A.N.: Sorry for the lack of update last week, guys; the family emergency has continued and managed to spread (my mom's been in the ER three times in a week), so I just decided - rather than posting late - to give it a week off. Sorry again.

The Labyrinth. Scully was a little disappointed; the special agent looked left, she looked right, but all she saw on either side was stone corridors reaching as far as the human eye could see. There weren't even any significant landmarks – just vines and brambles and moss and more glitter, glitter, glitter. Well, really, she wasn't surprised. This fit the devious mind of the Goblin King she knew.

Miss Williams was smiling again, adjusting the way her pack hung about her waist. "Okay, so there are a few ground rules we should cover about the Labyrinth."

Mulder was slightly slack jawed, poking at a lump of fungus on the wall – and Scully cringed to see why; eye-stalks, like those of a crab or a snail, turned half in the direction of his probing finger, half at his face, and glared balefully. She was definitely losing her mind. "All ears," Mulder mumbled, and his partner could almost see him debating internally whether he should try to collect a sample of the bizarre plant or not.

Sarah had begun taking them down the right-hand corridor, and the creature Ludo ambled along behind her, calm and docile as a dog. The girl turned and held up a finger. "Rule number one." Ludo startled slightly, and held up his own, large finger in imitation – though he had only three on each hand, so Scully wondered what he might do if the rules exceeded that. "Don't eat anything in the Labyrinth unless it comes out of this pack here," and she patted the sack that hung from her hip. "I don't care if I picked something straight off a tree to give to you, don't do it."

Mulder was interested to note that Hoggle was absolutely squirming while the young woman gave this directive. "Okay..." the special agent nodded. "Why's that?"

"You just can't trust it."

"What about water?" Dana ventured, which gave her companion pause.

"...I don't know. That should be fine – unless it comes from the Bog of Eternal Stench of course."

"The Bog of..." Scully half stopped in her tracks before a nudge from Fox got her going again. "I'm sorry?"

"Y'don't want to know..." the dwarf assured her with a sour mutter, and the woman figured that was probably sage advice.

"Rule number two," Sarah held up a second finger and Ludo followed suit. "Don't choose down."

Scully glanced at Mulder, but he was too busy running his fingers over the walls to see if the glitter would come away from the stones. "Choose down…when?"

"Anytime. Doesn't matter. Up is good, down is bad."

"Alright, fine…"

"And rule number three is the most important rule of all." To emphasize her point, Sarah stopped walking and turned to face them, brows drawn in and mouth bent in a serious scowl. "Never go left."

Mulder was finally paying attention, dusting his hands off on his suit trousers. "Why, what's left?"

Sarah just shrugged. "Certain destruction, horrible doom, I don't know and I don't want to ever find out. Never – go – left."

The agents caught one another's eye – and nodded. "Alright. No left."

The young woman was smiling again, the brightness back in her eyes. "Okay! This is gonna be a piece of cake!" (Hoggle groaned: "I wish you wouldn't say that…") With no more than that, Sarah turned back around and started walking, her left hand trailing the Labyrinth's wall. "So this first trick is a pretty good one; you have to find the opening in the- oh!" She stopped: the brick of the wall had rippled under her touch, it made Didymus' steed dance nervously, Scully was taken slightly aback. "…Well, that was weird."

"That was weird?" Mulder drawled, but he sounded so happy doing it that his partner had to look at him. "We're in another dimension, that's a talking fox-" he pointed to Didymus, "-and that was the weird part?"

"I am a knight, good sir!"

"Well…" Sarah hesitated, drawing her hand away and rubbing at her fingertips. "I mean, you can get used to certain things." Scully thought that was pretty true, considering she was walking with "Spooky" Mulder. "It's just, that never happened before." It seemed to Scully that Hoggle was unusually silent for his normal grumblings, swollen face pale, almost as if he was in a cold sweat. "I don't see any reason to worry about it….Let's keep going." Which they did, for a few more paces, each stepping carefully over fallen branches, tangled vines and twisting tree roots–

Until another ripple occurred, this time along the pitted, stone ground, so that the roots moved obligingly out of the way – but only for Sarah. Scully had to stop Mulder from falling over when one such branch moved back in to place right in front of his feet. "That is more than just a little weird."

"I don't understand!" Sarah rested one hand on a wall and the entire thing shivered, as though it were somehow pleased by the touch, and she quickly drew back again. "This has never happened before, I don't know what's going on!"

"Friend Hoggle!" Didymus vaulted off his dog, brandishing his staff. "Didst thou not tell the lady?"

There was that sick, guilty look again… "I-I was gonna!"

"Tell me what, Hoggle." Sarah's hands had moved to her hips, a lock of hair falling into her eyes; a vine from the wall immediately moved forward to brush it back and Sarah startled away from it, cutting her chin on a jagged corner of brick. "Ow!"

"Well…it's just, y'know…you're the Champion of the Labyrinth."

"Yeah…" she said slowly, touching a finger to the small, bloody mark and wincing. "That part I have covered."

The small creature huffed slightly. "So you beat it wit' yer own power – and that's what the Labyrinth responds to! Power."

Scully scrambled over a particularly thick trunk of a tree to get to the girl. Sarah was taller by nearly half a foot, and the doctor had to tilt her chin down to see it properly. "Hold still – it's not too bad, give me the bottle and I'll flush it."

Mulder stood by the dwarf, bending at the knees. "More specifically, you're saying the Labyrinth loves her? Is that it?"

"What?" Sarah's green eyes were wide, but Scully was already shushing her, dabbing water over the wound.

"Let's not get carried away."

"Well…." Hoggle scuffed his shoe into the dirt, and Mulder's gaze intensified.

"Well, is that it or isn't it?"

The walls, meanwhile, were undulating more than ever, seemingly distraught to have wounded the young lady; vines with white flowers tucked at their ends were shooting out, were smoothing down her long, dark hair, were touching her chin gently. It was all Sarah could do to wave them off. "I'm not here to get wooed, I just want to get through the Labyrinth!" Eagerly, the section of wall now on her right collapsed obligingly, so that Sarah might step over, rather than find every tortuous turn. "What in the-"

"Aurgh!" Hoggle made a slightly tortured sound. "Alright, so the Labyrinth wants you to stay! There was a reason I told you not to come!"

"You weren't too eager to mention that before coming, though," Mulder drawled.

"You bite your tongue, ya tall lummox!"

Sarah, however, was putting her foot down. "I am not staying here." There was a very deep moment of quiet, in just the split moment she had said that, as if the world was now collectively holding its breath-

Right before the ground beneath both Sarah and Scully opened up like a black tube. And they went down, down, down, down….A short scream, nothing more, and the two were swallowed into the earth, with naught but a gaping pit remaining.

Ludo was howling. Mulder had scrambled forward, knocking debris out of his way, shouting, "Scully! Scully, are you alright!"

"Never mind the red-headed hussy – Sarah!"

Didymus was pointing his nose down the hole. "My lady! Be thee injured, or be thee well!"

Hoggle reared back from the pit and aimed a kick right at the special agent's shin. It staggered the man enough that he nearly lost his balance and went tumbling in as well. "Argh, now you've gone and done it! Look what you did!"

"What I did?"

"You just had to push, didn't ya? Sarah wouldn't be here 'tall if you didn't put ideas in her head to bring her back!"

"You're supposed to be her friend, you were the one who didn't tell her the full truth. Stop that," Mulder huffed, and he put a broad hand on the dwarf's head, holding him at arm's length even as he thrashed. "Where do those pits go, they go somewhere, don't they?"

"To the oubliette, stupid!" he growled in return, as rocks and stones vibrated with Ludo's continued cries. "Where else?"

"And how do we get to the oubliette?" Fox bent down and put his other hand on Hoggle's shoulder, eyes intense. "We have to get them back – and the only way we're going to do that is if we work together, right?"

Hoggle was glaring, but Didymus had calmed Ludo and was brandishing his staff with a flourish. "Sir Mulder is r-r-right!" his Rs trilled off his tongue. "Only if we band together might we save the maidens fair!"

Mulder chuckled slightly, rising back to his full height with a bit of a groan. "Well, Scully's no maiden – but the point still stands. Let's go."

…

Two hard thuds, the cracking sound of dried boards snapping, bones dancing across the stone floor, the creak of rusted iron grating – and they were alone, in the dark. Quick – all extremities moving? Any pain? No, not really, at least not yet. She seemed to be alright. Somewhere in the dark was a weak coughing sound. "Sarah?"

"I'm here…" The call wasn't much better, but it was at least there. Scully gave a small sigh of relief, digging in her pocket for her tiny flashlight. The light it gave off was anemic, but it was better than nothing at all. In the pale, white glow, brown stones came into view, and the dusty, disheveled form of the young woman. "Are you alright, Dana?"

"I seem to be. What happened?"

"I guess the Labyrinth was more serious about keeping me than I thought…" With a groan, she rolled herself to her knees. "We're in the oubliette."

Scully startled slightly. "A dungeon?"

"Yeah. But there should be a door here someplace…" Sarah crawled forward a pace, bumped her chin into a wall, and stopped, whimpering.

"Slow down." Scully reached her free hand forward and tried to shine the light in the direction she wanted to go. "Let's get all our ducks in a row. I don't see any doors in here."

"You have to make them…" Sarah's chin was now bleeding afresh. "I can't believe I was so stupid…"

"You haven't done anything wrong." Scully carefully flushed the wound again and dabbed at it with the sleeve of the borrowed shirt. "We'll get out of here. Mulder wouldn't just leave us."

Sarah sighed, carefully feeling her way over the dirt and stray boards. "Have you known him a long time? Shine the light this way, please."

Scully obliged, the weak beam catching flashes of glitter in the darkness. "More than a year."

"You seem really close already."

"I guess you can say that. We've been through a lot together."

"Here it is!" Sarah lifted what looked to be a door torn off its hinge, balancing it on her shoulder and bracing it against the wall. "Depends on which way you open it…" Scully opened her mouth to protest, but the young woman had already pulled it open, as though it were connected on an actual jamb – and a small, dark tunnel now burrowed into the wall. "Crap. It's practically a mouse hole." She shut the door, tried the other direction, but only had rotten linens fall on to her. Dana remained motionless through all this, as if choosing not to engage in something that her mind could not physically comprehend. Sarah went back to the first position, and reopened on the narrow tunnel. "Guess this is it, Dana."

"Excuse me?"

"Here, let me see that thing." She carefully took the flashlight from the woman and shined it down the tunnel. "It looks like it widens up ahead. I think we can make it." She handed the flashlight back to her and smiled, though it was hard to see in so much dark. "Hope you're not claustrophobic." The girl shimmied ahead into the tunnel, and Scully had no choice but to follow, tucking the flashlight at the top of the shirt to give them some kind of guiding light. It was hot and dusty, and Scully found herself wondering what Mulder was doing on the surface, how he was looking for them, how he would fare with Sarah's….friends. But her partner was resourceful, surely it would be alright?

Sarah was right, it did get a little wider, so that soon they were off their knees and standing again – but it was just as dusty, and just as dark. Scully's flashlight could only illuminate a foot or so ahead of them, and Sarah sighed. Dana jumped slightly at the feel of the other woman's fingers on her arm. "Here, hold my hand." It was said gently, the voice of someone very young. "I want to make sure we stay together." Their hands gently intertwined, and they carefully began moving forward, free hands outstretched to keep their balance. Sarah tripped a little once and Scully pulled her closer to keep her from falling over. "What sort of things have you been through?"

"What?"

"You said you've been through a lot together." Sarah carefully brushed her palm against one smooth, sandstone wall. "What sort of things?"

"They're…difficult to explain. I, um…" She struggled to find a way to word abduction, altercations and armed assault. She went simple instead: "My father died last year. Mulder was very sympathetic."

"Oh, I'm sorry." She could feel Sarah's green eyes on her even without seeing them. "It must be a great help having him, then."

It seemed an odd phrase, but it wasn't inaccurate. Scully nodded her assent. "It is."

"And I imagine it's nice, too – getting to work with your boyfriend."

"My-" Dana stopped and the younger woman came to a halt as well when their arms went taut. She scoffed a little. "Mulder isn't my – he's not my boyfriend."

"Oh, really?" She could just make out Sarah's head listing to the right. "I thought-"

"It's not like that."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it."

But why was she getting so tense? It was just a silly mistake. She shook her head and started walking again. "No, of course not. Don't apologize, please."

There was a companionable silence after that, and the tunnel seemed to lighten incrementally. It was then that Sarah hazarded in an intrigued tone of voice, "…does that mean Agent Mulder is single?"

"Is he-?" Scully almost stopped again, but was able to keep herself moving this time. "I…haven't heard otherwise."

"Really." Sarah's smile was becoming clearer by the moment – self-possessed, private, maybe even a little hopeful. Scully could hardly believe it. "He's kind of cute, isn't he? He's been awfully sweet."

"He's quite a bit older than you are."

But the young lady just snorted, pushing a loose lock of hair out of her face. "Yeah, well, I've already had plenty of 'romantic' dealings with much older men."

"Yes….forgive me if it's too personal a question, but…what is the past between you and the Goblin King? I mean that he's so attached to you."

She could feel Sarah's cheeks burning even if she couldn't see them. "I-I don't know, I mean-" She gave a slight huff. "I was just a teenager when this whole stupid thing happened; I thought I was Cinderella with a wicked step-mother. I told myself stories about…" She paused a moment, and it made Scully stop in her tracks as well. "'But what no one knew was that the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with the girl.'"

"I beg your pardon?"

"He was perfect." Sarah's voice was very quiet, almost a whisper in the dark. "I thought he was perfect, for what I wanted then. B-but I grew up! I'm not that little girl anymore!" They stood there in the silence of the blackness, and Scully regretted having asked, feeling her companion's distress. A rumble down the tunnel broke the quiet. It startled the agent, who braced for a cave in – or something even worse, but it made Sarah smile, and she perked up considerably. "Oh, good! Look, Dana, we're close now!"

…

Mulder was being overcome by a familiar feeling of frustration with the map spread out before him on his lap. He had prepared, he had immediately deduced where the Senator had gotten to, and yet somehow the Goblin King was still ahead of him. How was it possible, how was it right? He looked at the map and watched the walls shiver and move in a pattern like a kaleidoscope. A surface map….now what he needed was a subterranean one. He hadn't counted on that – and that was what Jareth had planned for, wasn't it?

And now Scully was missing because of it.

Ludo was still howling, and rocks and bricks were beginning to roll. It got Mulder's attention and he got to his feet, folding the map and tucking it into the inner pocket of his jacket. "Alright, alright, that's enough of that, Snuffleupagus." Ludo canted his head to the side, wide mouth hanging open and murmuring, "Uh?" Mulder patted his furry chest. "That's not going to help get them back, is it?"

"Oh….no." He shook his head and his fluffy ears flopped back and forth into his face.

"So we can't just sit here and howl. We've got to do something." The agent turned then and slid his hands into his pockets. "I bet Hoggle has an idea."

"What?" The dwarf was peering into the hole and nearly lost his balance. "Me?"

"You know the Labyrinth better than anyone, don't you?"

"Think you're going to butter me up, is that it?"

"It doesn't matter now." Mulder bent at the knees and was on eye level with the little man, a very serious look to him. "Whether we get the Senator back or not isn't the issue – the girls are missing, and we have to find them." The little gardener couldn't meet his gaze. "Isn't that right, Hoggle?"

Didymus answered for him, jumping forward and barking. "Just so! I am not afraid, Sir Mulder! But show me an opponent and I shall tear him to pieces to rescue yon maidens! I shall rip him limb from limb! I shall duel him in honorable and glorious combat, and-"

"Alright, Don Quixote." He ruffled the fox's fur and stood back up to his full height. "Let's slow down. How do we get to the oubliette?"

"By what name didst thou call me?"

"The tunnels," Hoggle muttered, starting off without the other three down a path Mulder hadn't even seen before. "But they could be in any bloody pit the Labyrinth pleases."

"Then we just have to try them all." Mulder caught up to him with a few long strides, Ludo ambling after and Didymus making quick work on his sheepdog steed. "How do we get to the tunnels."

Hoggle just huffed, rolling his eyes as Mulder dug the map back out of his jacket pocket. "Now you're thinkin' bout that, weren't in too much of a hurry when it came to startin' this idiotic adventure." Mulder said nothing in reply; frankly, it sounded a little like something Scully might say to him. "Easiest way's through the hedge maze. Depends on where they went, but it's a guess."

"A maze within a maze…" Mulder sighed, glancing at the map before folding it again. "This place is something else." As the brick walls and dead trees gave way to the living shrubbery, the Labyrinth seemed less nightmarish. The eye fungus was replaced by more flowers like the roses in the Garden of What May Be, and other plants, too, which would be impossible for Mulder to name, even if he had a better understanding of botany. It was becoming a twisted English garden, full of statuary and fountains. In one corner a massive toy soldier; in another, a suggestively proportioned likeness of Pan. Obelisks stood at every intersection, and it was well that the little gardener knew his way, because Mulder couldn't keep heads or tails of anything, even if the walls didn't move. Everything – the sights, the scents, the sounds – overwhelmed him. But rising above all of it in the distance, set upon a hill, was the unmistakable silhouette of the Goblin King's lair. The Castle Beyond the Goblin City.

At a garden shed, the dwarf stopped, nodding to himself with fat fingers on his chin. "This oughter do. Come on, then, ya tall freak."

Mulder wasn't listening to the insults, though; his gaze was still fixed on the Castle. "Hoggle. He lives there, doesn't he?"

"What?" He glanced where the agent looked and just rolled his eyes. He opened the door and it looked entirely normal, a large clay pot set in one corner. "You got any other dumb questions for me?"

"Just one. Are the towers supposed to be shaped like a peni-"

He didn't get to finish. Between him and the shed, a cloud of glitter exploded like a landmine. Hoggle dove into the pot's hole that led into the tunnels, desperate not to be seen. Didymus set to barking. Mulder started back, but was confronted once again by the furious visage of the Goblin King. He hadn't been this close to his face since the hotel room when the man had practically spit over him. Mulder was still the taller of the two, but Jareth seemed to take up even more space in his rage. Black clouds were rolling in, thunder clapped in the middle distance, and now there was a sudden threat of rain.

Fox didn't get to say anything, the fey was speaking first. "You are to stay away from Sarah, Fox Mulder, do you hear me?" Not even his derisive nickname this time; perhaps he actually felt threatened, but by what, Mulder could not begin to fathom. "You are in my domain now: I could trap you here and no one would ever know. I could make you never mourned, never missed, nothing."

But all this speech did was give Mulder hope. His chest expanded, his shoulders straightened. "We're close, aren't we? That's what's got you so upset, isn't it?"

"You are an idiot." Didymus was now busy calling his dog, who had run off at the first sight of the fearsome king. Ludo wasn't moving. Mulder was basically alone with his foe. "A fool if you think for a moment I'd tolerate the suit of another man."

"A…what?" Mulder stepped back, trying to catch his breath.

"Sarah belongs to me-"

"She belongs to herself."

"-She is my prize, my bride, and you forget that to your peril." For his step back, the Goblin King stepped forward. His teeth had never looked sharper, his eyes never more wildly unstable. Not even in the hotel when he thought to triumph. "The promise of my lips upon her skin, my hand against her hand, have made her mine, and mine, and mine!" He looked like he would seize his presumed opponent, their faces mere inches apart – but a sound from the garden shed stopped him.

The voice of women, coming up the tunnel path…

Jareth's head turned. Mulder lunged for him – to what purpose, he didn't know, but he had to press some advantage. It was for naught; Jareth caught sight of him from the corner of his eyes and disappeared back into nothingness before the agent could touch him. Mulder plowed straight into the jamb of the shed door. "Remember what I told you, Little Fox." It echoed around them and Ludo began to whimper again.

Mulder was seething, rubbing his shoulder where it had slammed into the shed. "He is a…a paranoid, over-inflated, compensating…birdbrain!"

Hoggle's head popped up from within a flower pot, only his eyes and nose visible. "Shut up, you idiot, he'll hear you!" There was another noise of women speaking down below and experimentally, he called, "Sarah! That you!" At a faint reply, his eyes lit up, and he made to go straight down the little gopher hole himself – but he paused and gave Mulder an appraising look. "And yes, t'castle's supposed to look like that."