He had gotten used to it all; the sneers, the jibes at his work, the contempt. It failed to bother him anymore, rolling off his shoulders and hardly making a mark upon him.

He had gotten quite comfortable in the solitude that came with being a pariah within his community. He knew that he was brilliant, and he knew that he was right. That was all that mattered.

...And if he occasionally felt lonely, that was his business and nobody else's.

Jacob idly fiddled with his ring that hung on a chain around his neck; deep down, he felt like he didn't deserve to wear it anymore. Rubbing a hand tiredly over a scruffy unshaven jaw, a part of him wondered when he had stopped caring... another part of him told that other part to shut the hell up because it didn't matter.

Life was so much simpler when you had only yourself to rely on and try to please. No expectations, no demands...

...No one to validate you, your work, or your very life.

Shut up. He didn't need anyone.

Yes, you do.

No, he didn't.

You're lonely. You know it.

He was fine.

...No, you're not.

And now he was arguing with himself. Great. That was the absolute picture of sanity.

You've known you were going nuts for awhile.

Shut up.

...Just saying.

He was fine. Completely, one-hundred-percent okay.

Liar.

He didn't care. If you couldn't lie to yourself sometimes, what was the point? Jacob had stumbled onto something big, and he knew it. He wasn't going to let anyone – the government, the media, hell even the postman – let him think otherwise. There was something going on in the world that the people deserved to know. Call him a conspiracy theorist, call him a bipolar nut job if you wanted, but there was something there. He was going to use any means necessary to get the word out.

He thought that he should probably feel vindicated, when they came to him for help. They didn't know how to handle their discovery, and suddenly found themselves reliant on the same whacko that they had tried to discredit. Suddenly, the world needed him. Suddenly, there were people to save.

Suddenly, he wasn't such a nut job after all. Funny how that works out.

He didn't care about any of them, not really. No one had believed him, believed his theories or believed that he actually knew what he was talking about. They didn't deserve his care and concern. He was going to save them simply because it was the right thing to do; a moral standard that he had set for himself, if you will.

But he was growing to care about her. She had originally believed him to be insane like the rest of them, this he knew. He had overlooked her as being just another of ignorant masses, too wrapped up in what they believed they knew than to listen to reason. But then, she had surprised him. She had seen the sense in what he was saying; had seen his research and work and how it was all falling into place. She had seen him. And she had freed him to do what he needed to save them all.

She had trusted him to save them all.

And it was that trust, that utter faith in him that grown despite her initial questioning of his sanity, that had changed him.

Suddenly, Jacob was no longer lonely. Suddenly, amidst all the chaos, he had found someone to be his equal. A Yin to his Yang. Suddenly, he was saving them all – because it was the right thing to do, yes – but also for her. Because she believed that he could.

Through her trust, she had validated him.

Jacob was intelligent. A 'prodigy' some had said early on in his career, before they had doubted him. And because he was intelligent, he knew that there was a very real possibility that in saving the masses, he would sacrifice himself.

That was why he had given her the chain and his ring. He'd wanted it to find a home with the one person who he'd cared about... and who'd cared about him. Slipping it over her head to hang resolutely about her slim neck, he'd known that he was saying goodbye.

A small part of him hoped that she thought it unfair; that she'd mourn him when he was gone. He went into his fight telling himself that she would, if only to make himself feel better.

His last thoughts before he died to save the world were of her.

A/N: Just a short little thing that stuck in my brain; mostly just testing out the category since it was just added. Hope you like!