Last Visit/Final Goodbye
by Candylynn
I don't won the characters in this story. I hope this doen't suck too much.
means words spoken in Chinese
14 September 2005
Oh GOD!!! Jubilation Lee had never pondered God or Heaven or anything like that. Even after losing her parents to an assassin's bullet and her best friend to a bomb, Jubes ever once thought about God, wether he or she existed or what that being may have thought of her. But right now, while hugging a rail on the deck of a Chinese fishing boat, in the middle of the worst tsunami to hit Pacific in 100 years; what God thought of her was foremost in her mind. That, and wether or not the ship being absolutely verticle on the face of a twenty story wave is a good or bad thing. Just as she noted the white foam crest of the wave crash down on the ship, Jubilee decides that this is definately a bad thing.
----
17 September 2005
"And in other news, four more bodies were pulled from the waters of the Pacific just twenty five miles north of Fiji. This brings the body count of fishermen and sailors to three hundred, after the worst tsunami in 100 years ripped across the Pacific three days ago. Rescue workers fear that the other 400 missing at sea may be dead as well...." CLICK
There was enough death around him, the last thing Charles Francis Xavier wanted to hear was that hundreds more had gone on to the great beyond, without him. As he dropped his weak thin arm back down a his side, the t.v. remote slide out of his frail hand and crashed to the floor with a dull thud.
"Professor?" Paige's faux polished voice echoed from the other side of the door. Rolling his eyes, he wondered just how many of his students were planted outside his door waiting... listening...
Only a moment passed before the beautiful blonde entered his room and quickly shut the doo be hind her. Chales was only allowed a few seconds but he counted six others standing in the hall. Paige, scanned the countless machines and wires surrounding Charles' bed for any malfunction or irregular readings. Everything was normal, or as normal as they had been for him over the last two weeks.
Finally she noticed the remote on the floor, "Oh you dropped this." She announced the obivious in a belittling tone, speaking to him as if he was sick two year old. Only sickening him all the more.
"I don't have the flu child, I am dying. No need for the 'comforting' tone." He hissed in a weak but cold tone. Paige was stopped in her tracks by the bitterness in his voice, her sad eyes spoke her apology. Charles simply waved away her attempt to correct herself and rolled his head to the other side as not to look at her.
"I asked not to be distrubed."
"I heard uh, ahem, a noise, Sir." If it didn't hurt so much he would have smiled at her southern fried slip back to her real accent. Over the years Paige had tried hard to hide her heritage. She even had gone so far as to out tright lie and say that she was from Los Angeles.
The room fell silent for a moment as Paige recovered the remote from the floor. He could hear her muffled steps against the Persian carpet as she approached. Their was a feather light pressure next to him as she placed the remote on the mattress. Paige turned to leave, until she saw his dinner tray. Hank had brought it to him hours ago, yet it had not been touched. Just as she drew breath to ask if he was hungry, Charles spat, "No child I am not hungry. You may take the tray if you like."
Exhailing mournfully, Paige lefted the tray and departed the room. Upon entering the hallway, she counted four new arrives to the six that had been there earlier.
"Is he alright?"
"He didn't try to get out of bed again?"
"He didn't eat? Why didn't he eat?"
They all whispered to her at once. Paige shooed them all away from her as she made her way towards the steps. The gathered group, like mourners at a funeral dropped their heads. Some, like Storm and Jean, fought their tears, others like Cecelia let their tears fall from their heavy burdened eyes like a silent rain.
----
18 September 2005
Dawn broke in Westchester in a brilliant array of golds and shimering crimsoms, highlighting the leaves that had already started to turn autumn colors and casting a errie preview of what was to come on those leaves that were still green. The air was crisp but not cold, utterly perfect running weather. Mornings like this were rare around here, and Paige plained to make the best of it.
She'd started out around 6 AM, just as first light crested over the eastern hills. The run itself was uneventful, but the thoughts swirling in her mind corrupted what should have been a lovely run. Charles was dying, from what no one was sure. And he had been tested for everything, EVERYTHING!!! Paige was only the third year med student but even seasoned professionals like Hank and Cecelia were completely boggled by his mystery ailment. First it robbed Charles of his strength, then mental clearity, then finally his telepathy. Once his abilities began failing him, that's when his phsyical condition deteriated. Over the last two weeks Charles went from a marginally ill to death watch statis. Paige was at a lose to say the least.
Paige rounded the corner of Greymalkin Lane, trying desperately, as she had done the entire jog, to forget about Charles, when she noticed dressed in rippled jeans and battered leather jacket woman standing at the gate of the 'X-Mansion' peeking in. "Can I help you?" Paige puffed in a winded breath.
"Can you?" The voice was frighteningly familiar to Husk. Her mind raced to match the voice with a name, then Paige saw her brilliant blue eyes.
"JUBILEE?!?" Paige spat. Her jog turned to a full on run. Colliding with her forming team mate Paige wrapped her arms around the thin young woman and embraced her in a heart felt hug. "Where have you been, why did it take you so long to get here...."
"Paige, you are crushing my ribs, and that really, really hurts."
"Oh." Paige released Jubilee and backed away from her, "You look great." She gleefully chirped. And Lord knows Jubes really did look great. Still thin, a few inches taller, her hair was to the middle of her back nad she'd filled out in all the right places. "So where have you been?"
"China." Jubilee flattly admitted, in an emotionless tone.
"China?"
"Yeah, I had family there."
"Oh, really, wow. So I guess Jean found you, you've heard about Charles?"
"Yeah I heard, something about a mystery illness." Paige's face twisted with obvious shock. She'd read Jean's letter to Jubilee, it made it perfectly clear that Charles was in fact dying. So, Jubilee's lack of emotion and out right indifference to the situation was... shocking.
"Jubes? Are you alright?" Paige asked while placing her hand firmly but lovingly on her friend's shoulder.
"Yeah, just been though a lot to get here. Let's just say, I am really tired and after I see Charles I am goona take a really really long nap." Paige simply nodded.
As the women entered the house, Paige immediately noticed that no one was around. On one. Odd considering that thirty people lived in the mansion and several others were camped out in spare rooms due to Charles' illness. But, judging from how quiet it was it appeared that everyone was asleep. Checking ehr watch Paige's estimation that it was 7 AM was correct, making the fact that on one was awake even stranger.
Before she could recoop from that fact, she discovered that Jubilee vanished. In the space of the time it took for her to shut and lock the door and check her watch Jubilee had disappeared. "Typical."
----
He could hear the door creek open, but it wasn't the slow and haunting creek he'd become accustomed too over the last few weeks, but a headlong entry. "Good Morning Professor, time to wake up and stop playing dead."
"Jubilee?" He hissed. She was the last person he wanted to see right now, she was too damned chipper, too damned happy all the time.
"Yep, and you are Charles. Now that we know each other names, it's time for you to stop feeling sorry for yourself and get up."
Charles rolled his eyes to himself. He wasn't sure how to feel about this visit, while she may be behavior rudely at least she was mourning and mousy like the others. "Child..."
"Please, you are the one behaving like a child. Now like I said, get up."
"I can't."
"So you say."
"I have tried."
"So you think."
"I am dying Jubilation!" He barked.
Smiling, "No you are not. You just want to."
"WHAT!!!"
"You heard me, you got a little older, a little slower, lost your powers now you wanna dye. And may I say that I really do love all this equipment you have hooked up to you, every fetching."
"Jubilee if you have only come here to ..." he began while pounding his fist on the mattress
"My, my, my, for a dead man chillin' you do yell aweful loud and pound a mean fist." The loudest moment of silence Charles had ever heard in his entire life passed between them. He looked at her and she looked at him. "Charles, listen to me, cause I am only gonna say this once. You were brought here to do something, and for the 'somethings' you have done, there is one 'something' you haven't done."
"What in the Devil are talking about?"
"The Devil has nothing to do with this one. Look, we all have a number, and I promise you that your's is not up yet. You still have things to do, a life to live. " Jubilee approached his bed. Taking his frail into her own, Jubilee whipered, "Charles Francis Xavier, life is a percious thing. I am not saying that the rest of your's will be easy, but forcing death's hand isn't any better." He looked into her eyes, joy and hope danced within the depths of her blue orbs. He could not bare to look a moment longer.
"Charles," she whispered gently pulling his face back around with a single finger. "Remember when Moira died, how close you were to going with her. Remember how you told me how close you were to going with her, because you just could not bare to live without her."
"Ye.. yes." He quietly answered.
"You are in the same place again. Only this time you didn't lose a lover or student or a child, you lost the thing that you think makes you... you. Your gift, your power." Charles could only lower his head as a twisting pain knoted his heart with the force of a heart attack. "But Charles, it wasn't your powers that made you, it was heart and your soul. And they are still in place. Look around you Charles, all these people in this house are here not because you are a powerful telepath, but because they love you. YOU, not your powers." A small tear ran the length of his face, the words she spoke were nothing short of the truth.
"I ... I can't..."
"You can and you will. You may never read another mind again, but know that in this life no matter what is taken from you something else will be given." With that Jubilee placed a tender kiss his forehead and left his room.
----
Paige entered Charles' room, the sounds of the machinery was gone, the bed was empty. "Oh my God." She uttered. Her mind raced, had Charles died while she was gone on her run. Is that why the house was so quiet, because they were all gathered in Medlab mourning?
"Good Morning Dr. Gutherie." A weak but friendly voice called from near the window.
"Professor," Paige cried out in relief, "Did Jubilee put you over there?" She demanded with her hands on her hips.
"In a manner of speaking."
----
20 September 2005
Unbelieving eyes watched as the Blackbird landed in the mansion's hanger bay. Gathered was the remaining X-men who had ventured here to watch over Charles in his time of need. The ramp lowered from the belly of the ship, but before it touched the concrete floor, Wolverine jumped out and moved violently through the crowd, his eyes red with tears.
Charles, weak but able, positioned his chair towards the front of the crowd. There was no point in trying to talk to Logan now; he needed at least a day's space.
Charles refocused his attention on the ship, as Scott followed by a tearful Jean and Betsy exited the ship with a floating platform heavied by a long narrow bag. Hank made his way to the platform and recovered a thin clipboard resting on top of the bag. He looked through, "It's her." He chocked out. All at once Jean and several others fell into a fit of crying. Scott did his best to remain calm as he and Hank moved the body of Jubilation Lee to Medlab for her final preparations.
As the last of the gathered left the hanger bay, Angelo accompanied by two small children exited the plane. "Angelo?"
"Si, Professor?"
"What happened?" Angelo looked down at the twin boy and girl cletching to him for dear life.
"According to the Chinese authorities, Jubilee and her family were on a fishing boat near Fiji. When the storm hit the ship was torn apart. Everyone but these little ones were killed." Charles regarded the visually terroified children with a warm smile. They released Angelo and slowly moved towards him.
"When was she found?"
"Well the paperwork said the 17th, but all of this seems a little weird to me 'cause Paige and you both claim she was here the next morning. Now she's... she's..." Angelo's hard case act fell apart as the memory of identifying Jubilee's body in the hong Kong morgue revisited him. Without another word he quickly vacated the hanger bay, leaving his young wards behind.
Charles looked at the scared children, who had surely been through hell. The twins looked back at him, their blue eyes blazing, just like their cousin Jubilee's eyes used to.
----
25 December 2005
Charles sat in his office, rare these days, but he had a few odds and ends to deal with. Nothing Emma couldn't have handled but he looking for something to pass the time between opening gifts and dinner.
"Uncal Charles, Uncal Charles!!" Two small heavily accented voices called to him from the door. Before he could completely register Zan and Xia, the pint sized terrors had hoped on to his hover chair and were planting kisses all over him.
"Now, y'all stop that, ya been done knocked the poor man for uh loop." Rogue bellowed from the doorway.
"It's fine Rogue." He corrected with a bit of a giggle in his voice. Rogue crossed her arms across her crest and smiled, leaving the three of them alone.
As the children chattered in a mix of broken English and Chinese, Charles caught sight of picture on his wall he had long ignored. It was taken during a picnic/baseball game several summers ago, the picture was of Moira, Everett, Peter, and Jubilee sitting at a table just moments before Jubilee and Everett started a food fight. Exhailing deeply, Charles again thought of Jubilee's last visit. Looking at her cousin's, he reflected on all the joy these two had brought into his life over the last few months.
"You may never read another mind again, but know that in this life no matter what is taken from you something else will be given." Her words rippled through his mind again, as they had everyday since he had heard them. While nothing or no one could ever replace those he had lost, in the last few months Charles had gained so much; that alone proved Jubilee's words true.
by Candylynn
I don't won the characters in this story. I hope this doen't suck too much.
means words spoken in Chinese
14 September 2005
Oh GOD!!! Jubilation Lee had never pondered God or Heaven or anything like that. Even after losing her parents to an assassin's bullet and her best friend to a bomb, Jubes ever once thought about God, wether he or she existed or what that being may have thought of her. But right now, while hugging a rail on the deck of a Chinese fishing boat, in the middle of the worst tsunami to hit Pacific in 100 years; what God thought of her was foremost in her mind. That, and wether or not the ship being absolutely verticle on the face of a twenty story wave is a good or bad thing. Just as she noted the white foam crest of the wave crash down on the ship, Jubilee decides that this is definately a bad thing.
----
17 September 2005
"And in other news, four more bodies were pulled from the waters of the Pacific just twenty five miles north of Fiji. This brings the body count of fishermen and sailors to three hundred, after the worst tsunami in 100 years ripped across the Pacific three days ago. Rescue workers fear that the other 400 missing at sea may be dead as well...." CLICK
There was enough death around him, the last thing Charles Francis Xavier wanted to hear was that hundreds more had gone on to the great beyond, without him. As he dropped his weak thin arm back down a his side, the t.v. remote slide out of his frail hand and crashed to the floor with a dull thud.
"Professor?" Paige's faux polished voice echoed from the other side of the door. Rolling his eyes, he wondered just how many of his students were planted outside his door waiting... listening...
Only a moment passed before the beautiful blonde entered his room and quickly shut the doo be hind her. Chales was only allowed a few seconds but he counted six others standing in the hall. Paige, scanned the countless machines and wires surrounding Charles' bed for any malfunction or irregular readings. Everything was normal, or as normal as they had been for him over the last two weeks.
Finally she noticed the remote on the floor, "Oh you dropped this." She announced the obivious in a belittling tone, speaking to him as if he was sick two year old. Only sickening him all the more.
"I don't have the flu child, I am dying. No need for the 'comforting' tone." He hissed in a weak but cold tone. Paige was stopped in her tracks by the bitterness in his voice, her sad eyes spoke her apology. Charles simply waved away her attempt to correct herself and rolled his head to the other side as not to look at her.
"I asked not to be distrubed."
"I heard uh, ahem, a noise, Sir." If it didn't hurt so much he would have smiled at her southern fried slip back to her real accent. Over the years Paige had tried hard to hide her heritage. She even had gone so far as to out tright lie and say that she was from Los Angeles.
The room fell silent for a moment as Paige recovered the remote from the floor. He could hear her muffled steps against the Persian carpet as she approached. Their was a feather light pressure next to him as she placed the remote on the mattress. Paige turned to leave, until she saw his dinner tray. Hank had brought it to him hours ago, yet it had not been touched. Just as she drew breath to ask if he was hungry, Charles spat, "No child I am not hungry. You may take the tray if you like."
Exhailing mournfully, Paige lefted the tray and departed the room. Upon entering the hallway, she counted four new arrives to the six that had been there earlier.
"Is he alright?"
"He didn't try to get out of bed again?"
"He didn't eat? Why didn't he eat?"
They all whispered to her at once. Paige shooed them all away from her as she made her way towards the steps. The gathered group, like mourners at a funeral dropped their heads. Some, like Storm and Jean, fought their tears, others like Cecelia let their tears fall from their heavy burdened eyes like a silent rain.
----
18 September 2005
Dawn broke in Westchester in a brilliant array of golds and shimering crimsoms, highlighting the leaves that had already started to turn autumn colors and casting a errie preview of what was to come on those leaves that were still green. The air was crisp but not cold, utterly perfect running weather. Mornings like this were rare around here, and Paige plained to make the best of it.
She'd started out around 6 AM, just as first light crested over the eastern hills. The run itself was uneventful, but the thoughts swirling in her mind corrupted what should have been a lovely run. Charles was dying, from what no one was sure. And he had been tested for everything, EVERYTHING!!! Paige was only the third year med student but even seasoned professionals like Hank and Cecelia were completely boggled by his mystery ailment. First it robbed Charles of his strength, then mental clearity, then finally his telepathy. Once his abilities began failing him, that's when his phsyical condition deteriated. Over the last two weeks Charles went from a marginally ill to death watch statis. Paige was at a lose to say the least.
Paige rounded the corner of Greymalkin Lane, trying desperately, as she had done the entire jog, to forget about Charles, when she noticed dressed in rippled jeans and battered leather jacket woman standing at the gate of the 'X-Mansion' peeking in. "Can I help you?" Paige puffed in a winded breath.
"Can you?" The voice was frighteningly familiar to Husk. Her mind raced to match the voice with a name, then Paige saw her brilliant blue eyes.
"JUBILEE?!?" Paige spat. Her jog turned to a full on run. Colliding with her forming team mate Paige wrapped her arms around the thin young woman and embraced her in a heart felt hug. "Where have you been, why did it take you so long to get here...."
"Paige, you are crushing my ribs, and that really, really hurts."
"Oh." Paige released Jubilee and backed away from her, "You look great." She gleefully chirped. And Lord knows Jubes really did look great. Still thin, a few inches taller, her hair was to the middle of her back nad she'd filled out in all the right places. "So where have you been?"
"China." Jubilee flattly admitted, in an emotionless tone.
"China?"
"Yeah, I had family there."
"Oh, really, wow. So I guess Jean found you, you've heard about Charles?"
"Yeah I heard, something about a mystery illness." Paige's face twisted with obvious shock. She'd read Jean's letter to Jubilee, it made it perfectly clear that Charles was in fact dying. So, Jubilee's lack of emotion and out right indifference to the situation was... shocking.
"Jubes? Are you alright?" Paige asked while placing her hand firmly but lovingly on her friend's shoulder.
"Yeah, just been though a lot to get here. Let's just say, I am really tired and after I see Charles I am goona take a really really long nap." Paige simply nodded.
As the women entered the house, Paige immediately noticed that no one was around. On one. Odd considering that thirty people lived in the mansion and several others were camped out in spare rooms due to Charles' illness. But, judging from how quiet it was it appeared that everyone was asleep. Checking ehr watch Paige's estimation that it was 7 AM was correct, making the fact that on one was awake even stranger.
Before she could recoop from that fact, she discovered that Jubilee vanished. In the space of the time it took for her to shut and lock the door and check her watch Jubilee had disappeared. "Typical."
----
He could hear the door creek open, but it wasn't the slow and haunting creek he'd become accustomed too over the last few weeks, but a headlong entry. "Good Morning Professor, time to wake up and stop playing dead."
"Jubilee?" He hissed. She was the last person he wanted to see right now, she was too damned chipper, too damned happy all the time.
"Yep, and you are Charles. Now that we know each other names, it's time for you to stop feeling sorry for yourself and get up."
Charles rolled his eyes to himself. He wasn't sure how to feel about this visit, while she may be behavior rudely at least she was mourning and mousy like the others. "Child..."
"Please, you are the one behaving like a child. Now like I said, get up."
"I can't."
"So you say."
"I have tried."
"So you think."
"I am dying Jubilation!" He barked.
Smiling, "No you are not. You just want to."
"WHAT!!!"
"You heard me, you got a little older, a little slower, lost your powers now you wanna dye. And may I say that I really do love all this equipment you have hooked up to you, every fetching."
"Jubilee if you have only come here to ..." he began while pounding his fist on the mattress
"My, my, my, for a dead man chillin' you do yell aweful loud and pound a mean fist." The loudest moment of silence Charles had ever heard in his entire life passed between them. He looked at her and she looked at him. "Charles, listen to me, cause I am only gonna say this once. You were brought here to do something, and for the 'somethings' you have done, there is one 'something' you haven't done."
"What in the Devil are talking about?"
"The Devil has nothing to do with this one. Look, we all have a number, and I promise you that your's is not up yet. You still have things to do, a life to live. " Jubilee approached his bed. Taking his frail into her own, Jubilee whipered, "Charles Francis Xavier, life is a percious thing. I am not saying that the rest of your's will be easy, but forcing death's hand isn't any better." He looked into her eyes, joy and hope danced within the depths of her blue orbs. He could not bare to look a moment longer.
"Charles," she whispered gently pulling his face back around with a single finger. "Remember when Moira died, how close you were to going with her. Remember how you told me how close you were to going with her, because you just could not bare to live without her."
"Ye.. yes." He quietly answered.
"You are in the same place again. Only this time you didn't lose a lover or student or a child, you lost the thing that you think makes you... you. Your gift, your power." Charles could only lower his head as a twisting pain knoted his heart with the force of a heart attack. "But Charles, it wasn't your powers that made you, it was heart and your soul. And they are still in place. Look around you Charles, all these people in this house are here not because you are a powerful telepath, but because they love you. YOU, not your powers." A small tear ran the length of his face, the words she spoke were nothing short of the truth.
"I ... I can't..."
"You can and you will. You may never read another mind again, but know that in this life no matter what is taken from you something else will be given." With that Jubilee placed a tender kiss his forehead and left his room.
----
Paige entered Charles' room, the sounds of the machinery was gone, the bed was empty. "Oh my God." She uttered. Her mind raced, had Charles died while she was gone on her run. Is that why the house was so quiet, because they were all gathered in Medlab mourning?
"Good Morning Dr. Gutherie." A weak but friendly voice called from near the window.
"Professor," Paige cried out in relief, "Did Jubilee put you over there?" She demanded with her hands on her hips.
"In a manner of speaking."
----
20 September 2005
Unbelieving eyes watched as the Blackbird landed in the mansion's hanger bay. Gathered was the remaining X-men who had ventured here to watch over Charles in his time of need. The ramp lowered from the belly of the ship, but before it touched the concrete floor, Wolverine jumped out and moved violently through the crowd, his eyes red with tears.
Charles, weak but able, positioned his chair towards the front of the crowd. There was no point in trying to talk to Logan now; he needed at least a day's space.
Charles refocused his attention on the ship, as Scott followed by a tearful Jean and Betsy exited the ship with a floating platform heavied by a long narrow bag. Hank made his way to the platform and recovered a thin clipboard resting on top of the bag. He looked through, "It's her." He chocked out. All at once Jean and several others fell into a fit of crying. Scott did his best to remain calm as he and Hank moved the body of Jubilation Lee to Medlab for her final preparations.
As the last of the gathered left the hanger bay, Angelo accompanied by two small children exited the plane. "Angelo?"
"Si, Professor?"
"What happened?" Angelo looked down at the twin boy and girl cletching to him for dear life.
"According to the Chinese authorities, Jubilee and her family were on a fishing boat near Fiji. When the storm hit the ship was torn apart. Everyone but these little ones were killed." Charles regarded the visually terroified children with a warm smile. They released Angelo and slowly moved towards him.
"When was she found?"
"Well the paperwork said the 17th, but all of this seems a little weird to me 'cause Paige and you both claim she was here the next morning. Now she's... she's..." Angelo's hard case act fell apart as the memory of identifying Jubilee's body in the hong Kong morgue revisited him. Without another word he quickly vacated the hanger bay, leaving his young wards behind.
Charles looked at the scared children, who had surely been through hell. The twins looked back at him, their blue eyes blazing, just like their cousin Jubilee's eyes used to.
----
25 December 2005
Charles sat in his office, rare these days, but he had a few odds and ends to deal with. Nothing Emma couldn't have handled but he looking for something to pass the time between opening gifts and dinner.
"Uncal Charles, Uncal Charles!!" Two small heavily accented voices called to him from the door. Before he could completely register Zan and Xia, the pint sized terrors had hoped on to his hover chair and were planting kisses all over him.
"Now, y'all stop that, ya been done knocked the poor man for uh loop." Rogue bellowed from the doorway.
"It's fine Rogue." He corrected with a bit of a giggle in his voice. Rogue crossed her arms across her crest and smiled, leaving the three of them alone.
As the children chattered in a mix of broken English and Chinese, Charles caught sight of picture on his wall he had long ignored. It was taken during a picnic/baseball game several summers ago, the picture was of Moira, Everett, Peter, and Jubilee sitting at a table just moments before Jubilee and Everett started a food fight. Exhailing deeply, Charles again thought of Jubilee's last visit. Looking at her cousin's, he reflected on all the joy these two had brought into his life over the last few months.
"You may never read another mind again, but know that in this life no matter what is taken from you something else will be given." Her words rippled through his mind again, as they had everyday since he had heard them. While nothing or no one could ever replace those he had lost, in the last few months Charles had gained so much; that alone proved Jubilee's words true.