A.N.: Thank you for your continued patience, I know I made you guys wait EXTRA long this time. My mother is mostly well, but I had an emergency trip up to Seattle to see my aunt, who miraculously survived her experimental surgery, which was itself miraculous; and then I'm also in the middle of a strenuous move an hour away from where I live for a new job. So...the patience is very much appreciated.

In a few moments, two familiar faces were coming out of a large, terra cotta pot in the garden shed – first Sarah, and then Scully. Hoggle was beside himself, dancing around the young woman in impassioned relief, and Sarah quickly had him in her arms and squeezed fit to break him. When Scully's red head appeared, Mulder did no less.

The agent was breathless in his arms, and not even from the way he hugged her. A hand lingered over her hair, pulling a glittering cobweb from her head. "You're alright? You're not hurt?"

"The statues…" Scully looked shocked, but not necessarily hurt. "They were talking-"

Sarah had set Hoggle down in order to embrace her other companions. "What, the false alarms?"

"Talking?" Mulder's eyes lit up. "Not…animatronics, talking?"

"Oy!" Hoggle kicked at Mulder's ankle, but thankfully missed. Scully quietly extricated herself from his grasp while he was distracted. "We got a bigger problem! From now on, we have to keep all eyes on Sarah. Jareth and the Labyrinth want her, and they won't stop at nothing to have her."

"Oh, Hoggle," Sarah just smiled, ambling over with a slight sway of her hips. "I'm not worried." And here she linked arms with Agent Mulder. "Fox will protect me."

Hoggle's jaw nearly hit the floor. "He'll….what?"

"Please, call me Mulder." He walked forward again and let the girl's hand slip from his arm without so much as a blink. "I'm glad you're both alright. We've still got nine hours, is that enough time to get through the Labyrinth?"

"Wha-" Sarah looked slightly consternated. Scully said nothing and decided to examine some of the statuary of the garden, a slight smile on her face. "Y-yeah, I guess so…If we avoid any more detours, then for sure."

"Great. Let's move, then."

Sarah was pushing against the door as hard as she could, but nothing was happening.

Scully tilted her head and examined the long, dusty wall that stretched along on either side; no other way to go forward, it seemed. "Did you go this way last time?"

"Mnm," was Sarah's grunted denial, about to dislocate her shoulder with effort. "No-" A pant for breath, sweat collecting at her temples. "-but," huff, "last time I kept getting dropped in holes and," puff, "chased by the Cleaners and," wheeze, "ugh, it's no use! It won't budge."

"Here." Mulder's fingers touched her shoulder, and Sarah seemed to jump – though not with fear. "Let me, Ms. Williams."

She moved out of the way obligingly, watching with nervous interest as the agent began un-holstering his sidearm. "Y-you can call me Sarah."

"Mulder…" Scully cautioned-

-Too late. One quick shot at the lock, and a cloud of rust and dust erupted with a tired cough. He nudged the door with his toe and it swung open. Scully gave him a look, and he smiled. "What, you wanted me to ram into it with my shoulder like in the movies? Kick it down?"

"You're not funny."

Sarah, however, was practically squealing in delight. "Fox! That was fantastic!"

"Thanks." His response was monotone as he crossed the threshold. "Call me Mulder." Sarah looked briefly flustered, ready to protest, but as Scully was following her partner, and Didymus was coaxing Ambrosius as well, she decided instead to fall into line behind them.

The forest stretched before them: long tendrils of vines, the canopy so thick the sunlight filtered through in dusty clouds to catch the glitter shining on every surface. Mulder had the map out, and Sarah leaned over his left arm, so that her bosom was pretty well pressed against him, and her finger lazily circled one dark green section. "The Fiery Forest," she told him. Mulder's only response was a hum.

The Fiery….Scully remembered the things she almost wished she could forget. "Now, as to the young Anwer, as you were inquiring… He is stuck in the Fiery Forest as we speak." She remembered the boy who cried in her arms in the New York hotel room for the brother he couldn't save, and she felt chilled to the core. Almost as if he picked up on the emotion, Mulder looked at her from the corner of his eyes, inquiring, cautious. She shook her head and kept her mouth pressed into a thin line.

"What's so fiery about it?" Mulder asked in his lazy way, eyes scanning the dark greenery around them.

"Ya don't wanna find out…" was Hoggle's grumbled reply.

Sarah's hand had gone from the map to Mulder's arm, running down to touch his hand as though she meant to pull him along – or in some way invite him in to something. "So do you live in D.C., Fox? Agent Mulder," she immediately corrected with a dazzling smile.

"Not quite. Alexandria, Virginia, Ms. Williams." He did not correct himself on her name.

"Please, call me Sarah. Ms. Williams is my mother," and she laughed; if Scully didn't know she was an actress, she would never have thought it forced at all… "You know, I do a lot of regional tours. We go up and down the east coast a bunch!"

"Is that so…"

"Mhm! Maybe next time I'm in D.C., we could get together! Have dinner, tour the city, tour your apartment..." Hoggle looked like he'd just swallowed something nasty; he stopped walking and Ludo almost tripped over him. Scully just smiled. With their longer legs and Ludo's slow gate, Mulder and Sarah were quite ahead of everyone else. It was a good effort. "I bet it's nice, since you're an FBI agent. Do you have a one or two bedroom?"

"I don't have a bedroom at all."

"It's true, he sleeps on his couch."

"I-!" Sarah's frustration was peaking. She ran a hand over her face and absolutely plastered a smile to her mouth. "Living simply – I can get with that."

Mulder paused and it allowed Scully to catch up with him, stopping to fumble for a drink of water from the bottle still at her hip. "You really want to see me, Ms. Williams?"

"It's Sarah." She almost stamped her foot in a manner that reminded Scully very much of her dwarven friend. "Sar-ah! I'm not desperate, if that's what you're saying!"

"I wouldn't assume."

"I just think it's perfectly normal – meet someone new, get to know them."

"Perfectly."

"It's not like a big deal! Even if we went on a date-" The words had no sooner left the young woman's lips but the ground shot away beneath the agents' feet. The pair were gone before she could finish the word. Sarah's hand instantly covered her mouth. "Oh no."

"Now you gone and done it!" Hoggle was peering over the hole, squidging one eye shut. "It's a chute for sure! Straight to the Bog."

Sir Didymus hollered down the shaft. "Sir Mulder!"

"I-I didn't mean- Oh, poor Dana, twice in one day!"

"Twice!" Hoggle's laugh was a bark. "An oubliette was bad enough, but this is the Bog of Eternal Stench! Ain't no twice about it!"

"Oh, what do we do…." Sarah paced around the pit for a moment, almost as if she was contemplating jumping in after them. "I didn't mean-"

"Now, don't start that business!" Hoggle shook his finger at her, more the actions of a concerned companion than an angry parent. "You know darn better, little lady! Flirtin' it up with that tall know-nothing-"

"Get off my case!" she almost snapped, resting on her knees by the edge of the hole. "I'm nobody's property, I can go out with whoever I want to. You're almost as bad as….as-"

"As whom, Sarah, dear?"

Sarah nearly pitched forward in her surprise. She looked over her shoulder, and there he was, leaning indolently against a tree – arms crossed, and long legs at the ankle….He was smiling. She glared at him in return.

Carefully, she picked herself up, dusting her jeans at the knee. Hoggle was absolutely nowhere to be seen. Ludo seemed to have taken his lead, for he had hold of Sir Didymus by the torso and muzzle and was failing to hide behind a whip-thin sugar sap tree. "Jareth." She barely looked at him, brushing her hair over one shoulder. "Your ears must have been burning."

"Something of the kind, yes." He began spinning a crystal over his gloved fingers, and God, how she hated him…

"Fox-" She stopped and struggled for a moment. "Dana and Fox didn't do anything wrong; you should have left them alone."

"They should have left well enough alone," the Goblin King countered, pushing himself off the tree with an easy motion. He stepped toward Sarah with slow, quiet footfalls, and her eyes grew wider. "I won't be told I cheated: I warned them both – him especially."

"W-what is it that you want?" He stood close enough that she would have had to look up to see into his face. She didn't want to do that, and so she let her eyes remain fixed on his chest. The white shirt was open to the sternum; she could see the key where it rested against his skin…The thing that only she could-

To Sarah's relief, Jareth came no closer, made no move to touch her at all. Just looked. "Oh, we'll wait on that for now. What is it you want, precious thing, hm?"

Sarah's shoulders squared, she threw her head back. "To rescue the senator, of course – save my friends."

"Ah, are they your friends now, too?" She nodded, and he grinned with his sharp teeth. "You always did form bonds so quickly, didn't you?" Sarah glared and it only made the fey creature smile the more, but he shook his head. "Sad news, Sarah, my dear: you can save the senator, or you can save your friends – but you can't have both."

"W-what-?" She startled at the clock that appeared over his shoulder. Only three hours left, how was that possible! "You-"

Jareth clucked his tongue. "It's slow going with so much baggage – nothing of my doing this time, I'm afraid." He lifted his hand to brush aside a lock of her hair and Sarah jerked her chin back. The King scowled. "I came to offer you a little help of my own."

"Why should I take anything you give me?"

"If you're so serious about this mission of yours, I wouldn't think you'd look a blessing in the mouth." Jareth stepped to the side and bowed, arm outstretched. A path straight through the Labyrinth wove like a ribbon before her – and it went up, up, up to the Castle… "A yellow brick road for you, my sweet. You've got a cowardly lion, a heartless woodsman and a brainless idiot already, I think – disperse titles however you most prefer them."

Sarah eyed him mistrustfully. "And this is another one of your gifts, I take it?"

"Not precisely; it's what the Labyrinth wants, to help you."

"The Lab…" Sarah's arms fell to her side, a brief look of deep worry making her face go pale. "The Labyrinth wants to keep me here."

"Higgle was not lying to you in this particular instance." Sarah cast a glare in his direction. "It responds to your power and to your will. You want to reach the Castle, and it wants to help you. Time is running out, my girl. What will you do?"

There was a long silence before Sarah turned her back on the King, motioning to her hidden group. "Didymus, Ludo, Hoggle – come on, you guys."

"Oh no." Jareth stepped round in front of her, his look no longer so jovial. "Not this time. Your little….friends don't come."

Sarah scowled up at him, nose wrinkled and brow drawn down. "Oh yeah? Why's that?"

"The Labyrinth may be guiding you to the center, but the Castle is my domain. It happens I don't invite your collection of driveling idiots and reprobates. I disliked their behavior on their last…visit."

"You're trying to trick me. You think I don't see it, but I do."

"I would never dare presume to underestimate your intelligence – nor do I question your bravery, so that I know you will not hesitate to go the rest alone."

Another silence, this one longer and tenser than any that came before it. She stared at him, and he at her. Saying nothing to her adversary, Sarah stepped carefully around him, never turning her back. "I'll win again – you'll see."

The only thing that really frightened her was when he melted away like the Cheshire cat, with nothing but his smile behind….His smile, and the voice that called, "How eagerly I wait to see that grand sight, Sarah, love…."

Hoggle appeared again; he'd managed to hide himself beneath a fallen log, and he trembled head to foot, yellow-blue eyes round and wet. "S-Sarah…" His large hands played awkwardly with each other. "I'm sorry bout what I said before…Course you can have whoever it is you want. Only….don't go t'the Castle – not this time."

The smile that she gave her friend was almost a painful one. The young actress bent down and let her hand brush against his skull cap and his large ears. "Hoggle….If I kiss you this time, do you think he'll drop you into the Bog, too?" She didn't wait for his bashful protest. Sarah just pressed her lips to his wrinkled brow and stood up again. "This is how it's done." She smiled at Didymus and Ludo, the latter of whom had started keening again. "I'll be back before you know it."