Author's note: Doesn't everyone wonder at least once if Toby could have remembered what happened? ... Well, I did.

“I wish the goblins would take you away!”

The words had echoed in Toby’s dreams for as long as he could remember. The memory of his sister’s wish and his time in the Goblin King’s castle had been etched in his mind with perfect clarity. He’d been far too young to understand while it happened, but as he grew up it cast a shadow over his relationship with Sarah, a nagging distrust that made him unable to take anything she said or did at face value.

Toby remembered that she’d regretted wishing him away, had struggled adamantly to get him back home, but he still didn’t know why. She hadn’t taken any greater interest in him afterwards; he’d even asked his mother about it. Had it simply been guilt? Had Sarah realized that it was wrong to blame a baby for being loud, wrong to get rid of him like she had? Toby didn’t know, and would never know, because he had never been able to ask Sarah. Any hint that he knew there was a Labyrinth or a Goblin King, and she changed the subject or left the room.

Sometimes, Toby wondered if that one night of stubborn defiance had sucked all the good out of his sister. He’d never seen any sign of regret or guilt from her since then. Just shallow concerns and petty selfishness. The rash words didn’t stop, and she didn’t seem to care even when she realized that he had been hurt. She simply forged ahead, deaf and blind to everything but her own wants and needs.

Only when he reached his teens did Toby understand that it wasn’t his fault, didn’t have anything to do with what had happened in the Labyrinth. The constant ignorance wasn’t a new occurrence – he’d overheard his parents talking about it. Sarah was the one at fault, the fickle one, the one that grew older but wouldn’t grow up. It had made him appreciate his mother better than he might have, and he accepted her sometimes overbearing affection with good humor.

For a time, he’d been certain that the preservation of his memory had been the Goblin King’s last shot at revenge on Sarah; that the otherworldly being had thought the lack of care between the siblings could hurt her.

Toby chuckled at the thought and hoped his silly ideas hadn’t hurt the kind-hearted King.

It had been a warning for Toby himself, an emotional shield against the lesser hurts Sarah would inevitably fling his way throughout her life. And it had worked, if not as well as the King might have hoped.

Perhaps he was being foolish, but he believed the King cared for all the children he whisked away from the human world. Cared for the throwaways that became his subjects. What glimpses he’d seen showed a ruler strict but not cruel, and maybe the goblins needed that. They would certainly have been worse off if they’d had to grow up with families who didn’t want them. But did they appreciate that? And if so, did they think to let their King know it?

Now, as he sat on the windowseat staring out into the night, he couldn’t help but look for something out of place. A goblin, an animal behaving oddly, a shadow on the moon, something. It was so quiet it was almost eerie, a perfect night for supernatural happenings.

Toby smiled and closed his eyes.

“I wish… I wish I could return to the Labyrinth.”