Sorry it's late, I totally forgot what day it was. Progress is being made as far as the action and stuff goes. Hope you read and enjoy and review and all that. Don't worry - this fic IS going somewhere. I have an ending planned and everything! I'm just trying to give you shorter chapters so they're easier to read, and therfore easier to (coughreviewcough) understand and so you'll stick with it longer.

Chapter 13

(Note, this is taking place before and during the last few paragraphs of Chapter 12, while the castle is just becoming aware that Toby's been taken. It's only an hour or so past midnight during this time.)

As Sarah stepped just past the gates of the Goblin City and into the Labyrinth, with Toby asleep in her arms and two friends walking along next to her, she was suddenly stricken with a great overwhelming realization of what she was doing. She was deliberately doing something that she knew would anger Jareth, that she knew would result in her expulsion from the Underground without Toby, and possibly much worse fates for her friends. She knew that, if this wasn't done right, she would throw away the small sign of sympathy Jareth had shown her and she'd lose Toby forever, and she knew that she wouldn't be able to blame anyone but herself.

Sarah's steps slowed as she listened to the gates of the Goblin City creaking closed. They looked to be wrought-iron, though it was unlikely as she'd heard somewhere that faery-type beings were allergic to iron. Either way, they were dark and heavy and intricately shaped – very different from the large stone-looking gates from five years ago. The sight of them, so very different from the way they'd been, almost made Sarah feel like she wasn't doing this, that there wasn't any danger and none of her previous travels through the Labyrinth had happened.

If she imagined, if she concentrated real hard she could almost pretend the gates were those of the park she frequently took Toby. She could almost believe that she was simply taking Toby home after a night of make-believe, but when she breathed, when she felt the weight of the six-year-old in her arms, Sarah realized that she was far too exhausted for it to have only been a night.

She could feel the grime on her face, the calluses that had formed on her hands from hours and hours of scrubbing every surface in that god-awful castle, the ache in her bones, the rough fabric of her skirt against her skin, and the strain of too little sleep. She felt years older, years of weariness and work, of screaming and fighting and crying and so many emotions in such a short amount of time. Sarah didn't think she'd ever felt so tired, so drained of life and she wanted nothing more than to lie down and sleep for days.

But she couldn't. She shifted Toby against her shoulder and the boy gave out a sleepy whine before drifting off again, perfectly content to sleep the night away while the rest of them sneaked and whispered, trying their best not to be detected in the night.

Sarah stole a glance back to the castle, a looming shadow against the iridescent moon and the lightening sky. She could see fluttering lights – perhaps lanterns or candles – in some of the windows and though she tried to tell herself it wasn't really intentional, Sarah looked just a little higher up, at the highest window in the highest tower of the castle for a light, a little flicker, but there was none.

Perhaps he hadn't been told yet, or perhaps that window was special in some way. It was the only one in the castle that had glass in its window, as far as she knew, and they could be shaded against the world. It would figure that Jareth used windows only he could see out of, giving him a benefit that no one else had. He always wanted the upper hand, always wanted to be one step ahead of the rest of the world, and the sad thing was that Jareth usually was.

"Sarah?" Hoggle hissed from the darkness in front of her. Both he and Thilly were a considerable amount of steps ahead of her, having kept moving after Sarah had apparently stopped dead in her tracks rather than just slowing, like she'd intended.

Moving as quickly as she could manage, Sarah caught up with her two friends as they decided on traveling down the leftmost path of the Labyrinth. Sarah's eyes took a moment to adjust to a sudden light as she was thrown into an eerie green glow that emanated from strange moss covering every inch of the stone walls to either side of them.

Too bad Toby's not awake to see this, Sarah thought to herself wistfully.

She'd never seen a wall of moss in the old Labyrinth (though she did recall some strange Eye Moss), and with a sudden jolt of fear Sarah realized that any hope of Hoggle being familiar enough to guide them out was completely gone now. He was just as clueless as Sarah was to this entire thing. They'd just have to rely on logic and luck from now on, and –

"Where will we sleep?" Thilly whispered. It was strange the way the Changeling whispered – it wasn't as harsh as the whisper of any other creature, less like a hiss and more like smooth silk. Thilly was a rare creature in that she sounded more natural when she whispered than she did when she spoke at louder volumes.

"We'll just have'ta find a nice place, won't we?" said Hoggle sharply.

Sarah rolled her eyes. The dwarf was intentionally being short with Thilly out of spite, and as a result any question Thilly asked had to be re-asked by Sarah in order to get a proper answer.

"Hoggle, you're going to have to start being nicer now. We're all in this together, and I won't have fighting between you and Thilly self-destruct this entire team."

Sarah could see Thilly's large eyes widen, "Team? We're a team? Oh, I've never been part of a team before."

Hoggle muttered something that, thankfully, neither Sarah nor Thilly could hear. Sarah smiled softly at Thilly and nudged her comfortingly. "You are now," she said. "And this team doesn't fight with each other, Hoggle, okay? It's gonna be just like before, with Ludo and Sir Didymus."

"Yeah, I didn' like them much neither," he said, but Sarah could hear a bit of fondness softening his words and she wondered where, exactly, Ludo and Didymus had gone. Had they stayed in the Labyinth even after it'd been rebuilt, or were they somewhere beyond it, like Sarah was planning on going? The Underground wasn't just the Goblin City, after all. There were probably as many creatures and communities out there as there were on Earth.

"But, really, Hoggle – where will we sleep? I'm exhausted already and we've only just started. I can't last much longer without some kind of rest."

"Oh, I'll hold Prince Tobias if that's what's tiring you, Sarah," offered Thilly brightly, still speaking in that whisper that wasn't quite a whisper.

"It's just Toby now, Thilly, and it's not that. I just haven't slept well lately and it's really taking its toll on me."

Thilly nodded and patted Sarah on the shoulder. Sarah smiled. She could tell already that Thilly wasn't as meek as she'd been inside the castle. Her steps were taken with more sureness, her hands didn't wring nervously at her skirt, and though her gaze was haphazard and she occasionally flinched at what looked like nothing, Sarah knew that being away from the castle was really helping bring Thilly out of her shell.

"We'll sleep as soon as we're good'n lost," Hoggle said.

"What?"

"Well, we can't stop right 'ere where all's they need ta do is go down one corridor an' find us, can we? No, we'll have'ta go deeper'n that. Take a few turns, then a few more, till we're so lost an' turned 'round we don' know which way's up or down."

"I… guess that makes sense."

Suddenly Sarah remembered something that she couldn't believe she'd actually forgotten. It was probably the worst thing she could forget and the biggest asset on the part of Jareth and it could doom her friends and her in any moment.

"Jareth can find me," said Sarah with terrified awe. "Remember, Hoggle. Every step of the way he knew what was happening. He knew exactly where we were and he showed up to try and make things difficult."

Hoggle coughed nervously and Sarah could see him looking around at the walls of the labyrinth with a newfound intensity.

"I.. uh.. I prob'ly had a bit ta do with that," he said gruffly. "Y'see, back then, 'fore I got ta know you an all, remember that, I sort of worked for Jareth. Told 'im what you was doin' and where I was goin' ta take ya. It wasn't when I really knew ya, tho, Sarah an'-"

"Don't worry, Hoggle," Sarah cut in fondly. "I knew after the peach what you'd been doing, remember? And I forgave you then and I still forgive you."

Hoggle nodded but continued with, "You're right, though. He can watch ya, through those crystals he's always got with 'im. After the Labyrinth an' the Castle fell apart, though, he had ta use a lot of his powers ta rebuild, and since then he can only use so much durin' the day. He sorta recharges at night – somethin' about the moon helpin' him."

"So, when is the best time to rest then? If we sleep at night he'll simply use all the time we're sleeping to track us down, and if we sleep during the day we'll have to travel at night and he could still use that time to track us down as we move. We're not safe at all, at any time."

"I say we sleep during the day," Thilly offered. "If we're moving at night, he's less likely to find us, isn't he? Because if we're all moving while he's trying to find us, it's harder – like…"

"Firing at a moving target?"

"Oh, I wasn't going to use an example that was so violent, but yes."

"Right. So's we keep goin' 'till daybreak, then we can sleep for a bit, then keep goin'. The more we move the better'a chance we got."

Sarah nodded and sighed as Hoggle turned left and Thilly and she followed. Though Sarah knew Hoggle had no idea where he was going, he still gave off the impression that he did and Sarah admired him for that. When she was unsure about something it was usually as obvious as if she had her worries stamped on her forehead, but she looked up to the sort of people, like Hoggle, who could keep a level head in a crisis. And if this wasn't a crisis, she didn't know what was.

P.S; I still hate dialects... especially whatever the hell Hoggle's is.