Author's Note: I'm beginning to wonder how many people actually read this fiction...

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"So I can make anyone I want fall in love with me?" Sarah asked.

Jareth thought his daughter really was a little like him after all. "Not quite," he cautioned, just because he suspected that he should, "You can make people fall in lust with you."

"Anyone I want? You mean that? Any guy at all?"

"Any girl too."

Sarah wrinkled her nose at the thought. "How do I do that?" she asked.

Jareth raised an eyebrow. The question was just a little too quick. Too eager? He stifled a smile and decided that he might just like having Sarah around. She was trouble, but she did provide amusement. At the back of his mind he was vaguely aware that most fathers would be horrified by this kind of talk from their offspring. But they were barely acquainted, let alone close. He supposed he did care about her, but he didn't feel any great deal of love for her as an individual just yet.

"The usual way," he said mysteriously, "It depends on the situation."

"What's the usual way?"

He tilted his head. "You ask a lot of questions."

"You never give me enough information," Sarah exclaimed indignantly. She studied the map and then stabbed at a patch of forest she recognized. "I remember that. I met the fieries there."

"Did you like them? I always enjoy watching them perform."

"Those furry red creeps? They tried to take my head off."

"I take it you didn't attempt to fit in," Jareth remarked, "You should have sung with them."

"I didn't know the words."

"A poor excuse, Sarah. You could have made them up."

Sarah scowled at this gentle teasing. She feigned indifference and bent back over the map, forcibly trying to mark out the path she had taken through the Labyrinth before.

Jareth just watched her, a half-smile on his face. Without Saxony around, there was no more of that unconscious adjusting of image any more. She still bit her nails, at least, and he found it interesting to catalogue her various oddities. She bit her nails, she tugged on her hair, she giggled silently when she didn't laugh outright… he already had quite the list.

"You're staring at me again," Sarah accused, green eyes flicking up momentarily, "I can feel you, you know."

"Does it bother you?"

"Yeah. I don't like being stared at."

The half-smile had faded somewhat, but now it came back and progressed to a full-blown smirk. The Goblin King leaned forward on the desk, moving even closer to her, blue-brown eyes fixed ever more unwaveringly on her face.

Sarah shifted uncomfortably but raised her chin defiantly. "Are you done yet?"

"After so many years, I find it hard not to examine my daughter's face," Jareth said lightly.

Sarah looked even more uncomfortable, but she allowed it. Looking back down to the map, the peshawa studiously ignored him. She suspected that it was the only way to deal with Jareth. Arguing didn't even dent his stubborn resolve. And hinting? Jareth was subtle, but he ignored most hints that didn't correspond to his particular way of operating.

Jareth was certainly aware of subtleties. His daughter was pale, with two angry spots of colour in her cheeks. Her eyes were sparking and she held herself as if about to run away. Like a caged animal. He remembered that posture very well. If it were an inherited gesture, he could be sure that this was as much as she could take. More than this and he would push her too far.

Deliberately looking away, he began to hum to himself as he wandered casually to the window and sat down. He swung his leg up onto the sill, pressing his back against the frame. Summoning a crystal, he began to sing to himself as he wove them around his fingers.

Sarah relaxed, sighing inaudibly as her muscles unknitted a little. She raised a hand to rub at the back of her neck.

"How long do I stay this time?" she asked.

He didn't answer right away. He finished his verse and then thought.

Sarah patiently pulled a chair up and waited. She didn't believe for a second that he hadn't heard her. Jareth was far more aware of his surroundings than anyone else she had ever met.

"However long you wish."

"When does my welcome run out?"

Jareth shrugged, the shirt stretching across his chest. "You may come and go as you wish," he said again. Neutral. Non-threatening.

"Anything I wish, huh? You offered me my dreams. Do you do that with everyone?"

Jareth began to laugh. He couldn't help it. It was the only point of that entire meeting that he truly found amusing. The rest of it he had spent walking a tightrope between duty and desire, between cold reason and morbid bitterness. His first impulse had been to find his missing slave instantly and demand retribution. And then his black sense of humour had come to his rescue and he hadn't been able to resist!

"What? What's so funny?"

"Nothing. Nothing."

"Well, then, explain."

"Sarah, what was the one thing you really desired more than anything else when I first saw you?" Jareth began. He couldn't keep the superior smile from his face. This was the one joke that never went stale with him.

"To be an actress," she said promptly.

"Are you sure?"

"Of course. That was all I ever wanted to be. My mom was… I mean, Linda was an actress. And she used to read me stories and we used to do all the voices and play all the parts."

Jareth admitted to a twinge of regret that that woman had seen a part of his daughter that he hadn't had the chance to see. "You're wrong," he told her.

"No, I'm telling you…"

"The right question, Sarah, needs the right answer," he stressed, "Think! At the exact moment you realized that Toby was gone forever, what did you want the most in the world?" He saw recognition dawn in her eyes. "The only thing you wanted was Toby, wasn't it? You would have done anything to have Toby back. Your dreams, at that moment, included having your little brother safely back in his cot, with the goblins gone and no strange man standing in your parents' bedroom."

"You offered to give me Toby back and didn't even tell me!" Sarah couldn't hear her own voice rising through the breathlessness in her lungs.

The Goblin King waved soothing hands at her. "It's a common human error," he assured her, "No humans think logically when it's most needed. And you are the only one I have ever made that offer to."

Sarah calmed down considerably. "Why couldn't you have just given him back?" she asked bitterly.

"And broken trust with the Labyrinth? If I went around refusing to do my duty, the connection between this world and yours would be broken. Which means the flow of magic would be discontinued and my people would have to recycle their magic, which would, in turn, thin the effects until we have to use vast amounts of energy for the most basic spell. No, I had to take Toby."

"But just one child! What difference would Toby have made?"

Jareth was disappointed, he really was. If Sarah thought she could be haphazardly lenient in a position of power, then she was not at all the sort of person to lead a country. Especially where business with the Labyrinth was concerned.

"And just where is this line to be drawn?" he questioned, "With Toby? Alright, I give Toby back to you. Who else? The children I don't like I keep? Why should I take away what I don't want? The children I do like? I assure you they aren't enough to sustain the Labyrinth. Only babies? Only unwanted babies? What about babies that are still being breastfed? What about toddlers wished away by a guardian or a babysitter? Should I take them if it's not their parents who wish them away?" He began to count the categories on his long fingers. "Then we have the older children, who are aware of what is happening to them. The kind of trauma they face when they are wished away is tremendous. Surely I should feel pity for them. Or those who are wished away by those who don't really mean to do it. As you did with Toby." He put down his hand.

Sarah rubbed her temples and sighed. "You're not going to let me win this argument."

"I don't see a reason to give you such a false victory."

"So all that talk about not being an ordinary girl taking care of a screaming baby was your idea of a private joke."

Jareth grinned unashamedly. "You must admit it was funny," he chuckled.

His daughter gave him another black look but didn't bother continuing with this topic of conversation. She didn't think it was funny but since Jareth seemed to be enjoying the joke, she supposed she couldn't challenge it without destroying his good humour. Sarah bent back over the map and located the two knockers.

Jareth noted the little furrow between her eyes, the way her dark brows drew together in a frown. He wasn't oblivious. He didn't see the need to apologize for himself. Why should he? But he did want to avoid a conversation fraught with too much drama. That way lay trouble. And he wanted a quiet time getting along with Sarah for a change.

"Would you like to explore?" he tempted. Hooded eyes watching the way her mobile face expressed every thought in her head.

"I thought I couldn't…"

"With me, Sarah. The Labyrinth will not work for you but it is my creation. I can show you anything you want."

"Your creation?"

"Didn't you know?"

"I didn't think about it," Sarah confessed. Awed, she gazed back at the man, noting the pride in his eyes at the very mention of the Labyrinth. And she could understand it on some level; to have created something so vast and so magnificent was worthy of pride. And her grudging respect for him increased just that slight bit. Of course, a part of her mind reminded her, she had won against its wiles.

She sat up straighter at the thought, unconsciously admiring Jareth even more because she felt magnanimous enough in her triumph to risk it. "It's a great Labyrinth."

The corners of his mouth tipped up. "It's the most beautiful being in this land." He wasn't bragging; he was stating a firm belief.

"You sound like it's a live."

"It is."

"Sure." Sarah laughed until she realized that the Goblin King wasn't joking. "It's real. It's actually a living, breathing person?"

"Not a person, no. But it has feelings, likes, dislikes, thoughts, dreams, perceptions, needs. It has no actual limbs, but it has creatures to do its work for it. It cannot move, but it covers such a large amount of space that it is everywhere in the Kingdom at once."

There were certain things Sarah had taken for granted in the Underground. She had taken the entire existence of the Labyrinth as a given. Sure, it was easy to picture a talking door or fungus with eyes. But an entire Labyrinth living and breathing as she walked into it?

"Who do you think put all those obstacles in your path?" Jareth pointed out reasonably, "Not I. I appeared when I wanted. I dealt with you and Hoggle. The Labyrinth gave you the paths."

"But the peach was yours, right?"

"That, yes. I have no interest in whether you fall down a hole or have to scale a sheer cliff- theoretically, of course. Personally, I didn't want you anywhere in the Labyrinth, but she was really quite nice to you."

"She? It's a girl?"

"It's a woman," he said sternly.

Sarah thought about that. "Well," she muttered, "The Labyrinth does show the natural cleverness of a woman with all the wisdom and maturity of ages. Why would I ever imagine it was male?"

"Sarah, why do you always make assumptions?" Jareth was really enjoying himself enormously. The things that Sarah was just beginning to discover about the world she was in were things that he no longer noticed. Watching her green eyes widen at some new wonder made him see things he hadn't seen in centuries.

"Now what. What did I say this time?"

"Old?" Jareth echoed tellingly, "You just called the Labyrinth old. If she feeds off the innate life and innocence of the children that are wished away, how is she to be old? Or do you imagine a little old woman would spend her time playing tricks and games with people? She is reborn with every child, so young she does not even understand age. She won't appreciate being called old."

"But you called her a woman!"

"Like most aging things, she does… develop, in certain ways," he smirked, "Let us say she has a certain fascination for certain types of adults that dare to enter her."

Sarah shivered. It was all very wonderful but there was something so dark about all of this.

Jareth stopped amusing himself and explained it as best he could, well aware of how it appeared to those who heard it for the first time- "She is old enough to feel things, Sarah. She falls in love and she falls in hate. Just as any adult. But I can't bring adults here to my Castle. Who can have enough power to wish a sufficient number of adults into this world? Besides, adults would feel themselves being drained. Children never do. They are so unshaped that they adapt easily to the feel of the Labyrinth, to life as we live it. It had to be children. There was no other way."

"It's wrong. It has to be! Children shouldn't be used like- like batteries for a toy."

"The Labyrinth is not a toy. And the children are worth more to my kingdom than just batteries. I am insulted you even dare suggest such a thing."

It wasn't an offended stand on pride, either. The Goblin King really did look insulted. He had turned his face to stare morosely out of the window, good humour gone as he surveyed the subject of their discussion. He understood it. But Sarah? He wasn't quite sure how to explain things to her. So much in magic was pure instinct. One had to feel the rightness of it before one even considered the logical implications. Robert understood that.

"You could have just given Toby back."

"For what?"

"You offered to give him back anyway!"

Jareth looked at her and shrugged. "I haven't the luxury to give anyone back. The destruction you wrought on my kingdom is still being repaired. But that was my fault. I should have made sure you couldn't win." He didn't look very upset at his loss. "So will you come to the Labyrinth or not?"

"It feels weird," Sarah confessed.

"Why? She liked you."

"How do you know?"

The Goblin King pointed out the window. "She let you through," he said plainly, "She was soft on you. You charmed her."

Sarah looked out of the window too. And this time the Labyrinth really did look menacing and dark, winding through the land for as far as the eye could see, twisting and writhing in fantastical geometric shapes.

"She won't hurt you," her father promised, "I'm right there."

Sarah nodded slowly and offered a quick smile. "I'm not scared," she declared, "I'm just a little freaked out at the thought of the Labyrinth actually knowing who I am. It's like when a car suddenly decides to make its own decisions, isn't it?"

"Since I have never driven a car I cannot say. But I suppose you can compare the two." Jareth offered his arm with an old-fashioned bow, quirking his lips in a teasing smile.

"Trust me," Sarah told him, "It's an experience you've got to have once in your life."

"Have you ever ridden a dragon?" he countered swiftly, "Now, that is an experience!"