"Sarah, we need to call the florist tomorrow about changing the roses," Karen called, setting the table and trying to cook at the same time, "If we leave it till later you'll be stuck with the others."

Sarah rolled her eyes and agreed loudly, sharing a smile with her father. Harold decided he liked having weddings in the families. And Benjamin, Sarah's fiancé, was a good man, someone who would do the best for his little girl. Then he noticed Sarah looking worriedly at the corner behind him. He turned to look too.

Toby was sitting slouched in his seat, completely unaware of the general happenings around. He was far too antsy to care about Sarah's roses. She could have ordered nettles for her wedding for all he cared. And he didn't! There were more important things to think about than roses, other things that made him feel guilty.

"Toby, you okay?" Oh crap, speak of the devil!

"Yeah... yeah, I'm fine. Just tired."

Sarah nodded. "You look it. What's wrong? Didn't you sleep last night?"

Toby stiffened at the very mention of his 'last night'. But he rolled his blue eyes and snorted, "No, mother, I did not. I had a weird dream about some stupid stuff and I couldn't sleep after that. And no, I don't want to talk about it."

Sarah recognized his need to be left alone. Toby wasn't usually a private person, but when it came to certain things he wouldn't open his mouth even on pain of death. Besides, she was in love! And getting married no less. She had no time for sadness.

Toby watched his sister fall into the chair next to her father and keep discussing the details of the organization. Something was wrong; he could feel it. There was something in the air that didn't bode well for him. Something itched in his mind, as it had done fairly regularly at various points in his life. He was determined to beat whatever it turned out to be this time.

"Toby? Toby, could you get the door? I need to take a call!"

He rolled his blue eyes and stood up, stretching his back to ease the kinks out from slouching too long. God, he'd be glad when this was done! He had enough of a messed-up life without having to dodge being an usher at the church. He wandered to the door just as another knock rang out. He frowned slightly. It didn't sound like Ben; the man never tapped in that frigidly polite way. He opened the door. And got the shock of his life.

A pair of mismatched eyes glinted down at him, a thin face with sculpted features met his wide eyes, the thin lips twitching as if at a private joke as the being took him in. And he was A Being!

"Who the...?"

"Am I permitted to enter?"

"Toby, who is... Crap!"

Sarah stopped short and stared, holding the banisters in her shock at the sight of someone she never thought to see again. Her eyes never leaving Jareth's face, she reached forward and grabbed Toby's arm, hauling him back towards her and away from the Goblin King.

Jareth sighed. It seemed politeness was a thing of the past in the Aboveground. He stepped in and stripped off his gloves, holding them in one hand as he looked around the hallway from his first ignominious defeat. He remembered transforming here, flying out with a bitter taste in his mouth. His lips quirked; this time was different.

"Sarah, bring the poor boy in," Karen called gaily; "There'll be plenty of time to... oh! I, uh, I'm sorry. I thought you were someone else."

"Quite alright," Jareth ceded, "I'm afraid my arrival was forced to be unannounced." He looked to Sarah. "Had it been known, it might have been prevented."

Karen blinked, looking uncertainly from this unusual looking man in her hallway to her frozen children. "Harold," she called, stepping back, "Harold, we have a visitor."

"Who is it?"

Jareth was getting tired of this. He wanted to get Toby and leave. He didn't relish being gawked at like an exhibit in a zoo in the process. His eyes lit on Toby's face with a fair amount of appreciation. He paced in front of the boy, looking him up and down with approval.

The front certainly looked promising. A small youth by any stretch of the imagination, no more than six inches over five feet. Slim with it, evidently. Jareth imagined he could span the tiny waist with his two hands without a problem. Delicate wrists protruded from the rolled back cuffs. His clothes were hideous, hanging sloppily over his frame, but then something could be done with that. Perhaps he really would take the youngster after all, not just keep him like a pet on a leash in his Castle.

Moving with all the unpredictability Sarah remembered, the fae suddenly leaned forward and pulled Toby into the centre of the enclosure. Lightly tapping his gloves against his thigh, Jareth circled Toby, eyes glowing.

Toby, snapped out of his astonishment by such an attack on his person, folded his arms and turned pointedly. "I'm not a piece a meat in a butcher's shop so- whoever the hell you are- stop looking at me like that!"

"Toby!" Karen rebuked half-heartedly, "Excuse me, what do you want with my son?"

Jareth had been rather intrigued by Toby's controlled outburst. So the brother was as feisty as the sister? He didn't mind fire; it warmed his sheets better than a lifeless mannequin. He'd secretly been a little afraid of that for a moment. "Perhaps we may sit? This will be a fairly involved tale," he murmured, waving Karen and Harold to their living room and walking in after them, "Sarah, if you must stare, close your mouth."

Sarah recovered her powers of speech and spent the next ten minutes berating and upbraiding this blast from her past, damning him as Satan incarnate and promising that she would shove his bloody crystals up the part of his anatomy where the sun didn't shine before she let him lay a hand on her family. Being dubbed a kidnapper and tyrant and seducer and generally a threat to rival the atomic bomb, Jareth waited for the tirade to die before ignoring it all together.

"Allow me to introduce myself," Jareth continued blandly, "I am Jareth, King of the Goblins." He met disbelieving looks and instantly conjured crystals from thin air, floating one to each of the adults there present. "These might convince you. They contain a wish. You may ask for any material thing and that crystal in your hand will grant it."

Karen looked down at her little glass globe, the surface slippery as a soap bubble under her fingertips and tried to think of something wildly improbable. She wished and the crystal disappeared. A gasp from her family and a pink baby elephant stood in her living room. Her jaw dropped.

Jareth shook his head at such a waste of a wish, but then mortals had always needed the wildly implausible to happen to believe in magic. Harold had done better, having wished for a diamond necklace Sarah had been sighing over in a magazine. He was currently holding it in his right hand and blinking at it.

"Jareth?" Sarah. "What do you want? We've none of us wished anyone away."

"No, Sarah, you haven't," Jareth agreed, "I do, however, need to take your brother... again."

Dead silence. Toby spoke up- "What? Look, I don't like being kidnapped, so let's skip to the part where you go away defeated, shall we? There's the door; use it!"

Jareth raised his eyebrows and prowled closer. The boy was nervous, shifting from foot to foot, his jaw too tight and his fingers alternating between fisting and pushing his hair back. There was a party trick with nervousness that Jareth knew of, a special trick. Reserved only for this special little mortal. His hand shot out and Toby flinched in expectation of the blow. The blow never landed. Instead, soft fingertips traced four parallel lines down his cheek. Almost unconsciously Toby closed his eyes and relaxed as a wave of soothing floated through his veins.

Then the connection broke as Sarah tore the hand away. "What are you doing to him?" she hissed, "Was that some kind of spell?"

Jareth put up his empty hands in mock surrender. "I have done nothing. But that is the reason I need Toby. I'm afraid we're bonded."

Again, a rather large silence filled the room. Harold's mouth unstuck. "Bonded? I'm not sure I follow you."

"When Toby was a child, Sarah wished him away," Jareth explained, "She ran my Labyrinth to win him back and, assisted by great good luck, defeated me. Toby returned back home. However, something happened while he was with me. We formed a bond, a connection of spirits if you will. It happens only once in a lifetime and lasts for an eternity. We are even now linked to each other."

Karen turned to Toby. "You're linked to someone?"

Toby shrugged in equal scepticism. "I don't know anything about bonds; honest! I don't even remember being kidnapped. And I don't think I would have bonded myself to some dude who tried to harm me anyway."

Jareth did not like his reputation being slandered. "For the last time, I did not kidnap anyone! You were wished away. And I am surprised at you. In all the thirteen hours you spent at my Castle, I offered you no harm whatsoever. You were a defenceless babe and you were fed and cared for as best as I could provide." Toby snorted sarcastically. "Which is when the bond must have been forged," the fae continued, "I'm afraid you must now accompany me. Say your goodbyes and let us leave. My powers are not as great in this world; I would return to mine."

"But... but... why goodbye? Sarah's getting married and Toby didn't mean to bond with anyone! Surely if you need my son to put this mess right, at least tell us when he will be back?" Karen put her arms around her son as if to physically prevent him being taken.

"Marriage? Sarah, Sarah, Sarah... you have grown up," Jareth smirked, remembering the fifteen year old he had once proposed to on a crazy notion, "Congratulations, my dear."

"I'm not your dear," Sarah retorted, "I'm not your anything. And neither is my brother. You heard him- he doesn't remember forming your bond and he was only a baby when it happened. You can't just take him away like that. We're his family!"

In answer, the Goblin King closed his eyes briefly in annoyance before turning to question his bond mate. "Answer me a few questions, Toby- do you get feelings of loss or incompletion that seem inexplicable? A feeling that nothing or no one can ease?"

"No..." Mismatched eyes glared a warning. "Okay, yes. What of it?"

"Were you soothed by my touch just moments ago?"

Toby went red, but nodded. "It was probably nothing," he muttered.

"Hmmm! Do you," Jareth stepped closer, "get dreams, sometimes sexual and sometimes not, in which a particular male- who you cannot truly see- is always present?" He held his arms out to the side. "And who exactly do I remind you of?"

Toby blanched and backed up a step. "How- how do you... have you been looking at my dreams or something?"

Jareth shook his head, oddly understanding. "I have no power over you. The bond should have allowed me to feel your emotions, or your presence. But you were only a child when it was forged, and wrested from my side soon after. It could not be specific at that age. Yet my dreams are quite similar. I did not recognize you in them, but your eyes and your hair are unmistakable. I would realize you now if I were to glimpse you across a crowded ballroom."

"Wait just one minute!" Harold yelled, getting to his feet and striding to face Jareth, "You said these dreams are sexual. You aren't accusing him of being gay, are you?"

"Gay?" Jareth looked genuinely confused.

"Dad, I am not gay," Toby protested, knowing exactly what was going to happen and desperate to prevent it at any cost, "You know that! I don't know like other guys; I never have! Come on, you trust me on this, don't you?"

"Toby, don't lie to me. Have you had perverted dreams of this poof?"

Jareth kept still. The threat was evident in the older man's voice, but he hadn't offered harm yet. Toby was capable of handling his father, surely. Jareth would not step forward to protect his interests unless it was necessary.

"Yes..." The answer was so soft, but Karen and Sarah gasped as if the revelation was something momentously life-altering.

The blow to Toby's face took everyone by surprise, but the next instant Jareth thrust Toby behind him and stared his cold disapproval at Harold's livid face.

"Take him and go," Toby's father snapped, "We don't want him here. Go on! Get him out of here!"

Toby was blank-faced and other than a nod to his mother and sister, he looked challengingly at Jareth's enquiring face. Shrugging and deciding that questions could wait, Jareth put a hand on the boy's stiff shoulder and took the both of them away.