A/N: Jasper tries to kill Echo and Clarke has to tell Abby the whole truth.

Chapter's title is from a song by Arctic Monkeys.

I'm sorry if there are mistakes, English is not my first language.

I don't own all the characters.

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Chapter Twenty-One: Snap out of it

Jasper is on guard duty, Echo's cell is just down the hallway and he longs to pay her a visit. He has dreamt of Maya again, she died in his arms again, barely alive to say goodbye, but she wasn't sweet this time, she accused him of being weak, of not being able to kill Cage fast enough, she tells him he couldn't have killed Cage any way, she repeats what Bellamy said, and then she blames him for the destruction of Mount Weather, for not seeking revenge.

Her words from the dream ring in his mind even now, they keep repeating themselves, the same voice keeps torturing him, it talks over itself, eating away at its own words and at Jasper's sanity.

He thinks about Bellamy then, about how he thinks of himself as better than the others, as a hero, when really he's just a murderer. He thinks about what he said about grief, that they all had someone to grieve, except that Bellamy doesn't.

Maybe he should give the hero someone to grieve. Maybe he should let Bellamy show him how a normal person faces grief.

His mind wanders to a dark place as he takes the first step down the hallway.

Slowly he makes his way to Echo's cell, it takes him a whole minute as he walks with no hurry, checking on the other prisoners as he passes by their cells. His footsteps ring against the Ark's metal walls, the sound comes back to him darker than when it left and he anticipates hearing it.

When he finally gets in front of Echo's cell, he's clutching tightly the keys in his hand. He moves his hand to rest on his gun, waiting for the girl to see him before opening the locket.

She looks confused at first, then she smiles.

"Are you really strong enough to go through with it?"

He doesn't answer, instead inquires, accusingly "You are responsible for the destruction of Mount Weather, aren't you?"

She laughs, waits for him to keep going.

"We saved you, but you crawled back to your Queen and betrayed us."

She keeps silent, eyeing the hand on the gun twitching, she figures at least twenty different ways to kill him before he can raise the gun, other fifteen to restrain him before he can make a move. But she keeps still for now.

"You gave that man the codes for the auto-destruction!"

She shrugs, "You seem pretty convinced anyway."

He takes the gun out and points it at her head.

Still ten ways to kill him. Three to restrain him without harm. Four to stop him with minor damage.

"You did it! You bitch!"

He shakes the gun in her face, too close for his own safety, it would be so easy to kick it out of his trembling hand, throw a punch to his scrunched up face and then play victim, showing Pike what whining fool he trusts with the safety of his prison, fully setting Bellamy against his friends.

But she stays still yet again.

The other guard heard him and has now run to check on him, finding a lunatic Jasper waving his gun in Echo's face, shouting insults and accuses in her face. The other boy tries to calm him down, to get him to put away the gun, but Jasper shrugs him off raising his arms and the gun goes off.

Echo ducks, ready to strike the delusional boy in front of her, but the bullet plants itself in the ceiling, nowhere near any of them, completely harmless.

Jasper, who didn't mean to shoot, stares in shock at the gun, conflicted and about to let go of it. Then he looks up at Echo and raises the gun again, steadier than before. The guy behind him tries to stop him, again reaching for him, more carefully this time, but Jasper just turns around slightly and points the gun at him, intimating him to step back.

The other guard raises his hands in the air and takes a few step back trying to reason with Jasper.

"Mate, what are you doing? Come on, put that down. You really wanna shoot me? Come on Jasper, snap out of it!"

Jasper tells him to go, run away and the guy hesitates for a moment before doing as told, deciding he cares about his life way more than he cares about Echo.

At least twenty-five ways to kill him as he watches his mate run off. Twenty to restrain him without harm. Twenty-seven to stop him with minor damages.

But she does nothing. She waits for him to turn back around and grins to herself as they hear the guard who just ran out shouting for help, yelling that Jasper has gone crazy.

"You're going to pay for what you did."

"For what you think I did", she corrects, calmly.

He lets out an odd growl and searches for the knife in his belt. He doesn't want to kill her with a gun, a bullet is too quick, Maya suffered, she has to suffer too.

Twenty-one ways to kill him as he is distracted. Four to restrain him without harm. Thirteen to stop him with minor damages.

It's not about Mount Weather anymore, it's about the sorrow and the grief and the pain that won't go away, it's about dream-Maya expecting revenge and telling him he's not strong enough to give it to her. And he is not. Who should he kill? Bellamy? Clarke for pulling the lever? The previous Commander who betrayed them? He wouldn't stand a chance against any of them. Killing an unharmed prisoner is way easier – so he thinks –, and hopefully will give him a similar satisfaction, will release him from some of the pain, some of the guilt, some of the grief.

He finally holds the knife in his hand, the vice-like grip making it tremble with the rest of the hand instead of stabilising it as he hoped.

Echo tenses a little as he approaches her, gun still pointed at her head as to guarantee that he can kill her without trouble. Still.

Nine ways to kill him. One to restrain him without harm. Five to stop him with minor damages.

She's about to react, attack him, put him down, maybe kill him in the process. Then she hears Bellamy's voice shouting from the hallway, not far from the prison bay. She stills again. And suddenly she's not calm anymore, she's not impassible, she's not smiling.

She's scared, she starts screaming, she calls for Bellamy.

The change makes Jasper jolt and he attacks, as an animal that doesn't know what to do anymore, he catches her arm as she avoids the hard blow. Blood runs down the wound, long but not deep.

Echo screams again, Bellamy's voice answering from the hallways, closer and closer. She punches Jasper lightly, not enough to make him lose his balance, not enough to get him off her.

He hits again, an animal in a cage, trying to do what he came there to do, and unable to do so as she dodges again, the knife cutting through her leg instead of her stomach. Again she hits him, again she doesn't hit him hard enough to even move him.

The last blow cuts her shoulder as Bellamy runs into the cell, immediately throwing himself at Jasper.

The gun goes off again, making Echo jump and Jasper release it as he focuses on Bellamy on top of him. They're on the floor, Jasper has no chance against Bellamy but he still has the knife and, as Bellamy insults him while they roll on the ground, he uses it. He manages to hit his side, barely cutting the skin before Bellamy realises his mistake and easily takes the knife from Jasper's hand.

Bellamy punches him repeatedly as he manages to pin him to the floor.

He came in and saw a boy who used to be his friend about to kill a woman he cares about, for accuses that nobody can prove and that Bellamy certainly doesn't believe. So he keeps punching Jasper, not even seeing the blood covering his face. He can't stop, all he can think about is that Jasper tried to kill Echo. His friend tried to kill a person he loves because he thinks he should have lost someone at the Mountain too. Jasper said Bellamy hadn't lost anyone, and he wants Bellamy to feel like he felt when he lost Maya. So Bellamy keeps hitting him.

Jasper can't breathe, his airways feels like they're filled with blood, no space left for air. He can't see anything and the pain is unbearable, he barely registers that he's passing out.

Miller is trying to stop Bellamy, to get him off Jasper, but it takes Monty and Harper helping him to lift the man from the bleeding mess he made of his former friend.

When they manage to get him away and hold him back, Bellamy finally seems to come to his senses. He calms down, although still looking on edge, and goes to Echo, checking her wounds, reassuring her that she's going to be fine.

She lets him take her in his arms, she tells him she was scared of the gun, she wanted to fight but he was holding a gun to her head and she was terrified he would shoot. He calms her down, repeating that everything's going to be okay.

"Mom, I need to tell you something".

Abby turns around and watches as Clarke sits on the floor, steeling herself for what she's going to confess. She sits beside her daughter and gently puts a hand on her shoulder to offer support.

And Clarke tells her the truth about Lexa. Clarke didn't see her die in Polis after Nydia's torture, like she has told her mother, she helped her escape, she took her to a safe place, took care of her wounds, stayed until she started recovering. She tells her about Indra and a few trikru warriors loyal to Lexa helping her, about faking the kidnapping. She tells about the deal she pretended to make with Nydia, all to get Lexa out of there.

Her mother listens, gasping from time to time, but keeping otherwise silent until Clarke is done.

The only thing Clarke still lies about is Lexa's whereabouts and she doesn't get into details about her relationship – whatever that was – with the former Commander, only admitting that she came to care for the girl.

Clarke falls silent, but Abby doesn't speak for a long time.

"Mom", Clarke tries tentatively, "I'm telling you this because Nydia is going to be here. She's going to learn that I'm back, sooner or later. We made her believe that I was kidnapped and had no part in helping Lexa, but she's going to have questions, many questions."

Abby looks up at her, still not knowing what to say.

Eventually, the older woman opens her mouth, realising what her daughter is asking. "You need a cover up story."

Clarke nods, grateful. "Yes, and I need help with that. Nydia can't ever suspect that I helped Lexa escape."

Abby nods and is about to speak again when a voice intrudes in their private conversation.

"YOU DID WHAT?"

Both Clarke and Abby jump at hearing the angry voice shouting and immediately cursing before repeating the question in a whispered yell.

"You did what?"

Clarke cringes as she looks up at Raven and she starts to rise to her feet, but the dark look sent her way pins her down.

"Tell me I heard wrong, please! Tell me you didn't just say that you helped Lexa! Lexa! The very asshole who betrayed us and left us to die in that Mountain! The piece of shit who forced you to kill hundreds of people. Tell me you didn't go help her after what she did to you."

She's still whisper-shouting and Abby gets up to try and calm her down, but the brunette shrugs away the hand reaching for her arm.

Clarke stands up too and faces Raven, not liking the way she's talking about Lexa, although she has to remember she was furious with the Trikru girl too and hated her just weeks ago.

"Listen, Raven, you didn't see what Nydia was doing to her... It was...it just... I..." Clarke trails off, not knowing how to express the horror she felt when she saw Lexa tied up, bleeding, played with, tortured, just for Nydia's pleasure.

"Why did you go looking for her in the first place!" the brunette is still pissed and Clarke knows she won't calm down any time soon.

"Lincoln once told us her own people would kill her if they suspected for a moment Lexa had become weak. What she did at the Mountain, walking away from a fight...I know why she did it, I might hate it and I hated her for it, but I know she did it out of love for her people. But I saw it on her warriors' faces, they were confused, they didn't know why their Commander was ordering them to walk away from a fight. They saw that as weakness."

"So what! She betrayed you, why did you have to go and save her life? She deserved to die."

"I couldn't help it, Raven! She helped me, she supported me when I was struggling to lead our people, to keep my people safe. She's just as young as I am, for god's sake! She had to kill the man who was the closest thing to family she had, there was no one there for her. I..."

Clarke shakes her head, angry at herself for feeling the need to make Raven understand. "I saw it coming before she did, I couldn't just do nothing. I had to try and see if I could save her. So after I made sure our people were safe, I went to Polis."

Raven raises her arms in the air in a disbelieving gesture and then lets them fall down, defeated. "Okay. What then? You found she was prisoner of the new Commander and you helped her escape. And?"

Clarke sighs, knowing she has to tell Raven the truth.

The brunette crosses her arms and waits for her friend to start talking, then she listens closely, shaking her head, fisting the air in annoyance now and then during the story.

When Clarke is finished telling it all over again, Raven is still looking at her sternly, her arms still crossed.

"You are an idiot, Clarke Griffin", she decides.

Then she turns to Abby. "Your daughter is an idiot."

Abby looks at Clarke and shrugs, can't help you with this one, honey.

Finally Raven uncrosses her arms, rolls up her sleeves and glares at Clarke one last time.

"You need a hell of a cover up story. Let's get to work."

She sits cross-legged on the floor and looks at the still standing women expectantly. She gestures to the floor "Come on, we don't have forever."

Under the cover of dark, when the night has settled, confident, over the Ark, Bellamy and Echo sneak out, they get pass the night guard who briefly bids him farewell before letting them outside Arkadia.

"You can't stay here", he told her after the episode with Jasper and after Pike simply ordered to put her back in the cell, still believing her to be guilty.

She protested, but he shushed her. "Pike's gonna kill you. He thinks you betrayed us, he's not going to ever let you go. Even if we could convince him you're innocent, he would still keep you locked up for being a grounder, and probably end up killing you anyway."

"I'm going to sneak you out tonight, I still have friends among the guards", he promised.

"Leave with me", she said.

And he knew that, no matter how many times he told her and himself that he couldn't, he would have followed her that night if she kept asking. And she didn't give up, begging him to go with her.

So he said goodbye to his sister, who tried to stop him but couldn't as she still needed to hide from Pike's guards, he promised to come back, to keep in touch, she promised to get him a message when the situation in Arkadia changed, when Echo could be welcomed again.

And now he's leaving with her, because after hating the grounders, fighting them, being betrayed by them, he fell in love with one from the Ice Nation.