I've re-submitted this story, hopefully with all my formatting problems fixed. Thanks for your patience. I'm new at this. Anyway, on with the story:
Disclaimer: I own nothing except a really cool tee shirt with a picture of Bowie as Jareth on it. Labyrinth is owned by someone who is not me. I know it's not even owned by Jim Henson Productions, or they would have been able to make the sequel Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean wanted to make. Instead they are making a movie called MirrorMask that sounds like it will be almost as good.
Prologue:
Sarah stood outside the hospital room, trying to compose her features before going in to see Toby. It wouldn't do for the 4 year old to see her looking so sorrowful. Forcing a smile on her face, she opened the door and walked the few steps to Toby's bedside, trying not to wince at the sight of the various tubes and wires that seemed to be all that connected Toby to this life. "Hey, little brother," she said softly, "How's it going?"
Toby's blue eyes lit up at the sound of her voice, "Sarah!" he said in a weak but delighted voice. "You're here!"
"'Course I am, squirt. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else." Sarah recalled her stepmother's voice on the phone, telling her that Toby was in the hospital for what was probably the final time. She sounded beyond sad; she sounded defeated. Sarah packed and left for home as quickly as possible, praying the entire way she would make it on time. "College was getting boring." She sat carefully on the bed. "Can I get you anything?"
"Would you tell me a story? Would you tell me the goblin story?"
Sarah bit her lip to keep from crying. That story. The story of the night she wished this precious little boy away, and got him back again. How thankful she was now that she succeeded, that she was given at least a few years to appreciate Toby and all the joy he brought to her life.
"Sarah?" Toby interrupted her thoughts. She smiled again at him, and began the story. "Once upon a time there was a girl who wished her brother away to the Goblin King. As soon as he was gone, however, she knew that it wasn't right that her baby brother pay for her dreams, so she went into Labyrinth to get him back." As she recounted the tale to amuse her dying baby brother she thought of the life she'd brought him back to. If she had known that just three years later he would be leaving the world anyway, would she have done it? Was it better to live in the Goblin world forever? Sarah didn't have the answer. Life, she thought, was like the Labyrinth. Nothing really made sense, paths you thought lead one place sent you in a completely different direction. "It's not fair" was the wail of her younger self, and she couldn't help but think it now. It wasn't fair that she ran Jarath's gauntlet for Toby, just to lose him to something infinitely crueler then even the Goblin King could be.
Story finished, Sarah bent down to kiss Toby's pale forehead. "Sarah? Did the boy ever get back to the goblins?"
Startled by the question, Sarah drew back to stare at him in surprise." What do you mean?"
"What if the boy liked it with the goblins? " Toby said in a surprisingly strong voice. "They were funny, and played with him."
Sarah stilled, shocked by Toby's words. Her story never included what the goblins were doing with the baby. She didn't know, after all. "Do you think the baby had fun with the goblins?" she asked cautiously. He was probably just making it up, he couldn't possibly remember. Could he?
Toby just sighed. "I bet goblins don't get sick, like boys do. Maybe the boy could go back to the goblins, if he were sick, like me. Do you think so?"
"Oh Toby," Sarah didn't know what else to say. She simply hugged him gently, her tears falling unnoticed on his wasted face, "I wish I knew, sweetie, I really do. If I thought the Labyrinth could help, Toby…" she didn't finish the sentence. She didn't know how. The day Toby was diagnosed with leukemia Sarah had called to Hoggle through her mirror, sure that the illness was just an effect of his stay in the Labyrinth, or just a trick of the Goblin King's. When Hoggle assured her it was not, she then demanded a way to cure him. "There's magic there," she'd said, "there must be something that can save Toby."
"I'm sorry, Sarah," Hoggle replied, his worn face looking more downcast than she'd ever seen it, "Death is something even magic can't overcome. Sometimes things just happen."
And that was it. She stayed with her brother as long as she could, comforted her father and her stepmother, their early animosity forgotten in the face of this shared pain. After Toby died, Sarah changed her major from English and Drama to Pre-Med. It wasn't hard. She'd always been good at science, and though she didn't have the same passion for it as she did the more creative things, she threw herself into her studies, eventually graduating with honors and attending Harvard Medical. She would never forget the helplessness she felt facing Toby's illness, and never wanted to feel that way again. Eventually she landed a position in the ER at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. She hadn't called on the world of the Labyrinth since the day of Toby's funeral. Right up until the last possible moment, she held onto the thin hope that someone from the Labyrinth could help, that perhaps even Jareth himself would appear with a crystal that would heal Toby, but he never did. She turned away, and soon the Labyrinth became a memory, then a memory of a dream, then completely forgotten as anything other than a story she once knew.