Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Logan is determined to save his hero.
Warnings: None
Challenge: This was written for a weekly challenge for the Writers_Choice LJ comm.
Word Count: 2,129
Date Written: 1 March, 2011
Disclaimer: Logan/Wolverine, Jubilation "Jubilee" Lee, all other characters mentioned within, and the X-Men are & TM Marvel comics and Disney, not the author; are used without permission; and may not be used without permission. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
He paces like the wild animal in a cage to whom he yet again feels so close. He could not be more imprisoned if he were actually in a jail, but instead, the bars set upon him are once more invisible and even stronger than any physical pen. He turns on his booted heel, the left corner of his mouth lifting in a silent growl.
He can feel her eyes upon him again, and yet he dares not look up. He can not take seeing what she has become. He can not face those red eyes without feeling a fresh stab of pain, and already the pain he feels is worse than any knife slicing into his valiant heart. It's worse than being stabbed a million times over, and it's worse even than the crucifix from which she saved him when they first met. It's the most horrible pain he's ever felt, and the only times he's ever come close to hurting as terribly as he is now has been when he's been forced to take the life of some one he loves.
And yet she still lives. She's as alive as he is now, more so even for he's felt what she's going through. He's felt it, and he's relished in it. She feels more alive now than she's ever felt before, and he knows that, for a long time now, she's felt dead though alive. The awakening to these new Vampire powers after losing the mutant powers with which she was born, those which were her birth right but were stolen from her due to a bitch whose heart he would now love to rip out, has given her new life. They have found her and raised her up to a new height, one both which he should have given her himself and also from which he must somehow save her.
This isn't the Jubilee he knows, the girl who captured his heart years ago when she was still just a scared child, but yet she's still in there, just buried underneath the violent surface, relishing in her new-found might and life and yet screaming at herself with every evil thing she does. It's his fault, he thinks again, his hands balling into tighter fists and the ends of his claws unsheathing instinctively. It's his fault, and yet he doesn't know what in the Hell to do about it. He knew she was suffering from the loss of her mutantcy, and he should have been there for her as she's always been there for him. Instead he let her go.
He let her go. He walked out of her life, telling himself that she didn't need him any longer and that she was better off without the trials and duties of being a mutant, an X-Man, a hero, and yet he sees now what he should have already known then. The girl he loves has always been a hero. She couldn't be any more his daughter than if he was her blood father, and she is as much of a hero as himself and any one who he's fought beside. Actually, she's more of a hero, because she was a hero when she was still a child. She saved him, and yet he let her down.
He's letting her down now, he knows, and it's driving him crazy or, at least, even crazier than he already is. He's no stranger to losing those he loves, but the threat of losing her is ripping his heart out. He should have never separated from her. He should have been there with her all this time. Even when she'd gone to Gen. X. If she was so determined to learn her powers, he should have gone with her. He could have been a teacher. He snorts derisively at that thought. Okay, so he doesn't have the patience to be a real teacher, but he could have been there, lurking in the woods around the school, keeping an eye on her, being close for her, being there for her when she needed him.
He should have been there, but he wasn't. Now she's become a monster, and it's all his fault! He fights down the tears welling inside of him, curling his fists until his claws bite into his own flesh and thankful for the slight pain as it pulls his attention away a bit from the tears threatening to pour down his battle-roughened cheeks. This isn't the first time he's been through this. He's lost others he's loved, because they failed to fight against the monsters they'd become. He even lost himself once.
But none of it can compare to the pain of seeing Jubilee like she is now, and knowing the real Jubie is just there underneath the surface, needing him, crying out for him and screaming his name though he can't hear her. He hears her louder and clearer than he's heard her in years, and a part of him hates himself even more for letting this happen to her. This is his fault every bit as much as it is Xarus', and he's got to find a way to save her. There's got to be a cure, but he's damned if he knows what it is!
So he's got to find some one who does, he thinks, turning again as he reaches the end of the observation room and continuing to pace. He knows plenty of people, from brilliant scientists to savage fighters, and one of them's got to be able to figure out the secret. There has to be a way to save her, or else they're both doomed. He doesn't want to keep facing his life without Jubilee in it, shining her light and taking away a part of his darkness, and if she's doomed because of him . . . He growls quietly, fiercely, his eyes flashing with his fury. She's become this monster because of him, and if he can't save her, he'll die trying! He'll rip out his very heart with his own claws if he has to, but if there's at all a way, he'll save her!
There's gotta be a way, he thinks with his next step. There's got to be a way to save his little girl. He couldn't save Victor. He couldn't save Mariko or Silver Fox. But he'll save Jubilee! Vic's human side gave in to his monster, but Jubie's still there, just below the surface. She just can't gain control over what's happened to her, over the blood lust and Demon that's been implanted to her by the fatal kiss of Dracula's son. Wolvy wishes the bastard wasn't beheaded and thinks, for a moment, of putting his body back together just so that he can kill him again himself.
He wants to shred the little punk apart. He wants to torture him within an inch of his unlife and then bring him back and do it all over again. He wants him to taste just a drop of the pain that he's going through and the misery that his beloved Jubilee is suffering. But he can't. Drac took care of the asshole himself.
What he can do, what he must do, what he will do or die trying to do is save his Jubilee! He turns at last, daring to meet her eyes, and wishes instantly that he hasn't for there before him, standing just a foot away, her hand pressing helplessly against the cool, glass surface of the wall standing in between them, is his daughter. Yet she's not his daughter still for it's pure, blood red eyes that gaze back at him, staring at him, taunting him, telling him that this is all his fault.
They could have been together, her eyes tell him. They could have lived a new life, feeling more alive and stronger than ever before, together, and yet he turned from her. He betrayed her again. She loves him, and yet all he does is let her down, turn his back to her, and ultimately betray her!
Logan lowers his head and gives it a shake. This isn't his Jubie! He did betray her, but not by regaining his humanity, or by encaging her here. This is the first step of saving her from what she's become. If he lets her run loose, there's no telling how many lives she'll take, and Jubilee will hate herself more for every one she kills. He knows what that's like all too well, and it's a Hell he'll protect her from no matter the cost!
He senses something different, something shifting in the air, and he raises his head again and meets her eyes once more. They flicker into the deep, big, brown orbs that he knows are really his little girl's eyes. For just a split second, in which his heart goes pounding into triple time and yet his body also shivers with a myriad mixture of emotions, including hope, sorrow, and guilt a thousand times more than what he's already feeling, he sees her. He sees his little girl looking at him and begging him to save her.
He springs forward to the glass before he can think and touches the other side of the wall where her hand rests. She stares into his eyes, but already she's changing again. "Jubie - " His voice cracks as he pleads for her to stay, yet, before he can even finish saying her name, those doelike, brown eyes are gone, replaced by the soulless, red orbs of the Vampiress. He drops his hand as though he's been burned and snarls as he turns away.
He knows she's saying something. His instincts tell him that she's teasing him for being a weakling and caring so much for a human girl from whom he turned away, and for the first time, he's damn glad that Slim's set up the room to where he can't hear a thing that's being said or done inside. He lifts teary eyes to the door leading into the observation room as it opens and looks away, sharply batting his eyes against the reflection of his pain he kicks himself for having allowed to show, as Scott walks in.
"Goin' out," he growls, and Scott nods. Logan should hate him for what's he done to him, and a part of him does. Yet there's another part of him that's grateful to Scott for he knows that Scott did what he felt he had to to help them save Jubilee and that Scott's also the only other one pushing just as hard as he is to keep his Jubie alive.
Logan doesn't look back as he walks away from Jubilee this time. For the first time in a long time as he leaves her behind, he gives it no second thought. He knows what he's got to do. He's got to go out in the world. He's got to chat with Hank, Strange, the Shaman, the damned Scarlet Witch, and any one else he can think of or find who may have any idea as to how to cure Jubilee. He's got to save her, and he will, no matter what it costs!
He loves her, and though he's let down others he loves and even her herself before, this time he won't let her down. He can't. He can't lose her like he did Victor. He can't let her monster win. He'll find a way to stop it and save her, even if it costs him his life. He just prays it won't take too much longer, because every second without his Jubie shining her multi-colored light of radiant life inside of his dark world seems an eternity of misery for him.
"I'll be back," he whispers, tucking on the cowboy hat that he had given to her and will give her again when he's got her back by his side where she belongs. He knows she can't hear him, but yet, somewhere deep within his soul, he knows she senses his words, meaning, and true intentions as much as he's always known when something was happening with her.
Just like the night he found her out in the desert when he'd not even known she'd been kidnapped but knew that he needed her, he knows that she knows he's here for her, that nothing will take him away again, and that he will save her. Nonetheless he says the words. "An' I'll save ya, punk'n. Just hold on." And he prays she will as he rides out into the night, intent on only one thing for now he lives just for her. He fights to find her a cure. He exists to save his daughter, and save her, he will.
The End