A/N: Here goes…everything, really. Few people are happy in this chapter, though some of them are very amused (I'm looking at you, Betelgeuse). The Explanation, parental trauma, and a wonderfully snooty Delia. Also, I don't know Sarah's parents' names, so if anybody does please let me know.

It really was ridiculous, Lydia thought, that she was more nervous about explaining this than she'd been about getting it. She loved all four of her parents - even Delia, obnoxious though her stepmother could be - and none of them were going to like having this bomb dropped on them. She didn't exactly relish how much this would upset them all.

"I'm home," she called, her palms more than a little sweaty. "I need to talk to you guys, okay?"

"We both do," Sarah chimed in, and Lydia shot her a grateful look. At least she wasn't in this alone. She unloaded her backpack on the kitchen table as her father came in, looking, as usual, slightly bewildered.

"What is it, Pumpkin?" he asked warily.

"You didn't get expelled, did you?" That was Delia, hard on his heels.

"No," Lydia said, offended. "Look, I need you guys to just listen until I'm through, okay? Don't interrupt me or I'll never get it all out."

Neither of her parents like the sound of that, and they liked still less Barbara's immediate reaction upon seeing Lydia. Her eyes widened, and ghost though she was her face paled. "What - Adam, come here!" She reached out, as if to touch Lydia's hair, but apparently thought better of it. "Lydia, what happened to you?"

Both Lydia and Sarah sat, exchanging an uneasy glance. "Like I said, just hear me out - it's kind of a long story, and you might want to corroborate part of it with Juno." She paused. "I know you will."

"I…really don't like the sound of that," Adam said, halting beside Barbara. "Lydia, this - what is this?" She had no idea what either ghost might be seeing, or if they merely sensed it, but either way the result was the same. Unfortunately.

"It's…partial immortality," she said. "Kind of. I'm still not entirely up on how it exactly works, but apparently it's necessary because I really don't want to get murdered."

"Murdered?" Delia demanded. "By what?"

"The Neitherworld."

All four adults jumped, and Lydia put her head in her hands, fighting an urge to tear her hair out - this was not what she needed right now. Betelgeuse had materialized next to the sink, his green eyes a little too bright in their sunken sockets. "Juno says the royals wanted me to kill Lyds here, so I made it so nobody can. There's war or some shit going down in another dimension that might spill over here, and since Lyds is the only living link to the Neitherworld, they wanted to get rid of her." He held up a finger, snapping both Maitlands' jaws shut before they could protest. "Ask Juno, she'll tell you the same thing. Probably gonna tell me off for what I did, but she can't undo it."

"Which is where I come in," Sarah sighed. Haltingly, she and Lydia spilled both sides of their tale, to the mounting incredulity of the adults - which was hardly fair, Lydia thought, since two of them were ghosts. This kind of thing shouldn't be so hard for them to swallow.

"Why would you do that, though?" Adam demanded of Betelgeuse, as soon as he was finally able to speak. "What would it matter if she - you're not still trying to marry her, are you?" he added, somewhat ominously.

Betelgeuse snorted. "No," he said. "Shit, Adam, I'm not that much of an asshole. I'm not gonna kill her just to satisfy the pansy-ass royals in the Neitherworld. Besides," he added, hitting what they all suspected was the crux of the matter, "I don't need to marry anybody now. Lyds here can still send me back, but nobody else can. And she's a lot safer if she doesn't."

Even with her odd immortality, Lydia still didn't like the sound of that. Just because she couldn't die didn't mean she couldn't get hurt, and she was still capable of feeling pain, even if less so than she'd been before. She fought a shudder, and just barely won. "Anyway," she said, "I'm going to have to leave school at some point, I think, whenever…whatever's going to happen…happens."

"Should leave before that," Betelgeuse said. "Sarah, when you go to the Labyrinth, you ought to take Lyds here with you. She can't get hurt, but the rest of you all can." He looked pointedly at her parents and the Maitlands. "If she's here when the shit hits the fan, you're all in danger."

God…Lydia hadn't even thought of that. Her parents were very mortal, and she knew from experience that even ghosts weren't entirely safe. Curious though she was about this Labyrinth, she wanted to go for curiosity's sake, not because something awful might happen to her family if she didn't.

"What about you?" Sarah asked, and Betelgeuse's grin was truly horrible.

"I've got things to take care of first," he said, buffing his (still rather dirty) fingernails on the sleeve of his coat. "Royals might be a giant load of wusses, but I've got some favors owed me I'm going to call in, and there's nothing they can do about it. Down there, a contract's binding."

"That's true," Adam muttered, and Lydia knew he and Barbara were going to run to Juno first chance they got, for corroboration. Which was only smart of them - the only reason she believed him was because she'd also met Jareth. She wasn't going on his word alone. "You're sureyou can keep her safe?"

"I don't need to anymore, but yeah, I'll keep an eye on her. She's even newer at this than you are, after all." The fact that it was true was the only thing that kept Lydia from bristling. She wasn't a child, for God's sake - she was going on eighteen, and while she might be in over her head she was at least capable of swimming. "Better go with these two when they drop this on Sarah's parents, too. You're used to all this shit, you oughtta talk to them yourselves."

Though Lydia had yet to meet Sarah's parents, she didn't want to imagine how that would go - Delia was so weird herself that Lydia couldn't imagine any sane person trusting her at her word, and her father was so nervous and jumpy that he wasn't much more believable. They likely wouldn't be able to see the Maitlands even if they came up here, either, and-

"Beej, could they even see you?" she asked.

"Yeah, they're not exactly the kind of people who'd believe in ghosts," Sarah added.

Betelgeuse gave a laugh that was half a hack, dry and wheezing. "'Course they will," he said. "Poltergeist, remember? Different rules. You need to get ahold of that goblin king of yours," he added, to Sarah. "Your parents are gonna need to meet him, I think."

"She needn't bother."

Even Lydia jumped. She still wasn't used to Betelgeuse showing up unannounced, and Jareth was so unfamiliar he almost freaked her out a little. Ghosts and poltergeists were one thing, but she hadn't ever given much thought to goblins, and none to the sort of people who might rule them. Just what exactly was Jareth, anyway? He obviously wasn't a goblin himself, nor was he human, and Betelgeuse probably would have told her if he was any kind of ghost. She wasn't about to ask, though, not yet - he was a little too intimidating a sight in that high-collared coat. On anyone else his hairstyle would have looked ridiculous, but he pulled it off too well for comfort, and she noticed Delia blush out of the corner of her eye.

"Don't tell me you've been following us," Sarah groaned, putting her head in her hands.

"I haven't," Jareth said, with some asperity, "but I know when someone speaks of me. You are right, Betelgeuse - I should accompany you. I really ought to take both girls to the Labyrinth with me soon, for things are moving within the Legendverse more swiftly than I had anticipated. It will not be long now."

Something rather like a cold stone dropped into the pit of Lydia's stomach at that. She'd thought this would start soon, but not this soon, and she wasn't sure just how ready she was yet. A glance at Sarah told her her friend was thinking something along the same lines - and Sarah was still mortal. She might have some unknown measure of Jareth's power, but Lydia highly doubted that would stop something killing her if it really tried. And that…really wouldn't end well, if the vibes Lydia was getting from Jareth were any indication.

"Lemme bring some people, too," Betelgeuse said. "If I can. Got some friends and some debtors I can call in."

Jareth didn't look too happy about that idea, for which Lydia really couldn't blame him, but help was help. "As you wish. Two days more, perhaps, and then we all must go."

Two days? Two days? That wasn't going to be nearly enough time for Lydia to get used to all her weird heightened senses, and they were strange enough in the normal world - what they'd be like in some place like the Labyrinth, she wasn't sure she wanted to know. Oh, it was bound to be fascinating, but she'd be pretty useless if she was too busy staring at some alien flower.

"How long will you be gone?" Barbara asked, appalled.

"I cannot say, not yet. Unfortunately, I will have no way of knowing what Darkness will do until he does it." Jareth obviously wasn't pleased by the thought, and Lydia had a feeling he wasn't used to being unable to predict the future. "I know very little about him and what he is, and thus what he might be capable of - only that he is a very powerful creature, and must not be allowed to leave his own realm if it can at all be avoided. Sarah here insists upon aiding me-" here he shot her a glower, which had absolutely no outward effect on the girl "-and it seems I will require Betelgeuse and Lydia, given how tied they are to the Neitherworld, which is as pleased by this development as little as I. Their platform of non-involvement will not, I think, be able to last long, and then you two might find yourselves involved as well," he said, with a nod at the Maitlands. "I know little of the laws governing the dead, but I would hazard a guess that they might be broken, if the need is dire enough. And I fear it will be."

Both Adam and Barbara looked terribly startled, even more so than Lydia's parents. They were completely tied to the house, so far as any of them knew, but this wasn't the kind of thing they'd want to lift that decree.

"Wonderful," Betelgeuse muttered. "Let's get this out of the way with Sarah's parents, and then I need to borrow you a while, Lyds."

"Why?" she asked warily.

"Some people I need you to meet. You'll be safe enough."

That wasn't terribly reassuring, but she could hardly protest. She did trust Betelgeuse's assurance that nothing save him could kill her, even if she trusted little else he said; she probably could go visit the realm of the dead safely, but the idea still freaked her out - she had, after all, been totally human until literally last night. Getting used to the knowledge that she wasn't anymore was going to take a little while. Adam and Barbara, who had only even been in the waiting room, didn't look too thrilled by the thought, either - but Beej had, for his own reasons, decided to protect her, and even before he'd told her, she figured he had to be pretty powerful - the fact that he managed to stop the Maitlands' weird exorcism told her that. If he didn't think he could do it, he probably wouldn't take her there.

"We…better go deal with my parents," Sarah said slowly, and Lydia would swear that under the trepidation in her voice was a faint note of absolute glee. That she wasn't entirely unhappy about dropping this on her parents made Lydia really wonder what they were like. "Let's get this over with."

The four humans piled into what Lydia had called the Deetz Mobile, a minivan Delia had painted like a bad imitation of Picasso, while poltergeist and goblin king traveled…somehow. The late afternoon sun was losing a battle with incoming thunderheads, which Sarah thought fit the mood nicely - it had been storming the night she'd gone into the Labyrinth, so it seemed somehow fitting now.

Lydia was right in thinking she wasn't totally uneasy about telling all this to her parents. She loved her father dearly, and had even grown somewhat fond of her stepmother, but she knew they both still disapproved of what they saw as her overactive imagination, and she'd received more than one lecture about growing up, facing reality, and putting all those childish daydreams behind her. Her stepmother in particular had no imagination whatsoever, and though she got along with Sarah just fine now, she still didn't understand the girl at all. Jareth and Betelgeuse were a kind of vindication of all Sarah's so-called imaginings, two creatures neither of her parents were going to be able to rationalize away. They were as real as anything, and at times seemed more so than ought to be possible, as though it was everything around them that was a dream.

"What are we going to tell the school?" she asked, as Delia navigated the quiet streets. It was past what rush hour the little town had, so there wasn't much traffic to delay them - possibly unfortunately. "It's going to look weird, both of us disappearing at once."

"We'll think of something," Charles said, fidgeting nervously. "Don't you two worry about that." Sarah could sense his trepidation, though Delia didn't seem unnerved at all, and Sarah had a feeling it would take a hell of a lot more than even a ghost and a goblin king to rattle her.

The door opened as soon as they pulled into the driveway, Sarah's stepmother practically radiating irritation until she saw Lydia's parents. The fact that there were adults around seemed to mollify her a little - a very little - but this still wasn't going to be easy.

"Where have you been, young lady?" she demanded, as though it weren't totally obvious. "You were supposed to be home to do your chores an hour ago."

"She was at our house," Delia said, eying her with something like distaste. Given what Delia herself was wearing - an asymmetrical, eggplant-purple sweater and black slacks - Sarah's stepmother's beige cardigan looked dreadfully boring. "There are some things we need to discuss." Her tone was somewhat imperious, and Sarah found herself liking the woman more and more. She couldn't stand up to her stepmother, and her father rarely bothered, but it seemed Delia would accept no attitude. It was about to be a battle royal of snootiness, and oh did Sarah want to watch.

"What did she do now?" her stepmother asked, standing aside to let them in, and both Delia and Lydia seemed disappointed by the décor, which was bland to the point boredom. Champagne carpet, cream walls, a few dull, framed watercolors scattered around - even the sofa was a flat shade of beige, giving the room an incredibly monotone look. Why her stepmother insisted on such pale colors with a two-year-old in the house, Sarah didn't know, but she spent a great deal of her time with a spray-bottle of spot remover and a sponge.

"It's nothing she's done," Delia said, "or anything Lydia did. A goblin king and my house's apparently resident poltergeist want to kidnap them for a while, and we thought you ought to have some warning."

Lydia somehow managed to choke back a laugh, though Sarah wasn't quite so successful, and her stepmother glared, a glare that promised there would be Words later. Let her - once she'd met Jareth and Betelgeuse, she wasn't likely to be able to work up much ire.

She also very obviously thought the whole thing was some nasty joke, which Sarah had to admit was really the only sane reaction anyone who hadn't dealt with any of this could have. Sure, it was coming from an adult, but given that the adult was someone like Delia, Sarah really couldn't fault her stepmother's skepticism - though she could be amused by it. Could, and was.

"…What?" The woman was staring at Delia as though she were utterly insane. "What on Earth are you talking about?"

"Us."

"Oh, Christ," Lydia muttered, covering her face with one hand. "Nice timing, Beej."

Betelgeuse had appeared in the corner with his usual complete lack of warning, looking as out of place as a potato in a cherry pie. Though neither his clothes nor his face were filthy anymore, he still looked, well, dead; in the strong light of the Williams living-room he couldn't even pull off the heroin-addict look. His poison-green eyes glittered with what was unmistakably amusement, all the brighter when contrasted with the dullness of his surroundings.

Sarah's stepmother let out a strangled shriek, and even Sarah jumped - Jareth's sudden comings and goings she could handle, but she hadn't been around Betelgeuse long enough to be used to his. She'd never admit aloud just how much he actually creeped her out, though she had a feeling he knew it anyway, and just chose not to capitalize on it for fear of Lydia's inevitable retribution. Lydia's, and possibly Jareth's, though she suspected it was more the thought of Lydia's wrath that made him behave - more or less.

"I do try," he said, grinning like a Cheshire cat, and Sarah noticed Lydia had even managed to get him to brush his teeth. Man, did she wish she had that kind of power over Jareth. "Goblin king and I really do need to gank these two for a while, so you'd better think about what kind of excuse you're gonna give their school or whatever."

"Who are-" Sarah's stepmother started, for once so completely stricken she couldn't even snap.

"Mom, meet Betelgeuse," Sarah said.

"The resident poltergeist," Lydia added, almost wearily. "Who has incredibly bad timing."

"Only from a certain point of view," Betelgeuse said, still grinning nastily. "Dunno where my cohort is, but I'm giving you fair warning, too."

"I'm here." Jareth sounded even more weary than Lydia - clearly he wasn't taking near so much joy from this as Betelgeuse, but then he probably wouldn't, Sarah thought. He might be some sort of trickster in his own world, but of a very different sort from Betelgeuse, who seemed to be reveling in it with an almost childish delight. Given that this was her stepmother they were talking about, Sarah couldn't help but share it, to a certain degree. "I promise you I will look after Sarah while we are away, though I think she will not need it much."

"You…" Those two had managed what Sarah had not thought possible - rendered her stepmother almost entirely speechless, her face so drained of color it was practically the same shade as the walls. "Andrew, get in here!"

"Here we go," Sarah muttered. Her father was far less stolid and set in his ways; she didn't want to think how he'd react to all this, and in his case she didn't want it to upset him too much.

Unfortunately, her stepmother's tone had managed that even before he entered the living room, and the scene before him halted him dead in his tracks. He was a medium sort of man - medium brown hair, medium brown eyes, of only average height, his features pleasant but unmemorable. Sarah had taken much more after her mother, to the point where they were almost identical.

"What-" he started, echoing his wife, and Betelgeuse rolled his eyes.

"These kids," he repeated. "We need to steal them. Deal with it."

"Tactful," Jareth murmured, and Sarah snorted. "Though quite succinct. I do not know how long we will be away, but we do indeed need to borrow your daughter. I need her help, but I promise I will return her in once piece."

"You-what in the hell are you talking about?"

Now it was Sarah who rolled her eyes, and poured out the entire story of how she'd met Jareth - how she'd wished Toby away and had to traverse the Labyrinth to get him back, all the creatures she'd met and friends she'd made there, and though she saw mounting incredulity in both her parents' faces, the fact that Jareth was standing right there kept either from interrupting her.

"And you want to take her back to this Labyrinth?" her father asked faintly, when she'd finished.

"Yes," Jareth said, irritated, and Sarah could see he was inwardly cursing humans. "In two days' time, so prepare however you must, and allow her to do so without hindrance." There was a subtle warning in his voice, that said if they didn't he'd make them regret it.

In spite of everything, Sarah had a hard time not giggling at her parents' rather dumfounded expressions. All the weirdness they'd accused her of since childhood finally seemed vindicated.

As it would turn out, though, they weren't to have two days. Claire, wonderfully idiotic Claire, was about to complicate matters. Greatly.

A/N: Next chapter shows just what depths of stupidity Claire Brewster is actually capable of, and throws Jareth's plans in particular straight out the window, plus Lydia's little trip to the Neitherworld with Betelgeuse