Jareth smiled as Sarah slowly turned toward the window. His smile quickly faded as a size 8 boot flew at him, barely missing his head. He looked down at the dark-haired girl who sat in the floor, noting the ire radiating from the eyes that just a moment before had been spouting a fountain of tears. For him.

"Sarah," Jareth said, confused. "Why must you always throw things at me?"

"Why?" asked Sarah as she jumped up from the floor. "Why?! Because you took off and left me!"

Jareth raised an eyebrow and stared at the furious girl. "But Sarah, you told me to. Don't you understand that I will do whatever you wish?"

Sarah didn't turn away in the face of his quite reasonable explanation, but launched further into her tirade.

"But you didn't have to stop my friends from coming to see me," she ranted.

The Goblin King shook his head. "I thought you wanted an ordinary life with ordinary friends that don't live in your mirror. Besides, I didn't like the thought of you riling up that gang of idiots against me."

"Don't call them idiots."

"Fine. Morons, then."

"Jareth..."

The Goblin King threw up his hands in frustration. "Sarah," he said, "I don't understand what it is that I must do to please you. You told me to go away, so I went. I even took that idio—er, charming group of your friends with me."

"If you are so keen on doing whatever I wish, why didn't you come back when I called for you?" Sarah asked accusingly.

Jareth drew himself up to his full height and looked down the bridge of his nose at Sarah. "I thought I would give you some time to cool off," he told her calmly. "I thought perhaps you may just want to toss another lamp at my head, so I stayed away."

"For two years?" Sarah asked between clenched teeth.

"Has it been so long for you?" Jareth asked clearly taken aback.

Sarah stared at him as he began to pace around her room.

"I had forgotten how differently time runs between our worlds," he sheepishly explained. "It seemed no more than a few hours to me." He looked at her with apologetic eyes and Sarah felt her anger melting away. He had done as she had asked. And if the boot had been on the other foot, she would have probably stayed away too.

Sarah turned away from the Goblin King, shame making her cheeks burn and her eyes sting. When would she ever learn to guard her words and keep her temper in check? She felt a hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Jareth giving her a bemused smile.

"You are a ridiculous girl," he told her.

Sarah laughed and nodded in agreement before turning and throwing her arms around his waist and hugging him tightly.

"I'm sorry," she whispered against his chest.

Jareth ran a gloved hand over Sarah's hair, gently stroking her long dark locks. "Now now, precious," he said, "There's no harm done."

"But there is," Sarah argued, breaking away from him. "I've spent the last two years of my life in a steady succession of awful relationships, and it wasn't even the guys' fault."

"No?" Jareth asked, amused. He pushed a heap of clothes aside and sat down on Sarah's bed.

"No," she replied. "They were great guys. Good looking, funny... There was Jerry; he was studying to be an orthodontist. Then there was Jared; he was kind of a bad boy, but with a heart of gold. He rode a motorcycle and wore black leather pants so tight you could almost see his veins."

Sarah had begun pacing back in forth in front of her bed where Jareth sat, and as he watched her he wondered where on Earth Above she was going with her little monologue.

"Sarah," he tried to interrupt but she held up an index finger and kept right on talking.

"Then there was Jerome who was in my acting class and was super sweet and talented and will probably be famous some day."

Sarah paused in her pacing to look at the Goblin King. "Do you know," she began, "that I even dated a magician? A magician, Jareth!" She waited in silence for him to answer.

"I really have no idea where you are going with this, Sarah dear," he responded after a long pause.

"Ugh!" Sarah grunted and resumed her pacing. "It's because of you, you glittery git! I've never been able to have one normal relationship with a guy and it's because of you. None of them were you and it just didn't work. I was miserable and I made them miserable. And now I am known around town as Scary Williams."

She paused again and Jareth stared at her for a moment before bursting into maniacal laughter, rolling from side to side on Sarah's bed.

Sarah grabbed one of the dozens of small pillows from her bed and whacked him in the head with it.

"Yuck it up, Goblin King. I'll have you know my stepmother even asked me if I were 'playing for the other team.' She offered to set me up with her golf instructor."

Jareth dissolved into another fit of hysterical laughter and Sarah snatched up another pillow, ready to smother him if he continued to mock her.

Finally, after managing to recover enough to speak, Jareth looked up at her. "Oh Sarah, I'm glad," he told her. He yanked the pillow away from her, grabbed her by both wrists and pulled her down on top of him on the bed.

"I'm glad those silly boys weren't enough for you," he continued huskily.

Sarah felt her face flush and her heart leap as the Goblin King stared up from beneath her. She could feel his chest rising and falling against hers and his cool breath against her cheek.

"J—Jareth..." Sarah stuttered. His hands left her wrists and moved to gently cup her chin, pulling her face in closer.

"Shut up, Sarah," Jareth growled before closing the distance between them and covering her mouth with his.

Sarah inwardly gasped at the feeling of his lips touching hers. He kissed her hungrily, leaving her breathless and clinging to him. Her hands went into his wild hair as she moved with him, desperate to satisfy two years of pathetic longing. It was only when he flipped her onto her back that she came to her senses.

"Jareth!" she cried suddenly. "My parents are right downstairs. They'll be back up here any minute."

Jareth barely paused in nibbling her neck to wave his hand in the air. "No they won't," he replied nonchalantly.

"What did you do to my parents?" Sarah asked, pushing him off her.

"Nothing," he answered. "I've only stopped time."

"Stopped time? What?"

"Everything outside this room is frozen in time," the Goblin King explained. "Do you want me to go into the magical mechanics of it or do you want me to ravish your brains out?" He smiled wickedly and Sarah grabbed him by the collar and pulled him back down on top of her.

"I think you know what I wish," she told him.

"Mmm, quite right," he answered with a dark chuckle.

A/N:

"Reunited and it feels so goooood..."

I'm not done here. There's plenty more to explore with these two and probably a bit more angst to be dished out.

And yes, Time is a bit wibbly-wobbly between the Underground and the Above. Sometimes it runs longer and sometimes shorter depending on which side you're on and what day it is.

Thanks for all the comments and reviews!