Thursday descended into dusk in shades of gold and indigo, accented with a pale moon. Sarah cleared the dishes – out of leftovers and unwilling to get takeout again, she'd been forced to cook – with a sense of serenity. Dinner, though emphatically mediocre on an empirical basis, had been considerably improved by Jo's conversation. She'd found a guide to spiders of the Northwest at the school library and, with Jareth still in bed from the iron-sickness, waxed eloquent at Sarah about it.

She found herself slowly relaxing under the child's attention – Jareth had almost led her to forget what it felt like to have her daughter to herself and, while she couldn't begrudge him what affection he could find, the feeling came as a relief. She'd never considered herself a jealous person, she mused, as she deposited a saucepan in the sink. Like a low-grade headache, it had snuck up on her.

Jo trailed in from the kitchen, bearing their plates and the tail end of a ramble about spiders.

"-and most house spiders can't even bite you, and they're supposed to be inside because they adopted that way."

"Adapted, sweetie. Did you get the cups?"

"Mhm! Can I go upstairs and read now?"

"I don't know." Sarah smiled over her shoulder as she turned on the tap. "Can you?"

"…may I?"

Laughing, she knelt and pulled Jo into a hug.

"Absolutely. I'll bring up snack in an hour, okay?"

"Okay! I love you, mommy."

She gave Sarah a kiss on the cheek and darted off before she had a chance to respond, either to the kiss or to the first time in a year she'd been mommy instead of mom. Beaming, she touched the spot Jo had kissed, as if to rub it in, then rose to do the dishes.

The phone chose that moment to shrill obnoxiously. She sighed and resigned a few moments of her evening to dealing with a telemarketer. No point in being rude to someone just doing their distinctly unexciting job.

"Hello?"

"Good evening, Sarah! Do you have a moment?"

"Of course!" Ebullience came rushing back. "Of course I have time, Karen! Thank you for asking, though. How have you been?"

"I have been running around like a madwoman! Your father's insisting on building a boat in the garage, did he manage to tell you or did he email you gibberish again?"

"Gibberish. He uses acronyms only he understands."

"Of course he does. You're supposed to read his mind, you know," said Karen tartly, winning laughter that would have horrified a teenage Sarah. The first time she'd met Jareth, she'd have missed her stepmother's dryly amused affection and bristled with indignation on her father's behalf.

Or maybe she would have raged at him for marrying such a ghastly harridan. She couldn't say; it is a tight fit, for forty to wear fifteen's shoes. Floor cool beneath her feet, she wandered happily into the living room and flopped over the back of the sofa.

"Have you been knitting?"

"Crocheting." Affection leaked through sternness. "I'm working on Jo's present. What's her spider du jour?"

"Wolf spider. She wants one. Passionately."

"Well, I'm not making her a spider. Has she been behaving?"

"More or less. She broke my phone, accidentally…I was going to make her save up to buy my new one, but Amelia convinced me to get a Droid so now she's only paying half."

"Oh dear, how's she doing? Mooched to Andrew yet?"

"Not allowed to mooch, but she's already brought me fifty dollars anyway. I think it's Jareth's fault, but I've no idea how."

"Savings?"

"Doesn't have any."

"Not smart. Is he behaving himself?"

"Not his fault. And yeah, he's been sick the last few days…he's an ass, but Jo likes him." Did her voice leak affection if you listened closely, like Karen's did?

"He sounds," her stepmother told her aridly, "like a nice ass."

"Says you. You haven't met him."

"Do I get to?"

"Karen…." A measure of joy escaped on a quiet sigh. "You know I can't come for the holidays, and I don't plan on keeping him forever."

"Oh, that's too bad. He sounds nice."

She puffed out a breath of exasperation and hoped the noises from the kitchen couldn't hear her stepmother playing matchmaker. Of course he'd choose now to wander downstairs for the first time in days.

"You're just saying that because he annoys me, and you know it."

"Of course. And because Jo likes him."

The noises in the kitchen had stilled; slowly, they resumed as conversation turned to work. Karen, in her late sixties, still worked full-time, not counting seminars and volunteering. Sarah worried, but that, too, had become old hat. Any admission would get a tart inquiry into her own workaholic tendencies during Jo's absences, and they both knew it.

Jareth emerged from the kitchen near the end of their conversation, bearing a mug; Sarah shot him a mutely questioning look, to which he smiled blandly, placed the mug on the end table beside her, and wandered off again. She watched him go while she said her goodbyes and then, closing her eyes, leaned thoughtfully back on the couch. Karen had gone from nemesis to friend, sometimes mentor, occasionally even parental figure; Sarah enjoyed talking with her, both on virtue of that and in pride at the work both of them had done to get there. This conversation, however, had left her restless and longing. Ever since she'd acquired a job with which she could afford to, she'd gone home for the holidays.

When she looked up, Jareth had settled across from her, regarding her quietly over the rim of his own mug. A certain stillness occupied the cast of his face. She did not feel pressed to respond immediately, and instead reached over to pick up her mug and take a deep breath of its aromatic steam. To her surprise, he'd made mulled wine, a winter drink. She took a sip, then, reflecting upon how he wrapped around the warm mug, passed him the toast blanket. He greeted it with a guarded smile, set down the mug and, studiously, cocooned himself in it, while Sarah drank more wine and the amusement within her grew until she blurted, voice permeated with barely concealed laughter, "What did you do?"

"The dishes?" He blinked at her, with an entirely un-Jareth-like smile full of disarming innocence. Snickering, she decided to play along. No point in dwelling on the Cleaners.

"Not that, silly."

"I made drinks. Do you not approve?" Almost she might have believed him sincerely, irritably crestfallen. The man pouted at her, and she couldn't help laughing.

"Jocelyn handed me fifty dollars earlier."

"Splendid! The young lady exhibits excellent financial discretion."

Sarah very nearly entertained a stint as a nasal wine fountain.

"She gets five dollars a week and it hasn't even been a week. What did you do?"

Disappointment elevated his eyebrows.

"Now now, Sarah," he nearly bit her name into two syllables, as he had when he was king, "I promised not to aid and abet."

"Not going to aid and abet, my ass," she snorted.

The angled brows just about vanished into his hairline. Smugly, he beamed at her.

"Oh, I don't remember saying anything about that…"

Sarah at fifteen would have blushed, squeaked and fled; Sarah at sixteen would've flung a pillow at him. Sarah at forty smiled archly.

"Are you implying it needs the help?"

Jareth, grinning into his mug, hadn't the grace to blush.

"No, but a gentleman simply must offer. She has been mowing the neighbours' lawns. Walking their dogs. What-have-you."

My ass? thought Sarah irrationally, still highly amused, while her brain scrambled a hundred eighty degrees back to her original question. As realization dawned, her laughter changed tone completely. He glanced up in surprise at her obvious approval.

"You encouraged her to take odd jobs while I was at work?"

The shut-down came immediately – a subtle, unmistakable shift from hope to resignation. He nodded, expelling a deep breath, no longer meeting her eyes; Sarah felt her conscience twist painfully. Unfolding from the sofa, she gently took his mug and put it on the coffee table – he stared up at her, all worried dread – sat down on the arm of the chair, and took his hand in both of hers.

"Thank you."

His odd eyes scanned her face anxiously while she spoke. Then his expression melted into smug serenity. If she hadn't watched him so closely, she would have missed the fleeting look of raw, pleading relief.

"You're…" His voice faltered as she hugged him, "You're welcome."

This time, he didn't freeze as he had before, but nestled close and wrapped an arm around her. She sighed quietly at the simple pleasure of affection. For once, she wouldn't try to talk herself out of it. His hair, under her hand, felt like rough-spun silk; between the way he leaned into her hand, and the happy humming sigh that echoed hers, she half expected him to purr. Sarah nuzzled into his hair and attempted to reconcile herself with the fact that – at least caught in a good mood – the former Goblin King was sweet.

She thought he'd fallen asleep on her. Certainly, drowsiness had settled heavily over her within a few moments, and he certainly had more to be tired about. Either he'd only dozed off slightly, though, or overnight he'd become a rather imaginative sleep-talker. Either way, she missed most of what he said.

"What was that, again? I'm sorry."

"You shall have to introduce me to your…international cobweb…thingy."

"Thingy?" she inquired, blinking another sort of cobwebs from her brain; then, suppressing laughter, "thingy?"

"Absolutely. Very technical term, far more specific than wotsit and only slightly less so than thinamagig."

"Oooh, fancy! I always thought it was the other way around." Sobering, she folded his hand in hers. "I will teach you to use the internet, though. May I ask why?"

To judge by his voice, he smiled grimly.

"Citizenship papers. The process takes a while, yes?"

"Yes." She nodded pensively and nuzzled into his hair. "I'll go get my computer, okay?"

"All right."

It would have taken willful contrariness to interpret his hesitation to let her go as anything but utmost reluctance. She didn't want to pull away, either, and lingered for a moment; in the doorway, she turned back to watch him. He looked almost mundane in Karen's toast blanket, nursing his mug.

"Jareth?"

"Yes?"

"You're doing well. I'm proud of you."

Before he could make her regret saying that, she slipped off to get her laptop.