Out of Time

Disclaimer: Labyrinth and all of its characters do not belong to me.

*********************************************************************************************************************

That's the problem with life, Sarah thought as she stared up at the tearless grey sky, blinking dazedly as the pain faded from her body and became nothing but a dull roar in her ears.

-Just as soon as you get the hang of it, it leaves you…

*****

It had been a fairly simple decision, visiting her family before returning to work in New York. She'd had a nagging feeling that three years was a long enough time to have gone without seeing any of them, and, from the not-so-subtle hints in Karen's letters, she could tell that Toby missed her terribly.

Imagine, him being nine years old and still whining for his big sister! -Well, half-sister, but the names and titles mattered little to Sarah. She and Toby were friends, simple as that. She had missed him terribly too, writing him letters full of magic and stories in every moment she could scrounge between scurrying all over the city from audition to audition. But apparently those stories hadn't been enough, and Toby needed to hear the stories from their creator's lips, just as he had during Sarah's pre-college years.

Within the cab's shadowy interior, Sarah smiled fondly at the crumpled letter smeared with marker and crayon, written in Toby's wandering, childish script. Although it had taken her half an hour to decode the messy scribbles, she now knew the words by heart:

Dear sarah! Hi its Toby! Mommy said I shud write you a letter and I dint no how but I tried anyway. When are you goig to come back and tell me more stories? Daddy sayes you will come back soon but I waited for an our and you never returned I miss you the hareeys miss you too they helped me write this letter! We miss you Sarah! Come back!

I love you!

Toby!

!

Toby was still a very energetic and impatient child, which explained the poor spelling and complete lack of grammar. All the same, Sarah had been touched, though slightly surprised, that he had found the patience to sit down and write her a letter at all. That fact alone was enough to absolve him of even the worst spelling mistakes, and the way he continually prattled on about the "hareeys" whenever Karen allowed him to speak with Sarah on the phone. Sarah had honestly no idea what he was talking about, but she indulged him and allowed him to babble on and on about all the adventures and mischief that he and the "hareeys" had gotten up to that week. He was only a child after all, and she would sooner die than spoil the magic of his imaginings.

Sarah folded the letter and tucked it inside her raincoat's inner breast pocket, smoothing the paper within her coat against her heart. Toby would have his stories soon enough, she vowed, watching the shadows within the cab shift as the driver passed through a tunnel of overreaching trees. In the pale grey light of the overcast skies, the deep green leaves that she remembered so distinctly seemed to have become black and listless, outlining the sky's white emptiness with sprays of ebony lace when the cab emerged from the tunnel of trees.

Smiling almost defiantly at the melancholy weather, Sarah patted Toby's letter over her heart again and turned her attention to her wallet to prepare the cab fare as she neared the center of town. Soon enough she would see her family and tell Toby more stories about the magic of New York City, and then even this inclement weather couldn't tear down their spirits.

Sarah settled back against the cab's worn seat, trying to relax before she met with her family again, when something outside the car caught her eye. She yelped, jumping up in her seat, and stuttered like a child for a few moments more before she could form the words, "Stop, please!"

She could see the cab driver roll his eyes in the rearview mirror as he came to a rough halt beside a long expanse of tall hedges. Sarah twisted backward in her seat, peering through the back window to something in the distance. "I'll get out here," she murmured slowly, tearing her eyes from the back window and fishing around in her purse for the wad of money she'd already set aside.

"Okay, ma'am." The driver muttered, taking the money from Sarah's outstretched hand. "Have a nice day, ma'am!" he called, but Sarah had already snatched up her purse and suitcase from the seat beside her and shut the door. He glanced into his rearview mirror briefly as he pulled away from the curb, watching Sarah sprint back down the street and wondering vaguely what had caught her attention.

The rev of the car's engine faded into the distance as Sarah reached the entrance to the giant park where she used to play. A low wind pulled strands of Sarah's long brown hair into her face as she approached. The gate, made of plain black metal, its bars reaching several towering feet above Sarah's head, was locked.

Sarah set her suitcase on the ground, and lifted the padlock on the gate, frowning. The gate was never locked. Since when had the town started locking the gate? Why would the town suddenly decide to start locking the gate? How did this make sense?

"It's not fair."

Sarah dropped the lock and grasped the black iron bars with both of her hands, pressing her face to the metal like a caged bird. If she looked at the right angle, she could just see the edge of the bridge that spanned the pond, and the very tip of the park's tall white monolith, but all else was obscured by trees and shrubbery. The park looked wild and untended and the grass grew wildly through the bars of the gate, as if clamoring for an escape. How long had it been since anyone had used the park?

Sarah's gaze dropped slowly, moving reluctantly from the pure white of the monolith in the distance, to the overgrown path, to the worn, brown suitcase at her side. She shouldn't be wasting her valuable time here, seeking old memories. The park was just a park, and as precious as her time spent playing in it had been, she had moved on and no longer needed such silly diversions. She should be with her family right now. Yet, for some reason, a ray of sadness pierced her heart as she turned away from the wild, overgrown park and stepped back into reality.

Sarah reluctantly bent down to pick up her suitcase, her purse slipping from her shoulder and jerking her with its slight weight. She wearily pulled the strap back onto her shoulder and, lifting the tiny brown suitcase containing her clothes -just the essential toiletries and enough clothing for one or two days- crossed the street, head bent.

*****

And so here she was now.

Thanks to her juvenile stupidity, she hadn't seen the car, or even heard it. She had been too busy questioning why on Earth the park would be closed, and thinking of how unfair it was that she couldn't get in, and wondering why the weather had to be so dull and lifeless today…

-and now she had her answer.

That's the problem with life, she thought again wearily, just staring up at the sky's great white emptiness, the early autumn air and cool pavement chilling her inside her thin raincoat. It's all just so… unfair.

The grey light from the sky cast a pall over everything around Sarah, and she somewhat dejectedly wondered if she should be hurt or flattered that Nature had chosen to grace her eyes with this last depressing image. Was Nature dressed for the occasion, or was it simply depriving her of the sunlight that she had hoped for today? She supposed that she should assume the former, not necessarily because it was more likely, but rather because it was just a nicer thought. –And why shouldn't she be allowed a few nice, if childish, thoughts just before she died?

Childish… Toby. Sarah vaguely remembered Toby's name. Why? Oh yes, she had wanted to see him before she returned to New York. It seemed that neither of those things was going to happen.

Sarah thought of the adorable letter that Toby had written, tucked away just over her heart. She tried to touch the paper, but she couldn't raise her arm. She couldn't feel anything. Giving an inward sigh, Sarah thought of the words he had written, but even the words were slipping away from her now as the whiteness of the sky was brightening, obscuring the colorless trees, reaching down to claim her.

Stories…

Miss you…

Hareeys helped me…

Come back…

Wait, what were the hareeys again? Oh yes, Toby's imaginary friends. Sarah gave another inward sigh. She too had had imaginary friends of her own at one point. She couldn't remember their names… It had been too long… She could only remember the happiness that she had felt with them; it swelled within her like a bubble, filling her with the power and energy to do anything, complete any challenge, embark on any quest… And there was that shadowy pair of mismatched eyes… They mocked her and enticed her and chased her… And as frightening as they had been, they too had given Sarah a feeling of importance and, bizarrely, of that same swelling happiness that she had felt with her friends. Sarah tried to think of the last time she'd felt so happy, and couldn't remember.

What she wouldn't give for some of that happiness now… to go back to her world of magic and never have to suffer this… slow, banal death.

The light was all around her now, bathing her in pearly grey incandescence.

Although Sarah couldn't hear or see or feel anything, she felt her lips move of their own accord, and heard them whisper a wish; a silly wish that she hadn't thought of or said in years; a wish that had never been granted, but a wish that she felt entitled to now, here, at the end of what had been a gloriously unaccomplished life.

"I wish I could see them all again…" she whispered into the blinding white light.

And then she allowed herself to sink down into the timeless arms of darkness.

*********************************************************************************************

A/N: XDDD Ahaha sorry! I was originally going to wait until the next chapter to leave an A/N, but I think some people may have thought that this was the end of the story (and that Sarah actually dies.)

Well it's not the end. It would be so cruel of me to just kill off Sarah for the fun of it, and although I can appreciate them, I'm not really one for poetic endings or tragedies. Nope, my English class is very effectively eliminating any cravings that I might have for that depressing sort of literature. (Think Oedipus, Okonkwo, Tess Durbeyfield/d'Urberville, Heathcliff, Dorian Gray. -You know. That lot.)

But yeah, rest assured; you can expect happier endings from me.

This story is only just beginning.