A lot of time passed in this fashion.  Some days Sarah wouldn’t see Jareth at all except at dinner.  On those days she would go out into the Labyrinth with her friends, and meet their families and other friends.  Sometimes she’d spend the day in her bedroom on her own listening to her CDs, playing on the internet, annoying her cat and generally being an anti-social teen-ager.  Other days she had one or all of her friends and their friends in her room and they’d have a party (usually to Sarah’s David Bowie CDs, much to Jareth’s disgust).  She’d discuss philosophy with Sir Didymus, give Ludo a scratch behind his ears, and play board games with Hoggle – always a disaster because he cheated shamelessly. 

The days she spent with Jareth were usually in the library sitting in companionable silence reading, or he would take her on tours of the Labyrinth and show her how to deal with its dangers as though preparing her for the long stay that may eventuate.  They no longer played the role of heroine and villain but they weren’t quite friends yet either.  They still stepped guardedly around each other and were too polite to be really relaxed in each other’s company.

Some twilights she’d simply sit on a balcony she’d found using the techniques Jareth had taught her and watch the ancient sun set. Those nightfalls she’d contemplate her future either if she went back to Earth, or stayed in the Labyrinth.

Her life in the Labyrinth was pretty uncomplicated.  No chores, no expectations to live up to, no plans to make for an uncertain future, loyal friends, no difficult choices to make about her life’s direction.  Back on Earth she’d have to rehabilitate after being sick for so long, she’d have to catch up on the school she’d missed, make new friends when she did go back to school as her old ones would have moved on, make career choices when she was really too young to even know what she wanted to do, take on financial responsibilities, face the difficulties of relationships and dating – grow up basically.  Staying in the Labyrinth she could almost stay a perpetual child – except for Jareth.  She had a feeling he’d force her to grow up one day and make at least one difficult decision – she had a feeling that the comment about his heir was not a joke at all.  At seventeen, she felt that part of her life should be a long time off yet.  She didn’t want to think about it for quite a few years to come.

Jareth was doing a lot of thinking too.   He chose the deep hours of the night to do his thinking once Sarah had retired for the night.  He would conjure a huge window in the tower wall of his bedchamber and stand on its sill, looking over his lands lit only by the mellow light of the large, yellow moon that hovered low on the horizon sending huge murky shadows over the twists and turns of his Labyrinth.  Those nights he shed his gloves and jacket and stood with his poet’s shirt billowing in the strong, warm winds that blew in from over the desert dunes.  He was exhausted from trying to figure out what Sarah wanted and living up to her expectations of him.  He really had no idea what she’d been thinking since she came here.  Her dreams and desires were still unclear, and he had a terrible suspicion that she knew the face he presented to her was as deceptive as his Labyrinth was.