Chapter 19: The Church Of Humanity
He woke first the next morning, muscles aching from sleeping on a none-too-comfortable couch. A quick glance into the bedroom showed she was still sleeping, soundly, with a small smile on her face. He brewed a pot of coffee and sipped one cup slowly as he thought about something that had caught his attention the day before.
She was twenty-three. How was it possible that she was still discovering things she could do with her power, things she didn't even know she could do before? He'd noticed her control was a bit better; the way she had paffed the biker holding him back there on the road before she'd almost been hit by the car. And now that he thought about it, there were little things…mostly her inability to keep Sabretooth from hurting her during their fight before he'd gotten there. He could think of any number of ways Jubilee could have done Creed in before he came…or at least kept him off her. That fight had been too fast, and she'd paid too high a price for it, in her concussion, and the gashes on her scalp.
With a growl he rose from the chair and stomped outside. The only thing he could think of was that, while she'd been going to the Massachusetts Academy, she hadn't learned much. Oh, plenty of book learning, but her time there hadn't adequately prepared her to do battle as a full-fledged member of the team. "What the flamin' hell did they do over there all the time?" He slammed his fist into the trunk of a nearby tree, angry at the ineptitude of the White Queen. When he pulled his hand away, he realized he'd left marks in the trunk.
He blew out a long, calming breath. Getting angry wasn't going to help anything. Planting his feet apart, he stretched his body out in the long, smooth, flowing gestures of the familiar Japanese kata. Concentrating on stretching and relaxing those muscles, he allowed the peace and quiet and familiar movement calm his mind.
The wind shifted, and brought to him a familiar scent. He turned fluidly to face the girl who was standing behind him, half-hidden in the treeline, and said cheerfully. "Come on out, Jubes."
She came out. "Were you watching me?" he asked, pausing in his exercises.
She nodded. "I always like watching you when you're doing kata," she said, smiling a little. "It's so beautiful, so graceful. I wish I could move like that."
Logan swallowed as the answer to his dilemma popped into his head. He'd have to correct Emma's oversight by training her himself. It wouldn't be a hardship, it would give him an excuse to spend time with her, and most importantly he would be able to teach her how to take care of herself in a battle. If she insisted on hanging around him, getting into the kind of trouble he did, then she might as well learn to fight like he did, too. It would give her an edge; no one would expect this tiny little Chinese girl to give them a real fight.
"Come on over here," he said, moving back as she came to stand on the patch of grass he'd recently occupied. "Now spread your legs a little. No, wider." Good thing she was about the same height as he was; the imprints of his feet in the dew-damp grass gave her an idea how far apart he meant, and the distance was one that was compatible with her frame. "Now, arms out, like this." He demonstrated a few moves, slowly, watching as she tried to duplicate it. She tried it the first time, tentatively, cautiously, then a little faster and more confidently the second time around.
He terminated the session when they were both fully stretched out and she was a little breathless, and he followed her back up to the cabin where she started fixing breakfast. "Hey, Jubes," he said, watching her crack eggs and fry them up in a battered old skillet.
"Yeah?" she answered, cutting up pepper jack cheese and tossing the cubes into the skillet for an egg and cheese omelette.
"Somethin's been botherin' me since yesterday," he said. "When ya said you'd never tried paffin' underwater before. Jubes, by now you ought ta know exactly what ya can or can't do, ya ought ta know yer limits. How come ya don't?"
Jubilee didn't answer until she'd dumped the mess of eggs onto a plate and dropped another pat of butter in the skillet for her own share. Then she brought the plate over and set it in front of him. "I don't know, I guess…I never really explored what I could or couldn't do before," she said, sounding slightly embarrassed.
"But that was what ya went ta the Massachusetts Academy for," Logan protested, stabbing t the eggs with a fork. "So ya could find out what ya could do with yer powers, what ya couldn't do, an' train ya fer the responsibility o' bein' a full-fledged team member."
Jubilee again avoided saying anything for a long time, though Logan got the distinct impression she was trying to figure out what to say rather than concentrating on not burning her breakfast. Finally, though, she sighed and sat down with her own plate and a fork. "Not to get Frosty in trouble or anything," she said musingly, "But we really did a lot more book learning than anything else. I mean, we had the biosphere to 'fool around in', as Sean called it once, but a lot of the things I learned in theory, on paper, never really got practiced in the biosphere. Emma was always saying, 'don't do that', or 'don't do this'. It annoyed me. I don't like her, Logan, I never have. And between all the crap that happened there, and the stuff that happened while I was gone, there wasn't really a lot of opportunities to practice." She saw his expression. "Well, Emma was always getting called away on her business, and Sean really kind of took a backseat and let her do what she wanted. And they didn't want us to try practicing stuff on our own, because if we did we might get hurt and she didn't want that." She hunched her shoulders in an unconsciously apologetic gesture.
Logan stared into his eggs. When they got back, he wanted to have a long, private talk with a certain former headmistress…It wasn't till Jubilee made a little sound of disappointment and he looked up that he realized he'd been growling. "Ya shoulda been learnin'," he growled angrily. "Not gettin' kidnapped and imprisoned and tortured…ya shoulda known how ta handle yerself when Creed jumped ya, ya wouldn't'a gotten a concussion an' all them scars on the back o' yer head like ya did…"
Jubilee shrank into herself, seeming suddenly younger than she really was. "I'm sorry, Logan," she whispered miserably. "I'm sorry." Then she got up out of the chair, running out the door.
"Aw, hell," Logan said angrily to himself as he smelled, faintly, her salty tears. "Ya gone an' made the girl cry, dumbass." He got up and followed her outside.
She was sitting against the tree they'd eaten dinner under the night before, her shoulders shaking silently. At his approach, she turned and tried not to look like she was crying. He sighed heavily, sat down behind her, wrapped his arms around her shoulders, and rocked her gently until she stopped shaking. "I ain't angry with ya, darlin'," he said. "It's just…well, ya never really learned how ta use what ya got. If you'd been better trained, better taught, Bastion might not have caught ya off guard. He'd never have had a chance ta hurt ya."
Jubilee wiped her face. "In retrospect, Wolvie, I don't think anything would have really made a difference then. There was so much crazy stuff going on…and I was only fourteen, Logan. I hadn't even reached my full growth yet." She sniffed. "It would, however, have made a difference when Ange and I got captured by the Church of Humanity. Logan…they tortured us. When we woke up in their basement they were waiting for us. I tried to paff them…Ange tried to use his skin…but I was too damn scared out of my mind at finding myself captured again in a small dark room with people…men…standing over me…I couldn't get any kind of defense together. They dropped a heavy crossbeam of wood on the floor and held me down as they nailed my wrists to the wood. I screamed…oh, God, Logan…"
Her breath caught in a sob. "It hurt…the iron just smashed through the bones in my wrist, and I couldn't do anything after that but scream. It hurt…so much…I couldn't fight after that. They left me lying there for a long time, and then they dragged me out in front of a whole church full of people. There were wooden supports there, little v's with notches at their tops, and they hauled the edges of the beam I was nailed to up on top of those supports until my feet just barely touched the ground. And then they tortured me. You know that energy whip Senyaka had? They used something like that, except it barely left a mark. It was electrified, somehow, and every time it landed on my skin I screamed. It only left light marks on my skin, but it hurt like hell. And all the time, there was that leader, saying it was what God wanted, that our kind were tainted by the devil and we had to be purged of the devil's taint. I'd pass out, and they would take me down…and then they'd do it all over again when I woke up. They gave me just enough water and food to keep me alive for their next little demonstration."
Logan closed his eyes. He could still remember his own crucifixion by the Reavers. He'd been a full-grown man then; how much worse could it have been, then, for a seventeen-year-old girl? And he hadn't been on it for long; he'd gotten himself off, and Jubilee had helped him escape. But there had been no escape for her, she'd been nailed to the wooden beam for…how long? Days, at least. Weeks, maybe. Even Jubilee wasn't sure, when they'd asked her about it, how long she'd been there. And while she was nailed to it she had been whipped, tortured…to death, it seemed, from her next words.
"…I don't even know when they stopped giving us food and water. I have only a vague recollection of a bag being pulled over my head, and when they took the bag off I was staring at the vertical pieces planted in the ground. They hauled the crosspiece up to the place on the vertical posts, and nailed them down, and then they started nailing my feet. I was so out of it by then I couldn't even scream. My throat hurt, my mouth was dry, I hadn't had anything to drink or eat in so long my vision was blurry and I was weak…and I couldn't make a sound. I saw the mansion…and help was so close…and I couldn't call for help…I couldn't make anyone hear me…and then I woke up in the medlabs, and Ange was…gone…and it was my fault, I had more experience, I should have been able to keep him safe...should have found some way to call for help..." Her voice trailed off in a sob.
Logan hugged her as she started shaking again, as her shoulders shook with the force of her anguish. She'd never really talked to anyone about Bastion; she'd never talked to anyone about the Church of Humanity. She'd never talked about her death and resurrection. "Jubes," his whisper was low, anguished. "Why didn't ya…why didn't ya talk about it? Jean woulda let ya cry on her shoulder; hell, anyone would, once they heard what ya went through. Why'd ya carry all this around fer so long?" All the agony and anguish and terror, bottled up inside…it was a wonder she'd only had nightmares, and she hadn't gone mad.
"Because nobody acted like they cared," she whispered, her throat closed with sobs. "I tried…but there was always something happening, and you were busy…and I tried to talk about it to Frosty, I was that desperate…but she was so emotionally cold, nothing she tried to say sounded sincere, and I ended up telling her very little. I just…tried to bury it all, forget about it, and go on." She tried to push him away, to sit up and dash her tears away.
"No," Logan said to her firmly. "Yer gonna stop holdin' it all in. Let it all out. An' after yer all empty an' ya can move on, I'm gonna start trainin' ya in how ta use yer powers. We're gonna find out how strong ya are, what ya can do, where yer limits are, an' when we're all done, yer gonna be able ta kick ass with the best of us. Got me?"
She turned to him, smiling a little through her tears. "Kick ass like you?" she said, a smile peeking through her tears.
He grinned at her. "Yeah. Like me." He hugged her for a moment more, until she stopped shaking altogether, and pulled her up to a standing position, hugging her as he did. "Come on. Yer breakfast…an' mine, is getting' cold." As they walked back to the cabin, Logan's mind went to work. Finish the addition, today if possible, then the bed should be coming the day after. They'd stay the day just so Jubilee could sleep on the bed she'd picked out for herself, and enjoy a last bit of quiet…and then they'd head for the mansion and her training would begin. He wasn't going to take it easy on her either; she'd had enough of that with Emma and the others coddling her. She needed to get in shape and be able to fight.
She'd hate him by the time it was all over; but she'd thank him the first time she had to fight and she realized how all that training had paid off.