Chapter 14: Interrupted Discussions

"Logan?"

Logan dropped his sandwich on his plate and turned toward the bed. "Jubilee?"

Her eyes were open, and looking in his direction, although they were still glazed. "I can see you a little," she said. "Kind of a blur right around the side here." She sighed. "Did Hank say how much longer it was going to take for my vision to clear up?"

"No," Logan said heavily. He'd wondered about that, too. "He just said it would happen and you'd make a full recovery."

"Oh." She lapsed into silence. He reached out to her hand, sitting on the edge of the bed, but she drew it away. "You don't need to stay here, Logan."

He looked at her, the hurt on his face coming out in his voice. "Ya don't want me here?"

"I—I do, it's just—you have better things to do than nursemaid a silly girl who can't learn to keep out of trouble."

Logan grabbed her hand, held it tightly. "Jubes. It wasn't yer fault. Ya just happened ta be there in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don't blame yourself."

Tears filled her eyes. "Why is it always me?" she whispered, her voice shaking. "First my parents are killed because of a mistake, then Bastion, and then the Church of Humanity…why me?"

Logan sighed. "I ain't got an answer ta that, Jubes," he said quietly. "But Jubes…yer not always in the wrong place at the wrong time. You was there fer me in Australia. Ya been there for me when Mariko died and when I lost my adamantium. When Apocalypse turned me inta Death you broke me out of it; ya saved me from Mustang back at the Prospero clinic right after I'd plucked ya outta the desert; you were exhausted an' tired an' in pain, an' ya still came to help me. Not a lot o' people woulda done that; in fact, ol' One Eye was all for gettin' the heck out of Dodge. And then only a few days ago ya jumped inta a whitewater river ta save me. Not the first time ya done that, neither, if my ol' memory card reminds me right. So don't down yerself; ya been in all the right places when it counted. Ya always been there for me."

"I guess." But Jubilee still looked a little down.

"Here." Logan picked up the little bag of potato chips he'd brought down for his lunch and pressed them into his hand. "Hank'll probably have a fit 'bout food down here, but ya need ta eat. An' what his eye don't see his mind won't grieve over."

Jubilee fumbled with the packaging, managing after a couple of minutes to tear the bag open and pop one into her mouth. She grinned suddenly. "Barbecue flavored. My favorite." She stared into space for a second. "You know, it's funny, but back there, this was all I could think of?"

"Huh?" Logan frowned.

"I'd look at the horrible stuff they tried to get me to eat back at the Hulkbuster base, and this was the one thing I always wished I had instead."

Logan tried not to tense. It was the first time he'd heard her talk about her time in Bastion's prison, and he just knew there were a lot more stories she could tell about the place that she really needed to get off her chest. "Anythin' else?"

She jerked, startled, and shook her head almost guiltily. "No…I was just thinking aloud. Ignore it. I didn't mean for that to come out. I'm sorry." She picked up another chip, then put it back in the bag and handed it back to Logan. "I'm tired, and I want to rest."

It was a blatant dismissal, and Logan cursed inwardly. She'd finally brought down the wall he'd put up between himself and her; now he had to get through the wall Jubilee had built around herself to shut him out. "Jubes, ya can't keep on skippin' over the issue. Sooner or later yer gonna have ta face what happened. You know you can talk ta me."

The words hit her like a physical blow. He almost saw her flinch. "I'm fine," she said, turning over to stare at the wall and avoiding his glance. "I don't need to talk."

"I think you do." Logan said.

"I don't!" Jubilee flung back. "Logan, will you go? I'm tired." She closed her eyes and refused to look back at him. Unable to think of anything to say, he picked up his plate and left.

Annie was standing just outside. Logan was about to say something when she placed a finger over her lips and led him down the hall into Hank's office, and pointed to a chair. "Sit." He sat.

Annie sat down in a chair opposite him. "I'm not going to pretend to be a psychologist," she said, "But Jubilee has something she's been carrying around for a long time, and she needs to get it off her chest. I've tried talking to her about it, Hank's tried talking to her, but she won't open up.

"From what Hank's said she refused to allow him to examine her after she returned from the Hulkbuster base. In fact, she left soon afterward, and if she ever went to see a doctor there's no mention of it. A lot of it is moot now; after she received the transfusion of Warren's blood back during that Church of Humanity debacle most of the badly healed damage fixed itself. However, I did save the scans of her body I took before Warren's blood brought her back and fixed her, and Hank and I looked at the comparisons later. I can't show them to you, doctor-patient confidentiality—"

Logan nodded.

"—but I can tell you that there was a lot of improperly healed tissue in her body. Hank was up most of last night trying to figure what could have been done to her to cause the injuries we saw, and kept coming up blank. So did I. But it was extensive, and traumatic, and painful, and I really think she needs to talk about it. Even if you have to pin her down and make her talk. Hank said she comes to him sometimes for pills that will help her sleep. Not often enough for him to think she might become addicted to them, but often enough that he's a little concerned. The brain needs to dream, it's cathartic. But Jubilee's so afraid of her dreams she's taking pills to avoid having them. And it's not healthy, it's putting a lot of stress on her mind, and coming on top of everything else that's happened to her during her short life, I'm worried that she might snap. Anything you can do to get her talking would be a huge help to her."

"Mommy?" came a small voice by the door.

"I'm coming, Carter," Annie stood up. Before she left, though, she turned to Logan. "Think about it, Logan." He was thinking hard as he left the medlabs.

A few days later...

"Hey, Jubes?"

Jubilee looked up from the book she was reading. "Hi, Wolvie."

He motioned to the book. "Hey, should ya be reading with yer eyes still healin'?"

Jubilee sighed. "Hank says as long as I don't overdo it, I'm okay. But there aren't a lot of other things I can do, all of them require the full use of my eyes, and I only have minimal vision right now." She closed the book with a bang. "I have trouble just taking the stairs. My depth perception is all messed up." She sounded annoyed.

"Well, is sittin' an' talkin' on Hank's list o' no-no's?"

Jubilee actually laughed at that. "No, why? What did you want to ask me about?"

"When ya woke up in the medlabs after the fight, ya mentioned somethin' bout bein' afraid o' needles. An' Annie tried ta give ya somethin' ta help ya sleep an ya couldn't even let her do that."

"I just don't like needles." Jubilee drew her knees to her chest and hunched over them, staring at her toes.

"I don't like 'em either, none o' us do, but nobody has the kind of reaction like you did. Ya said when ya were disoriented, that Bastion used needles on ya. What did he do ta make ya so scared of them, darlin'?"

"I don't want to talk about it, Logan." Her tone was quiet, and serious. "And you don't want to know."

Now he really did want to know. "Yeah I do, Jubes."

She shook her head emphatically. "No, you don't. No one does." She began to rock back and forth, still hugging her knees. "No one wanted to talk about it, talk to me, after I came back, not even Jean. And she had said I could always talk to her about anything." There was so much bitterness in her voice Logan wanted to scream and pound something. Annie was right. Jubilee needed to talk about what was on her mind. He could hear the shakiness of her voice; if she got close enough to the edge…would she snap? He had, after his adamantium had been stolen from him. The pain, that sense of violation, had driven him into a feral, bestial state that had taken a long time for him to work his way out of. Jubilee had been with him then. She'd sat so many times, close but not touching him, talking about everything and nothing, giving him her words, her voice, her presence to hang on to as he tried to heal his shattered mind. And he had accomplished it, finally.

Did he want to see Jubilee like that? Her mind broken, driven mad by the weight of the remembered pain until there was nothing of her left? He knew he didn't. It would kill him to see her lost in her own mind. "Jubilee. I love ya. Ya can talk ta me 'bout anything. An' I do mean anything."

Jubilee looked up at him, her blue eyes meeting his in a penetrating gaze that seemed to see into his soul. He met the gaze unflinchingly. She opened her mouth to say something.

A flying body hurtled through the open window of the library, tearing through thin metal-mesh screens and shattering glass. Jubilee screamed and shrank back against the back of her chair, her still-blurry vision leaving her vulnerable to attack if one should come. Logan lunged forward, wrapping her in his arms as he plucked her up bodily and carried her to the floor behind the chair. After a moment, he poked his head up over the plush back.

Warren lay on the floor, groaning. Logan heard another whoosh of displaced air, and he saw, through the broken window, Rogue and Ororo hovering. "Warren? You okay?" Rogue called. Then she saw Logan. "Logan, sugah, whatevah are yah doing back there?"

"Where's the emergency?" Logan growled.

"Oh, we were just playing, and it got out of hand," Rogue said airily.

The door to the library burst open, and Bobby ran in. "Warren, hey, you okay?"

"I have a healing factor, Bobby, of course I'm okay!" Warren picked himself up and dusted his clothes off. "What I really want to know is," he held up the ball they'd been playing air football with and tucked it under his arm, "What are we going to tell Charles about this?"

There was silence, and then everybody started talking at once. Logan shook his head and turned to look down at Jubilee, only to find she was no longer there. He had no idea where she'd gone.

He cursed to himself. Damn Warren. He'd been just about to get inside Jubilee's walls, and now she'd probably put them up again. Another missed opportunity. Grimly he got up and started to head off toward her room, which was where he was certain she would be…and then detoured and headed for Xavier's office.

The door was open, and Xavier was sitting at his desk, holding a triangular crystal prism and looking at the rainbows thrown off its surface onto his desk. He looked up at Logan's tap, and raised an eyebrow. "If it's about the broken window in the library, I already know about it—" he began.

"Naw, it ain't that." Logan waved a dismissive hand. "I wanted to ask you something."

Xavier waited expectantly, one eyebrow still raised.

Logan took a deep breath. "I want ta take a short leave o' absence—"

Xavier dropped the eyebrow. "You've never needed my permission to take care of your own affairs, Logan," he said carefully. "Why ask now?"

"—and I want to take Jubes with me. After she's healed up some more, o' course."

There was silence for a time. Xavier swiveled his desk chair around, holding the prism up to the late-afternoon light, watching the rainbows dance on the walls. "Such a simple thing," he said finally. "A simple clear faceted crystal. Not much to look at initially…and then light shines through it, and it comes alive with a rainbow of colors." He turned his chair around, putting himself between the prism and the light. The rainbows disappeared. "But you take the light away, and it becomes a simple crystal again, a soulless shell."

Logan blinked. He couldn't understand the sudden shift in topic…but Chuck never said something like this without a reason. "Yeah," he finally ventured carefully.

Xavier looked down at the prism again. "Jubilee reminds me of this prism. What she's gone through over the years since she came with us…there have been times when I wondered if she would have been spared a great deal of heartache and anguish if we hadn't taken her in. The light of her soul shines through the prism of her body, and we see rainbows." He put the prism down carefully. "But since she came back from the Hulkster base, that light seemed to have dimmed. And then after we found her…crucified…" his voice trailed off, and he shook his head as if to clear the sight from his mind.

"The light dimmed even more. Now all I see is a crystal. Beautiful, possessing a depth and purity all its own; but bereft of the light that used to shine through it. This last incident, the one with Sabretooth…I replaced Ororo one night after you'd gone to sleep, and spoke to her when she woke briefly. I can't see the light inside her anymore, Logan. And that disturbs me deeply. She's so emotionally fragile right now, she could break under the slightest pressure."

Logan opened his mouth to say something, but Xavier held up a hand for silence. "Please, Logan, don't say anything. Jean was going to speak to Jubilee about it right before…before. And then she never got a chance to. If you think getting Jubilee out of the mansion for some quiet time away from any distractions, so you can find out what's bothering her, then by all means, do so."