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Return To The Labyrinth	By : Wolverinegal Category: 1 through F > Doctor Who Views: 2082 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or Labyrinth and I am making no money off them.

Chapter List
- 1-Chapter 1 - It Started In The TARDIS Library
- 1
There was sand everywhere… in his shoes, in his hair, in his ears… not to mention the sand which had gotten into his pockets. Pockets which were larger on the inside were nice… but that meant that latterly tons of sand could find their way inside. The Doctor groaned at the thought… at least he could probably use all that sand to create a nice desert in one of the TARDIS’ extra rooms.

He’d stripped out of the clothing as fast as he could, washed until he was sure every little bit of sand had been swept away (as well as the top layer of his skin) and changed into the first thing he’d found in the little closet the TARIDS had created in his room… which for some reason ended up being blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt. It was strange, each of the Doctor’s regenerations had a sort of “set” of clothing that they wore… wearing clothing outside that set was odd. The Doctor didn’t feel like himself… as if he’d gone through a sort of mini-regeneration.

After he was clean and dressed in his new sand free clothing, the Doctor found himself wandering through the halls and corridors of the TARDIS… eventually a door opened in front of him, and the Doctor wasn’t really surprised to find that his wanderings had lead him to the TARDIS’ Library.

The room was like a cathedral, with stone floors and graceful stone pillars rising to a high, vaulted ceiling. Tall bookshelves lined the walls, each with a ladder that could be used to reach the upper most shelves. High above the bookshelves were magnificent stained glass windows… roughly half of the windows were completely Gallifreyan in design, holding the Mark of Rassillion or the Emblem of the House of Lungbarrow. The rest of the windows were a varied lot, some from Earth, some from other worlds where the Doctor’s travels had taken him.

Nestled among the bookshelves were small open areas, with armchairs, sofas and low coffee tables (although really the Doctor only put tea cups on them, sot they really should be called tea tables). There was a larger open space roughly in the middle of the room… though how exactly a room which had no definite size or shape could have a middle the Doctor didn’t know. This larger space had a couple of normal sized tables, as well as a couple of sofas and armchairs circling a pit where the TARDIS kept a fire burning, the smoke curling up to disappear into the darkness above.

The TARDIS’ Library was self-updating. The Library gathered books from every point in time and space… or at least every point where the Doctor had found himself. The Doctor was never quite sure how it worked… probably it had all been explained at the Academy… most likely when he’d been whispering with Koschei instead of paying attention.

The Doctor sighed at the thought of Koschei and struggled to banish those thoughts from his mind, choosing to ignore that one of the stained-glass windows had shifted to show the Emblem of the House of Oakdown… the Master’s house. Without really thinking, the Doctor smiled sadly before his eyes shifted to look around him at the shelves of the books. A good book would take his mind off the dark thoughts that had plagued him since Donna’s… departure. All the Doctor wanted to do was curl up in front of the fire with a cup of tea and a good book.

The Doctor slowly walked along the miles and miles of book shelves, allowing his hand to run along the spines as he waited for a book to leap out and catch his eye… when one did just that. Despite the vast number of books in the TARDIS’ Library, the Doctor always knew every single book that was contained inside the Library like the back of his hand. But the Doctor had just found something new, a book that he hadn’t seen or heard of before.

“What have you picked up for me this time?” The Doctor whispered to his beloved ship as he pulled the book off the ship and turned it over in his hands. It was an old red leather book, with an elaborate drawing in black ink on the front. The title was written on the spine of the book and above the illustration, but there was nothing else… not even an author’s name.

The drawing on the front of the book was of a stone archway, showing two stone pillars which were gently weathered. There was ivy twining around the two pillars, creating a sort of artistic curling design. Above the archway, in the same elegant cursive script, with artistic flourishes as on the spine, were two words:

The Labyrinth

The Doctor whispered the title to himself, trying to figure out why the words were so familiar to him… he held the book in his hands, allowing it to fall open to a random page. The book didn’t open close to the middle, but closer to the back, where someone had placed a bookmark. Like the book itself, the bookmark seemed ancient. It was made of brown leather, so dark that it appeared almost black. Upon the dark leather was a sort of abstract curling design that had been filled in with white. As the Doctor looked down at the bookmark, the design seemed to shift slightly, seeming to become more Gallifreyan.

The page which had been makred with the leather bookmark had some marks in faded blue ink about half-way down the page. The marks were so faded that it was hard to make out, but it seemed like someone had drawn a little asterisk next to a paragraph, then underlined two sentences.

Through dangers untold and hardships unnumbered, I have fought my way to the castle beyond the Goblin City to take back the child you have stolen. For my will is as strong as your’s and my kingdom as great. You have no power over me!

Written next to this paragraph, the ink slightly less faded, were the words ‘REMEMBER THIS’ in large block letters.

“Why would anyone need to remember that?” the Doctor laughed softly at the thought, before walking over to the nearest surface and flopping down on the soft surface. The Doctor sighed as he lay on the sofa, running his fingers over the cover of the book before opening it and flipping through the pages, looking for any other writing, any other mark which could tell him where and from whom the TARDIS had gotten the strange little book.

There were no marks in the rest of the book, nothing written on any page, no name, no mark of ownership… not even a folded down page. However there was a small yellow post-it-note attached to the inside of the back cover… which had very familiar handwriting on it.

Ianto-

I know you found this book on my desk but I have no idea where it came from. Brings back too many memories for me, but perhaps you wish to keep it?

-Jack

“Jack?” The Doctor whispered as he looked down at the little note. “how did I get a book that used to be in the possession of Captain Jack Harkness?”

When no answer came from the TARDIS, the Doctor sighed, rolled his eyes and sat up, looking up at the ceiling, as he frequently did when talking to his beloved ship. “I’m not going to call Jack up just because I’m a little lonely!” The Doctor blew a lock of hair out his eyes and dropped the book on a small coffee table (again, why wasn’t it called a tea table?) beside the couch he’d been lying on. The Doctor intended to leave the library and fall asleep in some dim corner of the TARDIS.

However when the book landed on the coffee table it fell opened, ending up showing a page close to the beginning of the book. Despite there being no marks on the page, no faded blue ink… the Doctor found himself staring down at the book, slowly kneeling down as if some sort of magic was urging him to read what was written on the pages before him.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful young girl whose stepmother always made her stay home with the baby…

The Doctor fought back a laugh, an image of Rose dressed as Cinderella instantly leaping into his mind… he could see her being the heroine of a Fairy Tale.

But what no one knew was that the King of the Goblins had fallen in love with the girl and he had given her certain powers…

So one night she called on the goblins for help…

At that point the Doctor had to pause for a moment, in order to remember what exactly Goblins were… he remember them as creatures of myth, but it took him a moment to bring to mind the image that humans had associated with the name.

“Say your right words,” the goblins said, “and we will take the baby to the Goblin City and you will be free.”

“Just another story about wanting what you can’t have… and discovering you don’t really want it at all,” the Doctor sighed as he flipped the page over.

“I can bear it no longer! Goblin King! Goblin King! Wherever you may be! Take this child of mine far away from me!”

"Now that's an odd way to do it..." the Doctor mused aloud before blinking in confusion... it was as if the words had changed before his eyes. Now, instead of wishing away the child of her stepmother, the “beautiful young girl” was wishing for the Goblin King to take her away.

“I can bear it no longer! Goblin King! Goblin King! Wherever you may be! Take me from this cruel life so that I may be free!”

“Why would Jack Harkness have a book that changes?” The Doctor asked himself, scrunching his nose slightly as he pondered that question. “Doesn’t really matter… it’s still a silly way to wish someone away!” The Doctor laughed as he re-read the heroine’s wish.

The Doctor shrugged his shoulders and slowly stood up, getting ready to make his way out of the Library and back to his own rooms. “After all it would be so much easier to say something like…” he trailed off, looking back at the book, which was still lying open on the coffee table. “I wish the goblins would come and take me away…” The Doctor turned his back on the book, taking the first step out of the Library. “Right now.”

It hit the Doctor like a ton of bricks… or at least what the Time Lord imagined a ton of bricks would feel like. Gasping out in shock the Doctor fell to the ground, unable to support his own weight. He threw out his hands to try and stop himself, only to have his hands pass through the ground… followed by the rest of his body.

He fell… tumbling head over heals, screaming without a sound leaving his mouth. Through deepest darkness he fell, with not even the wind rushing past his ears. He didn’t know when he passed from falling into a seemingly never ending nightmare of doing the exact same thing… but all of a sudden he woke with a start.

The Doctor found that he was lying on his back on a large flat stone. He was out in a field of golden grass which was swaying slightly in the wind. He was still wearing the same jeans and shirt that he’d pulled out of the closet. Other then being incredibly confused the Doctor was in the same condition as when he’d been in the Library of his TARDIS.

“Where… where am I?” The Doctor asked himself as he looked around. Wherever it was the view was gorgeous. The sun was rising, bathing the sky and the land in a dazzling display of red, yellow and gold…

The Doctor’s hearts cried out in pain as memories flashed before his eyes. The scarlet and orange of the sky transformed themselves into the colors of the Prydonian Chapter. In his memory he was with Koschei, laughing at the fact that he’d been able to scrape through at the Academy and graduate, even if it was his second attempt and he’d only gotten 51 percent.

The Doctor forced himself to look away from the sunrise as he sat up, hoping to find something to draw him out of the past and into the now… and he couldn’t help but gasp at what he saw. Starting not too far away and extending on for miles and miles was a fantastical fortification… long, twisting walls laid out with no rhyme or reason. At a far distant point where the sky met the earth there was a large palace, it’s towers rising into the sky.

The Doctor’s eyes traveled back over the fortifications between him and the palace… and realized what he was staring at. “A labyrinth!” He laughed, the sound echoing strangely, making it seem not quite his own. “I’ve fallen into a fairy tale!”

The Doctor was about to get to his feet and start heading toward the Labyrinth, since it was the only thing he could see, when the color of the sky shifted as the sun climbed higher, the light becoming a glorious burnt orange, while some trick of the light made the grass seem red.

The Doctor shivered, covering his eyes with his hands. “It’s a trick of the light,” He whispered to himself. “Just an illusion…” Losing the fight with himself the Doctor tore his hands away and screamed, punching the rock he was sitting on, not caring about the blood that now stained his knuckles. “Isn’t it enough that I’m alone? Isn’t it enough that I let him DIE?!?” The last Time Lord screamed.

The Doctor found himself in a battle with his own emotions, fighting against his racing hearts and tear-filled eyes. Part of him wanted to throw himself to the ground, to tear at his own flesh, to hurt himself… all so he would feel something other then the awful, gut wrenching emptiness that threatened to consume him.

I’m old enough to know that a longer life isn’t always a better one. In the end you just get tired… tried of the struggle…tired of losing everyone that matters to you. Tired of watching everything turning to dust.

If you live long enough…the only certainty left is that you’ll end up alone.

His own words, coming back to haunt him. The words he’d said to a human who had tried to cheat death, a man who he was fighting against, a man he was trying to stop. Now they were coming back to haunt him, to hurt him. Those words, which he believed so strongly, now hurt so much that it was almost unbearable.

~It doesn’t have to be like that.~

The Doctor instantly tensed, looking around in confusion and the slightest bit of terror. Someone had spoke to him… but not in the normal way, not in any human way. No, someone or something had managed to speak directly into the Doctor’s mind to get past the defenses of a Time Lord… not to mention the hundred and one walls which he’d erected in an attempt to keep the aching loneliness that had resulted from the Time War. For a psychic race there was nothing worse then being alone… even when he’d been a Renegade, there had still been the soft murmur of his people in the back of him mind.

“Who’s there?” The Doctor asked, not expecting to receive an answer.

~The last of the Time Lords…~ the voice whispered once more and the Doctor shivered, the mental contact felt like someone pouring ice water down his spine on a hot day. It would be all too easy to give in, to acknowledge the pleasure that the mental contact gave.

the voice whispered once more, reminding the Doctor of the feeling of cool water on a hot day… and it was all to easy for the Doctor to give in… and shiver at the pleasure that the sensation gave him. ~Do you really think it ends so easily?~

“What are you talking about?” The Doctor asked, standing up and looking around himself once more. “You’re the one who brought me here… didn’t you?”

~You brought yourself... don‘t you remember?~ The speaker seemed to be laughing… and then another voice rang in the Doctor’s head. This time it was his own voice, repeating what he’d said not long ago.

…it’s still a silly way to wish someone away!

After all it would be so much easier to say something like… I wish the goblins would come and take me away… Right now.

“Power in words…” the Doctor whispered as memories of his travels with Martha Jones flashed through his head. “Words locked away in a funny little book… Carrionite?” It was more a question then an accusation.

~Don’t compare me to those… hags.~

“Then what should I call you?” The Doctor asked, struggling to hold on to what little control he still possessed. “You have to be related to that species… that’s the only possible explanation!”

~Doctor, you’ve traveled enough to know…~ The voice was suddenly cut off.

“Know what? What I am supposed to know?” The Doctor shivered as a cold wind blew around his body… it was like he was in the center of a small tornado.

“That things aren’t always what they seem,” Standing in front of the Doctor was a man with pale blond hair, his shimmering dark black coat swirling around him in the wind he seemed to have created and traveled on. There was an ethereal sort of feeling to the man… as if he didn’t exist in just one dimension and time, but in some sort of place which was beyond reality itself.

“Who are you?” The Doctor whispered.

“I am called Jareth,” the strange man responded as he slowly moved towards the Doctor. “However the question you really want to ask is what am I?”

The Doctor opened his mouth, but found himself unable to speak. If Jareth had been able to break through his mental defenses, then how hard would it be for the man to break his physical defenses? And if that did happen, if Jareth chose to kill him… then how could the Doctor figure out how the Master had stopped his own regeneration?

“Thoughts like that won’t get you anywhere… Lord of Time,” Jareth had moved to stand next to the Doctor, apparently having moved when the Time Lord was deep in his dark thoughts. The strange man had a strange far away look in his eyes. “We are so similar Doctor. We are what others need us to be.”

A sudden flash of memory in the Doctor’s mind. The note he’d found inside The Labyrinth… could it mean that Jack or Ianto had met this man? Or was this all some sort of trick? Some sort of cosmic joke?

“The book… the one which brought me here. There was a note in it--” The Doctor was cut off by Jareth.

“For Handsome Jack?” Jareth asked, using one of the Master’s favorite names for the Ex-Time Agent. “I met him… and his lover. For a ‘normal’ human, Ianto Jones is quite amazing. He managed to solve my Labyrinth… and rescue Jack.”

“You… you kidnapped him? The Doctor shivered as the mysterious wind whipped around him once more.

“It is a long story Doctor,” Jareth laughed, drawing a frown of confusion to the Doctor’s face. “If I were to tell you here then you would certainly freeze to death.

Jareth extended one gloved hand to the Doctor. Without really knowing why, the Doctor reached out and took the man’s hand, a shiver racing down his spine as the wind seemed to wrap around the two of them… as if the force of nature was a blanket made of soft silk. Despite having to close his eyes against the wind, the Doctor was somehow able to tell that the wind had picked up the two of them and they were being carried far away from the field, with it’s burnt orange skies and golden-red grass.

When the wind finally died down and the Doctor could open his eyes, he found himself falling backwards… into Jareth’s arms. The Doctor shivered, but not from cold. Rather he was shivering because he didn’t know why he wasn’t fighting the man’s embrace. The Doctor couldn’t understand why he didn’t want to stand up.

“Who are you?” The Doctor suddenly screamed, attempting to lash out at the man, to hit, to scratch… only to have Jareth prevent himself from doing so. The mysterious man held him still, so that his struggle were like that of a child.

“You already asked that question Doctor,” Jareth whispered in the Doctor’s ear. “I am Jareth and this is my world. A world which exists in every dimension and every time… my kind are the protectors of this world, this place of metaphor, this world of fantasy,” Jareth laughed softly, his breath tickling the Doctor’s ear. “What you would call ‘fairy tales’.”

“Wha… what?” The Doctor whispered as Jareth released him and slowly moved so that the two were facing each other again.

“My family are the last entities who carry the blood of the Infinites,” Jareth smiled slightly at the awestruck look upon the Doctor’s face.

“But the Infinites… they died out at the dawn of time, before Time Lords were Time Lords!” The Doctor protested.

“My Father and a few others foresaw the downfall of the Infinites… but they were powerless to stop it,” Jareth explained.

Jareths slowly walked away from the Doctor, moving over towards a throne. As he did this the Doctor realized that he had yet to look around the room he’d found himself in. Jareth and the Doctor were in an elaborate throne room. Despite the grandness of the room, it seemed well used, where as most throne rooms that the Doctor had found himself in were more like museums then anything else. However it seemed that someone used this room quite often, both to rule over the Labyrinth and to hold some sort of court.

“So my Father left the dimensions… he left all of them,” Jarth gently took hold of the Doctor’s arm, and now he lead the Doctor over to the throne, and the Doctor suddenly found himself relying on Jareth’s strength to stay standing. “This world exists in what you call the Void.”

The Doctor froze and tooka faltering step away from Jareth, looking around the room in amazement. “How… that’s impossible!” The Doctor protested, his mind racing. “Nothing can exist in the Void!”

“He was an Infinite,” Jareth shrugged, “he found a way… a way to create something out of nothing,” Jareth explained. “So our world exists everywhere and nowhere. Unseen and unfelt, save for when a tear in the fabric of reality occurs.”

As if by magic, the little red book that the Doctor had found in the TARDIS Library was in Jareth’s hands. “Your world slipped into the author’s dreams… creating The Labyrinth,” the Doctor realized, laughing softly as he put it all together. “A world of dreams…”

“Not only the dreams of humans,” Jareth replied. He dropped the book, which turning into dust about half-way to the ground. The dust reversed directions, running back up in to Jareth’s hands, like an hourglass in reverse, where it created a sort of statue of three figures whom the Doctor knew quite well.

“Not only humans?” The Doctor whispered, looking at the statue in Jareth’s hands. “That’s Rassillion, Omega and the Other… but what do you have to do with them?”

“The Other was one of us… in a way. He was an Infinite who chose to become a Time Lord. In the process he gave your race a certain trait which was originally ours. Regeneration is called the Legacy of Rassillion, but it is in fact the Gift of the Other.”

“So now your people live in this world? Toying with humans?” The Doctor shivered, wrapping his arms around himself as he stared at Jareth.

“No. I do not ‘toy’ with humans,” Jareth frowned as the statue in his hands vanished. The Immortal stepped forward, his hands moving to gently cup the Doctor’s face. “My Mother was not an Infinite, she was not the wife that my Father took with him into the void. My Mother was an ordinary human, if such a thing exists. She was accidentally brought to this realm, and a single encounter resulted in my existence. My Father’s Wife killed her shortly after I was born. My Father cared for me in his own way. I spent only a handful of years in the Castle where the rest of my Famiy resides. After that my Father’s Wife could stand my presence no longer.”

“So he created a place for you,” the Doctor realized, once again finding himself looking around the room once more.

“The Labyrinth… my Father created it for me, gave me subjects to rule over.”

“Subjects?” The Doctor raised one eyebrow, looking around at the empty room.

“Goblins,” Jareth smiled softly, as if he was a parent speaking of his children. “I am Lord Jareth, the Goblin King. I reach into the Human world and take the unwanted children, those near death, those who will not be missed when I snatch them away. They become Goblins, my subjects… however that is only one part of my ‘job’…. Doctor, you know very well how humans need a chance to prove themselves.”

“An adventure… to prove to themselves what they can to, to show them what they are capable of…” the Doctor shivered, thinking of his companions. “But how can you do that?”

“Perhaps it is best to offer an example…” Jareth sighed and held out of his hand, where a sort of crystal orb appeared, hovering above his outstretched fingers. Inside the glass there could be seen an image of a young woman with long dark brown hair. “Sarah was a child lost in fantasy. She was obsessed with my story, obsessed with what could never be. I stole her baby brother, and she fought back… I helped her to realized that she didn’t need a fictional character to define herself.”

The image shifted, Sarah vanished and a man that the Doctor had met before, even though they’d only met for the briefest of moments. “That’s Ianto Jones, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Captain Jack Harkness is quite taken with him,” Jareth smiled, almost fondly as he looked down at the crystal ball. “Of course Jack hadn’t admitted this to Ianto… so I took Jack Harkness and Ianto fought so bravely to get him back.”

“You made them stronger by causing them pain,” the Doctor shivered at how dark the words sounded when they came from his mouth. “But how did I get the book?”

“Haven’t you guessed?” Jareth laughed. “I sent it to you. I am the King of Goblins… it is well within my power to do so… however your TARDIS did help.”

The crystal’s image shifted again. Now it showed the little red book, appearing in thin air and falling down on to the floor of one of the corridors of the TARDIS… and instantly the clever little ship simply picked up the book and placed it exactly where her beloved Doctor would find it.

“What adventure can you give me?” The Doctor laughed bitterly. “I’ve seen so much, lived so long… and all I want to do is die!” The Doctor ended up screaming as he glared at Jareth.

“Doctor, I know you don’t want an adventure,” Jareth said as he moved closer to the Doctor, pushing the Time Lord gently so that he fell back on to the throne. “What you want is Koschei.”

The Doctor froze at the sound of the name he had been thinking of for so long was spoken. “You saw what happened… didn’t you?” He almost whispered, his eyes darkening. “I would have forgiven him! I would have forgiven everything. But he… he…”

“It was not his fault,” Jareth practically whispered. “You heard it… didn’t you? The drumming?”

The Doctor knew exactly what Jareth was talking about… during the Year that Never Was there had been a single, fleeting moment when the Doctor had managed to peer inside the Master’s head… now that horrible sound returned, as if he was still inside the Master’s head. The drums, the terrible drums of war, beating out their rhythm echoed inside the Doctor’s head once again. “They weren’t there before…” the Doctor shivered. “I guess the Time War effected us each in our own way.”

“No Doctor… the truth is much darker,” Jareth whispered, but before the Doctor could get him to explain further the Goblin King’s eyes darted over the Doctor’s form and he frowned. “You’re exhausted… you haven’t actually slept for weeks, have you Doctor?”

“No,” the Doctor admitted, purposefully not meeting Jareth’s eyes.

Jareth snapped his finger and, as if they had been created at that very moment, a small group of Goblins appeared in the room… all racing towards Jareth and the Doctor and begging to be chosen to help. “Show the Doctor to his room,” Jareth commanded the Goblins, who gently lead the Doctor out of the Throne Rom. As the Doctor looked back he could see Jareth had sat down in his throne, almost lying down in the huge chair as the Goblins milled around him, laughing and arguing with each other.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The room which the group of Goblins lead the Doctor to was beautiful… more so then any room in Versailles. This was not a show of wealth, more like a useful application of it. While Versailles was grand for no reason, Jareth’s castle seemed to be a strange mix of rich and common… as if the castle had once been a mere military fortification and had only recently been upgraded to the home of a King.

The Doctor’s room was a simple, square room cut out of stone… directly across from the room was a large window-seat, which had been made comfortable by the addition of several pillows and animal skins. The window offered a simply amazing view of the Labyrinth which, as the Doctor watched, seemed to be constantly shifting… not only in terms of layout, but in the material that it was made out of. Some areas would seem to crumble as if a hundred years had passed in a blink of an eye, while other areas would be magically restored. Dead ends shifted constantly to form new passages, while other passageways closed off, becoming dead ends.

Here and there the Doctor could see various creatures roaming through the Labyrinth, some seeming to be headed for a specific location, while others acted more like guards, patrolling to insure the safety of their King and his Castle. Near the base of the Castle was a small city, which reminded the Doctor of Europe, with small streets and buildings that seemed to lean over said streets. On the street goblins of various sizes roamed around, and the sounds of a marketplace could faintly be heard from somewhere below.

A large sort of triangular bed occupied one corner of the room, curtains of silk and gossamer hanging down to create a more secluded resting place. While one part of the Doctor just wanted to curl up on the bed and sleep, the rest of him couldn’t possibly sleep… he was too interested, too confused by Jareth, not only the man but the land he was now in and Jareth’s subjects.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, the Doctor glanced around the room once more. On the opposite side of the room from the bed was a plain wooden table, with two chairs next to each other and a candelabra in the center. In the corner by the table was a series of shelves, creating a storage area out of the corner. On the shelves were paper, ink and a feather pen… the feather looked like it had come from a peacock, except it was too red. There was also two complete sets of dinner dishes, apparently for the table. There were also a few bottles, with writing on them that the Doctor could understand. He was willing to be his TARDIS that the bottles contained some sort of alcohol, or another sort of pleasure drink.

The door to the room wasn’t locked, and the two goblins that were lounging on the ground outside the room seemed to be servants, not guards. Despite knowing that he could leave, the Doctor really had no desire to… as Jareth had guessed, the Time Lord was tired. The Doctor an a hand through his hair and lay down on the bed, not bothering to get under the covers, although he did kick off his Converse. Sighing softly the Doctor turned to face the wall and drifted off to sleep.

The Doctor did not dream… or if he did dream he did not remember those dreams. It was the first time in a long while that had happened.

There’s such a sad love,
Deep in your eyes.
A kind of pale jewel-
Open and closed,
Within your eyes…

I’ll place the skies,
Within your eyes

The Doctor’s eyes slowly opened… and he blinked slowly. He was still lying on the bed, but in his sleep he’d shifted so that he was facing away from the wall, facing towards the window… and sometime while he slept someone had pulled a light blanket up around him.

There’s such a fooled heart,
Beating so fast,
In search of new dreams-
A love that will last,
Within your heart…

I’ll place the moon,
Within your heart

Jareth was sitting on the window-seat. The window was thrown open, and moonlight was pouring in. Jareth was leaning against one wall, the moonlight making him appear to glow as he looked out the window at the Labyrinth… and singing.

As the pain sweeps through-
Makes no sense for you…
Every thrill is gone,
Wasn’t too much fun at all.

But I’ll be there for you…
As the world falls down…

Despite his voice seeming to be no louder then a whisper, it somehow filled the room. Jareth’s voice was crisp and clear, like a small waterfall in just after the snow had begun to melt.

Falling…

It’s falling…

Falling in love…

In Jareth’s hand were four glass orbs, resting in a sort of pyramid. He was artfully spinning them around in his left hand. As the Doctor watched Jareth used his right hand to pluck a single orb from the top. He seemed to concentrate on it for a few seconds before he held it up and the glass orb floated away, out the open window and down towards the Labyrinth.

I’ll paint you mornings of gold,
I’ll spin you valentine evenings…
Though we’re strangers till now.
We’re choosing the path,
Between the stars…

I’ll lay my love,
Between the stars…

The Doctor sat up silently, watching as the King of the Goblins repeated this action, until all the glass orbs that had been in his hands were floating over the Labyrinth, each following a different path as they drifted out of sight.

As the pain sweeps through
makes no sense for you
Ever thrill has gone
Wasn’t too much fun at all

But I’ll be there for you
As the world falls down..

Jareth smiled, gesturing to the window, which closed of it’s own accord. Then he stood up and walked over the table, never looking at the corner bed where the Doctor sat. The candelabra was lit, and several papers were spread out over the table. Jareth glanced down at the papers for a few seconds, moving them around a little.

Falling…

It’s falling…

Falling…

As if only just sensing that the Doctor was awake, Jareth’s head slowly tilted up, so that his eyes met the Doctor’s. Both men’s faces seeming to shift in the soft candlelight. His eyes firmly locked with the Doctor’s, Jareth began to cross the room… a smile growing on his face as he sang the last words of the song.

Falling in love…

“Did you sleep well Doctor?” Jareth asked. “I was working on some ‘matters of state’… when you started to cry out in your sleep.

“So you sang to me?” The Doctor blinked as Jareth stopped just in front of the bed.

“The Carronites never quite figured out that words have more power when preformed… they guessed at it, using Shakespeare, but never figured out that they needed to take it one step further.”

“What?” The Doctor frowned.

“Song. Words have power, but when you sing then a whole new sort of energy is born,” Jareth smiled. “As an Infinite, all be it only through my Father’s blood, I have power… when I place words to music that power grows.”

“What were those orbs?” The Doctor asked, looking out at the Labyrinth, which was almost perfectly illuminated by the light of the full moon.

“I guess you could call them letters,” Jareth followed the Doctor’s gaze, so that the two were both looking out, over the Goblin King’s lands. “At present there are two humans in the Labyrinth, and I needed to dispatch messages to some of the creatures which live there.”

“Two humans?” The Doctor asked, finding himself following Jareth as the Goblin King moved back towards the table.

“Yes,” Jareth replied, taking one of the two chairs and motioning for the Doctor to take the other. “I can not often interfere with the human world… but every now and then I am allowed revenge.”

“Revenge? Have these people harmed you or your people?” The Doctor asked. Two goblins entered the room with a tray of food and drink, which they set out in front of the Doctor and their King.

“They are a husband and wife… and because their daughter was born disfigured they beat her unitl she was on the brink of death. Then they left her in the woods to die,” Jareth’s face twisted in anger as he took a drink of wine. “One of my half-sisters found her and brought the little girl to me… now she lives in the Goblin City.”

“Is it unusual to receive a human child?” The Doctor asked.

“No,” Jareth smiled bitterly. “It is very common that I receive a human child… or a child of another species. What is uncommon is that I am allowed to punish her parents.”

“So the Labyrinth is rigged?” The Doctor asked, accepting the cup and taking a small sip of the wine.

“No… it is somewhat like the Heart of your TARDIS. The Labyrinth reacts to each decision that a person makes. It rewards good choices and punishes bad ones,” Jareth explained before he popped a grape into his mouth.

“And in the end?”

“Good choices result in a ‘good’ ending… Ianto proved to himself that he loved Jack, and in the process proved to Jack that he was worthy of love. So they returned to Earth, all the stronger for having visited me,” Jareth’s eyes drifted back to the window for the briefest of seconds, before he returned his attention to the Doctor. “Those humans may not be so lucky.”

“Then what will happen to them?” The Doctor asked, placing the wine glass back on the table.

“It depends. They may get off easy… in that case I will create ‘remains’ of a young girl and insure that the courts convict the two,” Jareth leaned forward slightly, his hair falling like a curtain around his face as he stared at the Doctor. “But if they stay on the path they are following now… then I shall make them into creatures of the Labyrinth.”

“Monsters?” The Doctor asked, running his fingers around the lip of the wine glass.

“Of a sort… some are forced to guard my Labyrinth, some appear as mere decorations. Think of the punishment that you imposed on the Family of Blood. That is the sort of punishment I shall give to the poor little girl.”

“And the girl herself?”

“She will become one of the inhabitants of my city… perhaps a fairy or a goblin. It is her choice.”

“Jareth?” The Doctor whispered, looking down at the wine glass so that he didn’t have to meet the Goblin King’s eyes. “Am I here to be punished?”

“Do you think you deserve to be punished?” Jareth asked, calmly staring over at the flickering flames of the candelabra. Before the Doctor could answer the Goblin King’s question, Jareth sighed and continued to speak. “Doctor, you did what had to be done. The death of the Time Lords was not your fault… if anything it was the fault of all the Lord Presidents who refused to do something about he Daleks.”

The Doctor watched as Jareth slowly stood up from the table and practically stalked over to the window, his arms folded behind his back. The Goblin King’s words were almost an exact echo of the Doctor’s innermost thoughts, the ones he didn’t like to even admit to himself that he had… there had been many nights since the war that the Doctor had found himself lying awake, cursing every Lord President who had told him that “Time Lords do not interfere” or something similar.

“But there’s something else, isn’t there Doctor?” Jareth whispered, looking back over his shoulder at the Time Lord. “Koschei… or as he is more commonly know, the Master.”

“Jareth… I can’t even think about him without it hurting, more so then any of my regenerations,” the Doctor found that he could no longer hold back his tears. “And I can’t make them understand… I can’t make Martha and Jack understand!”

“Doctor, you underestimate your companion,” Jareth stated, extending one hand to the Doctor, beckoning him over to the window seat. The Doctor didn’t know why, but he slowly made his way over to the Goblin King, who latched on to his hand and pulled him close, so that the two were sitting side by side. “Captain Jack Harkness understands… however all he can do is try his best to control Martha Jones.”

“Control Martha?” The Doctor blinked in confusion. “What are you talking about?”

“I forgot… you don’t know,” Jareth whispered., looking deeply into the Doctor’s eyes. “Handsome Jack, always looking out for his beloved Doctor.”

“Jareth… what are you talking about?” The Doctor struggled to keep himself from shouting at the Half-Infinite. “Why would Jack need to control Martha?!?”

TBC

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