Author's Note: Archer's dead and I miss him so much. It's sad when love becomes so hard that it makes us go crazy. Poor Archer. Four hundred years of knowing he was incestuously in love with his first cousin and it's no wonder he did what he did. Not, of course, that I ever condone what he did. Those kinds of relationships are meant only for consenting adults. Which reminds me- if you're too young, please don't read. I don't want to corrupt anyone's mind.

Author's Note 2: There's a long way to go before we reach the end. Have I mentioned that this is an epic series? Well, in my head it is. If people think I should stop, you need only mention it. Seriously, if this ever goes too far (like it hasn't already!) please do say so. Don't just sit there and shake your head.

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Toby glared at the fruit in front of him and stuck up his nose. It wasn't snobbery; he'd throw up if he tried to eat it. No one, of course, noticed a thing. Why would they? They had enough to worry about without noticing that he was ill in the mornings, suffered from headaches and mood swings, and felt bloated and itchy.

More importantly, Jareth had enough to worry about without noticing.

"Damned Goblin King," he muttered.

The sounds of suppressed childish giggles and a rich deep chuckle made him quiver where he sat and imagine for one wild moment that Archer was back. If the nightmares could come back, then surely his dark shadow could too?

"Arra, no!"

"Aidan, she won. Don't pout, child."

"I want to win."

"I won; I won!"

"Not fair!"

"Is it, now?"

Toby could almost hear the silent query as to what the little boy's basis of comparison was. He could just see the quick smirk on the corners of Jareth's lips. And it made him growl and fling the fruit to the ground, walking purposefully in the opposite direction.

The voices became dimmer, faded away in the distance as he kept walking. His stomach was queasy and he wished that the world would stop spinning every morning. Except it wasn't just mornings, was it? No, every so often the sickness would extend into the evenings. He hadn't slept last night because he'd felt too lethargic and sick to find a comfortable position.

"Just bloody great! There's another month or so of this bloody long trek and I just happen to fall pregnant! Me and my great ideas! God, what possessed me to sleep with him now? We can't afford this! I can't do magic like this..."

"Like what?"

"Aargh!"

The former Goblin King jumped away just in time before the crystal hit him in the face. It landed in a bush and burned a few of the leaves. Jareth straightened up, raised an eyebrow at the injured plant and then looked enquiringly to his bond mate. "What cannot we afford and why can you not do magic?"

Toby clenched his fists in a sudden- and not very rational- rage. "How long have you been following me? I came here to get away from all of you."

"You were upset this morning," Jareth explained, hands outspread in the universal gesture of stating the obvious, "And I have something to say to you."

Toby went cold. The tunic was suddenly not warm enough and he took a step back, eyes wide as he pulled the brown linen closer to himself.

Jareth frowned slightly, but chose to ignore it. After all, the trees never allowed much of the summer to actually penetrate into the forests. It was quite possible that the mortal might feel cold. "I spoke with Aidan today. I told him about you."

"Oh."

Jareth sighed. "Is that all you have to say? He is a little uncertain, but at least he now knows."

"I see. Well, it should go easier now that he and Arradine are friends."

"She is a positive breath of fresh air, that child." Jareth shifted a little uncomfortably. "You've done very well by her, my elf."

Toby flushed and then rolled his eyes at himself. Of course he'd done a good job by his daughter; he loved her! Why did an acknowledgement of that make him blush like a schoolboy? Or, his overactive brain supplied, like a lovesick youth complimented by his secret crush.

"Is something wrong?" Jareth was beginning to look closely at him, disconcerted by the silence and conflicting emotions. It wasn't that he could actually feel what Toby felt- they had neither of them been ready to let a stranger into their private thoughts that easily- but he knew human nature. Being four hundred and fifty-nine years old did bring some experience with it. And Toby had never been very good at keeping things from him. He was just too open. "Toby, if there is something troubling you..."

"Jareth, are you sleeping with me tonight?"

The half-goblin drew back instantly, panic flickering in his eyes. "No."

"Why not?" Toby walked closer, reaching out as if to ask for his hand. "I'd be very gentle. We don't even have to do anything. You know I won't hurt you..."

Jareth actually pulled his face away from Toby's touch. "I know," he said, a little too quickly, "But not tonight. I- I think we need some time to get used to each other."

"We're married! We have all the time in the world!"

And they were. But then again... Jareth didn't want Toby that close. What if the mortal found out? What if he found out the truth and knew him for what he was, what would Toby do? What would his children do? The thought of losing his offspring was like a blow to the middle and he gasped as he felt an icy bolt of lightening strike through him.

Toby rushed to his side and held him up. "What's wrong?" he demanded, feeling tense muscles bunch beneath his hands, "Are you hurt?"

"Not hurt." Jareth grit his teeth and straightened, shaking off that concerned grasp with a self-conscious clearing of his throat. "You simply startled me. This is the reason that I think we should sleep apart for now."

Toby shrugged. "All right, then. Um, do I now expect Aidan to call me 'dad' or will that take some more time."

"It depends on him," Jareth replied somewhat stiffly, "I told him to call you that ridiculous moniker should he wish to. Whether he will is his decision. But he knows what our... relationship is, and who you are. I can't promise it will be easy."

And there- silence. Eventually Toby slunk off to go do whatever it was he had wanted to do in the first place and Jareth stood there, leaning against the trunk of a particularly old tree and thinking. As usual, the former Goblin King was not thinking the most pleasant of thoughts. Revenge never helped, he knew that; he knew better than to expect that killing all of Archer's people and razing his cousin's luxurious old palace to its foundations would help. Killing never had solved problems.

But it still made him feel better.

He smiled unwillingly, unable to help that cruel curl of the lips when he heard once more the cries for help and the pleas for mercy. Stalking through the Castle and bringing punishment with no more than a flick of his fingers- he had killed them all; no one had escaped. Then he had stood there and watched while the fortress burned, secure in the knowledge that those who had had a hand in his torture had died particularly slow and painful deaths, while those who had simply ignored him had been killed swiftly and cleanly, with no pain and little foreshadowing.

Oh, it had been wonderful! The feeling of power coursing through him once more! And the tang of black magic lending it all such a delicious danger. He hadn't used black magic for far too long. He'd been careful not to touch any of the others with his hands after that.

And then the smile faded. Toby had tried to touch him. He raised his head and looked down the path that his bond mate had taken. The bond ached within him to go to the mortal, to find him so that the distance of the past seven years could finally be eased.

"It's just not that easy," he sighed, deliberately taking the opposite direction.

It hadn't even been easy that morning- waking up to the dawn, as he had been trained-only to find himself outside of that seven-year nightmare. No longer in the dungeons, no longer chained, no longer expected to... he had shut down that train of thought. A thin, muscular leg pinning his hips down, and a head of bright gold hair spilled across his chest- Toby. Golden skin in the setting sun and how his lover had licked the tears from his face with a soft, raspy pink tongue; being held so close that it suffocated him; the sticky feeling on his thighs. Blood. Jareth had pushed Toby gently from him only to find blood.

And that, bad puns aside, was what had torn it.

He'd rampaged. Dressed in white- the Old Ones' colour for death- eyes flaming and unpredictable as the twisting turns of his Labyrinth in all its glory. He had killed and maimed and enjoyed it. Leela alone had been spared when he found her cringing in the corner of one of the luxurious bedrooms. He let her go relatively unharmed, only pausing to rip her tongue painlessly from her mouth. She had sympathized and tried to help, but she had spoken out to no one. If she couldn't speak for him, she couldn't speak for anyone.

"Sire?"

"Here," Jareth called easily, drawing his gloves back on. There were still trace hints of black magic on him. "What is it, Sir Didymus?"

The knight bowed, completely unaware that there was a leaf stuck in his whiskers. "Sire, I hoped to speak with you on a matter of grave importance."

The former Goblin King suppressed a groan. "Sir Didymus, I have little time now for speech, especially the very long kind. Get on with it."

"Yes, Sire. Sire, it concerns Lord Toby. He- he does not seem very well, Sire. And frankly, I am a trifle worried. I do not like to tell you but I thought it only prudent to warn you."

"Really. He seems quiet and he seems in need of silent reflection; that is all."

Sir Didymus actually forgot his courtesy enough to shrug, a gesture that was usually too informal for him to indulge in. "He seems ill," he replied simply, his good eye worried, "He seems in need of someone to confide in. Perhaps we should make our way to the elves, Sire?"

"No! Whatever worries him can wait. He may go if he chooses, on his own, and he may take the children with him. I will go to the Goblin City. Am I understood?"

Sir Didymus bowed hurriedly as Jareth strode off past him, obviously upset over something. The dog huffed in relief at still having his head, a relief that Hoggle told him was well founded.

"He don't seem in no good humour these days," the dwarf had complained, pointing to Toby, "But even his temper don't compare to Jareth's."

If the former monarch could hear the conversation, he made no mention of it. He sat on the other side of the clearing, with his son's head in his lap, stroking the golden hair back as he crooned a lullaby. Arradine sat beside him and he had an arm protectively around her shoulders, smiling down as she drifted off to sleep against his side.

Toby was already lying down, curled up and deathly still though his eyes were open. Whatever his mind was on, it was obvious not on anyone around him.

Hoggle leaned closer and lowered his voice. "I think there's something wrong," he whispered, "Toby don't seem himself, sure, but it's more than that."

"Whatever do you mean?"

"Ssh! Quiet! You want Jareth to hear us? He'll have our heads! Something happened with that Fairy, something they ain't telling us."

Sir Didymus looked bewildered, his innocent trust in the world not finding anything particularly deceitful in either Jareth or Toby's vagueness on what had happened. "Well, Lord Toby went in and fought that false warrior; he returned with King Jareth. What more is there?"

"For one thing, Jareth ain't King any more," Hoggle sniffed, a cautious glance sent in the direction of the singer, "For another, we don't knows what that Archer did to him. And they's both been getting nightmares. And they boths don't want nothing to do with each other after that first night they, er, spent away from us, so's to speak."

The audience reaction was fixed on one part of those observations. "Lord Toby's been getting nightmares? I know King Jareth won't sleep, but- but Lord Toby too? It is worse than I thought, friend Hoggle! We must assist him! We must speak with him; rid his mind of these troublesome thoughts."

"What? No, we mustn't! He don't wants us knowing anything about it, else he would have told us. And besides, he's asleep. Maybe he won't dream tonight."

Ludo sat down heavily beside them and Hoggle suddenly noticed that the great gingery beast was holding a child in each arm, rumbling in his chest while he wrapped them in blankets and laid them down. Hoggle gulped, realizing the implications of losing track of the half-goblin during such a conversation.

He peered anxiously over his shoulder and gave a quick sigh of relief, only to turn around quickly again with a self-conscious clearing of his throat. "We should go to bed," he said hurriedly, motioning both his friends to lie down, "We, er, has a long day tomorrow."

"King. Touch Toby?" Ludo pointed out, obviously puzzled.

Hoggle turned around again, catching the sight of the Goblin King sitting by his bond mate, a curiously blank look on his face as he stroked the golden hair. Toby seemed uneasy, tossing a little in his sleep under that hand. Hoggle couldn't hear what he whispered.

"That is none of our business," the dwarf warned, getting into what served as bedding and wrapping it tight around himself, "They won't appreciate us watching, they won't. Now go to sleep."

Ludo sat with the two children, as he did every night, and Sir Didymus curled up with a snuffling Ambrosius. The three shut their eyes determinedly and in spite of all the confusion, sleep came easily to them.

Which was something neither Toby nor Jareth could boast of. The fire-blond had succeeded in falling asleep, but his dreams woke him no less than two minutes later, sweating and whimpering lightly in his throat. Archer's face haunted him, and the crimson red of his blood as he died on the floor of his Hall of Mirrors. Toby shuddered, blinking up at the pitch-black night sky, scared and unsure.

A white hand slid around his waist and gently pulled him closer. "Sleep, child," Jareth rumbled in his ear, "You're safe."

Toby shivered once more. But the stark words were a comfort and he settled down thankfully, the nightmare receding. Archer's rich voice grew fainter under the gentle breathes of his husband. Warm air brushed tantalizingly over the back of his neck.

Many minutes later, he heard a quick gasp behind him.

"Jareth?" The blond head shook slightly as the eyes rolled beneath the closed eyelids. A slight grimace on Jareth's face completed Toby's suspicions. "Jareth, wake up. Wake up. You're having a bad dream."

Mismatched eyes flew open and Jareth pulled away, once more disoriented and once more dangerous. Toby held his breath, a hand on his stomach where the new life grew with such fragility. And then he relaxed when Jareth blinked and shifted.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. Was it..."

"Nothing. It was nothing."

Toby nodded. He couldn't force the issue just yet. Not yet. Not after having woken up alone. His rear-end still hurt too. There was no form of comfort he could offer that Jareth would take. "Do you want me to move away?"

Jareth shrugged and shut his eyes again. "Take what comfort you need from me," the former Goblin King murmured. And that was all.

Toby continued to stare. Three times was he forced to wake his bond mate up that night, and all three times Jareth never spoke or cried out. He went back to sleep with the nonchalance of someone who didn't care what he dreamed. And he slept on until Toby woke him up.

When morning came, he woke up, disappeared into the forest to complete those private bodily functions that they all took different directions to appease, and came back with a smile for his children and that dead, angry look in his eyes for everyone else.