Hell Hath No Fury

Sarah stormed through her front door and ran to her room. Jareth trailed behind her, still uncertain as to what he should do. He found her tossing clothes into a duffel bag, running back and forth between the bureau and the closet.

"Sarah, what are you doing? The officer said they would be in touch." He tried to stand between her and the bed, where the duffel bag was quickly filling, but she merely twirled around him without breaking stride.

"You're kidding me, right? Do you honestly expect me to sit around and do nothing? Just depend on some strangers to find my brother?" There was the same cold resilience in her expression, but Jareth suspected there wasn't much in the way of rational thinking going on. Slightly more concerned, he grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to stop and look him in the face.

"Sarah. Listen to me, this isn't the Labyrinth, this isn't some test or challenge you can beat. We are most likely dealing with some sick individual who operates on a very different level of reasoning from yours."

"Well it doesn't sound too different from last time, then." she bit back.

Jareth dropped his arms from her shoulders. "I didn't take him this time." There was more in his tone than what he was saying, and Sarah wasn't so angry she didn't notice.

"I'm sorry, Jareth, it's just -" she didn't get a chance to finish before her cell phone began chirping.

The voice on the other end was broken up by static, but she could just make out the voice saying, "Don't ask questions, just get on the interstate. We're in Maryland and…" before it broke up completely. Sarah stared at the phone in her hand for a second longer before turning to Jareth and saying, "Grab the bag."

She had the foresight to pick up the phone charger from the dresser as she ran out to the car, Jareth a step ahead of her.

* * *

Richard shook the little cell phone as if that would somehow restore it to life. The batteries were fine, but the little antenna on the face showed he was outside of his service area.

"You've got to be kidding me!" he yelled at it, half expecting it to answer. It did not however, and it was with some shame that he remembered telling the sales girl not to bother with the roaming package since he'd never use it. "Damn. Damn, damn, damn" he muttered to himself, hoping Sarah had been able to hear him before his phone cut out. The maroon Taurus had yet to stop and he had no idea when he'd get another chance to call. Amazed, he saw it had only been about an hour since Toby had been abducted. If the man had a full tank of gas it could very well be several hours before he'd stop.

* * *

"Who was that?" Jareth asked, although he more or less knew the answer. He wanted to keep Sarah talking rather than stewing in her head.

"That was Richard. Son of a bitch is in Maryland. He's got Toby." She sped up the on ramp to the interstate, quickly merging with traffic and accelerating to 85mph.

Jareth was pretty dubious about Richard being the kidnapper, but he didn't say so directly. "How do you know?" he asked.

"He said 'we.' What other 'we' could he mean?" she looked at him as if her were the biggest idiot for not putting the two together.

"What if he were merely following the kidnapper?" Jareth suggested, realizing there was no way he could back up this claim without admitting he had been watching the Williams as well. At this point, Sarah might have just pushed him out the speeding car if he implied any stalker tendencies in himself.

As it was, Sarah picked up the train of thought as well and shuddered. "That presents a set of possibilities I don't even want to consider right now."

They cruised along in silence for awhile before Sarah turned to him, wide-eyed, and said, "Wait a second! Can't you just pull him up in your crystal? You can find him if I wish it, right?"

Jareth rolled his eyes, "I'm not a genie, you know." But he did conjure up a crystal. Sarah was leaning over trying to glimpse over his shoulder and it was only the honking of the car in the next lane that brought her attention back to the road. There was nothing to see, however, only a murky blue.

"What is it? Do you see him?" she asked.

"I won't see anything if you drive us off the road," he commented dryly, frowning. "But no, I can't see anything."

Sarah paled, but she kept her eyes on the road. "Does that mean he's…"

"No. It means there's faith involved." His lip curled as he said the word, spitting it out like a rotten piece of fruit.

"Excuse me? What the hell does faith have to do with anything?" She tried to keep from yelling, but it seemed a ridiculous subject to bring up right then.

Jareth sighed, "This may take a while," he warned.

"Jareth, I hate to break it to you, but we've got quite a ways before we hit Maryland. You might as well start talking."

He sighed again, trying to think of how best to summarize all his thoughts. "Alright. You're familiar with the concept of faith, correct?"

She tried to recall the few trips to church she had suffered through as a child, "Umm, well yeah I guess. It's just sort of believing in something, right?"

"Not exactly. Belief is a very basic concept. You believe in the sun because you can see it and feel it. Faith is that extra step, believing without seeing. You're probably more familiar with it in a religious context, as that's what your people have turned it into, more or less."

"I don't know that I have that type of faith necessarily."

"Maybe, maybe not. But did you ever stop to wonder why when you called upon the goblins, they came?"

"Because I called." She shrugged her shoulders, "I said the words."

"Sarah, those words, or at least some close proximity, are uttered every day."

"I doubt there are that many people wishing upon goblins these days" she interrupted, grinning at him in spite of everything.

He smiled in return. "No, you're right. But you've heard people say things like, 'I wish they would drop dead' perhaps, something along those lines."

"Well yeah, but nothing ever happens." she frowned, still trying to make the connection he was leading up to.

"Not always, no, because they believe their words are meaningless. As much as they may even mean it at the time, very few people really believe in the power of their words, their wishes. Why do you think there aren't more lottery winners?"

"But when I wished Toby away, I didn't really mean it! I told you that when it happened!" Sarah argued.

"No, you didn't mean it, but you did believe it. Just like when Toby made his wish, he inherently believed it would come true. You've cultivated that in him, by the way; he respects the power of his words more than most."

"Ok, so I had faith that goblins would take Toby and he had faith that some grownup, namely you, would be my friend. What does that have to do with you not being able to see Toby? If it's all a matter of faith, I had faith that you could see him and you couldn't. I-"

Jareth cut her off with a wave of his hand. "I'm getting to that. The problem here is that our kidnapper obviously has a great deal of faith that what he is doing is right. Now, since most people believe in a god of some sort other than myself -"

Sarah snorted and Jareth pointedly ignored it.

"I cannot see him. His faith shields him. It's just rare that I come across instances where faith, in whatever form, is being used for obvious ill rather than good."

"So what you're saying is we're flying blind until I get another phone call." Sarah said.

"I'm afraid so."