I have a piece of advice for you.
Never stop smiling.
For if you give up hope
Then we are all doomed
Because as long as there is one person
Who believes in goodness
Then the world shall be at peace.
But if that person stops believing
Then we have nothing left
And then we shall perish.
You are that person.
So never stop.
Never stop smiling.
~ Unknown
Jubilee,
Yeah, I know, where the hell am I? I'm sorry I haven't been there for
you, and that I'm not there now. I know you need me there with you
more now then you need me hunting out some revenge on my own. But it
isn't like that this time.
This isn't for me, and perhaps that's why the decision was so easy.
I've never killed him, no matter how many fights we had, no matter
what happened, there was a part of me that just didn't want to make
that last blow. Perhaps it's because I was just never good enough, but
now we're gonna find out for sure.
He had his chance, kid. Whatever went before, it's different now. I
don't care what it takes me, but I will find him, and I will make him
pay. So, you feel safe, Jubilee. Wolvie's gonna keep you safe, just
like he always has before. I know I wasn't there when you most needed
me, that you probably hate me for not being there now. But Jubilee, I
will be there, I promise. But not until I put this right, not until I
fix the mistakes I made long ago.
Hang in there, it'll all be over soon.
Love you, kid.
~Wolverine
***
"How is she, Emma?"
"About what you would expect, Charles. She hasn't protested against the mental probes."
"She hasn't protested, at all?" Charles's brow furrowed.
"No."
Charles Xavier rarely gave away the inner workings of his mind, not with body language, or with words. People having been in his presence, often went away with the image of a cold, if not heartless man. Only Charles could ever know the truth behind this regard. Even those who had come to know him well did not always know whether they could truly say who he was. Even now, in light of this obviously drastic change in Jubilee's personality, he gave away nothing.
"Have you made inroads into finding out the extent of the mental damage yet?"
Emma's office was not so much a reflection of herself, as a reflection of how she wished people to see her. White and pristine, but with small personal items placed randomly where whim or perhaps design had relegated them. Along one wall hung various photographs, here, a picture of the Hellions, a younger Emma Frost glaring haughtily into the camera. Another was more recent, Artie handing Emma a small red rose, a St Valentine's day card gripped in the other hand. Emma smiled for a moment as she remembered the day.
Artie had been afraid that she would be upset if she received no gifts, and despite the yuckiness of giving something to a 'girl' had picked the rose from the garden. The card had been handmade. Her smile faded as she remembered that he'd enlisted Jubilee's help for that, the young girl chuckling delightedly at Emma's stunned expression, caught in the photograph for eternity. It had been a long time since she'd heard Jubilee laugh.
"I haven't wanted to get too close. It's like an abattoir in there. If I pushed now it would do more damage then good to the child."
Sean paced off to her right, listening to the conversation in silence, his expression pensive. She itched to reach for his thoughts, to savour the warp and weft of them, take them in like a fine wine and savour the uniqueness of his feel. It had been the hardest lesson of her youth to curb her telepathic abilities. To learn control when the whole world was open to you, every thought and feeling an open book for you and you alone. The desire to dip into each book, and taste the words found there, almost impossible to resist. You could get lost, trailing from one mind to the next, ignoring everything as your body slowly grew weak from lack of sustenance, and finally expired, leaving only your astral presence.
"Have there been any repeats of the catatonia?"
Emma had tried reaching Jubilee's mind when she was first brought in, her frail and broken form curled against Sean, shivering in terror. The invasion of Emma's mind into the cracked shards of her personality had sent her mind into a headlong run into the dark depths of her own psyche, only the iron vice of Emma's power keeping her from descending beyond retrieval into permanent insanity.
"No, she seems to have become accustomed to my mental touch. Although, I'm beginning to worry that she's becoming addicted to it."
"Physically?"
"Bad,"
Sean looked up at this, anger flaring behind bright green eyes and he finally exploded, patience taxed to the limit by this conversation that sounded more like a military report then a conversation between two who had known the lass for more then a few years now.
"He raped the lass, and then carved marks into her flesh, Emma. I'd hate ta see what ye call horrific."
"Emotional outbursts will help nothing, Sean. Would you rather I got down on my knees and howled to the moon?"
'Not now, Sean. Can't you see this will solve nothing?' she thought in exasperation. The Irishman was as emotional as any cliché of standard Irishness, temper, emotions and attitude combined; he irked her as much as he intrigued her. She could never quite decide whether to kill him, or give him the friendship he seemed to desire of her. She had never been one to give her trust to anyone, and yet he seemed to expect it from her as though it were a right that he deserved simply by existing within the same sphere of reality as she. It made her want to beat him senseless more then once in their long association, she sometimes suspected that this course of action would be much safer to her peace of mind in the long run.
"A show of compassion from time to time wouldn't kill ye."
Sean swore softly under his breath, glaring at both the Professor and at Emma. How they could sit calmly and discuss the child as if she were a wax doll to be mended and fitted back into the little mold they had all carved for her. She wouldn't fit any more; he had known that when he'd found her there, in the dark. She would never again fit into the little mold these people desired for her.
"But it wouldn't help her. She needs strength now, not some bleeding heart pointing out to her everything she's lost."
Emma sank deeper into her chair, glaring at the Irishman with anger that was almost close to hate. How dare he tell her to have compassion, when he knew nothing of her mind, or her emotions? She above all here might know what that child had suffered. She above all knew the mental anguish of being helpless to stop the monster.
"No, Em. But she does need something."
"Sean, we're not unfeeling monsters. But we need to be able to talk about this without breaking down. If we seem a little detached to you, then we are doing our job."
***
Jubilee noticed that the water had stopped; she looked up at Paige, who placed a towel around her shivering body. The hot water had run out long ago, but she hadn't realised until now just how cold she was.
"Jubie, you okay?"
"Paige?"
Paige picked her up, wrapping the towel around her more tightly as she shivered in the cool air of the bathroom. Jubilee thought about protesting, but to be truthful, the feeling of someone actually caring felt good, too good to actually forgo it for simple pride. Slipping one arm under Jubilee's legs, Paige carried her out of the bathroom and down the hall to their room. Emma had asked her to move back in with Jubilee when she'd returned. Even though with the help of Shi'ar technology they'd been able to fix her broken arm, her crushed ankle had been almost impossible to heal. It would be in a cast for at least another four months before they could discern whether the medical treatment had managed to heal the worst of the damage.
Paige knew that Emma had spent hours at the Xavier Institute arguing with Dr McCoy and the other X-men that Jubilee should be at the school rather then stay with them. It had, surprisingly, been Charles Xavier who had convinced them to let her go. Paige had never met their ultimate benefactor, having only heard of him through reading the history of his attempts at mutant/human co-existence and Jubilee's various tales. She couldn't fathom why he'd taken Emma's side, or why he thought Jubilee would be safer here.
If it had been Paige's decision she would have left Jubilee at the Mansion. She wasn't arrogant enough to believe that any of them could take Sabertooth, alone or together. Emma and Sean might stand a chance, but they'd be distracted by having to look out for their students. It was a bad combination, and the tactician in Paige knew it. Of course, the emotional part of her was glad Jubilee was home, where they could take care of her. Paige knew that the X-men had known her first, but she couldn't believe that they would be able to take care of her better then her family could, and Generation-X, for all intents and purposes, had been Jubilee's family for the last five years.
Paige placed Jubilee on her feet when she reached to door to their room and pushed it open, helping the girl hobble inside. She made to leave, thinking Jubilee would want to get changed in privacy; the death grip the girl held on her hand made her pause.
"Jubie?"
"Would you mind waiting around a bit? Just, to talk, you know?"
Paige smiled softly. "Of course, I'll be waiting outside, just give me a holler when you're dressed."
"Sure."
***
Penance sniffed the wind, her light blue eyes glancing about in interest as she wandered through the grounds of the school. The scent of the fuzzy man still lingered from his visit several days ago. He never went in, just watched; he would give her apples from time to time. He had light inside him, even though the shadows were deep around the outside, she liked his voice. He had given her apples the last time he came to the home place.
He wasn't like the other fuzzy man, the one with the red flashes and black jagged lightning inside. He didn't hate like that one did. She'd been frightened the night he came and she had hidden in Emma's room, crawling into her closet and crouching there among the clothes, hiding from him so that he might not find her. He had found the sparkling one though, and he'd taken her from the home place. It hadn't been right that he had done that, taken the sparkling one. She belonged in the home place, not out there in the world beyond. There were monsters out there, with grey coloured fear inside and hollow eyes.
Penance crouched outside the window of the sparkling one now, looking inside warily. She'd not been back to this room since--since the angry fuzzy man had been here. Penance imagined she could still smell his scent in the bushes outside the window, and she froze a moment, glancing back toward the safety of the woods. Crawling along the ground she peeked over the ledge of the window and saw the sparkling one, and the sunhaired one inside. Penance nodded as she watched the two. It was good that the sparkling one was in the home place again, it was right that they should all be here-- in the home place. Penance smiled and loped away back toward the woods; everything would be okay now she thought.
***
Paige tucked Jubilee into bed, handing her the small bear Angelo had brought her as a get well present when she'd been at the Mansion. She reached over, flicking off the lamp and descending the room into darkness, save for the light coming from the hallway door.
"Night, Jubie. Try and get some sleep, okay?"
Paige moved over to her own bed, pulling down the covers and placing the various throw pillows she'd arranged on it on the floor in a neat pile. Jubilee shifted, whimpering softly as her ankle protested at the movement.
"Paige?"
"Yeah?"
"I'm scared."
"I'm right here."
"But.."
Paige shook her head sadly, she'd have never asked for help before. Too stubborn to be scared, and sure as hell too stubborn to ever actually admit it if she was. Paige trudged back over to Jubilee's bed, sliding under the covers and spooning around the smaller girl. Jubilee relaxed, the fear and tension dropping from her as she felt the protective curve of Paige's body, finally dropping off to sleep with a weary sigh. Paige watched the wall, her thoughts troubled as she stroked Jubilee's hair in a comforting gesture. Whatever that monster had done to her, it had changed Jubilee, perhaps forever. There were so many differences in her personality that she found herself in an almost constant state of surprise. The timidness, and the quaking fear she felt from Jubilee made her want to scream at times, whether from fury at Sabertooth, or at Jubilee for letting him beat her, she didn't know.
***
"Why don't you get some sleep?"
Emma smiled wryly, her eyes traveling to the pile of work on her otherwise spotless desk. She waved her hand at it as she answered.
"If I slept who would do all this, tinker gnomes?"
"It'll wait for ye to get enough sleep, Emma. I doubt very much that it'll increase any in a few hours."
"Perhaps, but I'm not tired, Sean."
Sean almost laughed, the woman was as stubborn as any he'd met, and he'd met quite a few mule headed women in his time. He took the pen from her hand and raised an eyebrow when she opened her mouth to protest. She sighed and gave him a look.
"Sean, this is hardly the time to go all manly on me."
"You need your sleep, Emma."
"So you said, I'm not buying it. Give me back my pen."
"No."
"Childish?"
"Stubborn."
Emma quietly dropped her head into her hands and beat her head against the desk a few times; it felt good. She looked back up at Sean; he hadn't left. She glared at him and shuffled the paper around on her desk, cleaning up. He stood there, looking for the entire world like a stone statue. She pondered just knocking him out and then decided against it. The one thing, she didn't need right now were X-men breathing down her neck and yelling about abuse of powers. She glared at him again for good measure and tried out a pout--he wasn't buying. She pouted some more, putting her whole bottom lip into the effort and he just smiled at her. Dammit, she was pouting; he should be putty in her hands.
"Emma?"
"Yes?"
"Ye don't really think that's going to work on me, do ye?"
"No."
"Good, so why don't you go get some sleep now."
"Sean?"
"Yes?"
"Anyone ever tell you what a pain in the arse you are?"
"The children tell me constantly."
"Good."
"Night, Emma."
"Goodnight, Sean."
Emma Frost levered herself up from her desk and stumbled toward the door, it hadn't been until she'd actually thought about sleep seriously that she'd realised just how damn tired she was. She might have thanked Sean, but it would wait for some other day, and a time when she wasn't half-dead on her feet.
Later, as she lay in her bed, her mind drifting toward sleep, she sent out her thoughts checking every nook and cranny of the school where an intruder might hide, her mind cataloguing each mind within her influence. Then, satisfied, she slept.