Brick By Brick Chapter Three: I'll Be Watching You, a labyrinth fanfic

Title: Brick By Brick

Author: Yodeladyhoo

Beta: Anij

Summary: Just when you thought it was safe...

Genre: Fantasy

Pairings: Jareth & Sarah

Rating: M

disclaimer (dĭs-klā'mər): noun

1. (law) a voluntary repudiation of a person's legal claim to something

2. denial of any connection with or knowledge of syn: disavowal

LABYRINTH is a trademark of The Jim Henson Company.

All rights are reserved, but not by me. This short story is a work of fiction. All original characters in this story are fictional. Any similarities to actual persons, either living or deceased, are purely coincidental. Permission for the use of the non-original characters has not been requested by the author or granted by the licensor. Locations mentioned in this short story are actual locations and means of transportation within New York City, New York. Permission to use these locations, borough names, street addresses, corporations, and restaurant names have not been requested by the author or granted by the State of New York, the City of New York or business owners. This short story was written for your perusal and pleasure. No compensation, either financial or actual, has been collected or requested.

Plea for Reason: **slinks in quietly and drops off this chapter. Slinks out, hopefully unnoticed.**

It isn't plagiarism if I give credit. The areas in bold are lifted from Wikipedia, taken out of context and edited for grammatical correctness.

Sarah took the early train to the City that Sunday. It was just too painful to try to stem the flood of tears that threatened to breech the dam of her will power every time her father spoke. She was barely home thirty minutes before her telephone rang.

"Hello?"

"Sarah!" an upbeat, if not mildly surprised, male voice responded.

"Oh, Marc!" she acknowledged with relief she did not realize that she needed. If ever she needed a shoulder to lean on, her boyfriend would be the one to turn to. "Are you busy? Can you come over?"

The slight hesitation went unnoticed by Sarah. "Uh, sure. I'll be there in about twenty minutes."

"Thanks, honey. I really need to talk to someone right about now," she confided before she hung up the telephone.

It never occurred to her that it was a very rare occasion that Marc could come over on less than 24 hours notice.

True to his word, not a half hour later, Sarah's door buzzer went off. She barely let the dark haired man into her apartment before she threw herself at him. Marc had no choice but to hold her within his arms and he shushed away her fears.

Surrounded by his masculine, wiry arms, her face buried in his nappy, worsted wool sweater, Sarah still could not allow the tears that she had denied herself all weekend. It was as if the act of self-control took away her ability to free herself when she had the opportunity to release them. Still, she relished the sensation of being protected, ensconced in strong arms that could protect her from all the evils of the world as if she were still a little girl and she could hide in the comfort of her father's arms. Nuzzling her nose deeper into the pile, she ignored the roughness against her skin as she was lulled into security by the tangy kaleidoscope that filled her—the acrid, smoky odor of Marc's cigarettes, the scintillating scent of his masculinity, and the hidden hints of fabric softener that was used the last time the sweater was washed. If it were another time, the essences combined would start things stirring in her that would lead them to her loft bed, Marc nipping at her ankles as she teased him in her climb up the ladder. Right now, they served as her anchor, the bastion that there was someone there for her when she was at her weakest.

She moved her face so that the coarseness of the wool was against her cheek. Not the most pleasant of feelings, but it brought back memories of Sunday mornings before Irene entered her life. A younger, care-fee time when a small girl would jump into her father's bed in order to wake him up and pester him for a pancake breakfast. An earlier time when a late night, unshaven cheek would be pressed to hers for a belated good-night kiss while she slept. Without realizing the reason, Sarah's cheeks began to burn, as if salt were being spread across her wool-scraped face. "Marc," she started, "My father…my father was just diagnosed with cancer."

"Oh, shit."

"Yeah, I know," was all that she could muster out for a response.

Marc disentangled himself from her, leaving her standing in the middle of her apartment. Stranded, she watched him walk to the window and hesitate with removing a cigarette from its box. He looked out the window, seemingly out into the city skyline, and thought better than to take the cigarette out.

"Marc…"

"Sarah," he began, turning towards her, his hands on the window sill behind him. She always thought that when he stood that way, he would make a fine trapeze artist, perched on the swing, ready to flip up-side down to catch her and her world. "This isn't fair to you."

A small smile graced her lips. "Life isn't fair, honey. I know that. It is the way it is."

"No, Sarah, that isn't what I mean." Nervously he ran his fingers through his jet-black tangle of hair. "Our relationship isn't fair to you. We barely get to see one another on the weekends and it's just impossible during the week--"

"Marc, right now I just need someone to be there for me, someone I can turn to. I know you coming over on such short notice isn't usual, and that's okay, honey. As long as I know that if I need you, I can call," she pleaded, her arms expanding in space to encompass him--to hold him to her in her time of need.

She walked over to him. The mid-afternoon sun was weak on the grey November day, barely giving enough light through the cloud cover to call it afternoon in the room. She tried to wrap her arms around his waist, but Marc just moved around her towards the door.

"But that's part of the problem. I'm never there when you call. Hell, I was shocked not to get your answering machine today! I'm just not there for you, Sarah." He hesitated before the next barrage of words came out softly, as if the timbre of his voice could lessen the blow of the message. "You deserve someone to watch over you, to treat you like the princess you are…"

"Are you breaking up with me?" Not believing that she was in the middle of this conversation, she ran the heel of her palm across her cheekbone to wipe away the tears that had started. "Please, Marc, don't do this now. I ask for so little—"

By this point, Marc could not look in her direction; he just kept his gaze averted onto the floor. "You deserve so much more that what I can offer you."

"Hey," quiet socked feet walked over to where he stood. Toe to toe now. Without touching him, Sarah forced herself into his line of sight, first with her foot, then with her eyes. "It's okay, honey. I'm not asking for anything more. I'm happy where we are now."

Pain filled his voice, "I don't want to make this any harder than it is, Sarah. You need support and I can't be that for you. I'm sorry, it's over." With that, he reached for the doorknob and slipped out of her life.

Sarah stared at the door--first at the entire structure, then at the doorknob. Finally, her eyes came to a rest at about eye level where she would expect Marc's face to be when he would walk into the apartment. Except, he's not walking back in. Frustration, combined with grief and sorrow, drained the breath from her body. She had forgotten that she was not breathing until she let out a forced exhalation. She continued to focus on her breathing so as not to scream obscenities at the door.

This was not fair. Her jaw was starting to ache from gritting her teeth in her efforts to control herself. Sarah quickly found herself out of patience with everything as she spun around to the window. She pushed up the sash with more force than was necessary in order to shout out at his retreating form. Her voice caught in her throat when she noticed towards where he was headed. Marc reached the dark blue roadster where the blonde with the up-do waited, obviously impatiently.

"You bastard!" came out as a whisper as the evidence sank in. She screamed the same epitaph as the car tore out of the parking spot and zipped towards the avenue.

Still shell shocked, she noticed the pack of cigarettes that was abandoned on the windowsill. Somehow, it managed not to fall out in her gyrations in opening it up. It was that Good-For-Nothing's fault that she had started smoking. Now painful memories of post-coital languishes with Marc lighting two cigarettes at once seem so sexy at the time, even though she did not smoke. It seemed so natural just to accept the offer and relish the same sensations with him just a moment or two longer.

She shook her head, trying to clear away the memories, and in the process, banged the back of her skull on the window jamb. Angry, frustrated, in pain, and powerless, Sarah slid down the wall inside her living room, folding her body like an accordion, cigarettes in hand.

Why is it always for a blonde? Blindly, she reached into the pack and took a cigarette. Without thinking, she smoothed out the paper of the narrow cylinder before placing it between her lips and lit a match from the pack that was in the box. She pulled hard on it, closing her eyes as she felt the smoke tingle down her windpipe and into her lungs. The anticipation of the relaxation brought on a pseudo effect of its own. So lost in her sensations, she almost did not hear the low vibration of something rolling around until the pling of it falling onto the floor alerted her.

Guided by the sound, she looked towards her desk. Rolling in widening circles, as if trying to gather its bearings, was a clear sphere. Almost as if it realized that it had her attention, the ball rolled erratically towards Sarah. It came to a stand still by her socked toe, not touching it, but stopped on its own accord. Sarah looked at it blankly, her mind so overwrought that she did not question its origin.

Perplexity crossed her face. What the hell… It looked like a snow globe with some fantastical scene inside of it. When she was younger, she used to have one very similar to it, with little unicorns frozen mid-gallop on a plastic grassy hill beneath a wondrous castle, except this one did not have any white flakes swirling within a liquid, giving it a frosty winter wonderland effect.

Sarah reached out towards the bauble. Something odd about the interior stirred up memories. Gazing into it at arm's length did not offer up a clear vision of the scene. It was as if she was looking through a viscous atmosphere rather than a clear liquid. She peered in, the orb nearly touching her nose. Doing so gave her a bird's eye view of a pale colored stone castle with spiraling finials. What caught her breath was what lay in the shadow of the castle. Like a dry canal, stone walls wrapped around the surrounding landscape, doubling back upon itself into a myriad of concentric circles, switchbacks, and blind alleys. Flipping her wrist around afforded the same vista, but from a different vantage, with the castle more in the distance and the foreground in high relief. A black hole opened up in the pit of her stomach as forests and stone gardens became clearer.

Recognition washed over her in trembling cold waves. Something out of her past, something she tried to forget, but recently dredged up by a crystal and a feather. Reality crashed through her memory. That bastard! Why was that overdressed, pompous fairy invading her life?

All of a sudden, her home—her haven—no longer felt secure. In less than five minutes, her champion abandoned her, leaving her, her abode and its defenses wide open, allowing an interloper to infiltrate her sanctuary. Although her door remained locked shut to the City that she was embedded in, something—no, someone—had entered. And like the shadows he and his minions felt comfortable in, they were ever present even when you were unaware of them. Sarah knew that even if she were to look, she would not see the eyes that she felt on her now.

The cold that permeated her body was quickly being consumed by the heat of her fury. The forgotten cigarette barely missed her hip as it fell from her mouth when she bared her teeth at the unseen intrusion. Her knuckles burned from gripping the ball. Before it shattered in her hand, Sarah hurled it across the room. It never did impact the far wall; the projectile exploded into a shower of glittering atoms and light motes upon hitting the brittle, masculine laughter that filled her apartment supernaturally.

As sure as time heals all wounds and as sure as day will follow the night, Monday morning found Sarah at the offices of Crown and Bridge Publishing. Even if it meant looking like she had not slept for a moment due to the churning memories and paranoia that the weekend left her to deal with.

"Mornin', Lorna. What's up?" She asked as a way of greeting a fellow reader.

"Not much," the petite Asian responded. "How was your weekend?"

"It sucked," answered Sarah as she eyed her non-existent chance of entering the break room for a cup of coffee.

"Don't they always?" Lorna asked rhetorically as she slid along the wall to get away from the congested cubicle.

It was a small establishment not far from her apartment in midtown. The rent was exorbitant if only to maintain a prestigious return address. A handful of editors with no more than three readers each to cover a broad scope of varied material that the married team of owning publishers employed were crammed within the break room when Sarah came in. Sarah wedged herself in sideways, hoping to reach the counter. Politely she acknowledged murmurs of recognition with snippets of gossip.

"…He's getting tired of all of it."

"But she's the one who really runs the show."

"They're both thinking about retiring."

"Says who?"

"She has brochures on her desk…"

Finally, Sarah, coffee in hand, turned to face the crowd once more, only to see the proprietor of the publishing house passing in the hallway. Like schoolchildren in a play yard, huddled together until the teacher appears, the room emptied quickly and silently with his passage.

She reached her desk quickly enough, but not so fast as to see who left the pile of manuscripts on her desk. Sighing as she put down her coffee cup, she picked through the material that needed proofreading. Period furniture and their place in history. More young adult/fantasy. She fruitlessly hoped it would not be another vampire story like the last ten stories she proofed. A field guide to wild animals in urban spaces.

Sarah absent-mindedly sat down into her chair as she continued to thumb her way down the pile, mentally noting the manuscripts that would receive an immediate thank-you-but-no-thank-you note. After a length of time, she had weeded through the stack to formulate her weekly reading load. Pushing back away from her desk, she watched the weak sunlight fall onto her workspace from the high set window. The natural light gave the messy papers a pastel-like rendering of a still life. The serene scene was lost on its owner as she reached across it to make notations to her overseeing editor.

A scrabbling sound behind abruptly invaded her space. It was not very loud, barely audible really, but in a quiet environment sounds made against concrete walls were sure to be amplified. Much like a sharp item being scraped against a slate board, the intermittent interference grated harshly against her sleep deprived nerves. Pressing her palms to the sides of her head did little good for as soon as she dropped her right hand to make a notation, the zscritz-zscritz from outside would re-occur. Overworking her jaw did nothing for the mounting headache. Exasperation set in when she realized that there was no way to see or to stop whatever was causing the offensive noise.

Time for a nicotine break. Sarah stood up and stretched before reaching behind her chair for her jacket. Once outside the building, she pulled out a cigarette and lit up before her curiosity at what her fellow smoker was looking at above them overtook her. Looking up, she did not notice anything out of the ordinary. "What's up, Harold?" she queried her co-worker, the pun lost on them both.

"Oh, hey Sarah," he started, blinking rapidly to adjust for the lack of glare. "There's a new bird in town that's taken up residence on one of the ledges of our building. It's doing a great job at keeping the pigeons off."

"Really? I've heard something outside all morning."

"You might be sitting right behind its nest."

Sarah moved along the wall, looking up the entire time. It was a fruitless effort as the façade of the building had numerous ledges at alternating floors that blocked her view up to the twelfth floor where her cubicle was. Without warning, the dark silhouette of a bird fluttered away from the building, searing itself in her memory as much as the late morning sun blinded her. Something about the boxy, long wings with the square, short tail gave her a sense of dread.

"There it goes!" Harold exclaimed enthusiastically.

She tracked the bird as it lofted over the buildings across the street. A strange sense of déjà vu caused a shudder to race down her spine as she tamped out her cigarette.

Once upstairs, she resumed her work. Absently, she picked up the manuscript from the pile and started at the choice, A Field Guide to Wild Animals in Urban Spaces. She turned to the table of contents, then to the page that marked the beginning of the avian section. Nothing in the manuscript seemed to match what she had just seen. It was too large to be a falcon. It was about the right size for a hawk, but the coloration and the overall shape were wrong.

She turned to her computer screen and typed in a familiar search engine. A few clicks and links later found her at a common font for information. She started to read.

The Barn Owl is a pale, long-winged, long-legged owl with a short squarish tail. … Tail shape is a way of distinguishing the Barn Owl from true owls when seen in flight, as are the wavering motions and the open dangling feathered legs.

The little hairs on the back of her neck prickled uncomfortably.

This is a bird of open country such as farmland or grassland with some interspersed woodland …prefer[ing] to hunt along the edges of woods.

Okay, she said to herself, trying hard to stay collected if only for her officemates, This is no ordinary owl who hunts small mammals in the night.

It is known by many other names, which may refer to the appearance, habitat or the eerie, silent flight: White Owl, Silver Owl, Demon Owl, Ghost Owl, Death Owl, Night Owl … Hissing Owl, Hobgoblin or Hobby Owl,…

Although her eyes were still fixed to the screen, she could not see anything further than where her panic set in. Hobgoblin owl. 'Goblin owl.

Goblin king.

Author's Note: I've done it for you. Now, please return the favor. Review. Thank you.