Author's Note: Hey guys, thought I'd let you know that the song the music box is playing in this chapter is David Bowie's 'Bring Me The Disco King' (Lohner Mix). Here's a link (just remove the spaces): www .youtube watch ?v=b2gMMZB0FaU

Just in case you feel like listening as you read. :)

Kit xx

Sarah spent the next morning outside reading a book. Smiling, she'd thought about how wonderful it felt to be out in the open again. But after eating lunch with Jareth, she decided to go back to her room with her book. She stayed there for a while- she left the door open however; that was one of the best things about being away from the Institution- about being free. She could be alone in a room and not feel confined.

After some time, Sarah felt like stretching her legs though, so she walked out into the corridor. She looked around the small hallway in front of her and sighed. She couldn't help but wonder what was inside the other rooms beside hers; and, even though Jareth had warned her against going into them, she thought that it was about time that she investigated.

Trying the doors, she found that all but three of them were locked. The only room she could get into, apart from the bathroom and the door that Jareth had led her through before, was another bedroom. As she stepped inside, Sarah noticed that it was almost identical to hers. Same walls, same bed, there was only one minute exception.

There was a small silver box on a bedside table. In Sarah's opinion, such a thing was intriguing and seemed somewhat out of place. Tilting her head to the side, Sarah knelt down by the silver box and opened it, only then to discover that it was a music box.

It wasn't the typical plinking of keys that sounded though. This was different; as if the music box was more of a record player than the trinkets she'd kept in her bedroom. Sarah had never heard the song before, but it sounded familiar somehow; and it took her a moment to figure out why. It sounds like Jareth, she thought.

If she was being honest with herself, Sarah would admit that she was entranced by the music. She didn't quite comprehend what the music was doing to her however, because before she knew it, Sarah was standing up and swaying in a kind of dance. She didn't know why; the music was just...

Sarah couldn't explain it; but why not dance? What was stopping her? She hadn't danced properly since... since she and Jareth had danced in that crystal ballroom. It only made sense to dance now on her return to the Underground, didn't it?

The door opened, though Sarah took no notice of it, and Jareth walked in. Hearing the music and stopping immediately, the Goblin King simply stared as he found Sarah inanely spinning around with her arms outstretched. He had been coming to see her, but on hearing the noise, he had stopped to investigate.

He knew that there should have been no noise coming from this room and it put him on edge to detect it. Jareth recognised the music and knew exactly where it was coming from. A music box that had very peculiar after effects on any mortal that chose to indulge in its song.

It was a simple spell, and had been an experiment for Jareth once upon a time, but it clearly worked. It acted as a drug, but Jareth had never bothered to use it since its effects were so varied. The Goblin King stood still in the doorway and stared at Sarah for a long while before she even noticed him.

"Jareth," she grinned, as she continued to dance.

He frowned.

"Sarah, what in the name of the Underground are you doing?"

"I feel weird," she laughed.

Jareth's frown only deepened at that comment- especially because she seemed giddy despite her words. He walked over to where she was still childishly spinning around.

"Stop for a second," he said.

Sarah paused as he'd instructed, but she giggled to herself as she did. She felt like a child laughing at obeying their older sibling's order. He took hold of her chin between his fingers and stared into her eyes. They were out of focus. He knew that she certainly was not behaving like herself; apparently the spell that he had cast long ago was having a strange effect on Sarah.

After a moment, Sarah frowned and pulled away from Jareth's hand, grumbling, "What's with all the drugging and the singing, Jareth? Do we have to do this every time we're together?"

Jareth scowled.

"I did not drug you, Sarah, not this time anyway. It is the music box; you opened it and it's having an effect on you. Now, we should leave."

She frowned and pushed away his hands as he reached out for her.

"You should leave."

"Sarah."

"What?" she snapped.

"Take my hand and come with me now," he ordered seriously.

"Why?"

"Because I said so."

She rolled her eyes.

"Oh sure, your majesty."

He huffed to himself. He had preferred it when she was giggling. This after-effect of the drug definitely had no endearing factors. Instead of waiting for Sarah to try and resist him again, Jareth simply picked her up in one swift movement, cradling her in his arms. She started struggling immediately and pouted when she realised that she wasn't going anywhere.

"Put me down," she demanded.

"Enough, Sarah."

"Put me down," she repeated quietly.

He did not reply to her again, but merely walked them out of the room. After all, he was just helping her, and trying to make sure that she could sleep off the effects, even if she didn't see that right now. Taking her back to her room, Jareth placed her on her bed. Sarah didn't lay down though; she just pulled a face at him.

"You should get some sleep," he advised.

"I don't want to sleep," she frowned and tried to get out of bed.

As soon as her legs slipped off of the bed, Jareth pushed them right back.

"Go to sleep, Sarah."

She huffed.

"Fine."

She lay down, but after a little shuffling, was soon sat up again. She started fiddling with the tie on the back of her dress, but wasn't having much success. Apparently her coordination wasn't thriving under this drug.

"What are you doing?" Jareth asked.

"Trying to- get out- of this dress. It's so- awkward," she replied amid attempts to untie the dress.

"Here, let me help you," he offered, reaching out.

But Sarah slapped his hand away quickly.

Undeterred, Jareth rolled his eyes and reasoned, "You'll be here all night if I don't help you, Sarah."

She tried to do it herself a few more times before eventually giving in and allowing the Goblin King to aid her. Even though she was allowing him to help her, it didn't mean that she was happy about it. Sarah couldn't help but grumble about the fact that he had to take her clothes off so that she could be comfortable.

"Don't you look at me," she frowned.

He rolled his eyes as he pulled the dress up and over her head, leaving her arms raised for a moment. Even if he had chosen to look at her, he could have seen nothing more than her back from his position anyway since he was stood behind her.

"I'm not looking at you, Sarah."

Jareth magicked a shirt from nowhere and pulled it over her head, catching Sarah while her arms were still up in the air. That should suffice for her to sleep in, he thought.

"Well, good; because I am so not in the mood."

He raised his brows as she turned around to face him. He was going to have to remember that she'd said that.

"And you have been in the mood previously?" Jareth pressed, testing to see what she might say.

She put her finger on his lips and made a 'shh'ing sound.

"I'm not supposed to talk about it."

He frowned.

"What do you mean?"

She smiled.

"Can't talk about the Underground. Orderlies like to listen."

"You are in the Underground, Sarah. There aren't any orderlies here," Jareth tried to confirm.

"No, I'm not. Doesn't exist, does it? Don't try and trick me into admitting it so you can give me more pills."

"I'm not giving you any pills, Sarah. It's me, Jareth, the Goblin King. I took you out of there, remember?"

"Jareth's not supposed to exist."

He frowned at her. She wasn't even recognising him anymore.

"I do exist, Sarah."

"Sure you do. And I'm the tooth fairy," she said before she abruptly started giggling again.

He rolled his eyes.

"Honestly, if you were Jareth, then you wouldn't let me do this."

Then she leant forward and kissed him. Blinking, a surprised Jareth pulled back from her quite quickly. Even drugged, he hadn't expected that. The two were silent for a moment, until Sarah started giggling again.

"You need some sleep, Sarah," Jareth said calmly, brushing past what had just happened.

"I need some sleep," she repeated.

"Lay down."

"Okay."

Sarah lay down and stared at Jareth.

"Woah," she whispered.

"What?" the Goblin King asked quickly, noting the odd tone to her voice.

"The room's spinning."

She put her hand on his chest.

"Seriously, stop spinning," she laughed.

He frowned. Sarah clearly wasn't going to sleep of her own accord, so he decided to use magic to make her sleep. Jareth cast a small spell over the still-giggling woman lying before him. It didn't take long then for her to drift into a dreamless slumber. He sighed to himself as he left the room. I should have done that while she was dancing...

The next morning, Jareth and Elle stood at Sarah's bedside as she slept. It was obvious that Sarah wasn't going to wake up for a while, and when she did, she probably wasn't going to be feeling her best. Jareth appeared to be somewhat irritated and worried about the situation they found themselves in whereas Elle didn't seem bothered in the slightest. In fact, she seemed almost amused at Sarah's plight.

"She's supposed to be tested today," Jareth muttered.

"She will be," Elle smirked.

"Yes, but she'll be feeling the result of this later and it won't help her task."

Elle shrugged, her eyes not leaving the sleeping form of the woman before them.

"Perhaps she should not have been so curious then."

Jareth frowned and turned to look at the fae next to him.

"About that; that room isn't usually there..." he said slowly.

Elle shrugged again.

"You warned her against snooping around."

Jareth narrowed his eyes.

"Yes, but disobeying that did not call for what happened to her last night. Also, I distinctly recall making sure all of those doors were locked."

She smiled, flashing him a beautiful and deadly grin.

"You must have missed one, she said, amusedly."

He rolled his eyes.

"If this affects her run-"

"It won't. Besides, if she is meant to be what we think she is then she'll find a way."

"You had better hope so," Jareth replied, almost threateningly.

Elle just gave her friend a wink and turned, sauntering out of the room. The Goblin King frowned to himself and continued to watch Sarah. He had his suspicions that Sarah wasn't going to be doing any sort of run of the Labyrinth today, but he couldn't know for certain until she woke up. If this wasn't so important he would just have let her run with a drug hangover. But it is important, he thought with a sigh.

Jareth couldn't help but let his mind drift back to the previous night while he watched Sarah sleep. As much as he was intrigued by some of the things that she had said while she was drugged, he didn't understand them. What bothered him the most was that she'd kissed him- though that was only the drug, wasn't it?

He didn't know, but he wasn't going to think too much into that. He sighed again. Sarah was supposed to run the Labyrinth; it was important. And this was not going as Jareth had planned.

After a while of no movement, Jareth had left Sarah to sleep, but he returned before long. When he walked into her room that time, he found her lying on her bed with her hands pressed over her eyes.

"Good afternoon, Sarah," he said, testing her mood.

She groaned and pulled her hands away just to stare at the ceiling.

"It's afternoon already?" she complained.

He nodded.

"Sleep well?"

Of course, he already knew that she hadn't, she'd just slept a long time. Sleeping may not have done as much good as he had thought that it might. Jareth had waited until now to judge the severity of how she was reacting to the drug she'd stumbled upon. Sarah just responded with another long groan.

"What even happened last night?"

He raised his eyebrows at her, somewhat surprised.

"You don't remember?"

She shook her head, then groaned again. That had been a mistake.

"My head hurts."

"Yes, that's not surprising. Unlike you, I do remember what happened last night- and your head should hurt."

She blinked.

"What... what did I do?"

"Oh, you went snooping around the castle and drugged yourself. The rest is immaterial."

For now, he thought. He wasn't going to bother testing her about that kiss, though he was curious as to whether it had just been a mistake or perhaps something more.

"I drugged myself?" she asked doubtfully.

"I hate drugs... You're sure you didn't- did you?"

He rolled his eyes.

"No. Though I do wish that you would stop associating me with drugs; I only drugged you once."

He was omitting the fact that it was his spell that had drugged her last night- since it had been accidental and effectively her own fault for touching the music box too.

"You also effectively killed me by poisoning a peach," she reasoned.

She damned herself for contradicting him since it hurt her to even think right then. In all honesty, she regretted any unnecessary part of that conversation.

"You agreed to that," he reminded her.

"I know," she whispered, placing a hand on her forehead.

They were silent for a moment and Sarah tried to calm her rising headache.

"Can you walk, Sarah?" Jareth asked after a while.

She turned her head slowly to look at him- even that hurt.

"Walk? I can barely even think right now," she murmured.

He frowned. He knew that this would happen and it was all Elle's fault.

Jareth nodded once and said, "Get some more sleep, Sarah. It'll help you feel better."

Jareth was angry. Angry that Sarah wasn't going to be able to run the Labyrinth; angry that Elle had allowed her to drug herself on an old spell of his. He was just angry- and unfortunately for Elle, she was going to feel the brunt of it. The Goblin King sought out the rust-haired fae woman to give her a piece of his mind.

He found her looking out of the Labyrinth, surveying the extensive and ever-changing scenery before her with a cursive eye. Elle didn't look away from her careful observation as Jareth entered the room, but she noticed his displeasure immediately. It would be hard to miss.

"Postpone it a day," he ordered.

She raised her brows and turned quickly to him.

"Postpone it?"

She had said the words as if they did not quite register, as if the idea was entirely preposterous. Jareth just nodded.

"Do you have any idea how much work that would-"

"Yes," interrupted Jareth.

"I have every idea; but since it is your fault that Sarah is so incapacitated, then you should feel the consequences just as she does."

Elle frowned. The Goblin King was already aiding his Labyrinth's latest runner, and Elle couldn't help but find it more than a little odd.

"That's hardly fair," she said.

"It's entirely fair," he replied, his tone utterly serious.

Elle narrowed her eyes. She knew that there would be no going against him when he was in this humour, so she simply turned and left the room to begin the mammoth task of rearranging Sarah's task. Would you look at that, Elle thought. Sarah did find a way to manage.

The only problem Elle found was that Jareth was a little too invested in Sarah's run for her liking. She only hoped that her friend was not the one more attached in this venture. She shrugged the feeling off however. The final test would prove Sarah's worth- or lack of it, if that was the case.

Author's Note: Hey again.

Sorry it's been a while since I've updated, I've been trying to keep on top of all my stories. Also I should probably apologise, this would have been up last night, but I got distracted by stumbling on a production of William Shakespeare's 'Henry IV Part One' on TV... and I'm a goner as soon as the Henriad is mentioned. 3 So... sorry, lol. :P

Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter and will let me know what you think! :)

Kit xx