A/N: Hi readers. This is my first shot at a Labyrinth story, so I hope its enjoyable. This is just the beginning, and there's definitely more on the way. Hope you like it! Please review, and if you do...don't torch me? Pretty please?

Disclaimer: I don't own Labyrinth or anything associated with it. This is purely for fun.

It was raining when her class ended. Sarah Williams didn't mind rain, had spent many days as a child playing in it. Now, as she stepped out of her art class, she admired the touch of drama the dark clouds and light rainfall added to the lush beauty of the university campus. It was warm out, so she decided to walk home to her apartment. She didn't live far from school, and for a moment she stopped to take in the sight and smell of spring. She enjoyed the tapping of the rain against her skin, and took a mental picture of the thick line of trees and flowers glistening with water. She would paint this scene once she reached home, she knew; it would be her second one in as many days, but she could feel the excitement to put brush to canvas already rising.

Sarah's imagination had always been vivid, and for the past several years she had found painting to be a fulfilling way to express her thoughts and play out her fantasies. She had even gone to school for art, and was now in her final year. Her father and stepmother were skeptical at first, but encouraged her once she showed them some of the pieces she'd done in her last year of high school. Though she was now twenty-two years old, Sarah still loved fantasy novels, plays, and stories of medieval adventures and romance. Her paintings often stemmed from these genres, and her passion and sharp eye helped her create intense, dramatic artwork. Her family and friends thought she was very talented, and Sarah worked hard at school and at home to keep improving and experimenting. It was a way to express the things she couldn't talk about to other people, fantasy or not.

This included her time in the Underground. Sarah's thoughts were never far from her experiences there, or the friends she had made; each of them had been the subject of sketches and paintings many times over. The people who saw them were impressed by the incredible detail, never realizing that the figures and places she painted were more than just ideas in her head. Still, it made Sarah feel like she could share her experiences without making herself look crazy.

Sarah sighed as she got closer to her apartment, her mind taking her down a familiar path back to the Labyrinth. His labyrinth. In the last seven years, she had not forgotten about Jareth anymore than she had her friends, whom she stayed in close contact with. Hoggle, Ludo, Didymus, and even Ambrosius remained loyal friends, visiting her when they could. She had not seen or heard from the Goblin King, but sometimes she thought she could almost feel his presence around her, teasing her; she looked for a sign of him, knowing she wasn't likely to find one.

She painted him too, but she never showed those to anyone. She kept them hidden in a special space in her closet, each one based on a memory or a dream that brought his strong features rushing to the forefront of her mind. Sarah tried to put him out of her mind, she really did; but she could never totally let go of the Goblin King. It bothered her that she still thought of him often, even after so many years; deep down, she worried she may actually miss him. As that thought occurred to her, she felt a strange tingling on the nape of her neck, as if someone were watching her; as if he were watching her. She swung her head around anxiously, seeing nothing out of the ordinary. She decided she must be driving herself nuts and hurried up to her apartment.

Sarah unlocked her door and headed to the kitchen for a snack. She distracted herself with organizing the due dates for several school assignments and scheduling time to do each one. Then, she set up her painting tools and began mixing colors to recreate the image of the campus in the rain that struck her earlier. She tied her long, dark locks back in a high ponytail and focused on her project.

Hours later, Sarah moved to place the finished, dry canvas in her bedroom. As she leaned it against the wall beside her closet, she noticed that a few of the canvases within were sticking out at odd angles. Confused, she stepped into her closet to fix them. Her confusion grew when she noticed that the stack appeared to be smaller than it should; she froze when realized why. She looked through the collection several times over, checked every corner of her closet, and moved on to search her entire apartment, but came up empty-handed. The Goblin King's portrait was missing.

Sarah felt a chill come over her as she tried to figure out where her painting could have gone. No one had ever seen her paintings of Jareth; they were the most private, conflicting pieces she had. Some of them depicted the imposing, cruel Goblin King in all his glory; others were close-ups that highlighted every detail of his angular, handsome face, often with a tender expression that made Sarah feel alternately proud and embarrassed for imagining it. Those paintings made her feel vulnerable in a way that none of her other works did, and she felt especially uneasy knowing one of them had somehow vanished. The one in question was her favorite, and she shuddered to think it might end up in the wrong hands.

"The wrong hands…" Sarah felt a stab of fear at the thought that Jareth might have somehow found that portrait. She couldn't forget the times she suspected he was near, even though she never saw him. He had magic; who's to say he didn't find his way into her apartment?

"That's ridiculous. I'm being ridiculous," she muttered to herself. She pushed thoughts of a Goblin King-turned-art-thief away from her mind, choosing instead to contact the friends who were in her home recently, including those from the Underground. She started with her few close college friends, Katy, Charlotte, and Daniel. She asked each of them over the phone if they had been in her bedroom or if they had seen a painting of a blonde man the last time they came to visit her. They all said they hadn't, and she could tell they were being genuine, so she moved to her bedroom mirror and called out to Hoggle.

He came through a few moments later. Hoggle could tell by her nervous fidgeting that something was worrying Sarah, despite her warm, happy greeting.

"Sarah, what's wrong?" Hoggle asked. She chewed her lip for a moment before coming clean.

"Hoggle, a painting of mine is missing. Do you know anything about that?" Hoggle's thick eyebrows shot up comically as he looked at her aghast.

"What? Are you askin' if I took your paintin'? Cuz I don't steal Sarah, not from you, oh no, Hoggle ain't a thief…no sir.." he rambled indignantly. Sarah glanced at him with affection as she tried to interrupt his rant without yelling over him.

"Hoggle, its okay, I don't think you stole it or anything. I was just wondering if you'd seen it, or if maybe you saw something or someone that looked out of place here," she soothed.

"Oh. Well okay then," he huffed. After a silent moment of standing with his finger tapping on his chin, Hoggle looked up at Sarah and asked, "I can't think of anything that seems fishy. What was the paintin' of, anyway?" The question caught Sarah off guard and she tried to hide the blush threatening to spread across her cheeks.

"Why do you ask?" she hedged.

"Well because, Missy, if we know what was in the paintin' then maybe we can figure out who'd want to take it from ya," Hoggle said plainly. Sarah realized he had a legitimate point, but thinking in those terms only served to cause yet another chill to race across her skin. She hesitated to tell him, but Hoggle was her best friend, and if someone really had taken her painting, she would need his help to find out who did it. Especially if it was a certain glittery king…

She steeled her nerves before explaining. "It's a portrait of Jareth," she said in a rush. "I've never shown it to anyone else, or even mentioned it before. I should be the only one who knows it exists, and yet it's gone! I've never moved it; not since I first put it away in my closet a couple of months ago. And the others were messy, when I know for sure that I stacked them neatly only a few days ago," she continued. Hoggle's eyes bulged when she mentioned the Goblin King, his mouth opening and closing a few times before he actually spoke.

"Jareth? Jareth! Why'd you paint him anyways? After everything that happened…I mean us, I understand…Ludo and Sir Didymus and me, we're you're friends. But why Jareth? You never mention him," Hoggle said, entirely confused and a little alarmed. Sarah sighed, running her fingers through her ponytail.

"I know we never talk about him, but it isn't like I could just forget he ever existed," she said. "He was…complicated. I didn't understand him at the time. I was only fifteen, for crying out loud, and all I was thinking about was saving Toby. I didn't really bother learning anything about him. But I didn't forget him, Hoggle," she said the last part softly. When he looked concerned, she joked, "Besides, you have to admit he makes an impression." Hoggle chuckled darkly at that and sighed.

"That he does. And I don't know if I should be telling ya this Sarah, but the King hasn't exactly forgotten about you either."

Deep in the Underground, the Goblin King sat in his throne room with a look of utmost concentration distorting his features. All around him, goblins raucously fought, drank, and played games with each other. This was nothing new, but Jareth needed silence; his patience gave out and he sent all of his subjects scurrying out of the throne room with a sharp command. He breathed a sigh of relief and once again focused on the task at hand.

He held Sarah's painting in his hands. Her portrayal of him was…stunning. Not only had she completely captured his likeness, she had also softened his features into an expression that he had only ever directed at her. He was so sure she never noticed, what with her determination to say the words that would save baby Toby and end their game. He thought she had completely ignored him in that moment, but perhaps not.

Jareth was perplexed by the image of his own face exhibiting such longing. It certainly wasn't something he aimed for after Sarah, but clearly she remembered. Even if she hadn't recognized it then, she must see it now; after all, she created this portrait. When he had gone to look in on her, as he did many times before over the years, he had caught her setting a new canvas down in her room. When she left for her classes, he slipped into the apartment to see it. It was then that he noticed the stack of square edges peeking out of her open closet door, and naturally, he went to investigate. What he found in there caused his heart to race with uncertainty and a secret thrill.

He had often glimpsed the work she did of those buffoons she called her friends, but never had he seen her paint his likeness. Apparently, she did them in secret, if the hidden position of the canvases was any indication. There were several portraits of himself, some realistic, some set in fantastical poses and backdrops. He saw many where he looked regal and imperious, and others where his expression was mysterious, but not cold. He couldn't believe she had spent so much time contemplating his person, and was about to leave with his smirk in place when he came across the one that stopped him. Somehow he recognized immediately that this intimate portrayal of him did not only reflect his own features, but carried something of Sarah in it as well. He supposed they all did, but this one…he decided then and there that he needed to take it Below with him for further study.

And study it he did. Jareth spent what felt like hours staring at the painting, rotating it, bringing it closer, and moving it away. Finally he realized what it was that struck him, besides the obvious skill and his open expression. It was the care that had obviously been taken with this piece; the careful construction, the lifelike emotion in his eyes and the set of his mouth. He recognized then that Sarah had almost lovingly painted this portrait; and there was affection there, in each brushstroke. When he found it, the Goblin King thought it held some part of Sarah in it; now he believed he knew what that part was, and the thought exhilarated him.

"She cares for me," he thought. "Even if she does not yet realize it."

He decided then that it was time he made another visit to her world. And this time, she would know for sure that the Goblin King had not forsaken her.

"What do you mean, he hasn't forgotten?" Sarah asked nervously. Hoggle looked at her meaningfully before he answered.

"Well y'see, he still does all his kingly stuff; rulin' the goblins and the labyrinth, threatenin' us with the Bog, and what-have-you. But since you left, he gets these looks, like he's far away or somethin'. Even I see em', and I mostly stay in the labyrinth itself. He always compares the runners to you too; it ain't hard to catch him muttering things like 'nothing like her', 'boring', and 'green-eyed vixen,'" Hoggle explained. He chuckled when her eyes went wide.

"Green-eyed vixen?!" she exclaimed.

"Yeah, but that one's a more recent development," Hoggle stated. "Plus, Jareth takes a heck of a lot of trips Above, and it ain't always cuz he's been summoned," he shared knowingly. Sarah's spine tingled and she looked Hoggle straight in the eyes.

"Hoggle, are you saying that Jareth comes up here to see me?" Hoggle nodded, though he looked around Sarah's room nervously as if expecting the Goblin King to appear at any moment to chastise him.

"Yeah, I think so. I mean, it's pretty obvious with how he goes on about ya, and when he disappears but leaves the goblins behind…" he trailed off with a pointed look. Sarah took a deep breath and a moment to think. Many occasions had passed when she thought she sensed Jareth's presence, but she always chalked it up to her own paranoia. Now, her closest friend was telling her that the king may very well have been watching her for years, observing her from the shadows and remaining out of sight. And out of reach, she thought.

"He misses ya," Hoggle said suddenly. "You beat him. You intrigued him. And he's never forgotten ya, not for a moment."

She didn't know how to feel about everything Hoggle was telling her. She was unnerved by the idea of Jareth hanging around for all those years without her knowledge, but she also couldn't deny the irrational hope beginning to blossom within her. She felt an anxious flutter that she couldn't identify when Hoggle explained Jareth's behavior, and Sarah was afraid to look too deep into what that was. More than anything, she was confused, both by Hoggle's words and her own reaction. Then the reason she had called her friend in the first place came back to her.

"So, Hoggle…do you think Jareth might have taken the painting?" she asked. Sarah was afraid of what his answer would be.

"I wouldn't put it past him, not at all. If he found it, even accidentally, he would be inclined to gloat, at the very least," Hoggle said. "And knowing you, it was a good paintin'. So if he saw somethin' he liked about it, I'm bettin' he'd leave with it." Sarah hung her head in dismay, unsure if she was more upset at the loss of her painting or at what might happen now that Jareth had likely seen it. Just then, Hoggle coughed lightly to get her attention. She looked up when he started speaking.

"There is another possibility," he said cryptically. Sarah's eyes brightened hopefully.

"What is it, Hoggle?"

"He mighta done it to get your attention." Sarah's eyes widened as she considered this.

"But why? If he's really been around all these years, why make his presence known now?"

"Don't know. Could be he never saw your paintins' before. You said you never showed anyone. So maybe he just realized you've been thinkin' about him, and he thinks it's time to…er…"

"To what, Hoggle?" The dwarf paused a moment before finishing his thought.

"To make a move. I'd be careful if I was you." Sarah's heartbeat sped up and she couldn't tell whether she was surprised at Hoggle for saying it or at the possibility that he could be right. She closed her eyes for a moment, thoughts reeling.

"Well if he wants my attention, he certainly has it."