Sarah's first conscious thought was that she'd never been more comfortable in her life. The mattress perfectly cradled her body as she laid on her side and the pillows and blankets were the softest she had ever felt. She nuzzled the pillow a little, relishing the feel of the silk sheets. It seemed almost a shame that her flannel pajamas separated her from them. She sighed and snuggled into the warmth of the bed, relishing the sweet scent that enveloped her. And then she registered the solid presence behind her.

She froze as memories from the night before came rushing back.

When she'd crawled into his bed the night before, she had pressed herself against Jareth's back, relieving both of them of the growing separation pains, but they'd somehow switched positions in the night and he was now practically wrapped around her, one bare hand tucked under her nightshirt and splayed just under her breast.

Just where Uthor had stabbed her.

She shuddered and felt Jareth's embrace tighten.

He was awake. She craned her neck to look at him behind her.

He had his head propped up on his other hand and was already looking back at her.

"Feeling refreshed?" he asked.

"Yes," she answered and was surprised that it didn't feel like a concession. It had been one of the most pleasant and restful nights she'd ever had. "Maybe we should be sleeping with-" she cut herself off, "-by each other every night."

"I know which I'd prefer, but either way suits me… for now."

Sarah blushed.

"Will you be joining me Underground, then?" he continued.

"Um...no," Sarah said, rolling off the pallet and climbing to her feet. "Not for anything more than a short visit, anyway."

"Are you proposing a part-time solution?"

She sat down on her bed. "I'm not proposing anything yet. I had a full life before you waltzed back into it."

"As I recall, you waltzed back into my life," he replied, shifting his hips to prop himself up on his elbows, the blankets falling around his waist, leaving his chest bare.

"All I'm saying is I don't mind going Underground once in a while. But you'll need to be patient, because I won't be held against my will and I'm not quite ready to uproot my entire life just so you can go back to business as usual."

"How much time will you need?"

"I don't know that it's a matter of time. I may never be willing to move permanently." She looked down at him on his palette on her bedroom floor, a space he'd carved out for himself in her life. "And I wouldn't expect you to move Above permanently, either."

"What do you plan to do?"

She sighed. Her blank mind was all the answer she could give, and she felt his exasperation.

"In that case, what are your plans for today?" he asked. As he rose from the palette, it vanished, leaving Sarah's bedroom floor clear. He turned and left the room without waiting for an answer.

"Today?" She said as she rose and followed him into the living room. Thinking quickly, she realized it was Saturday. "Today I clean the house and run my errands."

"Run me through it," he said, settling on the couch and throwing his leg over the armrest.

She studied the waistband of Jareth's pants, trying to decide if they were slung even lower than they were before he sat down. It took a moment for his request to register in her brain. "Run you through my chores?" she asked, finally.

He raised his eyebrows expectantly.

She began to go through her list, slowly at first, but quickly gaining steam as her list grew longer, breaking down her chores into smaller tasks just to make herself seem busier, especially since he'd already finished her laundry. She finished, "And then I need to run to Walmart and get some groceries and a few other things."

"This all sounds very dull," he sighed.

"You don't have to stick around. We're both feeling fine. Go about your day and we can meet up when the pain comes back."

His eyes narrowed and Sarah felt his unhappiness with this arrangement.

She hesitated before speaking again. "Do you… want to stay and help, maybe?"

He gave her a thoughtful look, though she sensed his immediate acceptance of her offer. She thought how strange it was that he still put up the imperious facade even though he knew she could see right through it.

You do it too, came his mental response.

She smiled guilty and Jareth matched her expression.

"Do you perform a ritual before beginning your day?" he asked.

"Um… yeah," she replied, surprised by the question. "I'll just go do that, then. Give me twenty or thirty minutes."

She rushed through her morning routine, feeling strange knowing Jareth was in her home unsupervised. But she couldn't sense him doing anything unwelcome. In fact, she wasn't picking up much from him at all. She wondered if it was possible to hide thoughts.

When she emerged from the bathroom, she stopped in her tracks and looked around. The apartment was immaculate - every chore she'd mentioned to Jareth was complete and he'd been far more thorough than she would have been.

She was speechless.

"I understand 'errands' are next?" he said, pulling on fresh gloves. The pajama bottoms he'd been wearing were gone, replaced with snug trousers, a blousy white shirt, and high black boots.

"How did you…?"

"Magic." Obviously, he mentally added, his face betraying no signs of his thoughts. He kept his eyes firmly on his hands as he straightened his gloves.

Sarah sputtered her thanks while ignoring the mental gibe.

"Errands?" Jareth repeated, ignoring her thanks and adding an asymmetrical leather jacket to his outfit.

"Errands," Sarah agreed.

Sarah lifted the little shopping cart as she stepped over the railroad tracks.

"How do you tolerate it?" Jareth asked.

"It weighs less than ten pounds, Jareth. Wait until the trip back - that gets tricky."

"Not the trolley," he said, exasperated. "The iron."

Sarah looked down the disused tracks. They disappeared around a nearby bend, but she knew they continued on for thousands of miles.

"It's everywhere," she shrugged. "I don't even notice it."

You will.

Sarah furrowed her brow, then focused on Jareth. Through him, she could feel how, even at a distance, the iron in the tracks felt red hot and ready to burn. Even her cart, made of some flimsy alloy and coated in rubber, seemed warm to him.

"Oh… I see. I guess that explains the gloves. It must be pretty uncomfortable for you up here." She thought for a moment. "You know I have iron in my blood, right? That doesn't bother you?"

"On the contrary," he said. "It makes you delightfully warm."

He was itching to touch her. Sarah could feel it. She reached out with her free hand and touched his arm. It felt good - this ability to just touch him whenever she wanted. Like she was being granted a privilege she would never have dreamed of just one short month earlier.

His thoughts quickly turned to his relief that she hadn't asked him to get into a car.

She smiled at the thought of him in the passenger seat of an old beater. "I don't even have one."

"No? I thought they were quite common in your part of the world."

"They are, but you need a license to drive one and it's just easier for me to walk." She shrugged. "I've got two perfectly good feet."

"Why do you not have a license?"

Sarah thought for a moment. "How old would you guess I am?"

"Ah, yes. Your gift from the Labyrinth."

"Mhm," she agreed. "So here I am, just a few months shy of thirty-nine and if I try really hard, I might pass for eighteen. Let's just say the DMV is less than understanding when I tell them my birthday." She thought for a moment before continuing. "I tried a fake one once. Didn't go very well. It's just easier not to deal with it and, as I'm sure you've noticed, I have other ways of getting around."

It was just a tiny dig, but it didn't lessen Jareth's indignation that she'd said it at all. She dropped her hand to her side.

"Anyway, cars are expensive," she said.

"And money is an issue?"

"Well, now, that's a tricky subject."

"How so?"

"You sure you want to talk finances? I'm pretty sure etiquette says that's a no-no."

"I think our situation may be one of the exceptions to that particular rule."

"Yeah, you're probably right about that," she sighed. "Ok, so it's not that I don't have any money. Right now, I'm actually pretty flush with cash. It's that I can't hold a normal job, and not just because I look like I haven't graduated from high school. I have a lot of contacts in the Otherworlds and I never know when I'll be pulled away to help. Turns out, employers don't like it when you just up and disappear for a few days or weeks. One time, I was gone for three solid months. I thought it had been two days! My boss was less than impressed when I showed up for work and asked if he'd had a good weekend."

Jareth chuckled, and Sarah was surprised at how pleasant it sounded.

"I don't turn down people who need help and I never demand payment, but some people insist and give me little trinkets…"

"Or favors?"

"Or favors," Sarah confirmed. "You can't be surprised," she added with a grin.

"I'm quite aware of how you've been escaping the castle. I'm only surprised your friends," he made a face at the word, "had the courage to defy me in my own home."

"Oh, please. Compared to what I've seen in the Otherworlds, you clock in at the low end of the evil scale."

He raised an eyebrow.

"Jareth, you are a minor villain, at best."

"Fascinating," he said, and he truly seemed to mean it.

They crossed the street and turned onto the main road. Sarah took the outside half of the sidewalk, placing herself between Jareth and any cars parked along the road.

"Anyway… when they don't pay me in favors, they pay me in trinkets. Well, I say 'trinkets.' I don't know what else to call them. Little baubles. Doodads. Bits of glass and metal. They're usually pretty and so far, they've all been valuable. Most appraisers I take them to are shocked at the sheer age of them. I store them in a safe place and once in a while, I put one or two up for auction to maintain my lifestyle."

"Ah."

"But the catch is, I never know when I'll get my next job, and I never know if I'll be paid. So, basically, I have money, but I don't know how long I'll need it to last." She rubbed the non-existent scar under her breast. "Plus, I just found out that my life may be a whole lot longer than I originally anticipated, so that's a fun new complication.

"Did you know?" she asked.

For the first time, Jareth's mood was unreadable. "Not until I saw you in Odin's dungeon. And even then, I didn't consider the ramifications."

"I should have died. I think I might have. But then I woke up and the wound was healed." She paused for a moment. "Does that mean I'm immortal? Is that what you meant earlier? When you said I'd eventually start feeling the iron?"

"I said nothing of the sort."

"You know what I mean. Am I turning into…," she paused, unsure what to call him, "...whatever you are?"

He didn't speak his answer, and she could tell he was trying to block the answer from her. She only received a garbled, half-hidden affirmative.

"Jareth, I need to know. What is going to happen to me?"

"How far are the shops?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Further than you think," she replied shortly, and walked a little faster, trying to put even the smallest amount of distance between them.

Sarah had known Jareth was vain, but this was the first time he'd ever seemed self-conscious.

"You look fine," she assured him.

"I look inhuman," he corrected.

"It suits you," she smirked as the doors slid open and she stepped inside.

He reluctantly followed.

"Welcome to Walmart!" an elderly woman chimed.

"You don't think I need a glamour?" Jareth asked.

"The makeup is in aisle three, sweetie. Right down there." The greeter smiled as she pointed the way.

Jareth eyed the woman, then followed Sarah as she tucked her trolley onto the bottom shelf of the shopping cart and wandered further into the store.

"She didn't look the least bit frightened," Jareth said and Sarah felt his surprise. Or was it dismay?

"This is Walmart, Jareth. She sees way scarier things than you every day."

She pushed the cart toward the paper products and lifted a package of Charmin from the shelf.

"What, exactly, is that for?"

As she dropped the toilet tissue into her cart, she contemplated different ways to explain its use, but when Jareth pulled a face, she guessed he'd figured it out.

"What? Like you've discovered a better way?"

"In fact…"

He sent her a mental image. Sarah squirmed, and then considered.

"Actually, that does sound better. What's the third seashell for?"

Another image.

Sarah's eyebrows went up in pleased surprise. "Huh… can you get me some of those?" she asked, pulling the toilet tissue out of her cart.

"When you live Underground, you may take advantage of all of the amenities."

"I see," she said pointedly and dropped the package back into the cart.

In the frozen food aisle, the lights behind the freezer doors flickered. They caught Sarah's attention, but Jareth's mood overshadowed the lights.

"Are you doing that?" she asked in a whisper.

He didn't respond and she felt his irritation.

"What…?"

And then she caught what he was thinking. He was an agent of chaos and his magic was made to sow discord. He'd been holding himself back, holding his magic back from interfering with the electronics in the store. The automatic doors had worked, the lights stayed on, and the freezers continued to keep the food frozen, but it all came at a cost.

"But my apartment?"

He nodded. But her apartment was old and the electric appliances were simple. Her TV was the most advanced piece of electronics she owned.

"Here…" Sarah said, forgetting her earlier irritation with him. She laid her hand against his cheek, and he leaned into it, his immediate relief apparent on his face. "That's kind of neat," she said. "How does that work?"

"It's the soul bond," Jareth replied. "We're two halves of a whole now, and you are perfectly comfortable being around all of… this, which eases the discomfort I feel."

Sarah wondered if it would be the same Underground. Would she feel more comfortable there if she was in constant contact with Jareth?

That is the intention. Each bonded half making the other stronger.

A woman with a toddler in her cart reached around Sarah to grab a bag of tortellinis from the freezer. "Don't mind me! Don't mind me!" she said.

Sarah startled and pulled her hand away from Jareth's cheek. "Sorry."

"No worries," the woman said, dropping the bag into the cart. She looked at Sarah with a smile, then at Jareth. She studied him for just a moment before looking back at Sarah, the smile fading from her face.

Sarah saw the woman's eyes dart back and forth between them before the woman finally said to Jareth, "I'm sorry to bother you. Would you mind grabbing that box from the top shelf down there?" She pointed to a large box of cereal at the end of the aisle. "I can't quite reach it."

Jareth looked for a moment as if he might refuse, but Sarah gave him a gentle push and he slowly walked down the aisle to retrieve the item.

The woman waited until Jareth was out of earshot, then leaned toward Sarah and quietly asked, "Are you ok? Do you need help?"

Jareth stiffened.

Sarah put on her most mature expression and assured the woman that she was fine. "He's only here because I asked him to be," she assured the woman. "And I am much older than I look." She flashed her her most confident and reassuring smile and the woman, somewhat appeased, but not entirely convinced, nodded and continued down the aisle.

Jareth handed her the box of cereal as she passed by. The woman hesitated before dropping it into her cart and moving on.

Sarah looked after the woman as she walked away, then at Jareth, who was looking at the child in her cart with keen interest.

"Don't even think about it," she warned.

His complete lack of reaction put her on her guard.

"What was that?" he asked.

"Your Labyrinth's gift again. I think you'll find that people around here aren't too keen on old men hitting on teenagers."

Jareth's eyes narrowed in indignation, but Sarah simply continued down the aisle and headed for the cashier.

As she put her items on the conveyor, she noticed the woman and her child had gotten into the line behind them.

The beeping of the scanner faded into the background as Sarah watched Jareth produce a crystal and begin to spin it over his hands and arms as the rapt baby looked on. Even the child's mother was entranced, watching the crystal spin and levitate. A few passersby also stopped to watch, and one pulled out a fancy new phone to take a video.

Jareth finished his show with a flourish and made the crystal disappear. The crowd applauded, but the baby began to cry, upset that the cool toy Jareth had been playing with had suddenly vanished.

With a subtle flick of his wrist, Jareth produced the crystal once more, tossing it into the air, spinning it over his hands and up and down his arms before letting it come to a stop on the very tips of his fingers. The boy laughed. Then, Jareth brought his other hand up, hiding the crystal for a moment. When he moved his hand, the crystal was gone, replaced by a large, red lollipop.

The boy's eyes were huge as Jareth offered it to him.

There was a pop from the direction of the crowd that had gathered followed immediately by an exclamation of dismay from the man with the phone, but before Sarah could see what the problem was, the cashier spoke up.

"Miss? That'll be $78.06."

Sarah turned back to the cashier who was waiting for her payment. Sarah tapped her card against the machine and it beeped its acceptance. Jareth was loading the little shopping trolley with Sarah's purchases as the cashier handed her her receipt.

As they cleared the automatic doors of that store, Jareth pulling the trolley behind him, Sarah said, "I hope that sucker was safe for that baby."

"Of course it was safe," Jareth countered, insulted.

"After what his mother did, I wouldn't be surprised if you tried to take some kind of revenge."

"His mother tried to save a young girl from what she thought was a bad situation. Our goals align."

"Saving children from bad situations? That's how you explain what you do?"

"That's what I know I do. You of all people should know that."

Sarah colored. "I got Toby back."

"And became a better person for the effort."

Sarah sulked, but didn't argue.

Minor villain, he scoffed.

"That little boy has everything he wants," Jareth continued, his mood lifting. "Food, shelter, loving parents. It doesn't get much better for a child than that."

Sarah thought for a moment about the child and the kindness his mother had shown, and found her own mood lightened as well. "A little sugar doesn't hurt, though."

"Indeed it doesn't," he replied, taking Sarah's hand as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

And, in that moment, Sarah believed it was.