Pre-Note: Jubilee's experience in this story is based on Jaenelle Angelline's (and co-author Megalictis) story 'Zero Tolerance: Jubilee's Story'. She very kindly sent me advanced copies so I could reference it for this story when it was suggested by my beta. It took me a little while but I just had to do it. Unfortunately, as I messed up in 'Waiting' and said that Wolverine didn't know about her being raped and other small assorted details, I had to change a little to make it fit.

Also be aware that I'm not quite sure where O:ZT fits in the Jenny timeline. I have made Jubilee 15 when she was at Jenny's house at the end of 'Human in a Mutant World' so it had to have actually been before then (maybe she just had a birthday?). But I didn't have it happen while Jenny was at the mansion. Why? Because I could think of no way to have Jenny survive the mansions desecration and at this point am not willing to even try. So I suppose we must all just be aware that it happened at some point. Hey, if Marvel can't keep it all straight can you really blame me? I always intented for O:ZT to have happened but couldn't figure out when. Anyway, sorry for any confusion.

disclaimer: All recognizable characters are owned by Marvel, except Jenny who is MINE. (Though I have been known to share if you ask nicely.)

Sleep Over
by Dizi

"Sweetie, what's wrong?" Jenny finally asked.

Jubilee hadn't been acting herself. She was usually so bubbly and full of life. Now, she was just acting like it and it showed, at least to Jenny. They had been friends from almost the moment they met when Logan had brought the young girl into Harry's and Jenny had always admired her spirit. Jubilee was friendly and outgoing, seemed fearless and free, all the things Jenny had always wanted to be and at the time didn't think she ever could. It had taken a long time for some of Jubilee to rub off on her and now she seemed to have lost her spark.

The other girl wouldn't meet her eyes when she mumbled, "Nothing."

Nodding, Jenny let it go. Jubilee knew she was there and would always listen. She would talk when and if she was ready. Jenny also knew not to push. Jubilee was stubborn and would completely clam up, keeping whatever was wrong buried deep inside.

For some reason the two females had connected, both knowing what it was like to be alone at a young age. Jubilee had found Logan though, and Jenny was glad for them both. They needed each other. Jenny had found friends but never such a close one as Jubilee had when she had really needed one, by the time she had found her friends she hadn't been able to let them all the way in. She had often found herself envying the younger girl her adopted family. The only problem was that Jubilee often thought of their feelings - more specifically, Logan's - and disregarded her own in their favor.

The young girl hadn't been happy to leave the mansion and go to Massachusetts but hadn't said anything. Then Jenny had gotten a call in the middle of the night from her, crying about how much she missed everyone and wanted her Wolvie. Jenny hadn't understood the nickname then, but had more than understood the homesickness. She still felt it herself when she remembered her family life before she had been sent away. Jubilee hadn't wanted to call Logan, afraid he'd feel guilty - though Jenny had thought he already had.

Jubilee had understood, underneath her pain, that the other X-men were trying to do what was best for her but it hadn't changed her feelings of abandonment. Jenny hadn't had any answers for the girl that night but having someone to talk to had seemed to help her.

Jenny could wait. Eventually Jubilee would talk to her if that was what she needed. Though Jenny couldn't help but wonder why she hadn't talked to Jean or Ororo if there was such a thing as a problem she couldn't go to Logan about. Usually Jubilee told Logan everything, whether he wanted to know or not, so it had to be either about him, or something she didn't want him to know about, for her not to do so now. She hoped it wasn't about boys, Jenny had no good experiences there.

"Well, we've got music," Jenny said, making Jubilee grin as Jenny always seemed to have music, "and my whole house to ourselves. How about we bake chocolate chip cookies and eat them all by ourselves?" Cookies were always good comfort food. Ice-cream was better but Jenny didn't have any and wasn't walking to the store at this time of night.

Jumping to her feet, Jubilee started toward the stereo. "I could go for cookies, but I get to pick the music. Never know what you're gonna put on, sometimes it's, like, old stuff."

Thirty minutes later, Jenny left Jubilee to put the cookies in the oven and snuck to her bedroom to use her cell-phone.

Logan didn't take long to answer. "Yeah, Jenny, what's wrong?"

Frowning at his neutral tone, Jenny wondered what he was up to. "You tell me. What's wrong with Jubilee?"

"Has she talked ta ya?"

"If she had, do you think I'd be asking you?" Jenny sighed. "Whatever it is, I don't know if I can help. I didn't have what anyone would consider normal teenage years."

"Ya can help her, Jenny. She ain't talkin' ta me, but I think she'll be able ta open up ta ya. 'S why I brought her to yer place fer the weekend."

"Me?" Jenny couldn't believe her ears. She didn't know anything about teenagers, she had only been one in age.

"Jus' wait fer it."

"What are you talking about?" she demanded, tired of his games, and impatiently waited for his response. "Logan?... Logan?" When he didn't answer, she looked at the display and couldn't believe he had hung-up on her. And what the hell had he been talking about?

Putting the phone away, she hoped he called back and she didn't hear it. She hated the thing anyway.

It took two hours to bake the cookies and eat enough of them that they thought they were going to be sick. Jenny thought Jubilee needed it. She looked too thin. What were they feeding her at that school? she wondered, and froze at the thought.

Jubilee had been at school and Jenny knew bad things could happen at boarding schools. Not necessarily what had happened to her - surely those were extenuating circumstances? - but bad things. It was a co-ed school, it could have been anything from a broken heart to abuse by a teacher. Just the idea left her cold inside.

She shook off the thought. Charles trusted the people there. Jenny had even met them and couldn't believe they would hurt Jubilee.

Looking at the shadows under the fifteen-year-old's eyes, she pushed her worry aside. Jubilee would talk when she was ready, but she was definitely ready for bed before she fell asleep trying to fit another cookie in her stomach.

"Kiddo, you're about to fall over. C'mon, time for bed." Jenny said as she put the lid on the cookie jar. They had already cleaned the kitchen and it had been a long day. Knowing Logan as she did, he'd probably be there bright and early.

"Don't treat me like a kid, Jenny." Jubilee said defiantly. "I'm not. I thought you understood that."

"Jubes, look at me." She waited until Jubilee's angry eyes met her's. "Have I ever treated you like a kid? I'm sleepy, and you're almost asleep on you're feet. Logan's going to be here early and wake us up. I'm going to bed. If you really want to stay up, go for it. You know the what'll happen, and it's up to you. Is that adult enough?"

"Sorry. You're right." Jubilee muttered and sighed. "I'm just so tired of everyone treating me like I'm a little kid. I'm fifteen and have helped save the world. They should, like, get over it."

"Well, when you look the way you feel inside, maybe they will." Jenny laughed, "But I wouldn't count on it." They'd had this part of the conversation before, whenever either got frustrated at various X-men's over-protectiveness.

Jubilee smiled wanly, but didn't laugh.

It was early in the a.m. when Jenny woke to the cries that echoed the ones in her mind. She thought she was having a nightmare herself, at first. It was the time for it, just when you're mind and body is completely relaxed, this is when you're most vulnerable to nightmares. Jenny knew. She'd seen this time regularly for seven years.

Tonight it wasn't her crying though. It was Jubilee.

As quickly as her shaking legs could carry her, Jenny ran to the guest bedroom, which she'd planned with Jubilee in mind. The girl was laying rigid with her arms and legs stretched out, the sheet tightly wrapped around her from tossing in her sleep. But it was her words that seared Jenny mind and heart. The same words she'd cried when she was fourteen.

"Please, don't hurt me anymore!... I'm just a kid, please!..." Jubilee's voice was hoarse and filled with a pain Jenny knew would never go away, and her heart broke at the knowledge that Jubilee had suffered too.

She tried to call out to her but no sound would come from her throat. Swallowing past the lump in her throat, she managed to whisper, "Jubilee, please wake up." There was no answer from the dreaming child but a soft whimper of remembered pain.

Jenny closed her eyes and forced her own pain away, forced back the sick feeling in her stomach. Jubilee needed her.

Walking steadily now, she turned on the hall light and opened the door wide to let it in. A sudden change may startle her awake but would also scare her, as would being approached by someone she could not see.

Then Jenny took a deep breath and slowly reach out a hand to gently touch Jubilee's tightly-clenched fist and said in a firm voice, "Jubilee, wake up. It's Jenny."

It was the touch that did it.

One second Jubilee was asleep and crying, and the next she was awake and looking at Jenny with lost eyes in a tear-streaked face. Eyes she quickly turned away, tears she quickly wiped with the edge of the blanked before whispering, "I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry for." Jenny didn't attempt to touch her again but sat on the edge of the bed. "I understand."

"No, you don't," she turned her head into the pillow, "no one does."

"You're wrong." Jenny was surprised by how calm her voice sounded, almost as though it didn't belong to her. "I understand, more than you can possibly know." She hesitated. "You asked once if you could see my back."

"You wouldn't let me, because I'm a kid."

"I wouldn't let you because I've never shown anyone. Ever." Jenny pulled her hair to the side. "I still won't. But..." she had to swallow again as she lifted her t-shirt halfway up her back, "I'll let you feel... I'll let you touch them... my scars."

Jubilee sat up and stared at Jenny. "Why?"

"Because, I want you to know... I do understand." Jenny couldn't make herself remove her t-shirt to show even someone else who had suffered. Ororo was the only person that Jenny knew of who had seen her scars, but she hadn't been aware of it. She would have found a way to stop her if she had been able.

Hesitantly, the girl's smaller hand reached out and slowly, lightly, eased under the shirt. Jenny closed her eyes as she felt the light touch on the first ridge of scar tissue and Jubilee jerked back for a moment, shocked, before daring to explore further.

"Do they hurt?" Jenny could barely hear the whisper from behind her.

"No." The response was automatic, but she forced herself to be truthful. "Not really. I have to stretch and work the muscles or they'll spasm. That can hurt, but I'm not in constant pain." Not anymore, she added silently.

"Why did they do this to you?"

"Because they could." was Jenny soft response. "Let me tell you about my friend. Her name was Sally..." For the first time, Jenny told the entire story. She told of her heartache from her best friend's death, her confusion over being sent away, her loneliness, her problems at school. And everything she could remember about six men who had raped her while she cried and begged them to stop. About those same men who had decided the next step was to cut into her flesh, burn her, bite her, torture her, because she didn't stop crying and they seemed to think it was fun.

Then, because she had told everything else, she told of arriving back at the school and being placed in a small basement room where the teacher she had trusted with all her secrets had come to her. Though she didn't go into exact detail, she told Jubilee the same story she had told Logan so long ago. The part of her story she hadn't told Charles during their therapy sessions. She told how she had allowed him to use her body in exchange for being allowed medical attention.

"This is why you were worried about me going away to school." Jubilee had sat beside her the whole time, listening to the story and seeing what Jenny was trying to say. She was someone who could understand. Maybe the only person she knew who truly could. "It's not the school, Jenny, but it started there. You have to swear you won't tell Wolvie. I- I don't want him to know all of it. He knows some, but not the whole thing. I couldn't bear it if he knew." Jubilee waited for Jenny's agreement before starting her own tale. "His name was Bastion, but I called him Pinky..."

In a shaking voice, Jubilee told of waking naked, her hair shorn, and a needle jabbed in her arm. A tale of psychological and physical torture, of being scared to eat and too hungry not to, of being thirsty but too hurt to move enough to get to the drugged offering, of countless men forcing themselves into her body until it was numb. She told of a being who wanted her to give the location of her family, the X-men, and did everything possible to force the knowledge from her.

She whimpered as she told of her fears that her family was dead and forcing herself to believe they were alive. Then having her fears seemingly confirmed by them being brought to the same nightmare she was in. The deep rooted knowledge that she had been responsible for their incarceration by a madman and they had been hurt because of her. That she could never be forgiven for not keeping their secrets and they would always blame her for their pain and near death. That she had been sent away from them because she wasn't strong enough.

Jenny sat beside her and forced herself not to put her arms around the small woman-child as she told her own story of pain and horror. She knew what it was like to not want to be touched. Jenny listened to every detail and somehow kept back the sobs that wanted to erupt from her. She had suffered six men and their games for two days. Jubilee had suffered much worse and yet had been able to show some enjoyment in life. But Jenny had always known Jubilee was the stronger of the two of them.

Now, she understood what Logan had meant. Jean would be able to see into her mind and Ororo had her own traumas, but Jenny had suffered in ways they had not. She too had been tortured, though it was for amusement, not punishment for not betraying her friends, her family. That torture had not been carried further by the thought that she had caused the pain and almost death of a loved one. She hadn't had anyone to care about her, so Jenny hadn't had the chance to feel abandoned again when sent away from the person who meant the most to her. She hadn't had to deal with the guilt Jubilee had felt.

The one thing Jenny was thankful for, while listening to Jubilee, was they had put in the implant which had protected Jubilee from any repercussions. Jenny had never had an implant and never seen one. She didn't know how they worked or the pain Jubilee described upon insertion. Jenny would never have one herself, but was grateful for this one thing that had prevented her young friend from more heartbreak.

Whether she realized it now or not, Jubilee had people who cared about her, and Logan would always be there. Jubilee needed to let them help her and perhaps tonight would be that first step in allowing the ones who loved her in. Jenny hadn't had anyone after her ordeal, if she had perhaps it wouldn't have taken so long for her to become what anyone would consider, even partially, 'normal', whatever that really meant. She knew it wouldn't take Jubilee as long, she had already begun.

The two sat together on the bed when Jubilee finished. One young, the other older, but both still immersed in remembered pain.

It was Jubilee who broke the silence, when she asked, "How long do the nightmares go on?"

"They don't stop." Jenny answered honestly. "They'll always be there, you just learn how to get past them to continue with your life."

"It's so hard." Jubilee sobbed, letting tears fall for the first time since Jenny woke her. "What do you do?"

Jenny smiled, she knew the answer for this one. "I work, I clean everything I can get my hands on, and let my friends be there for me."

Jubilee wrinkled her nose. "So I should find something to clean?"

"No," Jenny laughed. "You find something that's you, and you let your friends be there for you."

"I wish Wolvie was here. I always feel better with him, even right after when I was scared to be near any men."

"We can fix that. Just a minute."

Jenny ran to her bedroom. Dialing the number, she wasn't surprised by how quickly Logan answered.

"Yeah?" He sounded alert, and Jenny knew he'd been waiting for her call.

"How quickly can you get here?" She said as she walked to the kitchen for a glass of water for Jubilee. The girl had to be dehydrated from all that crying; Jenny knew she was.

"Be right there."

She was filling two glasses and about to go back to the guestroom, when Logan knocked on the backdoor before coming in.

Not saying a word, Jenny handed him the glass for Jubilee and watched him walk down the hall.

After gulping down her own water, she opened the cabinet under the sink and got out her cleaning supplies.

note:
Elizabeth Robbins- I kinda imagine it as one of those moments (like right after childbirth) where men realize they don't have to balls to be a woman. Most will admit it in a heartbeat if they think about it at all.
GothikStrawberry- Thanks, I admit it was a lead into this one, can't have Jenny helping Jubes heal until I've shown she's started healing herself.
Jinxeh- I was just teasing as I started doing that myself since I'm still posting these shorts and have just started posting 'No Place Like Home'. I personally have problems going back and forth while writing because I tend to confuse my storylines (think I confuse my betas too). You're better than I am that way. The last two stories was to show that Jenny is healing, with help from friends and therapy, because if you noticed at the end of 'Human in a Mutant World' Jenny kissed everyone's cheek and she would never have done that before. She carefully avoided physical contact with anyone most of the time and by the time she moved out of the mansion she was a much more complete person. Hence also, her attraction to Kurt. I'm glad you noticed.
(...)- They probably keep a whole mess of therapists in business, huh? Maybe I'll put that in someday.
B Oots- Thanks, as always! Here ya go!
Sabeybaby- I really liked it, I try not to review unless I'm not sure or really do like them. I don't want to discourage anyone as I value each review I get. I read them over and over (I'm pitiful, I know). I have a tentative story for Hank, no concrete plans yet, but Jenny will figure in. However, they will remain only friends as I really like the idea of Kurt and Jenny together and I've got a concrete story for them (and I've already established through Elizabeth Robbins their future).

As a bit of clarification, most of these don't necessarily go in any specific order. 'Therapy' would have occurred towards the beginning of Jenny's stay and 'Sleepless'a little further in. As anyone who has had a very traumatic experience will tell you, Jenny will always have nightmares it's just the frequency and intensity that changes. Just as Jubes will always have nightmares about O:ZT and the COH thing (which I haven't read so will have trouble working in, sorry).

This is the end of the dark stories. I have two more shorts and F&N and that's it for these (though I'm keeping an open mind as inspiration may strike). Then you'll just have to wait for the sequel for your Jenny fix which I think will be titled 'Human and the Demon'. Guess what it's about. Considering tying in 'Empty Inside' but want to keep Jean and Scott together so far. We'll see. May do sequel to it sometime in the future but no real plans in that direction yet.

Special thanks again to my beta Amanda for suggesting having Jenny and Jubilee talk about their experiences and comfort each other. Tell me what you think of this one especially because I think it's pretty intense but still ends on a good note and not sure if it really comes across.

Thanks for reading and the support,
Dizi