"Because I wish you so?" Sarah was stunned, but let out a laugh to show she wasn't. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"What does it sound like?" Jareth lost all his patience. While he wasn't shouting, his tone had an edge. "I am how I am because of you."

"Don't flatter me."

"Flattery nothing," Jareth sneered, sick to have wasted his time. "You call me into your life, and I have done everything you have ever asked of me, and you know that." For he had told her before.

I am here because you summoned me. The words hung in the air.

"I will leave, because I have no need to be mucked on." He stared her down, his brown and blue eyes trained on her. "Again."

Sarah said nothing, but a certain smug look danced across her features. Jareth passed by her closely. "Think on this, it's your wedding and I am on your mind."

Abandoning his powers, he exited through the door in classy human manner. She followed after him, searching for something just as scathing to say. But when she opened the door he was gone. Looking around she saw everyone still frozen in place. He had not corrected time.

Dammit!

/

He would walk out and leave the whole world on pause, that was just his style, Sarah seethed. She knew what it meant too, the hidden message meaning she would have to see him again and deal with what hung in the air.

He was a bastard, she told herself. It seemed to be the only thing she could think for a time. He's a bastard, such a bastard. A bloody arrogant self-swelled bastard!

Again, it seemed to be just her and her feet. They took her on a trip though she paid little attention, too concerned with cursing him up and back down again.

Her feet walked her out of the hall and on out the church. Upon leaving the threshold, she found herself out of her wedding attire and in street clothes, suspiciously in jeans and a white shirt. Sighing, she continued on her way, though she had little idea where it might be.

She wandered around the city a bit. Slightly amused at the way the whole place was frozen, from the traffic to the ice cream stand, the child's cone dripping suspended. The dog at the park in mid jump catching its Frisbee. She sat down on a bench to think out her situation.

Well done, Sarah, she berated herself. Maybe if she hadn't let him get to her so, she would have landed in this predicament. Jareth just had a way of getting to her—and he knew it. But he was right.

She rolled her eyes and fell back against the bench. He was right. Why had she been thinking about him? It had been ten years. Maybe part of her had wanted to stay so long ago. Its not everyday a girl has man submissing to her wanting to be her slave…Stupid! One, she didn't not want to stay, she had to get her brother out of there, and two, he wanted to rule her, not the reverse.

Well then, the devil's advocate kicked in, the other part of her brain, Why were you calling him at odd hours of the night then?

"I was drunk." Sarah defended herself.

But you know the truth comes out in drunkenness. Her voice, accented with a familiar lilt, danced. Loss of inhibitions…

"Oh, shut up." She mumbled.

She stood back up, having given up fighting with herself, and meandered down the street, eventually finding she had drifted back to her own apartment. Staring at it a moment, she felt like she wasn't ready to go in. Leaning against the wall opposite, she slid down it with a sigh, sitting on the ground below.

Maybe he was right. Maybe part of her wasn't ready to marry Nate. That part of her, drunk, cried out for help, and it came in form of a Goblin King. A voice in her, mostly likely her pride, cried out in protest. But she couldn't fight back at the moment. Facts were facts, something she had learned to deal with once, and the facts were he was here. Jareth was back. Moreover, he was back because she specifically asked him. That stung. Her pride muffled under the truth remained quiet.

Turning her head, she looked out to the scenery beyond her apartment, she let her mind wander as it would. Maybe then she would find an answer. She thought of Nate.

She hadn't even gone to see him. That surely said something that the world was on hiatus, and she didn't even go look in on her betrothed. She did love him, or thought she did, but was she scared? To be alone? To actually marry him? She didn't know anymore as it all came on her. And where did Jareth fall in, a voice spoke up.

So she had admitted it to herself, she noted. Jareth did play in somewhere. Obviously. He had to if he showed up. He even still seemed to feel the same way. And where did that leave her?

Sarah stood up and fished around in her pocket for a key, but trying the knob found it opened. Not even thinking or caring she went into her place.

"Resolved yourself?" came a silky voice from the kitchen behind her as she had been making her way to her own bed.

She turned around slowly, being tired and mentally exhausted. Jareth stood in the archway to the kitchen in loose jeans and a white apron over his dark shirt. He looked like a model for Williams-Sonoma or some sort of cooking show.

"What are you doing?" Sarah, no games in her voice, asked him directly.

"Cooking?" he tried with a smile—a very handsome one at that. "I can't imagine you cooking, and good luck getting take-out." he turned back to the island.

Sarah had meant 'what are you doing' in a general sense, i.e. bugging her, stopping time, in general being here. But her soul searching left her empty. She didn't have it in her to fight at the moment, and he had obviously forgotten about the spat or chose to ignore it. The latter more than likely, as was his way.

"What makes you think I can't cook?' she asked him as she sat down at a stool by the island.

Jareth looked over his shoulder at her, hearing an odd tone in her voice, was it capitulation? He knew it couldn't be, this was Sarah after all, but the weakness in her voice got his attention.

"I never you said couldn't," he reminded her. "I said I couldn't picture it. There's a difference."

"Hmm."

"Sarah," he started. "Have you come to your senses?"

"Far from it," she smiled at him, feeling a certain madness. "So you cook me dinner and that's supposed to be the end of it?" He tilt his head as looked at her.

"You may have stopped the proceedings, but my head is still spinning," she smiled at him as if she was thanking him with a nod.

"So you've been thinking then?"

"Some," she nodded indulgently.

"That was the only point," he turned his attentions back to culinary actions. "To provoke thought."

"Ah, we are cerebral aren't we?"

"No need to be cynical." He laughed. "Ah, but then you wouldn't be lovely Sarah."

"And without your," She searched for the right word, "'charms' you wouldn't be the stalker that I know." And loathe, her mind added, so she spat it at him.

"Love?"

"Loathe."

"I heard love."

"I said loathe."

"Freudian slip?" he asked as he added spice to his concoction, then turning and rummaging through her fridge.

Did he know who Freud was? Apparently, but how? She found herself wondering if she had really said loveloathe. Which was it? He was just trying to get her to doubt herself, she knew him, that's what it must be she assured herself.

"Ah, Sarah," He laughed almost as if he had read her mind. Her eyes shot up to face.

"You think way to much." His eyes laughing at her as he surveyed her glare.

"I thought that is what you wanted?" She countered.

"And when have you ever done what I've wanted?" He counteracted. At the moment, he'd paused from his cooking to watch her more closely. He shrugged. "You could always start I suppose."

"The reason at last!" Sarah ridiculed him. "You still want me under you will."

"I think you're forgetting—again," he added, "That you called me."

Sarah rolled her eyes and laughed. It was like Déjà vu. Hadn't they gone through this already?

"Yes, yes we have." Jareth plucked the thoughts straight from her head, which surprised her and shocked her silent. "I think you want to be under my will." He smiled cruelly.

After a few long moments of seeing the horror on her face he amended his words. "Well, maybe not. But you will have to square away your feelings."

After he was done speaking, which he had managed to drag out in the oh-so-Jareth way, he set down the dish had a made for her. He sat and watched her for some time, though he could see she didn't, for she just stared down at the counter, more than likely her mind wildly thinking, analyzing, spinning…

Sarah, lost deep in thought, didn't even see him leave, as he was much subtler this time. She hadn't even realized that time had been restored to the harsh and quite shrill 'briingg' of the phone brought her out of her trance.

: This seems to be dragging on…but I will try to wrap it up soon everybody. Sorry for the delays. Thanx for taking a peek.