Labyrinth 1. A Tight Spot

**Part One: A Tight Spot**

Sarah Williams was walking home to her apartment, dark hair pulled back in simple ponytail, hands shoved into her jacket pockets, head lowered to avoid the huge drops splashing down on her uncovered head. She'd meant to wear her raincoat when she left for work today, but had been in a hurry and grabbed her regular jacket instead. The one without a hood.

The one that allowed the rain to pour down on her unobstructed and drench her neck. The stupid jacket that wasn't what she'd meant to wear today and totally didn't go with her purse…

In the middle of her mental rant she drew herself up short and gave herself the same lecture she always did when she started feeling sorry for herself: _Sarah Williams, what's a little rain to someone who successfully ran the Labyrinth as a teenager? To someone who beat the Goblin King at his own game? To someone who saw and interacted with actual magic?_

Scowling, she gave herself the same answer she always did: _And what was the point of getting a taste of real magic only to turn down the chance to keep it in my life forever?_

To which her next response was always: _To save your brother you sacrificed that possibility. Dumbass. Quit bitching._

And so it went, with her actually ending up chuckling at herself for repeating the same damn loop over and over, yet always managing to end up where she wanted to be: in a better mood.

Truth be told, her mundane existence wasn't all that bad, even if it hadn't turned into the wonderful life she'd envisioned for herself as a teenager. She ticked off the pertinent facts in her mind, if only to keep herself from noticing how freaking wet she was getting. She was twenty-two, attractive, in great health and physical condition, well liked by friends and the occasional boyfriend (which she was currently between at the moment), had her own place, a great little brother, and a nice, safe career.

Trouble was, it wasn't the career she'd hoped for. Not even close. Not even _remotely_ close.

How in the hell had she ended up majoring in biology? And why was she working in a nice, secure, guaranteed-pension-when-she-retired, _boring_ state job? Analyzing dead bats and rats and whatevers for rabies?

She shook her head sadly, then scowled as that helpful motion allowed even more rain to pour down her neck and back and soak itself onto her blouse. It always seemed to be raining in Seattle, why hadn't anyone warned her about that little climatological fact before she decided to move here? Still, here she was and here she would no doubt remain unless something better came along.

She just wished the "something better" involved a return to the Underground and even, maybe, another meeting with a certain sexy Goblin King.

Ooh, time to squelch _that_ line of thought. That way led only to trouble, and dreams that left her feeling _extremely_ frustrated in the morning. She hadn't seen the Goblin King since she was fifteen and way too young to appreciate what her mother would call his "animal magnetism," but thinking about him now…woof. She could certainly picture a couple of ways she'd love to unleash the beast…

_Hey, you're supposed to be getting off that train of thought,_ she chided herself as she stopped obediently to wait for the light to change before crossing the street. _Thinking about Jareth is verboten, remember? You bested him, he hates you, end of story. He even stopped your friends from visiting you after a couple of weeks._

She was scowling again just thinking about it. She knew Ludo and Hoggle and Sir Didymus wouldn't have just stopped visiting her on their own, with no warning, so it had to be the Goblin King who'd shut down the mirror portal between the Underground and here. Probably to punish her even more after she'd rescued Toby. He hated her, she hated him right back…didn't she?

"Grrr," she said aloud as the light finally changed, startling the man standing next to her. She offered a weak smile in apology and mumbled something about the rain, but he wasn't waiting around to hear what the crazy growling lady had to say, just strode off the curb, smugly dry under his black umbrella and across the street before she'd even stepped onto the street.

When she did so, still lost in her tangled thoughts, it was at least a minute before she realized it was no longer raining.

And the street had turned to cobblestone beneath her feet.

What really caught her attention, however, was the huge stone wall that suddenly appeared in front of her.

**oOo**

A good two hours passed before Sarah finally gave up on trying to wish her way back home again, or find a way out of the box she found herself trapped in. Because of course once she was pulled up short by the wall in front of her, she'd spun around to find a wall behind her as well. And one on either side, leaving her about forty feet of pacing room in any direction and walls that just kept stretching taller and taller if she tried to jump or climb them, taunting her with a glimpse of cloudless blue sky above that was forever out of her reach.

She'd removed her jacket and was mostly dry again, as much from the relentless heat as from the sudden cessation of rain. She'd tried calling out, but no one answered. She'd tried pressing the various stones to see if any of them might be loose enough for her to push or pull them out, again with zero results.

Right now she was sitting on her jacket, glaring at the wall in front of her and muttering to herself: "It's him, he did this to me, but why? Why wait all this time to bring me back here?"

"Here," of course, had to be the Underground, most likely the Labyrinth, and "him" was the Goblin King. But why? Revenge? If he'd wanted revenge, wouldn't he have come after her sooner? Or maybe her friends were trying to help her and had botched things, trapping her in this stupid stone box instead? "It's a good thing I'm not claustrophobic!" she shouted as her frustration grew to the point where she absolutely had to express it verbally or her head would explode.

Nothing changed; the unseen sun still shone, the blue sky still taunted her, and the stone walls and cobblestones beneath her feet still were still all stony and hard and unmovable.

And her feet were still soaking wet, the one part of her that hadn't dried off in the sun. She kicked off each sneaker and pulled off each black sock, laying them out so the heat could get to work on that part of her wardrobe the way it had already dried out her navy skirt and navy-and-white striped blouse. Work clothes. Of all things to be stuck wearing while trapped in the Labyrinth, she was in work clothes. At least she'd changed into sneakers for the walk to her apartment; she shuddered to think how awful it would be to be stuck in a pair of navy pumps on the uneven footing provided by the cobbles.

Said pumps were resting in her shoulder bag, along with her purse and various other sundries. She'd already tried her pager—no luck there—and even flashing mirror signals with her compact, but that hadn't done any good, either.

So what was she supposed to do now?

Chillingly, she wondered if Jareth had brought her here to die, to roast to death or die of thirst in this giant stone prison. Her chin rose and she glared as if he were staring down at her. Well, if that was the case, he wasn't going to catch her begging for mercy. Besides, she had a water bottle in her bag that was still half-full, so immediate death-by-thirst wasn't upon her.

Of course, just thinking about it made her aware of how dry her throat felt, how the sweat was trickling down her neck and between her breasts and across her forehead. "Roasting" wouldn't be an exaggeration of the temperature. "At least it's a dry heat," she muttered to herself. Humor had always buoyed her once fantasy had shown its grimmer side and any hope of a theatrical career was crushed by her inability to remember her lines from one scene to the next in a school play.

Another hour passed, at least according to her watch. Which, amazingly enough, was still ticking cheerfully away on her wrist and apparently keeping time in spite of them being in a dimension where time ran differently than it did Aboveground.

It was time to give in and finally take a drink from her water bottle. The water was warm, of course, but felt cool on her parched throat. She sucked down almost half of it before remembering that this might be the last water she would ever drink. She hastily set it down and closed it up, then stared in astonishment as it magically refilled itself to the exact level it had been at before she took a drink.

It took Sarah a long minute before she dared reach out and pick the bottle up again. It felt the same, it looked the same, but it definitely had never refilled itself before. She risked taking a small sip and found that the water was now icy cold and delicious, the best water she'd ever tasted. She took a longer sip, then another, until every drop was gone. Then she placed the bottle carefully back on the cobbles and watched.

Sure enough, it refilled itself to the half-way point. Well, good. That meant she wasn't destined to die of thirst. But it still didn't explain why exactly she was here, or if anyone was ever going to come and get her out.

She glared at the walls again, then jumped to her feet, hands on hips. "Well?" she shouted as she looked skyward. "What the hell am I doing here? Jareth, you bastard! Answer me!"

There was a sound like a small explosion, then suddenly she was no longer alone.

The Goblin King himself was standing in front of her.

_Timeline note: "Labyrinth" came out in 1986. This is set seven years later in 1993, so not a lot of cell phones in common use but still lots of pagers, which is why Sarah has one of those._

* * *

><p><em>AN: Here is the first of my two long-promised Labyrinth fics. This one is rated M for the final chapter. I've actually already got the bulk of this thing written, believe it or not, since it plot-bunnied its way into my mind and WON'T LEAVE ME ALONE! (Deep calming breath) There will be only four or at most five chapters, of which one and two are done and three is mostly done and I know EXACTLY how it will end. If you enjoy and review, I will even give out a preview of the other story when I'm finished! That one is much darker than any of the others I've written and Jareth is much more of a villain-in-desperate-need-of-reforming than he is even my story "A Mirror Darkly." But since I am a huge fan of happily-ever-after endings, even that one will work out for our star-crossed lovers. Stay tuned!_


	2. Stuck In The Middle With You

**Part Two: Stuck In The Middle With You**

Sarah gaped at the apparition standing before her, then jumped up as she realized he was swaying on his feet. She just managed to catch him before his eyes rolled up in his head and he crumpled to the ground, folding her arms around him and doing her best to cushion his fall, since there was no way she was keeping the two of them upright without his conscious cooperation.

"Oof!" she grunted as her backside hit the uneven pavement. The stupid Labyrinth had been lined with flagstones the last time, why the uncomfortable little bumps now?

Still, she had other things to worry about at the moment. Namely, an unconscious—or, God, forbid, worse—Goblin King sprawled across her lap, his head resting against her chest in a rather intimate manner. Not that it mattered, not with him out of commission or, or…she reached down with trembling fingers to check the pulse in his neck.

It was beating steadily, just as his chest was rising and falling steadily. Good. So he was just unconscious and not dead. She was surprised at the wave of relief that flashed over her at that thought, then told herself that of course she was relieved; how else was she going to get out of this mess if the Goblin King was dead?

She rolled him onto his back and groped behind her for her jacket. She wadded it up and laid it beneath his head before letting him go and sliding her body out from beneath his. Oh sure, she'd had fantasies about the two of them, but this wasn't exactly how she'd ever pictured herself underneath him.

For one, thing they'd both been wearing a lot less in the way of clothing; for another, he was declaring his undying passion and fully conscious and…and…_Reality! Get back to it!_ she ordered herself sternly as her thoughts threatened to go galloping off in all directions again. Nothing would be accomplished by giving in to panic. Or lust.

Still, she was seriously tempted to kiss him and see if that would wake him up. It worked in fairy tales, didn't it? And right now her life resembled a fairy tale more than anything else.

Just as she bent her head down to his, she saw his eyelids flutter and open. She jerked her head back as if someone had grabbed her ponytail and yanked. Hard. Which was just as well, since the Goblin King was glaring at her as if she were responsible for his predicament.

His next words proved that hunch beyond the shadow of doubt as he levered himself into a sitting position and snarled: "What is the meaning of this outrage?"

If she wasn't sure he recognized her, that doubt was erased as swiftly as it arose. "Well? Say something, Sarah Williams. How have you forced me here?"

"Um, don't you think the better question might be who forced us _both_ here?" she shot back, annoyed by his assumption that this was somehow her fault when it was obviously his. "What kind of magic do you think I have, anyway? Do I look like I want to be stuck in this cozy little prison you've cooked up? Cooked," she added sarcastically, "being the operative word. You could at least turn down the heat a little." There! That would show him she wasn't scared, not of him or the situation in which they currently found themselves.

Well, she hoped it would convince him better than it was convincing her, anyway. However, she suspected her defiance looked to him exactly like what it was: bravado masking a desperate fear.

Mostly it had been a fear that he was behind all this and had something horrible planned for her, but now that fear was rapidly being shoved aside by the newer, more insistent fear that he wasn't behind it after all, in which case they were both in deep doo-doo.

She watched with a sinking sensation as his glare turned to a sardonic smirk. "That's the Sarah Williams I remember," he said, his smile deepening into something dark and seductive and highly unsettling to someone who'd just been trying not to picture him naked. "So defiant, so certain that I'm behind all your troubles." He leaned closer, and she instinctively moved her head back before forcing herself to stop and meet his unwavering gaze with her own. "So wrong," he whispered before pulling back and rising smoothly to his feet.

"And that's the Goblin King I remember," she snapped as she, too scrambled to her feet with far less grace and lot more exasperation. "Self-satisfied and mocking and, and…just plain mean!" she finished, wincing at the slight whine she could hear in her voice. But really, it was too much, all of this was just way too much. "So if I didn't bring us here—and I can guarantee it wasn't me—and you didn't bring us here, then who did? And why the hell would they bother?"

"For many reasons," he replied, surprising her; she hadn't expected any response at all as he gazed searchingly at the sky and the stone walls surrounding them. He bent his head to examine the cobblestone pavement beneath their feet before once again raising his eyes to meet hers. "I have enemies, you have enemies…"

"Me?" Sarah squeaked in alarm. "No way, I don't have enemies…" Well, Janine was still pissed that Sarah had received a promotion and pay hike ahead of her, but that dumpy little mouse was more likely to put salt in Sarah's coffee than whisk her off to the Labyrinth in a fit of jealous spite. And there was Larissa in payroll who still thought Sarah had stolen her boyfriend when Brian had asked Sarah out after dumping Larissa because she was a royal bitch…"Not the kind that could send me here," she amended as Jareth's eyebrows raised themselves in an expression of polite disbelief.

"I don't believe it's an enemy that's done this," he finally said after a long, painful silence, during which Sarah dropped her eyes and took a few steps toward the wall behind her, ostentatiously leaning against it and crossing her arms to show she was just in the mood to lean and not, heaven forbid, making sure no one could jump her from behind.

"Then who?" she demanded, watching him from the corner of her eye as he began pacing restlessly, back and forth, ten steps one way and ten steps another, turn, repeat, turn, repeat.

"The Labyrinth," he finally replied after another long, uncomfortable silence, biting off the words as if it pained him to say them.

Sarah took a few minutes to process that terse response. The Labyrinth. He thought the Labyrinth itself had trapped them here? But why? And how?

Before she could voice either question, another one popped into her mind and out of her mouth. "Why _are_ we still here, anyway?" Even if _she_ didn't have any magic, the Goblin King certainly did, and to spare. "Why haven't you just magicked us away?" Or at least himself. It wouldn't surprise her at all if he left her here to rot.

The scowl he sent her way was even fiercer than the one he'd first worn upon awakening. "Because I can't," he ground out. "Something's blocking my magic."

"Seriously? You can't just…" Sarah wriggled her figures in a "do some magic" gesture. "You really can't just call up a crystal ball and…_sparkle_ your way out of here?"

"Woman!" he roared, his face darkening with a combination of fury and frustration. "Do you truly believe I would leave myself in such a bind did I not have magic at my command to free myself?" Then he added in a sulky voice: "Besides, I don't…" he wriggled his fingers in imitation of her earlier motion and glared before spitting out the word: "_Sparkle_."

Sarah couldn't help the giggle that forced its way free of her lips, but she wisely clamped down on it as Jareth cast a murderous eye her way. "Right, of course you don't," she gasped out when she felt herself able to speak without the laughter bursting free. "I mean, of course you wouldn't stay here if you could just…" she considered her next words carefully, but some devil prompted her to say: "_poof_ your way out of this mess."

It wasn't funny, but it was. They were trapped, seriously trapped, not only in the Labyrinth, but by the Labyrinth as well, if what Jareth was staying was true. Trapped for an unknown purpose, at least, unknown to her. She had a feeling, unsubstantiated but deep in her gut, that the Goblin King knew exactly what was going on. Whether he would deign to fill her in on it or not remained to be seen.

"We are stuck here," Jareth said through gritted teeth, "until the Labyrinth decides to release us." He glared at her as if this was her fault, but she glared right back at him.

"I'm not a stupid teenager anymore," she snapped. "So you can stop trying to intimidate me. Especially if you don't have any magic to back it up."

He moved so quickly it might as well have been magic, and was on her before she could do more than squeak her alarm, his hands grasping her upper arms hard enough to leave bruises, his body pressed tightly against hers, his face inches away from her own. If she'd thought his glare deadly before, she knew now just how wrong she'd been. Suddenly the situation wasn't even remotely funny.

"Even without my magic, Sarah, I am still more than capable of handling you, no matter how many kick-boxing classes you've taken."

That little bombshell distracted her from her possibly even more dire predicament; she stared up at him, outraged. "You've been—_spying_ on me?" she spluttered.

"Sometimes," he admitted without a hint of apology in either expression or tone. He leaned his head even closer to whisper tauntingly in her ear: "Sometimes I've watched you in your apartment. In your bedroom. In the shower. You've certainly…developed…quite nicely."

She struggled furiously in his hold, trying to kick at his legs, shouting at him to let her go, but he simply tightened his grip until she gasped in pain and gave up, glaring at him. "You bastard," she said between clenched teeth. "Let me go."

"Gladly." Suddenly he released her and stepped back, but only a single step. "As long as we understand one another."

"I've never understood you," she spat back, rubbing her arms and maintaining her glare.

Unexpectedly he sighed and turned away. "And that has always been our problem," she thought she heard him murmur as he moved to the opposite wall and rested his back against it, arms folded across his chest and yet another scowl on his impossibly handsome face.

_Yikes, girl, get a grip,_ she warned herself. _Remember he basically just threatened you and you're going to have some lovely bruises to remind you if you start to forget. He's the Goblin King, and even without magic—if he's telling the truth about all that—he's still dangerous._

_Yeah, _another part of her mind purred happily._ Dangerously attractive._

"All right, so how and why did the Labyrinth trap us here?" Sarah asked when it became clear that she would have to be the first to break this latest silence between them. She'd already spent more than enough time brooding on her predicament and now was the time to be practical. "And how can a gigantic maze 'do' anything in the first place?"

"Because the Labyrinth isn't just a 'gigantic maze,'" Jareth replied with an angry glance at the wall just above Sarah's head. At least this time his anger wasn't directed at her. "It's a magical construction, an immensely complex magical construction, that has been in existence for literal millennia. It was created long before I was born and will remain long after I die." He pierced her with his gaze and added: "Long before we both die, I should say. Once something so infused with magic has existed for so long a period of time, it begins to take on a life of its own, becomes more than its creators intended."

Sarah puzzled through that for a long time, unconsciously pacing the same patch of ground Jareth had trod not too long before. "So," she finally said, eyes still on the ground but unfocused, "that means the Labyrinth is kind of a living creature with a will of its own? But I thought you controlled it?" She turned her puzzled gaze on the Goblin King.

He offered an elaborate shrug in response. "As long as my purpose and its purpose remained the same, as long as there was no conflict of wills, only a sort of cooperation between like minds, if you will, it allowed me and my predecessors some measure of control."

He sounded sulky, as if he didn't want to explain even this much to her, but Sarah chose to overlook his tone and focus on what he'd told her.

"So what changed?" she wondered aloud, once again resuming her pacing. "Why is the Labyrinth suddenly forcing us together like this? Is it because I beat it, and what, now its pride is wounded? It wants to punish me for that? And punish you because you let it happen, maybe?" She was groping in the dark, and grumpily wished that Jareth would just help her out. "Am I close? In the ballpark, or totally off base?" She suspected he might not get the baseball metaphors but the gist of what she was asking should be clear enough.

She really, truly didn't think he was going to answer her this time, even though she stopped directly in front of him and waited as patiently as she could manage for him to speak. Meanwhile the sun continued to beat down on them and sweat continued to pour from her body and her clothes continued to wilt and stick to her body while the Goblin King looked as cool and calm as ever.

Even if he'd lost control of his ability to cast spells, she thought grumpily, obviously he still had some kind of control over whether or not he sweated like a pig. It just wasn't fair.

That thought brought her up short; she wasn't about to start acting like her teenaged self just because she was back in the Underground, was she? God, she certainly hoped not, since she'd been such a selfish brat back then. Saving Toby was the best thing she'd ever done in her life, and having to do so had probably saved her from becoming as self-absorbed as her mother.

Wow, that was kind of a life-shattering realization, but before she could ponder it further, Jareth finally spoke, and what he said was so unexpected all unpleasant thoughts of her emotionally and physically absent mother deserted her.

"It's not punishing _you_," he said, his voice low, as if the words were being forced out of him against his will. "It's punishing _me_." He raised his eyes to meet hers, mismatched blue and hazel meeting brown.

She gaped at him, open mouthed, as if just waiting for Mary Poppins to show up and snap: "Close your mouth! We are not a codfish!" When she was able to speak, all she could gasp out was a disbelieving: "What? Why?" then return to staring at the Goblin King as if her wits had completely deserted her.

Which they certainly felt like they had, especially when she saw Jareth drop his eyes and actually look uncomfortable. "It doesn't resent that you bested it, that you bested me, it actually seems to appreciate that you did," he finally mumbled.

"So it shows its appreciation by trapping me here? With you?" Sarah's tone might have been termed "politely disbelieving". Or perhaps "mildly sarcastic." Or better yet, "scoffing".

Jareth shrugged, still looking discomfited, still sounding as if every word were being forced out of him at gunpoint. "If I had to guess, I'd say the Labyrinth thinks it's rewarding you by bringing you back here. You made a wish, didn't you?" he asked shrewdly.

She tried a noncommittal shrug. "Maybe. I might have. In passing. But this isn't exactly what I was wishing for. I mean, great, it brought me back, but I still don't get why it trapped us together if you're the one it's punishing. Which," she interrupted herself to add, " I don't get, either. Why punish you if you were both 'of like minds,' as you put it?"

The Goblin King let forth a long-suffering sigh before answering. "Because I let you leave when it clearly wanted you to stay. Because I failed to convince you to that I really did want you to stay and become my queen."

In a day of mind-blowing revelations, that one about took the top of her head off. "You mean you actually meant that, all that stuff you said when I was here before?"

Jareth offered a half shrug in response. "I realized after you'd returned home and I'd had time to allow my temper to cool that you were woefully unprepared for such an honor at the time. You were too young." A slight sneer lifted the corner of his lip. "I intended to approach you on your 25th birthday, give you ten years of boring mundanity, ten years of missing the Underground. Apparently the Labyrinth decided I was taking too long and took matters into its own hands, so to speak."

Sarah's head was whirling. "So," she said slowly, her eyes studying the pavement at Jareth's feet. "This is, what? The Labyrinth's version of…matchmaking?"

She waited for Jareth to scoff at her, to tell her she was misunderstanding what he was telling her…and another long silence told her that no, her interpretation of things was correct.

When he did finally speak, the words were almost incidental, although they cemented her certainties. "I intended to show you exactly what I had to offer you, Sarah, both my kingdom and my humble self. To make you want to be with me, to stay with me." A husky whisper: "To love me."

Which left Sarah wondering how she felt about having her deepest, darkest fantasies come true. If Jareth was telling the truth, if he really did want her "that way", as her high school friends would have put it, then where did that leave her?


	3. No Way Out?

**Part Three: No Way Out? **

With the abruptness of a candle being snuffed out, darkness fell. No sunset, not gradual day-to-evening, no segue. Just one minute burning, blistering heat, the next, the icy cold of a desert night. Sarah scrambled to pull her coat on over her still-sweat-dampened clothes and blinked to try and get her eyes to adjust. It took a few minutes, but there was a sickle moon and plenty of stars overhead, enough to allow some ambient light to reach the two captives.

It also gave Sarah something to focus on besides her newest dilemma, whether or not it was a good thing that the Goblin King had planned to try and seduce her back to the Underground in the most literal sense possible. That he'd wanted her to be his queen for real, and not just to try and trick her out of saving Toby. It was incredibly flattering, enough to turn a girl's head to a Linda-Blair-Exorcist extreme, but it was also too good to be true.

"If you wanted me to come back, why did you stop my friends from visiting me?" she asked when adjusting to the sudden darkness could no longer be used an excuse to ignore what had been said only moments earlier.

Jareth's answer was the only one she could have predicted today. "Because I wanted you to miss them enough to be willing to come back when I made the offer."

"You mean you wanted to be able to bribe or blackmail me into coming back, don't you?" she asked sarcastically.

"If that was what it took, then yes," was his candid response. "You've never stopped thinking of me as the villain, even though that was who you wanted and needed me to be at the time."

Whoa, since when did he know her so well? She almost asked him, but bit off the question before it could escape her lips and actually tried to work it out for herself first. The more she thought about it, the more she reluctantly came to believe him. She'd always yearned for fantasy world to be reality, and it was obvious he'd somehow recognized that in her, especially since so many elements of her adventure held familiar items from her real life. So maybe, just maybe he was telling the truth…and maybe she just wanted him to be telling the truth because she'd been basically lusting after him for the past seven years.

_Danger, danger! Will Robinson! _ the practical part of her mind sang out. _Here there be dragons! Hoist anchor, matey, there's deep waters ahead. _

But a deeper, much more seductive part of her mind whispered, _So? Even if he doesn't really want you, the Labyrinth does. Which means you can stay here forever if you just say your right words._

But what would be the point, if Jareth was just stringing her along? What if he gave her what she wanted and then left her to her own devices and she never saw him again?

That would be almost as bad as being dumped back Aboveground.

Whoops, there went another deeply-hidden secret out into the open: she didn't want to go back home. Oh sure, she'd miss Toby and her Dad and the occasional visits from her Mom and even (somewhat) her stepmother, but that would be about all she'd miss. On the other hand, all those sex dreams about Jareth weren't just about her libido; there had always been something darkly attractive about him, something that made her want to get to know him better and not just in bed. How had she not realized that before? Maybe the Labyrinth had actually done her a favor by yanking her here and trapping her with him…

"What are you thinking about, Sarah, so quiet in the darkness?"

His voice startled her, but she tried to hide the shakiness in her own voice behind an elaborate casualness when she responded: "Shoes and ships and sealing-wax…"

"Cabbages and kings?" Jareth finished for her. He might not recognize baseball metaphors, but at least he was up on his Lewis Carroll. Before she could comment on that, he added: "I was rather hoping you were thinking of sharing some of your water with me," he continued conversationally, but she could hear the slight rasp to his voice and hurried over to her bag to pull out the water bottle.

"Sorry, I didn't think," she said as she handed it to him, seeing the glint of teeth as he opened his mouth and placed his lips on the spout. It occurred to her that the top of her water bottle, the very tip, the place where his lips were sucking so eagerly was just about the same size as one of her nipples, and felt her mouth go dry at the visual that brought to mind, along with a sudden warmth between her legs.

She shivered, hoping Jareth would attribute it to the coolness of the night. She wasn't ready to voice her desires, not without knowing if he really, truly felt the same way about her.

If he was actually in love with her, the way she'd long ago fallen head over heels for him. Oh, she'd denied it and buried it and called it lust but now she'd named it and now she would own it.

As long as he would do the same. The only question was, how to tell? She had no doubt he could easily be lusting after her, especially if he'd really been watching her when she was naked; she had nothing to be ashamed about as far as her body went. But that wasn't what she wanted, not just a single night with him, not just to get them both released from this stupid stone box.

_Although_, that naughty part of her mind pointed out, _you might just be forced to resort to that and worry about the possibility of "happy ever after" later._

While she'd been arguing with herself, Jareth had apparently drunk his fill; suddenly he was right next to her, his hand on hers, folding it gently around the plastic container. "Thank you," he murmured in her ear, his breath stirring the loose strands of brown hair that had worked themselves free of her ponytail.

She moved away, stammering something about not needing to thank her, it was just common human decency, all he needed to do was ask if he wanted more…

Then he chuckled and moved even closer, reaching out with one hand to caress her cheek. "Am I making you nervous, Sarah? I wonder why that is…"

All his anger at having been trapped seemed to have vanished with the sunlight. She shivered under his touch and tried to move away again, but he suddenly reached out and pulled her against his hard length, wrapping his arms around her, trapping her own arms but not crushing her the way he had earlier. She felt him lean down and press his lips to the nape of her neck; a small moan escaped before she could stop it, and she heard him chuckle in response.

"Are you laughing at me?" she snapped, trying to sound indignant but knowing she was too breathless to pull it off with any conviction. Damn, he was sexy, but was he just doing this to free himself, did he really want her but just for sex, or could she actually believe him when he said he wanted her to be his queen? She wished the doubts would just go away so she could relax and enjoy the moment, but they were screaming at her now, outshouting the part of her mind that was urging her to turn in Jareth's arms and show him exactly what he'd been missing all this time.

"Just enjoying the moment, pet," he replied as if in response to her own thoughts, still in that silky whisper that said he knew exactly how much his closeness was affecting her. As his next words proved. "Why are you fighting this, Sarah? When it's clearly what we both want?"

"Yeah, but how do I know you don't just want this so we can get out of this stupid trap?" she blurted, finally giving voice to her reservations. "How do I know you're not lying about the whole 'I want you to be my queen' thing just so you can get me horizontal? How do I know you're not just making this whole thing about no magic up and didn't actually just zap me here so you can have your wicked way with me and dump me back home after?"

She ran out of breath and words at roughly the same time and stood in his embrace, panting, waiting for his response. Her body was telling her that no matter what lie he told her, she'd better damn well believe it and take what was offered, since it was what she wanted, too, but her stupid brain was still screaming at her to be careful in case it really was all a trick.

"I can prove nothing to you," he replied. "All I can do is show you." With that he turned her to face him, leaning down to plant a soft kiss on her lips.


	4. A Rock And A Hard Place

**Part Four: A Rock And A Hard Place**

The kiss remained soft for, oh, about a nanosecond. Then it deepened, Jareth's tongue darting between Sarah's lips, demanding entry, his hold on her arms tightening as he pulled her even closer to his lean body. She gasped at the invasion, made a half-hearted attempt to pull away, then found herself pressing her own body against his in return, allowing the invasion of her mouth, meeting his tongue's aggressive thrusts with her own, clutching the collar of his white poet's shirt—or was that pirate's shirt?—whatever. The soft, white shirt that was only buttoned about three-quarters of the way up his smooth chest. The white shirt that looked like it would be ridiculously easy to strip off him if it weren't for that stupid black waistcoat or vest or whatever it was he wore over it…

Sarah tried to force her mind back under control again, still not sure what his motives were in seducing her, but it was too late for that. Even as she whimpered in confusion, she felt his hands move from her arms to encircle her body, felt the shaft of heat growing between his legs and against her abdomen, bringing an answering surge of heat between her own legs. When his lips moved from hers to her neck, nipping and kissing, she moaned aloud.

Jareth seemed to take that as all the encouragement he needed to start unbuttoning her blouse, wrenching it down her arms in his eagerness as his lips continued to move southward. Instead of undoing her bra, he simply reached up and pulled the cups down so her "girls" seemed to be thrusting themselves at him, shameless hussies; they'd never been so blatantly flirtatious before, even with the one live-in boyfriend she'd had her senior year in college. And Jareth was just as eager to make their acquaintance as they were to make his, since he'd moved from kissing and nipping to suckling at them as if his life depended on making her nipples hard enough to hang a bathrobe from.

He was succeeding quite well at that, she noted dazedly as she suddenly found herself straddling the Goblin King's lap. He was sitting on the cobblestones, back braced against a stone wall, moving from one breast to the other with enthusiasm and expertise, wringing moan after moan from Sarah's throat while the growing shaft of heat between his legs ground against her own rapidly dampening private parts.

When she felt his hands at the zipper to her skirt, however, some tiny part of Sarah's mind that managed to remain rational decided to make its voice heard. "Jareth, stop," she gasped, but her fingers were busy doing their own thing, nimbly undoing his waistcoat buttons and his poet-pirate shirt buttons and grazing his chest and nipples as if they hadn't received the mental alarm.

Jareth obviously was more interested in what her body had to say than her mouth, since he simply chuckled against her heated flesh before tilting her back so she was lying on the ground. Then her skirt was gone, removed as if by magic, and her pantyhose and undies along with it. He thoughtfully placed all three garments beneath her head before returning his attention to her body. "Magnificent," he breathed, and the rational part that was demanding to be heard suddenly lost its voice in the clamor from her body.

_He's going to go down on you,_ her mind gibbered, while the rest of her went: _Wheeee!_

Then his lips were between her legs, which had fallen open with no direction from Sarah, and his tongue was lapping at the slick moistness seeping out from her female center and she was no longer noticing the uncomfortable cobblestones beneath her body, all her focus and energy and, not incidentally, blood rushing to the apex of legs and torso where Jareth was so busy. She cried out as his eager tongue lashed her clit and one or two of his fingers pressed their way deep inside her, and cried out again as her own fingers entangled themselves in the glorious mane of blonde hair that covered his head. Then she was saying his name, over and over, like a chant or an incantation, interspersed with pleas to heaven and sharp, panting squeals of pleasure as he brought her to the brink and beyond, freeing her completely from any thoughts of where she was or who was doing this to her.

Sarah gasped and shuddered as Jareth raised himself above her, barely noticing that he was now as naked as she, barely realizing that he was positioning himself to drive into her, until with one, quick penetrating move he was deep inside her and the crest she thought was coming to an end was only starting over again. He pressed himself against her, raining kisses on her neck and ears and lips, teasing her with the taste of herself on his tongue, urging her legs to wrap themselves around his waist as he pulled back and rammed himself into her. Her cries of pleasure this time were full-throated screams as she thrashed and moaned and slammed herself up to meet his every thrust.

Then she came for the second time, clutching his shoulders and sucking hard at his neck, hard enough to leave a mark, and he let her, oh God he let her, he let her mark him, he let her, he let her, he let her…

Jareth shuddered and collapsed against Sarah, having reached his own climax, roaring out his satisfaction as he did so. Then he pulled himself back into a sitting position and her with him. Dazed and sated and in no condition to deny him anything, Sarah let him settle her on his lap, his head on her shoulder, her cheek against the top of his even-messier-than-normal hair, waiting for her wildly beating heart to slow down, for her breathing to ease, for the cold night air to once again make itself felt against her heated body.

To her astonishment, before she could do more than take a few shaky breaths, before her muddled mind could try to put together some kind of coherent thought, she felt him harden beneath her, far faster than any mortal man could have recovered from such a shattering experience. At least, faster than any mortal man she'd ever slept with. Which was exactly two. Neither of which had ever managed to leave her feeling so…so…

She couldn't even think of the right word to express how fantastic the sex had been with the Goblin King. And before she could try to come to grips with the suddenness of his recovery, he'd come to grips with her—her hips, to be exact. One in each hand. With a ferocious, triumphant growl, he raised her up and thrust himself inside her for a second time.

She came mere seconds later, when she'd thought all that pounded out of her; after all, how much pleasure could one woman stand?

Apparently it was Jareth's intent to show her, and God help her, she was not likely to refuse him. She should probably be sore and tired, but instead she felt energized, as if every time they made love he was giving more than he was taking. Paradoxically, the same seemed to be true for him as well, because he certainly showed no signs of stopping as he continued to thrust himself deep inside her.

As he continued to say her name, over and over again, like a prayer.

As he gazed at her with feral, possessive eyes that screamed "Mine!" in no uncertain terms.

All he might be feeling was lust, but it was a lust Sarah had never had directed her way before, so primal and overpowering she could almost fear it—almost. Instead, she had the giddy feeling that she could feel that way herself if she would just let go that tiny part of her that still thought this was some kind of trick or trap, that still thought going back to the "real" world was in her best interests.

Snarling, she mentally kicked such thoughts to the curb and abandoned herself to the Goblin King's ministrations. Instead of letting him do all the work, she raised herself to her knees, the better to pound herself down on him, grasping his shoulders, digging her fingernails into his flesh and not caring if she drew blood. She heard him gasp as if shocked at her total abandon, then a fierce smile parted his lips before he wrenched her head to his to plant a bruising kiss on her lips.

When he moved his mouth to the juncture of throat and collarbone, she knew before he sank his teeth into her that he marking her the way she'd marked him, and welcomed the sudden pain as it brought her shuddering over the brink for the fourth time in less than an hour.

With that release came the return of sanity, and she found herself staring warily into Jareth's eyes. She knew what this meant to her, and not just the mind-blowing sex; she knew she would do anything to stay with the Goblin King, and she prayed that his own feelings were similar.

Or else she'd have a long, cold, lonely life ahead of her, whether she stayed in the Underground or not.

* * *

><p><em>Author's Question: Well? Worth the wait? (joking, this is the quickest story I've ever posted besides one-shots) Does he Love her or just Lust her? Will they get a really wonderful happily ever after? (Are you kidding? Have you read any of my other Labyrinth stories?) Tune in next time for the conclusion! (Oh, and remember to leave reviews, they encourage me to write more naughty stuff)<em>


	5. Free At Last

**Part Five: Free At Last**

As Sarah stared into Jareth's eyes, speechless in the aftermath of their epic bout of lovemaking, she realized two things: One, his eyes were gorgeous, and two, she was no longer lying on the rough cobblestones.

When she was able to tear her gaze away from that of the Goblin King, she found her speechlessness continued as she discovered they had somehow been transported to a room with a roof and walls…and a bed, on which she was now lying.

So. A bedroom. Whose? When she turned her head to the side to study the room's details, she instantly knew: _Not mine._ His, perhaps?

"Well. Home at last."

That answered _that_ question. Sarah remained limp on the bed as Jareth removed himself from above her body. She expected him to vanish in a shower of glitter or start gloating that she'd fallen for his plan, but instead he plopped down next to her with what sounded like a relieved sigh. "Thank the Spirits that's over with!"

That brought Sarah to her knees, hands on hips as she glared down on him. "Oh? Really? Sorry to have wasted your time, Your _Majesty_," she snarled, hurting and trying to fight back a sudden rush of tears. "You got what you wanted, the Labyrinth seems to think it got what it wanted, so just go ahead and banish me back to the Aboveground."

She started to push herself off the bed, only to be yanked back down. Hard. Until she sprawled across Jareth's still recumbent form, furious glare meeting furious glare.

"I meant," the Goblin King ground out through clenched teeth, "that I am relieved to be back in my castle, in my bedroom, with my magic restored and the woman I love by my side—er, on top of me," he amended with distinctly amused gleam in his eyes as his mood seemed to turn on the proverbial dime. He eased his death-grip on her wrist and ran the fingers of his free hand through her hair. At some point, she'd lost her scrunchie and the dark strands were free to fall in her eyes.

He'd said it. He'd said the "L" word. Sarah froze, not sure even now if she could believe it or not, but the expression on his face said it all. There was no mockery, no relief, nothing in his eyes or face to contradict the words he'd spoken.

"You mean that," Sarah breathed, still not quite able to make herself believe. "You love me. You love me?" she repeated, still questioning what was right before her eyes.

"I love you," Jareth confirmed. "I've loved you from the first, when you were too young to comprehend adult love or even your own feelings. I would have made you a queen when you were fifteen and I will make you a queen now." His eyebrow quirked upwards. "Of course, only if you feel the same way toward me. You understand, I could not bear to keep you as my bride if twas a sham on your par—mmph!"

His last words were smothered beneath a kiss as Sarah threw her arms around him and tried to show him exactly how she felt. When the kiss ended, both of them breathless and heated and he obviously ready to go again, she finally said the words, repeated them over and over in a kind of chant: "I love you, I love you, I lo—"

Then it was his turn to smother her words in a passionate kiss, his turn to put his arms around her, fingers entwined in her hair as he rolled them over so she was once again lying on the bed. Yes, a bed was definitely more comfortable than cobblestones, she had time to think before he eased himself into her for a fifth—fifth!—round of lovemaking that once again brought her to the edge of ecstasy and over the brink.

**oOo**

"A girl could get used to this, you know," Sarah said as they lazed in an oversized bathtub-hot tub-whirlpool a few hours later. Their epic bout had lasted for the bulk of the night, a record-breaking seven times. Well, record-breaking for her. She wasn't about to open that can of worms by comparing her past love life with that of a semi-immortal Goblin King.

"This girl had very well best get used to it," Jareth replied as he pressed a gentle kiss to her cheek. "Since I intend it to be the way you spend the rest of your life."

Sarah felt her cheeks grow warm but flashed him a sassy smile as she asked: "What, sitting in a sunken bath the size of an Olympic swimming pool? Talk about getting all pruny…"

"Spending the rest of your life in my arms," he growled in response. "And between my legs," he added, grinning his wicked grin as her flush grew and spread and the wetness between her own legs suddenly had very little to do with the hot, bubbly water in which they were currently immersed.

Before Jareth could make good on his obvious intent to once again subject her humble self to another bout of mind-blowing sex, the sound of a discreet cough at the bathing chamber's door caught their attention.

Sarah gasped and sank to her chin in the water. Not that it would do much good, since the water was as clear as glass, but still. It was the principle of the thing. She maneuvered herself so she was behind Jareth, but he foiled her attempts at modesty by displaying his own lack thereof—by rising to his feet, glaring regally at the unfortunate goblin who'd interrupted them and now stood on trembling legs with his face buried in his gnarled hands. "There'saproblemwiththeLabyrinth," he blurted out in one breath.

"What kind of a problem?" Jareth demanded, stepping completely out of the pool, dripping and naked and still managing to look every inch the enraged royal that he was. Sarah gaped at the sight of his tight ass and long legs before returning her gaze to the unwelcome intruder.

"It's…stopped," that poor soul stammered out as the Goblin King continued to glare at him.

"Stopped? Stopped what?" Jareth demanded after a moment, his glare turning to a look of puzzlement that Sarah shared.

"It's just…stopped," the creature repeated with a movement that might have been a shrug. Hard thing to tell his head was still buried in his hands. "That's what I was sent to tell you. The Sages request your presence."

Sarah had time to think that the little guy was remarkably well-spoken for one of Jareth's goblins when he gave a stiff little bow and scuttled out of the room backwards. She heard the sound of a door slamming shut and made her way out of the water. Apparently relaxation time was over.

As Sarah joined Jareth in dripping on the cool blue tile floor, he turned to her, his look of bemusement no doubt matching her own. "Did his words make sense to you?"

She shook her head. With that movement, she suddenly felt her hair and body become dry. In the next moment, both she and Jareth were suddenly reclothed, he in some very regal-looking finery reminiscent of what he'd worn in her peach dream, and she in a long, wine-red gown with long, tight sleeves and a _very_ low neckline.

When she started to object, he placed a finger on her lips. "Shush, my dear. You're my queen now, you must learn to dress the part." Then he kissed her, distracting her from realizing that they'd vanished in a shower of glitter until they'd already arrived at their destination.

She'd thought the squalid little room filled with goblins and chickens (why chickens, some part of her still wondered, even after all these years) had been his throne room.

She'd been wrong. The room they materialized in was much more like the throne rooms she'd envisioned as a child and young woman, and seen depicted in TV shows and movies. Glittering with gold and silver, draped with silk and velvet, fine marble beneath their feet and gracing the columns that rose to dizzying heights above them.

The throne itself, however, was the same semi-circular stone thing he'd been sitting in the last time she visited. Stone, she realized with a flash of insight, that looked very much like the stone walls of the Labyrinth. It was draped with a layer of black satiny material that looked very nice once Jareth planted his royal butt on it. For Sarah he indicated a delicate white lacy-looking thing to his right that covered some kind of backless seat. She sat down, expecting to feel hard stone but instead pleasantly surprised at how cushy it was.

Jareth snapped his fingers and the empty room immediately filled with a crowd of chattering, shrieking goblins. With a disgusted "Wrong!" he snapped them again and the crowd vanished. The third time he snapped his fingers, a row of serious-looking men and women appeared. Well, Sarah supposed they were men and women; some of them weren't exactly human. At any rate, they all looked as old as Methuselah and clutched scrolls and books to their collective chests.

"Well?" Jareth snapped, glaring into each set of eyes one at a time. To their credit, not one dropped their gaze. "What is worth interrupting my wedding night?"

Wedding night? When had they had a wedding? Sarah knew her memory of certain parts of the past twenty-four or however many hours might be hazy, but she doubted she'd forget a wedding ceremony. Now, however, was not the time to bring it up, not with some kind of problem with the Labyrinth for Jareth to deal with.

"The Labyrinth, Sire," one of the human-looking guys murmured, pushing his glasses up his…beak? Nose? nervously. "It's stopped."

"So I've been informed," Jareth replied. "I would appreciate an explanation from one of you as to exactly what that might mean."

A second Sage spoke up. This one looked as human as Sarah's father. Or grandfather. Or great-grandfather. Human and really, really old. But his voice was strong and firm as he answered his king's question. "All activity has stopped, Your Majesty. The runner has been returned home with his unwanted sibling, the Cleaners have returned to their niches without being ordered to, and the Bog of Eternal Stench…" He paused as if unable to figure out what to say next. Or perhaps for drama.

Either way, Jareth thundered: "Has what?"

To which the old man blurted out: "Stopped. Stopped stinking," he added hastily as Jareth's face darkened.

Not that Sarah blamed him; she was getting kinda tired of the word "stopped" herself. Especially since it had stopped her from finding out what it would be like to make love while submerged in hot…bubbly..steamy…water… Mentally she slapped herself. _Focus!_

Jareth seemed to have no trouble doing so, although he definitely seemed to be having trouble with the concept of the Bog of Eternal Stench no longer…stenching. If that was even a word.

"When did all this happen?" he asked slowly as he sank back down onto his throne, head lowered as if in contemplation of his loosely-clasped hands.

"The moment you were returned to your chambers," one of the old ladies put in. She looked completely human if you ignored the fact that her skin was green and her hair appeared to have branches and twigs growing out of it. "We waited to confirm what we were hearing before, er, interrupting you."

"Couldn't you have waited another half-hour?" Jareth muttered beneath his breath, slanting an exasperated glance at Sarah, the only one who could possibly have heard him. She smothered a grin and waited to see what exactly all this meant. At least, she hoped it meant something, and not something bad, as she was beginning to fear. Had the Labyrinth somehow overextended itself when it stole her away and stopped up Jareth's magic?

Apparently he needed some time to think about it, because Jareth's next move was to rise to his feet and dismiss the Sages. "You will be informed when things have been set aright," he pronounced, and with a snap of his fingers he and Sarah once again found themselves alone.

He turned and offered his hands. She allowed him to pull her to her feet, then gasped as he immediately swept her into his arms for a passionate kiss. When the kiss ended with him nibbling on her neck, licking delicately at the bruise he'd given her earlier and that she belatedly remembered now that it was too late to cover it up in front of the Sages, she pushed him back. "Aren't you supposed to be doing something about the Labyrinth?" she asked, studying him for signs that he'd somehow lost his mind.

He sighed, a resigned sound. "I know what's wrong with it," he mumbled as he tried to press his lips against her neck again.

She shoved her hand up between them, not that she wanted to, but she wanted an explanation more. "Well?" she demanded. "What is it? Can you fix it?"

Another sigh, and Jareth dropped his hold on her, folding his hands behind his back and pacing down the three steps to the floor of the throne room. Which had suddenly shrunk in size and looked like its old, messy, self, minus goblins and chickens and all the regal trappings it had formerly sported. "No, I can't fix it," he finally said as he came to a stop and looked directly up at her. "Only you can."

"Me? What can I do?" Sarah asked, her voice squeaking with alarm.

"Tell it you forgive me and will stay here, with me, as my queen."

"I thought it figured that out when it let us out of that trap it had us in," Sarah said slowly, her mind whirling. Wow, how many shocks could one girl take in a twenty-four-or-so hour period? "Why the temper tantrum now?"

Jareth pursed his lips, looked to one side, and fidgeted uncomfortably. "It might still be a little perturbed with me for banishing your friends," he mumbled, still not meeting Sarah's gaze. "So if you could be so kind as to announce your forgiveness to me in a loud, firm tone, that might do the trick."

Sarah sat down abruptly. This time, the stone seat wasn't quite as cushy as before. "You banished them? I thought you just stopped them from seeing me!"

Jareth had the grace to look guilty. "The only way to do that was to banish them. Temporarily," he added as Sarah's expression darkened. He reached down, and when he held his hand back up, it held three crystal balls. "Look, they're perfectly fine. Even the gardener," he added with a sneer as he glanced into one of the balls where a miniature figure stood waving a fist at him. "See?" He held it up higher.

Sarah fairly flew down the steps in order to get a closer look. In one crystal a miniature Hoggle did, indeed, appear, wearing a scowl on his face that melted into a smile as he caught sight of Sarah. In the second crystal she saw Ludo, waving both arms at her, and in the third Sir Didymus and Ambrosius pranced about excitedly.

With an exclamation of distress, Sarah snatched the crystals from Jareth's hand. Without even thinking about what she was doing, she clutched them to her chest. "Let them go!" she shouted.

There was a sound like a thousand mirrors breaking, the room shook beneath their feet, and when Sarah blinked her friends stood before her. The crystals which had trapped them were gone, but she hardly took in that fact as she was engulfed in the best group hug she'd ever taken part in.

None of them noticed that Jareth had vanished.

**oOo**

It seemed like hours passed before Sarah once again appeared in Jareth's private chambers. When she did peek her head around the corner of the door, she was thankfully alone. However, he braced himself for her wrath; after all, he'd deliberately neglected to tell her about the banishment. When he'd done it, he'd wanted everyone who loved Sarah to feel as bereft and lonely as he had.

Now she was about to unleash her temper on him, no doubt, and a fine temper she had once it was roused. He almost smiled reminiscently at how her passions could be equally roused, but quashed it. Now was the time to be humble, to beg her forgiveness if that was what she demanded of him, to apologize to those louts she called friends if she demanded that. Anything to get her to stay with him, to get the Labyrinth to believe she was staying and thus go back to work. He'd get over the humiliation eventually, as long as she still loved him and would remain as his queen.

He doubted, however, that he'd ever get past the humiliation of having been the first and only Goblin King to preside over a complete work stoppage of the Labyrinth. Ever.

Sarah continued into the room until she stood directly in front of him. He was sitting on the low ottoman in front of the bedroom's oversized fireplace, and turned his back on it to face her.

"You stuck them in crystals," Sarah finally said when the silence had stretched longer than he felt comfortable with. He nodded a cautious agreement; there was no point in denying the obvious.

She turned and paced deliberately toward the bed, Jareth eyeing her warily the entire time. She stood with her head bowed, hands lightly resting on the sumptuous coverlet, her back to him, for moments that stretched like hours.

When she finally broke the silence he remained frozen in place, not sure he was hearing her correctly. "So? Can we get back to our honeymoon already?"

Sarah peeked over her shoulder and grinned at the expression of stunned incredulity on Jareth's face. Ha, she got him but good. He'd probably expected her to have a temper tantrum and there was a huge part of her that wanted to, but honestly, she knew how it would work out in the end. And when he demanded an explanation of her, she grinned even wider as she settled onto the edge of the bed, leaning back on her hands. "Look, Jareth, we both know how this is going to turn out. I yell at you, you tell me you're sorry but don't really mean it because you never liked my friends in the first place, right? So then we fight, I call you names, you get so worked up that all you want to do is shake me, you take me by the arms and I melt like a Hershey bar on a hot sidewalk in July and forgive you, so why not skip all the drama and go right for the make-up sex?"

He was on her in the blink of an eye, literally. Pressing her back onto the bed, leaning over her, peering doubtfully down at her…wait, doubtfully? He was supposed to be kissing her by now, what was the hold-up?

"Sarah, is this some kind of trick?" he demanded hoarsely as he stared searchingly into her eyes. "You truly have it in your heart to forgive me?"

She tried to shrug, hard to do in a prone position, but she thought she got her point across. "They didn't suffer, right? They said so. Then I explained to them about the Labyrinth trapping us both and that you called our time together our wedding night, and they all stopped bad-mouthing you and started apologizing to me and calling me their Queen—and when," she interrupted herself to demand, "exactly did we get married? Because I may have a few gaps in my memory of the past day or however long its been, but I definitely don't remember saying 'I do' to you or anyone else."

Jareth's smile was radiant as he answered her. "We were wed, my lady, as soon as you allowed me to join my body to yours. All the land knew of it, that the Goblin King had finally found his Queen, or so I've been told," he added wryly. "There will be a ceremony later, of course, a combination wedding and coronation, but that is a mere formality."

"Every girl's dream," Sarah said, not quite managing to make it sound like the sarcastic comment she wanted it to be. Because every little girl dreamed she was a princess at least once in her life, and Sarah had cherished such dreams long into adolescence. "So I guess that's it, then," she murmured, but Jareth shook his head, his expression instantly turning serious.

"Not quite. There's still the matter of the Labyrinth. It's still stopped," he reminded her.

"Oh, yeah, right. That," Sarah conceded as she stared up at him with a teasing smile. "How did you put it? Say I forgive you in a loud, firm voice?"

As she spoke, her hands had wandered from her waist to his, and from there to a certain point due south of his elaborate silver belt-buckle. The bulge beneath his form-fitting trousers was every bit as firm as she remembered it to be. Jareth sucked in a breath, begging her with her eyes to say the words that would set the world back in order, and after a deliberate pause, she did so. "Yes, Jareth," she said, in a loud, firm voice. "I forgive you for banishing my friends, especially now that they've been restored to their rightful places and you've agreed to compensate them for the unjust punishment you set upon them."

"Finally," Jareth muttered, then did a visible double-take as her final words sank in. "Sarah," he growled, but she merely smiled up at him sweetly, batted her eyelashes, and waited. "Fine," he agreed, still in a growly-bear voice. She brushed her fingers up and down his rapidly hardening shaft and the growl turned into a demand as he pressed himself against her and kissed her hard enough to leave a bruise.

Like she cared.

No, right now all she cared about was getting her clothes off, getting Jareth's clothes off, and making use of his sumptuous, oversized canopied bed. Maybe this time they'd even make it beneath the covers…no, not this time.

"Next time," she would have been heard to mutter if anyone had dared to be listening in on the Goblin King and Queen making love in their private chambers. And although the Labyrinth was discovered to be back to normal within minutes of Sarah entering said chambers, no one was stupid enough to interrupt them with the good news.

Not even Sir Didymus.

* * *

><p><em>AN: Apologies for the long delay. Unfortunately my grandfather passed away on April 28 after a brief illness. He was 95 and led a long, full life. I miss him, but I'm finally back writing again. Hope you enjoyed this story and that the ending was worth waiting for._

_And now, as promised, here is a preview of my next Labyrinth story, "Forbidden Fruit". Just a taste of a much darker story._

**Forbidden Fruit – A _Labyrinth_ Love Story**

She survived the Labyrinth, she defeated the Goblin King, she rescued her baby brother and made her way safely home again. She partied with her new friends for an hour before sending them back through the mirror and into their own realm, giving her exactly another fifteen minutes to revel in the feeling of being utterly in control of her own fate before her father and step-mother returned home, and she was plunged back into the cold reality of being a fifteen year-old girl in a mundane world.

However, she was a fifteen-year-old girl who'd received a unique perspective on life, and was determined to do her best with the life she had rather than mooning after something that might never be. Maybe one day she'd follow in her mother's footsteps and become a famous actress, but for right now she had a home and a family and most importantly, a baby brother who needed her to be there for him.

With all that on her mind, it was no wonder that another three months passed before she realized she'd returned from the Labyrinth with an unexpected—and unwelcome—souvenir.

It took two more months before she was willing to accept the unacceptable; to realize that what she'd thought had happened only a dream was, instead, terribly real.

She might even have gone on trying to deny what was happening to her, the way her body was changing, if she hadn't fainted in gym glass and been brought to the nurse's office.

And if the nurse hadn't said those six simple words that turned her world upside down: "How far along are you, Sarah?"


End file.
