Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: R for mild violence
Summary: When a surprising individual brings a dying Jubilee to Wolverine, questions and guilt abound for Logan and Emma.
Warnings: Mild Het and Slash
Disclaimer: Jubilation "Jubilee" Lee, Wolverine/Logan, Emma "White Queen" Frost, Sean "Banshee" Cassidy, Victor "Sabertooth" Cassidy, all other characters mentioned within, Generation X, and the X-Men are & TM Marvel comics, not the author, and are used without permission. Everything else is & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.
This was it, her tired mind told her as she lay in a bloody pool of agony. There was no more fighting, no more anguish. Her life was at its end, and she had failed. She wasn't even an X-Man any more. She persisted in playing hero, but the child's screams as the villain turned his back on her crumpled form and returned his attention to the family of innocents reminded her just how badly she had failed there. She should have stopped. She should have just given in when she'd lost the right to wear the badge that had meant the whole world to her, the powers that had given her that right and her life, the powers that had made her who she was.
But she had never been a quitter. She had continued the fight with no home, no family. It hadn't been the first time she'd been on her own, but she'd never felt more lonely or emptier than she had since that day. Soon her body would be as empty as her soul. Never had she hurt this badly physically, not even when Bastion had held her captive, but even this pain could not begin to compare to that of losing the only people besides her parents who had ever really loved her.
It's yer fault, ya know that, Lee, her sense of sarcasm kicked in. Ya wan't worthy. That's why ya were one o' the ones to get stripped.
Tears that she'd thought she had no more of left to cry poured down her face as she saw their faces in her mind's eye for one last time. There was Sean and Emma and her family at Generation X, a family she had let fall apart in the beginning and then drift even further when they should have stood together. If they had, they would still be strong instead of dead or God only knew where or living what kind of pitiful shell of a life. She knew Frosty wasn't happy; the woman could hide her misery from every one but her. She should have reached out.
She should have talked to the others. She should have stood by Sean and Emma both, because she'd known they'd only been trying to protect them. But she had let her anger rule her life and it had ruined almost everything.
She'd thought she could go home to the X-Men and stop pretending to be the kid she hadn't been in years. She could not have been more wrong. First she'd gone to Cali for Angie, and then she'd lost him too. The X-Men had come back to her then, but it hadn't lasted and she'd known then that things would never be the same again. She just never would have thought that they'd all abandon her -- Jeannie, 'Ro, Bobby, Hank, even her Wolveroonie.
Pain seared through Jubilee's being as she held to the image of Logan's face. How could he have turned away from her? How could he have just tossed their relationship to the wind as though it meant nothing to him? She understood he was a loner at heart and that he was afraid to let people get close to him for fear he'd end up causing their deaths. But hadn't she been the one to reach him when he'd gone totally feral? Hadn't she been the one to get pass every one of his barriers? But he'd left her all alone too, and now she would die alone. What she wouldn't give to see him just one last time, to hear him speak the words she told herself, even then, he'd never say again to her, to have him hold her as she slipped away . . .
A fierce growl shook the surrounding area, blasting out over the screams of the victims and the taunts of their attacker, and Jubilee looked up, through her darkening vision, to see a blur of activity. Blood ran red as the man sliced into her final villain, and she thought at last that Logan had come to her rescue. Then the enemy threw him off, and as he flew through the air to land somewhere behind her, she realized that it wasn't her Wolvy at all. It was his arch-nemesis instead, come, no doubt, to finish her off so that he could hold that glory over Wolverine's head as though he still cared . . .
Sabertooth leaped over her head, and the last thing Jubilee saw was his renewed attack on her enemy. Blood and flesh flew everywhere as the darkness she'd been struggling weakly against finally claimed her.
He was in the midst of battle when he caught her scent, and though his comrades were struggling all around him, he forgot all about them. Nothing else mattered to him suddenly as the scent of her blood assailed his nostrils and he knew she was dying. With a roar thundering from his lungs, Logan leaped up, sliced the head smoothly off of his opponent, and ran from the fight.
"WOLVERINE! GET BACK HERE!" Cyclops shouted to ears that refused to hear him.
Instead of pausing or turning around, Logan doubled his speed. He was bleeding from many punctures through his body from the fight they had been losing, but his loss of blood did not slow him in the least. Her name thundered through his head like a chorus, and all he knew was that he had to get to her.
Sabertooth's scent did not even enter Logan's mind until he made the last turn and Victor dropped down in front of him. "Knew ya'd come, runt."
Logan's eyes fell upon Jubilee's crumpled, bleeding body in the larger man's arms, and his glistening teeth pulled back in a purely animalistic snarl. "SABERTOOTH! YOU'VE GONE TOO FAR THIS TIME! I WON'T STOP 'TIL I KILL YA!"
Sabertooth shook his head at the sight he found so pitiful. The man who possessed the same strength and power as he did and who had haunted his thoughts for years was a weakling not because he dared to care for the child he held close to his own body now but rather because he had allowed her to go it alone without his protection when he loved her so much. And now, now after he had rescued her and brought her to him, he wanted to blame him -- not that Victor hadn't expected as much. "Chill it, Wolverine," he growled. "Ya let her go, runt. Ya turned yer back. This's what ya get."
"Don't lecture me, Creed," Logan growled, his eyes filled with burning hatred. "Let her go!"
He had imagined laying her in his arms, touching him for that brief second, letting him know that he wasn't the pure evil he thought he was, but he could see now that that would never happen. Carefully, he laid her upon the hard, cold ground and backed up slowly, his eyes never leaving Logan's. "Smell her wounds before ya blame me, son," he warned, his voice low and emotions carefully hidden. "Take care o' her first. Then, if ya still want me, I'll be waitin'."
He backed into the shadows as Logan carefully approached and watched as he dropped to his knees before the girl who could not have been his daughter more if she had shared the same blood that ran through his veins before turning and beating a hasty retreat. He had done the right thing, he reminded himself, and one day soon, Wolverine would be grateful. He'd never show it, but he'd know that he wasn't the monster he believed him to be. He'd know that he, too, had a heart capable of feeling, of hurting, and of loving.
"Jubie . . . Oh, Jubie," Logan murmured as he pulled her with extreme gentleness into his rough, blood-splattered arms. "Who did this to ya, baby?" He knew Victor's smell too well, but his was not the one that covered her. It was another scent, one he did not recognize but would find and kill ever so slowly . . . but first he had to get Jubilee help.
"W-Wolver-Wolver -- " She could not get the words out as blood dripped from her mouth.
"Easy, kiddo," Logan murmured, pressing his lips to her forehead in a chaste kiss. "Easy. Don't try to talk."
"Don't go."
He stared in the distance where Sabertooth had disappeared, but Jubilee curled her hand around the torn cloth of his shirt. "Please," she whimpered, "don't leave me 'gain . . . ever 'gain . . . "
"I won't," he swore, "if ya get better. Ya gotta get better." Lifting her in his arms, he stood, turned, and headed back to his team that he only now remembered had once, not that many years ago to his way of thinking, been a family. What had happened to them? They had lost Charles. They had lost Jeannie and 'Ro. But did that mean that they had to lose their sense of family too?
Wolverine found his remaining team mates where he'd left them, standing over their fallen foes who had not been so lucky as to escape and arguing over where he had gone. "Ah," Hank spoke, being the first to spot him emerging from the darkness though he did not yet see what he held in his arms, "here comes our erst-while companion . . . " His voice fell silent as Logan stepped into the light, his head bent as he gazed down at Jubilee.
"WOLVERINE!" Cyclops yelled, whirling to face him. "DO NOT EVER LEAVE US -- "
"Shut up, Summers." Though the words were spoken with fierce emotion, the voice was as cold as ice and as quiet as the death that lingered around them. Already Emma was moving, her long legs stretching out beneath her scantily-clad body to quickly carry her to her fallen student's side. A thousand questions bombarded her, but she turned instead to look at Hank as he and Bobby hurried to Logan's side.
Wolverine lifted his head and looked at Beast with the unshed emotions he tried so hard to hide shimmering in his eyes. "Can ya save her, Hank?" he asked the question that was utmost on all their minds.
For a change, Hank's eloquency deserted him as he took in all the blood and whispered softly instead, "I don't know, Logan. Lord help me I don't know."
Together the small band of mutants hurried to the Blackbird, even those who had not prayed in so long that the simplest of prayers seemed like the most foreign material whispering a prayer for their youngest companion.
Minutes ticked into hours, and hours seemed to stretch on into days before Hank finally emerged from the operating room. He was still wiping the last traces of blood from his furry hands when Logan stepped directly into his pathway. "How is she?"
"I did all I could, Logan," Hank started, lifting his sorrowful gaze to that of one of his dearest friend's.
"I know ya did, Hank," Wolverine spoke, laying a gentle hand upon the blue man's massive shoulder as he felt his heart sink in dread. "But how is she?"
"She lives . . . for now. We've been unable to resuscitate her. Only time will tell if she'll make it."
"Can I see her?"
"I'd never dream of attempting to stop you," Hank spoke softly as he stepped to the side where Bobby waited as much for him as for their young friend who he had once played pranks with seemingly nonstop.
Logan slipped inside the infirmary without another word. Paige sobbed quietly in Jonothon's arms. Though longing to be able to turn to another, Rogue hid her face in Remy's waiting arms while Hank took comfort in Bobby. Scott reached out for Emma, but she stepped away from him without even looking at him and moved toward the infirmary.
Completely ignoring him, she hesitated just outside the door, trying to give Logan time with Jubilee though every inch of her screamed to rush to her student's side. Though she knew Jubilee did not share her feelings, she felt as though the girl was every bit as much her child as she was Logan's. She also knew, however, that theirs was a bond that meant everything to Jubilee, a bond that she had lost just as Emma had lost Sean and their children, including Jubilee, a bond that she would not interfere with no matter the cost.
Logan's bootsteps echoed in the still infirmary as he crossed slowly to stand beside the cold, steel bed where Jubilee lay. She had always seemed so full of life that now she seemed almost to be an alien replacement of herself as she lay so still and pale. Her voice echoed in his ears, and finally, as he reached her and laid his large hand over her considerably smaller one, he let his tears fall. They splashed down onto her body, and still she did not respond.
"I'm sorry, Jubie. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. Don't leave me; I'll never leave ya again. Just come back to me. Please. I can't lose you too." His head bowed low over her as he clung to her hand, praying for a miracle not just to be granted to him but to be returned to him. She had been his miracle for she had reached him when no one else could, not Kitty or 'Ro or Charles or any one else.
His other arm hung by his side, and his free hand curled into a trembling fist. This was all his fault. He failed her. He let her go. He turned away from her when she was too stubborn to admit she still needed him. How many times had she persisted in clinging to him even when he'd tried everything he could think of to shake her off? How many times had she saved him, not only his life but his very heart and soul?
And this was how he repaid her? He was every bit as weak as Sabertooth had told him. Tears fell from his face like rain, and he barely heard the door open. Footsteps much softer than his clicked throughout the room as the woman who had once been one of his many sworn enemies approached the other side of the bed. He looked at her with a trembling upper lip trying to pull back in a silent snarl of warning, but Emma just shook her head and returned his gaze with blue eyes full of sorrow.
{I won't say a word,} she spoke within his head as her own tears fell. {As long as you see no tears, I see no tears.} Even her mental voice shook, and through her opened mind, he felt her pain and realized she blamed herself as much as he blamed himself. He realized, too, that this was a side she'd never dared to reveal to any one else and that she was only opening herself to him now for fear he'd chase her from the room if she did not.
The same thought that echoed in her mind resounded through his: How could I let this happen? But he had no answers, only more questions of how he could have ever been so sorrowful, so weak, and how Creed had found the strength that he lacked. Why did he even care? he wondered yet again. Did he just want to shove his face in the mistakes he'd made that had led to the ruin of his life? But no, that wasn't it. There was something else: Creed wanted him to know he wasn't purely heartless, and Logan refused to think on why that was.
But it wasn't important now nor were any of the others they'd lost, although he sensed his old friend Sean weighed almost as heavily on Emma's mind as Jubilee did. All that mattered was Jubilee. His vision blurred, and he blinked to clear it. When his eyes refocused, he found that Emma was leaning over Jubilee. She had taken her other hand and now pressed her lips to her forehead just as he had done earlier. "Please come back to us, child," she whispered while mentally probing. "Save us from ourselves."
Emma had barely began to straighten when Jubilee's blue eyes blinked open. "Thought ya'd never ask, Frosty." Her barely audible words came out slowly, and blood trickled from her mouth as they did. Logan wiped the blood away but did not move to clean his tears off of his face.
Jubilee looked up at her Wolvy and former headmistress with confusion creasing her brow. Though Logan's tears would not have surprised her once upon a time, both their tears did now. "I . . . thought ya didn't care any more?"
"Never stopped, punkin."
"I just . . . did not know how to show you that I . . . " Emma fell silent, unable to finish her sentence, and looked to Logan for help.
"Ya just had to knock some sense into this ole Canucklehead, Jubes. Ya know I've never known what was good fer me."
Emma was the first to instruct as she and Logan both sensed Jubilee begin to struggle. "Be still, child." Her tone was sharper than she intended, and she gentled it before adding, "We do not want you to harm yourself any further."
"We'll come to ya," Wolverine put in and leaned down to hug her. He wanted to clutch her to him as though she were a life preserver and he a drowning man, but he managed to restrain himself and give her nothing but gentle loving before standing again.
Silence reigned for a moment with Jubilee looking up at them both, and then her gaze zeroed in on Emma. "Ya gonna come down here, Frosty, or am I gonna have to ditch yer order?"
For the first time in all the years he had known her, Logan saw Emma blush before she bent over Jubilee. Then she hesitated, unsure what to do or how to touch her. Jubilee reached up, wrapped her arms around Emma, and hugged her though not near as tightly as she had hugged Wolverine.
Emma gasped, her heart pounding. She'd not been hugged in years, not since Sean and she had feared their children dead and he had tried to comfort her in her grief while simultaneously telling her she had to be wrong and they had to be okay. They had had to be okay not because they needed them but rather because she and Sean needed them so badly. She wondered fleetingly if he'd ever figured that out before pulling back and away from Jubilee and trying not to appear as flustered as she felt.
Jubilee laid on the cold table, looking up at the man who could no more be her father than if he had been her blood father and the woman who had struggled so hard to learn to be a mother to her. She'd not said the words since losing Angelo, and she'd hoped to hear them from Logan first but now feared that Emma's presence would keep his mouth sealed.
Wolverine reached down and ruffled Jubilee's short, black hair lovingly. "We love ya, kiddo," he spoke, ignoring Emma's sharp glance.
Jubilee caught his hand and held it to her face as frustration coursed through her. There was so much she wanted to do, so much she wanted to say, but she felt so weak that she could barely keep her eyes open. "It's alright, Jubes. I ain't goin' anywhere. I'll still be here when you wake up."
"And I," Emma interjected, "but first I believe there are others who wish to know you fare well." Although she could have told them telepathically, Emma left Logan and Jubilee to give them a moment's privacy.
Logan heard Emma tell the others that Jubilee would be okay and their whoops, exclamations, and thankful prayers as they celebrated on the other side of the infirmary door. He smiled to hear his family's voices raised together in joy, and then his smile turned to a grin as he heard Emma add one last thing before turning to rejoin them.
"One more thing," she spoke, looking directly into Scott's eyes, "never touch me again, Summers. If they want me to stay here, I'll stay gladly, but from now on, that's the only way. You were never the man I wanted no more than I was ever the woman you wanted. I can not be your Jean, and you certainly are no Sean Cassidy."
Logan made a silent promise then and there. Not only would he never leave Jubilee again, but he would make sure that Emma always had a place with the team as long as they were part of the X-Men. She had come to believe in the dream as much as they and had just as much right to be here with them as he did or Rogue did or any number of those of them who had dangerously walked the line while tiptoeing between what so many perceived as good and evil. Perhaps together with Jubilee, he thought with a smile that lit up the dark room, they could rebuild their family. They'd lost many, but those who still remained could have a family again.
He lightly swiped the hair off of Jubilee's forehead. Yes, they would be a family again. After all, they'd already started, and his little Jubilee had brought yet another miracle into his life. He leaned down and kissed her forehead again. "Get well, kiddo," he whispered. He heard the door click shut behind Emma as she returned. "We're waitin', an' we're all countin' on you." With Jubilee's light, they would make it. They would be a family again. He knew that as surely as he knew he needed her and that no power on Earth could ever part them again.
The End