Chapter 1

"Mr. and Mrs. Wiliams, I am sorry to tell you that your daughter is dying. The caner is spreading through her body too quickly for us to do anything about it. I am very sorry." Sarah listened as the doctor told her stunned parents what was going to happen to her.

When the abdominal pain had begun some months ago, the eighteen-year-old had thought little of it. She was checking out colleges and planning her future; things any normal young person would have done. But, when the pain refused to end, her parents took her to the doctors for tests only to find out she was dying of pancreatic cancer.

The quick spreading disease had already begun to steal her beauty and life before the doctor's announcement and while her family grasped at straws and sought out even the riskiest of cures for the fatal illness, Sarah knew there was no hope. All that was left were the comforts that could be afforded her.

As the doctor and his nurses tried to console her family, Sarah tuned them out, preferring to be lost in her mind and her memories. There was only a past for her, no future. Glancing downward at the yellowing skin of her wrist, she saw a plastic bracelet encompassing the bony appendage. It had been a final gift from Hoggle before he had ceased coming back to visit her. The odd creature had always taken delight in plastic.

"Sarah, what is going to happen to you?" Toby shocked her out of her quiet thoughts and laid a tiny hand on her arm. At only four, he didn't understand what was happening to his beloved half-sister. Death was only a word to him, not what it truly was.

"I am really sick, Toby. They don't know if I will get better. I don't want you to worry about me. I love you." She leaned forward and kissed his cheek. His blue eyes filled with tears but none of them escaped as he said,

"Sarah, are you going to die?" Sarah pulled him into her lap, ignoring the pain, and said,

"So the doctors believe. Don't worry about me, Toby." At this moment, Sarah believed it was better to be honest with him than to brush away his fears. He would have to face her passing sometime soon. At the most, she had a few months left.

A few tears slipped out of his eyes and Sarah held him close.

"I want you to take care of Lancelot for me, okay?" After running the Labyrinth, she had decided that Toby would probably enjoy the toy more than she and it had been her gift to him. The stuff bear went with him almost everywhere as it had been the gift of his adoring half-sister.

He nodded vigorously and Sarah had to smile at his determination.

"Of course, sister." He replied and hopped down from his place on her lap when a wheelchair was rolled into the consulting room.

"Sarah," said her step-mother, who had after Sarah had grown out of her rebellious years turned quite nice though not particularly affectionate. "The doctors believe you'll be more comfortable in the hospital than you will at our house. You'll given round the clock medical care to relieve the pain. We'll come visit you every day." Lightly she kissed Sarah's forehead and smiled sadly. Sarah's response was a mere nodding of the head.

"We love you." Her father said as he knelt beside her chair. "You'll be happy here." Sarah proffered a smile to him before they stood up and her step-mother took Toby's hand, leading him away from her. Silently, the white-clad nurses wheeled her to her room and carefully tucked her under the thin sheets in the unelaborate white room.

"Get some sleep, honey." The head nurse said as she gently patted Sarah's shoulder. "If you need anything, push this button." She gestured towards a button on the wall within reach of Sarah. With a parting smile, the nurses filed out, leaving Sarah to her dismal thoughts.

When one is dying, one often thinks about one's past and Sarah found her rebellious mind wandering to the not so distant history when a certain Fae man offered her a kingdom and she, the teenager she was, rejected him when so many would have accepted.

For the year after her return, she had immersed herself completely in all this fantasy, learning as much as humans had recorded on the subjects of goblins, elves, Fae, fairies, and anything that might be remotely related to the Labyrinth.

Yet, she found nothing on the subject of the mulleted Goblin King with the exception as his to face. There was no doubt he was a Fae of some sort. There was no way he could be a goblin with those appealing features and mismatched blue eyes.

Audibly, the brunet sighed and closed her eyes, the blond man's smirking portrait painted on the darkness in back of her eyelids. With that the last thought on her mind, she fell asleep.