"My silence is not weakness, but the beginning of my revenge."

Unknown.

1986

"I don't understand. I handed in the assignment just yesterday, what do you mean it's overdue?"

"Overdue, Ms Williams, means that you are late with the assignment."

"But I'm not," argued Sarah. "I handed it in yesterday, to you, like, directly in your hand."

"So you keep saying." He sighed. "But I assure you I never received any assignment from you, I don't even recall seeing you yesterday."

Sarah gave her English teacher, Mr Davies, a hard look. He wasn't the sort of man to joke around, and this was far from funny. Could he have possibly forgotten that she had pushed her way into his office yesterday to hand in her project?

"Fine," she muttered. "I most certainly gave it to you, but if you say you don't have it anymore then there's not much I can do. I'll go home and print out another copy and bring it in tomorrow."

"It's overdue, Ms Williams," he stressed.

"Fine," she huffed, "I'll ride my bike back in tonight to hand it in. I'll go right now."

Mr Davies gave her an irritated look. "You're missing the point here. This assignment was due yesterday, y-e-s-t-e-r-d-a-y, you know what my policy on late work is."

Sarah blinked, she knew all too well. "You can't be serious?"

"I fear I am. This is an instant fail, you'll be assigned an 'F' grade for this particular piece."

"Wait!" she cried. "I'm never late with my work, you know that. I take this class very seriously and I worked really hard on this project. I understand that you have strict guidelines on lateness, but I swear my work was, and is, ready to be handed in. I don't know if I dreamed bringing it in to you or there's been some mistake-"

"No mistake of mine," he interrupted indignantly. "I'm sorry Sarah, I understand that you're upset, but rules are rules. There's a first time for everyone with this sort of thing, you'll just have to work harder next time.

Sarah stared helplessly at the uncompromising man. She had never once thought that Mr Davies strict guidelines were an issue, but then, she'd never been stuck on this side of them before. Was there some sort of a mistake here? How could she have imagined the trouble she'd gone to in preparing the assignment to bring it in yesterday? The printer had given her so much grief that she'd been close to tearing her hair out.

She looked at the portly, older man, and frowned. "Yesterday you were wearing a yellow tie," she said pointedly.

"What of it?" he asked, surprised. His eyebrows rose to add weight to his question.

Sarah made an exasperated face. "So how could I know that if I didn't see you yesterday?"

Her English teacher sighed loudly. "Any number of ways, you could have guessed it, or another student could have told you. I don't want to play childish games with you Ms Williams, this particular project is a failing grade. You can still make up for this in your overall marks if you work hard for the rest of the year. You simply need to do as I say."

Sarah inhaled too quickly and started to cough. Looking up at Mr Davie's through watery eyes she could see the concern on his face as he awkwardly tapped her back while she tried to regain her normal breathing pattern. He was every inch the man who'd been teaching her for the past year, nothing out of place.

"What did you just say?" she croaked, stepping away from him.

He frowned, failing to understand her sudden stiff attitude. "I said if you redouble your efforts and really commit to the work for the rest of the year then you'll have no problem in catching up for your final grade.

Sarah eyed him warily, not sure if she was being paranoid or if there really was something to the ice cold trickle running down her spine. "That's not what you said," she whispered.

"That's exactly what I said," he replied seriously. "I truly am sorry I can't make a concession on your part, you're an exceptional student Sarah, but rules are rules."

"Yes," she agreed, feeling an odd sense of dread flickering in the back of her mind. "And what's said is said…"

1998

It was just like the Goblin King to underestimate her.

He thought that they were still playing the same game, and so play she would, but she was playing to win. Her role was familiar, the stubborn and contrary princess who regretted her hasty action. Yet Sarah felt no regret at what she had done, instead she felt the overwhelming presence of the Labyrinth calling to her through the connection that now ran down her arm, stemming from the mark on the back of her hand. There was no way she would spend another day in this institute, no matter how enjoyable it might be to actually introduce the 'unattainable man' to the whitecoats. Of course, escaping would be no simple matter.

She could feel the strong connection to the buzzing reservoir of power, channelled through her new bond. It was a sensuous string of wild magic, but she had absolutely no idea of how to wield it. Over the years the Goblin King had worked so hard to keep her from the Labyrinth that asking to go there now would instantly assure that he would forbid it. At all costs she must remain his opposition and seem unwilling to leave here, only then would he push her to it. The moment she ceased to fight against him in anything his suspicion might destroy any dreams of escape. It was fortuitous that he now needed her to make that journey home himself, but even so, she must not seem too eager. She had already made one mistake after all.

Spectacles.

She had forgotten the spectacles. It had all been blurry in her head, still was really, but she shouldn't have forgotten. A device which brings things into focus, used to examine the substance of an object. The very same thing she had been trying to prompt herself to do, they had been a symbol to her twisted psyche. How could she have given Toby's wish so little thought? Leaving that detail to a twelve year old had been a mistake. If everything wasn't so fragmented in her mind she would have remembered, she could have come up with a fool proof plan. For now this plan would have to do. So Toby was in the Labyrinth? As would she be, shortly, and then they'd make of that what they could. She would not need the Goblin King's assistance once she was there, but for this first step, at least, it was necessary.

"What have you done with Toby?" she asks. She already knows, of course, he has already as much as told her. She knows he likes the theatrics though, let him play the villain; she will pretend to cower in fear.

His feral grin almost prompts one of her own, but she must appear aggrieved. Acting is hard, emotions are hard. What is normal again? How should she react to his words? At least this room is dark to hide some of her defects. She wonders if he'd notice the subtlety of a slightly misplaced emotion, just how familiar is he with mortals? Fooled by a twelve year old… perhaps there's little to worry about after all.

She can hear the smile in his voice as he replies. "All I did was grant his wish Sarah. Wasn't that part of your grand scheme to summon me, Toby making a wish? All I've done is what he's asked of me."

Let him be smug now that he's figured it out, it still doesn't change the stinking smell of his burned flesh, so pungently obvious in the small room. Who has power over whom?

I'm winning Goblin King.

She remains silent because she fears she will give herself away, she tries to be sad. Years ago they had her on pills which made her feel depressed all the time, she was always crying, now she can't remember how to make tears anymore. Without them she's always been quicker to anger than melancholy, but despondency will please him and blind him to the truth.

This proves itself true when he cannot help but press his advantage. "Oh Goblin King, I wish you would take me away to the Labyrinth, right now."

As he mimics her brother she feels an urgent need to spit in his face, but restrains herself. Not stomping on his vanity, when it's so overinflated that it's clearly begging for it, helps fuel the sorrow she is grasping for. That and thinking about her brother, who must have been confused when left with the huge responsibility of calling on the Goblin King with no clear direction. He has made a dire mistake, but an understandable one considering the burden she had left him with. They will be together soon, once she can control the magic of the Labyrinth she will make things right.

Sensing the expectation in the air, she lets out a heartbroken howl, half genuine sorrow and half victory. She is a venus fly trap, and he surely cannot help but be tempted by the scent he thinks is victory. His arrogance is his best asset and biggest flaw.

"What have you done with my brother? Bring him back!" she cries, biting the inside of her cheek to force tears into her eyes.

He chuckles. "Now, now Sarah, this is your great plan. Didn't I tell you that there was a good reason for you to assist me? Now if you'll just be a good girl and actually listen we can get this whole mess sorted out. We're going back to the Labyrinth, and once we do the current arrangements," he stares pointedly at her hand, "will be rectified."

My ass they will be.

"What do you expect me to do exactly? Trust you?" she asks. "How do I know you'll take me to Toby once we're in the Labyrinth? You might just make me run it again!"

Not that I need you to take me anywhere, and I doubt that you could force me to run anything with the current 'arrangements' in place, but you're expecting me to bargain, aren't you?

"As always you are hard to please," he remarks dryly. "Your expectations are always so cumbersome. What do you want, a written contract, a handshake?" He gives her a sour look. "You're such a selfish girl, the centre of your own little universe. I'm in a hurry, things far bigger than you are at stake here, don't cross me girl."

"Well, what would I fill my time with if I couldn't spend my every waking moment defying you? Since the place you've had me locked in is just so charming, and I find I have oodles of time without friends, family, education, or career aspects to worry about. I assure you, the centre of my universe has been you for quite some time now: a great, big black hole, sucking the life out of everything I've ever known, which is pathetically little. I'm all about you Goblin King, practically obsessed in fact, so you'll have to excuse me if I'm expecting more than you can manage."

"Fine then," he growls. "I give you my word, is that enough? When we return to the Labyrinth I will assist you in searching for Toby."

She smiles. No promise of how long he will persist in that search or what exactly his 'assistance' might entail. It does not matter, letting him think he has deceived her will trick him in turn, and all she need do is pretend to be duped by his offer.

"Deal," she hisses. "Now tell me what I'm supposed to do. You say I need to take you there, to take us there, how does that work exactly?"

"Rather than telling you it would be faster to show you, the magic is hard to control." The luminous outline that is the Goblin King moves towards her and she shrinks back instinctively. Making an irritated sound he reaches out and clamps his hands on either shoulder once more, as if he is about to shake her again.

"Go fish," she growls, ducking out of his grasp, "hands off."

"Sarah," he warns, grabbing for her again.

Violently she rebels, slapping his hands away. She feels her teeth crack together in fury. "DO. NOT. TOUCH. ME." She seethes, "EVER." The last thing she wants is his grimy paws all over her, it's humiliating enough that she needs him at all to use the magic.

Her anger diffuses slightly as her mind flips another of its odd loops. She imagines he is reaching out for her not with hands, but wings. Can he still turn into an owl? That was a pretty cool move. She doesn't like owls, his fault, but is that Labyrinth magic or Jareth magic? Her inattention costs her, the vague listlessness which has washed over her ebbs and she finds herself in the Goblin King's embrace again. She tries to angrily shake him off.

"Stop!" she yells. "You're breaking the law. What did I just say?"

"Whose law is that precious, the Goblin Queen? You think now that you have an attachment to the Labyrinth you can be its master? Misguided, Sarah dear, since you have no idea what the Labyrinth is." His fingers dig into her arms and she stops struggling, biting her lip hard.

"This is a necessary evil, I assure you. Did you really think I would show you how to turn the magic to your whim? Give me some credit. Don't mistake this contact for intimacy though; I have absolutely no desire to touch you." He leans in close to whisper nastily. "Besides… you stink."

Sarah feels her face flame. Odd that after nine years of people thinking she was mad, and eventually being mad, a mention of her personal hygiene is a harsher blow than her mental state. It's not her fault they don't let the patients bathe often; but then, even if they did she would try to avoid it. Having unwanted company for every activity your body must perform is such a dehumanising practice.

She giggles, thinking about her own filthiness. "You'll be dirty like me now, and then the disease will spread to you. Madness is catching you know."

He snorts. "You're not mad; I just had you sent here to keep you out of trouble and out of the Labyrinth, it seems I underestimated your dedication to destruction."

He's wrong, she is mad. Years of antipsychotic drugs do that to a person. Her head feels like it's full of goldfish, flapping and panting out of the water, orange.

"There are orange goldfish in my head," she whispers conspiratorially.

His grip tightens again, making her grind her teeth.

"How unfortunate," he drawls. "You'd best get that looked at once you leave my Labyrinth, very soon, hopefully. I'm not sure what game you're playing but it's annoying, not amusing, and I fail to see how faking insanity will progress you in any helpful direction." He pushes her back against the wall and she bumps her head, almost biting her tongue. "Now shut up so I can concentrate."

She does, not because she wants to obey him but because she must. She's so close to winning, so close to the Labyrinth. She grins widely in the dark, hoping he will not notice. She is the Cheshire cat; if he turns into an owl now then she will eat him. The desire to ask him to turn into an owl rises and she swallows the words with difficulty, it's not often she can stop those compulsions, but this is an important moment.

He is breathing evenly in front of her, his hands no longer quite as vice-like on her arms. She can feel strands of her power being drawn into him through the flesh on flesh connection. A spark of fear tickles her spine, what is he takes back all the magic and leaves her behind? Can he do that without the tattoo? Surely not, if his body could contain that power normally then why would he have ever needed the connection?

She starts to feel itchy, or maybe she doesn't. Perhaps she's just unable to stand still and be sensible for any real length of time; she can't remember when such a thing was last expected of her. As the Goblin King's luminescence grows she hears a great roaring sound. Her vision darkens, and then she is blinded unexpectedly. She tries to shield her eyes but is unable to as her hands are still pinned to her sides by Jareth's hold. She shuts them, screwing her whole face up to avoid the bright light which is trying to force its way in. Her body shudders and she feels it trembling, her skin awash in gooseflesh. When the light dies away she stumbles backwards, falling as the Goblin King's arms release her.

For a while she cannot see anything, bright spots dance across her vision as she lies slumped on the ground, they keep the world from her. She can feel wind though, and knows they are no longer in that dark, cramped little room, she has escaped.

She rubs her eyes experimentally, as if wiping the impediment of her sight away.

"What the hell is this?" she hears the Goblin King hiss.

When she opens her eyes again she is face to face with a snake. A really big snake, huge, actually. It really does put Jareth's snake throwing to shame: this is a snake no one throws around. Perhaps Jareth didn't hiss at all, actually, it was probably this snake hissing, since that's what snakes do.

"Jörmungandr," she tells him.

"Gesundheit."

"No, it's Jörmungandr, the snake which encircles the world." She looks over at him, but he is still glaring up at the snake.

"I thought you were sneezing. So you know this snake then, I take it?"

Sarah glances back at the huge reptile poised to strike above them. "Well no, not personally."

He turns and gives her an exasperated look as she finds her feet. "When I left the Labyrinth there wasn't a giant snake hanging half out of the sky, that's the sort of thing I usually take notice of. It's reasonable to say that, now that you're connected to the Labyrinth, and as you are the only new element which has been introduced since I left it, this snake is your doing."

"Undoubtably."

The Goblin King gnashes sharp teeth in her direction, his eyes flicking once more to the snake. "Pray tell, how and why have you summoned a giant sky reptile?"

Sarah smiles up at the snake, looking around the Labyrinth properly for the first time. Freedom, glorious freedom, but still the shackles on her mind have followed, and now that they have displayed themselves so openly she feels slightly overwhelmed.

"The snake is in my head," she explains.

"Not to naysay you, Sarah," he sighs, giving her a long suffering look. "But it's quite obviously not." He points directly at Jörmungandr as if to prove his point.

"Oh, don't do that," she cautions. "Pointing is rude you know, you're going to upset him."

The Goblin King growls, marching over to her and clapping his hands directly in front of her face. "Do try to focus on the important points, precious. Giant snake, why is there a giant snake?"

Sarah tries to hide a smile as Jörmungandr's eyes narrow and he hisses loudly, flicking his long tongue out towards Jareth.

The Goblin King jumps, stumbling away. "It's alive?" he hisses, or the snake hisses, perhaps they both hiss?

She rolls her eyes. "Of course it's alive, didn't I tell you that you were going to upset it, pointing your dirty finger at it?"

"In what world is that actually a rule? And why the hell would you put some giant angry snake here?"

Sarah's eyes flash and she takes a step towards the Goblin King. "Look around Kingy, it's a rule in my world, this world. You really are slow, the snake, the rules, they're all in my head."

He frowns. "Which has what to do with anything exactly?"

"I'm linked to the Labyrinth," she drawls, "figure it out genius. You bent the Labyrinth to your will, now it's bent to mine."
He glares at her angrily. "While it's true that the mind of the Labyrinth and its master are one, it's not like there isn't a consciousness filter between them to stop everything from spilling out. Whereas this is just-"

"Insane?" She smiles prettily at him, watching him pale.

"You can't be serious, what am I looking at here exactly?"

"Jörmungandr," she grins, flourishing a hand towards the snake. "And over there I see a giant bottle of ketchup wearing a hat. There's also some of the goldfish from my mind performing back flips, and that over there looks like an occupational health and safety workshop."

His face is bleak when he turns away from the spirals of madness coiling out across the Labyrinth, he closes his eyes. "What have you done?"

She pushes her knotty hair back over her shoulders, shooting him a backward glance as she takes a step forward. "Welcome to my Labyrinth Goblin King, my mind. I'm crazy, didn't I tell you that? There is no consciousness filter because I can no longer discern between what's real and what's not. Everything here is just as twisted as the mind you helped break with nine years of confinement." She laughs. Even she herself is half afraid of the mental prison she has traded for another of her own making. The trap closes, however, and the Goblin King is now caught in the wasteland of her insanity. "Welcome home Goblin King, "she grins, "I hope you'll like it here."

Thanks for the out pouring of faves, follows and reviews from y'all. For now updates will probably remain weekly, although I'll try to throw in an extra wherever possible. I do have one future chapter already written, but have absolutely no idea where it fits into the story yet so it's still a ways off, that will be a double update to look forward to when it happens.

Smiles1998: It's safe to say he has no idea about mental institutions. They definitely don't have any in the Underground, but you're right about the population all being committed!

TheRealEatsShootsAndLeaves: Oh yes, it shall be glorious.

J Luc Pitard: Labyrinth successfully torn, now to watch them fight it out!

gevalia: Aw thanks, knowing I caused some post-story-depression is a pretty big compliment (but OMG I'm also sorry *cries*) feel free to make this your new addiction.

qiana: Can you? I hope so, I just love dragging my answers out for as long as possible, hopefully they're worth it. It is, indeed, Saturday - like you I wish I could update faster, hopefully I'll have the opportunity to throw in an extra chapter a week from time to time. Right now I'm writing this with no outline, flying by the seat of my pants, so we'll see!

Getsunohimesama: Those purple beans have a lot to answer for, I'm seriously considering taking them up as a diet regime. Yes, the romance will be long in coming, so if it seems impossible right now then I can only agree with you!

Whyndancer: The dark, the angst *rubs hands together* oh yesssss.

Kaytori: Do you know I do it on purpose? I'm a terrible person. I usually know how I'll end the chapter before I've figured out most of the content!

Bee-cee-kay: Missing a chapter means you got two in a row though, right? Sometimes that can be pretty awesome ;D

Gotta Dance 88: I hope you do and I hope you find it to your liking :)

Aleta Wolff: I knew you'd like the darkness in this one!

Lylabeth1: Wow, prevaricate is now my new favourite word. I'm taking it to bed to snuggle tonight. Although writing the fae as truth tellers can be a pain I find it's always worth it, and I'm absolutely going with that here. I'm glad you gave it a try and didn't regret it. It's unfortunate that so many good tropes have been overused to the point that we all shudder when reading summaries, I'm all too familiar with that feeling. Thanks for giving this one a chance :)

Veggie-Vamp: Glad to hear it, I'll try to keep it interesting!