We are drawn to edges, to our own

Parapets and sea-walls; finding our lives

In relief, in some forked storm.

Returning with our unimaginable gifts,

Badged with salt and blood,

We have forgotten how to walk.

Thinking how much more we wanted,

When what we had was all there was;

Looking too late to the ones we loved,

We stretch out our hands as we fall.

~ "Apart" by Robin Robertson

Past…

Dark and cold, squeaking, scurrying bodies fighting over bloody strips of flesh. Water, dripping downward, sliding across rock to pool in stagnant splendour on the cobbled stone floor of the cave. A huddled figure that stared blindly from the darkened corner of the large room, the occasional blink of grime encrusted lashes the only sign of life.

Sound, the soft swish of a well-oiled gate pushed inward and the heavy footfalls of boots on stone. The prisoner flinched backward, instinctively cringing from the light. Gate opening was bad, gate opening meant him, and he always meant more pain.

Jubilee curled into a small, tight ball and tried not to whimper as she heard the footfalls moving closer. Whimpering was punished, any sound was punished. As were movement, non-movement, breathing.

'Please, please not again,' she thought.

Months of torture, night after night of that gate opening, night after night of never-ending pain; night after night the knowledge that they wouldn't come, that they would never come. Jubilee flinched again, his face, his face, cold and amused in equal parts as he broke her body and destroyed her mind, the dry chuckle of yesterday as he broke her arm with a liquid snap.

The footfalls stopped in front of her and she couldn't stop the small whimper, couldn't help the instinctive movement away, and further into the darkness of the cave corner.

'Please, just let me die. Oh God please just let me die. Anything, I'll give you anything, please.'

A gentle hand lifted her chin upward and she stared into familiar eyes, filled with sadness.

"Lass, we've come to bring you home."

Yesterday…

"What do we do?"

Sean paced agitatedly, his movements' non-directional and merely an outward evidence of his frustration, without purpose. Emma Frost watched him, her eyes their usual calm blue, showing no sign of her emotions. Sean knew it was a front, a carefully contrived mask for whatever pain or worry she was feeling inside. He just wished she'd show it, he knew it wasn't fair of him, but he needed the comfort of another worried gaze right now.

"We do what we can, Sean," she replied calmly, her voice level, using tightly controlled and modulated tones.

Sean's head shot up from his inner contemplation, or condemnation, it seemed like the same thing.

"Have ye seen the lass, Em? She's like a shadow, I don't even know where to begin trying ta heal this."

"Sean, Jubilee's not unharmed but she is alive. It will take time, but she will survive."

"She's been gone six months. Whatever he did to her in that time, she may never come back."

"Sean, be that as it may, what is important now is that we make Jubilee feel safe here."

"She _is_ safe here."

"Only so long as we keep our guard up, Sean."

Today...

It was the third shower she'd taken today, it hadn't made her any cleaner then the first two times but there was something infinitely comforting about the way the warm water felt on her skin. The walls of the shower enclosed her, surrounding her on three sides. If someone were going to come, they'd come in by the thick glass of the shower door. She paused a moment as she felt the brief psychic touch of Emma checking in. Closing her eyes, she savoured the feeling of safety it brought; the mental touch had been an almost constant since Jubilee had returned to the school.

Jubilee knew that the others considered this a bizarre and somewhat alarming personality change. Even Emma herself had begun to be concerned by her continued lack of protest to this presence. She never went near the darker parts of Jubilee's mind, the ones still bleeding and raw.

She leaned her head against the shower wall, the water cascading off her now shoulder-length hair, and trailing down her back in a soothing caress. There'd been nothing to cut it with in the cave, nothing much of anything there really. She'd been absolutely putrid by the time they'd brought her back. Sometimes, she wondered if she'd ever be able to wash away the stench that seemed to linger in her nostrils. Paige had made vague murmurs about taking her out later this week. The thought of going out there, in the open-- no protection, nowhere to hide or escape to...

She started to shake, her fingers digging into the tiled walls of the shower, white with strain. She whispered to herself as she sank slowly to the floor of the shower.

"I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe, I'm safe."