A/N: We all know what happened at the end of Gen x…sadness, booze, murder
etc….well this story came about as a challenge from my sister, which
will become apparent as the story progresses :)
Reviews would be loved and adored, flames will be used to make s'mores
with.
Jubilee is 22 years old; Emma is about 15 years older-37. Jubilee has
come into all of her
powers; telepathy, mega boom power, and can finally fly. Ev is not
dead cause it's my world and I say so.
Warnings: PG-13 To prevent major story spoiling…read at the end. For
all others…this is for the
open-minded….all of the anal retentive freaks can go take a hike.
Ruby Slippers: Chapter One
The huge auditorium sat in hushed silence. It was one of the largest scientific gatherings in the US, scientists and doctors of almost legendary fame had gathered to discuss the latest findings in genetic biology and more specifically, mutant genetics.
Five years after Gen X had disbanded, Emma had found herself here, hovering in the back of the auditorium with a morbid curiosity that she couldn't dispel. It was curiosity that had drawn her there, while hope and fear combated for supremacy in her gut.
Five years. Five years alone. She had spent them ruthlessly buying out smaller companies with a robotic efficiency, ignoring the pleas for mercy because no matter how hard she tried, nothing mattered after Gen X had fallen apart. In the end, Sean had been to far gone to care about anyone but himself and Charles had made it abundantly clear that she was far from welcome in his mutant "sanctuary". So, she had bought and sold lives, ignoring the twisted pain that had become a permanent fixture since she had failed the children.
The one person that hadn't left her was Nancy, her ever-faithful secretary. Nancy had remained the same, making no comment when her boss shut herself up in the lofty office, and quietly performing her tasks of shielding Emma from Charles when he had angrily demanded to see her one day talking of broken trust and the ruined lives of the teenagers under her care. This careful watchfulness had finally allowed Nancy to start leaving the brochures around, a subtle reminder of Emma's former life and the search for answers about the metagene.
"You cant hide forever." Nancy had said the day she had finally sat Emma down and talked to her. "The old Emma Frost would not have been afraid."
"I'm not afraid." Emma snapped.
"Then why are you hiding from them?" Was Nancy's only reply.
It had taken months of persistence but Emma had eventually given in. After all, Emma had reasoned, it was her duty to see the latest breakthroughs in genetic science.
Emma stifled a sigh as she slid into one of the few remaining empty seats in the back. It was too bad her excuse seemed to convince everyone but herself. The audience was hushed as the enigmatic Hank McCoy spoke to the masses, his passion radiating with each movement, each dramatic sweep of the hand. Even Hank had found his happiness lurking within the comrade of Cecelia. The woman had taken the sweet, insecure and gentle mutant and embraced him with an acceptance and love that had made Emma's heart ache. Hank in return had weathered the brutal year after Cecelia's withdrawal from the drugs that had enhanced her powers, providing a willing ear and a soft shoulder when the nights became too long. Emma had watched them, never able to ignore the dreams haunting her with cries of 'what if'.
Light applause startled the older woman out of her reverie, and she focused on the new speaker who had taken Hank's place. The speaker's words were smooth and confident with a hint of amusement, as if there was some secret joke hidden at the audience's expense.
"I want to thank you all for coming today. As you all know, Dr. McCoy's research focuses primarily on the metagene and the effects of it on the human body. Being under his tutelage, my research has followed the same premise but looked at this elusive gene's presence in history." The speaker paused, talking a sip of water before continuing. "What we have found is that the presence of the metagene dates back to prehistoric times." A roar erupted from the crowd as scientists argued and discussed the idea. Emma smiled; this presentation was what she had come to specifically see. The speaker was a marvel student of Hank's and had managed to stun the scientific community in just a short period just after coming under the mutant's tutelage.
Emma clenched her purse, fear suddenly and overwhelmingly pushing her to leave. It would be so easy to walk out to her limo, slide into the cool interior and pretend that she had never been here. She could be in her office by the end of the hour…her office; a cool, massive room that exuded elegance that only the very rich could afford. A simplicity that carried through to the few items she had allowed to grace her desk, a photo of Generation X, one of the Hellions and an awkward paperweight that Leech had given her one Christmas. In the end, it was that image of starkness, of loneliness that kept her sitting for the rest of the speech, staying until the applause had died down and the people had emptied from the room.
Taking a deep breath, she adjusted her characteristic white suit, unconsciously falling back in the "Frost mode" as Jubilee had called it. She slowly walked up to the stage, waiting patiently for the speaker to finish talking to the reporters that clamored at the bottom of the podium.
The speaker wore a light purple suit, her silky black hair in a soft upsweep kept in place by a few well-placed shimmering pins. She glanced at Emma, a soft grin on her face, before returning to the flurry of questions that bombarded her. *Long time no see.*
Emma smiled faintly. *Indeed Jubilation.*
-in-
It was several moments before Jubilee could politely extract herself from the reporters and join Emma. The familiar grin spread across her face and she hopped down off the stage and greeted her old mentor. "How have you been? It's been so long."
Emma was unprepared for the rush of emotion she felt at seeing the girl turned woman again, and let herself be hugged enthusiastically. "Well. I've been well. How have you been dear?"
Laughing, Jubilee gestured to the now empty rows of seats. "Fine considering that Hank just happened to forget to tell me that I would be speaking in front of everyone and their mother."
"We are all proud of you. I always knew you could do this."
"Thank you." Jubilee regarded the woman in front of her. Five years had done little damage to her face, aging in the subtlest of ways as if time had chosen to be kind when little else had. The younger woman's eyes flickered for a moment, the only outward sign that her powers were in use, before returning to their normal open expression. Linking arms with Emma and giving her an affectionate squeeze, Jubilee nodded towards the door. "I'm starving. How about we catch up over moussaka and baklava?"
Emma could only nod, unsure of her voice with all of the mixed emotions threatening to overtake her at any moment.
-in-
The last few layers of honey drenched pastry disappeared and Jubilee set her napkin down with a satisfied grin. Conversation between the two women was light, talking about old members and their lives, always being careful to avoid those last painful months that they were a team. Finally, Jubilee sat back in her chair, swirling her ice tea thoughtfully as she studied Emma. "So Frost, how are you?"
Emma smiled, chewing on a sour olive as she brushed a few stray crumbs from her lap. "As I've said, I'm doing well."
Jubilee's expression didn't change. *Lying to a 'path never works. You of all people should know that.*
A soft sigh escaped her lips. "Can't an old friend want to visit?"
"You were hardly ever the impulsive type, besides I haven't seen you in over five years. Why now?"
"I saw Sean a few weeks ago."
"Oh." Sean had come out of it the worst. The death of Moira had made him bitter, angry at Charles for not telling him, heartbroken because he felt he had betrayed the Scottish woman and had fallen into a desperate drinking binge that had ended one early morning in a heap of scrap metal. He had survived, but had never recovered. Jubilee had been there when they were hauling him out of the wreckage, his mental screams waking her from over two hundred miles away.
"I wanted to make sure you were okay." Emma just stopped herself from adding, that I hadn't destroyed you like I had him.
Her eyes flickered again. "You mean psychologically scarring me irrevocably for the rest of my life, destroying any and all chances I had at a normal life?" A smile twitched at her lips as she shrugged unapologetically for reading the older woman's thoughts.
"In essence."
"Well in essence I'm fine. California turned out to be a very good thing for me. Sometimes life can manage to give us surprises when we least expect it." Jubilee could feel the doubt radiating from Emma no matter how hard she tried to suppress it. "I'm fine. Ange and I went back to LA, entered college, got degrees, and Hank asked me to study under him. I don't blame you for what happened, at least not anymore. Life is too short for me to be angry at you now."
Emma blinked in surprise. "You've certainly grown up." As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Emma was painfully aware that she had messed up. Her relationship with Jubilee had always balanced on the edge of a wire, both able to disrupt the other with the slightest comment or gesture.
"I never knew maturity was me not caring." Jubilee's eyes flashed angrily
and she flung a
few bills on the table. Before the other woman could speak, the young
woman had walked out of the restaurant and into the street.
Carefully folding her napkin and setting it on her plate, Emma thanked the waiter and walked out to where her limo was waiting. It was only when she was inside that she allowed her mask to fall. She had hoped that by coming here she could begin to mend some of the broken bridges between the team and herself. It wasn't going to be as easy as she had hoped.
-in-
The club throbbed, the soothing pulse of music allowing Jubilee to sit back and relax. The cool drink sat in front of her, the dew condensing into a little puddle below the glass. She had come here out of habit, an old haunt from her college days that was comforting in its familiarity. The club had a homey atmosphere about it, a long bar sat in the middle of the room, an island surround by cherry red barstools and laughing people. In the adjacent room was the dance floor, complete with a disco ball and DJ who smiled and nodded at the regulars. In the last room, there was a bevy of old couches and armchairs, all nestled together in companionable clusters.
Jubilee had been there an hour and hadn't yet gotten up from the bar, determined on forgetting a painful afternoon. A set of arms wound around her waist, giving her a squeeze as a soft kiss was planted on her cheek. Jubilee turned to look at the tall African American woman with a smile. "Hi, Annie. How have you been?"
"Better now that you're here! So, what is the infamous Jae Lee doing here?"
"Hank and I spoke at the convention today. We're in town for a few days."
"I head you on the news. People aren't thrilled about what you're suggesting."
"Big surprise. People never like it when you start suggesting that they're all freaks and not just us select few." Jubilee gulped down the last of her drink and waved to the bartender for another.
Annie peered at Jubilee, the strobe lights making her violet eyes glow. "What's wrong honey?"
"Emma came to see me today."
Understanding dawned in Annie's eyes and she sat down next to her. "Things didn't go well."
"We never got along when I was fifteen, why the hell should it be any different now that I'm 22?"
"Because you wanted it to be different." Annie caught the eye of the bartender, giving him a slight nod when he watered down the drink substantially. "C'mere." With tacit understanding, Annie pulled Jubilee off her feet and onto the dance floor. A slow ballad began playing, and with a soft sigh of relief, Jubilee sank into the other woman's arms, reveling in the comfort of an old friend and lover.
-in-
7 years earlier
It had taken years for Jubilee to admit to herself that she was different. It had seemed like an eternity when she had finally decided to tell Paige. After months of agonizing, Jubilee had finally blurt it out one night when the two of them were watching a movie.
"I'm gay."
Paige's eyes barely left the screen as Brad Pitt's muscles rippled across the screen. "Uh huh."
Slightly peeved, Jubilee poked her in the ribs. "I said I'm gay. I'm a lesbian. A big dyke."
"And what about the whole Ev thing?" Paige said as she calmly munched on popcorn.
Jubilee frowned, a wrinkled marring her smooth brow. "I think he was more of a way of figuring stuff out."
"So you're gay." Disbelief evident in Paige's voice, she turned to look at Jubilee.
"Yes!"
"Okay." Turning back to the screen, Paige hid a grin as she heard Jubilee start muttering under her breath.
"That's great. Just fine. Ignore the fact that I've been freaking out about this for months now. Go back to your television lala land. That's just fine with me."
Laughing, Paige swept up the surprised girl in a bear hug. "Jubes, I come from a huge family. Don't you think that at least one of them is gay? I don't care who you love as long as you're happy. Now do you want more drama or can we finish the movie?"
Jubilee cocked her head, looking at the older girl. "Movie." A smile crept over her face. "So is it Sam?"
The rest of the night was spent in comfortable silence and it wasn't much longer that Jubilee came out to the rest of the team. What Jubilee had failed to account for when imagining the reactions of her teammates was the fact that they were mutants. Being different was a way of life for them and acceptance came hand in hand. With a few jokes and being teased about ménage a trois by Ange, they all took it in stride and were careful to be there for Jubilee when she was feeling insecure about herself. It was Ange that snuck her into her first gay club when she was sixteen, enduring admiring glances from several men the few hours that she was there.
No coming out story is ever perfect, however. The one person Jubilee refused to tell was Emma Frost and no matter how many times her friends told her that Emma would understand, she shied away from telling the older woman. It was because, Jubilee had often told herself, Emma was far from forgiving in things being hidden from her and once she found out that she wasn't the first to know, she would be angry. Any other reason that threatened to make itself known in the quiet dark of the night was quickly and thoroughly taken care of. Jubilee had not spent a lifetime getting hurt and rejected to not know when she was on the brink. And if that meant that Emma never found out, the better.
-in-
Present
The two young women danced slowly, Jubilee snug against Annie's shoulder when her smile faded. Annie stiffened and bent to whisper in Jubilee's ear who merely nodded. Cringing, Jubilee turned to face Emma who was staring at the two of them in shock.
"How long?" Jubilee could barely make out Emma's whispered words from the pounding music that had started up again.
Refusing to move from her position with Annie's protective arm around her waist, Jubilee merely shrugged. "A while."
Annie gently rubbed Jubilee's back, watching with interest as Emma's eyes glinted steel. The older woman had to visibly pull herself together to address Jubilee. "Are you happy?"
"Ecstatic."
Emma reached out to Jubilee, her movement stalled as the younger woman tensed. Her hand slowly withdrew after brushing an errant black lock of hair off Jubilee's shoulder. "Then I'm happy for you." For a moment Emma looked lost, unsure of herself and then the moment was lost hidden behind the façade of the woman who ran Frost Enterprises with an iron hand.
Emma pulled out a twenty and handed to the bartender, before turning to leave. The older woman paused at the door, ignoring the swirl of people around her as she regarded Jubilee, her pale blue eyes looking almost hurt. "All I ever wanted was for you to be happy, and I came not to spy on you but to tell you that I was sorry about this afternoon. Hank said I might find you here. Good night."
Jubilee watched her leave, her mind whirling with so many emotions that she felt like she was choking. She could barely feel Annie's presence as the woman tried to comfort her. Jubilee shook her head slowly. "This wasn't how it was supposed to go. I pictured it so differently."
"We all do sweetie."
"No you don't understand," Jubilee turned to face Annie in an effort to make her understand. "I wanted her to see me as something other than the bratty sixteen year old she knew, I wanted her to see me for me."
"I may not be a telepath but I do know how to recognize love when I see it. It's obvious Jae."
Jubilee had long since tried to hide things from Annie, previous experience teaching her that the woman had an uncanny way of knowing about people. Sighing, she accepted the proffered hug. "Serves me right for falling in love with a straight woman."
Annie merely smiled. "I'll give you a lift home and we can talk tomorrow. How about that?"
Jubilee slipped on her old leather jacket (courtesy of a certain Wolvie) and nodded wearily. "Sounds good."
-in-
It was only instinct that saved Jubilee's life. She had been asleep, her dreams a myriad of images that she had spent years trying to suppress, when the room had literally crumbled around her. The explosion had sent her flying through the room, the sheer force of the blow disintegrating her bed and hurtling her past the window and out into the night sky thirty stories above ground. A mere ten feet before her head would have been a cracked melon on the sidewalk, she regained enough of her composure to halt her fall.
What little she had left was gone when she looked back up at the smoking rubble that had hollowed out her room. Whoever had done it had made sure that she would have been the only one hurt, since none of the people filing out of the building looked hurt. Unsure of her attackers' ability, Jubilee stayed long enough to make sure that the building was evacuated and that no one had been harmed.
She had shaken off the medical team's efforts to help her, submitting only to a quick check by Hank before flying off. He had offered to take her somewhere else to sleep, but she had refused needing to clear her mind of the day. "I'll be fine." She reassured the large blue mutant before disappearing into the night sky, her form soon hidden by the smoke that had condensed around the area.
Jubilee flew for several hours, going out far beyond the city limits as she tried to make sense of everything. This kind of attack was something she wasn't too surprised about; several of her teachers had tried to warn her about the risks she was taking when giving a presentation like the one she planned on. She hadn't listened and now she had almost died for her stupidity. Hell, if the attackers had been anything but perfect in their execution, she would have been responsible for hundred of other deaths. And as she hovered, high up in the air, there was no one that she could think of talking to. Paige had her own life now, surrounded by her brood of kids and busy teaching at Xavier's. Angelo had taken off to return to the X-men. Jonothon was in LA somewhere and both M and Everett were somewhere in Ghana recruiting some new mutant. And Wolvie was reliably off on another one of his missions, having told no one where he was going.
As people's images flooded her mind, she settled on one with a smile. With a decisive nod, she quickly turned and headed north. With any luck, she would be there just as the sun was starting to rise.
-in-
Emma was furious. She paced angrily in her hotel room, pausing every few minutes to glare at the telephone that had refused to ring. Nancy had woken her up to tell her that the Guild Hotel was on fire, and that only one room had been destroyed, Jubilee's. Emma had used all of her resources available and had discovered very little, save that Jubilee was alive and that no one knew where she was.
"Blast her!" The fact that Emma couldn't locate Jubilee with telepathy wasn't helping matters any either. The only person she did locate was the last person was standing outside her door and it was the last person in the world she wanted to talk to. Irritated, she put on a robe and opened to door to give the evil eye to the woman standing outside. "What do you want?"
Anne smiled. "I thought that you might like to talk."
-in-
A/N: More is coming...let me know what you think. Feedback feeds the
cravings :)