Fear Revisited [Jonathan Crane / Scarecrow]

005

Some hours later, Jonathan stood in the dark of the bedroom, watching Jane as she slept.

It may have been a romantic gesture had the person gazing at their sleeping form been anyone aside from Jonathan, whose blue eyes were tampered with a dark, seething anger.

How they had ended up in this situation - him standing there in nothing but his boxers, her wrapped in the cotton sheets and dreaming peacefully - he could not quite ascertain.

It had been all too easy to allow himself to get carried away, caught up in the way that Jane evidently still had the power to make him feel about himself.

From there... It was quite sufficient to say that while Jonathan considered himself much stronger than the typical male in regards to his ability to resist the opposite sex, he was not made of stone.

Fast forward to afterwards, when the world had grown quiet and dark, and he found himself completely unable to make sense of what he'd done, even less so what he felt.

"What am I doing?" he whispered to the darkness, smoothing his hands over his face.

Ruining things for us both. Not that she wasn't good. The way she -

Don't.

You'd better think of something soon, Jonny. The clock is ticking.

It was not as though Scarecrow was telling him anything he did not already know. Six hours of his twenty four hour window had dwindled into nothing, and he was no closer to reaching a definitive choice on the matter.

There was some part of him that did not want to see Jane end up as nothing more than a case file, collecting dust in a manilla folder like so many other faceless experiments. What troubled him as a man of psychology was why that feeling was occurring.

Because no one has looked at you like that since the last time she did.

He supposed he had a better idea of why than he initially thought, but that still proved unhelpful.

If we get rid of her, there's a chance no one ever will again.

You don't need them to. They look at you with fear. That's closer to admiration than most will ever know.

He was torn. He and Scarecrow were not usually at odds, Crane usually deferring to his alter to guide his hand in decisions he struggled with.

This time, however, what he wanted was looming far larger than the impulse to give in to the masked man's demands.

We are not doing this. Not to her. At least not yet.

She's going to go back to her life and forget all about you, just like everyone else did. Do you want to go through that, again?

She won't, he argued against himself, she isn't like them.

He had to believe that she wasn't cut from the same cloth as many of the women he had encountered in his life - at best, unreliable and temporary like his mother, or at worst, cruel and filled with hate like Granny.

She hadn't abandoned the memory of him after a decade, so there was no unequivocal evidence to suggest she would do so immediately after the weekend.

I won't be a part of this, Jonathan.

Then don't. I don't need you to be.

You do, and if not, you will. You'll want me here when it all comes crashing down.

And then, his mind was silent.

He tried reaching, tried 'feeling' around for Scarecrow, but there was nothing. For the first time in many years, he was completely alone inside his head. It was uncomfortable and suffocating, the sound of his own thoughts and the thump of his heartbeat echoing in his ears.

Don't leave me completely, he begged, knowing somehow that he could still be heard. He may not have needed any interference with Jane, but Monday was approaching with a vengeance, and Scarecrow was vital to his work.

No answer. That was troubling, but he assumed he could figure it out later. He wouldn't dare pass up the experiments they had lined up for the following week.

Was it really so wrong to have observable feelings and emotions that related to an individual? Certainly that put him in a position of vulnerability, but past observation would suggest -

"Jonathan?" her voice was scratchy with sleep as she sat up, cutting through his internal dialogue. The rising sun colored her silhouette blue. "What are you doing?"

"I just got up to get a glass of water," he lied, something he knew he would have to do a great deal of if he was not planning on artfully working Jane out of his life.

"Hm. 'Kay," she muttered in response, rubbing at her eyes as she laid back down. It was quiet for a beat before she spoke up again.

"If you want to leave, you don't have to stay," she offered quietly. He wasn't positive whether or not it was merely his imagination, but she sounded almost... Sad.

At that moment, he should have taken her offer at face value and gathered his things to leave. He even considered it for a moment, knowing that it would be the intelligent thing to do in such a situation.

"I really was just getting a glass of water," he mumbled, forcing his feet to walk towards the bed before peeling back the sheets and laying down. He was careful not to touch Jane as he did, not quite that far removed from his usual comfort zone.

"Just offering you an out," she answered, the smile evident in her voice as she moved over just marginally, barely touching him.

He wouldn't sleep that night, he knew. He never slept in the presence of anyone else, but at least he could lay quietly and enjoy the company.

Okay, guys! I need some input, here. I'm torn in two directions as to where this is going, and have chapters of the alternate ideas written out.

The crossroads is whether or not Jonathan attempts to try his hand at normalcy with Jane, or if she comes face to face with Scarecrow, instead.

Where would you most like to see this go? Let me know in a comment or a PM. Looking forward to hearing from you!