Sarah knelt in the doorway of the room that had once been Toby's for a long time – or perhaps, as she was unhappily forced to amend, the room that might once have been Toby's. She wanted to think, to come up with some rational explanation for the empty bedroom, but her mind refused to work correctly. It wouldn't even race; rather, it just moved sluggishly from one half-coherent thought to another. There was only one sentence that stuck in her head at all.

Toby is gone.

She pressed a hand to her aching chest and tried to breathe. Surely Jareth wasn't so cruel, so filled with unyielding rage, as to completely erase her little brother from existence? Small comfort though it was, she tried to cling to that thought, but memories of the cold fury on the Goblin King's face eroded her tenuous hope.

Later she would wonder how much time passed while she huddled in the doorway, grasping for any sort of sensible thought. It might have been mere minutes, or perhaps it was hours. All Sarah knew was that the nightmare she'd hidden from everyone for twelve years had suddenly, horribly turned to truth.

Finally, she was stunned back to awareness by the ringing of the telephone. Her immediate instinct was just to let it ring, to let the answering machine get it. When the little voice in her mind whispered that maybe, just maybe, it was somehow Toby on the other end of the phone, Sarah stumbled to her feet. Wincing at the pain in her knees, she muttered a broken curse and dashed for the nearest phone.

Just as the fourth ring sounded, she skidded into the master bedroom and grabbed for the phone.

"Hello?" she gasped out, well aware of how frazzled she sounded. Deep down, a piece of her winced at being heard so out-of-sorts, but the majority of Sarah told that piece to get stuffed, that there were more important things to worry about. She held her breath, waiting, hoping that whoever was on the other end hadn't hung up.

There was a short silence on the other end of the phone. A hesitant voice spoke. "Sarah? Is that you?"

Sarah closed her eyes against the rush of tears. It wasn't Toby on the other end, it was her stepmother. "Hello, Ruth," she replied dully. "Yes, it's me."

"Are you all right? You sound upset."

Licking her lips, Sarah briefly contemplated what to say. On one hand, she didn't want to needlessly upset Ruth and her father, but on the other hand… This wasn't exactly needless. Saying something to Ruth might be her only way to find out if Jareth had magicked Toby entirely out of existence.

"I'm okay, it's just…It's… Well, it's slightly hard to explain," Sarah ventured. "It's about Toby."

Immediately, the silence on the other end of the line changed. Ruth didn't say a word or even make a sound, but the air was now charged with tension and with reproachful words never spoken. Sarah could read the silence as easily as she breathed, but she couldn't figure out exactly what it portended. She was, however, soon to find out.

Ruth's voice, when she finally spoke, was filled with bitter censure. "That's not funny."

"I'm not joking," Sarah replied warily. "Toby's vanished, and I'm not exactly sure what to do…" She trailed off, unsure as to what, if anything, else she should say. Listening in shock, Sarah heard strange noises begin to emanate from the phone. It was a strange sniffling, gasping sort of sound.

When Sarah realized that Ruth was sobbing, her hand flew to her mouth. Before she could think to say anything, a loud crash sounded in her ears, presumably the sound of Ruth dropping the phone onto the floor.

"Ruth!" Sarah yelled. "Ruth, are you all right?" She waited tensely, hearing unidentifiable sounds from the earpiece. Finally, there came the fumbling noise of someone picking up the phone, and her father's tired voice emerged.

"Sarah, it's Dad. Are you okay? What did you say to Ruth?"

"D—Dad," Sarah stuttered, "I'm not – I mean, it's Toby. He's gone."

Her father sighed, a deep, unhappy sound. "Sarah, have you been napping?"

Caught off-guard, she blinked several times before replying. "I – no… Why do you ask?"

"Because if you were only half-awake when you said that to Ruth, it would be understandable. Lord knows I've spent enough nights being woken up when she's had dreams that Toby's come back."

"Come – back…" Sarah repeated dumbly.

"If you weren't napping, I can't imagine what possible reason you could have had to say that to her, Sarah. That's cruel and in very bad taste."

"I'm sorry," she managed. "I didn't mean –"

"Listen, I have to go take care of your mother," Sarah bit her lip to keep quiet, "so why don't you get some sleep? You sound like you're falling apart too."

"Dad, I – "

"I'll talk to you later, Sarah." There was a gentle click on the other end, and Sarah was left holding the phone, staring at the mouthpiece as though something more enlightening than the dial tone would emerge.

She whispered, "I don't understand," but inside, she was all too afraid that she did. Gently, Sarah hung up and dazedly drifted over to the door.

At first, her movements were slow, but as she walked down the hill, she quickened her steps until she hit the stairs at a full run. Somehow she made it down the stairs without losing her balance and breaking her neck. Skidding around a corner, she found herself in her father's home office.

A few more strides brought her over to the large desk that dominated the room. Falling to her knees, she tore open the drawers, strewing their contents all over the floor, searching through them desperately. Her efforts yielded nothing but mess with the first drawers.

Finally, there was but one drawer left, the one at the very bottom. Though she dreaded what she might find, she didn't hesitate as she ripped the drawer open and dumped its contents on the floor.

Amongst the various contents lying topsy-turvy on the shag carpeting, a newspaper clipping caught her eye. She snatched it up, her eyes widening as she read the headline: "Baby Disappears From Crib: Tearful Parents Plead For Return."

As though she were dreaming, she set the clipping aside and began rummaging through the other contents of that final, bottom drawer. There were several more newspaper clippings, which she set aside with the first. Finally, satisfied that she wasn't missing anything, she picked up the first clipping and began to read.

Less than fifteen minutes later, Sarah sat back, utterly stunned, but with a fairly clear picture of what had occurred whirling in her mind.

It seemed that she'd been babysitting for her young brother when he'd disappeared completely from his crib in her parents' room. Her father and Ruth had filed kidnapping charges, and it had become a widely-publicized case within the city. The family had gone on TV to plead for their son's safe release, but no evidence had ever come to light. The baby had just been gone without even fingerprints to incriminate the kidnappers. For several days, it appeared, Sarah had been the prime suspect, but after numerous questionings, the police had been forced to admit that the teenage sister had nothing to do with the disappearance.

And that had been the end of it. Toby had never been returned, and presumably Ruth and Sarah's father had never gotten over it. Sarah hid her face in her hands, thinking that it was no wonder that they had reacted so negatively to her mention of Toby. Considering, especially, that they must have suspected her slightly of being involved at some point, the fact that she had brought up Toby now must have been especially painful.

It must have, Sarah thought dully, been the night that it had all begun: the night that she, in an immature fit, had wished Toby away, and the Goblin King had so quickly obliged.

She must have failed on her trip through the Labyrinth; it was the only explanation that made any sense. She had failed, and Toby had been forced to stay and become a goblin. It was as though Jareth had changed the reality around her while leaving her memories cruelly intact and with the knowledge that short of him relenting, she would never see her baby brother again.

He could hardly have done anything more pitiless.

She had not thought him capable of, well, this. Even knowing that he was a cruel man, the king of all goblins, even knowing that he didn't much care for her these days, she hadn't thought that he hated her this much, wished this much pain upon her.

It wasn't even just Toby who was lost to her. It was Hoggle and Ludo, Didymus and Ambrosius. She clapped a hand to her mouth against the fresh rush of tears that thoughts of them brought.

In one day – in mere minutes – all the things that made life worth living had been stripped away from her. She knew that now. Though she had fought against the Labyrinth, though she had defied its – and his – efforts to change her mind back to how it used to be, her short time back there had been the most exhilarating, exciting time she could fathom in her recent memory.

Sarah couldn't deny it. Not anymore.

It did her no good anymore, but she was finally able to admit it to herself: she wanted to go back.

She wanted it all: adventure, romance, danger, her friends, her brother, and the man who now hated her. And it was selfish and immature of her to want so much, but she did, more than anything.

And she could have none of it. Not anymore.

Slowly, feeling as though she'd aged years in mere minutes, Sarah stumbled to her feet and trudged out of the office, leaving the contents of her father's desk scattered on the floor behind her.

...

The next days passed in a blur. Sarah could no more have defined how she spent her time than she could have defined Pi. Every now and again, she would look up and find herself eating, or showering, or even doing research. Five minutes later, though, she would again be lost in a miserable haze, and she wouldn't emerge again for hours.

She vaguely knew that she was going about her life – sometimes she even remembered being on the telephone and having conversations, but the content didn't matter, didn't interest her.

This state of non-being continued for at least a week. Sarah would have had no idea of time passing, but one day she distinctly remembered looking at the newspaper, and the date was eight days from the date she had first come home to find Toby on the couch.

She might have continued like this indefinitely, not really living, not really caring, but then one morning while climbing out of bed, her foot tangled in the sheet. Sarah lost her balance and crashed to the floor, landing hard on her stomach. The breath knocked out of her, her eyes opened up wide and she clutched at her stomach, writhing, finally fully alert.

It took several moments, but finally she could pull oxygen into her lungs without feeling as though she needed to vomit. Slowly, her hands relaxed, and she lay limp on the floor, quiet and drained. Though she was strangely exhausted, it finally felt as though the cobwebs obscuring her thoughts were gone. She stared up at the ceiling, blinking slowly, and then, once she felt strong enough, she sat up. Her hair, knotted and messy from sleep, surrounded her face like a halo as she looked around her room with mild curiosity.

It was as though she'd never really seen her room before. She took it all in, piece by piece. It was crowded and tasteless and filled with loud, angry colors.

"I hate this room," she said quietly, the words ringing loudly in the still house. "I hate this room."

Slowly, still not quite sure what was going on or what she was doing, Sarah stood up and took a hesitant step towards one of her walls. She reached out and gently touched Billy Idol's smirking face. With a deep sigh, she reached up and curled her hand around the edge of the poster, and then… Rrrrrip!

It was deeply satisfying to tear the poster off the wall. A clean white space met her greedy eyes. With just a trace of a grin on her face, Sarah dropped the torn poster on the floor and reached for the next one.

It took Sarah the better part of the morning to clean out her room, and the remainder of the morning to clean up the mess she'd created. She lugged garbage bags up to her room and stuffed the torn posters and worthless pictures into one with great relish. The clothes took another three bags, but she didn't bother to fold them. She stuffed them into the bags, not caring one bit about any wrinkles.

After lugging the newly created trash out to the curbside, it was a sweaty Sarah who stood in the middle of her empty room, rotating around slowly to take in the fresh expanse of her walls. It had been years since her room felt so large.

Though her single-minded determination had carried her through the destruction of her room's old destruction, now she felt slightly at a loss. She wasn't sure how to redecorate the room. Even if she'd still had more of her old decorations, like her M.C. Escher prints, Cats posters, and so on, she couldn't go back to those any more than she could – or would – go back to the rock star posters she'd just ripped from the walls. Neither of those quite fit her anymore.

She would have stood there puzzling over it for much longer, but then, suddenly, Sarah shrugged. It didn't really matter, and besides which, she kind of liked the idea of the clean, pure walls. They were almost like a clean slate: free of her past, free to decide her future.

"And if I can erase my past…" Sarah muttered quietly. She didn't finish the thought, but her meaning hung in the air as clearly as if it had been spoken aloud: ... then maybe I can somehow get things back to how they should be. Even though she knew that she had no logical reason to think that there was anything she could do, she couldn't help it. It was irrational and it was idiotic, but there it was: a small, weak hope nestled just below her heart.

Feeling refreshed, Sarah heaved a sigh. She lifted her hair away from her sweaty neck and headed down the hall to take a much-deserved shower.

And for the first time in longer than she could remember at the moment, Sarah lingered in the shower for a good twenty minutes, simply enjoying the feel of hot needles of water beating against her shoulders and the slippery soap on her skin. It was utterly relaxing, and for once, she didn't spend time worrying about what she needed to accomplish in the day ahead.

Once she was clean, dry, and dressed, Sarah checked the time and was amazed to see that it was nearly 1:00 in the afternoon, and even more amazed that she didn't feel an immediate sense of guilt that she was wasting her day. What she did feel, though, was hunger.

Heading downstairs to find some sort of breakfast, Sarah had to quicken her step when the phone started ringing. She skidded around the corner into the kitchen and snatched up the receiver just as the fourth ring sounded

"Hello?" she said, happy that she sounded composed and nearly normal.

"Sarah! Hon, what's going on? You said you'd call me this morning."

Sarah blinked in surprise. "B-Brian? I did?"

"Yeah, when I called last night. You said that you were busy and that you would call me back this morning, remember?" His familiar voice made a smile appear on her face.

"I'm sorry, Brian. It must have slipped my mind."

"It's okay. I've just been worried about you, that's all."

"Really?" Sarah asked curiously, her cheeks flushing. "You've been worried?"

"Yeah. You just haven't been yourself. I always tell you that you'll work yourself to death one of these days – I almost decided to stop by and make sure that you were okay."

"Well… Why didn't you?"

"Huh?"

Sarah bit her lip, a fragment of a suspicious memory trying to work its way to the surface. "Why didn't you stop by? I would have loved to see you."

"Aaaaah…" For a brief moment, he sounded distinctly uncomfortable. "I know that you don't like unannounced visitors, and I just didn't want to bother you. Though," he added, a distinctly seductive tone entering his voice, "I've been thinking about you…"

"Oh yeah?" Sarah asked, the teasing note entering her own voice of its own accord. "Do tell…"

"Nothing in particular, really. Just… random lascivious thoughts to help me while away those long hours at work."

While away those long hours at work…

Sarah laughed in response, but inside her mind, those words were bothering her. There was something in connection, in conjunction with those words that she should remember, and she felt as though she needed to remember it right now.

"…Those long hours at work," she muttered. "…While away those long…"

"Sarah?" Brian asked. "What's wrong?"

And suddenly, there it was, as clear as if she'd had a recording of it in her brain: "So I try to squeeze what enjoyment I can out of what is essentially quite tiring. How does that make me any worse than your boyfriend, who fools around with his boss to while away the long hours at work?" She gasped, the memory rushing back. Jareth had told her. He'd told her that Brian was cheating on her – he'd seen it.

"Brian," she said slowly, unable to help the hollow tone in her voice, "you've been cheating on me."

There was a brief, shocked silence on the other end of the phone. Then: "What!"

"You heard me, Brian." Her grip on the receiver became perceptibly tighter, and her knuckles began to whiten.

"S-Sarah! I'm shocked!"

"At being caught?"

"How could you just accuse me of something like this? This is t-totally out of the blue!"

"But it's true nonetheless," Sarah replied quietly, wondering why it didn't hurt more. "And I'm not lying to you when I say that I viewed your lover stark naked and laboring away on top of another woman."

"Sarah, I…" The hurt in his voice was real. It had to be. "How can you accuse me of this with no proof?"

It was true, she knew. She had no real proof. She hadn't seen him doing anything wrong, and he'd never acted as anything other than a loving boyfriend towards her. All she had was Jareth's word, and what was that really worth? The word of a sneaky, mean, vindictive man. The word of a man who'd twice stolen her brother. The word of the Goblin King.

"You can deny it if you want to, Brian, but I know that it's true. I know. I… I don't think it's going to work out between you and me."

"But – but, Sarah—"

"Good-bye, Brian." Ever so gently, ignoring the sound of his still-protesting voice, Sarah replaced the receiver. She stared at the phone for a moment, dazed at how quickly and relatively painlessly she'd ended the relationship that she'd once supposed to be The One.

Even to the last moment, she'd still hung onto her illusions of Brian being the man by her side, and it had hurt to accuse him. When she'd thought of Jareth's words and wondered if she could believe him, though, she'd realized right away that she believed Jareth over Brian without a single qualm. At that second, the pain had disappeared.

Now, though, she was no longer sure what to do. She was brotherless and single. She was without inspiration to work on her thesis and without any good friends to talk to.

All the same, though, her sense of desperation and hopelessness had lessened. Whether it was because of her unexpected room redecoration or because of her breaking up with Brian, Sarah believed that she might somehow, some way, take her destiny back into her own hands.

"I don't know how," she said firmly, still staring at the phone, "but I'm getting my life back. I'll find Jareth and I'll make him listen to me. I'm taking my brother back. I'm taking my friends back. And…" She licked her lips, afraid to voice the final thought, but it had everything to do with the proud, arrogant man who haunted her dreams.