Title: Coming of Age
Summary: Sarah discovers her family's secrets, and must now deal with the aftermath of the Labyrinth, and her family's desire to marry her off now that she's come of age.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Labyrinth. All characters associated with the movie belong to Jim Henson and whoever else has rights to them, and I make no money off of this.

*Special Note-Please read: Rather than including footnotes at the end of every chapter I will be posting a full addendum of my (admitedly minimal) research notes at the end of the fic, including a list of foreign words and pronunciations where possible. I do this in the hopes of limiting any more of these inconvenient author notes that quite possibly none of you are reading anyway. Chapters will be relatively short (and sometimes slow as a result) but I will try to keep the updates fairly regular in exchange. Also I am still looking for a beta. So any mistakes you find are completely my fault and I will of course welcome any suggestions that will improve the story.*

Chapter 1

"Ohhh, where is it?" Sarah Williams tore through her dresser, flinging stuff haphazardly through the air behind her. There were several items she would cringe about when she picked them up later, but right now she couldn't be bothered. She was too busy looking for the book. It wasn't just any book, this small red leather bound book. It was too dangerous to give away and too important to her to simply destroy since she had discovered the truth. She had hidden it away in her dresser beneath layers of cotton and lace, certain that no one would bother going through her personal things in order to find it. The problem was it wasn't where she remembered putting it.

"No, no, no, no, no. This can't be happening." Sarah put a hand to her forehead and stared around wildly. She'd looked everywhere. Digging, dumping, poking, none of it made any difference. A deep breath in and out, then another, and then she was ready to start thinking logically about it. The book wasn't hidden with her underwear. She hadn't moved it to one of the other drawers in her dresser and forgot about it since those had all been dumped out over her bed. It wasn't in the small boxes she had dragged out of the attic. And it wasn't squirreled away between the books on any of the book shelves in the house, just waiting for someone to mistake it for an innocent book and say the words to wish an innocent child away. It had to be here somewhere.

There really was no help for it she decided. She shifted the pile of fairytales off the seat of her vanity and sat down. There was only one other way to find something if nothing else worked. She closed her eyes for a second and then threw her hands up into the air in defeat. Then she opened her eyes and let her gaze fall to where her bed was littered with clothes and books. She let out a frustrated huff. Theatrically giving up searching and letting your eyes fall on the very item you had been looking for was apparently less effective than she had hoped.

"It always works in the movies," she grumbled, propping her head in her hand. Maybe it was a good thing that she couldn't find the book. Wait a minute. Poking out from beneath the corner of her mattress, almost hidden by her comforter was the barest hint of red. Flinging herself to the floor next to the bed she tugged at the corner poking out until the book popped free. She sat back with her back against her wall to stare at the plain red book. She lightly ran a finger over the simple gold lettering on the front of the book. All of that and it was stuffed under her mattress the entire time? How did it get there?

The Labyrinth. Nearly three years now and she still had dreams of her time there. She'd been having them for so long that she was no longer quite sure which were memories and which were the wild imaginings she had while asleep. Aside from the hot and sweaty visions of the Goblin King, she knew for a fact that those existed completely in her head. She traced her lips when her finger came to the end of the h. Definitely he had never kissed her like that. She leaned her head back against the wall as a slow wave of dizziness lapped at the edge of her senses.

"Sarah? Sarah! What on God's green earth happened in here?" Karen stood framed in the doorway with a horrified expression on her face. Sarah stared at her dully for a second before she remembered that the older woman had asked her a question.

"I was looking for something. I'll put it all back."

"You most certainly will," Karen's words were sharp. "In fact you'll have it done before we get home or you are going to be grounded for the next month."

"Don't you have a party you're supposed to be going to? If you don't hurry you're going to be late," Sarah ignored her step-mother's ire in favor of evaluating the net worth of this evening's attire. Karen was wearing a white linen Chanel suit with pearls draped around her neck and a matching pair of earrings. This outfit alone was worth several hundred dollars, that wasn't even counting the other outfits that dominated the closet in her father and Karen's room. Idly Sarah wondered why it was that she was never paid for babysitting when they obviously had the money to spare.

"We'll be back by midnight," Karen spoke stiffly.

"I'll try to keep Toby alive till then," Sarah muttered to the now closed door. Once more her head dropped back against the wall. In the years since she stopped being quite the selfish child who ran the Labyrinth she still couldn't bring her self to stand her step-mother. She sighed. You'd figure there was some sort of magic trick that would have extended her tolerance for Toby to his mother, but no. Moving slowly Sarah stood up and started dumping her undergarments back into the dresser. She couldn't be bothered to fold them all so she just flung them in. It's not like anyone else would get to see any wrinkles in them, she reasoned tiredly.

She slumped back down on the vanity chair and stared around at the mess wondering why finding the damn book had been so important to begin with. It had been almost a compulsion as soon as she had realized it was missing. Ah well. She'd picked up the important things. Surely everything else could wait a little while longer? She could set Toby up in front of the TV and take a nap while he was absorbed with Voltron. If she ordered pizza then the night would be even better since Toby would be happy he didn't have to eat her cooking and she wouldn't have to cook. Then she could clean up this mess when she woke up.

"Sarah."

Her head whipped around at the sound of her name and she found herself staring at the mirror that didn't reflect her self but revealed instead a wizened and lumpy face attached to a neck that seemed too small to support the creature's large head. She had met the aged dwarf when He had come to steal Toby away from her, and they had kept in touch over the years. Bushy white eyebrows were drawn close together over a bulbous nose, and large hands fussed with the leather strap across his chest that held the pouch at his side in place.

"Hoggle!" Sarah smiled to see her friend in the mirror, but his serious expression wiped the smile away. "What's the matter?"

"The matter? Nuthin', nuthin'. I just wanted to see you is all," he tried to return her smile, but it was a weak attempt at best and Sarah wasn't the least bit fooled.

"No, seriously, what's wrong?"

The dwarf let out a heavy sigh. "I don't know. Something is goin' on around here. It isn't something I understand, but it's making me nervous. For some reason I needed to make sure you were alright where you was at."

Sarah shook her head, not understanding. "What do you mean? If something isn't right down there then why are you worried abut me?"

"I don't know what it is, but there's something as not right about what's going on. Fancy dressed fae are coming to the castle, and more and more goblins are disappearing with no good reason. Even the Labyrinth itself is being different, more temperamental if you can imagine that. I just thought I'd warn you to watch yourself missy. Things going wrong down here has a tendency to spill over up there, and as you have stronger ties to the Underground than regular folk, you're like to be affected quicker than most."

"Is that all?"

"Believe me, that's enough," the dwarf snorted. Sarah sighed.

"I think we've had a conversation like this before. You're probably right this time too. Okay, I promise to keep an eye out for anything weird."

"See that you do. And that's all I'm gonna say on the matter."

Sarah grinned at the grumpy little gardener. "Well then, since we have the serious business out of the way, how are Ludo and Sir Didymus doing?"

"Ah, well, Didymus is still seeing to the bridge in the Bog of Eternal Stench with Ambrosius. And He's let Ludo moved into the stone part of the maze. Ludo's taken to being friends with the false alarms. I caught him playing chess with one of them the other day."

She couldn't keep the giggle that bubbled out at the mental image of the giant furry beast playing chess with a talking stone head.

"Ha, I bet he's enjoying that!"

"Seems to be, but I think he's still learning the rules and the rest of the false alarms trying to give advice was just confusing him."

"What about you? Is there anything new going on with you?"

"Nuthin' new with me unless you count the fact that I've been getting some of the goblins to help keep those nasty fairies from running over the outer wall. Certainly makes things easier. Least it does on the days I can keep them on track. How have things been with you of late?"

A pounding on the door interrupted them before the girl could answer.

"Oops. I gotta go Hoggle. I'm supposed to be taking care of Toby while Dad and Karen are out again."

"So that's the little one eh? Alright we can talk more later."

"Right! I'll see you later. Give Ludo and Sir Didymus my love okay?"

"Will do."

Hoggle disappeared from the mirror leaving her own reflection staring back. Sarah swept a quick glance around the room to make sure she didn't miss any of her underwear.

"Sawah!" a plaintive little voice accompanied this round of knocking.

"You can come in Toby," she called out. A golden haired child slipped through the door and stared wide eyed at the mess of her room. She gave the child a crooked grin.

"So, what do you want to do tonight, Tobester?"

##

"Vanessa, I'd like you to meet…" There was a delicate pause as Karen tried to remember how to pronounce the man's name. He had a thick accent and she wasn't quite sure she was able to say it right without mangling it.

Just in from Ireland on family business, her husband had asked her to keep his client entertained when he was dragged away. The beautiful man wore the black Armani suit as though he was born to it. Casual assurance and sex appeal practically dripped from every line of his body. Dark hair was brushed back from his forehead, and his startling deep blue eyes swept over the two women. He raised Vanessa's hand and bowed slightly from the waist in order to brush a light kiss over the back of her knuckles.

Vanessa was a widower of over a year now and was finally starting to look at having a relationship again. She was a lovely woman, despite the network of laugh lines around her eyes and her bottle blonde hair. Karen was attempting to introduce her long time friend, Vanessa Hodgkin to the Irishman, who also happened to be a widower in the hopes that they would hit it off. It didn't hurt that he was quite charming and very attractive besides. Attractive didn't quite do him justice Karen decided as she regarded the man she had pulled her friend over to meet.

He gave a faint smile at the American woman's floundering and generously decided to help her out.

"Sure and it's certain you wound me, Mrs. Williams," he spoke with a faintly teasing purr. "The name is Caellum Díneartach McAillen, and it's crushed I am to know that I'm so easily forgotten."