Thirteen Hours Until Forever
Summary: After traversing the Labyrinth, Sarah has led a relatively normal life, not including the occasional appearances of goblins and other creatures in her bedroom. So after six years, why is she suddenly stuck with a troublesome goblin who claims to be her protector, and how has Jareth, once again, managed to draw her back to Underground?
This is my first fanfic ever, so I hope you enjoy and tell me what you think!
Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth or any of Jim's Henson's wonderful characters.
Chapter 1
Bedtime Stories
"Toby, you've heard that story at least a hundred times!"
"But it's my favorite!" the seven year old protested. "Please, Sarah." He stuck out his lower lip and opened his eyes as wide as they could go.
"Oh, no," Sarah said as she turned away from her brother with one hand over her eyes. "I'm not falling for your puppy-dog look again."
The two siblings sat in Toby's bedroom. Outside it was pitch black as clouds covered the moon and stars. The weatherman had predicted a big storm tonight, and it looked like for once he might be right.
Sarah's father and step-mother were out at a theater performance for the night and had called the twenty-one year old to babysit Toby until they returned. Sarah remembered the days when she could think of nothing worse than babysitting her young half-brother, but ever since that night, she hadn't minded and even looked forward to her nights alone with Toby.
Toby was the only person she had told about her adventures in the Labyrinth, but he didn't know the story was real. The rest of her family had noticed the change in the young girl after that night, though. Sarah Williams was no longer the selfish, naïve fifteen year old she used to be – she was mature and never once complained that something "wasn't fair."
Sarah had finished high school with straight B's – a great improvement from her previous C's and D's – and she earned an art scholarship to a local college so she could stay close to her family.
Toby, on the other hand, had gained none of the maturity his sister had during his time in the Labyrinth. He had now filled an entire cabinet in the principal's office with his exploits, the latest being letting a bullfrog loose on his teacher's desk during English class and earning him another detention. Karen, Sarah's step-mother, had at first tried to keep track of the number of times she got a call from the school's principal, but she soon gave up. Toby was officially the teacher's nightmare of the second grade.
"Pretty-please, Sarah?" Toby tried again. "Please, please, please, please, pleas–"
Sarah threw up her arms in defeat. "Alright, alright!" Toby grinned happily and stopped bouncing on the bed. "But…" his sister continued. "You have to promise to go to bed right after, okay?"
"Okay," Toby agreed quickly. "I promise." He made an 'x' over his heart just for show.
Sarah rolled her eyes and sat on the bed beside her brother. Toby scooted back on the bed to make room for her and pulled the covers up over his chest.
"Once upon a time," Sarah began. "There was a beautiful young girl whose step-mother always made her stay home with the baby. And the baby was a spoiled child, and he wanted everything for himself, and the young girl was practically a slave. But what no one knew was that the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with the girl-" Toby made a face by sticking out his tongue and pretending to gag, and Sarah glared at him "-and he had given her certain powers. So one night, when the baby had been particularly cruel to her, she called on the goblins for help."
Sarah suddenly jumped off the bed and crouched down in an imitation of a goblin. In a gravelly voice, she continued, "'Say your right words,' the goblins said. 'And we'll take the baby away to the Goblin City, and you will be free.'"
Toby laughed delightedly, and Sarah allowed herself a small smile of pride before plunging back into her story. "But the girl knew that the King of the Goblins would keep the baby in his castle forever and ever and turn it into a goblin. So the girl suffered in silence until one night when she was tired from a day of house work, and she was hurt by the harsh words of her step-mother, and she could no longer stand it… She summoned the King of the Goblins for help: 'Goblin King, Goblin King, wherever you may be, take this child of mine far away from me!'"
Sarah paused for dramatic effect and lowered her voice so Toby had to strain to catch her next words. "And sure enough, the Goblin King came and took the baby away to his castle beyond the Goblin City. The King then told the girl she could win her brother back if she could solve his Labyrinth in thirteen hours, but upon seeing the great maze, the girl turned to the King of the Goblins and said, 'Never mind. You can keep the baby – I never really liked him anyway. He used to put bullfrogs in my soup!'"
"SARAH!" Toby yelled at her. "That's not how the story goes!"
Sarah laughed and replied, "Who said that's not how it goes?"
"Sarah…" Toby whined.
"Well, I am the one telling the story, so don't I get to decide how it goes?" Toby crossed his arms in front of his chest and glared at her. "Alright, alright," Sarah sighed. "The girl agreed to run the Labyrinth and defeated it with minutes to spare, and she won her brother back. The end."
"That's not the whole story, Sarah."
Sarah glanced at the clock beside Toby's bed and turned back to her brother. "Toby, it's after midnight, and your parents will be home soon. They won't let me babysit you anymore if they find out I let you stay up so late."
Toby still looked upset, but he conceded. "Okay, Sarah." He lay back in bed, and Sarah pulled the covers up over him so they covered his head. Toby flailed his arms wildly and yelled something that sounded like "Sarah!" but his voice was muffled by the blanket.
"Stop squirming so much, or I'll have to call the goblins to tie you down," Sarah threatened playfully.
Toby immediately went still and asked timidly, "Sarah?"
"Yes?"
"Get these covers off me right now!" Toby yelled as he resumed his thrashing.
Sarah laughed and leapt off the bed and out of arms' reach of the enraged seven year old.
"'Night, Toby," Sarah called as she turned off the light and slipped out of the room.
"Goodnight, Sarah!" he yelled in return.
Just as Sarah closed the bedroom door, it began to pour outside.
Nowadays, Sarah honestly didn't know what to expect when she came into her room. Last week, there were five goblins trying to catch an army of chickens and herd them back through the portal in her mirror. The chickens only left when Sarah threatened to cook them all and started waving an iron skillet over her head. Surprisingly, the chickens seemed to have understood her, and the room was clear in under a minute.
Sarah had then spent the next hour cleaning her room of chicken feathers, and she later found her favorite leather jacket was missing.
The week before that, she found the entire Fire Gang sitting on her bed playing Scrabble (though none of the words they put down were spelled correctly).
In the past six years, the Goblin King herself had never appeared to her (she wasn't counting dreams), but he did write. And send heaps of flowers. Karen and Sarah's father had though it sweet when Sarah's 'secret admirer' completely filled the kitchen with roses on Valentine's Day. Sarah, on the other hand, was annoyed that he sent the flowers just to show off that he could. He must have had a laugh to see her stab herself with all those thorns (she swore there were more on the roses' stems than was normal) as she cleared out all the bouquets. Sarah would never admit it, but the flowers were very beautiful. And sweet.
In return, she had sent a box of cookies with a note attached back through the portal with the goblins. The note read: For the goblins. Love, Sarah. He responded with a letter saying: Thank you for the cookies, precious. I enjoyed them all, but next time I would prefer if you baked them yourself to show your undying devotion to me. Your humble servant, J.
These interactions were typical and purely fun – to see what sort of challenges one could present the other.
Even so, Sarah dreaded finding out whatever lay behind her bedroom door. With a deep breath, she turned the doorknob and pushed open the door to see… nothing. There was no on in her room.
She let out a sigh of relief, and then she saw the crystal on her desk.
Stepping cautiously into the room, Sarah closed the door behind her and walked to the desk.
The crystal was perfect. Flawless. Clear as an untouched lake and yet fragile-looking, like a bubble that could pop at any moment. Then Sarah remembered what magic Jareth had done with those crystals and drew back the hand she had unconsciously been reaching out toward it.
The crystal seemed to catch the light from her desk lamp and throw it out in an array of colors over the wood grain of the desk. It was truly beautiful.
Words from that night came tumbling back to her:
"Look, Sarah, I've brought you a gift."
"What is it?"
"It's a crystal, nothing more. But if you turn it this way and look into it, it will show you your dreams. Do you want it?"
Tilting her head, Sarah thought she saw shapes moving within the crystal. Setting aside her reservations, she reached out and picked the glass ball up and raised it to eye level so she might be able to see inside.
Suddenly a flash of lightning lit up the room and thunder echoed outside. In surprise, Sarah dropped the crystal, but it disappeared before it had even touched the ground.
Shaking her head and muttering something about drinking too much coffee late at night, Sarah sat in front of the desk and looked into the mirror
"Hoggle. Ludo. Sir Didymus. I need you."
There was no response, and the mirror remained just a mirror.
She tried again. "Hoggle? Hoggle, I need you."
Still nothing.
Groaning in frustration, Sarah pushed back from the desk and walked across the room to flop down on her bed.
None of her friend from the Labyrinth appeared to her anymore. In fact, she hadn't seen any of them since the party in her room that night…. Sarah had once asked the goblins that frequently visited her if they had heard anything about her friends, but they couldn't even remember what they had for breakfast that morning. In a letter to Jareth, she asked about her friends. Her question never got an answer.
Outside, the thunder sounded again. The clock now read 1:00 a.m.. Sighing, Sarah rolled over and got out of bed, reaching for the lamp to turn off the annoying florescent light. Her hand paused in mid-air. There was a creature sitting on her desk. A goblin, to be precise.
"Umm… hello," Sarah said cautiously.
"Hello," the goblin replied, grinning from ear to ear. This goblin was short (even for a goblin) and had large eyes and ears. His nose resembled the carrot one children put on snowmen in the winter, but it wasn't orange. The creature was missing a few teeth, but its bright, toothy smile only made it look cuter. And it was wearing a… pillowcase?
"And I don't suppose you're Dobby the House Elf, are you?" Sarah asked.
The goblin looked confused as the grin slipped off its face, and it tilted its head to one side. "Me no elf. And my name not Dobby. I Herald." The goblin smiled proudly. Herald, the goblin thought, was a perfectly sensible and handsome Aboveground name.
"Herald?" Sarah repeated, flabbergasted.
The goblin nodded enthusiastically. "That's me!"
"Umm… so what can I do for you, Herald?" Sarah rubbed her eyes. This was getting to be a much longer night than expected.
A blank look crossed the goblin's face for a minute. "Cookies?" he asked hopefully.
"You came here for cookies?"
The goblin turned away and hit his head. "No, no, no. King send me to… to… AH-HA!" Herald cried triumphantly. "Protect the Queen." He smiled again.
"Protect the…? I'm sorry Herald, but there is no Queen here."
Herald shook his head madly back and forth. "No, no. You Queen." He pointed at her. "Herald sent to protect you."
Sarah looked completely baffled. "I'm not a Queen, Herald. But you can stay here until the morning (or later in the morning) if you want. As long as you stay in this room. Okay?"
Herald nodded. "Okay!" He jumped off the desk and ran over to the bed. His head didn't even clear the height of the mattress. Herald used the sheets hanging off the side of the bed to pull himself up.
"Herald, that's where I slee-" Seeing the goblin already curled into a ball, Sarah cut off her sentence and muttered, "Never mind."
She flicked off the lamped and felt her way over to the bed. Carefully moving the sleeping Herald out of the way, she lay down and pulled up the covers.
Some guardian, she thought drowsily. He's asleep before I am.
Sarah didn't even have time to wonder why the goblin was there before she slipped into the world of dreams.
Please review! If you have any ideas for the story, I would love to hear them.