The Last Refrain came about sometime after I had been reading some old Irish fairytales, particularly bits about the music of the faeries and how it could ensnare those that listened to it. This led me to thinking about Jareth's songs, and if he was fae, wouldn't they have the same effect on Sarah as faerie music is supposed to?

This is to be read as a sequel story to Labyrinth.

Disclaimer: Sarah, Jareth, and the rest of the creatures of the Labyrinth do not belong to me. They belong to Jim Henson and whoever else may have created them.

The Last Refrain

Chapter One: Echo of a Song

She would never forget that song.

It still played in her head long after she had left him. A sparkling music-box tune that danced across her daydreams and echoed in her ears while she was asleep.

She would never forget his voice, either. His beautiful and aching voice promising her sunlight, happiness, and undying love.

That was probably one of the reasons why she hadn't decided on a singer yet. Writing the tune itself had been easy enough (the song had burned from her memory like wildfire, engraving itself on crisp white paper).

But she could not find the right voice.

The directors had given her one more week to search for a singer and then they would scrap all her efforts and pick one themselves.

They did not know the crystalline beauty that had graced his song, the undeniable truth that he had sung to her.

She knew.

She remembered.

Aidan was twenty-four and a musician; a singer of great reputation down in the world of college clubs and karaoke. He was la vie Boheme personified- his smile, grace, and clothes all reeked of it. Girls saw it and loved him.

He was also an arrogant, pretentious asshole. Sometimes he meant to be, sometimes he didn't, but he always was regardless of his intention. This was something the rocker chicks with their wild hairdos noticed less frequently about him, and often those that did notice were willing to forgive him; shrug his arrogance off as a side effect of his fame.

Sarah Williams did not like Aidan when she first met him. It was an instant and firm dislike, a recognition of all the qualities in him that made him disagreeable.

He also reminded her of somebody, a tall blonde person who had walked the way Aidan did, with unthinking confidence that bordered on arrogance. But she didn't want to think about him, not any more than she had to.

"So. You're Aidan Walker, then?" Sarah looked up at the boy, and he grinned wolfishly.

"Yeah. You're Sarah Williams. Nice to meet you." He held out his hand and she took it, noticing that his arrogance leaked into his handshake. He gripped her hand in such an attitude that clearly said I am better than you, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Sarah sighed inwardly. She almost hoped that he wouldn't be the one with the voice, if it meant that she wouldn't have to deal with him.

"So, Aidan, I hear you're something of a phenomena in the Indie scene."

"Yep." He grinned carelessly. "I would say that."

Another sigh. "Well then, I'm going to play our audition song for you, and once you feel you're familiar enough with it I'll have you sing it for me. Here's a copy of the sheet music, complete with lyrics." She tossed him a bunch of paper, and he caught it easily.

"Ready?"

He nodded to her, and she pressed play on the CD player.

As the first notes seeped out of the speakers to flood the room something strange flickered across Aidan's face. Sarah wasn't sure what it was, a twitch of the mouth or a widening of the eyes, and it happened so quickly she thought she might have imagined it.

Finally the music stopped, and he reached out and grabbed Sarah's hand before she could replay it.

"I've got it. I'll sing now."

Sarah gave him a skeptical look and shrugged, then skipped ahead to the instrumental version of the song. As she did this she watched the boy out of the corner of her eye curiously.

She pushed play.

Aidan closed his eyes, then opened his mouth and sang.

Sarah had known that Aidan was supposed to be a sort of legend in the Indie scene. She knew he was supposed to have a gorgeous voice that well accompanied his tousled brown hair and bright green eyes.

But still, his attitude had just about made Sarah decide to refuse him the position he was trying out for, regardless of whether he deserved it or not.

That was before he started to sing.

His voice was raw, vibrant, and emotional; and Sarah could not help but let out a gasp as it first rang out.

It was so... so much like his that it was hard- so hard-

The memory of his piercing eyes, of his hand on her, gently leading her across the ballroom. He began to sing softly to her, his voice somehow clear against the raucousness of the other dancers.

"There's such a fooled heart..."

Sarah blinked and abruptly came back to reality. He was gone, Aidan was there, still singing.

She shook her head, driving the memories away. She did not know why she kept thinking of him, he had terrified her so much as a child...

A while ago she decided that her memories of him were a result of his strong and distinctive personality. Who could possibly walk away unscathed after meeting from someone like him?

A small part of her whispered that this was only half of the answer, but Sarah had been ignoring that voice for years and wasn't about to start listening to it now.

Finally the song was over, finally Aidan stopped singing. He looked at Sarah, and she at him.

"Well? What did you think?"

"That was... that was very good, Aidan."

Aidan looked into Sarah's eyes with his own intense green ones, and for a moment she stared back at him silently.

There is something odd about this boy. Something almost wrong.

Then Sarah shrugged off those thoughts, accounting them to simple paranoia. She gave Aidan a strained smile.

"Well, I guess that means we'll have you as the singer, then. Come back to the studio at eleven A.M. tomorrow and I'll fill you in on what your schedule is."

Aidan blinked, breaking his unnerving stare.

"See you tomorrow."

"Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave."

His eyes pleaded with her, begged her to listen to him.

But she would not. He was the villain, she the pristine heroine, and they both must play their roles to the finish.

It was a lot like a dance. Their conversation was structured into a series of ritualized steps that all fit together like pieces of a puzzle. First she would say this, and he would reply with temptation, which she would ignore and respond with the right words, the proper words.

And then finally the last words came to her lips, the ending ones. After she said them there would be nothing he could do to keep her, he would be powerless and bend to her wishes.

But this time the words stopped at her lips, and as Sarah opened her mouth she found she could not speak.

Then the tones of the clock echoed in her ears; once, thrice, thirteen times, and everything was swallowed in darkness.

Sarah gasped and sat bolt upright in her bed.

She had been having nightmares about the Labyrinth for the past two weeks, dreams of being hopelessly lost, of things chasing her, and of being forgotten forever deep inside an oubliette. But she had never before had this dream, a dream of the final confrontation gone awry.

Sarah wasn't sure why the nightmares had started again, after having left her in peace for almost four years. She was twenty now, and hadn't had a nightmare about the Underground since she was seventeen.

And now, intermingled with the nightmares she would have an odd dream that she could scarely remember in the morning, but yet seemed to always be the same. Sarah would wake up with a half-remembered haze of whispered words and snatches of song floating through her mind, always the same words and always the same music.

Sarah would push this dream out of memory as it was to obscure and vague to really care about, and the nightmares always loomed much larger in her memory.

Yet despite her efforts to forget the half-dream, Sarah would inevitably find her self humming bits of the song in the dream the next day. It wasn't a song she recognized, not one he had sung to her.

But still it stuck in her memory, and slowly began to haunt and torment her as much as the nightmares did.

A note: I really have no idea how auditions are held for singing parts in movies, so let's just pretend for now something like the somewhere-above happens.

Thanks for reading, and comments are always very much appreciated.