Author's Note: Sorry for the delay but I have other priorities at the moment. But if you will all be very patient with me, this part of the fic will finish in about three more chapters.

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"Days bleed into weeks and I know not what to do," Jareth mourned, staring out unseeing over his lands, "Tell me what your advice is now."

Archer sighed and rubbed his eyes, wishing that he could be anywhere but where he was. He loved his cousin, truly he did, but sometimes Jareth could cling like a vine. The Goblin King was impetuous, passionate and wild-spirited; it made him a great King and a terrible companion. Archer was certain that the enforced closeness would strangle him one day.

"Jareth, I have no advice for you," he replied, "You simply need to start living again."

"And how?" the half-fae demanded, sitting up and glaring down at him, "What am I to do? My kingdom requires nothing of me at this moment. The Labyrinth will not answer to my call until my mind is settled. And I am trapped in a never-ending flow of dreams with no colour. What the hell do you mean- start living again?"

"Well, it's your own fault," Archer snapped, "You were the one who insisted on inviting the boy into your dreams! What else were you expecting?"

Jareth growled something indistinguishable under his breath and jumped out of the tree to the ground below. His companion groaned in relief and stopped craning his neck upwards. The old oak tree was their favourite spot for such conversation and Jareth's childhood penchant for climbing trees to escape his problems had re-asserted itself.

"Stay on the ground like a decent two-legged creature, my dear," Archer murmured, leaning back against the trunk with a grunt, "I don't want to mend broken bones."

"You couldn't mend a broken bone if your life depended on it," Jareth snapped, his temper gone and not giving signs of returning, "Archer!"

The fairy Lord opened an eye and glared coldly up at his cousin. When the other gave no sign of letting him off the hook, the dark haired male rose to his feet and wrapped an arm around Jareth's neck, drawing him closer to him. "Tell me what you need me to do. I will help all I can but listening to you whine is not my idea of a good use of truancy."

Jareth simply stiffened and turned his face away. He needed physical contact desperately but he needed something that neither he nor Archer could give each other, even should they want to. And he was just so cold inside… he could feel it spread through his bones with every word, every thought. And that alone made him rage helplessly against what he could not help.

"Jareth, do you remember the first time we came here?" Archer began, softening his voice to something that whispered in the breeze, "How I found you?"

"Yes." Short, simple, curt; Jareth did not like those memories.

But there was healing in pain and Archer regretfully readied the knife and plunged it in- "It was the morning after your first male."

Around them the trees themselves seemed to lean forward to better hear the conversation. No small animals trespassed into this section of the deep woods but strange sounds of movements were heard amongst the boughs as though fantastical creatures of the utmost evil roamed the area.

"I do not want to think on that," the Goblin King warned stiffly, "Change the subject. Tell me of your Ariadne."

Brown eyes stared searchingly into dual-coloured ones, sifting through every fleck as though calculating the wisdom of pressing the issue. Finally, when Jareth had blinked and looked woodenly to the trees again, Archer sighed, let go and shrugged. "She does well. I think she is settling into my routine quite well."

"And how is she?"

"She misses the other humans. But I think she is glad to see the last of your Ivory Tower."

A crooked grin greeted that comment. It was only a few months ago that Jareth had given his permission for his cousin to take one of the humans he owned as a mistress. She had been willing, Archer had sworn to keep her safe and the exchange was affected- she had said her good-byes to all the others who had been there since they were wished away and left. "Give her my compliments," he smirked.

Archer looked incredulously at his cousin and then burst out laughing, leaning a shoulder against the tree as he shook his head in bemusement. "She will likely spit at the sound of your name, Goblin King. I do not know what you did to her but she does not like you in the least."

Jareth would only shrug and smile maddeningly. He was too caught up in his own troubles to worry overmuch about some mortal that was no longer under his protection. Indeed, he had enough to worry about in the Labyrinth itself without thinking about his own little golden mortal! His farmers were complaining about an infestation of grain-snatching birds. He did not like meddling with nature- logic demanded that things happened for a reason- and he was still not sure if he should intervene and protect or let it go and wait for the next year.

He voiced his opinions gravely, slipping almost unconsciously from personal to business. Archer followed just as naturally, settling in relaxed give-and-take as the topic of conversation shifted to something he was comfortable with.

Hoggle, however, was not having such a good time of it:

"Hoggle, you have got to help me talk to Jareth," Sarah pleaded, "Something's wrong with my brother and I don't know what to do."

"I- I can't," Hoggle protested, looking woebegone and tearful, "He don't want to talks to you!"

"I don't care," Sarah growled, twisting her hands in her lap, "Hoggle, I got married yesterday. Yes, yes, thanks for the congratulations but that's not the point. The point is that a friend of Ben's came to the wedding and Ben got him to talk to Toby. Hoggle, this guy told me that Toby could hurt himself."

Hoggle gasped and looked suitably upset. He didn't like seeing Sarah so frantic, or hear that Toby was so sick. But Jareth! What would Jareth say to the state of his bond mate? "I'm sorry, Sarah," he all but wailed, "I can't tell Jareth about this! He said I wasn't to have any friends and if I tell him that I was talking to you he'll throw me in the Bog for sure!"

"Hoggle, please!"

"It's no use."

"Yes, it is! Please, Hoggle; for me if not for Toby. Jareth won't touch you, I promise. Just get me into the Underground and I'll do everything I can to keep you safe," Sarah promised, "I really need to see him."

Hoggle visibly deflated, staring with panic-stricken blue eyes at his first friend. Sure she wasn't the young girl he remembered; Sarah had grown up and aged and stopped being quite so impetuous. But she was still Sarah. And so- "I can't get you into the Labyrinth…"

She opened her mouth to say something but Hoggle looked irritated and made shushing gestures with a gnarled hand.

"But I can tell him you wants to talk to him," he continued heavily, "I don't promise nothing but if I says that Toby's in trouble and needing him, he might just turn up."

Sarah let out a sigh of relief and nodded eagerly, smiling with relief at the plan. It was as much as Hoggle could give her and she was grateful. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," Hoggle said gruffly, "I suppose you'll be wanting me to go talk to that rat right now? I thought so! Well, then… I'll be seeing you."

Sarah waited until his image faded from her mirror. Soon only the image of her old room remained, shrouded in the painful neatness of a place that no one really lived in; all her treasures had gone long before and nothing more remained to remind her or anyone else of the young girl she had been.

She didn't turn as the door opened, but nodded from the mirror as Karen and Ben walked in, anxious looks on their faces. It had taken a lot to get them to let her try this, and she would not blame them if they did not believe she had succeeded, but they were backing her plan and it was enough.

Strong arms slid around her shoulders and a warm cheek pressed close to hers. "Well, sweetheart? How did it go?"

"Hoggle came," she said happily, ignoring the look of doubt on her husband's face, "He said he'd try to persuade Jareth to talk to me."

Karen shook her head, her nervous fingers fiddling with the tasselled fringe of a wall-hanging. "I can't believe I let you talk me into this," she groaned, looking far too worn for her years, "This is ridiculous, Sarah!"

"Karen, I know you don't believe me, but Hoggle is real. Jareth is real. The Goblin Kingdom is real!"

"Oh, Sarah! I know this Jareth- whoever he is- is real," Karen snapped, twitching too heavily and pulling out a thread. Sarah winced but said nothing. "But as for the rest of this… well, I don't know what to think! And if your father finds out that I'm plotting to get your brother's…" She stopped.

Ben's eyes met hers squarely in the mirror. "You're going to have to say it some time, Karen," he asked gravely, "If Toby's been through some kind of trouble, this Jareth knows what it was. He might be able to tell us what the problem is. And yes, it's possible that they were in some kind of relationship."

Karen sagged, clearly defeated as she shook her blond head, eyes dark with worry. Toby had almost crawled home from the park that day two months ago. He had been exhausted and limp; almost falling onto the carpet the minute that her husband got him through the front door. They had called the doctor and the only thing that old man had said was that her son was suffering from some kind of mental strain! As if she didn't know that!

"Karen?"

She lifted her head heavily as Ben placed a considerate hand on her arm. Taking a deep breath, she pushed her frantic nerviness out of the way and smiled. "I'm fine, dear," she murmured, "Just tired."

"We all are," Sarah agreed, coming to hug the older woman who had finally grown to be the mother that her own never had been, "I promise I'll get Jareth to help. Don't you worry about a thing, Karen. Everything will be fine."

In the room next door, Toby sat in his bed in the dark and wondered tiredly if he should feel more upset for having overheard that entire conversation. But he couldn't; there was nothing left in him to feel anything. Only one emotion coloured every moment of his dreary life- loneliness. And he didn't know why!

The mortal picked up the black hilted knife in his hand, holding it so that the lights from outside his window reflected off the wicked edge. He had taken to staring at it through the long nights when sleep wouldn't come, trying to get his numbed brain to rationalize why Jareth had slipped it into his pocket when sending him back to hell.

But the only realization that Toby could reach had nothing to do with the knife. It did, however, have everything to do with the giver. He was in love. And it was a startling realization to believe that for he had never been a romantic person before and love was not meant to be the thunderbolt in the tempest, or the buzz of electricity in tingling veins. It was meant to be companionship and mortgages and maybe children… not Goblin Kings and magic and raw, aching desire.

But it was.

Toby sheathed the knife again and put it carefully beneath the false bottom in his childhood treasure trove.

He laid his head back down on the cardboard block of a pillow and felt the unaccustomed rumble of some stray emotion penetrate the thick fog clouding his senses. Bitterness… Oh God, yes; for after years of deluding himself that he was rational and independent, he was now lost to complete need for one other that did not even want him. And who could he blame but himself for being stupid enough to drive him away?