Author's Note: I don't usually do this, but I really want to reccomend one of the most entertaining arcs I've read in a while. As some may notice, I've taken up a bit with 'Pirates of the Caribbean'. I really recommend anyone who likes 'Pirates' slash (Jack/Norrington), rock music and a beautifully structured alternate universe to go check out an author called trinchardin and her Rocker Arc. It's nowhere near as long as the 'Bond...' series, but it's spectacularly good writing. I hate the fact that no one but me's reviewed it.

Author's Note 2: One another point, things may seem disjointed here, but that is because we're focusing on two different locations and two different groups of people. But the next chapter should allow us to pull all these bits and pieces together. Enjoy.

'blah' is flashback.

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The two sat down to an early morning repast. It was a simple affair; neither of them were used to eating much- Jareth by choice and Jervohl by experience. But they each drank the milk and juice concoction usual for an Underground breakfast and crumbled whatever food there was on their plates.

The room was strangely silent.

Far too strangely silent.

Jareth didn't like it. He sat back in his chair and cleared his throat. "Jervohl, perhaps it is time to tell me what happened?"

"I would rather not."

"I insist, my dear." Jareth's tone was light but the words were a warning. He didn't look at her, but continued to gaze at some sight in his head no one could see, his eyes turned towards the remains of his meal.

The silence came back, but an uncomfortable one this time. It was the silence of someone waiting for an answer to their query and of another who had no idea how to phrase that answer.

"You disappeared twenty years ago, Jervohl," Jareth urged, "You went out on a routine raid- which mother had expressly forbidden you to attend- and you disappeared. We found the bodies but could not recognize which was you. We grieved."

"How- how is mother? Is she well?"

"No better or worse than you saw her last. Her eyes trouble her."

Jervohl smiled, a brief curling of the corners of her mouth. "And her sharp tongue?"

Jareth tossed her a rueful look. "Just as sharp. She hasn't lost her wits, you understand. Just her youth. She acts as she has always acted before."

"I bet she does. I missed her, you know. Not you, of course, because the last memory I have of you is exiling me."

"You annoyed me," Jareth laughed, clearly unrepentant, "I wouldn't have remembered that fight in the morning if you hadn't… wished what you did."

Jervohl grinned back. "Well, I hope impotency had a good effect on you."

"Ah, no. I was a bear with a sore head for that."

"Good. It had no effect, then."

Jareth sobered after that. He rose from his seat and offered his hand to his sister. She raised an eyebrow but accepted it, allowing him to take them both to a quiet sitting room on the first floor.

"You will have to tell me," the Goblin King reminded her quietly, "And I would not like to treat you as a hostile prisoner. How did he capture you? What did he do to you? And what did you tell him?"

Jervohl seemed to be weighing her options in her mind. Brief snatches of images flit through her mind and she could hear voices and see people and think of things that were best left forgotten. "What if I were to saythat what you ask will force you to treat me like a hostile prisoner anyway?" she asked, "Would you leave it be? For family's sake?"

"Jervohl, I'm welcoming you back to my lands and my kingdom," Jareth pointed out, "I'm hardly going to throw you into the dungeons before then. And whatever the outcome of your twenty years away from us, I think you should tell me. Don't force me to press the issue."

"Will you? Press the issue?"

Jareth's hand had moved of its own accord to the powerstone around his neck. The only one of its power in the Underground, or so it was meant to be. He knew better. Gildred of the Sky, of all people, wore the partner and equal to his. He never had liked Gildred; such power was never safe in those evil hands. Not, Jareth was quick to agree, he himself was such a saint. And use his powerstone on his own little sister, he would, if he needed to. He owed her no mercy.

In seconds Jervohl found herself unable to move, her muscles frozen in a parody of paralysis. The instant sickening fear shot through her but she forced herself to stay calm. This was not Gildred; she would not be isolated and starved out of her mind. Jareth wasn't quite as cruel as all that.

The pressure eased off and she could move her hands.

"Now that you've put it like that," she laughed ruefully, "Let me go and I'll tell you everything."

The Goblin King let the younger female go. He dropped his hand back to his knee and blinked innocently at her, looking for all the world as if he were settling down at her behest.

Jervohl glared at him but began her tale. "We fought," she said, "As you very well know. And you banished me. I went to mother's palace and she consented to take me in. I was upset and you sent no word. I heard of the exchange of patrols and spoke with the commander when he passed by. He agreed to take me on. Mother refused to let me go. I went anyway. We were ambushed at the quarry and a few of us were taken prisoner. I found myself in Gildred's clutches and assumed he would ransom me. He didn't. After a long period of negotiations, I agreed to work with him for exactly nineteen and a half years and then I would be released and allowed to come back home. I kept my word. He kept his. The annexation of the quarry was my idea, as was his agreement to stay out of the Underground if given the right to use the Sea for non-war purposes."

"I had wondered." Jareth wasn't particularly startled by this admission. He knew Gildred's lieutenants were hand-picked, for both their ability to carry out his orders to the last letter and to advise him. The man was a good leader if ever there was one. A pity, really. It made the Goblin King's life that much more frustrating. "Do you feel you betrayed your Kingdom?"

Jervohl was a little startled until she saw where her brother's mind was going. "No," she agreed, "I never made a decision that put my people's life at risk."

"I would hope so." The Goblin King got to his feet and yawned behind his hand, bored with the conversation. There was only so much business he could talk. He really couldn't bare concentrated focus on one topic for more than a few hours. "Come with me. I have some papers you need to sign."

"I? What papers?" She didn't trust papers.

"For one thing, you need a regular income," Jareth informed her, "And since you were certified as dead twenty years ago, I need to personally guarantee that you are my sister and that, as the King, I have examined your case and judged you to be telling the truth. What else do you need?"

Jervohl grinned. There was that hidden streak of caring. She'd wondered whether it would rear its sleepy head. "Clothes," she said meekly, "And a suite of rooms here, if you please. All the necessities of life- hairbrush, toothbrush and the rest."

"Is that all?"

She hesitated. "A few conversations on what's changed and what hasn't wouldn't go amiss. I would hate to be presented back into society and not know what is occurring."

Jareth took her up the stairs, walking slower than was his wont, knowing it would take a little time for her to remember her way around the Castle again. But he didn't worry overmuch. With near immortals such as they, time was something they had in abundance. He conjured up a crystal and halted for just a second to twist and hand it to her. "Until you findyour sense of direction again, use this."

"A crystal," she whispered, turning it over in her hands, "I'd forgotten how warm they felt."

"Magic, my dear, is a very warming thing," Jareth remarked negligently.

Down the corridors, past the State Rooms and the various other chambers full of priceless heirlooms meant for impressing visitors, to the room right at the end where his study was. He stopped at the door and ran his fingers lightly over the wood, silently wishing the magical locks undone and then opening it. He held the door open politely for his sister.

"Your study," she sighed, "I always did think this room was too…" she broke off as her eyes alighted on the photograph. "And what is this? A mortal picture, dear brother? Don't tell me you've actually managed to convince some unsuspecting mortal that you are worthy as a lover!"

Jareth calmly took the photo out of her hands. "A friend," he evaded, not letting a drop of his roiling emotions show, "She's dead now. These are the papers. Sign beside my name."

Jervohl narrowed her green eyes and then shook that unease away from her. It wasn't her business if it made no sense why Jareth kept a picture of a dead girl on his desk. "As you wish."

She took her time bent over the papers, examining each other carefully, for which Jareth could only be grateful. The photo was burning in his hand and he had a sudden agonizing longing to wonder how Sarah would have reacted to his sister. Would she have liked her as much as she liked him? Would they have been friends? He rather thought they would have been.

And it would have been a happy time for them. He was glad to be mistaken about Jervohl's death. He did like his sister. Sarah would have been happy for him. She would have been as excited as him about this unexpected turn of events. Sarah would have insisted he visit his mother straight away to tell her. And perhaps he should? Perhaps he was doing wrong not to tell her?

"Jareth?"

He tore his eyes from the green ones smiling out of the photo frame, looking up to another pair of green eyes, so similar and yet so very different. "Yes. Did you say something?"

Jervohl looked from that sharply controlled face to the photo. "Who is she?" she asked. Jareth didn't resist when she took the photograph out of his hand to look at it. "She is pretty."

How best to answer than question? Sarah was so many different things- phantom lover, cherished person, conqueror, voice of conscience- the list was endless. "She is the only person to beat my Labyrinth. I loved her. She committed suicide sixteen years ago."

"Oh. Why?"

"Because she loved me too," Jareth said, "But she refused to be my Queen. The Aboveground was breaking her. I was with her at the end."

"Why did she refuse?"

"How am I to know? This is Sarah. She was never an easy person to understand," he murmured, looking affectionately at the photo again, "She had the gall to tell me the Labyrinth was a piece of cake. She was right. I made it so, for her. She wanted her brother back and I couldn't refuse."

"I'm sorry." Jervohl placed the object back on the desk as carefully as if the picture was Sarah herself. "It must have been horrible."

"Not really." Jareth broke out of whatever spell felt him captive and swept up the papers and took them over to a shelf of boxes. "I prefer her dead than what she would have had to become."

"Wouldn't you have preferred her as your Queen?" Jervohl corrected, frowning.

Jareth grinned suddenly, one of the most amused smiles she had ever seen him wear. "Sarah? She didn't want to be my Queen. Do you really think I'd force her?"

"Such chivalry. Such thought for another. I didn't know you had it in you."

"Neither did mother. Oh, please remember, the young man who will accompany mother here is Toby Williams, Sarah's half-brother. He is to be made welcome and comfortable when he arrives. May I ask that you champion him around? Most of our set will know of him, if they haven't met him, but you know how they are. Take care of him."

And Jareth had wished himself away.

Jervohl looked from the doorway to the photograph. So Jareth did have a heart beneath those ridiculous shirts, did he? Who would have thought! She spared a respectful thought for the young girl at having conquered the Unconquerable and went out. And this Toby? She wondered whether Jareth had his eye on making do with an Imitation Sarah. Certainly gender had never worried him before.

And there, the argument that had driven her away all those years ago popped into her head:

"My betrothed, Jareth! How dared you…"

"We were drunk, Jervohl, and we have both apologized…"

"That is not good enough! How could you force him to betray me like this?"

Jareth's face when she finally screamed too loudlyat him. The way his fist had slammed down on the table, anger drowning out the apology and embarrassment on his face. "I see no reason why we should persist in this conversation," he said coldly, "If you must blame someone, blame yourself. You certainly don't love him."

"And I suppose you do?"

"No, but I have never pretended to. You have."

"You bastard." The words out before she could draw them back. The powerstone set in the ring on her finger flaring as she poured all that she had into one last curse in the goblin tongue.

Jareth's face as he heard those words, knew that the curse would hold exactly as she had commanded. The way his fingers had felt as they grabbed her arms and shook. The angered resignation on Hessie's face as she had bathed the bruises on her arm and helped her pack her bags for her exile from the Castle.

All of that and more Jervohl still remembered. But those were times past. She'd forgotten and disregarded that, if not forgiven it. But forgiveness had nothing to do with it. She simply put it behind her and let it go.

And now Jareth had suffered. Was it evil of her to feel just a little satisfied at knowing he now knew what agony felt like? She supposed so. She shuddered to imagine how Gildred would have needled her with this information had he known.

Hessie, the human woman who had been with them for almost thirty years now, loomed into sight, her arms loaded with piles of cloth. She was beaming at the sight of her newly returned charge, so overjoyed to see her again that she hadn't stopped smiling.

"Hessie," Jervohl called, "Could you tell me about Sarah?"

The smile falted. "His Majesty doesn't like her mentioned, Ms. Jervohl."

"We'll do it privately in my room, while you measure me for clothing," Jervohl promised, "And I won't tell him anything. I just want to know. He seems to have loved her so."

"He still does, Ms. Jervohl. Never seen anything like it. He would move the stars in her name."