Chapter Fourteen: Coming Together.

There was a law among the people of magic that had outlawed the sport of Tapestry Jerking. Oran had been the king to instate it, claiming that the sport wasn't safe and their numbers were small enough without needlessly endangering their own lives. For the most part, people had ignored the law because few of them were fool enough to go Tapestry Jerking in the first place. Truthfully, Oran wouldn't have banned the sport at all if it hadn't become such a problem in his own life, and he had done it more out of frustration than anything else.

Unfortunately, it was a law that a select few did care about, even went so far as to willfully ignore it. And they were about to induct a new member into their prestigious guild.

"Okay," Sarah said thoughtfully, "let me see if I've got this straight. All I have to do is shimmy my way up this tapestry and then rappel my way down again?"

"Right," Imm replied enthusiastically.

"And you'll be at the bottom, using magic to see if you can knock me off?" she pressed.

Imm frowned. "Well, generally speaking, yes, but it isn't usually with any kind of malicious intent."

"But isn't that unfair to me?" she asked nervously. "I mean, I don't know how to use my own magic like you guys do; I won't be able to defend myself!"

"No, no," Laim shook his head, "you don't have to. That's what Jareth is for."

"It's a game of trust, Sarah," Jareth explained while securing the tapestry in question over the second story railing. Luckily, the part of the tapestry that she would be expected to climb was over solid wall, which would make rappelling back down slightly easier. Provided she actually made it that far. "You trust me to keep you safe from the magic of the two guardsmen below and, in turn, I trust you to keep a steady hand and push onward no matter what you think is happening."

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" she pressed further, still uncertain. "After all, you only just woke up and I'm sure you're really in no condition for this kind of pressure."

Jareth finished with the tapestry, then walked down the stairs until he was right in front of her. "Do you trust me, Sarah?"

"You're not well," she replied.

He shook his head and pinned her with a look. "Do you trust me, Sarah?" he repeated.

She suddenly realized that he had other reasons for playing this game than just for the sake of fun. Trust had always been their biggest problem; he had never been able to trust her in complicated or stressful situations and she had never been able to trust his actions. But this game would force them to, if they wanted to win, and Sarah knew they both had a competitive streak a mile wide. Perhaps this game was just what they needed; if they could trust each other for this common goal, maybe they could learn to trust each other in other situations as well.

Sarah nodded her head, then turned to face the tapestry. "What happens if I fall?" she asked, voicing her final hesitancy.

She noticed Imm and Laim dart a look to one another. Was that guilt shining in their eyes? "Try to land on something that looks forgiving," they said in unison.

"Oh, that's reassuring, thanks," she muttered under her breath, taking a firm hold of the fine piece of art that she had been talked into using as climbing rope.

"Ready?" Laim asked.

Sarah took a deep breath. "No."

"Set?" Imm sounded eager.

"Didn't you just hear me?" she asked, panicked.

"Go," Jareth announced loudly.

"Damn you all to hell," Sarah grunted as she began climbing. "At twenty-four, I'm the youngest one here, and I think that there are less childishly stupid ways for us to spend our time."

"Just enjoy yourself," Imm hollered.

"Easy for you to say," she grumbled, trying desperately to ignore whatever it was that had just zoomed past her, "you're not the one risking life and limb over here."

"Oh, we forgot to mention," Laim interrupted her complaining, "the winner gets a free lie."

"A free lie?" she repeated, jerking to the side as something warm brushed against her hip then disappeared. "What for?"

"For the next time we get in trouble," Imm explained. "The losers will be obligated to lie on behalf of the winners so as to get them out of trouble… or simply less trouble, depending on how severe it is."

"Where did you guys come up with this?" she asked, laughing when a bright pink turtle zipped in front of her and began nibbling on an edge of the tapestry.

"Jareth," the Twins answered together, then both made sounds of disappointment as the pink turtle was knocked off by a little dragon with six legs, all of which began holding together the small rip in the fabric.

Sarah shook her head and continued to climb.

Oran massaged his temples, wishing desperately for his brandy, but knew his wife would likely kill him if he took so much as a sip. Brandy had gotten him in trouble once already where Toby was concerned; he could not afford a repeat performance. But, damn it all to hell, one woman was hyperventilating and the other was glaring daggers at him. Robert looked as though he wasn't sure which woman to help and was beginning to settle for the possibly of punching Oran instead. Toby, thankfully, seemed more or less indifferent to the actual situation and was watching the hyperventilating woman with rapt attention.

"Shouldn't someone help her?" Oran finally asked, indicating the darker haired woman.

Karen's lips thinned further, but she moved to help the other woman into a sitting position. "Head between your knees," she murmured quietly while rubbing the other woman's back. The gasping continued, but became less violent. Karen turned her attention back to Oran. "What do you want?"

"The same thing you want," he replied smoothly, "an end to the suffering."

"It's been five years," Robert growled, "why now?"

Oran sighed and continued to rub his temples. "It's not my place to dictate the conditions," he finally said. "That's up to Jareth and Sarah. All I'm suggesting is that, for the first time in these five long years, things are looking positive, but no one can fully reverse the damage that's been done unless all the players are in place. Will you help or not?"

Karen darted a look to her husband and then to her son. Not even two whole days ago she would have raged and blustered until the blue-skinned man before them had left her home, but Leshia's visit had talked a bit of sense into her. Cooperation was the key to fixing this problem that they all shared in, and that meant listening to Oran, even if she didn't like what he had to say. Just the thought of returning to that strange other world was enough to make her feel the way Linda looked: pale, confused, and desperately out of breath. She didn't like the idea of returning to that twisting hell, to that place where terrible beasts were disguised as people, but she understood the necessity of it.

Sarah had made it up the tapestry and had begun her climb down before her arms really started to burn; being a librarian by profession didn't exactly prepare one for such rigorous activity. She had slipped the last couple of feet, letting out a shriek and then a laugh as she landed; mostly because she'd landed on Jareth, who hadn't so much caught her as simply given her something relatively soft to fall on. Frankly, this had been about the weirdest—and probably most dangerous—game she'd ever played, but she'd had a lot of fun and had been about to thank the boys for it when a voice rang out through the large hall.

"Sarah Elizabeth Williams, just what do you think you are doing?"

She flinched. "Jareth?" she asked quietly from where she was still sort of pressed into his chest.

"Yes?" he responded in kind.

"If I turn around, am I going to see my mother?" Sarah was more or less frozen in place. She hadn't seen her mother in over two years, and the last place she had expected to receive a surprise visit at was Underground. How had she gotten here? Or, better yet, why was she here?

"Doubtlessly," he replied with a humorless smile, then flinched himself when a roar rumbled through the hall.

If she had thought that her mother's exclamation had been loud, it was nothing compared to Oran's thundering, "Boys!"

Imm and Laim snapped to attention and Jareth slowly turned her around to face whatever was waiting behind her.

It wasn't a pretty sight by any means. Her father and Karen stood close together, each with a restraining hand on Toby's shoulders who was looking at the tapestry speculatively. A little to the side of their cluster was her mother, looking overwrought, confused, and just a touch angry. Next to her was Oran, looking more than just a touch angry; he was downright furious. His iridescent eyes were narrowed, glaring, and yet underneath that Sarah thought she saw a bit of panic as well.

"What the devil is going on over here?" Leshia interrupted from the second story balcony. She was about to come down the stairs to get an answer when her hand caught on the tapestry. A disapproving noise escaped her lips as she pinned her children with a disappointed look. "Oh children, not again! You know your father hates it."

"Again?" Linda shrieked. "You mean this has happened before?"

"Unfortunately," Oran replied, then turned his attention to Sarah and the boys. "You know Tapestry Jerking has been outlawed," he said quietly.

Sarah rounded on the Twins. "What?" she burst out. "You didn't tell me that!"

"What sort of people have you been associating with, daughter?" Linda groaned.

Oran stiffened beside her, though no one could have said if it was in surprise that the hyperventilater was Sarah's mother or if it was in offense on his childrens' behalf. Either way, it didn't particularly matter because Laim immediately declared, "She's not your daughter!"

Sarah leaned closer to him. "That's not a helpful lie," she whispered, trying not to laugh. When the Twins had told her about the winning prize she had thought that they would at least try to make it useful.

He bumped shoulders with her. "I never promised it would be," he responded with a grin, but some emotion that she couldn't quite name glittered in his eyes.

"She most certainly is," Linda argued, ignoring their whispers. "And if this is the sort of thing that she'll be talked into doing if she stays around you hoodlums then I won't stand for her being here a moment longer!"

She wasn't serious, Jareth knew; Linda was just acting on instinct and panic. All the same, her words made him burn. Take Sarah away? They couldn't do that, not now, not when he needed her the most!

But what if they did? Could he survive another five years without her?

He was overreacting, but he couldn't stop it. The problem with living in a shattered mind was that he had no control over which shard would take over or when. Jareth tried desperately to hold onto himself, to keep the fragment he was living through right now at the forefront of his consciousness. But the harder he tried, the faster he slipped away. It was inescapable.

Linda Williams had made the Goblin King angry.

Sarah had always associated Jareth's thoughts with a tinge of coolness; as a matter of fact, that had always been the distinguishing factor between what were her thoughts and what were his on the occasions over the past few years when their minds had gotten tangled. Right now, though, he was downright cold, and that wasn't comforting. When she noticed that she was beginning to see her breath puff out in front of her, it was even less comforting. An arm suddenly draped over her shoulder, wrapping around her front; less than a minute ago that arm had been clad in unadorned white linen, now it was covered in black satin that eventually ended in leather gloves.

Sarah was momentarily glad that he was behind her so that he couldn't clearly see her face. She had closed her eyes almost immediately and done her best not to flinch. It wasn't necessarily that she feared this side of him—though sometimes she did—it was just that this was the first time she had seen the Goblin King in many years. Before, with Leo, that had been the young king who had made the Labyrinth, she was sure of it, and maybe that Jareth was more brutal and terrifying than the one behind her, but she would always be more wary of the Goblin King because he wasn't bound by anything but his own desires. The Goblin King followed no moral code, he didn't hold to honor, he took what he wanted and was more than willing to resort to trickery and manipulation. Every time she came up against him, her life changed.

"You have no idea what you've just stepped into, Linda," Jareth's mocking voice crooned from behind her. "You are not in the position to be delivering ultimatums." Linda had no idea that she was playing with fire. Her mother, after all, had absolutely no idea what was going on; she didn't have a handle on the situation.

Linda paled further. "How do you know my name?" she stuttered. "What's going on here?"

Leshia finally glided down the stairs, linking her arm with Linda's once she reached the other woman. "I can see that we're all going to need a nice long chat to straighten things out."

Reluctantly, everyone began to follow the serene woman as she ambled down the halls, looking for a suitable place to talk. Oran straggled behind the pack, putting himself just behind Jareth and the Twins. "I'm willing to put the Tapestry Jerking aside for something more important," he said quietly, "but we will be talking about this eventually, children." He met eyes with each of them, and it was possibly the most uncomfortable moment of Sarah's life. Ten minutes later, sitting across from her mother and trying to find the words to explain what had happened over the past ten years, she stood corrected.

A/N: This is the first time in a long time that I've actually managed to do two updates in two weeks, like I'm supposed to. I can't promise that I'll keep it up, but I'm going to try.

I want to send a big thank you out to everyone that's stuck with this story so far. I know it's been erratic, but I appreciate your perseverance!

Please Review!

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, settings, or situations from the movie Labyrinth. I own the convoluted storyline, but that's about it.