Disclaimer: LucasFilms, Henson Studios, others own The Labyrinth.

Their conversations were getting both more interesting and more mundane, Sarah decided. The longer they went on avoiding the topic her first visit to this world, the harder they found it to think of other things to talk about. This was amusing in some ways and troublesome in others. It betrayed a comfort level of which Sarah had been unaware, and when she was able suddenly to joke with Jareth, the intimacy of it shocked her.

"You're telling me that when you said 'English', you meant 'British'?" Jareth asked as innocently as he possibly could.

Unable to decide between disbelief, laughter, and violence, Sarah's reply came out deadpan: "England's part of Great Britain, along with Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland."

Jareth, in turn, decided completely on exasperation. "Well, if you'd said so in the first place, I'd have known what you were speaking of! The Britons have a long history with the Underground – with the Fae, especially." A moment of thoughtful silence later, he mused, "Though I had never heard of it referred to as great before. It's no different from any other Aboveground land these days. About two thousand years ago, humans began to disbelieve and hunt down magic; the Underground completely broke ties with Briton centuries ago."

Sarah resisted the powerful desire to smack the back of Jareth's head by glaring at him and counting silently to ten. For his part, Jareth almost managed to hide his mocking smirk. Since he failed, Sarah swatted him anyway.

Two days later, a mild headache was forming between Sarah's eyes, and she'd already named the throb the Power Headache; Magic Headache seemed to imply something else or at least something oxymoronic. 'Power' also indicated the magnitude that the pounding could reach if she didn't leach the magic into crystals or other spells. These headaches were generally brought on by intense negative emotions; Jareth insisted that the pain arose because she quashed those emotions rather than letting them out immediately. Sarah privately thought that he was just giving an excuse for his own tendency to lose his temper.

This one was starting to increase, and she rubbed the tips of her fingers against her forehead. "Do you mean to tell me," she asked in a too-patient tone, "that I could just teleport to Hoggle, or Didymus, or Ludo? That you'd teach me the spell if I requested it? That you could've taken me yourself the first day or two, had I just asked?" It had been ten days, and she'd only just gotten the courage to ask about her friends; she'd been afraid that … well, that they wouldn't exist, that they were part of the compulsion spell.

"Did I not just say so?"

Through clenched teeth, Sarah asked, "Why didn't you bring this up earlier, Jareth? I think I would have liked to have known."

"You seemed content, as you did not ask." His face and voice hid his amusement, making him seem distant, but Sarah saw the minute creases at the outside edges of each eye that betrayed a smile. She'd pretty quickly discovered that his second-favorite game was Make Sarah Cranky, which came directly after Make Sarah Think Dirty, Dirty Thoughts.

I could strangle you, d'you know that? she thought viciously at him, moving her fingers to rub at her temples.

"Do you realize you said that out loud, Sarah?"

"AARGH!" was the calm, eloquent response.

"Perhaps I should perform the spell," Jareth offered blandly the second time that the world failed to spin halfway 'round and deposit them at the bridge on the edge of the Bog.

Sarah, who was panting heavily and standing with her hands on her knees, shook her head. Wisps of hair escaped her braid to dangle around her face. "I need to learn it, don't I?" Jareth answered with silence. "Any novice in your world can do this! I need it!"

"'Any novice' is also three times your age by the time they perfect the technique," he replied. He clasped gloved hands behind his back and rocked almost patiently to and fro on his feet. Sarah hadn't asked about the gloves, though this was the first time she'd seen them since she was fifteen, and she was painfully curious. "I'm only yielding to this wish because it is a good defensive measure – no other reason."

"Yeah, yeah. Afraid I'm gonna just pop back Above and stay there?" she groused, flicking a glare up at him, which he returned and did with far better form. With a grunt, she stood straight again and said, "How's this? I try one more time, then you get to do it."

"Fair. Just alert me when I am needed."

"Smug jerk."

"Anytime you're ready, Sarah."

With furrowed brow and narrowed eyes, Sarah fixed the image of the bridge at the edge of the Bog. She gripped the energy that pulsed angrily behind her eyes in the form of the Power Headache and squeezed, pride driving her focus. Her fingers curled at her sides; the gesture was a useless physical reflection of her mental efforts. The image in her mind wavered like a reflection in rippling water, and Sarah clenched her power around it desperately.

Then, the image flickered out, and Sarah felt a staggering sense of vertigo. Briefly, she thought that it'd worked. But when firm hands suddenly gripped her above both elbows, and she realized that her legs weren't quite holding her up, Sarah knew that she'd failed once again. And the failure would be bringing her to her knees if Jareth weren't keeping her upright.

Keeping the curses tightly behind her teeth, Sarah pulled out of Jareth's hands, and with as much dignity as fuzzy vision and burning cheeks would allow, she admitted, "I believe it's your turn."

She didn't watch him perform the spell. She wasn't up to seeing the smirk that must've been on his face – nor the view of the world spinning with them as its axis. Instead, Sarah stood with her knees locked and arms held gingerly at her sides. Her sudden submergence in overwhelming odor – a cross between soiled diapers and rotting meat – told her they'd arrived.

Opening her eyes, staring resolutely away from where she thought Jareth was, Sarah got a quick impression of her surroundings. There was the huge tree from which Didymus had fought Ludo; there was the ledge and the rockslide that had marked Sarah and Hoggle's entrance to the area around the Bog. There, of course, was the Bog.

And there were step-like rocks leading to a cliff that opened onto nothing.

"You didn't repair the bridge."

In tones of amusement, Jareth answered, "The rock-caller replaced it satisfactorily, if you'll recall. The boulders will last longer than a new wooden bridge."

With a weary glare, Sarah turned and saw Jareth smirking at her. To be fair, the smirk was not as smug or malicious as she'd expected; it made her mood just a little more sour, actually, to know that she'd assumed wrongly. Again.

"That does explain the difficulty," he went on, carefully looking away from her. Out of the corner of one eye, however, Jareth still watched her, and Sarah could see the telltale creases at the outside edge. "You should, perhaps, not envision the location quite so specifically. A very good impression of the locale is necessary, but exhaustive detail can be detrimental."

"A bridge isn't exactly 'exhaustive detail,'" Sarah muttered.

"You'd rather I gloat about your faulty memory?"

She blew a raspberry in response.

One long fingered, gloved hand reached out and tapped the end of Sarah's nose. "Take the olive branch, Your Majesty. You won't get many of them, I assure you."

"Fine. Accepted. Good job with the spell. Thank you for your help." Finally, Sarah smiled at him. The smile was a little sour, but her effort was obvious. "Have I covered all the bases?"

With the eyebrow quirk that meant that Sarah had pulled out an Aboveground idiom that Jareth didn't get, he smiled back and answered, "How about, 'I owe you a reward of your choosing for the assistance rendered this day,'?"

"Nice try."

"I thought so."

"Let's go find Sir Didymus."