Second Chances

Chapter 6

Jubilee's physical therapy started again the fourth day after surgery. Initially, all she did was stretching exercises and cell regeneration. Hank didn't want to start electro stim until the incision was a little further along in the healing process. At first, just straightening and bending her knee was agony but as she healed and the muscle became used to the exercise, it became more comfortable to work it. The big insult was that she wasn't able to use the crutches due to the fractured collar bone so she forced to rely on Logan to push her in a wheelchair.

Physical therapy was going well and she was beginning to feel more comfortable doing the exercises. Logan was a different matter entirely. He continued his slow seduction, adding a new element every day. It always started with a kiss that made her feel as if she were sitting on a wild roller coaster and progressed from there. The day he finally touched her breasts, she thought she was going to loose it.

She had been unable to wear a bra because the strap would lie across her sore collar bone so his touch was electrifying. The next day, he gave her nipple a tweak and roll. She nearly came right then. By the second week, he had her shirt open and was nuzzling and licking her breasts. Every time he did this, she would beg him not to stop, but he would rock back on his heals and say, "Not yet darlin'. When yer healthy." Then he would leap to his feet and leave her.

Her temper became very short. She knew she was loosing her mind when she whacked Bobby over the head with a wooden spoon for eating a bowl of her cereal one morning.

"Hey," he yelled, rubbing the growing lump on the back of his head. "What was that for?"

"For being a man," she snarled and limped out of the kitchen, giving Logan an evil look as she passed him in the hall.

"What did you do to her?" Bobby demanded as Logan poured himself a cup of coffee.

"Shut the fuck up," Logan growled, his mood equally as bad.

"Goddammit, Logan. Can't you do anything right? They're supposed to feel better after you make love to them, not worse."

'Snickt.'

Fearing for his life, Bobby jumped out of his chair and ran from the kitchen.

Remy dodged the fleeing Ice Man as he barreled through the door and poked his head in to see why Bobby was so scared. He found a furious Wolverine leaning against the counter, trying to cool his temper.

"You okay, mon ami?" he asked, not daring to come in just yet.

"Call the cleanin' service," Logan snarled. "They're gonna need ta clean Drake's blood outta the carpet."

"Gambit hear what he said," Remy said and he slowly entered the room. "Ya haven't touched de petite have you?"

"I'm takin' it slow," he growled.

"Dere's slow," Remy said. "and dere's slow. Yer goin' so slow dat yer goin' backwards. De poor femme is goin' crazy, homme. Give her what she wants. Ya don't wake up a femme like de petite and not finish it. Don' let her find someone ta finish what ya won'."

"She ain't healed enough."

"Mebe not fer de Wolverine but Gambit bet Logan t'ink she's healed enough, neh?"

He couldn't answer that. The part of him that was a man knew that if he were gentle, he could make love to her and not hurt her. The animal part of him, however, knew that she wasn't healthy enough to mate. He debated which part to listen to; the man or the instincts. Gambit made up his mind for him.

A small foil wrapped package flashed before him held between two long fingers.

"Quit playin' wit' her," Gambit told him softly. "Make love ta de femme before she kills someone."

In the end, he waited another week. The strap was removed from her injured arm and she was allowed to begin exercising it along with the leg. Part of the exercises involved using the arm and hand to explore his body. He began to understand why Jubilee was in such a bad mood all the time. He decided to move the sessions to his room.

He didn't plan on making love to her that afternoon but the little minx got aggressive. His intention was to give her an orgasm so she would feel a little less tense, and to introduce oral sex to the mix. A final sweep of his tongue and she was shaking in the aftermath of a tremendous orgasm. She must have decided turnabout was fair play because the next thing he knew, she had flipped them over and was kissing and licking her way down his abdomen, zeroing in on her target. He groaned as he felt her hot mouth close over him.

"Jubes," he gasped. "Stop!"

"Are you going to give me what I want?" she asked.

"I give," he moaned. "I'll give ya anythin' ya want."

She kissed her way back up his body. When she got to his mouth, she swept her tongue over his sharp teeth and plunged her tongue deep in his mouth.

"Make love to me," she ordered.

He flipped her onto her back and reached into the drawer by his bed. Once he was properly attired, he did exactly what she wanted. Jubilee felt as if she had died and gone to heaven.

The change in their mood was apparent immediately. Jean smiled broadly at her as they entered the dinning room that night for dinner. Remy winked at Logan and Rogue summed it up for all of them.

"It's about damn time," she said. "Ah thought we were gonna hafta lock ya in a room together."

Jubilee and Logan continued the physical therapy, interspersed with long sessions of love making. By the sixth week, Beast pronounced her mostly healed. He gave Logan the okay to start her on Danger Room training but cautioned him to take it easy for another four weeks.

Her first Danger Room exercise was an eye opener. She had thought she had been able to stay in decent shape considering her injuries but she found herself out of breath and extremely sore after fifteen minutes.

She laid on the floor of the Danger Room looking up at the ceiling, fuming.

"Ya okay darlin?" Logan asked as he stood over her.

"I'm fine," she snapped.

"C'mon Jubes," he said as he lowered himself to the floor beside her. "This is the first time in the Danger Room in almost three months. Yer expectin' too much too soon"

"Am I?" she demanded. "Am I expecting too much to be able to protect myself from the sickos of the world who'll come after me just because I'm a mutant? Maybe I'm expecting too much to have a life where I don't have to protect myself every time I turn around. Maybe I need to wear a sign that says 'Yes I'm a mutant but don't hit me. I might bleed all over you'." She turned over on her stomach and buried her face in her arms. "You should have let me die."

Half a second later, she was on her back with Wolverine looming over her, his knees straddling her hips and his angry face close to hers.

"Don't ever say anything like that again," he snarled. He shook her shoulders firmly. "Ya hear me Jubilee? I love ya. Yer the only thing keepin' me sane."

"You love me?" she asked in a tiny voice.

"Of course I do," he said exasperated.

"You've never said it before," she told him.

"Ya mean everythin' ta me." He ran a finger down her neck making her shiver. "Just 'cause I don't say it all the time don't mean I don't love ya."

She slid her arms around his neck and pulled him down close. "I love you too," she said against his lips. "Please don't die on me."

"I'll try," he told her as he captured her lips in a searing kiss.

Bobby Drake stepped up to the Danger Room door only to find it locked. He had scheduled a session for this time yesterday. He had a scenario that had been giving him problems for the past three days. He was going to have words with whoever is using his Danger Room time.

He climbed the steps to the control room intent on shutting down the sim that was being run. The sight of the naked, undulating couple below made him pause. He knew those cheeks. That was Wolverine so the woman had to be Jubilee. He knew better than to interrupt Logan when he was making love to his girl so he crept back out and into the hall, grinning widely. Another bit of blackmail was tucked into his pocket.

Ororo had returned home a little over two months ago after a very satisfying visit in Africa. She had known before she left that the team had been trying to get Logan and Jubilee together. She had problems with that. Jubilee was still very young and, in her opinion, immature. She didn't think she was ready for an adult relationship with anyone, much less a very experienced Logan.

When she left for Africa, they had been yelling and growling at each other. When she returned, they were dancing around each other like a pair of peacocks in a mating ritual. Not long after that, the tension between them suddenly fell away and they began to act more like normal humans. Ororo knew they were sleeping together and did not approve.

She had tried to reason with Logan, being the more mature partner, but got a terse "Mind yer own business". After that, he had refused to discuss it with her, walking out of the room whenever she entered. She had no choice now but to approach Jubilee and talk to her. She called Jubilee to her attic room one Saturday morning and sat her down on the bed.

"Jubilation," she began, "I am aware of your relationship with Logan and I must say, I do not approve."

"Oh?" Jubilee asked, her eyebrows rising. "And why would that be?"

"He is a very worldly man, well beyond your scope of knowledge at your age. He will most likely hurt you in the course of this relationship. I care for you, my dear, very much and I would not like to see you hurt."

"Why do you think Wolvie will hurt me? He's been very gentle with me and he loves me."

"Of course he loves you," she told her gently. "He raised you. That is why this relationship is wrong. He is like your father."

"Bull," Jubilee exploded. "I had a father. He was killed along with my mother when I was ten. Wolvie was never a father to me. My mentor and my partner, yes, but never a father. If anyone was, it was Sean. He was the one who held the reins for me. He was the one who gave me the limits when I was growing up, not Wolvie. Wolvie always treated me like I was old enough to make my own decisions and was ready to take the consequences when I make a bad choice. He was the only one in this house that treated me like I had any sense. You never did and you still don't. Let me ask you this," she challenged. "You loved Forge. Would he have gotten you a tampon from one of the other women when you couldn't go yourself? Logan did that for me. He asked every women in the mansion for one when I was too sick to go myself. Think about it Storm. A man like Logan wandering all over the house asking the female members of the team for a tampon. That's how I know he loves me. Only a man who loves you would do something like that."

"But you're just a child," Ororo protested.

"How old am I 'Ro?"

"Eighteen last year," she said promptly.

Jubilee shook her head in disgust. "I'll be twenty-four this summer," she corrected. She looked at Ororo's stunned expression. "I've always loved him," she said quietly. "I tried to find another man when I was in college but no one measured up. He's all I ever wanted. We love each other 'Ro. Please be happy for us."

"I cannot," she admitted. "It's wrong."

Jubilee was silent, staring down at her fingernails, sadly.

"It's very wrong, child," Ororo said.

"Let me grow up Ororo," Jubilee begged. "I don't want to loose your friendship but if I have to choose between you, Logan will win. I won't give him up."

"He can hurt you Jubilation."

"And I can hurt him," she replied. "That's the chance you take when you love someone. I can't stop loving him because he might hurt me."

"And when you grow old and can no longer protect yourself? What then? He will still be young and vital."

"Three months ago, I was injured so bad that Hank took me off the team permanently. I can't protect myself now. What difference does it make if I'm twenty-three or seventy-three? I'll still be in the same boat."

"You have an answer for everything," Ororo said sourly. She walked over to the balcony and looked down on her gardens.

"I love him 'Ro. He's all I have until we have kids."

"But he can't marry you," Ororo said as she turned to look at her. "He has no idea what his name is."

"I know that. I don't need a piece of paper to tell me we're married. In our hearts, we already are."

Ororo was running out of arguments. She searched her mind desperately. She had to make Jubilee see that this was wrong.

"I think you envy us," Jubilee said. "I think our success in finding love is a slap in the face for you because you haven't been able to find it yourself."

With that parting shot, Jubilee left the attic.

Was she right? Did she envy Jubilee's relationship with Logan? She had to admit to herself that she hadn't been very lucky in love. The one man she felt she could live the rest of her life with had betrayed her. Since then, she had not been able to trust any man, even her own teammates.

Kurt had been trying to convince her to go out with him for the past year but she had been finding excuses not to go. Maybe she needed to shift her focus from Jubilee's love life to her own.

Her mind was filled with confused thoughts. She did the one thing that always brings her peace and leapt out of the room and flew away.

Spring was coming and Logan was beginning to fidget. Jubilee knew what he needed to do and sent him off to visit the graves of the women who preceded her. She contented herself by keeping Jean company. Scott had been called to Washington to talk with several senators sympathetic to their cause and Jean had been left behind. Her pregnancy had not been going as well as she had hoped. Constant nausea plagued her and made it impossible for her to continue her duties as the spokesman for mutant rights.

Jubilee sat on the sofa in the den, curled against the older woman's side, her hand resting on the slight swelling of her abdomen.

"Can you hear her yet?" Jubilee asked.

"How do you know it's a girl?" Jean asked sleepily.

"Wolvie can smell it."

"Damn," Jean swore. "I wanted to be surprised."

"Sorry," Jubilee said, ducking her head. "I thought you'd know by now."

"It's okay," Jean told her. "I knew. Her mind is definitely feminine. I can't get any real thoughts from her, just feelings."

"Like what?" Jubilee asked, curious.

"Warmth, happiness, things like that. She won't have formed thoughts until around two or three months of age. Until then, it's all instincts."

"It must be nice to connect with your baby on such a deep level," Jubilee sighed.

"Most mothers connect with their babies on some level," Jean told her. "I'm lucky to be able to do it sooner than most."

Jubilee sat there, stroking the little bulge, thinking.

"Have you and Logan discussed children yet?" Jean asked.

"Not yet. I want kids but I'm not sure if he does."

"Well, it's still early in your relationship. There's plenty of time to have children."

"I'm not even sure Hank would let me have a baby," Jubilee told her. "He's not real confident in the graft."

"Oh, Jubilee," she said, wrapping an arm around the younger woman, "I hope you can have children but if you can't, there are plenty of abandoned babies, mutant and human, that you can mother."

They sat there, silently watching some inane game show, each lost in their own thoughts when a large blue form stepped between the TV and them.

"Hey," Jubilee protested. "I'm watching that."

"I need to speak with you, Jubilation," Hank said.

"Okay," she said slowly. She hated when he wanted to talk. He usually had something bad to tell her "Am I not going to like this?"

"If you will accompany me to the lab, I may have a solution to your quandary."

"Ever since I was unable to salvage your femoral artery, I have been searching for a way to repair or replace it and make it strong enough for you to continue your activities as an X-Man," Hank explained as he switched the equipment on in his research lab. "I believe I have found a solution that will repair the artery and it will be as strong, or even stronger, than it was before it was injured."

He brought up the images of two different strands of DNA. "This is your DNA," he said, pointing to the image on the left. He indicated a small section of the strand. "This is your active X factor, where your powers are located on the DNA strand." He moved over to the image on the right. "This is Wolverine's DNA and this is where his active X gene is located. What I am proposing is to splice the X gene from Wolverine into your DNA, effectively giving you his healing factor."

"Is that possible?" she asked.

"I am not sure," he admitted. "Theoretically, it is possible. Everyone has a series of switches in every cell that, when switched on, force the cell to heal or replace itself. Most of the time, the switches are off. In Wolverine's case, they are always on, causing him to replace his cells more frequently."

"Why are they always on?"

"Adamantium poisoning," Hank explained. "He constantly fights the poison leaching from the metal laced to his bones. If it weren't for the adamantium, his injuries in the past would have killed him. His healing factor is on overdrive all the time."

"What's the down side?"

"If you cannot replicate all of your cells at nearly the same rate as Logan, you will develop cancer."

"Are you serious?"

"Cancer is, in effect, a disease affecting the cells ability to replicate itself. Unchecked replication of an individual cell is what cancer essentially is."

"You mean my choice is to die from boredom or from cancer?"

"It may work Jubilee."

"What do I need to do?"

"I will need a bone marrow sample. The best cells to use in this are stem cells. The highest concentration of stem cells is in the marrow."

"Will it hurt?"

"Unfortunately, yes."

"Can I think about it for a while?" she asked. "I'd like to discuss it with Logan first."

"There is no time constraint with this," he assured her. "It will take some time before I am ready to attempt the procedure and I would like to test my theory first on lab animals. I cannot be ready in any less than six months."

"Let me talk to Logan and I'll let you know."