Disclaimer: I own none of the original Labyrinth characters. They belong to Jim Henson, may he rest in peace. New characters do belong to my imagination. This means that Chremslied belongs to me, thank-you-very-much (envious friends growl in frustration). On with the story my cheerful wanderers.

Chapter the Second

Jareth lay sprawled on his throne like a disjointed doll. The throne room was suprisingly quiet, although it was only shortly after midnight. It was also conspicuously lacking in goblin paraphernalia. In the back of is head he could hear the multitudenous murmurs: 'I wish the goblins would take you away right now!' 'I wish Jareth would come to me.' 'I wish that the Goblin King loved me.' 'I wish the goblins would make you…' Jareth growled and flung himself on the floor and began pacing. He noted peripherally that he needed to have the floor filled in where he had been pacing.

It had been seventeen years since his failed wooing of Sarah and sixteen years since the subsequent film explicitly revealing his failure. Even more painful, the movie had (ironically as well, mayhap) come out exactly one year after Sarah and her entire family had died in a car accident. Actually, those years would be wrong in a few days. Another year come and gone, Jareth thought noticing the stars through the window. Soon he would go Aboveground to Sarah's grave, as he had every year since her passing.

Chremslied stood defiantly in front of Jareth, his hands firmly on his hips. His brown eyes a rich coffee color, signifying his anger. "I don't care for what your bloody soul feels! Sarah didn't choose you! Or, you could be right and she is your soulmate, but you didn't exactly give her time now did you!"

"I gave her everything she wanted!" Jareth's eyes were almost bioluminescent in rage, "She had thirteen hours! She said the words, right before wishing her brother away!"

"Sometimes what we want isn't exactly what we need! Maybe you shouldn't've given her her dreams all at once! Maybe you should have been who you are instead of who you are and her apparent nemesis. Nothing like confusing an already bewildered fifteen-year-old to destroy any current hope for a relationship!"

"And what would you know about any of that, Cousin? As I recall your wooing didn't exactly go as planned either, what makes you the expert all of a sudden?"

"At least I had the sense not to befuddle the poor girl. And for your information, we're still Pen Pals! Good things come to those who wait, as the saying goes. Which is far better than what you have! It's been what? A year since you've had any dealings with Sarah? You threw in all your cards at once and the jackpot went way outta your hands. Hell, Dareth you haven't even," Chremslied shut his mouth when he realized his slur. He hadn't mispronounced Jareth's name since he was the human equivalent of seven years old.

"Beautiful impediment Cousin," Jareth sneered.

"At least I'm not a feared of it!"

Jareth prepared to make another scathing comment when he felt a tight pull in his gut. The pain was so intense that he actually doubled over and fell to his knee. Chremslied's eyes widened in shock and quickly dropped beside his cousin and grasped his shoulder.

"It's Sarah isn't it?" Chremslied inferred. He remembered the only time this happened to Jareth. Jareth had been recovering from a hangover and Sarah had been about four years old. He could remember it as if the incident had happened yesterday.

"She's dead," Jareth gasped on the floor before him, just as he had twelve years ago.

"You said that before, and she wasn't. Heck, she only had a paper cut," Chremslied pointed out.

"No," Jareth hissed through gritted teeth, "it's more this time."

"So, she broke her leg. Nothing to get into a sweat over," Chremslied tried for humor as Jareth broke into a sweat. "Look, if you're so worried, you can always check on her through a crystal."

"I…can't…"

"Fine! Then I shall!" Chremslied huffed and pulled out a crystal. Concentrating as hard as possible, he brought forth Sarah's image. And almost dropped the crystal in shock. "Die Immortalis!"

Jareth looked up to see what had elicited Chremslied's Latin swearing. Within the crystal was an image of what was once Sarah Williams. Where there was once a pretty seventeen-year-old, brown haired, blue-green eyed young girl there was now a jumble of blood. Sarah's face was lacerated by glass, her neck bleeding from where the seat belt had yanked against it, her left side almost completely crushed from where a car had broad sided theirs when it ran the red light (at eighty miles per hour from off the interstate), and she was currently upside down from where the car had flipped. But, even more horrifying, she was still alive. Blood dribbled from her mouth from the rib damage.

To the surprise of both Fae, Sarah began to speak, "Anne…" she moaned.

Jareth's eyes widened in shock and shared pain Sarah felt when trying to speak. Anne had been Sarah's imaginary friend when she was four until she was about ten and was named after Sarah (her middle name being Anne). No thoughts of Anne had crossed Sarah's mind or influenced her being since she was at most twelve. Jareth had thought she'd completely forgotten about her and was amazed that she'd call for her now.

"Anne, help me. Don't let me…keep me…" Sarah suddenly cried out in agony.

Jareth grabbed his heart, its beating becoming irregular. Chremslied dropped the crystal and reached for cousin, hoping to infuse him with his own strength. Right before the crystal broke Jareth heard Sarah's call for him.

Instantly he transported himself to her side. "Sarah," he whispered her name lovingly.

Sarah opened her swollen eyes and looked at him. "I hated pause the Escher room. Pause It made me dizzy pause to see you and Toby pause upside down and pause sideways. This isn't any better," here Sarah closed her eyes again and struggled for breath. Jareth reached out and touched her cheek. "I realize now pause what happened pause all those years ago. Please," her voice grew suddenly intense and lost the rasping note, "promise me you'll watch over me! Promise me!"

"You know I shall," he swore, heart breaking.

Sarah grimaced and started hacking, blood splattering on the interior. "Watch after Toby, make sure he stays out of trouble. I'm not him pain anymore, hum! Anne! HELP ME ANNE!"

Jareth felt a searing bolt of pain as Sarah screeched and drowned in her own blood. He wondered at her call for her childhood imaginary companion as he felt a tug toward oblivion and toward his own home. He looked toward Toby, only to find the boy dead from a sliver of glass in his temple. He cried and surrendered his well to the opposing forces tugging at him.

Chremslied's pull proved the stronger. Jareth found himself looking up to his cousin's toffee colored eyes. "Even at the end, she called for someone else to help her instead of me. Even in the end, her last person of comfort wasn't me." He wept as his cousin transported the two them to his bedchamber and cast a spell of rest over him.

(Damn Chremslied! Jareth fumed, only partially in anger).

Sarah's death had hit him hard and it took him months to get over his despair. He had gone to her funeral in the form of an owl. He had spent two weeks standing over her grave in owl form during the day and all night vigils in his true form. Chremslied had worked hared in pulling him from his morose cloud of despondent dejection. Finally, about nine months after Sarah's death, Jareth had been able to return to ruling his kingdom. He regained some of his former self.

Then, disaster had struck a second time. A movie entitled Labyrinth had opened on the anniversary of Sarah's death starring two mortals who looked almost identical to himself and Sarah, and had all the details f his failed venture for Sarah's love. In rage Jareth banished his cousin from the Underground since he was the only one who could have possibly told his story in its totality to anyone else.

"The movie was all his fault," Jareth said, trying to convince himself again. The truth was, however, he rued his intense emotion induced banishment of his best friend and cousin.

In a fit of irrational anger after Jareth had discovered the movie's existence he had confronted Chremslied. Not allowing his cousin any defense, he proceeded to cast him into goblin form, ban him from his kingdom, ban him from the Underground, and take away any possibility form him to return until his love story was wiped completely from the minds and memories of all mortals.

"Admit it your Majesty, you miss him."

Jareth stopped his pacing and turned sharply to face the voice. Sitting on the stone floor was a water elemental. His left leg curled under his body, his right leg was bent up and supporting his chin, his hands were loosely clasped and lightly on the middle of his right shin.

"I don't recall addressing any statement to you or calling you to my presence Fred. Where is your brother?" Jareth replied coldly.

"My twin is up to his usual mischief," Fred cocked his head and smirked, river blue eyes twinkling in merriment. "And you don't need to address any statement towards me for me to reply to it. It's quite obvious what you were thinking, what with the anniversary so close. Speaking of which, I've brought you the water lilies that you wanted."

Jareth's cold exterior melted slightly. "I hope Sam isn't leading stray Labyrinthians into the Bog again."

"I don't think so," Fred gave true smile. His slightly transparent skin took on a pink tone to offset the castle-wall-gray.

"May I please have the flowers?" Jareth asked nicely. It never ceased to amaze his other underlings the different attitude he had toward the identical water elemental twins.

"Of course, your Majesty," Fred rose in a fluid motion. Concentrating, his skin took on an algae green shade and slowly a dozen pure white water lilies appeared in his cupped hands. "They'll be fully in bloom on the 27th. I take it you'll be visiting her grave at the usual time."

"Yes, why?" asked Jareth, instantly on guard for the twins were ever mischievous and filled with plots of all sorts.

"Oh come, come, come your Majesty. Stop being so paranoid," Fred frowned, "all I was saying was that maybe you should arrange to meet your cousin. It isn't like he won't know where you' d be. It's been nearly seventeen years since y'all last spoke. I think you should at least talk to him on neutral territory."

"Sarah's grave is hardly neutral territory."

"You both loved her if in different ways. And although he most likely won't be able to return Underground, y'all might be able to repair the huge chasm between y'all."

"Would you stop using 'y'all' in every other sentence? I don't recall making you my advisor, or your brother for that matter."

"My apologies your Majesty. I didn't mean to give you advice. Still, it couldn't hurt now could it?" Fred tossed his dark wavy curls from his eyes as he gave Jareth one final smile before seeping into the cracks in the stones.

Jareth gently held the dozen water lilies as he stared at the spot in the floor Fred had been standing on. "No, it couldn't hurt. Not unless Chremslied…" Jareth sighed, realizing he'd spoken his cousin's name aloud for the first time in sixteen years. Not unless Chremslied hates me and refuses to forgive my stupidity.