I should throw a disclaimer so this doesn't get removed.

I do not own The Labyrinth or any of its characters/ plot devices/ places/anything. Those belong to the late and marvelous Jim Henson.

Thirteen Hours.

I.

A peach. Laying on the pavement in front of her apartment. A glance down the road would show a woman scrambling to gather spilled produce and angrily throwing away a torn paper bag. But it had to be a peach that rolled in front of her steps, of course. Especially today, of all days, the five year anniversary of Sarah's triumphant defeat of The Goblin King and his Labyrinth. She nudged the fruit with her foot and took a deep breath.

Just a coincidence she told herself. Don't get yourself worked up over nothing.

She knew she would be on edge today. Just as it was in the years prior, Sarah had always been able to find a startling amount of coincidences on this day. A year after she had beaten The Goblin King at his own game, she had spotted an alarming amount of owls everywhere she went. As it turned out, a storm had caused the creatures to take shelter in her heavily wooded town for the day. Year two was the year she swore she heard his voice in everything, calling her name. The following year was when the nightmares began, and have yet to cease. They are not a constant thing, but they occur often enough to leave Sarah on edge for days. Horrifically vivid, and usually brutal in every sense of the word, Sarah would often wake herself up in the middle of the night with her own screams. The fourth year, she saw shadows. Small and lithe, they crept everywhere but her direct line of vision. Always in her peripheral, Sarah was convinced goblins were stalking her the entire day. This year, it seemed, the theme would be peaches.

Sarah adjusted her bag on her shoulder and began her trek to work. She worked at the library in town in the children's section. Her day was spent reading various stories to a gaggle of five year olds and amusing them with small arts and crafts while their parents made use of the library's free internet. Trying to focus on things other than peaches, Sarah commented silently about the weather, how the trees were starting to switch from green to their Autumn hues, the disgusting amount of gum on the sidewalk, anything to keep her mind off the Underground while she made her way across town.

Drawing nearer to the library, she saw one of her usual story hour kids waiting on the entrance steps, a stack of books to her side tottering precariously. Sarah approached, watching as the girl straightened the stack and stood up, plucking a small red book from the top of the pile.

"You're early, Beth. Library doesn't open for an hour." She said, folding her arms over her chest.

The girl nodded and moved to straighten her pile of books again.

"I know. But I have to go to my Aunt's today and wanted to bring you these." she said, waving her hand in front of the stack of books. Sarah eyed the stack once more, only to show she acknowledged them, and nodded.

"What are they for? Are you returning them?" She asked, picking up the topmost book and flipping through its pages. The girl drew her mouth in to a thin line. She sighed loudly and hung her arms at her side.

"Yes. But I didn't actually check them out. My mom told me I had to bring them back. And she told me to give you this." the girl said, offering the red book to Sarah.

"Its my favorite ever. So please be careful with it." She said, handing the book to Sarah begrudgingly.

The book had no title on the cover, but it didn't matter. Sarah would know the book anywhere. She opened the page and was not surprised when a small amount of glitter scattered in the breeze. The translucent first page heralded the title page, familiar elegant script read Labyrinth.

As she remembered, there was no author, nor publishing date, or reference numbers. The gold leaf that trimmed each page was beginning to flake, and the spine was bent with the age of any well read adventure. Sarah could not help but smile.

"You know something?" Sarah said, watching as Beth nudged the book tower with her foot to steady it once more.

"This is my favorite too. I'm not angry, I'm glad you returned them. Thank you. And I promise to take the best care of your book. Maybe we'll even read it at Story hour?" Sarah offered, watching the girls face light up.

"You've read it too? I found it in a trash can. I remember it was in the same one I tried to put my baby brother in. Mom wasn't happy about it, and grounded me for EVER. But I took the book when she wasn't looking and read it every day." The girl babbled, not taking one moment to even wonder if Sarah found placing ones baby brother in the trash can a bit unusual.

"I bet you can't guess my favorite character." she challenged, rocking back and forth on her heels. Sarah grinned and played along. It was rare to see a child so enthusiastic about reading anymore.

"Oh I'm terrible at guessing. Why don't you tell me." she said, picking up the books from the ground and motioning to follow her into the library.

"It's the Goblin King." she declared.

Of course it is! Sarah thought. Who else would it be, really.

"The Goblin King? But he's the bad guy, Bethie. Nobody is supposed to like him." Sarah argued.

"Yeah I know he's supposed to be a jerk, but my mom is a jerk when she has a bad day at work too. Maybe he wouldn't have been so mean if the girl didn't treat him like she did. He was only doing his job, after all." Beth said, holding the door open as Sarah walked past her and set the books on the floor in front of her desk. She shook her head. Sarah could not see how it was possible that a child could understand this book better than she could. And she read it cover to cover at least 100 times. She was right though. He was just doing his job, and she treated him less than fairly; making snap judgments and refusing to play by the rules. Only, by the time she realized it, she was far too late to apologize.

This had to happen today. Yes, it did. Why not. Peaches weren't nearly enough to make me miserable. Sarah sat down and watched as Beth ran her finger across the depressed letters on a books cover.

"Beth? Don't you have to get going?" she asked, watching a frown creep onto her face.

"Yeah." she sighed, kicking the ground. "I don't like my Aunt's house. It smells like cat litter and she always makes me eat vegetables. But my dad has to go on a business trip and my moms working a double. Whatever that is. So I'll be stuck all day with my stupid brother and my smelly Aunt with nothing to do but make the plastic on the couches squeak" she rambled. Sarah couldn't help but laugh. The child reminded her so much of herself when she was younger.

"Oh, I'm sure you'll find something to keep occupied." Sarah assured, pressing the power button on her computers tower. She listened as the familiar whirr of the motors kicked in and wondered at why Beth was staring at the red book so intently.

"That girl had the right idea. About getting rid of her baby brother. All mine does is cry and poop! I can't even play games with him because he's stupid and only knows how to say 'mama' and 'blankie'" Beth groaned, turning to leave.

"Bye Miss Sarah! Thanks for not yelling at me I guess." she waved as she pushed the front door open with some effort. Turning around, she leaned against the door and smiled.

"You know what I wish? That The Goblin King would come and take MY bro-"

"DON'T!" Sarah interrupted, jolting from her seat.

"Don't say that, Beth. You would miss your baby brother. You may think you hate him, but what if he really was gone? Your mom and dad would be sad, and you too. Don't wish that. Okay?" Sarah said, waiting for her heart to stop racing. She could not imagine an eight year old girl trying to run the Labyrinth. The thought made her queasy. Beth had turned a pale shade and nodded.

"See you later" she whispered, running from the library as fast as her feet could carry.

Sarah sunk back into her seat, her hand falling on the now open book in front of her. She looked down and read the first line. And the next, and soon the first page. When she had thrown the book out five years ago, she never expected to read it again. She had hoped to erase all her memories of The Underground and especially of him. But here she was, dreading the moment when the heroine calls out to her momentary savior;

"I wish The Goblin King would take you away right now!" She was drawn into the book once more, reading with bated breath as the heroine ran the twisting mazes and solved impossible puzzles. How she fought her way to the castle in the center of the Goblin City. How she fought for her brother, and how she fought against the Goblin King. When the lights above her flickered on and the telltale sound of the central air turning on filled her ears, she was finally torn away from the book. She could not remember where she had stopped reading what was written and where she had replaced that story with her own. Looking up from the book, she felt herself grin at the tall blond who walked up to her desk.

"Why am I not surprised to find you reading in dim lighting, alone in a very large and very quiet library?" he asked, leaning in to place a kiss on her forehead.

"Morning." she breathed, standing up to turn the other set of lights on behind her.

The man, who's name was Jared, was somewhere between a friend and a boyfriend. Sarah had not yet decided what she wanted him to be, and he was strangely alright with it. He never overstepped any boundaries, and never pushed for a more committed relationship. He was always there when Sarah needed someone and never expected anything in return. He was exactly the opposite of what she knew she wanted, and only found that out after she started seeing him on the sole basis that he had blond hair and blue eyes.

It was a petty reason to date someone, she knew, but when she had first met Jared, she had just come to terms that the last thing she felt for The Goblin King was hatred. She was upset with herself for a while, but the more she got to know Jared, the more she realized she really did like him. And liking him turned into seeing him every day, and going out on dates with him, and eventually, finding comfort in his arms after one of her nightmares woke her up. She liked him well enough, in the end. Even if it was only as a temporary fix.

Turning around, Sarah found Jared sitting in her chair, spinning around lazily, his feet dragging on the ground. He came to a stop in front of her and held out his hand.

"Breakfast?" he asked, his fingers curled softly around a peach.

Sarah sighed and shook her head.

"You know I hate peaches." she said, reaching into her bag and retrieving the bagel she had packed to have with her morning coffee. Jared nodded.

"Right. Sorry. I can't understand why you hate them though." he said, biting into the soft fruit, a small line of juice spilling onto his chin.

"Eh, messy…" she said, finding a quick way out of that conversation. She wasn't quite sure how to tell someone that the last time she ate a peach, she went on a trip more severe than even the strongest of drugs and may or may not have developed feelings for a Fae king. Somehow, it just didn't seem to translate well into real life.

Hoping the events at the library that morning were the last of the reminders she would get of The Underground that day, she went about the rest of her day with an orderly conduct, getting all her work done early and heading over to the community theater across town. When she wasn't reading to children or ordering books for the library's stocks, Sarah spent her free time there, sewing costumes for whatever production they happened to be putting on that season, and devising ways to get the current director usurped so that she may have the job one day.

Upon entering, she found several boxes strewn about the stage, and the director, a woman by the name of Adelaide, who dressed like she lived in the 50's and collected red lipstick, fumbled through costumes, muttering something about codpieces. She looked up, a relieved smile playing across her face and made no delay in firing a string of questions at Sarah.

The fall play was Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream, which Sarah surprisingly approved of. She had always been a fan of Shakespeare, favoring Midsummer most of all. Before she had the chance to get too excited about the upcoming project though, her thought process came to a halt when she heard Adelaide use the words "I Wish…" and her brain fuzzed. A sense of panic settled in her stomach and when the lights started to flicker and Sarah found herself suddenly alone in the auditorium, her worst fears had been confirmed. She knew that five years of coincidence could not be just that. She knew there was a reason for all the owls, and glitter, and peaches for the last five years. She knew it wasn't random that she met a blond haired blue eyed man named Jared, whom she proceed to have relations with. When the lights flickered and a wind picked up out of the blue, her heart dropped.

He was coming for her.

Aaaah. This is my first fic in QUITE some time. Reviews and feedback are always accepted. I'll hopefully have this updated sooner rather than later :)

6-9-11. Fixed some ungodly grammatical errors. Should read a tad bit easier now.