The room was silent but for the rhythmic beating of her heart. Sarah turned her head on the pillow so that she could look at her bedside alarm clock for what seemed like the zillionth time that night.

3:28 a.m. – perfect. With no sleep she was going to have a very long day at the school. Teenagers could be exhausting with a full night's sleep, let alone what she would be facing them on tomorrow.

Sarah sighed and turned back over onto her side and stared into the darkness. This could not be happening again. She knew better – this was supposed to be behind her. But then her mind veered again to those mismatched eyes and magical hands.

Despite the terrors and dangers of her time in the labyrinth, Sarah was not kept awake because of any of them.

No, it was not the fear that she returned to, it was not the desperation to get Toby back. It was the choice that she had made and the life and love that she had turned away from- Sarah knew as she lay there in the honesty that only such an hour of the morning can bring- that she had turned her back on her own dreams that night.

What would it harm, to let herself drift again to what she couldn't help but return to- the ball….. she always returned to that masquerade ball that he had sent her as a trick. That memory should not be precious but oh how it was - her head swimming with Jareth – the taste of the peach on her tongue, the sound of his soft voice as he sang to her and the feel of his arms around her.

Sarah bit her lip in the darkness at the memory. The woman in her now knew what that girl all those years ago only sensed. Her body tingled as she thought of him. Warmth spread through her and a whispered moan escaped her lips.

NO – she sat up in the darkness. Jareth was not real. Shit she had to stop doing this to herself. She would never find happiness if she allowed herself to fall down this treacherous slope again.

She when Sarah was getting into a decent mental tirade, her phone rang and interrupted her thoughts. Who on earth could be calling at this time of night…or morning as it were?

"H-hey, I'm uh sorry to be calling, but I just needed to tell someone, please don't tell me I'm crazy again or that they are just dreams or that I am remembering some stupid story you told me as a little kid ok!"

"Toby?" Sarah blinked hard as she tried to awaken her clouded sleep deprived mind. "Did you have another nightmare?"

She knew by the silence on the other end that calling his vision a nightmare again had been a mistake. "Toby – bud I…I'm sorry. Tell me what you saw."

Toby's voice sounded shaky to Sarah and she felt a pang of shame at not giving validity to what he was saying. She just knew the moment that she accepted all of this as real, she too would be sucked back into this world. And she had worked so hard to turn away from it.

"This one was more like flashes" her usually confident brother began. "It is almost like before I was getting memories like a movie, but this was more like pictures of a future or images of possibilities…..God I sound like a lunatic!"

"No you don't" Sarah had been there herself after her return from the Underground. She knew all too well what it was like to be living her dreams and nightmares and trying desperately to get someone to believe….anyone just tell me I have not lost my mind. "Ok, let's just take this one step at a time."

Sarah took Toby's silence this time as a good sign and continued. "What did these images show you?"

"A large room made of stone, like in an old-timey castle or something and a throne with a large window overlooking that maze from my other dreams and then its like I get this image through someone else's view because I am looking at myself. Sarah … in the picture I'm the King… I'm that cruel bastard yelling at the little creatures and, shit… ok I seriously have lost my freaking mind!"

Sarah laughed a little. She loved that her brother was still a little afraid to really curse in front of her.

"Toby this really is going to be ok. I am not saying that this isn't real, but not every dream is sent by the Great Goblin King, he is not as powerful as he likes to think he is, I assure you. Try and get some sleep. Come by my classroom tomorrow afternoon after classes let out and we can sort through the rest of these dreams."

She hoped that she sounded calmer than she felt and that the sarcastic tone to underestimate Jareth had been believable. Why in the hell was Jareth sending Toby images of her little brother in the throne room, as king? If she did not come up with some answers on her own soon, she would just have to wish his ass here to answer some once and for all.