Disclaimer: I don't own it. You don't sue

Title: The Butterfly Room

A/N: I don't know what to say about this chapter other than the fact that it is living proof that any talent I ever had for writing angst went out the window back in April.

Quote: "The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly."-Richard Bach

Chapter Three: Metamorphosis

X

A week after the light burning out incident (In the end Roberto found me a flashlight so I sucked it up and went up to my room) I was completely miserable. I hadn't slept because I was too busy playing matchmaker Jubilee and when I did sleep I kept having awful nightmares about dark hallways. My math grade was starting to slip again because I was too tired to concentrate. And to top it all off cheerleading sucked.

The cheers were a complete joke. We would all just stand there and scream our lungs out and occasionally the coach would be like "do a back flip Jubes". I could do back flips all I wanted in the comfort of my own home. And of course Tammy the blond, very padded senior had it in for me. She would always trying to trip me and stuff like that. But I couldn't quit because I'd gone through so much trouble to get on the team.

So that night I decided that I was going to sleep. I didn't care about Rahne or Roberto or Bobby. I needed the rest. I'd almost collapsed during cheer practice and as stated above that's probably the opposite of strenuous. Unfortunately for me I couldn't sleep. Yes, I was exhausted but I just couldn't fall asleep. I mean go figure, I finally have the chance to sleep and I can't. Life really is unfair.

Finally I gave up and made my way down the stairs. As usual there was 'Berto sitting on the chair staring aimlessly at his reflection in the window. I collapsed on the couch and shut my eyes. I was so tired.

"Hi, Jubilee. I didn't think you were coming down tonight," he said in a happy to see you sort of way. How the hell was he always so wide-awake?

"Well I'm here," I mumbled not opening my eyes.

"If you're that tired why don't you just go to bed?"

"I can't sleep!" I cried sitting up. "I'm this close to falling over dead and I can't sleep!"

"I'm sorry," he said and turned back to the window. I sat there for a couple of seconds before I decided that I just needed to finish this.

"Roberto?"

"Huh?" He asked turning to face me. I swallowed.

"You like Rahne don't you?" I said. There it was out.

"Um..." he mumbled.

"You know all you have to do is ask her out. She'll say yes."

"I don't know..."

"Come on don't you want a girlfriend?" I persisted.

"I had one..."

"Yeah I know. Back in Brazil," I said. "You already told me. But you broke up."

"Well sort of."

"You sort of broke up?" I asked.

"Yeah."

"Do you still write each other?"

"No."

"Well then how are you sort of dating if you aren't even in contact?" I was really starting to get confused; actually I was already really confused it was just getting worse.

"I didn't say we were sort of dating," he snapped in his true hotheaded manner. I completely ignored his snappiness (doesn't that word kind of make you think of like a crab or a snapping turtle? I know that it's completely off the subject, so uh yeah) I really just wanted to be able to sleep again.

"But you said you sorta broke-up which means that you're sorta dating. Right?"

"No!" he sounded really annoyed with me. "Just stop talking about it, ok!" I frowned for a minute but there was no way I was giving up that easily.

"Why? I'm really confused now. Couldn't you just tell me her named," I begged trying my hardest to make Kittyesque puppy dog eyes.

"No."

I thought for a minute. I needed a new approach.

"But come on we're friends, friends tell each other things."

"You've never told me anything," he said flatly. True I hadn't

"Ok then ask away."

Roberto looked at me for a minute with a look of complete confusion.

"Ask what?"

I rolled my eyes.

"Anything you want," I said. "Because we're friends and thus we can tell each other stuff." I was really starting to feel pathetic I mean how lame does 'we're friends and so we tell each other secrets and blah, blah, blah' sound? But it didn't matter I was going to get Rahne and Roberto together if it was thing I did!

Roberto paused for a moment deep in thought before asking what I considered, at the time, to be a really stupid question. "What's up with you and Bobby?" I stared at him for a few seconds. What a waste of a question. I mean I said ask anything all he can think of is that.

"Nothing. What kind of a question is that?"

"You're lying," he told me matter-of-factly.

"No I'm not," I said. "There's nothing going on. Ask me a better question." Roberto shook his head

"I don't have one," Roberto said sliding down in his chair.

"Then answer mine."

"Fine," Roberto sighed. "Her name was Juliana. That's all there is to tell. Not very exciting." He shut his eyes.

"Then why were you so uptight about telling me?" I was thinking hard. There was definitely something going on that Roberto wasn't telling me. There obviously had to be something exciting about Juliana.

"No reason."

"You're not telling me everything," I said trying to look him straight in the eye, like Debbie Andrews does on the local news channel. She always gets everything out of everybody, I've always been really jealous of her for that. But unfortunately I couldn't look him in the eye because it was closed (well actually they both were, but never mind).

"Did you eat all the cookies?" he asked without opening his eyes.

"What?"

"Did you eat all the cookies? It's a question," Roberto explained.

"Yes," he opened his eyes. "But I didn't mean to!" I added quickly.

"Yeah I'm sure," he smirked. Something about his expression wasn't quite right but I couldn't place it.

"It's true. Now spill."

"No, I don't want to talk about Juliana anymore." I was close to screaming. There was no way I could convince him to move on if I didn't have the complete back-story.

"Look, you can ask anything," I pleaded.

"Why do you care so much," Roberto asked sitting up straight

"I just do. Ok!" I half screamed. He looked surprised. I realized that maybe this was starting to go a little overboard. I mean screw Bobby and definitely screw Amara. I was sick of playing Matchmaker Jubilee. But I'd promised, and I couldn't go back on it.

"Really?" he asked his voice was soft, he looked scared. Not like afraid of the dark scared. This was something else. I nodded. There was a long pause. If I didn't know better I would've say that Roberto was almost crying. But he never cried.

"I can't..." his voice trailed off.

"Then don't," I said flatly. I was admitting defeat. There was nothing I could do he was way too hung up. There was silence. "Good-night." I got up and started to make my way towards the stairs. I was almost there. I was almost there when I heard Roberto's voice.

"She's dead," he said in almost a whisper. I froze in place. I'd misheard. That had to be it. There was no way that he'd said "dead"; maybe it was "in bed" or possibly "red" or even " a head" but not "dead".

"What?" I asked.

"Juliana is dead," he said very quietly but the words screamed at me. I felt my stomach flip upside-down. My head hurt, and all I could think was 'Jesus Christ Jubilee what have you done?' over and over again.

"I'm so sorry," I managed to choke out. I don't think he even heard me.

"I killed her," he said softly. It took him a second to realize what he said before he shouted out, "I KILLED JULIANA!" It was a wonder that nobody woke up.

"What are you talking about?" I asked cautiously, afraid that Roberto was a murderer.

"I didn't mean for it to happen, I should have died. But I didn't, I didn't. Jubilee, it's all my fault." I couldn't believe it, Roberto was crying.

"No, I sure it's not," I felt awkward trying to comfort him from across the room, (well actually I just felt awkward period) but I was afraid to go sit with him. He definitely wasn't the touchy feely type.

"It was! The man shot at me! I was at a football game and I got in a fight with a boy on the other team. The sun was behind a cloud, but then the cloud moved and my powers they...they...manifested," he said the word as if it were some sort of curse. "I punched the boy halfway across the field, and I was in my sun form. Everyone was running away but Julie. She ran down to the field. I was back to normal but it was too late I was a monster, and everyone knew!"

"No, you-" but I was cut off. Roberto was flying through story afraid that if he stopped he'd never be able to finish.

"She'd almost gotten to me when someone pulled out a gun. I didn't see it but she must have because she started running really fast, and then...and then she jumped out in front of me and the bullet hit her in the head. She never even felt it."

"Well I guess-" but I was cut off again.

"Then I was completely powered up and flew over to the guy with the gun...and I...well I killed him and then everybody ran away. And I just sat there until Xavier came. Just me and three dead people." There was a long pause before I finally spoke.

"Three people?" That was it. After that whole long God dammed story all I could think of to say was 'three people'.

"I killed the kid I got in a fight with. Punched him too hard. Completely crushed his skull..." his voice trailed off and Roberto collapsed, his head in his hands, sobbing. 'You are a horrible person Jubilee, people like you don't deserve to live, you are a horrible person Jubilee, horrible, horrible, horrible'.

Finally I couldn't stand it anymore I walked over to Roberto's chair. I sat down on the arm of it.

"It's ok," I said. My own voice was shaking. I wanted to cry but I couldn't. "It's ok. It's not your fault, you couldn't have stopped it." As I was saying these words I could remember a counselor saying them to me. "It's not your fault."

The only answer I got was sobs. I think that had been my answer too.

"It wasn't your fault," that seemed to be the extent of my vocabulary at that moment. I couldn't think of what to do so I hugged him. At first he tried to resist but after a few seconds his head collapsed onto my shoulder and cried.

"Why did she do something so stupid?" Roberto finally asked. I wanted to say, 'because she loved you'. But all that came out was:

"It wasn't your fault."

X

Not that long afterwards Roberto sat up. He wasn't crying anymore. Actually if his face hadn't been red you never would have known that anything had happened.

"I'm going to bed. You should too. There's school tomorrow," he said as if school was the most important thing in the world right now. "Good-night." I watched him walk up the stairs. He never turned back to look at me. He just walked off.

I sat still for a few seconds before deciding that I should probably go to bed.

So slowly I got up and made my way up the stairs. The light was on in the hall this time so I made my way down it to my room. Last door on the left. I snuck in so that I wouldn't wake up Amara. I collapsed on to my bed and that's when it finally got to me.

I sobbed into my pillow. I cried for Juliana, and the soccer boy, and even the guy with the gun, and for 'Berto, but most of all for myself. Because this was the sort of thing that I'd tried to forget could ever happen

X

Sorry for the wait on this chapter. By the way if you like Jubby check out my one-shot "Dare" and please, please, please review ;)

A-Rog: Yeah I totally understand about having writers block.

Pixie Sticks Addict: Well not all cheerleaders a perky and peppy I now a few cheerleaders who are the opposite (oh wait they quit never mind). I didn't mean Evo Rahne's personality I just meant Rahne in general but she really should have gotten more screen time. Tangled up in Blue? Update? Heh...I'm getting there...really.

FrickinEvilPoptart: Wow. My head was exactly a size and a half bigger than it was before I read your review. Hopefully this chapter won't kill your love and admiration for my fic (tries not to laugh). I'm actually ok at accents (French and Southern are my best). Evo Rahne's accent is weird beyond belief. I don't know what the hell it is but definitely not Scottish :)

Yingyang-fairy: Thank you greatly.

IcyLeo: There is way to few Jubby but I'm still a bit worried about my worshiping of it. No, I'm not a member of the Romy cult (thank God) but I do like to read and write it on occasion.

Style: I'm happy you were able to review this chapter (I always miss reviewers when they go off and abandon me). And don't worry I will finish this fic if it's the last thing I do. The Jubby aspect will show up soon. Promise

ayka: No, but while I was writing this chapter in particular I thought that it kind of sounded like it.