Author's Note: This is a short chapter, and probably not as emotive as the others, but I think it works well as a return to the original writing structure of the story.

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"Where is he? Toby. Look up, luv, look up."

Jareth?

Toby managed to open his eyes, just enough to squint up at that worried face before snapping them shut again. Jareth. It had to be. Unless it was just another trick? He didn't think he could stand to see those dark eyes one more time. He couldn't!

"How bad is it?"

Jareth's voice. Toby screwed his eyes up even tighter, huddling closer to himself as much as he could. Arienne's hands were on his abdomen, carefully checking the state of his child. Where was his Goblin King? Why was Jareth not here?

"... just found him... so far nothing but bruises."

"Nothing? Is this nothing?" Soft hands so like Jareth's were on his shoulders, sliding down to touch... No!

Toby pulled away and whimpered, his hands over his face as if trying to shut out an image or a vision. It couldn't be Jareth; it just couldn't! All day He had done that- taunting him and forcing him and then, just when Toby had thought it was over, the vision had changed. And it had been Jareth... touching him. Only those dark eyes that burned with hate remained of the shadow that haunted him. This was all another trick. Jareth was gone. Jareth had left.

"Toby, please. Open your eyes."

"Not here. You're not real."

"I am, my elf. Open your eyes. I'm right here."

"Dark eyes..."

Arienne shrugged his shoulders when Jareth looked helplessly to him. "Who has dark eyes, my elf?"

"You."

Jareth looked taken-aback. His lover was dishevelled and white as a sheet, trembling in their bed, bundled into what seemed to be a cocoon of warm clothing that didn't seem to make any difference to his shock-icy skin. The secret compartment above their bed was open and the chains attached to his lover's wrists. A tattered shirt was bundled into a corner. The entire scene looked like something from a nightmare.

"Look at me," he insisted.

Toby hid his face further in his hands, stiffening when someone tugged his hands off his face.

"Look at me."

He shook his head vigorously, fighting to awaken, to bring himself out of this trance. He could feel the long fingers stroke down his face and he hated them for feeling so familiar. Something was pushing gently at his mind and he felt the sting as he refused it entry.

"Toby."

He opened his eyes.

One blue eye, one brown eye and both were looking down at him in frustration. Frustration? No one but Jareth would be frustrated at a time like this. Or harassed. "Jareth?"

Arms went around him, pulling him into the softest of hugs. Really they were just holding him up, lifting his back off the bed while supporting his spine. Pine and smoke and God, but that smell was like heaven. The thin lips parted to say something, the breath warm against his cheek. "What happened?"

Toby flung his arms around his husband's neck and clung tight, pulling him down as the fright finally hit him. Ever since he'd been left alone he'd gone through the proceedings with an icy film of shock distorting everything, praying silently not to break down before he was safe, terrified that his dark shadow would return to see just how much he had hurt him.

"Ssh! It's all right, my elf. You're safe."

"Hurts."

"I know." Jareth was just about ready to tear his hair out in fistfuls. How that bastard had got back into the Castle was beyond him! He'd set up wards and guards, trying to protect his elf with all the power at his disposal. But in one day- one single day- Toby had been attacked again.

"I called for you," the mortal whispered, "He put something on me- a necklace," he touched the cold metal that still throbbed against his skin, "I couldn't work magic. I couldn't do anything. I tried to call you."

The half-goblin motioned to Arienne to get the offending jewellery off. The healer handled it with care and then examined it, letting his senses explore the extent of the necklace's important. The goblin nodded his head at Jareth's enquiring look. "It blocked the magical energy and stilled his own," Arienne sighed, handing it to Jareth to look at, "Your Majesty, I need to examine the damage. Toby, could you lie down, please?"

Jareth said nothing to that, but he laid his lover back down and laid one soothing hand on his arm as the mortal turned on his side. "I'm right here," he promised. There were welts on his lover's back and Jareth didn't want to stare because he knew what he would do if he dwelt on them enough. Long welts... like nails were delicately scratched over and over again against the pale-honey skin... Jareth moved his tightening grip to Toby's hand instead, seeing the tremble in those fingertips.

Toby grasped his hand and squeezed. He watched as Jareth's gaze turned to the pretty necklace in his hand. It seemed innocent enough, being nothing more than a thin gold chain with a pendant in the shape of a tulip.

But then Toby didn't know what the significance of the tulip was. Jareth knew. And he gathered all his rage and power in the fingers of one hand to crush the delicate stone with the force.

Toby gasped lightly, stunned by such a reaction. With a rush he opened the link between them once more, trying to understand whether Jareth was angry with him. Had he done something wrong? But all he felt was reassuring frenzy. It was the kind of hate that, had it been directed at him, would have chilled him to the bone. But hearing the thoughts of revenge in the Goblin King's head gave him a reason to ignore the quick fingers that were tending to his hurts.

"They will pay," the Goblin King swore, throwing the fragments lightly to the floor. He would say nothing more until Toby was asleep, sent there faster with an herbal draught. He would only expand on that theme when the door to the bedchamber was firmly shut and Arienne raised a questioning eyebrow. "The stone, the heart of the block, was set in a tulip. I believe it is common knowledge that the standard of the Fairy Kingdom is a tulip. It was a fairy; a fairy did this."

Arienne stood by in silence as the half-goblin put his fist through a painting and smashed a vase. He only hoped that the noise wouldn't wake his patient because the boy needed to get as much rest as was possible. Besides which, he was waiting to give Jareth the bad news about the pregnancy.

The Goblin King stood glaring at nothing as he channeled his energies and earthed them. He'd been causing far too much damage in the land as it was; another earthquake and people would start questioning his sanity. His fixed his eyes on the old goblin standing against the wall and remembered another vital point- "The child!"

"Is fine," Arienne soothed, "For now. Your Majesty, I have always said that the pregnancy would be a difficult one, did I not? I'm afraid this is not going to do him any good. When I made my original calculations, I miscalculated it as a normal pregnancy."

"And you just remembered that it is not? By all that's pure, he's a man! Pregnancies are not going to be normal for him!"

"I meant his mortality," Arienne disagreed, "He is mortal. He is injured, and in shock. I don't like such a combination. The child is healthy, but Toby is not. I think the birth will be very hard on him now."

Jareth opened his mouth to say something, and truly he meant to question Arienne further on whatever it was that the healer feared, but a goblin tiptoed in and announced that the Fairy Ambassador was awaiting the King in his study.

"Go," Arienne told him, "I'll wait here for the boy."

"Archer can wait," Jareth dismissed.

"Not from the little I hear, Jareth. And you did left abruptly. The Fairy Queen should be told why."

Jareth snorted. "Oh, I will tell her," he said darkly.

Arienne sighed and stroked his chin in thought, eying the taunt figure so much taller than he was. It was hard not to talk. The subject just lay there- right there in front of them- and Jareth steadfastly refused to listen. The healer knew what would happen if he opened his mouth at the wrong moment. But enough was enough. This was the third time! And at the most crucial moment! Both were too fragile to deal with earth-shattering loss just yet.

"What, Arienne?"

The goblin wanted to say that he was thinking of the little tow-headed half-fairy that had bitten his own hand rather than cry in pain. He wanted to say that he understood. But Jareth would kill rather than hear that so he only shrugged and said, "You should be proud of your mate. He got up, dressed, and called for the servants. He gave orders to have me brought and have you contacted. No one but I knows why. He was brave."

The smallest glimmer of a smile stroked that thin mouth.

"He will sleep for the rest of the day. If he wakes, you will know it." Arienne gestured to the door. "Go on, Your Majesty. You are needed elsewhere."

The Goblin King. Jareth threw up his hands in defeat and took the hint. "Wait here," he commanded, "There are guards outside the door and two more in the grounds below. But I want you here! Tell no one anything until I sort this business out properly."

It took nothing more than a moment to appear in his rooms. And on appearing, he noticed that his cousin was not looking very comfortable. What was worse, his cousin was holding an official-looking document that bore the Queen's official seal. Jareth didn't trust anything that Amarild had delivered to him. Archer always brought the news himself, using his own words and explanations. Amarild never sent anything except things that needed to be signed or authenticated.

"What is that?"

Archer looked down at the rolled parchment and put it behind his back. "Do not accept it," he advised, "Refuse to open it and tell me to return it to my Queen. I don't know what you said to her, but make peace with Amarild, my dear. This is not the time for war."

Jareth wordlessly held out his hand. Honestly! What was that human saying- it never rained but it poured? Bad enough he'd had to put up with Amarild's snide remarks all morning without Archer to cushion the blow. Amarild had arranged that, he was sure, she was never quite sure of Archer's loyalties, stupid cow.

He took the parchment with a rude snatch and opened it, breaking the seal with an impatient hand and derisive sneer. Archer had expected that. He waited with bated breath, knowing what was in it and knowing how Jareth would react. But maybe he would take an uncharacteristic stance on this? Maybe he wouldn't lose his temper? He looked harassed and frustrated; he might be concerned with other things and he might not… Whatever Jareth read within in made him tear it up into little pieces and fling it out the window.

"Jareth, I apologize for her," Archer attempted.

"Do you? 'An abomination can only spawn abominable offspring'- do you consider that forgivable?" The Goblin King's voice was so cold that Archer could be excused a grimace at his back.

"It is ignorance, cousin."

The half-goblin never looked up from the letter he was scribbling. "She calls me an abomination. She calls my child an abomination. I have held my tongue for long enough, Archer, and for what? To be insulted by a mere child who was in short dresses when I was a King?"

"Jareth, there is so much more at stake."

"Yes, there is. And Amarild will soon find that playing against me is not something to take lightly. Give her this letter." Archer wondered what was in it and Jareth saw that look. "Read it if you like."

The Fairy Lord paled as his eyes scanned the script on the page, pointed and looped with an extravagant hand. The signature at the bottom was marked so furiously into the parchment that the pen had bitten right through the thick paper. "Jareth, I..."

A dark brow rose dangerously. "You will take that letter and you will hand it to her. If she turns my consort's rapist over to me within forty-eight hours and publicly cedes her throne to her legal heir, war might be averted. But I think she won't. And I no longer care for peace."

"You will have war with this, Jareth. I know this is hard but you can't do this."

"I can't? I was under the impression that I could. Whenever I wanted. For whatever I wanted."

"A hundred to die for one person's pain isn't right."

"And yet hurting one person just to save a hundred indifferent lives isn't right either."

Archer bowed, stiffly and formally, as a Lord of one country would bow to the King of another. "Your letter will be delivered." He turned to leave.

"Archer, you will not come here again."

He didn't turn, but stopped and tilted his head to listen. "Am I no more welcome here?"

"There is no welcome for a fairy in the Goblin Kingdom," Jareth pointed out, "You are advised to stay away."

"Yet you are half-faerie, cousin. You only fight your mother's people." Archer was another step closer to the wall, the rolled letter in his fist, and the waxy seal of the Goblin King still warm.

"You forget." Archer could almost see the bitter smile on the Goblin King's face. "I have no mother. An unborn never does. Leave now. May the Gods protect you when war is officially declared."