Chapter 9: Miscarriage
Jubilee was sitting at the kitchen table with a distressed look on her face and the phone book open on the table when Jean walked into the kitchen. "What's wrong?" she asked.
Jubilee sighed. "My doctor moved," she said. "I have to find another one."
Jean leaned across the table. "Why don't you come to see the doctor 'Ro and I see?" she offered. "She does obstetrics, and she takes both human and mutant patients. I'm sure she'll be glad to see you."
"Do you think she can see me today?" Something in Jubilee's voice made Jean pause.
"Is it an emergency?"
"Yeah," Jubilee lowered her voice. "Uh, I'm…" she whispered into Jean's ear.
Jean grabbed the phone. "I'll call her for an appointment today," she said quickly. "Go lie down. Stay off your feet." She dialed the number, waited, then said, "Yes, I need to speak to Doctor Freeman, please." A pause. "Doctor Freeman, it's Jean Summers. Listen, I have a friend here who…"
Jubilee lost the rest of the conversation as she lay down in bed and rubbed her stomach. Despite being almost four months along, her stomach had remained flat. She had started to wonder when she was going to start 'showing'.
After her relapse of pneumonia a week ago, she'd stayed in bed for a few days, per Hank's order. She'd even taken all the pills and vitamins he told her to take, even though she hated them. She still didn't know how she felt about the pregnancy, though; she wasn't thrilled. In fact, she felt a feeling of dread when she thought about the baby; but there wasn't anything she could do about it. She had considered termination; but she couldn't do it. Logan had made it clear to her that she wasn't getting rid of him; he wasn't going anywhere.
Then that morning she'd woken to feel a painful tightening in her stomach. It felt like a cramp…but she was pregnant. Alarmed, she'd gotten out of bed and gone to the phone, called her doctor, and found out that someone else had taken over his practice and her regular doctor had moved. The secretary offered to set up an appointment for her with the new doctor, but upon being told that Jubilee was a mutant, she had become very frosty and told Jubilee, icily, that Dr. Ruben didn't take mutant patients. Jubilee had hung up with mixed feelings. It had never mattered to Dr. Jenner that she was a mutant; she hadn't even thought about this when she'd found doctors before. She'd been gritting her teeth against the cramps and looking for another doctor in the phone book when Jean came in.
She was gritting her teeth against another wave of pain when Jean came in, Logan following behind her. Since Jubilee hadn't even told him she was feeling anything, he was alarmed when he saw her white, strained face. He insisted on carrying her out to the car, and also insisted that Jubilee lie down across the back seat while Jean drove to the hospital. "Dr. Freeman will meet us there," Jean said anxiously as she drove into the parking lot. "She's a little worried about the cramps, and she wants to take a look. She told me to bring you right into the emergency room."
It seemed to take forever in the Emergency room. Jubilee was told to wait, but the pain in her middle was getting so bad she was almost crying when Dr. Freeman came in. She took one look at Jubilee, at the strained, tense look on Logan's and Jean's faces, and waved them into the emergency room. Jean was helping Jubilee get undressed when a wave of pain hit the younger woman so hard she screamed. Logan jumped, and the doctor looked grim. "Radiology," she snapped to a passing nurse, and the last thing Jubilee saw as they pushed her out of the emergency room was Jean and Logan, looking terrified.
Jubilee hardly felt the prick of the IV needle going into her arm as another intense cramp struck her stomach. "What's happening to me?" she gasped.
"It's all right, dear. It's going to be all right." Dr. Freeman moved the sonogram probe over the girl's flat stomach. Mrs. Summers had told her that her friend was almost four months pregnant, and she'd had her suspicions when she saw how flat the girl's stomach was in the emergency room. Those suspicions were confirmed when she saw the images on the sonogram monitor. She leaned over the bed and spoke to the frightened girl on the bed. "Easy, Miss Lee. Don't fight it. Let it happen."
"What's happening?" Jubilee groaned when the pain passed.
"The placenta didn't implant firmly in the uterine wall," she said, wishing there was an easier way to say this. "The fetus couldn't get enough nourishment, and it stopped developing. Your body's trying to rid itself of the debris inside you. It's going to feel like you're giving birth. Just relax. We'll tell the child's father out there what's going on, and we'll get him to come in with you. We're taking you up to Labor and Delivery right now. You can at least be comfortable."
In the few pain-free moments between contractions (because Jubilee realized that was what they were) Jubilee had to admit that she felt a certain amount of relief. She didn't want the child. Maybe it was better this way. The nurse injected something into her IV tube, and she looked at the woman questioningly. "It's just something to help you with the pain," she said, ""it'll numb your body from the waist down so you won't feel much pain." Sure enough, in a short time the pain receded, and Jubilee fell limply back onto the pillow.
Dr, Freeman hurried out into the Emergency Room's waiting area, where Mrs. Summers and the man waited. They stood at her approach, and said anxiously, "What's the news?"
"She's having a miscarriage," Freeman said. "I'm sorry. She apparently hasn't been taking care of herself, and the massive trauma to her internal organs didn't make it any easier. The fetus stopped developing about a week ago, and her body's starting to flush it out." She hesitated. "She's not in any condition to respond to questions right now; I ordered an anesthetic be given. She'll hardly feel anything. But I need to know what happened." She led the way down the hall and out to the public elevators as Mrs. Summers began to talk.
By the time they got out onto the Labor and Delivery floor, Dr. Freeman was shaking her head. "That explains the trauma and the scarring to her internal organs, the low blood pressure, and the weight problem then," she said. "So she didn't really want to be pregnant; she'll recover emotionally faster from this then." They reached the door of Jubilee's room, and Logan went straight in. Jean stopped Dr. Freeman from entering. "Wait," she said uneasily. "The internal scarring…how bad is it?" Dr. Freeman hesitated.
"Please, Doctor, I've known Jubilee since she was thirteen. She shares everything with me. There's very little about her I don't know. Is she going to be all right?"
Janet Freeman made a quick decision. 'She's going to be fine," she said. "She needs to get her weight back up; being ninety pounds with her age and height isn't a good thing. The scarring is bad, but it isn't bad enough to prevent her from having any children in the future, if she's careful." She watched as Jean sighed in relief.
Logan came out. "She's okay," he said to Jean in obvious relief. "Kinda groggy from the medication, but she's okay."
The nurse came out, almost ran into Janet in the hallway, and looked relieved. "Doctor, I think it's happening," she said.
Dr. Freeman said kindly, "Why don't you go and wait in the lounge down the hall. I'll call you when you can see her." And she disappeared into Jubilee's room.
Jubilee felt as if she were floating in a thick fog. She was drowsy. Whatever they'd given her, it was pretty powerful stuff; she hadn't even felt the contractions that had opened her body. She lay back and closed her eyes as Dr. Freeman pulled her down to the end of the bed and positioned a container under her hips. Another shot into her IV tube, and she drifted off into a peaceful sleep as her body went about doing what it had to do.
* * *
When Jubilee woke the first thing she saw was Logan and Jean, sitting on chairs next to her bed. Logan was the first to see she was awake, and leaned over her. "How ya doin', Jubes?"
"Feel better," she said. "No pain."
"That's good. The doctor said ya weren't goin' to suffer so much 'cause it was still early. Did it hurt?"
"In the beginning," she said, "Not so much at the end. Logan, I'm kind of glad I had a miscarriage. I didn't really want Sabretooth's child. I hope you're not upset."
"No, Jubes," he said, hugging her tightly. "Truth be known, I'm kinda glad too. If yer okay with it, then I'm okay. As long as ya get better." Jubilee hugged him close.
There was a knock on the door, and a woman came in. "Jubilee?" she said.
Jubilee's eyes widened. "Amanda!" she held out a hand to the other woman as Jean and Logan stood up to greet her too. Amanda shook hands with them cordially, then seized Jubilee's shoulders and hugged her happily. "It's so good to see you," Jubilee finally let her go and inspected her from top to bottom. "I never got a chance to thank you," she said.
"For what?" Amanda looked surprised.
"For saving my life," she said. "If you hadn't brought me in when you saw me outside, I might have died."
"Oh, don't mention it," Amanda blushed. 'You actually did me a favor. You saved me from getting married to Bruce."
"You guys broke up?" Jubilee said.
"You don't sound too surprised," Amanda commented.
"You remind me of me, sometimes, Amanda," Jubilee said. "I didn't think it was going to work out. At least you found out what he was like before you married him. Imagine how horrible he would have been if you'd actually married him first." Jubilee looked her over. "You don't seem to be doing too badly. What have you been doing?"
"I left Bruce," Amanda said. "The night your friends came to pick you up I left him. Packed my bags and walked out. Julie—Jubilee—I accidentally took one of Bruce's suitcases with me to Massachusetts. When I opened it I found an envelope in there addressed to him. It was from some girl named Candie out in Las Vegas. Bruce had paid her two thousand dollars to spend the week with him in Vegas. She gave him the money back with the understanding that he would leave me for her. It pissed me off, frankly. I was all for leaving him right then and there, but I couldn't leave you there. I knew what he was likely to do. So at the conference I asked the former Avenger Henry McCoy to contact the Avengers. I felt sure that they would come help you. I didn't expect that the X-Men would come, though."
"Why were you with him in the first place?" Jubilee said. "Forgive me…but I haven't like him since I first met him, and that was when I gave the speech at his graduation from Columbia University. Why would you start going out with him?"
Amanda sighed. "I ask myself that all the time," she said. "The reasons I started out with don't seem to make any sense now.
"I was married before, Jubilee. Dave was everything I ever wanted. I really loved him. But he couldn't stand being apart from me for those conferences and all the long hours I spent in the labs. We divorced about three years after we got married." She sighed. "Then the labs I was working at closed, but I was working on some research at the time on gene-mapping. I met Bruce at a convention one day, and we started talking. He can be charming when he wants to be; he just doesn't feel the need to be nice unless it gets him something he wants. It wasn't until I published my first paper from his labs, and he insisted on putting his name on the paper too that I realized what he was doing. Foolish me, I thought I could change him. I stayed with him. I think he decided to propose to me when someone told him he had to be very intelligent to hold down a degree in Biogenetics and Physics at the same time. But he told me he really loved me; and I believed him.
"After I accepted his proposal he changed completely. He was away all the time. I had no idea he was lying to me about where he was until I saw the note from Candie; but that was it. I took the two thousand she was giving back to him, threw her note away, and used the money to get myself an apartment here in the city. I tried to apply at a few of the colleges and universities for a position as a teacher or part of a research staff, but no one's called me back so far. I even applied at Columbia. Nothing." She shook her head disappointedly. "So I got a job as a doctor here. I was coming in for my shift when I saw your name on the patient list. I figured I'd stop in and say hi. I'm glad you have your memory back," she said.
"So am I." Jubilee was quiet for a moment, then said, "The pregnancy test—"
"I left it in the bathroom for you," Amanda said. "I figured you might want to know. And I know it came up positive; I'm sorry it ended this way," she said regretfully.
"The child wasn't Logan's," Jubilee said. "I didn't really want it, but I didn't see a choice. I'm okay with it, though."
Amanda leaned over her, hugged her again. "I think Dr. Freeman wants to keep you here a couple more days, just to make sure you're okay," she said. "I'll stop in later at the end of my shift before I go home." She exited the room as Dr, Freeman came in.
"Friend of yours?" she asked Jubilee.
"Yes," Jubilee said.
"She's a nice woman," Dr. Freeman said as she went on to check Jubilee's charts. "We almost didn't hire her. Another research scientist, Bruce Garrett, called us and told us not to hire her because he thought she had 'questionable ethics.' But we were really shorthanded, and we hired her out of desperation. But she's been really great so far; the patients love her."
"Bruce Garrett is her former fiancé," Jubilee told Dr. Freeman quietly. "He was cheating on her; that's why she left him. That's why he's mad at her now, that's why he tried to get you to not hire her."
"Ewww. I hate guys like that," Dr. Freeman finished examining Jubilee, made a note on her charts, and said, "I'm going to release you this afternoon. You're perfectly fine. But I want you to take a full-spectrum vitamin supplement for the next three weeks, and I want you to eat well and get plenty of sleep. You're all run-down. No strenuous activity." She handed the papers with Jubilee's instructions on them, said, "Sign here," and when Jubilee did she produced a bag from under the bed with her clothes and things in it.
* * *
Jubilee went straight for the phone when she got home, and dialed the phone number for Columbia University. "Professor Cohen, please," she said.
A familiar voice came over the line. "This is Matthew Cohen."
"Matthew, long time no hear," Jubilee grinned into the phone. "This is Jubilation Lee."
"Jubilee?" Professor Cohen sounded shocked. "I thought your friends said you'd died!"
"I fell off the bridge," Jubilee said. "I hit my head, and lost my memory. A friend picked me up, brought me back 'to life', so to speak. I came home, regained my memory. I'm fine now." She took a deep breath. "As a matter of fact, that friend was the reason why I'm calling. Her name is Amanda Greene. She put in an application for a teaching job or a research assistant at Columbia; Have you heard about it?"
"Amanda Greene," Matthew said thoughtfully. "Yes. Her resume checked out, her former employers gave glowing recommendations…but we got a phone call from one of our former alumni, Bruce Garrett…remember him? And he said she had questionable work ethics and said she was difficult to work with. We were all asked to vote on hiring or not hiring her. I voted yes, but others weren't so open-minded. They decided not to."
Jubilee sighed. "Oh, well," she said.
"But," Cohen said, causing her ears to perk up, "if you have another opinion, if you'd write a letter and mail it here, I'm sure Dan Miller would take a recommendation from such a well-respected person under due consideration."
Jubilee almost bounced on the bed, but a sharp twinge from her still-sore body sharply reminded her of Dr. Freeman's injunction to stay quiet. Instead, she said, "Thank you, Matthew."
She spent the rest of the day composing her letter, and put it asde on her desk, promising herself she'd drop it in the mail as soon as she could. She curled up beside Logan that night happy. For the first time in a long while, she felt as thought her life was finally getting back to normal. "Logan?" she whispered to him.
"Yeah, darlin'?" he said.
"Do you remember the engagement ring we picked out right before…everything…happened?"
"Yes." He tensed.
"Do you still have it?"
He hauled his dog tags out from under his T-shirt where he usually wore it, and she saw the little circle of gold around the chain. "I kept it with me, darlin'. I never took it off."
Her voice was soft as she said, "Could I have it?"
Logan's throat sounded like something was caught in it. He carefully removed the ring from the chain, and held it up to her. She slipped it on her finger, looked at it glowing in the dim light from the stars outside the window, sighed happily, and snuggled against him. In moments she was asleep.