He's allowed a newspaper subscription.

In the first month of his isolation, there's a story about Jigsaw's work. Unfortunately, the newspaper available to him is reputable enough to publish very few details. Woman found, strangled by "device", video found at the scene. There's a brief quote from the other living victim about the necessity of more funding for the police, and a mention of Jean himself and his "mental breakdown".

Jean nurses a hatred for the other living victim, the ungrateful whore.

He spends a great deal of time imagining the device, imagining himself in it, until it begins to feel like memory. He only wants to understand the art of it, the poetry.

The commissary sells paper, stamps, envelopes. He writes to every address he knows, long rambling paeans to Jigsaw, trying to explain, trying to make sense of it all.

Some of the letters, inevitably, are leaked. The online debate over Jean's sanity swings back and forth, the most represented positions at present being "he's lost it" and "who cares, he stans the Jigsaw Killer".

Jigsaw flips through screenshots on his phone.

"...I think he's my problem now."

"This is the victim you're concerned about."

He used to like Dulac. The guy was hot in X-Men, and the tabloids were pretty sure he was gay. And now he's encouraging Jigsaw.

"They all matter. Just...most of them are dead. Can't do anything else for them."

"Well, I'm not going to tell you he's not your problem. Put on a hat, you're going to freeze."

He used to call Z a living hot water bottle. Jigsaw doesn't stay warm so well.

Transportation to court from jail is a humiliating gauntlet.

He's woken up before dawn, like everyone else, shuffled down to the bare and freezing concrete room where they all wait, shackled, for transport.

When Jean is strip-searched, it's in front of all the other inmates going to court that day.

He has, he supposes, no reason to feel shame. Is a sketchbook, filled, less worthy that it is not blank?

He feels it nonetheless.

He's put in 3-point restraints — shackles on his wrists and ankles, a chain running between them.

The guard who comes to take him to his transport van is a little early, walks a little quickly, breathes a little shallow, eyes a little wide.

The guard will forgive him for being distracted.

This is, he thinks, the first matinee of the last great performance of Jean Dulac.

He's locked in the back of the transport van without any other guards. Unusual, for a murder case. Unusual, also, for such a high-profile prisoner.

The van speeds off.

Partway to the courthouse, the van veers off its route, onto a side road. As soon as it's out of sight of other cars, the driver floors it — not just off the main road but off the side road, too, down the strip of cleared land where the power lines run, into the dark.

The guard throws open the doors on the back of the van, rushes in to free him, gestures wildly with his gun.

"Out. Out."

Ah. A bullet by the side of the road?

Dramatic, at least. And a way out of these damn restraints.

"Very good," Jean says, languidly, and strolls out, with all the ease of motion he can muster.

The guard rushes up to him once he's a few steps from the van and, hands trembling, unlocks his restraints, shoving a piece of paper into his hands.

Stepping back, he raises his phone, takes a shot with the flash.

A second passes — two — and the guard's phone lights up with a message, and he sobs with relief and scrambles back into the van, shooting off down the road, leaving the chains behind.

He stays there, for a while -- reeling with confusion, looking at the chains.

Then he remembers the paper, and reads.

It's very dark, but there's a streetlamp close enough that it's just readable.

CLOTHES UNDER THE STREETLIGHT

KEEP STREET ON YOUR RIGHT, WALK HALF A MILE

GO UNDER BRIDGE

SIT TIGHT

(BURN THIS)

Is it truly possible?

Stripping is not so easy as it once was. His arms do not care to raise above his head; the skin of his torso screams to him when he twists. But he manages, and the clothes under the streetlight fit him well enough.

He stands there, in the pool of light, and looks left and right.

Each choice is fearful. Only one holds hope.

Under the bridge, among the pull tabs and the cigarette butts, he sits tight.

(The lighter is in a pocket. The paper burns quick and bright. He holds it to the end, lets it scorch his fingers with its death.)

Some time later, when dawn is beginning to break, an engine rumbles to a stop on the side of the road.

A young man, tall and wan and quite thin, makes his way down the slope to peer under the bridge, adjusting his beanie.

"Here for pickup."

He's missing what they gave him in prison, by then. The pain is false, now, a trick of the brain or body, but it's no easier to bear.

"Here I am," Jean says, and he's proud that he can still stand without a hand to the ground.

He climbs the hill together with him, takes a moment to lean on the side of the car, and then pops the trunk.

"Gonna need you to ride in back."

It's cleared for him, at least, aside from a few auto maintenance tools and a thick blanket folded to the side.

He looks at the small space, and at the hand on the trunk, wan and bruised at the wrist.

It is very difficult, he finds, to climb in.

How did he choose? He knew this, once, learned it with acid and a timer in the dark. How to do it again? Why so many choices?

The great artist is putting himself in danger. They must go, before someone sees them. Each moment of hesitation is unacceptable.

"Yes," he says, but he isn't moving.

Jigsaw takes pity on him.

He puts a hand on the back of his neck, and one on his shoulder, and he moves him.

In a fight between Jean and Jigsaw, if it came to that, Jean might win. Jigsaw stands a good head taller than him, true, but that ravaged body -- Jean is hardly in fighting shape, but he'd stand a chance.

The fight, though, is with fear, and Jigsaw's art is the mastery of fear.

The trunk of the car is not so terrible. The blanket is soft beneath his head.

It's a long drive. Hours.

Music echoes back to the trunk from the front seat. Grunge, mostly. A little industrial metal, a little alt-rock. Occasionally, there's a tuneful mumble behind the track, someone singing along.

The car comes to a stop, eventually, after a long stretch on gravel.