In The Eye of the Beholder | Jonathan Crane

December 2005

Spare me your judgments and spare me your dreams

'Cause recently mine have been tearing my seams

I sit alone in this winter clarity which clouds my mind

-Thistle and Weeds (Mumford and Sons)

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Jonathan and I hadn't spent Christmas together since we were twelve if I remember correctly. I remember giving him a copy of stories by Washington Irving. That was the last time we spent Christmas together.

I hadn't celebrated Christmas since I left Georgia. I spent it by myself. I had no family to spend it with, and I never really had friends. One of the few friends I had in college was a Christian. She tried to get me to go to church with her one Christmas. She didn't want to accept that I was an atheist. Our friendship hadn't lasted long after that.

If I was being honest, I didn't want to spend Christmas with Jonathan. It was barely a month after I'd learned what I had from Zsasz. I didn't want to risk saying anything that might make him suspicious. I didn't want to admit that I was afraid. I didn't want to admit to myself that Jonathan could do something as bad as what Zsasz implied.

Even if I knew he could do something bad.

Honestly, when I said celebrating, I meant we were together in the same room. He was working. Again. I was curled up on a chair listening to Mariah Carey while drinking hot chocolate. The scene was domestic. The atmosphere was not.

"Something wrong, Amber?"

I shook my head. I took a sip of my drink.

"Don't lie to me. I know something's wrong."

"Nothing's wrong. I'm thinking. That's all," I said.

"What are you thinking about then?"

"Us."

"What about us?" Jonathan put down the folders he'd been holding. His attention was completely on me.

I wished it weren't. It would be easier if he was paying attention to his work. Then he'd only be half paying attention to me.

"You do care about me, right?" I start out.

"Yes, I do. We've talked about this," he sighs.

"Have you ever lied to me? And I mean ever. Even when we were kids," I said next. It takes him a little longer to answer this question.

"I may have never told you the full truth on a few occasions, but I have never lied outright."

"Really?" I ask. I find it hard to believe him.

"Yes, Amber. Why are you asking me this?"

"Why don't you like it when I go to the asylum? Even if it's for my job you don't want me going."

"You have a slight case of phonophobia. Why you picked this city to live in, I have no idea. Of course, I'm going to try to keep you away from any triggers," he said.

His reasoning sounded reasonable. I know that he could have been being genuine. It could have been part of the reason. But I didn't believe it was the entire reason.

"What do you think about the stories I've been trying to get when I go to Arkham?" I asked. It was a risky question in my mind.

"I don't want you doing them," he said.

"Why?"

"You're going to get yourself into trouble. You're going to get yourself into something you won't be able to get out of."

"What makes you think that? Do you know something?"

"It's something you should expect out of this city. If you continue to look into this, you'll find answers I don't think you want."

"What kinds of answers?" I asked him.

He didn't answer my question. He went back to whatever he was working on. I didn't press for an answer.

I took another sip of my hot chocolate. It had gotten cold. I drank it anyway.

I looked at the papers Jonathan had been stacking next to him. They were in two piles. The papers looked like patient information. He was sorting them.

"Those aren't all your patients, are they?" I asked. He glanced at me before flipping through the papers again.

"No. A few doctors have asked me for their opinions on their patients."

"Why are you sorting them?"

"I'm keeping my patients separate from the others," he said. And as I stood, he added, "Now, are you done interrogating me?"

"I wasn't," I muttered. I went to the kitchen and put my mug on the counter. I stared out the window. It was snowing. The lights on the buildings actually looked beautiful. Gotham never looked beautiful. It was always dull and drab. But at that moment, Gotham was a vision.

"I'm sorry, Jonathan," I called to him.

All that responded was the shuffling of paper.

Little did he know, questioning him wasn't what I was apologizing for. It was for what I would be doing; investigating him.

I wasn't done with the Arkham story.

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A/N: So, I should be able to update more frequently now as I'm on summer vacation. I want to say thanks for all your guys' continued support and I hope you enjoy this chapter!