Chapter 6: Introspection
Hank sat watching the young woman sitting in front of the isolated reaction chamber at a table facing the back wall of the lab. She had been staring at the multicolored swirl of atoms inside the box for some time, eyes blank, her mind plainly somewhere else. The messy pile of papers she had been scribbling notes on lay forgotten on the table beside her.
"A quarter for your thoughts," he said finally, breaking into her train of thought. Jubilee blinked, looked at him rather absently. "A quarter for your thoughts," he repeated
She laughed and turned to him, rotating her stool and propping her chin on her hands. "I thought that was, "'A penny for your thoughts'," she grinned.
"It is," Hank said amiably. "But with the weighty introspection you were indulging in, I thought it prudent that you be offered a bit more for your thoughts."
She laughed self-consciously. "I guess I have been a bit quiet today," she said, picking at a loose thread in the knee of her jeans. "I'd have thought you'd appreciate it, though," she continued. "I mean, all these years you've been down here in the labs enjoying the peace and quiet, and then I come home, barge in here, and steal a part of your lab for my uses. Then I start bringing in my Walkman and my rock music, and there goes your peace, shot to pieces."
"I did enjoy the solitude, yes," Hank admitted. "But there is such a thing as too much, Jubilee. There were times when this lab seemed like a lonely place. Truth be known, Jubilee, I did sometimes long for some company, and I was gratified to find my lonely little lab would have another occupant—even if we do not exactly share the same profession."
Jubilee got off her stool, walked over to him, and threw her arms around him. "I never knew," she said softly. "I'll try to spend more time down here with you." Hank patted her hands for a moment, enjoying the feel of her arms around him. Not that he had any feelings for her beyond basic friendship; but sometimes it was nice to have a simple hug from someone.
"Enough about me," he said finally, disengaging her arms, "What about you? What weighty thoughts were swirling through your mind just then?"
Jubilee sighed, sat down on air, and hooked the heels of her shoes on the nonexistent rungs of a nonexistent stool. "I was thinking about something someone said at the ball," she said. "The new doctor, Bruce Garrett--"
Hank made a dismissive noise, which stopped her in mid-sentence. "Bruce Garrett is no more a doctor than, say, Logan," Hank said sternly, "And with a much more abrasive personality. He was one of the speakers at the summit; and I must say that much of what he said at the podium was what your speech would have been about. He has read too many of your papers, and he has paraphrased them…he stops just short of plagiarism. That boy does not have a single original thought in his head. I am not, apparently, the only one who thinks so; your friend Professor Cohen seemed rather critical of the boy too." His tone softened as he looked at Jubilee. "You are a doctor, a true scientist and physicist, because you see…you observe…the reactions in the matter and environment around you. Then you try to understand what has happened, and you try to explain why it happened. Garrett observes reactions in the natural order of things, and then looks to books and papers and material that others have written in order to explain what he has seen. He does not try to form his own conclusions; he merely pirates others' ideas and makes them seem like his own.
"A piece of paper you receive from an institution of knowledge does not make one a scientist, Jubilee, no matter what the paper may say. A true scientist makes his or her own observations rather than relying on someone else's observations. So ignore what Mr. Garrett has said, because it is my opinion…and the opinion of several other of your colleagues…that Mr. Garrett's invitation to the summit was bought with his father's money, and not given due to merit, as yours was." He took off his glasses and looked at her with kind eyes. "Charles said much the same thing."
"Professor Xavier—said—that I…" Jubilee's voice trailed off, and she grinned, suddenly and delightedly. "Wow. That makes me feel a lot better."
"Hank and I share a very high opinion of your talents and abilities, Jubilee," Xavier said seriously. Jubilee turned to see him in his hoverchair entering the lab with a handful of papers, which he put down on Hank's table and looked at her seriously. "You are a constant source of surprise and pride for both of us. I will have to admit that I had my doubts when you chose physics as your major in college; you had never struck me as the type to get into heavy studying. Then you really got into it. I could see your dedication when you came back for visits. And when you received your doctorate and launched your career, I wished very much that your parents had lived to see the day their little girl grew up." His eyes were suspiciously bright as he said, "You surpassed our expectations, Jubilee, and we are proud of you. We love you."
Jubilee hugged him so tight his neck bones creaked. "I love you guys too," she sniffed into the collar of his shirt. "I never knew you were rooting for me all that time. And I wish my Mom and Dad could see me now, too." Xavier patted her back, blinking away tears of his own.
'Now," he said as she stepped back and accepted the tissue Hank handed her, "What brought this up?"
Jubilee sat back down on air, and drew her knees up to her chest, hugging them. "Bruce Garrett had what he called 'an interesting proposal' to make to me at the Queen's ball," she said. "He's building a lab out in Massachusetts, and he wants me to 'come work with him', as he puts it. What he really meant, as I discovered when I got him to stop beating around the damn bush, is that he wants to 'observe' me using my powers 'in a controlled laboratory setting' so that they can be studied, and discoveries made. I rather got the impression that he would be the one doing the observing, and getting the credit for the discovering, and I'd be nothing but a lab rat wired up and running his little maze."
"So what did you tell him?" Xavier asked her, carefully hiding his shock that the young man they were discussing could have been so arrogant as to have even spoken about this subject, much less to a superior in the field.
"I told him I had no intention of moving from my current location to his lab, and told him I thought his offer was disgusting. Professor Cohen expressed a similar dislike and we walked away. Just before I was out of earshot though, he told me I was being selfish, keeping all my discoveries a secret and claiming I just 'made' these discoveries." She dropped her chin to her folded knees, stared at her shoes. "I wonder if that's really what I'm doing. I mean, some of the stuff I've discovered I can do with my powers have a lot of applications for the outside world. Do I really have the right to keep all that power and knowledge to myself and leave the rest of the world to make the discovery at some future time? Don't I have the responsibility to use my powers to do as much good as possible, and share it with everyone so that they can be applied to many situations that need it?"
Xavier propped his elbows up on the table of his hoverchair and steepled his fingers. "Jubilee, why aren't we sharing the Shi'ar technology we have with the rest of the world?"
Jubilee looked at him skeptically. "Are we getting a bit off-topic here?"
"No. No, we're not, trust me," Xavier said. "Trust me. So why aren't we?"
"Because the world isn't ready to know there is an entire empire out in our backyard full of aliens who either want to annihilate us or make us into a subject world." She looked at Xavier with what could only be called a naughty grin. "After all, Lilandra has discussed with you the possibility of conquering Earth just so you would be accepted as her consort."
Xavier grinned dryly, but focused back on their conversation. "And the other reason?"
"Because a lot of the Shi'ar technology we have could be turned to offensive purposes, used to harm instead of help. And we can't risk upsetting the balance of power here, on earth."
"Now apply that to your own power, Jubilee," Hank said, picking up on where Xavier was going. "You've been gifted with your power because you can handle it. You know what it can do; you know how it can hurt, you know how it can help. Suppose someone with less understanding gets your power. What might that someone do with it? You have been sitting here for the last few months attempting to do different things with your power; you have figured out how to do things like walk on air, freeze air, and make diamonds. Yes," Hank said, eyes twinkling, "I saw you pick up that piece of carbon ore and compress the atoms to make a diamond out of it. Suppose someone found out you could do that. How do you think they might use that—or you—to do that for them?"
Jubilee digested that in silence, her eyes wide as she considered the possibilities. "I see what you mean," she said finally. "I had better stay here then. I'm not really being selfish, if you look at it that way."
"No, you're not," Xavier said, "Any more than I am being selfish keeping my hoverchair technology to myself and not sharing it with anyone." He grinned. "Now enough of that. There's a surprise waiting for you upstairs."
"Really?" Jubilee jumped off her invisible 'chair' and headed out the door. Xavier and Hank followed her as she got onto Xavier's elevator and waited for them.
It was quiet upstairs. She stepped off the elevator and blinked. "Where is everybody?" she wandered off into the formal dining room, then from there toward the informal one that sat just off the kitchen.
As soon as she rounded the corner the residents of the mansion jumped out from behind the chairs and yelled "Surprise!"
Jubilee blinked as Logan came up and grabbed her into a big bear hug. "It's my birthday today?" she said in surprise.
Jean laughed at her. "You were so busy thinking today you didn't even realize it?" she chided, hugging Jubilee. "Silly girl, forgetting your own birthday!"
There was a huge pile of presents waiting for her over on a table in the corner, and giant cake waiting for her in the middle of the table. 'Wow," she said, impressed. The cake had 'Happy Birthday Jubilee written on it, and there were twenty-five candles on it. She grinned as Jean began to light them one by one. They all sang Happy Birthday. Jean said, "Don't forget to make a wish!"
"Jean, I'm not thirteen anymore," Jubilee said, exasperated, but she closed her eyes for a brief moment before she folded her arms behind her back and blew out the candles. It was an old custom. At Jean and Scott's wedding there had been so many candles everyone thought she'd used her powers to wipe out all the flames in one breath. Since then everyone, whether they had the capability to blow out candles by means other than the physical, did the same thing.
"What did you wish for?" Ororo said curiously as she pulled candles off the cake.
"If I told you what I wished for, it wouldn't come true," she said lightly, but Jean didn't miss the glance at Logan. She also didn't miss the glance Jubilee gave at the sapphire ring she wore on her right ring finger.
"Jean, watch out!" Scott grabbed the stack of plates Jean was carrying as they threatened to slip out of Jean's grasp. "Whew. Almost lost them, there!"
They all dug into the chocolate cake and vanilla ice cream happily, with a lot of talk and chatter. When everyone was done eating, Jubilee started into the big stack of presents. She opend them all, exclaiming at all the things she'd gotten, and got so wrapped up that she didn't realize there was nothing from Logan until the gifts were all gone. "Logan, you didn't get her anything?" Jean asked puzzled.
Logan reached into his pocket. "Here, Jubes," he said. 'It's small. I didn't want it ta get lost in the pile."
Jubilee's eyes lit up when she saw the tiny box, and then dulled when she opened it. "What's this?" she pulled a tiny key on a keyring out of the box.
Logan beckoned to her. Puzzled, she followed him to the dining room window, which overlooked the long drive up to the house. There, right outside the window, were two motorcycles, both identical, except one had a big red bow stuck to the seat. "Happy birthday, darlin'," he said.
Jubilee stared for a moment. "A motorcycle?" she said in astonishment. "You bought me a motorcycle?"
"Yeah," Logan said, picking up the disappointed tone in her voice and wondering what she was disappointed about. "It's exactly like mine. I thought ya'd like it."
Jubilee, looking at the window, tried to quell the tears stinging her eyes. She had thought that maybe Logan had gotten her something else…that box had been so very tiny…
Jean's voice suddenly broke into her thoughts. Jubilee, what's the matter?
Nothing. Nothing at all. Jubilee blinked away her tears and turned to Logan, hugging him so that her eyes would be dry when she finally did look at him squarely. "Now you have to teach me to ride it," she said with a smile when she finally pulled away.
Logan groaned theatrically. "Is it too late to take it back and git ya somethin' else?"
"Yep," Jubilee said, her eyes sparking as she grabbed his hand. "Come on. I want to take a ride on it. Let's go."
After they had gone, the guys looked rather puzzledly at the girls, who were shaking their heads grimly. "What happened?" Xavier finally asked Jean. "Perhaps it was me, but it seemed that Jubilee was not as enthusiastic with Logan's present as he thought she would be."
Ororo looked disbelievingly at the mystified looks on all the guys' faces. "Are we the only ones who got that?" she asked Jean.
Hank spoke into the silence. "I believe our resident firecracker was expecting something a bit smaller," he said, "indicative of a longer commitment." He considered. "Perhaps 'expecting' would be too strong a word," he said. "More like 'wishing', or 'hoping'."
They continued to look puzzled, and Jean began collecting plates with rather more clatter than necessary. "She was hoping Logan would propose," she said to Scott and the room at large.
"Y'mean Logan ain't proposed yet?" Remy said in disbelief. "What dat sapphire ring he buy her for, den?"
"It was a present." Jean spread a sheet of plastic wrap over the cake and tucked the ends under the plate. "He didn't buy it with a proposal in mind." She picked up the stack of plates and said, "Ororo, do you want to speak to him, or should I?"
* * *
Logan lay on the bed, idly flipping channels. Jubilee was downstairs in the lab, finishing up some last-minute something or other that she'd been working on before the party that afternoon. He was about to go find her when there was a tap at the door. "Logan?" said a voice softly.
"Yeah, 'Ro," he said, sitting up. "C'mon in."
The bedroom door opened and Ororo came in, her white nightgown whispering around her legs. "Logan, did you notice anything odd about Jubilee's behavior at her party this afternoon?"
His ears pricked up. Finally he might get some answers. "Yeah, as a matter of fact I did. Did she tell ya anythin'?"
Ororo seated herself in Jubilee's desk chair and set her cup of tea on the only patch of clear surface she could see. "She did not have to, Logan. We—Jean and I—could see what was wrong where you could not."
He bit back the impatient growl and sighed. "So what was wrong?" he asked her with exaggerated patience.
"Jubilee was hoping you would present her with something smaller," she answered him. "Logan, when you bought her that sapphire ring, when she opened it she thought you were going to propose to her, and she was all ready to accept. Then you told her it was merely a present. Today she saw the size of the key box, and again she thought you would propose. And again you did not. She is twenty-five, Logan. You might have an indefinite lifespan, but Jubilee does not. She was waiting for you to propose to her, Logan, and you disappointed her again today."
Logan belatedly realized his mouth was open, and closed it.
Storm hid her amusement and continued, "There are many things that can happen, Logan. Nearly dying in the plane crash brought home to her rather sharply that life is finite. Life as one of the X-Men can sometimes be even shorter. And there is always the possibility that something could happen to you that you would not be able to heal from, and she will be left with regrets. You don't want that, Logan." Ororo picked up her tea and stood. "Think about it, Logan. You have enough regrets to live with for a lifetime. Don't do that to her." Logan was still staring dumbly as Ororo closed the bedroom door behind her.