"What do you mean?" Sarah tried to ask, but the little goblins had all run up to her and begun chattering. The old lady goblin didn't hear Sarah's question.

"Everyone, come this way!" Brax shouted as he started to walk towards the throne room. "We can have party now!" The goblins ran after him and Sarah followed. Brax had brought a backpack with him, and when everyone was in the throne room he began to unpack it. He had brought breads and cheeses, and from somewhere in the room he found some plates. He began to split everything up and pass the plates around. Some of the small goblins picked up the cups that were lying around and used them for drinks. Sarah chewed on a piece of bread and waited for someone to say something. Surely the old lady would explain what was going on. Sarah was beginning to get the nasty feeling that Jareth had tricked her somehow. "So, Lady Sarah, are you glad to be back home?" the lady goblin broke the silence. Sarah ran her hands through her hair. "I'm not too sure what you mean. I thought I was just here to visit?"

The old lady looked at Sarah in disbelief. "Haven't you seen the terrible state of the labyrinth?" she asked her.

"Well, yeah…" Sarah trailed off. She wasn't too sure what that had to do with anything.

The old lady nodded as if that settled matters. "The king is gone. The labyrinth needs a new ruler." she stated matter-of-factly.

"Wait, gone? Where did he go?" Sarah was confused.

The goblins all looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders.

"King been gone a long time." Brax offered.

"No one is sure where he went. But none of that matters now that we have a new ruler!" the old lady smiled at Sarah.

"Hold on, you mean I'm the new ruler?"

The goblins all smiled happily and nodded.

"But, you can't - I can't - I have a job back there!" she pointed up.

"Well, now you gotta job down here!" Brax said.

"It's all quite simple, dear. The labyrinth chose you. Now you are the new ruler." said the old lady.

"Oh, no." Sarah groaned and put her face in her hands. "Is this what that book was talking about?"

No one said anything. Sarah sighed. "Can you tell me how this came to be, exactly?"

"Of course, Lady Sarah."

"Please don't call me that…"

"You see, the labyrinth is a living thing, but it needs someone to take care of it. It needs someone to rule over it. It gives it's ruler incredible power, and in turn, the labyrinth feeds off the energy of it's ruler. Without someone's energy to sustain it, it starts to fall apart. That's what you're seeing now." the old lady paused to take a sip from her mug.

"You mean it's like… A parasite?" Sarah asked as she stared off in the distance. She was starting to understand more of what was in the book.

The old lady continued as if she hadn't heard what Sarah said.

"With Jareth missing, it needed someone new. Since you have been here before, it must have reached out to you. You have ties to this place."

"But how do you know that's why it wants me? How can you be sure?" Sarah didn't know what think of all this.

The old lady chuckled. "Oh, don't worry! The labyrinth will let you know for sure!"

Sarah looked across the room at the throne. From where she was sitting, it looked awfully big. How would she ever be able to be a good ruler? Some nights, she could't even keep the customers' food orders right. She sighed, wishing that the labyrinth would hurry up and let her know that it had made a mistake. "What about Jareth? What if he comes back?"

The old lady looked a little uneasy. "The labyrinth wouldn't have picked a new ruler if there was a chance the old one would come back…"

Sarah didn't say anything. There were so many thoughts going around her head, she felt like if she opened her mouth she would puke. Luckily for her, an old familiar voice pulled her out of her thoughts.

"Sarah, is you in here?"

"Hoggle!" Sarah cried as she sprang to her feet. there he was, standing in the doorway of the throne room, looking just slightly older than the last time she had seen him. Sarah embraced her friend.

"I've missed you, Sarah!"

"I've missed you too!" She tried to swallow the lump in her throat. "Why did you stop visiting me?" A tear slid down her cheek. "And why didn't you tell me Jareth had died?"

"What?" Hoggle stepped back. "That old rat ain't dead, not that I know of. And besides," he looked down at his feet, embarrassed. "It weren't my fault I stopped visiting. It was his." he snorted and nodded over at Jareth's throne. "But it's a long story, Sarah. Let me get somethin' to eat first?" he pleaded.

Sarah lost track of the time spent sitting on the floor of the throne room with Hoggle and her new friends. Brax had brought back quite a lot of food from Goblin City, and she was enjoying every minute of the little picnic despite the worries in the back of her mind. The pale sunlight filtered through the solitary window and the dust motes floating by seemed to make everything feel more peaceful. Sarah was able to relax a little as she listened to the goblins chatter on about idle gossip. She had missed hearing these kinds of stories so much. After the food was gone the old lady goblin stood up. "Come on, boys, let's clean this place up for Lady Sarah. We'll start with the kitchen." She led the goblins out of the room. Hoggle stayed behind.

For a minute neither of them said anything. Now that she was face-to-face with him again, Sarah couldn't help but feel a little hurt by her friend's long absence.

"It's like you're all grown up now, Sarah." Hoggle started the conversation. "I remember it like it were yesterday, when you first came here and got your finger bit by that fairy." he chuckled to himself. "I feel real awful about not visiting, we all do. But there weren't nothing we could do about it - Jareth had put a seal on the Underground to keep us from leaving." he paused to take a sip of his drink.

"Why would he do that?" Sarah asked, but she had a feeling she knew the answer.

"You shoulda seen him after we got back from that party, Sarah! I ain't never seen him so down before." he took a bite of bread and chewed it.

Sarah remembered that party so well. Almost everyone she had met during her run had been there. Almost everyone. When she had looked into the mirror and said she need them, she had meant all of them. When she didn't see Jareth with them at the party, she had thought that meant he didn't want to see her again.

"I almost felt bad for the rat, Sarah. He musta moped around for over a month. I didn't think it could get worse than that." he sighed. "But then it did. For nearly a year not a day went by without at least three goblins getting bogged! His temper was somethin' terrible, and for Jareth, that's really saying somethin'! He was constantly brooding and alway had a sour look on his face. That bad mood of his lasted quite a long time, too. Dark times in the kingdom, they were. We alway tried to keep it real quiet when we went to see ya, and we were able to keep that up for a fair amount of time. But sooner or later, he was bound to find out about it, and he did. One of the goblins let it slip one day. Oh, the look on his face when he found out." Hoggle shuddered. "It still haunts me to the day! I thought for sure he was going to bog everyone in the castle right then and there! But he didn't. It was the not knowing what he was going to do that was the worst. Anyway, he started makin' life real bad for everyone who was going to visit you. One by one they started getting so scared they stopped coming to see ya. Well, ya know it went." Hoggle looked away, ashamed. "But us last three, we kept comin'. Me and Didymus and Ludo, we weren't scared away so easily. He figured this out, see, and put a magic seal on the Underground to keep anyone from leaving. That's why we stopped coming to see you, Sarah. If it were up to us, we woulda still been visiting you up to this very day. But there's no getting past Jareth's magic." Hoggle shook his head sadly.

Sarah felt a little better knowing the reason behind her friends disappearance, but it didn't take away the loneliness of those years. She sighed. "Why did he have to be like that?" she asked softly. "It wasn't hurting anything to let you guys visit."

Hoggle cleared his throat. "Actually, Sarah, I think he was jealous. He couldn't get over the fact that you never asked to see him."

"What?" Sarah sputtered. "But - he's the one that didn't come in when I said I need you guys! I thought he didn't care about me anymore!"

"Well, Jareth's a proud man. I kinda think he was waiting for you to ask him to stay. He wouldn't wanna look like he needed anyone. He asked me one time, if you ever asked about him. You never had, so I couldn't say otherwise. I think that's what upset him the most."

Sarah felt a pang of regret. There had been several times throughout the years she had almost asked about Jareth. Times when just the simple question "How's the Goblin King?" longed to escape her lips, but the thought of how he didn't care about her made it seem silly to even ask. To think that all that time, he was waiting for her to make the first move… Maybe if she had just asked, things could have been so different. So willingly he had taken the role of villain for her, because it what was what she wanted. Would he also have become a friend, if she so desired it?

She thought of how she went to prom alone, the only one without a date. She thought of all the holidays and vacations where she stayed home alone because she didn't want to spend them with her step-mother. All the Friday nights spent watching TV and eating ice cream because she didn't have any friends to do things with. Those lonely nights studying for tests when she could have used a friend to be there by her side. All the birthdays spent alone. All these thoughts flashed through Sarah's mind in an instant. It could have all been so different, if she had only asked.

"I don't think he ever really got over you leaving." Hoggle said quietly.

Sarah rubbed her sleeve across her eyes. "But where did he go?" she asked with as strong a voice as she could manage.

Hoggle shrugged. "Well, he had been acting real strange the past couple years. Sometimes he would disappear for days at a time. One time he spent a whole week away. No one knew where he went. He'd be real quiet when he got back, like something was bothering him, but he'd never say what was going on."

"Oh, Hoggle! Do you think he's in some kind of trouble?" Sarah picked at the fabric of her sleeve nervously.

"Er, the way I hear it, Sarah, the labyrinth has picked you to be it's new ruler. Congrats on that, by the way! I never did say that, did I? Anyway, um, if the old ruler were coming back, it wouldn't need a new one, if you see what I mean."

Sarah stopped to think about this. What could this all mean? Jareth was never coming back?

She saw the old lady goblin sweeping the hallway. She stood up and walked over to her. "So I"m the new Goblin Queen?" she asked.

The old lady nodded. "That's right, dear."

"And the labyrinth will give me magic?"

She nodded again.

"And… You all have to do what I say, right? And help me with whatever I want?"

"Of course."

Sarah looked down, not sure how to phrase her next question.

"Do you think that there's… A chance… That the old king… Is still alive? Somewhere?"

The old lady consider this for a moment. "Well, in all my years of studying magic, I've found one thing to be true. Magic is tricky." she shook her head. "Sometimes something seems to be one way, but it's really another. I suppose, if you stop and think about it, just because the labyrinth needs a new ruler, it doesn't have to mean the king is dead - it just means he's currently unable to continue to be the ruler. But there's something else I've learned from working with magic. So many times, just when you think something is different from what it seems to be, it turns out to be what you thought it was in the first place." she stopped sweeping and looked Sarah in the eye. "That's how magic works, you know!"

Sarah bit her lip. "Then, as the Goblin Queen, I have my first orders for you."

All the goblins stopped what they were doing and gathered around her.

"I'd like to say that all you are my friends. And friends help each other out, no matter what. So I'd also like to think that all of you are going to help me out with something."

The goblins all nodded and looked at her eagerly.

"I'm going to find Jareth, and I need your help."

Author's Note: Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read this story! I really appreciate it! I know I had said it would only 5 chapters long, but... It looks like it will be a little longer. I'll try and keep it under 10, for sure :)

(also, Hoggle's dialogue is so hard to write 0_o I never fee like I'm getting his accent right. I'f I've completely screwed it up somehow, sorry!)