Hey again, lovely readers! Sorry it's taken me so long to post a new chapter – I've got several other project children that have been bouncing around my head and demanding my attention. Also, for some reason, this chapter just did not want to be written, it seemed. But here it is! We only have a few chapters to go! This one might be the last super long one. Read and enjoy (and possibly review?) Edit – ok, scratch that. This chapter is –monstrously- long. I promise that this is the last Moby Dick chapter in this story though! Happy reading!

Jareth lowered himself so that he was directly at Sarah's eye level, affording her an intimate glimpse of his mismatched pupils.

"Firstly, Sarah, you must understand this: magic is a terrible and powerful force that cannot and should not ever be used lightly." Sarah gave him a patient look; she didn't understand. Jareth sighed. "You did so unintentionally, Sarah, just as Helen did, but you still invoked an ancient and powerful magic. What's more, you invoked it successfully."

At this, Sarah abruptly forgot her promise to listen without interruption and blurted out, "Just by saying 'I wish the – '" she hissed as she drew a sharp breath, faint alarm in her eyes.

"The words unaccompanied by the ritual are meaningless, Sarah," Jareth assured her.

"I performed no ritual," Sarah insisted flatly.

"Cease your petty interruptions, and I will explain it to you," he snapped. She blanched, but when it became apparent that she would not speak again, he continued. "All true magical spells have consequences, Sarah, because a true magical spell is nothing more or less than a contract struck with a God."

He paused to let his words sink in. Sarah was still giving him a skeptical look. Then, deep in her eyes, he saw the comprehension ripple outward. Still on her knees, Sarah scuttled backwards and away from him. 'You?' she mouthed silently. Jareth noted that her porcelain skin had gone as white as salt. Her pond-green eyes darkened with shock.

"A forgotten God," he confirmed with a slight inclination of his head. "The God Who Is Two,' I was once called. 'The Half Father.' I am a split God, Sarah – I am both the Protector of Lost Children, and the God of Women's Desire."

Sarah let out a noise halfway between disgust and disbelief – a sort of a choked snort. Jareth ignored her and continued on.

"It began many ages ago with an impoverished, beautiful, young mother named Sarde, whose husband had been killed by a pack of hungry wolves while hunting. Now alone, Sarde's beauty had not gone unnoticed, nor had her firm limbs, and healthy coloring. A powerful man set his sights on her, loudly boasting of his intentions to all within earshot.

"Sarde soon heard of his boasts, and was greatly afraid; while she accepted her reclamation by another man as all but inevitable – be still, Sarah. It was the law of its time – she feared (quite correctly) that the man would throw her baby to the wolves and rid himself of all reminders of his dead rival.

"One night, not long after she had first caught wind of the man's intentions, a neighbor burst into her hut and warned her to flee with her baby, for the man was coming for her with his hunting companions in tow. Desperate, Sarde snatched up her child and fled into the forest, running until the encroaching darkness and rumbling thunder forced her to seek shelter in an unused hunter's lean-to.

"At that moment, the dark clouds burst forth, bringing with them a storm like none Sarde had ever seen. She huddled in the meager shelter, unable to see, let alone run past the driving rain. And yet, over the sound of the rain, a new sound reached her ears: the drum of hoof beats. The men were coming still.

"Sarde clutched her weeping baby and seized the only avenue of hope she had left: scarcely daring to believe that it would ever succeed, she called upon the village God to take her child away from the assured death bearing down on him."

Sarah's eyes burned into his. He could feel the weight of her unasked question. He shook himself in irritation – now was not the time for dramatic pauses.

"When her pursuer finally came upon the hut, he found his prize cowering alone in the lean-to, her child nowhere to be seen."

"You mean you didn't…." Sarah faltered, the interruption rule forgotten once more.

"Didn't what, Sarah?" Jareth's teeth glinted unpleasantly. "Didn't save her too? Was it not enough that I spared her child from a terrible fate?"

"So you simply left her there for that man to use as he would like a toy," Sarah accused, green eyes flashing.

"Gods are not omnipotent, Sarah!" Jareth's shout startled both of them. With a visible effort, he calmed himself down. When he spoke again, his voice held some semblance of calm, "Gods are bound to act only upon prayers and whims that fall within the wedge of their own power. Even if I had wanted to help her escape her situation, it was beyond my power to do so."

Sarah stared at him helplessly. She shook her head mutely to indicate that she did not understand. There seemed to be much of that lately.

"Sarde was not a child, and so I could not act as her guardian. Nor did she desire for me to ease her deep loneliness with comfort or intimacy. And so I could not spirit her away as a ravenous lover. The most I could do was assure her that her child would never suffer from hunger or the elements. For Sarde, it was enough," he explained curtly.

"Sarde was the first to actively wish away her child, but she was by no means the last. The story spread of the miraculous – some would say cursed – disappearance of her baby with all the blind ferocity of a forest fire. Many a mother in dire straits called upon me in the years that followed to spare their children from fates they could not be protected from.

"But magic is as changeable as the mortals who call upon it, Sarah. And I am a dual God by nature. It was only a matter of time before this spell of protection – deemed the Mother's Lament – became twisted to the selfish desires of a frustrated young woman who longed for the freedom she perceived she had lost to her screaming child."

Sarah's face flushed like a dull brick. She found suddenly that she could not meet Jareth's eyes.

"Why so embarrassed now, Sarah?" for a wonder, his voice held no teasing tone. Simple, honest curiosity was all. "You were merely the latest in a long tradition that spanned many generations and many species - humans are not the only sentient peoples in your plane of existence, you silly girl," he added drily in response her stunned silence.

"For many years, in nearly equal measure I would be called to spirit away children whose mother's feared for their lives, and children whose mothers – or aunts….or sisters – allowed their resentment of the helpless creature to dwarf all desire to protect it any longer."

"And….how many of them tried to take their children back?" Sarah's voice barely rose above a whisper, dreading the answer even as she asked the question.

Jareth merely raised one eyebrow. "How many goblins did you encounter on your first run through my Labyrinth?" he countered.

Her lips whitened as she pressed her knuckles into them, muffling her dismayed groan. It took some moments before she could fortify herself sufficiently to talk to him again. Jareth was nonetheless vaguely impressed when she met his eyes. Most mortals would have been in hysterics presented with the truth he had finally revealed to her.

"That doesn't explain what I'm still doing here," she said at last. Jareth blinked, surprised. Sarah really would not let go once she had seized upon a single path. Or desire. Deliberately, he turned his mind away from that particular avenue of thought.

"Yes," he said slowly. "You presented a rather unique problem – one that I confess I did not, and could not have anticipated. You must understand that your culture has changed and evolved greatly since I was last summoned. And as such, some of the roles within your society….caught me off guard," he muttered.

Sarah narrowed her eyes at him. If she didn't know better, she would have sworn the Goblin Kind sounded almost sheepish. "What are you talking about, Jareth? Stop dancing around the issue and just tell me what you mean!"

Some of the force of her otherwise impressive outburst was dampened by the ragged edge in her voice, but it did snap Jareth out of his brooding thoughts. She was correct of course. Time was short.

"Sarah, when I encountered you the night you wished away your brother, I confess I didn't know what to do with you; your ability to summon me, and the fact that you had long since passed your first menarche – to the God's it is sacred, so cease your embarrassment – both of these proved to me that you were an adult.

"Yet when I spoke to you, it became clear to me that you played with toys and costumes as though you were a child, and your resentment of your brother was likewise born of a child's frustration. You were on a cusp, it seemed between childhood and adulthood, and I did not know what to do, and as such….I made a mistake." This last sentence was practically mumbled so that Sarah had to strain to hear it.

"I sensed in you the beginnings of a stirring for what I could offer, but it was no more than that: a stirring that never reached fruition. Somehow, you were too young still. And yet an offer had to be made – my standard trade for a selfishly wished away child are the darkest fantasies and deepest yearnings of the young women. But what you desired was…too innocent to be encompassed in that. So I offered you your dreams instead," he said heavily.

Sarah frowned a little. It sounded like they were getting to the meat of the issue at last. "What is the problem with that? I refused my dreams anyway."

"That was the problem, Sarah," he explained. "That was the problem precisely. Your dreams were still largely those of a child, and thus I was acting beyond my wedge of authority when I offered them to you. And in doing so I caught the attention of the God of Dreams.

"He came to me in great anger over this perceived slight. He claimed that the raw power and beauty of your dreams marked you as belonging to his realm, and my misuse and misrepresentation of such prompted your refusal. And so he has been trying to reclaim you ever since."

Jareth hesitated for a moment, his hands clenched so tightly that his leather gloves creaked. "There is more, I'm afraid; the Labyrinth is a testing ground, Sarah. While my castle is at the center, the maze itself falls into many separate domains of varying Gods. The runners often attract much interest simply by being in the maze in the first place, and the path of the runner and the obstacles she may face will be determined by what Gods have lingering interest."

Sarah, who had been sitting quietly up until this point made a sharp halting gesture as Jareth made to continue. "Stop," she said shortly. She was silent, and strange emotions worked across her face. "Are you really trying to tell me," she began slowly, struggling to keep her voice level, "that I've been trapped in this Labyrinth for years, running the same paths over and over again," (Jareth moved to interrupt her at that and she cut him off again,) "All because you didn't know what a teenager was?" she asked incredulously.

"I already told you, your culture had vastly changed!" Jareth snapped. "When last I was summoned, a girl was considered a full woman by the time she experienced her first moon's blood!"

Sarah let out a strangled cry and Jareth wondered for the first time whether or not she would try to strike him. Fortunately for his sore belly, she managed to wrestle herself back into some form of composure.

"So what you're telling me is that all this time I've been at the center of a – a magical custody battle?"

Jareth nodded, relieved. "That fairly well sums it up, yes," he confirmed.

Her brows knit together again. "Why are you telling me this now? What changed, Jareth?"

He looked away. It was absolutely the worst thing he could have done.

"Jareth?" Sarah swallowed past a suddenly dry throat. "Jareth what are you not telling me?"

In response he fluidly rolled his wrists and brought forth a crystal. He tossed it to her, and unthinkingly, Sarah caught it. She flinched; the last time he threw a crystal at her, it had turned into a snake, after all. But all that happened was that there was a slight weight in her hand. Cautiously she opened her fingers to reveal a small, round compact mirror.

"What am I supposed to do with this? Fix my makeup?"

"Just open the mirror, Sarah. You will understand." Jareth still could not seem to bring himself to look at her.

Suspiciously, she unsnapped the plastic catch and swung the mirror open. The face that stared back at her had lost trace amounts of its roundness, and her cheekbones seemed more pronounced than when she had last looked in the mirror of her room but – she raised her eyes to Jareth.

"I thought you said I had been here for more than twenty years, Jareth," she said, unable to keep the edge of accusation out of her voice. "Why do I still look like a teenager?" It was true – if she had to hazard a guess, she would say that she looked to be no more than seventeen or eighteen years old.

"Because you are still a – teenager, Sarah," Jareth explained, rolling the new word as he spoke it. "Souls very rarely age at the same rate as bodies, and your soul has had little opportunity to mature here as it would in your own world."

Sarah let out a harsh laugh, though not a single tinge of amusement touched her eyes. "What are you saying? That my body isn't here?"

Silence greeted her. She felt dread thrashing like a panicked snake in her belly.

"You've received many superficial injuries in the Labyrinth, Sarah, have you not?" He asked her abruptly.

Sarah blinked at the question. "Of course," she answered slowly, as though to a small child.

"Where are they?" Jareth asked bluntly.

She scoffed and presented her hands for inspection. She knew she had torn at least several nails to the quick when she had scrambled up that tree. She inspected the damage along with him.

Her nails were perfect and unbroken, ending a respectable eighth of an inch beyond the tips of her fingers. Mortified, she shoved up the sleeves of her blouse, looking for the bruises she knew she had sustained. Her flesh was clean and pale and unmarked. In growing panic, she pulled her shirt up. She knew she had sustained a friction rash when she impacted a tree limb, but her belly was likewise as healthy and clean as an infant's.

Seeing that he had her attention now, Jareth pressed on mercilessly.

"When was the last time you felt you needed sleep, Sarah? How about food? Have you suffered any true thirst?"

His words pounded against the careful screen of denial she had been building up for a long time. An animalistic cry tore its way through her belly and up her throat. She buried her face in her hands, rocking back and forth as she struggled to bring herself back under control.

She must be dead. The thought floated like a dead fish to the surface of her brain and could not be thrust away. She was dead, she was dead, she was dead, she was dead and this was Hell. She was being punished for wishing away a helpless child.

She was snapped out of her circling panic as Jareth cracked a crystal over her head, drenching her with breath catching-ly icy water. She gasped at the shock and glared at Jareth. Her angry words died on her lips however; wonders never ceased – he looked guilty.

"Sarah, I need you to calm yourself down," he said sternly. "You are not dead."

She gaped at him. Had he somehow heard her thoughts? Or had she been muttering out loud? Ultimately, the issue was never answered.

"But you will be very soon."

Now that got her attention. "Jareth, no more games, no more cryptic phrases." She reached over and gripped his shoulder, much to his astonishment.

Her green eyes blared into his own. "Tell me now, and tell me directly. What happened to me? What is going to happen next?"

In response he conjured up one final crystal. "I think it would be simpler if you saw for yourself," he said quietly.

Sarah leaned forward to peer into the crystal.

"Sarah," his voice gave her pause. "You were very brave. It has not gone unnoticed."

She shook her head and peered into the crystal.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

"Toby!" she cried in despair, whirling around to try to get her bearings. Stairwells fragmented like the laws of physics everywhere she turned. She took off running as she spied her brother some distance away, climbing upside-down on a staircase, going in who knew what direction.

Jareth's song echoed in her head, but she paid it little attention. Toby. She was so close! She darted up one staircase and froze at its landing. Toby was there below her, sitting on the edge of an archway. He could fall!

She hesitated for merely a second, then squeezed her eyes shut and leapt from her precipice. She leaped too far, overshooting the stone archway and falling through. Toby vanished with a small pop as she fell past him, her eyes still shut. She fell further and further until she smashed into an outcropping staircase.

At the moment of impact, she split. And one Sarah vanished with a softer pop as blood poured from her mouth and nose. The other Sarah, unhurt drifted downwards as the Escher room broke apart.

o.o.o.o.o.o.

"No!" Sarah scarcely realized that she screamed out loud, stumbling back from Jareth's outstretched hand. The crystal glinted innocently against the dark leather of his gloves.

"Sarah!" his voice snapped her back to reality.

Trembling, she glared at him. "I just watched myself die, Jareth. You said I didn't die!"

"No, you infuriating girl, I said you are not dead, meaning that at the present moment, you are physically still alive. I never said that you did not die at one point, however."

She glared at him. "That doesn't even make sense!"

He sighed. "There is more. Watch and you will understand."

Trembling in fury and a deep sorrow she could scarcely name, Sarah inched back to the crystal, as warily as though it were a snake that just might bite her.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

"There you go. I'd like Lancelot to belong to you now," Sarah whispered tenderly to the sleeping infant as she tucked her favorite teddy bear back under his blanket. Toby slept on peacefully.

Sarah made her way back to her room.

"Sarah? Sarah are you home?" her father called from downstairs.

"Yeah! Yeah, I'm home," she responded with far more gentleness than she had offered him in two years.

Seconds later, her friends from the Labyrinth appeared in her mirror to wish her a fond farewell. She smiled and told them that she would always need them. Suddenly they were in her room in the midst of a celebration.

"Jareth, I've already been through all this," Sarah's voice cut through the illusion, bringing both of them back to the colorless nothing space. "I don't know what you're trying to show me."

Jareth wordlessly turned the crystal the other way.

"Sarah, are you home?" her father called up the stairs as he helped Karen remove her dinner jacket. The silence in the house was deafening.

Karen frowned. "You don't think she could possibly have left Toby alone…?"

Robert shook his head. "No, she's mad at us, I think. She would never leave a baby alone."

Karen shook her head resolutely. "I'm going to go check on Toby." She marched up the stairs, her heels clicking sharply against the wood.

Robert sighed and removed his own jacket, hanging it up carefully in the hallway closet. At Karen's piercing scream, his hand jerked back, sending his expensive silk-lined jacket to the floor.

"Robert! Robert, come quick!"

Robert Williams pounded up the stairs. Toby was awake now, and caterwauling again.

"In here! Oh, god COME QUICK!" Karen screamed from the master bedroom. Robert burst through the door and almost sagged against the doorframe in shock.

"Oh god, no…" he groaned, his fist pressed to his mouth.

The balcony doors had been flung open. The carpet and drapes were soaked with rain. Toby was standing in his crib, his face red and blotchy. And Karen was on the floor, Robert's only daughter clutched limply in her arms.

Fresh blood poured from her nose, staining her creamy poet's blouse. Blood pooled in the corners of her mouth and trickled down into her hair. Where her shirt was rucked up, he could see that the side of her ribcage was black with extensive bruising.

"SHE'S NOT BREATHING! DO SOMETHING!" Karen screamed at him, tears pouring down her face to land in her step-daughter's blood-soiled hair.

Galvanized into action, Robert thrust Karen away and laid Sarah flat on the floor. He pinched her nose closed and tilted her head back.

"Call 911, Karen! Tell them to send an ambulance and as many officers as they can spare!"

As Karen rushed out of the bedroom for the hallway phone, Robert began administering chest compressions and measured CPR breaths. He winced at the cracking under his palms. Sarah's ribs were broken. All of them, at his guess.

He continued on and on and on, and as the first red and blue lights shone outside his house, Sarah suddenly drew in a ragged breath. She did not open her eyes.

o.o.o.o.o.o.o.o

Jareth rolled his wrist fluidly and the crystal vanished in a shower of sparkles.

Sarah sat frozen, staring dumbly at his empty hand.

At last, Jareth broke the silence. "Humans had come so far with their medicine, Sarah. None of us anticipated that you would survive." He paused. "Of course, not one of us who watched and judged ever dreamed that you would go so far as to sacrifice your life for a child only half related to you. I took the challenge too far, Sarah. It was my fault for not anticipating that you would rise to meet it. I am…truly sorry."

Sarah's lips moved, but silence issued forth. A single tear rolled down her cheek. Jareth doubted she even noticed it.

"When a mortal dies, Sarah, they move on to an afterlife. A new life, in the care of whatever Spirit or God believes that their realm would be best suited for them. I myself have no claim on you – you are neither child nor woman, and you yourself renounced any claim I could have had when you burst your way out of my peach dream." He shook his head wonderingly. "You even refused my personal request! I am here now as...well, as a friend I suppose.

"In your world, your body has been sustained for nearly thirty years on a medical system called life support. Without this system, you will die."

Sarah nodded. Of course she knew what life support was.

"In approximately twenty minutes in your world, your body will be disconnected from this contraption, and you will die." Jareth paused, cupping Sarah's face comfortingly in his hand. "There is nothing to be done, Sarah," he said softly.

"I understand little enough of this new science, but what I do know is that your brain has apparently sustained too much damage for your body to independently function anymore. Even if your soul were returned to your body, you would not reawaken, and you would simply be trapped in an endless sleep until you were allowed to die."

Sarah nodded, new tears coursing down her cheeks. It wasn't fair. She'd never even had her first date. "What happens now?" she attempted to sound strong.

"Now you and I must meet with the Gods who would guide you to new life in their realm. And you have twenty minutes to choose where you will go."

He stood and offered her his hand. Without hesitation, she took it, and the two vanished from the nowhere space.