Disclaimer: I do not own the Labyrinth, not it's story-line, and most certainly not the ending. Eww... I would have been like 'wait, you want to keep the kid and give me everything I've ever dreamed of? All right, where do I sign?' But there you have it, just more proof that I own nothing except my own imagination... Thank you Jim Hensen for letting me play with your characters for a little while, I'll put them back. A little used and abused, but eh, they'll be there, and that's what counts, right?

Sunlight:

She was so tired that she ignored the prickling sensation rippling across her skin. She sighed, her pale hand twitching slightly. A strand of long, dark hair tickled her nose, and she squinted her sleep-closed eyes. In the world between 'awake' and 'asleep', she clung desperately to retain the dream fast escaping her.

She gown was silver and white, and it was fit for a princess. The leering faces around her caused her acute distress, but it was nothing when placed against the excitement welling up in her. he was here… somewhere… She would catch glimpses of him, just past the loud, busty woman, or just behind the reveler with a long-nosed mask.

She knew his name, though she had never spoken it. A blush stole at her cheeks when she thought of the secrets she kept. In her dreams, she had called him by name, and he had smirked at her, those full lips tilted just so, his odd eyebrows rising toward his silver-gold hair.

Her hand twitched again, calling her back to the waking world. And still she clung to the dream, the half-forgotten images and imagined people like a sweet fruit she wanted to savor. When her eyes shot open, she looked around the room thoughtfully.

Brushing an impatient hand through her hair, Sarah looked at the small alarm clock on her dresser in consternation. She had woken up early. Again. Something behind the clock caught her attention, and a small frown marred her features, still softened by sleep and dreams.

Twirling in all her glory was a small princess wearing a white dress, her hair a small puff of dark fluff that made Sarah smile, despite the oddness of it's placement. It should have been in the bottom of a box at her Father's house, along with a thousand other memories that she discarded as she got older. It seemed odd here amongst her scripts, textbooks, and her new computer.

The melody finally clicked into place. It had been in her dream. She shut it quickly, wrapping her arms around her knees and inspecting the room painted gold in the fresh morning sunlight. She rocked slightly to and fro, her eyes darting around, her heart hammering in sudden fear. The anxiety was coming back. A cold chill broke out over her skin and she bit her lip, trying to fight the urge to scream.

For years she had been having these anxiety attacks, seemingly harmless at first, and progressively worse as she grew older. It started out as mild stage-fright, seemingly unrelated to anything else. It would just wash over her, and leave her disheartened. She quickly discarded her dreams of acting after that, despite the fact that it was like losing a limb to her.

But the anxiety didn't leave. As the years passed the anxiety grew.

Any time that she would look upon something simple, like her brother's stuffed toy Lancelot, she would get it, a tug on something dark and frightening inside her, just waiting to climb up and steal her away. At the choice of words her heart skipped a beat, as it had when she had first strung them together in the psychiatrists office.

It had been a long journey between mild stage fight and the event that drove her to seek mental help, and she recalled it as the sunlight crept up over the covers of her queen size bed.

She would get chills when she would read fantasy books, whenever something felt too real in those works of fiction. When she could see herself striding through a majestic, rock hewn palace. Whenever a knight talked to a Lady in sheer devotion. Whenever the villain offered the hero his dreams…

She began to pack them all away, her toy labyrinth, her stuffed animals, all of her books, and of course her goblin book-ends. Her music box had been the final thing to go into storage, and it hurt her almost physically to do it. With tender, longing hands she cradled it to her chest and wept. But it had been for the best. That was what she told herself as she taped the box shut.

She had looked up into the mirror then, trying to clear her face of the tears. And she let out a terrified, shrill scream when she saw a strange, craggy-featured creature staring back out at her. "What's wrong, Sarah?" His voice was concerned, and the tilt of his head was familiar. On his wrist he wore the plastic bracelet her mother had given to her three years ago, and beside it hung a wrought iron bit of junk attached to a colored string.

"Sarah?" Her silence seemed to make him uncomfortable. "You didn't call us, so I came to see if you was okay."

Another scream rent the air, and Sarah clenched her eyes closed tightly. There was a marching band in her head, a chorus of laughter, coarse and volatile. It was foreign and familiar and it hurt her to recall it. With it came memories of strange red-orange beasts tossing their heads and other body parts about, and the stench of something vile beyond comprehension.

When she opened her eyes there was a large red-brown beast beside the goblin man, his big brown eyes worried. "Sa-wah?" His child-like query tore at her. She looked into the mirror, her face pale, her green eyes growing darker as the pupil threatened to swallow the color entirely. Bubbles began to surround the pair, who were now talking to her frantically, pleading by their tone. The words were lost to her. There were bubbles…

She reached out towards the mirror, intent on popping them, drawn forward inexplicably. There was no fighting the urge that welled up in her to reach out and join them, to return--

There was banging on her bedroom door, but it went unnoticed. Her father's worried voice was ignored, discarded as something unimportant. His demands that she open the door went unheeded. Something more important tugged on the edges of her mind.

Return? Her mind's question was valid, but she refused to think about it and shatter the spell. She hadn't been anywhere, never been out of her own hometown. Where would she be returning to? Who would she be returning to? His eyes flashed in her mind, golden sunlight, like what poured into her window… and deep, thoughtful blue like the water of the pond in the park.

"No!" She screamed it, and the creatures that had been talking to her began to move away from the mirror, backing away from the madwoman no doubt. The cynical thoughts came unbidden, without consent or permission.

The bubbles began to pop, showering the odd pair on the other side of the mirror with silver dust. All but one of them popped, and Sarah watched it with morbid fascination as it moved closer to the thin barrier between dreams and reality. She heard the faint bump of class against glass, even through the hands pressed to her ears. It was a quiet sound, and she shouldn't have heard it even with her hands in her lap. And still she heard it, and was drawn forward.

She reached a hand out to the mirror, towards the bubble that wasn't a bubble at all. She saw every color in that sphere. That crystal. The word brought a shiver of terror to her slender frame. "Crystal…" It was a whispered plea, and hearing it out loud made her desperate.

Her well-manicured nails touched the surface first, making a sound like the crystal had. She shook her head, hair flying around her. No! It was right there, it was hers… he had given it to her! It was hers! And in the crystal were a thousand promises, a thousand days and nights, years and years of them stretched out endlessly like the labyrinth had--

No!

Her mind rebelled against the word. Against the thought that felt like a memory. She tore at the great mirror as it rested between her dresser and the wall. It was too heavy for her, but it didn't matter. She would get to the other side one way or another! That crystal was hers…

The pounding on the other side of the door sounded heavier, and it strained in it's frame. Toby was crying somewhere, and that was as it should be. He had been crying that night as well…

She finally wrenched the mirror free, wrestling with it's weight. It pressed against her, the glass cold against the bare skin of her arms and throat. She couldn't see around it, and with a cry she stumbled back over the box she had just finished packing.

The heavy mirror fell forward, following her to the ground, and shattering into a thousand shards. She felt them cutting into her arms and the soft skin of her collarbones, like a thousand fairy bites, she recalled, ruefully.

The door crashed inward, and she didn't bother to look up. From somewhere far away she heard her father calling her name, and Karen's shrill screech of terror. Odd… he was right beside her, his voice shouldn't be so far away.

Ah, but she did hear a voice, one close to her, in fact. As close as skin, she thought with a hysterical giggle. The voice warmed her, even as she could feel her blood escaping her in running rivulets. She should be growing colder with it's loss, not warmer… And still she did feel warm, as though arms were enfolding her and holding her tightly.

Her father's face displeased her, covered in tears as he scrambled to lift the heavy mirror from her body. She didn't hear him anymore, and she didn't want to see him so upset. With very little effort she closed her eyes. And there he was.

He was holding her, as he had held her that night in the crystal ballroom. She felt complete again, with that memory in place. It was beginning to make sense, as it hadn't in almost a year. And then he drew her closer, sharing his heat with her. It was like being held close to sunlight. She was sure it would consume her and reduce her to ashes if she stayed too long.

And then, on a heaving sigh, he spoke to her, no more than a breathy whisper. It barely stirred her hair as he held her so close. Clutching her broken, mortal body, he couldn't tell her any of the things he wished to. There was nothing he could do for her… She knew it, as though she could hear his thoughts.

"Ah, my precious Sarah…" And then the warmth fled her, and she woke, screaming, in a sterile, cold hospital bed, her arms and chest swathed in bandages.

The shrill ringing of her alarm clock woke Sarah from her musings, and she shook her head to deny them. The psychiatrist had told her to write her stories, to get them out of her head any way she could. And so she began filling the pages of her journals with tales of a fantastical place that couldn't possibly exist, separated from our world only by the thinnest of barriers. Human belief.

She stood and moved to her bookshelf, where three of her best-sellers sat. It seemed that people were as thrilled and mesmerized by that far-away dream place as she was. She found herself writing more and more, each day more consumed with the desire to share her tales with the world.

The phone rang, and she ignored it, as she had always wanted to do. She was on vacation, as of this morning. No more calls from her editor about deadlines or tours, or the next début. It was going to be a full month of rest and relaxation away from the creatures of her dreams and her nightmares. Whether they liked it or not.

She stuck her tongue out childishly at the rumpled sheets, the location of her most recent brush with them. It seemed even thousands of miles away from her old life, they would remain with her. And she was as far away as she could get, taking her necessities and the first flight out to the place she had always dreamed of going. Ireland.

Somewhere, unbeknown to her, The Goblins stirred. She was closer now, closer than she had been in almost six years. The veil was thinnest here in the mortal place called 'Ireland' where they told stories of the Fey, and their penchant for trickery. She had best take care, they thought, (separately and collectively,) and choose her right words. Or they would choose her, and then she would belong to their world forever.

Author's Note

Hello all, this is my first story on fanficiton, and I'm really hoping to get a lot of reviews to encourage me. Please tell me what you think, whether you have an account or not, it would mean a ton to me. Also, I'm looking for a beta, so please let me know if you are interested. I update regularly, so please check up on this story pretty often if you don't want to be left behind. Again, please review!

Sarah says you don't have to, but ignore her please! She is a little embarrassed about this chapter, but she'll pull through. Oh, and Jareth wants attention, so I'll stroke his ego and give him more time in the next chapter. Until next time,

-Chaotic Reverie