A/N I own nothing from the source material, songs, or oc's from MyraValhallah's story. Just doing this for fun.

Chapter 17

"I think the first thing we should do is...research." Sarah ignored the groans of the goblins because they probably were illiterate anyway.

Jareth cast a withering stare over his people and placed a tentative hand on the back of Sarah's chair. "Sarah is right," He looked at the library in the TARDIS with admiration, "The two women, be they the Labyrinth and this...vessel...or simply using those rather unconventional forms to create a false sense of trust with us, were fairly vague in their information. I suggest we compartmentalize and get down to business."

Research is boring. Research is soooo boring. I really miss the running and the cleverness now. Rose felt as though she had been reading her book on Carrionites for forever. She put it down. "Something about the power of the right words and when to say them and where. What is a Hellmouth?"

"What?" Sarah reached out and took the book from in front of Rose. "Right words and a...Hellmouth?"

"The Hellmouth bit was in this book." Rose handed over a large leather bound book. "It says all matters of nasty things happen over them."

Jareth was half listening to the girls talk as he watched the Doctor flip through books, tossing them in haphazard heaps when he didn't like what he saw. Jareth saw him still when he held a battered blue journal in his hand. Three times the Doctor went to open it and three times he stopped.

"Jareth!" He snapped his attention back to the girls. Sarah had said his name so urgently he was surprised she wasn't bleeding when he came over.

"What do you need, pet?" He calmed when he saw her simply reading. She held in front of her the schematics to a building and a few diaries written in such tiny script he feared she would develop migraines.

"What shape is the Escher room?" She didn't look up from what she was studying she just asked with her nose in one of the larger books. He smiled down at her as the corner of his eye caught the Doctor contemplating the blue journal yet again.

"The Escher room's original shape was...a Tetradecagon I believe. Why?" Her eyes sparkled as she stood quickly nearly toppling the chair in her haste. Righting the chair with his enhanced reflexes Jareth followed the human over to the Doctor.

"Carrionites." The Doctor looked at her as though she were bonkers. She sighed. "What do you know of them?"

He looked back down at the journal which held everything he was going to do after this. He hadn't read anything but the fact it was full meant he did go back. He cast a guilty look over toward Rose then returned his attention to the brunette. "I have three stuck in a purple orb up in a trunk in the main console."

He said it so offhand she nearly didn't believe him. "You have space witches stuck in an orb stuck in your TARDIS and you didn't think that might have something to do with the magical whatnot you were so inappropriately excited about before?"

"I have a lot of things stuck in things stuck in my TARDIS. Should I have given you an inventory?" He smiled at her but she was having none of it.

"If any of them are as potentially dangerous as Carrionites, I really think you should have." She had that tilt to her hips that simultaneously frightened and amused Jareth. Rose spoke up then taking everyone's attention back to the research at hand.

"It says here that the Hellmouth under the Globe was almost closed in 1613 during a performance of Henry VIII but that it was not considered successfully closed until 1644 and shortly after the Globe was "demolished" and housing was built on top of it. The quote marks are actually in the text." She shrugged before continuing. "According to this diary," She gestured at one of them, "something called the council set up shop on top of it in an attempt to watch over it."

"From the various entries I read it sounds like that's all they did. Watch." Sarah actually seemed disappointed that this council didn't seem to have anything to do directly with their predicament. Jareth was taking this quite well he thought. Sarah had only returned to him because of some strange prophecy about Chosen One's and Champions and now she was giving it her all to get away from him. And save the universe. Can't forget the universe saving.

Rose was actually starting to love this. It was almost like she'd been eating those chips from that school with the evil teachers. How was it that her life included a school with legitimately evil teachers? Oh, that was how. She smiled over where the Doctor, no, her Doctor was finding the last bit of the ritual that had to be done. It had been a banner day for discoveries.

Earlier that afternoon...

"There is a second one of you? Floating around in a replicate TARDIS? And you didn't think to tell us that?" Sarah had been fuming. Jareth couldn't blame her. "When were you going to tell us?"

The Doctor removed his glasses and stared at them before whipping them back onto the bridge of his nose. "I didn't believe it to be pertinent information at the time."

"You mean," Jareth spoke from his place on the now far too glittery arm chair, "the same time when it became clear that you needed to go through a regeneration in order to stop the dimensions from splitting open at the seams? Wasn't pertinent then?"

The retort died on the Timelord's lips when he realized what the overgrown goblin had said. He ran off and Jareth was nonplussed. "Did he just run away from me?"

Sarah shrugged and walked over to where Jareth sat, silently telling him to scooch so she could join him in reading the ungainly tome perched on his knee. The way he swung his leg off the arm and sat a bit too prim and proper while Sarah slipped in beside him made Rose nearly choke on laughter. It was adorable really. How the two of them were so well matched and yet they were so awkward around each other.

"No he did not!" The Doctor's shout from the mezzanine made the couple in the chair jump. "He did not run away from you, well I didn't, I mean. Usually I don't stand behind the magical broohaha but I figure, when in Rome," He stopped and looked at Rose. "After this we should go to Rome. Anyway I ran to find this." He dropped the largest book they had seen yet down with a thud to the ground floor and a cloud of dust billowed from it.

"What is that?" Rose stared at it and she immediately knew that this behemoth was going to hold all the secrets they needed.

"The Necronomicon!" The gleam in his eye was unmistakeable as much as the very audible gasp from Jareth.

Now...

"Are we sure the whole 'we three kings' was just a diversion?" Sarah looked at the three non humans seated around her in a triangle while she held the supposedly fictional book in her hands. "I mean if we try getting around that by doing this..." She made a sweeping gesture at their surrounding ritual preparations. "What if we end up just destroying the universe?"

Rose squeezed the younger girls knee in reassurance. "I'm already in a dimension I'm not meant to be in and so are you. The universe is already tearing apart."

The chant rose up after the fire was started and they put all of their thoughts into bringing the Meta-crisis to Whence. But it would seem someone got distracted.

Standing in the center, where Sarah had vacated after the big pillar of fire appeared, was a very angry looking blonde man.

"-alls. Bugger, I'm not even anywhere near that bleeding amulet anymore." The peroxide punk looked down his nose and contorted his mouth into something of a snarling smirk. "I'm part of another soddin' ritual/prophecy aren't I?"

"Oi! Language in my TARDIS!" The Doctor stood and stared at the man which seemed to be getting under the new arrival's skin. "Or is it our TARDIS?" He reached out a hand to touch the bleached hair. "Were you at least a ginger before?"

Rose hopped up and fingered the leather duster. "Doctor, you've gone back to wearing leather."

The fifth wheel jerked away from the Gallifreyans. "Hey, William the Bloody's no ginger, don't be touchin' the coat you'll bruise the leather, and did you call me the Doctor. I thought I told Captain Cardboard I was holdin' those eggs for a friend. I ain't no smuggler." He pulled a fag and his zippo from an inner pocket. As he was about to light it, though, he was rudely interrupted by a ponce in tights.

The lighter and cigarette now in the palm of Jareth's left hand the King stared at the summoned thing. "You're not the Doctor and you're certainly no Great Old One. What are you?"

The supposed Mr. Bloody sucked his teeth before starting in. "I'm the Big Bad. Name's William the Bloody, Spike for short, One fourth of the Scourge of Europe. A Master Vampire of the Aurelius line. Sired of Drusilla who was Sired of Angelus who was Sired of Darla who was sired of the Master...Wait, did you say Great Old One?" He looked at the four little magic users and wasn't really surprised. Red looked as harmless as the two girls, so, it was possible. "Keerist, You're an Aurelian cult. I thought I killed all of you. Well, no time like the present." His brow grew ridged and his mouth filled with the unseemly fangs. He lunged for Sarah first and fell to the ground in a spasm of pain, clutching at his head.

Jareth stood and approached the fetal-ed vampire. Waggling a finger in Spike's direction and clucking his tongue, Jareth squatted to be at near eye level. "Naughty, naughty vampire. There will be no chomping on juicy little Champions."

"Champion?" The question was bit off through gritted teeth. "Bloody hell, you're not with Angel are you?"

Jareth ignored the Doctor's repeated exclamation of 'language' and went back to assessing Spike's dreams. The king smiled as he produced a buoyant crystal and began playing a little with it. The smile wasn't sinister. It was light and held just a hint of pain. "You want your Slayer."

"You leave her outta this!" His voice was labored under the pain and Jareth immediately snapped his fingers lifting the charm and stepping away as the vampire still lightly clutching his aching head came to a standing position. "Well, that made me bloody nostalgic." At that the Doctor just threw up his hands and stalked over to a bookshelf to sulk over the R-rated turn his life seemed to be taking. Leave it to the universe to throw another vampire war into his life.