Okay! Okay! Geeze, ya leave one little story alone, and they mob your inbox with story demands. *hides as another series of e-mails fly at her head* Alright already! I get the idea. One chapter, coming up.

Oh, and for those who wonder and ponder and, like, whatever, about why this is late in coming? Shadow got an office job. The office is not plot bunny friendly. The mousetraps are now full of bunny fur.

A chapter of Immortality's Joy shall be forthcoming. As soon as I can find the poor plot bunny that gave me the idea in the first place…I think he got sucked into the office air conditioning…

Chapter 4

The Lions sleep tonight.

Cable approached her reluctantly, not sure what he was really going to find in her mind. She just gave him a look and closed her eyes, latching onto him mentally.

~ Calm down, old man. Honestly, there's nothing in here that you probably haven't seen before. ~ He sighed mentally then walked into her mind and found himself in something that was cross between a mall and a forest. Shops were every where, but so were trees, grass and animals. People walked around between them, not seeming to notice the difference.

Quite a few of the people were familiar, and he even saw himself a few times. Obviously, they were memories. Jubilee appeared beside him, in her mental shape, which looked strangely like a wolf, with cat's eyes, nose and ears. She also had wings. She paced along side him, on all fours, her wings fluttering and her tail lashing as Cable walked around and occasionally touched the shoulders of the memory-people.

The memories of those people came back to him, and when he didn't understand one, Jubilee would elaborate for him.

All in all though, he couldn't find anything wrong, with the exception of the wooded area. Walking into the thickest part of that, he noticed that instead of being a separate wooded area, this place was grown over the shops that had once been there.

~ This is…them. The instincts they put into me. If there are any false memories, they'll be here… ~ The animal-Jubilee looked around, and then suddenly was as she was physically, grey-tipped hair and all. ~ There's a place, just up here, they put fighting instincts in me. Martial arts. Guns, all types of other weapons… ~

He nodded and followed her. He picked over the place with a mental fine toothed comb, and came up with nothing other then useful instincts and techniques.

~ Do you want to keep those? ~

~ Yeah. They'll be useful. Wouldn't wanna try fighting without 'em… ~

~ Jubilee, why did you ask me to do this? There's nothing in here that Xavier couldn't have taken care o- ~ He shut up as a memory-person jumped out of the woods, growling and snarling. It looked like any ordinary Caucasian man, except for the long shaggy hair and the fact that he was drooling and snarling.

~ That's why. Careful. ~ He stepped forward and touched the memory, and then pulled back, shocked and disgusted.

~ Ah…do you want me to get rid of it? ~

~ Nah. Thanks Cable. I just wanted to make sure there was nothing false in here. My other memories will come back over time, and I've been dealing with bastards like this guy since I was a little kid. ~ The telekinetic Summers' male looked like he was about to be sick, and she quickly used her shields and her training to disengage him from her mind, and fling him back into his own body.

He sat there for a second, gasping a little, then looked at her with some akin to sympathy in his blue and gold eyes. Jubilee waved a hand at him.

"Please, after Bastion, Weapon X were just kids. And at least I got something out of it. I grew up around Wolvie and the X-ers, you think having my own claws, and getting my DNA changed a little is gonna freak me out." She released her claws and examined them. Eight inches long, she had figured that they were completely metal, whereas Wolvie's were metal over bone. She didn't know why Weapon X had decided on these types of claws, but it wasn't all they'd done to her.

Having eaten and gone to bed last night, she'd made a strange little discovery when, in the middle of the night, Penance had come up to look at her. She'd woken up suddenly, and instead of her claws coming out, her fingernails had taken on the gleam of adamantium, and sharpened. Penny was the only one who knew about that little aspect, and Jubilee wanted to keep it that way.

She needed some secret, just in case.

Shaking her head, she stood up, retracted them and stretched, aware of Cable's eyes following her movement, then walked over to the window of the room they were in, and opened it. She crouched on the windowsill, sniffed and licked her lips.

"Hey, Nate. Wolvie's cooking steaks, we'd better hurry if we're gonna get any." She smiled at him, then leapt out the window, falling two stories and landing easily on her feet. Cable watched her run around the house, even as he tried to get his pulse under control, and then decided now would be a good time to go warn Xavier and Frost that they had a perfectly normal, hormonally-insane, teenage feral gymnast on the loose in the school.

The argument had gone on for nearly two hours, as Logan and Jubilee both protested against each other. Xavier was sitting in his hover chair, holding his sore head in his hands and trying to make them stop.

"I don't care! I do not have the time or the patience right now to have to deal with you and Sabertooth at the same fucking time!" Jubilee roared in frustration, quite literally.

"Watch yer mouth Jubilee! If you think I'm gonna let you go and put yer self at risk by meeting with Creed, ya got another thing comin'!" Logan roared back, and his roar dwarfed hers simply because he had more practice at making growly sounds.

Jubilee went still for a few seconds, then snarled and walked out the door.

"Jubilation? Where are you going?" The Professor's low voice still reached her as she walked, striding past the audience scattered around the rec room, who had been listening with awe as the two friends had gone into vocal battle with each other. Cable and Scott were grinning hugely, enjoying having their two greatest antagonists yelling at each other for a change. Emma was looking very proud of her student for standing up to her mentor, and the others were looking on in varying degrees of shock, outrage and humour.

"I'm going to the mall to cool down, Cueball. Don't wait up." Jubilee's unintentional slip of Creed's nickname for the man made her wince, but no one else seemed to catch it.

She made it down to the garage without encountering anyone else to yell at, and started the bike Logan had gotten her for high school graduation. The fact that she'd convinced Emma to let her graduate with the others when she was only sixteen, and had only just gotten her bike licence had also been another reason for such an extravagant gift.

Inwardly, she smiled and wondered what he was going to get her for graduating from the college classes Emma had started to keep her students at the school…

'Where are the other students, anyway?' Jubilee wondered as she zoomed off down the road. When the senior Gen X-ers had graduated, Sean and Emma had used their contacts to find younger students, the same age as Artie and Leech. But of the ten younger students, only the two boys had been present.

~ Hey! Jono! ~ Jubilee projected her mind back toward the school, even as she took a corner at twenty miles over the speed limit.

~ Oath! ~ Whoops, looked like she'd made Cable spill his coffee.

~ Sorry Cable, I was looking for Jono. ~ Mental grumbling came back to her.

~ Damn noisy feral brats. ~ She wondered what her feral state of mind had to do with him spilling his coffee. ~ You have a feral scent to yer mind, girl. I didn't know who it was, even after having been in your mind. Jono's over that way. ~ He propelled her mind in the right direction, and she found that she was sitting in the basement, playing a guitar at the same time as racing a Porche along a highway.

The driver of the Porche gave her a seductive smile but she just out raced him.

~ Jono. ~

~ Yeah gel? ~ Music played in her mind, he was trying to write a song, and she subconsciously suggested a different note. It sounded much better as he tried it again with that note. ~ Didn't know yeh had music in yeh blood, gel. ~

~ Yer looking at five years of piano lessons and another three of guitar, plus four more in between those, of singing. Anyway, I was gonna ask, where are all the little kiddies gone? And why didn't the boys go with them? ~ She swerved around a large truck, then slowed down, remembering that the cops liked to patrol this section of the road. It was a good thing she'd remembered about the helmet laws.

~ School holidays, Spark. All our new kids got their parents, don't they. So they went home for the week. Sparkler, yer headed in the wrong direction. ~

She turned onto another highway and smiled.

~ I know. I wasn't going to the mall; I jus' had to say that to get out of Wolvie's sight. And before you ask. Yes, I am going to go see Sabertooth and give him the money I owe him. ~

~ I thought you weren't supposed to meet with him 'til tomorrow, luv. ~

~ Yeah, but tomorrow, Wolvie woulda found a way ta tag along, and then I'd be in the middle of the biggest testosterone battle you could imagine. It won't be hard for me to find Creed out here. I know his haunts. Don't worry, I'll be fine. ~

Jono hesitated at his end and stopped playing.

~ All right. But I want yeh to give me a mental shout every hour, until yer back, okay? ~

~ Fine, fine. Go back to writing your song. And try a D chord. It works well after the F. ~ He sent her a mental smile as he did so, and the sound rang in both their heads. ~ Talk in an hour. Bye. ~ She cut down the connection, and wondered if she were starting to get mental powers or something. Because it was getting a hell of a lot easier to mentally shout at people these days, and even easier after that to send them back to their own bodies when she didn't want them in her mind.

Finally, she slowed her bike down to a reasonable speed, and began sniffing the air. The scent of Creed's jeep, and she knew its scent well by now, caught her attention, and she sped after it.

She pulled into the parking lot of a run down motel, next to the jeep, and followed his scent to the door in front of it. It wasn't locked, so she didn't bother knocking.

"Yo! Vic?" A rumble of surprise, and he peeked at her from around a corner, his claws extended completely. Obviously he had been preparing to rip her throat out. "'S jus' me, dude. Or didn't ya want yer money?"

He chuckled as he came around the corner.

"Sorry Cat. Wasn't 'spectin' ya. What're ya doin' here?"

"It was either this, or meet you tomorrow with a pissed off Wolverine doing his best to start the biggest fight he could with ya. I know you'd like that, but I didn't wanna get caught in the middle of it…wasn't sure what I'd do if I went berserk…" She lit a paff on her fingers for emphasis. Creed nodded and backed off, sitting down on the double bed that graced the motel room.

Jubilee looked around, crinkled her nose at the pathetic excuse for an arm chair the room boasted and sat next to him on the bed, legs crossed in an Indian style.

"So…?" Jubilee's mouth quirked slightly at his questioning tone.

"So what?" She put a hand in her jacket pocket and grabbed the money Xavier had given her before Logan had started going nuts. Approximately thirty thousand in large notes. She handed it over to him.

Creed grumbled at her 'so what' and took the money, his hand brushing against hers. Jubilee froze as his claws came in contact with her skin. She wasn't afraid for her safety…but something…

His hand was warm, and his scent was so familiar…it was so far from the memory of being trapped in a cold sterile cell that tears gathered in her eyes.

She whipped her hand back and wiped viciously at her eyes, trying to keep her eyes away from his stare.

"Cat? Are you…ye're crying." His voice was incredulous, as he put a hand under her chin and lifted her head. Tears were indeed streaming down from her eyes, and the fact that he was being nice, and not taking advantage of her weakness made her cry harder.

"'S nothing, Creed. Leave me alone."

"If it were nothing, ya wouldn't be cryin'." His tone of voice demanded an explanation.

"It's just…I…you…" She shook her head and lay back across the bed, looking up at the dirty roof. "I didn't sleep again, last night. Well, not more than an hour, anyway. I'm just tired, Vic." He gave her a disbelieving look, but let her excuse stand.

"Take a nap while yer here then. Only time you'll be able to get some sleep without a nosy telepath spyin' on ya dreams." She sighed, knowing just how true that was and closed her eyes. It took barely seconds for her breathing to even out.

Creed watched her from where he sat beside her sleeping form, surprised that she'd feel safe enough to sleep, no matter how tired she was. He stretched a hand over and ran a claw through her hair. It was silky, and felt great against his hand.

She purred, butted her head against his hand and fell into a deeper sleep. Surprised, he continued to stroke her hair, listening to her purring. With a small, happy grin on his face, he leaned back against the wall and watched her sleep. A few seconds later, he was asleep as well.

Which is how Wolverine found them a few hours later when he Remy and Jono snuck into the room.

~ See. I told you they were sleepin'. ~ That was why they had snuck into the hotel room, instead of bursting in.

Creed chose that moment to wake up. He looked at them; looked at Jubilee then put a finger up to his lips in the classical 'shh' gesture. They blinked at him in surprise, but didn't do anything. Remembering that the kid without the face was a telepath, he tapped his temples. Jono obligingly connected all of them in a telepathic link.

~ Don't wake the kid. This is the first time she's slept since the day I found her roamin' around near my cabin. Ya wanna fight, lets take this outside, inta the woods. She won't hear us out there. I think. ~ Logan looked down at Jubilee, worried and surprised that she'd willingly fallen asleep in Sabertooth's company.

~ What the hell did ya do to her, Creed? ~

~ She's sleepin' runt. And here of her own free will. Now get the fuck out before she wakes up! ~

"Will you all shut up please!" Jubilee yelled suddenly, scaring the lot of them. Creed started and put a hand on her back, ignoring Wolverine's growl of warning.

"You heard alla that, Cat?"

She blinked blearily up at him.

"With alla ya shoutin', o' course I heard it." She rolled over on the bed, which incidentally slid Creed's hand onto her stomach, rather then her back. She ignored the sensation of loss as he pulled his hand back. "Can I jus' go back ta sleep please? Vic isn't gonna do anythin' to me Wolvie, and I'm so tired." She mumbled, twisting around until her head was pillowed on Creed's thigh. He stiffened up in surprise and went very, very still, then started to try and move away from her. She curled a hand around his leg and sharp claws bit into it. He paled, recognising his own claws on her.

~ Holy shit… uh, help? ~ He mentally mumbled to them and the claws on his leg tightened.

"Shut up."

Jono took a step forward and carefully disconnected Jubilee from Creed, uneasy about coming so close to the large feral and even uneasier about the small feral. He ignored her claws and focused on her mental abilities.

~ Jubes, luv. We've been talking mentally, between ourselves. You can hear it? ~ She cracked an eye open at him, and growled.

"That's great, Jono, real fucking excellent. Now let me get back to sleep. We can discuss it in the morning." She closed her eyes again, and put her head back on Creed's leg. He shifted uncomfortably again, but at least this time she didn't stick her claws into him.

"Uh…maybe we shoul' go, eh? De p'tite, she can take care o' herself for de night. It pretty obvious dat Creed ain't out ta gut her anyways." Remy muttered as quietly as possible, and put a hand on Logan's shoulder, tugging him backward. "An if she gonna tear someone up for keepin' her awake, rather him den us."

Logan would have protested more, but the scent of concern and worry, mixed with Creed's own hated scent was too disconcerting.

"Night, darlin'. She better come back in one piece, Creed, or you're ten ways from dead. Permanently." Jubilee growled again, before Creed could respond, and a paff hovered over the hand that wasn't wrapped around Creed's leg. "Alright, girl, we're goin'." He stepped back, then turned and walked out of the room, leaving Remy and Jono to follow him.

She waited for all of ten seconds, listening for them to go, and then the paff went out and her head came up.

"Sorry about that. But I'm tired and it was the only way to get him out of here without starting a giant free for all." She sat up, blinking blearily once more, and yawned. Creed automatically put a hand up and brushed a strand of her long hair back behind her ear.

She sighed, and leant into the caress.

"Vic…can you put me back to sleep again?" She asked. He raised an eyebrow at her. "I felt you brushing my hair, before, and it just…it felt nice." He blinked at her, and tentatively brushed her hair with his fingers. She lay down next to him and purred. "Thanks, Vic. I really owe you one," she sighed, falling asleep again.

Creed continued, until her breathing completely evened out, and lay down next to her. Her scent was intoxicating, and he breathed it in deeply. Once more he fell asleep, with Jubilee's scent playing across his dreams.

Jubilee woke up, all her senses wrapped in warmth. A warm male cat scent was twitching at her nose, and arms were wrapped around her. She opened her eyes to see the golden side burns of whom she now considered her former 'enemy'. He was sleeping still, so she took the opportunity to bring her face closer to his and sniff in the musky scent that was all his.

His eyes snapped open and she grinned at him.

"Mornin'." She said chirpily. She was happy, she wasn't tired any more, and she felt completely safe.

He blinked at her and returned the hello.

"Mornin', Cat. You alright now?" He murmured softly and she nodded.

"Yeah. Sorry about last night. I forgot to check in with Jono and he must have panicked. So…uh…are you taking off? You've got your money and alla that. All that's left is a fight with Wolvie, and you'll probably get that today…"

"Yeah. Probably." He wondered why she seemed upset at the thought of him leaving. "Why?" She fidgeted, then got up and stretched, her back joints cracking. Her long hair swirled around her waist, and her slitted eyes reflected the light. "Cat."

"Why didn't you kill me in the mountains? And don't start with that whole curiosity, thing or the impersonal fight spiel. What was it if not a fight against me?" He blinked at her, before recalling the argument they'd had on the car ride down. He'd said he'd never had a fight against her, despite six years of trying to kill her.

"You ain't gonna give up on that, are ya?" She shook her head. "If I answer, will you tell me why you seem so fidgety 'bout my leavin'?" She nodded. "Fine. Ya remember, two years ago, Sinister took us all? Even me an a couple of ex-Marauders?" She nodded again. "'Member how you were the one who broke open the cages, and got us all free?" She blushed. Even the X-men had never bothered to mention that. She'd thought none of them remembered. She certainly hadn't been thanked for it.

"So? I had ta get us out. I really don't like being an experiment. The pay's lousy." He chuckled at her and she grinned in response.

"Ya, well. Ya got my respect that day. Before that, I'd only been threatenin' ta kill ya, cause it got the runt riled. If I'd really meant it, you'd be dead already. After that…I used to attack you, just ta see you fight. Ya got a lot of spunk, and ya don't take shit from nobody. Ya interested me. Even the runt hasn't been able ta get me as curious as you did." He paused, searching for the words. "I…started ta like ya. Liked gettin' ya angry, liked seeing ya laugh…" he shrugged. Jubilee was blushing furiously. "I wasn't gonna kill ya anytime soon, cause I liked seein' ya around. Okay?"

Jubilee was still blushing like mad.

"Yeah…sure…"

"So?"

"So what?" He glared at her.

"Answer my question."

She mumbled something to low for even him to hear. Looking up at him, her expression softened.

"This is gonna sound weird, coming from me to you…but you make me feel safe, okay? Believe it or not, but I trust you. I know you won't hurt me, and I know even if you did, I could take you on…" She shrugged uneasily. "I fell asleep when you brushed my hair with your claws, what the hell does that tell ya?"

He just watched her for a minute, not moving, except for his eyes, which followed her pacing around the small room.

"Ya know…I got a cabin not to far from here. Reckon it isn't much more then an hours run for a healthy feral." Jubilee's eyes glowed at him in obvious surprise. "I'll teach ya how ta use them other claws of yours." He gestured with his own talons at the claws that had appeared last night, and she went pale. "Yer no-mouthed pal, Jono? Him, the Cajun and the runt saw 'em last night, so ya may as well tell the rest of 'em about them. But I'm gonna be the one ta teach ya, got it?" She grinned at him.

"Got it. Thanks Vic. I'll smell ya out some time. But first I gotta go make sure the boys are all calmed down." She hesitated, then leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, before taking off out the door. He heard her bike rev a few seconds later, and then it took off. Creed was still sitting there on the bed, a hand held against the cheek she'd kissed.