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"Today can be your day off."

"What?"

"You know, a rest. Vacation," She didn't know how but his accent began to sound more like hers when she imitated him. "A holiday, that sort of thing."

"Really?"

Jareth narrowed his eyes at her. "I wouldn't have suggested such a thing if I didn't mean it. Only one holiday per week though."

She grinned. "Sounds great to me! I'll do the cooking and cleaning, but the goblins must help clean afterwords. I can also help Ronald Ruel with his histories. My cursive is very neat." Her voice wheedled (hopefully adorable in its lack of subtlety).

"It's your day off. Go. Have fun. Or do you need me to define that for you, as well?"

Rude. But she supposed she could just convince him later. "Alright, fine. I know when I'm not wanted."

And out of the castle she flew. Going to see her friends again would probably be overstaying her welcome. Y'know, considering she'd just spent the last two weeks visiting them. There wasn't really a lot to do in the Labyrinth.

Or was there? Now that she thought about it, she'd only had thirteen hours to explore the place. (And since Jareth was such a cheater, even less than that.) This kingdom definitely required further inspection. She supposed the Goblin Village would be as good a place as any to start with. Chickens clucked by and stirred up the dust. Most of the goblins themselves seemed to be either inside their little huts or elsewhere in the Labyrinth. Well, this was exciting.

That was sarcasm. This place was dull. Brown as far as the eye could see and awful on the sinuses. How could these poor creatures stand it? No wonder they weren't here. A door opened and a goblin hobbled out. Saw her. Aaaand scurried back indoors, slamming the door behind it (her?). Ooor maybe they were all hiding from her. Either way, now was as good a time as any to spruce the place up. She closed her eyes and wished and - a hoe appeared in her right hand, a packet of some kind of seed poofed in her left, and a trowel almost landed on her foot with another twenty or so packets of seeds falling down from nowhere. She'd work on that.

But where was the shovel?

"Look out!" She heard the shout before she was shoved into the ground. The aforementioned gardening tool clattered to the ground beside her. Her rescuer climbed off her and offered her a hand up.

Which amused her since he appeared to be a goblin and at least half her size. Not wanting to offend, she accepted his hand up and even made it seem like he helped her up.

He grinned proudly. "Almost got yourself squashed there."

"Well, aren't you a smart, little goblin. Thank you!" Sarah beamed back. "Would you like to help me?"

"Help you...what exactly?" His grin turned bemused. A clever goblin, indeed.

She closed her eyes again. Another shovel appeared, this time very clearly a kids' toy straight from a Fisher-Price magazine. Nibbling at her lip, Sarah twanged her thumb against the blade. "Hmm, sturdier than you'd expect. Seems like it's still made of metal."

"It's pink."

"So it is. Which no one will notice if you get busy tilling the soil. Let's just work with this patch of dirt here," She picked up what she could and walked toward the center of the village. "Maybe when everyone sees what we're up to, they'll want to help too. Bogger knows, this place needs all the color it can get."

The goblin finally followed, bringing along his favorite shovel ever and the rest of the seed packets. Grumbling like a dwarf the whole way, of course. "Still don't see why."

"Because color makes everything look better," She wrinkled her nose at the barren ground and the rackety huts. "Even places like this."

"If you say so," He grunted. She picked up her shovel and began digging into the hard-as-bedrock ground. He mimicked her. "This is going to take forever. Why don't you use magic?"

"Because I like gardening."

"Really?"

She huffed. "Well, I guess I've never technically tried it, but I think I will."

"But you're not now?" He squinted at her. Teasing.

"With such pleasant company, how could I not?"

He blinked before responding shortly. "You're joking."

"Only slightly," She peeked at him before looking back down at the ground. Which was finally starting to give a little, revealing surprisingly dark, moist dirt below. "I don't believe I've met you yet. My name's Sarah."

The sound of his shovel clanking against a rock was his only reply. He grunted before hedging over and peering down. "What am I supposed to do with that?"

"It's a rock."

"I know that. What do I do with it?"

Sarah rolled her lips together in an effort to keep from groaning. Or laughing. "You pick it up and make a rock pile."

"With my bare hands?"

The Queen of the Labyrinth blinked, and said hands were covered with gloves. Matching in color to his shovel, of course. He seemed less than impressed but burrowed the rock out and dumped it a few feet away.

"The name's Keefe," He whispered as he began shoveling again. "It means 'gentle.'"

"Oh," Sarah stopped to study him. "It's a lovely name."

He snorted. "It's a horrid name. And you have to admit it doesn't match my personality at all."

"I don't know. You did rescue me."

"By shoving you into the ground."

"Better than getting banged over the head with a shovel."

He grunted as he moved on to another patch of ground, "I suppose."

"I know," She picked up the hoe and started straightening the loose dirt into straight rows while he finished tilling the rest. They worked well together and made much more progress than she'd anticipated. Pretty soon they could actually plant the seeds, which she was pretty sure was the fun part of gardening. So far, all she'd gotten out of this were sore muscles and sweat.

"What kind of plants are you wanting to grow anyway?" Not to mention, the lovely conversations with her charming friend here, of course.

She shrugged. "I'm not really sure, actually. I just wanted some colorful flowers."

"Not much for planning things out, are you?"

"I like surprises." Some anyway.

He muttered something under his breath as he leaned against his shovel, admiring his handiwork. His chest puffed slightly as he straightened again. "Still don't see why you didn't just use your magic; I would have."

She raised an eyebrow at him.

"If I had magic, anyway."

"Well, maybe that's why you don't have it; you'd abuse it," Picking up the packets of seeds, she shuffled through them to see if there was any labels. Which there were, by color. Her magic was a Very Odd Thing, and she really needed to learn how to use it. Ronald Ruel surely wouldn't mind another impromptu visit.

Keefe glided over, oddly graceful, and plucked two packets from her hand. "Shall we finish this?"

"I suppose so."

And so they did. No instructions came with the packets so Sarah went from memory on how one plants things. Which she was sure was totally wrong, but maybe things worked differently enough in the Labyrinth that it would work anyway. So she made little dents in the ground, and Keefe dropped three or four seeds in before she covered them up.

"This is strangely entertaining." The goblin finally admitted on their last row.

Sarah smiled up at him. "It's relaxing, isn't it? Gives you time to think."

He winced at that. Glanced back at the dirt. "Less entertaining now."

"Just can't admit to having fun, can you?"

"With you? Not likely."

She covered the last seeds and sent the rest of her tools back to the castle. Hopefully in that empty closet next to the front gate. Standing up and stretching to get the kinks of gardening out, she finally titled her head at him. "Oh, hush, I know you love me."

He snorted at her, and she just laughed.

"I gotta go back; I think I'm gonna make dinner so a certain, grumpy King we both know quite well will keep his promise about this whole holiday thing."

He blinked at her.

Fine, if he wasn't going to say anything. She kissed him on the forehead. "Bye, Jareth. This was fun."

The glitter blinded her for a second, but she finally managed to open her eyes again to see Jareth's true from before her. He looked testy. "When did you find out?"

"It was a fantastic disguise, really," Sarah bit her lip, failing as ever to hide her smile. "But you really need to work on masking that accent of yours. Also, goblins don't glide, they hobble. And they're not nearly so brave. It was fun though, really."

His eyes narrowed. "You don't have to lie; it was just a guise. It meant nothing."

"No. No, it didn't," She swallowed before continuing. This was new; they were admitting things. He had admitted things, and she hadn't wanted this. But now... "You showed me more of yourself than you meant to."

"Oh, yes? Like what, Precious?" The sarcasm again. That meant she was getting too close.

She took the plunge. "You feel guilty because of your actions, and you want to make it better, but you don't know how. I'm the same way, Jareth. I wished for my own brother to be taken away by some goblins. I may not have known it would happen, but I still believed. Then, I blamed you for it even when you had no choice but to do what I asked, and that wasn't fair." If she started crying now, she would...do something. Take it out on innocent goblins, probably. "I may not be some innocent beauty, but you're no beast either. You're gentler than you give yourself credit for you."

He didn't blink or make any sign of acknowledgment. Not even a slap to the face. She bared her soul, and his, but nothing. He finally stepped away from her. His tone cut her worse than his striking her ever could. "You know nothing. I don't know why you even try anymore."

His words were cold and calculated, and she hated him for it. He disappeared in glitter-less smoke, and Sarah knelt to the ground. He hadn't been ready, and he had snapped. That was all. She started rocking back and forth.

That was all. And the tears flowed.

He sat upon his throne, and it mocked him. Some King he was. His Queen hated him. And the worst part was that this time he had intended her to. It made things easier.

After all, he more than anyone should know that no one could ever trick Sarah.

A/N: So I looked up Jareth's name, and it either could mean "old" or "gentle." So I went with the latter because wow. Also, feel free to really hate me now. (But thank you guys so much for the reviews and the faves and the follows. It means a lot.)