Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be mine, unless . . .hmmmmm.

Chapter 4

Jubilee sat in her cell, if you can call a 4x4-foot space a cell, just like she had for the last four days trying to decide what to do. Each time she went over the checklist of what was against her things looked worse and worse. Telling Wolvie that she had let his daughter get shot to death trying to save her was the thing she was looking forward to the least. Sure they weren't all that close, in fact Claire had been openly hostile to him at most times, but she was his family, his blood, and she had let her die. With a sigh Jubilee stretched out her cramped legs. Yup, things were defiantly gonna get tougher from here on out. But before she could crush her Wolvster by telling him that she had destroyed the only link to his past she had to get out of her. She brushed moister out of the corner of her eyes. She was tough, she wasn't gonna cry. A renegade tear slipped down her cheek. She wasn't gonna cry, she thought as she buried her face in her arms.

"Whadda mean her felt her?" Logan leaned across the table towards Cable.

"This shouldn't be to hard for you to understand." Cable snarled back.

Rogue leaned back with a sigh, with the disappearance of Claire and Jubilee in addition to the death of Moira McTaggert tensions were running high and these two at each others throats defiantly wasn't helping anything. Rubbing her temples, and wishing for the tenth time that day that they hadn't elected her leader, she looked toward Jean for support.

"Nathan," Jean laid a hand on her sons shoulder, "This bickering isn't helping anything. Logan," she gave him a pointed look, "Nathan is trying to explain what has happened, but he can't do that if you keep interrupting him."

They both sat back in their seats grumbling, Jean gave Rogue a small tired smile. Things had seemed to be going from bad to worse lately. Most of their time was spent in the war room doing damage control from Kelly's death and looking for Kitty Pride. Now two more of their teammates had gone missing. Fortunately Nate had a lead on the newest disappearance and hopefully they wouldn't have to sustain another loss. She looked across the table at Logan who was chewing on a cigar and looked like he hadn't slept in days. His hair was more unruly than usual and he had a good start of a beard growing.

'Al'raght," Rogue started when there was silence again, "ya said she contacted ya through this psychic link y'all got. Can ya pinpoint where this call came from?"

Nate shook his head, "It doesn't work like that, it isn't a radar. The link was weak, that could only mean two things." He rubbed his forehead with his fingers, dreading Logan's reaction to this new bit of information that he was about to receive.

"Well bub?"

Nathan sighed and rested his head on the back of the chair. "It means that she is either far away or she is hurt."

Rogue and Jean winced as Logan jumped up with a swear causing his chair to flip over and crash to the ground. He stormed out of the room, leaving the remaining three looking at each other.

Rogue rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Fine, a'll go afta him." She walked out of the room to find her agitated friend.

"Do you think we'll find her Jean?"

'I don't think we have a choice. I'm not sure if this team can sustain another loss."

A day and a half, they had been traveling for a day and a half, but to Claire it seemed like so much longer. Each hour put her in a worse mood. Between the constant bickering between John and Dim she didn't know who she wanted to kill more, but right now she was leaning toward John.

"You don't know what you're talking about. Of course it's this way," John said pointing to the bottom of the mountain they were on.

"Dim don't think so, we would see it from where we stand."

"I thought you said you knew where the slave traders base was." Claire snarled from behind them. They turned to look at her as if just realizing how annoyed she was getting.

"We do," they said in unison.

"It's at the bottom of the mountain."

"It's at the top of the mountain."

"How did the two of you survive on your own for so long?" She grumbled. She walked to the edge of the edge and looked down, and then turned to look up. "I have to agree with Dim on this one, it wouldn't make any sense to put a base at the bottom of a mountain. It would be too easy to attack. And lord knows we wouldn't be given any breaks so that means it's probably at the top of this god-forsaken chunk of ice. And John?"

"Yes?"

"The next time you tell me you know where something is you better be telling the truth or I will personally throw you of the nearest ledge. Are we clear on that?"

John smiled at her, his brown eyes crinkling. "You couldn't do that to me."

Claire narrowed her eyes, "you really don't know me well enough to make that assumption, now do you John." It was a statement not a question, causing John's smile to wilt just a little.

For the first time since he had met Marquee, John became a little wary of his companion. At first she didn't appear the least bit threatening as she had lain in his bed. Now however, the snarling woman in front of him looked like someone to be reckoned with, even with the wounds and bruises she didn't look like she would have any trouble holding her own in a fight. He turned to look at Dim whose mouth was drawn into a grim line as he watched his companions. When his light blue eyes met Johns he simply shook his head in warning.

Dim watched he two closest friends in the world fight with each other. Sometimes he worried about John. He constantly pushed Marquee's buttons as if totally unaware of the fire he was playing with. He knew that John was attracted to the strange woman they had found in the desert and nursed back to health, but he also knew that Marquee was a dangerous person. It worried him that John didn't seem to see this. With a sigh he turned to Marquee to play peacekeeper.

"Dim sorry about the confusion. It just easy to get lost in places like this."

"I'm sorry isn't gonna cut it if my friend ends up dead cause you two can't keep your directions straight."

"Your friend gonna be fine, Dim promise." He resisted the urge to reach out to her, knowing she did not like to be touched. "Perhaps we should make camp here tonight and continue the rest of the way tomorrow."

"Yeah, I'll go find some wood." John walked off the path towards the woods.

Claire and Dim took their packs off and set up the tent.

"Marquee?"

Claire paused holding one of the tent poles, "Yes Dim?"

"Do you like John?"

"Sure."

Dim smiled, "good, cause Dim sees the way friend John looks at you."

p

Claire stood up and looked at him and said in a low voice, "what do you mean?"

"Dim sees how John looks at Marquee. Dim think Marquee make John happy." He watched Claire's reaction as she turned her gaze to where John had left the trail. "Do Marquee think John could make her happy?"

Claire listened to what Dim was saying. She had learned a long time ago that situations like these never turned out good. She dropped the tent poles she was holding and walked towards the woods.

"I'll be back Dim, finish putting up the tent."

With a small smile Dim returned to the work at hand.


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John was pacing back and forth in front of a large pine, stupid, he thought to himself. Could you be anymore of a loser? God, he slapped his forehead with the palm of his hand. If there had ever been a chance to get her he sure had blown it with the idiotic way he had been acting the last couple of days. She had been polite, even tolerant, but he could tell that his very presence set her on edge.

He sighed and sat down in the snow, ignoring how it moisture soaked through his pants.

"I don't want to hear you whining that you're cold later if you're going to be doing things like that."

He looked up and there she was, leaning against the tree as calm as could be. Even all bruised up she was the most beautiful woman he had ever laid eyes on, well actually he was the only woman he could remember ever laying eyes on, but he couldn't imagine any of them looking as good as Marquee.

Claire leaned up against the tree, her cracked rib hurting too much to support herself for much longer. She watched him pace and sit down, and then there was that dopey look when he saw her. That wide-eyed, hopeful, please take me home, lost puppy-dog look. Not many people could resist a look like that.

Claire wanted to kick him. Hard.

"Hi, I was just thinking about you actually." He gave her a rye smile.

"I don't doubt that. Do you have any firewood or are we going to eat our dinner cold?"

"Yeah, I got it." He reached over to a bundle he had dropped at a base of the tree as he got up. Claire nodded at him and started to head back towards Dim.

"Marquee?"

Damn, almost made it, she thought. "Yeah?"

"You don't like me very much do you."

Shit. She turned and studded him for a moment. He was standing before her, holding a bundle of wood and looking at the ground. He was kind and innocent and stupid enough to bare his soul to a murderous bitch like her.

"It's not that I don't like you, I just don't think you should be attracted to someone like me."

"What if I'm willing to take that chance?" He shifted the wood in his hand and reached over and stroked her cheek. He lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze, their brown depths a shade darker than they were before. "Are you?"

Claire simply stood their transfixed, unsure of what to do. No one had ever looked at her like that before. Terrorists, gunfire, she could handle all of that, but she found herself strangely floundering in this situation.

John dropped the wood and took a step closer to her, putting his hands on either side of her face. ""''l take that as a yes," and he slowly lowered his head until their lips softly met.


********************************

Jubilee took a deep breath as the guard led her through the courtyard. This was it, it was now or never. She waited until she was close enough to the wall before she spun around and slammed her elbow into the guards face and blew up the light tower, not missing a beat turned and jumped to the top of the wall.

She could hear the guards yelling and she prepared to jump over the wall until she looked down. The sight caused her to reevaluate her situation., it was a long drop, with a lot of trees. She had a pretty good chance of breaking her neck on a drop like that. She looked over her shoulder and saw armed guards pointing at her as they ran.

It wasn't a tough decision. She contracted her leg muscles and leapt off of the ledge, using her bound hands to cover her head and race as she hit the ground and continued to roll at a break neck speed. She cried out as she bounced off of something, but it didn't slow her decent. She rolled onto her backside and tried to dig her heels in, hoping it would act as a breaking system, but apparently spandex and an ice hill wasn't a good combination. She looked ahead to see if there was anything she could use.

Not good, defiantly, not good, she flung her arms up right as the branches started to slap at her body as she flew past them, she let her body go limp so it would follow the terrain the trunks made to avoid hitting them.

It seemed she had just jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Claire pulled back when she heard an explosion from the top of the mountain.

"Wow," John said softly brushing some of the hair out of her eyes. "That was some kiss."

"I think that came from the top of the mountain."

"Hmm-hmm"

"Where my friend is."

"I suppose we should go and check it out then huh?"

"That might be a good idea."

John bent down and grabbed the wood and took off after Claire who had already started towards the clearing. When she reached it she saw Dim facing the mountain. He turned toward Claire when she stopped next to him.

"Do you think. . .?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna go check it out, you stay here with John." Dim nodded as Claire took off up the hill.

It had been hard enough walking this far as injured as she was. Her bruised muscles and broken ribs didn't take to kindly to this at all, bit regardless she pushed forward intent on reaching the top before whatever made that explosion me them first.

It didn't take long because just as she broke threw a patch of trees and was about to plunge into another something slammed into her and took her down with it.

"Shit!" Claire yelled she felt it slam into her, knocking the wind out of her.

"Claire?!" Jubilee brought her hand up to protect her self from another oncoming tree branch as they plunged into the grove Claire had just came from.

"Sparky?" She swore again as they bounded over a mogul on the hill. Claire wrapped her arms and legs around her cacooning Jubilee in her embrace as they bounced and rolled through the trees and snow. Claire winced as she felt another rib crack when they hit a tree, but used the momentum to roll and pull them the other way. She reached up one arm and snagged a piece of wood as the passed and used the last of her strength to plunge it into the ground and hang on to it as it ripped through the ground slowing their decent.

Jubilee tried not to move as she felt Claire bounce off of something very large and very solid, she heard Claire hiss as a rib broke with a sickening crack and felt them start to slow down.

When they came to a stop she felt Claire lift off of her. First she saw a very large man standing over her, filling her vision.

"Is she all right John?"

"She'll be fine, we just need to get her out of here."

Jubilee froze, she had heard that voice before, but it couldn't be, could it? She sat up and looked at the man who was cradling Claire in his arms.

"Oh-My-God."

That was all she got to say however because Dim stood in front of her blocking her vision.

"You are Marquee's friend Sparky, no?"

Jubilee nodded her head blindly, too much in shock to say anything at he scooped her up in to his large arms.

"Good, then we have what we came for. Come now we must get to safety before they reach us." She simply nodded and hung on as the man carrying her and his companion took off running down the trail.