A/N: I don't own the Labyrinth. I also am well aware that the world does not need another fan fiction about the Labyrinth. I'm writing this anyway, because most of the stories I review are Labyrinth fan-fics.

Chapter Four: It Isn't Fair

Fact Four: Life is not fair.

When I ran the Labyrinth, eight years ago, I was just a childish girl with childish dreams. I was petulant, obnoxious and, well, bratty. I felt so wronged. My entire life was not fair.

It was not fair my mother abandoned me. It was not fair that my father was spineless. It was not fair he married Karen. It was not fair they had Toby. It wasn't fair that they loved him more than me. It wasn't fair I had to baby-sit him; that they treated me more like an au pair than a daughter. My life was full of 'not fairs'.

When he came, he found my concept of fairness amusing. Then frustrating. Every time anything happened, there I was, pouting and decrying it unfair. "You say that so often, Sarah, that I wonder what your basis for comparison is," he said. And it echoed in my head for years. I never answered his question. But my basis for comparison was the fantasy world I kept locked up in my head – the world of 'should have been'. The world where my mother never left, or took me with her. And everything was wonderful.

But that's not real life. Life is not fair, it just… is. I don't know whether you could call the Labyrinth an initiation of sorts: for maturity or, more importantly, real life. But running the Labyrinth made fact four very clear; he made fact four very clear. Fairness belongs to the one in charge. Very seldom are you the one in charge.

Sometimes, though, and always unexpectedly, life is fair. Well, fair for you. You learn that in the Labyrinth too. It's never fair for the losers. There's always a loser, and it's usually you. But sometimes, just sometimes, you win. And just briefly, every briefly, life is fair. Life was fair in the Escher Room when I managed that final line. "You have no power over me." The fairness lasted until my friends went home, were punished severely and forbidden from seeing me anymore. And it wasn't fair until I said that line. The second life started being fair for me, it stopped being fair for him.

I wonder if life's ever not been fair for him before? I wonder if he still feels the sting of it? Maybe he was lenient to my friend, considering how he felt.

It's not fair, what he tempts you with in the Escher Room. But then, it's not meant to be. My youth saved me. I bet that hurt him. It helped that I wasn't processing what he was saying. Not until later. It's not fair that after that moment you compare every man to him. And it's not fair that no one ever comes close.

But it's not just from that moment. Irene remembers him. I remember her reminiscing gently on her dreams. "He was so… how do you describe a man like that? Was he even a man? I'm not sure. But I craved him, in my dream. I know it's only a dream, a silly little dream, but nothing ever measures up."

Except for me it's not a dream. I know it's real. And that in itself is not fair. Do you think that anything is the same after the Labyrinth? Nothing is the same. And it's not fair. But then, it's not mean to be, is it?