"I can still smell them, you know."

The words were spoken so lightly that for a moment Lila wondered if she'd heard them correctly. So far, they had had the average session, Jubilee staring out the window into the park for the better part of the hour. To tell the truth, she had been worried that she would have to begin pushing, ever so lightly, to get anything out of the girl, but, now that she had started talking, she was going to sit and listen.

"Its this weird smell," Jubilee continued, running one hand absently over her ankle, where the faint traces of a barcode still showed beneath the pale skin, "Kind of like stale almonds, or something like that, salty, and just a little sweet." She sighed, "Especially when I'm with people. It kind of comes out of nowhere, drowning out everything." She turned her blue eyes on Lila, their color deepened with emotion, "Can you understand that?"

Lila nodded, "It's a usual reaction to such a traumatizing experience. Being with people, especially those that you don't know, can cause memories to surface that otherwise-"

Jubilee shook her head vehemently, "No. Can you understand?"

'Now or never' Lila said to herself, "yes, I can, probably better than you realize."

"How?"
Lila leaned back in her wingback, twining her fingers in her lap. "When I was a freshman in high school one of the football players offered to take me home. I jumped in the car, thinking that I could save myself some time. He didn't take me home." She closed her eyes briefly at the memory, "They found me two days later, tied up in an old shack off a main road." She locked her eyes with Jubilee's, " So, as you can see, I do understand what you went through, I've been there before, at least to some extent."

Lila saw the exact moment when she ceased to be an outsider in Jubilee's eyes, and became one of a select few that were insiders, people who knew her pain, "did you get pregnant?"

"No."

Jubilee nodded. "What did the professor tell you about what happened?"

Lila unfocused her eyes as she mentally read over the file she'd been given, "From what I understand, you were kidnapped and held at a facility where they practiced illegal methods to gain your cooperation in their experiments. There was sexual trauma, resulting in you miscarriage. That's the quick and dirty version."

Jubilee turned her eyes back to the window, even though the rain that had begun to fall obscured the few, "They weren't all in on it, not at first. At first it was only the head guy, and he used this stuff, some kind of drug that made me fell like I was floating. He said he didn't want to damage me, that I was too valuable to kill just yet," she shuddered with the memory, hearing Bastions cold voice echo in her ears. "It took two weeks for the rest of them to build up the courage to try and touch me." She rubbed a scar that shown pink against her skin, running from her inner elbow to her wrist, "I wasn't as easy as they thought. The next day one of the doctors threw a fit, not because what had happened, not directly. He said that the drugs they were using would increase the bleeding, and that Bastion needed to keep a leash on his dogs for another few days."

Jubilee laughed, the sound short and humorless, " Can you believe that? He didn't care that they'd raped me and beat the shit out of me, all he cared about was that his research would have to wait until I healed, that part of it at least." She turned to Lila again, "Aren't doctors supposed to take an oath that says do no harm?"
The starkness of the blue eyes made Lila shudder, "Yes, it's called the Hippocratic Oath. Every doctor takes it. Unfortunately, some people cross their fingers when they do, or the just don't care. I've met more than one doctor who thought that the ends justified the means."

"I think he would have liked this guy. So instead of drugging me again, they started testing my powers, seeing if they could induce a charge in me. Used electricity." The thin hands moved to her temples, then dropped, the eyes once again on the window. "They kept trying different spots, inside and outside. They had this rod they'd put in me. First there was this cold, like the thing was made of ice, then all my muscles would lock up. Couldn't scream, couldn't do anything as the current went through me. Then when it stopped it burned, and they kept doing it. I kept thinking to myself that it was all some kind of nightmare, and that I would wake up. I guess I blacked out for a minute or two or something, because when I woke up the other doctor was yelling at him, telling him that he was pushing too hard. I liked her. She gave me painkillers when no one was looking, tried to make it easier on me. Bastion got rid of her, though, when he caught on." Her eyes turned inward, "They left me alone, until the doctor could get the readings he wanted, then they started again."

Lila looked at the clock on the wall, dismayed at the time. They'd actually gone over this session, Jubilee's ride was no doubt waiting in the foyer. She didn't say anything, but Jubilee's eyes tracked hers, then she stood, "Guess times up for today?"

Jubilee was silent during the ride home, even though Bobby tried his best to keep her cheerful. It took him almost thirty minutes to realize that his passenger was not simply ignoring his bad puns, she was also ignoring his very presence. The car might as well have been automatically driven for all the attention she showed him. She sat, arms folded over her chest, burning a hole into the dashboard with her stare.

Bobby sighed before focusing his attention on the road, willing his hands to release their grip on the steering wheel. The jubilee he had known was so full of life that she would be talking a mile a minute, fill of taunts and ideas on how to turn Hank's hair pink enough to remain that way for the rest of the day. The small, silent child next to him was none of those things. The flame that had burned so brightly in her, that had made both the professor and Logan smile with what he would call embarrassed exasperation- something that he hadn't seen from either before her arrival- was extinguished, dead to its embers, without even the barest hint of smoke to signal that something had once been there.

Jubilee was silent, fuming to herself. Why had she told that bitch those things? Things that she didn't even like to admit to herself. They had just spilled out, after being contained too long, at the fist sign that she might understand, truly understand.

'Was probably lying to me the whole goddamned time' Jubes thought to herself, even as something inside her clamored against that thought. There had been something in the other woman's eyes, a pain that was hidden, but still there.

Jubilee stiffened at the thought, killing the small flame of trust that was beginning to grow inside her. She'd trusted once, when she was a child, and her parents died, leaving her alone, living on the streets with nothing but a pretty face to get by. She'd trusted again, worming her way into the X-Men, desperate for the sense of family that they exuded at all times, and had watched as those she loved either betrayed her or died, first Ilyanna, then Peter. Sat back as they'd treated her like a small child that couldn't understand anything, no matter what she did or said. She'd trusted Emma, despite her frigid exterior, trusted her , to some extent, to protect her from the monsters that seemed to haunt her wherever she went, and Everett had died because of it.

She shook her head slightly. Trusting hurt too much for her to ever try it again.

//Logan? Can you come to the Danger Room for a moment?//

Charles sent out the silent mental call from the control room of the simulation. Cerebro had alerted him to the fact that someone was in the Danger Room using Beasts override codes. Since Beast was in his lab with Cecilia, that left only one person.

Said person was currently working herself into a silent frenzy on an alpha program. Since she had returned, Jubilee had been barred from the Danger Room until they received an all clear from Hank.

"What's up, Chuck?" Logan asked from around his cigar, then almost swallowed it when he looked through the observation booth windows. "What in flamin' hell is she-"

//Just watch Logan,// Charles sent, calming the building rage in the man, //Cerebro will stop the program at my command.//

Logan watched, and was stunned into silence, what few choice phrases he would have said dying on his tongue as he watched the young woman. During exercises, Jubilee was usually bubbly, filled with wisecracks, taunting the neutral computer, and her opponents, in an attempt to make them loose their cool. In spite of all her training she still held an awkward grace that allowed her to be tagged easily. There was nothing of that woman in what he was watching. Whatever gloves she had been using for the past few years were off. She fought, hand to hand, with nothing but the sai he had given her for her fifteenth birthday and an assortment of stars and throwing knives. The spandex training outfit she wore was torn in places, numerous wounds releasing threads of blood that stained the yellow material a lurid rust color.

Logan watched as she dispatched everything the simulation threw at her with deadly precision, controlled actions that he didn't believe his Jubilee was capable of. He'd once called her shào-lóng*, little dragon, when she'd tried for three straight hours to throw him when he was teaching her basic karate without giving up. Now the 'little' was erased from his estimation of her. This was something he expected to see out of Betsy, or himself, not the little girl that had found a way into his heart. The sight of her, so cold, so ruthless, chilled something in him as she threw one knife, the metal projectile lodging in the neck of her attacker.

The blood didn't even faze her.

"What's goin' on, Chuck?" the words were almost a whisper as he watched one of the robots explode without her touching it in a rain of rainbow sparks. He recognized the sound of her powers, the high pitched whine that reminded them so much of fireworks, but he hadn't known she was able to use them without physical contact.

Charles barely heard Logan, so intent was he on his young charge. He could feel the anger and hurt rolling off her in waves, a barely contained flood of emotion that began shortly after she entered the mansion. He'd tracked her as she prowled the house, finally setting her sights on the danger room. He'd been surprised when she'd overridden Cerebro and began running the sequence they were watching. At that point his contact lowered to a minimum and he decided to seek her out.

Logan looked away from the scene below them and focused on the counter, eyes widening when he saw how long the program was running, and its setting. An alpha program was just short of lethal, and could be extremely dangerous, even with the failsafe programs in gear. Jubilee had been running it for almost twenty minutes. "You're lettin her-"

"No, I did not. She overrode Cerebro with one of Beasts commands. When the program rolled through a second time it alerted me to what she was doing. I'd hoped she was running a calming simulation of some sort, but I was mistaken."

Charles stopped talking when a piece of another robot was blown hard enough to crash against the unbreakable glass, more then thirty feet off the sequence floor. "She is working off everything that has been building inside her since her return. I thought you might want to see this."

Logan said nothing, though he conveyed his thoughts clearly. This was the last thing in the world he wanted to see. Every blow, every turn, hardened something inside her, took something away. He knew, because he'd been there himself more times than he could count.

"Im going in." He said, turning towards the door.

Charles didn't argue, he knew there wasn't any use. Logan would do what he wanted, and this time he couldn't think of a reason to tell him not to.

Jubilee didn't hear the doors open, didn't hear anything but the sounds of the projections and droids around her. She watched them die, spouting fake blood that was oddly warm to the touch, and didn't care. Ten minutes after coming home she'd managed to work herself into a fit, barely escaping her room before she took a bat to it. She hated everything in it, everything that represented the person she had been, the person she never would be again. For the past few months she watched as the pieces of that person fell away, revealing something black and twisted inside her, something that she knew would never go away.

She left her room, looking for something to distract her from her rage. Logan was the first thing that popped into her mind, and she found him. Flirting with Jean. For the barest of moments a blood red haze swam over her eyes, but she blinked it away, leaving the room as silently as she had entered it. It didn't occur to her that Scott was barely ten feet away, or that both Rogue and Orroro were in the room as well, all she saw were Logan and Jean, and she'd wanted to kill them both.

This, at least, made her feel better, gave her an outlet for her rage. She'd watched Logan when he went into one of his fits and trashed the room, and understood for the first time what he was feeling, truly understood. The screams around her, the burn of the lasers as they lightly scored her skin, made her feel something other than anger and nothingness and fear for the first time in longer than she wanted to remember.

"Jubes!"

She heard her name over the cacophony around her, and ignored it. Maybe if he saw enough of what she was doing, he would get the message and leave her the hell alone.

"Jubilee!"

God damn-it. "Go away, Wolvie!" 'Still calling him by that stupid name,' she said to herself, launching a star at another projection with barely contained fury.

"Jubilation!" When she didn't answer, he raised his voice, "Cerebro, end simulation!"

Immediately, the crowd of people around them disappeared, leaving only the blown apart pieces of the droids littering the metal panels of the floor.

"Computer, begin simulation!" The room flickered for a moment, but didn't respond beyond that. Jubilee turned to Logan, "Get out."

He didn't move beyond reaching a hand out to her, "Jubes, you're gonna hurt yourself. You shouldn't have been in here in the first place, let alone without a spotter."

Jubilee didn't back down, "What do you care? If I needed someone I would have asked!" She batted away his offered hand, her sai scoring the back for a moment before his healing factor kicked in. He looked stricken, and it pleased her. She wanted him to hurt, wanted him to bleed. "Get out." She repeated, slowly, menacingly.

//Jubilee, please. Logan is only trying to-//

Charles winced as the doors to her mind slammed shut, leaving him outside her defenses. He tried to push gently, but the surface of her mind skittered away, and he knew that the only way for him to end what he felt building himself was to cause her harm by forcefully entering her mind. And that would kill him, because too much had already been forced on her.

//Jean, Scott, I need you in the danger room. NOW// He felt the start at the importance he asserted into the word, but he didn't care. He needed to control the situation as fast as possible. //Hank, I need you up here with a sedative, ASAP. You as well Cecilia.//

"Jubes, I'm only trying to-"

"I said GET OUT!"

She moved fast, faster than Logan would have thought after such a punishing routine. She hit him, knocking him backwards more from the surprise than anything else. Before he could react she rolled under his arm, stabbing him in the liver and twisting cruelly before moving out of his range.

Logan contained himself, even as his claws itched to be released. He watched her warily now, looking into her eyes. Something impinged on the deep blue, something he had too much practice with controlling, with wrestling under his grasp.

Practice he knew she didn't have.

"Jubes, I'm not gonna fight you, I just want to-"

"FUCK YOU!" when she moved again, Logan was ready, dodging to the side and hitting her arm, sending a sai flying further into the room. It pained him to do it, but he didn't want either of them to get hurt. He could smell the anger on her, and beneath it, something deeper, a pain and rage that was building toward insanity.

//Whatever you're gonna do Chuck, you better do it pretty fuckin fast,// he said, dodging a throwing knife and a star, wincing at the force with which they hit the walls. So far she was only using her weapons, which relieved him. Logan had no wish to be burnt pieces for the automatic cleaning sequence to pick up.

When Jubilee leaped again Logan was prepared to catch her and wrestle her under control, but she stopped in midair several feet from him, her weapons belt sliding from around her waist, the sai wrenched from her hand.

Jean was shocked, "Jubilee, what are you doing?" she asked, trying to keep her tone gentle and unaccusatory.

If Logan's presence had angered her, Jeans enraged her even further, but on that rage came fear, fear because she was trapped, her arms and legs weren't responding to her, she had to get away, she had to-

//LET GO// the mental shout tore through the room before there was a bright flash and the smell of burning skin. Jean was holding her hand, which was covered in blisters, when the flash ended, and Jubilee was curled in a corner of the room, watching them with the wariness of a predatory animal.

"Jubilee, please, we need you to calm down," Charles said, still blinking to remove the black spots from his vision. He had cleared to door just in time to be hit by the blinding radiance. What few thoughts he gleaned off the child were basic, needs to run, to get away, and he feared that she would either hurt herself, or hurt them, before they could subdue her.

"Jubilee," he repeated, his voice soft, "its me, Charles, Baldy. We're not going to hurt you, I promise," he kept talking as he felt Beast taking aim. "Calm down. No one here is going to hurt you, we just want to make sure that you're alright." Behind him, he could feel Jeans pain, both mental and physical. Jubilee had swatted her, hard, and Jean had been unprepared. It would be another minute before she was collected enough to help in the situation with something other than brute force.

That was time they wouldn't have. Suddenly, Jubilee tried to bolt past him, but had misjudged the distance. Charles caught her arm, using her momentum to spin her around, facing away from him. She landed roughly in his lap, his arms holding hers close to her body as she kicked into the air.

"LET GO A ME! LET GO! LET GO! LET GO!" Jubilee was screaming at the top of her lungs, trying to use her weight to pull herself out of the mans grasp, but it held firm. "GET THE FUCK OFF!" Barely a second later something pricked her arm, and she felt a warmth flood her system, and then there was nothing.