"Sir, I'm so sorry to disturb you sir, but there are some people at the front gates who won't leave unless they speak with you, sir," a stocky goblin whispered in the doorway to Jareth's personal study.

Jareth put his quill down, heaved an annoyed sigh, stood up to his full height and looked down at the Goblin. "Why can't anybody in this stupid kingdom so much as take a shit without my approval?" Jareth grumbled. The goblin uttered a quiet squeak of fear before he dove out of the way just in time to avoid being kicked by the irritated Goblin King. A second later, Jareth was gone, and the goblin ran away as fast as he could least he was around by the time that Jareth got back.

Jareth, meanwhile, had teleported down to the front hall of his castle, where he threw the front doors open with an overly dramatic wave of his hand. The doors crashed against the wall and Jareth stormed outside and down the front path to see who was at the gate that wouldn't leave.

"Well, well, well. Who do we have here? Sir Didymus, the rock mover, and the Prince of the Bog of Eternal Stench himself! I would ask what the three of you are doing here, but there is only one reason why you would have come together."

"We heard that you've got Sarah!" Hoggle said with a surly glare at Jareth. "We demand that you let us see her!"

"Sarah friend," Ludo added rather unhelpfully.

Jareth heaved another annoyed sigh and started to rub the bridge of his nose. "You lot had better come in, then. I have something to tell you." Jareth spun away from the gate and it open with a wave of his fingers. Hoggle, Didymus, and Ludo exchanged a brief look; Hoggle shrugged and started to follow Jareth, and the other two fell into step after him. Before Jareth could start up the steps to the front door, which had closed after he'd come through, he spun around to face Sarah's old friends. "Before we go any further, there's something important that I have to tell you. It's about Sarah."

"If you've hurt her, you fiend…" Hoggle growled under his breath.

"Would you relax?" Jareth said with a roll of her eyes. "Sarah is as well as could be, given the circumstances."

"I'm afraid that I don't follow you, your majesty," Didymus said after he exchanged another look with Ludo and Hoggle.

"I will explain the situation to you further once we're inside, but I only ask that you don't go yelling for Sarah," Jareth said simply.

"What do you take us for: common barbarians? We do not scream out for the company of our friends, good sir," Didymus said simply; he looked rather insulted that Jareth would even imply that they would.

"Very well," Jareth said. He turned around again and lead them inside.

A few minutes later, he'd finished explaining the situation to Sarah's three friends. "Yes, I see now why she didn't seek us out upon her return," Didymus said as he sat back in a winged-back chair.

"Ludo sad."

"Yes, this is a very troubling ordeal indeed," Didymus agreed.

"So, what exactly does this ball that your mother is throwing and whisperings about you being engaged have to do with Sarah?" Hoggle asked.

"My mother and I have come up with a plan," Jareth said, and then he described it in detail to them. "Except, yesterday, we had an unexpected visit by-"

"Queen Mizumi," Hoggle said with a sneer. "We know— practically everybody in your kingdom saw her come… and then leave only a few minutes later. And she looked more than pissed off when she left."

"I thought that it would be easy enough to spot whoever had done this, because they acted out of jealousy," Jareth said. "But now I am reminded that many women have tried to gain my romantic attention, so maybe it won't be nearly as easy as I first thought."

"Anybody with ears and eyes knows what Mizumi feels about you, your majesty," Hoggle said. "The rumors about Sarah were not circulating until earlier today, so maybe when Mizumi heard that you were engaged, for some reasons, she thought that she meant to you?"

"Now that is just absurd," Didymus said with a scowl. "Why would his majesty make a surprise engagement announcement when not even his intended bride knew nothing of her engagement?"

"I cannot speak for all, but I personally believe that Mizumi is rather short on common sense," Hoggle said with a scowl.

"That's the truth," Jareth said with a scoff and a roll of his eyes.

"But do you really think that she's got it out for Sarah?" Hoggle went on.

"She was on my mother's list of people who are capable of casting such a spell," Jareth said. "And after her visit, I believe that I'm going to move her name to the top of the list. It was, after all, highly suspicious."

"Why, you just give me one good whack at that pom-" Didymus started, but was interrupted by a female goblin.

"I'm so sorry, your majesty, but Lady Sarah is asking for you," the goblin said gently.

"Will you tell her that I'll be there in a moment?" Jareth said. The goblin sunk into a small curtsy before she turned on her heel and ran off.

"I don't suppose that it would be in Lady Sarah's best interests right now if we were to see her," Didymus said.

"I wouldn't risk Sarah's health just to appease our curiosity and desire to see her again," Hoggle said.

"I also don't want to risk Sarah having another seizure— I was the cause of her second one, and most likely the cause of the first— but there is something that I'm curious to find out," Jareth said. "If you will please wait here, I will go talk to Sarah and my healer for a moment." Before the three could even process what Jareth had asked, the Goblin King vanished from the room.

He appeared in the library a second later, in front of the fireplace. Sarah looked up from a book that she was reading. "Oh, there you are. I was looking for you," she said.

"Yes, I know, precious," Jareth said and offered her a small but warm smile. "Actually, there's something important that I'd like for you to consider."

"Okay?" Sarah said with a confused frown. Jareth knelt down in front of where Sarah sat and grabbed her hand.

"I know that you don't remember your last visit here, but you did not return to your home without friends," Jareth told her gently.

"I do have a tendency to make friends where ever I go, so that doesn't surprise me at all," Sarah said evenly. "But these friends of mine? They're here now?"

"Yes. Word gets around a lot faster than I would have imagined here, and once they heard, they came to find you."

"Did you tell them that I don't remember anything?"

"I did, but also…" Jareth paused. He turned Sarah's right hand over and pressed a gentle kiss to the palm of her hand. "Also, I'm wondering if you would like to try and see them? Maybe not all at once, but one at a time. After all, you are able to not only be in my presence, but you can also remain in my kingdom without any ill side-effects."

"But what about-" Sarah started, but Jareth quickly cut her off.

"It was that I said something to you that I said the last time you were here. I'm not certain if meeting your friends again will trigger another seizure, but maybe being around your friends might trigger more memories to come back. After all, when you were around Toby, it eventually triggered your memories of me to come back."

"Only a very few memories," Sarah said. "Of you and Toby. And a fierce hate that I still don't fully understand."

"I will fully understand if you decide to say no, however," Jareth went on gently.

Sarah was quiet for a long moment. The fire cracked and popped and filled the silence. Finally, "Will Sielel be there?"

"I will ask him to accompany us," Jareth said. "So is that a yes?"

"That's a yes," Sarah said.

"I will go get Sielel, and talk to your friends to see which one wants to go first."

A few minutes later, Sarah walked downstairs and into the drawing room where Jareth had had his earlier conversation with Sarah's three friends. Jareth and Sielel looked up from the chairs that they sat in, but Hoggle jumped to his feet when she entered.

"Sarah," Hoggle said gently. "You have no idea how good it is to see you after all this time." He twisted his cap in his hands as he waited for Sarah to say anything.

"I would return the favor, but as Jareth has explained to you, I don't really remember you at all; I'm so sorry."

"S'not your fault," Hoggle told her quickly. "If you could have I know that you…" He trailed off. "Aah, but that doesn't matter now." Sarah sat next to Jareth on the loveseat, and Hoggle hopped back up into the chair he'd been in previously.

The grandfather clock in the corner gave a single bong to indicate the half hour. A log fell over in the fire, which continued to pop and crackle merrily. "So," Sarah started absently.

"Yes?" Hoggle said rather nervously.

"What do you do, Hoggle?"

"Oh, this and that," Hoggle said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "It's not important."

"It is to me," Sarah insisted quickly.

"Well…" Hoggle said hesitantly. He looked over to Jareth, who only raised an expectant eyebrow at the dwarf. "I was a grounds-keeper for a long time, but then Jareth made me into a prince."

"A prince?" Sarah asked with surprise as she looked over to Jareth.

"A prince under my kingdom, of course," Jareth told her quickly.

"You must have done something really wonderful in order for Jareth to turn you from a grounds-keeper into a prince!" Sarah told Hoggle.

"Yes, wonderful," Hoggle grumbled under his breath. "The thought that I might someday see you again, Sarah, is the only reason why I didn't completely abandon the title."

"I don't… I don't understand," Sarah said softly. "Isn't it an honor to be crowned a prince? Even if your kingdom-"

"I'm the Prince of the Bog of Eternal Stench," Hoggle told her quickly.

"I… I don't know what that is, but that sounds horrid," Sarah said. "Why would you do such a thing, Jareth?"

"It's difficult to explain, precious," Jareth said as he gently grabbed Sarah's hand and kissed the back of it.

"Well try!" Sarah insisted with a scowl.

"It's… It's about you," Jareth said hesitantly. Sarah's scowl was quickly replaced by a look of shock.

"Oh," she said softly. "I see. Maybe we should talk about something else, then." Sarah turned her attention back to Hoggle. "Do you have any family?"

"No. Nobody wanted to be with me when I was a lowly grounds-keeper, and hardly anybody wants to talk to me now that I live in the bog."

"Oh, that's sad," Sarah said. "But what about the other people that you came with today?"

"They visit me, but they're not my family," Hoggle was quick to tell her.

"Well, at least you're not alone! And they must really like you if they come to visit you in the… The Bog, was it?"

"I suppose," Hoggle said with an annoyed humph.

"Well, I would personally not want to visit this Bog of Eternal Stench, so they must really like you," Sarah said firmly.

"Y-yes, of course," Hoggle said quickly. The room fell into silence once again. "This is honestly a lot harder to talk you, Sarah, when you don't remember anything about me."

"I'm sorry," Sarah said softly. "I wish that I could remember you, because you seem… niiice." She dragged the word out as if it was foreign to her tongue.

"Do you think that this is enough for one day?" Sielel asked Jareth. "After all, we don't know if talking about those things might bring back more memories. After all, didn't you say that it took Sarah an entire night for her to remember you?"

"She did, and it was after Toby told her what had happened to him as a baby," Jareth said. "Who knows what his conversation with Higgle-"

"Hogwart!" Sarah corrected rather incorrectly.

"Hoggle!" the dwarf said rather sourly. Then, his face brightened. "Hey!"

"What?" Sarah asked him.

"Nothing, it's nothing," Hoggle said quickly. He hopped off from the chair and walked over to Sarah; she stood up as he approached. "I'm happy to see that you are quite alright, given the circumstances, Sarah. The others will be pleased to hear about it."

"Good, I'm glad," Sarah said with a hesitant smile. "I'm sorry that you couldn't stay longer, Hoggle, but maybe this conversation will jog some more memories loose."

"Me, too, Sarah. I wouldn't wish memory loss upon… Okay, well maybe a couple of people." Hoggle glared pointedly at Jareth, but nobody else seemed to notice or care. Sielel escorted Sarah back upstairs to Jareth's room while Jareth saw Hoggle, Ludo, and Sir Didymus out. When Jareth returned to his room, he found Sarah face-down on their shared bed.

"I don't know what you and Sielel expected to happen," Sarah said, her voice muffled by a pillow. "I didn't regain my memory of you when I met you, but I regained it when Toby told me."

"I wasn't actually going to tell you anything about this, because I was worried about you, but…" Jareth sat down on the side of the bed and put his hand lightly on the small of Sarah's back. Sarah turned her head to give Jareth her full attention "Do you remember about two weeks ago, right after we first hooked up? I stayed the night at your apartment, and you had a nightmare?"

"Um, vaguly?" Sarah said with a small frown.

"You didn't exactly give me all of the details of your dream, but it sounded like something that happened to you when you were here last," Jareth said. Sarah's eyes widened, and she looked all over the room before she refocused her attention back on Jareth. "You know more about that dream than you're letting on, don't you?"

"Yes," Sarah said hesitantly. "But I also don't want to even think about it, because that dream seriously freaked me out."

"It was just a dream, Sarah. They have a way of twisting even the most innocent of things into something completely horrifying."

"I suppose that you're right. I just-"

"Jareth!" Amael exclaimed in a sing-song voice as she burst into Jareth's room. "You'll never guess who's come for a visit!"

"Mother! Don't you knock?" Jareth hissed at her.

"Why? You two are only having a heart-to-heart," Amael said. "And besides, it's not like I've never walked in on your siblings doing-"

"Mother!" Jareth snapped with a look of horror and disgust on his face.

"No matter," Amael said with a slight chuckle. "Pyrael is here."

"Pyrael? What is so important that she's dragged herself away from her own family and kingdom to visit me? She's never felt so inclined before," Jareth said with a scowl.

"Who's Pyrael?" Sarah asked as she rolled over onto her back and pushed herself into a sitting position.

"My oldest sister," Jareth said. "And the Queen to the Underworld after mother passes away." Jareth stood and held his hand out to Sarah. "We'd better go see what she wants, at any rate."

"Should I put on the ring again?" Sarah asked as she stood.

"I don't believe that that will be necessary," Amael said. "After all, aside from the fact that Pyrael is Jareth's sister, she's also in a much higher position than Jareth is. Why would she care about some human girl that her kid brother is interested in?" The three of them left the room and walked without fanfare into the sitting room where Sarah and Jareth had been moments earlier with Hoggle.

Sarah looked up at Jareth and briefly wondered why he would go to all of the trouble to make grand entrances with his mother and even Mizumi, but not with his older sister.

"Ah, there you are," said a woman. She looked like she might have been somewhere between Jareth's age and Amael's, but since Amael barely looked old enough to have a son Jareth's age, let alone eleven other children, her real age could have been just about anything. She stood and was maybe a little bit taller than Sarah, but shorter than Jareth. Her hair was a rich, vibrant red color, and stuck out in every which way, a bit like Jareth's did, except that her hair was longer. She had a strong jaw-line, and a strong nose, and looked nothing like either Amael or Jareth. The only similarities that Sarah saw was that her eyes were the same mismatched pair that her younger brother had. "So pleased that you could break away from your horrendously busy schedule to see me today, Jar," she said with a sarcastic roll of her eyes.

"Yes, and I'm pleased that you put aside all of your work to drop by unannounced, Pyrael," Jareth said, every word that he spoke dripped with sarcasm.

"Well, you know how gossip spreads in the underground," Pyrael said. "And I just had to come and see for myself. After all, it's not every day that my little brother gets married, let alone to a human!" She turned her attention to Sarah and offered her a bright but sincere smile. "Hello. You must be that wretched human whore that everybody's talking about!" Sarah bristled, but Pyrael just laughed.

"Sarah is not some whore!" Jareth rounded on his sister. "I love her, and that's the only thing that matters!"

"I know that, and that's what I told everybody," Pyrael said with a grin as she examined Sarah. "If you wanted some little human to pop out babies for you willy-nilly, you would have married one a long time ago. You see, Sarah, my baby brother isn't exactly the kind of person who changes himself easily. So if he wasn't a person who wanted a lot of children a hundred years ago, he probably still doesn't want any now."

"I… I see," Sarah said hesitantly, although she wasn't quite certain what was happening.

"But when Jareth loves something, he never wants to give it up. Ever," Pyrael went on.

"Well, is there some reason why you put running your kingdom on hold in order to come and see how our wedding plans are going?" Jareth asked dryly.

"What? Can't a girl come and see how her baby brother is doing?" Pyrael asked with a quick laugh.

"You've never shown much of an interest in me before now," Jareth said coolly. "Honestly, she was already up and running her own kingdom by the time that I was born," he told Sarah.

"There's a large age-gap between me and Toby," Sarah said. "I was worrying about school dances and getting my learner's permit when he was born. But that doesn't mean that I still don't love him."

"Ho-ho! A fine one that you've found, Jar!" Pyrael said with a laugh. "She's going to make you a fine Queen!" Pyrael put her hand on her hip and considered the two who stood before her before her eyes drifted over to her mother, who stood in the doorway behind Jareth and Sarah. "Well, I actually wanted to talk to your fiancee, Jareth. If that's alright with the two of you, that is?"

"I'm not actually his fiancee," Sarah blurted out before Jareth could say anything. Pyrael raised an eyebrow and looked between the two of them.

"Really?" she asked the other woman. "Have you told Jareth this yet? Because from the way I see it, he's completely mad about you."

"It's a little more complicated than that, I'm afraid," Amael said gently as she took in Sarah's bright-red face. "Why don't I ring for some tea and we can have a nice, long chat about all of this?"

"Yes, alright," Pyrael said as she sunk back down into the chair that she'd been sitting in when the three of them had come into the room. "Knowing you and the trouble that you get yourself into, Jar, this ought to be good."

As usual, please let me know if there were any grammatical mistakes. Hope you enjoyed.