This chapter's a bit longer than usual because it's jam-packed with lots of important stuff!

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Chapter 8

For the second time in the same amount of days, Sarah was standing in the Tower Room of Jareth's castle, facing the Goblin King. She'd found the room on her own this time, though she didn't have the slightest idea how. She'd been walking along, trying to determine the perfect way to bring up Hoggle's early release to Jareth, and before she knew it she was heading straight for those dark, flickering goblin lights. For the first time since she'd arrived, Sarah smiled a real, genuine smile not bogged down by the sadness she felt when around Toby, knowing the mistake the boy had made in wishing them both here. Seeing Hoggle again had made Sarah feel much better, made her feel more connected to what had happened and made her remember the good things that were knitted between the bad.

Her knock was just as forceful as it'd been during her first visit, and Jareth once again opened the door himself. For a fleeting moment Sarah wondered when the man slept - or if he even slept at all... Perhaps he really was as foreign as to never need sleep, to run off of magic or the moon of god knew what else. What was he?

It didn't seem fair that Jareth appeared to know nearly everything about her and Toby, and Sarah didn't know a thing about him. She knew his name, but only his first name. A last name, should he even have one, wasn't known by any of the servants or townspeople according to Hoggle. They didn't know how old the Goblin King was, though he hadn't changed at all physically in five years, so he might just not age.

He can reorder time, though, thought Sarah. He did that last time, trying to make the Labyrinth harder for me...

It was all a strange mystery that she found herself more and more eager to solve. Curiosity once again took over Sarah's intentions, made her want more than just the up-front and obvious. She wanted to know what made King Jareth tick, what made him who he was, what he was - whatever he might be. Was he a goblin, a human, or something else entirely?

Shaking her head, Sarah was forced back into a reality in which the subject of her reverie was staring at her expectantly, holding the door open so that she could pass into the room. She did so and turned, but before she could speak Jareth held up a hand.

"Let me guess? You'd like Hoggle to be released... when? Tomorrow? Today? Perhaps some time before noon?"

Sarah was surprised by both Jareth's intuition in what she'd been about to request and the exasperated note to his voice... It was incredibly out of character for the normally cool-as-ice Goblin King, and Sarah decided that, yes, Jareth needed sleep but no, he hadn't gotten any rest in quite a while.

She stuttered a few moments before responding, "Well, he only has about a month left on his sentence. What's it matter if you just let him go a little sooner? It's not like you have anyone else down there to set a 'bad example' for... Where are you keeping them, by the way? All the goblins - the ugly ones, not just the Changelings? What happened to your little goblin flock?"

He evaded the final inquiries altogether, skipping to Sarah's question about Hoggle's release without so much as a flicker of the eyelid in response to the others.

"Haven't you made quite enough requests since you've arrived?" Jareth said, rolling his eyes and spinning to pace around the room, his gaze fixated on Sarah with something that reminded her of earnestness, like a dutiful teacher trying his best to straighten out the classroom troublemaker. "You're a servant, Sarah – not the queen, not like you would've been."

"I'm also Toby's sister," Sarah shot back, ignoring the shade of bitterness at the last half of Jareth's sentence. "And I've been trying my best to put up with all this for the sake of him, so the least you could do is give me one old friend to get through this with. Hoggle's spent five years in that dungeon and he hardly did anything!"

Jareth turned to face her; the rays of the early-morning sun filtering through the window and making his pale skin shimmer slightly. He looked at her with wide, unbelieving eyes,

"Hardly did anything?" he said incredulously. "He merely went against my direct orders and aided someone in attempts to destroy my kingdom… I believe that is what many call treason, my dear, and in any other country the penalty would be death!"

Sarah took a swift step forward, hands clenched to her side. "You're not saying you'll kill him!"

"No, little girl," he sneered, "once again I'm going to display the generosity that you so naively scorned five years ago and set your little dwarf friend free."

Sarah's expression shifted from anger to surprise before it softened. She let out a sigh and leaned against the wall, her glance shifting to the window briefly before returning to the face of the Goblin King. She felt tired, of her anger, or her predicament, of all this fighting with him... It didn't help that she hadn't slept much lately, and that when she did sleep her dreams were permeated with swimming visions and flashes of things that would jolt her into wakefulness long before she was truly rested.

"Um... Th-thank you," she said with a heavy amount of uncertainty. It'd all been too easy, too simple and just not Jareth's way of doing things. Her mind was muddled with exhaustion and this twist of the Goblin King's personality caught her entirely off guard. Everything else, he'd made her work for, he'd made her answer riddles for and find her way but this... he'd hardly fought her on it…

"Why?" she asked.

Jareth didn't answer her, simply stood and faced her with an odd tilt to his head, a question obviously formed in his mind... Or, perhaps a plan.

"How long has it been since you slept, Sarah?" he asked innocently enough.

It was even more of a surprise and for a moment Sarah was without words. Her vision flew across the room wildly, taking in every shadow and item as if, at any moment, goblins would spring from the corners and attack. She sputtered a bit before finally admitting, "About two or three days, I think… Why?"

"You look tired," Jareth said, and no matter how she tried she couldn't find the touch of irony that usually laced all the things he said, the anger or the mockery was completely masked by what Sarah could only think of as genuine care.

His mismatched eyes, which had contrasted between glittery chips of ice and malicious, burning embers throughout her most recent stay in the Underground, were completely neutral and placid despite their conversation moments earlier. Even his stance – his head tilted curiously to the side and his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the far wall – wasn't pompous or regal in any way. He was casual, normal, concerned…

And it made her very, very uneasy.

"Why?" Sarah repeated, but her voice wasn't as strong as she wanted it to have been.

She felt like the rug had been pulled out from under her with this new Jareth standing there, worried about her… health? There was so much wrong with that picture but still, somewhere hidden in all the wariness, Sarah felt a tiny bit of delight.

"You should get some sleep, Sarah," Jareth said, continuing his caring tone. "Visit Toby, then get some sleep…"

"I'd like Hoggle set free, first," she said. She didn't mean to give the request the forceful bite that it left her mouth with, but the confusion was taking its toll on her. She didn't want to let her guard down. Even though nothing about this new Goblin King was explicitly fearsome, it was the very lack of threats and bitterness that made Sarah second guess everything she said.

Was this all some sort of test? Would Jareth really let Hoggle free, or would he find a way to use the dwarf in order to make Sarah more miserable than she already was? He'd given her more time with Toby, but she knew that was only because Toby would be unhappy without seeing her and all Jareth really cared about was keeping his heir nice and happy in the Underground… Would Jareth promise all these things to Sarah, only to take them away at the moment she least expected it?

…but that wasn't his way of doing things, either… Jareth had offered Sarah everything, but it was Sarah who rejected him. She had every reason to believe that Jareth would have gone through with his promises, would have kept her in the Underground as his queen and given her her dreams… So what was going on? Why the sudden change?

With a glance upwards Sarah realized that the Goblin King had shifted away from the wall and was merely a few feet away from her, staring at her with those newly sympathetic eyes. Sarah stared back, for some reason her cheeks flushed and she had the sudden desire to turn tail and flee, forget about her requests and just get out of that room, away from Jareth and his shifting personality, but she couldn't move. Backed against the windowsill, Sarah was unable to turn away from the king as he stepped further again, so slowly he hardly seemed to be moving at all.

And then, like a clever cat hypnotizing its prey with slow, deliberate movements, Jareth's hand moved below Sarah's chin and she hardly noticed. He lifted her face up just slightly, and Sarah's eyes didn't break away from his. He leaned forward just a bit and the only thought running through Sarah's mind was awareness of the sudden increase in her heart rate, her pulse thudding against her head as the Goblin King's lips touched her own.

The kiss only lasted a few moments – just long enough for Sarah to realize what was happening and break away with a surprised cry, moving with almost inhuman speed to stand in the flanking corner of the room. She stared at Jareth with wide eyes and he stared back with a serious, contemplative expression that reminded Sarah briefly of the one he'd had in her Ballroom daydream.

For a short moment Jareth looked just as confused as Sarah, but then that confusion broke and the Goblin King laughed. There wasn't any joy in his laughter; just the laughter of someone who had successfully fooled another person, mirthless and malicious and Sarah couldn't stand to hear it. Her face reddened with rage and frustration, she clenched her jaw and flew out of the Tower Room in a torrent of billowing skirts a suppressed, curse-laden snarls.

Behind the closed door, Jareth's laughter died down almost instantly to be replaced by a thoughtful grimace. He ran a black-gloved hand over his face, still lightened by the rays of the morning sun as he stood in front of the distressed window, and sighed to himself. Sarah would be planning something soon – he knew it. Something to remove herself and Toby from the Underground forever… but the Goblin King just couldn't let that happen… Not again.