Chapter 10: So Much Like Fear

5232 Days (February 23, 2006)

One becomes, very quickly, unused to solitude.

Jareth perched in the window to Sarah's suite; staring through both glass and the veil of magic that separated them. Inside, Sarah sat with the boy—with Ciro—in her lap, their attention fixed on the book held open before them.

He watched as Sarah turned the page, slowly, slowly, the lock of hair pushed behind her ear spilling gently, slowly, forward as she moved. Today was extremely Long—more than sixty Aboveground hours—and so he passed some three seconds, on the windowsill, for each one that passed in Sarah's rooms.

He had been watching for nearly an hour before they finished the book. As Sarah moved to put it down, Ciro looked up and caught sight of him. Jareth was careful to hold very still; the time difference was enough that he feared frightening the child if he moved too quickly. Ciro spoke, and pointed towards the window; at his indication, Sarah looked up, smiling widely.

She leaned down to the boy and spoke in his ear; he hopped nimbly off her lap and ran towards Jareth, climbing onto the bench beneath the windowsill so that he could see, clearly, out the window. Sarah, gracefully, rose and followed, and Jareth's eyes could no longer watch the child; he was lost, utterly, in the slow-motion sway of her hips under her long skirt.

Sarah rested a hand on Ciro's head, smoothing his hair, and he looked up at her and spoke, gesturing at Jareth. How he wished he could hear them! But sound was too strange, translated across the boundary of time, and so, for peace of mind, they had worked a simple spell of silence into the barrier as well.

Ciro spoke again, and Sarah sat on the bench at his side, touching his cheek as she replied. Her manner with him had always been easy; Jareth had been correct to believe that she would be a good mother. After one more brief exchange, Ciro waved cheerily at Jareth, then hopped down from the bench and ran for the bedroom.

Sarah watched him go, then leaned closer to the window, and met Jareth's eyes, raising one hand to rest on the barrier that divided them. He leaned in as well, touching his feathered head to magic wall, feeling the current that ran through it, like a flow of water across his feathers.

Their eyes held for a long moment, and Sarah smiled sadly. Owl eyes had not the expression of a man's, but he did his best to pour his longing for her into his gaze. Then, at some unheard cue, Sarah broke their communion to look briefly towards the bedroom. She met his eyes again, and mouthed, "I love you," then let her hand fall, and walked away.

He had been correct: once they moved away from a focus on dream magic and began to explore Sarah's natural talents, she progressed rapidly. She picked up Transportation almost as quickly as she had managed the Stairs, and had also shown some talent for changing physical objects: she could easily repair broken items—the goblins provided sufficient pieces for practice—and even the transmutation of an item from one form to another.

The only physical magic at which she did not excel was the production of edible items. Sarah, eventually resigned to the fact, hypothesized that it was part and parcel of her Aboveground difficulty with biochemistry, which had also contributed to her decision to pursue psychology rather than psychiatry. She brushed off his assurances that she would improve with practice—it had not been an easy skill for Jareth himself to master, either—and he noted, not for the first time, that if she got it in her head that she was not capable of something, it took a great deal of pressure, reassurance, or incentive to get her to move past her difficulty and try again.

She had taken easily to time magic as well, he had been pleased to discover. It was sensible, perhaps: an artifact of her origins in a time-based system and her natural sense of order. He taught her to recognize the passage of time as he did, though she seemed more easily able to release the distraction of continuously counting, and engage the ability only when required, a difference that he envied. She also lacked his connection to Time Aboveground, but that was to be expected: it was a consequence of his position, not a natural inclination. Eventually she had asked him why he used minutes and seconds and hours when they were arbitrary times in the Labyrinth, not based on any natural cycle, and he admitted that yes, it was arbitrary, but it was the arbitrary system that both of them had been raised in, and thus made as much sense as any other.

But despite Sarah's improved accomplishments, Jareth could not say that he was content. He had hoped that discovering her natural talents would lessen the magical obsession that had been at least some part of Sarah's melancholy, but the effect had been quite the reverse. In Sarah's view, that would could be mastered must be mastered immediately; frequently, she worked sunrise to sundown, and even late into the night.

He would seek her out, and she would join him, but even then, he would catch a faraway look in her eyes; her mind departed, though her body was with him, and he found himself seeking her company less often. Neither did she now visit the friends she had met in the Labyrinth. He had encountered that dwarf earlier, as he surveyed his boundaries, and had been accused of "keepin' her all to yerself;" he had taken great pleasure in informing the creature—quite honestly, as it well knew—that he did not control Sarah's schedule and if she had neglected him, that was her own affair.

All in all he had been remarkably polite. When the creature's spluttering ceased to amuse, he had simply Transported away. The fact that this was the dwarf's least favorite dismissal could hardly be blamed upon Jareth.

He Dreamed less, these recent days, consumed first with helping Sarah, and then with seeking her: inspiration was lacking. But he was not concerned: he had learned, well enough, over all his years, that the one truth of immortality was that the only constant was change. Inspiration would return, and the world would not suffer for a few years' lighter work.

It bothered him far more that Sarah had yet to notice.

He found her in the library, but she was not reading. Instead, she was focused intently on an empty shelf, channeling magic through her fingers as she restored its polish and straightened the warped wood. The books which had filled the shelf were stacked nearby; they were histories, mostly, the stories of small civilizations who had been beloved of his kind.

It was obvious that she neither heard nor sensed him: her concentration never wavered, nor did she acknowledge his presence even with a glance. No: she was completely consumed by the magic, her body tense and trembling with the force of the power. He could see that she still needed to touch each small area: she could not yet alter large areas with a single touch. As he watched, she paused, pressing one finger to the middle of the shelf and concentrating: the area around her finger shifted and straightened, a wider diameter than had previously been affected, but when she moved it slightly, her knees buckled, and she collapsed against the shelf.

He longed to catch her, to support her, but he had learned, by now, that to so mortify her pride would only make her angry.

"Sarah," he said, instead, and tried to smile, as though he had not seen.

"Don't pretend with me, Jareth." He had expected her to snap at him, but she only sounded tired. "You've been standing there for at least ten minutes." Ten minutes, thirty-two seconds. He had been wrong about her perception.

"You are improving, but—"

"Don't say it." It was true; this was an old argument. "I can only go so fast, I can only do so much, I push too much, I am only human, I can't expect that I—"

"Sarah!" Though her statement had started calm, her alarm escalated with each phrase, until, by the end, she was nearly yelling. This time he did not hold back: he took two quick strides to close the distance between them, and grasped her by the shoulders, tightening his grip until she looked up to meet his eyes.

He could say what he was thinking, but it would be pointless to rehearse the same arguments, to hear her same answers. She worked too hard, she expected too much, the time was too short. Only once had he ventured another argument: he missed her. That one, and that one alone, she had called manipulative and cruel. She claimed that she was only trying to be what he needed; she did not hear when he told her that she already was.

And all these things and more had already been spoken. He could be angry, but anger required an energy that this repetition had stolen. After three hundred days of bitter arguments, they had come to an agreement: if neither could say anything new in one hundred and twenty seconds—two minutes—then the argument would not continue; they would find another subject, or part and return to each other another day.

"Cannot I tempt you away?" He gave her a small smile, and released her shoulder so that he was free to cup her cheek.

"I suppose." She looked back at the bookshelf. "This doesn't really need to be done today." He refrained from saying that very little, here, was so urgent that it could not wait. "Could you give me a lesson in your shapeshifting? I can turn things into other things, it would make sense to be able to do it to myself as well."

He frowned. "Shapeshifting is a talent of my race, not a magical skill."

"So?" She shrugged. "I'm getting more like you anyway." She gestured towards her face, to the dark highlights that had begun to form across her eyelids as she discovered her true magical talents. "And if I can't do it that way, then there might be magic that can—"

"No," he interrupted sternly.

"What? Jareth, I—"

"You cannot change by magic alone." He was angry with her for suggesting it, angry that all she wanted was more of magic, but he forced himself to settle for a lecturing tone, forcing himself to calm; for all her experimentation, she did not know the rules. "You would be unable to regain yourself. A body adapted to natural shifting is required to permit an animal body to continue to process thoughts in the same manner as the natural shape. You are changing, but it is doubtful that such change is yet included." His voice softened. "And Sarah—I would not risk you."

Slowly, she nodded. "Well then, maybe you could show me—"

"No," he cut her off again, gently this time. "No more magic for you. Not today." She looked ready to argue again, and he raised a hand to stop her. "There are only a few more hours in the day, you need at least a short rest, and I—" He stopped. He had come close to saying it again: I miss you.

"Where do you get off telling me when enough is enough?" she burst out, angry at what he had not quite let slip. "You rely on it for everything! To get around, to get dressed, hell, to get me off!" He blinked at that; certainly he used expanded touch in their bedroom play, but it was hardly required. But she was not yet finished. "And then you're just going to come and say that enough is enough? That you know better than me what I'm capable of? Or maybe you just miss sweet innocent little Sarah, who would have worshipped at your feet."

There was nothing to say to that; she would not believe him if he denied it, though her accusation was as painful as it was unfounded. Had he not told her that he wanted nothing with that old dream, not when she was so much more? He loosened his hold and stepped back from her, not quite letting go, but not restraining her either.

"I'm sorry," she said, looking down and then back to his face. "That was… I shouldn't have said that. Jareth…." She stepped closer, putting a hand to his cheek, her thumb caressing gently.

"Do you apologize because what you say is untrue, or because you believe it but believe also that you should have kept such belief to yourself?"

She blinked. "The first one."

"You know that I am not trying to control you." Not in the manner that you meant. Not beyond your will. Yet you would do better to heed me. Sarah sighed, looking thoughtful, then, suddenly, her lips twisted up in a playful, predatory grin.

"You know what? Fine. No magic for me? Then none for you either," she challenged. "That's the deal." She crossed her arms and waited, eyebrow cocked.

"No magic?" He had anticipated spending time in the Labyrinth, perhaps returning to the water sprites' garden, but at this time of day that would require Transportation. Still, there was always…. "As you wish, my Sarah… I do not believe I need magic to please you." He pulled her close again, leaning in to whisper in her ear.

"No…" she leaned in too, breasts pressed to his chest, her lips tickling against his jaw, "but you need magic to get out of those pants." She laughed. "For that matter, you'd need magic to get me out of mine."

Clothing could be cut as well as Vanished, but a blade would also need to be conjured; weapons were generally not permitted in the Castle, for the safety of his subjects. Both sets of clothing were too thick to be torn. Companionship, then, not intercourse… and if she truly insisted that magic be eschewed completely, they could not even return to their quarters: it would require making use of the magic of the Stairs. He took that moment to truly close off his normal connection to the Castle, which maintained the cleaning and provisioning spells as well as providing lighting. It was an odd sensation: the parts of his mind normally concerned with such matters tingled and pulsed, like a limb deprived of bloodflow. Sarah looked about curiously as the lights in the library flickered out, but said nothing.

"Come." He twined his fingers with her and turned, pulling her towards the door.

"Where are we going?"

"You shall see."

The music room was dusty with disuse: he had not bothered to maintain the enchantment for cleanliness while Sarah was uninterested. Still, the room had been cleaned since Sarah's return, so it was the dust of years, not of centuries. While he could Conjure a passable instrument, and did so frequently when musical inspiration struck, he preferred to have one made by an expert: he could not match the perfection of, say, a Stradivarius violin. Sarah might be able to, if she put her mind to it and learned the related physics.

"What are we doing here?" she asked, releasing his hand to approach one of the walls, hung with instruments.

"Long ago, you said you would like to learn, someday. I thought we might make a beginning."

She turned in place, eyes searching the room. He took a moment to put himself in her place. He had rarely thought of it, but perhaps the collection was impressive: he had kept only the most promising of instruments from every culture he encountered, and then only if he could find one that was well-made. And, as friends and acquaintances lost interest in their own collections, before departing, he brought those in as well; the room was filled with instruments, but it held only his favorites. Others were stored elsewhere in the Castle. High on the wall, out of practical reach, deep windows pierced the walls, filling the room with bright sunshine, another reason he had chosen this room in a magicless challenge.

Sarah approached a section of the wall devoted to a display of drums, running her fingers across an Irish bodhrán, tapping lightly, listening to the pitch change with a curious, thoughtful frown. The fingers of her other hand rested on the rim of the similar, but larger, Persian daf, stroking lightly across the smooth wood of the frame.

He watched her, happy to see her distracted from her obsessive work, and smiled when she turned back to him.

"So… where do we start?" she asked, leaving the wall to approach him.

"I thought you would do best to dictate that," he answered. "Where would you like to begin?"

"I don't really know. There are… a lot of choices."

"Have you had any instruction?"

She shrugged. "Mom made me take piano lessons, when I was little. Only maybe six months or so. She had this dream about a mother-daughter act. She lost interest after…." She trailed off, and he could almost see her putting the pieces together. "After she wished me away." She shook her head, slightly, shutting out the memory of her mother's abandonment. "I guess it doesn't matter."

"The pianoforte is an excellent place to start," he said. "The keyboard is a natural way to learn theory. Come." He beckoned her over to the corner of the room that housed the instrument, as well as an older, smaller harpsichord and other older keyboard instruments. Dust slid from the polished oak frame as he raised the lid; at least the keys were clean, protected by their cover. The matching bench was small, and he was not permitted to use magic to expand it. Instead, he pushed himself over to one edge, patting the bench to encourage her to sit next to him. She did not, however, instead leaning against the case near the upper register

"It looks… different," she said, frowning at the keys. "Like there's something out of place." She pointed to a key. "That's middle C?"

"It is the C closest to the middle of the keyboard," he replied. "This was a term used by your teacher?"

"You don't know?"

"This instrument is relatively new," he replied, "though the keyboard system is familiar to me because of its similarity to the pipe organ, which is far older. I had formal lessons on the organ, but what I know of the piano I learned by observation, intuition, and plain guesswork."

"Observation?"

"I did not create this piano, Sarah."

"You got it—"

"Above, yes." He had acquired this piano in 1840, the last time he had been able to find his way Above without a Wish until Sarah called him. "From a man named Camille Pleyel, in Paris."

"You… bought it?" She frowned.

"In a manner of speaking, yes." The conversation had taken an unexpected turn, but he did not mind. Sarah looked thoughtful, and focused upon him, and that was all that was required.

"You're playing that game again," she said, rolling her eyes. "How do you get things Aboveground? I'm assuming you don't steal them, but I know I didn't see you pay for the meal, the first time you took me out. Convincing someone that you paid is just the same as stealing, you know."

He laughed, ignoring her minor insult. "Once upon a time Men were glad to gratify their gods. But I did no such thing. I am surprised you never asked me before, Sarah."

"So? Do you just conjure money?"

"I suppose I could, but that would require keeping up with the intricacies of currency in every country in the world; I could do so, if I desired, but frankly it does not hold my interest. No, I suppose you would call it a barter system."

"You're not walking around telling everyone about magic."

"No. In the case of the restaurant owner, I convinced him—magically—that he desired to provide a free meal for myself and a guest. I returned the following day and repaired every appliance in his kitchen, returning them to new. Without his knowledge, of course, but he should not notice; he will only see how exceptionally fortunate he has been, that nothing breaks down."

Sarah blinked at him. "And the cab driver?"

"Burned no fuel while we rode with him, and did not lack for custom all evening." Automobiles were one new fascination he had taken the time to learn during that week Above. Following Sarah the entire time, as part of him had wished to do, would only have frightened her.

She was silent, for a long time, staring down into the open piano. He ran his fingers over the keys, ivory and ebony warming under his touch. He remembered the first time he had seen this instrument, the music pouring forth from the fingers of a talented young composer and performer. What could he play for her? What would she know? She had appreciated the concert they attended; he remembered her joy in Peter and the Wolf, even if he had been too overcome by Peer Gynt to observe much of her reaction there.

What was he feeling? What did he want? He could play the music he had written for her ballroom dream, but it seemed far too much a plea for attention. No: if he wished to call attention to the instrument, then he must choose something designed to showcase its talents. Perhaps something which he could even encourage Sarah to learn. Something she might enjoy.

And then he knew. The song was not cheerful, not peaceful, but he felt neither of those things in this moment. He felt… a little bit alone, even with her here.

Sarah glanced at him when he began to play, but said nothing. The piece began softly, a slow haunting melody and simple, repeated chords, the work of pedals and a very light touch required to keep it from racing out of control. Timesense warred with rubato expression and he harkened back to the memory of hearing this piece from its composer's hands, closing his eyes to remember that exquisite, emotive performance, the candlelit salon hushed with awe.

The melody curled around and returned, rose, fell, returned again, the tension growing, the crescendo imminent. He leaned in, unconsciously, fingers finding the keys unerringly, though it had been decades since he played. And then that burst: not faster, no, not faster, but louder, yes, louder, the melody soaring, loosed from its former slavery, briefly transcendent—and return, and circle, and softly, softly close.

When even he could no longer hear the faint ringing of the last chord, he opened his eyes. Sarah stared back at him, spellbound, her lips parted. He wanted to stand, to kiss her, but to do so would break the tableau, ruin the moment. But she acted for him: she stepped closer, holding his gaze, her hand rising to cup his cheek and her eyes falling shut as her head bent to brush her lips gently with his.

"Beautiful," she breathed, against his mouth, and opened her eyes again, meeting his with so little distance to separate them. "Why haven't you played for me before?"

"You never asked."

"I didn't know what I was missing." She leaned into him, pressing her forehead to his, and swallowed, then released him, and moved away. He let her go, watching her from his place on the bench.

"Sarah?"

"You don't tell anyone about magic." He shook his head in confirmation, but it had been a statement, not a question. "Why not?"

Why not? Could not she see? "Sarah, say there is a man who comes to town, who claims he can work miracles, and then does. Over and over again, until even skeptics believe. What happens to him?"

Her face fell. "Everybody wants a piece."

"Yes. He becomes only a tool for their desires. But what happens when his power is not limitless?"

"I thought you could do almost anything! When you gave me that crystal, you said that you 'cannot bring back the dead' but could do most else, at least of things that were 'personal to me.' So what are the limits?" She paced back and forth as she spoke, spinning to glare at him with her last question.

"I do not mean limits of ability; while that does enter into the calculation, I am old enough and strong enough to render it moot. No, except for death, there is little I could not accomplish which stands in the realm of one man's personal desires. No: the problem is that the power itself is not limitless, not Above."

"You never seemed to have a problem."

"Ambient magic is everywhere, though there is more in some locations than others. A magic-user also accumulates magic in their person, which supplements ambient magic in areas where it is lacking. But it is a resource, finite as any other. Do you see?"

"You have to pick and choose." She sighed.

"How do you answer one man's dream, and not another's? Where do you stop? What problem is too small to fix with magic? What is too large to attempt? And what do you do when you say you cannot, and they do not believe?"

Painful memory intruded, and he could see that she remembered as well.

"Send me back, right now, and I'll forgive you for this, and we can go back to letters for a while, if you still want to." Her eyes are so beautiful, even angry; he wants her passion. But just moments ago he believed he had it all, that she wanted this as much as he did, and yet that was false. He takes a sharp breath, and guards his heart against showing her too much.

"Sarah. Look at me, Sarah." He cannot resist: he must touch her, stroke the set line of her jaw, coax her into complete attention, no sullenness. "I cannot send you back."

He hates the tears standing in her eyes, and blesses that they might hide that he wants to shake her, or maybe cry himself. "Can't, or won't?"

"I cannot." Does she not know? Has she no understanding of who he is?

"Liar. You can just claim that you can't, but you want me here, so here I stay." The accusation hurts like a thrust to the heart: she trusts him not at all.

"Jareth." Suddenly she was standing right in front of him, her hands cupping his face. He rose, and wrapped his arms around her waist. She reached up and kissed him, briefly, then settled back in his embrace, biting her lip in thought. "That's… you've been trying to tell me that for a while now, haven't you. That magic isn't the solution to everything."

That was not the whole of it, so he said nothing, only met her eyes, his fingers drawing tiny, random patterns across her lower back. After a moment, she shook her head and looked away.

"I don't know, Jareth. I see what you're trying to say, but I still feel like I have to try…." She leaned in, resting against his chest. "I'll think about it."

"Thank you." He was about to suggest that they resume the music, that he teach her, perhaps the melody of the piece he had played, but as he opened his mouth to speak, a jolt of power slammed into him, unexpected and powerful, at the same time that words thundered in his head: "I would that Minos take you and keep you, as tribute to the Labyrinth!"

"What was that?" Sarah's voice sounded very far away. "Jareth?"

"A child." He shook his head once, swiftly, reasserting his control of the Labyrinth and the Castle, welcoming back the familiar flow of magic. "I must away. Go to the Throne Room. And Sarah—I hope you remember your Greek!"

Very early in the morning, Jareth opened the King's Door, and, gently but firmly, pushed past the barrier that blocked it, into her bedroom. The magic resisted at first, then, under increased pressure, shuddered and burst like a bubble of soap. It would be rebuilt in a few days' time, but the next several days would approach Aboveground lengths, and Jareth was determined to spend that time enjoying the company of Sarah and the boy she had adopted.

He had not slept at all, in anticipation of this moment. He entered her room quietly, delighted to find her alone in the bed: he blessed again his foresight in providing an adjoining room for Ciro. It had been different, when he was smaller, but he was now, Sarah told him, approximately six years old; he was more than old enough to sleep on his own.

Faint moonlight lit the room, softening its lines, and the curve of Sarah's cheek, her eyelashes an inky, contrasting shadow. His beauty; his. Today had been exhausting; most of the burden of their spell of time fell on his shoulders, and there had been the additional burden of the Long day, and long night. But it was worth it, to be here for her now.

When he had seduced her back Underground, he had thought that she would submit to him, that she would be his when needed and not otherwise, that she would fill unoccupied time. Instead, all he had once promised had come true: as long as she loved him, he would always be her slave.

And in his own way, too, he loved the boy.

The child had been with them some four hundred days, of which Jareth had spent thirty-four in his company. For the first two days, he had attempted to remain inside the barrier, keeping Time constant, but the length of the third such day had proved too great a strain: he collapsed, and the barrier snapped. When he awoke, almost a day later, Sarah had been nearly frantic, both at his state and at the amount of magic that had been allowed to influence the boy. Sharing her concern and unwilling to see such an event repeat, they had devised the current plan, which balanced Time and Magic by anchoring each with one of them: Sarah with Time, her natural element, and Jareth with Magic.

And though the barrier separated them, finding a way to care for Ciro had brought them back together. No longer was she distant or distracted: when he visited them, she was welcoming and loving. Gone were the petty arguments, the little injuries that had begun to tear at the edges of their happiness. Loving the child smoothed away the roughness, and the time apart let them cherish what they had together. And Sarah was happier in her new calling as a mother. Her magical obsession was finished, faded to healthy interest that he would nurture in due time.

"Jareth?" Sarah blinked, sleepily, her eyes slitting open to focus on him standing in the doorway. "It's early."

"It is very late, actually," he replied, approaching to sit next to her on the bed. She reached out and pulled at his hand, and he let her guide him down to lie beside her, his head on her pillow. He leaned in to kiss her forehead, and she smiled and closed her eyes.

"I missed you," she sighed. "Very late?"

"The new day is not yet begun."

That got her attention. "Jareth!" She pushed up on one arm, looking down at him as she blinked away sleep. "Yesterday was Long, wasn't it?"

"A few extra hours of sleep will do him no harm." He reached a hand to stroke her cheek. "And it gives us some time." He started to pull her down for a kiss, but surprised himself with a yawn.

She smiled. "And you were up all night?"

"Waiting until I judged it safe." The dark of the room worked with the late hour and the comfort of her presence; he could feel his weariness in his very bones.

"Come here." She raised the bedcovers in invitation. He waved the curtains closed at the window, shutting out the bright moonlight, then moved beneath and spooned behind her, one arm under her head as the other wrapped her waist to hold her close. He buried his face in the hair at the back of her neck, kissing her gently and inhaling her scent.

"Mmmm." Sarah shifted slightly, stretching, before settling back into his arms. Her bottom pushed back into his pelvis, and sleepiness began to give way to hunger. The hand at her waist shifted, tracing across her belly. "I'll say again: I missed you."

"It was your idea," he reminded her, bringing his hand up to brush the underside of her breast; he loved the firmness of her flesh beneath the soft silk nightgown she wore. She stiffened, and he pulled her closer, kissing across her shoulder. "Relax, love. I do not regret it. I chose it too. I was only teasing."

She remained silent, but he could feel her relaxing into his touch once more; most likely, she was thinking. He stroked her gently, continuing his kisses.

"Do you think it's working?" she asked, finally. Her hand reached back to stroke his hip and he growled his approval into her back, grinding his growing erection against her backside and making her giggle. "I thought you were tired?"

"Not too tired, not for you." She turned her face for a brief, hungry kiss; his hands moved down, pushing up the hem of her short nightdress to stroke the flesh beneath. "I need you, my Sarah."

Her top leg lifted slightly, and he put a hand to her belly, keeping her steady as he entered her. She made a sound that seemed equal parts hum of contentment and moan of anticipation, and he pulled her close to his chest, reveling in her warmth.

Immediate need for connection satisfied, Jareth's mind returned to her previous question. "It has been far longer than I expected this to work. I believe Ciro will do well." He began thrusting gently, slowly, a sleepy, sweet lovemaking that would prolong their intimacy.

"What?" She turned her head to look at him, eyes cloudy with desire.

"Ciro. I believe he will do well."

"Mmmm." Then she stiffened, pulling away. "Ciro! The door is open!"

He pulled her back, maintaining their connection. "Hush. He is asleep. Stay quiet, that he might remain so; I have not finished with you yet!" She giggled and relaxed, stifling her moan into her pillow as he rolled her, thrusting deeper.

There was lust in this embrace, and loneliness, but there was safety too: the satisfaction of some primal need to claim, to own. Sarah belonged to him, as much as he belonged to her. She was his to cherish, his to protect, and he wrapped his body around hers, clasping her tight, close, safe.

The urge came, now, to thrust harder, faster, to claim Sarah's satisfaction and demand his own, but as he moved to allow himself to do so, he caught sight of a pair of eyes, standing in the doorway.

"Jareth?" Sarah's voice was husky with need and the late hour, and when he stilled, she pushed back at him impatiently. "Why—"

"Ciro," he answered softly, dropping his head to rest in the crook of her neck.

"Mama?" The boy's voice was soft with sleep. With the curtains closed, the room was very dark, and the boy stood in the open doorway that led to the sitting room, framed by faint starlight from that room's window. "I woke up and it was dark."

Sarah cleared her throat and pushed away; Jareth let her go, rolling onto his back and Summoning a pair of loose pants. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, willing his erection to subside. Hopefully they could coax him back to sleep quickly.

"I know it's dark, baby," Sarah was saying, beckoning to the child from the edge of the bed. "But you can go back to sleep, right? Darkness is sleepy time."

He shook his head. "Not tired." As he stepped forward, his eyes widened, and Jareth knew that rest was over. "Daddy!" He ran the rest of the way across the room, jumping and throwing himself on the bed. Sarah caught him, arresting his momentum, but he started squirming immediately, and Jareth reached for him. In Jareth's arms, the boy quieted.

"Hello, little man."

"Is it tomorrow?" Ciro frowned thoughtfully. "Mama said you are coming tomorrow. But it can't be tomorrow if it's dark out."

"It is still today," he answered, smiling. "I was impatient for your company, so I came early."

"Oh." The frown persisted, and Jareth looked up into Sarah's eyes. She smiled back, and moved closer, putting an arm around Ciro as Jareth wrapped an arm around her. "What is 'impatient for your company?'" He spoke slowly, emphasizing the unfamiliar words.

Sarah laughed. "It means he wanted to see us, Little Wind."

"If you want to see us, you should just not go 'way." Ciro looked up at Jareth mournfully, and he swallowed, hard, wishing that yes, things could be different, that he could be more than a brief presence in the life of this child.

"We talked about that, honey," Sarah intervened, drawing the boy's attention. "Do you remember what we said?"

"I have to eat my vegetables." In spite of himself, Jareth laughed, and Sarah smiled.

"Do you remember the rest?"

"I don't wanna eat my vegetables, but I have to. Daddy doesn't wanna go 'way, but he has to."

"Do you remember why?"

"So I can grow up big and strong!" Suddenly excited, he sprang to his feet, bouncing and then falling into the space between them. He looked down at himself, suddenly thoughtful again. "I'm not big and strong already?"

"You are my big strong boy," Sarah said, "but you need to be a big strong man."

"Like Daddy?"

"Like Daddy." Behind Ciro's head, Jareth yawned again; Sarah met his eyes and they shared a sympathetic smile. "But Daddy is very tired, right now… what do you say you and I go look at the stars?"

"Sarah—" Jareth felt the need to intervene. She was exhausted as well; she needed this just as much as he did. And if the boy did not sleep now, he might not adjust properly. Waking Ciro had figured in none of his expectations.

"Don't wanna look at stars," Ciro said stubbornly. "Wanna stay with Daddy."

"Even if Daddy has to sleep?"

The little boy blinked, and then yawned. "I can sleep too."

"Come here, Little Wind," Jareth said, and when the child put his arms around his neck, he leaned back into the pillow. Sarah followed them down, and both of them put their arms around the boy, cradling him between them. Jareth stroked the hair gently from his forehead, then leaned down and placed a kiss between his eyes, imbued with a minor enchantment for sleep.

"Did you—" Sarah began.

"He will sleep until sunrise," Jareth confirmed.

"I'm sorry we couldn't…" she trailed off, but made her meaning clear with a caress along his hip that made him chuckle, and then yawn again.

"Tomorrow is soon enough, love. Sleep." He curled around them both, drawing Sarah close with a leg entwined at the knee and a hand at her waist. His to keep, his to protect, Sarah and the boy. Now and always.

Four days passed in a blink. Ciro was the center of his days: he never tired of listening to stories, and Jareth never tired of telling them. This time, he asked again and again for stories of people who turned into animals, and Jareth obliged: "The Three Swans" and "The White Duck" and "The Frog Prince" and "Beauty and the Beast" and many more besides. Ciro begged him to "be an owl!" and Jareth showed him, but only once; he could not interact, so well, in that form.

And at sunset, when Ciro slept, there was Sarah: content, devoted, caring Sarah, with sweet touches and passionate heat and all the little stories of the parts of Ciro he had not yet seen. This was the first time he had had so many days in a row: there would be six in total, ranging in length from twenty to twenty-seven Aboveground hours. It was long enough that they could fall into routine; long enough to forget, for a few days in the middle, that this was a tiny haven carved from the loneliness that came from living on the other side of the window.

There had been no domesticity, in his youth. He had raised himself, more than anything, his mother still devoted to her duty, his father absent, unknown. Among some Men, he had seen it, had craved it, that attention. That love to a child. In the past, early in his tenure, he had occasionally allowed the goblins to fill that role, entertaining and teaching them, their form maintaining that childlike wonder even as they lacked potential, lacked growth, lacked that spark that made Ciro ask him one moment whether having feathers tickled (not in the slightest) and the next whether or not he knew the name of every creature in the Labyrinth (of course, he did—when he bothered to remember).

On the fourth day, knowing how long it had been since Sarah had done anything but remain inside with Ciro, he sent her out into the Labyrinth, taking charge of the boy for the day. He took him to the Eyrie, the first time Ciro had been permitted out of Sarah's rooms since his arrival. Ciro loved the birds, and the view; Jareth pointed out various sections of the Labyrinth to him, telling him their stories, and when the child asked if there were other stories of shapechangers in the Labyrinth, or of flight, it was quite natural that Icarus should come to mind. After all, the boy should know some of the history of his people. They stayed, and watched, and played, until the stars came out and the boy fell asleep.

Sarah did not come in until long after dark; he woke when she came to bed, and pulled her close. She snuggled into his shoulder, and twined her fingers into his hair.

"Day okay? Ciro behaved?" She yawned into the last word, and he chuckled.

"Most of my subjects are childlike, Sarah; I am well capable of caring for children." She shrugged, and then nodded. "How did you find your dwarf?"

"I'm sorry; I know you can, it's just, you haven't."

"Not for lack of desire."

"I know." She was quiet a moment. "He has a name, you know." She poked him in the side, and he twisted, pinning her to dance light, tickling kisses along her neck and collarbone.

"Hogsbreath?" he asked, and she giggled. "Hobble?"

"Jareth!"

"You give him my name?" Instead of replying, she launched herself up at him, still laughing, kissing him hard so that he could not speak. He broke the kiss with a smile, rolling them again so that she straddled his waist.

"It was nice to be out in the air, again," she said, thoughtfully. "I was thinking—could we change the boundaries of the spell to include the balcony? I'm sure it can't be good for Ciro to be so cooped up, either."

He considered. The spell was fragile; he had broken it easily, every time he visited. It was safer to keep it mostly encased in stone, or just beyond glass, safe from interference. But he had seen the light in the boy's face today, up in the Eyrie, and his disappointment when he had suggested going back inside. The rail of the balcony was solid, and the child old enough to learn not to push.

"We will make the attempt," he decided, and she kissed him again.

Leaving days were never easy. Re-casting the barrier took more than an hour, and Ciro was never happy about it. Today was worse than ever; they had told him of the plan for the balcony, hoping to secure his cooperation, but it had had exactly the opposite effect: he could not hold still, and ran screaming back and forth between the rooms of Sarah's suite, babbling on about birds and sunshine and Icarus. He was tempted to put the child to sleep until they were finished, but too much magic was not good for the boy; Sarah was particularly sensitive about that. He had been pushing it even that first night with the sleep spell.

The barrier spell began on the wall opposite the balcony; they would finish just adjacent, at the door to the King's Stair. Their hands, entwined, stroked over the walls and floor, then extended towards the ceiling, beckoning the barrier across the closed space. Once begun, the spell required that they continue: they would be too tired to begin again, once the initial work was accomplished. When they moved out to the balcony, Ciro followed, and seated himself in a chair Jareth had conjured the previous day, swinging his feet and

watching them. The barrier shivered and waved as they drew it across the empty air, and for a brief moment Jareth thought they would falter, and leapt up onto the stone railing, reaching up to anchor the spell to the base of his chamber's balcony above.

"Daddy fly!" The boy's cry, loud and piercing, drew his attention, his eyes flying to the boy, who stood, now, on the chair, his hands on the railing, pushing up.

"Ciro, no!" Sarah turned her head, and screamed. The boy balanced, now, on the thick stone parapet, and put his hands against the barrier they had cast.

"I wanna fly!" Ciro's hands on the barrier pounded, and then pushed, and Jareth began to leap down at the same time as Sarah pulled away, releasing the spell at the same moment as Ciro broke through the barrier.

Time slowed, then stopped, but wound up in casting and surprise, Jareth had no control as the broken, incomplete spell fizzled and then burst, Time and Magic intermixed and volatile. He saw Sarah fly backwards, her head knocking hard against the stone wall; she did not rise. He tumbled, head over feet, and fell halfway to the ground before he could Change, and fly.

And he saw Ciro, falling, his arms outstretched, and just before the boy hit the ground, he vanished.

A/N: So, hi. I know it's been a while. I'm sorry. I got put on a new project at work, and instead of spending my days at a desk, where I could zip over to a Word document and dash off a few hundred words at a time as the fancy struck me (which is how I wrote most of As Easy), I spent the last two months outside, digging in the dirt. For that reason, about half this chapter was written by hand during my lunch breaks, a process which takes significantly more time (see how much I love you?). I hope you'll find it was worth the wait. I can offer the consolation that it's double the length of a normal chapter, at least. Hell, it's longer than The High Price of Happiness.

I'm also up to 12k words on the Other Story, which is called The First and Last Diary of Sarah Williams, and I put a little blurb about it up on my profile, but with this new project at work, I do not think it will be ready when I had originally hoped.

Jareth and Sarah in the music room when Ciro arrived resulted from Chestnut Brumby's challenge to me from last chapter, which was that I write "a 'date' between Sarah and Jareth, at any point in their relationship, which takes place in the Underground and for which Sarah challenges Jareth to impress her without any use of magic." Sorry if you were looking for straight fluff; this isn't a fluffy part of the story.

Pleyel is a famous manufacturer of pianos based in Paris, and was the first to use a metal frame. Pleyel pianos were preferred by Chopin and several other composers of his era, and Chopin was also a regular performer at the Salle Pleyel, a Paris concert hall sponsored by the piano company, which still exists. The piano "looks different" to Sarah because it had fewer keys than a modern piano, and started on a low C (modern pianos start on an A). The piece Jareth played for Sarah is Chopin's Prelude in E minor, Op. 28, no. 4; link in my profile. You probably know it.

The name Ciro comes from the Greek word Cirocco, and means "wind."

The title of this chapter comes from a quote from C.S. Lewis, from A Grief Observed: "No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear."

Many thanks as always to etcetera nine for brainstorming, editing, and sanity.

Update as of Feb 2014: It has been way too long. I am still working on this. I need to finish the next four chapters before I can post any of them, and it is slow going, more like building a labyrinth than navigating one. Check my profile for further updates.