Updated for grammar & spelling and checked for continuity: March 10, 2011.

Chapter Thirty-Six: Stop Looking At Me

As he neared the castle, Christopher watched a window to the nursery open. Certain the only one who would do such a thing at this hour was his mother, he headed straight for it. Sure enough, she stood there waiting with her hand upon the latch, ready to close it behind him as soon as he entered.

After he transformed, he turned and faced her, marveling at the way serenity graced every aspect of her countenance. The concern in her eyes was only visible to him because he knew what to look for. He wished he could bring her news of reassurance, though he was not entirely sure what aspect of recent events weighed most heavily on her mind. However, he also knew the value of brevity and expediency, so he jumped right into what he wanted to talk about. "He's gone Aboveground, hasn't he?"

"Keep your voice down, Christopher." The gentle rebuke was quiet. "You'll wake the baby. And yes, he has gone Aboveground." As she spoke, Sarah motioned for Christopher to follow her and crossed the room to the unobtrusive door leading to her and Jareth's bedroom. Once both were inside, she shut the door.

"Haven't been here in awhile. Not since Michael was born, anyway."

"Yes, well, it was either here or the hallway. And while Goblins are not prone to gossip as much as humans, I still prefer the privacy. Sit down, dearheart. You may as well make yourself comfortable. I don't know where your father went precisely - though I assume he is off harassing your sister - and I don't know when he'll be back." She settled herself into an old overstuffed armchair that was in such dire need of repair the patches wanted patching.

Christopher flopped down on a footstool. "Are you ever going to let Dad get you a new chair?"

"Not any time soon. That would ruin the game."

He shook his head. "Of course. Anyway, I'm not really wanting to talk to Dad."

"No?"

Christopher looked at his mother at her use of a politely surprised tone. If her expectant expression was any indication, she had been waiting for him to get to that particular point since he arrived. "Well, no. So, um... Could you do me a favor?"

She smiled. "That depends on what the favor entails."

"Right. I was hoping you could, er," he paused, searching for the right words, "convince Dad that he really doesn't need to watch us so attentively."

"By 'us' I assume you mean you and the Goblin representative."

Hm... I guess that means Dad didn't tell her about Bill, then. "Yes."

"And your father has been watching you."

"Yes." Sarah remained silent for a moment, and Christopher watched as suspicion clouded her eyes. So that's where Katrin gets it from, he thought.

"Just as a guess," she finally said, slowly, "his watching started at some point early yesterday morning -"

"Not just early morning but before sunrise."

Sarah continued as though she had not been interrupted. "- and continued on and off all day, yes?"

"Yes." Christopher rolled his eyes in complete exasperation. "And always at the stupidest moments, too. I mean, he'll probably say that he was just making sure we weren't getting into trouble, but then why only watch when we were just sitting there or -" He stopped abruptly and looked at Sarah. "Hang on. How did you know that?"

Sarah leaned back in the chair and pressed the tips of her fingers together before her face. "Your father has been sulking for the past few days, as you may or may not have noticed. Then, yesterday morning, he started behaving rather suspiciously. Hiding away in the study for various lengths of time and then coming out again as though nothing is going on, all the while apparently keeping a watchful eye on you. It's rather infuriating."

"Tell me about it."

"I'll speak to him about it, but..."

After a brief sigh, Sarah was momentarily silent once again. This time, however, she had tilted her head slightly and was regarding him with mild curiosity. Christopher was not sure about this. "But?"

"But I am curious as to why he feels the need to watch you at all, especially considering he had previously established that you are more than capable to handle this on your own."

"Er..."

"Don't you find it curious, Christopher?"

"Well... You know Dad, always up to something."

"Indeed. Perhaps he just wants to keep an eye on things, make sure that you are all right. You are his son, after all. And this situation is less than safe."

"Uh, yeah, that's probably it."

"So why would it bother you so much?"

"Well... it's like you said. He shouldn't need to watch me at all if he thinks I can handle this. It isn't so much that he is watching, really, but you know how he is. Dad doesn't just keep an eye on things. When he looks out over the Labyrinth, everything in the vicinity is aware of it. And it's so damn irritating to feel like you've got a pair of eyes boring into the back of your head anyway, to add the knowledge that it's Dad... It makes me want to pull out my hair. Or molt, I guess, considering. To be fair, I am more annoyed by the principal of the thing." He paused, briefly, before thinking aloud. "It's funny that it annoys me so much when it isn't really me that Dad is watching. But though the Wizard knows he is being watched, it hasn't been affecting his performance at all." He nodded, slowly. "Yeah, Bill's an ok guy."

Bill! Sarah's mind began racing. "Bill?" she said aloud.

"What? Yes, that's his name..." Christopher trailed off, hit with a sudden sense of deja vu. Damn, I think I did it again. He watched as his mother swiftly put two and two together. She looked at him, clearly waiting for confirmation of some sort. He sighed. "I was hoping to leave him out of this, actually. Didn't mean to tell you."

"Ah. I assume that your father knows about this."

"Er, yeah. To be fair, I didn't mean to tell him either, cause I figured something like this would happen. And before you ask, no, Katrin doesn't know her Bill is this Bill."

This comment earned him another sharp look. "Why should that matter?"

Christopher shrugged. "I don't know, really. It concerned Dad; something about how us kids may as well be full-blooded Fae."

"Hm. Well, I believe this explains a great deal. Now I will definitely speak to him about this. You had best return to... Bill before your father returns, else you will have to speak to him after all." She gave a short chuckle as Christopher fairly sprang from the footstool.

"Good point. Thanks, Mom." He kissed her on the cheek then hurried out the window.

As soon as Christopher left again, Sarah rose and regarded the bedroom door with narrowed eyes. Steeling herself for what would likely prove to be a rather feisty encounter of the less-than-fun variety, she then went up to the study to await Jareth's return to the Underground.

Once there, she was not left waiting long.

Though he was not present, Jareth's dark mood of the previous day lingered heavily on the air in the study. It was still, oppressive, foreboding, and the effect of a spell designed to dissuade intruders from remaining. Even Sarah's presence did little to disturb the atmosphere from where she leaned against a bookshelf near the doorway.

Within minutes, the air silently moved to accommodate Jareth's sudden appearance before one of the grand windows lining the outer edge of the room. He gazed out over the scene momentarily before crossing to his desk and throwing himself down in the chair behind it. With a twist of one hand, a crystal appeared.

Jareth stared at the crystal, spinning it idly with the tips of his fingers before conjuring up the image of the Wizard Katrin was so taken with. He was asleep, apparently, though within seconds his eyes flew open. Before Jareth could see what Bill would do next, however, a voice interrupted his contemplations.

"What are you doing?"

Looking around, Jareth found Sarah standing at the edge of the room, accusation written all over her face. Though how she found out was a mystery, he was struck with the thought that she knew precisely what he was doing, and did not approve in the slightest. Nevertheless, he didn't bother vanishing the crystal, instead returning his eyes to the image it contained as he replied, "Nothing."

Sarah snorted. "Nothing, he says. You're watching him again, aren't you. As you were doing all day yesterday."

"Naturally." He grinned. "Why, want a peek?"

"No." Abruptly, the crystal vanished out of his hand. Jareth looked up and straight into his wife's narrowed eyes.

"Sarah," he began plaintively, reaching to take the crystal back and eyebrow rising when she held it just beyond his grasp.

"No, Jareth. This," she shook it under his nose before snapping it away again when he made a grab for it, "ends now. You cannot keep spying on him like this."

"And why not? He is here, after all, on a matter that concerns the security of the Kingdom." Jareth considered conjuring up another crystal just to make his point, but her eyes were flashing dangerously. "Besides-"

"Besides nothing," she snapped. "We both know that you are doing this because of our daughter, not out of some deep concern for the state of the Kingdom's security spells!"

Jareth crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair. "And how did you come to know about this in any case."

"A little bird told me."

There was a pause as Jareth's own eyes narrowed. "Christopher. Undermined by my own son."

"Our son did no such thing. He simply took advantage of your absence to act in the best interests of both himself and this Wizard, which is precisely his duty by your command. Do you really think that your watching them constantly is going to somehow be at all helpful?"

"In this case, it does not matter if I am being helpful or not. How else do you propose I discern whether is worthy of our daughter?"

"Worthy?" She put her hands on her hips as her volume rose a notch. "Jareth, that is not for you to decide!"

At that, Jareth rose and, in doing so, shoved his chair back so hard it hit the wall. "Well if not me, her father, then who do you suggest should? Certainly not Katrin."

Sarah gave a shocked burst of laughter. She could scarcely believe she was having this argument. "Actually, that is precisely who I had in mind."

His snort was derisive. "Oh, I think not. She is far too young to be even considered mature enough to-"

"Too young? She is the same age as I was when you began courting me."

He waved her comment away with one hand and crossed back to the window he appeared before. "Yes, well that was different."

"Diff - No, I am not going to go there." She stopped, searching for a way to get through to him. She filled up the awkwardness of her silence by gently placing the crystal on his desk. "Actually, I do want to know. Different how?"

"She is Fae, Sarah."

"Half Fae."

Again, he dismissively waived his hand. "Either way, she will not have matured in the same way as you did."

"Of course not; she is a different person. Quite frankly, I think she is far more mature than I was at that age."

"Perhaps." He was silent for a moment. "But she spent most of her life here, Underground, not in the Mortal World where people live by an entirely different code of conduct."

"So... Are you implying that you think she is naive enough to simply allow this young man to take advantage of her, is that it?" As often happened when they argued over the differences of their natural Worlds, Sarah regarded him with nothing short of bewildered incredulity. "Oh Jareth, honestly. Even if she was the type to do so, which she most certainly is not, she is not so poor a judge of character that she would not be able to see if an attempt would be in someone's nature. She has demonstrated that particular skill time and again, on both Fae and Humans; you know that as well as I. And there is no reason to automatically suspect he would try. You know, it is as though you are choosing to dislike him, to distrust him simply on the base that he appears to like her, and she him."

"Of course I am."

"Oh good heavens. I never would have pegged you as the shotgun father type."

He snapped around to face her once more. "And what, pray, is that supposed to mean?"

"It really wouldn't matter who she showed interest in, would it? Were he a common criminal from Aboveground or a ruler from a neighboring kingdom. You would still attempt to chase him away, cut him off at the pass."

"I was not protective enough before, Sarah, and she suffered for it."

She was pushing his buttons, and she knew it. "Yes, Jareth, she was hurt. And maybe there was something you could have done to prevent it that time. But pain and heartache are, unfortunately, part of living. It helps shape who you become and she came away from it stronger. You might be able to reorder time, but you cannot change the past. To do so would change who she is now."

"That does not mean I will simply stand by and allow the same to happen again!"

"Why do you assume it will? She genuinely likes this one, and that makes this a whole other ball game."

"I assume it because I can tell! She is who is she is, what she is, and I will not deny this fact. But it is that very thing which makes him a danger to her, that makes him hurting her inevitable!"

"Really." Sarah knew her tone was flat, for she also knew where he was going with this. "And what makes you say that?"

"He is Mortal! He couldn't possibly understand-" Jareth cut himself off as the look in her eyes registered, along with what he had been about to say. "Sarah, I..." All the fight had gone out of him, here he faltered.

Sarah closed her eyes and rubbed her hands over her face with a sigh. "Jareth," she said quietly, shaking her head. She paused before looking at him, "My love, it does not matter whether or not you think it is her place to make this decision, or whether you think she is ready to do so. It does not matter that he is Mortal and that she is not, a statement which neither you nor I can even pretend to know with certainty. It does not matter that she may or may not get hurt at some point. Whatever the answers, whatever the case may be, it does not justify your spying on him like that."

"I just want to protect her."

"I know," she said gently. "But she will resent you for protection of this sort. Do you remember our first argument? What it was about?"

He blinked at her, somewhat surprised at the topic shift. "Yes, of course. You found out I had been watching you periodically for years and I could not see the what was wrong with doing - oh." He sighed, crossing to his chair and throwing himself in it once again. "Very well. I shall stop watching him."

Sarah did not bother to hide her smile. He looks so petulant, she thought. "Good."

"Hmph."

"Oh, stop sulking."

"I am not-"

"You are, Jareth. Do you really think I can't tell? I won fair and square because I am right; you lost and don't like it. It is natural for you to sulk, though you should not do so. Thankfully, I am in a rather forgiving mood and am ready to negotiate the terms of your surrender."

He looked up at her, eyes narrowing again though this time they held curiosity instead of anger or frustration. "You mean I should now apologize for my outrageous and unjustified conclusions as well as my words spoken without thought."

"Yes, of course."

He continued to regard her. "Hmm..." In response to this, Sarah leaned on the edge of the desk and gave him her best pitiful, doe-eyed expression. He struggled to not grin. "Why is it that I am not allowed to sulk and yet you stand there doing the same thing, and manage to get your way without any sign of being contrite?"

"I am not sulking; I am pouting."

"Doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does. You should not sulk because it is not becoming, nor is it flattering to your character. I am allowed to pout, on the other hand, because I am the girl and it works to my advantage."

"Ah, I know your secret now."

"Mm, you see that is what doesn't matter. Your knowing the secret renders you no more powerful to resist. Now I suggest you get on with that apologizing."

Allowing his grin to surface, Jareth reached out and took hold of one of Sarah's hands. "As the champion commands," he flippantly remarked as he pulled her toward him.