Title: Reflections, Part 2
Summary: Jubilee finally tells Xavier and Hank what happened to her when Creed kidnapped her.
Warnings: Slightly graphic, I toned it down a lot from the original draft. This is the (heavily!) edited version.
Rating: PG-13, borderline R
Setting: After Logan's and Jubilee's wedding
Characters: Logan/Jubilee, guest starring Hank and Charles.
Reflections, Part 2
Jubilee reached for the handle of the bathroom mirror, her hands shaking. The pain in her stomach was so bad she felt like she was going to pass out. The bottle of aspirin in her night table drawer was almost empty; there were only three pills in it, and she knew it wasn't enough to hold off the cripplingly painful cramps in her belly.
She'd have to go downstairs and get some, then. Jubilee reached out, barely able to see where she was going for the pained tears that filled her eyes, and hung on to the doorframe as she bent double, waiting for the wave of pain to pass. She was lucky that everyone was out today, especially Logan; otherwise she'd have to answer all kinds of awkward questions.
She staggered upright, and managed to get all the way across the room to the bedroom door when the next wave of pain hit. She sank to her knees, choking back the sob of pain that tried to escape her lips. She'd waited too long to get her aspirin.
Down the hall, now, and another pause at the top of the steps to allow another wave of pain to pass, then down the steps, as quickly as the throbbing in her stomach would allow her to move. She was almost at the foot of the steps when the pain hit again, and she cried out in shock and pain as her foot slipped and she slid down the last steps. She landed on the hard floor at the foot of the stairs, and doubled over in pain, curled up into herself as she fought off the waves of pain.
In his study, Xavier heard the crash, then the sobs, loud in the silent mansion. He glided out of his study, and directed the hoverchair down the hall, toward the noise. What he saw shocked him; Jubilee, lying on the floor, curled up and obviously in agony by the way she was crying.
"Jubilee," he said quietly, and the girl's head snapped up. "Jubilee, what's wrong?"
"Uh, nothing, professor," she said to him, trying to smile. "Nothing. Just slipped, that's all." She got to her feet, clinging to the banisters white-knuckled, and almost made it when another burst of pain sent her back down on her knees crying. Xavier grabbed for her free hand, holding on to it as he dropped his shields and sent a questioning tendril of thought into her mind.
Her pain flooded his mind, and he doubled over with a groan as the pain she felt in her middle manifested as a 'ghost' pain in his belly. He pulled down his shields with an effort, then reached out a thought tendril in the opposite direction, calling, Hank!!
Hank took the steps up from his basement labs two at a time, responding to the urgency of Xavier's call. He followed the tugging until he reached the hall, where he found Xavier clutching Jubilee's hand as the girl slumped at the foot of the banisters, sobbing in pain. "My stars and garters," he whispered, "What happened?" Without waiting for an answer, he picked Jubilee up in his arms as though she were no more than a child and carried her downstairs. Xavier joined him in the medlabs, having taken the elevator down.
Jubilee curled up on the Shi'ar biobed, unaware of anything but the all-consuming pain in her stomach. She barely felt the needle enter her arm, delivering a painkiller intravenously, but she sighed as the pain in her middle receded moments later. "Jubilee, what happened?" Xavier said as Hank ran a scanner down her body. Jubilee wiped her eyes, sighed, and then pushed at Hank's hand. "It was just cramps, Hank, you don't really have to worry," she said.
Hank pushed her back down on the bed. "Stay down there, young Jubilee," he said firmly. "I am going to find out what is wrong with you."
"It's just cramps, really," she said. He looked at her sternly.
"Jubilation, that is the same thing you have said to me the other times you came in here in pain and begging for aspirin," Hank said severely. "You are not leaving the medlabs until I know what is causing your pain."
"No. Professor…" Jubilee turned pleading eyes toward Charles. "Please, I'm all right, I just need to lie down."
Xavier held up a hand to forestall the lies he knew Jubilee was about to tell them. "Jubilee, you are not all right. This has been going on for some time now, since you came home. Hank, you don't need to scan her; Jubilee knows what is wrong with her. Don't you?"
Jubilee bit her lip, refusing to meet Xavier's eyes. He captured her chin in his hand, leaning in close to look her in the eyes. Oh, there was so much pain and misery and anguish in there, and Jubilee didn't want to talk about it, that was plain. But Xavier was tired of seeing her pain, tired of seeing her withdraw into herself to hide what she was feeling, and he knew that all this suppression of emotion wasn't healthy.
"Yes…" Jubilee whispered finally, unable to lie to Xavier's face. "Yes, I know what's wrong."
"Tell us." She stayed silent.
Xavier dropped his hand. "Hank, the next time Jubilee comes to you for medication, don't give it to her. She's obviously not hurting enough to need it as badly as she says she does." He turned away, so Jubilee couldn't see the tears that filled his eyes at her soft moan. He didn't want to hurt her like this…but this had to stop.
He was nearly at the door when Jubilee said, so softly he barely heard her, "All right." He turned back, to see her eyes fill with tears as she whispered, "It started hurting right after Creed raped me. He used a broken wood stick; I think maybe some splinters got…stuck in there…or something." She stared at the ceiling. "Every time I have cramps, it hurts so bad I have to take a lot of aspirin for it." A tear fell slowly from the corner of her eye as Hank brought the internal scanner to bear over her lower abdomen.
He stared in shock at whatever was on the screen. "Jubilee…can you tell me where it hurts?"
She gingerly brought a hand down over her belly to the left of her navel and down three inches. Hank's lips pressed into a thin line. Xavier went around to his other side to figure out what he was looking so grim about.
Xavier tried to hide his shock as he stared at the display on the scanner. The Shi'ar scanner worked very much like a sonogram machine, giving the one wielding it a fairly good picture of the patient's insides. The scanner's screen showed Jubilee's uterine wall, one ovary, and what looked like a solid white line through it. "Hank, what is that?"
"It's a wood splinter." He didn't say it softly enough.
Jubilee looked at him. "May I?" she held out her hand for the scanner. Hank hesitated, then handed it to her with the image frozen on the screen. She stared at it for long moments, silent, then dropped it on the bed beside her and rolled over on her side. She buried her face in the pillow and started to cry.
"Oh, God, oh God…why…why me, why is it always me?" she sobbed, as the two men watched her silently. "I hate him I hate him I hate him…I hate myself…Oh, God…He was right…It's my fault…I'm a whore…I'm asking for it, somehow…" Her hands came up, and they watched as she yanked her wedding ring from her finger and flung it away from her. It soared in a glittering arc through the air, and Xavier caught it as it sailed past his ear. Hank bent over her, stroking her back, but she flinched away from his touch.
"Jubilee," Hank finally said firmly, "This is nonsense. You never asked for this to happen. You are not a whore. Whatever gave you such an idea?"
Her face came out of the pillow, streaked with tears and flushed with crying. "Creed. He said…he said…he knew I'd been…raped…before…he said I must be asking for it, to let it happen to me again…and he was right, I must like it, my body…" She broke off, choking with sobs, and it was a few minutes before she could continue. "When he entered me the first time, in Moose's garage…my body…I started to…respond…when he entered me…it didn't hurt me so much because I was getting wet, do you understand, I was getting off on it…and Creed said Logan didn't deserve to have a slut for a wife, he wouldn't want a whore who couldn't keep her legs closed..." And Jubilee started to talk as the walls she'd built around her memories, around her mind, came tumbling down.
Xavier and Hank sat shocked as she finished. She wasn't crying anymore…she just lay there, on Hank's biobed, staring at the ceiling, her voice flat as she talked. Xavier now knew what she hid behind the walls…and he wasn't sure now that he wanted to know. The only consolation was that maybe now she'd be able to move past it. He slipped into her mind as he took her hand, and she didn't shy away from him, she didn't try to push him away. She curled over on her side, and leaned her head on his shoulder as she began to cry. Not the angry, racking, hurting sobs she'd choked out before, but softer, gentler, cleansing sobs as the last of the pain and misery she had trapped inside herself bled out. Xavier kissed her wet cheek gently, then said softly into her ear, "You are not a whore. You never asked for any of this."
Hank sat down on the other side of the bed, taking her other hand in his large blue one. "Jubilee," he said quietly. "If you wish, later, I can give you some texts to read…but I'll give you the short version now. Penetration into the female reproductive organs by anyone, or anything, will inevitably produce a biological reaction, even if the penetration was uninvited. It's a purely biological reaction, and though there were studies done on the effect of psychosomatic responses, this was proved not to be one. So don't blame yourself for any of it. None of it was your responsibility." As Hank spoke, Xavier reinforced his words with a feeling of conviction, a feeling that Hank was right, and none of it was her fault. He wouldn't normally tamper with someone's mind, but Jubilee needed this.
She lay there for long moments, her face buried in Xavier's shoulder, as her sobs quieted. "Now lie back," Hank said finally. "Jubilee, I'm going to give you something that's going to put you to sleep. You won't feel a thing while I remove that splinter. When you wake up, you'll never have to deal with that pain again. Okay?" She nodded, clinging tightly to Xavier's hand for comfort as the needle slipped into her arm. She was asleep before Hank even put the needle down.
"Is she going to be all right?" Xavier asked Hank.
"Physically she's going to be fine," he said, opening a drawer and getting out an assortment of instruments. "Mentally? You tell me that."
"She's going to be fine," Xavier said. "Now let me go wait for her husband."
Logan was looking for Jubilee when Xavier came into their bedroom, haunted by the feeling that something wasn't quite right. "Where's Jubilee?"
"She's down in the medlabs. She's going to be fine, as soon as Hank fixes her up." And very quietly, Charles told Logan what had happened to his wife. By the time he finished, Logan's fists were clenched in the bedspread, and his teeth were gritted.
"If he wasn't a'ready dead, I swear, Charles, I'd go find him an' kill him myself," he swore explosively, pacing the room like an angry tiger. "Jubilee ain't nobody's…" he stopped, unable to say the ugly words. "She's my girl, my wife. Ain't nothin' gonna change that."
"When she wakes up, I suggest you have a talk with her," Xavier said. "She has been most reluctant to tell you about this because she's afraid you won't love her anymore if you find out what happened. Talk to her. Reassure her that you love her, no matter what's happened, and you always will. I tried to tell her, but she really needs to hear it from you." He gave Logan Jubilee's wedding ring.
* * *
Jubilee sighed softly, and opened her eyes. The first thing she saw was Logan sitting in a chair beside her bed, asleep, with his hand gripping hers. She wanted to pull away, knowing that Xavier would have told Logan everything, but as soon as her hand moved, he woke. For a moment, they just looked at each other, Jubilee afraid she was going to hear the words 'I don't love you' and Logan, trying to say what he wanted to say and failing. He'd never been good with words.
"I love you," he said finally, simply, and held his hand out to her. She saw, glittering in his palm, her ring. He took her hand, and gently slipped the ring back on. "Jubilee, will ya marry me?"
She began to laugh a bit hysterically. "Logan, didn't we already do this?" she said.
"Yeah," he said. "I just…I guess…what I'm tryin' ta say is…Jubes, I love ya. Nothin's gonna change that. Yer my wife, now and always. I don't care what happened ta ya before. None of it was yer fault. Never feel like it was. Ya didn't ask fer none o' this. If anything, I'm the one who should feel guilty, 'cause Creed an' I had a long-standin' feud, an' ya jus' got caught in the middle o' it. Will ya fergive me?"
"Of course." Jubilee held out her arms, and Logan wrapped his arms around her. She was so fragile, and so strong. To have suffered everything she did, and still be able to forgive, love and move on…he loved her, and he would hurt anyone who ever dared touch her again.