Author's Note: I've been waiting for this chapter! History, insight into Jareth's attitude, and the entry of Sarah into the story! YAY!!!! As always, reviews are always appreciated, feedback requested and taken into consideration, and blatant flaming sent to line my birdcage. Enjoy!

Chapter Three

If that's all you will be, you'll be a waste of time.

-Guster, "Two Points For Honesty"

Toby ran a hand over his face and wondered if there were any mirrors in this place clean enough that he could see his reflection. He didn't really need to see his face…it was more habit than anything else that had him wishing for a mirror. After all, three days anywhere without a razor would leave him needing to shave.

He sank back into the pillows, buried himself deeper in the sea of blankets and softness, and turned his head towards the balcony. The sun was already high in the sky, yet it still looked as if it were just past dawn, or nearing twilight. There was a darkness in the sky, a lack of daytime brightness that left him feeling too tired to get out of bed. He'd stayed in the castle the previous day, curious about the labyrinth and the city but too annoyed by his encounter with the door guards and practical about his ability to find his way out of the maze again to try exploring again. Instead, he had spent the day wandering the palace again, searching for rooms that he didn't remember, and for keys to his own memories in the rooms that were already too familiar.

He remembered that when he was younger, his parents would talk about how he was such a curious child. He had to analyze everything, from the toys he took from Sarah's room time and time again to the designs on the cutlery in their kitchen to the wires behind the television and entertainment systems. At school he'd gotten in trouble almost constantly for going through other children's desks until he decided that they had nothing to really interest him. His science teachers loved him. His math teachers deplored him. Psychology had fit him like a glove in college simply because there was never an end to the things he could explore in the human mind.

He had to have answers to everything, but he never wanted to know all the answers.

Toby stretched his arm over his head and let his gaze drift back to the canopied ceiling above his bed. His fingers closed, opened again as he stretched a little in bed. His eyes fluttered closed again for just a moment.

He'd gotten all the answers he could from the castle itself. The only room he hadn't checked over seemingly thousands of times over the last few days was the one with all the staircases, the Escher room, the room that he still couldn't quite bring himself to enter. He'd gotten all he could from the castle, but nowhere near the answers to everything he needed. He needed to talk to Jareth.

The only problem stemmed from the fact that the goblin king had been nowhere to be found. It wasn't as if Toby hadn't already searched for him. The castle was fascinating, like taking a trip into his own mind, but he didn't want to wander through it alone.

He'd never been alone in the dreams, after all, and even those seemed empty without Jareth at least lurking in the shadows.

Toby opened his eyes again before the image of Jareth could swim before his eyes. He'd been self-reliant most of his life, a loner. This sudden dependency on someone he'd never really known except in half-remembered dreams disturbed him. He didn't want to dwell on it.

He knew his initial instincts were right, though. He had to talk to Jareth. He needed to hear the full story.

Toby sat up slowly, shivering as the air touched his bare chest. He reached for the robe, wrapping it snugly around himself as he stood, and started down the halls towards the throne room.

He saw no reason to wait.

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Jareth fixed him with an amused gaze as the young man entered in nothing more than the robe he'd been left, blonde hair tousled from sleep, eyes sharp and demanding. Toby nearly ignored the patronizing stare, then squared his shoulders and held out a hand matter-of-factly. "It's hardly my fault that you didn't see fit to leave me clean clothes in addition to the fabulous food and five-star hotel room. Am I not tipping you enough?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Jareth raised an eyebrow. Toby was sure he was just humoring him, and chose not to rise to the bait. After a beat, the goblin king swung his legs off of the armrests of his throne and leaned forward over his knees. "Something the matter, Toby?"

"Ant in my Wheaties this morning. I wanted to speak with the head chef personally." Toby crossed the room to stand just before where Jareth sat. He refrained from crossing his arms, endless lectures on body language running through his head ceaselessly. Keep it all open...that's what he had to do. He wouldn't get any answers if he sent out any signs that he wasn't being completely open himself. "We should talk."

"Should we?"

Toby felt his eyelid twitch in annoyance. "Yes. I want to know what happened last time I was here. I don't dr--I don't remember things like this. The castle, the sky, the other, um, creatures..." He spread his hands, indicating everything around them. "It hasn't been that long, at least not long enough for everything to fall apart like this, and for everyone, absolutely everyone, to disappear. What happened?"

"Now Toby, I'm still here," Jareth pointed out with clearly feigned insult.

Toby's skin felt too tight for a moment. "That's not..." He took a slow breath through his nose, trying to calm himself a bit. There was no reason for him to suddenly feel like he had to justify himself with such fervor. "Everyone except for you, I meant. And those guards in the labyrinth outside. Maybe there are others left, I don't know. But there isn't anyone else in the city or the castle, and that alone is strange." He raised an eyebrow. "And anyway, you're deflecting. Will you answer my question?"

The goblin king fixed him with an amused gaze. He waved his fingers languidly in the air, almost as if he were rolling an invisible quarter back and forth over them. "That depends. You said you wanted to know what happened when I took you the first time to lure your sister here, yet you also want to know what happened to this place."

"That's right."

"The problem," Jareth continued, "is simple. Did it occur to you that maybe the reason you don't remember this place the way it is now could be because your sister took you home before any of it happened?"

Toby opened his mouth, then closed it. After a moment, he spit out his response, not bothering to conceal his annoyance and the faint stain of hurt that unfurled inside him at those stupid, patronizing words. "No. It did not."

Jareth's lips quirked the slightest bit, and he crossed his legs the other way. "So which would you rather I answered?"

"You're a prick," Toby suddenly burst out, "did anyone ever tell you that? You are a serious pain." He bit back on the words furiously, nostrils flaring in anger and frustration. "All right, so none of this happened until after Sarah took me back again. I don't believe for a second that the two are mutually exclusive, so you had better just give me an answer to both questions."

Jareth swung off the throne and strode right up to him in one fluid movement, so quickly Toby didn't even think to step away. He wasn't much taller than Toby, but just enough so that the young man had to look up to meet his eyes. When he spoke, his words were clipped and freezing cold. "You should be more careful how to speak here, Toby." He levied Toby with a significant stare. "Do you understand?"

Toby didn't flinch, though his heart pounded almost painfully. "The two aren't separate from one another. They're connected. I'm right."

"Stop." Jareth held out a silencing hand between them, face still expressionless, voice still cool enough to put skin on a glass of ice water. "I'm giving you one last chance, Toby."

Toby breathed in slowly, counting to six, and exhaled, blowing his bangs off of his forehead. "All right." He lifted both his eyebrows knowingly. "Tell me what made things here change so much."

Jareth stepped back, and his eyes flickered with small fires. Toby smirked for a moment before wiping his face clear again. It took him a moment to speak again. He had to wait until the urge to laugh passed. "You can't answer that without telling me about the other time I was here."

"What did you call me again?" Jareth snapped, clearly annoyed. "Oh, yes. A prick and a pain. The same goes for you."

Toby shrugged with mock innocence and resignation. "Oh well."

Jareth's eyes fixed onto Toby's, sharp with anger, but Toby didn't move. After a moment's tense silence, the goblin king stalked back to his throne and dropped softly into it. He draped his arms over the sides and leaned onto one elbow, gaze still fixated on Toby. "This isn't one of your sister's fairy tales."

"Thank god," Toby muttered under his breath with some bitterness.

"It might seem like one at first, but it isn't anymore." Long fingers brushed against Jareth's temple delicately. "How do these things start?"

Toby didn't intend to speak, but the words breathed out between his lips anyway. "Once upon a time."

Jareth raised his eyebrows, and the annoyance in his eyes began to fade. "If you'd like. Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young girl." He paused, voice rising and falling musically. "You may have heard this one before."

Toby frowned, brows knitted. "Once upon a time there was a beautiful girl who had to take care of a rotten little baby," he answered dryly. "The goblin king had fallen in love with the girl and when she wished for the kid to disappear, he took him away and the girl had to go find her way through the labyrinth to the castle in the goblin city before some time. If she didn't, the baby would be turned into a goblin too. You're playing with me again. Stop it."

"Ah." Jareth raised his head up again, gaze completely serious. "But suppose the beautiful heroine failed? What if she decided she didn't want to rescue the child in the first place?"

Toby's mouth opened, then snapped shut. He tried to catch himself, put his mind back on track. But this...the goblin king couldn't be saying these things, couldn't mean what Toby thought he meant. "Sarah came and found me."

"Toby, for five whole seconds can you pretend the world does not revolve around you?"

No, it apparently revolves around Sarah came the automatic response, but Toby didn't speak it. Even still, the thought sent a wave of burning frustration through him. He hoped the goblin king didn't notice.

Jareth dropped the hand he's been resting upon onto the arm of his throne and drummed his fingers there thoughtfully. "So. The child became a goblin, but not the same as the other goblins in the city because he was once human. You have such power that you don't even realize exists, all humans do. It's why they make such excellent rulers, both in your world and this."

"How many times?" Toby broke in. "How many times has this happened?"

"Now, Toby, how would I know that?" Jareth raised an eyebrow. "I was still a child myself the last time a goblin king stole his heir."

He lifted a hand, stilling anything Toby might've said in response. "Now, what you must realize is that our life spans are not unlimited. We can't wait forever for the right girl to learn the words that will send her and the child to us. We wait for her, the whole world waits. We sleep," he breathed, "until she speaks the words that wake us."

"Sarah didn't just let you take me." The words wouldn't stay trapped behind Toby's teeth any longer. "She beat the system."

"She was supposed to stay." Jareth all but spat out the words. "Whether or not she found you wouldn't have mattered. She was supposed to stay here. This place is hers, she woke us, and when she took you home everything was ruined!" He was up and standing before Toby in the blink of an eye, one arm thrown out and fisted. "I did everything to keep her here and she still left with you."

A pain shot through Toby suddenly, a flash of fear and hurt. Jareth blamed him. He was the reason Sarah had left.

It wasn't my fault...if I had my way, if I'd been old enough I would've told her to leave me here. She would've gone home anyway, it's not my fault!

"Well." Jareth stepped back, crossed one arm across his chest and rested his elbow upon it. His upraised hand clearly said there was nothing more to discuss, but his voice was mild, full of false questioning. "Does that answer your question, Toby?"

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Toby stood in the Escher room. He was cold, shaking, and his breath didn't seem to be coming easily enough.

But he was inside.

The staircases everywhere really did seem like an Escher painting. It wasn't just the stairways, it was the openings, the landings, everything. It was dizzying to look at, but Toby stared nonetheless. It was easier than looking around and being tempted to walk through one of the doors out of the room.

Jareth had yet to come looking for him here. Everywhere else Toby went in the castle to try and think, to just forget the sudden overwhelming waves of hatred and despair, Jareth was there. And that was precisely what he was trying to get away from.

What is it with me, anyway? Toby breathed in slowly through his nose and exhaled shakily from his mouth. There was no reason for him to feel so down over how the goblin king felt about him. If he were in the same position, he probably would feel resentment, too. Of course, he'd be more rational about it, wouldn't blame the child for the young woman's decisions, but he could understand where Jareth was coming from. Did he hate Sarah for betraying him as well?

Their situations were different, but there was enough that was similar that Toby could sympathize. And yet, the sheer depression that had descended when he realized that Jareth blamed him...

It made no sense. Jeez, I'm acting like a whiny teenager caricature.

There was a clatter from the courtyard outside as a stone crumbled off the castle and broke over the ground. Toby jumped, heart pounding. The noise wasn't unusual, he'd heard it several times in the four days or so he'd been in this world, but his nerves were shot, standing in the room that was the center of every one of his worst nightmares. He wrapped his arms around himself and took two steps closer to the edge of the landing where he stood, away from the door. Now that he was in, he wasn't leaving until he confronted those inner demons. He might be hiding from one fear, but now that he was here he could at least be productive.

The center. That was always the part he could never see. The bottom of the stairwell, the source of the terrifying sound, that shattering glass. That was where it all happened.

Toby dropped to his knees and crawled to the edge, breathing hard, pulse hammering in his throat. He leaned over, trying to see down to the bottom. Something glinted there, in the fading, sickly sunlight, but he couldn't make it out.

The deafening noise of his dreams roared in his ears. Toby ignored it. This is where she took me home. That's why it's worse than the rest of the castle. She broke the world here.

There was another clatter and Toby whipped his head around so quickly it hurt. He winced, and peered through the doorway. Were there shadows there?

Nothing more stirred. None of the shadows shifted. Toby turned back to the ledge and pushed himself to his feet. He could take the stairs, but who knew where he'd end up? Better to cut right to the chase.

Closing his eyes tightly and trying to remember to breathe, Toby jumped.

At first there was nothing except the wondering thought that he hadn't hit the ground. Toby took a moment to wonder how deep the room was, and everything flipped upside down. He clapped his hands over his ears as those deafening, indefinable sounds crescendoed around him, and his stomach flipped madly as everything around him spun. He was too afraid to open his eyes. This had to be a dream. Any moment, he'd wake up back in Sarah's room in their parent's house.

Wings beat against him, painful and lashing. The air was freezing cold, bells clanged in the midst of all the noise, and Toby crashed against something soft and yielding and opened his eyes.

He was back in Sarah's room.

It took a moment for his head to stop spinning. Toby sat up and looked around the room critically, as if daring it to change, to reveal its unreality. The toys and dolls stared blindly back at him from false eyes and the book resting open on the edge of the bed fell with a faint thump to the floor, but it was real enough. This was Sarah's room. He was back.

Back home with bare, cut feet, days worth of dark gold stubble on his cheeks, and wearing a white robe twisted around him from the fall.

Toby stood, unsteady, and stumbled back to his own room. He peeled the robe off and threw on a pair of boxers before collapsing onto the bed. His head hurt...everything hurt. He felt sick. Sleep. Sleep was the cure. This would make sense if he slept.

As Toby's eyes drifted closed, he glanced at the clock on his bedside table. It was 5:42 am on the same day he'd left.

The creaking of his door woke Toby from a deep, dreamless sleep. He groaned and flung an arm over his eyes as bright light slipped through his cracked lids and blinded him.

"Or you can sleep through dinner, if you'd rather." An amused, female voice drifted over to his ears, and Toby opened his eyes. She'd cut her hair again, and while she looked younger than her 30-some years, he still thought she seemed older than last time he'd seen her.

"Morning, Toby," she chirped. "Mom and Dad thought you might like to see me and the kids."

Toby sat up, and bitterness churned in his stomach. "Hey, Sarah."