Forgive me, dear readers, for the long wait between chapters! I swear the universe is out to stop me from finishing this story because in the last month I have been suddenly piled with work and my computer up and died on me, leaving me without the ability to write anything for 3 weeks! But, the new hard drive is in, and I am trying to pick up my writing again:)

Thanks to all who have been so kind in reviewing! For you who have stuck with the story through thick and thin I now give you the story of Jareth's gloves:)

No matter how hard Sarah tried to make Hoggle feel better he was inconsolable. He blamed himself for not finding Rosalinda sooner, said that if he hadn't fallen asleep that maybe he might have been able to stop her from doing whatever it was she did that had caused her to fall into her deeply unconscious state.

"You don't know that, Hoggle." Sarah had said for the thousandth time that dreary morning, keeping her arm wrapped tightly around his little hunched shoulders. They were sitting at Rosalinda's bedside, staring at the pale beauty as if doing so would cause her to come around. Sarah looked once again at the blood stains on the lady's hand and again felt a sickening knot form in her stomach at the sight and thoughts that came with it.

"I sure do!" Hoggle grumbled, twisting and pulling at the hem of Rosalinda's gown where it hung off the edge of the bed. His eyes were red from crying them dry. "She blames herself fer bein' heartbroken, said that it was her own fault fer fallin' in love with that rat Jareth. Ain't it obvious what she was plannin' on doin' after sayin' words like that?"

Squeezing Hoggle tightly Sarah fought back a heavy sigh. "Hoggle, I need to go for a moment. Will you be alright by yourself until I return?"

He nodded his big head, and she quickly rose to her feet and went in search of Jareth. He had raced to Rosalinda's side the instant Hoggle had told him that there was something wrong with her, and Sarah had arrived a little while later, having dressed herself so she didn't end up embarrassing herself by running into the streets in her rather revealing nightgown. By the time she made the cottage Jareth had moved Rosalinda's into her room, but he hadn't said anything to Sarah beyond commanding her to do something with her hysterical little friend before he had a heart attack. She hadn't seen him since.

"I wish I were wherever Jareth is." she said to the empty room just to see if she could wish herself around just by speaking the words. It seemed to work; she grew dizzy, the room faded and was replaced by what she instantly recognized as Jareth's bedroom, and there he was himself. He didn't notice her at first as his back was to her and his attention was on a piece of parchment he held in his gloved hand. On the table nearby were many other such parchments, and they all looked as if he had gone through them one by one.

The dizziness subsiding, Sarah went up behind him and touched his arm. He jerked, startled that she had come up without him noticing, and nearly dropped the paper on the floor.

"Managed to get Hubble, or whatever his name is under control?" he looked down at her and caressed her hand. Sarah only nodded to his inquiry, one terrible question weighing so heavily on her mind that she knew it would crush her if she didn't ask it.

"Did she try to kill herself?" she whispered the words as if it would soften the blow they would give Jareth. Immediately he threw her hand off of his arm and stood over her threateningly. Strangely she didn't have the slightest twinge of fear as those mismatched eyes glared daggers down at her from behind his blond bangs.

"Don't you even dare think that Rosalinda would ever try such a thing as that!" his voice was like thunder rumbling into earshot from a great distance, and Sarah instantly felt ashamed of even considering the dreadful thing.

"I am sorry, but Hoggle and I both-" she stopped, feeling trapped between him and the window, and pushed him away with a hand on his chest. Surprisingly he didn't resist, but stepped away with ease and composed himself quickly. "It was just the blood stains on her hand. What else was I to think after everything came to light last night?"

"In all honesty I would think that a million other thoughts would have come to you before that particular one! There are an infinite number of other possibilities to consider before the taking of ones own life. Enchantments, spells, trances..." he trailed off, realizing that Sarah was not likely to think of such things right off the top of her head because she hadn't grown up in a land where magic was a part of everyday life. "But you wouldn't know about those things, would you? Your mind is yet innocent in the ways of this place."

There was a hint of envy in his tone that Sarah had to wonder at, as if he wished he were more like her in her rather simple ways of thinking. But Sarah wished she were more like him in that respect; to not think of suicide right off the bat was far worth having to wade through a sea countless other possibilities.

"I'm just so worried about her. Hoggle is too." she said with a sigh, lowering her head and pulling at the silk of her loose fitting black pants nervously. Jareth put two fingers under her chin and raised her face to where he could see it and gaze into her vivid green eyes. He smiled gently, just curving the corners of his mouth up the tiniest bit.

"Rosalinda is only in a trance and is in no danger, though how long she will remain so I can't tell." he ran his gloved thumb gently over her mouth, following each curve carefully to the end and then back again until she broke out a small but warm smile. "There it is! Thought I wouldn't get one out of you this morning."

Sarah couldn't think that she had had cause to smile until that moment. Of course he could have asked her to smile and she would have, but it was obvious that he wanted a genuine one that wasn't put on because of his command.

"I would smile more if you would only take those gloves off-" she looked at the black pieces of tailored leather with loathing, and a frown formed on her brow as a thought came to her. "I asked you once why you wore them, and you said it was a story for another time. You are wearing them now as you go through all those papers, so do I dare assume that there is a connection between the two?"

"Too smart for your own good at times." Jareth turned at once bitter and secretive and went over to his bed and perched himself on the edge of it. A few seconds he was quiet, and just when she thought he wasn't going to say another word he let out a heavy sigh. "Delving into the past is not always my favorite thing to do, Sarah mine. There are a great deal of painful things that I wish buried and forgotten, and this is one of them."

"You should know that there are plenty of things I want buried and forgotten too, Jareth." she went over and slowly sat down next to him, watching for any sign that he didn't want her to be so close to him right then. Instead he took her hand and turned the open palm upwards and kissed it, then moved to her wrist. Her heart jumped about in her chest and she didn't want him to stop, but she wasn't going to be deterred from trying to get the story of his gloves out of him even with his shows of affection. "But things won't always stay buried, they have a habit of coming up and biting you at the worst possible times, as we both know. At this moment it is just you and I, so won't you take advantage of it and tell me just a little about this?"

The last thing Jareth wanted to do was take advantage of the opportunity, and he told her so. "But," he added before she could protest. "you are going to find out someday, it is inevitable once you become my wife, and I would far prefer it if you learned it from me instead of someone else who would give you a distorted version of the facts."

Sarah forced down a smirk, wondering if his side of the story would indeed be the whole, plain truth without any distorting of facts, as he had so carefully put it. But she wasn't going to argue the subject, and just waited quietly while he collected his thoughts, and allowed her mind to drift this way and that until she was brought back to the then and there by his weaving their fingers together.

"One of the reasons I never told you why I wear gloves is because it has something to do with Rosalinda, and there was a danger of my revealing our personal history." he was so tense Sarah could feel it in the air, so she cast him a warm smile that she hoped would help the ice melt just a little. She was sorry he hated talking about this, sorry that it was bringing up things he wanted to avoid, but in her opinion he had been avoiding it long enough and needed to get it out. "You know that she and I grew up together?"

Sarah nodded, and a lock of her hair fell over her shoulder and laid against her cream colored blouse. "She told me a little about that."

"I doubt though that you have heard that there were three of us. There was Rosalinda and I, and then my cousin Giric, second son the to Shadow King. All of us were born the same year, all were children of monarchs who were bound together in an alliance that had been in existence for thousands of years, and as such we were meant to be very close and continue on with the alliance when we came to the thrones of our respective kingdoms." Jareth cracked a smile that was laced with cold and cruel irony. "And it would have worked well enough had not Rosalinda fallen in love with me, and Giric with Rosalinda... but I am getting ahead of myself."

"Take your time." she rubbed his arm, loving the feel of his muscles through the fine, white fabric of his shirt. Through an open window a blast of air, made chilly by the rain of the night before and from the threat of another downpour, swept over them and made Sarah shiver. Jareth noticed and waved his hand to make it close before putting his arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to him that they were sitting hip to hip.

"Giric and I, well..." he struggled for the right words and the muscles in his face twitched. "we were boyhood pals, I guess you could say, very close and rather liked getting into trouble together. But as we grew up he developed telepathic and empathic abilities, something which no one outside the family knew about as telepaths are not trusted. You know me to be a rather private and secretive person," she smiled, thinking that his description of himself was a bit of an understatement. "and I didn't like the idea of him being able to read my mind every time we shook hands or played together or whatever, thus one reason for wearing gloves."

He paused, and Sarah felt somewhat disappointed that that was all there was to his wearing gloves. Just so his cousin couldn't read his mind in case they should come into contact? She had thought there would be much more to it than that.

"Oh, Sarah, no need to be so downcast! This is a story of betrayal and broken hearts, it is far from over!" he teased, and she instantly felt like crawling under a rock and hiding, ashamed that he could see right through her as if she were made of glass. "True, I wore them around him at all times, but otherwise I rarely put the things on. Until, that is, the injury I received in his rather rash attempt at killing me became a constant reminder of how mixed up my once perfect life had become."

Sarah gaped and her eyes went wide. "Wait a second! He, your own cousin, tried to kill you?! What in the world did you do to make him that angry with you?" She thought about the number of times she had thought herself angry enough to kill Jareth, and realized that even she had never been that furious with him. If she had had the chance to kill him then she wouldn't have been able to do it, it just wouldn't have been possible.

"The answer is getting into something I couldn't have talked about before. You see, Sarah, Giric was in love with Rosalinda, I knew it and had no intention of standing in his way. But then I got into that pickle with my father wanting me to marry Clarissa, Rosalinda was my way out, and all I had to do was ask her once and she accepted instantly, even though she knew I didn't love her." Jareth's eyes had darkened as the memories he had so long kept buried came vividly to his mind. Sarah waited quietly for him to continue. "Giric, on that same day, asked Rosalinda to marry him, and she had to tell him that I had beaten him to the punch. A case of really bad timing if ever there was one!"

"That had to have hurt." Sarah commented, feeling at once a deep pity for Giric and a certain annoyance with Jareth for using Rosalinda the way he had. "I'm guessing it broke his heart, finding out the way he did?"

Jareth didn't make a gesture that said aye or nay, but went on in a sharp and angry voice. "Took it into his head that I had stolen her from him and was foolish enough to try and remove me from the picture one day. Thank goodness Rosalinda came in search of me, saw what was about and alerted my father, else there is little doubt that either I or Giric would have ended up with a dagger in the heart."

"You wouldn't have really killed him, would you?"

"He would have deserved it!" said he harshly and with such conviction that Sarah was taken aback. "Giric should have been mature enough to take things as they were and move on, but he decided it best to attempt murder on his life long friend instead. He might not have killed me that day, but he murdered the bonds of friendship that held us all so tightly together, and broke Rosalinda's heart in the process."

"Poor man!" Sarah sighed, drawing a startled and more than slightly angry look from Jareth.

"Forgive me, Sarah, but are you expressing sympathy for the scoundrel who tried to kill yours truly?" asked he incredulously. "I would have thought your sympathies would lie with the people he hurt, and not with the criminal who did the deed!"

"Oh, Jareth!" she sighed, pushing his arm off of her so she could stand up and face him. "I am sorry for Rosalinda and you, but I am also sorry for him as well. What Giric did was a terrible thing, and I shudder to think that you might have been killed because of it, but can't you see that your actions were the cause of it? He loved Rosalinda, you knew it and he had no doubt made his intentions more than clear, and then out of the blue you move in and take her from him. There are a million different ways he could have acted, but honestly I don't find his trying to kill you as one of the least likely. Especially considering that he is your cousin and probably has the same temper as you."

Jareth could only gape at her, stunned into silence as he was at how she viewed things. For a moment he regretted telling her the story as he now got the uncomfortable feeling she was aligned against him and was putting the blame squarely on his shoulders. "I did what I had to do-" he said defensively.

Sarah lowered her green eyes at him. "Did you? Surely there was another path you could have taken instead of the one you did." Jareth tried to say something, but then just shrugged noncommittally. "And you say that Giric should have acted differently. Yes, he should have in my opinion, but perhaps he did what he thought he had to do."

Shoulders slumping, and then just as quickly squaring up as his stubborn and proud side once again took control, Jareth leaned back on his elbows, crossed one long leg over the other, and eyed Sarah with a mixture of annoyance and curiosity. "And to what does all this tend, Miss Williams?"

Walking slowly up to him, Sarah's face softened and the kind gleam came back into her eyes. "Merely to point out that you can't put all the blame on him, and that you should try to find some forgiveness in here-" she laid her palm against his left breast. "for him. Remember I was trying to teach you something about that? Well, since he has come back from the Unknown-"

Jareth suddenly grabbed her hand and yanked her forward. She barely managed to keep from slamming her face into his, and found herself held fast against him. They were so close she could see the rapid color shifting in his eyes and feel his breath, smelling of cinnamon and other spices, on her cheek.

"And just where did you hear about that? Rosalinda never would have told you, I have never spoken of it... who has been talking about Giric when I made it clear that no one was to speak that name in my realm?" he demanded, voice thick and dangerous. But Sarah kept her head and stared him down without fear.

"Goblins talk, Jareth. You can't watch everyone all the time, can't control what is said for all you gave orders to the contrary. It is called gossip, and I heard it in passing." she felt just the slightest twinge of nervousness as she wondered what Jareth might do to Hoggle if he found out the dwarf was her source.

Jareth's mouth, drawn out in a tight line of anger, suddenly turned into an amused smirk. His canines were just visible, peeking out from beneath his upper lip. "You are lying, Sarah, and no doubt to protect one of your little, or rather large, friends. I can see it in your eyes; your words might lie to me, but those eyes never can."

In response to that Sarah instantly dropped the lids over them lest he start asking which one of the three he spoke of was the source of gossip. "I won't tell." she said firmly.

"I could seduce it out of you." he purred, moving a few inches closer so his glossy lips were just brushing hers. Sarah caught her breath and had an almost irresistible urge to press forward and lock lips with him. But she knew he was playing a game with her and was sure that if she tried to kiss him then he would move back just far enough to keep it from happening. She wanted him to kiss her, but she wasn't going to beg for it.

"You could try," she admitted, still keeping her eyes closed. She could feel it building in the air, Jareth's annoyance with her not giving in to his advances, and she couldn't resist a slight smile as she pulled slowly away from him. "but I am hardly in the mood for these games of yours at the moment. I haven't heard the rest of your little story and how Giric fits into whatever those papers are about, and since it seems to me you aren't inclined to tell me more I'll just be on my way-"

It was too much for Jareth to stand, the way Sarah had played his own game against him and was now about to leave him alone without so much as a little smooch on the cheek. In one swift motion he was off the bed and on his feet, and pulled into and held captive in his embrace. Gently but firmly he wove his fingers in her hair and used the thick, dark locks to tilt her head back so he could look her in the eye.

"You are cruel, Sarah." he said in his most silky tones, and was gratified with a light shiver from her. "But don't you think you can play my games against me and get away with it by just walking out of here in that flippant way of yours."

Sarah sighed, little sparks in her green eyes started dancing. "Jareth, just shut up and-"

He kissed her and pulled her even closer to him, so close that the breath was nearly crushed out of her. Jareth didn't seem to notice as she wrestled her arms free from where they were pinned to her sides and wrapped them around his torso, he was far to caught up in enjoying every second of their passionate gesture of affection to have noticed if the walls suddenly came down around them.

But for Sarah it was a bittersweet moment, for in the back of her mind she couldn't help thinking about Rosalinda, and how she had given up Jareth so that Sarah could be with him now. Sarah knew she was not nearly as strong as Rosalinda, never would have been able to stand as much pain as she must have endured every second since realizing that Jareth would never come to love her.

Jareth could almost sense what Sarah was feeling right then, and slowly pulled away so she could rest her head on his chest. "It will all work out somehow, beloved." he stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head. He half expecting a flood of hot tears from her, such had been the norm for a day or so, but this time she didn't even shed one. "Now, where was I in my little tale of personal tragedy?"

Sarah reminded him and listened as he went on with his rather dry but very informative narrative, all the while being swayed gently back and forth in his arms. Wrapped up as she was in his embrace helped to soften the blow of where his story eventually led to.

JSJSJS

Hoggle grew stiff from sitting on that hard little stool for hours and hours, and his backside that had been burning began to turn numb. At last he was obliged to stand up and pace a little to get the blood flowing again, though he never strayed far from Rosalinda's side. Rubbing the seat of his patched up trousers he briefly wondered where Sarah had taken herself to for so long, and was half tempted to go in search of her when he got to thinking that maybe she was being delayed because Jareth wanted to have a nice, long, sweet 'talk' with her.

"A little talkin' an' a lot of kissin', and I'll be Bogged if it ain't so!" Hoggle grumbled, pulling his cap off to scratch his head and before roughly forcing it back on. He went to the window and peered out at the goblins that raced by waving and shouting at each other, at the crows that perched on the little sign posts and roofs of the shabby little houses that made up the city. "Nice view!" he spat, still filled with melancholy and blaming himself for not stopping Rosalinda from trying to kill herself.

Chink! Something hit the floor behind Hoggle, like metal landing on hard wood. Instantly he spun around to see what was the cause, and nearly choked on his own breath at the sight of Rosalinda sitting there with her eyes wide open and staring straight ahead with troubled eyes. On the floor beside her feet lay a piece of silver, slightly stained with dark brown smears of dried blood.

"Rosy!" Hoggle blurted out in a voice shaking with surprise and delight at seeing that she had come to. He stumbled forward and pet her hand, finally drawing her attention to him. "How ya feelin'? We was all worried 'bout ya, Sarah especially... what is this?"

He bent to pick up the piece of silver.

"Don't touch that!" Rosalinda snapped at him so sharply he overbalanced and fell flat on his backside. Stunned that she had actually raised her voice he gazed up at her curiously. She wasn't, however, angry as he had expected, but apologetic and concerned that he had hurt himself.

"Forgive me, Hoggle." she said, helping him to his feet and heading over to her chest of drawers to fetch a pair of gloves, which she put on before picking up the little item and slipping it in her pocket. "Giric never was very good with potions, this one was far too strong..."

She was talking more to herself than him, and it seemed to Hoggle that she had not quite yet grasped reality. As she went about the room, first to fetch some salve for her palm and then to collect a few volumes of books that looked heavy enough to crush him if they were dropped on his head, he pieced together enough of her ramblings to hazard a good guess that Giric had left something there for her, knowing that she would pick it up. The item was covered in a potion that put her in a trance, but for much longer than it was supposed to because he had made it too strong, though he wasn't exactly sure why Giric would have done this.

"Hoggle?" she all at once snapped out of her dazed state and turned to him. Hoggle, however, thought that her almost frantic tone might just be brought on by the effects of the trance, and not from anything that was really serious. "There was an orb sitting here. Where did it go?"

Hoggle blinked, not at all sure what she was talking about. "Maybe Jareth took it. He was the one who moved ya in here-"

"And where is Jareth? I need to speak with him right away!" she looked down at her disheveled self and sighed. A snap of her fingers and her dirty gown was replaced by one of soft lilac and her dull, dirty hair was swept out of her face and arranged in an intricate braid down her back.

"Oh, uh-" Hoggle looked over at the open door, which swayed lightly on its hinges as a breeze came through the cottage. "I ain't one ta know. Castle maybe? What is so important that ya needs ta speak with him?" he asked the question almost as an afterthought, but the only answer she gave him was spoken so low he couldn't make it out as she vanished from sight.

"Well, shucks! I just ain't needed right now, am I?" he scrunched up his shoulders and walked slowly out of the room, down the stairs and out the front door. Ludo was just coming into view down the road, and the sight of him made Hoggle grin and break into a run. "Hey, Ludo? Hows about a mug of ale before I gets down ta sprayin' fairies in the garden?"