CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE - PARENTAL CONSENT

Three days after the couple had met with the Triumvirate a series of scrolls arrived in the morning post. Deverell resisted the urge to read them and took them straight to the king, who was at the stables with Sarah continuing to train Stardust. "Your majesty," he called as he approached the field. Stardust jerked and whinnied, then backed away from Jareth, who had been feeding him.

"Quiet for a second," Sarah told the assistant as she met him at the fence. "He's still a bit skittish. Let Jareth finish feeding him and he'll be right along." There was a pause before she asked, "The Triumvirate sent the scrolls I take it?"

"Yes milady," Deverell confirmed. He lifted a sack at his side. "They've only just arrived this morning. Would you like to have a look?"

For a long moment, she considered it, and finally concluded it would be best if she were to wait for Jareth. Still she couldn't seem to resist them as she continued to stare. "Did you bring this morning's entire post with you?" she asked.

"No miss. This is only the batch of scrolls sent by the Triumvirate."

"Only the scrolls?" she questioned, amazed that what she thought would be a simple piece or two of parchment required a sack.

"Yes miss," Deverell continued. "There are five scrolls in total and several of them have been packaged in silver tubes for protection during travel I imagine."

"Packaged?"

"Have a feel," he offered her the sack. "Weighty bits they are."

"I see," Sarah acknowledged as she hoisted the bag briefly before returning it Deverell's side. "Why so many?"

"I've no idea. I thought it best I bring them straight to Jareth, I mean his majesty."

"It's alright Deverell, you may refer to me the same in front of Sarah as you do when we're in private," the king said when he joined them, an arm folding around the mortal as he kissed her cheek. "Now there's a sack full of scrolls you have to show me." His hand started in the direction of the bag causing Sarah to look at him in awe. "Fey hearing, love." For a second she'd forgotten about his extraordinary senses.

"Yes, Jareth, five scrolls, all sent from the Triumvirate and delivered this morning."

"Some in traveling packages, silver tubes," Sarah added.

Her anticipation made him smile. "They're probably concerned with us taking them Aboveground Sarah, that's all. Relax, let me look at these." Deverell handed him the bag and then offered his arms as support while the king dug through. He pulled out one of the silver encased scrolls. There was an engraving on the side which read: Mr. and Mrs. Robert Williams. The next was a loose scroll he would take to his mother, a trick Jareth had not yet figured out how to perform. The third scroll, he passed to Sarah as he said, "This is for you to complete regarding your plans to improve the Underground." As her eyes busily studied the parchment, Jareth withdrew the last two scrolls and replaced the two he had been holding. There was another encased tube engraved with the name: Ms. Williams, which Jareth assumed was another piece for Sarah and the remaining scroll was instructions from the Triumvirate.

Jareth:

In so much as you and the mortal have expressed your desire to unite, we respectfully request you obtain parental consent as indicated by three of the four enclosed scrolls. The forth scroll is for Ms. Williams, so she might outline for us her ideas on improving the kingdom and better express her desire to be queen.

The enclosed scroll addressed to the Leanan Sidhe, should be consented to by her spirit and if necessary executed by a reputable eye witness. Reputable meaning one of us, Deverell or some other fey as we see fit. Your mortal and your goblins are not suitable witnesses.

The remaining enclosed scrolls have been sealed in containers for protection during your transport to the Aboveground. One is to be signed by Sarah's father and his wife, her legal guardian, consenting not only to the union, but to the mortal's decision to remain Underground. These documents will give her full emancipation and remove all rights of the aforementioned parents. Likewise a duplicative scroll has been crafted for Ms. Williams' mother. To the best of the knowledge in the realm, Ms. Williams' mother has not remarried and there is no legal guardianship on her maternal side. If we're incorrect please advise immediately as these documents are time sensitive.

You will be given a combined total of two weeks to obtain the signatures and complete the scrolls. While we allot a week for each individual, you are welcome to complete negotiations with one family more quickly and use the additional time to negotiate with the remaining one, as may prove useful when one considers you have but one parent and Sarah has three; however, no more than two weeks can be provide and pleas or petitions for extension will not be heard. We have been generous.

Should you have questions or concerns regarding processing these scrolls you're welcomed and encouraged to contact us. We sincerely wish you the best in this endeavor.

Very truly yours,

The Gavel, the Cleric and the Sage

Jareth's eyes reread the line, 'Likewise a duplicative scroll has been crafted for Ms. Williams' mother' several times. "What is it?" Sarah asked, finished reviewing her scroll and suddenly more interested in the look on his face. "Jareth, what is it?"

Spinning the silver tube in his hand, he showed her the engraving. When she reached for it, he caught her hand, "Sarah they want you to get a signature from your mother."

"Karen? You mean Karen and my dad," Sarah screwed up her face. "Don't you?"

"Well yes, Karen and your father, but they want your mother's also."

Letting her arms fall to her sides, she yelped, "I don't even know where my mother is?" Disappointed, her shoulders slumped and her view was nothing but grass and dirt.

"We can find her," Jareth tried to calm her fears. "Whatever you're worrying over, there's no cause. There are spells, I can use my crystals, I promise you, whatever it takes we'll find her and we'll maker her sign this scroll."

Tears balanced precariously on the edge of her eyelids as her focus left the scroll and ascended to the king's face, "I don't want to see my mother Jareth. Don't you see?" Handing back the scroll she had been holding, her feet began to carry her back to the castle. "I don't want to know where she is." Halfway down the hill, the king's acute hearing picked up one final cry, "I don't care where she is."

Face down on their bed, Sarah wailed. Jareth was quick to land at her side once he passed off the scrolls to Deverell for safe keeping. "Sarah, darling, what's wrong?" he soothed.

"I don't want to talk about it," her muffled reply came from a small crack between the duvet and the inside of her elbow.

His gloves fell to her shoulders, "Sarah, oh Sarah, there's nothing you can't talk to me about." She rolled onto her left side, looking at him through swimming eyes. "I know I've given you reason not to trust me, not to confide in me, but I mean to make that right. I mean to be as honest with you as I hope you will find yourself able to be with me.

She sat up, folding her legs underneath herself, the backs of her hands sliding over her cheeks pushing away cried tears. "It's not about trusting you. I trust you. I love you," she smiled at him brightly compelling him join her on the mattress. His head was at her right side as Jareth rested his hot lips against the tightened skin covering her knee. Gloved hands rubbed her thighs while he spooned around her, offering her comfort and a safe environment where she could express whatever it was locked inside her. "I love you," she repeated combing through his long blond hair, new tears already beginning to gather in her eyes. When he looked back at her the way he did she knew she'd made the right decision, not just in asking to stay, but in coming back. Even though it had meant waiting the fifteen years until she was ready, able to accept him and all he was, all he had to offer. In her wildest schoolgirl fantasy she couldn't have possible appreciated his world back then, not at fifteen, probably not even at twenty when she was just getting her first taste of freedom. At twenty five it may have been possible, but she was busy then trying to put away her childish reminders of youth and forge on into some brave new adulthood. Fantasy novels segued way to biographies and rag dolls turned to collectible porcelain figurines. But now at thirty, she wanted life to be an allegory contrivance to make the world seem less egocentric. 'Reconnecting with him now was exactly the way it was supposed to be,' she thought as she traced her fingers from his temple to his chin.

Stilling her hand he kissed the tips of each of her fingers. "And I love you, Sarah," he confessed placing her palm over his heart. "I could take a wooden lance through my chest and live," the king sad with inordinate seriousness. "What beats beneath this cage of bone and wrap of flesh, beats for you, not for me."

Laughing she wiped away those fresh tears. Showing herself to him was nothing to fear, quite the contrary, it seemed the more of herself she showed him, the more he was able to nourish all her attributes and repair the faults which years of pain had left in her. With him she had found pride, she had found self worth and leaned to trust. More than trust, for trust often rode the coattails of love into a benevolent heart. Trust was a beginning, one that for Sarah led to things like hurt and disappointment, but Jareth excelled the expectations she had for him. "You really want to know, don't you?" she asked, still gazing at him as though it were the first time they had ever set eyes upon one another.

"I want to know everything about you, the good and the bad. I want to undo every hurt you've ever felt, reinforce every fondness, but only at your pace, love, only when you're ready for me to know."

Slinking down beside him, Sarah's legs twisted with the king's and their arms folded over one another. Her long fingers walking over his lips. "Kiss me," she requested. He obliged with all the tenderness he could feel, anxious to convey them to the woman in his arms, hopeful she was feeling everything he couldn't find the words for. When her lips parted to accept his advance, her warm breath filled him. Salt from her tears, seasoned her mouth, he could taste it.

Jareth knew there was great heartache inside of her, a pain she was ready to let go of. Though he ached for her, he broke their kiss tenderly. Their foreheads pressed together, Sarah's cheeks resting in his palms, he whispered to her, "What were you about to tell me, love?"

"I turn a child again whenever I so much as think of her. I'm that same prepubescent whelp I was the day she left, worse." Her sentences came slowly, gapping pauses between them as she went on recounting her youth. "I regress right back to the days right after they fell out of love. Isn't that a ridiculous concept for me to try and explain to you, falling out of love. When they tried to justify it, that's what they said. 'Mommy and daddy have fallen out of love. It happens sometimes, grown ups just grow apart. It's got nothing to do with you. You must understand, we still love you, we just don't love one another.' Well I didn't understand. If they were grown up already, why did they need to grow anymore? And if they had too, why apart, why not together? How did you suddenly fall out of fourteen years of being in love and why wasn't anybody fighting to fall back in? Hell, I tried to push them back in, but it backfired, made them hate each other more. I'd spend nights at my girlfriends' houses, in their perfectly nuclear families, thinking if they had time alone without the pressure of being parents they'd be able to be lovers."

Jareth's hand made soft soothing circles on the small of her back, "Their divorce was not the result of your not being able to keep them together."

As if she had never heard him speak, Sarah went on. "Of course I didn't think of them as lovers then, but I knew, I knew they had a tenderness between them, something visible. The pictures of them when they were in college together, they were so carefree looking. Daddy conceded to audition for one of their productions and found himself playing Nick Bottom opposite her Titania in the NYU production of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. During a scene in the wood when they were to meet in Titania's bower, daddy leaned in to kiss her and whispered in to her ear that he wished to marry her and as she took his hand, she found waiting in his palm a solitaire round cut diamond engagement ring. Mother was smitten with him after that, I remember her telling me about it. I remember how they'd cook together and sing or the way they would kiss as they passed in the hall. When I was ten, Mr. Everett, my mother's college drama teacher called and told her the class had chosen to do Pirates of Penzance. Then he asked if she'd consider playing Ruth, an older nurse maid who cared for an apprentice, Frederick, to the Pirate King."

"And this Pirate King, is he a fearsome type who might care to challenge me?" Jareth asked her softly.

Never failing to evoke a smile, Jareth's comment seemed to shake Sarah from her reverie. "No," she told him. "The Pirate King could never challenge you. He's just some made up character in a play, You're real." Her hands pawed as if she needed to make certain of that fact.

"He's the one isn't he, this Pirate King, he's the one who took your mother away."

Tears poured out of her eyes in place of her acknowledging he was correct. "Even Mr. Everett remarked at how much make up they need to get mother looking the part. The Pirate King was an alumni from NYU as well only he was ten or so years behind my mother. His name was Patrick. During the production, mother was asked not to wear her wedding ring so as to better fit the role and when Patrick showed an interest in her, she lied about her age. 'Harmless flirtation', I heard her shouting at my father one night not long after the show closed. She left that night. By the time I was twelve, mom and Patrick were the hottest on-stage/off-stage couple to hit Broadway and daddy had met Karen. In the begin she'd visit now and again, bringing some trinket with her when she came. Music boxes, marionettes, playbills, I had them all. I had everything a girl could want, but for a mother. I followed her career, saved clippings, tried to pretend it didn't matter, that there was nothing motherly about her. She wanted to be my friend, asked me to call her Linda, because it was 'trendier' than mom. I suppose you can say I literally got my acting talent from my mother."

"You know," Jareth interrupted, "we've more in common than I thought."

"How's that?"

"Our mothers both passed us off to someone else."

Sarah rolled onto her back and peered up at the ceiling. "Only you've got Arulan and I've got Karen," she sighed.

"It's not my place to say, but do you think part of the problem with Karen might be that you were never able to accept her as a mother because you were never able to give up on Linda after she gave up on you?" Full time king, part time psychologist, Sarah looked at him slack-jawed. "I'm not trying to be judgmental, love. Look at Arulan and I, ours is not the model step-relationship either. I understand what it's like to not be able to deny a parent Sarah, believe me I do."

"I was 23 the last time I saw her."

"Karen?"

"No, my mother."

"Your graduation?" he asked harmlessly.

Turning away from him, Sarah explained, "No, auditions. We were both trying out for the part of Rizzo in a production of Grease. After I got the part, she never spoke to me again."

Coming up behind her, Jareth pulled her tightly into his arms, "Jealousy Sarah, it was all out of jealousy."

"A mother shouldn't be jealous of her child," she said as she rolled over to bury her head into his neck. "I never asked her to be jealous of me. I just wanted her to still love me, like she said she did when she left."

Smoothing her hair he reassured her, "She couldn't love you darling. She didn't even love herself." When her torrents wore down to a mild whimper, he went on, "You're old enough to realize now that what she did was wrong, smart enough to know you didn't provoke it and when we go Aboveground, you'll face her with all the grit you had when you faced me. Your back stiff, your chin solid, you'll look her right in the eyes and let her know she has no power over you, not any longer."

"Where's Sarah?" Jareth popped his head into the office to ask Deverell.

"I haven't seen her...no wait," he lifted his eyes from whatever document was holding his attention. "Come to think of it, she was here earlier this morning. She asked a bunch of questions, said she was going to see Arulan and left."

The king went to find his servant. "Arulan, is Sarah with you?"

"No."

"Did you see her today?" he asked, not pleased by her response.

"I did. She asked a bunch of questions, said she was going to see the kitchen staff and then left."

"Then I shall go and see them," Jareth roared.

Arulan, who had been fixing flowers in a vase, wiped her hands on her apron, "Won't do you any good. I saw her leave them too, went downstairs, probably to see Dalkeil.

Jareth found Dalkeil, "I don't suppose you know where she is either?" he asked when he saw the room empty.

"And by she I only suppose you mean Sarah?" The Goblin King nodded, this little game beginning to anger him. "Well I had seen her, just before lunch. She asked me a bunch of questions, said she was going to see Gribbin and then went to the barn with a picnic basket she got from the kitchen staff."

Worry began to consume him. After they spent most of the night discussing Sarah's relationship with her biological mother and the many ways it was similar to his relationship with Leanan Sidhe, the two of them slept through breakfast. When Jareth woke up she was not next to him in bed. His instinct told him to find her immediately, but not wanting to seem too controlling, he busied himself with other things until lunch. When she didn't show up for lunch, he kept calm in front of the staff, trying to appear aloof, as if her being missing from the dinner table was completely expected, but it was now drawing close to the evening meal and she was still no where to be found. He'd tried the office first, assuming she'd gotten her nose stuck in one of his books and followed the trail that Deverell had begun from him to the barn. As he approached, Jareth could see Gribbin grooming the animals, but he saw no raven haired mortal by his side or anywhere near for that matter. "Gribbin," he called impatiently from a few yards away. "Was Sarah by here?"

"Aye, my grace, and so she were," he replied. "Had a bunch of questions for me."

Rolling his eyes, Jareth asked, "Did she say where she was going?"

"Matter of fact she did, now if I can remember," he scratched his head. "Something about the dwarves, Hoggle or Mason, can't remember exactly which one."

Pivoting on his heels, Jareth turned to head toward the door to the Labyrinth. "Hoggle or Mason. Can't remember exactly which one. Bunch of questions. Bunch of bull," he spouted randomly as he stomped along the grass to the sandy edge of the Labyrinth.

"Thank both of you very much for your time." The king had no trouble recognizing the escapee when he heard her voice from the edge of a fountain off to the far right. "And Hoggle, you'll remember to have Drema fill that out and bring it back to me."

Tucking the paper into a pouch hung from his waistband, Hoggle mumbled, "I gots it, I gots it. I'll bring it back to the castle likes you said."

"And Mason, I gave you two didn't I?" Sarah fumbled with the papers on her lap, "One for Didymus and one for Ludo."

"Yes, miss, but what about Winston and Jena?" Mason asked.

"Oh, I was hoping to get to them myself, but it's getting so late"

Jareth's stern voice interrupted, "It certainly is." Sarah hadn't seen him look so angry in quite a while.

"Say not another word, miss. Shall be my pleasure to deliver those as well."

Hoggle snatched the two additional sheets out of Sarah's hand as she leaned over to hand them to Mason. "Pass 'em on my ways home. I can handle it."

"So this is what you've been doing all day," the king said, sitting beside her on the fountain wall and looking at a few of the papers she'd set down close by.

"Yes," Sarah replied taking her papers from Jareth's hand, leaving him with a shocked look upon his face.

"Don't the two of you have things you can be doing?" he snapped at the dwarves. Mason plodded away, into the Labyrinth. Hoggle stood up and kissed Sarah's cheek before he left, taking advantage of Sarah's closed eyes to shoot Jareth a nasty look.

When they were both through the door, Sarah turned to the king, "That was mean."

"You disappear all day, not so much as a note and suddenly I'm mean?"

"It's not their fault I forgot to leave a note," Sarah gathered up her things and started back to the castle.

"Well it's not for lack of you having paper," he pointed out as he caught up with her. "Going to tell me what you've got there?"

"No," she saw how hurt Jareth appeared and quickly added, "this is just research. When I've got it all finalized, I'll discuss it with you."

"Discuss what with me?"

"You'll see."

"Why can't I see now?" the king behaved like an impetuous child.

"Because," Sarah said sternly.

Jareth pulled her to him, her work stuck between their chests, "Not even for a kiss?" His lips covered hers and she returned his tender affection.

"Not even for a kiss," she said as they parted.

"I see, so everyone else in the entire kingdom has given you there opinion on something and you don't care to have mine?"

"Not everyone in the kingdom. There were too many goblins, many of whom were incoherent, so I took just a sampling of the more well spoken ones."

"Of course," he said gruffly.

"I do want your opinion, Jareth, but I don't want you to do my work for me. I've got to come up with a plan for bettering the Underground and whatever I decide to make my plan has got to come from me. When it does, before I propose it to the Triumvirate, I want your opinion, but until then I have to do this on my own." Proudly, Sarah stood before him, all her work in the crook of one arm, the other hand placed protectively on top.

"Of course," the king said more sweetly this time, smiling at the woman she continued to evolve into, happy for these moments when he could witness it.

In bed, Sarah waited for the king. Normally he was by her side at 10:30, sometimes earlier if he had romantic plans for them. But this night it was nearly quarter past eleven and no Jareth. She riffled through the questionnaires she'd completed earlier, but found it difficult to concentrate as she debated between his being angry at her for disappearing and his being hurt by her not sharing her research with him. By 11:40 she'd had enough. Her feet fell into the slippers waiting at her bedside and she wrapped inside a robe, determined to find the man she should have had to look no further than the next pillow for.

Down the hall she went, descended the stairs and walked to the kitchen, figuring he may be snacking since she was informed at dinner it had been the king's first meal of the day. No Jareth. Perhaps the training room for a late night work-out. No Jareth. The music room, tapping out some haunting melody. No Jareth. The office for a bit of last minute work, one of the sitting rooms for a brandy, perhaps the terrace taking in the clear night sky, but she found him in none of those locales. Back to the bedroom, Sarah plodded, mad thoughts running loose in her mind. They had just begun to embark on what promised to be an exciting life, a warm and affectionate love. Terror swept over her when she thought she might have lost him again. The door to their chamber flew open and there was no one inside to greet her. Tears ran like torrents from her eyes as she began to cry.

Between sobs, she heard the faint pang of guitar strings through the open window. Rushing to the sill she nearly toppled out, there was indeed music in the air. Running back to the terrace Sarah threw open the French doors and stepped outside. Her eyes looked over the edge and below she could see the Goblin King strumming away, familiar words leaving his lips as his music filled the space between them. "I'll place the stars within your eyes."

"Jareth," she called, unable to choke back her tears.

Elegantly his hands let loose the crooning instrument as he stepped away from and around it. The piece levitated in the air, strings continued to vibrate, the melody to play as if he had never stopped strumming. "Jump," he told her. "Go on and jump, I'll catch you." Hesitantly she grabbed the rail, "You trust me don't you?" Without thinking she threw her leg over the rail and perched on the edge, bringing the remaining leg around with its mate.

'It was only the second story,' she reasoned as she looked down into his waiting arms briefly, before shoving off the terrace and letting herself fall. At first it was rushed, the wind whipping her hair, making it sting her face as her weight cut through the air, but then rather quickly it changed. The wind grew warm and gentle, delicately turning her so she was no longer splayed face down, but turned onto her back, a slight curve at her knees and another at her hips.

Falling had turned to floating as Jareth voice rose above the rushing air, "I'll be there for you as the world falls down." As if on cue, she settled into his arms, her hands reaching instinctively to go around his neck. She clung to him, feeling his hair caress her shoulder as he bent to nuzzle her neck. "Are you crying?" he asked when his lips met moisture on her cheeks.

Not wishing to tell him what she had actually been thinking and what those thoughts had caused her to do, Sarah replied, "I guess falling from two stories up is a bit more amazing than I originally thought.

"And do you cry each time you are amazed?" he asked skeptically.

"Were that I did, I would cry each time I looked at you," Sarah answered. Setting her feet on the cobblestones, Jareth leaned to kiss her, his mouth hung open just a fraction from hers, their breath meeting and exchanging as they barely touched causing their connection to spark with electricity. For a long collection of moments the kiss went on deepening as it did. When at last they separated, Sarah finally noticed what Jareth had been at while he was missing from their bed. All around her, his garden was alight with tiny fairies, a wrought iron table and chairs placed in the path of the moon's light. The guitar not the only instrument come alive with no maestro to work it. "What is all this?" she asked, pleased by what she saw.

"Sarah, my love," Jareth took her by the hand and led her to one of the chairs. It was then she noticed the bucket of champagne on the table and the two flutes. "The other evening you expressed to me some concern as to our love lives becoming patterned and boring." His black gloves blending in the neck of the bottle as he filled their glasses. Bent before her, the king offered her the drink, "I should not want our lives to become any more boring or ordinary outside the bed chamber. It would please me to think I could keep you surprised for all eternity."

There was such truth in his eyes, such conviction. He wasn't trying to court her, to woo her, to get her to give him his way. In sincere a way as he had when he offered her dreams to her, Jareth pledged this to her now. Even in the most extraordinary place in existence, he would find ways to make their world, their lives, even more extraordinary. If ever she believed a man existed who could do just that, it was this man.

The night around them seemed perpetually warm and the fairies which danced about giving them light never grew tired, not even as the two found themselves reaching the bottom of the champagne bottle. Jareth took the glass from her hand and lifted her against his chest. His free arm slid around her waist as he began to dance with her among the flowers. Turn after turn, he spun his mortal, her thin silk robe feeling more and more like a full, shimmering ball gown. Leaving go of her hand, Jareth slid his glove up her arm, filling his fingers with her rich black hair. "Do you still love me?" he asked.

"What a silly thing to ask."

"Not the answer I was looking for."

"Jareth, what's got you asking me such foolish things, on such a perfect night as you've devised?"

'Listen to her,' he thought as she spoke to him. 'Not here a couple of months and already speaking like she had been all her days.' But, then she was an actress. "Such great lengths you take to avoid my question, that it makes me wonder all the more."

Sarah took his face into her hands, covering it with soft, quick kisses. "I do still love you, as much as I did the first time I told you, perhaps more."

"And it is still your wish to remain here, in my world, by my side?"

"Yes, Jareth, yes," she said devoutly as her face burrowed into his neck, her breath making his spine tingle. "Every moment of the day when I can't touch you, can't feel your body pressed to mine is agony."

He remained stiff, unwavering as her hands gathered his shirt front to either side of the opening which revealed his pale chest and with a quick tug tore it open to his waist, allowing her hands to roam inside. "It's been two full days now since we've gotten the letter from the Triumvirate Sarah." She kissed over his exposed skin, "Only twelve days remain and we've four signatures to obtain. If you love me as you say you do, you'll leave with me tomorrow and all this research you're hiding behind can wait until we get back."

"Give me one more day," Sarah pleaded.

A great sigh came from the king, "For what?"

"To finish what I've begun and to prepare to see them again." Stepping back, she held his hands, "One more day and," she added raising an eyebrow, "one more night."

Helpless to the power she held over him, Jareth followed her out of the garden, over the patio and into the music room. Sarah used her magic to light the torches on the wall. In the corner, Jareth's harp played, the strings plucked by invisible fingers. With a gentle shove, the mortal sat the king, backward at his piano bench, "What are you doing?" he asked with a knowing smirk.

Standing a yard away, Sarah began to undo the tie on her robe. Salmon colored silk pooled on the sterile white floor, revealing the chemise she wore beneath. The straps, spaghetti thin and the bodice fitting to her voluptuous upper body. A ribbon of embroidery dividing the fluent fabric from the sheer skirt which though less pliable, was opaque enough for Jareth to appreciate the outline of her waist and the sway of he hips as she strode toward him, "Proving I love you."

"Making love is not proving love," he pointed out as she neared him, gathering her skirt in her hands.

"Not normally, but tell me, tell me when we're together, you don't know we were meant for one another? You can't. Because you know the same thing I know. This is more than love, it is completion. When two people love as deeply as this, making love is the natural way of showing it."

'If only you knew how deeply I feel it,' he thought as he removed his gloves using his magic to free himself of his remaining constraints, in time for her to slip her thighs over his, as she sat facing him in his lap. Cupping the king's face, she lifted his lips to her own, kissing him long and deep, attempting to convey all of her emotions in that solitary action. As the Goblin King leaned against the key guard of the piano accepting her advance, he folded one arm around her waist, the free hand spinning a pyramid of crystals in the palm. Tipping the spheres toward the floor, they rolled out of his hand and tinkled as they made contact with the marble tiles. When their ballad stopped a handsome array of pillows heaped on the floor at the foot of the stool. Jareth's second hand slipped over Sarah's hip and guided her gently to the cushions below. Sighing, she stretched out her arms feeling the different swatches of silk, velvet, leather and chenille which enveloped her. The king's tender hands slid beneath the hem of her gown, revealing her glory for his eyes to drink in. Sarah's skin was as alive with sensation from the combination of rich fabrics that caressed her, as her body was alive with her lover's touch. The melody of their satisfaction sang in tune with enchanted chorus Jareth's magic had arranged.

When morning's light revealed itself, Jareth and Sarah were wound safely together in the nest of pillows they'd used as a bed, a sleek sable throw for their cover. The king looked down lovingly at the mortal in his arms. He knew from the amount of light in the music room there was little time to get them back to their chamber before Arulan arrived with their breakfast. It crossed his mind to wake her and then the thought fled, for to disturb something so perfect was like clouding the sky with soot. Rather than that, he used his magic to transport them to bed, bringing with them the sable throw, so when Sarah finally did wake, she would have a reminder of the evening they had shared. Slipping out from beneath her, Jareth continued to let her doze as he dressed. When he was looking just so, as usual, he left their chamber, his love still lost to dream.

He stopped in the kitchen first to grab a pastry and some juice and to notify Arulan that Sarah was still sleeping and it might be a good idea to bring breakfast to her a bit later. "Mercy," the elf cried out when he told her, "she isn't unwell again is she?"

"Not at all," he told her a telltale grin manipulating his mouth. "Tired. These last few days have been much for her to digest and having to return Aboveground is an entirely new pressure she's not come to terms with. The Supreme One knows I'm not thrilled with having to face Leanan Sidhe, not after all these years."

"And hers is the only permission they're requiring of you?" Arulan asked, her voice quivering with tears her stubborn jaw refused to allow her eyes to cry.

Jareth took her beneath his arm, "Perhaps they knew, as I know, that your permission was to obvious to insult by putting on paper, mother." The elf stopped all she was busily doing in the kitchen at his remark. "Would it please you if I were to call you mother?" he asked at her uncertain look.

"Please me? It would elate me. I would sprout wings from joy," she admitted. The large smile which crossed her thin pink lips gave way to a stiff look, not stern, but merely rigid with seriousness. "But Jareth, you have a mother and I ought not be accepting that title."

"But you..." the king began to object.

"But I nothing," Arulan insisted. "What I did, I did because it was an order from my queen. I cared for her child, as I would have done regardless of the level of involvement she chose to have with you. She was still your mother Jareth and she loved you in her own way."

"So," he said hurt by her words, "you never thought of me as your son?"

"Indeed, I have from the first time I held you I thought, 'Woe that he were mine.' What's more I put everything I had into raising you. You were just like my own and there are no words for what I feel to know you too, think of me as your own mother. You know as well as I do words have a profound effect here and so to call me mother would be inappropriate."

"And to call you one who is as my mother would be ineffective," he chided.

Arulan handed him his pastry and kissed his cheek, "Then you shall call me as you always have and on occasion, such as this one, you may remind me of your feelings." Jareth smiled back at her, his heart lifted by their mutual understanding. Arulan, touched by his sentiments, pleased at his new relationship with Sarah and moved by her own longings, failed to resist the temptation to reach for his golden locks and rustle them just a bit as she had done when he was much younger and several feet shorter.

As he had then, Jareth scorned the woman with his eyes and set about restoring his hair in it's elaborate mane. Before he left the kitchen he told her he would be in the sitting room closest to his office if anyone were looking for him, but if it was Sarah who came looking, she should be asked to wait for him in his office until he came for her. Arulan agreed to his odd, yet detailed request. He was particularly cheerful with Sarah returned to him, she even thought she saw an uncharacteristic spring in his step as he danced away.

Opening the door to the sitting room he had described, Jareth raised his finger to his chin and looked about thoughtfully. The walls were cream colored with a high mahogany chair rail topped in a fine fabric border. Crown molding helped the ceiling blend into the tops of the walls. The sitting area had room for three and while there would be no way to tier the floors as they were in his own office, it would be easy to rearrange the wing back chairs to create a natural division. Jareth set about reorganizing what there was in the room. Turning the three chairs to semicircle before the fireplace, two small side tables between each one. The drink cart he left by the door. The larger table he moved into the center of the room.

Then for the heavy work. There were no walls to manipulate, no tampering to be done with the foundation of the castle, so he used magic to create a credenza and a desk, which he placed parallel to one another before the window Between the two a high back leather chair on casters. To either side a five shelve book case and around the table, four smaller chairs, all made of the same rich mahogany as the rail with gold trimmed green fabrics to blend with the border.

When it came to decoration, Jareth did very little, there would be time for that. He added a clock, grandfather of course and flirted with the idea of having it set for thirteen hours, but thought better of the idea a moment later. There had been several paintings on the walls, all of which he removed and above the fireplace a crest, which he removed as well. "Books," he said as he gave the room his final survey. His office was one door down on the opposite side of the hall and still strewn across one of the tables there were all the volumes Sarah regularly read during her stay. At first he thought he may just copy them all so she would be left with her own library, but realized quickly this would give him the opportunity to visit her were he to find a certain volume he was looking for not in his collection. Carefully he gathered them up in a delicately balanced heap and carried them back to the room. It took two trips and filled most of the 10 shelves the two book cases offered.

'Something more,' he thought as he sat in the chair and attempted to mentally walk through his typical day. "A letter box," he said first as he imagined himself reaching for the post. "And a desk lamp," he leaned over the desk pretending to write, "for making journal entries." As the king spoke the items he recited appeared in the room, each pristine and coordinated with the overall aura of the room. A mahogany wood box on the corner of the desk, a brass lamp with a stained glass shade. "A journal," each item led to another as he continued to list, "and a quill, an ink well, a blotter, parchment." Sitting back he let out a sigh, "If there's anything else she'll need, I can't think of it."

Mission completed, Jareth joined Deverell in his office, rather pleased with himself. "Good day," he addressed his assistant.

"Good day, your majesty," he replied. "Have you spoken with the lady Sarah about making those arrangements to go Aboveground."

Nothing like ruining a perfectly wonderful moment with stark reality. "I have, and I have agreed to give her today to finish some elaborate research project she has begun. We will leave tomorrow and stay gone no more than ten day's time. And you, have you made the necessary provisions for our trip?"

"For as much as I can anticipate what you might encounter while you're there. I've had Arulan pack clothes for the both of you and the leather man has crafted two fine suitcases I'm sure will pass any mortal inspection. Lastly, I traded in some of your diamonds for currency. I still don't see why they won't let you use your magic."

Jareth shrugged, "That makes two of us. I suppose they're afraid I would use it to coerce Sarah's parents into giving us their consent."

"And you couldn't as easily do that with money?" Deverell questioned, knowing what little he knew of mortals, was still enough to see they were slaves to their currency.

"It can be done." Curiosity ruled his look as inquired, "Exactly how much mortal currency have you arranged for us?"

Deverell drummed his fingers on the desk, "Well, I wanted you to have enough to eat and to purchase a bed for each night. Then I got to thinking, if there is something I've forgotten, some unpredictable incidental for which none of us has accounted, I wanted you to be able to suffice."

"How much?" Jareth asked more solidly.

"Seventy hundreds," he admitted.

The king's mouth hung, "Seven thousand dollars? For one ten day's stay?" He laughed that it might relieve some of the tension flooding his assistant's face. "Why on that kind of money, we shall stay at five star hotels and dine on room service."

"Your majesty, I was only trying to be considerate. The trader said the mortal world could be expensive, especially the lands of New York."

"The trader doesn't get much business these days. Sounds as if he may have been happier to see you than you were to stumble upon him." In time Deverell would come to learn that not every service provider in the Underground was honest. "It's sufficient Deverell," he commented refocusing on the topic at hand. "What you've procured for us will allow us to live nicely while we're not in our home. Although, I don't think we need to worry about anyone being bribed for such an amount. The more you deal with mortals, especially the kind capable of wishing away their children or abandoning them, the more you shall come to see their greed would only make them scoff at such a nominal fee."

"'Tis a fact I hope I never need to learn," the young fey admitted, wagging his head from side to side.

"Were it a fact I could keep from you," Jareth told him.

Neither of them heard the door open and close, but it was Sarah's voice clear as a bell which asked, "And what fact is it you've such trouble hiding?"

His arms wound around her. "My love for you milady," he said with a grin. "Such a fact is one I could never hide." The king brushed her lips in a tender kiss. "Deverell," Jareth called over his shoulder, never wavering his glance from Sarah's bright green eyes, "I've something to show milady. Do you require my attention for anything further?"

"Even if I did, it does not take a wiseman to see yours is already otherwise occupied," he noted. "Go on you two, tend to this business of yours and leave the worry to me, it is after all that which I am unpaid for."

Jareth smiled as he led his love to the door. In Deverell he had chosen wisely. "And where were you when I woke up this morning?" she asked him.

"You'll see," he winked. "You'll see and I think you'll agree it was worth us having to be apart." As the door closed behind them, Deverell grinned. He wondered many times over if he would ever find true love. In Burrgraff, they still used antiquated concepts like prearranged marriage, but now he was a citizen of the Underground, and as he was coming to learn, not only were things not always as they seemed, but anything was possible.

Before the door to what was now Sarah's office, Jareth stood with his arm around his love, neither of them moving to turn the knob and peer inside. "Have you brought me here to see this door?" she asked. "Because it is a fine door, a door worthy of much admiration, but nothing so great to make it worth my not finding you beside me as morning met my eyes."

"Not impressed with my door, you say. In that case," he grasped the knob, turning it fully to the left, "I will have to hope you are better impressed with what lies inside." He swung open the door and stepped in first so he could watch her reaction as it happened.

When first she crossed the threshold, she saw a sitting room, like any other in the castle, barring the color of the wood and the fabric on the walls. It was a bit more grand than the others, larger, with a fireplace, but not until she stepped completely inside, sweeping her eyes over the full scope of the room, did she realize what it was he had done. The desk and all it's perfect amenities, the credenza, the book cases. Upon closer inspection, as she read over the spines of the books which filled the shelves, Sarah saw he'd gathered up all of her research, save what was still in their chambers. Her eyes lit like a child on Christmas morning, as if she had only just descended the stairs and taken in the wonder of the holiday.

"You did all this for me?" Sarah asked stunned.

"And I would do this and more ten times over for you. I would do all that you asked and require only your love in return," as he fell to one bent knee, the king pledged his servitude. Sarah remained rigid and silent. As he stood Jareth slipped his arms about her waist and donned a look of concern.

On tiptoe she reached to kiss his lips, "My love," she added, "comes at no cost to you, no monetary fee, no feudatory craftsmanship, only that you hold it in your heart as delicately as you hold me in your arms."

"Always," he promised her. "So, you like it?" Jareth asked as he pointed out to her the smaller things, adding, "I've left the decorating to you. Nothing in here really suited you anyway."

"I love it," she gushed. "Love it and love you for doing it. I'm going to get my notes from yesterday and make good use of the space you've given me." That look of childlike innocence still bathed her face as she went running upstairs.

"I'll have Arulan send Hoggle to your office when he brings your paperwork this afternoon," he called as she flitted off.

"My office...my office," he overheard her sing between chuckles.

"Speaking of which, I'll be in my office if you need me." Still distracted by her new office, Sarah called back an OK and merrily continued on her way.

After a few revolutions in the high back leather chair, Sarah sat still, waiting for the lovely dizziness to fade. By the time Arulan led Hoggle to her door, she'd managed to get through more than half of the responses to the survey she had crafted. Many of the answers were individual specific, but there were certain things upon which many of them agreed: They all felt a desire to be loyal to their king, as opposed to an obligation and they all wished they were looked at more kindly and less like gruesome, evil little creatures.

"Made you yer own office, did he?" the dwarf noted as he entered.

"Come in," Sarah greeted him, moving to sit with him nearer to the fireplace.

Hoggle worked his way into one of the seats, "Tryin' to make up for the fact you was asleep through Christmas?"

The thought had not occurred to her until now. The year was coming to its end, she certainly had no recollection of having celebrated the holiday. "I slept through Christmas," she repeated. "Sounds like the title of an incredibly sad work of nonfiction, doesn't it?"

"Suppose it does." His small hands thrust the papers at her, "Here you are. All you asked me and Mason for. Don't know what your planning to do but I made you a promise and I keeps my promises."

"Are you upset with me?" she asked at his shortness.

"Am not," he huffed. "Just don't think you oughtta be doin' all this. Jumpin' at their beck and call, when yer not even subject to their laws. Riskin' everythin' by goin' Aboveground. Ain't right is all."

Eyeing him she surmised his objections were somewhat more than general. "Hoggle are you afraid I won't come back if I go Aboveground?"

"Ain't afraid of nothin'," the dwarf denied, avoiding her critical stare. Reaching for him she promised, "Hoggle, I'm going Aboveground to ensure when I do become a member of this community, my citizenship is permanent. I could never leave you, no more than I could leave Jareth. I love you Hoggle."

"No need to go butterin' me up," he hesitated, hopping down out of the chair and heading to the door. "But, I'm glad to hear you say so," the dwarf admitted quickly before he left. Outside in the hall he wiped away a stray tear or two before exiting the castle.

When he was gone, Sarah read what he had written in the survey she provided him. Under the heading, What is the worst thing about living in the Underground, her small friend had painstakingly scribed as neatly as his fat fingers could, the following reply:

The worst thing 'bout livin' in the Underground is yer always getting called by terrible names; horrible, stupid, coward, repulsive little scab, just cause you ain't pretty lookin' like fairies is. Ain't right neither, cause all them pretty things everyone's fusing over are mean and nasty and some of the goblins and less attractive things gets a bad reputation. Maybe, if we was, I dunno, if folks thought we wasn't so repulsive, horrible and stupid, if they knew we was more than trolls what steals their children in the middle of the night kind of cowards, maybe then mortals wouldn't hates us so much. Then my little girl could grow up somes place where individuals were accepted for who they was and not what they was.

Tears filled her eyes as she recalled, it had been her to call him a coward. In hindsight, she had been one of those people, one of the ones who saw the pretty fairies as good and the disgusting goblins as bad, but the time she spent with them, proved them to be more and allowed her to see from his side now. As she thought about the friendship she had found here, Sarah began to think what a pioneering relationship it was indeed. Mortal and dwarf, human and mythical, and yet they shared in a bond, both frowned upon by those in the know, stuck in their more primitive ways, those who hated what she was. There were few who had come to know her and crossed the gap between what they knew to what they felt, but in his message Sarah saw a greater task. She saw her plan to change the Underground. If she were able to change the mortals' minds about what the mythicals were and vice versa, that would be a change Underground. One of enough significance, one for good, one even the Triumvirate couldn't deny.

Quill in hand, Sarah worked furiously to complete the scroll the Triumvirate had sent. Her idea, to change Jareth from a king who stole carelessly wished away children in the night to a fey who rescued mistreated and neglected children. A simple matter of reprogramming the circumstances by which a child was sent Underground. Once the children were there, rather than having the mortals run the Labyrinth to get them back, they would be housed until such time as suitable parents wished for a child they could not have. Of course there would be wrinkles to iron out, but that would come in time. For now, she had devised an indisputable plan which would so greatly improve mortal/mythical relations, the Gavel himself couldn't refuse giving it a try. Sarah rolled the scroll back up and left her office to find Jareth. She found him with Deverell, inspecting the luggage which had been handcrafted for their trip.

"Jareth," she called swinging open his office door. "Oh," she said when she realized she had interrupted them, "I'm sorry. This can wait. The two of you finish up."

The king's voice halted her hasty get away, "Sarah, what have you got there?"

Doing her best to hide the scroll behind her back, she lied, "Nothing. Really, it can wait."

"Come milady, have a look at what's been made for your trip," Deverell suggested.

Smoothing her hand over the soft, nearly seamless leather, Sarah found herself impressed with the craftsmanship. "Luggage?" she half asked.

"Aye, it would be terribly obvious if you were to arrive with some great trunk or weathered satchel bag." Deverell explained, "I've had a leather man craft these to fit a description his majesty had given me."

Looking up at Jareth, Sarah's eyes wrinkled in confusion, "Why not just rely on our magic?"

"Because, love, they'll not let us have our magic Aboveground. We'll have to blend in as much as possible, as not only may our normal ways and appearances draw unwanted attention, but it stands only to complicate our achieving your parents' approval."

"Your appearance?" she asked. "You mean your going to become Jeremy again?"

"I had rather thought shorter hair and a nice suit would please your parents."

"Please my parents! I don't give a shit what pleases my parents!" The fine tongue she had developed while living Underground seemed to disappear when she was angry. Coming close to him, her arms rested on his chest, her fingers twirling the ends of his hair. "I love the fey you are, Jareth. Just like this," she added steering her hands over his elegant garments. "I bring my parents a king for their approval. What mother doesn't want their daughter to be queen? What father has not always thought his child a princess?"

Despite the valid point she made, "But Sarah, to be Aboveground for so many days, and without magic, it will be too difficult to maneuver about like this." He saw disappointment in her eyes when she looked at him. "A spell then, I shall see about a spell, one which I could have placed, just before we leave, so regardless of how I appear to the other mortals, you and your parents shall always see me as I appear now. Will this compromise please you?"

Sarah's lips met his in approval. Breaking the kiss, she handed him the scroll she had written, "Does this compromise please you?"

As Jareth read the scroll, Deverell watched in awe of the way his majesty managed the girl and amazed at how she managed herself. It was as if this world was always meant for her and her being mortal had been some mistake, a flaw in her design, a disease she battled to defeat. Not so far from truth, his thoughts, for Sarah returning home and living a mortal life was something which could never happen, not after all she had known in this realm. To lose now, to return Underground without her parents' consents, to fail to prove to the Triumvirate her worth, would be to sentence her to mortal death. Though Deverell had never had a king to serve, he found himself proud to serve Jareth and he thought he would find that same pride serving Sarah as queen. When Jareth finished with the scroll, he passed the parchment to his assistant, "Here Deverell, read the new law of the Underground. Read the law my queen has written." No sooner had the parchment left his fingers, did Sarah find herself secure in his grip and flying above his smile. "You, you have found words to describe the kind of man I have always wanted to be." He brought her to the ground and held her close against him, "No more being looked at as something evil, something fearsome. At last, I could make children's lives better. I would be a Robin Hood among the fey and I would owe it all to you."

"And give up being the arrogant intimidator you've worked so hard to become?" Sarah asked.

"A reputation I've tried to embrace and outrun," he admitted sadly. "Especially these last fifteen years while all I've been able to think is, had I been a different fey then, perhaps the spirited young girl I had fallen in love with wouldn't have been so eager to flee my company."

With remorse for her quick query, Sarah nuzzled his neck with her forehead, "Even if you had been as perfect emotionally as you were physically, I was still too young to comprehend true love. Even now I'm only beginning to learn what it can be when it exists between two people who respect one another." Slowly their lips joined having sought the other out by some unseen magnetism which drew them out from hiding. His lips folded over her bottom lip as he tried to make their contact last.

Clearing his throat, the king's assistant gave his opinion of the scroll. "I could do some research on your theory while you are away, miss, if you'd like. Explore the feasibility of reprogramming the commands and so forth. It would be my pleasure."

"I think that would be fine. Sarah, is this offer suitable to you." She agreed.

Deverell rolled the scroll into his palm, "May I keep this?"

"Indeed," she consented.

Jareth's thumb and forefinger pinched Sarah's chin, "And now love I'm afraid we need to prepare for our trip."

"We're leaving tonight?"

"No, but once we've had dinner there are other things we need to tend to." His hand suggestively rubbed her bottom where Deverell wouldn't see.

In all her mornings Underground, Sarah had found herself awoken by the sun, sometimes sleeping through daybreak, at times sleeping away entire days without even realizing it. Staring out the window, she couldn't help but notice how black night was in this place. So unlike New York, where the lights barely dimmed when evening gave way to the wee hours of the night, the Underground had no neon signs, no street lights, nothing but fire fairies running about here or there and the milky white moon to enhance the atmosphere. Jareth's arm hung over her waist, the heat of his body a sharp contrast to the void she seemed hypnotized by, so sharp in fact, she drew in a fast breath. Suddenly she felt as if there were a weight on her chest, a heaviness which made it hard to breath. Repeatedly Sarah filled her lungs in a vain attempt to throw free the unseen encumbrance.

Her fingers interlaced with the king's as tears drizzled from her eyes. His bare fingers, his naked hands, the same ones which had caressed her in their love making only hours earlier, stimulating her skin while he aroused her senses and yet, when she imagined going home, not even those hands could calm her quickened pulse. Sarah thought about leaving the bed and going to see what time it was, but it didn't matter much if day break was minutes or hours away, it was coming with an inevitability which rattled her. Needless to say, she was not looking forward to going Aboveground, to being forced into seeing Karen and her mother. She'd been through all this with her parents before, trying to convince them the Underground and its inhabitants were something more than a clever story created by a frustrated little girl who wished nothing more in the world than to see her parents back together.

Jareth sighed in his sleep, a burst of warm air coating Sarah's neck and cutting short her feelings of dread. Spinning in his arms, she turned to face him. He was attractive when he was awake, but when he slept he was resplendent. There was a peace easing all the muscles in his face, making his eyelids seem like a veil which fell lightly to hide his eyes and could have been swept away with the easiest breeze. His lips rested still, one a top the other, curled in a crooked smile. Her fingers danced playful at his pale chest and rounded shoulders as she wondered what he was dreaming. 'How had she resisted him so long?' she thought as she studied him. 'More importantly why?" Coming Underground would have freed her from years of people who disregarded her feelings when they could be bothered to consider her at all. Saved her from meeting Christian, changed her in ways she couldn't even imagine. 'Could have, would have, should have,' she told herself as she tossed away her regrets. They had each other now. Her hands could touch him, her eyes see him and as Sarah lowered her lips to his, pressing hard against them, forcing him out of his slumber, she tasted him and smelled the magic which perpetually surrounded him. Jareth was finally hers and she was finally of mind to appreciate him. She had faced the Triumvirate, fallen prey to Tiberon and felt Darien's cold blade, but returning home was a different kind of terror, one she wasn't sure she could survive, but with her king by her side, Sarah knew she could try.

"Sarah," Jareth said as he relinquished his hold on sleep, "you're shaking. Are you cold?" Without waiting for a response, he pulled the duvet tighter around her and drew her into his arms.

"I'm not cold," she told him.

"You're crying," he noticed as she lay her face against his chest.

"So I am," she agreed, only now becoming aware of the fact herself. "I suppose I'm just overwhelmed at the idea of telling my father tomorrow that I intend to become a queen, your queen."

"I'm sorry this authorization is a requirement Sarah, but you must understand..."

Her finger fell over his lips, hushing him. The king puckered his lips and kissed her tender skin. "Whatever they ask of me, I will do," she confessed. "Whatever I must do to stay with you."

Jareth kissed her reassuringly, as if he could somehow extract her fears as he did so. The fear in her heart would be drown by his love, the same way her body would soon drown in his passion. Sarah could feel the heat of him against her as her own wetness began to saturate her from within. It was the same each time he took her, all thoughts of dread and failure vanished. Nothing seemed right but their being together and even fate, cruel as it could sometimes be, wouldn't take that away. It wouldn't be fair.

Their love making had been chaotic, as Jareth pushed his body to the limit in an attempt to make the night last, to delay the morning his mortal feared so much. Sarah clung to him, struggling to keep up with his frantic pace as eager as he was to outrun their obligations but at the same time he took her to heights she feared she would never return from. One might imagine then, the impact they shared when the sun had the audacity to rise anyway.

"Would you like breakfast before we go?" he asked the still half sleeping woman in his arms.

Sarah ground at her eyes with her small fists, "No," she grumbled. "As it is my stomach's tied in knots. I'd hate to think of how I might feel if I tried feeding it."

"At least a glass of milk or juice," Arulan said as she barged in with their trays. "Have something."

"Really," she tried politely. "I can't the stand the thought of anything in my stomach right now. Perhaps when we get Aboveground I'll get some coffee." It had been a long time since she'd tasted what had once been a meal all in itself for her.

The elf wore a look of worry in her eyes, one which grew even deeper when Jareth refused his meal as well. "I think we're rather eager to get going," he explained. "Would you be so kind as to have our things assembled in the main hall?"

"Already done," the elf told him. "I'm to notify the others before you leave. They would like to see you off." Arulan looked quickly from Jareth to Sarah and back again, hurriedly she left the room. Something in the way they both looked at her told Arulan they would be leaving immediately.

Sarah left the bed and quickly chose a dress from her wardrobe while Jareth used his magic to dress himself appropriately. "Suppose I won't be doing that much the next few days," he chided.

Sarah smiled. The list of things he was willing to give up for her seemed to grow exponentially at every turn. "Suppose not," she agreed. It would be an adventure of sorts, watching him without his magic. The night he followed her to her apartment, the night their lips had first joined, he had been without his magic then. As Jareth waited for her to join him so as they may make their rounds with the rest of the staff before they left, Sarah relived the night he'd come for her.

She had just gotten the part of Eponine. He was masquerading as Jeremy Underwood. All these months later, Sarah could laugh at the sheer idiocy of not realizing it was him based on that alone. She was glad he had chosen to remain himself, at least to her and, at her request, Sarah's parents. Jeremy was dashing in his own right, but taming those feral locks and drabbing into something Armani, made him common to her then. Common until his lips covered hers and his hands begun a manipulation of her body so savvy she'd have needed a piece of the sky to crash upon her head before she'd realized she'd been seduced. Jeremy melted away all the same as she had melted for him. When she thought of how easily she let him have his way, it made her tingle. "Don't forget the spell Jareth," Sarah reminded him.

"Indeed," he said making a sweeping motion over his body. Nothing changed when she looked at him, but in his reflection she didn't see Jareth King of the Goblins, she saw that hateful mortal replica which seemed to diminish him. The mirror showed a hand reaching for her, "Shall we?" that mortal face inquired.

Before responding, Sarah looked back to the finely decorated eyes of the king, "Indeed," she smiled.

Circled around the luggage Deverell took it upon himself to have made, they stood awaiting their king and his mortal. No one was happy they were being made to leave, but since Jareth and Sarah weren't happy about it themselves little criticism could be made by the others in the castle. Jareth shook the hands offered to him and Sarah embraced them one by one. When Dalkeil's turn came to take her into his arms, he whispered almost silently into her hair, "I will be proud to serve you as my queen." She squeezed him tighter after that.

At nearly the same moment, Arulan was curtsied before Jareth, who took her by the hand and then folded his arms about her. He could feel her tears on his neck, "No matter whose obligation it is to give you consent know that I think of her as my daughter nearly as much as I think of you as my son." His glove smoothed her coiffed blonde hair.

"We appreciate the send off," he announced when he saw Sarah's quaking lip. "I think I speak for both of us when I say we respect what the Triumvirate is making us do because it is tradition, but your approval of our union is a far cry more meaningful than the consent of persons we've long since learned to live without." Sarah took his arm and nodded as if to confirm she agreed with what had been said. With the arms not joined together, they each hoisted a suitcase from the cold marble floor. "We shall be back before you've time to miss us," Jareth said before curving his hand and causing them to vanish.

"Impossible," Arulan cried as she leaned into Deverell's shoulder and let her tears begin to fall.

What had once seemed a large and expansive front porch, appeared to have shrunk over the years as Sarah stood at the door to her childhood home, her arm still threaded through the king's. Instantly she sank back in time, becoming once more the same unsure teenager she had been the last time they were both in this house together. Jareth could see her almost visibly regressing into adolescence. He squeezed her hand, whispering to her, "You are a strong confident woman who has been to and survived battle Sarah, this is little challenge by comparison."

"Could you remind me of that every few seconds until this is over with?" she asked as his pointer finger reached for the doorbell. His jagged teeth flashed at her from behind his wicked smile and suddenly she was sure she was this woman he spoke of.

Karen came to the door, her half inch pearls hanging two inches below the scoop neckline of her pink dress, her hair meticulously pinned to her head. "Yes, can I help you?" she inquired looking primarily at the king, Sarah, much as she had the years they shared the house, escaped her radar.

"Karen," she said to her step-mother in a firm tone forcing her to look away from Jareth. "Is my father home?"

"Sarah?" the woman asked, her mouth agape. "I...I didn't even recognize you," she tried to rationalize her overlooking the girl. "You're wearing a dress, with no jeans underneath and you're hair, it's so..."

"Is my father home?" In her teen years, this woman at the door, in her just so clothes, with her just so expectations of everyone around her had intimidated her, angered her, but at thirty, she disgusted her. As much as magic had allowed her to continue seeing Jareth as he was, maturity had allowed her to do the same with Karen.

Stepping aside, the lady of the house instructed them, "Well, don't just stand there come inside."

Jareth's gloved hand met the small of his love's back and gently guided her through the door. Karen watched him closely as he crossed the threshold to her home. "Robert," she called up the stairs.

"What is it?" he called back, in a hasty manner Sarah was not accustom to hearing when her father was talking with his wife.

Smirking as if his tone had no effect on her and in a saccharin sweet voice, she replied, "It's your daughter, darling, and she's brought one of her little theatrical friends with her."

"Madame," Jareth addressed his hostess, "I'm neither little nor theatrical, I assure you." Though she was certain he had meant little as a reference to his age, Sarah couldn't resist snickering at what he'd said.

"Sarah!" Robert shouted from upstairs. Halfway down the flight, he bent to see her standing there, Sarah," he repeated.

"Hello, daddy," Sarah replied in a softer more gentle voice than she had used with Karen.

Taking the remaining steps two at a time, he ran to her, sweeping her up in his arms, ignorant to the fact a king stood in his living room. "Sweetie, what are you doing here? With a suitcase? You were going to England last I heard. Not that I'm not happy to see you, I just wasn't expecting to...look at you, such a beautiful daughter, I have."

Sarah wanted to attack him just as she had Karen, but instead she found herself choking back tears, half because he had called her beautiful and the other half because it had taken him until now to notice. "Daddy, I never went to England."

"I'm not surprised," Karen sighed heavily. "You probably met this fool and went touring with him the same way your mother did."

"I have been patient with you," Jareth said, his cold mismatched eyes narrowing on the woman, "but I'm afraid, should you find yourself unable to allow this woman to speak to her father without interrupting, I may lose that patience." Karen's mouth hung open, her eyes wide with fear. "After all, it is a rude thing to cast aspersions upon one's character, is it not?" His eyebrow rose, his stiff chin telling Karen her own character was not without flaw.

"Why not have a seat then," she said shakily, leading them into the living room, eager to leave the reach of the king.

"Wonderful idea," Robert beamed. "Sarah and I'm sorry, I don't believe I heard your name."

"This is Jareth, daddy." Sarah waited for Karen to comment again, but she did not.

Extending his palm, the king shook Robert's hand, "Pleasure to make your acquaintance Mr. Williams."

"Call me Bob," he suggested. "Well why don't you and Sarah join me in the living room and my wife will bring us some tea." Karen looked at him coldly and then noticing Jareth's keen observation of her and left to make the tea. Sarah sat on a colonial blue loveseat with her father, they were turned in facing one another, their eyes speaking more than they themselves could. Behind her, Jareth sat quietly in a cream colored wing back chair, accented by a throw with hints of the same colonial blue as the loveseat running through it. "I still can't believe you're here."

Somberly Sarah reminded him, "You haven't so much as phoned me in over a year."

Robert's head hung, his chin dug into his chest, knowing she was right, worse still knowing he was wrong to have done it. "I won't make excuses. You know as well as I do why that is and I've come to realize recently how wrong it was. She's done the same with Toby. When he can be bothered to stay home he hardly speaks to us and Karen's content with that."

"It's not my place to tell you how to behave with your wife daddy, but I'm your daughter and you had an obligation to me."

"And I failed," he moped.

"Failed is a harsh term, let's just agree you have not succeed as I may have hoped."

"You seem none the worse for wear," he tried to smile as he chucked the underside of her chin. When Sarah's face remained downtrodden he added, "Physically anyway. If it helps, I am sorry I wasn't a better father when it mattered most and I would like to try and be a better father now, if you'll let me."

"I'm glad to hear you say that," Sarah told him, "because I need a father now. You see," Sarah glanced up as Karen reentered the room with a tray of iced teas, "I'd like to get married and I need your consent."

"Married!" Robert exclaimed. "Karen, did you hear that? My little girl wants to get married and she wants her old man's blessing. Of course Sarah. You and Christian have waited long enough. When were you thinking? Fall? Or maybe next spring? We can start planning right away."

"Technically," Jareth interrupted, "it won't be a marriage. It will be a union ceremony, but I suppose it's somewhat equivalent to marriage."

"One of those flowery out in the open nonreligious ceremonies? Whatever you want darling, whatever you want." Her father was positively aglow.

"Not to Christian," Sarah said.

"What?" her father asked.

"And I don't want to wait until spring. This ceremony would take place, rather soon."

Karen's hands fell to her hips, "Good Lord Robert she's pregnant. You've gone and gotten yourself in trouble. It's probably his." She remembered the suitcases in the hall, "And if you think you can just move back in here, you've got another think coming. I've got Toby to worry over."

Sarah stood, "And if you worried over him half as much as you proclaim to he wouldn't be the conniving womanizer he is."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Karen practically growled.

"It's not supposed to mean anything. It means there's not a person in your life you know the slightest bit about. Not daddy, not Toby, certainly not me. Most times I wonder if you even know who you are or if you're just so set in this picture perfect image of what you're supposed to be, you're too afraid to trying being who you really are." She'd waited years to say that.

"Robert, are you going to allow her to talk to me that way?"

"Sarah sit down." She sat. "Are you pregnant?"

"No daddy."

"Do you want to come home, sweetie?"

Before she answered Sarah glowered at Karen, "No daddy."

"If I may," Jareth interjected, appalled at the way they were treating her, "It is I who wishes to be united with your daughter. We've not come to ask anything of you but your consent."

"I don't even know this man Sarah," Robert went on as if Jareth hadn't addressed him at all. "Where did you meet? How long have you known one another? Why do you want to marry him?"

"This is the Goblin King," she said, her face turned in a smile for the first time since they'd arrived Aboveground.

"Not this again," Karen said.

"Honey, didn't we talk through all of this when you were a young lady. The Goblin King is a figment of your imagination. Someone you conjured up because you were unhappy your mother had gone and I had remarried. A fantasy you could escape to when you were dissatisfied with reality.

"I'm neither a figment nor a fantasy," Jareth protested. "I am tangible and very real." From the interior pocket of his frock coat he withdrew his birth papers.

Robert took what he offered and fanned his eyes over it. "Born to the current king and queen, Ian the mortal and Leanan Sidhe this male child to be called Jareth all the qualifications to take the throne upon his 75th birthday. And just how old would you have me believe you are?"

"258, next season," Jareth responded matter of factly. Karen burst into laughter.

"Sarah, would you honestly have me believe this is a 257 year old man, whose king of some Underground and wishes to marry you and make you what? Queen?"

"Exactly."

"If you don't want anything further to do with me I can force myself to accept that Sarah, but coming in here with some stranger in costume, telling me you're leaving for some fabled destination rather than just saying so is elaborate, even for you."

"Not to mention childish," Karen added.

"But it's true," Sarah tried to explain. "I will be Goblin Queen, we will live in the Underground and we are going to be united."

"Sarah," Robert's head shook.

"Do something?" she pleaded with Jareth. "Show them one of your crystals."

"I can't love, no magic Aboveground, remember?"

"Did you hear that Robert? He's left his magic at home!" Karen cackled.

Jareth faced her nose to nose, "In my world, women as condescending as yourself often meet vicious and untimely deaths." Maeve being the first to come to mind.

"I won't allow you to come into my home and threaten my wife," Robert told him.

"I wasn't threatening anyone!"

"Yes, you were," Karen balled and the three began a screaming match that even Sarah had trouble following.

"Stop it!" Sarah cried above the ruckus. The trio quieted down and faced her. Calmly she walked to the buffet table and scrawled down the name and number of the hotel they were going to stay at. Then she went to the hall and retrieved the scroll from her suitcase. When she returned she handed them both to her father. "Daddy, I'm going to be with Jareth. All I want from you is your consent. If you love me and you want me to be happy, you'll sign this, regardless of how valid you find my claims. When you have, phone me at this number and I'll come pick the document up."

Robert read the scroll. "This is really too much Sarah. It says I authorize you to unite with the king and that I willfully surrender my parental rights, deny all claim to you and give my express consent for you to be christened a citizen of the Underground." He turned on the king, "What kind of freak are you? What have you done to my daughter?" Protectively he threw his arms about her, "What lies have you told her?"

"None worse than you and your wife have done," he retaliated.

"Jareth you're not helping," Sarah moaned. "We're leaving," she announced as she struggled free from her father's hold. Karen's face lit with a satisfied smile.

Robert moved for the door blocking their leave. "You're not going anywhere with this imposter! You'll stay here, in your room, where you belong."

"Robert!" Karen cried.

"Daddy!" Sarah joined her.

"Not another word," her father said showing backbone for the first time in as long as she could remember. "If you want me to so much as consider this charade of yours, you'll stay here until I can get my arms around this more."

"Robert, are you mad?" Karen asked.

"Probably, or perhaps I'm only finally becoming sane. Look Karen, look at the seal on the bottom of these scrolls. Feel this paper, it's quality parchment, stored in an engraved silver tube. His costume. Sarah's insistence. It would be an elaborate scheme and why? What would the purpose of it be?"

"She's sick Robert! She's been sick since she was a child. It's delusional the way she thinks these things up, Goblin Kings and dwarves and huge hairy beasts. He probably found out about those things and used them to get her to fall in love with him so he could " she ran out of ideas after that.

"So he could what? What Karen? You see, there's no reason. No reason why only summations. She's not asking us for anything, neither is he. I'm asking you for some time to put it together, a couple of days."

"Do what you want Robert. Do what she wants, as you always have, but I don't need a few days." She grabbed the scroll from her husband's hand and flattened it on the hall table. Picking up a pen she signed just above where her name had been printed. "There. As far as I'm concerned having her gone, no right to her, no responsibility for her, is a blessing." That being said, she ran up the stairs to the room they shared and slammed the door behind her.

"Come with me," Robert told them. "I'll show you to your rooms."

"Room daddy. Just take us to my old room. I'm old enough to have a boy in there now," Sarah told him as she followed him up the stairs and down the once familiar hallway.

Once inside, Robert excused himself, most likely to go and coddle Karen. "Not quite the way I remember it," she said to Jareth. The walls were white, the side curtains gone from the head of the bed. None of the decorations remained. Most of those were done away with when she left for New York. In fact nothing but a floral swag above a Victorian painting on one wall remained, even that was not hers. A sewing machine took up the space next to where her dresser once sat and in the open space before the closet, a treadmill.

"Not at all the way I remember it," Jareth agreed.

Sarah sat on her old bed. "If anything I thought we'd be fighting Karen to sign that thing," she said.

"Looks as if just the opposite stands true," he pointed out as he sat next to her, his arm around her shoulders. "So what will we do? How will we prove to your father I am who I say I am?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "It's something just to think he's open minded enough to wonder why we would make up such a lie, it's another thing entirely to think he would believe us, but maybe we don't need him to believe us. Maybe all we need is for him to not be able to think of a reason we'd lie enough to sign the scroll. So don't go giving him any reasons," she told him.

"Me?" he asked in feigned innocence.

"Yes you," she chastised. "Oh Jareth, we've got one signature, only three more to go."

"You say that as casually as I throw around forever," he chided. Something about being together with her on the bed he'd watched her in so many times before aroused him. Leaning in he kissed her. Her first instinct was to shy away. She was, after all, in her parents' home, but then she thought of him all those years ago, standing in the doorway of her parents' rooms. Old fantasies she'd had in her later teens flooded her memory. Offering him her dreams, letting him have her in the most basic sense, there in her parents' bed. Those nights when longing grew too much and fantasy too strong when she was still too young and too afraid of sex, her only release a few moments of self exploration beneath the covers of the bed she shared with him now. She'd learned then to stifle her moans. Suddenly she was eager to utilize the talent she's long since abandoned. Sarah returned his kiss, deepening it, pressing against him until his head lay on her pillow. "They'll be arguing for hours," she said as she left him to lock the door. "Do you think you can manage to keep quiet?" she asked as she approached him once more, lifting her dress as she did so.

"Me?" he asked as if to insinuate he was not the one with the pension for making loud noises. Sarah lips stilled his as she undid his shirt.

"I believe I just asked you to keep quiet," she reiterated.

"Yes your majesty," he whispered before giving into her.

Sunday night came rather quickly, more so than Sarah would have anticipated. Since Friday morning, the king and she had been living with Karen and Robert. Karen kept to being respectful, most likely by Robert's request, but however it was managed didn't matter as much as the fact it had been done. Slowly Sarah's father had begun to enjoy Jareth's company, finding him, as did most, rather charming. As they sat for dinner, Robert leaned across from the head of the table to Jareth, speaking passed his daughter he asked, "What I don't understand is why all this charade for someone who seems rather well off and intelligent?"

"I assure you, sir, there is no charade." He'd said these words a dozen or more times since they'd arrived and he would continue as long as it was necessary.

Dinner was halted by a shout from the hallway, "I'm home."

"Toby?" Sarah asked no one in particular.

"Dinner is on the table son. You're an hour late."

"Yeah, I had car trouble da " Toby found himself slack jawed in the doorway to the dining room as everyone looked on at him. "Holy fuckཀ" he cried out.

"Tobyཀ" Karen chastised.

The teenage boy shook his head. "Stop acting as if you've never seen your sister before," his father said. "Go get a plate and join us. We'll discuss your language later."

As if he were sleepwalking with open eyes, Toby took his seat beside his mother, opposite Jareth. "You're him."

"Oh don't you start," Karen snapped.

"Start what?" Robert asked.

"You took me away that night. You took me back to that castle."

"Toby, do you know this man?" his father asked.

"I thought I dreamt him." Looking at Sarah and then back to the king he continued, "You called him, he came for me. Came as an owl and turned into a a whatever he is."

"Fey," Jareth interrupted.

"Whatever. Sarah had to come and get me. I had that dream so many times over."

Robert put down his utensils and asked his son, "Toby, are you telling me you believe this man is the Goblin King as he claims to be?"

Sarah was on the verge of tears. "You remind me of the babe," Jareth said, looking intently at the young man.

"What babe?" Toby asked, knowing it was the appropriate reply and mechanically offering it as if the king had begun a knock, knock joke.

"The babe with the power."

"What power?"

"The power of voodoo."

"Who do?"

"You do!"

"Do what?"

"Remind me of the babe," he and Jareth said in unison. Almost as soon as they'd spoken their rhyme Karen passed out, lying spread eagle on the floor without so much as drawing the attention of anyone else at the table.

"Holy fuck!" Robert heralded his son's earlier remark.

"I can't believe he's real Sarah," Toby said.

There he sat, the infant child who'd begun all this with his incessant wailing, grown now, tall and handsome. For a moment she admired him and then she warned, "He's real and his magic is real and if I were you I'd think long and hard about keeping girls out to their curfews when they politely ask you to be taken home."

For a moment he sat silent in shock, "How did you? Never mind, I'll think twice." Looking back at Jareth he added, "I'll think twice about a lot of things. May I be excused ?" he asked his father.

"Yes. And wake up your mother before you go."

The boy knelt and tapped his mother's hand, then her cheek until she came to. "Mom, you okay."

"I fainted." It was half a statement, half a question. Wobbly she stood and took her seat.

Sarah hadn't thought of it until now. True she could no longer see the future, but she had seen the present while she wasn't here to really see it and that worked as well as being able to predict events. "You and daddy were arguing over me. Karen you said I was just like my mother and daddy, you said you were willing to remove the traces of mommy in your life for Karen, but that you didn't you didn't realize it would include me." She choked back the sobs.

"How could you know that?" Karen asked.

"When I go to the Underground, I won't be coming back. Well I will, but it will be rarely and most probably not to see either one of you. While Jareth and I are there, we will be able to keep tabs on you only by using crystals. I can see you in them, what you're doing, what you say," she added poignantly. "While I've been away, I got home sick and had Jareth let me look in on you. It just so happens that's what I saw."

Robert looked at his daughter, her face stained with tears. "I believe you."

"Sir?" Jareth asked in surprise.

"I believe you," he repeated.

"Robert, she could have easily supposed those things," Karen insisted.

"Karen, I have always done as you've insisted. This time, I'm confused. You want her gone. You signed the papers days ago, but yet now when I'm ready to sign them as well you want to talk me out of it. You don't just want her gone, you want her miserable. You've always wanted her miserable. What I don't understand is why?"

"If I may," Jareth interrupted and then waited patiently for Robert to nod to him indicating his opinion was welcome. "Your wife is so grounded in reality she's forgotten what elation comes with having fantasies. When she sees your daughter, she sees the embodiment of all she wishes she could be. We often reject that which we envy because to have it near us is a constant reminder of what we cannot be or have. I did the same thing when Sarah bested me, beat my Labyrinth and returned to you with your child. She was strength and independence, defiance at it's best and to rule her would have been to rule the universe." He tenderly wrapped an arm around Sarah, leaving his other hand on her thigh. The gesture did not go unnoticed by the girl's father, but he let it pass without comment. "It took me a long while, but eventually I've grown to see letting her light shine over me, sharing in all her fantastic qualities is more important, more rewarding than owning her. I've become a little more like her. I'm better for that. You could be better too, Mrs. Williams, if you'd let yourself be more like her. If you let yourself believe that a little fantasy is better than none at all."

Robert left the room. Karen remained, unable to comment, staring at the man who'd managed to touch on something she thought she'd buried deep enough inside no one would ever see it. When her husband returned he had the scroll, signed, which he handed to the king. "If you take this," he warned him, "you take it on the condition you care for my daughter, protect her, provide for her. Be honest with her, appreciate her and if you ever hurt her, I don't care if your king or not, it won't matter how far Underground you go, I'll...I'll..."

"So noted, sir." Jareth took the scroll with his left hand and extended his right one for Robert to shake.

Reciprocating, Robert shook his hand asking one more thing of him, "May I sing to my daughter one last time before you take her from me?"

"By all means," Jareth agreed.

"Robert?" Karen called. "You're just letting her have her way again."

"Yes, Karen, yes I am, but then I think it's about time I do." Folding her napkin, Karen slammed it to the table and with even steady steps, stalked from the room. "I'll be back," Sarah's father continued as if she'd never thrown the tantrum at all.

"Jareth," she wept as she embraced him. "We've done it!"

"We've done most of it love. We've still got your mother to find."

"Don't ruin this," she pleaded as she kissed him.

"I'm not trying to ruin anything, Sarah, we've got only a week to find her and win her over."

"Win her over? She's had nothing to do with me since I was an adolescent, what could she want with me now?"

Jareth caressed her face, "What has Karen ever wanted with you love and look at the fight she's put up. Let's not dwell on what we've yet to do, instead, let's celebrate what we've accomplished." Jareth took her cheeks into his palms and kissed her passionately.

As Robert returned with his guitar, he let out a tiny cough to interrupt them. Jareth broke the kiss and apologized. "No need," her father replied. "My daughter is a beautiful woman as was her mother and I loved her deeply, until she left me."

"Oh daddy," Sarah said hugging him. "I'm so sorry."

"For what darling. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't even my fault." The soothing hand only a father could provide smoothed down her hair. "You look like your mother, but you're not her. You understand that don't you? You mustn't be afraid to fly. Because you do it once, doesn't mean you'll feel the urge to do it continually. And much as I hate to say it, even though I'm proud to call you mine, you are not exactly me either. You won't allow yourself to be controlled. You won't force yourself to love someone simply to avoid being alone. Somehow I think you were smart enough to take the best of your mom and me and make yourself from that."

"Oh daddy," she cried, burying her head in his shoulder.

Motioning her into the living room, he told her, "Come here, let me sing for you like we used to." Sarah sat with Jareth on the loveseat this time. Robert stood, his right legged propped upon the coffee table. "Now take it easy on your old man. I haven't played much since you've gone. I'm rusty."

"Then come in out of the rain," Sarah squealed just the way she had when she was young and he would pretend his skills had somehow deteriorated.

The first notes of the song left the hollow of the guitar as Robert cleared his throat. His voice shook with emotion as he began to sing, "I'm a tangled up puppet spinning round in knots and the more I see what used to be, the less of you I've got. There was a time that you curled up in my lap like a child. You'd cling to me smiling, your eyes wide and wild. Now you're slipping through my arms, wave a passing hello, twist away and toss a kiss, laughing as you go. You used to say, read me a story and sing me songs of love, for you were princess paradise on the wings of a dove. Now I chase you and tease you, trying to remake you my own, but you just turn away and say please leave me alone." Sarah's eyes filled with tears as he began the refrain, "And I'm a tangled up puppet all hanging in your strings. I'm a butterfly in a spider's web, fluttering my wings. And the more that I keep dancing and spinning round in knots, the more I see what used to be and the less of you I've got." Jareth held Sarah's hands when he saw her shoulders begin to shake. "You are a drawer full of make up and rinses and thing. You keep changing your moods like your earrings and rings, but tonight while we play tag for five minutes in the yard, just for a moment, I caught you off guard. And I'm a tangled up puppet all hanging in your strings. I'm a butterfly in a spider's web, fluttering my wings and the more that I keep dancing and spinning round in knots, the more I see what used to be and the less of you I've got." Robert's eyes were wet now and he could barely continue playing.

Jareth stepped up and took the instrument from him. "Please," he said softly, "allow me." With the same skill he'd shown the first time he'd played, the king was easily able to pick up where Robert left off and play the song for him.

Sarah rushed into her father's arms. "Dance with me daddy," she said through her tears. "Dance with me one last time."

Pulling her close Robert held out her right hand, his arm about her waist. "Now you write your secret poems in a room just for your dreams," he sung. "You don't take time to talk to me about the things you mean, but I mean it. I have watched you take shape from a jumble of parts," his voice was shaky and earnest, "and find the grace and form of a fine work of art. Hey, you brand new woman, newly come into her own. Don't you know that you don't need to grow up all alone?" Jareth continued to play, fading out softly as father and daughter swayed in a strong embrace, taking advantage of the last moments they shared.

Sarah backed away from him slowly. "I would have liked to hear those words from you sooner," she sniffed.

"I'm sorry I couldn't say them to you any sooner," he told her.

"You didn't let me finish," Sarah went on. "I would have liked to hear those words from you sooner, but I'm glad you waited until I was old enough to understand them."

Even Jareth's eyes were wet by then. Robert looked at him. He finally saw what his daughter saw. Maybe he was a king of some fantastic realm, maybe he was an actor, playing a role. What he was no longer mattered only that his daughter loved this man and, for what it was worth, he seemed to love her. "Thank you," Robert mouthed over Sarah's shoulder.

The king set down the guitar and folded his hands together, "Thank you," he mouthed back.

Pushing back her father to arm's length, Sarah said sadly, "I'm sorry to do this to you daddy. The first time I've wanted to stay in as long as I can remember and I've got to go. I've got to find mommy and get her consent too."

"Wait a minute," he said. "I've got an address. It's the one from when she first left. I'm willing to bet she's moved since then, but I'm sure she left a forwarding address, a number, something."

"Thank you," she said hugging him once more.

From the stairs she heard, "Got one of those for your little brother."

Running into his arms, she found herself lifted and spun around. "I'm glad I got to see you," he whispered into her ear. "I'm sorry I've been such a prick to you all these years."

"Toby!" Robert chastised.

"Sorry, been such a jerk, I mean," he corrected.

"Yeah, well, you can change that you know. I shouldn't have given you Christian as a role model." She held his handsome face in her hands. "You, you are so much more than I dreamed you'd ever be Toby. Don't worry about being like anyone else. Be you, not what everyone else expects of you, not even your mother."

"Easy for you to say. You're going back to where there's magic, Sarah. Magic can make life a lot easier."

"It can," she admitted. "It can. But believing is sometimes a very powerful magic. Believe in yourself and you'll find it will be easier for others to believe in you. And try looking at other woman like they're your sister."

Toby rolled his eyes, "Hell, if I do that, I'll never have another date!"

"Well, at least look at them like there somebody's sister."

"I'm glad you're real," he said to Jareth.

He reached to slap Toby on the shoulder, "So am I." He smiled as he shook the boy's hand. "Sarah we really should get going." Sarah nodded and they headed toward the door where their bags waited with Sarah's father.

"I love you baby," Robert told her.

"I love you too, daddy." She kissed his cheek.

"And you'll be okay. You've got money?" he asked.

"Yes sir," Jareth promised.

"And a car?"

"We're headed to pick up a rental now."

"I'll drive you," Robert offered.

Sarah sighed. "Daddy, don't take this the wrong way, but if I don't walk away right now, I'm going to consider not leaving and I don't want to do that."

"No, I don't want you to do that. Now both of you go," Robert opened the door. "And remember to love each other."

"Not something I think I could forget," Jareth told him, reaching to shake his hand.

Sarah's father grabbed him and pulled him into a tight hug. "You're going to be my son-in-law Jareth. I only regret this being the one and only time I'll get to do this."

'A regret I don't happen o share,' he thought as he patted the other man's back.

The rental car purred as they parked it in the lot of the Hertz dealership. Sarah stretched her neck as she shifted the Toyota Camry into park. "I can't believe you drove all this way without letting me help you," Jareth complained.

"For the fiftieth time, you haven't got a license."

"I find it debatable half the persons on the interstate had one of these licenses you speak of," he pointed out defensively.

Sarah popped open the trunk before she looked at him, "Be that as it may, the point was to draw as little attention to ourselves as possible, remember?" The king wore a hurt expression on his typically ignited face. "Do you even know how to drive?"

"Please Sarah," he spoke "I do work in your world after all."

"I know, but I've never really considered you much of a driver." Cracking the door, Sarah headed for the trunk to get her bag. "When I wondered how you and your gaggle of goblins showed up at my house that night I thought is was more like some metaphysical mass transit."

"Clever," Jareth winked as he slammed the trunk. Stepping into the booth at the far end of the parking lot, Sarah settled up the fees for the loaner vehicle and their search began.

New York City had a kind way of enveloping them when they left the safety of their hotel, naturally assuming them into the wild disorganization that, for its inhabitants, was nothing more than another weekday afternoon. Soho, Broadway, all the haunts where the eccentric liked to mark territory, their search for Linda Williams had lead them to the upper west side of Manhattan on a tip from one of her former agents that she was staying somewhere in the Bronx. As sunset came to end their seventh day Aboveground, Jareth and Sarah headed for their suite at the Excelsior Hotel, just ten minutes out side of the suburb they planned to scour in the morning.

Sarah looked around their room. Aside from the time they had spent in her parents' home, they'd found economical accommodations. What surrounded her now was a bit more posh, with it's crown moldings and patterned wallpaper. In the farthest corner of the room, the headboard of a king sized bed was accentuated by two posts which reached almost to the ceiling. A small writing desk in the corner opposite the bed and on the side of the room closest to them a garden style Jacuzzi, a fridge, a mini bar and a hutch which Sarah only assumed contained a television set. "We can't afford to stay here for three more days," she told the king.

"Nonsense," he replied. "I have a particularly good feeling this will be our last night here." Taking her bag, he stacked the cases against the wall. "Tomorrow, first thing in the morning, we're going to find your mother." Sauntering to the tub, he turned the faucets, "Then I shall charm her, as I did your father," he slid his arms free of the frock coat he wore. In the mirror to his back, Sarah watched as a wool sports coat fell to the floor. Next his gloves left his hands, his fingers interlacing, bending back before Jareth turned his palms to Sarah and stretched his arms before him. "She will be unable to disapprove of our union," he told her as his hands massaged her neck. "And at last," Jareth told her huskily, his lips grazing her ear, "I shall take you back to the Underground, where saying goodbye to you is a threat I shall never face again." His lips smoothed over the hollow of her collarbone.

Smiling she asked him, "And you think your mother will approve?"

"Of you?" he asked in surprise. "I believe she will. Of what I'm about to do to you, I hardly think."

"Jareth!" Sarah squealed.

His roaming hands snuck beneath the neckline of her dress exploring the soft, unrestrained mounds of flesh which rose from her chest, "Sarah," he replied breathlessly.

"No Jareth!" she called out. "The tub, it's flooding!"

"Damn," he grumbled turning his wrists, calling upon magic which never came. Sarah in the meanwhile grabbed handfuls of towels from the bath and began sopping up the water. On her knees beside the tub, she laughed at him as he cursed her world and his inabilities to use his magic when he wasn't 'working' there. "Do you find me amusing?" he queried.

"Um, huh," Sarah nodded from her hands and knees. Something flashed in her bright green eyes when she looked up at him.

"Stop," he said quietly.

"What was that?"

Dropping to his knees, he repeated, "Stop. Leave the water lie." Sarah looked at him, her hands full of wet towels seeming to not understand his plea. Further bewildered by the idea that he hung over her in a way which left her no choice but to drop her backside into the spreading pool. Pulling Sarah into his arms, Jareth kissed her, the wet towels falling between them and saturating their clothes. Now very aware of the eager way in which his lips massaged hers, Sarah's hands did their best to undo his shirt. The king lay her back against the floor where her dress soaked up more of the now cold water making her shriek. Jareth only laughed. She smiled back, melting his heart, making it as vacuous as the puddle they were lying in. He opened his hands to her and lifted Sarah to her feet. The simple dress Sarah wore clung to her in the most flattering way. Gathering the hem in to his hands, Jareth continued to lift the dress up to her hip. Pressing close to her, Sarah could feel his straining breeches against her lower abdomen. Warm hands kissed her cool skin as the dress hiked further up her body freeing her bosom and finally finding its way to the floor. "You're freezing," the king noted as his hands roamed her bare skin.

"Tile floor, cold water, wet dress. It happens," she admitted seemingly unconcerned. Jareth lifted her easily into the Jacuzzi, sending more water cascading to the floor. Sitting on the edge he began removing his boots and breeches, while Sarah let out the stopper to keep from having more of a mess to sop up when they were through. When the water reached a more reasonable level, she turned on the jets, their mad whirring forcing Jareth to pay attention. Laughing at his quick response, Sarah explained what she had done.

Sinking into the tub with her, Jareth sighed as the jets pulsed against his neck, shoulders, back, thighs and feet. Until his finger broke the surface of the water, Sarah was content to let the forced water work her over as well. But as he beckoned her, she was powerless to resist him. Fitting herself between her knees, Sarah relaxed against his chest and shivered as several of the bottom jets blasted against her most forbidden places. Massaging her breasts, the king only succeeded in further arousing her awakening senses. His fingers lagged over her erect nipples, taking time to work each one into a frenzy with firm caressing and a gentle pinch. Her arching back urged his hands lower where his tender stroking alternated with the pulsing jets to evoke a moan from low in Sarah's throat.

Rising higher, the sound echoed when it was emitted as he pressed two fingers inside her slick opening. His jagged teeth gnawed on the taunt flesh of her neck as her head lulled against his shoulder. His free hand kneaded her thigh as Sarah's reached up to fill her fingers with his hair. Eager to be filled by him in a more intimate way, she wriggled around until his hands fell loose from her and they were face to face. Hungrily she kissed his lips, his throat and his chest. As he closed his eyes, resting his head back against the side of the tub, he could have never anticipated the delightful warmth he felt as she eased his engorged member between her swollen folds and lowered herself to consume him.

The sweet combination of the pulsating water and Sarah's slow, purposeful undulation quickly increased his level of arousal, so much in fact, Jareth found himself thinking of other things to keep from disappointing the woman he held dear. As he brought his head up once more, he found, to his delight a creamy white breast to either side of his fervid lips. Voraciously his tongue lapped the moisture which fell from her hardened nipple, concentric circles radiating out to the farthest outreaches of her areola. The stimulation growing more severe as her reactions grew and by the time Sarah's body filled with enough irresistible abandon that she threw back her head and dug her nails into his shoulders, Jareth's teeth were edging carefully over the stiff end of her breast as he sucked at her. Her satisfaction was quick on the heels of his talented mouth causing him to hold her hips still as he thrust into her until he too was satisfied. When their love making ended, Sarah rested peacefully against him and let the warm water continue to massage them until they were both nearly put to sleep by the calming waters and the comfort of each other's closeness.

Several hours later, they awoke to find the timers gone off, the water in the tub chilled and the floor surrounding them nearly dry. Jareth woke Sarah gently and guided her to bed where they could continue to sleep off the exhaustion of their passions. Outside all the calming sensations of arm water and pulsing jets, the woman slept restlessly at best. Even as he held her close, she tossed and turned, sleeping first with her cheek above his heart, then turning round so her form was spooned to his and back again before the king could even attempt to keep up. At times when he thought for certain she was resting comfortably, Sarah would surprise him by moaning or calling out. For a moment he considered resetting the tub and putting her back inside, but a glance at the clock, reminded him there was no time for such an extreme lullaby.

Through barely opened eyes, Jareth watched her yawn and stretch as if Sarah had slept quite satisfactorily. She dressed and pinned up her hair only to take the pins out, undress and get a shower. When she came back from the bathroom, Sarah dressed again, re-pinned her hair, changed her dress, took up a few pieces of hair, chose another dress, let down a few pins. When he could stand to watch her agonize no longer, Jareth threw back the covers of the bed. His warm hands encircled her neck as his lips fell upon the stretched tendon that ran along her neck. "You're perfect," he told her softly. "In any color, in any style, with your hair up, with your hair down, perfect. If your mother doesn't see that, either by choice or by ignorance, it's her shortcoming love, not yours."

"I just want to look nice when she sees me. It's been such a long time, I don't want her to think..."

"What do you care what she thinks?"

"I do," she looked away embarrassedly. " I know I shouldn't, but I do." Jareth took her into his arms, "Sarah darling, after today, you won't be able to see her again, so why do this to yourself?"

"You're right," she barely whispered into his neck. A part of her had been hoping her mother might have some of the same instantaneous parental feeling her father had mustered, but in her heart she knew better. Knew that Linda had chosen to leave her, abandon their family years ago, whereas Robert had only allowed it to become a secondary importance to a wife he thought loved him, at least a woman willing to stay. "I know you're right." Her words were louder, carried more conviction this time as she informed him, "If you're ready, I think this dress will do fine."

"I'll be ready in five minutes," Jareth told her as he headed for the bath.

Looking in the mirror, Sarah found herself repulsed by her reflection. Her raven hair flowing around her shoulders, long and thick. She could see how Karen could have grown to hate her, she was, after all, the spitting image of her mother. Funny phrase, spitting image, Sarah wondered briefly where it came from before the disgust in her stomach brought her mouth to watering. Linda stared back at her. Sarah wondered if she could ever be so cruel, wondered if the power existed within her to wake up one morning and walk out on Jareth, leave everything she had proclaimed she wanted for some temporary fancy that made her feel youthful. 'No,' she thought as she reached for the pins on the dressing table. Once last glance in the mirror and pursing her lips, she spit into the face that looked so much like Linda Williams'. She knew now exactly where that saying had come from and she knew she would never be the woman she saw in that reflection.

Suitcases in hand, the king and his mortal entered the apartment complex where it was rumored Linda Williams was living. A quick run down of the mailboxes easily revealed the number of her apartment. Up the stairs they went, side by side. Three doors down they saw apartment 6C and knocked three times on the front door. "Who is it?" Linda asked in a hurry without looking through the peephole.

"It's Sarah,...mom," the girl answered. "It's your daughter." The woman who answered their ratatat was far from the glamorous woman Sarah remembered as her mother, nor the rising star the press remembered. Her hair was matted, knotted and clumped, her face stained with smeared mascara.

Once she noticed the suitcase in Sarah's hand, Linda moaned, "Christ Sarah, if you've come begging for a place to stay, you might as well know we're barely making it as it is so unless you've got money to pitch in for rent and expenses, you can't stay here." Slowly Linda began to close the door in her daughter's face.

Jareth's hand kept the door from making contact with the jamb. "Excuse me, Ms. Williams, but we're not here to stay. You're daughter has something to say to you and my suggestion is for you to hear her out."

Backing away, she let him enter, Sarah at his heels. "You part of a local show," she asked the king.

"I'm part of no show," he huffed.

"Mother," for Sarah felt uncomfortable addressing her as Ms. Williams and even more odd referring to her as Linda, "this is Jareth, the Goblin King."

"Good Lord," Linda sighed as she poured a drink for herself and offered to do the same for either of them. "Really Sarah, this is why I left in the first place." In utter disbelief, Sarah stared as her mother. "You and you're eternal fantasies. I indulged you at first thinking it was just a phase, but this is too much."

"You don't seriously expect me to believe the woman who left behind her home and family for a starry eyed actor in tight pants did so because her twelve year old daughter escaped to those same fantasies." Pulling the scroll from her bag, Sarah continued, "If that's the case, then indulge me one last time. Sign this," she practically demanded as she thrust the scroll at her mother, "and I'll be out of your hair forever."

Linda read over the words on the parchment, snickering at what it implied she was to do. "You expect me to believe this," she snorted. "This stage prop," she said scratching at the wax seal, then suddenly her demeanor changed. "This is real wax," she proclaimed.

"What of it?" Jareth asked her.

"On stage it's too hot, too hot for real wax. It would be plastic, but this is real." Stalking over to Jareth, she asked, "What game are you trying to run?"

"I'm not much in the way of games," he answered. "I play but one, the Labyrinth and even that is solely because I'm the master of the game, but I'm telling you nothing you don't already know. The scroll says all this. The question is do you believe?"

Linda stood numb before his critical stare. Crocodile tears welled in her eyes, "But surely you don't assume I'll just sign over my only child to you! Why, Sarah's all I have."

"Please mother," Sarah muttered.

"Ms. Williams, assuredly were it you who was asking to go and were it your mother standing in your way, would you want her to claim hold so steadfastly to her only child, especially given consideration that child were well since of age?" He began to stalk around her the way he did when he meant to intimidate someone. "You were an only child, weren't you Linda? Mommy's pride and joy, Daddy's littlest little girl," he spat.

"I want…," she began sternly without meeting Jareth's deliberate gaze while Sarah looked on, shocked at the tone the king was taking with her mother.

"I think I know what you want, Ms. Williams," snapping his eyes back on Sarah he asked as kindly as he could without slipping from the brut character he'd been acting towards Linda, "Would you excuse us a moment love?" With no audible reply, Sarah went into what was thankfully the kitchen and sat at the table there her teeth beginning to wear back the edges of her plain fingernails.

"Is that what this is about? You get to play king and order my daughter around as if she were one of your servants?"

"I believe you mean subjects."

"Regardless," she snapped at him. "Let's just say for a moment I believe you are this Goblin King fellow."

"Linda Williams, do you mean to pretend not to know me?" Mismatched eyes leveled with hers, a trademark sneer thinning his lips. "Was it so very long ago I spoke the rules to you, late one night, in your little sister's nursery? Let me help you remember. You were fourteen years old, mommy and daddy had just had, what was the euphemism you used, ooops baby was it? Regardless, your sister was seven and one quarter months old. You were left to baby-sit while your father rushed your mother to the hospital for pains she was having. Her gallbladder, if I remember correctly. You resented that child, as you have resented everything which dared to turn the follow spot from you for even a moment. So you went to your room, ignoring the crying child, and you began to read, the same leather bound fairytale you gave to your own child when you were too mature to believe in fairytales any longer. Do you recall the title of that book?"

"The Labyrinth," she whispered weakly.

Jareth's spun on his heels, "The Labyrinth," he sang. "The Labyrinth. I still remember the look on your face when I appeared as if from no where on the sill where the white owl had been only seconds sooner. Utter disbelief. Like the others, you bargained with me, attempted to appeal to my more benevolent side, swore your words were without meaning, but we know that was just for fear your parents would scold you or look upon you without favor. 'In my castle,' I told you, 'the child is in my castle.' What was her name? Katlyn, Katherine, Kristin…"

"Karolyn," she said stopping his list of similar names.

"Karolyn, that was it. Karolyn made the most homely looking dwarf. She was christened so many years ago, I barely remembered what you used to call her."

"How do you call her now?" Linda asked, a hint of lamentation in her query.

Jareth made his posture more rigid, "She goes by Drema these days. If it eases your mind any to know, she's married with a child of her own. A child, oddly enough named after your daughter."

Linda was sniveling, her arms hugged around her body, trembling with fear, not of Jareth, but fear of facing as an adult the foolishness we engage in as children, fear that came with finding out the line between fact and fiction was a hazy shade of grey. "I haven't thought of Karolyn in such a long, long time. Haven't thought of you, or that place."

"There wasn't much for you to think of. You never left the nursery. You didn't even try to find her."

His pointed reminder sent her to her knees where she remained wailing for several minutes. Sarah's hands pressed against the swinging kitchen door when she heard the tiny cries, but hesitated long enough to recall Jareth had asked her for privacy.

"Sign the paper, Linda. Do as your daughter asks. Think of it as freeing yourself of one more in a long chain of responsibilities you've been burdened with and I will make it worth your while." Interested in his offer, she stopped crying and looked up. From his interior breast pocket he withdrew a pen and a bill fold. His nimble fingers counted out five thousand dollars and dropped it to the ground, together with the implement, beneath the woman's nose.

"Five thousand dollars?" she questioned. "For my child," she said in disgust.

"Five thousand now, another ninety-five thousand once we've returned home. That ought to be enough for you to fool yourself into believing you're a star again."

Suddenly filled with confidence, Linda rose from the ground, straightened her dress and wiped her eyes. "Think what you want Goblin King, but I was born a star. I know no other way to live."

"Such a pity," he said before calling Sarah from her hiding place, just in time for her to see Linda Williams finishing her signature at the foot of the scroll.

After taking the scroll from her mother, Sarah threw her arms around Jareth's neck. "I don't know how you did this," she said, "but you have. Just like you've made every other wish of mine come true." Having expressed her appreciation in words, Sarah pulled him close, craning her neck to press her lips to his as Linda looked on stuck somewhere between disapproval and jealousy. "When can we go home?" Sarah asked when their kiss was broken.

"We should have gone home the moment your families were notified of your intentions. Is there anyone else who thinks your someplace other than where you are?" Jareth asked.

It was difficult to tell if the sick in her stomach came before or after the bitter taste in her mouth as she admitted, "Christian."

Nothing changed in the neighborhood Sarah had once shared with Christian, as nothing about their building had changed and as nothing about the location of the spare key had changed. Sarah's hand dragged along the edge of the door jamb until the tiny metal key fell into her palm. Sliding it into the keyhole, she was more than a bit surprised to see he hadn't bothered to change the locks since her departure. Inside the lights were all off. Instinctively she reached for the switched and bathed the entry way in 60 watts. Making her way to what had been their room, she saw nothing of hers remained. This was not a surprise, but rather precisely what she had anticipated he would do after she left. There were a few ladies' items trailed here or there, making Sarah wonder if the girls he dated were all naive or just exactly alike enough not to notice.

"Might as well have a seat," Sarah told Jareth after she completed her investigation. "He's not here." And so they got comfortable on the sofa and Sarah introduced Jareth to the many wonders of daytime television. Court TV, Soap Operas, pet programs, health and fitness shows, and the king's personal favorite, game shows.

Laughing robustly, he would remark, "There aren't anymore vowels you twit," or the one Sarah could never resist chuckling at, "I'll take civil engineering for 1000 Alex." For them the hours passed like wind, until Sarah heard heavy footfalls and a key in the door. Then she began to fear how Christian would react to finding them in the apartment.

"What the hell do you two think you're doing here?" he asked as he came in dressed in what was rather obviously a wait staff uniform.

"Before you go getting all excited," Sarah cautioned him.

"It's a little late for that isn't it. I mean, I come home, after a long day at work and I find my ex-fiancé," before he could continue, Sarah corrected him, being sure to point out that neither did she wear his ring, nor did they have any plans to wed. "Fine, my ex-girlfriend and her new piece on my couch, probably going at it like last time."

"Must you continually be so vulgar!" Sarah shouted.

Frantically, Christian began to pace the floor before them, "You know, I thought more of you. Everyone told me to change the locks, just in case you came back like a Tasmanian devil in the night and tried to kill me or something, but I gave you the benefit of doubt. I said you would never do anything like that and how do I get repaid? Here you are? What is it you want?"

"Were I to wager, it would be more because of the other woman in your life and less because of what you thought I might do," Sarah declared.

Eager to put an end to the cat fight, Jareth interceded. "If I may. We've come to explain Sarah's whereabouts so we might return home and continue on with the plans being made for us there."

"If I may," Christian mocked the king. "You may not. I don't know you, I sure as hell don't like you and I don't want to hear anything from you." Shoving the king aside, he began to address Sarah, "So what, you're going to marry this guy and you come to rub it in my face? He got money or something?"

Calmly, Jareth tapped his shoulder. "Perhaps we've stumbled upon some failure to understand each other's articulation. Allow me a second attempt." The king cleared his throat, "Sarah is going to return to my kingdom, with me, where she will become my queen and together rule over the Underground. You neither have to accept this fact, nor do I anticipate your being pleased with it, but you must understand it if we are to return home."

"What kind of freak are you?" Christian asked. "Sarah really, is this the best you could do once I let you go."

"Let me go?" she repeated.

"Best she cold do?" Jareth asked. "She's going to be a queen."

"Yeah, buddy I get it. Look if you knocked her up or something, don't go letting her convince you to marry her and give away half of everything you've got. You can take it to court. Insist on a paternity test. Hell, for the right, let's say donation, I'll testify she cheated on me. I'll be your character witness." A growl began in the king's throat. "That's it buddy, get mad. Don't just believe everything a woman, tells you. And use a fucking rubber for Christ's sake. I got a whole drawer-full in there. I'll get you a handful to get you started." Jareth stilled him as he attempted to pass. Making love to Sarah had been one of the most beautiful things he had ever done and were it that she were with his child, it would have filled him to overflowing with joy, but this mortal had taken all that and succeeded in cheapening it without so much as a second thought.

"The contents," the Goblin King began, "of your drawer are of little concern to me." Taking Christian by the shoulders, Jareth pressed him to the wall, holding him in place by squaring his forearm just beneath his chin. "Not that is any of your business," he spat, "but in defending the honor of the woman I love, let me make you aware that Sarah is not pregnant. I am to be united to her in love and I gladly give her all I have to have her with me, for all I own and all I am, I am nothing without her. Furthermore, our relations require no accouterments which you could provide, for there is nothing evil or lurking or distrustful between us, but little did I expect you would understand. As I have tried patiently to explain and what I need for you to understand, neigh what I am willing to take great and painful lengths for you to understand is this. We are to be united. We will reside in my home. Whatever excuses Sarah has made in the past have all been to cover for the fact that she was coming to my world, a world which few believe truly exists and hence the reason for her lies. You will never see her again. Do you understand?" through gritted teeth he asked the question.

"Yeah, yeah, I understand. You, her, marriage, far away land, happily ever after. I get it." Jareth eased off his hold on the young man as both he and Sarah began to feel the familiar tingle of magic pulling them home. "What I don't understand," Christian added with renewed vigor, "is why you thought I'd give a fuck if you took the little slut back to your place and tried to pretend she was a queen or whatever little costume got you through it." To punctuate his comment, Christian gyrated his hips, indicating the king in some way would have to pretend Sarah was someone else in order to make love to her.

Grabbing the king's arm, Sarah attempted to stop him, "Forget about him. They're bringing us home."

It was too late to halt what Christian's careless words had put in motion. Jareth's fist was balled waist high and his legs fought against magic's tug like a locomotive out of control. He was on the mortal man faster than Christian could breath. Drawing back his fist and fluidly sailing it towards the mortal's face, Jareth delivered a blow which not only broke his nose, but left him out cold lying on the floor.

Taking up Sarah's hand, he then allowed the magic to drag them back, satisfied he had evened the score and left Christian with a truth he'd be too afraid to tell, hoping the lies would be more flattering to his beloved. "Now we may go."

"Home," Sarah finished. "Now we may go home."