Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth or any of Jim's Henson's wonderful characters.

Chapter 5

The Bath of Lavender Fragrance

After seeing his car sticking up out of the pond, John had stormed off without another word or glance at Sarah. It seemed as though the goblins and their king had effectively ended yet another one of her relationships.

Walking down the street with only a few streetlights for light and holding her high-heeled (well, now broken-heeled) shoes in one hand, Sarah was beyond pissed. After being abandoned at the restaurant, she had planned to call a taxi to take her back to her apartment, but as she dug through her handbag she realized that she had forgotten to bring her phone (or it had been stolen again by a certain little nuisance), and she was too embarrassed to have to go back in the restaurant again. So, she had resigned herself to walking home. Thankfully she knew the way, but she had conveniently forgotten how long the walk took and how her shoes pinched whenever she took a step. She was really beginning to regret her stubbornness at not going back into the restaurant…

Sarah huffed. "Are you happy now, Goblin King?" she yelled to know one in particular.

A white owl that had been flying behind Sarah landed on a streetlight in front of her. It seemed to shrug its wings as if to say, "What did I do?"

"You have managed to run the first chance I had at a decent evening this week! And you sent the goblin to 'protect' me! And now John has a fork stuck in his foot, and I wouldn't be surprised with my luck if that accordion player finds some law that allowed him to sue us for your goblin flipping a table into him (even if the goblin wasn't technically the one to flip the table)!" Sarah ranted. By the ending of her monologue, she was red-faced and even more angry (if that were possible).

The owl just looked at her with wide eyes. "Hoot?"

"Argh!" That was the last straw for Sarah. He could pretend innocence and play the cute owl all he wanted, but she wasn't going to take it. Sarah chucked one of her shoes at him. The owl took off from its perch just in time to avoid being impaled by a high-heeled missile, and hooted indignantly.

"Damn it!" Sarah cursed as she watched her favorite and most expense shoes fly into a dumpster that was conveniently placed behind the streetlamp. That could not have been a coincidence.

"Just LEAVE ME ALONE!" To show she wouldn't pay any more attention to him, she turned her back and pushed into the first store on the street.

A bar, Sarah thought. Finally something is going my way tonight.

She slid into an empty seat at the bar.

The bartender came over to her and leaned against the counter. "And what can I get for you?"

Sarah sighed and rubbed her face in her hands. "I don't care what you get me as long as it's strong and won't cause me to wake up in some random man's bed with no memory of how I got there. On second thought, scratch the last part. Just give me the strongest thing you've got."

The bartender eyed her as if she were already drunk. "Boyfriend break up with you?"

"Try being stalked by a mallet-haired, glitter-obsessed pervert and you'll be right on the money."

Did she really just say glitter-obsessed? "Stalking, eh? I've got just the stuff for you."

Sarah wondered if there really was a specific alcoholic beverage to deal with stalking, but the bartender knows best. Hopefully.

After about…well, Sarah lost track of how much time she spent in the bar and how many drinks she had, but after a while, she was back outside and stumbling back to her apartment.

The owl was back on the streetlight when she came out of the bar. "Yyyou," she slurred. "Owe me a neww sssshoe."

If it was possible for owls to glare, this one did. It seemed like it was trying to say, "I wasn't the one who threw it, now was I?"

"Yeeah, but you're the reassonn I threw it." she retorted.

The owl rolled its eyes and then flew down to pick up the high-heeled shoe that had magically appeared outside of the dumpster. "Jerk," she muttered as she held out her hand for her shoe. The owl flew over to her wrist and landed on it, the shoe still in its beak.

"No! There is a no touching rule, Jareth! Get OFF!" Sarah shook her wrist as she tried to dislodge the growth that now had attached itself to her. The owl hung on for dear life, tightly, but not so his claws broke through Sarah's skin. Even his owl instincts told him he was dead meat if he drew even a drop of blood.

Dropping the shoe, Jareth took off again only to land on her shoulder, hooting contentedly even though his life was probably now in serious jeopardy. Sarah reached up and took the little owl in her hands. It stared back at her with wide eyes. God, this look was even more pathetic and heart-wrenching than Toby's puppy-dog face.

"Why won't you just leave me alone?" she sighed. She let go of the owl and allowed it to climb back on her shoulder. Sarah bent down to pick up her fallen shoe and then lightly stroked the owl's feathers with one hand. The owl/Jareth hooted again with its eyes closed. If he was a cat, Sarah swore he would be purring.

Geez, she thought, I must be really drunk to be stroking the Goblin King.

By the time Sarah made it back to her apartment, she was right to just collapse and sleep in until dusk the next day.

She pulled her keys out of her handbag, and it took her three tries before she managed to insert it into the keyhole. Sarah turned back to the owl on her shoulder. "Shoo, Goblin King. There is no way that I am letting you into my apartment. Go bother some other poor, unsuspecting girl for the rest of the night."

The owl glared at her and looked as if he would be protesting valiantly if he was in human form.

"Shoo," she repeated sternly, losing her patience.

After one last, unsatisfied look, he flew off.

When she was sure Jareth was gone, Sarah unlocked the door and walked into her apartment. Herald was sitting on the counter demolishing the last of the ice cream from her freezer, looking rather pleased with himself and a good deal rounder in the middle.

"I will deal with you later," she promised Herald as she stumbled to her bedroom.

Then she flopped down on her bed, fully clothed, and fell asleep.

The next morning, Sarah woke up after noon with a pounding headache caused from a hangover. She groaned as she sat up and checked her phone to find she had six missed calls. All from work. Served her right for get drunk at a bar on a Monday night. She had always hated Mondays. Come to think of it, she couldn't even remember that much of last night besides going into the bar (not even, to Jareth's dismay, her stroking a certain owl).

After calling in and saying she had gotten the stomach flu (it certainly felt like she had) and that she wouldn't be into work today, Sarah got out of bed and changed into some new clothes.

Sarah ambled into the kitchen to see Herald sleeping in the sink. Smirking, she turned on the faucet and watched him sputter as the water hit his face. "Rise and shine, Sleeping Beauty." Not that a goblin should ever be considered beautiful…

She let Herald rub the water from his eyes as she started making a cup of coffee.

"You," she said as she turned back to the goblin, "are in big trouble, Herald. What was that last night?"

The goblin shrugged.

Sarah growled in response. "That is not an answer! You left the apartment when I ordered you not to. You stabbed by boyfriend – well probably now my ex-boyfriend – in the foot with a fork, completely ruining my date. And somehow John's car ended up in a pond!" her voice rose in volume with every accusation. "You had better have a good reason for all of that, or I swear I'm driving back to my parent's house and throwing you through that portal in my mirror. Got it?" Sarah seemed to be doing quite a lot of monologuing lately.

Herald nodded and gulped. "Herald no like John. And didn't mean to stab in foot."

"Well that's a start," Sarah said.

"Was aiming for the kidneys," he added.

"Argh!" Sarah cried, throwing her hands in the air. "You were going to stab him just because you didn't like him? You're not Dr. Phil's mini-me, Herald. You can't just go messing around in people's relationships! Even if you don't like them!" This was why Sarah had no plans to have kids any time soon. Parenting and her was like water and potassium. In other words: you put them together and they go ka-boom.

"Kingy no like John either," Herald muttered under his breath.

Sarah paused pouring her coffee. "Of course. That complete git! He has no right! Goblin King!" she screamed. "You have no power over me, so stay the hell out of my life!"

This crazy shouting rage, of course, received no response from the owl (who was looking quite smug) now perched outside her kitchen window.

"Herald, I am ordering as your Queenie or whatever to not mess with John, or any other future boyfriends I'll will have, anymore. Capiche? Oh, and as punishment for last night, I'm going to dunk you headfirst into the Bath of Lavender Fragrance." This was as much a punishment (goblins hated baths) as it was a desire for Herald to smell like something other than dirt and wet dog.

As way of answering, Herald jumped off the counter and ran as fast as his little legs could carry him out of the room, only managing to trip over his own feet once (which was a new record for the goblin).

Sarah sighed, and then realized she was still pouring the coffee and it had now flowed over the lip of the mug and created a large puddle on the counter and her recently cleaned floors. "Just great," she muttered.

Looking up she asked, "And just what are you smirking at you overstuffed owl?" The owl just continued to smirk (it was amazing how Jareth could still do that in animal form), and Sarah yanked the curtains over the window.

Her cell phone rung just as Sarah finished wiping up the spilled coffee. "Hello?" she answered.

"Sarah, it's Karen, I wanted to ask you if you could babysit Toby tomorrow evening? Your father and I wanted to see the musical the Phantom of the Opera before it leaves town, and we wouldn't be able to come home until after midnight."

Sarah wished she could go see the Phantom, too, but then Herald would probably tag along and end up dropping the chandelier in the finale instead of the Opera Ghost. Or he would set the theater on fire. "Sure, Karen," she answered. "I can do that."

"Thank you so much, Sarah." There was the sound of whining on the other end of the phone and Karen's voice returned, "Your brother wants to talk to you."

"Sarah, Sarah!"

"Hey, Tobes."

"Guess what?"

"You're ditching school today."

"No! …Well, yes, but that's not what I was going to tell you." Without pause, he launched into his story. "Yesterday a kid in my class, Billy or Willy or something, brought his dog in for show-and-tell and it went crazy and chased off the teacher! It was so funny! And no one even found out that I had placed the dog bones in the teacher's desk to lure it there."

Sarah groaned. "You are almost as horrible as…" she had been about to say 'a goblin' but quickly added "Puck."

"Puck? Who's Puck?"

"Never mind. He's from Shakespeare."

"Nerd," Toby snorted.

"Trickster."

"Dork."

"Monster."

"Toby!" came Karen's voice from the other end of the phone. "Say goodbye to your sister; we have to go the mall to get you some new clothes!" Boy, did she sound enthusiastic about that.

Toby, on the other hand, was not so excited. "Bye, Sarah," he groaned.

"Bye, Toby. See you tomorrow."

After hanging up, Sarah went in search of the goblin whose punishment she had to enact.

Well, that was a weird, slightly off-topic chapter to write, but at least I'm finally back on course with the plot! (You'll see what I mean…). Thank you guys so much for reading and reviewing this story! :) You guys are awesome.