Double-Dealings

Disclaimer: I don't own any characters except my characters. Which are quite a few this time around. Let's try it this way: I don't own any Marvel characters that happen to show up in the upcoming chapters and which I'm sure you'll recognise without any need to name long lists. I also do not own Jenny, which Dizi created a few years back and which is a fabulous character. I strongly recommend you read her adventures with Wolverine and the X-Men.

1. First: The Sins of the Parents

Emily Mars could still remember her real parents, even though they had given her up to adoption when she was seven, about eight years ago. She knew they had lost their jobs, become homeless, and then they had selfishlessly given her to a well-off family so she might have a chance in life. She remembered her mother was blonde, for example, and that her father was a tall thin man. But that was it; every other memory had slowly faded into nothing overtime. Even the music lessons, because her mother had played the piano and the… violin? She knew her mother had taught her how to play the piano but she couldn't even recall which songs, only that elusive feeling she couldn't quite qualify when she heard some songs. Had she played them herself or had she heard her mother play them? Or maybe she had learnt about them later. It was maddening, not knowing!

It had started a couple of years before, when her History teacher, Mr. Jackson, had asked the class for their genealogic tree and told them that every person they descended from had had some influence in making them who they were. More than that, though, every person they had come into contact with had also influenced them.

"Who are you?" He had asked. "You are the sum of your genetic imprint but, most of all, you are the sum of all the people that had, and have, an impact in your life while you grow. Hold on to it, because to forget where you come from, whether it's your biologic origin or your upbringing, is to throw away who you are."

And Emily was throwing away everything she was with every passing year.

"4B," Anne said, hugging her friend. "This is their door."

God, she felt like crying! Would they recognise her? Would she recognise them?

"Go on Emily," the older Frank urged with a half-suppressed yawn. "It's a bit late for second thoughts."

And it was. Emily often spent the weekend at Anne's house, with her older brother Frank. Jason was often around too. When Anne had come up with the brilliant plan to find Emily's biologic parents, the four had come together to make it happen. And they had, even if they had had to lie to their parents, saying they were spending the weekend at eachothers' while instead they had hopped on a plane and flown all the way from Florida to Los Angeles. It really was much too late to hesitate.

"Oh, come on!" Jason stepped up and knocked vigorously. "We'll still have to find a motel if things go wrong and they kick us out."

"Will you shut up!" Anne hissed as Jason, being a knowledgeable nineteen-year-old, insisted it was a possibility. It was better if they kept it in mind, right? Just in case.

"Who is it?" Oh God, it was her mother's voice.

"Oh my God!" Anne latched onto her gasping friend, almost causing her to fall. "Oh my God, Anne."

"Who is it?"

Emily thought she recognised the voice. She really did think so. Almost 100% certain…

"It's Emily," Anne screamed at Emily's ears. "Emily."

For a moment, time stopped and there was absolute silence. Then the door opened, slowly. Emily felt so sick she could have burst into tears. Her mother looked… old. She couldn't recognise her at all, even her hair had been dyed dark brown.

"Dear God," the woman – her mother – whispered.

"Who is it, Elsie?"

A tall, thin man showed up in the room, behind her mother. He was almost completely grey. That was her father.

"It's Emily, Rob." Tears were flowing down her mother's face and Emily couldn't stop herself as tears did burst forth and the woman – her mother! – opened her arms to embrace her. "It's our Emily, dear God! My baby Emmy!"

Jubilee pushed the box of tissues towards the teenager.

"Had any of you considered they might be mutants?"

The girl shook her head briskly and sniffed, rubbing a hand over her tear soaked cheeks.

"Emily, are you sure Jason and Frank had never..."

"No!"

Jubilee backed off and gave her some time.

"It was only when... when my mother said that they had left me because they were mutants and didn't want me to get hurt because there were people attacking mutants and because I wasn't a mutant and I didn't have to live like a marginal because they were mutants."

Jubilee pushed the box a bit more, till it was right under her nose.

"OK. Do you remember how they reacted to it?"

The girl shrugged and pulled a tissue out, rolling it in between her fingers.

"I just... I..."

"It's ok, take your time."

"I'm sorry, I just don't remember. I was..."

"Shocked," Jubilee offered and the girl nodded, sniffing.

"I just remember... my mother said they weren't mutants anymore, not after M-day, and that anyway I wasn't a mutant, M-day or no M-day. And then... then... I saw him fall, my father. I saw him fall and there was blood everywhere and... and my mother was saying 'it was this I saw' over and over again, and Frank... Frank said..."

"It's ok," Jubilee whispered as the girl choked a couple of sobs.

"Anne told him not to, that I wasn't a mutant, that it wasn't my fault they were... but he just said mutant blood is mutant blood, powers or no powers. That we have to get rid of all mutant blood, that it's the only way mutants will disappear. That it's kill or be killed, and that she had to decide if she was going to kill or be killed too."

"But Anne decided to stand by you."

Emily nodded, sniffing.

"She pulled me out of the house. My mother told us to run and tried to stop him but Frank... Frank is strong. He is a quarter-back, you know. He's strong."

Jubilee let the girl wipe her nose before asking about Jason, which had the girl shaking her head.

"I don't remember, I'm sorry. I don't remember."

That was probably all they were going to get from Emily Mars. Jubilee hoped her adoptive parents would arrive soon. The fifteen-year-old needed a loved one to comfort her.

"We used to play this online game," Emily chuckled grimly. "Whack-an-M."

Ah, yes, Jubilee knew the game. It actually required the players to manifest a very good degree of strategy and team work. Of course, its objective was also to kill as many mutants as possible, the team work being necessary for the regular humans to counter-act the all-powerful mutant terrorists.

"My mum... I mean, my adoptive mum. She hated the game; said it didn't teach anything. She likes pedagogic games, you know." The girl held back a sob, frowning as new tears spilled. "Frank... Frank was like a big brother to me. He loved Anne's idea of finding my real parents. He worked so hard to make it all happen!"

And then turned psycho. Poor girl.

"I shouldn't have come," she mumbled, pushing back more sobs. "They'd still be alive if I... if I hadn't..."

"No," Jubilee cut in, causing the girl to look up. "You listen to me: none of this is your fault, you understand? Frank Larsen is the one at fault, not you."

She shook her head, tears still streaming down her face.

"But I came looking for them!"

"It is not your fault, Emily."

"Oh, God, God, GOD!" The girl covered her face with her hands and started crying in earnest.

Jubilee hated cases like this... The poor girl was set to spend years seeing a therapist. What to do but get up and hug the poor thing till she calmed down?

"I just wanted to see them again," the girl wailed. "They're part of me!"

"They will always be a part of you," Jubilee pointed out, holding her sobbing frame tight. "No one can take that away from you."

"Not if I forget them! That's why I wanted to meet them, because if I forget them, they're gone and then I'm gone because... who am I if I forget them? Who am I?"

"You are a strong kid," Jubilee whispered in her ear. "A strong kid who will survive this."

"I don't want to forget them," she still wept. "I don't want to lose them. Not again, not again."

The knock on the door didn't snap the girl from her pain, but Jubilee looked up to see Amy Turin, the law expert of her team.

"Emily's parents have just arrived," the woman's slow voice sounded angry as she nodded with her head for Jubilee to join her.

"What's wrong?" Jubilee asked the moment she closed the door, leaving Emily Mars alone with the box of tissues.

Turin was the cool headed in the team, so the clenched teeth meant something was seriously wrong.

"They've just disowned the girl." Jubilee didn't make the connection immediately and Turin exhaled with undisguised exasperation. "Janet and Larry Mars. Not to mention they're threatening to sue the system for encumbering them with a mutant."

What?! Hadn't the girl suffered enough? Well, she sure as hell wasn't going to stand there doing nothing. First of all... No, first of all, she had to catch Frank Larsen and Jason Kingston, and get justice under way. Then she would get Turin to help her convince the social services that the safest place for the teenager was the Massachusetts Academy for Integration. These days, the school housed more children of former mutants than actual mutants, but it remained a safe haven in a world of hate.

Elton Robson and Tom Selks, the two other agents in Jubilee's team, were waiting for her in the cramped room the local police had cleared for them. As Turin opened the door to let Jubilee in, Tom jumped up with the news.

"Emily Mars has an aunt." If she were as anti-mutant as the Mars... "Louise Patterson, sister of the deceased Elsie Robertson. She lives in South Virgina but is already making arrangements to fly in."

"And the runaways?"

"The police put out an APB," Elton shrugged. "They don't know the city, don't have anyone to help them hide... it shouldn't take long to catch them."

OK, time to wait. An aunt, huh?

"Did you talk to her, Tom? The aunt, I mean."

The young man nodded with a grin. "She's a bit weird, if you ask me. She was in this spiritual retreat and she was wearing feathers and colourful stones on her hair."

Well, there are worse things than having an eccentric aunt.

"How did she react to the news?"

"Resigned. She knew her sister was a mutant. Apparently she could see auras and she could tell if people were mutants or not just from looking at them. She also had flashes of the future and she supposedly predicted her own death."

Seriously? Then why hadn't she done something to prevent it?

"That was the real reason for giving up the girl, apparently: she thought that if she and her husband were to die, at least their daughter would survive."

"Unfortunately," Turin grunted, "the effort to avoid the premonition was what caused it to come to pass."

Jubilee shook her head. "Doesn't it always?"

Justin's ringtone caused Jubilee to jump in the car seat. With an annoyed grunt, she picked the thing up and answered with her trademark cheer.

"Hey, how's everything?"

Sort of.

"Is there something wrong? You sound a little…blue."

Wha...! As if!

"It's past midnight," she grumbled in a sudden bad mood. "If anything, I sound sleepy. Is there a point for the late call?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean to upset you. How's the case going?"

She shrugged. The two boys hadn't been caught yet, over 48 hours after the murder, but at least the girl, Emily, had had a break and was going to live with her aunt.

"It's going."

"Are you sure you're ok?"

Really?

"Actually, no, I'm not. It's late and you're keeping me from sleeping."

Unsurprisingly, Justin didn't chat for much longer. As in maybe five seconds to finish the call. Jubilee threw the mobile into a pocket and looked at the house on the other side of the street. It looked so different. And it amazed her that she could tell there were differences when she couldn't remember what it had looked like back then. How did she even know it was different?

"My parents told me to try and forget about it, that it was a past life," Emily had said during the questioning, before learning their adoptive parents wanted to get rid of her. "They said I had to focus on my life now."

Wise words, even if coming from a pair of pig-headed mutant-haters.

Jubilee understood the teenager's pain. Only those who live through it can understand how much it hurts everytime you realise you've forgotten one more thing about your lost parents. Or family, or friends, or whomever. But in this case, it was parents. You loved them, and then... one day you can't recall who had blue eyes, was it mom or dad? And then one day you're in doubt if you've inherited your blue eyes from one of them or from a grandparent because you just can't remember anymore. It's just like Emily said, it felt like losing them all over again. It's so much easier to put everything away and just not think about it.

"Those seven years I lived with my real parents made me who I am now, so how can I just forget about them?"

It's not really forgetting, though. It's just not thinking about it. That's all. Less painful, more practical.

"I don't want to lose them again," Emily sobbed in Jubilee's memory.

But let's be real: what else happens when you go digging the past? Pain and renewed sense of lost. No. Logan was right about that, live in the present and forget the past. Bury it, as deep as you can. After all, you aren't supposed to live in past, right? Seize the day! Seize the moment! And look ahead into the future! No time for crying over past sorrows.

Jubilee started the car and looked at her childhood home one last time.

What was she even doing there?

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