Author's Note: Sorry, this is taking so long, but I've written myself into a pretty nasty little hole- too precarious for my tastes- and I'm trying to play the balancing act. But don't worry. It won't be long now before the climax arrives.

"There's more?" you ask, your little eyes round with awed wonder.

"Yes," I reply, throwing out my arms magnanimously to embrace all my apple-cheeked, silken haired reviewers, "There's so much more to come..."

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Days... three of them had passed and Toby had finally met the one person he had feared meeting the most- Sarah.

It had been surprising to hear that she had postponed her wedding when he was taken. She had cried on the phone, cursing Jareth out loud for ruining his life as she was certain the Goblin King had done, and Toby had not had the heart to say anything because yes, in a way she was right. Had he not gone to the Underground, his sanity would not be balanced so precariously on the knife-edge between this world and the next.

"I'm sorry," was the first sentence he ever said to her.

She had walked in, more beautiful than he remembered with her dark hair and green eyes, and hugged him tight. "You're alright, aren't you?" she had demanded, "He never hurt you? Did he?"

Toby had smiled mirthlessly and shook his head. "Not so much as a hair," he promised.

"It's not your hair I'm worried about," Sarah reminded him, "More like skin and bone and mind. He likes playing mind games with people."

"He didn't with me... much. He did in the beginning, but then he changed. He's actually quite nice." Toby could tell his half-sister didn't believe him. And he couldn't really blame her; Jareth usually sounded less than complimentary of Sarah too. "We- we talked."

"Oh, really. And what did the preternaturally self-obsessed Goblin King have to say in his maniacal self-pandering?"

"He needs me," Toby had whispered quietly.

Karen and Harold had been quiet for most of it. They'd heard the stern defences in Toby's voice themselves whenever he spoke of that weird man. But to hear this! Toby had sighed, knowing his parents weren't ready to listen and needing Sarah at least to try to understand what had happened to him. He sent her up to his room for a private chat and stayed behind for a minute to explain to his grim-faced father what he would tell her.

Sarah had entered the room with a smile of relief. There were clothes on the chair and the windows were open to air and sunlight. A book was propped haphazardly on the bedside table as if discarded too late at night. It made her feel unbearably sad to know her little brother stayed up so late for she could see the shadows in his eyes... and then she saw the sketch.

There had always been a sketch on the table for as long as Toby was old enough to clutch a pencil. And his skill had only improved with age. But as Sarah had picked up the drawing, she had known she was never meant to see this.

She knew that figure, remembered dancing with it intimately in a minute that seemed a lifetime away. The sound of moment by the door made her look up and blush.

"I- I'm sorry," she stammered, a look in Toby's eyes seeming to darken to something quite dangerous, "It was on the table and I didn't think."

The blue eyes deadened and stopped sparking. "It's okay, Sarah. I shouldn't have left it out. But I guess it pretty much tells you everything I was going to say. I don't see Jareth the way you do. I think it's pretty obvious even without me drawing pretty pictures of him."

"Pretty?" Sarah echoed, "Toby, this picture is something a little more than... Toby, this picture is sexual! Now me, there's a whole heap here that I'm not sure I want to know, but as your sister I have to ask you what the hell is going on with the two of you! You said he sent you back. Why? Did he seduce you and then dump you or something?"

"No!"

Toby placed a hand on the picture as if the being could hear. His eyes automatically strayed down to it. Yes, it was sexual; he knew that. But what Sarah didn't know was that the pleasure contained in those long, fluid lines hadn't been meant for him but for the Goblin King's Labyrinth.

So he had told her. He had begun his tale from the day he had left and told her about the dreams. The nights they shared in each other's imaginations. And she had been appalled, had raged around his room and threatened to kill Jareth for what she saw as potentially harming. And he had been unable to say that with him and Jareth, what she mistook to be harming was the sweetest gift that existed between them. What he didn't tell her was the real reason he was falling so deep in the abyss of hell.

And so Sarah had ended the conversation: "We aren't going to agree," she had said abruptly, patting his shoulder in sympathy, "I don't think we ever will. But I'll say this- you're not telling me something. I can't believe he would send you back because you didn't belong. Whatever it is, it's eating you up and one day it will get so bad that not even Jareth will be able to help. Because Jareth's funny like that; he's got this 'almost-evil' vibe that will only push you further into your problems. Then I want you to call me. We'll sort it out. Okay?"

So Toby had nodded and asked to be excused. "I'm tired," he said softly, "I want to sleep for a while."

Sarah had looked at him with her pretty green eyes and nodded. "Tell Jareth I want to talk to him," she said in leaving, "I'll go try and calm Dad down."

So he had slept, slipping easily into the state where he floated over the ground and then came to rest in a place that was far too familiar.

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"Jareth, did you have to bring me here?" he demanded, looking irritably around the little park where he found himself. "I live here! I don't want to dream about it!"

"Don't blame me," Jareth snorted, "This is your dream. I just followed your thoughts."

Toby huffed. And got a light cuff to his head. Glaring, he reached for Jareth only to have the half-goblin disappear somewhere else. "Horrible, horrible creature," he growled, "Just wait! One day I'll put a bit in your mouth and a saddle on your back and I'll ride you!"

"You can ride me without the saddle," Jareth teased, smirking in that sensual way that let Toby realize what he was talking about. "And you can still enjoy the feel of the wind in your hair and the sun on your face... and a magnificent stallion arching beneath you?"

"Oh God," Toby sighed melodramatically, a hand raised to his forehead as if to shut his eyes from sorrow, "Talk about being vain!"

"Not vain, my elf; truthful."

"Not to mention deluded..."

"I am offended, now."

"And too touchy by half!"

Jareth grinned and captured his dream lover close to him, pinning his hands behind his back with a gentle clasp. They traded kisses lightly for a few moments before breaking away, content to enjoy the sunshine and too new to each other to feel the need not to talk and question. And Jareth had just been given a potentially good opening.

"Would you really like to saddle me?" he asked, shrugging out of his coat and discarding it carelessly on the grass.

Toby looked suspicious and shrugged. "Depends on why I would do such a thing."

Jareth shook his sleeves down over his hands and stepped away, gesturing to Toby to stand exactly where he was. "Wait," he asked, smirking as he shut his eyes and took a deep breath. Then he collapsed.

Toby watched as white tendrils flicked out and covered the half-goblin, obscuring him from view and his shape began to shift and change. But instead of growing smaller, as his owl form dictated, Jareth seemed to be growing bigger!

The ribbons and shreds disappeared and Toby stared open-mouthed at the pure white stallion with the black foreleg. He wasn't any kind of judge but it looked pretty magnificent to him. The horse whickered gently at him and then nuzzled lightly at his shoulder.

"Tell me you're not looking for apples," Toby laughed, reaching up to pet the velvety nose.

The stallion snorted and shook its head, dancing away a few steps and pirouetting in the sun. Toby sat down on the grass and watched, enchanted, as Jareth turned back to his man form. "That was great," the mortal crowed, eyes glowing as a smugly self-satisfied half-goblin dropped gracefully down next to him. "How'd you do that?"

"You didn't think that an owl was the only trick I had, did you?" Jareth smiled, "I am a little more powerful than that, my elf. I can turn to many animal shapes that suit my nature for the time. I only adopt the owl to preserve my magic when I leave the Underground. I cannot access the Labyrinth from the Aboveground, so vital amounts of power are lost to me."

"It sounds too complex," Toby commented, rubbing the back of his neck with a rueful hand, "All this magic and stuff. I don't get it- do you control the Labyrinth or is the Labyrinth more powerful?"

Jareth picked a blade of grass and stared at it as he thought of how to explain such a situation. It was simple enough, really, but also very complicated. "When the Underground split into the Two Kingdoms," he began, "The Labyrinth was a source of great contention. It had always been very powerful, very much an entity on its own. But the fairies had no use for it! They did not see its potential as the goblins did. So the Labyrinth was asked to choose and it made its choice- the Goblin Kingdom. Ever since have all the Goblin Kings been Lords of the Labyrinth, watching over it as the ruling stewards of the physical confines. If you want to know whether I can control the Labyrinth to my will, then no, I can't."

Toby nodded slowly. "So you just kind of take care of it?"

Jareth smiled. "The easy answer is yes. The hard answer requires more explanation. Which will it be?" Unexpectedly, he formed a crystal over the blade of grass he had picked and handed it to his bond mate. "The answer is like that crystal. Are you happy with the outward image of truth- for 'yes' will be truthful- or will you break the crystal to get the inner kernel of reality?"

Toby studied the delicate object in his hand. Jareth had been right; crystals were a little like soap bubbles made tangible! The blade of grass looked as if frozen in time, dusty green and perfect in its crystal prison. He really wouldn't want to break such beautiful artwork. "I want the kernel of reality," he sighed, "No offence, but even though we've agreed not to sleep together any more, these dream meetings are getting too damn unreal! I don't even know what real is any more."

Jareth stiffened and felt the anger course through him for just a second before he realized that Toby had every right to feel like that! Yes, perhaps he was giving up his reality too, but then the Goblin King had always loved testing the boundaries of truth, of seeking the outer limits of reality. It was what made him such a good Lord of the Labyrinth. So he held his tongue and let the boy keep talking.

"I was just thinking about it yesterday," Toby continued, turning the crystal over in his hands, "I only turned sixteen five weeks ago! And then a week later, you came to get me. And then about three weeks after that the rape happened. A week after that and I met your cousin, got whipped, came back to the Aboveground and started sharing my dreams with you. What's real? I mean, I'm used to weird dreams; I got them a lot all my life because of the bond. But this... this is getting nuts. So yeah! I want the truth."

Jareth was no longer in a very pretty mood. He was doing all of this for the mortal boy he had done the unthinkable thing with, and all the brat could do was complain? While he also knew this anger was irrational, it pounded in his ears so hard he wondered if it would be possible swallow it down as he normally did.

"You want the truth?" he asked coldly, "Break the crystal."

Toby looked up, startled to hear a note in his bond mate's voice that he hadn't heard since he'd first met him. It was cold, uncaring and aloof; and it scared him to hear all that once more directed towards him.

"You think the truth is simple? Black and white?" Jareth snorted, leaping to his feet and pacing to a tree, "Very well!" He waved a hand to the crystal clutched tight in the mortal's trembling hands. "For you, the truth will be black and white- break the crystal."

Toby froze, unable to move because something iron-tipped was moulding him into place, refusing to let him go. "Jareth, I- I... why are you..."

"Break it!" the Goblin King screamed, tossing another crystal at the tree beside him. With a sickening crack it fell, most of its bark eaten away as if by acid. Toby jumped and dropped the crystal from nerveless fingers.

Standing as if on two opposite ends of the world, the whole of the universe and nothing but themselves keeping each other apart, they stared at each other. Jareth was breathing hard in his anger, trying to wrest back control as the ground beneath him howled his emotions to the rapidly clouding sky. A wind whipped up from nowhere and scoured around them, chasing rotting leaves and wickedly hard pieces of dead wood in a narrowing circle around them. He struggled for control, chest and shoulders heaving as he fought within himself the power that became so much a burden with his temperament. And yet Toby still sat... his fallen angel in a world of darkness...

"Go back, Toby," Jareth cried out, clenched fists by his side as he realized the danger. For there was no more control within himself, "Go back! Wake up and never come here again."

That Toby started at. "But I..." his words torn away by the wind even before they left him tongue. "No! What's going on?"

Jareth shook his head, eyes closed and a grimace on his face as the wind howled ever louder. Archer had been right! He was playing with fire and much though he might like it, he couldn't burn the world down. He had to stop, to end this... now! Summoning as much power as was left to him, he summoned another crystal and flung it desperately at his lover, the wind wresting it away and slamming it with an angry hand against Toby's right shoulder.

Gasping with the hurt of the impact, Toby sat bolt upright in bed and promptly fell out and to the floor. The door burst open and Sarah ran in, closely followed by Karen and Harold.

"Toby! Toby, what is it?" Harold was the first to reach down and pull his stumbling son up and off the floor.

"Jareth," Toby was dimly aware that he was no longer in the public park just minutes away from his home but he was so disoriented and dazed, "Jareth, why... where... Oh God, no! No, where is he?"

Breaking away, the mortal tore down the stairs and out the house, not stopping for anything. Harold went after him and Karen cried in shock and horror at the fear and raging sorrow in her little boy's face. Sarah alone was staring at the unbelievable object half hidden by the bedclothes tumbled on the floor- a crystal with a perfect blade of grass encapsulated within it.

"Oh shit," she swore softly.