Disclaimer: None of the Labyrinth characters are mine. No profits will be made, this story was just written for my love of the movie! But, anyways, they, along with images, lines, places, scenes, words, phrases, etc, *EVERYTHING* belong to Jim Henson and their appropriate creators - they are not mine. Any chance consequential comparisons were not meant to be made, if any.

This story has been two years in the making. Finally, I'm working on finishing it in type.

Chapter One: The Morning After

"Sarah...Sarah..."

She awoke to the calling of her stepmother. Her brown hair was tangled and she felt uncomfortable. She then knew why as she looked down with sleepy eyes to see she still wore her jeans and shirt - the same very ensemble she wore through the Labyrinth, to save her brother, Toby, from the Goblin King.

...Was it all just a dream? Hoggle, Ludo, and the others were gone. But, their laughter still rang heartily in her fresh memory.

"Sarah!"

"I'm coming," Sarah acknowledged her stepmother's call.

"Was it all just a dream?" she whispered questionably to herself.

There was no evidence of her newfound friends ever being there. All the evidence that remained was etched in her mind's eye. A solemn expression was placed about her face; she heard Toby cry in the other room. Sarah's face lightened to a smile... "He's safe," she reassured herself.

"I must've fell asleep..." she whispered to herself once more as she gathered fresh clothes before heading to the shower. She smiled ~ her dream must've been out of rage from last night. But, it gave her a new outlook to her family...a happy one.

She took a quick shower, checked on her brother, and grabbed a bite to eat, then hugged her stepmother and father before heading out the door.

"What's gotten into her?" her stepmother asked.

"I don't know, but she's smiling...that's all that matters to me," her father replied in dismay.

~*~

She had made that leap for her brother.

"Give me the child," she demanded with such firmness in her sweet voice.

He started to walk towards her, his white feathery cape following within the wake of his fiery steps. "Sarah, beware," his voice stern, the hawk- like gaze never lifting off the sight of her face. "I have been generous up until now, but I can be cruel."

Sarah's hazel gaze never lifted from his mismatched blue and brown eyes. She asked,"Generous?" Pausing, she then continued a bit more boldly, "What have you done that's generous?" Rigidly standing, there was still softness emanating from her sweet tone.

Jareth's blood boiled; her words awaking anger from within. "Everything!" Shouting, the man realized his outburst and continued a bit more serenely, circling around her, studying her and every inch of her form. "Everything that you wanted I have done. You asked that the child be taken...I took him. You cowarded before me...I was frightening. I have reordered time. I have turned the world upside down, and I have done it all for you!"

He stopped, a little exhausted to look at her, thinking to himself "does she not know how I truly feel?" The question ran through his mind like a malevolent cancer before he breathed deeply,"I am exhausted from living up to your expectations. Isn't that generous?"

Sarah looked at him and words remembered shifted and bubbled up into her mind. She began to recite them as they poured from her psyche down to her mouth,"Through dangers untold and hardships outnumbered," she approached him,"I have fought my way here to the castle beyond the Goblin City."

Jareth sensed the strength, her courage within her steadfast gaze upon him. He backed away, but Sarah still asserted herself matching his backward steps with forward ones. "My will is as strong as yours and my..." He halted her words with an abrupt extension of his hand."Wait! Look Sarah..." a gossamer crystal bubble formed into his hand from his fingertips. "Look what I'm offering you. Your dreams." His words were meant for the tempting.

Seemingly un-phased by his offer, she continued, "...And my kingdom as great..."

Jareth lowered the crystal and stated,"I ask for so little. Just let me rule you and you can have everything that you want."

Was there a sense of sadness and plea in his eyes and tone?

She looked away from him and replied thoughtfully, "My kingdom is great."

She seemed to be thinking with a great accord. Jareth, thinking that his temptations might be eating at her, or may something else, offered her the crystal once again with an almost yielding expression. It was his final attempt to woe her, to grab her dreams as his own... But something deep inside him said that things weren't going to be as he wanted them.

Sarah whispered almost inaudibly, "Damn...I can never remember that line."

He then stated, "Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave..."

'Love me?' his words echoed briefly in her thoughts - love? 'I will be your slave?'

Sarah looked away, composing herself; she pushed away his plea, forgetting it to clear her mind and recited the lines once more. "My kingdom is great, my kingdom is great..." until the line finally remembered brushed past her lips. Looking up at him, she says them with a paint of triumph, "You have no power over me!"

With the look in his eyes and the extension of the crystal once more she thought he might've tempted her with the dreams he promised.

"You have no power over me..." the hours are up as her words are repeated and a solemn expression washed Jareth's face.

He tossed the crystal up and allowed the dreams of the young girl shatter and dissipate out of existence. The dreams that he himself offered her...

Jareth had given her back Toby. Sarah had won over him, and of course he had lost a 'goblin', but why did he feel so empty? He thought it might've been because he lost these things, but that thought was of no reassurance. Did he loose his heart to this...this mere girl? - and when he could not tempt her with dreams and his charm, he had truly lost...

"No..." he whispered to himself as he peered down at his Goblin City from the balcony. "I will not allow myself grow mad with such foolish ideas."

He then stormed towards his Goblin throne dressed in the dark outfit he had first worn when he met Sarah. "Move out of my way!" he shouted out to his minions before sitting and slumping into thought. He closed his painted eyes and arched an already heighten eyebrow. "I think I'm getting a headache..."

"...Well, I guess there's a first time for everything," ensued a mysterious voice, the identity masked by the veil of darkness from his eyelids.

He opened them to see a petite form standing at the balcony entrance. Her hair was long and wavy, with a strawberry tint to its natural blondeness. Her eyes were catty, green in colour and painted with lime green silver glitter, while her nose small and somewhat upturn. On either side of her face sat a pointed delicate elfin ear; the girl wasn't beautiful, but was still quite lovely in a fae-ish sort of way.

She moved towards him in the bask of the light with such conviction and grace, allowing her white and sea green chemise glimmer and move with the rhythms of her body. The silver beaded trail attached to the emerald belt of her skirt followed behind her steps, slightly sweeping away the path she walked.

"Lorna..." Jareth grumbled looking away, "...Your presence is not desired. Go away - play in your little pixie games or whatever you do."

"Oh Jareth," Lorna, the Faerie Princess, giggled, "dear, dear Jareth. You've never denied me before!" She purred, stooping herself down to her knees by his throne, resting her head on his outer thigh. Jareth became tense, abruptly stood to his feet, knocking the petite faerie backwards. "I never denied you because I never wanted you," he snarled as he kicked at his goblins, stepping a couple of feet away from her. A cynical almost sexy look gleamed upon his face.

Lorna steadied herself to her feet and brushed off the dust from her slim body. She smirked, "Hmmm...darling, you speak in such riddles! You only act this way because of that...that mortal!"

"Stop," Jareth warned.

"Sarah, is it? What was it she declared?" the faerie sneered.

"Stop," he looked upon her with haunting eyes, bringing new life to the expression 'if looks could kill'. His voice was like a British dagger; but the Faerie Princess was invulnerable...

"Ah, yes," Lorna smiled with glee. "You have no power over me! After all the generous gifts you bestowed upon her, she resented you. You let your blind set sight impair you from your goals...from the boy. You practically handed the child back into the wench's arms." She snickered and whispered, reciting the dooming line once more,"You have no power over me."

He walked over to her with arrogant stride and pinned her to the wall, his forearm supporting against it for leverage. The goblins gasp and then begin to laugh - he shouted hotly,"QUIET!"

Looking into Lorna's vivid and shimmering eyes, he retorted with certain coldness and smiled distastefully. "Do not dare me, dear Lorna. You antagonize me so, hoping to make some absent point. Mind your own." She returned his glare and turned up her chin, "You were defeated, Jareth...of the Underground, King of the Goblins. And, by the same very girl who thought my faeries were benevolent and granted willful wishes."

The Faerie Princess laughed under her breath and continued, "You made a mistake, Jareth. A lethal mistake. You fell in love with her."

"What!?" he bursted out the word and chuckled. "You are stupider than you look!"

"You may label me as stupid, but it was your heart -if you even have one- that fell into that category. I can see love better than any creature or beast here in the Underground. And whether you accept it or not, it will always remain the bitter truth," she insisted before shrinking into a shimmering speck and flinting off in high-pitched laughter.

Jareth was in pure disgust, and it was apparent in his demeanor from the snarl he paid to his followers. He once again sat on his throne and formed a crystal in his hand...