At first, she heard only whispers.

They were muffled, distant sounds, unable to be placed or made out as they grew in multitude. Never wavering in their cacophony, they resembled an invisible choir, keen on releasing noise more static than song. Yet, as Sarah Williams came to consciousness, the whispers faded away, lost to the ether of darkness to be replaced by somewhere soft and quiet.

Everything ached. Her body were tense and tired, and briefly she lost herself to the textual sensation of lying in the softest bed she ever knew. Even with closed eyes, she could feel the gentle layering of sheets atop her. Blessedly, her head no longer pounded or throbbed, nestled as it was in several pillows—instead, she felt exhausted, worked beyond her limit. Still lost at the boundary of awakening, Sarah slowly realized that wherever she now lay was definitely not where she had last been. Instead, the stale scent of mint hung in the air, and the faintest taste of peach juice lingered at the back of her throat, subtle enough to perhaps be a dream.

The taste, however, conjured up memories of ballrooms and laughing crowds, of both goblins and humans alike. Her throat clenched tight in panic, as her body triggered a response to the idea that once more, peaches had led to a situation beyond her control. She fought back the urge to vomit, but as her eyes flew open, panic gave way to shock.

This was the room of the Goblin King.

Nothing had changed since her visitation to this very room, except for daylight that poured in a creamy orange array from the windows. It caught on the velvet curtains that once held back the night—she could recall the feeling of them just from sight alone. That alone was as odd as her exhaustion, for her senses were unfamiliar. Everything felt...sharper, in a way that Sarah could not put into words. The light felt more vibrant than before, and the colors of all in front of her popped dazzlingly before her eyes. She could only look around in awe, uncertain if she were still dreaming, until her eyes alighted on wild blonde hair.

Jareth had his back to her, as he slouched forward on a couch in front of the fire. He held himself in a way unseen before, a hunched, vulnerable posture that leaned towards the small fireplace. If he sought counsel in the embers, he did not find answers. This was not the arrogance she usually saw, nor the weak king she encountered in her dreams. This was the stance of someone shaken to the core.

Memories, hazy and scattered, returned to Sarah. Memories of pendants shattering, and peaches touched, and the feeling that every nerve in her body had burst into flame. Then...something she once again could not describe, something beyond her understanding that blurred into whatever unconscious she awoke from. Something had happened, and if it was related to Jareth, it had to be a cause for concern.

Perhaps she made a noise, or perhaps he somehow read her racing thoughts, for Jareth's head tilted in that familiar avian way. "You're awake," he murmured, although he did not move to face her. She had not heard him speak this way since the meeting in her apartment—with equal parts caution and concern—and that alone was another sign of something wrong.

"Am I? The last time I was here in a dream," Sarah croaked with a wince. Her words were cracked and warped by lack of use, but she pushed on. "This better still be a dream, or you better have a really good reason for me ending up in your bed."

While she could not see his smile, she could hear it, briefly, in his voice. There was no humor, however, in the way he spoke, replaced instead by a wryness that she did not understand. "Why precious, there are few who get such an opportunity. I thought you'd relish the chance to see my private chambers."

"You still haven't told me why I'm here."

"It was the first place I thought of, to be honest. This is the only room in the goblin castle where one can be undisturbed for two days."

"Two days?" He delivered the news so casually, yet it ripped through Sarah. She sat up, and may have leaped from the bed had her muscles not nearly given out on her. Instead, she collapsed back into the nest of pillows, doing her best to keep her upper body vertical despite her exhaustion. "What the hell did that necklace you gave me do to put me out for two days?"

"Oh, it wasn't the necklace, that I can promise you."

"So, what happened?"

The Goblin King appeared reluctant to answer her, and his head tilted to the opposite side. "It would appear that you are more...connected to the Underground than you think."

"...I don't understand."

"I hardly understand it myself." Jareth rose at that moment from the couch to move closer to the fire, and rested an arm against the mantle. All she could see was his back, cloaked once more in black armor. She swore it glittered in the light as he spoke. "I was under the impression that you returned to your home with nothing more than your brother. It seems, however, that you walked away less unscathed than you believed."

His fingers drummed against the mantle of the fireplace, leather against wood taking up a staccato rhythm as Sarah turned his words over in her head. "I told you that already, when you showed up in my apartment," she remarked, twitching at the slight pain that came with creasing her brow. "I thought you knew about the wishes."

"I did." His voice felt too easy-going, as if the pair conversed over trivial matters like the weather. Yet, there was something else in the undercurrents of his tone, some edge that carried over whether he realized it or not. "My assumption was that you refused to use the powers I graciously gave to you. But that is not what I'm referring to in this situation."

"Powers? What powers?" It occurred to Sarah that she had begun to veer away from her original question, so she course-corrected immediately. "How do wishes connect to me touching a peach and waking up in your castle?"

"There's no connection. I'm not talking about your adventure; I'm talking about the consequences of your victory."

"You're still not making any sense. If you mean the thing with the wishes, I stopped because it was too dangerous for me to handle."

Judging by the slight shaking of his shoulders, the Goblin King looked to be on the verge of flying off the handle. "Well," he said, each word working its way with difficulty from between his clenched teeth, "there's more to it than that. Honestly, I'm surprised that you haven't put it together. You came into my dreams uninvited, accusing it to be of my own design. The first time I thought it a coincidence; the second time, when you broke the dream of this very room apart, I realized it was something more. This goes beyond simple wishes, precious. You've once again upended my expectations, only this time it almost cost you more than a little brother."

"Quit playing around," Sarah grumbled, finally losing her composure. "Jareth, what the hell happened to me?"

"You almost died," he snapped, "because you could not control your magic."

This time, the silence was brief and broken by Sarah's sputtering laugh of disbelief. "You're shitting me. I don't have magic. There's nothing magical about me!"

"Oh there most certainly is," said Jareth, as his fingers quickened their rhythm. "You've hidden it well since the last time you were in the Labyrinth. It has built and built all this time, ignored and unchanneled, unseen and uncontrolled. Had you not come into contact with that enchanted peach, you might have continued to ignore its presence until your lack of control made it eat you alive."

There was too much to process, too much information that flew by before she could fully comprehend it all. "Hang on, slow down. What the hell do you mean by 'hidden it well'? It's not like I woke up and found I could, I don't know, turn into an owl. If I had known about this, I would've done something."

"Would you?" The rhythm of his fingers abruptly ceased. "This is not something to happen out of nowhere. There should have been signs, perhaps a few moments where you unknowingly grasped at something you chalked up to luck. You would have had to ignore or dismiss much for things to have played out thus far."

Sarah, bewildered at the turn in tone, could only shake her head. "I mean, I've had headaches on and off ever since you showed up. It happens sometimes, and it's never been tied to whatever magic you think I have. If it was something I couldn't handle, I would've told Sir Didymus and Hoggle—I just didn't think it was a big deal."

"Would you have said anything? Or would you have pushed it away again, like you have with your wishes and your friends?"

She could almost hear Hoggle's plea from a few nights ago echo, as he begged her to not end up like the cruel being before her. At the moment, she could not see how she could ever make his nightmare a reality. "That's not fair. I thought everything was over the minute I left the Labyrinth, so I moved on with my life."

"Yes, you shut out everything and everyone around you, striving for some idea of normal you'll never have. Things are never fair, Sarah; I thought you already learned that lesson. You are changed now, no longer the same innocent girl trying to undo a wish. For all your talk of not wanting to play the hero, you've ended up with the rewards of a champion. Deny it and push it away all you want. It will not change the truth."

"I don't want this. Look, I can give the back to you if that's what you're mad about."

"Give it back? What's done is done." He barked a laugh, a cold noise that made Sarah flinch. "You've ended up with power beyond human comprehension, and yet you wish to throw it all away? For what? Your facade of a normal life?"

Like an avalanche, Sarah's anger cascaded and grew as she gestured at the room and angered king in front of her. "I didn't ask for any of this! If you were so concerned over me having magic, you should've shown up in your glittery bullshit and told me."

"You never wished for me!"

"Oh, like that's ever stopped you before. You're the damn Goblin King, so why the hell didn't you do something when I started popping up in your dreams? Why not tell me before I left with my friends, or before we came across the market? Why stay away for all this time?"

"Because I have no power over you."

Jareth whirled about, and for the first time in years, Sarah saw the Goblin King in all his chaotic fury. His eyes were wild and bright once more, and while he still looked paler than normal, he imposed something dark and powerful in the room. This was no longer a skeleton king, but one who looked like he had in her apartment kitchen: frantic, tired, aged. Yet, hidden in that anger was what she swore was fear, a fear that felt so incongruous with the man before her.

His fingers dug into the mantle, and the stone cracked under the force of his anger. "The right words have power, and you of all people should know what the consequences of such words can be. You beat me, you said the right words, and I was bound to follow them to the fullest extent they could bear. It is why I could not reach you after you broke apart my dream, and I had only to wait for you to sleep or call on me. But you did nothing! Had you not called upon me, had you not given me a grain of power over you, you would have died. Your stubbornness, and your desire to avoid any and all connection to the Underground, has nearly cost you your life!"

He was too far gone now in his rage and fear, beyond the point of pulling back. Sarah could only bear silent witness as he began to pace in front of her. The fire, although small, cast wavering shadows over half of the king's face, like the moon eclipsing the sun. "I seem to be," he snarled, giving up on shouting for the time being, "unable to escape from the role of villain you put upon me. You come to me in dreams, then accuse me of ensnaring you. You take my gifts, and then refuse to use them. I save your friends, and yet you treat me as a threat. How far will you go to struggle against me? Will you fight me tooth and nail until the very world around you fades away?"

"You can't blame this on me," she replied with increasing incredulity. "Beating you was supposed to be the end of everything—I won, and I left you alone. Hell, I left everyone alone! How was I supposed to know about some kind of hidden magic?"

"Because you..." It was as if some thought crossed through his mind, flipping a switch on his emotions. Sarah watched the anger seep from Jareth, as he unclenched his fists and turned away from her gaze. Whatever emotion overtook him became something forbidden from her eyes. "You didn't know," he muttered, "and neither did I."

The tension still hung between them, settling heavy and dense within the room. Jareth, with his now-expired rage, said nothing more. Sarah let out a breath she had held unknowingly, relishing the release of anger that followed. In its place was mere acceptance in the face of what she still could not fully comprehend. She cringed at how her voice felt small and weak in her throat. "You keep saying you're not the villain, but you're still acting like the same king who sent Cleaners after me seven years ago, or trapped me in a drug-induced dream. I get that you're mad that I beat you, and I get that you've tried to move on from that, and maybe having to come to me for help just brings up bad memories. I understand wanting to leave everything that happened in the Labyrinth behind. Honestly, I tried to forget about most of it, but everything just kept reminding me of this place, and the person I used to be."

She could feel Jareth's eyes upon her, but she directed her attention to the window, and the view of the Labyrinth outside, as she continued to speak. "I think I shut everything out because I didn't want to go back to the person I was before I wished Toby away. I just wanted to be a better person and a normal teenager, not one whose wishes came true or who had friends living in her mirror. It helped at the time to not think about it, and pretend that the Labyrinth wasn't a thing that happened to me. But it did. You asked me the other night if I knew myself, and honestly, I don't think I do. I don't know if I ever will. What I do know, though, is that I want my friends to be safe, even if I'm not in their life after all this. I owe it to them—and you too, I guess—to make things right. But you can't expect me to know all the answers. I'm not the same heroic girl everyone thinks I am. I'm just...Sarah Williams. I'm me, and that's all you've got."

Silence. Sarah diverted her gaze back to the king, and was surprised at his attentiveness. He had finally stopped pacing, and leaned against the back of the sofa with his arms crossed. While indifference shrouded his face, his eyes did not waver from her. Lingering within them was that emotion she had seen before in their first reunion, that unnamed feeling that escaped all definition. "You," he said after a moment's pause, "are exactly who the Labyrinth needs. I came to you because I needed the girl who ate the peach and knocked down the goblin castle. I needed Sarah Williams, Champion of the Underground, no matter who she had become. You have a stubborn heart, but it is a heart all the same."

Sappy statements did not suit the Goblin King, and he scowled for a second as if his words had offended him. "The point is that the Labyrinth is in need of a hero, and despite your reluctance to be just that, you've taken on the role all the same. If you had truly left your past behind, you wouldn't have come back at all."

The heat of a blush colored Sarah's cheeks, much to her embarrassment. Perhaps sensing the intensity of his gaze, Jareth smirked, and she fought back the desire to roll her eyes as the moment passed. "Maybe. But for now, it's probably better to keep going forward. What does all this new magic change in regard to saving the Underground?"

"Everything. Nothing." He shrugged, the anger exhausted from his body. "Things cannot go back to how they once were, for you and for the Labyrinth. How you managed to come into such power is beyond my understanding, and I don't think it to be coincidence that it's manifested at such a critical time. There is something more at work here. It may be time to search for someone who can help us."

"Who?"

"There is a being with a deep connection to the Underground," said Jareth, as he unfurled himself off the couch and resumed his pacing. This lacked the cool stride that characterized his usual movement; his steps were slower, as he thought aloud. "I, and the rulers who've come before me, have called her the Oracle. It is said that she sees the very threads of magic that make up our world, glimpses of what has come and what will be done."

Sarah took the opportunity to shift into a more comfortable position, careful to not push her body to the point of pain. "So, there's someone who can see the future, and you're only now mentioning it to me? Why wait until now to get answers for everything happening?"

"I attempted to find her, but was unsuccessful before I came to you. The Oracle is...solitary, never in one place at any given time. Twice I've encountered her, and she has come to me when I least expected it." He paused momentarily in his pacing, then shook his head, silently dismissing some type of thought as he resumed the back-and-forth motion. "There is talk that she has moved towards the mountains that flank the center of the Labyrinth. If the rumors are true, then seeking her advice should not be difficult."

"Is there time to find her? I thought everything was supposed to be fading away, and you were..."

"Dying?" Jareth's smirk did not fade, as he broke from his pacing to stand in front of the window. In the light of the orange sun, he appeared ethereal, a wisp of wheat brought to life before the land. "My demise has been...postponed, for the time being. The Underground still fades, but your release of power gave it energy, enough to keep things stable for now. You have bought us time, and I dare not squander any of it."

"Good. That'll give you a chance to train me."

If she had seen him taken aback before, this instance went beyond those fleeting moments, as the indifference he usually wore shattered into utter bafflement. Sarah nearly laughed at his shock as he faced her. "Train you?!"

"You said I nearly died because I couldn't control my power. Obviously, you have control over yours, so maybe you can help me learn to use it." It was her turn to shrug, as if her request were mundane. "If you want me to meet this Oracle, or figure out what's wrong with the Labyrinth, I might as well work with what I have."

Sarah watched Jareth sputter and then pause, considering her request with a tilt of his head. "You don't realize what you're asking. It will not be easy, nor will it be quick. To channel the magic of the Labyrinth takes years, and we simply don't have the time."

"So, teach me the basics. Magic 101. Whatever I need to know to keep from exploding into ash."

For the first time, she saw him smile. Not a smirk, nor an all-out grin, but something quick and subtle, a flash of recognized humor that broke through his regular indifference before it vanished. "Very well. I'll teach you what I can. But," he interrupted, holding up a gloved finger as Sarah started to speak, "in exchange, I'm joining you and your companions in your quest."

Seeing her raise an eyebrow in confusion, Jareth could only chuckle and add, "I said before that I could not accompany you to the center. My ability may still not be what it was, but like I said before, I dare not waste the opportunity of temporary good health. If I am to train you and find the Oracle, it only makes sense for me to come along and utilize what time I have."

"I'm surprised you'll let the goblins run amok in your absence."

"Oh, they'll run amok regardless of whether I'm around. My mother will keep them from starting a revolution while I'm away."

Sarah couldn't help the yawn that escaped her throat, earning her a look from Jareth. His strange cheer dissipated in an instant. "You need to rest," he muttered with a look towards the door, "if you wish to harness your magic properly. Expelling all that energy took a toll on your body, and if we are to leave tomorrow, we must take what chances we can to prepare. Which, in your case, means sleep."

"I feel like I've slept for days."

"You have, but that is the price for draining you of magic." Seeing her wince at the stiffness in her body, his stern gaze softened. "It hurts now," he said, lowering his voice to a murmur, "but it always hurts at first. The last time a human learned magic in the Underground, it was quite a struggle before things worked themselves out."

This was news Sarah had not heard before. "Who was the last human to learn?"

Another chuckle. "That would be me."

Without further explanation, the Goblin King bid Sarah a good rest. His tone invited no further time for questions, as he headed towards the large oaken door on the other side of the bed. As he pulled it open to step out into the hall, Sarah called out. "Jareth?"

He paused, waiting.

"Thank you. For saving me."

Jareth looked back, and she caught a flash of his mismatched eyes as her thanks nestled between them. "I did what I had to," came his reply, and then he was gone, shut behind a door to the rest of the castle.

Once again the room was stifled in silence, save for the fire that crackled and popped. Sarah settled back into the bed—which, if she was being honest with herself, was luxuriously soft—and let her body succumb to the desire for sleep. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of a red cover on the bedside table, and at first she smiled. The realization that the strange tome was nearby, however, briefly jogged her memory. There was something Jareth had said in their conversation that she had forgotten about, something that sounded so familiar but yet unable to be placed. What had it been? Something about powers…something lingering just out of grasp of understanding…

There was no time to ponder, as she drifted off into sleep. Yet, on the edge of unconsciousness once more, whispers nudged their way into her mind, faint and imperceptible enough that she only half-registered the sound. She felt a heavy warmth engulf her, comforting in its weight and heat within her veins.

Had she been more awake, she might have experienced the taste of peach juice on her tongue, faint as if pulled from a dream.

Well, this will definitely be the first and last time I name a chapter after Dave Matthews Band lyrics...

I always envisioned Jareth and Sarah having some communication issues, especially since Sarah views the Goblin King as the villain of her childhood. Yet, this is a story about two people having to work through the past they've attempted to leave behind, and trying to capture that proved really difficult for this chapter. Dialogue is not my strong suit! But, there's a lot that gets revealed here (and a lot that DOES NOT get answered too. We can't solve every mystery and have characters reveal every secret ;P), and some important set-up for what's to come. It's time to start the journey towards the only OC I'll ever have in my fanfics! With, uh, some bumps along the way. But we'll get to those later.

Thank you to all the readers and reviewers enjoying this work so far! Being able to see everyone react and anticipate the next chapter has really made these months in quarantine easier. Also, as of a few days ago, Unearthed is officially a year old! Yay! I started this work in a dark place in my life, as I returned to things that used to make me happy after receiving my diagnosis. What a year it's been. It's been so wonderful to see the reception within the Labyrinth community to this fic, and I hope to continue to provide exciting chapters in the times to come.

As for when the next chapter will be out...well, I'm aiming for late August! That may be a little difficult though, because I'm in the middle of moving! It's part of the reason I'm posting this chapter at 11:15 PM my time, because I've been so busy moving and touring new places to live. The next chapter is definitely less dialogue-heavy though, so I think I should hit that August goal easily enough...but if I get it up by early September, I won't be too upset. After all, next chapter, we get some *Magic 101 with Jareth*, and that's going to be REAL fun. :)

Until next time.