"I was thinking."

They were driving down Main Street on their way to one of the thousands of super-stores that populated the country. All their clothing, underwear, footwear, and food needs under one roof. Normally Sarah abhorred places like these but desperate times called for desperate measures. And judging by the cherry red flip flops- hers -that Jareth was forced to wear, the situation was most desperate. He looked like a mismatched vagabond.

Actually, 'bum' was a more accurate description, but it was an acceptable one. He'd allowed her to pull his hair back in a low ponytail and, like he predicted, his bruises and scratches were healing at an incredible rate. At first, second, and third glance, he looked like an everyday student that hung around on a college campus deliberately not going to classes instead of a magical being in a crisis. 'Bum' she could live with…for now.

"I was thinking," she repeated, forcing her mental train to follow the original thought, "that we need to be careful."

Jareth regarded her. "In what way?"

"Well…we have three days before Hoggle contacts us again. That gives us seventy two hours in which we need to figure out what's happened to you, find out how to fix it, and come up with a way to get you home, all while pretending like we knew each other way back when if we bump into anyone I know." It was a mouthful. Rattling it off one point at a time made it seem so easy. "I'll help you in any way I can, but if we run into anyone, let me do the talking."

"Do you think we will?"

Sarah shrugged and squinted as the sun cleared a cloud and hit her in the eyes with golden light. She wished for another pair of sunglasses; she'd given hers to Jareth. Used to the muted sun of the Underground, he said the bright sunshine hurt his eyes.

"This is a small town. I'm preparing for the worst."

"Is the worst worse than Gary?"

She rolled her eyes at his playful remark. "Believe me, it could get much worse. We could bump into my parents."

They drove in amiable silence for a few moments, during which Sarah contemplated exactly what she ought to be saying to him. How does one make small talk in this kind of situation?

She stole a glance at him out of the corner of her eye. He was slumped in his seat with a casual grace, his good leg tucked under him, and his was completely absorbed in watching his hand as it rode the wind outside the window.

Sarah turned her attention back to the traffic in front of her, slowed for a red light, and admitted to herself that maybe there was no such thing as small talk with the Goblin King. The light turned green and she continued down the street.

Before she could think of anything, Jareth decided to start the small talk for her. Only his idea of small talk turned out to be rather big.

"Do you get along better with your stepmother now?"

Her hands jerked and the Jeep swerved. The car horn of the irate mother in the van next to her blared harshly and she swerved back into her own lane. Once her heart rate slowed, Sarah shot Jareth a disbelieving look.

"How did you know about that?"

Jareth slowly released his death grip on the dashboard, looking like he wished he'd kept his mouth shut. "Is that a no?"

Her lips pursed. "It's a yes. How did you know?" Sarah repeated, trying to glare at him and drive at the same time.

"She…she was one of the reasons you had such problems with your brother, yes?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Your wicked stepmother," he said softly.

Sarah was silent.

Jareth began quoting words she hadn't thought of in years. "'…until one night, when she was tired from doing housework, and hurt by the harsh words of her stepmother, and she could no longer stand it.'"

In a forty eight hour period of extremely weird scenarios, hearing those words from his mouth rated high on the scale of weirdness. "You remember that but you don't remember who was chasing you?"

"I remember who was chasing me. I just do not know who it is."

Sarah's hands tightened on the steering wheel. She was beginning to feel like she was in a Laurel and Hardy routine. Especially with the candid way Jareth insisted on answering her questions. If maybe there was a trace of sarcasm in his words, she could pounce on him and really start to yell. But there was none. Zip, zilch, nada. It was as if every mean bone had been taken out of his body.

Sarah caught her breath.

And an SUV filled to the brim with screaming kids cut her off at the entrance to the parking lot. She laid on the horn and followed the van into the parking lot, muttering under her breath.

Let the fun begin, she said silently, and that thought replaced any idea that might have been forming about Jareth's situation.

It was a shame too. She was closer to the truth than she could possibly have known.


It was a bright sunny day and it seemed like half the town had decided to spend it at the most depressing place she could think of: the Mega Super Store. There were so many cars in the parking lot that Sarah decided against her better judgment and dropped Jareth off at the entrance while she parked the Jeep. She gave him strict instructions not to move from the spot he was standing on. She was hesitant about letting him fend for himself outside of the place well known for the tackiest human behavior on the planet, but it was either that or force him to walk the half mile between the closest parking space and the store.

She should have listened to her inner warning signals. When she finally emerged from the sea of cars and neared the entrance, he wasn't in the spot she initially deposited him on.

Sarah spied through the crowds of people going into the store, leaving the store, and those groups of carefully dressed teens who were neither going nor leaving but simply being seen, and she mentally cursed herself. Without his spiky hair and trademark outrageous clothes, he blended into the background like no one's business.

Sarah visually scanned a group of giggling teenage girls, passed over them, and then her gaze slipped back to them in disbelief. Her eyes bugged out of her head and for a moment she truly knew what it was like to have a heart attack.

Jareth. He was surrounded by a pack of tanned and giggling sixteen-year-old girls. Every single one had on the identical uniform of short minis that looked more like headbands than skirts, low-cut tops that emphasized every inch of young cleavage, platform flip-flops and was topped off with brightly painted toenails. All of them were in some sort of pose that Sarah supposed was intended to entice but in reality looked rather forced. As she neared, one of them, her hair an unnatural shade of blonde, was asking Jareth what his favorite band was. His eyes caught Sarah's over the top of the teen's perfectly coiffed hair, and she had to stifle a grin.

If she harbored any residual ill will towards the man who once stole her baby brother, she could have paid him back in spades by leaving him there with the girls. Five minutes with them would have been a lifetime's worth of revenge.

Sarah stepped in behind him. As smooth as silk and without looking at her, he slipped his hand into hers and held on tight. She doubted he'd let her go even if she asked him to. It was the only sign he gave that he was unnerved by the situation.

"Sarah, this is Mandy, Tiffiny, Brandy, Heather, Heather, and Kat." He gestured to each girl as he said her name.

The group of hormonal teens spoke as one. "Hiiiiiii."

One girl leaned in to her friend and whispered. They were looking at Sarah and Jareth's intertwined hands. It took a supreme amount of effort not to roll her eyes. Who were they kidding?

"We were just inviting Jareth to see our friends play in a band tonight," one blonde said. Sarah forgot if it was the Tiffiny or the Mandy. She did notice, however, that not one of them extended the invitation to include her.

"Sorry ladies," Jareth was saying before she could come up with a caustic retort, "but we already have plans."

It took another three minutes of oos and ahs and coy double checking to affirm that oh, no, was he suuuure he was busy? 'Oh, it was so nice to meet the both of you' was included somewhere in the conversation but the eyes below the six sets of perfectly sculpted eyebrows told Sarah that the correct translation was: oh, it was so nice to meet YOU, Jareth

By the time they excused themselves from the pack and entered the store, Sarah was ready to say 'screw the budget' and go steal clothes from her dad. Yeah, explaining that a man was living with her, as well as any explanation about his lack of clothes to her father seemed like a piece of cake compared to the maelstrom of humanity that awaited them amidst cheap fluorescent lighting and even cheaper clothes.

Just as Sarah was wishing she had enough money to buy Jareth real clothes, clothes that were suitable for a Goblin King, Jareth squeezed her hand and bestowed the biggest, most relieved smile she'd ever seen on his face. Before she could say anything, he dipped down and, surprise of all surprises, kissed her softly on the cheek.

"Thank you. From the bottom of my heart."

A knight in shining armor on a white horse carrying a box of Godiva chocolates had nothing on Jareth.

Sarah did the only thing she could do: she grabbed a shopping cart from the bottomless pit of despair, also known as the Kart Korral (it was so labeled) and with Jareth in tow, headed to the Men's clothing department.

"Well," she explained to him as they dodged carts pushed by harassed looking moms, "I don't know if you use money in your…world…but we're on a tight budget." They were slower than the flow of traffic around them, but Sarah had no choice. Jareth was healing, yes, but it was obvious he was still favoring his good leg. He walked slow so she walked slow. "No offense, but I hope we do figure this thing out soon because I can't afford to buy you a full wardrobe."

"I wish I could be of some assistance in that department."

Sarah pictured him flipping burgers at a fast food joint for extra cash. The image was both humorous and sobering: never could she imagine that becoming his reality but on the other hand if they couldn't get him home, earning a living may very well be in his future. What would he be suitable for? What qualifications did he have?

A light bulb went off in her head "I could get you a job baby-sitting," she managed to say while suppressing bubbles of laughter, "but you have to promise not to turn the kids into goblins. Parents don't take too kindly to that."

Jareth laughed. "I admire your ingenuity, but I was thinking," he said while raising one hand and twisting his wrist, "more along these lines." In a palm that had been empty suddenly sat a twenty dollar bill. Slack-jawed, Sarah took it from him.

It looked real.

It felt real.

It smelled real.

"Is it real?" she asked, looking around to make sure no one noticed their magical display of counterfeiting.

"As real as I can manage."

"How did you know…"

"I watched you pay for gas."

It would be so easy to take the money, head to Saks down the road, and buy Jareth nicer clothes. Even as she considered the idea, though, she realized mentally she had already vetoed it. It was cheating, and that was something she'd never been comfortable with. Before the temptation became too great, Sarah handed him back the bill. "I can't take this from you. It wouldn't be right."

He didn't insist that she use it. He seemed to intuitively understand the reasoning behind her refusal, something that she appreciated. Jareth accepted the money and with another twist of his arm, made it disappear.

"I had to offer," he said simply, as means of an explanation.

"I...ah...appreciate your concern."

Feeling a few shades too formal for a conversation that was taking place next to the clearance rack, Sarah turned to a display of haphazardly folded jeans. If they were in a nicer establishment, she could ask a salesperson for assistance. Unfortunately, they had no such luck, and she had to unravel the mystery of men's sizes before the chaos in the store made her insane.

First things first. "Do you care for anything in particular?"

Jareth was eyeing a display of hideously garish Hawaiin shirts. "Nothing pink. Please."

She grinned. "I'm kind of aiming for the college student look." She grabbed three pairs of Levi jeans and asked Jareth to turn around. He turned, displaying at least five inches of gathered fabric that was bunched at the seat of the too-big jeans he was wearing. A small bow made from her bathrobe belt hung below the ratty hem of his t-shirt. Ignoring these, she held up the first pair of jeans.

"I thought you didn't have any magic."

Jareth shook his head. His ponytail bounced from one shoulder blade to the other. Sarah held up a second pair of jeans in comparison, trying as hard as she could to ignore the fact that her hands were an inch away from the Goblin King's ass.

"There is some. I can feel it. But…it is small, like the flame of a candle when there should be an inferno."

"Interesting analogy," Sarah muttered. Her mind back on the right track, she decided the first pair of jeans would probably work. According to the tag, they were slim through the leg and hip, and Jareth was definitely that. The man had average enough shoulders that tapered down into a slim waist that some women would kill for. But the best part about the jeans was that they were on sale.

"Let's try these on."

Jareth looked around at other shoppers that were near them. "Here?"

"No, in the dressing rooms." She started to lead him back to the changing rooms and then stopped. "Shit. There's…" she dropped her voice, "…mirrors in the dressing rooms. I don't know if we should…you know…" She looked around, talking to herself while she weighed their options. "If we did it quickly, maybe you could change out here."

Jareth turned red and coughed discreetly. "I…ahem…am not wearing any…ah…undergarments."

"Maybe not," she amended quickly, her face filled with so much blood so quickly she thought her head was going to explode. Was it possible to be this embarrassed and still live? The Goblin King with no underwear. Indeed. "Remind me to get you some while we're here," she said quickly, trying to make herself sound casual. Like buying underwear for a guy was an everyday occurrence.

They walked through the department, both religiously ignoring the fact that he was an untied belt away from flashing the store and that she knew about it.

"So…what other kind of magic can you do?"

Jareth looked thoughtful. He displayed an empty right hand, closed it into a fist, and put it behind his back. Immediately he held up his left hand. In it was a baby lizard, only it was no ordinary lizard: it was bright pink with a red tipped tail.

Never a fan of reptiles, Sarah eyed the creature. "Greeeeeat."

Jareth looked disappointed. "Not really. I was trying to conjure a baby dragon."

Sarah gulped.

Suddenly, a child's cry bugled across the aisle. "Mommy, mommy, lookit the cute lizard! I want a lizard!" It was a tow-headed toddler that was standing up, rather unsafely it looked like, in a shopping cart pushed by a woman with an annoyed expression. He was pointing at the pink lizard in Jareth's hand.

Before Jareth could close his hand the lizard, startled by the boy's shriek, jumped off his palm and scurried across tacky-colored carpet, disappearing into the lingere department.

The mother, seeing nothing, shushed the child and hurried away. Her eyebrows at her hairline, Sarah met Jareth's eyes and in a flash they shared the exact same thought.

Forget about it.

Smiling stiffly, Sarah picked up a rib knit crew shirt. "Do you like blue?"

"I love blue," he said just as awkwardly. She put it in the cart next to the jeans, and moved on to the next display.

"You know…there's a lot I don't know about you." She picked up a Western button down shirt that was pale green and 50 off. He nodded and she added it to their growing collection.

"There is a lot I do not know about you," he countered amiably.

"You knew enough to come to me for help. That says a lot." She held up a bright red t-shirt. He shook his head and she put it back.

"But I do not know what you do. What you like to eat, what your family is like, what kind of adult you have become."

Her eyebrows met over her nose in a furrow. She was only twenty two, she was still in school, she couldn't even manage her car insurance payments without her parents' help. "Oh, I don't think I've become a grownup just yet."

"I beg to differ," he said with a gleam in his eye. "You are very grown up."

Change the subject, Sarah, change the flipping subject before you blush so much your head blows up.

"Well then…how about this? You ask me a question, I ask you a question. Back and forth." She was super impressed she didn't stutter.

"That sounds fair. Would you like to go first?"

"Okay. Ummm…" What does one ask a Goblin King? "How old are you?"

"I do not have a specific age that I know of."

"Well…you look like you're in your mid twenties."

"Is that good?"

"Is that your question for me?"

He smiled. "No."

"I figured." She tossed a pair of dark grey dress pants that were also on sale into the cart. "I…guess it's good. It's a moot point though, I know you're not twenty five."

"How do you know?"

"Because…last time I saw you was six years ago and you were…" she grinned wider "…old. Even then." Armed with their selections, Sarah led Jareth out of the clothing department and into Accessories.

"You make me feel positively ancient," he remarked, fingering a pair of fuzzy zebra slippers that came complete with a fuzzy black tail that trailed out from the heel. His eyebrow rose but he kept his lips firmly shut.

She grinned at the expression on his face. "You look good for an ancient guy."

"Thank you. My turn. Would it upset you if I asked after Toby?"

Sarah paused in tossing a pack of black socks into the cart. "I…guess not. How much do you remember about him?"

"A good deal. He was a lively fellow. I imagined he had a wonderful destiny ahead of him."

"Right now his destiny involves eating too many cookies and watching Power Rangers. He's six. I don't see him as often as I'd like since I'm at school." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Okay. This does not count toward my official question but I do have to ask. Briefs or boxers?"

The two packages she was holding left no doubt about what she meant. Jareth's cheeks grew slightly pinker than normal as he considered the question and finally compromised on a package of gray boxer briefs.

"You better pray they fit, because I refuse to live through that moment again," Sarah muttered, ignoring the fact that Jareth had a hand to his face and he was trying to work his way through an awesome blush. "How's your leg?"

"Fine." It came out muffled from behind his hand.

"Okay. Back to the official questions. Ludo, Sir Didymus…its been years since I've seen them. How are they?"

Jareth didn't answer her right away, and she stopped pushing the cart to turn and look at him. Just as she started to get worried, he smiled.

"They are as you remember them."

It was something in the way he said it that raised her hackles. Such a comment would have been acceptable by a younger and more naïve Sarah. Luckily she hadn't been that girl in a long time, and could recognize bullshit, even diplomatic bullshit, when she heard it. She pulled him out of the aisle, where they were nominally blocking traffic, and pinned him against a support beam that ran from the tiled floor to the ceiling rafters. Between the pole, the shopping cart, and her, Jareth was trapped, and she wasn't letting him move until he gave her the non-vague answer.

"What?" she asked. "Remember, you're supposed to be straight with me. I'm the one that's ensuring you're not traipsing around naked and hungry for the next few days."

Jareth tented long fingers together beneath his elegant chin, his gold-tinged eyebrows drawing together as he carefully considered his words. "I am not lying. Your friends are as you remember them from years ago."

"Well, tell me something that doesn't sound so cryptic. What have they been doing for the last six years?"

Jareth squirmed as much as one can squirm without moving a muscle. "I do not know if you will believe the truth."

"Are they hurt? Is Ludo dead? What?"

"They are not hurt, not dead," Jareth assured her. "But they are…I am…we are not as you are."

"Explain."

He sighed as he tried to ascertain what to say. "To understand the explanation, you will have to listen with the ears of a child. Can you do that?"

"I can try."

"Over the last six years, as you have aged from a teenager into a woman, as you made decisions and revisions that altered your perspective, despite all you have experienced, you have never changed. You have always been you. Always Sarah."

"Of course."

"That is not so with us."

Trying to decipher his riddle-esque responses were starting to hurt her head. But he asked her to listen with an open mind and despite the last five years of a life spent deep in science and logic she was trying very hard to do just that. "So…you are different from me how? What exactly are you, where do you come from?"

Jareth watched her carefully. His gaze was so intense that she dared not look away. The hustle and bustle of the store faded to the background as he spoke.

"Every night my sister rides across the night sky with the moon in her chariot. My brother catches stories in his web that is spun in all the corners of the world. We brought man fire. We gave him wings so that he may fly. When you knocked on wood, we listened. We didn't come from anywhere...we have always been here."

It was too much. "What kind of an answer is that?"

"The only answer I can give I'm afraid," he replied simply.

"So...you're...what? A legend? That's all you have to say?"

"There is a reason legends have been passed down from generation to generation. There is a reason that the same stories are told in cultures on opposite sides of the world. The names may change...but we never do."

Sarah struggled to accept his vague explanation and found a very disturbing fact deep inside: that ten years ago she would have believed what he said with no hesitation whatsoever. It was a very sobering thought, to realize in one second just how much she had grown up. She pressed her cold fingers to her mouth; some things, like growing up, were just inevitable. "So...who were you after I left?"

Jareth smiled ruefully. "Very confused."

His honesty threw both of them for a loop. Sarah finally broke the gaze that they'd been maintaining to visually trace the stitching on her purse. She stepped back, her hands gripping the handle of the cart a little too tightly. "About me?" she finally asked.

"About a lot of things," he admitted with a face lowered to the ground. It made it hard for her to read his expression.

She wanted to ask him what, what things was he confused about? He hadn't denied being confused about her and at least it put them on mutual ground because she was sure as shit confused about him. Everything about him confused her. She steeled herself to look at him but when her gaze rose it was caught on something else.

The mirror.

There was a mirror on the support pole that Jareth was leaning against. It was one of those cheap mirrors for customers that were too lazy to go into the dressing rooms. Sarah hadn't noticed it until now because it was one of those details that one normally overlooks.

Until it reflected something it wasn't supposed to.

Like the interior of the throne room at the Goblin Castle.

But that wasn't all.

The reflection in the mirror held different people and different locations, but all was still reflected in perfect balance.

Where Sarah stood on her side on cheap linoleum flooring, facing the mirror's surface, Hoggle stood. He wore a comical expression of surprise that she was sure was identical to the one on her face. Instead of a shopping cart he was clutching a filth-encrusted mop.

And where Jareth stood, his back to the mirror, stood the Man in Black. He was caught in the act of talking to Hoggle and so far completely unaware of the scene that surely must be reflected in the mirror behind him. For if she could see into his world, undoubtedly if he turned he would be able to see into hers.

That, however, wasn't the terrifying thing. What froze her heart and the blood in her veins was the way that however Jareth stood, however he shifted his weight on his feet as he tried to think of what he ought to say to her, the way he shrugged his shoulders and wiggled his fingers as a means of distracting himself...

...the Man in Black copied every movement.

Perfectly.

Flawlessly.

As if the two really were mirror images of each other.

From behind it was a perfect match. The hair, though discolored from one man to the next, was the same length and hung in the same pulled back ponytail. The shoulders were the same width, the height was identical.

Sarah's mouth dropped open. Hoggle's mouth was in perfect sync with hers.

Jareth had stopped trying to mumble an explanation about his state of confusion as he finally noticed where her gaze was pointed.

The look of fear on Hoggle's face matched her own as the man on his side of the mirror, the man who- from behind – was Jareth's dark twin, noticed the dwarf's expression just as Jareth had noticed her expression and the two- Jareth & the Man in Black were turning as one, were about to see just what it was she and Hoggle were staring at in the mirror and Sarah could taste her fear, could taste it as if her heart really did leap up into her throat. Hoggle was shaking his head, was too scared to stop the dark King-

There wasn't much room between her and the mirror to work up alot of velocity, but with every ounce of strength she had in her, Sarah rammed the shopping cart into the mirror.

It shattered into an expressionist spiderweb of shards. The pieces stayed in the frame, and Sarah was confronted with fifty distorted Sarahs looking back at her from each individual broken section...

...but at least she was met with Sarahs, and not anything else.

Or anyone.

Like someone who looked like the Goblin King, moved like the Gobllin King, and knew her like the Goblin King did.

Jareth on her side of the mirror.

A dark Goblin King on the other.

She looked at Jareth with a haunted expression. He was gaping at her as if she had started coughing up goldfish. As a matter of fact, as she looked around, she noticed that everyone else was looking at her too.

Sarah managed a small smile. "I tripped?"