The hour was late, and even so it was earlier than it felt. There had been much dancing, and feasting, and more dancing to work off the effects of wine and rich food. Sarah felt as if her coronation ball had lasted several days, when the clock said otherwise.

She'd made a good impression, she thought, and she was overjoyed with the whole ball, if thoroughly exhausted. Once a certain feather-head king got a few things through his thick skull, he was happy, too, and just as tired. Their guests were seen to by servants, most leaving the same night, but Della and Thiel remained, and Toby had a room of his own. At last Sarah and Jareth retired to his rooms, their steps dragging by the time they ascended the stairs.

Once in the door, she leaned against him for a long moment, sighing. "I know," Jareth whispered, stroking her hair. "Much as I should like to establish a vigorous connection between us as monarchs, I fear I haven't the energy."

"Me either," Sarah murmured against his shoulder. "I'd give you hell for it, but I don't think I could manage, either."

"It has been a long day," he replied softly, and gathered her close. They forewent their usual hot-blooded evening, and simply undressed before tumbling to bed. Or more correctly, to the cushion pit, where Sarah often preferred to sleep. She dozed off in Jareth's arms, sleepily aware of her crown gleaming from its pillow atop a table.

Deep in the watches of the night, Sarah awoke to the feeling of eyes on her. Jareth was awake also, his gaze fixed on her. "Hello, precious."

"Hi," she yawned, giving him a sleepy smile of contentment. Reaching out to run her thumb over his lips, Sarah arched one eyebrow slightly. "What's going on in that brilliant mind of yours, Goblin King? I thought we were both exhausted enough to sleep for days."

"As did I. But I find myself feeling … incomplete."

Sarah chuckled rustily. "Oh, Jareth. If this is about us not having sex, I promise, you won't die. It's just a rain check, your majesty. And, if you remember rightly, you were the one who claimed exhaustion first."

"Not that. Sarah … you love me, do you not?" That woke her fully then. The sincerity of the question stopped her from making a flippant reply; even with her, Jareth rarely sounded so vulnerable.

She gave him a worried look then, moving her hand up to caress his cheek with the back of her hand. Something was wrong here; why would he ask this now? "Jareth. Yes, I love you," she answered, as honestly and plainly as she could. "I've loved you since before I even understood it."

"And you do not regret choosing me? Even though my kingdom and I have merrily turned your life upside-down?" There was a plaintive note in the query.

Sarah sat up, and leaned over to kiss him soundly. When she had to stop for breath, she pulled back to look him in the eye. "No, I don't regret. Not for a moment. Jareth, I wasn't wholly me without this place, without you. I love you. I'm glad to be here. You and Umardelin can complicate my life all you want. It's worth it."

Jareth kissed her back, his lips lingering sweet upon hers. "And you would not change your fate?"

"No," she laughed softly, slightly surprising herself with how quickly the answer came. "God help me, I like this crazy life you've dragged me into. I'm damn glad you managed to get me back to believing again. I'd be, and was, an idiot to give this up. Now what's got you all fluffed up?"

Jareth wavered, and then turned away from her. He gestured toward a small chest, one of its drawers opening, and a little wooden box floated out of it. Sarah only looked on with curiosity as the box came to Jareth's hand.

And then he opened it, showing a pair of gold rings set with large opals, worked to resemble leaves and flowers. Sarah caught her breath at the beauty, and Jareth asked softly, "Sarah Williams, will you marry me?"

She raised stunned eyes to his, utterly at a loss for words. It was unbelievable that, of all of the things that could be keeping him awake, this had been the 'why'. It both awed and terrified her. Of course they'd spoken of it, but it had never truly seemed possible. Any more than her being Queen of Umardelin, her mind retorted helpfully. Wasn't that funny?

Somehow, after all this time, after all of the dangers and hardships, it was difficult to believe that she found herself here, at this moment. They had come so very far from that day in the park, a silly little girl unknowingly reciting from an enchanted book to the very being about whom it had been written. How could she have ever known the future she had set into motion? Or how she would come to see that very man and how many sides there were to every story? Or how many there were to herself?

So many memories there, so many here and in their own little world, Sarah's vision blurring a bit. "I … I thought we were … going to wait?"

"I do not mean to wed you tomorrow," he said, gently chiding. "Only to make the betrothal official. We planned for an engagement that will last years, and this changes nothing. I only wish to have the proof of our promises made tangible."

Sarah stopped to look at him, then laughed in spite of her misty eyes. "I didn't mean for you to make it sound more like a business arrangement, Jareth."

"We are King and Queen of Umardelin. Marriage between us carries unmistakable political overtones," he reminded her. "Still. I want to see my ring on your finger, and its mate on my own. Do you not wish the same?"

"Are you determined to take the romance out of it?" she said, half-pleading.

"I tried romance, you reminded me we'd agreed to wait," he responded, shifting against her. Jareth silenced any further questions or protests with a long kiss that warmed her to her toes, drawing back at last to catch her gaze intently. "Once and twice and thrice, I ask thee, Sarah Williams. Wilt thou marry me?"

"Well enough," she chuckled, her eyes emerald-bright in the dim room. "Yes, and yes, and yes, Jareth of Umardelin. Yes, I will marry you." With those words, she dragged him down to her, her lips hungry on his.

He held her off only long enough to slip the rings on, and when they both wore them, Sarah gasped quietly, wide eyes swiftly coming up to his. When she'd been given the Key to Umardelin, she became aware of the kingdom as if it were part of herself, and the connection only deepened with her crown. Now she felt Jareth the same way, his regard for her, his concerns, his deep satisfaction that she'd chosen him.

Sarah might have asked questions about that, but his primary emotion at the moment was triumphant lust, and she gladly let it sweep her away.

When morning finally dawned, it caught them both abed, but the sun eventually woke Sarah. And her moving woke Jareth, who nuzzled her with a happy groan. Eventually they made it down to the kitchen, where Della and Thiel were already breaking their fast on scones and hot tea. Toby was at the table, muzzy-headed but awake enough to demolish some scones. Beldych made certain a tray was ready for the monarchs, and as the chef held it out with a gracious nod, Sarah dipped her own head in thanks, taking her mug and scone gratefully.

She'd taken the scone in her right hand, which meant she sipped coffee with her left, and the opal caught the light. Della saw it, her gaze flashed to Jareth's left hand, and her face went utterly blank. Even her mug of tea went crashing to the ground, startling Toby, and the look she turned on Jareth was full of complicated sorrow.

"Della, what's wrong?" Sarah asked, worried anew. She genuinely liked her soon-to-be in-laws, but seeing Della – who was normally of cheerful mien – react so negatively worried her again.

"It is only the betrothal, Mother," Jareth said with great gentleness. "We have some years before we wed, and I would not rob you the chance of planning a grand ceremony."

"I know that," she replied, flustered. A scullion rushed over to clean up the shattered ceramic, but she swept it together and into his dustpan with an distracted flick of magic. "My apologies, son. I know what this means, and I knew it was coming. It is still … something of a shock."

Thiel put his hand on her shoulder for a reassuring squeeze. "To be fair, neither of us thought you'd ever marry. Nor that you would choose a human lover. Yet we both know Sarah, and there can be no better match for you in all the realms that ever were."

The high praise mingled with a sense of grieving finality, and she looked to Jareth with concern. "What's going on? Jareth, I would've thought they'd both be happy."

Della's breath came sharply. "You still haven't told her?"

"No, for we were rather distracted," he spat back. "Besides which, she will not like it. I had to ask her thrice for her to even answer me."

His mother crossed her arms, and the deep steel of her nature showed now. "So you hid it from her? As if that would ever work, with a woman of her caliber. To place the ring upon her finger before giving her the whole truth is shameful cowardice, son. You dishonor your father and I, to behave so. Tell her, now."

"I will," he hastily replied, "but without your ever-so-well-meaning assistance. Sarah, come with me." He caught her hand and fairly dragged her aside, ending up in a storeroom full of boxes and barrels that smelled of dust and spice.

"What is it?" Sarah demanded, catching his shirt and staring up at him. She could feel the wrongness, now. She was upset, not angry, but she'd never seen Della snap at him like that before. There was something horrible connected to all this.

Jareth ran a distracted hand through his still-rumpled hair. "This pledge … it is no mere words. To be engaged, among the fae, has more meaning. Our powers are more mingled that ever before, as is everything else."

She hunched her shoulders against those words. The memory of that flash of sudden insight into his feelings last night came back to her, Sarah's thumb unconsciously moving to stroke the ring's surface. Dread pooled in her stomach at the implications. "What exactly do you mean by that?" she asked carefully.

Jareth sighed, hot breath carrying his frustration away. He was struggling with this, whatever it was; his body language and expression made it plain, but she could also feel his turmoil. He was most worried about how she would take this, Sarah could tell that much. "I pledged my troth to you. My ring on your finger, the key to our kingdom around your neck, her crown atop your head, you and I are bound in love and in magic. And in life. Do you not feel the power you draw from the Labyrinth when you work little magics here and there? As the land draws from you as well, your memory, your experience, your innovation."

"You're obfuscating," Sarah said, reaching up to catch his chin and make him look at her, heart leaden in her chest. "Jareth, stop. Please. Just tell me what you're trying not to say. Use your right words." Her look at him was significant, willing to him to tell her what he hadn't before.

"You and I, we draw our lives from each other as well," he finally said. "Your mortality allows me to visit your realm more easily. You have become my passport, as it were. And my immortality is shared with you, now."

"Shared how?" Sarah demanded, dread coiling in her heart. This was the crux of it, what he hadn't wanted to tell her.

"You will become stronger, fleeter, and more enduring, as well as more certain in your magic. You will resist poison and heal wounds swiftly, though you may become sensitive to iron in time." He paused, glancing at her, and sighed yet again. "You will live a very long time, Sarah, and like the fae you will not age unless you wish to. I imagine you will never look much older than you do now; it is possible you may even grow younger, as the magic courses through you."

Another long pause, while she stared at him, and Jareth looked away, as if the words he needed were written in the warm sandstone walls. His voice dropped to a solemn murmur. "When you die, centuries from now, I will follow you. You are no longer quite mortal, and I am no longer entirely immortal."

Ice flooded her veins then, chilling her to the core. "No," Sarah said immediately, shaking her head in panicked denial. In all of her research, all of those years guarding herself from any possible fae persuasion, she had never even considered anything that might be a danger to him. Her vision blurred as the reality of their current situation overwhelmed her, fighting a sob. "No. Absolutely not. I refuse that. Take it back, Jareth. I mean it, take it back. There has to be a way–" Her hand went to the ring, as if by yanking it off she could reverse this process.

Jareth caught her hands and stilled them, staring at her with his voice harsh and his eyes storming with opalescent fire. "If the bond between us is severed, then yes, I will have eternity again. Why should I desire that? What is eternity without you? My Sarah, my Queen, my love. Give me half a millennium with you at my side, and I will gladly forsake the rest of time."

"I don't want you to die for me!" she exclaimed, unable to stop the tears that came, tugging her hands away and cupping his face. That impossibly beautiful face, so arrogant and so charming. Sarah couldn't imagine a world without him in it. More, didn't want to. There had to be a way, between the pair of them…

"The choice is mine, and I have made it," the Goblin King told her, in that tone of regal proclamation that brooked no argument. She felt his resolve, his will stronger than iron, and knew that he at least had pledged to her knowing this would be the result. "Do not grieve for what I might lose, Sarah. Rejoice for what we both stand to gain."

She could only look at him in heartbreak. No wonder Della had reacted so; the ring on his finger meant her only son, who in the normal manner of their kind would be immortal as she, was going to die. "So in the end, loving me is going to kill you," she said, her voice tear-choked. "Great. All the classic romances end with a body count. Why not ours?"

He stroked her cheek. "Sarah. I would be lost without you, and likely dead ere long. You know this. Had I failed to break the curse, we both know I would've followed my predecessor eventually."

"We don't know that," she protested.

"I do," he replied. Their bond told her he spoke truly. "I had oft contemplated ending it, before you came. My pride sustained me. The ignominy of being so slain, or the humiliation of taking my own life, both offended me too much to entertain seriously."

Sarah wanted to fight it, so badly, but he'd implied as much before. As selfish as her act had been, wishing Toby away, there had been a actual reason for it. His words to her in her second run made perfect sense now. He, and the Labyrinth, had shaped her as she was. It had made her a better sister, a somewhat more sensible girl, more aware of others and their feelings. Made her fight for what she wanted, even if she had believed it only the stuff of dreams. Made her believe in herself the way she had only played at in the past.

And the foolish words that had crossed her lips in her parents' mirror, in jest, to Jareth's amusement, 'And what no one knew was that the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with the girl,' had become the truth. To such a degree that she stood here now, his ring on her finger willingly, weeping over her part in the loss of his immortality. How little she had known, how little she'd understood, so long ago. Even now, even here, she couldn't regret seeing that beautiful white barn owl perched above her in the park. He'd been right; from that moment, as soon as she had spoken to him, their lives had changed in ways that neither would have any choice over. For good or ill, it seemed that the Fates had planned this all along.

The memory, the one so crystallized in their minds that it had been his way back to her after all the damage she had caused to his magic, and she really had done so, came back to her as it had so many times. Tears still glistening on her cheeks, she sang to him softly with a bittersweet smile, reaching up to touch his face. "But I'll be there for you, as the world falls down." She sniffled then, pulling him into her arms, holding him to her as tightly as she could, as she could stop time with just her embrace. "I love you. I love you; I'm sorry, Jareth. I'm so sorry."

His embrace was just as strong, and he nuzzled her hair. "That is all I ask, Sarah. I love you. And I am not sorry. Eternity pales, with no one to share it." A short laugh, and he added, "Besides, we have centuries yet. It is not as if we will die three days into the relationship, like some of your love stories."

"You just stop it," she said, hitting him lightly in the chest, but not moving away in the slightest. With a deep sigh, the newly-proclaimed queen just stayed close until her silent tears dried, her sobs soothed.

Then, once Sarah had calmed, they had to return to the kitchen, where Thiel was pouring something stronger than tea into a new mug. Toby looked somewhat more awake, though bemused, his eyes following his sister with clear curiosity.

Della came to her feet immediately on seeing them, and went to Sarah, cupping her still-damp face. "Sarah, darling, I do not blame you," she said intently. "Never think that I am not delighted for you both, do you understand?"

"Yeah, well, I'm not particularly thrilled about the end result. I can't imagine you would be, either." Sarah managed in a wavering voice. "If I'd known that I never would've picked up the book."

"Or played it out in the park, reciting lines to barn owls," Jareth added in a tone far more off-handed than Sarah liked. His queen shot him a quelling look as she hugged Della.

Thiel scoffed. "And we would still find ourselves barred from all but the shortest visits, while Jareth languished here, resenting his rule because it was forced on him. I have seen my son happier since you returned, than I have since he was a child. I will take that and be glad of it. All things come with a price, Sarah."

"That's the thing, Thiel. I should be the one paying the price," Sarah said stubbornly. "I was the one who started all this. I was the one who made the choice."

"You are, Sarah," Jareth told her very seriously. "You have to put up with me for the next several centuries."

That brought her eyes up to his in a furious frown. Though she knew what he was about, trying to use dark humor to goad her out of her melancholy, Sarah was about thirty seconds from snapping at him. This didn't make it any easier to take. Toby spoke up before she could. "They gave me the Cliff's Notes. So, basically you're getting immortality light? Sweet package deal, Sare."

Ah, the complete lack of comprehension in teenage boys. The tragedy of the situation would completely elude him. Clearly the full ramifications hadn't yet sunk in. Sarah opened her mouth to protest, giving her brother a pained look, when the Goblin King overrode her. "At the cost of my eventual death," Jareth reminded him. Again, that cross look from her, Sarah actually elbowing him sharply this time.

"Yeah, you don't look too upset about it," Toby said, sipping his tea. "Guess my sister's worth it."

Again, Sarah tried to cut them off. "Enough of this, the both of you…"

"That she is," Jareth replied as if she hadn't spoken. "Immortality does pale, after enough time. Many fae do choose to die, even if not compelled to it."

Toby shrugged. "Some of us still have to make due with ninety years or so. You're already lucky."

Thiel nudged Sarah, and told her, "Now you know why you are unable to meet his grandparents on my side. They were married for seven centuries, and in the end, she survived him by only four days. Just long enough to arrange for his funeral and her own. My mother always did love to plan things down to the very minute."

"Seven centuries ought to be enough time to teach you some manners," Sarah told Jareth, giving up and joining the attempt at levity. All of them chuckled, though there was a desperate edge to the sound. It was a better means of dealing with the new knowledge than being maudlin about it, though Sarah still wondered in the back of her mind how both of his parents could've managed to be so welcoming to her, knowing all the while what it would mean if Jareth wed her.

Toby polished off another scone, and looked at them all thoughtfully. "I can't wait to see Mom's face when you tell her you're already engaged."

Sarah could only look at him flabbergasted, while Jareth arched his brows in surprise. No one was thinking of the world Above just at the moment. "Tobe?" Sarah managed.

"We're still on for meet-the-boyfriend Sunday dinner, right?" he reminded her with a smirk. "Dude, Mom and Dad are both gonna be over the moon about the ring on your finger already."

"I think we'll glamour that away," Jareth said with strained dignity. "I'd rather not explain that I've known you much longer than they think."

"Yeah, the whole dreams thing would probably freak 'em out," Toby laughed. "Do you really think you can play normal for a whole dinner, King Glittertights?"

Jareth narrowed his eyes. "Mind your tongue, young man, or I'll see you spangled and sparkled for weeks."

Meanwhile Della and Thiel shared a look, as the young mortal tweaked their son's nose with impunity. They were both quite fond of him already, and his mischievous teasing only amused them despite being at Jareth's expense.

"Knock it off," Sarah sighed, raking a hand through her hair. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, Tobe. For now, somebody please feed me. I had a helluva long day yesterday and a morning full of not-so-good news. I need caffeine. And sugar."

"If your brother has not devoured the entire larder," Jareth said archly, and Toby rolled his eyes.