliness products, while there were some designed for Jareth as well. Once, Sarah being a inquisitive female, tested the substance that came from his spigot and that was where her own creation amazed her. It varied in smell and substance almost every time. Once was a dark, foamy sandalwood, another was a clear gel that smelled of the sea and rocks, and, she still giggled to the day, even a creamy almond scent that she used on herself, much to her amusement and Jareth's wry embarrassment.
Sarah now reached for the hot faucet and turned it on, leaning over to also untap a spigot she knew would unleash a wealth of soapy liquid that would turn into a sumptuous, silky bubble bath. She quickly divested herself of her everyday clothes and slipped in, reveling the warm water wrapping around her body and leaving her body stress and worry free. Now to relax and make the mind the same.
She sighed and let her head fall back the edge closing her eyes and seeing nothing, just for a moment. Then she got to business. Sarah and Jareth had carnal knowledge of each other even before they were married, not that anyone cared, least of all the couple, and continued to love each other constantly. Constantly. What concerned her was why she hadn't thought of the possibility of conception before now. It never occurred to her, even in the days when she and Jareth did nothing but wrap themselves in each other, delighting and basking in their physical intimacy and the touching of their magics. Apparently it hadn't occurred to Jareth either. She wasn't sure what kind of contraceptives they had in the Underground but to her knowledge she hadn't been using any. There was a theory that Jareth might have been, but obviously it hadn't worked one time or he wasn't using it all. So which was it?
She absently crept her hand down to her stomach and rested there, imagining she could already feel a swell, feel movement. Which was impossible, of course, but the idea was already there and a smile broke on Sarah's face. She was going to be a mother. Sure, the idea sounded a little strange, she giggled here, but the even stranger thought was that her wild-haired, impulsive husband would be a father. Her deep laughter spilled out and the water sloshed over the edge, but disappeared before it could hit the floor. That was also a part of Sarah's creation; there was no possible way to make this special bathroom messy or unclean.
Sarah first had inklings of another...something with her magic but found it only when she went out of her way to discover it. And there it was, unobtrusively present, silently waiting to be known, was a little spark. A spark of life and magic that she and Jareth had created. She had enough proof right there but a little trip upstairs, as she and Jareth jokingly called Aboveground sometimes, and her suspicions were proven correct, with slight help from a mundane pregnancy kit. And now the Queen and King would be parents.
What would Jareth think when he learned his seduction had borne fruit?
Sarah spent the next few days quietly, not so much that Jareth would notice anything out of the ordinary, just enough that she could think her situation over, she was calm. Contemplative. She definitely could not ask any baby questions around him or their mutual advisors, the idea of asking any one of her three champions caused a gale of hilarity she quickly set aside, and there were no humans she could temporarily confide in. Which left on little glimmer of hope.
"When in doubt, read the book."
Sarah took her pregnant self off the library, something she occasionally did so that wouldn't raise any eyebrows in of itself, as long as no one took too closely of a look at the subject matter she was reading. She picked out one book at time, not wanting to draw attention by making a stack. One by one, volumes were discarded and placed back on shelves with sighs of disappointment and frustration. She was getting absolutely nowhere.
"Maybe they don't have children. But that's just pure silly, Sarah, where did they all come from then? Pretty sure it wasn't the stork, he can't make long distance trips to the Underground. And really, you can't find a Fae under a cabbage leaf." Her monologue stopped when her searching fingers alighted on a promising title, A Line of Kings: Rulers of the Labyrinth.
"Okay, I think I can handle this. As long as it's not a whole lot of "begats".
She plunked down on an overstuffed love seat and twirled her fingers to create a piping hot chocolate drink which she gingerly sipped as she turned the first page. She thumbed through the majority of the book containing rambling chapters of mighty and heroic deeds the first kings performed but she came to the final chapter labeled Gareth: the Goblin Tamer. Inside, she finally found what she was looking for.
"On the pursuit of knowledge, my dear Queen, or are you trying to hide from me?" asked a light, cultured voice from behind her left ear. She gasped and dropped the book, able to be surprised by her mischievous husband still, but he deftly maneuvered himself in front of her and caught it and returned the slim volume to her hands before she had time to reach for it. Sarah attempted to glare at her husband but he was at his most innocent, mismatched eyes wheedling his way into her hear, childlike almost and he held his hands under hers, resting on top of the book while he crouched in front of her, placatingly rubbing his thumbs over her fingertips.
"Oh, you," she said half-heartedly swatting at him and laughing when he jokingly drooped his fair head. "You know I couldn't hide from you even if I tried." She smiled and leaned forward to kiss him. Only to be surprised when she leaned into nothing and was pulled back onto his lap, resting against his back as he lounged carelessly across the love seat.
"But why would you want to? I mean, have you seen me? "A sex god in leather pants and glitter" is I believe how you described me once. Or twice." Jareth grinned ferally at his wife before claiming a willing kiss, still smiling into her mouth.
"Just because it's true doesn't mean you have to be so cocky about it!"
"And why not? I am right. And I am a sex god. If your cries to my divinity last night were to be believed." The feral grin was back and Sarah colored deeply all the way to roots of her hair and to her slightly erratic pulse at her throat. Jareth took advantage of her blush and nibbled along her throat, releasing a sigh of pleasure. Her hands went up to twine in his wild hair, causing the book to fall down off her lap and onto the floor, somewhat startling them both.
Still holding her gently, Jareth bent to retrieve the book, kissing her still pink cheek as he returned to her lap, cover side up. An elegant eyebrow went up at the sight of the title and he cocked his head a little in question. When no answer was forthcoming he tried verbally.
"A history lesson, beloved? From what I know of you," he positively leered at her before continuing, "you deplore history and all its facets."
"Oh, I don't know, I wouldn't say that. History isn't all that bad and I was a little curious as to where it all started. The beginning of you in a way." Sarah tried a winsome smile with a quick downturn of her eyes and perhaps a slight breathiness to her voice that was sure to distract her husband from the innocuous book in her lap. It did.
"You know what they say about curiosity, right?" Jareth's voice was slightly hoarse and tinged with lust.
"Eww, I hope you're not going to say what I think you're going to say!" she objected and tried to wiggle away from him, which only inflamed him more.
"Nope. It didn't kill the cat." He picked her up and instantly transported them to their room between one breath and the next. He unceremoniously dumped her on the bed and followed her down, covering her with his hard, lean body, muffling her squeak of protest with a kiss. The squeak turned into a moan and her hands wandered up to his neck while his slid down to hold on to her hips as deftly kissed her breathless. He broke away for a moment and grinned naughtily into her slightly mystified face. "It got her into bed with a King."
Her laughter was full and rich with amusement before it was silenced by a long and promising kiss.