In other circumstances, Jonas imagined that he would have been considerably more sympathetic.  He liked Lexus; he really did.  She was a nice kid who, he had always thought, had gotten stuck in a tough position that was not entirely her fault.  When he'd first met her, on the run from the Ministry and terrified because she had no place to go, he could think of nothing but the parallel to his own first few days after quitting his job and abandoning London.

Like Lexus, he'd been terrified.  Convinced that the government was after him.  Frightened out of his bloody wits that he'd turn around to find some bloke in a red robe lurking behind him.  But Jonas had always been controlled, measured - a planner.  Even when he'd been all of twenty-four years old and had just been forced to give up every bit of both his life and his world, he hadn't let it phase him.  He'd caught his breath, come up with a plan, and immersed himself in his new world so well that it had taken eleven years for the old one to catch up with him.

But he'd recognized that not everyone had his luck and his wits.  Jonas had been fortunate - he'd been taken in by his uncle and then managed to secure himself a mentor.  If things had gone any differently, he could easily imagine having had to spend a year or more living on the run, much as Lexus had.  That was why he'd taken the young woman in and offered her a job even though he could barely afford to pay his own rent.  Stability was everything; without it, one had no hope of building a new life.

But this - this was not in the equation.  Yeah, he'd known she was a werewolf.  Jonas wasn't stupid; he'd done his research, and with Anna and the kids to worry about, he wasn't inviting anyone into his home without knowing exactly what sort of threat they might pose.  Granted, he had decided that Lexus didn't pose much of one, but that wasn't the point.  He had taken her in.  He had trusted her.  She'd let him live with a threat that she hadn't thought he'd known about.  And besides which, what the bloody hell did she think would happen to him if the Ministry found out he was intentionally harboring a criminal?

"Yeah, I am.  Lexus, you lied to me," he said, quietly and evenly, coolly meeting her gaze.  This was not as bad as when she'd been Muggle-baiting, but it was still close.  He might like the young woman quite a bit, but the fact that she didn't seem to understand how the consequences of her actions could affect other people frustrated him to no end.  "Even if you left every full moon, if there was no chance that you might transform or attack me, what do you think the Ministry would do to me if they found out I was harboring a werewolf?  Even if I didn't know?" he pressed.  "I'd still get fined.  I might get imprisoned.  You think it's fair, putting me in that position?"

He took a deep breath, and then let it out quickly.  His head hurt, and he wasn't sure if it was from the formerly piercing alarm or the currently exhausting conversation. 

"I think you not telling me that you turn into a 'murderous monster' once a month is worse than anything I might happen to omit," Jonas continued, his voice tight.  He was echoing her words and they still sounded harsh, but someone needed to say them in context.  If it wasn't going to be Lexus, it had to be him.  "So don't get on at me, Lex.  I know you think it's alright to go on 'confounding a few Muggles' or not telling folks the truth because you don't think any of it'll hurt them, but one day, it's going to.  Being scared or desperate doesn't excuse responsibility.  And letting other folks get hurt because of you is about as far from responsibility as you can get, yeah?"

Lexus started to pace again still refusing to meet his eyes. Although he wasn't yelling at her she couldn't help but feel reminiscent of when her father was angry with her. Her father had always had some rather harsh anger issues and like her siblings Lexus had done everything she could to keep herself from making him angry. Now she couldn't help but feel that awkward skin crawling feverish feeling of anxiety that resulted from having a man be angry with her.

"I was protecting you." She could still hear that defiant roar to her voice even as it quavered and tears threatened to fall, "Things would be beyond worse for you if I ever thought you knew. There would be no mercy if the Ministry knew you were willingly harbouring a fugitive. I couldn't put that on you."

She paused for a moment before beginning to pace again, "And don't you dare talk to me about responsibility!" Just because she didn't tell him she was a werewolf doesn't mean she was being irresponsible that was so unfair of him! She had taken every precaution possible to make sure she could still function normally without putting anyone in danger, that was the whole reason she had spent a year on the run hunting for her food, taking shelter in caves and basically living in solitary, "I've done everything imaginable to make sure I'd never hurt you. I've stayed away from you and any one else for that matter every full moon, I've been taking regular doses of Wolfsbane. I even converted my walk in closet into a safe room just in case!" She stopped pacing and sat back down on the edge of the desk again, "I don't know what you want from me Jonas. I would have told you if for one second I thought you wouldn't throw me out to save your own arse."

She knew that was unfair of her judging him without even giving him a chance but she hadn't been as willing to trust him as he had her. She had owed him more than she had given him. He had taken her into his life no questions asked even after there was already a hint that she was a criminal even if she had tried to keep her lycanthrope status unknown. He had given her a job, a home, a second chance and in return she had given him nothing of herself.

"I'll leave if that's what you want. After all that'd be the responsible thing to do, yeah?"

"No, Lexus," Jonas replied, the patience in his voice straining.  "The responsible thing to do would be -"

He broke off mid-sentence as the irony hit.  But authority and righteousness were both mantles assumed by unfaltering confidence; sighing, he bit back the parallel thought.  He could contemplate other implications for his championed philosophy later.

"To face the consequences," he finished steadily.  "And think about other people besides yourself, for once.  Let them make a choice instead of forcing it on them."

It was very clear, even to him, that the outcome of the conversation was riding on his next few words.  The ease with which his assistant could disregard others, especially random passerby, and enchant them to get what she wanted, still bothered him.  Jonas had given her the benefit of the doubt and written it off as desperation, but even now that she wasn't desperate, it was clear that her opinions hadn't changed.  And she threw it back in his face - he hadn't approved of her Muggle-baiting, so she hadn't told him anything else.  That stung, but it was besides the point.  There was nothing he could do that would force her to change.

Part of him couldn't help wondering, deep down, if this wasn't the same internal thought process that Anna had gone through, over a year before.  He pushed the thought aside.  That was an uncomfortable train of reasoning that he could, again, worry through later.

"I want you to sort it out for yourself," he said, quietly and evenly.  "There's not conditions on it.  But either we fundamentally disagree or we don't, Lex.  If you still don't understand why confunding blokes would upset me, then eventually, we're going to come to a head.  We've gotten enough done today, anyhow," he added, taking a deep breath.  "Why don't you take the rest of the afternoon?" 

It wasn't a question, but he managed to make it sound like it might have been.

She finally lifted her blue and gold eyes to his and her resolve shattered. Long streams of tears began to fall. She couldn't explain it but she felt as if she had just lost her best friend. She knew that he was now putting this in her hands, leaving it up to her as to what the next move would be. She had no idea what to make of all of this and supposed that in time it would make more sense. For now it was just a jumble of information that she didn't have the strength to decipher. He had been married once and she had no idea if he still loved the woman, he knew she was a werewolf and didn't seem to care, the things that hurt him was that she had never trusted him enough to tell him the truth and that bloody mess with the whole muggle baiting situation was still bothering him and he was now looking for resolution.

She gingerly got to her feet at his 'suggestion'. As exhausted as she was from this whole exchange she wasn't an idiot. He wasn't asking if she wanted the afternoon off for her own sake. He just wanted her out of his face and possibly out of his life. He had left it up to her, so he said, but what did he really want? How would he feel if she turned around and came back to work tomorrow as if nothing had ever happened between them? Would he still want her around if she refused to apologize or whatever it was he wanted her to do over the muggle baiting issue?

As she reached him she opened her mouth to say something but the words never came. Her vision was blurred from the tears but she refused to wipe them away. She tightened her jacket around herself as she pushed past him and exited the office. She had no idea where she was going to go but she just needed to get away from here.