A/N: Okay, this one's a slightly naughtier chapter than my usual fluff... but I did get an email asking why Jareth was wearing blue jeans all the time, so I had to address the question here.

Chapter 57: Making Up, and a Mystery Solved

She rolled off the bed to her feet and headed for the door to go look for Jareth. Just as she got there, a knock sounded. She opened the door.

Jareth stood there. He was dressed from head to toe in black, and he looked even paler than usual; faded, even. He looked almost broken, much like the way Sarah had left him twelve years ago. "Good evening, Sarah," he said quietly.

"Good evening," she replied with equal calm.

"It appears that we need to talk. Will you walk with me?" He offered his arm as usual, and Sarah hesitated a moment before taking it. The hesitation made him tighten his lips and look away.

He brought her out to the garden, where fairies lit their path with tiny, darting glows. Some of the flowers gave off their own lights, and the air was filled with heavy, delicious scents.

"There are some things I must tell you," he began, and then paused.

"All right. There are a few things I should say to you, too," Sarah replied evenly. This was it, she thought. He was going to tell her that their betrothal was a mistake, and that he would petition Alia to break it. Well, she'd let him have the honor of saying it first, but if he didn't say it then she was going to.

Jareth stopped and faced her, his face half-shadowed in the twilight. "Sarah, will you accept my apology?"

"What?" That was the last thing she'd been expecting to hear.

He flushed and dropped his gaze. This was definitely Jareth here with her now. The Goblin King would never have shown his chagrin. "I know I treated you very badly. I've been pushing you much too hard, and I've been so caught up in the lessons and the politics that I've lost sight of the important things… but Sarah," he turned his imploring grey eyes back to her. "I do love you, more than anything. You also have my complete respect even though I've behaved like an ass toward you. I am sorry, and I hope you'll find it in yourself to forgive me."

This time it was Sarah who stared, open-mouthed. "You—you do still love me?"

"I do. More than ever. Do—do you still love me?" he sounded like a timid child, and Sarah's heart went out to him.

"I do," she assured him. "But Jareth, this has all been so sudden! I was gearing up for my final exams—my brain was full already!—and then you start me off studying stuff that's so esoteric I have no frame of reference for it, and pounding it into my skull that it's so important that your entire kingdom depends on my knowing the exact dates of every single Troll War in the last three millennia, and scolding me like a child when I reach my limits." She shook her head once, sadly. "I'm sorry I let you down, but I just can't take that kind of pressure. Maybe you would have been better off staying with Arien."

"Oh, Sarah!" he cried, pulling her into his arms. "Never say that! I'm the one who has let you down. None of those things are as important to me as keeping your love. I thought I'd lost it this afternoon, when you quite rightly put me in my place. I fully expected you to ask to go home, when we came out here this evening." He pressed his lips to her hair and tightened his arms around her.

Sarah, once again in Jareth's arms, was beginning to feel that yes, they might actually survive this intact. "I had been planning to," she admitted, "but only because I thought you had come to break up with me and send me home." She touched his cheek with her lips and buried her face in his neck.

"Never," Jareth promised, and kissed her lips.

Ah, it was like coming home! He'd nearly forgotten the sudden rush of desire, the feeling of Sarah's warm, yielding body in his arms, the taste of her delicious mouth. He bent suddenly and scooped her up in his arms, his mouth never leaving hers as he sank down onto a bench with Sarah in his lap. His lips travelled down her neck, the scent of her skin driving him mad with want, and then back up to her mouth, which shaped itself to his as if it had been designed solely with goblin-king-kissing in mind. The line between his two personalities became blurred as Jareth's need grew and the Goblin King learned some humility through the mistakes he'd made.

After a while, when Sarah reached the point of wanting to tear his clothes off right there in the garden, she forced herself to turn away from his insistent kisses. "We—we should probably stop," she panted. "Or else we'll start a scandal when Alia examines us at the wedding." She slid reluctantly off his lap.

Jareth nodded, still gazing at her with raw longing. "You're right, of course," he said. "Damn. I wish you weren't."

"So do I!" replied Sarah with an emphasis so strong it made them both laugh and lightened the mood. She came and took his hand. "So come and walk with me, and tell me why you've been pressuring me so much."

"I will as soon as I can stand up!" Jareth said ruefully.

Sarah laughed and blushed a little. "Should I apologize, then?" she asked, adding in a saucy tone, "Because I'm not actually sorry, so I'd be lying."

"Teasing wench," Jareth muttered under his breath. He waved his hand, and suddenly he was wearing the blue jeans and soft blue knit shirt that Sarah had seen him in before. He stood up and straightened painfully.

"Why the outfit change?" Sarah asked. "Other than the whole 'it's what you do' reason, I mean. Why blue jeans?"

"You've seen the somewhat… revealing fashions popular here," he pointed out. "When a man is new to the world of physical desire, denim is a lot more forgiving and hides more than any of my world's fabrics."

"Is THAT why you've been wearing the jeans so often?" Sarah gasped in astonishment. "It's to hide your… "

"Yes. As you'll remember from before, my former attire hides nothing. Now can we please change the subject?" Jareth asked, his discomfort plain. "As I recall, you wanted to know why I turned into such a git after Daxon's wedding."

"Yes, actually," Sarah left off teasing him in favor of actually finding out some information. "Why did you turn into such a git, anyway?"

"No monarch has ever taken a human spouse before. Humans are not overly popular with many of the races down here, because many of them have stopped believing in us. Magically, that robs the Underground of much of its power. Humans in themselves can no longer do magic, though many fool themselves into thinking they can. They have such absurdly short life-spans and reproduce so easily that every twenty years or so spawns a new generation that's even less likely to believe in us than the one before.

"This is the mindset that you'll be fighting against, Sarah. I am exceedingly sorry about all the pressure I put on you, but the truth is that you do have to know these things in order to fully understand your position here."

"About that lifespan thing," Sarah began. "How is it going to help your rule to have a human queen with such a short lifespan? Compared with Arien's, for example. Because from your point of view, we'll just be getting into the swing of ruling together when I'll die of old age! And how are you going to feel, looking all young and handsome, with such an old and decrepit wife?"

Jareth's face took on a faint smile. "Sarah, Sarah. Don't you read your fairy tales? Humans for the most part don't age here. Ever read the story from your own country, about Rip van Winkel? When you're with us, you don't age very much."

"But I will still age."

He nodded. "But slowly. And only until you produce an heir, actually." He leaned closer and whispered in her ear. "When our blood is mixed in the body of our first child, you'll take on fae characteristics. Magic… immortality…"

"Our first child, huh?" Sarah found the idea strangely appealing, to have Jareth's child.

He nodded, and drew her close to kiss her again. Apparently he found it an appealing idea, too.