This is a disclaimer. The reason this is a disclaimer, is because the work, known as the Labyrinth, does not belong to me. This is fanfiction, people. Meaning that I do not own Jareth, Sarah, the Underground, or any of those delightful little wonders we love about this movie. Doesn't that bite. Labyrinth is a work of Jim Henson, may he rest in peace. (Though if he knew about those mangas, from what I've heard, he wouldn't be.) It is meant as a tribute to the original work, not a ripoff. I am making no money.

That being said, what's left of this fic, is mine.

-(break)-

A short epilogue, endings are tricky, that being said, this is the end. Enjoy! (I hope...)

-(break)-

Sarah sat there, her back pressed against the squat stone wall, her knees drawn up to her chest… Her head hung in an effort not to look at the others. For their part, they just sat around her in a protective semi-circle, quiet as anything, waiting for her to make up her mind. Even Blue, uncharacteristically still, and sedate, as she perched on Hoggle's knee… An unspoken truce between the two enemies, at least for the moment, for the sake of their mortal friend.

At last, she leaned back more, and sighed, looking skyward again… As if her answers were up there, in the unshaped sky-stuff of Jareth's unformed magic. No sun anymore, nothing resembling clouds… Just shimmering bands of what couldn't quite be called light, beckoning her, daring her, to try to look beyond them. Or at least hold her gaze, for more than a span of breaths.

She couldn't. It spun and teased at something deeper than her eyes, and after a moment, she shook her head, and turned away. It was hard to look at for long. It was forever, in a way she didn't know if she could ever get used to.

But it was beautiful.

Pursing her soft mouth, she tapped her fingers slowly along the top of her leg, considering nothing at all anymore. "It's not like I don't like the underground." She whispered suddenly, making everyone there pay sudden, sharp attention. "I love it. Even if Jareth does like making things…" A wave of her hand, leaving that unsaid. Then she fell silent for a moment, before noting, "I'm just trying to figure out what I'd be losing, if I stayed." Another pause, then, with a shake of her head, and a soft little whisper, "It's getting harder and harder to remember what those are, though."

Hoggle shifted, looking uncomfortable, and exchanged glanced with Sir Didymus… Or rather, he tried to exchange glances with Didymus, but the fox knight just looked confused, obviously missing what was being said here. "Um, Sarah…" The small man prompted, after a moment, "Not that I want to be the one to say so… But that could be Jareth's doing, you know." A wave of his hand, reluctantly. "Making you, forget, you know?"

Sarah smiled humorlessly, and shook her head, slowly. "No." She whispered, after an extended moment. "I don't think so, Hoggle." She lifted her gaze, and settled it on him, almost unsettling in their intensity. "Do you know what I've spent the last four years doing, Hoggle?" She prompted, very softly.

"Uh…" Hoggle just looked at her blankly, furrowing his brow, as if, somehow, he should know the answer, and was kind of ashamed that he didn't. "Uh, no." He admitted at last, looking up to her for the answer. "What?"

"For the last four years," She whispered, finding it just as hard to meet her friend's gaze, as stare at Jareth's sky, "I have imagined what it would have been like, if I never left." A pause, as she stretched her legs out in the dirty forest loam, and looked skyward again. "I have written… Maybe twenty stories, about the adventures we would have had. The fun, the challenges… the good and the bad…" A useless gesture of her arm, towards the impossible nothing she was currently staring at, as if it somehow signified him. "Jareth." As if that was a whole concept, just in and of itself.

Hoggle waited for her to say more… and she didn't. So he shifted, again, found himself considering the little faery on his knee, and wondered, himself, what it might have been like. Better than the last few years sitting in a swamp, he was sure…

"Oh." He said at last, because this was all that really could be said to a confession like this… The idea that, she regretted her decision to go home, so long ago. And the realization that she was faced with that choice again… And not sure if what she was saying was that she did want to stay, or that, if she left, it really was time to leave all this behind her for good. "So, what are you saying, Sarah?"

"I don't know." She denied, softly, pinching at her forehead, to try to ease the strain of staring at the impossible lights. "But I think…" And she fell silent, before she actually said what she thought, as if she wasn't quite ready to say it. "I think I need to go find Jareth." She said at last, pushing herself, clumsily, to her feet. "Before I don't have any choice at all, anymore."

"Oh, yes, okay." Hoggle swatted the blue faery gently off his knee, and pushed himself up as well, casting a glance back at Ludo and Didymus, who were doing the same. "Er… You know we're behind you Sarah," He went on, after a moment, "Whatever you decide to do."

Sarah smiled, fleetingly, but genuinely. "I know." And she leaned down to hug him, and before he could protest, kissed him soundly on the side of his head… And well, he didn't this time. Protest. He just sort of flushed, and smiled, looking embarrassed, and twiddled his thumbs.

Squaring herself, Sarah straightened up, and turned, gazing at the porthole in the stone with defiance in her eyes. "Come on." She said, matter-of-factly, "We don't want to keep the goblin king waiting."

"Indeed!" Sir Didymus agreed, emphatically, before Hoggle could interject with something snide, "One must never keep royalty waiting, Lady Sarah!"

Unable to resist a grin, Sarah mused on her 'choice of friends,' as the goblin king would have put it… Then considered the entranceway into the stone wall, that seemed to lead nowhere. She was not new enough to this game, mind, to believe it actually did. Still, no more than four feet in height, rounded, and edged with well worn wood, it didn't look particularly impressive… A bit like a hobbit hole, from those stories she'd read so enthusiastically, when she was little. She wondered if that was coincidence… Or indeed, in anything in the labyrinth ever was.

Lacking a doorknob, Sarah squatted, and reached out gingerly with her fingertips, giving the portal an exploratory push… And it swung open, easily, without a groan of protest.

Still ducked low, Sarah still had to drop her head to make it through the opening… And then she froze.

Goblins. Everywhere. Almost literally, covering every surface… Tabletops, steps, shelves, makeshift chairs, once expensive rugs… Loud as anything, joking, chatting, gossiping… Until they turned, as a one, and saw her. Then, everything grew very quiet. And they watched her, not moving.

Sarah moved slowly into the room…An enormous chamber, really, well aware that every eye was on her, and still unable to resist taking a quick look around, to try and absorb her surroundings. Walls of stone, old as time… Tapestries and tarnished trumpets, displayed along the wall. Juttings of wood at every possible angle, starting just above her head, and leading off, somewhere into impossibly high rafters, all but lost to sight above. Beams of caught sunlight, appearing randomly where they pleased, and piercing the gloom, fragments of dust, hung within. Everything waiting.

Hoggle, having appeared behind her, gave the chamber a more cursory examination, and rolled his eyes. "Here again." He muttered, dusting off his sleeves in something like disgust.

Sarah cast a brief look back again, before trying to refocus her eyes onto what looked like… things, moving about in the rafters above. "Where again, Hoggle?" She asked, warily, but entranced… As she always seemed to be, facing the goblin king's works.

"Why, the castle beyond the goblin city, of course!" Hoggle grunted, throwing his arms up in exasperation. "Don't know why we had to go through so much trouble to get here. It ain't like there ain't a hundred other ways to get here, that woulda been easier!"

She couldn't help it, she smirked, wondering if Hoggle even remembered how much trouble it had taken for her to get here the last time… And then reflecting, honestly, that it had taken much less time…

"So, where's…?" She started to say, noting now, the conspicuous emptiness of the ornate chair in the middle of the room, the only one not occupied by goblins of some shape and size… Only to be interrupted as every creature there interrupted in a cheer, many throwing garbage about their heads in lieu of confetti, and really, all in all, setting up an alarming din. "Hold on, I need to know… Stop that, I'm trying to ask you…!"

"Would you all be quiet!" She shouted at last, frustrated with their endless cheering… Only to have them, to a one, fall absolutely silent. After a moment, one or two giggled, nervously, but didn't offer any more. "Thank you." Sarah said primly, forcing her nerves to calm, at least a little. "Now will one of you…" She cut in quickly again, as several heads perked up at once, "One of you," She stressed again, "Kindly tell me which way Jareth went?" A pause. "You know, the goblin king?"

As one, over fifty hands lifted, and pointed to a door just off behind them, which she was almost certain hadn't been there before. Sarah took a deep breath, and nodded. There. That had been relatively painless. "Thank you." She murmured, with as much dignity as she could muster… Then boldly walked through the formerly milling throng, keeping her skirts tightly pressed to her side, in case a daring imp should decide to peek under them… Well, she wouldn't put it past them. They were goblins, after all.

But they parted, on either side, like sheaves of wheat… Watching, with wide, excited eyes. Shifting nervously as she passed… Nudging, and whispering, and winking.

When Sarah had reached the door, they closed in behind her, not letting her friends follow… Not that they had tried. She looked back at them for a moment in puzzlement, expecting them to protest… Only for Hoggle to meet her gaze, grimly. "You said, the last time, that this is the way it's done, Sarah." He said at last, somewhat quietly.

"That is right, Lady Sarah!" Didymus agreed, giving her a strained smile. "And if this is the way it is done, this is the way it is done, yes?" Ludo, for his part, just watched her sadly… This was the way they'd said goodbye before, after all, without ever really saying goodbye… And from the regret in his gaze, she could see that he didn't expect things to go any differently this time.

"Right…" Sarah whispered, wishing she could change the rules now, this late in the game, "That's the way it's done." She continued staring at them for a moment, then forced her gaze away and considered the door before her. There was no telling what waited on the other side… This was Jareth's game to play, and he never made his games easy.

Again, the push against the door, and open it swung… And Sarah stepped through. A brief moment of dizziness grasped her, and her head spun, and she was forced to drop to her knees, and steady her head between her hands, until the lurching stopped. The funny thing was that it was familiar… But in a way that felt like she just wasn't used to anymore.

When the lurching stopped, but the sense of dizziness didn't, she looked up… and up… and found herself staring at the floor, some distance below. Winding stairs, impossible openings… Familiar, yes.

The Escher Room. Jareth had rebuilt it. Why?

Turning to look from side to side, it took her a moment to locate the missing goblin king… But then she saw him, standing on the balcony, beside a portal that led… Who knew where? Her head spun again, making her shake it… Then cleared. Jareth turned, and regarded her, emotionlessly. Slouched against the railing, legs crossed as they stretched behind him… Clad all in white, with bold black stripes across the vest, and feathers running down the length of his arms, and cresting his collar with long, swaying plumes. He didn't say a word.

Sarah turned her gaze around the room again, getting a sense of her bearings a little better this time… Or as well as could be expected, considering where she was. Pressing her lips into a thin line, she didn't say a word to the goblin king… Yet. Instead, she chose a staircase, and started climbing.

It was futile, really… If Jareth wanted to, he could keep her going from door to door, and stair to stair, with no effort at all. Until her time was up. Last time, she'd been desperate, and jumped… And instead of letting her fall to her death, he'd destroyed the room that would have bound her to its reality.

This time, she wanted to win fairly… For however little 'fair' meant to the goblin king.

Quickly finding herself further away than when she'd started, she gamely chose another staircase, then another, then another… Then got fed up, finding herself hanging directly over the goblin king's head… Either that, or he was hanging directly over her head. "Jareth!" She sighed, crossing her arms impatiently. "I don't have time for this!"

"Then by all mean, Sarah… Say what you're going to say." He didn't look up at the girl, not five feet above his head, seeming to reflect, instead, on his rebuilt impossibility. "I've let you get far closer than I ever intended to, so many years ago… And you're right. You are running out of time."

Sarah shook her head, feeling somehow like the blood was rushing to it, even though she was the one standing right side up… At least from her perspective. "I've made my decision." She said softly, running both hands through her hand, fingers twining through the supple strands, as she regarded him, hanging there. "Don't you want to know what it is?"

Silence, for a moment. Then, "Do you want me to want to know what it is?" He taunted softly, still more lost in his own thoughts, than listening to anything she was saying. Then, before she could answer, "Of course I want to know, precious. Do you suppose I've been standing here for the last two hours waiting for anything else?"

Two hours? Her grasp of time really was getting sketchy. Sarah pursed her lips, frowning a little. "Come down here, where I can see you."

"You can't see me from where you are?" He murmured right back, only to sigh, and draw away from the balcony, straightening smoothly. "Very well, precious. Once more, I do myself to live up to your expectations, it seems." He turned, disappeared into the doorway…

And reappeared a moment later by her side, appearing through the door she'd just walked through herself. So she was right, his magic was the only rule here… "And what, Sarah," He mused, coming to a stop just before her, as she turned to face him again, "Is your decision?"

Sarah's eyes, for a moment, flicked away. She faltered. She'd made her decision, she knew what it was, she knew it was right and she didn't intend to change her mind now… She turned her gaze back to him. "No one can keep from growing up, Jareth." She whispered, finding it, oddly difficult, to hold his gaze. "No matter how much we want to."

The goblin king's lips thinned. "I suppose so, precious." He agreed, clearly not pleased. He took a long, distancing step back. "That's your decision then, is it?"

"You didn't let me finish." Sarah denied, reclaiming that step he'd surrendered, and growing, stronger now, as she built up momentum. "No one can keep from growing up… But I refuse to believe that growing up means we have to let go of our dreams. Forget the things we loved, the people. I won't believe it." A pause, as the goblin king was now watching her very closely. "I think," She whispered slowly, "Maybe growing up, means learning which dreams are worth holding on to. Which parts of what we loved, are worth believing in, no matter how much we grow."

Jareth regarded her without emotion, still… But his eyes, for the first time, looked interested. Curious. "So what are you saying, exactly, precious?" He whispered, not breaking her gaze for an instant.

"I guess, what I'm saying…" She shook her head, looked, hopelessly lost for an instant, and still as strong as he'd ever seen her. "Jareth, if I left, again, I'd never forgive myself." She smiled, helplessly, and shook her head. "The Underground is too much a part of me to let go." Then, softly, "You're, too much a part of me, to let go. Jareth."

He tilted his head, watching her, a trace of his former smirk, his misplaced amused pride, showing there again. "Put it simply, Sarah. Now. While you still have the chance."

Sarah nodded, slowly, her jaw firmed. "Goblin king… I want to stay." A pause, a small smile. "I know there'll be things I miss, people… But this world means too much to me. I want to stay. Even if it means forever."

"Forever's not that long, Sarah." Jareth whispered, reaching out, and brushing a strand of hair from her cheek. "Take it from someone who's had to recently get used to the idea himself."

Smirking, flushing, Sarah pushed his hand away. "Just don't think that anything's changed, goblin king." She warned him, a little subdued, as already, she questioned her decision, but refused to take it back. It was right, she knew it was right… She knew she would be happy.

"Jareth." He corrected her easily, his lips pulled into a smirk. "And I wouldn't dream of it, Sarah." A pause, before he added, a bit condescendingly, "Not yet, anyway. You still have far too much to learn about your new home…"

She just smiled, hiking up her skirts, and turning to run back the way she came… Only to remember that she actually was hopelessly lost. She paused, frustrated, and turned back to him. "I have to tell everyone," She pressed, impatient with him again already, "How do I get back out?"

"And that, Sarah," He chuckled softly, reaching out, and turning her, physically, "Is precisely what I mean." He pointed to, again, a door that hadn't been there before. "Go. Your friends are waiting." He smirked. "Have fun."

Sarah shot him a smile, and ran towards the door… He watched her go, leaving it open behind her, and wanted to laugh when the cheers went up at her reappearance, and flakes of confetti drifted through the open doorway. He was grinning, widely, as he set it to close with a flick of his fingers.

She'd made her choice… She'd even made the right choice. All the easier for him, since her allotted time had ended almost an hour before. He'd wanted it to be her choice, and now it was. Sarah belonged to the Underground. And the Underground, would always belong to him.

And the goblin king? He could bide his time… There was all the time in the world. Maybe more. The point was, this time, she wasn't leaving…

-(break)-