THERE IS NOTHING SO FRIGHTENING AS A LABYRINTH WITHOUT A CENTER—chesterton after two translations.

At first, Sarah was sort of gleefully angry. There had to be a way out, she knew, given the nature of labyrinths-so she might as well express her feelings while she searched.

She hurled fabrics. She pulled back what furniture she could, scraping it along the floor. She pulled down tapestries and art, and snapped off bits of whatever she could snap off. She speculated on how far a curtain-ladder might carry her, even going so far as to pull one down, with a satisfying fwump as the heavy fabric hit the stone floor, and to drape it over the edge of the balcony.

She considered.

She realized it would take, like, forty more curtains than she had, unfortunately.

She dropped the curtain over the edge before she realized that the window faced east and now there would be no way to block sunlight.

Sarah watched it twirl and flutter down, a broken bird.

Dammit, she thought.

It was not until she was crawling around under the huge bed with the same posture and grimness as a trench soldier, looking for loose stones, that her anger cooled suddenly, and she was stuck feeling ridiculous under the bed.

Next she was contemplative.

Then she was depressed.

But by the time the third day dawned—which she always awoke to thanks to the curtain stunt—she was just bored.

The days quickly grew monotonous. When she woke up, there was always enough food for the day. It always only appeared in her sleep. Also, the room would have been mysteriously cleaned, which was a blessing the first day after her exertions. There was a bookshelf, but disappointingly it was only stocked with books she had already read. The weather remained disappointingly clement, and

Often she would pick up either the crystal or the peach. The peach stayed fresh, and was honestly looking more and more tempting. She considered eating it-just so something would happen, of course. The crystal (the blood had soon flaked off) showed her nothing, no matter how she turned it.

If Jareth wanted to win by torturing her with boredom, well then, touché. Still, she couldn't quite quell the though that he had left her here in the ROund Room to rot. To forget about her.

By sheer process of elimination, it had to be the peach or the crystal. Sort of a scorpion/grasshopper type conundrum, to go back to her childhood's gothic fiction.

It's just that, she felt, while this was all terribly dramatic and romantic or whatever for like a day, she really had to get back home.

"Okay," she said aloud. She was not proud at the speed it took for her to speak to herself seriously on a regular basis. "Let's do this."

She took the peach and the crystal and sat against the bed, holding both on either knee.

"You," she said, picking up the crystal, "are what I'd prefer. Because, obviously, my greatest dream is to get back home. But," she added, shaking it slightly as chastisement, "I can't seem to get you to do anything. I break you, you come back. I wish on you, nothing. I turn you like this," and she turned it, "and I just see shadows. Freaking thing."

"Now you," she said, addressing the peach, "are the second choice. Because last time I messed with you, things got weird. I ended up dancing creepy with Freako at a party that in retrospect I was way underage for and there were some rather horrifying things going on, probably. But so here's what I'm thinking."

She shifted her weight to address the peach. "But so now I'm thinking you're not a one-way ticket to dreamland necessarily. You might just be another link to the labyrinth. The obvious downside being what if this is one of those Hades/Persephone deals where if I eat you, I'll be under the spell or stuck here forever."

Sarah sighed. "That said, I've been eating a truckload of this labyrinth food. And I am so very, very bored. And there is such a thing as strategic surrender. So."

She held up the peach to her mouth, brushing the unpleasant fuzz against her lips. It smelled like summer wine. "This is my choice," she said out loud, although she knew she was only convincing herself.

It tasted exactly as she remembered, which was odd, because she had convinced herself she had forgotten the taste.

She chewed, swallowed, her stomach acid with expectation.

Nothing. No dizziness. No delirium.

And then.

"Five days, Sarah? Really? And the curtains."

She turned round on the bed to face where the voice came from. Jareth, all nonchalant angles, was in the window-door of the balcony looking up at the gap.

"Oh hey," she said, standing up, placing the crystal on the bed but holding onto the runny peach. "I thought that was the point, trying to escape."

"Wrong." He folded his arms, looking petulant as ever. "I told you, you can't. The point is to keep you here in my kingdom."

For all his difficulty, she really was happy to see another sentient creature. She took another bite, reflectively. "So also I notice that I'm not delirious and spinning around with a predatory fairy."

He smiled perfunctorily, his eyes cold. "Astutely observed. That's not necessarily what the fruit does."

"Why did you do that again, when I was fifteen?" she said. "To slow me down, right?" That was the answer she wanted, of course. Anything else was stupid schoolgirl fancies.

"To make my proposition more attractive. Same reason as I'm here now."

"Was it because of the peach? Can I keep eating it?" She took another bite.

"You can do whatever you want. Just as you've always been able to."

She continued to eat it. "Because—so it makes me more receptive to you, is what you're saying. Like a roofie peach." She gestured in a friendly manner for him to join her on the bed, guessing that the worst thing she could do to him was to treat him as harmless.

As she anticipated, he waved her away and remained standing. "You're overthinking this."

"Ha. Am I? You put me in a room for five days with nothing to do but think, overthinking is what you get. I assumed the crystal was, like, what I wanted, and the peach was what you wanted. For me to stay here."

"Are you going to stay here?"

She had never really figured out how to eat a peach daintily. Juice dripped sticky down her fingers. Since Jareth was there, she wiped her hands on the bedspread while maintaining eye contact. "Sure."

He cocked an eyebrow. "Oh, really?"

"Until I can find a viable alternative."

"Look at you," he said, cocking his head. "No tears. No pleading."

"I'm not a teenager any more. And anyway I don't remember crying or pleading last time either," she snapped.

He was silent, appraising her.

Her stomach turned for no reason she could name, and she rushed on loudly. "Look. Jareth. You win. I'm so bored I want to die. I mean, I would keep an eye on myself, certainly, if I were you, but for the immediate future until we sort this out let's say I'll stay."

She smiled, although the words "I'll stay" out loud in her own voice seemed to crash into the air, a death knell of sorts.

One of the things that had occurred to her was that Jareth might honestly, honestly believe that he was helping her on some level, no matter how sassy he was about it. All thoughts of moral relativity aside, she realized, it was not like Jareth had like a really firm grasp of what was acceptable and what wasn't when it came to modern American mores. He had seemed legitimately baffled at their last meeting that she wasn't pleased with him, not to mention downright grateful. Jareth imprisoning her here, he probably thought once she settled down she would agree how right and wise he was, and he was doing the best thing for them both.

"Well," he finally smiled back. "I am glad to hear it."

He still made no move.

"So…" Sarah said. "Am I just going to stay here? I kind of hoped…"

"That you had found the right way? Out?"

"Yes, actually."

"You have chosen a way, to be sure," he said, cryptic, still smiling. She was always surprised at how snarled and pointed his teeth were. Inhuman. He must have seen her face darken and that she was now choosing some less kind words, because he quickly finished. "Perhaps you would like to see the new grounds."

"New?"

"Oh yes. I think you'll find them quite breathtaking." The goblin king laughed, the merriment again not reaching his eyes. He walked over to her, his mouth set in a thin wide line. With too much formality he extended a hand to help her up. His regard was extremely cool.

Sarah suddenly felt very young and stupid, and regretted her flippancy, and the fact that she still had remnants of peach juice dried on her hand like a six-year-old. She placed her fingers lightly in his hand and rose from the bed, hoping he didn't notice or if he did at least not comment on the peach pit she left on the bedspread.

He extended his arm for her to take, still distant as ever, and then Sarah only felt silly for worrying what her kidnapper thought of her eating habits.

She took his arm, and with the same strange gale she would never get used to, found herself outside and on the ground. Instinctively she leaned into him, and when she gasped he covered her hand with his.

Sarah surveyed the broken nightmare of a landscape.

"Oh my god, Jareth," she said. "What have you done?"

A/N

Why yes I'm putting grad school apps together and it's rather stressful. Why do you ask? I'm fine I tell you. Fanfic is not an escape from serious things at all.

I SAID I'M FINE.

Haha. Love you all, always, forever,

~~Dollfayce

EDIT-THE MOST TYPOS FIXED sorry guys I'm a semi-dyslexic speedreader and that means a lot of words reversed or left out altogether. It should be fixed now though.