3/11.
Sarah sat hunched over her calculus homework at the kitchen table, trying desperately to block out the distractions around her. She adjusted the volume on her walkman, but even Michael Jackson couldn't drown out the noise of a screaming toddler.
"Sarah, could you…?" Karen gestured helplessly towards the stairs with one hand, the other firmly clamped over the end of the telephone. Toby's wails were escalating in volume with every passing second.
Sarah got to her feet with a sigh, and took the stairs two at a time. She scooped Toby out of his crib, grunting slightly at the weight. "Oh, Toby," she sighed. Toby struggled even as he clung to her, tiny fists twisting painfully in her long hair. "Shhh," she whispered soothingly, swaying back and forth. "Shhh, Toby. Calm down. It's all right." He gripped her hair harder, legs kicking against her sides as he screeched into her neck.
Wincing, Sarah managed to untangle one hand and gave him Lancelot to hold instead. Toby's face scrunched up further and he flung the stuffed bear away from him. The ragged toy sailed across the room and hit the Goblin King square in the face.
"Oh my," Sarah exclaimed, eyes wide. She was beginning to get used to these unexpected shifts, but this was the first time anyone else had gotten pulled along, and certainly the first time she'd ever seen that particular expression on Jareth's face.
Toby's wails died away as he realized he was no longer in his bedroom. Sniffling, he stared around curiously.
"The boy-who-should-have-been-a-goblin," Jareth said, composing himself. "Really, Sarah, I'm surprised you allowed him within fifty feet of the Labyrinth after your desperate race to take him away."
Sarah gave him a Look. "You know I have no control over when or where it happens, and no warning when it does."
This was true. Over the past year and a half, she had popped up in the Labyrinth on more than one inconvenient occasion. Once in the middle of a math exam, she had been so startled she dropped her calculator in the Bog of Eternal Stench and nearly fell in herself, and then there was that week when her locker consistently led directly to an oubliette.
Toby's curiosity was beginning to wane, and Sarah recognized the signs that he was preparing to throw another tantrum. Some of her panic must have shown on her face, because Jareth stepped forward, arms extended.
"May I?"
Sarah handed the cranky toddler over readily. Startled by the change of hands holding him, Toby's cries were forestalled and he blinked up at the strangefamiliar man holding him.
Jareth looked down on him with something akin to fondness. "You remind me of the babe…"
What followed was a rollicking musical dance extravaganza that had Sarah laughing as much as Toby. She had never seen this side of the Goblin King and it delighted her.
"You're very good with children," Sarah observed, sometime afterwards as she sat and watched several of the goblins entertain Toby with their antics. "I shouldn't be surprised. I expect you have a lot of experience, in your line of work."
"There aren't as many wish-aways as you think," said Jareth, stretching out his legs in front of him. "Yours was the first summons in over two decades."
Sarah blinked. "Wow. Way to make me feel even more guilty. No one wished a child away in all that time?"
"Plenty of children were wished away, but wishing isn't enough. You have to say the right words, and you have to believe in them."
"But I didn't," Sarah said, shaking her head. "Not really. I didn't believe Toby would actually be taken."
Jareth smiled secretively. "Ah, but you did believe in goblins."
Sarah considered this for a moment, another question beginning to formulate in her mind. "If children only get wished away every few decades, that's not many runners," she pointed out. "Just how many times has the Labyrinth actually been beaten?"
"You are assuming that everyone who wishes away a child attempts to reclaim it," Jareth pointed out. "Many accept my bargain at the beginning and never set foot Underground."
"They just leave their – they don't even try?" Sarah said heatedly. "That's horrible!"
"Some children truly are unwanted, Sarah," Jareth said quietly. "They are far better off Underground, I assure you."
Sarah nodded, thinking he was probably right, but she couldn't quite shake the feeling of disgust. She moved to pick up Toby, suddenly desperate to hold him in her arms, to feel his warm skin against hers, to assure herself that he was real and whole and loved.
Jareth shooed the remaining goblins away and gathered the boy up into his own arms. Beginning to grow tired, Toby did not protest as he was passed off once more, and he clung to his sister's neck, eyes shuttering closed.
Sarah met Jareth's eyes over the top of Toby's fair head, and he gave her the smallest of nods. Sarah tried to smile back, but even as she did, the world around her began to fade, and they were back in Toby's bedroom, alone. Sarah laid Toby down and smoothed his hair. It was beginning to darken already. He was growing so quickly. Had it really almost been two whole years since she wished him away?
Turning off the lights, she closed the bedroom door quietly and headed downstairs, back to the real world and her equations.
It wasn't until much later that Sarah realized Jareth had never answered her question.