Chapter 10: Understanding

Logan awoke to the feel of soft lips on his.

At any other time that would have been a hell of a way to wake up, but at just that moment his body decided that breathing was first on its agenda. He started to splutter and cough, hacking up the last of the water in his lungs and throat in an effort to clear them. The water in his sinuses also wasn't helping him identify whoever it was who was performing CPR on him.

Small gentle hands helped him roll over as he hacked and coughed and vomited water, and a gentle voice said, "Geez, Wolvie, give me a heart attack! After all you've been through a little river shouldn't stop you!"

Jubilee.

Logan stopped hacking and turned back around, to see Jubilee, of all people, crouched beside him helping him empty his lungs. Startled, he started to wheeze, and that just started another coughing fit. She held him gently as he emptied his lungs completely, then helped him lie back with his head supported on a pile of wadded cloth.

He studied her carefully as she went about gathering a few sticks that weren't too wet to set alight. She looked like she'd been halfway to hell and back. Her wet hair was plastered to her head, making her blue eyes look even bigger in her pale face. And yes, she was pale. Her lips were colorless. She was wearing only a thin white tank top that was so wet it was practically transparent, and showed the white bra she was wearing quite clearly. Her jeans were wet, soaked and clinging to her legs, and her feet were bare. He winced. The river pebbles might be water-rounded, but they were still plenty hard, and even now he could feel one digging him in the middle of his back. He slid an arm under his back to try and move it…and was confronted by another surprise.

His upper body lay on her yellow duster, now somewhat the worse for wear. His head lay on her t-shirt. And the remains of his own shirt were wrapped around his arm, which he remembered had gotten slashed by Creed in his fight. There were a few bloodstains on the fabric, but not many. He must be on the way to healing, though the slashed muscle still ached.

Jubilee lit the fire with a short burst of colored light, and fed it carefully with bits of dried grass and more twigs until it was crackling merrily. Only then did she turn to him. Before she could say anything, he spoke first. "I thought I told ya ta go home."

Hurt flashed in her eyes that that would be the first thing he would think of, covered quickly by a bright smile that didn't touch her eyes. "Nice to see you too," she said, looking down at the fire. "How are you feeling?"

He ignored that. "I thought I told ya ta go home."

"Oh, for pity's sake, Logan, since when did I ever do anything someone told me to if I didn't feel like it?" she sighed. "You're lucky I didn't go home. You might still be in that river."

Logan looked through the gathering darkness that made Jubilee's fire necessary, and saw, just beyond her, the river. It seemed shallow here, the rocky bottom close to the surface, no more than knee deep now. Very different from the raging white water that he had fallen into upriver. "Where are we?"

"I don't know," Jubilee sounded uncertain. "We were in the water for an awfully long time. I don't know how far downstream we got, and it's too late to go scout things out. Night's falling. I don't know where Creed is, but I'd rather not have to fight him in the dark if I don't have to." She saw his look. "What? If you made it it's a pretty sure bet he did. He wasn't injured like you were; he could have gotten himself out when the water got calmer."

Breathe, damn you, Logan told his lungs sternly, and after a moment the tightness in his chest eased. He still took a few more breaths; his entire chest had tightened when Jubilee said the word 'we'. "'We?'" he asked her. "'We' as in you an' me?"

"Yeah," Jubilee said. "I saw you go in, and I jumped in after you."

Logan stared at her, speechless. She had jumped in after him. So that was Jubilee he'd heard scream his name before he hit the water. She'd jumped in. And from the very fact that she'd caught him meant that she must not have even hesitated. "Jubes…" He was at a loss for words, and finally settled for a simple, "Thank you." It wasn't much, but there wasn't much else he could say after she had made a sacrifice like that. She could easily have been killed in the river; the current was strong, and the riverbed was lined with boulders. He remembered the current throwing him up against one hard enough to knock him out. "Ya shouldn't've."

Jubilee looked at him, and smiled gently. "Silly Wolvie," she said, her hand reaching out to grasp his. "You're the most important person in my life. How could I let you go without trying to get you back? I couldn't lose you, Logan. I'd die if I lost you."

"No you wouldn't," he said gruffly as he studied the tattered remains of his shirt wrapped around his arm, so she wouldn't see the tears that sprang to his eyes at the soft tone of her voice. She was the most important person in his life, too, although she'd never know it. It was part of the reason why he was so determined to keep her from harm. And here she'd gone jumping into it headfirst because he was in trouble. "You'd be okay."

"Yeah. Okay, like I was okay before I met you and the others in Australia." She sighed. "Logan, when are you going to realize that you don't have to wrap me in bubble wrap and get all overprotective on me? I can handle myself. I handled myself just fine after I ran away from my foster parents…and when you were recovering from what the Reavers did to you, I kept you hidden, and all those other little times over the years. And now. I pulled your fat out of the fire this time, Wolvie, and you can't deny that. So stop treating me like I'm a helpless little girl who has to be protected."

Logan stared up into the darkness for a moment, thinking. She was right. She had managed perfectly fine on her own before the X-Men had picked her up. And she'd done just fine over the years for herself both when she was with him, and when she wasn't. She'd escaped from the Hulkster base by herself. He hadn't rescued her from the base, he'd just rescued her from the Sentinel who had been trying to terminate her. She might not have an adamantium skeleton and a healing factor, but she was every bit as strong as he was. She had survived Bastion, too; very few other people he knew could have endured what she had. And the experience, instead of shattering her, had simply tempered her even more, like a sword going through the forge to be shaped.

"Jubilee," he said finally. She turned away from the fire she was tending, and looked at him questioningly. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, sitting up. "I'm sorry fer the way I been treatin' ya. Yer right. Yer not a helpless little girl, an' I'm sorry fer treatin' ya that way."

Jubilee came over to sit beside him, wrapping her arms around him. "It's okay, Wolvie. I know why you've been doing that."

"You do?" He wrapped his arms around her in a hug.

She nodded. "Charles told me. He said that while you'd never tell me yourself, I was the most important person in your life too. I figured that's why you get so overprotective sometimes."

"Yeah," Logan said. "It's just…I care 'bout ya, Jubes, an' the very thought o' losin' ya hurts more'n the fact that I lost Mariko an' Silver Fox. I couldn't bear it, Jubes. All the other people I lost in my life…includin' Jean…losin' ya would be the worst. I missed ya when ya went up t'Massachusetts."

"I missed you too."

They sat in silence for a while, then Logan said quietly to her, "Jubes?"

"Yeah, Wolvie?" she said sleepily.

"It's kinda gettin' cold, an' yer shiverin' a bit. Put yer coat back on, okay? It ain't doin' a lot ta cushion the rocks anyway."

She gave a chuckle as he got up and handed her the coat. She had to get up herself to put it on, and Logan picked up her shirt too. As he did so, he noticed it was torn. He looked for the other half of the shirt…and saw it wrapped around Jubilee's left foot, almost hidden under her pant leg. "Jubes…"

She looked down. "I hit it against a rock underwater and twisted it. It's a little swollen, but it's not bad."

"Oh, Jubes." He pulled her back down beside him, and started working the soaked, wet denim up over her calf so he could unwrap the makeshift bandage. She was right, he decided when he saw it. Nothing a few days of rest wouldn't cure. But it was swollen, and that explained her pallor. "Yer right. It ain't bad." He rewrapped her ankle, and when she made a move to get up, he held her down. "But I want ya ta keep it easy."

She looked at the tattered shirt wrapped around his arm, and started unwrapping it. Underneath the skin and flesh was whole, healed…but it still ached fiercely, and she knew it even if Logan wasn't showing it. "So you take it easy here. At least till it heals up completely."

He grinned at her as he reached for another twig to feed the tiny fire she had made. They sat side by side, in companionable silence for a while, until Logan absently reached for another twig and realized there was none left. "We're outta firewood," he said to her.

She stood up, and he pulled her back down. "Logan," she said in a warning tone.

He shook his head. "This ain't bein' overprotective, Jubes. This is common sense. We're gonna have ta start workin' our way up the river tomorrow an try ta figure out where we are, so ya better give that ankle as much rest as ya can. I got two healthy legs, an' usin these newly healed muscles t'collect wood ain't gonna hurt that much. Ya sit here, an' I'm gonna be back soon."

True to his word, he was back soon. By then, the fire had died completely out, due to the gentle rain that had started to fall, and Jubilee was shivering even harder. Logan moved their campsite back into the treeline, under a pine tree that had fallen against another, providing a small spot of dryness under its drooping boughs to build a fire. He started it properly this time, with pine needles and kindling before adding twigs, and Jubilee set it alight. Then he added more twigs and some slightly larger sticks until it was crackling merrily. "And that's how ya make a fire," he said finally, sitting back on his heels and looking at her. "Remind me sometime t' take ya campin'."

"Mmm-hmm." Jubilee was leaning up against the fallen tree her eyelids heavy with sleep. Logan carefully gathered a bundle of pine needles to make her an impromptu pillow, and she gratefully laid her head down on it. In moments she was asleep.

Logan couldn't sleep, however. Creed might still be out there, somewhere. He sat by the fire for a long time, thinking, watching the forest and watching Jubilee sleep. Finally he dozed too, still tired from the long day. Only to be awakened, in the middle of the night, by…

Logan! Jubilee! A feminine voice called.

He snapped awake, instantly alert. That hadn't been a vocal call, but a telepathic one. He jumped to his feet, looking around. Emma?

Logan! Jubilee! It was definitely Emma's mental voice.

Behind him, Jubilee scrambled to her feet, wincing as the effects of sleeping on the hard ground made itself felt. "Frosty?" she called into the still air. "That you?"

"Jubilee!" And here came Emma, impeccably dressed as usual in white jeans that were spotless, and a long white coat. Logan felt grubby, in his waterlogged, dirty clothing. Damn the woman, how did she manage that? "Logan! What happened?" She stared at both of them, at their disheveled appearances, then shook her head. "Never mind. We'll talk later when you're both back at the mansion."

Logan looked at Jubilee. Jubilee looked at him. Then they both grinned. Jubilee dispersed her 'pillow' as Logan doused their little fire, and they both followed Emma as she found a trail that would take them out of the forest and to the van waiting to take them home.