Disclaimer:

I obviously do not own Labyrinth or any associated characters, they all belong to Jim Henson and whatever other associated people who might have the rights to them, whoever that might be.

This is just fan fiction, written with the intent to be shared amongst fans who appreciate the movie for all that it is, but have an insatiable craving for what might have been. There were paths not take, both figuratively and literally, themes not fully explored, and so many questions left unanswered even as the credits rolled; As always, communities of fans like these will be led to question 'why', 'how', and 'what if…?' It can be said that there are many paths through a labyrinth, and we were shown but one, and not what lay past the end we were given. After all, Sarah made it to the castle beyond the Goblin City, but the labyrinth visibly extends on beyond them both.

A/N: It has been brought to my attention by a reviewer that I failed to explain how long it had been since the end of the move in this first chapter. I hadn't notice, which I'm blaming on the fact that I have several similar projects in the works that all do explain. XD Anyway, working under the assumption that Sarah was about 15, it's been about three years. In my head right now, she's probably near graduating high school. Also, another reviewer brought it to my attention that I had spelled Toby with an E in it, which is how I'd spell it… I fixed it though, 'cuz they were right that's not how they spelled it.

Winter

Chapter One: A Coming Storm

Jareth shuddered on the branch, shivering in the cold. The winter had come early this year and he had never tolerated the cold particularly well, in Fae or owl form.

He had been trapped in his barn owl form since Sarah had defeated him. He was simple unable to regain his original form. He could not work more than the simplest spells in this form. He could temporarily hide himself from the sight of mortals, but that was pretty much it. When she said those words, (he dared not so much as think them even now,) his world had crumbled, both figuratively and literally. He had found himself cast from the Underground. Apparently the magic which had whisked her home had somehow ended up bringing him along. Jareth had opened his eyes to find himself in his owl form in Sarah's living room. He saw her and immediately escaped through the front door which had been conveniently blown open by the wind stirred up by the magic. Sarah had started at seeing him, but had made no attempt to follow. He found out quickly what had befallen him when he tried to whisk himself back to his castle, only to discover that he couldn't. At the time he had just enough residual power to briefly see the state of his kingdom. The Escher room lay in ruins, and the Labyrinth was slowly falling apart without him to maintain it.

He sat in the elm tree outside of Sarah's window, looking in through her living room window below him. Inside he caught glimpses of her family bustling about, preparing for dinner and decorating the house for the Holliday season. Jareth watched them all day with his hooded owl eyes. He would sit and watch them all evening too, as they lived their lives, oblivious to his presence. It was such a lonely thing to be forgotten.

Jareth shivered again before starching his wings and flying up over the roof of Sarah's home. He sighed tiredly, (though completely internal aside from a slight exhale, because owls can't sigh now can they.) His cramped muscles pulled as he climbed above the neighborhood. He was stiff with cold, and terribly hungry he realized momentarily. It was difficult to find prey in prey in these winter months, and he disliked lowering himself to eating vermin to begin with. He was growing more desperate each day, homeless and slowly starving in the frigid aboveground weather. He gained altitude with effort, banking to circle around the house, each wing beat filled with deepening sorrow and despair.

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Sarah was balancing atop a stepladder as she strung beaded Christmas garlands along the walls of the front hall. Toby and Karen were in the kitchen making a batch of cookies and her dad was digging through the basement, trying to locate more decorations and the tree stand. Given that the last time she had been down there she had been strongly reminded of the junk yard from her trip to the Labyrinth, she didn't expect he was having an easy time of it. Sarah snorted in amusement at the thought of the junk lady offering her father random articles from around the basement and asking, "Is this what you were looking for, aye Deary?"

She glanced down the entryway, and out the windows on either side of the door, watching the fading winter light. She looked critically at the heavy clouds advancing along the horizon from the North West. A storm was coming, and a nasty one at that. Sarah finished putting up the last hook and fastened the end of the garland to it before carefully climbing down. She padded across the entryway rug with woolen Christmas sock covered feet and looked out of the window again, a frown sliding over her holiday cheer.

"Karen, there's a big storm coming. I'm going to tell Dad to bring up some candles from the basement," Sarah called into the kitchen.

"Alright Sarah," her step mother called back. Sarah turned down the other end of the hallway and opened the door which led to the basement steps.

"Dad?" she called. A muffled, "Yeah, Sarah?" was heard in response, and she carefully began descending the steps towards the sound of her father shuffling boxes.

"There's a storm coming in and me and Karen thought we should get out the candles and stuff, since it looks like it's going to be bad."

"Sure Honey, the news people were just talking about it this morning on TV." Sarah nodded, and then remembered that he wasn't looking at her and answered in agreement. "They're in those green handled storage bins above the work bench," he told her, raising his head above the mountain of boxes which obscured most of him from view. He gestured vaguely with one arm, a small box still in hand.

Sarah picked her way over to the work bench against one wall, and pulled over a sturdy looking box. She stepped up on the box and pulled down three of the plastic storage bins with green locking handles on either end of the lids. One at a time she set them carefully on the floor. Sarah kneeled in front of them and removed the lid of the first one. Inside was a myriad of different objects, from metal gauges to the spare charger for the cordless drill's battery. After shifting the contents slightly and removing a few objects to look beneath, she determined that the likelihood of this box containing candles, judging from its contents, were very small indeed. Replacing the discarded objects in their box, she put the lid back on and snapped the handles back down to lock the edges in place. She turned to the next box and rummaged through it. Somehow unsurprised by the fact that this one seemed to contain the Christmas baubles her father was looking for on the other side of the garage, she carried it over to him, plunking it down on a box in front of him to attract his attention. With a sweeping gesture she indicated the contents of the box, made a theatrical bow to an imaginary audience who was currently cheering her for her amazing box-finding abilities, and walked back to the third box.

As she kneeled once again before the box, she sighed internally. At this rate she'd probably end up carrying down the other three boxes above the bench. 'They're probably all just as heavy as the first three too,' she thought wearily. Winter was among her favorite seasons, and the holidays were lovely. 'It's just that they're so well… Exhausting.' There was so much to do. Putting up decorations, bake tons of cookies and holiday treats (although Toby and his mother pretty much had that covered from the sound of things in the kitchen all afternoon), relatives to wish well or visit, presents to buy, snow to play in, parties to attend… That was right, snow to play in… She had to take Toby out and show him how to build a properly defensible snow fort. They'd begun teaching him the finer points of snow ball fights last year, but this year they'd really get into the good stuff. She grinned evilly at the thought of leading Toby in an ambush against the boys down the street. 'This storm will probably give us plenty of snow to work with at least,' she reasoned, shrugging at the thought that something good might come of that beast of a storm, and went back to unpacking the box. She removed a layer of batteries, and was amazed when she actually uncovered several boxes of candles. 'Wow,' Sarah mused 'with my luck I was expecting them to be in the last box in the back corner. Especially with Dad's apparent talents for finding things, I'm pleasantly surprised that they were even over here,' Sarah cast half-glance over at her father, still plowing through his mountain of boxes in search of the tree stand.

Sarah extracted two boxes of tall candles, a couple of pillar candles, and a box of matches from the storage bin. She sighed once again before lifting the two weighty bins back up onto their shelf over the work bench, deciding to leave the rest of the candles where they could be gotten to easily, just in case. She bid her father luck with the tree stand and ascended the stairs, reemerging into the living area of the house.

Toby and Karen stepped from the kitchen, laughing and lightly dusted with flour.

"Well, looks like someone's been having fun," Sarah turned to Karen after her step-mother shooed Toby upstairs to get ready for his bath.

"You think so? You should see the kitchen," Karen Joked. "I better go start cleaning now, or I won't be able to find the stove to make dinner!" Sarah laughed at that, and went to put her arm load of candles down on the coffee table in the den. She checked to make sure there was a good supply of firewood in the rack beside the fireplace. 'No,' she frowned, 'that's not quite enough.' She looked critically at the partially full wood bin. 'Two good armloads should fill it and leave plenty for a good fire for the evening.'

Sarah pulled on her boots, slinging on her coat and pulling on a pair of gloves. She opened the front door and shivered slightly, even through her warm coat, at the gust of freezing air that met her. It was even colder than it had been a few hours ago when she'd last com inside, and the temperature must be falling rapidly from the feel of things.

The William's garage was at the end of the gravel driveway which curved around the house from the street to the back of the lot. Robert kept the wood stacked against the outside of the back wall of the garage. Sarah stepped off the front porch and walked along the path over to the driveway. She clenched her jaw to keep herself from gasping from the cold as the strong gusting wind slammed into her now that she was clear of the relative protection of the house.

'I really pity anyone unlucky enough to be caught out in this mess,' she decided grimly as she walked forward.

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A/N: Well, there's the first chapter, just over 1,700 words. That's really good for me, since I tend to try to update things more at paragraphs than chapters… DX I'm working on this in-between classes at school, so hopefully the next update won't be too far off, although I make no promises…

Holly crap! That was roughly seven and a half pages handwritten, and it condensed to around three in my formatting in Microsoft word! I'm truly shocked; traditionally our guidelines for class tell us that two pages handwritten are about one-and-a-quarter typed. Ok, honestly, the ratio isn't very far off, but every time I look at it, I'm still flabbergasted. I've never written out anything that long and had it all numbered and together for the typing, I guess…

I have several other Labyrinth projects started, (yes, I'm sorry guys, but I finally kind of weaned myself off yu-gi-oh, and am no stuck on Labyrinth.)

Next Chapter: Probably a good deal of Jareth angst to follow, and plenty of Sarah feeling guilty too.

Enjoy! Please leave a Review to let me know what you think of it, or anything else you feel like sharing really, about Jareth, labyrinth, or otherwise! If there's one thing I love more than talking to people, it's listening to people talk back to me! XD

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