Title: Lost Souls
Fandom: Labyrinth
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Jareth/Sarah, Toby
Rating: G/K
Summary: Sarah is lost again immediately after her trip through the Labyrinth.
Word Count: 1,404
Written For: Fan FlashWorks 387: Amnesty - 1: The Lost Hour
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.









She stood in the middle of the hallway in the house where she had spent most of her life, feeling utterly and completely lost and bewildered. This didn't feel right. She had not felt like she actually belonged in this place since her mother had left, but the feeling went deeper now. She didn't feel like she belonged in this world.

She turned her head this way and that, desperate for some sign, any sign, that everything she had just experienced had not been a dream. Midnight? It shouldn't only be midnight! She had been gone for so long, and yet... Yet it seemed like she'd only dozed off for a short while. Only she had not awakened from slumber. One moment, she had been in a world with such promise and such incredible beings, friends unlike anything she'd ever known before and a King who was both terrifying and mesmerizing at the same time, and the next... The next, she had been thrust back into this place. This couldn't be right!

She had heard her father's and stepmother's voices calling for her, and although for the first time in her life, she had not hesitated to respond to her stepmother, she still could not shake the idea that none of this was right. She shouldn't be here. Toby was okay. She'd succeeded in saving him. But at what cost?

She knew at what cost, she thought, her heart aching as she forced herself to return to her bedroom. She knew at exactly what cost. She had had to turn away her fondest dreams. She'd had to come back to this awful place, and worse still, she'd had to break the heart of a glorious, gorgeous man. Jareth could have given her everything she'd ever wanted, and so much more. But she had denied his every offer to save Toby. He might not be her full blood, but he was still an innocent baby.

"Turn back, Sarah. Turn back before it's too late."

She jumped and spun around, but there was no one though she heard his sensual voice as clearly as if they'd still stood on that cliff. He had warned her, but she had not understood the full impact of his warning. Had he? she wondered. Had he known to what lengths she would go to to save her brother? Perhaps he had expected her to do so all along. Perhaps he had been testing her to see of just what exactly she was made, and she had single-handedly destroyed both their futures by determining that her brother's future, his life as a human being, was more important than anything she could have been given by staying and by accepting the proposal he'd made.

She didn't know the man. She couldn't possibly love him yet. So why was there such an ache inside of her every time she thought of him? Why did she feel like something else inside of her had shattered completely? Why, even when her friends had returned for the night and they had partied into the wee hours of the morning until everyone else had fallen asleep, did she still feel so plagued with sorrow and misery at everything she'd just given up?

Her friends were here, even if something deep inside of her warned her she'd best not fall asleep. Had they not been what she had most enjoyed about the Labyrinth? No, she thought dismissively. No, they had been only a small bonus. The possibilities she could have been rewarded by staying in the Labyrinth were far more immense and wonderful than any of the varied beings around her, or than their King, who had not come to greet her with the rest.

Of course, he hadn't, Sarah thought, turning so that her long hair fell between her and the rest of the world, turning so that no one could see her eyes or the tears that glistened therein and soon began to spill upon her cheeks. She had all but destroyed him there in the end. He had offered her an entire, magical world, and she had tossed it, and him, away. If only she could speak to him one last time, if only she could somehow make him understand or at least have a chance to explain to him that she'd had little other choice...

She didn't know who had abandoned him once upon a time to be in the Goblin City. They must have, she thought even though she hadn't known his story. How else could a man of flesh and blood come to rule a bunch of Goblins? Someone, once upon a time, had thrown him away, and then she'd thrown him away again. She sniffled, and then cast a hurried look over at her friends to make certain no one had overheard her.

Except they were no longer there. "H-Hoggle?" her voice quavered. "Ludo?!" She jumped to her feet. "Sir Didymus?!" But no one was there. With the rise of the morning sun, all her friends, all the creatures in which no one else would ever have believe, had vanished. She had not heard any doors or windows opening, yet she was alone again. She was alone with a bunch of people and in a world that would never understand her.

"No!" she cried out and raced to her window. She flung it open, and sunlight poured in. She shielded her eyes from the bright, harsh light and hurriedly scanned the trees, the yard, and the streets beyond, but there was no sign of anything, of any one, that did not belong in this wretched world. "No." She wanted to yell. She wanted to cry. Yet the single word of protest left her trembling lips in a meek whisper for, deep down, all throughout last night's fun and frivolity, she had known that the time would come. She had known that they would not, could not, stay in a world in which they were not believed in, and rather they wanted to or not, they would have to return.

They would have to return to him and to the magic of their world, and she would be alone again. "No... No. No!" She fell to her knees. "No!" She shook her head, and again, his voice came back to her.

"Stop! Look at what I'm offering you."

"This is not a gift for an ordinary girl who takes care of a screaming baby."

"But I'm not ordinary. I don't want to be ordinary!" She sniffled. "I don't want to be here!" She sobbed. "I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE!"

But if anyone heard, no one came. She lifted her head a small bit as she heard Toby beginning to wail from the next room. Her father and his mother were home. They could take care of their own, screaming baby. Except, she knew as his cries continued, they would not. They never did. Toby had her, or he had absolutely nothing in this world.

Not unlike, she thought, the King of the Goblins himself must have no one other than the Goblins.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, "so sorry!"

Toby hit a higher, sharper pitch. "SARAH!" she heard her mother screech.

"Sarah, please?" her father called out.

It was no wonder, she thought, that he had fallen to her stepmother's so-called charms. He needed a woman to take care of him. A screaming baby needed a woman to take care of him. Even a King needed a woman to at least help take care... No, not to take care of him, she corrected herself. He had all the power and magic in his world to do that, but he had needed, actually needed her, to help break his curses of loneliness, solitude, and sorrow. He had needed her the least for what she could do for him.

But if not for her, what would become of Toby? They didn't have Goblins in this world. They had things far worse. "I'm sorry," she whispered, shaking, but pushed herself to her feet and went to see about her brother, another lost soul in a world that would never appreciate him. Maybe when he was older, somehow, they could find their way back to the Goblin City. Maybe they were older, she could find her way back, with or without him. And if she did make it back, Sarah swore, she would never leave again.




The End