The trek back toward the drop ship was a tense procession of mud and silence, broken only by the rhythmic clank of Grounder armor. Jason fell into step beside Clarke, his eyes were constantly scanning the treeline for anything that was out of place. If the mountain men had any idea this truce was being imitated this would be the perfect time to interfere.
"Alright, Clarke," Jason murmured, his voice low enough to stay between them, "Walk me through the science. How the hell did you manage to 'cure' a rabid killing machine? Last I checked, there's no vaccine for bloodlust."
Clarke didn't look at him, her eyes fixed on the path ahead, "It's not a virus, Jason. It's a chemical cocktail of some sort I think. The Mountain Men are using some kind of high-potency narcotic to induce the rabid effects. And we think it's designed to rewire their brains, making them dependent and feral."
"And your miracle cure?"
"I brought him back through CPR," she said simply.
Jason stopped dead for a half-second before catching his stride again. He frowned with a look of pure, cynical disbelief crossing his face, "Wait. You mean to tell me that you cured a state-sponsored psychochemical lobotomy... by giving him mouth-to-mouth? You literally jumped his heart back into sanity?"
Clarke nodded, "His heart stopped during the withdrawal. When I brought him back, the 'fog' had cleared and he was Lincoln again."
Jason glanced back at Lexa and Indra. They were watching the exchange with the intensity of hawks circling prey. "How are you so sure that worked, Clarke?" he asked, "One fluke doesn't make a medical breakthrough."
Clarke looked at him in confusion with a flicker of defensiveness in her eyes. "Because he woke up, Jason, he was himself."
"I hope to God that's true," Jason muttered with his hand ghosting over the hilt of his sword. "Because if this goes sideways and Lincoln tries to eat the Commander's face, I'm really not in the mood to have to kill her and her entire guard just to get us out of here. My schedule is a bit packed with massacres lately."
"It won't come to that," Clarke insisted, though a bead of sweat rolled down her temple.
As they got to the drop ship, Jason's ears pricked up the sounds of muffled grunts of exertion, and the low snarl. He frowned, his gaze snapping to the upper hatch of the ship, he looked at Clarke, his expression darkening into a warning. She saw his face and instantly went tense and her hands balling into fists.
Lexa stepped up beside them, her hand resting on her blade, "What is wrong?" she demanded, her eyes darting between the two Sky People.
"Nothing," Clarke said quickly as she pointed toward the ladder leading up "He's inside, on the upper section."
———-1
The air inside the cramped upper deck of the dropship was thick with the smell of copper, sweat, and impending death. As Lexa and her guard crested the ladder, the Commander stopped dead, her eyes narrowing at the chaotic scene of the people inside.
"What is this?" Lexa's voice was a low, dangerous vibration that surprised them.
On the floor, Lincoln lay sprawled and motionless. He wasn't breathing. Octavia was all over him sobbing desperation, while Bellamy tried to haul her back, his other hand white-knuckling the grip of his gun. Nyko, the Grounder healer, looked at Indra and Gustus with a hollow expression and shook his head which signaled one thing: Failure.
Behind them, Finn was backing into the shadows with wide eyes, while Abby Griffin knelt over the body, her hands rhythmically pumping Lincoln's chest in a desperate, failing cadence of CPR.
Seeing the "miracle" looking like a corpse, the Grounders shifted. The metallic shring of swords leaving scabbards echoed off the hull. Lexa gave a short, sharp nod to Indra and Gustus.
"Kill them all," Indra commanded.
"Before you all dive headfirst into almost certain death," Jason's voice cut through the tension like a razor.
He immediately moved and positioned himself between the body and the grounders. His gaze locked onto Lexa, then swept across the warriors with a terrifyingly calm intensity.
"I'd suggest you employ a little bit of patience," Jason urged. He saw Indra take a step toward him, her face twisted in a snarl, and he offered her a slow, chilling smile, "Are you challenging my threat, Indra? Because I can assure you, you might have us outnumbered, but I could kill every single grounder in this room including your Commander before the guards downstairs even knew what was happening. Don't test the math. You won't like the answer."
The room froze. For a heartbeat, the only sound was
Clarke rushed to her mother's side as Abby grabbed a modified shocker stick, Abby took the device, her fingers flying over the dials to max out the charge.
Jason didn't look back. He kept his eyes locked straight on Lexa, his hand resting casually near his side, a silent promise of violence if a single Grounder moved.
Abby jammed the tip of the shocker at Lincoln's chest Thump. Lincoln's body jolted off the floor as the electrical current surged through his chest. Nothing.
"Again!"
Thump.
Indra shifted slightly, her knuckles whitening on her sword. Jason's eyes drifted to her and shook his head, "Wait for it," he whispered.
On the third strike, the hum of the makeshift defibrillator peaked, Lincoln's chest heaved and suddenly let out a violent, ragged gasp of air, his eyes snapping open. The feral madness of the Reaper was gone, replaced by the pained confusion of a man waking from a nightmare.
Jason let out a slow, silent breath, his smirk returning as he looked at Lexa.
"See?" Jason remarked, "I told you, patience is key and Clarke delivered on her promise. Now, are we going to keep playing 'who has the bigger sword,' or are we going to talk about how we're going to tear down that Mountain?"
————-
The miracle had worked, Lincoln was breathing, his eyes were clear and the massacre Jason had been prepared to unleash remained a theoretical nightmare.
Lexa stood before her throne, she looked at Clarke, then shifted her gaze to Jason, "We have a common goal," Lexa stated, her voice echoing with a new, heavy resonance. "You have shown us that the Maunon can be defeated, that our brothers can be brought back from the shadows. You have shown us a way to help my people."
"Our people," Clarke corrected softly.
Lexa inclined her head. "Our people. You shall have your alliance, Skaikru."
A genuine smile tugged at the corner of Jason's mouth. His gamble had paid off. The hours in that cell, the threats, the high-stakes theater with Indra had actually worked. They had an army.
"But," Lexa added as her voice dropped into a chilling note. "For this peace to be fully in play, we demand something else as well."
The smile vanished from Jason's face instantly. A cold pit formed in his stomach, "What is it?" Clarke asked, her brow furrowing.
Lexa's eyes turned to flint. "The murderer of the innocents in Tondc."
Jason muttered a low, sharp "Shit" under his breath. He saw Clarke go pale, her lips parting as she became too stunned to find words. She was thinking of Finn, the boy she loved, the boy who was broken, but still one of theirs.
Jason stepped forward, moving into the space between Clarke and the Commander to act as a shield. "Heda," he began, his voice taking on a calm, diplomatic edge. "What happened in that village was a tragedy. I was there and I saw the lives lost cannot be brought back, and for that, we are truly sorry. But we do not give up our people to be slaughtered. That's not how we operate."
Lexa's eyes flashed with a sudden, sharp anger. "Then we have no deal, Butcher."
Jason closed his eyes for a second, shaking his head. "Finn cracked, Lexa. He thought they had Clarke. It was a mistake born of desperation—"
Lexa stepped down from the dais, moving until she was inches from Jason's face. She didn't flinch at his height or his reputation. "Let us not pretend we do not know what was about to happen, Jason. Nyko told me everything. He told me that if you had not arrived and tackled the boy, if you hadn't put yourself between his gun and my people... how many would have died then?"
Jason remained silent, he knew she spoke the truth.
"The number would not be two," Lexa hissed. "It would have been the entire village. An execution of the old and the weak because of a 'mistake.' No. My people demand Jus Drein Jus Daun. Blood must have blood."
She turned her gaze to Clarke, her voice softening but losing none of its lethality. "If the roles were reversed, if my warriors had marched into your camp and slaughtered your healers and your children while they slept, would you not demand justice? Would your people not scream for the head of the killer?"
Jason frowned, the logic of her argument was indeed sound and they would have done the same. He looked at Clarke, seeing the agonizing conflict written across her face.
"You are free to leave," Lexa said, turning her back to them and looking toward the shadows of the tent. "Go. Speak to your people. Tell them they can have their alliance and their war against the Mountain. But we shall have our retribution on the murderer. One life for the ones he took.
That is the price of the bridge you want to build."
—————
The heavy steel gates of Camp Jaha groaned as they swung open, the hinges screaming against the tension of the crowd gathered within.
"They're back! Open the gates!" a guard shouted from the watchtower.
Clarke and Jason crossed the threshold, their faces were grim. As they entered, the two Grounder outriders who had escorted them pulled their horses up short at the boundary. Jason stopped, slowly turning his head to look back over his shoulder. He didn't reach for a weapon; he simply let out a warning low growl at the riders.
The horses shied back, sensing the sudden spike in his killing intent, and the riders pulled their reins tight, stopping dead. Jason didn't give them a second glance as he stepped fully into the camp.
"Mom! Jaha!" Clarke called out, her voice trembling. A massive crowd had already formed, a sea of anxious faces hungry for news of peace.
Clarke opened her mouth to speak about Lexa's ultimatum on Finn's life for an alliance but was stopped by a voice.
"Clarke," Jason's voice cut through her panic like a whip. He shook his head sharply, his eyes darting to the hundreds of civilians listening in. "Not here. Let's go inside."
But the crowd wasn't having it.
"What's going on?" a man shouted from the front. "Is there a truce? Are we safe?"
"What are you keeping secret?" another woman yelled, her voice shrilled with fear. "We deserve to know! Why are there Grounder savages sitting outside our gates?"
"Yeah! Tell us what the hell is happening!"
The shouting escalated into a roar. Jaha stepped forward, raising his hands in a gesture of calm, his voice taking on the booming cadence of the Ark's leadership. "Everyone, please! Maintain order! We are in negotiations, and we must—"
"Save the speech, Jaha! We want the truth!" a man bellowed, shoving past a guard.
The situation was spiraling. Bellamy and Jason locked eyes across the clearing. Major Byrne and her guards moved in, trying to push the civilians back, but the wall of people was too thick, fueled by months of terror and the recent loss of the Exodus ship.
One particular man, red-faced with fury, broke through the line. He lunged toward Clarke, pointing a finger in her face, "You went out there to play diplomat while our people are being hunted! We have the right to know if you've sold us out—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
In a blur of motion that left the crowd breathless, Jason moved forward with a brutal, efficient sweep, he tripped the man, sending him crashing into the dirt. Before the man could even gasp, Jason had a heavy boot pinned firmly to the center of his back, his weight forcing the man's face into the gravel.
Jason leaned down and spoke with an absolutely freezing cold voice, "The next person who screams has to deal with me," he whispered, "Do I look like I'm in the mood for a town hall meeting?"
"Jason! What the hell are you doing?" Raven shouted, her eyes wide with shock.
"Jason, stand down!" Jaha commanded.
Jason didn't lift his boot and Instead, he leaned forward to address the "Rights?" Jason's voice was low, but it cut through the crisp air with the sharpness of a winter wind, "You want to talk about rights? Those don't exist down here. All those neat little rules, the thinking patterns you clung to on the Ark while you were floating in a tin can. they stayed in orbit and burned up in the atmosphere."
He looked down at the man struggling beneath him, whose face was pressed into the dirt. "Down here, there are only cold, hard facts. And the first fact is that you don't have the 'right' to anything except the air you're currently wasting. Out here, power is the only currency that doesn't devalue."
Jason looked up, his eyes locking onto Jaha and Abby. His fury, which was usually tucked, finally breached the surface.
"We were sent down here to die as an experiment," Jason said without a hint of amusement or emotion, "We survived things your pampered, council-meeting minds couldn't even fathom. We've been hunted, we've been bled, and we've done things, killed people just to make sure there was a 'here' for you to land in. And now you drop from the sky and think you can immediately demand a seat at the table?"
"Jason, that's enough," Abby whispered but her voice was shaking a the words of the boy, "We are all one people—"
"Let him speak," Bellamy barked, stepping forward to stand beside Jason with his hand resting on his rifle. He looked at the crowd with the same weary, hardened eyes.
"No, we aren't the same Abby," Jason snapped, his gaze flickering to her. "We are the ones who learned how to bleed for this dirt, and you're the ones still trying to figure out which way the wind blows."
Nearby, Murphy leaned against a crate, a dark, knowing smirk on his face. "Finally," he muttered in agreement. "Someone's saying the quiet part out loud."
Jason turned his attention back to the crowd, his voice dropping into a deadly, authoritative register, "You will listen when we talk. You will do what needs to be done to keep this camp from becoming a mass grave. And you will stop acting like this is a town hall meeting on the Ark."
He leaned closer to the man underneath his boot, his voice becoming a ghost of a whisper that promised a nightmare. "Try this nonsense again, challenge the people keeping the monsters at the gate and I swear I will make you wish you had died in the vacuum of space. At least there, the end is quick."
Jason abruptly pulled his foot back and stood up, smoothing his jacket as if he hadn't just crushed a man's spirit. He didn't wait for a rebuttal. He didn't care about their "rights" or their outrage.
"I'm not in the mood for this shit," he said, turning toward the command tent. He looked at Jaha and Abby, "We have urgent matters to discuss."
——