Jareth's absolute favorite thing about the apartment in the city was the pool on the eighteenth floor. At 5:30 almost every morning, he would wake up, slip out of bed, carefully as not to wake his beautiful wife, and change into his swimming trunks. He would always wait to kiss his wife goodbye until after he changed, just to show off in case she did wake up.

Then he would sneak past the kids' rooms, take the elevator down the twenty floors, and stride into the blissfully empty pool. The former rogue indulged his ego slightly as he would ride down the elevator bringing only his towel and keys. There was always some chance a girl would notice him. Sarah called it wishful thinking; he preferred the term preparation.

Once Jareth dove in, there was just him and the water. There were no subjects or employees to distract. Decrees and memos were forgotten, board meetings and court ignored. And even as blissful as his family life was, Jareth savored those hours when he could tune out all the white noise and lose himself in the blue.

One such morning, he was lost in the almost worshipful trance of another lap when an odd sound came from somewhere near the entrance. Jareth popped his head out of the water.

"BANZAI!"

Two scrawny, flailing goblins came virtually out of nowhere and crashed onto his head. During the confused splashing and frantic struggle to find the way up, Jareth recalled that goblins did not normally wear Lightning McQueen and Wall-E swimming trunks of their own volition. No, that would be his own progeny.

Grabbing a floundering 'goblin' in each arm and hiking them on his shoulders, Jareth kicked to the surface. Only when the coughing and sputtering sounds faded from his ears did he look at his errant sons. To the right he saw Gareth grinning from ear to ear. To the left he saw Gregory's- rear end. With a sigh, Jareth flipped the twins around until they were both safely nestled in his arms. His face turned stern, and their smiles faded.

"What the Fyn are you doing here Boys?" he asked harshly. "Did your mother put you up to this?" How did she get you up so early? Jareth had a fleeting vision of Sarah's newest Jimmy Choos flung into the Bog of Eternal Stench, but he changed his mind when remembered he paid for that particular pair.

The boys tried and failed to pull off a successful pout. That was the skill of their sisters alone. One raised eyebrow from their father told them as much. "We just wanted to play with you, Daddy," Greg admitted pitifully.

As sincere as he sounded, Jareth wasn't buying all of it. Not from his boys. "As well as scare me half to death?" He asked.

Gareth smirked, a carbon copy of his mother's. "Maybe."

"Did it happen to cross either of your minds that you haven't learned to swim?" This seemed to be a novel idea to the Goblin Princes. One cocked his head to the side as the other's brow furrowed.

Jareth shook his head at the two little tricksters. All those mischievous schemes stored under the twins' brown mop-heads were going to get them in big trouble someday, unless they learned some discipline. Well, no time like the present. Jareth walked to the edge of the pool and sat Gareth and Greg down on the edge.

"Now boys, you have to know how to swim properly before you can come with me." They hung their heads. "So I want to see you both at the door, dressed and ready, at 5:35 sharp every weekday morning." Two pairs of green eyes lit up like fairy lights. "This will not be playtime. It's a lesson. You need to know how to swim. Understood?" They shook their heads, not believing Jareth's firmness for a moment.

"All right then." Jareth took a few steps back and held his arms out. "Let's start with kicking. Oldest first, Gareth; Greg has you beat by two minutes. Wait your turn."

And that was how the twins learned to swim. Though Jareth got enough bruises and swimmer's ear to regret it ten times over, he never did. Though the twins still got in more trouble than they were worth for most of their childhood, the practices continued well into their teens.

And many years later, when Greg was the star of the school swim team and Gareth was training for the Sidhe City Games, Jareth would wonder why he ever needed that time for himself at all.