Chapter 12: Danger Room

"Mornin', Logan."

Logan was sitting at the kitchen table nursing a cup of coffee when Jubilee wandered in, yawning and rubbing her eyes. He grunted an incoherent reply and returned his attention to his coffee cup. Jubilee headed straight for the cupboards, grabbed a cup, poured herself a cup from the coffeepot, and sat down at the table with it.

Much to her surprise, Logan was reading the newspaper. "Didn't know you could focus on fine print this early," she mumbled. "I can't."

Logan raised his eyes over the rim of his cup and looked at her. "Wasn't readin' it as much as lookin' at the pictures," he told her. "An' I was lookin' at the movie listings. That new Resident Evil movie's out today, an' I wanted ta see when it was playin' so I could go an' see it."

"Do we have to?" Jubilee made a face. "Can't we go and see something normal like, oh, Benji or something?"

Logan gave her a surprised look. "Hey, who said I was takin' ya with me? I was plannin' on goin' alone."

Jubilee looked hurt. "You don't want me to come with you? But…I thought…oh…you did say 'I'…sorry…" She was floundering, her face pink with embarrassment, and Logan finally chuckled as he put aside the paper.

"Yeah, I was takin' ya," he said. "Just wanted ta see yer reaction. How come ya get all sniffy about the choice of movie, an' then ya get all upset when I say I ain't takin ya? Ororo did the same thing t'me once. Women!" He shook his head and took a sip of his coffee.

Jubilee, unable to think of a single thing to say, wrinkled her nose and settled for, "Men!"

They sat in companionable silence for some time, talking about the movies they'd seen the previous night. Jubilee admitted she'd had a few half-remembered bad dreams about one movie he'd rented, and he grinned sympathetically. "I'll never watch that again," Jubilee grumbled. "Lay awake for a couple of hours trying to get back to sleep before I finally did."

Logan frowned. "Why'd'n't ya come ta my room? Usually ya do when ya have bad dreams, an' I can make 'em go away."

Jubilee shrugged self-consciously. "I didn't want to wake you up."

Logan narrowed his eyes. "Try another one, Jubes. Ya know I don't mind if it's you."

Jubilee put her coffee cup down. "I've woken you up enough times. I'm a grown girl, I need to take care of my own problems."

"That don't sound like you." Jubilee started to shred a corner of the newspaper. Logan narrowed his eyes further. "Jubes?"

"Emma told Jubes she needed to stop barging in your room and waking you up," said a new female voice. "She said it wasn't right for a young lady to walk into a man's room uninvited."

Warren and Paige walked in, both yawning. Paige was wearing one of Warren's T-shirts and a pair of his boxers; Warren was wearing the same thing. Logan could tell Paige's shirt was Warren's; it had two large cutouts for Warren's wings.

Jubilee looked somewhat miffed. "Paige!" she exclaimed to her friend.

Paige shrugged as Warren brought her a cup of coffee. "What? Logan needed to know why you're going to suddenly act all prim and proper. And it's not like you're the only one Frosty said that to. She said much the same thing to me once. The difference is," Paige turned to Logan, "I ignored her. She got the message."

"It's kinda hard to ignore her," Jubilee mumbled from the depths of her coffee cup. "Especially when she's shouting it into my head at the same time she's shouting it in my face."

"She yelled at you?" Paige looked at Jubilee. "I didn't know she'd gone that far. Take my advice, Jubes. Ignore her. She'll come around to it eventually."

"I most certainly will not!" came an icy voice from the doorway. Emma stood there, clad in (as usual) the skimpiest of white underwear covered by the sheerest white robe she could find. Logan's lip curled instinctively. Emma was one of those women who oozed sexual pheromones with every breath she took; he could smell them but instead of making his body respond, it just irritated him more. "I'd appreciate it if you would not talk about me behind my back!"

Jubilee looked slightly apprehensive, but Paige waved it off. "If you don't want us talking about your orders behind your back, then don't give us orders we can't or won't obey," she said dismissively, picking up one of the pages scattered across the small kitchen table and feigning an interest in the weather in Montana.

"Young lady, I might have made an exception in your case, but certainly not in Jubilee's," Emma said coolly. "Logan is God knows how much older, and it simply isn't right. If I catch you—"

"You'll do what?" Logan rose from his chair, coming to stand in front of Emma. He'd never liked the White Queen, not since the old days when she was their opponent. When Charles had chosen her to run the Massachusetts Academy, he'd expressed his disapproval. And when Jubilee had been stolen away from the Academy by Bastion—and Emma hadn't even noticed—he liked her even less. And Scott had thoroughly disgusted Logan when the X-Men's leader had paired up with Emma after Jean's death. Emma was no Jean. "Ya better not even think 'bout doin' anything t'Jubes, Emma. Or yer gonna have ta settle with me. I don't like ya. Never have, never will. Jubes was gone for a month! A month, an' ya never noticed. Ya didn't look for her or anythin'. If ya wanted ta take an interest in her health, ya shoulda done it then an' maybe saved her a ton o' misery. Not now, when she's finally found a little happiness."

"There were other things going on at the time!" Emma said, her face turning pink. "There was a lot of confusion. The Academy was in shambles, half the students were missing…she should have stayed in the school, with the others, where she was supposed to be—"

Logan exploded. "Don't ya dare try an' blame this on Jubes! She was a kid, you were the adult who was supposed ta watch over her an' keep her safe! Nothin' like this ever happened ta her when I was with her! So who do you think she's safer hangin' around with—"

"STOP IT!" Jubilee stood up so abruptly her chair fell backwards to the floor with a loud crash. "Stop it! Stop talking about me like I'm not here!" She took a deep breath as if t say something else, saw Logan, Emma, Warren, and Paige staring at her, and turned and fled the kitchen by the back stairs. Logan shot an evil look at Emma and started after her, but Paige caught his arm. "Let her go. Let her cool off. She'll talk later when she's ready."

Logan wandered down to the Danger Room later for a workout…and was surprised to see it in use. Wondering a little, he tapped the keypad to let himself inside, and saw Jubilee doing splits on the balance beam. The Danger Room's tactile holograms were set up to simulate a gymnasium for gymnasts, complete with balance beam, uneven bars, large floor mat, and vaulting horse.

She pushed herself up in a handstand and did splits in the air, this time sideways. He winced as his groin muscle twitched. Those looked like they hurt; his toes curled in response to the contortions she was putting herself through.

She knew he was there, but she didn't bother looking up until she was right side up again,. Then she sighed. "I'm sorry I yelled this morning, okay?" She sat down on the beam and fiddled with the little canvas slippers she wore. "I shouldn't have lost my temper like that."

Logan strolled across the 'gym' and hoisted himself onto the beam to sit beside her…and realized it wasn't as easy as it looked when he almost fell off the other side. He steadied himself with his hands, gripping the thing securely, and turned his attention to Jubilee. "I'm sorry too, darlin'," he said gruffly. "I been wantin' ta say that to Frosty for a while, ever since I knew it was her negligence that let Bastion kidnap ya out from under her nose, but I just didn't get the chance to, until today."

"Well, to be fair, Logan, there were a lot of things going on at the Academy at the time," Jubilee said, pulling her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. Logan wondered how she could do that on the beam; he was having trouble just staying on the damn thing.

"Who wants t'be fair?" he grumbled, easing one thigh further up on the narrow piece of equipment. "This is you I'm talkin' about. My pal, my sidekick. My friend. I don't wanna be fair. I wanna go back in time somehow an' keep ya from wanderin' off, get there at the moment Bastion saw ya, an' bust his ass 'fore he ever laid one slimy paw on ya."

Jubilee sighed. "Truth? I wish you could, too. I wish I could forget that whole month. I wish I could forget everything that happened. But I can't. Every time I look at myself in the mirror, I remember all of it. And it makes me sick sometimes. If only I'd gone in a different direction, if only I hadn't gotten separated from the others, if only…but nothing's going to change what did happen, I have to live with it." She dropped her eyes to her toes, wiggled them in the canvas slippers. "And sometimes that's the hardest thing to do. I feel like…I lost something of myself, Logan. Not just my innocence…that I was going to lose anyway, as time went on. But…there used to be a little tiny part of myself, inside, kind of a center of calm inside me that I could draw on when I needed an escape…and I don't have that anymore. I can't find it inside me. Haven't been able to since…everything happened." Her tone was wistful. "That's why I come here. I keep thinking I might find it here, like I used to…but I never do." She sighed. "And anyway, it's good for a workout." She got to her feet and stood easily on her end of the beam.

Logan stared at her feet, placed in front of each other easily on the beam. "Your center of balance looks fine to me," he grumbled. "Don't look like you're having problems."

Jubilee broke out into laughter, suddenly, unexpectedly. "It's not as hard as it looks," she said. "Well, maybe it can be sometimes…but just standing on it isn't difficult." She jumped off and started tugging at his shoelaces. "Come on. I'll show you." Logan protested, but Jubilee pulled off his shoes and socks and pulled him up. "Here. Hold onto my hands."

Logan felt somewhat foolish standing on top of the beam in bare feet, wobbling precariously on it. He wasn't afraid of heights, but the floor did look rather far away from up here. "Jubes, are you sure…" he said.

Jubilee took his hands. "Don't look down," she said. "Just concentrate on putting one foot exactly in front of the other. I realize it's harder for you, your foot's wider than the beam. That's why they don't put guys on the balance beam. Guys get rings, and parallel bars, and pommel horse." She nodded to a pair of rings hanging from the ceiling. Logan couldn't imagine how anyone could do anything with rings hanging from a ceiling…and he wasn't really curious to find out. "Don't look down, and watch where you're putting your feet!"

Too late. He'd already started shifting his weight from one foot to the next, and two of his toes on the supporting foot weren't centered on the beam. With a startled yell, he pitched over the side. His hands tightened on Jubilee's instinctively, and he ended up pulling her over with him. "Logan!" Jubilee shouted in surprise.

He hit the mat flat on his back, and a heavy weight landed on top of him, sending the breath whooshing out of his lungs. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw Jubilee lying on top of him, laughing so hard her shoulders were shaking, and he started to laugh too. She fell over on top of him, shaking with laughter, and he hugged her as he rolled her over. Now he was on top of her.

"Gee, Logan," Jubilee teased as she got her laughter under control. "Someone might walk in here and get the wrong idea." She reached up and pushed a displaced tendril of hair off his forehead.

And as if on cue, the door to the Danger Room swished open, and Logan closed his eyes as he caught the scents of the five people who stood there; Scott, Emma, Bobby, Remy, and Hank. Logan muttered an expletive under his breath as he rolled off Jubilee and gave her a hand up, and they both turned to see the others. There was surprise on Remy and Hank's face, followed by approval; simple surprise on Bobby's, and frank disapproval on Scott and Emma's faces. Before any of them had a chance to say anything, Jubilee called out, 'End simulation,' and the apparatus disappeared. She picked up a towel and her bag, picked up Logan's shoes and socks, and said cheerfully, "We were just finishing. It's all yours." And she shoved Logan's shoes in one hand, took the other in her own, and walked out of the room, tugging him along behind her.

They pushed past the five people in the doorway and headed for the stairs that would take them to the living levels of the mansion. Logan could feel Scott's steely gaze boring into his back all the way to the stairs.