(A/N): Jonathan's thoughts this time. Inspired by "Pretense" prompt #37 from livejournal's 50scenes community.

Disclaimer: One word: nope. I don't own anything. I'm just a dreamer, writer, and hopeless romantic.

"I want to tell lies

to the world and believe it.

Speak easy, speak spoken to,

speak lips opening on a bed of nails."

– From "The Poet is Served Her Papers" by Lorna Dee Cervantes–

She had been thrashing. She could have harmed herself, and he couldn't have allowed that to happen. He had been put in charge of her, a victim of pride. Pamela Isley, scientist and now first specimen of experimentation into the new formula of Fear Toxin, a concoction she had made with another. He had poisoned her, her partner.

He had been assigned to care for her. Jonathan Crane, a man who knew the toxin, but he was just as helpless as her attending. She often screamed; he realized the shuddering silence then as she just whimpered. He wondered what nightmares she saw. The new toxin was a high grade hallucinogen; he knew nothing about it. The original antidote did nothing for her, save keep her silent, but he had seen her eyes flutter, her limbs flail. She had still been under, caught in perpetual dark.

He had been promised a speedier trial on his pending probation should he tend to the scarlet-haired woman during the day. Tend, that's all he could do. He held no attachment to her, none. He couldn't wait for her to leave, give back his sanctioned quiet: solitude. He reveled in fear, though. He enjoyed her screams.

Or so he tried to tell himself when she would begin again and he would have to wait for the orderlies to give her the only medication they could. He told himself to curl his lips into a smirk at her terror, but there was something off about it. Something that bothered him about the woman's shrieks. He didn't like them, he wanted them to stop.

She had a violent episode, limbs convulsing, screams scaling the octaves. Not even the antidote quietened her. For moments that bled into longer moments, he thought it was the end for her. The mind could only take so much after all until it was scarred beyond repair and the edge was leaped. You didn't return from that edge if you fell. Yet he couldn't let that be. He needed her to live to gain his own freedom. She could die afterwards for all he cared, but not then.

He rushed to her holding her down, not oppressively, but firmly. He wondered if he should call her name, try to calm her in some way, when for a moment the thrashing stopped. Her eyes fluttered, but didn't open. Something, some instinct told him she was awake then. Yet he couldn't celebrate any pride or relief in himself that he had kept her alive because suddenly he found himself on his back. Anger wasn't present, no it was awe and surprise as her eyes opened. Was it right to have his breath stolen upon seeing those emeralds? Her knees dug into his stomach, but he couldn't grimace. He could only stare up at her.

She was his ticket to freedom, nothing more. She was merely a woman. She was–

Warm. She fell into him, arms clutching him like he was a support, a rope she desperately needed. She was quivering, but she surrounded him. She wept, hot tears falling on his neck where she burrowed her head. He felt nothing, only lied there not pushing her off because it would not serve him. Then she mumbled, begging for him to take away her fears and nightmares, so pitifully. She was asking him, the Master of Fear, to make the bad things disappear; it was laughable.

But he wasn't laughing. He wasn't smiling. He wasn't enjoying this because it was heartbreaking. She clutched him desperately, frightened. He kept himself stiff, if he relaxed he would hold her. He would stroke her hair and promise her things he could never give. If he reacted in any other way, his act would be over. He'd be revealed.

It didn't make sense, but suddenly she wasn't merely his ticket out. For the first time in his life he was needed, desperately needed. She wanted him to be the knight that conquered the dragon and not the dragon himself.

His fingers twitched, but he kept still, letting her rave and cry. He wouldn't comfort her lest he become attached and need her.

The truth was, he already needed her for the very reason she did him and the pretense had been broken a long time ago. He didn't move, though. His heart had realized, but his head refused to believe. What would it matter anyway?

Tomorrow she'd be gone.