Fear Revisited [Jonathan Crane / Scarecrow]

015

Her mouth was dry, her throat tight as she tried to form a response. Being pinned in place by Jonathan's intense stare did not help matters, even in the slightest.

Before she even realized she was speaking, the whispered words tumbled out of her mouth and shattered the thick silence between them -

"I can't do this."

There was the briefest flash of hurt on Jonathan's face, though it so quickly turned hard that she couldn't be sure she hadn't imagined it.

He sneered down at her through his lenses, his smile one of mocking.

"I'm sorry, darling, you'll have to speak up. What was that?" he asked, tilting an ear in her direction.

"I. Can't. Do. This."

He chuckled darkly, making quite the show of giving her a slow clap.

"I thought this was what you wanted, for me to let you in?" he taunted her with her own words. Hearing them parroted back in his hateful tone stung deeply.

"Please don't make this harder than it has to be," she begged quietly, her heart shattering with every word she had to speak, no matter how necessary her brain knew them to be.

"Is my memory failing me, or did you insist this was what you wanted from me?" his voice was slowly but steadily loosing the unemotional edge it held, the slightest bit of feeling leaking into the words he spoke.

"Did you or did you not say that you... Oh, what was it?" he feigned an absent memory, making a show of stroking his chin in thought before snapping as he found the words.

"Ah, yes. That you owed me this?"

"I want to leave, Jonathan," she did her best to ignore the pain in her chest that grew with his words, her stomach going queasy once more as guilt threatened to swallow her whole.

She could not answer for what she had said to him or what she had promised him m, words spoken from a place of blissful ignorance and judgment clouded by her feelings for him.

She had almost believed she truly could see what was underneath and simply love her way through those murky waters, as though the need to horrify and torture was nothing more than an irritating quirk.

Had it been anyone but Stephen, some unknown stranger with a grotesque backstory, she might have been able to rationalize his behavior. But that had not been the case.

The choice to use him of all people for a private show meant exclusively for her just seemed too personal to overlook, in her eyes.

"I want to go home," she stated again, stronger this time even through her tears. "Now."

His fists clenched at his sides, but he made no indication of moving either towards her or towards the door.

"Not until you say it, not until you admit out loud why," he insisted, voice as cold and hard as ice as he made his demands.

She knew precisely what he wanted to hear, and in that moment, it was the truth.

And because there was too much she could not bring herself to say - 'I'm so sorry', 'I tried', 'I love you' - she supposed some part of her felt he deserved to hear it.

"Because you frighten me."

---

Once alone, Jonathan let out an uncharacteristic display of his anger, beating his clenched fists against the steering wheel and dashboard.

He had known it would happen that way.

She would see, just as she had asked to, and then, as everyone else had for their own convoluted personal reasons, she would leave.

And he had allowed her to do just that.

He had silently guided her back through the bowels of the asylum, up the elevator, out the door which they had entered, and watched as her car disappeared through into the darkness of the night, all without so much as a single word between them.

We don't have to let her go, you know. We can make her stay.

It was a tempting idea, but unless his hand was forced, he preferred to allow Jane to live unencumbered as he had once promised her that he would.

If the worst case scenario happened to come to pass, he was quite certain he could dispose of her without too much of an issue, but he was also quite certain it would not come to such an ugly place.

If she talks, you know what we have to do...

"She won't. Now please, just shut up," he growled at the empty interior of his car, leaning his head against the steering wheel.

He didn't want to hear from Scarecrow or anyone else at that moment, consumed with the frustration and some strange cocktail of self loathing and self pity.

How stupid could he have been, thinking even for a moment that there was ever another option, that Jane could ever have said anything but no?

It was a foolishness only rivaled by his childhood belief that some benevolent God would one day rescue him from Granny's clutches, or that his mother would one day change her mind and return for him.

The hope of an ignorant child, desperate for acceptance and love in a world which had decidedly offered him neither.

Historically, there was a pattern of abandonment in Jonathan's life.

Sitting in his car in Arkham's vacant parking lot, he could not for the life of him remember what made him think that pattern would suddenly change.

I'll never leave you, that shrill voice wrapped him in a familiar comfort, offering the same words he had needed whispered in his ear when he was but a boy.

I'll always be right here, no matter who leaves us.

He sighed and scrubbed his hands over his face, compartmentalizing the pain he had momentarily allowed to surface.

He supposed he had to take comfort in what companionship he did have, knowing full well that no other loyalty or love was likely to ever be in the cards for someone such as himself.

These kids, am I right?

Get your crap together, you two. You're freaking beautiful together and you know it, so stop making me break hearts and just kiss and make up.

Not that I can promise you guys that's going to happen. You'll just have to wait and see! ;)