Summary: Sara didn't accept Jareth's bargain, but she didn't leave the Labyrinth unmarked. A story of consequences, and two lonely, stubborn people learning to live with each other.

Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth; the premise and characters belong to Jim Henson's estate and some movie studio/s. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

Author's Note: This story was inspired by words #50, #65, and #66 on the 15minuteficlets livejournal community. You may notice a style change between the first two chapters and the final three -- that's because the last three were a single story that I split up in order to keep the word counts and pacing more even.

Any canon goofs, grammar mistakes, continuity errors, implausible characterizations, bad dialogue, and boring passages are entirely my fault.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o
None So Blind
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"I wish the goblins would take me away," Sara said, and Jareth whisked her from the tiny college room, across the chasm between worlds to his castle at the Labyrinth's heart. A crystal spell shattered, and Sara's old bargain was broken. Things could begin to change.

That was the easy part.

Jareth was an absolute ruler; Sara was used to fighting against authority. Jareth was accustomed to solitude; Sara was happiest surrounded by friends. Jareth was a creature of whim and magic, used to rewriting the shape of his world overnight; Sara still considered the world in terms of unchangeable laws.

Both remembered their previous encounters with a touch of longing. Neither was willing to be the first to admit to any attraction. And yet they refused to leave each other in peace.

Sara installed Hoggle, Ludo, Sir Didymus, and various other bumbling friends in the castle despite their fears and Jareth's freely expressed disgust. Jareth responded by changing the paths and forms of the Labyrinth until the whole realm was cold stone, glittering crystal, and darkness, and the direction of gravity was optional. The next morning, Sara found herself wandering on the bedroom ceiling when she tried to walk through her door, her friends barricaded themselves into the kitchens, and the flowers she'd planted around the castle were dying from frost.

"Fix it yourself," Jareth snapped when Sara stormed into the Escher room -- now nothing uncommon in the new pattern of the castle -- to complain.

It took Sara a week to realize that she could affect the Labyrinth. It took Jareth another to notice that even if he wanted to, he couldn't stop her from shaping his world anymore. The Labyrinth had chosen a mistress as well as a master.

Jareth threw her out of the castle.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

The Labyrinth divided itself in half, one for Jareth and one for Sara, overlapping near the castle at its heart. Sara kept hers warm, a shambling summer maze of hedges, bogs, forests, and habitations for the odd creatures of this magical world. Jareth's was colder, filled with stones, sharp edges, and the castaway bits that Sara pushed out of her realm. She kept the sun. He took the stars.

The old junkyard, where they once danced in a glittering dream, ricocheted between their realms until it lay like a no-man's-land between Jareth's castle and Sara's new moss-covered house. Neither was willing to take it. Neither was willing to destroy it.

"It's a mess," Hoggle grumbled to Sara. "Get rid of it."

She shook her head. "No. I won't give Jareth the satisfaction. I won't let him pretend it wasn't real."

"Pretend what wasn't real?"

Sara shrugged. "He never told me."

"Then how do you know he's pretending anything?" Hoggle asked, exasperated. "I think you're even more confused than the first time you came to the Labyrinth."

"Maybe," Sara said. "But I got the best of him once. I won't give in this time either." She went back to coaxing a withered tree into sprouting new leaves.

"She's gone completely insane," Hoggle said to Jareth several days later, when he ran into his former king pacing restlessly along the border between night and day. "Goes on and on about dreams and reality and not letting you pretend it wasn't real, whatever 'it' is. Do you know what she's talking about?"

Jareth scowled. "Yes. And I'm not pretending; you can tell her that. Tell her I haven't forgotten, either."

Hoggle shuffled his feet uncertainly. Jareth raised a hand -- crystal spheres blossomed in the air around him -- and Hoggle ducked his head. "Yes, sir! I'll tell her. In fact, I'll go tell her right now."

"Good," said Jareth. He turned, opened a door that hadn't been there a moment before, and vanished into the goblins' tunnels.

"They're both crazy," Hoggle said to himself. "They deserve each other." Then he felt guilty for putting Sara on Jareth's level, but he shuffled off to carry Jareth's message to his friend.

o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o

AN: I like Jareth, I like Sara, and I like them together. But I really don't think that a relationship between them would be easy.