Standing still

[Clarke Griffin]

@jasper420

Clarke slowly climbed back in the second seat – she even forgot what they were called. She was confused. Lincoln coulnd#t be dead. That was impossible. How could he be dead? Who killed him? Why? He shouldn’t even be able to leave Arkadia. And suddenly all was different. It was like her head was spinning, fast. How could all of that happen so fast? Of course it could. She killed an entire mountain within minutes. For a while she stayed silent, like Jasper asked her. But she coulnd’t do it forever. There was no way she could not ask him. 

“How did Lincoln die?” She asked. She had to know. Who killed him? Someone had to have killed him. “You have to tell me. We need him." She needed him for finding Luna. And where were the others. Why did Arkadia attack them? She got it that they might attack her. But him? What could have happened. “What happened here, Jasper? Why… Why are we kidnapping Raven?” She saw herself in the boat. She might step away, but right now she was with him, because she’d rather be with him and have a shot than stay in Arkadia and be doomed. 

[Deleted]

When the rover stalled just outside the gates after Jasper stopped to let Clarke inside, he was sure it was over. He was sure he'd failed at saving Raven, which wouldn't have been surprising. Even he didn't expect much of a drunken idiot these days. But then the engine roared to life and he'd slammed on the gas. He didn't know where he was going. He just knew they had to get the hell out of Arkadia. And the aftermath of the panic that hit when he'd thought hope was lost had left him panting hard as he white-knuckled the steering wheel and drove as fast as he could.

And now he was stuck in a car with Clarke, literally the last person he wanted to see right now. His breathing was finally starting to return to normal when Clarke finally broke the silence. He knew it was too much to hope for that she would shut up--like he'd told her to--for very long.

He shook his head quickly, shifting in his seat as his lips pressed into a thin line. What right did Clarke have to answers? She'd left. Jasper thought maybe he should have left her at the gates of Arkadia, but deep down he knew he couldn't. He glared at the terrain he was trying to navigate, debating just not talking to Clarke, ignoring her. But she probably wouldn't stop asking questions.

"Pike executed Lincoln," he said through gritted teeth. "Treason, I think." He knew there were people resisting Pike in Arkadia, but Jasper hadn't exactly been invited to the meetings. He was unstable. Everyone knew it, including himself. "And that's not Raven."



Clarke Griffin

[Clarke Griffin]

Lincoln got killed for treason. Clarke never expected that. Then again Lincoln was opinionated. Lincoln fought for what he thought was right. And things were tense. She couldn't imagine him staying silent over so many of his people being killed. Like Lexa didn't stay silent on it. She appreciated the chance they had and now it all went to hell, it seemed like none of it was salvagable. But if Lincoln was dead, what could she do about it? What could she do against it?


For now she had a friend driving a vehicle and another kidnapped in the back or whatever that meant. Oh and her mother had shot at them, which was worse. Or had them shoot. Clarke felt extremly uncomfortable with it. "Then what is she?" Clarke asked Jasper than. "Because that looks like Raven to me, so how is that not her?" How was that someone else? Was she drugged? Was she dangerous? or was something up with Jasper? She was terribly out of the loop, so the words of someone rang in her mind. How did she think she could decide for people here? For now she knew about Polis and Polis was a problem and would be a problem. "Do you know where Octavia is?"



@jasper420

[Deleted]

"No idea where Octavia is," he muttered. He didn't feel like explaining he hadn't been invited to the revolution. "Maybe try the radio. And don't ask me what channel; I don't know."

Jasper sped over a dip in the terrain, jostling them both pretty hard in the passenger compartment of the rover, but he regained control and kept moving. He wasn't about to slow down yet. Not until they got a good distance away. Not until they got somewhere Raven wouldn't recognize when she woke up. "It's Raven, but it's not Raven," Jasper snapped. How was he going to explain something that even to him would have sounded crazy if he hadn't seen it all? "Jaha had this thing--he called it a key--and if you swallowed it, you couldn't feel pain. Raven took it, and it messed her up. They made her slit her wrists." He gestured frantically behind him where Raven was still unconscious, trying to focus as he felt the loose end of the handcuff slap his wrist where it still dangled. "She's-- she's--" Alie. God, Clarke was going to think he was insane. Maybe he was. He stopped gesturing behind him, and scrubbed his hand down his face. "Maybe if you hadn't run away, you'd know what was happening," he spat finally. he let out a small, bitter laugh, shaking his head. "Fantastic leaderships skill, by the way: running when things go badly."

Tag: Clarke Griffin

[Clarke Griffin]

The radio. Good idea, but if Arkadia was any indication their people would hunt them and they were a lot better at this radio thing than Clarke could ever hope to be. She understood medicine. She understood the human body. But machines? Not really. Only a bit. She understood that they needed to be charged, but that was it, that was also actually quite similar to the human body. Maybe, with a bit of thought, she would understand them, but that would require her wanting to learn about them. A key, though, that made semi sense to her. It sounded, almost like the chip, the AI that Lexa had in her. Was this it? Was an AI in Raven? In that case how many were there? What did this mean? Why were people shooting at Jasper because of it? She needed to know. An eerie feeling told her that somehow the two things were connected.

But she froze. She froze when he mentioned her leaving, her leadership skills. For the first time since Lexa, Clarke really thought about what happened again, how it happened, how it came that far. It caused her to be silent for a moment, thinking. “Leaving made you question my leadership skills?” She asked, almost with a smile. “I would have guessed it’s the 600 plus people I got killed in less than a week.” And that was the reason she left. “It made sense to me back then, to run, from myself, become someone else, someone who hadn’t let herself be influenced by someone else, which got 300 people killed, someone who hadn’t been backed into a corner and only saw the murder of 300 more as a way out. Believe it or not, I wasn’t fond of that person either. But then I heard what the grounders said.” It was an entirely different story. “I’m eighteen, Jasper. I’m human. I make mistakes. I just wanted for my people to survive, but I don’t know all the solutions. I make mistakes, lots of them. I’m just trying not to fall apart Jasper.”

@jasper420

[Deleted]

Jasper listened to Clarke, shaking his head when she finished. Did Clarke even know what falling apart felt like? "Maybe you should," he snapped. Maybe he'd actually believe she gave a shit if she fell apart. Jasper wasn't sure. "And that's cute. Calling genocide a mistake. It wasn't a mistake, it was a choice. I was going to kill Cage," he told her, his voice rising a little on the last sentence, gritting his teeth as they hit anther rough patch in the terrain. He still wasn't going to slow down. They weren't far enough yet.

He'd thought a lot about his attempt to kill Cage. He realized now that at the time, he hadn't been looking at the bigger picture. The people at Mount Weather would have still needed transfusions. But killing Cage would have stopped the immediate threat and allowed them enough breathing room to think of a better solution than genocide.

"And you're right. I questioned your leadership when you let me set of the dropship explosion knowing Bellamy wasn't in it yet." That was a lie. He hadn't questioned it at the time, but it seemed like a glaring red flag he'd missed before now. "I questioned your leadership when you slit your own wrist so you could leave us in Mount Weather, even when you thought there was a threat there." Another lie. Another missed red flag. If she had stayed, maybe Jasper wouldn't have been the one everyone looked to to rally them. Maybe her plans would have worked better than his. They'd never know now. "And yeah, melting an entire civilization." He shook his head again. "You leaving? That made me question whether you gave a shit. About any of us. Me. Bellamy... any of us."

Tag: Clarke Griffin

[Clarke Griffin]

If it had been as easy as killing Cage, they would have had an option, but it was long since beyond Cage. Others had openly supported the murderous tendencies that Cage had. There were others, others in that room, too. "I wish that could have been the solution." But it wasn't. She doubted it would have made a difference. And what would have happened in the meantime? More might have been killed. What with the fallout after. "What do you think the other Mountain Men in the room would have done?" They were so close to seeing the sun again, their logical thinking was turned off, they were killing to kill them. So she was rather sure, that killing Cage would have not been the end. 

No matter what, though, as Jasper continued to speak, one thing became apparent: There was nothing she could say to make his judgment on her any less harsh. What did it matter, that nobody believed her? That she felt all alone in mount weather with her worry? She wasn't Lexa. She wouldn't blame someone else or push the guilt on them. Nor did she feel like she should even begin to justify what happened at the dropship. Did he really think she should have risked all their lives for Bellamy? Did he really think Bellamy would have let her? He would have done the same. As much as he wanted to help people, he would have accepted collateral damage to save lives. 

"Like you give a shit about me?" No, she cared. She had always cared. She knew it was selfish, that she left, she was well aware of it, but after what she had been through, was it so surprising she chose this path? It was what felt like the one thing she could handle. "I care about you, which was why I couldn't face you and your judgment! Do you really think I've done all of this and remained whole? You have NO idea how it feels, Jasper. I ran from myself. I was scared ."

@jasper420

[Deleted]

Jasper huffed when Clarke asked about the other Mountain Men in the room, and what they would have done if Jasper had killed cage. And she was probaby right. There would have been more people than just Cage that still wanted to harvest their people. But Jasper had already killed Doctor Tsing. He'd watched her melt and felt nothing. There were only a handful of people left. "So we could have killed maybe five people instead of three hundred. We kill five people so that we don't kill children and people who helped us," Jasper said, his voice grave.

Clarke continued as Jasper rounded a corner. He still didn't know where they were going, but he wasn't stopping. She questioned whether he gave a shit about her. He used to. And he didn't now. Or at least he told himself that. He'd just saved her life, after all, even when he could have kept driving as soon as he realized who was outside of Arkadia. "Maybe you should be scared of yourself," he said. He had no idea how she felt? She had no idea how he felt either. She had no idea that until recently he had to drink himself into a stupor every day just to get by because his brain was firing in ways he didn't understand, ways entirely foreign. He still didn't understand them. "You don't run away from people you care about, Clarke. No matter what you did to them. If you care, you stay and fight for it until they make you leave." It's what Monty had done. And Bellamy.

After a moment, he let out a gust of frustrated breath and gestured at the radio, handcuff still dangling from his wrist. "Can you just see if you can find out where we can go?" She'd been on the radio with Bellamy in Mount Weather, so she should be able to figure something out about this one. "If Raven wakes up and recognizes where she is, that angry mob will come for us, and they'll figure out a way to make us take that key too."

Tag: Clarke Griffin

[Clarke Griffin]

"DON'T YOU THINK I WOULD HAVE PREFERRED THAT?" Clarke yelled. She had been buzzing, her anger and disappointment, her self hatred were all boiling up, cooking in her and it now found a way out in yelling, just this once. Tears followed. The tears took some of the tension with her. "Don't you think I'm tired of killing? Of this? All of this? I'm so damn tired and done with all of it." She was so very done with it. This was not what she wanted. But this was what she had been forced to do. She was just human, barely 18, but apparently she was meant to make all the right choices and couldn't crumble.

She wanted to tell him not to tell her how to deal, but the more he spoke, the more obvious it was, that no matter what she said, none of it would make a difference anymore. It was instinct, how Clarke wrapped her arms around herself. It all hurt so much. The worst was the accusations, that came from all sides. Lexa first, then Bellamy, Octavia, now Jasper. While the later three had a right to say parts of what they said, it still hurt. And it still decided to not take into account, that she might have needed to leave, that she was allowed to deal. Not once had she heard from any of them, how they understood it wasn't easy for her. And she didn't expect it anymore, couldn't expect it anymore. 

The change of topic was welcome, though. So very welcome. Without a word, she turned to look at their friend. It was easy to make sure she would not manage to see where she was even though they weren't there yet. That, to her sounded like it should be priority. She tore off parts of her jacket off, using it to blindfold Raven, block her ears and make sure she was very much tied up tightly. At least that might put Jasper at ease. Returning to the seat she picked up the radio. "Who's... not part of it Jasper?"


@jasper420

[Deleted]

Jasper flinched slightly when Clarke shouted, but he only shook his head in response. Not to indicate he thought she wouldn't have preferred that, but because it didn't matter anymore. All those kids were dead. All the people who helped them were dead. Vincent Vie was dead. Maya too. The other delinquents had looked to Jasper as a leader, in the absence of Clarke and Bellamy, and his plans hadn't been perfect. They had failed a couple of times, actually, but they hadn't involved genocide.

Clarke went on to say she was tired and done. Jasper didn't believe her. The tired part, sure--everyone was tired--but not the done part. If Clarke felt like she needed to kill hundreds of people to stop what was happening in Arkadia, or what was happening between the Grounders and the Sky People, Jasper was pretty certain she would. But Jasper was done too. Done with this conversation.

He glanced over his shoulder briefly, watching Clarke tie Raven up and blindfold her. If he had something to pick his handcuff, that might be better restraint for Raven, but he wasn't stopping yet. "You saw that mob," Jasper said when Clarke asked who wasn't a part of it. "Once Doctor Griffin started to tell everyone the key was safe, people lined up for it," he said. "Pretty sure most of the camp, anyone that was still there, has taken it. They made Raven slit her wrists to get your mom. I don't put anything past them." He hadn't actually seen Abby take the chip, but it was the only way it made sense to Jasper. Abby had been adamant about not taking it. About him not taking it. And then Raven's wrists wound up slashed and Abby had taken it herself. It wasn't hard to put two and two together.

Tag: Clarke Griffin

[Clarke Griffin]

Clarke stared at Jasper in shock. Slit wrists. She knew it wasn't easy to endure. She knew it wasn't easy for others to see. It wasn't easy to cope with something like that. She had cut her own arm open once to achieve something. That alone must have been hard for others. It was not the point at the moment. The point was that Jaspers base - which was probably no longer her own base - was no longer on his side. That was a problem. While Clarke wanted to fight for them, her loyalty still with them, naturally, she felt like she wasn't fighting a fight that would get her back to her people. Not anymore. 

"So basically even using the radio is a risk." With a threat that might potentially be based on technology, Clarke knew she was not equipped to take the risk of contacting anyone. She didn't have enough context for any of that.  She didn't think that context would come easily. But for now what could she possibly do? There was still the blockade - or had been. The sensible idea for them would have to stay within the radius of it. That limited the area where to find the others - unless they had moved outside of where it was by now. It could have been enough time. The question was who's instinct were they following? What happened? Again, not enough context for an educated guess.  "Can they track the signal of the radio? Do you know that?"



@jasper420

[Deleted]

"I don't think so. I don't know how the key connects them all, but radio waves wouldn't work," Jasper said, frustrated. He supposed, technically, maybe radio waves could work, but if the people who'd been chipped were using radio waves, it would have interfered with the signals on their radios, and Jasper knew he'd seen people using those around camp. He didn't need to get into all that now, though.

"Help me find a damn cave or something before we hit the blockade then," he said, giving up on her being helpful with the radio. He steered th rover around some trees, changing their course slightly to avoid the blockade but still seeking somewhere for them to find a safe place for Raven until they could contact their friends. Once Jasper wasn't driving, he could radio them.

Tag: Clarke Griffin

[Clarke Griffin]

A cave, that she could do easily. She had stayed close for parts of her journey, especially during the harsher days of winter. She knew several caves, but at the same time, something held her back telling him. Trust wasn’t easy to come by and after everything that was said and done, she knew a few places should not be shared with him or others. It was a simple as it was harsh in many ways: Clarke knew she might one day need those hide outs again. If she told people, she might compromise her position and that was by far the worst idea she could have.

“Go towards the mountains.” She said then. “There is a large bush of thorns when we approach the woods there. We got left then. Kind of around them. There is a path that leads to a stream.” And that stream wasn’t deep. The vehicle would cross it easily. “There is a cave just after the stream, well hidden and not known by many as far as I know. There are several around.” Some have clearly been used, too. And there were structures that were not so natural as caves. Maybe one of them could offer good shelter. But the cave was the nearest one she could tell him.

@jasper420