Girl 1.
Another white-on-pale apartment. Another bedroom with a locked door. Blue Eyes and Angelo still serving as my gaolers-cum-caregivers. It's enough to make me wonder why we left Los Angeles.
Dr McCoy is something new, though – I mean, I thought Angelo looked weird. He's about six feet tall and his shoulders are about six feet wide, and he's completely covered in this freaky blue fur. If it wasn't for the colour it'd look like he'd just stepped out of a Disney film, 'cause he's got a face like a lion, too. Apparently he's a mutant megagenius and a friend of my . . . acquaintances.
When he was brought in to see me he just stared for a moment, and then stood there looking between Blue Eyes and me for about ten seconds.
'I suppose it was inevitable, really.' He said when he finally found his voice. Frost raised an eyebrow at that, and he went on hurriedly. 'I merely suggest that we all appear to have a duplicate, clone or alternate-reality equivalent wandering the world while wearing our visage. And I feel obliged to state that you would appear to have been more fortunate in your choice of doppelgangers than myself, Jubilation.' He put down his bag and started unpacking it, and it seemed like he just switched off everybody else in the room. He got out all kinds of medical equipment, most of which I recognised from my dad's stuff but some of which was seriously, weirdly high-tech.
His hands were big, and soft, and surprisingly warm even through the rubber gloves. I grew up in a doctor's house, and he seemed as competent as anyone, but he didn't look at my face, at all.
Girl 2.
Hank chased us all out of JJ's bedroom while he did the medical thing. The three of us ended up sitting in the kitchen.
'You realise there is no way that either Beast or myself will be able to hide her scent from Wolverine?' Frosty asked me.
'No big. I'll swing by the mansion with you, just ta say hi.'
'Her current condition will be part of the scent.'
'You mean he'll be able to smell . . .'
'That there's another of you. And if you do not accompany us, he will assume that you are yourself using heroin. I rather doubt he would be very polite to either Dr McCoy or myself.' She did that funny head-tilt thing she sometimes does. 'In other words, you need to explain to him as soon as possible.'
'Today?'
'Unless you want all five of us to sleep here.' I nod at that; she's got a point. Wolvie does tend to get overprotective.
'What are we going to do with her?' I ask, finally. I've been wondering that ever since we worked out who she is.
'Nothing.' Frost says. I stare at her.
'She's her own girl, Jubes.' Ange elaborates. 'Once she's got cleaned up, we can't tell her what to do.'
'Yeah, but she's . . . I dunno, my sister. I can't just let her . . .'
'Quite. Treat her as a sister.' I look up at Frosty at that, and either she's reading my mind or what I'm thinking is way obvious, 'cause she takes a step back and goes on, 'My family is not the best example.'
'So who's is? Scott and Alex? The Professor and Juggy? Oh, I know, how about Monet and Emplate?'
'Sam and Paige.' Angelo interrupts again. Why does he always have to be so right?
'Omitting the section wherein you fake your own death, and allow her to become an environmental extremist.' Frosty interjects.
'Still not certain how that happened.' I mutter.
'I am given to understand that Domino felt that X-Force could be more effective if the world believed . . .'
'No, I mean Paige turning into a tree-hugger.' There's a pause there; none of us have any idea.
Girl 1.
When the Doc's finished peering at me and has packed all his stuff away, he still hasn't looked at me.
'What did you mean?' I ask him, just to get him to treat me like a human being. 'Back there. About her having a better double than you?'
'Mayhap you would not see it that way.' He says.
'Does this have anything to do with your not looking at my face?' I ask. He kind of starts at that, and then he does look at me. I know what a guy trying not to cry looks like, and a big blue lion guy looks pretty much the same. I ran out of sympathy for wimps a long time ago. 'What? Don't like to think that your precious little blue-eyed girl would be a whore if she wasn't a mutant?'
'Jubilation . . .' He begins, and then looks away.
'Or is there something else? Something everyone's not telling me?'
'Jubilee, you are correct. It is sadly irrefutable; every time any one of us looks at you, we glimpse what might have been. I think you are fully cognisant that our version of you begrudges you for everything that is thereby implied concerning her place in an equal world, disregarding the fact that, in your life as in hers, time and chance govern all. There is more differentiating your two paths than the presence or absence of the X-Factor gene, just as, I hope, there is more distance between myself and the other McCoy than an altered world order. However, you seem unaware of the profound emotional effect your presence will have on all of Jubilee's friends. Emma, Angelo, myself – we all feel that we have failed you by allowing your life to take such a course. There is nothing we could have done, but we all feel that there is so much we should have done for you.' He pauses. 'And I wish I could tell you that your troubles are over, that we and the X-Men will protect you – but this is life.'
'Meaning what?'
'That we will do everything humanly possible to assist you, Jubilation, but ultimately you will have to make your own way, either in this world or, if you so desire and chance allows it, your own.'