Chapter 4: I should have protected her.

Tiger Eye-

'He'd kill her for sure!" Hawk Eye said violently when Tiger Eye had asked why they couldn't take Sarah back to the circus. "There are to many people in the circus who are loyal to Zeronia now. Even if we managed to get her to the circus unharmed, we wouldn't get two feet inside before Zerconia killed not only her, but us, too." The he quickly added, "IF she is truly our Ringmaster. I still say she could be just some human..."

Fish Eye gave Hawk Eye a dirty look. "Why are you trying to deny her?" He asked acidly. "We've finally gotten her back!"

"If she's our Ringmaster, she'd have come back to us." Hawk Eye looked at Sarah with an unreadable expression. "If she has simply lost her memory of us, well, that's an even bigger problem."

"Why?" Tiger Eye asked. If she'd lost her memory, surely it was proof that she belonged with them.

Hawk Eye turned his head away and looked into the distance. "If she doesn't remember us, why would she come back with us? How could get make Zerconia leave if she has none of her power? What if her memory comes back and she's angry with us? We let her be killed. We should have protected her better." His hung his head. "I should have protected her."

Tiger Eye realized the problem. For a long time after her death, Hawk Eye had blamed himself for her death, saying that he should have been the one to go speak with Hoggle outside the circus tent, not her. It was his position, his responsibility to do so. "It's not your..."

"Not my fault?" Hawk Eye gave a bitter laugh. "Of course it is and we all know it. Now, let's get this over with. Tiger, you go hide somewhere. I'll get those girl's attention."

Once he'd gotten her to a safe place, as safe as he could find in the middle of downtown, Tiger Eye made Sarah as comfortable as possible. 'She's so cold.' Tiger Eye thought, sitting with Sarah, the girl he believed was Ringmaster. He had no proof and no way to know for certain, but he did believe. Her delicate, porcelain colored face and the long black hair was only the first clue. It scared Tiger Eye more than he wanted to admit how badly Sarah looked. She would live, surely, but he didn't like seeing the Ringmaster looking so weak.

He just wished he knew how to help her. Both of her eyes were swollen shut and there was dried blood everywhere, on her arms, in her hair, and a cut down the side of her face that would leave a scar.

'What if he's right?' Tiger Eye thought, looking at Hawk Eye though the branches of the bushes at his two friends. 'What if she doesn't want to come back with us?' Tiger Eye hadn't even considered that horrible thought.

Sarah lay almost on Tiger Eye's lap, her head turned slightly, towards him. Tiger Eye held his whip in one hand, ready to defend her, if necessary, but he tried not to look at her. 'She doesn't remember us. If she did, she'd have tried to come back to the circus.' Tiger Eye was rather hoping that she had lost her memory, anyway. If she did remember and still hadn't come back to them...that would have hurt very badly. Instead of looking at Sarah's battered face, Tiger Eye watched Hawk Eye and Fish Eye where they stood out in the middle of the street, under a street light.

'If we could just take her to the circus,' Tiger Eye thought. 'She'd heal just by entering.' But Hawk Eye had all ready explained why they couldn't take her home. It would be dangerous, at the very least, to let Zerconia know that the Ringmaster had somehow been reborn.

Tiger Eye let himself touch Sarah's hair and pulled away in disgust when he felt that the hair was stiff with dried blood. This had better work or he was going to kill someone, namely Ringmaster's parents.

"unnnn." The slight touch of Tiger Eye's fingers was enough to wake Ringmaster and she groaned painfully. "Where...?"

"Shh." Tiger Eye whispered in his most comforting voice, hoping that she didn't remember how he'd attacked her earlier. "Don't be afraid. You're safe."

"I can't see."

"Your eyes are swollen. You're safe. We're going to get you somewhere to get better. You've been beaten."

Tiger Eye felt like an idiot the moment he'd said that. Of course she knew she'd been beaten, why'd he have to remind her?

"Toby? Where's Toby?" Ringmaster began to toss in Tiger Eye's arms as if she were trying to get up, but Tiger Eye held her tightly.

"I'm sorry. You were alone when we got you." Tiger Eye wished he hadn't said that, but he just couldn't lie to Ringmaster. It just wasn't done.

"Wasn't there?" Ringmaster's voice grew panicked. "No! No, I have to find him."

"Please, don't worry." Tiger Eye reassured her. "We'll find him for you. I promise."

Out in the middle of the empty street, Tiger Eye saw Hawk Eye smirked to himself as he stood next to Fish and then raised a hand high over his head. A long, narrow stick appeared in his hand with a tiny blaze on one end. "We may as well get this over with. Stay back, Fish." Hawk Eye muttered before he took a deep breath and blew on the end of the stick, as if he were blowing a bubble, and an immense flame shot into the sky.

"That should work." Fish Eye commented with approval in his voice when the fire display had ended. "If that doesn't get their attention, nothing will."

Hawk Eye seemed very proud of his work. If those brats were attracted to power, that should bring them running. Fish Eye, Tiger Eye had to admit, was here for Hawk Eye's protection. The senshi were quite powerful and Hawk Eye wisely didn't want to be out here alone if they didn't like this idea. Hawk Eye had, originally, toyed with the idea of leaving Fish Eye with Sarah and bringing Tiger Eye out with him, but, frankly, Tiger wasn't terribly bright and he was completely unsuitable for confrontation.

Not that Tiger Eye was unable to fight, he just didn't like it very much and had a tendency to back off rather than directly confront an enemy. If he had to fight, Tiger Eye could prove that his teeth and claws were as deadly as that of his namesake's. For now, though, Hawk Eye had declared that Tiger Eye would be safer being left to protect Sarah while Fish Eye, the fiercer fighter, would watch his back. Again, not that Fish Eye liked fighting, he was just more willing to do it.

It didn't take long for the Senshi to show themselves, as Hawk Eye had predicted. They had to get Sarah some real medical attention soon. Tiger was starting to look worried as she got paler and paler.

"Stop, evil doers!" Sailor Moon yelled dramatically as soon as her group arrived, pouncing out of shadows and off building roofs.

'They have flare, if nothing else.' Tiger Eye thought with admiration at their flashy entrance. After all, he was a performer above all else and if there was one thing he could appreciate, it was a good entrance. Still, he kept himself and Ringmaster silent and hidden until Hawk Eye called them out.

Sailor Moon faltered when she realized that the Amazon Trio weren't doing any evil. In fact, they seemed to be alone on the street. "What's going on?" She asked cautiously, though not ordering her warriors to lower their guard.

Hawk Eye dramatically threw his flame stick into the air where it vanished. "We are here on a mission of mercy." He told them with a smile.

Fish Eye backed him up by saying, "We have a poor girl who needs to be looked after for a while." While he said this, Tiger Eye saw that Fish Eye kept looking around, not only for danger from the senshi, but also for threats from the circus.

As unpleasant as it sounded, many of the circus people had gotten into the habit of spying on their companions and reporting misdeeds to Zerconia. These people would often be rewarded with favors and special privileges and, thinking about it honestly, Tiger Eye admitted that he would have turned someone in, too, if he'd ever found anyone breaking rules. It selfish, true, but it was also a chance to improve his life and those of his two companions.

"Why would we want to help your friend?" Sailor Jupiter asked with a scowl.

Hawk Eye had known they would ask this, it was just too obvious a trap for the Senshi to take chances. "She isn't exactly a friend, but we saw her being beaten and, as we have no argument with her, we thought we'd do a bit of rescuing." He lied.

The senshi exchanged wary looks, not sure if they could trust him.

Finally, Hawk Eye shrugged as if it didn't matter. "Well, if you really don't want to help her," He looked over his shoulder to where Tiger Eye was still with Sarah. "Tiger, bring her out. We'll just leave her here in the street and let any old hentai find her. Alone. Defenseless."

To the shock of the senshi, Tiger Eye emerged from the darkness with the still form of a girl in his arms. He walked toward them until he was only a few steps away to give them a good look.

Sailor Moon seemed stunned to see the state that Ringmaster was in. The blood had mostly dried, but her eyes were blackened and her lips were still swollen. "What happened to her?"

Fish Eye snorted. "How should we know?" He asked callously. "She's just some human. We only found her." If Ringmaster wanted them to know about her family life, that was her business to tell and none of them were about to tell her secrets.

Tiger Eye deliberately handed Ringmaster to the biggest of the senshi, Jupiter. Since he knew she was awake, he wasn't about to just put her on the ground. Jupiter took Ringmaster, still looking at the girl with pity, and Tiger Eye wanted to tell the senshi, 'hurt her and I'll kill you all.' But that would go against Hawk Eye's plans. He believed that if the senshi knew they cared about Ringmaster, they'd either hurt her or use her against them.

Hawk Eye ended the silence by saying, "It's your decision, really. Take her or leave her." The Amazon Trio vanished.

Jareth-

Jareth was outraged. No, he was more than outraged. He was furious. Currently, the goblins had done the wisest thing imaginable and fled the castle for the safety of their little city, which surrounded the castle of their king. Though they weren't especially bright, not one of them was stupid enough to be around their king when he was in one of his moods.

"You mad?"

Jareth stopped his triad at the sound of the little, timid voice and turned to look at his guest. "Yes, Toby, I'm just a bit mad."

Toby sat on the floor just in front of Jareth's large throne, watching Jareth with big blue eyes. He really hadn't changed all that much since he'd last been in Jareth's Labyrinth. The child still had big blue eyes and soft blonde curls. The only real difference was that he'd aged almost three years.

With a heavy sign, Jareth went to sit in his throne and threw his legs up on one arm so he could lounge before picking Toby up and setting the boy on his lap. "I'm not mad at you, though, Toby."

Toby leaned against Jareth's chest trustingly and stuck a thumb in his mouth. Jareth absently brush the hand away from Toby's mouth. "Don't suck your thumb, your teeth will grow crooked." But his mind wasn't really on Toby's dental hygiene. He HAD to find a way to get Sarah away from that sorry excuse of a home before they killed her.

"You gonna get sissy soon?" Toby asked.

"I'll try, but it's going to be hard. You see," Jareth said, trying to explain this as best as he was able to. "This world is my home. This castle and the whole world outside. Your home is far, far away. It's hard to get people to come from your world to my world."

Toby looked up at him blankly, clearly not understanding.

"There's a special way to get from your home to my home. A doorway. The problem is that not many people have the key."

"But you have the key." Toby interrupted. "You came to get me so you can get sissy, too."

Jareth sighed. This was going to be the hard part. "You helped me to bring you here, remember? Sarah might not want to come with me." Besides all that, Jareth knew that the Labyrinth wasn't a safe place for humans to live. The air was different that Earth's air, for one thing. Sure, it was survivable, but if breathed for to long, it could kill humans. The water was different, too, containing chemicals that weren't even native to Earth. One drink could make a human seriously ill at best.

Toby frowned. "Sissy will come to be with me. She loves me." He said with absolute confidence.

Jareth patted Toby's hair. "Yes. Yes, I'm sure she'd want to." The problem was that she couldn't come. Children were wished away, but Sarah was hardly a child. Jareth couldn't take her, she had to come of her own free will. "But your sissy is going to have to open the doorway herself." Jareth told Toby. "I can't help her."

"You helped her last time." Toby reminded Jareth of Sarah's first visit to the Labyrinth.

"Yes, but that was apart of the rules of the game. Why don't you go to sleep, Toby. I'll be here when you wake up." Jareth wanted to keep the rest of his thoughts to himself. There was no need to confuse Toby by telling him that Sarah could open the doorway to the Labyrinth with her soul. In all honestly, Jareth wasn't sure he understood it, either. Only very few people were able to do that and Jareth didn't know why Sarah was one of those people. He, as a creature of the Labyrinth, could open the doorway any time he pleased, but Sarah shouldn't be able to.

The truth was that Jareth wasn't even sure that Sarah could do it until earlier when she'd been attacked and her soul had been forcibly opened. It had been like a rip in the universe and the Labyrinth protested at the violation, causing Jareth to punish the intruder. It had been more than a little surprising to find that it was Sarah who held the doorway.

Jareth's mind went back to how he'd gotten Toby.

Jareth had awoken in his bedchambers with a stab of pain. It wasn't his pain, he knew, but more like a phantom pain. In his dark chambers, Jareth sat in his bed and blinked at the moon outside his window. It was the only decoration in the sky uncluttered by distant stars and it wasn't even a moon as most people knew them. Jareth wasn't entirely sure what the purpose of the Labyrinth's moon was, but he did know it was some kind of crystal. At least that's what it looked like to him. For some reason, the moon was the one place in his whole world that Jareth couldn't reach.

Again, there was a faint, detached sense of fear and pain.

'What's going on?' Jareth wondered as he sat very still and tried to focus on where the feeling was coming from. That little drama with Sarah hadn't been to long before, so Jareth was reasonably certain that this involved her. "Clothes." Jareth ordered as he stood up and strode out of his bedroom and to the adjoining library. The library was the place where Jareth stored all his important treasures that he couldn't risk being destroyed by the goblins.

Before Jareth had taken two steps he was fully dressed in his normal attire, of tight fitting hose, boots, and a loose shirt and walked into the library. Along with a massive collection of books, Jareth had a mythical treasure. It was a thing often told of in fairy tales and dreamed of by people seeking power.

In fairy tales it was called the Magic Mirror. In reality, it was Gobdhin's Glass. Jareth tore the red velvet cover off of the tall mirror and waited until the smoke surface cleared and showed his reflection.

"I feel pain, Mirror. Show me why." It was not a request, but an order. That was one of the secrets. One had to be confident not to ask the mirror, but to demand an answer. Otherwise, the mirror would remain a simple looking glass.

Instantly, the mirror stopped showing Jareth's reflection and showed a nearly darkened bedroom with two figures curled up together on the bed.

"Show me more." The mirror focused on the faces of the two occupants of the bed and Jareth felt a low growl rise in his throat.

Appearing in the bedroom at once, Jareth looked down at the two. The boy was Toby and Jareth was relieved to find that he was unharmed and now a sturdy little boy. Sarah worried him, though. In just the few hours since he'd last seen her, Sarah had been badly beaten and her wounds left untended.

"Hi."

It was only when Toby spoke that Jareth realized the child had woken up and he knelt next to the bed. "Hello, Toby. Do you remember me?"

Toby nodded. "You're that guy who was singing. The king."

"That's right. Are you all right, Toby?"

"Yeah. But sissy got hurt." Toby looked at Sarah. "You help her? I don't like it when sissy cries."

"Neither do I." Jareth admitted. "Toby, would you like to come with me? Shall I take you back to the castle?"

Toby sat up abruptly with a wide smile. "Yes!" He nearly shouted and Jareth had to put his hand over Toby's mouth to silence him.

"Shush!" Jareth put a finger to his lips. "We don't want your mother and father waking up."

Toby nodded quickly and gave Jareth a muffled, "I'll be quiet."

"Good." Jareth looked at Toby seriously. "We have to play a game, though, and there are hard rules of the game. If you want to come with me, then you have to make a wish."

"Any wish?"

"No. You have to say, I wish I could go with Jareth to Labyrinth. Do you understand?"

"Yeah. Can sissy come, too?"

"Not just yet, Toby. I'll come back for her as soon as I can, though." It was the best promise he could give Toby, right now, though.

Toby nodded and leaned over to kiss Sarah's bruised cheek. "Bye, bye, sissy." Then he held his arms out to Jareth, obviously expecting to be picked up, and whispered, "I wish I could go with Jareth to Labyrinth."

One Toby had fallen asleep in Jareth's arms, Jareth lay the child down to sleep in his own bed before going back to the library. Sometimes the rules that bound him really irritated him.

Just because Sarah technically wasn't a child, she couldn't be wished away, not even by her own wish.

Pacing furiously in the library, Jareth kept an eye on the Gobdhin's Glass, watching Sarah and waiting to see what would happen once she found her beloved brother gone again. She would be frightened and angry, but Jareth found that he didn't really care, so long as he could watch her. Ever since she'd visited the Labryinth, Jareth spent more and more time watching Gobdhin's Glass just to keep an eye on Sarah and Toby.

"How dare they hurt her?!" Jareth demanded to no one in particular. Of course, he was speaking about Sarah's parents. "They dared to put their hands on what belongs to me?! Unforgivable!"

A Trio of people had turned up suddenly in the mirror view of Sarah's room and taken her away. One of the people, Jareth didn't fail to notice, was the blonde boy who'd attacked her earlier that night.

'He's still alive?' Jareth thought, bewildered. 'I must be losing my touch.' His first instinct was to go to Sarah's rescue. After all, he didn't want her hurt again. He hesitated, however, to step in as they seemed to be treating her with a great deal of respect and tenderness, a large change since the last time he had seen her with one of them.

Curiously, Jareth watched through his mirror and saw the Trio take Sarah to a group of obscenely dressed young girls. There was an odd display of fire power to attract the young girls and then a short, tense conversation between the two groups.

The Trio left Sarah with the girls who seemed confused at first, but then the tallest one, a girl dressed in green with a brown ponytail, picked Sarah up easily and they took her away. "Where are we going to take her?" The one dressed in green asked.

"Where else?" A red dressed girl said. "My place."

Well, she seemed to be in good hands, for now.

To be continued...