Chapter Four: Universal Truths.

The Twins, in their own opinions, were not given nearly the credit they were due. As the resident troublemakers of Castle Aryn, they were blamed for all manners of strange problems, perhaps even thought of as crafty, but no one had ever accused the Twins of cunning.

And they really should have.

From a young age the Twins had watched Jareth, memorized his techniques, spent hours trying to replicate his tricks and, while his ruses weren't really their style, it did occasionally come in handy to know. Right now, for instance, they were bound by Jareth's word, as laid out through the contract; the average Underground dweller would give something like that up for a lost cause and simply play by his rules. But Imm and Laim knew better; the wording was careful and concise, but there was just enough leeway, just enough give, to play it to their advantage.

After centuries of careful observation, it was finally time to play one of Jareth's games. Step number one was to map out a plan—check. Step number two was to get your players in position—double check. Step number three, the most glorious of all steps in their brother's eyes, was to create the conflict—half a check. Sarah had herself a playmate now, one who was as relentless as a dog with a bone, but the goal wasn't to get her in bed with Jareth, it was to get her back Underground. The other half of the check would be soon in coming though, a little incentive for Prince Jareth to play things close to the vest and herd Sarah as close as possible.

Tomorrow would be an interesting day for them.

Sarah tiptoed from her bedroom to the bathroom, careful not to disturb the mass of arrogant male that was sprawled across her sofa, asleep. Once the bathroom door was firmly shut and locked—not that it was likely to do her any good if he really wanted to get in—she allowed the smile to bloom over her lips, the first purely carefree gesture that she had made in years.

Prince Jareth, drenched in leather and looking like the poster boy for some kind of kinky D/s club, had been forced to sleep on her couch—her chipper, painfully fuchsia couch. And what's more, she thought while the grin spread, he'd been utter bewildered by it. Prince Jareth obviously wasn't used to women suddenly coming to their senses after he started kissing them but, after her previous experience with the Goblin King, she figured he'd get used to it sooner or later, because Sarah had it down to an art. She was a mess at avoiding compromising situations, but she had full marks for being able to walk away on almost every occasion.

With the mechanical and easy gestures that signified a routine, Sarah turned her shower on, waited for the perfect temperature, then quickly stripped and dove in. Steam billowed around her as the hot water began to pound at her tense muscles, relieving some of the stress that had accumulated after a restless night.

It hadn't been easy to extricate herself from Jareth's grasp, and it had been infinitely harder to get him out of her room. Confused was too light a term to describe what he had exhibited last night; like a car stuck in second, he'd sat at the edge of her bed, unable to switch gears. He'd watched her as she quickly ushered him out the door, a startled and completely horrified look in his eyes right up to when she shut and locked the door in his face. No words were exchanged; she felt more embarrassed by participating in the kiss than stopping it and, honestly, what could she have said? Sorry, after five years of abstinence I'm more horny than I am cautious? She had a feeling that wouldn't go over very well.

To Jareth's credit, though, he hadn't tried to reason with her or force his way back into the room. But, having him so close at hand, hearing him move about in the room just beyond her door, and knowing that he would likely still be there when she woke up had led to a night that had been very thin on actual sleep.

Sarah shook her head, amazed at how she had gone from terrified to bemused in less than twelve hours. What was it about Jareth that could both relax her and put her on guard? She already knew half the answer, though, and it really wasn't about her otherworldly guest. After five years she was simply exhausted of regretting, weary of being scared, and those emotions had bled out of her after being confronted by the Twins. If this was her time to make amends then she would gladly do so, because she was tired of living like a ghost at the age of twenty-four. Yes, Jareth still panicked her a bit and she was nervous of whatever the Twins had planned, but she was determined not to let her life be ruled by anguish anymore.

And, with that simple sentiment, it was like a massive black weight had been lifted from her shoulders; the regrets were still there, they always would be, but it was pointless to focus on something that she could do little about, especially when she had to have her wits about her in order to deal with the very real challenge of a new facet of Jareth. The extended period of grief was over; it was now time to deal with whatever life decided to throw at her.

Oran felt the change more acutely than he knew he should have, a testament to how deeply he was entangled in what was left of his son. Something about his fading child suddenly felt… expectant, hopeful, and beneath that was the faint warmth of Sarah's relief. Oran pulled back, returning to his own senses, not yet sure whether to be cautiously hopeful or guardedly worried.

For months beyond counting he had tried to re-piece his son, to delve within the inner-self of Jareth and re-connect what was left of him. Many pieces were missing, imbued into people or objects that were not readily available, but enough had been left within the boy to give a father foolish hope. But, hour after hour, day after day, no matter how many slices Oran found and put together, they never mended. It was beyond an exercise in futility, it was downright pointless, but it had given his wretchedly idle bones a sense of purpose.

It had been a shock, at first, to realize that through Jareth he could feel Sarah and, after a while, the crushing weight of her anguish had been as painful to bear as the utter apathy and failure that had emanated from his son, but he had endured it, taken the feelings for his own, as any father would. They were both dying, his son and the woman who had so briefly been his daughter and, as his helplessness began to reach epic proportions, Oran was beginning to reach the point where he was willing to violate any contract or law that stood between him and his lost children. Fleetingly he wondered if this had been the feeling that had driven Jareth over the brink, if this overwhelming urgency had spawned the Labyrinth, then the Underground, inexorably leading him into his downward spiral.

But something had breathed a little life back into them. It wasn't much, likely more profound on Sarah's end than Jareth's, but it was enough to give an old man some hope.

And suspicion.

'Kitten paws' was the phrase of the morning, Sarah decided as she made her way into the kitchen as silently as possible. She wasn't sure if her quiet was out of courtesy to the sleeping Jareth, or if it was out cowardice. She was ready to live again, true, but she wasn't about to fool herself; she needed a little more time before coming face to face with the hormonally charged youth. There were thoughts to school, questions to come up with, and a job that she was going to be late to if her coffee machine didn't hurry up.

A rustle from the living room froze her methodical buttering of toast but, even straining her ears, she heard no further noise. 'He must have rolled over,' she thought, taking a bite out of her meager breakfast while carefully peeking her head around the kitchen door.

Jareth had fallen asleep fully clothed, which she found rather surprising since she had half expected to find him in nothing but pants or less; he seemed the type who would tease in such a calculated manner, knowing that she would see him unclothed like that as soon as she left her room. But he hadn't; as a matter of fact the only items he had taken off were his boots and the leather vest. Stranger still were the leather clad hands that curled around one of her decorative pillows; figured, she thought in amusement, that the man even slept with his gloves on. What was it with him and those stupid things, anyway? The only time she could clearly remember having seen his bare hands was when he had cast a human glamour while pretending to be her boyfriend.

Sarah eased forward a little, leaning against the doorframe as she nibbled at her toast and observed the creature that had invaded her home. His face was boyish in sleep, and appeared infinitely less predatory with his hawkish eyes closed. Déjà vu swept over her, reminding her that she had seen this unguarded side of him before. Jareth asleep was truly a sight to behold because it proved so many people wrong: the wicked were never innocent, not even in sleep. The essence of the man poured from every stretched or relaxed muscle and, boyish though his face was, innocence could not be found where it did not exist. Awake or asleep, Jareth was still Jareth.

Sarah shook her head as she finished her last slice of toast, trying hard to corral her wandering thoughts. Right now, she had to get her coffee and go or she was going to be late for work.

Jareth stretched as soon as he heard Sarah lock the deadbolt and lazily opened his eyes. He'd been awake ever since the bathroom door had opened to let out a flood of dense, humid air into the rest of the tiny apartment, and he had a killer knot forming between his shoulders from spending most of the night trying to stay on the woman's annoyingly narrow sofa. It was bad enough that he'd been subjected to sleeping on someone's couch, he refused to suffer the indignity of falling off the damn thing as well, and by morning he had been more than ready to call a truce with the evil furniture and never sit on the thing again. But he had given her the time and space she needed for the morning, knowing it was likely the last time he would ever do so. She was shocked and needed a little time to get her thoughts in order, he had decided sometime over the night.

It wasn't a conclusion that had come easily. Hell, he was shocked! One minute he'd had his lap full of delicious woman, and then the next minute he'd been staring at a closed door, listening to the tiny tumblers trip in order to lock him out. Not that it really could have stopped him—a locked door was only a detriment if he died laughing at its utter uselessness—but he'd had to concede that, after five years, maybe a heavy make out session was not exactly on the top of Sarah's list of things to do. Shame, really.

Jareth rose, padding on bare feet to where the alluring aroma of coffee was drifting from. The kitchen was small but serviceable—like everything else about Sarah's apartment, he noted with mild distaste; it wasn't so much a home as it was simply a place to live—but sitting on the counter, like a sinful beacon in a room of endless white, was his cherished elixir. Either Sarah had seriously miscalculated how much she could take with her, or she had made extra for him. Such a charming thought, really. And telling, too; you didn't feed a stray unless you intended to keep it. But he was no stray and he intended to stay whether she wanted him to or not. Besides, she quite literally couldn't live without him.

After a couple of deep pulls from the blissful coffee, Jareth darted a look to the closest clock, then struggled for a moment to make sense of it in his own terms. Time had a way of becoming largely immaterial when one aged as slowly as his kind, the hours and days bled into each other until one was indistinguishable from the other; after all, what did one hour matter to a man who would see billions within his lifetime? The older-Jareth had become obsessed with the subtle increments of time, had learned to distort them for his own purposes, but that was something that was currently beyond his scope to understand; time meant nothing to him. But Sarah, adorable important Sarah, was a slave to it, and too much time away from his presence would hurt her in ways she wouldn't even begin to understand.

She had had around eight hours now to order her thoughts, whether she had slept through some of those hours was none of his concern, and she had been away from him for about twenty minutes, which meant he had enough time to shower, get dressed, and finish off the coffee before she really started to feel the effects of his absence.

The Twins were not so vapid as they typically let people believe, Jareth knew. Had they given him form knowing, counting on the fact that most of the amulet's power would reside within him? Had they knowingly created a situation were Sarah's wellbeing depended upon his vigilance?

Perhaps, he mused as he let Sarah's shower work out the vicious knot between his shoulders, he had taught the Twins too much.

Sarah set out the daily newspapers as quickly as possible, knowing that she had a growing backlog of newly acquired books that still needed to be entered into the system, not to mention the strange and relentless questions she would be obliged to answer as the gloomy Monday pushed forth every high school student for a five mile radius who had to do a summer report. She loved the library dearly and, deep down, she really was a personable woman, but summer was to libraries what the holiday season was to malls. Orchestrated chaos, and mad rushes punctuated by boring lulls. The upside was that it kept her from thinking about Jareth.

Unfortunately, that was also the downside. She needed to figure out what he was here for and what she was going to do with him. The Twins could answer one question, though it remained to be seen as to whether they actually would; the other question was her own personal enigma, but she got the feeling he wasn't going to keep sleeping on her couch like a good boy. Hell, she knew firsthand how uncomfortable sleeping on that sofa could be and, remembering the horrible ache that had settled between her shoulder blades because of it, thought it would be rather inhumane to even suggest it. Why hadn't she rented the apartment with the extra guestroom? Of course, when she'd been looking at apartments, 'housing a youthful embodiment of an ethereal king' hadn't exactly been taken into consideration.

Sarah shook the thoughts from her head, focusing on shelving returned items. And that was when the trouble started. Up on a ladder, trying to reach the top shelf, the world suddenly began to lose focus. An unnatural lethargy swept over her, as though her bones had been hollowed out and it left her feeling faint, craving something she couldn't put a name to. Had she not eaten enough for breakfast, she wondered dazedly.

Being a public servant, Sarah knew two things to be universally true, the first being that she would never be paid enough for the job she performed. The second was that people had an unerring ability to corner you when you felt bad and were in a precarious situation. Her bank statement testified to the first axiom, the lanky looking teenager heading in her direction testified to the second.

He drew even with her in the blink of an eye, managing to invade her personal space and make her somewhat glad for the ladder's added height before she could even think about getting down. The boy had brown hair, brown eyes, a clean face, and a decent build; for a teenager, he looked rather nice, but he had that glimmer in his eye that she had come to loathe. It was the look of a man who cherished embarrassing others and he was more than ready to make her the butt of his little joke. "Excuse me, where are the books on sexual reproduction?" he asked in a tone that would have sounded sincere if it hadn't been at complete odds with his expression.

Sarah tsked disapprovingly on the inside, but pasted on her best Oblivious Librarian Smile, ready to be as uncooperatively cooperative as possible. She opened her mouth to reply, but her head swam for a moment, and then strong arms were wrapping around her waist from behind, lifting her off the ladder and gently setting her on the ground. "Find yourself a girlfriend," her 'savior' stated bluntly from over her shoulder, "it'll make studying much easier."

"You just encouraged that kid to go knock some poor girl up!" she accused the man behind her, but watched in detached amusement as the boy turned tail like a whipped puppy and slunk away, delaying the moment when she would have to turn around. Her head was no longer dizzy, the lethargy had evaporated, and she knew all too well who was behind her.

"No, I encouraged him to run his own laboratory tests," he countered then, sensing her hesitation, turned her around.

Jareth's wet hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail, but the drying fringe was escaping into wild tufts that billowed around his face. The man smelled like coffee, apples, and leather, she decided, which was weird because he wasn't wearing any. Leather, that was. A dark shirt pulled taut over his chest and shoulders, dark pants hugged the strong lines of his legs, and she couldn't see them but she had no doubt that his shoes were dark too. And he still had his arms around her, the librarian in a plain blouse and skirt who was clutching a book to her chest. They probably looked like something out of a cheesy romantic comedy movie.

It was then, while she was trying to convince herself to stop basking in the scent of the man, that Sarah was shown a previously undiscovered universal truth. Co-workers had the unerring ability to catch you in compromising positions.

A/N: Sorry for the delay on this chapter, everyone. Summer and I don't mix, since it only ever seems to bring sunburn, mosquito bites, and writers' block… or perhaps not block so much as simply apathy for actually writing. Anyway, I'll try to get the next chapter out sooner, though I am already working on the first installment of my upcoming side-project.

Please Review!

Disclaimer: Jareth and Sarah are not mine. I am also not a librarian (though I am a rabid patron) so I apologize if I get things wrong.