The time inside the small kitchen seemed to move so slow it might have been backwards. The music playing from the broken box sang loudly and Jareth paused, a breath away from taking Sarah's hand. She still listened to the song quietly, her eyes closed and her fingers tapping on the counter to the tune.

'As the world falls down…. Falling…. Falling in love.'

The music stopped. Jareth's hand lingered under Sarah's elbow; he had been seconds away from pulling her into the dance the song had been made for. But the music had died and so did the moment. He stepped back from her and made sure to make a sound behind her. Startled as she was, she grabbed the box and slid it into the garbage once more before turning with her hands behind her and leaning back against the counter. She had a look on her face as if she had been caught doing something wrong.

"Jesus Christ… you scared the crap out of me…" She laughed half-heartedly to herself and rested her hand on her chest to catch her breath. As if in one moment she recalled how both had reacted to each other earlier she turned back to her dishes and grabbed the sponge angrily. "Did you need anything else? Or did you plan on telling me if not who you are, who Jared is?" She wanted to avoid the conversation about Jareth himself. He seemed touchy about it and didn't feeling like babysitting a child throwing a tantrum. She was too old for that kind of stuff.

"I don't know who Jared is. I've had a few ideas, but none of them make much sense. So as I can't tell you any more about myself or Jared, why not tell me about you? Perhaps there is something there to be found…. Sarah?" He called her name when she didn't answer. She was hunched over the sink, her one hand touching the counter lightly as if it were some crazed animal about to strike at her.

"In a moment. I want to make a phone call." She left the room after turning the facet off. She'd just have to do dishes later. She didn't get through more than three at a time before her mind drifted away onto to other matters. Jareth didn't follow her right away, but showed up when she listened to the phone ring and ring. No one was picking up. "He never picks up his cell phone…" She waited for the answering machine to pick up and furrowed her brows when it came up.

"The King you are trying to reach is not available. Please leave your name and number and he'll call you when he's not busy." The phone beeped for her to start talking. She got three words into leaving him a message when the phone beeped again telling her that she had no time left for her message.

"What the hell…?" Since when has Toby ever been a King? She turned the phone off and sat down on her couch. "You say you know of Toby? Then where is he right now?" Jareth sat down on a chair for one. His clothes clashed miserably with everything he was near. He clearly didn't belong here.

"I can say he resides in Labyrinth. More than likely at the castle…"

"Beyond the Goblin city?" She finished his sentence and he nodded. She smiled mockingly and rested her head on her bent arm to stare at the ceiling in disbelief. How did this guy expect her to believe a single thing that came out of his mouth? "Ok listen. I don't trust you one little bit and not a word from your mouth makes any sense. Prove to me anything that you've said is true and I will try, try to do… whatever you need from me… What do you want from me? And what does anything have to do with Toby?" She felt like she was running in large circles.

"I don't know what I need from you. I came with an agenda and I seem to have forgotten what it was. As for Toby… he is the King of Labyrinth now that the old King has stepped down. Things soon will turn very bad for him I am afraid. A queen from another realm will take what Toby has and I am unsure of what she will do with your brother… and Sarah. Sadly, there is little you can do about it." For a moment, just one moment Jareth took on the air of a man clearly lost. He seemed smaller and lacking the lustre he had when he came to her, but he had returned to being a person with no room for anyone else.

"Nothing I can do? Then why are you here… why is Jared here? What is going on?" She grabbed her head and tried to force her breath into controlled submission. "Fine… you still have the burden of truth. Prove to me what you say is true and why I can't remember anything you said I should." And to that Jareth was at a loss.

"Sarah?" From the living room doorway stood Jared. She'd forgotten about him in since the music box for the most part. "What happened?" Suddenly she recalled her first serious confrontation with Jareth.

'What would you do, if I told you I was the King of the Goblins?'

He had said that to her. Mocking her and then later said he was no king… what was he playing at?

"God dammit it… this makes no sense… You!" She turned to Jareth who sat nicely and neatly in her chair. He looked as if he felt at home while looked deranged in his clothes and setting.

"You said you are not a king, but early you asked me what I would do if you said you'd been the King of the Goblins… So tell me and god dammit it and make it the truth. Were you the King of the Goblins once?" Jareth had not assumed his previous inquiry would have come back to him like this… he'd only wanted to toy with her.

"And would this answer do anything for the situation you are in? Will that somehow make things clearer to you?" She looked down slightly and then back to him with a vengeance.

"Sure, why not." She was pissed. For some reason she'd allowed two complete strangers that looked like they could have been twins in to her house and play mind games with her.

"Yes." She almost thought she heard wrong. She'd expected him to say no and then she would have kicked them both out and been done with. She'd not thought for a second that he'd actually say 'yes'. So to call the situation back to her hands she filled her next few words with venom.

"Then I can see why I'd not picked you…" She stood and her legs felt like mush. Jareth stood from his chair and walked ever so slowly to her. Jared might as well have still been out cold upstairs for all Sarah knew. Jareth paused before Sarah, but didn't touch her.

"And why might that be? What can a girl with no memory say to or about the man before her when she knows nothing? What about me now says to you I'm no good or was no good? Tell me Sarah…" Her breath burned in her throat. She knew that he was right. She knew nothing of him and recalled nothing about him from 'before'. Only what he said had happened.

Jareth smoldered inside. Still, even when she doesn't know a think about him she would reject him. The blasted woman and her infernal brother would always be closer. What did he not have that she needed?

"Tell me Sarah… one more thing. What is it that I'm lacking… what do I not have that you want? What can a girl that should know of love now that a man like me does not have?" She stared like he'd hit her. Her hands eased at her side like she'd lost a battle with herself, but then she looked at him. The same look he'd once seen and the look which words spoke of his fall from power. That look…

"You have no love." But where she said this he heard only distance words of the past.

"You have no power over me."

He said nothing more; he looked down at the small frame of the woman he'd wanted as his queen. Now he wanted nothing of her. He studied her and then from behind her, Jared and wondered just who or 'what' he was. But it didn't matter to him anymore and he walked passed Sarah and left out the front door. When she went to say sorry he was nowhere in sight. All that remained of him now was the twin, Jared.

"I have the weirdest feeling that everything he said, now and earlier were all the truth. I don't know why, but… Everything in this house… seems familiar. Even before I'd been in it or seen anything of it. And he was the most familiar. I kind of feel lost now that he's gone." Sarah closed the door and walked up the stairs without looking at Jared. Everything that had happened today was making her ill.

.

.

In the distance on top of a tree Jareth stands and waits, for what he's not so sure. She has no memories. Jared is an enigma he could not explain. And still… he felt the connection to Labyrinth. Toby had not taken the ascent to the crown yet and he wondered why.

"How long did it take you to find me Esker?" From behind Jareth a dark form stepped into the light.

"Longer than I'd have hoped. My lady is most displeased with your escape." Jareth grinned.

"I don't plan to go with you willingly. I don't plan to be Mizumi's puppet. Go back and tell your queen that." Jareth took a few steps away down the path he had come up. He was going to disappear into this world to never be found again.

"You will be able to tell her yourself." Jareth laughed mercilessly and turned to face Esker, Mizumi's personal guard. Belatedly he saw Esker's grin and the ice which had already closed around Jareth's feet.

"So Mizumi took you into her close confidence and lent you power… How unlike her to share." With little time left and as the ice crept slowly up his legs and waist the pulled a glass ball from his hand and whispered into its clear depths. It dropped from his hands before he'd finished and Esker laughed as the ball rolled away, whatever magic Jareth had planned lost in the grass. The ice was at his neck and closing around his head.

"My Lady will be glad to see you again."

"That will make only one of us then." And the ice closed around pale blue lips.