Title: Healing, Part 2
Summary: Logan finally finds out what Creed did to Jubilee.
Warnings: CAUTION VERY GRAPHIC
Rating: R
Setting: After Healing, Part 1
Characters: Logan/Jubilee, guest starring Jean, Ororo, and Charles
Note to Readers: This could also be categorized as NC-17. There is a graphic description of nonconsensual sex. If this offends anyone, please let me know, and I will take it down and relegate it to 'on request only' status. Let me know, please, before you go to the webmaster and report my ratings violation. There's no need to kick me off…I know very well I'm skating on thin ice with this one…both with my readers and with the host site. Again, my apologies if I've offended anyone!-Jae
Healing, Part 2
Logan climbed the stairs slowly to the bedroom, and pushed the door open. "Jubilee?"
She was sitting on the floor exactly where he'd left her an hour ago, still nude, her hair still damp from the bath, which, he was certain, was now cold. He picked up a towel and wrapped it around her shoulders, which were shaking from a combination of sobs and cold. He carried her over to the bed, still rumpled from the night's sleep, and laid her down on it. He slipped off his clothes quickly and got into bed beside her, pulled the blankets up to cover both of them, and just sat there for a while, running his fingers through her damp tangled hair. His body heat finally seeped into her cold skin, and when she stopped crying and shivering, he slid out of bed and grabbed her hairbrush. He stroked it through her hair, patiently untangling the long locks. She finally broke the silence.
"I'm sorry, Logan." Her voice was just barely above a whisper. "Please, please don't leave me. I can't live without you. I won't cut myself again. I'll never mention any of it again, I promise, just don't leave me."
He continued to brush her hair, and pitched his voice low, to calm her. "I ain't goin' nowhere, Jubes. An' I'm sorry fer not listenin' ta ya. I was so angry I couldn't see how much ya needed me ta be there fer ya. An' I didn't try ta let go o' that anger; I just kept hangin' onta it, like the stubborn ass I was. I'm sorry, darlin'." He was silent as he worked a particularly thick tangle out of her hair, and then said, "If you need ta talk, I'm listenin'."
Jubilee dropped her mental shields, and Logan felt her emotions as though they were his own. Pain…oh, dear Lord, so much pain, both mental and emotional, and he didn't wonder, now, why she cut herself. The physical pain she inflicted on herself distracted her from the emotional pain she felt inside. "Jubes," he said, then stopped. He needed to listen rather than talk.
Jubilee played with a loose thread on the bedspread. "I didn't even think," she said. "When Creed broke into Moose's garage, I was frozen. Creed just grabbed Moose and broke his arms as easily as I would break a twig. Then he threw a collar at me and told me to put it on. I hesitated…and Creed smashed Moose's knee. I grabbed it and I put it on. Creed told me later that if I'd really been anxious to avoid him and the pain I knew he could inflict on me, I would have shorted out the collar before I put it on, and then he wouldn't have had a chance to hurt me. But I didn't. I put the collar on, and he threw Moose aside like he was just a …a broken doll… and he was on top of me."
"Creed…Logan, my God, he was…" her voice choked, and Logan put the brush down to hug her tightly. She gulped. "Logan, he was huge. Bastion wasn't that big; you're not that big. It felt like he was ripping me apart. The pain…it was worse than Bastion, taking my virginity." She was silent for a moment, and her voice was steadier when she continued. "I vaguely remember Moose screaming at Creed to leave me alone. He had to lie there, in pain himself, while Creed ripped my clothes off and assaulted me. I was in so much pain I didn't even think about his; I just screamed and screamed and screamed. I passed out, finally, when he…came inside me."
She took a deep shuddering breath, and Logan hugged her tighter. He didn't feel any anger; just sadness, and anguish. "When I woke up, we were in the warehouse. He handcuffed me and hung me from a hook over a ceiling beam, then he picked up a long piece of rope and knotted it several times. Then he ran it between my legs and just sawed it back and forth until I was screaming. It burned, and when he stopped, I saw strips of my skin clinging to the rope, and blood. My blood. It was everywhere. He took another piece of rope and whipped me. It burned me and I was hurting and I couldn't make him stop it, no matter how I screamed and begged he wouldn't stop…I passed out again.
"When I came back around he was sitting on top of a crate, just waiting for me to wake up. When he knew I was awake he started to talk. He told me that if I hated him so much, I would have shorted out the collar. Because I didn't, that meant that I must have wanted this. He told me he thought that I'd gotten a taste of real pain from Bastion, and I must have liked it because here I was begging for more. He told me I didn't deserve to marry you; that if I searched my heart I would know you deserved better than a whore who couldn't keep her legs closed."
Logan hugged her. "Yer not a whore, Jubes," he said hoarsely.
She clenched her fist. "I know. I knew it back then too. But Creed brainwashed me, he made me believe it. He kept calling me a whore, a slut, a tramp, for several days straight. That first night, after he finished hurting me…he wasn't really finished, he just stopped because I lost my voice from screaming. He didn't get as much satisfaction from hurting me when I couldn't scream. So he tied me up with more damn rope and stuffed me in the wooden crate wrapped up in a blanket. Then he sat beside it, whispering to me all the time about what a whore I was." She was silent for a moment. "It was hard, lying there in agony with those ugly words pouring into my ear. After a few days I think I actually began to believe it a little."
A soft sigh. "The fourth day he took me out of the crate and tied me down over it. I was raw and sore, and I would have done almost anything to escape being raped again. He picked up a broken broom handle, and threatened to shove it into my body if I didn't tell him I was a whore. I refused, and he carried out his threat." Her voice dropped again, so low Logan had to strain to hear it. "I screamed. He kept saying, 'Say it, and I'll stop! Say it!' So finally I did. I said it. I screamed it, because I was hurting so badly and I wanted the pain to stop. I was weak. I broke." She gave a soft sob. "He stopped forcing the stick inside me, but he didn't take it out. He got on top of me, and then he…he stuffed himself into my backside and raped me there as I screamed the hateful words and begged him to stop. Oh, God, Logan, I've never felt such pain in my life! He didn't stop until he came, and he slid out of me, and then he grabbed the stick. He twisted it inside me, and a splinter broke off inside me and stayed in there while he ripped the rest of it out. I started bleeding really, really bad. He stopped and put me back in the crate." She was crying now, silent tears of remembered pain, and Logan held her and cried with her.
"When he took me back out the first thing I said was 'I'm a dirty whore and Logan doesn't deserve me.' He just smiled. He handcuffed me and hung me from the hook again, and then he sank his teeth deep into my hip and ripped the flesh right off me. His teeth scraped my bone, and I screamed. I don't remember much after that; I think I went numb. I did what he told me to. I said what he wanted me to say. He told me to beg him to 'screw me in the ass' and I said it. He obliged. For two more days he did that. At the end of that time, I was just a piece of meat, just going through the motions, a robot who couldn't feel or think anymore. I figured my life was over. Even if I somehow managed to survive, I figured that you wouldn't want me. As ugly as I looked now, all bloody and scarred and brutalized, when you could have anyone else out there. They weren't pain-loving sluts. Then I saw you on the bridge, and I figured you would take one look at me and you'd be so repulsed by how I looked you'd walk away and I'd never see you again.
"Then you said you loved me, and I heard the sincerity in your voice. You really did love me, even though Sabretooth had ruined my body. And when you started fighting for me, I knew it was true. You loved me, no matter what had happened, or where I'd been, or who had raped me, or what I looked like now. And when he was on top of you, and he was going to kill you, I snapped out of my numbness, and I knew I had to stop him if it was the last thing I did. So I threw myself at him, and knocked both of us off the bridge. Logan, I saw him reaching for your hand, and I thought he was going to pull you down with us. There was no way I could hang on and save all three of us. So I did the only thing I could think of; I let go." She turned to him, and he saw the desperation in her eyes. "I love you; I wanted to be saved so we could go home together. But I knew I couldn't hang on to that beam to save all of us; we'd all die; of you would drag Creed down with you, and you both would die, leaving me alive. I couldn't bear to see you die; I couldn't watch you disappear from my life forever. There's never been anyone in my heart but you. I may have had crushes, and flings, but I never really loved anyone but you. So to me, my life was expendable; yours wasn't. It took all the will left in me to let go; I was freezing cold, and I was in so much pain I wanted to scream; I wanted to live. But I had to save you. And the only way I could save you was to force my fingers to let go."
Logan crushed her in his arms. "Oh, Jubilee," he whispered into her hair. "And here ya been, holdin' all that in while I was too selfish ta realize that it was my unwillin'ness ta let go o' my anger that was keepin' ya miserable. I'm so sorry, Jubilee. I knew he hurt ya; I think there was a part o' me that didn't really wanna hear 'bout it; maybe I wasn't ready. I don't wonder that ya cut yourself.
"You know, there's a Japanese ritual that a grievin' person performs to ease emotional pain. After Mariko died, I did it. I took the sword she left me and drew it across my back; I had ta let all that pain I was feelin' out. You had so much more…Jubilee, fergive me, please, fer not bein' ready ta listen sooner."
"Forgiven." Jubilee snuggled up against him, but he pushed her back upright. She was about to protest, but he put his finger on her lips and reached over to the dresser, picked up his wedding band and slipped it back on his finger. Her smile made the sun look pale.
He picked up the hairbrush and started brushing again.
* * *
Logan sat in the center of the wooded clearing, the sheathed sword in his lap. He'd gotten up early this morning while Jubilee was still asleep, picked up the sword that he considered his most precious possession, and escaped outdoors. He had some thinking to do.
Chuck had been right. He hadn't fully let go of all the anger and hatred and rage he'd felt toward Creed after Jubilee had 'died'. It had stayed inside him, festering like an opened wound. His burst of verbal rage, while modest compared to anyone else's show of temper, nevertheless worked for him and he'd been able to empty himself, to become a receptacle for Jubilee's pain and misery.
She might have forgiven him, without a murmur, without batting an eyelash, but he couldn't forgive himself for putting her through all these months of anguish. By selfishly holding onto his anger, he'd put off her ability to heal her soul. He'd never once stopped to think that her inability to talk to him was due to his own inability to listen.
He'd never been a religious person, but he felt like he needed to apologize to Someone. He tilted his head back, studied the sunlight filtering down through the green canopy of leaves overhead, and then said softly, "It was my fault. And I am sorry. Jubilee fergave me, but it's gonna be a while 'fore I can fergive myself."
He dropped his gaze to the sword in his lap. He laid a hand on the hilt, drew it in one smooth, fluid motion. It whispered out of its sheath, and sunlight glinted off the finely polished silver blade. Jubilee had bought him a set of sharpening and polishing stones for the sword the last time she was in Japan; he had spent hours cleaning, sharpening, and polishing the sword that was his souvenir of Mariko. He raised the sword over his head with one smooth movement and drew the blade diagonally across his back. The sword's edge was so sharp he didn't feel the slice until it began to bleed.
There was a soft cry from behind him, and then small hands touched the deep cut on his back. He knew who it was before he even turned around; Jubilee. "Thought ya were asleep," he said softly.
Jubilee was crying. "Logan, please don't hurt yourself," she said, her voice catching in her throat. He felt a sting as his healing factor started to fix the cut on his back; irrationally, he suddenly wished his healing factor wouldn't heal this one; he wanted a reminder that his stubbornness had cost the girl he loved so much emotional misery. She came around to face him, and he saw tears on her face. "I forgave you," she said. "Why did you do this?"
"'Cause I'm mournin' someone I loved very much. I'm mournin' the little firecracker I knew before Creed got his claws in ya," he said gently, releasing the sword's hilt to brush away her tears. "I needed to do this, Jubes."
She looked at the sword on his lap, studied the blood that still stained the blade. "It's a lovely sword," she said. Logan didn't even have time to react as she swept it off his lap and drew the blade diagonally across the inside of her left arm. Her blood welled up, and mingled with his on the blade. "I'm mourning for me and for you," she said. "For the girl I was before everything happened; and for you, for the part of you that died when you thought I was dead. I may be here, but the memory can't be erased, and you'll never be the same." She showed him the blade, ignoring the bleeding slash on her arm. "Will this work?"
Surprised that she understood, he nodded. She sat down beside him on the grass. "Jubes, go in," he said. "Ya need ta get that slash looked at."
She shook her head. "I'm not going in until you do," she said firmly.
Logan picked up a square of silk, and used it to wipe the blade off. It was already stained with his own blood. He'd used it to clean his blood off the blade after the last time he'd used it, after Mariko's death. He'd washed it several times, but the stains never came all the way out. Now fresh red stains bloomed over the silk. He wouldn't wash it this time. Jubilee's and his blood were mixed on it, and was therefore now sacred to him. He sheathed the sword and stood up, giving Jubilee a hand up off the grass. "This's the end o' the bloodlettin', then?"
"Yeah," Jubilee gave a crooked smile as she regarded the cut on her arm. "You know, I think I'll have the surgeon leave this scar alone. This is one I want to carry."
Logan studied it with the eye of one who had seen a lot of wounds. "It won't be a bad one," he said. "Be barely noticeable when it fades. The blade's pretty sharp." He wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they began to walk out of the woods.
Jubilee went to the medlab as soon as they got in. Logan went upstairs to store the sword in its box, but before he went back downstairs, he slipped the square of cloth into a small metal box that held mementos of his life. He'd keep it till the day he died.