TimeSwap I
Disclaimer – I don't own the Labyrinth, any of the canon characters, settings or situations.
Summary: Jareth wakes in a stranger's bed. There is something very wrong here.


He woke slowly, drifting in a haze of sensation and distant awareness. He recognised the brush of fur and the soft scratch of spider-silk, and a warm, vital presence beside him. His mouth was thick and foul with the aftertaste of spring wine and aphrodisiacs, but he managed to slide out from the tangled nest of covers and throw open the tapestried bed curtains, letting in the bright dawn-light.

The other occupant of the bed stirred, shifted, revealing midnight-dark hair and bloodshot eyes. "Are you serious, Jareth?" she groaned. "Do you know how much I drank last night?"

His head ached. He had drunk too much spring wine – and other, less benign substances – the night before. But he was certain that he had never seen her before in his life, much less gifted her with his name. The last he remembered of the previous evening was Lysand, his copper-bright braids wrapped in golden wire, and a green-eyed forest nymph with a wicked smile.

"Who are you," he demanded, "and how do you know my name?"

She pulled the covers up over her head.

"I'm serious," he continued. "I don't know you, and while that's not uncommon in the women sharing my bed, I make damn sure I know every single creature privy to my name. You are not one of them."

"Jareth. I've known your name for ten years. We've been married for two. Now close the bloody curtains and go back to sleep."

He heard nothing beyond her claim that they were wed. He pulled the covers away from her (not without an appreciative glance) and leaned over her. She glared up at him, her eyes blurred and unfocused – but then she frowned, reached up to his face, tilted it left and right.

"Your eyes are both blue," she said.

It was his turn to frown. "Of course they are. What else were you expecting?"

She struggled up from under him, reached out to run her hand over his abdomen, over the smooth, unblemished white skin, as though tracing out an invisible line. "You have no scars."

"Scars?" he repeated indignantly. High court sidhe did not scar, not unless the injuries took them almost to the brink of death.

"From the war that ended Summer." She must have seen the shock and bewilderment in his eyes. "But I don't suppose you know anything about that either."

He drew back and stared at her, his skin prickling and chill despite the warmth of the chamber.

She sighed, clutched the covers to her chest and sat up to face him. "My name is Sarah Williams," she said finally. The trust implicit in such an easy offer of her name staggered him. "And two years ago I wed the Goblin King, Jareth son of Aethan, in the Castle beyond the Goblin City and in the shadow of the Labyrinth."

Unthinking, instinctive, he flicked his fingers in a sign against evil and enchantment. There was a spark and a snap in the air and they both flinched, but there was no shimmering haze or dissolution that would indicate melting illusion or glamour.

"Sarah Williams," he said slowly, warily. "The Summer Kingdom still stands. There is no Goblin King in the Underground, no Goblin Kingdom, and neither Castle nor Labyrinth. And the last war in the Underground ended three centuries ago, just before my birth. "

They stared at each other, at an impasse.

And then there was a knock at the door.


"Milady Sarah," Didymus said gallantly, sketching an elegant bow and averting his eyes modestly. "Sire. 'Tis quarter day, and the petitioners have come to seek your justice."

Sarah stole a look at – at Jareth, but not the Jareth she knew – who was staring at the diminutive knight with undisguised revulsion. "What is that?" he demanded, his voice haughty and outraged. Didymus' eyes widened with hurt and betrayal – and with fear, Sarah saw with alarm.

"That's Sir Didymus," Sarah said. "Your seneschal."

"The Huntress has put her mark on him. Can't you see? It is madness to even harbour him."

Didymus, the most gallant of knights, cringed and shrank in on himself. And then, in a show of courage that broke her heart, he drew himself up and said, "As it pleases his Majesty to withdraw his protection, I shall be gone from the Kingdom within the hour."

Sarah's involuntary "No!" collided with Jareth's shocked exclamation of "Protection?"

Sarah grabbed Jareth's arm. "Listen to me," she said fiercely. "You can't send him away. He'll die out there! This is a kingdom of exiles, built on your promise of safety."

He stared at her, his blue eyes opaque and utterly indifferent. "From what you've told me, Sarah Williams, it was not my promise at all." He shook off her grip, rose from the bed in all his painful flawless beauty, and swept past Didymus without a word.


Later, much later, she would be able to reconstruct most of the happenings of that disastrous day. Sweeping through the twisting corridors of the Castle, every crack and stone of which recognised him as master, Jareth had come at last to the great hall and its rioting populace of goblins and chickens. To say that he had been displeased had been an understatement. The first poor goblin unfortunate enough to mob him had been thrown against the wall with force enough to shatter every bone in its body.

The goblins were shocked and traumatised. The king was temperamental, yes. He threw magnificent tantrums and kicked and tossed the goblins and even threw them into the Bog. But though he was capricious he was never, ever overly cruel; he never used the full force of his magic and strength to harm.

After that Jareth stormed into the Labyrinth, the ancient dusty flagstones responding to his every footfall, undeniable proof, to a being who did not want to face it, that here was something of his own creation. He vented his wrath on the stone maze, caring little for its subliminal cries; the Labyrinth lay quivering under its master's heavy hand and did not dare defend itself.

Sarah heard, though. She ran out to stop him, confronting him in one of the innumerable hidden gardens. "Stop it!" she shouted, her hair whipping around her. "You're hurting it!"

He turned to face her, his face white and shining with power. His eyes burned angrily. "Do you mean to tell me that this is my kingdom?" He swept a hand around him. "A crumbling stone maze filled with outlaws and a draughty castle overrun with vermin? A mortal wife? What madness is this?"

She flinched, reached out to him. "Jareth, please."

He snarled and took a step back. "Don't touch me!" Suddenly he covered his face with his hands and sank down on an old stone bench. "Oh, gods," he whispered. "What happened to my life?"

And in that moment, she saw past the anger and into the fear that lay behind it, the fear of a very young man – for that was what he was, despite his power and his three hundred years – who had been displaced in time and space, and was slowly coming to believe that all he knew and loved was gone.