Author's Note: "Falling" is based on the film alone; I have never read the novel. It does, therefore, break from the canon that appears to have been established (in some respects, I guess) in fanfiction: Sarah's parents (well, father and stepmother) have different names than normally used. No, I am not going to change it. I just thought I'd let you know.

Checked for spelling, grammar, and continuity: April 12, 2011. ... Yes, this means a new chapter is in the works...

Cheers, and enjoy the story.

"Falling"

Chapter One: The Morning After

Sarah sat straight up in bed, blearily looking around her room. Was it... It couldn't have... She saw nothing out of place; nothing had changed from the way it always looked. Weird. She glanced at the clock on her nightstand and glared at the red numbers reading '4:57'. Sighing heavily, she flipped over and buried her head under her pillow. Try as she might, she could not get back to sleep. As the sound of birds chirping made her unable to ignore the new day, she contemplated what that strange dream could possibly have meant.

"Sarah! Breakfast is ready!" Her father's voiced echoed up the stairs. With a groan, Sarah peeked at the clock again. 9:03. Wondering how the hours could have slid by so quickly, she suddenly realized that for getting so little sleep, she felt oddly refreshed. She noticed she was still wearing her clothes from the day before. Hopping out of bed, she quickly changed before galloping down to the kitchen.

"Good morning!" she said to her parents as she came into the kitchen before skidding to a halt by Toby's high chair. "Morning, squirt." Sarah ruffled his hair as she plunked down gracelessly in her chair.

She didn't miss the looks her father and stepmother exchanged. "What?" she asked them both as she helped herself to some toast. "Did you have a nice evening last night?"

There was a loud thump on the front door, signifying the morning paper had arrived courtesy of the paperboy with impeccable aim. He always ignored the fact that there was a paper box next to the mailbox, but no one complained since he never broke any windows. "Someone is perky today," said Lewis as he left the kitchen to get the paper. "Good morning is one thing. But 'squirt'? Rather cordial compared to the usual 'brat'." He added over his shoulder.

"Yeah, well..." Sarah trailed off. As the kitchen door swung shut, she turned to her stepmother. "Um, Alison... I um... uh..."

Alison sighed as she sat down at the table. I am not up to another battle this early in the morning. "What is it, Sarah?"

Sarah looked down at her plate, pushing her toast around with her knife. "I just wanted to um... to say that... well, I'm sorry."

Alison froze, her coffee cup halfway to her mouth. "Sorry? For what?"

"Well, for, you know, not really being very, um... understanding and, well, nice and... stuff." She put her knife down and put her hands in her lap, twisting them under the table. "I'll try to be better."

Lewis silently opened the door to the kitchen and met his wife's eyes over his daughter's head. He gave her a questioning look. She shrugged in return. "What brought this on, Sarah?"

She shrugged. "I dunno. I just had this really weird dream last night. And..." Toby threw his spoon on the ground and she bent down to retrieve it. "Well, it's hard to explain."

Lewis sat down, setting the unopened paper on the corner or the table and looked at her. "Just try, honey."

Sarah sighed, looked back and forth at her parents who were looking back at her patiently, and then sighed again. "Ok then. After you left, I just threw myself on my bed. I must have been really tired because I fell asleep dressed. Anyway, in my dream, I could hear Toby crying a little through the door and when I looked at my wall, I saw that Lancelot was gone from his spot in my shelves. So I stormed out of my room..." She told the rest of her dream, how she wished Toby away. She told of the Goblin King who came and made her go through the Labyrinth, of all the strange friends she made on the way, how the whole world was everything she ever imagined, and how it all fell apart at the end. She told them how at the end, when she had come back, all her new friends came to her room for a party. "When they finally left, I cleaned my room and went to bed in my dream. The next thing I know, I am sitting in my bed, looking at the clock, and it is almost five."

Her parents were looking at her blankly. "I know it sounds like those games of pretend I always play, but it felt so real. Maybe because I always thought of it so much, I don't know. It was kind of exciting, but it scared me too. And when I woke up this morning, and it was all how it was last night before you left. I know it was just a dream..." She shrugged again as she ate her last bite of eggs. "Anyway, after I woke up I couldn't go back to sleep. I started thinking about what had happened in my dream, and how I acted in it, and how, in the end, I was taught a lesson. I guess it made me realize that I've been the brat, not Toby. So I thought that maybe I should apologize. I know it sounds really stupid, all because of a dream, but -"

"No, not stupid, Sarah." Alison cut her off. A bit strange, but if this is what it takes for us to finally get along as a family... "Strange maybe, but not stupid." She reached across the table and stroked Sarah's hand, in a spontaneous motherly gesture that surprised them both. "Why don't you take Toby upstairs and get him cleaned up?" she said with a small smile.

Sarah took that to mean: 'Go upstairs, your father and I need to talk.' But somehow, it did not have the malicious bite that she always associated with it before. She smiled back and nodded. "Come on, Toby."

After she washed his hands and face, she took him to her room and put him on her bed. "Do you want to play with one of my toys?"

"Ah!" he said, pointing at the one with the gangly legs.

Like those Fireys in my dream. "Okie dokie." She put it, and a few others, on the bed in front of Toby, then sat down at her vanity, watching him in the reflection. "Just a dream." With an odd sense of deja vu, she pulled down some of the pictures of her mother from around her vanity mirror. "What was that line from that movie, Toby? The quote from the Bible that the one computer geek said to the other two who were arguing?" He gurgled in response and she grinned. "No, that wasn't it. Something like, 'When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things'. What do you think, Toby? Should probably take that advice, huh? Behave more like a grown up?" He held out a stuffed fox dressed like a knight, then laughed and hugged it closed. Sarah grinned at him again. She picked up her music box with the dancer inside. While looking at it, her other hand rested on her tattered copy of The Labyrinth. Holding both the book and the music box in one hand, she traced one finger gently over the embossed lettering. "Only I'm not quite ready to be a grown up yet, Toby. I still want to be a little girl." Her gaze fell on an oddly familiar ceramic statue. I still want to believe it is all real.

"You don't have to be a grown up just yet, Sarah," came her father's voice from the doorway. Sarah looked up at him. He had one hand on the door frame and coughed awkwardly. "You're only fourteen. Maybe Allison and I have put too much pressure on you to do things our way all the time rather than hearing you out," he said as he walked in the room and gently took the music box out of her hands. Not knowing quite what to say or do, he wound it up. It began to softly play the lullaby that now had words of a romantic ballad being sung in Sarah's mind. "I don't want you to think you have to grow up quickly just because you had a dream that said you should. Let growing up take its time, slowly." He stroked her hair and she looked at him with a sad expression on her face. "But no matter what, you'll always be my little girl, Sarah."

Sarah threw herself out of her chair and into her father's arms as she started to cry silent, gut-wrenching sobs.

He had initially picked up the crystal because he was intrigued by this mere slip of a girl who the audacity to defy him. And dared to defeat him. Now, as Jareth watched the girl sob in her father's arms, he found himself unable to look away, horrified that he was the cause of such deeply felt anguish.

Words, powerful and haunting words, echoed through his mind: "I know it was just a dream... But when I became a man, I must put away childish things... You're only fourteen... No matter what, you'll always be my little girl, Sarah... When I became a man... Put away childish... It was just a dream... You'll always be my little girl... It was just a dream... But it felt so real... Only fourteen... When I became a man..."

His kind had often before played their games at the expense of Mortals without much of a second thought. The memory of events played out in truth was reduced to events of a dream in the minds of the Mortal participants. Sometimes it was all for fun, other times there were lessons to be learned. He had played the games himself, though admittedly never to such a highly involved extent. Certainly never leaving this sort of reaction behind. "What have I done?" he whispered to the image at his fingertips.

"Your Majesty!" The urgent voice of a Goblin pulled him back to the present.

Jareth sighed. "Yes?"

"We've rounded up most of the big rocks and put them in the Square. But now we can't get them out of the city, and..."

As the Goblin went on about the attempts at repairs, Jareth cast a final look at the crystal in his hand before covering it with the other and letting it fade away. "Put away childish things," he muttered, closing his eyes.

The Goblin stopped, confused. "Er, Your Majesty? What should we put away?"

Jareth smiled and shook his head. "Nothing. I was merely thinking aloud. Now, about those repairs," he paused and looked down at the Goblin who was waiting eagerly at his feet. "Sorry, what was your name again?"

"Squeaker, Your Majesty." He answered with a quick bow.

"Yes, Squeaker, about those repairs. I think it would be best if I go down with you and see what exactly the damage is, then we consider a plan, hm?" Jareth rose and strode toward the door.

Rousing himself out of his minor state of shock, the Goblin hurried after the Goblin King. "Yes, yes of course, Your Majesty!" He continued to hurry until he had passed Jareth and had disappeared down the corridor.

Jareth chuckled to himself before sobering as he was trailing behind one of his few truly loyal subjects. "Perhaps it is time to amend that number," he said aloud, "among other things." He took a deep breath and continued down the passage, putting lingering thoughts of a small, dark haired girl with sorrow filled eyes that tore at his soul into a safe, secret place in his mind.