A/N: This is just a little bit of post-finals fun, since I'm secretly a huge Degrassi freak. I always wondered how different the characters would be if Jay had been the one to face down Rick, rather than Sean. The dynamics could've been interesting and would've opened up an entirely different side to Jay, especially considering the shooting was indirectly his fault, as well. Also, this is not a romantically "charged," so to speak, piece buuuut I have a total soft spot for Emma/Jay, so this will probably evolve into a relationship between the two of them, as a sub-plot at the very least. Mostly, though, it deals with Jay's metamorphosis from one-dimensional bully to a real character.

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My saliva was as thick as molasses. I was barely able to swallow as my brain registered exactly what I had done. To Jimmy. To – Jimmy. I heard him scream as his body collapsed under the weight of the bullet. Blood instantaneously trickled down from the small wound that was inflicted. The wound that I inflicted upon him, a boy at the age of...well, I never really knew his age. He must only be sixteen, I suppose. Such a small number in the grand scheme of things. Numbers are endless, unlike life. I guess it doesn't take a genius to figure that one out, though. I guess no one ever really needs a genius in high school at all, except to humiliate, torture, hunt, kill. I may have killed Jimmy in that instant. No, he didn't die, I know that now, but at that point, I didn't know if he was dead or not. I did know, though, that it didn't matter if I killed him. Why? Simple.

He.

Killed.

Me.

First.

The second the paint fell onto me, Rick was dead.

Well, maybe not. When the paint fell onto me, a different Rick was created. One who cared about nothing but vengeance. Inigo Montoya, at your service. You killed my father, prepare to die. ...You killed my soul, prepare to die. Especially after Emma, beautiful, sweet, wonderful Emma, revealed that her only feelings towards me were those of pity. Like I wanted her pity. She was no one! She was this idiotic little slip of a girl who only cared about being accepted. That, and oil spills in the Arctic, which kill thousands of animals, causing them pain, anguish. If she was any sort of human being, she would have felt more for my suffering than the suffering of stupid animals. Animals don't have souls. I do. I did.

I wasn't going to do it, though. After Paige told me that she thought it was sick and accepted my apology, I wasn't going to do it. I was going to turn around and go home. Then, possibly stay home until my torturous life ended. That, or I would've called Toby to play some video games, I'm really not sure anymore.

No, the moment Rick died was in the bathroom. I was crying, like the little pussy I am, when I overheard Gavin "Spinner" Mason and Jay Hogart speaking in hushed tones about the paint incident. Spinner and Jay had been two of my least favorite people in the world, to the point that I vandalized their cars. I just couldn't take it anymore and after Jay had begun to beat me in the alley behind The Dot, I just felt like I needed to do something to assert myself as a man. I knew Spinner would be angry, but Jay...Jay lived for his car. I think if he had any emotions towards anyone, it wasn't his girlfriend, his friends, hell – I doubt he even had real feelings for his parents. No, if he felt anything for anyone, it was his baby. His stupid orange Civic, infamous around Degrassi...and I just knew it was the only way to get to him. I think I could've repeatedly hit his ugly girlfriend over the head with an electrified cattle prod until she whimpered away her last breath and he still would've been more upset about the tag on his car. Yet, he didn't do anything about it. In fact, he told me that we were "cool." Only because I was smart and was about to bring Degrassi to a staggering, lightning round victory. He seemed…proud. Well, I know better now, but at the time...it was amazing to me. I was finally finding acceptance. What a joke. I half-expected to hear Jay and Spinner admit to setting the whole thing up. What I did hear come out of Jay's mouth was what finally did me in.

"Jimmy set the whole thing up perfectly. The way he got those easy sports questions wrong..."

The next twenty minutes or so were a blur.

Until I pulled the trigger.

Suddenly, everything was crystal clear.

That's when I shot Jimmy.

The star of the basketball team. Everyone's favorite guy. The token black kid. A bully. Someone I thought...I thought he was my friend. He was Terri's friend...

I snapped my eyes shut.

NO.

That's when I panicked. My thoughts raced. I killed him and he was dead and I did it and I'll go to jail and they'll call it a hate crime and I'd die in prison and what if someone raped me and would anyone love me and I need to get Toby out of here and Emma, that bitch, Emma, I love Emma and I hate her and I should rip her throat out and I hate her and I hate the world and what have I done and I needed air and why was there no air and oh, there's no air no air need air and I was thinking in a run-on sentence and OH GOD and Terri and –

My mind stopped, then. Finally.

Son of a bitch deserved it.

I took slow, painfully slow steps down the hallway. These hallways once held so much promise for me, for Terri, for my love, and – more recently - for my redemption. If my motor functions were properly...well, functioning, I probably would have laughed one of those cold laughs authors always assign to the villain. Because that's what I am, right? The villain of the tale, of the school, of the whole of Toronto. I shot someone. Naturally, I'm the bad guy.

Nothing ever works out the way you plan it, children. All I wanted was acceptance from the people I hurt the most. I know I hurt them. I know it. I...hurt Terri, a girl who was so sweet and wonderful that she shouldn't have even looked at a geek like me. She did, though. She loved me. I still think that, at the end of the day, if she had stayed at Degrassi and not transferred to some private school, we would have been together. She would have seen how much I had changed and what assholes her friends were. Fight violence with violence, that's a sound policy. Unfortunately, she wasn't there to save me. The only one who was there to save me, she hurt me – in ways worse than I ever could have hurt Terri. Images of a gorgeous blonde filled my mind. Emma smiling at me, encouraging me...rejecting me. Harshly, to say the least.

To say that I was angry would be an understatement. However, it was as though I had blown a fuse. I couldn't feel anything. Hence, my ability to speak so calmly about this now. That, plus the fact that I'm dead, though I suppose that's irrelevant.

I apologize for numerous sentence fragments above. Grammar was one of my specialties in life; as were most other academic subjects. Also, Dungeons & Dragons.

Anyway, as I was stepping away from Jimmy's body, I heard Craig's voice, cracking, whisper his name. They'd know it was me, eventually. It wasn't time yet, though. I had another score to settle. A couple of seconds later, though, I heard a rushing of feet. Craig ran past me. He was so flustered that he ran right by me. The gunman. It was kind of funny. I stopped behind the trophy case and watched as he grabbed someone's arm, a blonde boy, casually walking out of class, bathroom pass in tow. I had seen him before. His eyebrows were difficult to miss.

"Sean, do you have a cell phone?" Craig ran his fingers through his hair. He was vain, even in an emergency situation; typical of a guitarist.

"Um, Craig, we haven't spoken in over a year. Borrow someone else's." Sean started to push past, a tough guy, aloof, but Craig grabbed his arm.

"Sean, someone shot Jimmy." That got Tough Guy's attention.

"Shot? As in...gunshot? Is he okay? Wait, why are you talking to me? What are you doing?! Get a teacher, man!" They ran off. No one even checked Jimmy's pulse. What lackbrains. That's just an observation, though, it doesn't really matter because that's when I heard them. Rather, that's when I heard her. I turned around and watched the scene unfold before me. It was Toby, Emma, and...Jay.

"I know you were behind this! I swear to God, as soon as I have proof, I'm going straight to Mr. Raditch. Then, if we're lucky, your ass will be expelled and I'll never have to see your stupid face ever again." Emma's arms were folded. She had obviously accosted Jay as he was trying to skip out on class. She was talking about me. Like she cared. She didn't, I can tell you that. What Emma cared about was her image. Not me.

"Whatever, Greenpeace. Nice agenda." Jay rolled his eyes, he started to walk away. Emma stepped in front of him.

"Are you that heartless, Jay? He was traumatized. I'd be shocked if he ever comes back to Degrassi."

"Good! Mission accomplished, then!" Jay's eyes sparked, I noted.

"Why do you even care?!" Emma screamed, "You didn't know Terri."

"No, you didn't know Terri." Jay corrected quickly, "Which is why you defend that little shithead."

"Well, even if you did know Terri, my guess is you made her life hell!" As much as I once loved Emma before I decided she needed to have her brain splattered across the walls of her high school, I always found her voice to be very screechy and just a smidge whiny, "Just like you do with everyone else, unless they're drug dealers or sluts or whatever. And was that a confession before? You know, "mission accomplished?" Because I'll quote what you said to Raditch, don't think I won't..."

"He's a psycho, Emma." Jay cut Emma off, "I may not be a peach, but even I have limits on the type of people I associate with."

"Bullshit, Jay. You just get off on others' misery."

"Okay. Fine. Yes. I cum in my pants every time a baby cries. Now, move. I need a smoke." Jay put his hands on Emma's shoulders, deliberately moving her out of his way. She slapped his hands off of her, stepping back. Her brown eyes glowered.

"You're disgusting and no one deserved what happened to Rick, even if he did put a girl in a coma. That was then, this is now. And now, you're the bad guy." As she seethed, Jay looked at the ceiling, balling his hands into tight fists, a tight, strained grimace marring his features.

"Nelson, you're really starting to piss-"

"Emma, let's go. We have to find Rick." Toby finally said something. I had forgotten he was even standing there, watching the fight between Emma and Jay.

Incidentally, that was also my cue.

"Emma." Three eyes were suddenly on me. It was as if time stood still.

"Go home, freak." Those were the first words out of Jay's mouth as he stared me down moments later. He obviously didn't see the gun or he might've thought twice before crossing me.

"Hello, Emma." I said, my voice monotonous, my steps still slow and calculated, "Sorry I kissed you."

"Rick, what are you doing?" Emma was confused. A confused blonde. It was like a joke. I pulled the gun out further. I was so close.

"Nelson, Isaacs, get out of here." Jay's eyes were wide. I wanted to laugh. Whoever thought that Jay Hogart, Mr. I'm-the-Big-Bad would be scared of meek, little Rick? Not so meek anymore.

"You know my last name?" Toby asked. Idiotic Toby.

"I'm not joking around. He has a gun, go." Jay was whispering, yet he was screaming at the same time. Fool thought I wouldn't hear him, but I did. Emma's bottom lip quivered, her big doe brown eyes filling with silent tears as she began to back into the adjoining hallway. She and Toby were both shaking, I noticed, as they...turned. They were going away. They were about to leave, they were walking away. Away from me?! NO ONE...no one walks away from me! Not now! Not after everything I went through!

"Don't turn away from me!" I screamed. Emma and Toby froze. Jay automatically reached his hand out to Emma, a move I wasn't expecting, "Toby, Jay. You two can leave," Toby looked at Jay, who shook his head, "I mean it, leave! This is about Emma and me."

"No fucking way, man. You're not going to touch her, do you understand?" Jay's grip on Emma's arm tightened, "Now, put the gun down and we'll deal with this later, okay?"

"Last time I checked, I'm the one with the gun, so I call the shots, punk." I said, looking Jay up and down, "While you may not be on my list, I have no problem –"

"You don't have the balls to do anything, little boy. Now, put the gun down before I turn it around on you." Jay hissed, "I bet there aren't even any bullets in that thing."

"Jay, stop it." Emma cried. She was sobbing now, still quietly. It was almost dignified, "Don't taunt him."

"I'd listen to her if I were you, Jay. I wouldn't mess with me. Don't think I forgot our little encounter at The Dot. Emma saved me. Who knows what you might've done."

"What I should've done. Put the gun down, Rick. You've made your point. It isn't funny." Jay was looking me straight in the eyes now. I wanted to scream. Instead, I just hardened my clutch on the gun. It was almost time.

"Why don't you ask Jimmy Brooks how funny it was?" I whispered.

"Jimmy?" Toby choked out, "What happened to Jimmy?"

"I shot him." When I looked back at Jay, it was the strangest thing. The look on his face, it was – it was like nothing I had ever seen before. His mouth had dropped and his brows furrowed, but his eyes – there was emotion or something resembling emotion, anyway. I couldn't quite place it, but it looked like...guilt? Remorse? Compassion? Shock? Perhaps all. He was still blocking Emma, but he wasn't looking at me anymore. He was looking at the ground, his eyes darting about, everywhere.

"B-bullshit." Jay stammered, his voice gravelly, "You wouldn't. That's bullshit. Jimmy – you're just trying to scare me."

"Yes, I am. However, that doesn't make the truth of that statement any less so. The police should be here momentarily. I've just come to finish, with Emma."

"Rick, Emma's your friend." Toby said. He made eye contact with Jay, as though Jay had the answers. It's no wonder. Of the three, Jay was certainly the Alpha Male. Taller, stronger, most likely had street experience. You know, 'street.'

"No. She's not." I pointed the gun, "She's a bitch."

What happened next occurred in approximately three seconds. Jay jumped me, wrestling me to the ground. I pulled the trigger, without realizing that Jay had twisted my arm and, consequently, the gun. He howled in pain when the bullet pierced through the void and I felt a warm liquid seep all over me. For a split second of those three seconds, I thought I had shot Jay. Then, I realized, it was coming from my own wound. It was...my blood...

Finally, all was black.

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