With how much of her time went to the theater program, Sarah hadn't noticed the posters advertising the dance, nor had she paid much attention to the gossip floating around. Even the occasional dirty looks Jessica sent her way had been ignored under the weight of all the stress Sarah felt buried under. She'd gotten used to tuning things like that out to a point she hardly even noticed them. It wasn't like she'd ever had much chance to go to dances anyway. Even before the Labyrinth hadn't flocked to her. In fact, the only dance she'd ever gone to had been the one with Jar—Sarah immediately cut that train of thought off before she could examine it any further. Thinking about Jareth was complicated enough without remembering things that made her stomach twist and her heart flutter out of embarrassment and…. No, Sarah did not think about the dance because as far as she was concerned, it had nothing to do with her. That was as much as she'd thought about it at all until Mike wandered over to her table in biology.

"Jessica asked me to the dance," he told her with a desperate attempt to sound conversational. It failed. Sarah, who had never been good at recognizing when people were romantically interested in her—even after repeated marriage proposals—smiled at him vaguely and wondered why he was telling her.

"Ah… congrats? Or are you not happy about that?" she asked, trying to pinpoint exactly what he wanted from her, though she was aware that she didn't really care. Sarah had a stack of theater books with her and had been trying to take notes on one when he came over. Still, Sarah liked to think she was a good enough friend to stop and listen, no matter how unimportant. For a moment she remembered why she hadn't had many friends even before the Labyrinth: the world was big and full of wonder, there wasn't time for interpersonal drama.

"I was just… well you're probably going to ask Cullen, right?" Mike sounded more than a little bitter at that fact, though Sarah's eyes widened as though the concept was news to her. Glancing towards the empty seat next to her—and wondering why Edward seemed later than normal—she shook her head.

"I actually wasn't planning on going," she told Mike politely, shrugging her shoulders. "There's still a lot to do for the play. We're opening sooner than it seems." At her comment, Mike looked embarrassed if relieved. Sarah was quick to continue before he felt the need to offer to skip the dance and help her. She could almost see it forming on the tip of his tongue. "I figured I'd spend the time working on it so you all can have fun at the dance. I'm pretty new here anyway." Accepting that he wasn't going to change her answer, Mike nodded and made his way back to his seat. If he spent the rest of the class period shooting her covert glances, Sarah did her best to pretend she didn't notice. Edward entered the room as soon as Mike sat. His timing was a little too good, wasn't it?

"You were listening to that, weren't you?" she asked him, though nothing he said could have convinced Sarah otherwise. For his part, Edward looked genuinely confused. He'd been too far away to have heard the conversation if he was anyone normal, but Sarah had long since stopped thinking of him as normal.

"Listening to what?" he replied, feigning innocence well enough that Sarah almost doubted herself. After a long, suspicious look, she gave in. It wasn't like he had a reason to care if she was going to the dance or not anyway.

"Mike and I were just discussing the dance, that's all," Sarah said, one last attempt to bait him into incriminating himself. After all this time, there was never quite enough evidence to give her a clear answer to the mystery of Edward Cullen. All she did know for a fact was that he wasn't normal.

"Are you going?" Edward asked as Sarah turned to put her books away. Yes, good. That was the question she was fishing for.

"Of course." Her eyes shifted over to him with the expectation of seeing some kind of confusion or frustration in his features. Edward's smile froze. Sarah considered that good enough. "We were just talking about who we planned to go with." Edward was getting better at their little game, his expression hard to read. As much as she enjoyed a challenge, Sarah preferred to win and he was making that harder.

"You have a date then?" His eyes were probing as he asked, enough for Sarah to be unable to think up a convincing lie. Leaning her elbow on the science table, she rested her chin on her hand as she looked up at Edward.

"You're not afraid I'm going to ask you?" she asked, fighting to keep down a laugh. As far as their banter and teasing went, it was a softball question, but Edward looked surprised nonetheless. Sarah lost the battle with laughter, letting out a small giggle. Edward's eyes narrowed playfully.

"I'm not afraid of you." There was a challenge in his gaze; he was calling her bluff. Sarah decided to back down. She had a bad feeling that any lie she told would come back to haunt her in some way. In the end she just shook her head with a smile.

"The day's not over yet, am I right?" she said. "You never know what I'll do."

"No," said Edward. "I never do."

Of course, as with many of her challenges to Edward, she found herself regretting it almost immediately. Eric had bounded over to her after gym in higher spirits than she'd seen from him in weeks. Sarah tried to be happy for him—her smile was just a little forced—and braced herself for what he had to say.

"I heard," he said, "that you're not asking Edward to the dance." Though her smile stayed in place, Sarah closed her eyes to contain her eye roll.

"No, I'm not," she said. Eric's answering grin left her in no doubt what he was planning on asking her. "I'm not going to the dance. I already have plans." Eric deflated immediately.

"With Edward?" he asked, sulkily.

"Theater club plans. By myself." Sarah enunciated the words clearly, a sassy lilt to her tone. She liked Edward; she didn't like people asking her about Edward.

"Oh," was all Eric said as he began to slink away, grumbling under his breath. Sarah couldn't say she was sorry to see him go, but a sudden thought had her thrusting out a hand to stop him. Mike had been in gym with her all period, there was no way Eric had heard this from Mike.

"Wait," she cried, "where did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" asked Eric.

"That I'm not going with Edward?"

"You are?"

"No!" Sarah openly rolled her eyes this time. "Who said I didn't ask him?" Eric blinked at her.

"Some people heard Edward talking about it," he said. Sarah's brow furrowed.

"He told people that I didn't ask him?"

"I don't think so. I heard he was talking about the dance with Alice and mentioned he wasn't planning to go and that no one had asked him."

"They were talking about that out loud? Just in the hallway, casually?" Sarah didn't believe it. Though aware that she sounded crazy in her desperation, Sarah kept her grip on Eric's arm, needing her questions answered. Was she paranoid? But since when had anything happened involving the Cullens that hadn't been some kind of plot? Sarah didn't believe they did anything casually.

"Yeah?"

"When?"

"Just now? They were by the library." Finally Sarah let go of Eric's arm and stomped off in the direction of the library, completely ignoring Eric's calls from behind her. Edward was no longer at the library nor was he anywhere else in the building as far as Sarah could tell. She was steaming by the time she exited to the parking lot, feeling like she was being toyed with. Standing by the driver's seat of his silver Volvo, Edward made eye contact with her and gave a graceful, single shoulder shrug. Before Sarah could storm over there to demand answers, he'd already slipped into the car. It was better that way, Sarah tried to tell herself. Edward turned her head in circles when she was feeling calm and comfortable. She didn't want to imagine how much he could twist her around when she was already angry. It was better to sit in her truck and fume quietly by herself.

Sarah, admittedly, didn't know very much about magic, but she was starting to think its only real purpose was to drive her crazy. Magic was the only explanation she had for how her truck had ended up behind Edward's Volvo in the line of cars waiting to exit the school lot. Even though the slow speed of traffic might not be Edward's fault, Sarah couldn't help but feel he was doing this intentionally too. She sighed, sitting at a dead stop. A knock at her window had Sarah all but jumping out of her seat. Her eyes went to the Volvo in front of her, but Edward was still in the car. Sarah turned and laboriously rolled down the window. It was Tyler.

"Sorry, but I can't go any faster either. It's Edwa—."

"Have you heard about the dance on Saturday?" Sarah blinked at him.

"I'm not going," she said quickly, already having a feeling that's where the conversation was headed. "I have plans."

"Oh," he sounded disappointed. "That's a shame."

"Yeah, it really is," Sarah said, a little too brightly.

"Well… what about prom?"

For a moment, Sarah sat in silence, blinking at him with her plastered on smile. She didn't exactly know how to respond. "Isn't that… months away?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm just trying to get through one day at a time," Sarah said wearily. "If I survive today, that will already be a miracle." With a sigh she began the strenuous task of rolling the window back up, not caring that Tyler was still hovering outside. Her glare shifted back to the Volvo where she caught a glimpse of Edward laughing in the rear view mirror. No matter how much she didn't want to admit it, he'd won this round. Sarah cursed his name all the way home. It was only much later in the evening that it occurred to Sarah that he'd won by confirming her suspicions. Sitting on her bed that night, she held the piece of paper with the ever growing list of Cullen oddities. No human could do half the things on the list. If he wasn't human then… what was he?

A small hoot outside made Sarah drop the list and move to the window. The owl had been coming by off and on ever since the van incident. Sarah didn't know why she always moved to the window when it came, but here she was. "Hello again," she called out to the bird. "Still coming by to see me?" She'd taken to calling the creature J in her mind, though by this time she was certain it wasn't Jareth. Or, at least, it probably wasn't. For all she knew he could be waging an elaborate practical joke on her. At this point she had settled it down to two options: the goblin had been real and Jareth was toying with her mental state, or the goblin was a figment of her imagination and she was going crazy. Neither seemed appealing.

"Oh, don't look at me like that. I can't help it," she chided the bird when it ruffled its feathers. Likely it had nothing to do with what she was thinking, but Sarah kept at it all the same. "I can't help but feel that this is all too easy. There has to be something more to it, right?" J just hooted. Sarah chose to interpret the sound as consoling. It was a long time before she spoke again, simply leaning on the window as she looked out into the night. The fresh air felt nice and with J there, Sarah strangely didn't feel like she was alone.

"Hey," she said, looking back up at the bird. "What they said… it's not true. I wasn't… I didn't… I…." The words weren't coming out and Sarah forced herself to take a deep breath. "I'm really not in love with you. I'm not that big of a fool." She paused. "But… seeing you up on the stage every day, sometimes I start to think…." For a long time Sarah looked at J and J looked back at her while those words hung in the air. In all her life, she didn't know if she'd ever felt so pathetic. How could she be so overwhelmed at seeing someone act as Jareth? It was all Jessica's fault. Dropping her head back to her arms, Sarah shook her head, mumbling to herself. "I really am a fool." Sighing, she stepped back from the window. This was the problem: with Jareth around at least she had someone she could talk to about the Labyrinth. Without him she was forced to keep it all inside, a harder burden than it sounded.

Closing her window again, Sarah tried to push the Labyrinth out of her mind as she tried every night. Lately it was getting harder; the nightmares were getting worse. Most troubling of all was that the main figure himself was absent from every dream, demoted to nothing more than flickers at the corners of her eyes or light chuckles. Was he trying to find her or was she trying to find him? Sarah didn't know anymore.

The next day continued much as the ones before, though Sarah found herself with quite the bone to pick with her ever more infuriating lab partner. By this point she'd grown to have a grudging soft spot for Edward. She didn't think he was a bad person, but they'd been playing their secrets game for so long that it felt like war. When lunch rolled around, Sarah was treated to a very familiar whisper in her ear.

"Edward Cullen is staring at you again." By this point Sarah didn't think Jessica needed to keep giving her Edward updates each time he remotely looked in her direction, especially since Jessica was a little more jealous every time. Her opinion of Sarah's relationship with Edward had run the gambit from intriguing oddity to unfair favoritism. Sarah found, however, the only thing worse than enjoying Edward's attention was ignoring it. There really was no way to win. Sighing, Sarah looked over to the Cullen table, but her reluctance melted away to confusion when Edward wasn't there. For a moment she thought he magically disappeared again until Jessica's whisper was back. "No, over there." Jessica gestured away from the Cullen table until Sarah's gaze happened to catch Edward's where he was sitting on his own. His immediate response upon meeting her eye was to crook a finger at her in a gesture which unmistakably told her to come to him.

"I'm not a dog," Sarah mumbled darkly to herself, considering ignoring him. Jessica quickly pushed her from the table and towards Edward. Sarah expected more eyes on her as she walked to Edward's table, but few people seemed to care. Her relationship with Edward—ambiguous though it was at times—was starting to become old news.

"You know, it's almost like you're trying to get them to hate me," Sarah muttered as she reached his table, glancing back to the spot she'd left with a huff. Edward seemed particularly amused.

"They are a bit angry with me for stealing you," he told her, but without the slightest note of apology. Sarah hadn't expected any in the first place, though. Instead she placed her lunch down, sat and took a bite thoughtfully.

"Speaking of angry, what was the deal with the traffic jam yesterday?" she demanded of him. Edward's face was the picture of innocence, though Sarah hardly bought it for a second. Glaring at she waited for an answer, Edward met her annoyance with amusement. The more amused he was, the angrier she became which made him ever more smug. It was a very unfair cycle.

"You said you were looking for a date. I was helping you out." The fact that he was rubbing in his win only made Sarah bristle more. She'd always thought she was playing the game without his knowledge, but comments like this made her think he was playing just as much.

"How magnanimous," she remarked bitterly, never having been a graceful loser. Focusing on her lunch, she purposely and obviously ignored him. Even if she was curious to see what kind of expression he had in response to her bitterness; it would only annoy her more. She was startled when he spoke up again.

"What are you thinking?" he asked, a note of frustration in his tone. Sarah didn't bother to look up, continuing through her lunch.

"That you're sort of a jerk." The comment was mumbled around a bite of food, making it lack any real punch. She didn't know if she was relieved or annoyed that Edward still looked amused and not offended.

"In that case, I was wondering," he began in a thoughtful tone, causing Sarah to properly look up at him. Her eyes were guarded, she didn't trust his segue. "If you don't already have plans for Saturday… you know, the day of the dance…." He did nothing more than raise an eyebrow under the force of her glare. How much more did he want to rub it in until he was satisfied?

"Edward, I swear to god…" Sarah muttered before he could finish. Had she been thinking more rationally, Sarah supposed this was fairer. She had been the one on the mocking side far more often than he had and pressed every advantage she could, but life wasn't supposed to be fair; especially when it had been unfair in her advantage.

"May I finish?" he asked, the smug smirk still on his face. Though with the urge to tell him no, Sarah sighed and nodded her head once in defeat. "If you don't already have plans, I was wondering if you wouldn't mind running me through my lines." Having expected more teasing rather than an actual request, Sarah was silent for a moment. By the time she realized he was looking at her with expectation, Sarah gave the only reply she could.

"Not a chance." Her tone lacked any of their usual teasing qualities; the words were serious and final. Considering their budding friendship and how seriously Sarah took her directorial duties, a positive reply seemed obvious. She could tell her matter-of-fact refusal, that implied even the request itself was ridiculous, had taken him off guard. For Sarah there had been a clear point to not auditioning: she was trying to put as much distance between herself and the lines as possible. She'd helped out other actors on occasion, but had always preferred to listen and give feedback rather than say any lines herself. Now with the idea of having to roleplay as the heroine and the Goblin King—with Edward of all people—it was utterly impossible.

"No?" he said, taken aback. Realizing what a suspicious thing she'd said, Sarah scrambled for a decent enough answer to cover up her hasty rejection.

"We're already so close to opening, I'm sure you don't need my help," was all she could come up with, frazzled as she was.

"We're so close to opening, and I don't have them memorized yet. Don't you think you should be worried?" Sarah leveled him with a harsh look, but he held it easily. Her refusal had only strengthened his resolve and curiosity rather than encourage him to back down. A continued refusal would only be more questionable. She could tell by experience that he wouldn't let the matter go until she said yes. Besides, at least having solid plans made it easier to justify missing the dance. As she often did these days, Sarah sighed.

"If you need my help that badly…." It was a different tactic—and not one she expected to work any better—but at least if he was going to force her into this, she wanted to make sure it sounded like she was doing him the favor. And there was a tiny chance that his pride might be wounded enough by her tone to forget the whole thing. "Not too early on Saturday. I'm going out of town to look for costumes Friday night, so I won't be back until late. It's a long drive." Edward's answering smile was dazzling, but Sarah was too grouchy to smile back.

"Then I shall see you Saturday. Eleven?" Sarah nodded in agreement, though after a second she stopped to give him a suspicious look.

"You'll see me a lot sooner than that. Class?" she reminded him. Edward chuckled and shook his head.

"All work and no play isn't good for anyone. I'm taking an early weekend." Quirking an eyebrow at him, Sarah wasn't sure what to say about that. The Cullens did miss their fair share of school days, she'd noticed. Not that Sarah thought they needed to show up to classes at all.

"In that case, have fun," she told him, looking around as the bell rang. By the time she looked back down at the table, her tray had disappeared. Her eyes followed Edward as he carried it away for her. Shrugging to herself, Sarah let it go. It wasn't the oddest thing she'd seen him do.

Biology without Edward was a strange experience—clearly she was getting used to having him around. Why was it that the most troublesome and complicated of people also seemed to be the easiest to get used to spending time with? Thankfully the blood typing assignment caused enough chaos to drive both Edward and Jareth out of her mind, if only for a little while.