Title: A Great and Terrible Price
Fandom: Jesus Christ Superstar (2012 Broadway Revival)
Pairing: Jesus/Judas, Judas/Mary, Jesus + Mary
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: Part 1 - 5774
Warnings: Graphic depictions of sexual situations, slash; if that's not your cup of tea, there's no shame in it... but please don't read it. Thanks! ^_^

Disclaimer: Jesus Christ Superstar does not belong to me. It belongs to Sirs Andrew Lloyd Weber and Tim Rice. No harm was meant. I'm just playing. I'll put them back (mostly) intact when I'm done. ^_^

April 2, 2013: A little over a year ago, I started writing this monster. I moved fast and furious on it, spurred on by repeated visits to see JCS on Broadway. Then the show closed and I just... I didn't have the heart to finish it. Then a friend wrote an amazing JCS story and I got so wrapped up in her headcanon that I couldn't recapture my own... and didn't even want to try. Lately, however, I'd been poking at it, rereading bits here and there and when I turned to said friend to ask her what she'd pick for me to work on of all the WIPs I have going... this story came up. And I thought... "Huh. Why not?" And for the first time in a year, this story finally cooperated. O_O I'm not going to question it. I'm just going to be grateful. I am, however, editing as I go, so this will probably go up in three parts. Enjoy?

A Great and Terrible Price
by Renee-chan

It is a terrible thing, to know when you are a child the exact date and time and place you are to die. Only one thing is worse - not knowing that the one you love will precede you into death. It is a fearful thing, to know that you are to die... and even unto that very morning of your death to not understand why. Only one thing is worse - to know that the one you love preceded you into death due to your own actions... or lack thereof.

Judas is dead... and it is all my fault.

For that alone, I should be damned for all eternity.

Judas came to me hungry, his eyes hollow pits of need. I didn't ask questions then, sensed there was a past there of which he would not wish to speak. His hunger was simple, then, a hunger for food, for water, for safety and simple comforts - a place to rest his head at night, a pair of shoes to protect his feet on the roads, a cloak to keep him warm. His hunger was easy to satisfy then.

As the one craving eased though, others took its place - more complicated, more difficult to satisfy. The second hunger to turn his hollow eyes my way was a hunger for knowledge. Judas wanted to know, to understand... everything. Reading. Writing. Mathematics. Philosophy. Politics. Economics. Science. Religion. History. If I knew it, he wanted to know it. If I didn't know it, he would seek out others among us who did. I didn't know it then, but this vast knowledge he was acquiring... he was acquiring it for me, to make himself useful - nay, indispensable - to me.

It worked.

Long before he was satisfied with what he had learned, I already relied on him more than the others, took advice from him that I couldn't stomach from anyone else, trusted him above and beyond the rest... loved him more dearly, too. The others should have objected, protested, rejected me... us... but Judas, for all his hunger, was an innocent, then. Those few who knew how I felt also knew that nothing would come of it, that Judas would never return my affections... that we were safe.

Would that they had been right!

As Judas' hunger for knowledge was slowly slaked, the third, the last, the most dangerous hunger took hold. And it was a hunger so simple that it was complex. Judas, deprived by that past of which he still would not speak, hungered for simple human contact, for affection... for love. My love. He turned that vast intellect on me and, with every bit of skill he possessed, began to court that love he so desperately sought. I can admit it now - I never stood a chance.

Judas could be possessed of a single-minded intensity which which he drove straight to the heart of a problem to find a solution. And with that intensity, he pierced straight through to my own heart, as well. He saw the secrets in my eyes, ferreted them out one by one by one and used them to his own ends to expose me to him. Nevertheless, I did what I could to dissuade him, showed him the relevant passages in the Torah, reminded him that in our society what he wished was frowned upon, at best, looked on as a sign of Roman corruption at worst. He listened to my every argument, processed the information in his own unique way... and came back to me with arguments to counter every word I had said, demanded to know why I wasted precious time explaining these things to him when to everyone else I simply declared that my service to G-d required absolute purity. Why was that one argument, the one I used on everyone else, not good enough for him?

Why? Because it simply wasn't true... and I knew Judas Iscariot well enough by then to know that he would have ferreted out that untruth, as well, and demanded a different answer. And I would have none to give him. This had been the best one I had and still it had not been good enough. Finally, after weeks of dogged, ever-hounding pursuit, I did the only thing I could... I gave him the truth.

Our movement was still so new, was barely a year old, and we had so very far to go... I could not afford to be seen as one who played favorites among his disciples. Such a thing would rip us apart faster than Rome or the Temple ever could.

Judas considered my answer, went away and thought on it for several hours before returning. And when he returned, his answer was simple - he kissed me. He kissed with the same hunger with which he did everything else, practically devouring my mouth with his own. His hands were everywhere, too - in my hair, on my shoulders, around my waist - as though he couldn't decide where he could best employ them to get from me what he wanted. Finally he settled them, one at my hip, the other wrapped around the back of my neck, both placements that would grant him control over my ability to pull away... and my desire to.

And I did desire to. This could not happen. In such an attachment would be the seeds of my undoing. I knew it. I could feel it... but the warmth of that hand on my hip, the gentle caress of those supple fingers in the fall of my hair... the wet, devouring heat of his lips on mine... I couldn't deny him. I wasn't strong enough.

Judas always seemed to know when he had won an argument and he sensed the moment I ceased to fight - with him and with myself - with equal ease. I could feel the slight cant of his smile pressed against the answering, tremulous tilt of my own. He pulled me away from the others, laid me down amongst a nest of blankets - and it did gall to see that he knew me so well as to not only anticipate my answer but to prepare for it - and satisfied that third hunger... and a hunger in my own being of whose existence even I had been blissfully unaware.

I hungered for that simple human touch, that individual love and affection, as badly and as completely as Judas did. It had been so long since another human being had held me while lacking ulterior motive. And Judas' only ulterior motive had been to give as much pleasure, as much comfort, as he had received. The things he did to me that night... that one, glorious night... they stayed with me, cherished memories to keep me warm even on the coldest of nights thereafter. Only one thought marred the perfection of those moments, one thought that kept me awake, stroking his unruly mass of curls long after Judas had fallen into a deep, blissful slumber.

The next morning, I demanded to know from whom he had learned the things he had shown me the previous night. Judas was young, too young, I had thought at the time, to have this kind of knowledge... this kind of experience. I had ignored the knowledge that he was, in fact, not more than a year or two younger than myself. He always seemed younger than that, and I fear that in my need to punish myself for my own sin, I would have taken any excuse to prevent a repeat occurrence. And so, I pursued this assumed affront to Judas' innocence as a shield, demanded to know to which of my apostles he had gone to learn these things, as he certainly hadn't learned them from me. And the look in his eyes as he quietly answered that none of my followers was to blame for this education - that look of darkest self-loathing before he turned it away - opened a window onto that past of which he still would not speak... and informed me that though I had sought to punish myself with this attack, I had somehow wounded Judas, instead.

He fled me, then, snatched up his clothing, his shoes, and bolted away into the early morning mist. No amount of calling out on my part would bring him back. One day... two days... three, he stayed away. He came back on the third night, his eyes those same dark pits of need they had been when he first arrived in camp... but this time that self-loathing was there, too. He was dirty, his clothing ragged, his hair tangled, the curls matted down with dried mud. He ate with us - quiet, withdrawn, the great wheels of his mind turning in directions that mine could not even comprehend, much less match.

He stayed away from me all through dinner, through our evening prayers and chores. He worked silently, without complaint. It was not until everyone had retired for the night that he came to me. He came in a great rush of billowing cloak, his eyes wild, his hands grasping and desperate. I could no more deny him then than I could the time before. He was different that night, his eyes and hands guiding, asking, but no longer demanding. He guided me to do to him the things he had done to me during our last tryst... the student becoming the teacher, at last. I knew it was wrong, knew I should deny him... but I could not. I felt not even one qualm about it, either... until I saw that which he tried to keep hidden by turning his back to me. As I bent over him, piercing his body as he had so easily done my heart in the beginning, I caught a glimpse of his face - tight, drawn, needing so very badly... and so very sad and frightened at the same time. The single tear that slipped from his eye undid me completely, but I had no idea what I had done to prompt the response and even less idea what to do to fix it.

He fled again the next morning, unable - or unwilling - to break bread with me, with the others. He slunk away before I awoke, stayed away for the rest of the day and for two more days beside before coming back, again.

And with this action, a pattern was set. Judas would be his usual self - my closest companion, my dearest friend, my most trusted advisor and counsel. He would be this to me for days on end, weeks, sometimes. Then one night, he would come to me, seeking the warmth and the comfort that he couldn't ask for any other way. He would then run from me in the days following. Sometimes he would stay in camp and simply not speak to me. Sometimes he would leave camp altogether, would run to scout the outlying areas, to buy supplies at the nearest market, anything to avoid contact with me. Sometimes these absences lasted only a day, sometimes a week. On one, uniquely rare departure he stayed away for a month. And in that one month... everything changed.

On the surface, there was nothing particularly unique about Mary Magdalene. She was beautiful, but her kind usually were. She was charming, but her kind usually were. She was graceful, elegant, eloquent... as her kind usually were. There was something in her eyes, however, that her kind did not usually have. Those deep brown eyes... something in them showed hope for something better, hope that someday she would no longer live this life.

That hope intrigued me, drew me back to her, again and again. Moreover, as we spoke, as I began to tell her my own dreams of a better world, a world in which mankind loved one another, loved G-d and cared for each other... I began to see those dreams reflected in her eyes. She took my words into her heart and refracted them back to me in a rainbow of dazzling colors. She gave my dreams new life, new purpose.

I think I loved her a little for that, alone.

My apostles did not understand, argued against bringing her with us on our journeys, argued that a woman of her kind did not belong on a holy pilgrimage, that her presence would confuse the weak-hearted. As each of those ideas were given form in words, I watched as my beautiful, graceful, and elegant new friend shrank in on herself, the rainbow in her eyes darkened, turning to self-loathing. It was a look I knew all too well. How often had I seen it in the eyes of my dearest friend, my Judas? Seeing that, I knew for certain that I could not turn her away. It was no longer just a matter of it being the right thing to do to bring her alone. No... I needed her, now, and simply could not leave her behind.

That look in her eyes... if I could understand that look in her eyes... if I could unlock her tattered and abused soul... it might then give me the key's to unlock Judas', as well, to finally get to the heart of what drove him away from me night after night after night.

It was unworthy of me, to think this way, to value her only for my own needs, and I hated myself for it, but even so... I am just a man. In spite of what they had started to say about me, I am only a man. I am mortal. I am fallible. I am weak. I make mistakes. And I did make one that day, a huge, terrible, monumental mistake... and it carried with it consequences I could not have foreseen.

Still, I am a man and I made that mistake. I brought Mary Magdalene into our company, into our pilgrimage, and she changed everything. Those who did not know me assumed I had brought this woman of ill-repute into my camp for the obvious reasons. Those few who knew me knew better knew that could not be the case. They thought that my heart and body belonged solely to G-d. They were half right. My sould belonged to G-d... but my heart and body belonged to another - and when that other returned... between he and Mary, they tilted my world on its side. And to this, the very end of my days, it has not righted itself, yet.

By the time Judas returned after his month's wanderings, Mary had made herself at home in my camp. She made herself useful where she could, learned ways to make herself moreso every day. She had such a comforting way about her, her touch so soothing that even the most violent of upheavals could be smoothed away with her mere presence. Just as my Judas had done with his intellect, my Mary became indispensable to me as well... for her heart.

Judas came to me immediately upon his return, almost frantic to be back at my side but wild-shy about it, as though unsure of his welcome after so long away. My own heart rejoicied so at his return, however, that was a mystery to me that he could ever think I would turn him away. I clasped him to me, made no secret to him of my joy at his homecoming. He relaxed against me, returned my embrace with equal vigor and, as was his wont, pressed a firm, lingering kiss on my cheek, nuzzled into the fall of my hair. More than anywhere, this embrace, Judas' face pressed so closely to mine... it felt like home.

I made as though to draw him away with me, to speak privately of the things he had seen and done and learned while away, but Mary came between us. It was unintentional, it was not maliciously meant, but she intruded into that private moment as though meant to be there... as she had done these last weeks while Judas was gone. She had no reason to believe that anything had changed and so she made that misstep and Judas... reacted as poorly as I had feared he might. For the first time in my memory, he pulled away from me in the full light of day with no predisposing reason. He pulled away, fled my presence... fled hers. He did not leave camp, though, to my undying gratitude. To lose him again so quickly after his return would have broken something in me, I am sure. He took solace with Peter and James, broke bread with them, shared his news, all the while watching me from across camp with those haunted eyes.

Judas stalked around me for days afterwards, not daring to come closer, not daring to stray too far. I waited, ever patient, for him to come to a decision, knowing that no effort of mine would rush or alter its reaching. Finally, one night after Mary had finished caring for me and gone to her own rest, Judas gave me his answer. He came to my tent, to my bed, like a storm - furious, yet somehow silent, in its intensity. He would not speak, would not hear my words, would not let me be gentle. Our coupling that night was as violent as the storm of which he had reminded me and my heart cried out with it, desperate and saddened that I would surely lose him again so soon.

Come morning, I awoke, expecting to find Judas gone. He was not. He was still in my tent, in fact, curled in a corner, dark eyes bruised and full of that self-loathing I had so longed to understand and to alleviate, if I could. When he saw that I was awake, he slunk to my side like a dog expecting to be beaten. He bowed his head to me, pressed salty-wet kisses to my hands and begged my forgiveness for once again sullying my purity with his tainted touch. It was then that I began to understand, another window into Judas' past sliding open just a touch.

I did the only thing I could do in the face of his anguish. I raised him up, pressed soft kisses on him - his lips, his cheeks, his head, his hands - and told him that there was nothing he needed to be forgiven for, that in my eyes, he was as worthy as any of my disciples, that I did not consider him unclean. At my words, the darkness in his eyes broke, shattered... and I began to see Mary's hope shining far away deep inside them, just a glimmer perhaps, but it was a start. For the first time since he had joined me, I felt that someday Judas might truly come to believe in what we were doing. It brought me such joy that I laughed with it and kissed him, again.

That morning, we coupled in the light of breaking dawn, able to see each other clearly in our passion for the first time... and it was beautiful. Even more beautiful, though, was that Judas did not run from me again after that, staying by my side long into the morning whenever he came to me. And for the first time since I had learned of my destiny, with Judas by my side in the day and in the night... I began to feel a small measure of peace.

Judas and Mary circled around each other for weeks, months, wary and untrusting. They circled each other and they circled me, constantly pushing and pulling at me as though only one of them could have me in the end. Keeping them apart, keeping their antagonism from ripping apart the entire group, was exhausting. It sapped me of strength I needed for other things and I despaired of ever resolving their conflict.

Simon, James, Peter even, urged me to banish Mary from our company, sensing the strife she caused between myself and Judas and wishing to ease it in whatever way was easiest. Judas, however, was strangely silent on that matter. Only once did he reference the idea of banishing Mary and then only obliquely - asking not why I did not rid us of her, but instead asking why I wasted time on one whose purposes could not match our own.

Weary of the fighting, I snapped back, accused him of envy, of condemning Mary simply for her past. He fell silent at that, eyes downcast. When he finally lifted his face, again, that self-loathing was back in full force in a way it had not been in months. Judas said, "I have no qualms with Mary's former profession, Jesus. It is her effect on you with which I quarrel."

I attempted to dismiss his words, but Judas followed after me, caught at my shoulders and spun me to face him, shook me roughly, fear now in his eyes. He said, "You must listen to me." His tone turned pleading, "Don't you see? You used to listen to me. You used to heed my words. Now, whenever the conversation touches upon Mary, you do not even acknowledge my right to have an opinion. You used to trust me..."

I lifted my hands to cup Judas' face, gently stroked along his cheeks with my thumbs. I said, "I do trust you, Judas. It is your intentions I am no longer certain I trust."

Those words dropped between us like stones - heavy, immoveable, insurmountable. Judas jerked away from me, breathing hard. He tried to speak, failed, tried again... failed again. Finally he said, "My intentions have only ever been to support you, Jesus... you and our movement. This mistrust of yours... Do you not even see? You mistrust my intentions because you feel they have strayed from your own, but it isn't my intentions that have strayed."

I couldn't listen to that. Judas was wrong. He had to be. I was as dedicated to our movement now as I was when we started, perhaps even more so as I sensed my time with it drawing to a close. Still, he did not stop, continued spewing those damning words... those damning truths, "You love Mary so because she focuses purely on you and your comfort, not on the movement. She encourages you to ever greater acts of self-serving behavior, distancing you further and further from the ideals with which you started!"

Judas grew more incensed with every word, as though he had waited long to say these things to me, holding them back because he had known what pain it would cause me to hear them. And it did. It caused me great pain, because underneath my denial... I knew that Judas was not wrong. I had been allowing Mary to give me comfort, to persuade me to rest my burdens for an hour, an evening, a night... a day. I had allowed her to purchase things to ease her task, spending money which - as Judas would surely point out - could have been better distributed elsewhere. I did these things because I was tired, I was afraid and I was in need of comfort, yet I felt I needed to stand strong before my apostles - unwavering. I had felt that I needed to appear more than human... a ruse started for my nearest and dearest which eventually extended to the general populace and backfired on me spectacularly.

When it had been Judas alone giving me solace he never failed to make distinction between his role as my lover and his role as my advisor. He took great pains, in fact, never to blur the line between the two, not wanting to let our mutual pleasure become a way for him to gain undue influence over me. A woman, though... a woman is a woman at all times. She can no more turn off her grace or her compassion than she can stop breathing. It is simply part of who she is. And Mary, through no purposeful intent, had utilized every bit of that grace and compassion in her dealings with me. She knew no other way. It had influenced me to be her protector - unreasoning and unquestioning - from all comers... including my own beloved Judas. I had protected her and allowed her to coddle me, to shower me with gifts and rewards I had not yet earned, yet somehow thought my due. Was that not pride? Gluttony? Greed?

I was caught, then, without an answer. I was embarrassed, ashamed that with Judas estranged from me, even this little bit, my intellect had fled, as well. It angered me, that I depended so on another for my ability to see clearly, even as I knew that that very anger was misplaced, unwarranted. It made me angrier, still, and in my pride and my anger... I lashed out at the only target in range.

"Is it so wrong, Judas?" I spat out, "Is it so wrong that I should have an occasional comfort for myself? You are right. Mary cares for me. She is here for me. I once thought you felt the same. Perhaps, I was wrong."

Judas took a step back from me, as though I had slapped him. His eyes widened with pain, his breath caught. I could see the wheels of his great mind turning, spinning uselessly on themselves as they tried to come to his aid... and failed, tripped up unmercifully by his emotions. Judas took another step back from me, then another. Finally he took one last step back, turned and fled. I stood there and stared after him, beyond horrified by the words that had come from my mouth, words I had shaped, deliberately crafted to wound. I realized then that as often as I had brutally rejected his well-intentioned advice, as often as I had driven Judas away from me, it was no less than a miracle that he continued to return to my side. I would not always be so blessed. One day I would drive him away... and he would not return. I couldn't let that day be today.

Before I could give chase, however, a delicate hand alighted on my arm and arrested my movement. Mary. Of course she had witnessed everything. After months of being so careful not to show preferential treatment to one or the other of them, that she should have witnessed that calculated cruelty on my part was insult added to the injury I had already done Judas. It was unforgivable. I opened my mouth to speak, to try to explain this all away, but Mary raised her other hand and covered my lips, shook her head. Her beautiful, dark eyes were so sad as she said, "No. Don't explain. Even you could not have words good enough to explain what I just saw."

Mary looked off into the distance and when she looked back... there was disappointment in her eyes. She said, "Jesus... you are wise, that is true, but it is an otherworldly wisdom. You are not wise in the ways of this world as I am - as Judas is. It makes you precious to us both, to all of those who follow you, but it means that you often do not see the world for what it is. Judas, of us all, tries the most to protect you from the world's cruel reality. So, it is doubly cruel that when he is unsuccessful and you are hurt, that you turn and lash out at the very hand which tried to protect you. Perhaps you should take this opportunity to think on why that is." She straightened, eyes determined, "I will go after Judas. For now, you have forfeited that right." She then gathered her skirts and took off running, leaving me to ponder both how I could have made such a terrible blunder... and how Mary had come to care so for Judas that she would step between us to defend him.

Of course, I followed after Mary. I was the one who had made this error and I believed I should have been the one to fix it. In addition, I did not entirely trust Mary's sudden compassion for Judas and feared that in his unbalanced state she might somehow do him harm, even if unintentionally. And so, I followed. They had not gone far.

Judas was sitting on a rock at the outskirts of our camp, one of the few shaded spots in the area. Mary was beside him, sitting close enough to touch but not doing so. I crept closer until I could distinguish the words in the quiet murmur of their voices. Mary was the one speaking as I approached.

"...didn't mean the things he said. You surprised him, Judas, and embarrassed him. He has been overwhelmed and distraught of late. He did not know how to respond to your accusations, though he heard the truth in them. You can not blame him."

"I don't," Judas' answer was quick, clipped, venomous. He turned towards Mary and spat out, "I blame you. You have turned him from his purpose, made him forget why he is doing these things he does, planted thoughts in his head which have no business there."

Mary sighed, shook her head, ever the epitome of grace even when under attack. She laid a gentle hand on Judas' arm and said, "`There is certainly some truth in your words. I can't deny it. I have seen the pain he is in, the despair which takes deeper and deeper root in him with each passing day, and I cannot help wanting to ease his burden. You feel the same - I see that you do - yet you resist the instinct to comfort. Why?"

Judas jerked away from Mary, off the rock and back several paces before spitting out, "Because I am not a whore." Though Mary flinched from those words, she stayed silent as Judas continued, "He does not need me for comfort. I am here to provide him strategy, to help him spread the message, to advise him... not..." He cut off his words, wrapped his arms around himself.

Both were silent for a moment, eyes not quite meeting, bodies canted away from each other, arms crossed over breasts. Finally, Judas repeated, eyes bleak, "I am not a whore."

As I stood there stunned, Mary rose from her seated position, crossed to take Judas in her arms... and he allowed it, even buried his face in the crook of her neck, an occasional sob shaking his shoulders as he let go of the burdens he was carrying, allowed Mary to take up some of their weight. Mary stroked his hair, his back, placed gentle kisses on his brow, finally said, almost too quietly for me to hear...

"Not to him, Judas. Never to him."

At those words, Judas shuddered, unwrapped his arms from around himself and wrapped them around Mary, clutching her tightly to him. His tears came fast and freely after that. Watching they two together, wrapped in each other's misery like a shroud, I thought I might be starting to understand. I had been right to liken the look in Mary's eyes to the one in Judas', more right than I had known. So many things about Judas finally began to make sense to me in that moment: why he had been so starved for affection, for knowledge, why he had been almost feral when he first joined us, why he seemed to know the words of the prayers and the teachings so well and yet had not the first idea of what they meant... why Mary frightened and angered him so.

Listening to my beloved forced to sob out his anguish on another's shoulder all but broke me. I did not want to listen to it for another moment, but I forced myself to do so as a penance. I had done this. No amount of self-righteousness, no amount of physical comfort was worth having done this to someone I loved. As Judas calmed, Mary pushed him upright, wiped the tears from his eyes. He took in a great, shuddering breath, said shakily, "After all I've spoken against you, I do not deserve this kindness from you."

Mary smiled then, and the light in that smile was as dazzling as in the first she'd given me. I could see that even Judas' heart was not unmoved. She said, "You spoke out because you feel the one you love is in danger. I can't agree with your conclusion but Judas... I would be hard-pressed, indeed, to find fault with your reasons for acting out." She raised a hand to his cheek and said, "Judas... he is a good man. He has worked so hard these last few years... is it so wrong for him to take some time for himself?"

Judas turned away, then, and I could no longer see his face. He said, "I fear it, Mary. I fear that he has allowed the people to place him upon a pedestal and that if he begins to seem fallible, now, they will rip him to shreds. The people love nothing more than to see an idol fall. He is ill-prepared to handle such a fall and the more you cozen him, the more likely it is that he will tumble from that exalted position he never should have had... and shatter when he does."

"I understand your fears, Judas, but I do not share them. Jesus knows what he is doing, what he can handle. Trust in that, as we all do," she said, exhibiting more faith in me than I had even in myself.

Judas sighed, simply said, "I can't, Mary. I just can't."

Mary sighed, "Try, Judas. You will see I am right in the end." She stepped back and added, "Perhaps a gesture of good faith between us?" At Judas' curious look, she smiled and said, "I will tell you this: He was as traumatized by what he said to you as you were. Go to him tonight. Make peace between you, Judas. Give him what comfort you can and trust that G-d chose him and that he chose you... and that means you are worthy of asking for the more that you want from him."

As she turned to walk away, I fled, heart beating as quickly as a rabbit's as I tried to avoid getting caught. As always, I would wait for Judas to come to me on his own terms. I owed him that much and more.