This is my first fanfic. Please be gentle. I do own one Netflix membership that has almost ruined my life, but nothing to do with Labyrinth.

I expect this story to be pretty long, I have a good idea where I want it to go. That said, I hate when updates come few and far between in stories, and I will try to update often. I don't have a life so it shouldn't be hard. Please rate and review, I've never posted any of my writing publicly and I want to know what's good and bad about it. Thank you for reading!

The owl watches from the tree outside the window as his subjects dance and sing in merriment with the girl who has just defeated his Labyrinth and rejected him in one fell strike. He expects to feel fury and spite, and those are most certainly present within him, but mostly the emotion that is twisting his heart is jealousy. Pure and unadulterated jealousy. He wants her, fool that he is, and she prefers the company of these peasants rather than his own. As soon as he got back to the Underground, he would bog them all. His stomach turns to ice as he watches Sarah bend down to plant a kiss on the dwarf's cheek. Maybe that one he would drown in the bog. Perhaps he should storm into the room, he would love to see the dwarf cower in terror and Sarah's shocked face.

No, he would let them have tonight. She will call for him soon, he knows it. Sarah's heart is too entrenched in fantasy to be content in the Aboveground. As she matures, so will her concept of that fantasy. Once she has time to think on her time in the Labyrinth, she will see how generous he was to her. She will remember the feel of his hand in hers, the other on her waist as he sang to her. His breaths slow from furious panting to calm breathing as he thinks of the moment he will feel the pull of her words wishing herself to him. He turns his head from the scene in the window and takes flight again, heading for the Underground. He gathers his magic around him and prepares for the transition from one world to the next. He feels his body shift from owl to man as Jareth encounters cold earth under his feet.

He opens his eyes and sees only darkness.

Sarah Williams lay on the floor of her bedroom, staring intensely at the chessboard. There was no way she was losing twice in a row to Sir Didymus. The little knight sits back on his haunches with a smug smile on his face. He knows she has nowhere to go that wouldn't sacrifice her king. Hoggle lies on his stomach across Sarah's bed, resting his head in his hands and watching the game with Sarah's dog Merlin curled up next to him. Whenever Sarah made a move that Hoggle didn't think was wise, he would make a little panicked noise in his throat and attempt to warn her of the danger she was walking right into. At every one of these episodes, Didymus would say something along the lines of, "To help the lady cheat would be most dishonorable, Brother!" or "Lady Sarah must learn to see these consequences herself, or how will she ever improve her game?" and Hoggle would plop his head back down onto his hands with a huff and watch as Sarah moved her pieces into the war path. Ludo doesn't really understand how the game is played, so he spends his time looking at picture books and Sarah's polished rock collection.

After staring at the board for five minutes and willing it to give up the secret of how to win, Sarah finally accepts that she's been bested once again and reaches out to flick the king over. "You win, Didymus! But know this, I will be practicing until you guys visit again," she says with a mock-sinister expression.

"Does the lady mean that she doesn't want to play another round?"

Sarah laughs and reaches over to pull the fox's feathered cap down over his eyes. "I don't think so, Sir," she says, "I don't know if my pride could take much more." Hoggle guffaws as the knight tries to arrange his hat again, grumbling good-naturedly. Sarah joins Hoggle on the bed, laughing right along. She loves these nights. Every weekend when her father and stepmother would go to a party or a movie, Sarah would sit at her vanity and call to her three best friends in the world. They'd appear behind her in the mirror and smile at her with all the love they could give. Sarah would turn around and hug the beast, the dwarf, and the fox knight who had magically appeared there. Then they would spend hours just talking about what was going on in Sarah's life or playing games. Sarah never asks about the Labyrinth… or its king. Six months have passed since she wished Toby away to the goblins and six months have passed since she was first under the shadow of Jareth the Goblin King.

Ludo, seeing the game is over, makes his way from the bookshelf to the middle of the room next to Didymus and rocks his weight back to boom down onto the floor. The house shakes with the impact and the little knight's hat falls off again. Sarah just laughs harder and Hoggle exclaims, "Ya great beast, you don't have ta go breaking the house!" Ludo droops his head and groans, "Sowwy, Sawah."

Sarah looks at Hoggle in surprise. "Hoggle, it's alright. Ludo doesn't understand that the house isn't made from rocks."

Hoggle just huffs and says, "Well, he shouldn'ta been just falling down. He knows that this place is different from ours."

Sarah starts at his grumpy tone and looks closely at Hoggle for the first time that night, noticing the dark circles under his eyes and… does it look like he's lost a little weight? She peers at Ludo next and sees that under his thick orange fur, his frame has become slimmer. She can't tell if the fox had lost weight because of the stiff blouse he wears, but his eyes do seem a little less alert, his lids drooping slightly. Suddenly Sarah is struck with worry. She steels herself to ask the question that she knows she must ask.

"Hoggle, how are things Underground?"

Hoggle shoots up straight and sits back on his heels, eyes going wide and darting. He looks anywhere but at Sarah as he asks quickly, "Why, what have ya heard? I mean, uh, they're fine. Yup, just like they always was. Good old Underground, heh heh." He tries to play it off like he didn't just let her know that things are far from normal. One thing that made Sarah trust him from the first time she saw him outside of that labyrinth is that Hoggle is a terrible liar, especially to Sarah. She narrows her eyes and looks again from one friend to the other, all of them wearing the same panicked expression covered up by a shaky smile.

She leans forward and puts her hand on Hoggle's shoulder, saying, "Hoggle, I know that something's wrong. I can see that you're all stressed, even Ludo. Please, if you're my friend, you will tell me what's going on. Why are you so tired and thin?"

Hoggle gives another shaky chuckle. "Sarah, honest, I'm only tired cuz the fairies breed like mad. I can't hardly keep up! Ever since Jareth's been gone they've run wild—" Didymus gives a sharp gasp and Hoggle claps his hands over his mouth, his eyes wide.

Sarah's mouth drops open.

"…Gone?!" she gasps.