Thank you to all who have reviewed! KEEP 'EM COMMING! I'm a little foggy on where all of this is going, I'm sure I'll figure it out w/in the next chapter though ;). Any suggestions?

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue!

ooOOoo

Jareth turned her around to face him. He looked and saw in her eyes there was little left of the fiery, imaginative young girl he had met so long ago. The spark of youth had been replaced by dull adult worries and woes. Suddenly, he didn't care about his needs anymore. All he wanted was for Sarah to have her passion for life back, with or without him in it. He dropped his hold on her dream-self and stepped back, aghast at his sudden attack of empathy.

"Thank you," she said meekly. 'He really is here, isn't he. But how, it wasn't real!' she thought to herself. Her boldness came back, "Now answer me, what do you want." Jareth sighed.

"I want for you to have your dreams, just as I've always wanted," he said softly, "I've been watching you, as I said before, and I can tell that you need more from your life. You're missing something very important...imagination." His words rang true in her, but she wasn't about to let him know it. He went on,"Your life has become the very definition of ordinary, but you were meant to be somrthing extraordinary, Sarah. How else would a Goblin King have fallen in love with you?" Sarah blushed a little at his words. She had forgotten just how he had begged her to stay with him. What had he said? 'Fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave'. It gave her chills.' Snap out of it woman!' she chided herself.

"What trickery are you up to Jareth, I want the truth and I want it now!" Her tone was demanding, her posture was positively hostile, but behind her eyes she longed for him to sweep her away to the Underground and relight the fire in her. He only saw a glimmer of that longing, but in that glimmer he saw hope.

"Tomorrow night I want you to call to me. Fight your logic and call to me. I will come to you and we will go if you want, even for just an hour, back to the Labyrinth and you can see once again the wonders that are hidden in it," He saw a shadow of doubt cross her face, "As my guest this time, not my enemy. You have my word as the Goblin King, no tricks, no games." He raised one sharp eyebrow waiting for response.

"Fine, I suppose it couldn't hurt," she thought for a moment, "Yes, tomorrow night then." 'If it doesn't work, I'll know I was right all along,' she thought. Jareth bowed slightly and disappeared, leaving Sarah to dance her dream away. He watched her through his crystal aching to be there dancing with her. 'In time, perhaps,' he thought, 'give her time.'

ooOOoo

Sarah woke that morning drenched in sweat and with a terrible headache. 'Now I remember why I don't take those pills anymore,' she thought, 'why did I take them anyway?' She struggled to remember, then the dream came flooding back to her, nearly stealing her breath away. Had she actually come face to face with HIM? An even better question; was she actually going to call to him that night? Doing so would go against every logical cell in her body. Her greatly over-excited and sexually neglected body. 'Stop that!' she scolded herself, 'He's just a figure of your imagination, a sexy, sensuous, beautiful... OOOOOHH DAMMIT!'.

She threw the covers off and ran to the bathroom where she dunked her head into a sink of cold water. Why was she so affected by this man, and why couldn't she admit to herself he was real, and that what happened to her ten years ago was real? Sufficiently calmed, she threw on her terrycloth robe and strode to her kitchen/dining room to make herself a cup of tea. She glanced at the clock on the microwave asshe nuked the water; 11:07! She was supposed to be at work at 8:00. Oh well, she needed a day off anyway and she had a LOT of soul searching to do. She called in to her office, faking a stuffy nose and cough (must've been from all the dust in the basement yesterday, achoo!) and settled on her couch with her tea to ponder the meaning of her life and what it had become. 'Was he right? Is my life so ordinary? Do I feel incomplete? Am I missing something?' and so on until she couldn't feel her brain anymore and she decided to throw on some clothes and go for a walk.

ooOOoo

The whole kingdom was in an uproar over her return, a whirlwind with their king at the eye of the storm barking orders and making demands. All the duties that had been neglected were now hastily being overdone. When Jareth was satisfied that everyone knew where their duty was and they had enough to keep them busy for a while he retired to his chamber to take a breather. He looked out around his kingdom from his private balcony and sighed. 'What do I hope to accomplish by bringing her back here? What if she repressed all those memories for a reason?' he wondered. His cynical side answered, 'You're being selfish, as usual. You think that by sweeping her into the magical Underground she'll fall for you now like she should have ten years ago.'

He grimaced. No, maybe that had been his original intention, but now his reasons were genuinely for her own good. He could see her future, and it looked truely bleak. She would end up in a dead end job, never truely happy with her life and what it brought her, and on her death bed she would sing her shoulda-coulda-woulda's about the Underground to her children. He couldn't let that become her reality, he had to intercede. The only question left was would she actually put aside all her logic and reason and call to him.Of this he was uncertain. So all he could do was keep himself busy overseeing the badly needed maintainence of the Labyrinth that he had ignored for far too long.

ooOOoo

She sat in silence on the edge of her bed in the corner of her loft. If she called to him, and he actually came, was she prepaired to throw the logical shell she'd built up over the years out the window? After a lot of inner reflection she had discovered that she did feel an emptiness, an unfulfilled ache for something more. Even if he didn't come, she could alwaysmove on, right? With that in mind, she stood and opened her window. A breeze blew in, billowing her delicate curtains around her. 'Here goes nothing,' she thought. She took a deep breath, let it out slowly and focused.

"Jareth..." she whispered, barely audible even to her. Nothing but the breeze answered her, and with a mix of anger and fear she yelled, "JARETH... PLEASE...!" Suddenly a gust of warm air burst in through the window. In straight over her head flew a snow white barn owl. Sarah ducked for fear that the creature would hurt her, but when she stood and turned around there he was. Standing in the middle of her apartment in all whitewas the man she had convinced herself for so long didn't exist save for in her mind. She was stunned, to say the least. "You're reallyhere," she whispered. 'Yep, everything I ever thought goes out the window,' she thought to herself.

"In the flesh," Jareth replied, hiding so many promises and insinuations in those three little words. "Are you ready, Sarah?" he asked with a smirk as heheld out a hand to her.

"No, butI need this, so I suppose I'm as ready as I'll ever be,"she had convinced herself of this about one point five seconds before the question came. She took his hand and he pulled her into his arms surrounding her with his cape. She caught her breath, and in that breath she smelled nothing but magic. The warmth she felt in her dream two nights ago saturated her. She tried not to blush, but she had thought of herself here so many times it was impossible not to. She tried to put even an inch between them, but he just pulled her closer.

"Hang on to me, and do not take your eyes off mine, no matter what you see," He said this so seriously that all thoughts she'd had about letting go vanished from her mind.She felt his eyes burning into her, felt they could see into her very soul,but she dared not look away. Theneverything around them became blurry, wind whipped around her, but she focused on him. She felt woozy, then everything went black and the last thing she felt washis arms around her and her face cradled on his chest.

BTW, I promise to make good on my M rating next chapter ;-)