I have a sick little girl and while she sleeps on me between bouts of vomiting I have rediscovered my love affair with Labyrinth. It has been many years since I delved into the world of the Goblin King and my depiction of him might be a touch rusty.

Disclaimer: Not mine, but I do like to play.

Would You Listen?

First Midsummer.

Sarah closed the front door behind her and leant against it with a sigh. For the first time since her run through the Labyrinth she resented the fact that her father and stepmother had asked her to babysit. She had grown since that night, had realised that she could not live in that fantasy world without sacrificing her connections to the contempory one. She had lived in that world for long enough, her trip had shown her that she was capable of making friends in unlikely places and it was time to focus on her future instead of resenting her father's choice to move forward in his life by marrying Karen. Tonight, however, she had wanted to spend time with the friends she had reconnected with. Tonight she had wanted to go to the park and enjoy herself. Instead her father and Karen had insisted on going out and she had been guilt tripped into agreeing to watch Toby.

Unlike that fateful night so many months ago her ire was not directed at her innocent little brother, who lay asleep in his crib and blissfully unaware of his sister's frustration. This time her ire was directed at her parents, the people who in one breath insisted that she have friends and spend time with them and in another denied her that freedom with their frequent dinners. She trudged to the couch and flung herself down, reaching for the remote to see if she could find anything to watch, then thinking better of it and glancing at the book shelf in the corner of the room. Most of her books were in her room but some had migrated here when she had run out of space. Perhaps a book would be a better way of unwinding.

"Hello, Sarah."

She froze as she heard the voice. She knew it, of course, it was not a voice she was likely to forget and even had she wanted to her dreams had ensured that she could not.

"You!" She did not speak his name, refused to use his title. He was here and all that was important was convincing him to go a long way away. "You can't be here!"

"Why ever not?"

"You steal babies!" Toby was not a baby anymore, not long into his toddlerhood to be sure but not a baby anymore and surely he could no longer be of interest to the Goblin King.

"I grant wishes," he countered mildly, arms folded across his chest and for the first time she noticed that he was not wearing his armour. Instead he was dressed in a similar manner to the way he had in the tunnels of the Labyrinth.

"Whatever helps you sleep at night," she hissed.

"Until recently sleep has never been difficult for me," he replied mildly, apparently refusing to to rise to her baiting.

"Guilty conscience?"

"Not in the slightest," he regarded her coldly. "Why should I feel guilt about taking that which is freely given?"

"But they aren't!" She insisted. Technically Toby was not hers to give to anyone.

"'I wish the goblins would take you away, right now!'" He pitched his voice mockingly as he repeated the words. "Those were your words, were they not? You were not coerced into speaking them, no one forced you to read from a script." His smile was feral, cruel, and she shivered under his gaze. "You uttered them freely and with great feeling that night. We took Toby because you wished it of us. Nothing more, nothing less."

"I didn't know it would work!" She insisted. It had been drummed into her all her life that it was all well and good to enjoy the fantasy realms but at the end of the day that is all that they were, a place of make believe and impossible magic.

"But you wanted it to," he told her reasonably, "and quite often intention is all that is necessary. I was generous enough to allow you the chance to win him back, does that not count in my favour?"

"You cheated," she told him flatly, irritated by his words more than she wanted to admit because she could not deny that they were as reasonable as his tone.

"Is it cheating to use any means at my disposal to keep my prize?" The corner of his mouth tilted up, almost as though he was going to smile at her before he got his features under control again. "You were the one who failed to ask about the rules, Precious, and I could easily accuse you of the same." He must have seen the outrage on her face because he held up a hand to stall her angry words. "You bought the loyalty of several of my subjects and while it was certainly an inventive way of getting through the Labyrinth it could still be considered cheating."

"I passed the final test alone, didn't I?" She challenged, not happy to hear that he was as convinced that she had not played by the rules as she had been that he had not.

"Did you?" He arched an eyebrow at her. "I wonder if you even know what the final test was." It was like he had poured icy water down her spine, implying that she had not even been aware of the game she had been playing. Implying that she might not have won, might not be finished with it, after all.

"Resisting temptation," she told him. "Resisting you, that was the test."

"Was it?" He asked. "Perhaps, perhaps not." He twisted his hand and his fingers seemed to pull magic from the air.

"What is that?" She demanded even though she recognised the orb he was spinning over his fingertips.

"A crystal, nothing more, nothing less," he answered, his words a horrible echo of the ones he had spoken that night and she shuddered. "A gift this midsummer in memory of your 'victory'."

"I don't want any gifts from you," she placed her hands behind her back, her fingertips itching to reach for the softly glowing globe even as her eyes followed its path over leather clad hands.

"Pity," he tossed the crystal in the air and it shattered, raining glitter and fairy dust onto the carpet. "Perhaps next time you will be in a more open frame of mind."

"Next time? There won't be a…" he was gone before she could finish her sentence and she stamped her foot in frustration, well aware of how childish it was and not able to bring herself to care. "Toby," she gasped her little brother's name and raced up the stairs, opening his bedroom door and letting light from the landing flood the room he had been moved into only a week before. In the sudden light the toddler stirred but did not wake and Sarah breathed a sigh of relief. Whatever the Goblin King's agenda had been, Toby had not been a part of it.