Author' Note: I recently checked out some slash sites for 'Pirates of the Caribbean' and I found a beautifulfiction with a very interesting scene in it. Basically, it's an imitation of the ballroom scene in the 'Labyrinth', set in a pub in New Orleans, where Jack Sparrow is singing Jareth's part and Norrington has to hunt for him through the throng of dancers like Sarah. It sounds sappy, but it was done so well. I just sat there, bouncing up and down in my chair, squealing in delight. Just thought I'd share.

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"Lady Pandora?" Toby knocked politely on the outer door to his adoptive mother's personal suite. The house, called a palace by those in the Underground, was actually about the size of a big Aboveground manor. As the Undergrounders would have remarked, they were more impressed by beauty than size, hence most of the buildings tended to be small and delicately made.

The "enter" sounded a little forced, but Toby complied. The lady was standing in the midst of four full cases, a glare on her face as she glared at her attendant.

Toby bit back a grin but couldn't resist a small bite- "Suddenly I feel very underprepared."

"Shut up, Toby, and come in. I have been trying to tell Eloise that packing all the clothes I possess is not only a waste of time and energy, but of space."

"Begging your pardon, my Lady, but one never knows with the King's to-dos," Eloise sniffed, folding a brocade cape over her shoulder, "Anything he might ask of you and then where will you be?"

"I am only staying there four weeks!" Pandora snapped, "Have some sense, woman!"

"An' plenty I have, my Lady, enough not to send you to the heavens know what with only a case full of clothes."

Pandora whirled around to Toby and gestured triumphantly to Toby. "She admits it! The shameless hussy does this just to get back at me for refusing to take her. What fun she imagines she will have in the Castle, I can't be sure, but she is vindictive and vengeful. There! I told you so!"

"My Lady, you told me nothing," Toby laughed, finally breaking down as he fell over into a nearby seat and wiped at his streaking eyes. The two of them- dignified women both- were still glaring at each other, hands on their hips, with a fighting gleam in their eyes. "Please don't taunt her, Eloise. I'll tear something."

Eloise looked from him to her mistress, torn between answering him as he deserved and respectfully manipulating to get her own way. She settled for neither because the graceless mortal shook his head and sat up, brushing down his coat to settle the matter.

"Eloise, if I help you persuade Lady Pandora to take you with us, does that mean you can leave half the cases behind?"

"Of course, Mr. Williams," she said demurely, "No worries there would be for the safety of her ladyship's clothing, Mr. Williams, if I could be there to see to them. His Majesty being a bachelor, Mr. Williams, his servants might not know how to handle a real lady's needs, Mr. Williams."

"Eloise, stop, all right? I understand. How many times must I ask you to stop calling me 'Mr. Williams'? I am Toby, plain and simple."

"Oh no, Mr. Williams," Eloise said serenely, picking up two of the cases and taking them back into the bedchamber, "It never does to be too familiar."

She left, her straight back still stiff and her face pleasantly blank, but the strangest look of conquest in her eyes.

Pandora huffed and sat down as well. "There," she said again, gesturing towards the direction her attendant had taken, "Do you see how much harm it does to give in to her? I should have never have trusted Jareth when he said he had the perfect woman to suit my needs. She drives me mad!"

"But she does her work well, my Lady," Toby soothed. He got to his feet and picked up the cape and the two cases still left. "I'll take these out to the carriage. No doubt Eloise is already packed for just such an occasion."

"Very likely. Oh, and Toby?"

"Yes?"

"Toby, how often must I ask you not to call me by title? My name will be ample. Or- or mother, if you prefer."

He took his time answering, before flashing her a small smile. "Mother is preferable, but as a wise woman once said, it never does to be too familiar, now does it?"

He exited and the older fae female shook her head. Familiar! How familiar couldn't she be when she'd heard his prayers and stammered confessions? Both mother and father she had been to the child, and later confidante and family. She was the one who had introduced him to Luka, or Luke as he affectionately called his lover. Or his boyfriend, as he preferred to call him, stubbornly holding to his Aboveground traditions.

Lady Pandora was, in short, worried. Jareth didn't suddenly decide to throw balls for no good reason. Especially considering that in the Underground, they referred to events of togetherness and celebration, traditionally lasting a week but usually going past that time mark. Jareth never, ever could stand people under his roof for that length of time. Her son simply got bored of them before then.

The letter that had accompanied the invitation had been simple enough. She was needed a week in advance so that Jareth could meet with his never-seen charge and inspect him as well as play the dutiful son for a while. Pandora didn't trust either reason. And ultimately- horrible though it sounded- she suspected Jareth's motives to the mortal child she fostered for him. Sarah's half-brother, the only living link to her… Jareth was exactly the kind of man to appreciate the charms of such an arrangement. And Toby… well, there was the catch.

"My Lady? Are you ready?"

Eloise. Pandora got to her feet and accepted the cape that her attendant insisted on fastening around her shoulders. "Eloise, it really is much too warm for brocade. Something lighter, perhaps?"

"I'm sorry, my Lady, but I packed those."

How the goblin lied through her sharp teeth! Pandora shot her a hard look and met the most innocently limpid blink of warm brown eyes.

"Is that all, my Lady?"

"Yes, Eloise. Unless you plan to pack my linen too?"

"No, my Lady. I already sent three sets of bed linen in the other cases. As for table linen, I assume the Castle will have a suitable collection."

Pandora shot her a disquieted and half-amused look and then bowed reluctantly. The woman was a worrier, but she was efficient. And she took excellent care of her mistress' health. Walking out of her room and adjusting to the glare of the light on her weakened eyes. One hand on her arm and the other hefted a battered valise and Eloise gently drew her down the corridor to the stairs, chattering to cover the awkwardness of the situation.

"My Lady?"

Now Toby! Did nothing leave her alone? Pandora groaned inwardly but offered a smile up to the tall man, taking his arm and going quietly out the door.

The journey was short, but uneventful and it seemed like no time at all until they had emerged out of the underground roadways that the folk of the Underground used into the sunlight of the Goblin City. Crooked houses and crooked people, chatter and noise and smells- of fresh baking and sweat and livestock and laundry- and the blur of earth colours festooned with brightly coloured ornaments: the lives of the goblins. Eloise sighed a little wistfully but held her seat and said nothing.

Toby glanced at the goblin and then at the lady beside him, dozing against his shoulder. He eased his arm around her and helped her settle more comfortably, an amused grimace on his face as Eloise's softened face grinned at the sight.

Toby, for his part, was more interested in exploring. But he supposed he couldn't until after he'd met the Goblin King. That thought too intrigued him. What was Jareth really like? He didn't really want to meet him, but he didn't see the point in refusing to do so either. Besides, Luke would be there. He could smile and relax at that, remembering the pout on his lover's pretty face as he complained about being unable to see him for that whole week apart.

A whole week! When Luke's extravagant gallivantings around the place frequently took him away for two weeks at a time! It was really the limit.

"How long?" Toby asked softly.

"We're there," Eloise said, reaching to tap her mistress' knee.

Lady Pandora came awake with a start and blinked heavily for a few minutes, yawning behind her hand and pulling her cape closer around her. Toby thoughtfully got his arm out of her way.

"Here we are," the lady said, a hand on the rolled down window, "How short a journey, it seems!"

"You slept right through it," Toby pointed out, "But it was shorter than I remember."

"That is because you were a little boy of nine the last time you made it," Pandora retorted, "Everything seems twice as long at that age, especially when the one at that age was as hyperactive as you."

"I am rebuked, I really am. Wait while I let down the steps, now." He hurriedly did so and then handed both females out of the carriage, as courteous as his adopted mother had always taught him to be.

Eloise instantly went to the following carriage to oversee the unloading of their baggage, haranguing the goblin guards in her shrill voice. Indeed, the first sight that caught Jareth's eye as he came out was the little goblin lady in her black dress poking a quaking guard in the chest with a nailed forefinger and threatening to make trouble if he so much as scratched the daintily embroidered cloth case in his arms.

And then he saw him.

And couldn't resist the disappointment.

Not Sarah, after all.

Too tall.

Too broad.

Too… open.

"Mother," the Goblin King greeted, drawing her arm in his, "Ah, Toby Williams? A pleasure to finally meet with you, Toby. You were absent when I was last down."

"Yes," Toby said blandly, "hunting."

"Yes, so I was told." Jareth raised a dark brow;his new guest was far too different from his long-dead Sarah. Toby was polite, for one, and conventional, for another. "I hope it was productive."

"Oh, yeah. It was." Of course, Toby added silently, very productive. He'd gotten away from the Goblin King, right enough. "My Lady, I'll just go see to the cases. I think Eloise will kill someone if left alone."

Now Jareth was really getting a clear picture in his mind. "Don't bother," he sighed. He dropped his mother's hand for just an instant to turn to three guards still gawking in the entrance. "You three! Take Lady Pandora's attendant to the rooms prepared for her Ladyship. And then make sure her cases are taken there as well, the same to be repeated for Mr. Williams. Any damage done to their belongings, however small, and I will hold you three personally responsible. Clear?"

"Sire!" A quick salute in gleaming precision and the guards sprang away.

Jareth turned back and led them both back inside. "Welcome back to the Castle at the Centre of the Labrynth, Toby. I think the two of us need to talk. But first, if you will excuse me, I need a few private minutes with my mother. Follow your cases, will you, and inspect your rooms or something? Thank you."

Toby shook his head and held his tongue, stunned by such a polite yet cold dismissal. It would never have happened in the Lady Pandora's house. He greeted the guests himself as her right hand and he would never have… Toby caught himself up short from those heated thoughts. They were useless.

He walked up the stairs, and then paused with a sniff. Wax. And honey. And burnt pine cones. The smell! He remembered this smell! It tugged at his memories, bringing up the only memory of Jareth that he had, of those hard hands and the sweeping coat. Of the heat. And then falling asleep crying for his parents.

"Excuse me."

Toby started and jumped aside, bumping into thebanisters in his haste to move. His brain had barely registered that he was blocking someone'e way when the someone put out their hands to steady him.

"Wait! Don't tumble down the stairs! Are you alright?"

"I- I beg your pardon, I didn't see where I was going."

"That's alright," the woman said, smiling at him quietly. She took her hand away from him and used it to tuck some of her unevenly lengthened blond hair behind her ears. Prominent cheekbones showed to remarkable advantage in her sharp face, high where the Goblin King's were… the Goblin King?

"Have I met you before?" Toby asked smoothly, hoping to get an introduction out of her. He was almost certain she looked like both the Goblin King and weren't those almond-shaped eyes the exact shape of Lady Pandora's? But how could that be!

"No, I don't think so," the woman said.

Fae. No other creature had those canines and that hair. Toby nodded and stood politely aside to let her pass. She did so, sweeping past in a cloud of simple pale pink cloth, no embroidery and no frills beyond a simple ribbon snaked aroundthe wrist and the fingers of her right hand, as was the old custom of adornment. Toby had seen the Lady Pandora use it at times.

He stared with some interest after her for a while, but philosophically followed his cases. There was no sense puzzling over mysteries unless they presented themselves. No doubt she was a distant relative or else he was just seeing what his mind had fastened to. There was no mystery to it.

The Lady Pandora had quite another reaction to the young fae female. She clasped her tight and wept for joy at the return of her youngest child, kissing her features with a trembling mouth, unable to even believe that Jervohl stood once more before her. Jareth only smiled and Jervohl couldn't deny that there were really tears in her own eyes, though she was too self-conscious to shed them.

Well, the Goblin King sighed to himself, the reunion was completed. It had gone according to plan and so far there had been no problems. Now he only had to take care of the problem wandering around in a room on the fourth floor of the Castle, probably occupied in a routine schedule of washing the journey from him and changing his shirt.

For just a second, Jareth shut his eyes and saw a flash of dark hair and beaming green eyes, storming around the Castle and shyly asking to be shown all its delights. He dragged his mind away from those pleasant dreams and went back to put his arm around his family. Fantasies of Sarah could wait for the night.