Toby is starting to panic a little.

He isn't a magical creature, but his time here when he was a baby affected him. Jareth nurtured the gift into a talent, a skill, but if he can't focus - curling shadows, growling, heart in his ears, and twisting guilt, breathless doubt - if the entire world is against him, then he doesn't stand a chance.

She's changed the path, twisted and turned them around. Even Hoggle is confused. At the very beginning, looking for a wall that isn't a wall; it's really the simplest part of the run. Usually. Hoggle mumbles about his aching feet, foppish kings, and insolent mazes. The rest trail him, hands on the walls, eyes watchful.

Toby screams like a little girl in so many minutes when he is tackled around the middle. It's a brief cry because the air rushes out in a squeak when his back hits the ground. His head cracks against the ground, and there's a weight on his chest, and someone is shaking him like a rag doll.

"Give me my sister, give me my sister, give her back!" A voice shrieks, probably at him.

Ow, ow, ow, ow, Toby thinks. Oh, look, we found Emma.

Almost reluctantly, Jason pulls the flailing girl off Toby, and he takes back everything bad he thought about the other boy.

"If everyone would stop attacking me, that'd be great," Toby mutters as he picks himself up out of the dirt, swaying a little.

"You took my sister!" Emma is trying her best to wrestle out of Jason's grip. She comes close when an elbow catches him in the gut, but he grunts and shifts his hold.

Toby talks quickly. "I know, I'm sorry, and I'm trying to fix it. Do you want to help me fix it?"

Emma stills, wisps of blonde hair loose from their braid and around her head. She's older than Alice, maybe fourteen, but she looks even more upset than her, more panicked.

"I didn't mean it. I - I really do want her back, please. I don't have anyone else."

"Okay," Toby says, head throbbing. He touches the back of his head, a little surprised that he's not bleeding. "We'll get her back." He looks at the others. "We're going to get everyone back. Let's go."

Jason sets her down and backs off. Alice steps up and offers her hand. Emma takes it like a lifeline, biting back tears.

"Everything's gonna be fine. He knows that he's an idiot, and he's really sorry about it," Alice tells her.

"Yeah," Jason agrees, "And if everything isn't fine, I'll hold him, you punch."

Emma stares at them all with water-bright blue eyes. Toby straightens up under the scrutiny because Emma might actually be the prettiest girl he's ever seen, even if she probably just gave him a concussion.

"Okay," Emma finally says.

"Can we go now?" Hoggle asks, gesturing onward.

They go.

One needs to understand something about the Labyrinth in order to control it properly. Several things, really, but two are the most important. It, in an anthropomorphic, gender-specific sort of way, is a she. And once that is made plain, things become at once simpler and levels more complex.

Women are mad things, made up of impulse and emotion, logic all their own, and willfulness. The thing that made the Labyrinth lives and breathes and recognizes itself as she is more so. It is more everything.

The other fact is that though the Labyrinth is countless ages old, she is very much a brat who would prefer to get her way. She would prefer to have no king to rule or guide her, stretch out her influence and power Above and bring the whole world down to her level. Goblins and Wished-Aways are well and good, Jareth is her Heart and King, Sarah her Champion, but variety is the spice of life.

Someone who is weak, someone who cowers, someone who doesn't know their own strength - that one hasn't a chance of commanding her.

Jareth is neither weak or cowering, fully aware of every bit of his power. But Toby, sweet and young and so stupid...

Emma helps them find the way out. She'd found her way out before on her own but the Labyrinth dropped her back there when she chose wrong at the Oubliette. But of course, things can't remain easy.

The five of them emerge into a field of rippling gold. Stalks of wheat bow in an unending wind, the sound like a flock of birds in flight. It stretches as far as Toby can see in all directions. The sky isn't really sky since they are Underground, but a mass of condensation and fog. Toby has always called it the ceiling, and Jareth would grin and say, "Just so." The orange light is impossibly bright, making his eyes water a bit. What he sees are no trees, no hills, he can barely tell the ceiling from the floor as the field stretches endlessly before them.

He's never seen this place before.

"Are we still in the Labyrinth?" Emma asks.

Toby tosses a questioning look to Hoggle. The troll shrugs.

"Yes," Toby says. Because he's eighty-five percent sure that they are. "But I've never been here before."

"Useless," Jason mutters loud enough to be heard.

Toby would be offended if it wasn't actually really true. He hasn't done much of anything since he's been tossed in here. He supposes he saved Alice, but they are all still trapped in here. His head aches, and he doesn't defend himself.

"It's okay. Let's just go back and try a...a different..." Alice turns, stuttering to a stop.

Everyone else turns around, except Toby. He doesn't want to see. He knows it's bad, but he doesn't want to look. Jason swears loudly, and Toby's ears burn. He turns to look. The gray stone, ages and ages old and worn smooth by searching hands and immovable, is gone. It's only the field all around them.

"Huh. Any ideas?" Toby asks. "I'm totally open to any and all ideas here."

"Oh, I got a few," Jason snarls at him, hands tightening into fists.

"Is the wind picking up?" Emma asks, nervous.

It is. The wind bends the tall stalks fully in half. Everyone braces low to keep from toppling over. Toby's coat wraps around his legs, dirt whipping into his eyes.

"Look!" Alice yells.

There are no actual clouds Underground because, technically there's no sky. Despite the technicality, a funnel spins down from sick, gray haze. It curls with frightening grace down to touch the ground. It runs along the earth, parallel to them and miles away. From this distance, it's a beautiful sight. Terrifying and awesome.

Until it turns on the spot, veering straight for them.

"No freaking way," Jason says, shaking his head.

But it is. Of course it is.

Jason doesn't need to be told, already running and pulling Alice with him. Emma and Hoggle hurry after them, but Toby stands still. His head hurts, and he is so tired of running. His lips twist into an adolescent scowl, one-third of it a pout.

"Stop it."

The others weren't going to make it. It was just playing with them and would snatch them up, one by one or all at once. It didn't matter. The Labyrinth was going to win.

Somehow, he never realized the true nature of this place. Beautiful and wild and deadly. Without Jareth to reign over the Labyrinth, to coddle and scold, it does as it likes. The Labyrinth isn't human. It isn't fair. It's a brat and a bully, operating on a give-and-take basis. It will take and take and take everything it can get away with and give nothing back.

Toby doesn't understand any of this, not as he should. He doesn't truly grasp the power he has, not since his time there as a baby or everything Jareth's exposed him to since. What he does know is that he is sick of running, they don't have time for doubt, and he is the only one with a hope of stopping this. In that moment, he knows everything necessary.

"I said stop!" Toby yells, loud and furious, petulant and demanding.

The twister, steadily bearing down on him, hesitates. They face off, the ill-temper of a place made sentient and an irritated, concussed child. The twister spins, trying to drag him in, but Toby refuses to back down or be moved, even though his eyes water from the tempest. He's made up his mind to absolutely not lose here. He will not blink first.

Jareth gave him this kingdom, if only for a little while, but the realm has a will all its own. And Toby has decided, finally, here and now - I rule. His will is magnified by the Pendant, his doubts falling away. Nothing, not even an entire sentient Eldritch realm, is going to change his mind now.

Toby raises his hand and brushes it through the air, like shooing a gnat. The twister vanishes, wind dying on a gasp. He feels an argument coming, a But forming on a tongue.

"No." He uses the same flat tone Sarah uses on Jareth in the midst of one of his fits. "Just no, we're so done."

He snaps his fingers, and the twisters breaks apart into a soft breeze. A wave of the hand summons the clocks.

"All clocks stop." Before him in midair, each Runners' clock freezes. Jason only has minutes. "I call foul on the play. All Runs don't count, and everybody goes home."

That isn't the proper way, he knows but doesn't care to remember courtly words and phrases.

Well, well, he can almost hear. Look at you. A sassy grin and exasperated amusement. About time.

For a moment, Toby feels a thrill of victory. The Labyrinth is a tingle and a brush of displaced air, different than before, smoother. Everything goes black in a blink, all of his senses sucked into a vacuum. There is dark in his eyes, stopping up his ears and nose, dull nothing on his skin and tongue.

Yet oddly, he thinks he smells coconut.

His hearing returns first, the thump-thump-thump of his own heart like thunder.

And the walls of the throne room surround them, and Toby all but melts onto the floor in gratitude and bone-shaking relief. Then someone shrieks, and he jerks unsteady back up to his feet just to see a small, redhead barrel into Emma's stomach, and they both fall over.

That's their cue apparently.

The Runners rush the pillow pit. Jason punts one goblin out of his way, and the others scurry to avoid the same fate. He snatches up two little boys in fierce hugs, and the scene repeats all around the room. The goblins swarm away from the Runners because a Runner in the Throne Room is usually Not Good.

Hoggle avoids the crush entirely by sprawling in the Throne, mumbling to himself.

"That was exhausting. Haven't been this tired since - since the Great Waffle War. Now those were exhausting times, I'll tell you. Tired indeed."

No one listens, too busy reuniting with siblings or in Toby's case, wondering how exactly he's going to get them all home properly since he still doesn't trust the Labyrinth or himself not to botch it; or if he's going to have to arrange for rooms for everyone.

Do we have a linen closet? He wonders.

No, dear boy, but we've a linen hall, the feminine, not-his voice assures him.

Now she's nice. After all that, she decides to be accommodating. Toby did not understand the Labyrinth at all.

... stop being in my head right now please.

A sly giggle and then it's just his own thoughts, and he hopes this doesn't become a thing.

"My, oh my, my, my. You have been busy, haven't you?"

Everyone freezes, except Hoggle who violently throws himself off the Throne. Toby looks to see the Goblin King in his full regalia, all six feet and flyaway hair and imperious air, staring down his nose at them all. He has always just been Jareth to Toby. But he realizes that the Goblin King, with his ways and otherness, is intimidating. And the King knows it, the jerk, and he's doing it on purpose.

He thinks this is funny. Toby can tell from the smirk. All of them exhausted and terrified, ragged, and dirty. His head aches and a few other places are going to bruise beautifully. Also, he has an issue with the timing, him showing up after it's all said and done. Where was he an hour ago, somewhere watching and laughing? He won, he saved the day on his own, and his brother shows up just now to have a laugh.

It quite suddenly infuriates him.

The Labyrinth greets him like a cat, peering eyes and a hiss only to twine her way around his feet and scratch his boots. She's pleased he's back, and he had better not leave like this again.

The rude young man who found them (and unknowingly, secretly won Jareth's eternal gratitude) all but runs to a little boy with big ears who squeals when he picks him up. Adorable child, all dark eyes and hair. He glances at Sarah at his side, all dark hair and eyes.

"Where. Have you. Been?" Toby bites out, stomping up to them.

The boy is in a huff, face red and furious and so much like his sister. He can't help ruffling his hair a little. As he does, he feels all the wrong bits in Toby, the bruises and bumps,and soothes them. Toby notices, but it only appears to make him more angry.

Jareth grins, rapier sharp.

"Well, we were enjoying a lovely visit and having tea with Mother when this rascal shows up."

"Look, I've had a really long night. I found you so I want my brother back, and I wanna go home now if you're done with this little tea party."

"What with matters of the state to tend to, Mother gave us her leave."

"Lazy boy. You've been hiding here to avoid running your kingdom. Worse than your great idiot of a father. Get out then."

"And we rushed back as soon as we could."

"I desperately want a latte. Anything for you, precious?"

Sarah gave her husband a look and took a sip of her coffee.

"Anyway," she drawled, "Nothing is on fire, the place is intact, and the chickens haven't dethroned you. Good job, Toby."

"Yes, indeed, a good job. You'd make a fine Goblin King, I'm sure."

Toby scowls at him, and Jareth is surprised at the viciousness he feels behind it. He glances at Sarah who's already fussing over the Runners and Wished Aways and Herbert-or-whatever the troll. She misses it completely.

"Well, you must be ready to get home. Shall I send you off then see to these -"

"No," Toby cuts him off.

Jareth blinks. Toby never interrupts him. Toby listens to every word that falls from his mouth, even when he wishes didn't because everything he says shouldn't be repeated in front of his wife.

"You're going to send them back first," Toby says.

"As I understand it, you cheated." The Labyrinth has been whispering details of the Runs. Jareth doesn't even look at the Runners. He can feel the fear and hostility.

"She cheated first." Toby offers him a crystal, without a bit of flair. Jareth frowns at that, knowing how proud his baby brother-in-law is of his skills. He takes it, looks, and sees everything in a single moment.

He gapes a little.

"She loosed the clowns!? We never loose the clowns, you know that!" He scolds, puffing up with indignation and a dark cloud of displeasure around him.

He gets the impression of rolled eyes and I never get to do anything fun.

"Put them back," he commands and knows that he is being obeyed. He turns his back to Toby and looks over at his wife, who is surrounded by children with goblins looming curiously nearby. She's holding a sweet little brunette with her elder sister, the Runner, watching her closely. There's a dark boy who sits in the middle but away from everyone with twins held firmly in his lap; his lip is bleeding. The blond boy - A-something- is being crawled over by the big eared child. Two sisters, one blonde enough to rival him, the other red haired, cry over each other noisily.

Jareth eyes Toby who is only Sarah's half brother, but he had the same angry, stubborn tilt about him.

"You want me them all put back?"

"Yes."

"Suppose I don't," he says, shrugging away the starry twilight shroud about his shoulders. "Suppose I start this over, and we run this properly."

The dark one, Jason the Labyrinth tells him, has been watching him, and he fairly curls around his siblings. Jareth expects some childish reaction from Toby. He expects him to stomp his foot and whine about the unfairness of it all. He expects him to threaten to tell Sarah.

"We will do no such thing. We made a promise. We will send them back."

Jareth is again surprised that Toby remembers his lessons on the importance of words and promises and the concept of the 'royal We'. The entirety of his kingdom rests on his words and decrees, and an oath by one who sits on the Throne and wears the Pendant holds power.

"Not honoring that kind of promise would be unwise." Though annoyed, Jareth agrees easily and snaps his fingers.

The Runners and Wished-Aways vanish, only a layer of sparkling dust to leave a trace. Sarah splutters in the middle of it. Jareth, pleased with himself, expects maybe a little gratitude or a show of admiration from Toby, for he is generous and wonderful.

But all he says is, "I want to go home now. To Friday night."

He blinks owlishly. "I realize you've had a rough time of it, Toby, but you needn't rush off. You're welcome to stay in your room here, and -"

Toby interrupts him again, and Jareth begins to hate it.

"Thanks, but I'd rather just go home."

Jareth glares at him. Toby doesn't fidget, or look even the slightest bit intimidated or unsure. He meets the look with a scowl of his own.

"As you wish."

Toby blinks.

He opens his eyes and finds himself standing in his bathroom, toothbrush in hand. He's not sure if he's brushed them all ready and runs his tongue over his teeth. Clean.

He puts it away and shuffles into his room, feeling every day he's lived in the past few minutes. He wonders for a moment of the consequences to living in two worlds that don't follow the same rules of time, but dismisses it. He's only twelve, and his head is clear enough to know it's nothing worth thinking about.

He's already in his pajamas and falls into bed, sighing.

Tomorrow, he thinks, I'll hang out with my friends. We'll play video games, and baseball with only four bases and a real ball, and no goblins or chickens. The sky will be blue, the sunshine yellow and warm.

He falls asleep and, gratefully, does not dream.

Jareth scowls at the spot where Toby disappeared. Sarah bumps his side, and he reaches out for her hand. The way her fingers curl around his is familiar and, for that reason, comforting.

"What's got you in a mood?"

"He's growing up."

"Yeah, he is," She says it so fondly, so...nostalgic. Like he's already gone and done it, the terrible brat. Like he had the right. "How cute is that?"

She's happy about it. He can't fathom how human she is at times.

Jareth hates it. His realm rarely changes, and he likes it that way. The last change were the drapes in the third great room on the fifth floor in the west wing, and that's only because moths had eaten them to tatters; they didn't really go in the west wing very much.

He doesn't like the idea of Toby changing, growing up, moving on. He hates the idea.

Loathes it. Abhors it and the fact that it's going to be staring him in the face even more much sooner. Toby is almost thirteen after all, and that isn't just an arbitrary number he pulled from the ether.

Toby's childhood is ending. He won't need Jareth. He'll become an adult with responsibility and priorities and no time for this place. And Jareth will still think of his running and sliding down the halls in his socks, and eating too many sweets, and playing pirates, and his delight at the simplest displays of magic.

Little Toby, all grown up...

What a horrible thought.

"Jareth?"

Sarah is looking at him, and he's so glad that the Magic that keeps him as he is will keep her the same. He will not see her age and fade before him, before she should. Not without him. He reaches for her, and she comes to him, leans into his embrace, and he is so relieved to have her there.

"What's wrong?"

He pulls back enough so he can see her face, the love and concern, and worry and fear for him (better than fear of him, he will admit to himself).

"Precious. Sarah...I want a baby."

"What!?"

"A girl would be preferable."

A/N

Somewhere (probably during the years in which I tried to figure out that climax), this developed a deeper plot from 'Jareth is irresponsible and thoughtless' to 'Toby grows up a little and it breaks Jareth's heart a little.'

Grow up and away.

This is irrelevant, but the Time Lord is a reference to Doctor Who which I can't commit to because every other episode I try to watch (Waters of Mars, the specials, Amy and beautiful Rory ow my heart why) makes me wanna cry, and I can't. Although I've almost convinced myself that Jareth is quarter Gallifreyan…

Finally done.