Within You, a labyrinth fanfic

Disclaimer: Labyrinth doesn't belong to me, sadly.

Just a brief one-shot, inspired by too much work and not enough sleep. First attempt at a Labyrinth piece.

Stealth-edit: some tenses changed, and thank you to FaeriesMidwife for picking up on some dodgy syntax. And thanks for the review!

Time isn't the same within the Labyrinth.

The sun rises every morning, crosses the sky throughout the days, and heralds night with its dying rays; it has done this for an eternity. Yet nothing changes here, unless the Goblin King, he who can re-order time at a whim, wills it.

Jareth has willed nothing since Sarah left, eight years ago.

Meet Sarah. She is an ordinary young woman, blossoming with every day that passes. Beauty shines from her; a radiant, passionate belief in right and wrong emanate from her very soul. She is the epitome of what a woman should be.

And still, she cannot be satisfied. Something haunts her; a face, a word, a name. Life moves on, but Sarah can't, and she doesn't know why. Nor does she know why owls haunt her in the night, why a fortune-teller's crystal ball brings unexpected tears to her eyes; or why she wakes each morning with a long-forgotten name on her lips.

III

Toby is growing too, more quickly than his family like. Now he is nine, and spends his days playing football with other children. His nights are spent with Sarah, abducting her vast collection of cuddly toys and begging her to tell him stories. He thinks the world of her, though nobody can understand how such a deep connection came to be forged between the siblings. Toby likes it when Sarah puts down her work to come and sit with him, to take him from the neat, feminine bedroom into a fantasy world with dragons, and faeries, and goblins. The ones he likes best are those about the mythical Goblin King, in his strange castle. Sarah can't tell him stories about that too often, though. Her voice fades to a whisper, and she murmurs the words as if dredging up buried memories. A chord of familiarity strikes him, too, and then Sarah smiles and says "And they lived happily ever after," and the spell ends.

She can never remember the name of the Goblin King, which is an odd thing for her to say because Toby knows, with all the certainty of a precocious child, that she just makes the stories up as she goes. Why should there be a name for her to remember?

Every now and then, time stops. Tiring of the goblins, dancing and playing in an effort to cheer up their King; tiring of the whining from those who'd once accompanied her to his castle – yes, he wanted to scream at them when he forbade them from visiting the other world, I miss her too – tiring of the day-to-day monotony of life itself, Jareth stretches out a long finger and stops time, winding it backwards or forwards until he is satisfied, wishing he could wind it back far enough for Sarah to return, for him to beg her to stay with him.

Nobody understands, when time restarts and they have missed four days of their paltry, meaningless lives. Nobody understands why he spends hours in the window, sending crystal dreams across the world, or why he traces a certain young girl's path through the Labyrinth for hours on end. Nobody understands when he locks himself away from the rest of the world, only to repeat three words to himself, never realising the irony of it all.

"It's not fair."

Sarah tries to be the normal daughter that her father wishes she would be. Her photos, her dolls and her books are consigned to the bottom drawer of her desk, and instead she replaces them with newspapers, paperwork, adverts for houses that may one day yield a house of her own. The toys she keeps for Toby's sake, in a small chest at the side of her bed. She tries to date, bringing home fashionable young men in the hopes of easing her father's mind. She tries to work, building a somewhat successful career more by chance than by hard work. Every day passes and she makes her father proud, but there's always something missing.

Night falls, and a white owl takes up its vigil at her window, as it has done every night for the past eight years. Sarah sits, in her expensive dress and her fancy hair-do, waiting for the doorbell to ring as another suitor tries to fill the vacancy in her life. A shadow passes by the mirror, though there is no-one in the room with her, and Sarah lowers her head to the desk and cries.

"Hoggle… Ludo… Sir Didymus," she whispers desperately. "I still need you… why don't you come anymore?" The owl hoots into the night, and takes off. Sarah sits up and wipes the tears from her eyes before her mascara starts to run. It had all been a dream… all of it, she tried to convince herself. There was no Labyrinth, and it was pointless for her to dream her life away for it.

The doorbell rang, just in time. If it had been a second longer, Sarah wouldn't have been able to keep fooling herself.

III

While Sarah is out, Toby sneaks into her room. He knows she doesn't like it when he does this, but today he has an ulterior motive. After checking the coast is clear, the little boy runs to her desk, and heads straight for the bottom drawer. A small red book is buried beneath papers, and he dislodges them as he pulls the book out. Curious, he picks up a sheet. Sarah's writing is small and hard-to-read, but Toby manages. There's not much to read, anyway; just names. Hoggle. Didymus. Ludo. He's heard these names before, in the stories she tells. He feels guilty, a strange sensation for the young boy, and puts the papers back neatly before focusing on the book.

Embossed on the front, in gold letters, is the word Labyrinth.

Toby traces them carefully. He knows this story, better than he does the others, because something about the world of goblins and fireys sounds familiar. He closes the drawer and starts to leave, but a face in the mirror stops him. This face is like nothing he's ever seen before; sombre, pale, dramatic, and filled with longing. Toby feels like he's seen it before, but it fades before he can get a proper look. Another face appears, smaller and sadder.

"Wait!" he calls when this face starts to fade. It comes back into focus, sharper than ever before.

"Sarah?"

"No," he answers, kneeling on the chair by her desk to look properly. "Toby. Are you from the Labyrinth?" He doesn't know why he's asked that; it just felt like the right thing to do.

"Toby, you say?" mutters the face, and a hairy creature comes into focus beside him.

"Toby friend?" it asks softly. Toby nods enthusiastically, his round face shining with eagerness.

"Sarah Toby's sister," he announces proudly. A third face, that of a small dog-like creature, enters the mirror.

"Sir Toby," it exclaims. "The child!" Understanding dawns on the other faces, though the hairy creature seems confused.

"Well… Jareth never said we wasn't to visit Toby, now, did he?" questions the first face, splitting into a grin that changed it from ugly to … well, ugly but happy, Toby thinks honestly. And then a hand is placed on his shoulder, and he jumps and turns around.

Blasted child. Jareth storms through the castle, entering a room that looks like Escher on drugs. He'd held out for so long, refused to use the mirror to see Sarah properly, to speak to her… and then, the first time he looks through it, the child is rather more grown than he was when Jareth had taken him. A crystal sphere smashes to the floor as Jareth sweeps off towards the tower. Better to watch as an owl, where there is less risk of her recognising him. Words enter his mind, unbidden, and he hangs his head as once more the clock strikes thirteen and his world falls apart, as it has every thirteenth hour since Sarah's arrival in the Labyrinth.

"You have no power over me."

She had no idea of the power he could have had over her; or the power she had over him. He wishes there was a phrase that would free him of her witchcraft, as she escaped his clutches all those years ago. But each time he tries to deny her power, words fail him and he falls to his knees, broken.

"You… have power over me," he whispers into silence.

The date is boring. What had she expected, though? Sarah shakes herself from her reverie and smiles politely at the handsome lawyer across the table from her. Oh he was handsome, there was no denying it; but he bored her. Once, she had seen a pair of eyes that dragged her in and demanded she pay attention, a voice that had made her shiver, a presence that made her blood race. Sarah moves her foot from the questing toes of the lawyer, and buries the name deep within her psyche, because nothing can live up to a dream that you can never have.

"More wine?" she offers, to avoid any awkward questions about her attention. He smiles – charming, but not for her – and nods. As the liquid pours into the glass, Sarah recalls a masquerade ball within glass walls, a million faces with no name, and one very real face with the name she has forbidden herself to think of.

Jar-

The food arrived, in time to cut off her thoughts. Sarah shakes away the tears that threaten to fall and smiles.

"This looks divine," she says, trying to sound flirty. It works, because the awkward silence disappears and once more the idle chatter of a man trying to impress a beautiful woman returns. Sarah smiles, and nods, and wishes she was somewhere else – in a place where nothing is as it seems, and everything is what she wants.

III

"You're Hoggle?"

Toby is amazed. The faces in the mirror have become people in Sarah's room, as if by magic. And their names match the names scribbled down by Sarah in her bottom drawer. The small one that looks like a dog is Sir Didymus, who uses old-fashioned words that sound silly. Ludo is the big furry creature, and Hoggle is the one doing the talking.

"Yeah." He's unnaturally quiet; anyone could tell that. Toby recalls that Sarah always describes him as a 'reluctant hero, a coward… but a good friend.' He clambers down off the chair and up onto her bed.

"So it's all real?" he asks breathlessly, clutching the book to his chest. Hoggle nods. "Even the Goblin King?" Hoggle nods again, though he looks frightened at the mere mention of the ruler of the Underground. Toby is almost too excited for words, and then Sarah's sad face and the hidden stash of names and faces comes back to him. His young face wrinkles into a frown.

"So why'd you go and make her sad?" he asks. Didymus sighs, and pats Ludo on the arm comfortingly when the large animal wails.

"We didn't want to stop coming to her," Hoggle explained, twisting a plastic bracelet between his fingers. "Only… well, he said we had to."

"He?" asks Toby curiously. Hoggle sighs, this time, and Ludo pats his shoulder so hard that he falls over.

"Jareth." Toby continues to stare in confusion, so Hoggle tries again. "The Goblin King."

"Oh!" Now he knows the name that Sarah refuses to remember. "And he won't let you come and see Sarah? That's not fair!"

"It's not fair, brave sir," Didymus intervenes, quoting Sarah almost exactly. "But that's the way it is." Toby sniffles.

"She misses you," he said, falling into a pout reminiscent of a younger Sarah. "You're mean to make her sad."

"She is missed, just as much as she misses us, Sir Toby," Didymus says softly. "And not just by the three of us." Footsteps sound on the stairs before Toby can ask what Didymus means, and he turns to the door. By the time he turns around again, the three are gone, with a lingering call of "Toby, friend."

His small feet carry him hastily from the room and into his own, leaving no sign of his presence in Sarah's room. The night is young, and he has a book to read.

Jareth sits alone on his throne. The goblins have left, to watch a human who may make a wish. The thrill of granting wishes, of stealing children away, of turning lives upside down no longer appeals to him, as a man who's own life was affected. Sarah's words, the constant cry of It's not fair come back to him, and he smiles bitterly.

"It's not fair," he agrees, forcing the words past gritted teeth, taking aim and hurling a crystal orb at one of the goblins in the chamber outside his throne room. It smashes on the unsuspecting creature's head. Another flies through the air, and a third, until the goblins leave to watch the human from within the city. Jareth's head falls back, and he gazes up at the unforgiving ceiling, thinking only of Sarah.

"But," he sighs, closing his eyes and allowing himself a moment of vulnerability, a moment of longing for the girl he would give the world to, "that's the way it is."

The date is over. The lawyer thinks it was successful, and asks her for another as he escorts her home. Sarah debates the matter, and smiles. "I'll call you," she promises. When he gives her his number, she notices that it's on a business card, and knows she won't call again.

"Thank you for a wonderful evening." The words sound sincere, but the last time she put her heart into any words for a man had been eight years ago, almost to the day, when she'd uttered the life-changing phrase 'You have no power over me.' He leans in for a kiss, but Sarah slips inside with a shy smile and leaves him standing on the doorstep. As soon as she reaches the kitchen, the card goes in the bin.

"Nice night?" asks her father. She nods, the smile feeling riveted to her face.

"Nice night. Company was a bit dull," she answers, taking a glass of orange juice with her as she retires to her room for the evening. Her father despairs of Sarah ever settling down, and returns to the newspaper.

Inside her room, Sarah is careful to lock the door, and moves to the bottom drawer of her desk. She pulls out an ornament, a doll dancing within a gold frame, and her fingers touch the dress; the same dress she wore when the Goblin King serenaded her into a dream.

"As the world falls down," she whispers in a half-song, finally allowing tears to come to her eyes. A hoot from outside announces the white owl's presence, and shakes Sarah from her reverie. She reaches through the mass of papers in the drawer to the bottom, to the red book-

-to where the red book should be. Panic races through her, and she leaps up.

"Toby!"

III

In his room, safely buried beneath the quilt, Toby has been slowly working his way through the Labyrinth book. Sometimes there are words he doesn't know, and he ignores them, but he can understand the basics. Everything was real. Sarah had wished him away – and it had to be him; how many other babies had Sarah known? – and then she had fought through the Labyrinth, faced Jareth, to save him.

And now he knows why she's so sad. Sarah missed the Labyrinth, it was the only explanation. Toby closes the book without reading the end, without reading the final passage that contained the words to break Jareth's power. He had to do something for Sarah – she'd given up everything for him, even if she hadn't realised it at the time.

A white owl lands outside his window, and deep within the heart of the palace beyond the Goblin City, a goblin paused.

"Someone's about to make a wish!"

The boy. Jareth watches as Sarah runs to the child's room, the boy that should be a goblin by rights. He sees the book clutched in his hand, and can feel the goblins back in the palace waiting for a wish to be made. Anger courses through the Goblin King. What could this greedy boy possibly wish for, when he already had Sarah? Old emotions came rushing back as he waits, waits for the time to appear before the boy and strike him down. How dare he ask for more, when he had the only thing that Jareth had ever truly wanted?

Sarah runs awkwardly, cursing her choice of footwear, and bursts into Toby's room. He stares up at her guiltily, and she knows the book is hidden with him, knows that he knows the truth about what happened; knows that the world she had tried to keep so secret was now shared.

"Toby," she sighs, closing the door behind her. She doesn't notice the owl that is now at this window. "You found it."

"Yes." Toby holds onto the book stubbornly. "And I talked to Hoggle and Ludo and Sir Didymus and they're all real." He pauses. "You lied."

"Yes." She pauses this time, reeling with the news that her friends had shown themselves to Toby and not to her. "I had to."

"Don't you want to see them again?" he asks, his childish voice somehow sounding a little more mature. Sarah sighs and decides to be honest with him, sitting on the edge of his bed. She takes the pins out of her hair before continuing, letting it fall down over her shoulders as she wonders how to start.

"I miss them," she answers, her voice low and shaky. "Every day, I miss them. It's… hard, to do something like that… like going through the Labyrinth and facing… him." She doesn't want to say his name, not when she's explaining this, or she knows the tears will never stop. "You build up a bond when you do that… it's why you and I are so close, Toby." He nods and moves closer to her, curling up into a hug when she lifts an arm invitingly.

"You want to go back," he states. Sarah doesn't answer with words, only with a sigh. Of course she wanted to go back; but how could she tell Toby that she wanted to abandon the world for the Underground, all for the Goblin King? She'd said he had no power over her… and it had been true, until the moment she was sent back with Toby.

"You do," he insists when she doesn't answer. "You want to see them all, you want to see Hoggle and Didymus and Ludo and even Jar-" Sarah covers his mouth with her hand before he can say the name that has haunted her for years.

"Don't say his name," she whispers. "Please." The owl outside begins to hoot loudly, providing a distraction for them all.

"Sarah… why don't you go back?" asks Toby, with all the simplicity of a child. Of course, to him it was easy – just go back, just leave everything she'd ever worked for and find solace in the palace of the Goblin King… in the arms of the- no. Sarah smiled, ignoring the tears that fell.

"It's not that simple," she says sadly. Toby sits back and frowns, and then a beautific smile crosses his face.

"I know what to do," he announces proudly. Sarah tilts her head questioning.

"And what's that?" she asks, teasingly. The owl outside begins to flap against the window frantically – lightning flashes through the sky, though it had been calm a minute ago – and Sarah is thrown back to a night when, in a temper, she'd wished her brother away. And she knows what he intends to do.

"Toby-!" It's too late, for the words spill out of his excited mouth.

"I wish that the Goblin King would come and take you away, Sarah. Right now!" The window bursts open.

He stands there, in the centre of Toby's room, unchanged after eight years that had passed like a millennium. Tall and imposing, clothes out of place in the world now that, somehow, still managed to work for him; and eyes, deep, bottomless eyes, that Toby stares at in shock for a minute before realising that the Goblin King is standing before him, the face in the mirror that had faded, and he now has Sarah in his arms.

"Jareth," Sarah whispers, consciously saying it for the first time since leaving the Underground. His smile glitters with a joy he hasn't felt for years, and he lifts a hand. In it is a crystal orb, the same that he had offered Sarah for Toby. The irony of the situation isn't lost on either of them, though Toby watches in awe and fear from the bed. The crystal is tossed to Toby.

"What is it?" he asks tremulously. Jareth smiles, a wicked smile laced with a twisted happiness.

"It's a crystal. Nothing more." The words sound as fresh as when he said them to Sarah. "But…" and suddenly the crystal is back in his outstretched hand, "if you turn it this way, and look into it, it will show you your dreams." He throws it back to Toby. "A gift… if you forget about Sarah." Toby holds the crystal carefully, and looks from it to Sarah, to her smiling face filled with a radiance that he has never seen before. For the first time in his short life, he has seen his sister happy.

"Sarah," he says quietly, a whimper. She turns to look at him. "I love you," he says, rushing over to hug her. Sarah kisses the top of his head.

"Be good," she whispers. He steps back and holds the crystal carefully, and then looks at Jareth.

"I want the crystal," he says tearfully. Jareth's smile widens victoriously, his cloak swirls about him and Sarah, and then the room is empty apart from Toby and the crystal orb in his hands. He cries, and looks at the orb this way and that, trying to see his dreams – and sees Sarah, smiling up at him, and saying Thank you in a tinny, distorted voice. He smiles. Now he never has to forget Sarah; and, more importantly, he can remember her as being truly happy.

The palace has been emptied by a few short, sharp words from Jareth, and now there is only he and Sarah. She is wrapped safely within his arms, and her simple dress has been replaced by the exquisite one she wore during the ball, in her dreams. It is a dress fit for a queen.

"Sarah," Jareth starts, his voice deep and smooth and content. "Look at what I'm offering you." Those words, so familiar, bring the memories flooding back to her, and she smiles.

"My dreams," she continues. Jareth's smile matches hers, though there is still something wicked about it, as if he is plotting something; Sarah decides that it's just a part of what makes Jareth the Goblin King; part of what makes him so appealing.

"I ask for so little." He lowers his head, and Sarah rises up. The last sentence is whispered by them both. "Just fear me. Love me. Do as I say, and I will be your slave." Their lips meet, an unspoken agreement to make their words into a promise, finally accepting the magic that started eight years ago. They part, for a millisecond, and whisper the words that they have longed to say for far too long.

"You do have power over me."