DISCLAIMER: I don't own Labyrinth or any of the characters associated with the film. They are the property of the Jim Henson Company. I do own all other characters. Any resemblance to actual persons is completely coincidental. I have to mention the website for Harvard's Chandra X-Ray Observatory for some of the black hole information used in this chapter. I told you I wasn't an astrophysicist.
Someone was hammering at Jareth's brain with an ice pick, the slow steady agony bringing him to consciousness. He scrunched up his face at the scent of a strong aroma that seemed to command him to wake up. He could feel the heat emanating from whatever it was that smelled so strongly. His stomach turned. This, of course, had always been a very strange expression to Jareth. He'd heard it so many times, and had often wondered how it was possible for one's stomach to actually turn. Well, now he knew: his stomach was turning. It was a very unpleasant experience, and he wished it would end immediately. Jareth tried to open his eyes only to discover that the light of the morning sun peeking through windows only caused the hammering to increase in frequency and intensity. When he finally did manage to open his eyes, he found Sarah holding a cup of some strange, dark brown, hot liquid under his nose. She grinned unkindly.
"Morning, stranger," she murmured.
"What is it?" he said miserably, peering into the cup.
"Coffee. Figured you could use a pick-me-up."
Sarah smirked at his general unhappiness. Seeing Jareth suffer through the effects of a hangover made her feel a little better about the whole Joanne situation. Jareth grimaced at the coffee after taking a sip. He turned his sad face up to Sarah.
"Sarah, I feel horrible," he complained.
"Well, yeah. I mean, eight beers, Jareth? On your first time out drinking? Of course you're going to get a hangover!"
She watched his eyebrows come together in anger. "You gave them to me!"
Sarah smiled widely and cruelly.
"You are a cruel woman, Sarah Williams."
"Hey, you said it: 'Your eyes can be so cruel'," she laughed lightly after repeating his words from so long ago. Jareth frowned miserably. He was starting to believe that she might just have harpy in her bloodline. She stood up and started packing her backpack.
"You'd better hurry if you want to make it to your meeting with Dr. Duncan on time," she called back to him.
Dread formed in a tight knot in his already turning stomach. He hadn't finished reading the textbook.
"What time is it, Sarah?" he asked, panicked.
Sarah turned to face him, and glanced at the clock above her television. She pointed at the clock.
"Eleven? ELEVEN?"
Suddenly he was up off the couch and grabbing at clothing frantically. Sarah watched him in wonder as he disappeared into the washroom. He came rushing out a few minutes later, panic evident in his lack of preening. Jareth grabbed the textbook and flipped to the last chapter he had been reading so languidly the night before. He cursed, and Sarah was forced to give him a surprised, amused look. He narrowed his eyes at her.
"You did this on purpose!" he accused, pointing at her.
Sarah was shocked by the accusation and merely shook her head slowly, staring at him in wonder.
"What am I going to DO?"
Sarah was astounded at his uncontrolled panic. She stood up and moved to him, putting her hand on his shoulder. He was ridiculously hot to the touch, no doubt because of the hangover combined with his panic. She felt pity for him now, her amusement dying with his increasing seriousness.
"Jareth, you could always just tell him that you need some more time," she offered, nodding encouragingly. "Ed is a really understanding man."
Jareth stared at her as though she were an imbecile.
"Sarah," he started slowly, condescendingly. "I told him that I would have the book read by today at twelve. But, you had to go out. You had to feed me that impossible beverage."
A deep fury rose up within her. Sarah stared at Jareth, incensed. He was turning this around on her?
"Well, maybe if you hadn't told me that you loved me, and then rejected me when I came to you, I wouldn't have felt the need to get drunk!" Her voice had risen in volume with each word that she had spoken.
Jareth sneered at her.
"Oh, and you would have been so happy to have woken up next to me just so you could have claimed that I took advantage of your feeble state!"
Sarah's mouth fell open in resentment. How dare he? FEEBLE? Sarah shook her head, anger clouding her thought process. She huffed angrily.
"YOU ARE INSUFFERABLE!" she hollered, absolutely enraged.
"LIKEWISE!" he bellowed back.
Sarah's mouth snapped shut into a tight line of anger. She smiled ironically.
"Fine," she snapped. "Find your own way to the University because I can't be near YOU for another second!"
And, with that, she slammed the front door behind her leaving Jareth standing alone in the apartment, seething. The pain in his head attacked him violently, as though Sarah had willed it to in one last act of defiance. He grimaced. He didn't need her help to get to and from the University. He gathered up his textbook and made his way to the door. He knew enough about the stars, he wouldn't need to read the last three chapters to answer any of Edward's questions. He needed to get out of the apartment. Everything reeked of Sarah, and he'd had enough of the little harpy for today.
He strode down the street, easily finding his way to the University. The real problem was once he was actually in the building. He hadn't paid that much attention to where the physics department was actually located; he'd just followed Sarah blindly. He frowned bemusedly. All was not lost; he would simply ask someone where it was. Surely, Sarah, Edward, and Cory were not the only people in the school who knew where the department was.
He began to doubt this last thought after asking several students if they could direct him to the physics department. It appeared that none of them knew the way, but several girls had given him directions to their dorm rooms. Jareth's face darkened severely. The next person he asked led him to the department for fear on pain of death. He arrived at Edward's office ten minutes late and in a foul mood.
Edward blinked at him, sensing the distinctive, infuriated air that Jareth was giving off.
"Ah, trouble in paradise?" he joked lightly.
Jareth's mouth arranged itself into a tight, white line. There was nothing funny about anything that had happened today. Nothing at all.
"I apologize for my tardiness," he said, his voice politely clipped. "It appears that I am not as well acquainted with the grounds as I should have liked."
Edward shrugged lightly.
"It's only ten minutes, Jareth. There's no problem."
Jareth appeared to have a very arrogant, haughty attitude about his being. Edward felt that it reminded him of royalty. A king who had to keep it all together for his subjects, as well as himself. Sarah was certainly drawn to men who exuded powerful personalities. Edward shrugged once more, deciding to get down to business.
"So, were you able to read the entire book?" he asked, pen in his mouth.
Jareth hesitated a moment. He hated to admit weakness, but if he were to lie now, it could jeopardize his chances of obtaining a position with the professor.
"I admit that I was unable to finish reading the last three chapters," he said quietly. He was oddly relieved to tell the truth about it.
"Only the last three?" Edward asked, surprised.
Jareth nodded and Edward shrugged.
"I'm going to ask you a question that I generally save for my fourth year students each year. There are few people who have come close to the correct answer, and no one has ever answered correctly. The course that I teach uses that textbook," he said, gesturing to the book that Jareth still had clenched tightly in his hand. "And, I don't bother teaching the last five chapters of the book, so you should be fine without having read the last three."
He paused, waiting for Jareth to respond.
"Sounds fair," he said, waiting for the question.
"Why is a raven like a writing desk?" Edward asked, his face serious.
Jareth blinked. Was he serious?
"Pardon me?"
Edward's face split into a wide smile, and he laughed. Jareth did not find it very amusing.
"Sorry, sorry. I shouldn't have done that to you when you are clearly not having the best of times with our illustrious Princess Sarah," he apologized, after noticing the colour drain from Jareth's face.
"The question is this: How long does it take a star to form a black hole after its death?"
Jareth looked at Edward, wondering if he was joking. It would be a difficult question for those who had simply used the textbook as a source for the answer. Jareth, on the other hand, had centuries of magical experience, which explained to him clearly what happened in the formation of "black holes". This question, when applied to the textbook, was not obvious to answer – one would have to take several points from the book and combine them.
Jareth paused, remembering everything he knew about the birth and death of stars. Stars die only when the last ounce of their magic has been spent. When that last wish has been made upon it. The non-magical particles that hold the physical star together, in the eyes of science: the elements, burst apart causing a disruption in the surrounding space in time. As a result, the space where the star once existed begins to draw magic from other places, and hence causes a black hole to form. In terms of human science, the principles were based on gravity and neutron stars. The actual time that it took for this to happen was miniscule in the sense that he had of time. According to human standards: less than a second.
He gave Edward his answer, articulating points from the text to back up his arguments. He knew he was right because he understood the magic behind the stars. Translating the details into scientific jargon was merely tedious to him. Edward leaned back in his chair and stared at him.
"Well, I've always told myself that if I ever found someone who could answer that question with only that textbook as their guide, I would scoop them up as soon as possible," he said, in wonder at Jareth's answer.
Jareth looked at him expectantly, and Edward sighed deeply. This was not the first time a genius bounded into the realm of science without any background in the subject. For God's sake, Albert Einstein came up with the most brilliant equations of our time, and he started out completely useless in math. Edward just never thought that he'd be the man to introduce a prodigy to the world of astrophysics. He sighed again, sticking out his hand to shake Jareth's.
"You're in."
AN: Woo, woo! A fight! And, then some geniusness from our dear, old Jareth. Oh my, oh my. All this with a hangover. Well, that was fun. Now I have to go lie down and sleep forever. Once again: my apologies to any physicists/astrophysicists out there. Any hideous inaccuracies are entirely a result of my own lack of understanding.