Disclaimer: These are always mandatory when dabbling in fan fiction. If there is anything at all that is reminiscent of the 1986 fantasy film Labyrinth, then it probably belongs to Jim Henson, et al., including (but not limited to) the characters of Sarah Williams & Jareth, the Goblin King. Any other characters are the property of this author and will be noted. Also, the title of the story, as well as the lyrics included, are from the Nightwish song, Sleepwalker.


Sleepwalker
A place between sleep and awake,
end of innocence, unending masquerade,
that's where I'll wait for you…

She had said that he had no power over her but it did not last.
Three years later, Sarah finds herself up against Jareth for the second time.
But this time the stakes are different: she's now running for her freedom.


Part Twenty Eight: A time to forget


It was no wonder that Sarah did not remember the path to this part of the labyrinth. The last time she found herself in the great junkyard she had not arrived in the conventional way. Still, just because she hadn't intended to stumble upon the old junkyard, there was no denying that, as she stood on the summit of that ominous hill, the junkyard was what she was facing.

She'd been here once before but she hadn't had the luxury of this angle. It was larger than she remembered, quite imposing and very threatening. Acres and acres of rubbish, piled high and spread out to fill this part of the great maze, was all that comprised her immediate vicinity. From this position, apart from the junkyard but close enough that her status could change in a few minutes and a quick step, Sarah found herself staring in both amazement and trepidation.

The smell was causing her sinking stomach to churn but it was the memories, not the sickly sweet odor, that kept her tired feet from moving down towards the junkyard. It probably hadn't been the best idea to eat the peach before; just thinking about the fruit, and whose lips had once been pressed up against it, only added to her upset.

She ate a peach then, too.

Just like this time, the journey had made her tired and hungry. Unaware of Hoggle's imminent betrayal, she'd jumped at the chance to nibble on the fuzzy fruit the dwarf had offered her. The juice was particularly sweet and it was that more than anything that made her realize that something was terribly wrong.

The peach, so cleverly yet so cruelly enchanted by the Goblin King, whisked her away into a dream. With the macabre masks and garish costumes, including her own sequined ball gown, there was no denying that it was a fantasy—even if it was one that the then-childish and selfish Sarah did not want to end. She had been quite naïve.

After a desperate search, she danced with Jareth, seeing him and only him as he spun her around the dance floor. They were the center of attention and it had excited Sarah to watch him as he watched her.

Despite their many, many differences—including the most pressing fact that they were adversaries in a high-stakes game—it seemed right that she was in his arms; she was part of him, molded perfectly in his haughty embrace as he serenaded her with beautiful words and empty promises:

There's such a sad love
Deep in your eyes, a kind of pale jewel
Open and closed within your eyes
I'll place the sky within your eyes…

But then the tone of the song seemed to change and slowly, groggily, she started to wake up from her dream. She didn't want to stay with him, and she didn't need his promises. All she wanted was her brother back.

As the pain sweeps through,
Makes no sense for you
Every thrill has gone
Wasn't too much fun at all…

The chiming of that all too familiar bell could be heard and Sarah knew it was time to get away. Like Cinderella at the stroke of midnight, the magick was suddenly gone. She heard jeering and, for the first time since the dance began, she saw the spectators for what they truly were: cruel and heartless, cheering on the tricking of a simple mortal girl.

Their laughter in her ears and only escape from this nightmare on her mind, Sarah had run. Nobody stopped her, probably assuming there was no way she could find a path out of the magickal masquerade. But she did; a simple chair and the reflective mirror on the inside of one of Jareth's bespelled crystals did the trick.

After breaking through Jareth's spell by crashing through the mirror, Sarah remembered with another twist of her stomach, the dream hadn't ended. Not really, not like she thought it had. She found herself home, seemingly safe in the sanctuary of her bedroom, prepared to believe that whole strange dance, whose music still echoed in her head, had been a dream.

Until she attempted to leave her bedroom and discovered that, in place of the upstairs hallway, she was standing in the dreadful junkyard. But she wasn't alone; she found herself talking to a gnarled, wrinkled old junk lady who kept shoving Sarah's old toys in her face in a bid to get Sarah to forget that her mission was saving Toby.

At that moment, Sarah had to give a little shake of her head. Even now, three years later, she still felt guilty that she'd even wished her brother away, no matter how half-kidding she'd been; it made her feel even worse to know that, even for a little while—even under a spell—she'd forgotten all about Toby.

She would be so glad when she didn't have to think on any of the old memories.

Only more determined now that she'd given in and let herself remember all about the last time, Sarah glared down at the imposing junkyard.

Walking out of the Forbidden Forest, going past the Bog of Eternal Stench and facing off against a wayward goblin squadron was, in her opinion, definitely a much better way to get to the junkyard. Sure, it took longer to get there but at least she didn't have an immortal monarch playing fantasy with her head, nor did she have to worry about any sideswiping betrayals.

That didn't mean that she was glad to be there, though. She wasn't, and, if it took another hour off of her time, Sarah felt that it would be worth it not to have to cross the junkyard to get to Jareth's castle. She did not want to step foot into those heaps ever again.

But then, just as she made her decision and started to turn her back on the sight before her, a gleaming smile flashed before her eyes. She paused immediately. In her imagination, she could see the knowing grin, the tell-tale smirk that would cross the Goblin King's face when he found that, rather than face the memory of that night—of that dance—Sarah had run away. Like a defeated pup, she'd slunk away with her tail hanging between her legs.

Her hands balled into fists at her side; just the idea that Jareth would find some sort of pleasure at her failures made her hot with anger. She couldn't blame him precisely, not when she was the one who (conscious or not) chose which path to take, but that didn't mean that she didn't figure, in some way, that Jareth had a hand in leading her towards this particular point. At the very least, she wouldn't put it past him.

It seemed like just the thing that the cruel, selfish Goblin King would do. She'd come so close to making it to the castle at the center of the labyrinth; he must've known what being confronted with the old junkyard—and, in turn, the reasons behind her last arrival in the dump—would do to her resolve.

That, more than anything, was what helped Sarah make up her mind. It didn't matter what this shortcut did to her as long as it led, as she assumed it would, straight to Jareth's castle. When she finally defeated him in this, his magickal realm, for the second time, she'd never have to deal with such memories again. Her terms in this run were quite clear: when she won, forgetfulness was her prize.

Sarah Williams was, no matter how tired and no matter how distressed, stubborn to a fault. With a determined frown and an overly beating heart, she turned around and started to walk purposefully in a downward slope.

--

That magick, as if he'd had any doubts, worked sublimely. Immediately after vanishing from his throne room, Jareth was standing in the center of the junkyard on the outskirts of the labyrinth. He could not fathom how Sarah would have beat him to the juncture but he had—for the moment, at least; too much was as stake—given up on underestimating her abilities. It seemed that, every time he did, the human girl just surprised him again.

It was a blow to both his pride and his ego that, not only was she on the path to best him again, but also that he did not know Sarah as well as he thought he did.

Not that he was nervous, though. As he reminded himself smugly, there was no possible way that Sarah could win; in essence, she had already lost—she just didn't know it yet. This time, the chase through the labyrinth was not only about the game—it was about the prize.

But still, Jareth found, it would be far better if he stuck to his plan. With the exception of a few minor glitches—which were to be expected in the presence of goblins—the spell had not veered him wrong. Sarah was there, searching for him, running towards him. It did not matter to the Goblin King that she did so in order to escape him forever; it only mattered that her intent was to see him again.

And then… then he would win. No matter what.

It was such a pity that Sarah had no chance, but Jareth did not, nor never had played fair. If she expected anything otherwise, than she knew him even less than he knew her.

Ah, but we shall have all eternity to learn of one another, Jareth reminded himself as his thin lips pulled back in a satisfied grin. And that was that.

In order not to underestimate her, he had taken the precaution of adopting another disguise, one that was quiet different than the alluring Fae form he naturally assumed. This new identity was one he knew Sarah would recognize, such as when he transformed into a dwarf reminiscent of that idiot, Hoggle.

The façade was no meaner, nor any more desperate, than any of his earlier tricks. Nonetheless, he felt stooped under the weight of the new pretense. As adamant as he was to claim her as his, he wondered where exactly he would draw the line. Just how far was he prepared to go?

"As far as I must," Jareth spoke aloud with a touch of disdain, "and I'll thank you, my Lord, to keep your thoughts to yourself."

His load felt lighter at once, his mind untroubled, as he felt Lord Corrigan's influence slink from his mind. He would have to remember to speak to his father about using loaned magick to plant seeds of doubt and remorse into his head during a spell.

Sighing, Jareth shook his head clear. Honestly, his father could be such a hypocrite.

He waited half a minute—almost all the time he could spare before Sarah's appearance—to see if his father would continue to interfere. When he was certain that he alone was in control of his thoughts he reached one dark, wrinkled hand out before him. Despite the nature of his disguise, he quickly conjured on of his crystals; he did not have goblin magick, but his own.

A delicate-enough looking hand, the palms callused by decades of working the junkyard, squeezed the crystal and, when the crystal shattered, all that remained was a music box doll; the tiny face of the delicate dancer was nearly as beautiful as his Sarah herself.

The trinket was slightly weathered and the tiny dancer was regrettably missing an arm from when it had last been dropped but, after all this time, he was finally returning the box to the place he had removed it from that last time he and Sarah met.

The Goblin King, incognito, knew just the spot to put it. Moving faster than his borrowed body should allow, he hobbled to one particular corner at the center of the junkyard. After setting it down, using a damp and raggedy old stuffed toy as a perch, he leaned over it and made sure that it was properly wound. The music, soft and soothing and familiar, filtered slowly into the muggy air.

And then, once his task was complete, the Goblin King hobbled back, hiding himself away. Chuckling under his breath as he did so, he was quite content to wait for her arrival.

--

She still hadn't dared a glance at her watch but, seeing as how the clock hadn't chimed again, Sarah decided that there was more than enough time remaining. At least, that's what she told herself repeatedly. Otherwise there was no other rational reasoning behind the abnormally slow pace she'd adopted as she descended from the top of the hill.

With steps as light as a cat, she made her way down. Careful not to slip and fall headfirst into the muck and debris that made up the junkyard, Sarah took deliberate steps on the hill; once she'd reached the base—admittedly too soon for her liking—she continued with her cautious footing. She could only imagine what she'd step right into if she wasn't careful now.

The smell was even stronger at the bottom, that mixture of decay and despair. It tickled her nose and burned her throat. In an attempt to ward it off, Sarah began to breathe shallowly though her mouth. It was the best she could do.

Her hands were still balled into fists and vaguely she wondered if her fingers would stay in such a position; they'd been fixed that way enough times during the last eight or nine hours that she wouldn't be surprised if they did. They were no longer at her side, though. Instead, she had them held out in order to keep her balance. It was all too easy to trip amongst the piles.

It took all her strength not to look down as her feet either went squish or, when she stumbled on something hard yet fragile, crunch. After crossing halfway through the yard, her morbid sense of curiosity got to her and she just had to look down.

Much of the mess was mud, brown and thick, with various perishable odds and ends in all sorts of states of decomposition. But, as she narrowed her eyes and took a better look, she could make out other things, too. Bits of fabric dotted the muck, once-bright colors that had faded, and old wrappers were strewn all over. An arm from a dolly here and the half-stuffed head of a teddy bear there; she even saw part of an old wagon partly submerged in a particularly large pile of refuse.

It was junk, all of it. But, every time she saw a discarded toy or a piece of a tattered costume's sleeve, she felt a pang, an almost twist of her already queasy stomach. None of it was familiar to her but, all the same, Sarah couldn't suppress the strange feeling that she'd known the scattered pieces. Back when that old rubber ball was inflated or that book had all its pages… back when the things that made up her childhood weren't junk.

It made her sad, it made her uneasy and, when something familiar did seem to filter through the still quiet, it made her freeze.

The gentle tinkling sound that used to reassure her that everything was all right. The sweet melody that reminded her of her mother. The tune she hadn't heard in three years…

Sarah would know that song anywhere.

Greensleeves was all my joy…


Author's Note: It may have taken awhile, but here's the next chapter! I've been trying to get up the inspiration to work on this for awhile but it was tough, considering that I've undertaken two more fics (one Twilight, one Newsies) this summer. However, finishing Sleepwalker is my first priority (alongside finishing The Sparrow) so that I can get back to work on my other Labyrinth story, Fourteen. I've already written a bit more on that so I should have updates on that before long; I just got to get this a bit closer to the end first ;)