Changes
(Chapter One)
It was a bright, sunny afternoon at Xavier's School for the Gifted. The sun shone brightly, the birds chirped and there was not a cloud in the sky. Jubilee was sitting on the edge of the fountain out front enjoying the first day of good weather there had been in a while. She enjoyed the feeling of the hot sun on her face.
She wiggled her toes in the cool water of the fountain, admiring her freshly painted red toenails. She was glad that she had decided to come out here. She hadn't been outside in a long time. There hadn't been any action X-Men wise lately. The mutants and humans seemed to be getting along just fine.
Jubilee chuckled as she remembered her very first mission with the X-Men. She had been a child then, and it had been a lot different then Generation-X missions. She sighed as she longingly thought of Generation-X. She wondered how everyone was. It had been so long. She wished that she could go back. Wished that she could be free like that. Like a kid. She was no longer the young mall rat that everyone thought of her as. She was a young woman. Hell she was 24 and no one even seemed to notice.
No one got her. No one really ever cared enough to get to know the real her. Except him. He had taken care of her. Made her laugh, he had protected her. Then he was gone. He had left. Left her. That had been a long time ago. She had still worn the yellow jacket.
'That stupid yellow jacket', she thought bitterly. It had been so childish. That was what everyone pegged her as. Childish. And the jacked hadn't helped. Bright yellow plastic. She was glad that she had discarded it so long ago. Now she was into leather. Lots of it. Not skanky of course, but classy leather. If there was such a thing.
She gazed up at the sky. The sun would be setting in an hour or two. She sighed and got up. She was going to head to the gym. Work up a sweat and maybe relieve some of this stress. She always got stressed out when she thought of him. He had left. She had cared for him. He had been her mentor and closest friend, and he had left. Left the X-Men, left her.
A fresh tear slid down her cheek as she thought about how many years had passed since he had left. She laughed bitterly. He had told everyone, said good-bye. To every one but her. He hadn't even thought to say good-bye to her. He probably had even forgotten who she was. He hadn't gotten up off of his ass to come to Gen-X to go see her.
She changed into her sports bra and jogging shorts. She pulled her hair into a ponytail and slipped on her running shoes. She had to run. That's what she did when she needed to be alone, to reflect on her thoughts. She started jogging down the road, and she began to think.
'You know, I bet no one would even notice if I wasn't here.' She thought forlornly.
She couldn't be here anymore. It held too many bad memories, too many old thoughts. She jogged quickly back to the house and ran to her room.
The clouds had started to invade the sunny sky. It was going to rain. Jubilee was packing a bag, unaware of anything except her own thoughts. She grabbed some cash that she had put away, and slipped out to the garage to grab one of Cyke's bikes. She hopped on and roared away not even looking back.
Three days later
" Jean, where's Jubilee? I haven't seen her in awhile." spoke Ororo softly as she entered the kitchen, where Jean was making them some dinner.
"Hmm?" Jean replied obviously paying more attention to her spaghetti sauce then to Storm.
"Jean, Jubilee. She's not here. Did she say she was going somewhere?" Storm replied a note of nervousness in her voice.
"No, come to think about it I haven't seen her in a few days." Jean replied looking up from her sauce. "Oh well, don't go worrying about it, she's probably just been flying low under the radar."
"Yeah, I suppose." Ororo spoke with apprehension.
In the middle of Los Angeles
Logan looked out his window, and stared at the rain pouring outside of his apartment window. He saw two cloaked figures hurry quickly past under two large umbrellas, each with a large letter "X" painted on.
Logan seemed to be thinking about that particular letter quite often lately. Well it might not be the letter, It was her. Jubilee. He didn't know why, but he had been thinking of her so much lately. Everywhere he went he thought that he saw her face, heard her soft voice, felt her touch. He missed her.
He had wanted to say good-bye wanted to so badly, but he couldn't. It was too painful. He had hurt her by it, he knew. But hell he was selfish and he didn't want to hurt. Although he did anyway. He thought about going back to see her, but he was afraid. Afraid of how much she might have changed over the years.
He imagined her beautiful. With long, dark hair, cascading about her shoulders. Those crystal blue eyes so innocent, so loving. A perfect figure with full hips and a small waist, and with her full, pink lips, supple and smooth.
He thought of her now every day, and couldn't stop himself. She was probably around 23 or 24 now. He sighed as he got up to answer the phone that had just begun to ring.
"Hello?" he asked gruffly.
"Logan?" asked a sweet voice, which he couldn't quite place who it was.
"Who is this?"
"I'm shocked, Wolvie you don't recognize me."
"Jubes?" he asked incredulously. He couldn't believe it was her. All this dreaming of her and she was here.
"Yeah. I was passing through, and I found you. Well actually I stole your number from Jean's phone book but hey same dif." She didn't know why she was calling him ,after how much he had hurt her, she didn't know what she expected of him. But when she had seen the number poking from Jean's purse, she couldn't help it. She stole it a while back, and only now had the courage to call him. Only now that she had no where to go, and was calling from a payphone down the street from his apartment.
"Where are you Jubilee?" he asked, suddenly wondering where she was, the X-Men would never have let her call him.
"Actually, I'll be right outside your door in 3 minutes." And then Wolverine heard the 'click' of the phone hanging up.