**No Regrets**

It had been 15 years since that night in the Labyrinth, yet Sarah hadn't forgotten. Some might have chalked such a crazy night up to a dream—she had when she'd awoken from her peach-induced slumber to her pretend room in the garbage dump—but dreams don't leave white owl feathers on your window sill for you to find the next morning. Unfortunately, like all great adventures, it had to come to an end and Sarah had to move on. She often wondered if this was how soldiers felt when they returned home from the battlefield; like all the color had drained from life, leaving merely shades of gray and beige to wade through in slow motion.

She would never regret leaving the Underground—Toby was more important than any Kingdom or adventure. One of the many lessons she had gleaned from that night was that family came before all else. She would do anything for her family, even if it made her miserable.

Shortly after her run through the Labyrinth, Sarah had stopped calling on her friends through the mirror. It wasn't that she suddenly stopped needing them, but rather, she had become dependent upon them. Every visit left her more and more listless upon their hasty exits. Her family had actually set up an intervention—worried she'd begun experimenting with snorting coke like the actors in all the movies. Sarah had laughed inwardly at their naivety and assured them that they were allowing their imagination to run wild, but their concern had caused her to really examine her life. Reluctantly she realized they might have had a point. She was withdrawn. She had no relationships outside her "imaginary" friends. She couldn't sleep. She rarely ate anything substantial. She was a walking, talking shell of a girl.

Ironically it was one of those after school TV specials that showed her what she had become. She had been daydreaming about asking Hoggle to allow her to visit "just one more time" when the teenage boy on the TV echoed her thoughts: "Hey man, just one more hit." She knew then she had a problem. She had become an Underground junkie. Her friends were her drug. She could no longer be alive without their company. So, for the sake of her family, she cut them off cold turkey.

Unfortunately it didn't solve her problems. There were no 12-step programs for healing from goblin addiction. Without something to replace the void, she simply stopped caring about life in general. It was only on stage (when she pretended to have emotion) that she ever felt even close to alive. Acting became her new driving force.

She still didn't have relationships. She still didn't eat well. She still lay awake at nights replaying her adventures. But she was able to hide it. She honed her acting skills to the point where she was able to fool her family. She did truly love them—now more than ever. She didn't want to hurt them.

But once you've tasted magic, how can you live without it?

)))(((

"Hey, Sar. Do you have anything from your past that you regret?" Sarah's roommate, Julie, sat at their kitchen table, lacquering on toe nail polish. The shade was called, 'Seduction" and Sarah had never seen a red quite that drastic before. It fit Julie like a glove. Julie gave the tag "Drama Queen" a whole new meaning.

Sarah kept her expression neutral—no need to traipse down memory lane. It could land her in a mental institution. "What do you mean?"

"You know…regrets. I was just thinking back to my prom date. He asked me if he could kiss me before the night was over. Me being the prude I was at the time answered, 'no.' He'd caught me off-guard, you know, asking me. Men shouldn't ask, they should just do it. That's what I thought back then, but now I think how sweet it was. He must have really liked me to ask. And I can't help but wonder if I broke his poor heart. He was a nice guy. What if I'd kissed him and found out he was 'the one'? Then I wouldn't be sitting here at 30 with no men and no chance at a marriage proposal before I turn 31—officially an old maid." Julie shoved the wand back into the bottle with a little more force than was required.

Marriage—it was all Julie talked about. Sarah had long ago stopped thinking of marriage. She could pretend easily enough to be in love on stage, but she would never doom some poor sap to a lifetime of a loveless marriage. She just couldn't summon up that emotion. Of course every time Julie brought up marriage, Sarah's mind flew back to the broken room where she'd been cornered by a king. He'd come swathed in white as if flying in the clouds, but he was no angel.

She had long ago determined that the Goblin King had not been interested in her romantically. He was simply…sensual by nature. That speech at the end hadn't been a proposal, but a request for her to become one of his citizens, perhaps a higher up servant—someone who would be paid by having their dreams come true, but would still be at the whim of the dream granter. Who knew what exactly he was offering her, but it wasn't marriage. After all, who in their right mind would ask a fifteen year old girl to marry him—and use terms like "let me rule you" and "fear me" when declaring his love? No, he had not been proposing. Despite that certainty, his image still came to the forefront every time she heard the word marriage.

"No, Julie. No regrets in that respect," Sarah replied, shoving the last of the dishes up into their cabinet. She grabbed a glass, filled it with water, and sat in the empty seat across from her roommate, preparing to read the day's paper. Julie didn't get the hint.

"It's just that it is so hard to find a good man nowadays. It's so true what they say; all the good ones are taken. Why don't you care? Are you just going to remain single your whole life?"

Sarah put the paper down with a sigh. Who cared if there was a murderer on the loose—Julie couldn't get a date! "I don't know Julie. I just haven't found anyone that I could imagine spending the rest of my life with. Why is it so important anyway? It's not like having a man equals happiness. Look at my mom. She had an adoring husband and left him for a younger model. I just can't believe in happily ever after anymore."

Julie rolled her eyes. "Geez, Sar! You're such a downer." Suddenly her eyes lit up and Sarah's stomach began to clench—she knew that look. "I know what you need! Come to the concert with me tonight! Suz backed out on me at the last minute and you really need to get out of the house. Please? There's no one else and you know it's not good for my image to be seen as a loner." Drama Queen strikes again. Like Sarah, Julie was an aspiring actress, but unlike Sarah, Julie seemed to think she had a "public" watching her every move.

Sarah tried her best not to groan out loud as she mentally rifled through all her best excuses. She was coming up blank when the echoing sound of 3 different phones began ringing. Sarah grabbed the antique receiver off the kitchen wall—they could never find the other two cordless handsets—silently thanking anyone who would listen for a chance to hone her excuse. There was no way she was going to another one of Julie's concerts with its obnoxious bands and sweaty guys who "accidentally" bumped into anyone with breasts, trying to pretend they were really into the music, but actually seeking out any opportunity to grope some poor, unsuspecting girl. If Julie was really looking for a husband, she was searching in all the wrong places!

"Hello," she answered as she inwardly tossed around, 'I have a headache.' It was probably her best shot—the truth always goes over well.

Sarah's headache intensified with the voice on the other end. "Sarah? Hi Honey! How are you?" The standard greeting carried far more than casual curiosity when spoken by her step-mother. It was a large part of the reason Sarah moved away from home at the age of 18 despite attending the college less than 5 miles away. Her family had never quite believed her portrayal of a typical American teenager—she apparently wasn't that great of an actress. They probably still thought she did drugs. It was better to move away so that they didn't have to worry about her constantly.

"Hi, Karen. I'm fine. How are you?"

"Doing well, Sweetie. Just checking in to see how things are going with you. Have you done anything interesting lately?"

And there it was: the not-so-subtle hint that there should be something interesting going on. After all, what 30 year old woman didn't go out on dates? Sarah.

The quickest way to change the subject was to ask about the only subject that still brought her some measure of joy: Toby. "Not much. So…how's Toby doing? Is he there? Can I speak with him?" Ever since Toby got his driver's license a little over a year ago, he wasn't home often. Sarah really missed hearing his little voice—that was no longer so little.

She could almost hear Karen shaking her head over the phone. "He's doing well. Sorry you can't talk to him, but he's out on the town with a group of friends. Not sure where. It is so hard to keep track of that boy nowadays. When did you two grow up? And when am I going to get grandbabies so I can watch them grow up too fast?" Great. The grandbaby speech. It was time to get out of here.

Closing her eyes, she said the only thing that she knew would get her off the phone right away. "Sorry, Karen, but I just remembered I'm heading to a concert with Julie. Got to run! Tell Daddy I love him! Bye!" And she hung up the phone before Karen could respond.

Sarah slowly turned her head to face her roommate, hoping she hadn't heard the tail end of the conversation. By the look on her face, she most definitely had. Practically squealing in delight, Julie made her way to her bedroom to change.

Eying her discarded newspaper on the table, Sarah sighed. "So much for a quiet evening at home."

)))(((

"Oh yeah, Julie, this is just great!" Sarah yelled into her roommate's ear. The cover band hadn't even come on stage yet and it was already too noisy to speak at a normal level. When they'd arrived, Julie immediately dragged Sarah to the front row, standing room only. Prime groping territory. It wasn't long before men with greasy hands and liquored breath began faux dancing next to them.

It was going to be a long night.

Julie was either completely oblivious to sarcasm, or chose to ignore it for her own purposes. "Isn't it?" she yelled back. "What do you think about that guy over there? He looks nice." The guy she pointed to was handsome enough with dark brown hair and chiseled cheeks, but he obviously knew it by the way he chose to dance between two other females. Was Julie that hopeless?

Yes. Yes she was.

"Julie, think about it. He knows he's hot. He's probably not a nice guy. Let a man come to you for a change. You're an actress for Pete's sake! Act like every man here desires you instead of acting like Desperate Debbie."

Julie nodded and changed tactics, swaying her hips more to the music and giving a sultry, yet distant smile whenever an attractive male caught her eye. Why she listened to Sarah's council, she had no idea. After all, it's not like Sarah was bringing home men right and left. In fact, she hadn't brought home any man since they'd lived together.

A few minutes later, the cover band came on stage and Sarah forgot all about her roommate. The drummer came out first, his long, black hair blowing haphazardly around his broad shoulders and well-developed biceps as he moved to sit behind the drum set. He had a dangerous gleam in his eye and looked for all intents and purposes like he'd just stepped out of Rolling Stone magazine. As he sat, a man came in on his right who was perhaps the prettiest man Sarah had ever seen. Masculine, yet with delicate features, the guitar player looked like a cherub on steroids. Opposite him was a keyboardist with white-blond hair cut close to his scalp, his ice blue eyes easily seen from a distance. All three of them carried a charisma that exuded sexiness, and as if drawn by an invisible magnet, women began flocking to the front row. Sarah had to hold on to the stage to keep from being shoved down. When she looked up again, the lead singer had appeared and Sarah was certain she must be seeing things.

The lead singer was Toby.

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A/N – Okay, for all of you who read my other story, "Within You" and got the alert for this one, I am still planning on a sequel –and have some chapters completed there—but this story came to me and demanded to be written so I hope you will forgive me for skipping the sequel temporarily. I will tell you that I have no idea how long this story will be, nor exactly where it is taking me. You are fully warned that it is not completed (even in my head). Jareth tends to take me on waltzing turns down strange trails whenever he gets a chance. That being said, once I start something, I usually do my best to complete it, so hopefully this will get regular updates. (That's the plan anyway). I do have one more chapter completed that I will probably post tomorrow, and the start of the 3rd chapter.

Side note: When I started writing this, I really hadn't anticipated Toby being in it at all—he's not my favorite character. That said, he wrote himself in and it will become plain as to why fairly soon…I think.

Thank you all for reading this! And since you've already come this far I shall now ask you to "please leave a contribution in the box."