It's Only Forever

Summary: Ten years later, Sarah is still unable to truly go on with her life after her encounter with Jareth, and ever since, she's felt out of place in the real world and longs for the surreal realm the Labyrinth offered. When Jareth returns, Sarah faces a decision: stay in her world and be miserable, or go back to the Labyrinth she loves…for a price.

A/N: So, this is my first straight-up Labyrinth fic (woo hoo!). This is one of those stories where I'm not sure where it's going yet, so we shall see. I like the concept and I'm pretty sure it's been done before, but hopefully all of you will enjoy the ride nonetheless.

FYI: I'm notorious for being a little…slow…about updating, so pirates, ye be warned.

Within You

Sarah slammed down the massive stack of papers she had been carrying onto her desk at the law firm she was interning at. Why she'd decided to become a lawyer was absolutely beyond her; she didn't even like the job. Perhaps it was the allure of the money, but Sarah knew otherwise: it was as real as reality got, and as far from the dreamlike world of Jareth as she could get.

Sarah had been trying for the past ten years to get Jareth and his labyrinth out of her head, but it had proved to be impossible. In high school, she had been known as the crazy girl with her head in the clouds, and had few friends. College had been slightly better, as abnormality was to be expected (everyone just assumed she did a lot of drugs), but she still felt like she was pretending to be someone she was not, and longed for the freedom to be herself without the everyone else looking at her like she was running down the street naked. She shook her head in annoyance looking at her huge stack of work to finish, a couple pieces of her dark hair falling out of the neat bun she had taken to putting it in. She missed wearing it down, but not only did it remind her of her labyrinth experience, men at work were prone to try to touch it.

Sarah had grown up a great deal physically since her jaunt with Jareth. Her chest had gotten a fair deal bigger, her legs more shapely, her waist smaller. With her dark hair and green eyes in addition to an excellent body (as she had taken up swimming and it had done her quite well), guys were constantly hitting on her at work, thinking of her as the quiet, innocent type that they would just love to corrupt…especially her boss, Charles Mercer Von Reinier. He would incessantly ask her out for drinks after work, which Sarah translated as his attempt to liquor her up and have his way with her, a prospect that made her shudder. He was a known womanizer, and had slept his way through the majority of the female population of the office, attracting them with his sickeningly sweet charm and unbelievable amount of money. Charles was one of the foulest men Sarah had ever met, and did her best to steer clear of him, yet her attempts seemed to be in vain, however, as he always managed to find her.

As she sat down at her desk to begin working on the monster amount of paperwork she had to do (none of which being real cases, of course; the male interns handled those and Sarah got to clean up after them), the relentless Charles sauntered over to her cubicle, casually leaning up against its thin walls. Sarah pretended not to notice him as he gave her his usual appraising look, as if he was sizing up a steak at the grocery store and she picked up a pen and began to write furiously, dotting her I's and making periods with a ferocious stabbing motion, subconsciously thinking of the paper as Charles' face.

"Hello, Sarah," he said in his overly honeyed voice that disgusted her. "Work going well?" She glared at the paper, attempting to glare a hole through it as he continued: "I'm glad to see you're being the busy little bee I hired you for. Anyway," he said as Sarah felt her eye muscle twitch, "I'm going over to the bar after work today, and I'd like you to come with me. You know, discuss lawyer things…your career…us…" he winked at her and started to walk away. "See you at 6:30, then!" he called over his shoulder cheerfully as he made his way through the cubicles.

Sarah felt something inside her snap, and before she knew it, she had shot out of her chair, stalking after the vile man. She grabbed his arm, whirling him around, and said in a deadly low voice, "No, you won't see me at 6:30. There is no possible way I'd be seen in public with you, you slime." He laughed uneasily, as people had started looking at the pair, and said, "Funny joke, Sarah. You know, I—", but Sarah cut him off. "Oh, you think I'm kidding?" she demanded, her voice rising. "I will never allow myself to become your arm candy, a convenient accessory for you to use at will to look good in public. Who do you think you are?!" At this point, Sarah was screaming in her boss' face, not caring that the majority of the office had stood up to see the young intern shouting at her boss. "You disgust me, the way you treat the women in this office!" Before she could even realize what she had done, she spit in his shocked face. She whirled around, and stormed back to her desk, gathering her papers. She strode past him and out the office doors, seething with anger.

As Sarah began walking down the streets of Chicago outside her office towards her apartment, she realized what exactly she had done. 'Oh my god…' she thought, knowing that she was inevitably going to lose her internship and any possibility of a job in the future due to her behavior. She walked on in misery, trying to figure out what she could do to pay next month's rent. "How could this day get any worse?" she asked herself out loud as she turned down the alley she took as a shortcut to her apartment, when a voice behind her spoke, echoing off the walls: "Oh, it's about to get much worse, dear Sarah."

TBC.

-cue ominous music- So the last line of this is for sure cheesy, but hey, fanfiction has a tendency to be cheesy in itself. Anyway, more chapters to come, and reviews are appreciated as always, but never mandatory. I hate it when authors are like, "I won't upload a new chapter until I get x amount of reviews lolzzzz!" God is that annoying. Anyway…D