Thank you all those who have reviewed my work please keep them coming.

I can't believe I'm over the 20,000 word mark now, this story was never meant to be this long or involved.

I hope you like this chapter. I promise I am trying to get the momentum moving again.

Again if you like please review.

Enjoy.

I'll try to update again ASAP

Chapter 14

Sarah had enjoyed catching up with her friends in Labyrinth, despite their concern for her. Hoggle told her about his gardens and Sir Didymus about his latest quests, Ludo didn't really speak much and kept repeating "Sawah sad." She could see that Hoggle didn't want to drop the subject of what the Goblin King had done to her either but she didn't know how to answer him.

She heard Karen return home from the Salon and quickly said goodbye her friends. promising to speak to them again soon. Sarah went downstairs to greet her Step-Mother.

"Hi Karen," she said walking down the last flight of stairs into the hall, "wow what did Ella do to your hair it looks great?" Ella was the stylist at the Salon, Karen's normally golden blonde hair had been dyed a burnished copper colour.

"Do you really think so?" Karen asked primping her hair in the mirror.

"Yeah but what made you change it? You've had the same style since you married Dad." Sarah teased

"I was inspired by your friend Tania and I wanted to look my best when he comes home tonight." She smoothed down the last little piece of hair

Sarah joked. "And when did we start living in the 1950s?"

"Sarah you're young and beautiful, you have yet to learn that men sometimes need reminding that even though their wives are getting older they are still fabulous, keeps them from straying"

Karen could tell that those words had affected Sarah in some way. That man must have really done a number on Sarah, she thought to herself.

Sarah was struck by Karen's words but not for the reason she thought. The Goblin King was a fae, immortal, unchanging, he would never grow old, but she would. He would have eternity to move on and find other loves. It was another tug at her heart, another reminder.

"Sorry I zoned out for a bit there." Sarah apologized, "Do you want me to start making lunch?"

At first Oberon couldn't see anything all that special about the girl his son Jareth had fallen so hard for. Admittedly Sarah Williams was beautiful, even by fae standards, but there were more than just a few other humans that attractive. However this girl was no ordinary mortal and not because of her ancestry. At one point it wasn't unusual for the fae to take human lovers, the early Celts had thought that the fae were Gods, a great many mortals from the British Isles had ended up with some fae blood. But even the half blooded were mortal, they had no access to the magic that was in their veins if they grew up in the mortal realm, there was to much iron in the mortal realms atmosphere now. Sarah had tapped into hers somehow, maybe due to her trip into the Labyrinth.

The more he watched her the more he could feel the pull of the woman and it wasn't her magic. There was an innocence in her eyes that many humans lost early in their lives. He watched her as she told stories to her little brother, he could feel the belief in the tales she weaved, the force of her imagination. The strength to carry on despite what had happened. Jareth hadn't stood a chance when he had seen her, none of his subjects would have, she was a pure soul, untarnished and uncorrupted, to the attuned eye it shone like a halo. The fae court was decadent, self-indulgent and corroded in moral fibre. Sarah Williams purity could have had every man she'd ever known, mortal or fae, at her beck and call.

The High King of the Fae needed to find out more about Sarah's trip through the Labyrinth something had happened there. There was also the mystery of her adopted son, who was his father? The fae could no longer survive in the mortal realm for long with out losing their magics and only the upper echelons of fae society had enough magic to transport themselves from the underground. Therefore Jays father was one of only a handful of people.

Hoggle was relieved to have spoken to Sarah but he could see the gaunt look of her face and the pain in her eyes. There was something that she wasn't willing to tell them, something that the Goblin King had done. At least the rain had stopped, he thought to himself. Queen Titania had visited again this morning, whatever she had said had made Jareth start behaving more like his usual self. He had answered a summons, there was a runner in the Labyrinth and the goblins were infesting the throne room again.

Lily Joughin, was a normal high school senior, well apart from the months that she'd been home schooled to hide her pregnancy. That was all that Oberon had been able to find out about Jay's birth mother from her school. Lily herself reminded him of her cousin Sarah, she had the same dark brown hair and green eyes but her face was more heart shaped and her lips weren't as full. The teenager also radiated, to a lesser degree the same innocence as Sarah which explained her attracting the attentions of one of his nobles. But the girl didn't have Sarah's strength, belief or determination, hence why whoever had slept with her hadn't promptly bundled her off to the underground.

Oberon's biggest problem was that Lily herself didn't remember the father except for the generalized description that his wife had told him. It seemed that what ever glamour the man had used would have to be broken before he could find out any more than that. Breaking the glamour of another was not an easy task, not without revealing himself, but Oberon was convinced it had to be done.

Lunch with Sarah was slightly awkward, there were gaps in conversation as the young woman dwelled on the past. Karen simply chose to ignore the gaps as if they hadn't happened. In some ways Karen was disappointed that Sarah didn't feel ready to confide in her. When Robert arrived in the evening he would demand to know what had happened to his little girl.

"Sarah I know that it might be difficult to tell me but I need to ask, what happened?" Karen plucked up her courage to ask.

Sarah paled at the question the haunted look seeping back into her eyes. "Didn't Titania tell you?"

"Not in any detail." Karen replied, not really noticing the Use of the High Queens full name.

"I met Jareth when I was fifteen," Sarah started her voice sounding almost forced. "He was the reason I stopped behaving like a spoiled brat." she admitted matter of factly, trying to be detached and thinking through the story editing out the unbelievable elements.

"I did wonder about the overnight change." Karen admitted

"He was a lot older than me and I didn't really understand what he was offering me." That was the truth.

"Offering you?"

"He asked me to marry him but not in so many words, but really we'd only just met and he expected me to drop every thing and run off with him." Understatement of the century Sarah added in her mind.

"When you were fifteen?" Karen was stunned and slightly horrified. "How did you respond to that?"

"I turned him down." She gave a wry smile. "Actually I dumped him hard and gave him the worst dressing down of his life."

"But he'd made his impression?"

"Jareth is the worst man for a fifteen year old to ever meet, he's indescribably attractive, a man no other would match up to. I never had him but I never got over him."

"And you met him again recently?"

"He never got over me either apparently and so he tracked me down and got my attention." By kidnapping my son, she added in her mind. "He felt that I should have waited for him, he didn't quite understand about Jay, to be honest he never asked about the father, he was so jealous when he found out about...and in the middle of... I got cold feet and asked him to stop...he wouldn't." Sarah couldn't say all the words.

"He forced you?" Karen sounded disgusted when she put the pieces together.

"He didn't realise that I was a Virgin until... and the look on his face... horror and disgust but I saw the small glimmer of something else in his eyes... triumph...pride," That memory almost made her wretch, "and I wasn't imagining it... I told him to never bother me or my family again and I left." She had finally admitted the most hurtful part of the whole encounter, the memory that haunted her.

"Oh Sarah I'm so sorry."

"I just need to get back on my feet, bury him again." The young woman didn't really want pity.

"Who is he, this Jareth?" Karen was angry at the man properly now she knew the whole story.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you. You'd think I was crazy." Sarah had no way to tell Karen that even in half truths.

"No I wouldn't."

"He's... he's a member of a European Royal family." It was a better explanation than nothing.

Karen' face was a picture of shock and awe.

NB

Joughin – {pronounced Jock-in but softer on the ck sort of like the Scottish "och"} Traditional Manx surname

Manx – Nationality of the Isle of Man a small island in the Irish sea located in the middle of the British Isles.