(Notes: Go Ripper101! The title is indeed purloined from Bowie. The glamour is more Thin White Duke than Ziggy, though; I based it on how he looked in The Man Who Fell to Earth, also another place where you can see that his eyes are the same colour. Thanks to everyone for the kudos on Jareth's character; I wanted to have a grasp of him because I feel too many authors don't capture his complexity, making him either too good or too evil.

I edited the first section and I think I can now live with Sarah's characterization. She's sixteen in the story, which is my age; so it should be interesting (I've never written my own age before). I've sort of mushed Celtic mythology and post-medieval superstition about the fae together in this chapter… I hope I don't make anybody's brain hurt. This story is going to be longer than I originally thought having tried unsuccessfully for too long now to try to wrap up in just two sections. So at least two more chapters are probably on their way.

Thanks to all the reviewers! Onward!)

Somewhat Slightly Dazed

Part II: Equal Footing

Her feet were propped up against the wall, pushing her chair back onto two legs as she let her eyes wander around the dark kitchen where she had waddled after her disturbing confrontation with… him.

She didn't want to think of him as 'Jareth'. It was far too personal a thing to call him casually by his name, it sparked a familiarity and an unpleasant stirring of ache somewhere deep in her chest that she just couldn't bring herself to face. Not after what she had said to him, not after causing that same softly anguished, crushing, beautiful, heartbreaking look to cross his harsh features for a second time. Their partings always seemed to cause him some terrible disappointment, as if he were not just defeated in his machinations but genuinely pained...

He couldn't just be 'Jareth', the more straightforward half of her brain picked up as her first line of thought trailed off into sentiment. If she allowed herself to think of him as just 'Jareth' she would forget that he wasn't like people, wasn't a person; he was a cold, cruel, conniving, deceptive, merciless, malevolent Goblin King. She couldn't ever let that precious knowledge slip out of crisp focus for the tiniest split second. If she did, all she would remember was that look again, that look not of wounded pride or foiled plans or arrogance but of unadulterated hurt and a strange glimmer of regret, of the tiniest amount of pity thrown in just to confuse her. That look that made him far more human than she could comfortably believe him to be.

It haunted her. He wasn't a creature of emotions: not the tender, sympathetic, sentimental emotions he had allowed her to see, anyway. He had been built for violent passions, searing rage, lingering disdain, reformed flirtations and careless affairs, not love-lorn, sonnet-esque feelings. It was written in his aloof expressions, penciled across his mannerisms as plainly as was his regal status. She knew she must have hurt him terribly to make his reactions to her so quietly awful.

Then again, she wasn't supposed to know him that well; had told herself that she didn't know him, had almost managed to believe she didn't know him. That was why she was sitting alone in a cold, dark kitchen at four o'clock in the morning sipping the hot coca she had made for herself, wasn't it? Because she did know him, no matter how she tried to wish she didn't. Knew him and his hasty, violent moods inside out, knew his affected coldness and the way he wore it like a mask and armour all in one, to conceal and to protect his true reactions. She knew the intimacies of his singular personality, the many facets of his strange temper, the intricacies of his beauty. And knowing it all she wondered how she was going to make herself forget.

Her reactions to him when she allowed herself to see him as he was, take what he said at face value, truly look at him in all of his dizzying opulence, frightened her. She didn't like to be frightened. So she sat in that perfect blue-gray darkness of four o'clock in the morning, considering the things the fey invading her room had said to her and trying to make sense of her muddled memories and feelings. The darkness was like a shroud of comfort, warm and familiar to her tired senses, the welcome embrace of oblivion clearing her head of the disturbances of sight and sound.

She sighed.

She did know him.

As she pieced through the happenings of the oubliette one at a time, she could easily see that they had happened so, just as he had shown her, and the explanation for her actions must come from her, not from him.

She remembered all the little games she had always played with herself to distract her budding mind from house or yard work, living out a story in which she was inevitably the heroine. In every little soap opera she faced the tyranny of her step mother in the form of some wicked queen or witch or other appropriately vile thing. She was always clever, young, pretty and secretly a princess or destined to greatness or a sorceress or something like that. She had always used enormous, gallant, eloquent speeches to prove how good a ruler she was, how wise, how insightful, how flawed the world and the current leadership and how she could do better.

All very run of the mill stuff, to her way of thinking. What was strange was the way the words pleading for freedom and justice and truth seemed to flow from her, the way she could almost hear the taunts and arguments from the opposing nobility as she fought for the rightful ruler. The way she never, ever paused to think about what ought to come next. In all the time she had played out her games of sagas and foreign lands, she had never once felt as if she were talking to the air, never once felt silly or foolish, never abandoned a story before seeing it the whole way through, always compelled to finish.

It was him. He had been there, wanting to hear the end, pushing her to go on when her lofty speeches briefly faltered, feeding her the arguments against her invisible opponents' scrutiny and objections. Why? She had always felt him, knew there was something strange afoot, something Other- but never stopped to wonder what it was- that playful warmth in the back of her mind whenever she let herself drift off into the world of make-believe. It had just been her muse then- hah! She knew him! Without ever having seen him, she'd known him at least as well as she knew herself and quite possibly better. It made so little sense she almost wanted to laugh.

Jareth. There was no avoiding the name no matter how much she tried, the name or its connotations. It was ridiculous to continue to leave him faceless in her neat dissection of him, not now, not when she was forced to admit just how much he had touched in her life. So where did that leave her? Still in the oubliette, she would think.

Realizing slowly that that wonderful, guiding, helping force she had felt all her life- teaching her things that the world had long since forsaken- was real flesh and blood had been like a blow to the head. In the half-darkness of that godforsaken pit, lost in the endless twisting of the Labyrinth, her vision swam and she had stared at him. This impossible man who taunted her, hurt her, stole her little brother from her just to teach her a lesson she would have learned anyway, twisted her dreams and toyed with her mind. This man she'd vowed to oppose was suddenly all the things she had chased at the edges of her dreams ever since she could remember.

This being had somehow spirited her away, had been doing so her entire life and she hadn't even noticed.

Who he was, what he'd done, all of it briefly didn't matter as she realized that he was really there. What he was overwhelmed her and then she'd needed to touch him, to reassure herself he was tangible, living, breathing, that he would not pop like a soap bubble, shatter and disappear like so much air, dissipate like the dreams always had before she could ever really understand them. It was too much for her feverish brain to reason out, his being her enemy, the Goblin King, and at the same time the thing that had held her back from the dates Karen wished she would venture out on. Too much for her to realize it was all entirely too contradictory for the proceedings to continue.

It was strange, even for her, but she had always felt that she shouldn't go out with any boys, even if they were to ever actually ask her, which hadn't been looking likely. She had been quietly certain somewhere in the back of her mind that there was no point, that something bigger than that was waiting for her, or she was waiting for it- either way, dating seemed like a phenomenal waste of time and energy. Someone had claimed her, destiny or something, but she knew it was a powerful thing, this force, that she couldn't- or wouldn't- fight it. Fifteen year-old boys are boring anyway when you have a capital 'd': Destiny.

Then you're in an oubliette and your capital 'd': Destiny I kneeling in front of you, real and tangible and something you could show your parents and say "See! I told you I was meant for more than babysitting and cleaning out the attic!" For a moment all the thought had left her head, then she had thought about the hours she'd spent playing wrapped inside the comfort of this ethereal presence. There it was personified before her and the years of silent mortal worship thrummed in her heart, standing up to be counted as she debated what to do, until she threw herself against his chest to feel the physical version of that treasured embrace.

Sarah had been painfully aware of every square centimeter of flesh on her body in that moment, of every nerve, of every tiny hair standing on end with the electricity of the long-awaited touch. She hadn't been sure what she was feeling, why she was crying, what could happen in the next moment… but she had been sure she never wanted it to end.

She shook her head clear of all the freshly muddled thoughts, despairing of ever thinking clearly again. Every time she settled down to the problem once and for all, the mess she'd just finished sorting out for orderly consideration ended up strewn across her consciousness in even more complicated disarray than before. And with all the energy she exerted she was left with the same dilemma to be worked all through: What on earth (or Elsewhere) had happened to her and what was she going to do about it?

Ugh. She felt like she was under the influence. Her thoughts had never beenthis fuzzy before.

"I can do this… just calm down and don't think about…" she meant a lot of things she wouldn't name when she continued, but one word summed it up for her better than any other, "mush."

'Mush' was all the emotions wound around her heart that didn't make any sense and showed no sign of ever making sense. Mush was that fluttery, 'my God, you're gorgeous today' feeling that Jareth managed to arouse in her no matter how insufferable he was. Mush was sleeping with the enemy of your own free will and never remembering a time when you felt more complete and whole and …wonderful. Mush was having his baby, savouring it, loving it, cherishing it and secretly thankful for the eternal bounds it promised. The oubliette and everything it now represented was choked full of mush.

Just the facts, ma'am, she thought, feeling a certain level of absurdity was the only thing she could count on to keep her sane these days. Well, then. Fact: she had slept with Jareth, one King of the Goblins, scary sneaky-devious, moderately evil villain of her very own fairytale. Fact: she was going to have his child whether she was prepared for it or not, whether they had found some arrangement or not- the baby was coming. Fact: she was- most inexplicably and quite against her will- completely in love with him. Despite also being pretty sure she hated him. Fact: She would not- could not- abandon her family. Lastly: Jareth was not going to be an easy person to compromise with on such things or, really, anything at all.

Sarah sighed again, rubbing her stomach. Her child would be a fey, that much was more than obvious to her, and it was unfair to let her son or daughter grow up in a world without magic that would never accept them for what they were. Not to mention that she didn't even know if a fey baby could survive living away from its own world… the only person she could ask about these things was not likely to be a fountain of information if she were to summon him, either. The faeries were a (rather intentionally) elusive people and humans didn't know much about them beyond how to avoid them. Though she remembered they shared the elfish aversion to iron. Fat lot of good that did her.

Of course, as was becoming clearer by the second, she couldn't resolve any of her pressing issues without talking to Jareth, and she couldn't talk to Jareth until she had dealt with all of the feelings she had just decided to put aside because she couldn't deal with them. She could almost believe, in a fit of pique, that the bastard had planned it this way. There was nothing else for it.

Sarah stood and reached for things mindlessly in the darkness of the kitchen, tossing sugar, coca, milk and a touch of vanilla in a mug for another cup of coca and leaning against the counter to wait for the kettle, hands clasped over her stomach.

Love.

Love is one of those distant, idealized, abstract concepts, more feared and simultaneously longed for and romanticized than any other. Seldom understood and even more rarely truly experienced for what it is, it's the thing that binds the furthest reaches of humanity together throughout all time, indeed the very thing that makes us human. It has the power to conjure up humanity in any being, movies about robots and enchanted objects that could feel, animals personified- the idea of love outside the ordinary world seems to fascinate creativity….

Sarah massaged her temples and checked her slowly wandering thoughts. All of that was what she had always believed, weaned on fairy stories and romances, she had believed in true love and love at first sight and fated meetings and… She was reasonably certain she believed it still, it was difficult to say in her current condition of perpetual confusion. No time like the present to figure it out. Now that she thought she may in fact be in love- was it at all like her stories had said it was?

No… not really. No story had ever warned her of the pain, adequately prepared her for the burning ache, the emptiness or the fierce contradiction to everything she had ever held dear. It was an all-encompassing flame she couldn't control, which scorched her when she tried; it was volatile and unstable, quick to action and slow to reason, rash and beautiful and terrifying and threatening to swallow her whole, consume her. It was quite a lot like Jareth.

She sucked in a breath at that thought. Of course she wouldn't love him the way ladies loved in her old stories; wilting, delicate, fleeting loves with many oaths and teary goodbyes and handsome faces and little to do with the mental anguish of indecision and of heart verses head. Of addiction to a lilt, not the voice itself, to a presence, not the body barely containing it, to a searing gaze and not the eyes themselves. She looked back on those once-treasured stories with sudden, wild contempt. Of course she wouldn't love him like that! He was the villain; he burned too much for delicacy and brotherly doting and flowery words. He possessed as he loved, fueled by an inner flame- and she could give him no less in return, lest she betray them both.

She knew it would be painful to love him up close, in full range of his arrogance and temper- as long as it was from afar she could love him quietly. Sarah, being Sarah, knew that would never be enough for her- she was far from stupid; she realized that face to face with him he would terrify and infuriate her and her stubborn nature would grate on his. She knew, but it didn't matter, because though their fiery personalities would clash, they were the very thing that made them love the way they did in the first place.

Jareth was beautiful, but he was not sweet, doting or even nice He was –when he felt like it- a gentleman, but civility and common courtesy were not kindness and kindness he almost begrudged showing. He was possessed of a wicked- borderline sadistic- sense of humour and had warned her himself of his own cruelty. She believed him. All of it was what made him who he was, and she loved him, so she couldn't condemn him for it.

All this of course, begged the question she'd been asking herself all along- why did she love him? Knowing him was a cause, not a reason; in fact, in this case it should have proved a deterrent. And yet there it was. So far it looked like she'd found another question and not a single answer. He was unique and fascinating, but she didn't think that could be all there was to it. Anyone could look at him and see what he was, see the same fascination, and not love him; qualities were part of it, but they weren't why.

Heaving one last frustrated sigh, Sarah put that complex matter aside, her mind made up that she knew enough for now. Her baby needed the Underground, she couldn't just abandon her family in this world, Jareth loved her, she loved Jareth. That was more than enough. Technically it brought her once again to the beginning: Where the hell did this leave her?

She rinsed out her mug and steadied herself against the counter. She had to accept she just couldn't solve this by herself, any of it, she needed to ask him things. And- she hated this- she owed him an apology; he'd been valiantly fair to her throughout their conversation, had declared feelings it was likely difficult for him to feel, let alone admit to, and he had shown no anger when she had rejected simple truth. Had thrown everything in his face- rejected him… again. She didn't want to see him yet, was afraid- truth be told, though she wouldn't admit it- to be near him at all knowing she was in love with him.

It was bizarre how detached she was from emotions which overwhelmed her so completely, the reality of it having yet to really set in- she thought it might be because she hadn't gradually realized it over time as was natural, but had it thrown at her all at once. She would see him for the first time with her feelings for him intact and fully realized.

Lord give her strength to face that insufferable, wonderful fey.

It was hours after he'd left, almost half a day… twelve hours… Maybe she should wait until the thirteenth and be deeply symbolic of… something or other. Was she ready for this? She hadn't been what felt like ages ago- he had told her to call him when she was, but she didn't think she ever would be. Her jaw set, she needed answers whether or not she was going to be a coward about her feelings for the Goblin King- she shivered involuntarily at the title.

"Jareth."

She expected to have to repeat some sort of incantation before he would respond, something to appease his vanity and injured pride, but she felt his presence even before his name left her lips; apparently even his appetite for games dimmed. She froze; she could never live this moment again, if she did something wrong now she would regret it for the rest of her life. The cold, impersonal knowledge of loving him would become an agonizingly intense experience in just seconds- as soon as she turned around. And she would- any moment, now. It wasn't like she was afraid. The idea.

She could feel the heat of his gaze studying her still figure, conscious of her hands clenching and unclenching at her sides as she struggled to find a place of strength and logic.

"As precious a commodity as it is in my Kingdom," Jareth's smooth, crafted voice caressed his artfully enunciated words, speech in his mouth elegant to the point of art, "I find myself weary of silence in your presence, Sarah."

She turned slowly, all at once dying to finally look at him and have it over with, while also hoping she could avoid it all together and trying to force her expression into something resembling calm. He was perched on the counter, leaning back against the wall, one arm across his chest supporting his elbow. His index finger rested on his temple, his hand following the curve of his jaw as he leaned into it. His long legs were stretched out, crossed and balancing precariously atop the back of one of the high, wooden dinning chairs. The one Sarah had occupied earlier.

In spite of it all he looked elusively normal- reachable, touchable- the lazy, carelessness and aloof regality relaxed. He was breathtaking yet, even in his human glamour, thin frame swaddled in an oversize dufflecoat, something that might have been a dress shirt collar poking out at the neck and thick, brilliant red hair hanging long over his eyes in a fringe. She was hyperventilating. She told herself to stop.

"I'll try to talk more." She blurted, indelicately. She held back a grimace and cursed her nature for being the one to pick a fight. Sometimes her stubborn desire to be as caustic as possible even- especially- where it was hideously inappropriate was exhausting, even for her.

Jareth took something out of his pocket and spun it between nimble fingers, "I am not one for idle how-do-you-dos, as you may have noticed. Speaking when you have nothing to say is an exercise in futility, wouldn't you agree?" He did so love to be contrary.

Sarah made a face somewhere between amusement and disgust, "You're such a hypocrite."

His inward smile was mildly malevolent, "On the contrary, my dear, I'm never more coy or superfluous than I exactly intended to be." He gazed off into space before adding, gesticulating exaggeratedly, "It's a balance."

His eyes were on her again, searching the electric green depths of hers, his gaze abruptly serious.

The moment stretched on as they stared at each other.

"What have I said about silence, my dear?" his whisper was low, dark and not remotely reassuring.

Sarah rallied herself. She couldn't let anything that might come overwhelm her temper, couldn't let herself say what she would regret for the rest of her life purely for the sake of her own headstrong pride. This once, she was going to have reign of her infamous temper- tell herself she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of getting a rise out of her- and look for offence only with just cause. Thus decided, she forced herself to take the plunge she had been dreading in new territory: humility. "I'm sorry," she said coarsely, showing none of the hybrid emotions she felt.

Strange blue eyes widened, equally strange eyebrows lifted, "Sorry? My dear Sarah, whatever do you, the heroine, have to be sorry for? Are you not innocent? Did I not do this to you, con you, deceive you, manipulate you? Surely it would be I who would apologize- if it were in my despicable nature to do such a thing." His tone was mocking, sardonic… and effective.

He was laying it on a bit thick, but he was hitting his target square on the bull's eye. Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, fighting town her simmering temper and snappy insults aching to be thrown back at him. "I may- almost- deserve that," she gritted her teeth, "but I am sorry I leapt to accusations and pigheadedly refused to listen to what I didn't want to hear. I am sorry and you could at least have the decency to accept my apology like a gentleman."

His eyes glinted. "I thought you would have learned by now, Sarah, that I am not a gentleman; but as good manners- and conscience, I suppose, if I had one- dictate." He bowed his head slightly, unfurling his hand from the crown of his head down to his chest in a swooping, elegant salute. He was studying her again, face carefully expressionless, "What is it that you wish to say to me?"

He was wearing gloves again, gleaming white kid skin cutting him off from touch. She felt her jaw lock for a moment as it occurred to her that she should tell him, that fairness and decency demanded that she tell him, release him for the torment she knew he was hiding and trying desperately to ignore… but she couldn't. He was still too… It was hard, too hard even for her, she wasn't going to go there until she had to- business first. "We have to talk about the baby."

Jareth pretended to examine his fingernails, "What's to discuss? You continue as you are until the child is born, when I will collect it and take it to the Underground." He looked up sharply, anticipating an ugly argument, "Your babe will be le Fey, Sarah, it needs to be taken to the Labyrinth in order to come into its own. I will not allow an illegitimate human heir to wallow away without magic, because the mother was unwilling to put her child's interests first. There are other factors here than just you and your being victimized by me."

His tone was chill and drippingly impersonal. She couldn't suffer to hear him speak of their child this way- as if the matter didn't concern him, disturbing her to the point that she ignored the stinging jab. "Jareth, please, don't make it like this…"

He started, staring at her in genuine amazement, "I?"

Sarah wanted to look away as she realized he was perfectly in the right- this one time- to take offense at her righteous indignation, but held his gaze with stony determination, facing whatever wrath she'd awoken.

"I, Sarah?" his eyes were almost glowing, though that was not the right word, the luminosity they were giving off being sharp and not at all soft or warm. "Was it I who threw erroneous accusations before a word of explanation was asked for? Was it I who greeted with only ignorant, childish, self-righteous snobbery? Was it I who listened to a heart's most precious, closely guarded secret and then tossed it aside as worthless? Was it, Sarah!"

She didn't know when he had leapt to his feet, only that he was towering over her, too close, less than an inch away, his eyes boring down on her. He'd been almost screaming at her, but his face betrayed nothing but deadly calm, stillness in his form that disturbed her more than any violence. He leaned even closer to her, tilting his head so his lips were almost touching her ear lobe, his words honeyed, poisonous, "Was it I who was so afraid of what I had done, that I not only refused to believe it… but blamed my actions upon anything but myself?"

"Jareth," she pleaded, biting down on her lip until it bled to keep her anger in check. She'd be damned if this ended with a fight. Damned! "Don't be him."

He fell back from her a little in contempt, undisguised disgust fleeting across his face that he had somehow fallen under the spell of this ignorant, insolent little girl who couldn't seem to appreciate anything that he attempted to do for her. But it was only a little, and though his anger smoldered, his voice was surprisingly gentle, belying the frustration in his eyes, "I will not be but that I am, even for you, Sarah."

Pale blue eyes glittered in the gray haze of dawn pouring over the kitchen through the window; "There is no pretty dream to save you now." He continued in a frighteningly final whisper, "I am not an enchanted prince who'll suddenly awake from a spell and turn out to be as wonderful and flowery as every little girl dreams him. I am what I am: cruel, conniving, vain and greedy and everything else that's ever been muttered about me by my loyal subjects- Goblin King and all; accept all that I am or nothing, because I won't change for you." His eyes were weary, but determined to a depth she had no desire to contemplate; yet his expression was rigid. "You are not going to discover it was all a misunderstanding, that I'm really a good man trapped by expectations, I am what I am and make no apologies for it, even to the woman I love."

"I know…" she stared up at him with a curious light in her face, a light of discovery different from what he was expecting and shocking even to her. Moments before she had wanted to yell at him, she was reasonably sure she still did, but the desire was incredibly unimportant next to simply making the point, "I know you, Jareth."

He studied her, for once a vague note of uncertainty in him- not that he let it show. "Do you?" his tone was studiously condescending.

She glanced down at the floor, eyes idly trailing upward as she spoke, "I've thought a lot about… everything. I was too shocked at first to really think about what I was saying and I didn't know how it could have happened…"

He snorted derisively.

Sarah smiled just a little bit, "But they were my memories and the more I thought about it, the more I sort of realized it made too much sense." she reached foreword, fingering the thickness of his hair, recalling with a shiver how it felt to thread her fingers through the long, blonde strands of his true shape. "I'm not trying to make excuses for treating you the way I did, I think you already understand that… I don't want you to be prince charming, Jareth…that was never what I wanted."

"Really?" his whisper was clipped and expressionless while somehow retaining a sensual edge that made her insides flutter, "What do you want?"

Sarah refused to believe there was a welling in her eyes that hadn't been there before, "You." Please, I beg you, don't make this harder, don't make me pay for acting my age.

He started to open his mouth with some reply, what sort she was nervous to speculate, but she stopped him with her fingers against his lips. Wanting to say it all at once if she was going to say it at all: with no interruptions or witticisms from the peanut gallery.

"I love you …Prince charming galloping atop a white charger would have bored me to tears." Her voice shook and tears streamed down her cheeks with the pain of the confession- giving up the ghost hurt more than she though it would. And she had given him back what she had fought so hard to take from him in the first place- power over her.

Jareth stared at her and the silence became oppressive.

"Sarah…" there was more in that one word than in anything else he had ever said to her. More meaning and emotion in that sigh of a whisper than in hours of speeches. Confusion and ecstasy and all the things he'd never allowed to show; and strangely, somehow he still didn't- yet they were all there, emotions she thought she'd never discover.

Her hand curled around his slender neck, a slight trembling in her fingers, and she stared at her own movements, at the strange contrast of her own pale skin made to look dark against the alabaster of his. She smiled tightly, still distracted by the tips of her fingers resting in the hollow of his collar; he looked so delicate standing this close to her, so soft, breakable and impermanent… How had he frightened her so much? How could his lithe, slender form become so infused with power that she had to fight an instinctive urge to kneel when she'd first met him? Why was he so fascinating…?

"I know I didn't go about it in the best way…" she murmured, finally pulling her eyes back to his face and the issue at hand, her eyelids heavy with tears and weariness, "I know it took me a while, but I'm only human." Sarah wished he would say something- do something, acknowledge that she had spoken! But Jareth seemed frozen by her confession.

His eyes closed briefly and a muscle in his jaw twitched before he composed himself and met her gaze with a fierce, determined intensity. Bare hands rose to cup Sarah's face, long fingers chill against her skin, sending strange tingling sensations all through her body as he leaned very slightly closer and brushed her lips very softly with his; a ghost of a touch. Sarah's shaking became violent as his fingers caressed her flesh and she was met with a second, light, fleeting kiss.

"I'm still your worst enemy, Sarah, nothing has changed since the day you cast me out…" fingers threading through hers and making an arc with joined hands down to their sides, rising again to press knuckles against lips. "I still stand for everything you fought against in the Labyrinth- isn't that how you saw it?"

She freed her arms to raise them awkwardly to hold him, one hand resting on his shoulder and one sliding around his slim waist, trying to overcome the strangeness of the embrace with sheer force of will. She tipped her head to the side, her expression shifting rapidly between fear and uncertainty, determination and courage. "It was, but I was wrong. I was only fighting the consequences to my own selfishness, wasn't I? I couldn't really blame you and that made it worse. It taught me the difference between imagination- and immaturity."

Jareth almost appeared to smile a little, but the shadows seemed to gather and thicken, hiding him from her. "Didn't you imply that I was immature, Sarah, or does my memory fail me? I'll never change, you know, I'll never be easy to talk to and tease and I'll never be… sweet." He enunciated the word with refined distaste.

Sarah was undaunted- she knew that already, "Neither will I; I think you're the only person that knows that."

Jareth was definitely grinning somewhat evilly now, "I'm despicable."

He was mocking her now, but she'd decided not to let him get away with it and light-heartedly stopped caring, "You're fascinating." She countered.

He tilted his head to the side, regarding her from a new angle, probing with, "I'm arrogant."

She smiled coyly, "It's somewhat justified."

His face turned guarded and serious again and his voice was low and intent, "I will rule you."

"You'll try." Sarah was only half-joking and the seriousness and significance of the moment could not be shaken.

Jareth leaned closer to her, dropping his knees to bring himself down to her height, facing her directly with a stony sobriety and queer tentativeness; as if he were testing the waters for something in earnest now. She couldn't pin down his tone for any one thing, but this was definitely his trump, his last honourable attempt to actually warn her of what she was in for, (very gracious of him considering the treatment she had half expected of him). "I can be cruel."

She thought for a moment- really thought about that, which she hadn't bothered to do before- opening and then closing her mouth as she studied his stoic face. He turned just slightly away and his eyes gazed off into space over her shoulder, something in their pale blue depths she feared might be regret at giving her the chance to make this decision yet again. She felt tears rising again and a few spilling down her cheeks as she reached out to Jareth and, with a guiding hand on the curve of his jaw, turned him to face her, "So… can I."

There was a moment of intense stillness between them and Sarah suddenly felt like she was back in that terror at the center of the Labyrinth, floating pieces of Esher's literally twisted imagination looming strangely in the background as she had her final showdown. As the silky wrongness of Jareth's voice tried to persuade her one last time to take what he offered her, never once giving her enough reason to open her eyes and see what it was after all this time spent taunting her. In that moment, too, time had stopped, slowed, changed, shifted: something happened and it lost all meaning. So much happened in the space of a few seconds her mind hadn't been able to focus on it all and something deep in her brain had snapped. Between the heavy, resounding clangs of that hovering clock her awareness had been broadened, heightened; and she had seen a whole new world in the cracks of time.

The grandfather clock in the front room was tolling now and she was at a loss for when it had started. She was certain it was important, that it meant something and- the opposite of the last time- she felt like the minutes were screaming by her at millions of times their normal speed, as if her time was running desperately short. Forget the world between the seconds, she could barely see her own world. Decision crystallized as the feeling grew and her breathing became laboured. She had said it, she had admitted herself and she had fought every point against it and there was no more running away to be done. No matter how strange it was or how much it was going to hurt her before it worked- if it ever did; she loved Jareth enough to want to be with him all the time for the rest of her life.

Pushing herself up and pulling him down she ended the moment of stillness and thick silence that had only really lasted milliseconds and felt like hours. Their mouths crashed together, lips mashing in the roughness of the kiss as Jareth met her onslaught with one of his own, easily parting her unguarded lips and invading her mouth with reckless abandon. She felt sure she must be drowning as her arms wound around his neck, losing herself to him and yet realizing she could only be herself in his arms now that she had found him. The involving kiss was strangely equal, neither taking a real upper hand or dominating its course; they simply joined in unspoken compromise as they became more and more tangled around each other, twining together in a feverish compulsion to be as close as possible. Sarah relished the willing equality while it lasted.

When, finally, they broke, both were panting for breath, though Jareth seemed to recover himself almost instantly. Tears had streamed down Sarah's face, though she hadn't even noticed them, during the whole long embrace as she resigned herself to the arms and love of her enemy, that she could no longer hide from. Jareth's cheeks glistened with the wetness of her concession, her outpouring of emotion, making it look for one brief moment as if he had been crying too.

"What will you choose, Sarah?" he asked colourlessly, long fingers aimlessly tracing the outline of her now swollen lips.

"Choose?" she looked up at him, more new wonder in her eyes as she reeled in the intensity of what had passed between them.

"You could wish yourself away and become part of the Underground…" he tilted his head to the left, a contemplative look over his features, "Or… you could remain and call on some… assistance in tying up your 'loose ends'." He tilted his head to the right and a grin pulled at his lips. Blond- platinum blond- highlights glinted through his red hair in the light of the rising sun. His eyes rested on Sarah as if daring her to argue that she would come to the Underground eventually.

"Tie up loose ends?" she questioned, genuinely curious.

He grinned wickedly.

TO BE CONTINUED...