I know. It's been a hot second. Which means I've got a lot to say.

Firstly, I've committed two sins. I waited almost a month and a half to post (and write) this chapter. You can blame all of my profs and the holidays for that.

I've also fallen into the Labyrinth fic cliche of naming chapter titles after Labyrinth/Bowie song lyrics and I can't say I'm too ashamed of it. If you guys would prefer original, thought out titles please verbally whack me upside the head and I'll see what I can do.

Secondly, I fear I'll begin to sound like a broken record when it comes to late posting so just bare with it. I'll do my best to explain long absences but I promise chapters will be posted the second I have the time to write/edit them. That just may take a bajillion years, give or take.

Anyway, enjoy the chapter. And tell me what you think!

—

"So…what do we do now?"

It was the first thing Sarah could think of to ask. Not that it was the only thing she was thinking of at all, no. Her brain was moving a mile a minute, showcasing a kaleidoscope of worries and worrying scenarios. Of course, Jareth being the royal arse that Sarah was beginning to really gather that he was, did his best to send her musing to a grinding halt.

"We?" He exclaimed in a tone so offended it was almost dripping with derision.

"Yes, we!" Sarah dropped her hand from where it was fiddling with her ring and shot to her feet. Jareth matched her fighting stance and the wayward couple, as Lavinia quietly took her leave, proceeded to circle each other around the coffee table like two dueling wolves.

"We," Sarah gestured between them. "Created this mess together. Shouldn't we clean it up together?"

Jareth scowled. "I don't see how an ignorant human like yourself would know the first thing about 'cleaning' this mess up."

The 'ignorant' human in question huffed at that. "That's why I asked, your Majesty. True, I can't help if I don't know how. But I swear on my prized bear Lancelot I will be helping you!"

"I don't want you to!"

"Too bad, so sad! I'm doing it anyway!" Sarah singsonged.

"The hell you are!"

"I am!"

"You're not!"

"Doing it right now."

"No. You. Are. Not!"

"Tra la, la, la, don't care! Can't hear you over the sound of me helping!"

Oh.

Sarah felt a shiver go down her spine, as if someone had suddenly stepped on her grave or something. It was strange, but as she argued in favor of helping this man, she got the distinct impression that in another life she wouldn't have been so adapting. Another pair of green eyes, younger and more volatile, would've fought this tooth and nail. A different situation, a confusing and scary one; the words 'it's not fair' rang true but in this case seemed far too childish for her to allow past her lips. Still, they lingered like an itch of deja-vu under the pretense of their verbal sparring.

Jareth let out a growl. Not a sexy one, unfortunately—an honest to Godzilla, inhuman, growl.

"Insolent wench!" He rumbled. "This doesn't concern you!"

Oh, we're throwing out Ye Olde Insults, Sarah mused. Just how old is this guy? Well, I've studied far too much Shakespeare not to engage.

"You cur! You froward and unable worm! This does concern me!" She held up her bedazzled ring hand. "We're married, thanks to your freaky magical customs, and you said it's permanent right? Look, I haven't had the best examples of marriage in my life but I hear stories about how it's supposed to be. Husband and wife work things out together, in sickness and in health and all that. It didn't come by normal means but that's what we are now…right?"

An odd thing to behold, the softening of Jareth's expression juxtaposed by the rigid clench of his body. Her spiel had lended him some sort of comfort and distress all at once.

"Yes," he acquiesced softly, albeit still tense. "I suppose that is what we are."

Sarah beamed in light of her victory. "Then you'll let me help you?"

"Something tells me I am going to regret this," the halfling King ran a hand over his eyes as if warding off an incoming headache. "Yes, you can help, but we need a foolproof plan of action. Or at least a relatively buoyant one." He added as an afterthought.

It was then that they both noticed the absence of their designated third wheel.

"Nia," Jareth said, snapping his fingers. "Where is that girl?"

Sarah glanced around. "I think she left."

"Perhaps she hoped we would kill each other if left alone," he ventured, sounding far too cheerful at the notion.

"Or she wanted to give us privacy," said Sarah wryly. As she made her way toward the door she paused, remembering the question previously burning on the tip of her tongue. "Right. Before we go looking for her, can I ask you something?"

Jareth side-eyed her warily. "Depends."

"Of course." She sighed. "What exactly is your relationship with her? Lavinia, I mean."

Her husband seemed to stand taller at that, chest and wild hair puffing up visibly. "Jealous, darling?"

"No. God, no. I'm just curious."

"Ah, ah, ah," he shook his finger at her. "What did I say about curiosity, precious?"

"That it kills." She crossed her arms and frowned. "If that's the case, I'm already good as dead. Satisfaction brought the cat back, mind you, and seeing as how I'm far from satisfied…revive me why don't you?"

"Clever little thing," Jareth all but hissed. "Alright, I will surrender this once: Lavinia Cross owes my mother a great debt. I know not what it entails or even how it came to be, but it is a hefty one it seems. Hefty enough for her to be willing to put up with me for a handful of centuries."

Centuries, Sarah thought with faint hysteria. He's definitely cradle-robbing, huh?

"As of her relationship with me, it is a bit more complicated. I understand she is some sort of cousin to me by marriage, although I never knew the husband I am supposedly related to. Bits of overheard conversation have led me to believe he is likely the cause for the debts existence. I know little else other than she has followed me like a shadow on my mother's orders. Irritating that, a human watching over a king, but I can not go against my dam's blessing." He glared down at his nails in a feign of nonchalance, however Sarah heard the subtle note of brotherly affection when he spoke of the other woman.

She shook her head before moving to the break room door open. And stopped, frozen.

"Oh."

The warm length of Jareth's body pressed up against the back of hers as she lingered in the door's threshold. His strangely cool breath tickled the side of her face as he whispered into her ears, "Ah, look. I told you. You can see them too."

She could. All of it.

Every manner of sight and sound overloaded her sense, many of them so unfamiliar as to be indescribable.

The Latte Labyrinth was just that, a maze of an unknowable amount of twists and turns. From the entrance onward stretched an expansive puzzle as far as the eye could see, which was much. She'd been wrong about the Escher-like patterns; they were there, dizzyingly present and made worse by the creatures defying gravity by hopping between them. Oh, and the creatures. Some appeared innocent, gentle gnomes and small pixie critters. Others—like the bull-looking man with solid-black eyes and fuming nostrils, the snake-lion form donning a marble human face lying at a faunal woman's cloved feet, and the line of bodiless floating limbs waiting at the counter—were significantly less wholesome and their darkness could be tangibly felt in the form of sourceless trembling and roiling paranoia. Portals in the ceiling, floor, and elsewhere opened up all of the inner most parts of the 'cafe', admitting more foreign creatures into the space. Sarah could feel countless impressions of things brush past her, like small animals darting around her face and ankles, and small voice in the back of her mind told her it must be what magic feels like. The more she saw the more she felt that it was terrible and wonderful and something she should've never been allowed to see at all.

This must be the feeling old prophets got trying to describe visions of heaven, Sarah reflected absently, still in awed shock.

She flinched and glanced up when a deceptively strong arm coiled around her waist. Jareth grinned rictusly down at her.

"Welcome to the Underground, Sarah-mine. You know it now in its fullness. It is my domain as well as your new home, as my wife."

Sarah swallowed hard. "Forever?"

"Oh, hardly!" Jareth scoffed, waving a free hand. "That's not long at all."

When the flustered human woman balked at that, the halfling monarch was quick to steer her out into the open.

"Come now, dearest," he urged. "Let us find Nia and have her acquire us a most trustworthy council."