AN: What the hell. Here's another chapter ridiculously soon for me. If I've in fact been replaced by a replicant, I hope they do my laundry. And finish my other WIPs.

He's the kind of man a woman would have to marry to get rid of.
Mae West

There were a lot of ways Sarah had – at least once upon a time during the follies of youth - imagined meeting him again should the unthinkable ever happen. Making a silly wish. Visiting some ancient pagan site in a faraway land. Reading mysterious words from a mysterious book she should have never touched… even going there herself. Willingly. None of the scenarios involved jail bars between them and a drunk frat boy currently throwing up into the stainless steal toilet bowl of the communal cell.

It was all very surreal. Somehow even more so than simply seeing him again, which should have been enough.

More sounds of intense puking followed.

Surreal but also very, very mundane.

Sarah shifted her weight awkwardly and readjusted her purse just to give herself something to do. For his part, Jareth looked perfectly at ease with his situation and his cellmate. He was still smiling at her in that Cheshire way, despite her lack of acknowledgement.

The toilet flushed and the frat boy rolled himself back onto one of the metal benches with a groan. Realizing he had an audience, he blinked at all of them blearily and held one limp arm aloft while yelling, "Go Rhinos!"

Jareth's smile didn't falter. More importantly, he didn't look any different in fact from her memory of him. He hadn't aged at all and was even wearing the same armour, though the chest piece was gone and thr collar was open rakishly, exposing a large swathe of pale chest.

Her eyes flicked back to his face only to realize that was by no means safer.

The officer at her side cleared his throat. "If this touching reunion is over… can you confirm that this is your husband, Mrs. Williams?"

"Ms.," Sarah said again and then let the silence stretch. That question was impossible to answer. She certainly didn't want to confirm his lie and acknowledge him as anything so intimate… but leaving him in the cell with the innocent 'Go Rhinos' boy, tempting as it was for Jareth's suffering, was not an option either.

The older cop was still staring at her expectantly. His badge indicated his name was Briggs, though he'd never bothered to introduce himself, and the number of medals and pins on his shirt suggested he had far better things to do. Unfortunately for him it was a slow night.

Jareth was staring at her too, the intensity of his gaze far more unnerving for all the wrong reasons. Even the frat boy had shifted awake again enough to watch from his supine position.

"Ma'am?" Briggs wasn't bothering to couch his annoyance.

"Darling," Jareth beseeched, "Forgive me. You know how sorry I am." He sounded anything but.

"No you're not," she replied, ironically sounding more wife-like than not. "I'll… take him off your hands," she added to the officer.

Jareth grinned, this time in acknowledgement of her subtle evasion of the question.

If Briggs had noticed he didn't say anything, or maybe he didn't care. He unlocked the cell door, letting Jareth stumble out to sway on his feet.

Sarah took an immediate step back.

Briggs did acknowledge that; his eyes sweeping between the two of them and finally settling on Sarah's bandaged hand.

"Ma'am… Sarah," his demeanor softened considerably and his voice dropped to something practiced and textbook. "If he's hurt you we don't have to release him. I know the type." He reached to lightly to cup her elbow. "Do you want a cup of coffee? Water? Why don't we go have a seat and chat somewhere else."

A low growl answered but not from Sarah.

The Goblin King had heard perfectly. He looked murderous, but all of his attention was on the officer who'd just implied the unthinkable.

Her eyes flickered away from his feral expression and down to her hand in belated comprehension. "Oh… Oh no!" She waved it awkwardly in front of her to Briggs. "I burnt it. Actually while I was on the phone with you."

Briggs stared at her for a moment - there'd been a lot of that, Sarah thought peevishly – and then he relaxed marginally. His eyes shifted back to Jareth, who'd schooled his expression back to something less lethal and more closely resembling boredom. "Let's sit, shall we? There's some paper work to fill out."

He locked the cell and led them both to a desk, noisily pulling an extra chair from an adjacent one so they all could sit. Jareth held a seat out for Sarah. She deliberately sat in the other one, eying him distrustfully as he settled himself down beside her like it was a throne, rather than the torn vinyl relic from the seventies. His expression was vaguely sardonic.

Briggs popped open a bottle of antacid, his attention still on Jareth, and chugged half of it. Swallowing with a grimace, he pulled on some glasses and then started typing with the stilted staccato of the proud Luddite he was. His bespectacled eyes kept flicking back to the Goblin King every few moments like he expected him to sprout wings.

You have no idea, Sarah mused.

Get him out of here. Then send him on his way. Go back home and move on with life. Have some cold dinner with even colder wine. Lost in her to-do list, she missed whatever question the officer had asked. A booted foot nudged her chair and snapped her back to awareness.

"Hmm… sorry?"

Briggs looked at her over the top of his wire-rimmed glasses; lips partially obscured by a grey moustache and pursing in annoyance. "Maiden name. For identification purposes."

"Williams. That's my maiden name."

Briggs stared at Jareth. Jareth stared at Sarah. Sarah stared at the bottle of antacid like it was its turn to speak.

"What exactly is going on here, folks?" He didn't sound amused.

The Goblin King offered a winsome smile, exuding the easy confidence of someone who had nothing to prove. "I took her family name." He stared down the officer like it was the most common place thing to do in the late 90s, and daring him to question him on that choice. Then he smiled at Sarah with patronizing affection. "She's such a jealous little thing. Wanted me to claim me. Seemed cruel not to humour her."

Sarah's mouth fell open and snapped shut again. Then she smiled beatifically at Briggs. "And his last name was Mooseknuckle."

Jareth snorted.

"It's… German," she continued, finding her groove. "He was so eager to change it for obvious reasons. Practically begged me. I'll be your slave, et cetera, et cetera. It's spelled M-Ü-S-N-N-U-K-E-L. With those two-little dots over the U. What are they called again, darling?" She didn't wait for an answer and certainly didn't dare meet Jareth's eyes, as dearly as she wanted to see his expression. "Umlauts. Yes, umlauts."

But Briggs wasn't typing. And not only because he had no clue how to add um-whatevers to a u on a computer. He wasn't smiling either. There seemed to be a sudden surfeit of them and he found himself fervently hoping no one ever so much as grinned at him again.

"Indeed," Jareth agreed. "I had to. Think of our future children, detective." There was an edge of spite sharpening the undercurrent of amusement in his tone. "So yes, Williams is her maiden name. But I assure you she's a maiden no more. Oh," he laughed, "I suppose I took that too."

At the stunned silence – outraged on Sarah's part, incredulous and vaguely heart-burny on the officer's – Jareth affected an entirely unconvincing rueful look, belied by his droll tone. "Did I say too much? Pardon me, I'm," he paused, "very drunk." He didn't sound drunk in the least.

Recovering, Sarah patted his knee with her good hand, shivering only slightly when a spark of something electric made her pulse skip. "Actually that was a college freshman named Jeremy. Nice guy. Normal last name." She turned back to the wide-eyed officer. "But I try not to remind him. It's a sore point, you understand. More so after the," her voice dropped conspiratorially, "accident." She gestured to his groin. "Kicked by a cow."

Briggs winced, his own balls recoiling into his stomach in phantom commiseration.

A heavy hand landed on hers, effectively trapping it against his lithely muscled leg. "Now, now, Sarah. I thought we agreed you wouldn't call your stepmother that. It's so terribly," he squeezed, "unkind of you."

"So that's why there won't be any children, you see," Sarah continued through gritted teeth. "He can't consummate the marriage. It just doesn't work."

"Which is for the best no doubt," Jareth added in mock solemnity. "She's absolutely awful with them. Did you know she lost her baby brother once? Then blamed everyone else." He tsk'd. "I'm not sure she's up to the responsibility of child care. Certainly should never be left alone with any."

Sarah ground her nails into his flesh.

Briggs squinted at his screen and then back at the pair; eyes settling on Sarah in growing concern. "It says here you're a teacher."

"High school," she answered quickly, still trying extract her hand to no avail. "They… uh mostly take care of themselves," then trailed off weakly under the weight of the officer's stare. She shot the Goblin King a nasty look.

He simply raised their joined hands and kissed hers. Another frisson of electricity as his lips pressed warmly to her bare skin. "Fortunately for them."

The tension was palpable. Even the frat boy, whose harried-sounded mother had told Briggs to leave him in the tank overnight to teach him a lesson, was pressed against the bars – absolutely riveted.

Briggs took off his glasses and polished them methodically, counting down the weeks until he was eligible for his full pension in his mind. He'd been given desk duty as a favour, something offered to all senior cops in the year approaching retirement. A sort of thank you for your service, here have a safe job where you can take lots of breaks and see little to no action while you peruse fishing boat catalogues. He'd taken it gratefully after years as a beat cop and then detective. And yet suddenly dying in the line of duty - like the older partner inevitably fridged a few days before retirement in every action cop movie - didn't sound so bad.

He slid the frames back on his face and considered the strange couple seated before him. She looked two steps away from going full apoplectic. He looked… well he wasn't entirely what he looked like, or what his expression meant, but he wanted him out of his precinct. Yesterday. There was something not quite right with him. The vestiges of his own lizard brain warned danger; this is someone that will eat your liver - or worse, feed it to you - while his eyes wondered if he wasn't in fact some big shot from a hair metal band, and this was one of those stupid publicity stunts the tabloids loved to cover. He didn't even seem drunk anymore.

On the other hand, they certainly fought like a married couple. Albeit a very candid one.

Regardless, he'd had enough.

"Alright then. You know what? That's fine." He clicked print on his screen with a little more force than his keyboard appreciated. The sounds of the geriatric dot matrix the department head refused to replace screeched throughout the pen, only adding to the tension. Once done, he tugged the copies free, tore then apart, and placed both in front of Sarah. "Just sign here, Mrs. Williams."

"Ms.," Jareth corrected wryly.

Sarah gaped at him and then reached for the pen, perusing the report. She glanced back up across the desk. "No bail? But you said on the phone-"

"I've waiving it," Briggs replied impatiently. It would save him more paper work on the infuriating machine he didn't really know how to use. And more importantly it would get them out of his thinning hair. "Just take responsibility for him and you can both be on your way." He looked at Jareth meaningfully. "Consider this a warning. I don't want to see you back here. Ever." His eyes swept over Sarah briefly and she got the impression he meant her too.

"I'm very sorry to have troubled you, detective. Won't happen again." The Goblin King didn't sound sorry. Quite the contrary.

Briggs hmphed.

When Sarah had signed both copies, Briggs handed one back to her for her records and rose.

Jareth followed suit, tucking Sarah's trapped hand into his arm as though he were a gentleman. If gentlemen had claws and teeth and a poor sense of personal space. "I think you are forgetting something." It took Sarah a moment to realize he was addressing the detective.

His voice lowered coolly. "I will have it back now."

Sarah watched as the older officer stiffened at Jareth's change in tone, but he nodded and reached into his top desk drawer to withdraw a leather cord. It swung down as the archaic sigil suspended from it pulled free. Sarah's eyes widened in recognition and then fixed on the deep vee of the Goblin King's unusually bare chest. Jareth's eyes never left the necklace, his gloved hand outstretched.

At Sarah's evident confusion, Briggs paused. "Just procedure, ma'am. We remove anything that might be used as a strangulation device."

She wanted to point out the patent obvious - that the cape he wore would have done the trick too - but held her tongue and simply nodded.

Briggs held the cord out, Jareth's fingers almost touching it, but then at the last moment pulled it back. The Goblin King let out a wordless sound of fury before recovering and swallowing it back behind a deceptively placid mask.

"Perhaps I should give it to you," Briggs mused, swinging the dangling medallion towards a surprised Sarah instead. "At least until you are out the doors." And no longer my responsibility was the unspoken addendum.

Sarah took it carefully, shocked at how warm the metal was in her hand. It faintly thrummed in a way that made her both giddy and decidedly nervous. She quickly tucked it into her coat pocket, feeling Jareth's eyes track her every movement.

Briggs breathed a sigh of relief that they were in the final stretch, and ushered them both across the booking floor and back out to reception with speed he no longer thought he possessed. O'Brien nodded at his superior, his eyes bugging for a moment when they slid to the Goblin King. He'd not been on shift when he'd been booked. The youth looked at Sarah, but she merely shrugged as if to say there was nothing that could be reasonably said about any of it. He went back to his magazine. The things you see on a full moon, as his great gram used to say.

Briggs held the door open for them both, as much out of ingrained courtesy as to be assured they both actually left the building. For good… or god-willing, at least until he retired. A nagging pang of conscious had him wondering if he was doing the young woman a great disservice however. While he believed she'd hurt her hand through no fault of his, she didn't particularly seem to want her husband back. Not that he could blame her. There was something not quite right about him that had nothing to do with his hair and dress, and everything to do with the fact that Mr. Jareth Williams didn't actually exist. Didn't have ID. Didn't even seem to know what ID was.

Her profile had indicated her marital status as single. And yet… they did know each other. Somehow. And she had nothing on her record. Not so much as a parking ticket. He had to be in the system somewhere. Perhaps they were newlyweds and Jareth was still listed under his old name. Musnukkel was it? With the two dots she'd said. He did have a funny accent that was decidedly not local. Fair hair too… he supposed he could be German. His father had fought the Krauts in WW2 and had mentioned they had strange customs. Maybe the guy was after a green card and it was a marriage of convenience. Either way it was not his problem.

Briggs also reasoned that she looked just as likely to kill him, if not more. He'd put his money on her. Maybe that was why he'd given her necklace instead.

Out the door, Sarah turned to politely thank him for his time. She looked bone weary and perhaps a little wary too, though her arm was still entwined lovingly with her husband's. Her expression said she could use a good night's sleep. Briggs' eyes flicked back to the man. And maybe something else. An unexpected and uncharacteristic flood of international magnanimity suffused him. He could be diplomatic.

Briggs leaned in towards the taller man, tapping on his arm until Jareth bent his head to bring theirs level. It wasn't the sort of talk for mixed company. "You know… they make pills now." They'd been a godsend in his own marriage, though he was still reluctant to discuss them openly. "Little blue ones. Very discreet. Could… uh, help with your little problem."

Jareth stiffened, his head canting in a way that was entirely unnerving.

"You're both young," Briggs trudged on. "Be a shame to give up on all that… that stuff. Not when you have a lifetime together ahead of you."

Jareth smiled, his angular face only partially lit by the moon and the flickering outdoor light of the station. He looked entirely too pleased for having just been released from the drunk tank. Like someone who'd gotten everything he wanted and then some. "You have no idea, detective."

As he stepped away, Sarah half-enveloped by his cape and looking entirely irritated by it, he added in flawless and sober German, "Gute Nacht, du törichter Sterblicher."

Once back inside, Briggs locked the door and shook the aching tension from his shoulders. O'Brien glanced up curiously at the sound.

"Can't be too safe tonight."

O'Brien nodded and adjusted his collar. Full moon indeed.

AN: In case the inclusion of extra 'Us' wasn't obvious, I am Canadian. I know nothing about Rochester, New York and virtually nothing about American police station operations apart from anything learned from Law and Order and Brooklyn 99 – "Noice, toight". So please kindly avert your eyes from any inaccuracies and my creative licencing. I did some cursory googling but there was conflicting stuff out there, especially for the time period I'm setting this (accurate to the movie's era and the passage of time there after), enough so that I was like, fuck it. Briggs – you can do what you want, my good fellow. Enjoy your retirement. This basically ends the law enforcement portion anyway.

First year university German was a LONG time ago. 'Gute Nacht, du törichter Sterblicher' *should* mean Good night, my foolish mortal (Sorry to all the German speakers out there. I tried).

As a Catherine who constantly introduces myself as Catherine with a C, I feel Sarah would likewise feel strongly about her H. It matters.

So happy so many of you got and loved the My Cousin Vinny reference last chapter. Normally I'd credit it in the notes, but it was titular and therefore self-explanatory. What a weird little feel-good flick.