Chapter Ten

Jareth took her by the shoulders, kissing her forehead with equal measure of possession and accord. She shivered, not only for the statement that he found her to be an equal, but the encompassing lust that overrode his actions, stymying her in.

"Go to him," he said, his voice bland.

She questioned with her brows drawn. He continued, "He is here, a guest in my east wing, the one nearest Amr."

"How?" Flustered.

He shrugged, a canine-ready grin quirking the side of his mouth. "You wished, so he is here."

"It can't be that simple."

He gently pushed her to the door, any words between them, forgotten. "Go, my sweet. Greet your son. Welcome him to the kingdom." His words, carefully bland; seeing more than she saw or dared comprehend.

She turned, looked back at him, his face concealed of emotion. He added, his smirk full-blown, "Wear the gold dress tonight. It will suit you, I think." A command made light, softened by his detail to her emotion, still on edge. Meant to distract.

She nodded. Tears filtered to her eyes. Jareth must have brought Jason, after all. She may have wished, but she hadn't his magic, his will to control whim and desire. She would wear anything he wanted; she would go naked in front of his courtiers if that is what he demanded, for what he had done for her.

"Oh, and Sarah..." His face, glittering and odd. "Don't be passive in dealing with him. He may be a guest, but that is a given courtesy for you alone. If I had my say, he would be in the dungeons, riding out his sentence." His voice a lilted medley of concern and his own patriarchal sternness. She wondered how he treated Jaren, but the boy had given no mention Jareth was unnecessarily harsh to him.

She murmured a response, shell-shocked by the quickness the matter had been resolved. "Of course." She heard his soft chuckle as she exited the room.

She half ran, half tripped along the hallways until she reached the rooms next to the general. She stopped, gathering breath and steel along her spine. Jason had a temper. He was obstinate, like his father, like her. He would be hard to deal with, as he had been, especially from the time of Sarah's divorce.

She opened the door, not knocking. Jason sat with his head in his hands, on the edge of the smallish bed. His feet would trail over the end if he stretched full out. He was tall, lean and muscled; a handsome young man, with dark hair and brilliant blue eyes.

He looked up. "Mom." He didn't move, just stared at her with bleak eyes.

"Jason." She reached for him. He pulled back, shaking his head.

"What is this place?" He looked as if in a trance, gazing around with wonder and disbelief.

She looked around herself, measuring and weighing, the clean though plain setting, the stone walls with two small windows near the ceiling giving in scant light. The room held only a bed, a wardrobe, and a desk with matching chair. Another chair stood against the wall, where she entered. The room was simple. Efficient. Jareth had given him a room where he couldn't escape. Still a prisoner, just of a different making.

She pulled up the second chair, hard backed and firm-seated. She decided on truth. "Do you remember the story I used to tell you when you were a little boy? The one about the king, and his kingdom far Underground?"

He nodded. He held his head as if it spun. It likely did. Travel to Jareth's world wasn't meant for humans.

She swallowed, took his hand. "They are all true."

"Fuck, Mom. My head hurts enough without you telling me some fairy tale."

"Language, Jason." She said it absentmindedly, the one thing she constantly had to remind him of. He groaned.

"Am I asleep?" He peered around, still holding his head. "Nice room." Sarcastic. "Better than the one I've been in."

"You're awake," she said, pulling her hand back to her lap, her voice brisk at his careless tone. "I don't need to remind you that you wouldn't have been in that cell room without cause."

"Shit, this is real, isn't it?" He turned his head to look at the room closer. "Did you buy them off?"

She snapped at him. "No. I did not."

He swallowed, his Adam's apple lurching. "Did Dad?"

"No."

"Are you going to tell him?"

He had hope in his voice. She swallowed fury. Of course he wanted her to tell Desmond. Her ex-husband would scorn Jason's jailers, giving every excuse possible why his son had reason to have done what he had done, letting him off with nary a word. That leniency had been a core reason Sarah had fought with him; he never took things seriously.

Neither, apparently, did her son. She paused, just long enough for him to gain a triumphant gleam to his eye.

"So..." he said, standing. "Let's get the hell out of here, then."

"I know what you were accused of, Jason." She set her face against him. "What were you thinking? Drugs!"

He mumbled. "I needed the money."

"So you decided to go black market and sell out your future in the process." Her voice, flat. Her eyes, narrowed with observance. He didn't care; she saw it in the loose lines of his body, as if he had little care in the world now that he was free of the prison. She added, caustic, "I can't imagine you were broke. Your father and I saw to that."

"You don't understand." He shook his head, self-pity gathering.

"No. I don't." She stood also. "You will come to understand this, though. You are in a new world, a place ruled by a king who is determined to remain gracious with you. You will work off your prison debt-"

Jason threw his hands up in the air, alarmed and dismayed. At her. "Mom!"

"You won't leave this room except for work. You will have cleaning detail. I know how you love to clean," she said, smoothly. Trying to stand firm when all she wanted to do was yank him into her arms, checking him for damage. He was thinner than the boy he had left as, but he looked unharmed. She couldn't hide her relief.

"Fuck that," he said, using his superior height to tower over her. "If any of your story is even real," he scoffed. She stood her ground as he looked down with a sneer at her. "Fuck doing anything for a fairy boy." He grinned, dark and humorless. "So what? Is the king your...lover?" It was a curse; a taunt. "Is he the reason you left Dad?" He paced, his vitriol constant. "Fuck that shit. I won't do anything you say. I'm an adult now-"

She felt the angry breeze whip her hair, pushing Jason back from where he had pressed her against the wall in his rage. Back to the edge of the mattress she had initially found him sitting on. He sat, his eyes wide as he stared behind her.

"Fuck..." her son said, inhaling the smell of ozone and darkness. Jareth came beside her, his face raw with disgust.

"Your tongue, dear boy," Jareth said, no humor in his tone. "Contain your foulness. You are speaking to the Champion."

Jason looked at her, his eyes wide. "Mom...he's real." Hushed and worried.

"Did you think your mother lied?" Jareth snapped at him. He gave a nod of his head, taunting with darkened eyes as he did so. "Welcome to my Goblin Kingdom." He wore his black warrior gauntlets, his cape of shadow, and his eyes were marked with immortal branding. He looked fierce. Dangerous.

"I want Dad." Quivering and looking to Sarah with a plea. More like her little boy, not the raging bull he had been a moment before.

Distaste filtered through Jareth's mouth. "Your...dad," Jareth said with a pointed pause, his words measured with memory and his own capricious nature, giving his opinion without revealing much at all. "You should be thanking your mother instead of using force against her. That show of useless power, my dear lad, will only be adding time and consequence to your sentence."

Jason mumbled. "What do you mean?"

Sarah let Jareth talk. She trembled, and she tucked her unsteady hands behind her back to hide them. Her son had changed, even more so, in the time he been abroad. He had always been volatile, prone to hysterics, but he had never used his strength and size to bully her before. Jareth caught her eye and got her acknowledgment to continue.

"You will be under the administration of my general, Lord Erfeldt. He will command you each day as to your duties. Training for battle, chores as your mother entailed-"

"Screw that! I'm not listening to you, Fairy Boy, or to your fairy general." He found his voice, ignoring the warning given.

"Jason," Sarah said, gasping at her son's choice of words.

Jareth strode before him, examining him like an ugly bug on a stick. His sneer was dangerous, and for a moment, she feared for her son. But despite his actions to the contrary, she trusted Jareth with this. She had proven she was not adept at managing her own child. The thought filled her with dismay.

"You will never use your puny human force to cower your mother again, nor that foul instrument of your tongue to berate her. She is your matron. Honor her, or you will pay."

Jason nodded, sniffing distastefully. He looked at his feet. "I don't want to be here."

"Too bad," Jareth snapped. "You were saved from death. Just be lucky I don't decide to give it to you now—a present, you might say—and to feed you to my goblins." He grinned, a lethal smile. "Or to my fairy general."

The dark haired male snapped his head up, unsure, not able to read Jareth. Sarah stifled a choke; Jareth could be frightening, and she inwardly thanked him for his intrusion.

Jareth held out his arm to her. "Champion."

She took it, giving one last glance under her lashes at her child. The king pulled her away, giving one last parting warning to Jason. "Tomorrow. Dawn. Amr will come for you. Be ready." Then he swept her from the room, leaving in the shift of shadow he had come in on.

Sarah crossed her arms about herself as Jareth contemplated her silently, standing near her while in his chambers. "I want to thank you," she said. He nodded, still quiet. "I..." She paused, taking a deep breath. "I had always assumed, wanted to assume, that Jason's father was the root cause of his being spoiled." She murmured to herself, shaking her head. "I can see that is not the case. We are both to blame."

He leaned against the wall, facing her, his eyes fascinating jewels of sparkle as he looked at her. "Tell me about him."

"Desmond?" He inhaled, nodded. She sighed. "I loved him." Jareth stiffened, but she continued as if he had not. "I met him my first year in college. He was already a senior, working for a law firm in New York City. I wanted to impress him, so I told him I wanted to be a lawyer, too."

"You fulfilled that statement."

"Yes," she said, hesitating. "But it wasn't my first love. Not initially. I wanted to be an actress, like my mother." Jareth watched her, his eyes bland. He knew that about her, of course. "Then, the idea grew on me, and he helped me get an internship, just before he asked me to marry him."

"You didn't wait to have a baby." His jaw clenched, the tic in it pronounced.

"No." She shook her head. "Though I should have been more prepared." She shrugged. "Jason was a bit of an accident." She gasped at the admittance. "But I was pleased," she assured. "I wanted to please Desmond. He's always doted on our son."

Again, Jareth cringed. Sarah smiled, thinking of the past. "He was such a precocious boy. Always getting into things. He knew how to play us against the other, I guess." She swore. "I have been a fool."

He stepped forward, taking her elbow. "Not a fool. A mother in love with her child."

"I was wrong. I coddled him."

"Yes."

She winced. "I coddled him and he hasn't learned to respect us. That is on his father and I, I know."

"Sarah," Jareth said, soothing while he acknowledged her words. "Jason will grow up here. He will learn to be a man. Amr will make sure of it." He raised an eyebrow. "I will make sure of it."

She nodded. "Thank you, Jareth."

He grinned. "Thank me after you see your son day in and day out cursing you for bringing him to my kingdom. Don't think he won't."

She laughed. "I will be glad to hear him curse if it makes him grow up." Her smile faltered. She looked at her clasped fingers, at the ground.

He grew serious again. "Why did you," he contemplated his choice of wording, "Leave him?" He didn't say husband...but she knew by his cringe that is what he meant.

"I didn't," she paused, amending. "Or rather, Desmond insisted that I leave." She shrugged. "I didn't fight him. I wanted to go." Jareth cringed at her tone. She folded into herself. "It was a long time in coming. He had never been faithful. We stayed together for Jason."

Jareth nodded, listening to the unspoken behind her words. She said, "I stopped loving that man a long time ago. I thought he was my prince charming. I was wrong about that, too."

He wiped a tear from her cheek, then pulled back, letting her muse. She continued, "At least I had my career. It might be all I have left now, anyway."

He shook his head. "No. Not all."

She snapped her head up, but he remained aloof. Carefully so.

"I don't know how I got here, but if it helps my son improve his behavior, I'll be glad of it," she said. "I'm not a homewrecker, Jareth," she said, her voice quiet. "I don't want to be the cause of anyone's failed relationship, not after mine." She sighed. "But maybe I stepped right into that role, after all."

"I don't care what you think you know. It's wrong," he spat.

"Ain-"

"I don't want to talk about her." He nudged her chin up with a forefinger. "And I don't want you to chastise yourself into nothingness."

"You command me?" she said, teasing, though her voice was tense.

He smiled. "If you wish."

She leaned forward after a brief debate with herself, kissing him lightly on his cheek. "I wish."

Jareth smiled, his eyes bright. "For you...anything, my sweet."

She pulled back. "Jareth?"

He sighed as if the world weighted him. "Hmm?"

"Did I do the right thing?"

She meant leaving her husband. She had to hear it; she had to know. He contemplated, his face pale. "You thought you did, I'm sure."

She nodded, slowly. Her own face wan and peaked. "I would go back, maybe. Fix things. Make them better..."

Jareth brought her to him, kissed her warmly, his answer obtuse. "You already are."