Brown eyed Girl 75: Oh you'll find bits of those in this chapter. It's a process, but I won't keep you waiting for too long. Thank you so much for your kind words.

Celestialdome: I will most definitely keep this up, and really? I've hooked you? Thank you, and I hope you enjoy this chapter

hazlgrnLizzy: Thank you very much.

ooOoo

Precious and fragile things, need special handling. My God, what have we done to you? We always tried to share, the tenderest of care, now look what we have put you through. Things get damaged, things get broken, I thought we'd manage, but what's left unspoken? Left us unwritten, there was so little left to give

Precious- Depeche Mode

ooOoo

She awoke again that night, cursing his name. It was the Labyrinth, always the Labyrinth. Getting out of bed, she went downstairs to her sitting room and picked up an album. Labeled Photographs, he watched as she opened it and a tear went down her cheek.

Jareth said nothing as he moved to sit in the chair opposite Sarah. Eventually she'd realize that he was there, though he would not force his presence on her. The book was full of photos, he mused. Of what or whom, he could not say.

It was less than five minutes later that she looked up and locked eyes with him.

"What are you doing here?"

"I am not here to vex you, Sarah," he answered. "You were cursing my name again this night. It has been happening more often in recent weeks."

"How did you know?"

He conjured a crystal and held it in his palm.

"Oh, not these again, please…" she dropped her head into her hand.

"I am not offering you anything this time, Sarah," he answered. "After seven years your voice was heard throughout the Labyrinth." The crystal disappeared before her eyes, popping as though it were a bubble. "As King it was my duty to discover why."

"Have you figured it out?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why are you hearing my voice in the Underground?"

"That is still a mystery," he answered. "However, I am here on an unrelated matter," he conjured another crystal. She could see herself tossing and turning through the night, hearing Jareth's name, incoherent moaning, beads of sweat forming on her forehead, and finally she screamed, scaring herself awake.

"That's been happening every night for the past three months, I don't consider it unusual," she spat, rubbing her eye. "It's just the way it is. I fail to see how anything you could say would change it."

"Sarah," Jareth took her hand in his. "I cannot change something when I don't understand the reason why."

"Which leads me to wonder why the hell you care," she stood up and went back into the kitchen. Grabbing a glass from the drying rack, she rummaged in the fridge and produced an opaque bottle. Pouring a generous amount, it went down in less than a minute. "I am broken, can't you see that? There is no amount of promises, empty or otherwise, that can fix me. I don't understand why you're here or why you're concerned about me. In fact, it would probably be best if you'd just let me be, leave me alone to die."

She had rendered him speechless.

"Surely you don't mean that."

"It didn't start with 'I wish', Goblin King, so I must mean it, and my name is not Shirley."

"Your comedic talents never cease to amaze me."

"That wasn't meant to be funny," she replaced the bottle in the fridge and placed the empty glass in the sink. Pushing past him, she could not stand to look at him.

"The Labyrinth has cannibalized itself," he revealed.

"That's not my problem," she told him. "If you ask me all the better for the next naïve child who wishes their sibling away." She shook her head. "Why are you still here? Isn't there some magic spell that makes you disappear? Abracadabra? Close my eyes and count to fifteen? I wish you'd go away?" she paused. "I could go on, but I'm boring myself."

This time it wasn't Jareth who vanished. Instead she found herself in the world of the Labyrinth again, standing outside the gates,

"Oh don't you dare!" Sarah shouted, getting up from her knees and brushing the dirt away. "I did not wish for this, you son of a bitch! You take me back right now!"

"That was not my doing, Sarah," he calmly insisted, appearing behind her, whispering in her ear.

"Then what am I doing here?" There was fire in her eyes. "Why do you need me?"

"I do not need you, Sarah…"

"Then take me back!"

"I cannot," he answered.

"What do you mean, you can't?" she was backing away from him now. "You're the Goblin King! You're the ruler of this hellhole; it bends to your will! Every citizen and creature is at your command! What do you mean you can't take me back?"

"The Labyrinth has chosen you, Sarah. Why, I do not know, but you do not have a choice. You must run it again."

"You must be joking!"

"I would not… joke about something like this," Jareth told her.

"Sure, you just find it amusing when a few of the creatures in the forests of the Labyrinth decide it's a good idea to play basketball with my head! Yeah, that's so funny my sides are splitting," she fought to project enough malice into her words to inflict some sort of damage. "So much fun, Goblin King, that I can't wait to do it again!" she turned away from him toward a steep hill.

"Tell me, Sarah, what purpose would walking up a steep hill into the unknown accomplish?"

"It would serve to bury the feelings of passionate lust that I have for you," she spat. "What do you think I'm trying to do, Goblin King? I'm trying to find a way out of here!"

"There is no way out, Sarah."

"Oh surely, there is always a way out. You taught me that, don't you remember?"

"You wound me, Sarah."

"That comment smacks of a bruised ego."

"And your attitude smacks of a broken heart." Jareth countered.

"Who got to you, Goblin King? Suddenly ruling the Labyrinth proved too difficult and you lost it to your long lost brother in a game of croquet?" She stopped, playing his last statement in her head once more. "What would you know of broken hearts?" a lone tear slipped down her cheek.

Gently, he stepped toward her, cupping her face in his hand. "Enough to know that this pain is fresh. Perhaps this is something to challenge you."

"Challenge me?" her voice was wavering as she pulled away. "I'm facing enough challenges as it is! Losing my husband and son isn't enough? What do you want from me?"

"It is not what I want Sarah, in fact it seems the labyrinth wants you."

"Why would it want me?"

"You are the only person to have defeated it in the time allotted to you," he explained. "If I remember correctly, you solved it in ten hours as opposed to thirteen."

"That was your doing!"

"Yes it was, and what was it you said to me? 'That's not fair'?"

If Sarah's eyes could shoot daggers…

"Do not throw that back in my face, Goblin King," she spat at him, her voice like venom. "I won, and never again did I wish for anything. You know nothing of the pain I suffer, and don't tell me that you can't take me back. I want to go home, and I want to forget I ever met you!"

"But that's proving more difficult then ever before, isn't it?"

Her eyes narrowed.

"Do not mock me," she turned from him, feeling as though he was looking right through her, into her heart, picking through her memories.

"Never would I mock you, Sarah, unless I wished to cause you harm."

"You've caused more harm than anyone I've ever known," she answered him. "For seven years I've been living my life without having to worry about you, or the Labyrinth, or anyone else within said contraption. I've built my own life, and now I'm left with nothing!"

"I would not say nothing," Jareth spoke calmly. "From those photographs it seems you've really done well for yourself. A husband and a son, you said?"

"Do not speak to me about such things," there were tears in her eyes. "They deserved better than I could give them. I suppose that's what I get for accepting reality for what it is."

"Oh now, Sarah," he reached forward and wiped the tear from her cheek. "I don't think you believe that."

"Believing and living what you believe are two entirely different things," she mused. "You know, I still don't understand how this is even possible. I defeated you and yours, you shouldn't exist any longer."

Jareth let out a mirthless laugh.

"You know… it's funny how we retreat to a simpler time in life when reality crashes down around us."

"Yes, ha ha, I can barely breathe for laughing…" she pushed past him, walking toward the labyrinth that had so plagued her dreams.

"You accept the challenge, Sarah?"

"If this is the only way I can get away from you in a timely fashion, then yes," she nodded. "I have no desire to come here again, Goblin King, and in light of that fact, the faster I solve whatever it wants me to solve, the faster I'll be rid of you…"

Jareth was still for hardly a moment. Smirking, he followed a good three paces behind her until they reached the gates to the Labyrinth.

Sarah pressed a hand to the stone, pulling back as though burned almost immediately.

"Such a pity," Jareth whispered in her ear.

"I'd have to agree with you." She rubbed the affected hand over her pant leg. "Jesus, that smarts…"

"Such fight in you, Sarah," he whispered again. "The Labyrinth can sense that."

"That's nice…"

"Which is why you must run it alone once again."

"What?" she turned to face him as he faded from view.

"Such a pity," he repeated as he disappeared.

She could not contain it any longer. After seven years she was back in the one place she hoped never to be again, and fighting for what? The chance to heal, as he had so suggested?

The very idea was laughable.

"Damn you, you megalomaniacal bastard!" she shouted as she pushed on the stone again, this time stepping into the very place her journey had originated from seven years previous.