Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the world they hail from. Those belong to the various rich people who can afford lawyers.

Pairing: Pretty obvious by now! Jareth/ Toby slash.

Author's Note: Oh God! We're finally on the last fiction of the series! I feel so... sad. But do not cry, sweet readers, for we have two pig-headed people who still need to be reminded of how they got three beautiful children in the first place. As the title says, it is now TEN YEARS AFTER the last fic ended.

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"Dad, it's not fair!"

Toby looked up from his sketchpad and almost smiled. His son was standing in the centre of the room in a fine temper, two angry spots of colour on his sharp cheekbones, his blue eyes snapping with fire. Toby raised an eyebrow at the tall, dark-haired male standing in the doorway. "Well, Fiorle? How have you insulted Prince Aidan this time?"

Fiorle came in with a laugh and ruffled the boy's hair as he passed, shoving Toby's feet off the second chair to sit down. "Not at all, my Lord," he grinned back, "Prince Aidan merely wanted to ride the stallion."

Toby nodded and turned back to the infuriated Prince still standing there. "Aidan, you know you can't ride that stallion yet; Fiorle hasn't tamed him. Besides, he's far too big for you."

"I can ride him," Aidan insisted obstinately.

"No, you can't," Toby said firmly.

"It's not fair!"

Blue eyes looked to blue eyes. "And we both know what your father would say about that, don't we?" Toby said gently. Aidan looked instantly chastised, anger draining away almost at the very mention of his father. Toby studied that phenomenon eagerly, pondering it with narrowed eyes. It had been happening far too often lately. "Aidan, is there something you want to talk about?"

"No..."

Fiorle obligingly rose and made to leave the room on his own accord. He didn't want to intrude. It was rare that Aidan spent any mornings with his dad and the fae knew just how much Toby wanted to get to the bottom of the problem.

"You know, if there's something bothering you, then I want to help," Toby murmured, putting his sketchpad on the desk and turning to offer his hand and a seat, "You've not looked very happy for days now, love."

"Don't call me that." The gripe was half-hearted at best. Aidan sat down and twisted his hands nervously in his lap, a gesture he had picked up from his dad naturally because his father would never show discomfort in another's presence, oh no!

Toby took the opportunity to really study his son, searching the pale skin with his eyes for hidden bruises or dark shadows on the sculptured features. They were very fine features, too. Not quite like Jareth, but then nothing like him either. Apparently Toby's grandmother had looked a lot like that. Aidan was all of fifteen now, and would be sixteen in a short time. Mostly a man, though more vulnerable at fifteen than any of the mortals Toby remembered.

"I am not a child."

Toby blinked. That was it? "You're not, no. Why? Do you feel you are treated as one?"

Aidan shrugged. "Not you so much. I wish you would let me ride the stallion though." He looked up pleadingly but didn't expect his dad to take the hint. Toby didn't. "Well, mostly Father- he doesn't seem to realize that I'm only eleven months younger than Arradine. He treats her like a grown-up. Why not me?"

Ah, Toby sighed internally, the enigma of Jareth the Goblin King. He wouldn't know though; he hadn't seen Jareth in person for over a year. "Aidan, you are still only fifteen. Arradine has reached her sixteenth year. And- terrible though it sounds- your father has to treat her like an adult because she is the heir. She needs to learn how to run the Kingdom."

Aidan snorted derisively. "Father will outlive us all," he snapped, "I sometimes wonder if he's a vampire. He never seems to change at all!"

"Aidan!" Toby was not accustomed to such venom from the young immortal. Aidan tended to be the most gentle out of all of them.

Arradine was a little lady with a short temper and too much energy. She was Jareth in a nutshell with her impulsive dash from one end of the Castle to the other, and the arguments! Toby could hear them all the way up in his room. After the one on her fourteenth birthday, he had flatly refused to involve himself again. It didn't help Arradine's case that she had as sharp a tongue as her father and a sense of self just as enormous.

Aidan, on the other hand, was surprisingly reserved. He didn't seem to speak much or volunteer to meet people he didn't know. He tended to secrecy and for some reason Toby suspected that he didn't quite like being noticed. But for all that he was proud and just as arrogant as Arradine. The pair of them had once faced down a troll from the plains and glared it into confusion until Jareth had found them and whisked them both away. That was one time Toby had thought the Goblin King would really spank his children.

And then Ereditha... what could one say about his third and most voluble child? She was sunshine! She never stopped smiling, she never stopped laughing, she was always chattering until someone eventually asked her to please let them get a word in edge-wise. And then she would just look at them with summer sky blue eyes, all bewildered innocence and adorable confusion. Adorable nothing! His little Red was a fraud if he'd ever seen one! She loved to get her own way and since Toby and Jareth were the only ones seemingly inured to her trickery, she was on the fine line between blessed and spoilt.

"Dad, are you even listening to me? Perhaps I should return when you have stopped dreaming quite so much," Aidan called, leaning forward to wave a hand over Toby's face.

Strong fingers shot up and grabbed his hand by the wrist and Toby smiled. "Your reflexes are not as good as they should be, Aidan."

Aidan squirmed. "But I wasn't ready. You can't just grab me like that! It's not fair..." he stilled and turned pink, "All right, I understand."

Toby let go and watched his ruffled offspring smooth his feathers down. It was quite amusing, really. With Aidan, there were only two things to know to keep him in line- his complete dislike of doing something to dishonour his family, and his absolute adoration of his father. "So what has the Goblin King done to frustrate you this time?"

"Nothing. I am not frustrated. I only wish he would stop treating me as if I were ten."

'He needs a childhood... I will not hide him in a treasure chest, but I will protect him from growing old too soon...'

Toby remembered that conversation; just one of many in which Jareth had refused his pleas to let the kids travel with him through the kingdom.

"Aidan, you know why he does that, don't you?" Aidan shrugged again, eyes firmly to the floor. "At the risk of sounding like a complete sap, your father does love you. He only wants to let you enjoy your life while there is still time. Arradine cannot do that because there is much she needs to learn, but you can. And he wants that for you. Maybe if you tell me what sparked off this tirade? It wasn't just the stallion, was it?"

Aidan went red. "It- it was the stallion," he admitted slowly, "Father spent a lot of time with it last evening. It seems he is a- a close friend, a horse friend who came to Father for help. He forbade me to ride him."

"Oh." Now how had that escaped them? This black stallion had come barrelling into their stables like the hounds of hell were nipping at its heels and after several unsuccessful attempts to set it free, Toby and Fiorle had decided to keep it. Only to find that it didn't want to be tamed at all. No one knew what the bloody thing wanted. It seemed it had wanted his bond mate. "Hopefully, it will leave then. We really don't have the space for it."

Aidan sat back and nodded absently while the mortal picked up the sketchpad again, completing a brief preliminary sketch of a painting he was planning. It looked pretty good. Perhaps a little too mystical, but that was only because mortals seemed to like it that way. His dad would send it to his Aunt Sarah, who would sell it and then the money was split between the two. It provided what his Dad called 'a little nest egg' for both families. "So I suppose you won't let me ride him either?"

"Your Father? You'll have to ask him that," Toby smirked, "I'm sure he'll take precious time away from his Labyrinth to turn into a horse so you can practise racing him."

Aidan gurgled and stood up, stretching cat-like and long before making his graceful way to the door. "I'll just go tell him your suggestion, then. I'm sure he will do it in a snap."

Toby grinned for the sake of his son but they both knew too well that the joke would fall sadly flat. The Goblin King and his consort were as far separated from each other as the Castle would allow. Toby occupied a beautifully appointed suite of room somewhere in the opposite direction of the Royal suite, and his children's rooms were placed with him. They never spoke; they never met. The bond had been denied to the point where neither felt it any more. And even if Aidan was too young to hear the rumours, Toby wasn't; Jareth had apparently taken other lovers during the ten years they'd spent apart. The marriage was as over as it could get.

Aidan left quietly, knowing Toby needed to be left alone when that particular look came to his eyes. But not before warning Fiorle in a low undertone of the situation that the fairy was walking into. Fiorle nodded understandingly but entered in any case, shutting the door and leaning against it as he gazed at his friend and Lord.

Toby looked up ruefully. "I never get him out of my head, do I?"

"It is never easy when you love someone."

Toby considered that statement. He wouldn't delude himself that he wasn't still in love. But love wasn't always enough. "You say you've never been in love, so how would you know?"

The dark-skinned fae with his dark hair and deep brown eyes smiled cheekily. "Must I tell you about Druimerk again? Or the love of the beauteous Nirmorgan for her darling Verdos? Honestly! Are you a man or a youth that you still sigh over love stories?"

"I do not," Toby protested, "But if you could tell it to me again... I like the sword fight in the middle. And the boat chase across the Sea."

"And the love scenes at the beginning, middle and end?" Fiorle teased.

Toby had the grace to blush furiously. "So I like it," he growled defiantly, "So what? I'm not exactly getting champagne and roses up here, am I? Nice to know someone else can have a happy ending."

Fiorle sobered slightly, knowing that Toby was not upset by being pushed to this admission, but also knowing it would sadden his spirits. He hadn't expected to find much in common with a mortal when he had first accepted the Goblin King's offer of a job, but the small golden creature he had been presented to was a fine friend through the years.

He opened his mouth. "It began, my Lord, when Nirmorgan rode out one day on a noble steed..."