The radio was blaring Heart. Normally Sarah loved the song, but without opening her eyes, she slapped the snooze button and buried herself back in her blankets.

Her conscience nagged her. Oh no you don't! You need a shower, and you were late for work yesterday!

"Uhh!" she groaned. "These dreams have definitely been affecting my sleep, I feel like I've been up all night!"

Her inner voice smirked. And you can't even blame Jareth, not directly anyway.

Sarah scowled but begrudgingly got out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

The shower did revive her a bit and she went to get dressed. She chose a heather grey knit top and black jeans and braided her still damp hair.

Sarah glared slightly at Tiger as she filled his bowl, she had hoped to have leftover Thai food for lunch. Since that wasn't happening, she grabbed a package of instant noodles. Sarah looked at the clock and decided to grab a muffin from the freezer. She threw it all in her lunch bag, made sure she had her keys and headed out the door.

Traffic was actually not bad and she made it to work 15 minutes early, Carla was already at her desk, looking through a stack of papers. Carla looked up, "Hey Sarah, what brings you here so early? "

"Oh, just thought I'd make up for being late yesterday" Sarah put her purse down by her desk.

Carla smiled, "You aren't usually late, as long as you don't make a habit of it, don't worry" she added, "Oh, and I made coffee already"

"Thanks! You're a lifesaver!" Sarah grabbed her lunch bag and jogged to the break room. Sarah filled her owl mug and heated up her cranberry nut muffin. Armed with her coffee and breakfast, she went back to her desk and tried to catch up on the work that she had been too distracted to concentrate on yesterday.

Sarah was just finishing verifying billing when Carla peeked in. "Sarah do you have the receipt for the glitter ink we bought last week?"

She looked up, "It should be right here, why?"

Carla frowned, holding up a bottle. "I just realized that one of the bottles is the wrong color code, I need the receipt to return it."

Sarah began digging in the file cabinet, her hand brushed something smooth and round. She ignored it and leafed through the files.

"Here you go" Sarah closed the drawer and handed over the receipt.

Carla stuffed it in her bag, along with the bottle of ink. "I'm going to go return it right away, we need the right color to get started on that project this afternoon."

"Okay" Sarah nodded.

Carla turned to leave, but paused. "Oh, and Tina called, Danyka is sick with fever and can't go to daycare and she can't find a babysitter, so can you help with the printing after lunch?"

Sarah looked at her to-do pile. "No problem, as long as this paperwork can wait."

"You finished the billing?"

Sarah pointed at the papers that she had been working on. "Just about."

"Then good, okay, I'm out, I'll see you after lunch."

Sarah waited for her boss to leave, and then opened the drawer again. Without touching the crystal, she carefully pushed the files out of the way and looked into it. Visible inside was a piece of parchment. Written on it in elegant script was one word.

Truce.

Sarah's eyebrows raised at that. Why would he ask for a truce? A truce meant halting hostilities, had she done anything that inadvertently caused problems in the Underground? But how? She hadn't even been there in nearly nine years.

Sarah wrote something on a piece of paper and then gingerly placed the crystal on it.

...

Jareth pinched the bridge of his nose, he was driving himself crazy checking and rechecking his crystal every few seconds to see if Sarah had responded. He had placed it on the ledge beside his throne so that he could keep an eye on it, and had declared instant bogging to anyone who dared touch it. He knew that after her surprise yesterday, Sarah had put her crystal somewhere dark. He had no way of knowing how long it would be before she looked at it again. It was a long shot, they had seen each other through the two crystals, hopefully the crystals were still connected. He needed to speak with her, this was urgent.

Suddenly he saw light flash inside the crystal, and a hand brushed against it, jerking slightly at the contact. The hand moved away, leafing through papers around it, then darkness returned.

Jareth wanted to scream in frustration, he wanted to break something, or bog something. Instead he got up and strode around the throneroom, kicking any goblins who had the misfortune of not getting out of the way fast enough. He noticed one particular chicken glaring at him, and kicked it even harder. The goblins watched in awe as she went soaring out the window, she plummeted for a while, until she remembered she had wings, and deployed them to slow her fall. A few of the goblins held up score cards, 10, 9, 9, 6, 10. Jareth frowned at the horned goblin holding the 6, the goblin looked down at his card, and turned it around nervously.

"That's better!" Jareth stepped towards a window and was just about to transform into an owl to go burn off some energy when a potbellied goblin with tusks and a spikey helmet yelled "Kingy, look!" It was pointing excitedly at the crystal, careful not to touch it though.

Jareth bounded back to his throne and looked into the crystal. She had placed it on a piece of paper.

Two words.

Why? How?

...

Author's note

I don't own Labyrinth or its characters.

Yes, the unnamed glaring chicken is a reference to Rosalinda from Lixxle's hilarious My Fine Feathered Friend. If you haven't read it yet, what are you waiting for?

Thank you so much to Liz the Librarian, Guest 2019, mae-E and Melissa-Sama for the lovely reviews and to everyone who has faved or followed!

Please let me know what you think. :)