Phoenix Rising: Chapter 8

Logan woke the next morning spooned around Jubilee's soft form. His body definitely remembered her. He was distinctly and embarrassingly uncomfortable. He needed to get out before he did something they both would regret. He slipped his arm from under her head and replaced it with his pillow.

He rose and looked down on her sleeping face. God, she was beautiful. All of his protective instincts rose in him. He swore no one would ever hurt her again. He would die before he would let her out of his sight again.

It took him a long time to admit to himself that she had grown up. Once he did that, he could feel the love he had for her change from that of a mentor to that of a man. He knew that she had loved him but he was not sure that was true anymore. So much had happened to her in the years she had been missing. It was possible her feelings had changed. Just the thought of it made his belly clench.

He quickly pulled on his battle uniform and left the shelter before he woke her and started asking questions.

He walked among the shelters, banging on them as he passed, waking everyone up.

"Muster ya panty-waists." he yelled. "Uniform of the day is battle dress, no weapons."

Ten minutes later, they began to stumble out of the shelters, yawning and rubbing sleep from their eyes.

"Do we have to wear these things?" Finny grumbled, pulling at the tight uniform.

"I feel like I'm in my underwear," Roulard groused.

"Pipe down!" Logan roared. "I had these uniforms made fer ya. They're insulated against heat and cold. They'll deflect and absorb energy and projectile attacks. They'll mask yer bio signatures and yer mutant gene. Those of ya that trained at Xaviers, yer uniforms are based on the uniforms ya had at school. Finny, Roulard and Worf, yer uniforms are the standard issue fer freshmen at the school. If yer worried about the fit, wear a cup."

Jubilee left the shelter wearing a red and black uniform based on the last one she wore as an X-Man. She had started out wearing one cut nearly as low at Betsy Braddock's but quickly learned that she needed more coverage. Jubilee was fast but Betsy was faster. After getting a nasty laser burn across her thigh, she understood. Betsy could avoid the weapons fire using her ninja speed but she could not. She altered her uniform so that it covered every inch of exposed skin except her head.

"No yellow raincoat?" she teased him.

"Don't need ya ta be a target this time, darlin'." he told her. "Okay everyone, I need ta know exactly what ya can do. I want a demonstration of yer powers."

For several hours, he watched as they showed him what they could do. Thompson blasted as they shot phaser fire at him, proving his invulnerability. He also had one ability that Sam Guthrie did not have. He was able to project his blasts from his hands for a short distance. He could not do it while flying but it was an offensive weapon that could come in handy.

Roulard gathered small pebbles and charged them. He aim was not as good as he ancestors but it would be enough. His skill with the bo staff more than made up for his poor aim. With the staff and his mutant speed, he was nearly invincible.

Finny teleported around the campsite with abandon. It had been several months since he had used his powers and he was rusty. Logan had high hopes that the Ensign would be able to adapt to a team and would fight when needed.

Williams was a big surprise. Not only was she a very strong telepath but she was the most powerful telekinetic he ever met. She had mastered her powers under the direction of her grandfather who, himself, was a powerful telekinetic and a teacher at Xaviers. She had flight ability and she could lift the entire team while she was in the air. Her TK shield could deflect phaser fire set to kill. If anything, she was stronger than Jean Summers. He set her to developing a link with the team so they would not have to rely on mechanical communicators.

He spent most of his days working with Jubilee. It had been three years since she had seen combat and she was very rusty. Her powers were still not well controlled so he set her to target practice. After a few days, he noticed that her paffs were beginning to obey her mental commands.

He set up a smart target for her. They are very fast flying targets and adapted to what was being sent at them. They were very difficult to shoot down but not impossible. He watched as she called a single, small paff and sent it after the target. He warned the others to stay down until she had brought the flitter down. Heads ducked all over the clearing. Just because the paff was small did not mean that it was weak. That small paff could easily take someone's head off.

The paff chased the flitter for almost thirty minutes before Jubilee finally remembered her training and angled it off. She sent a second, then a third paff into the air and, directing all three, made them converge on the flitter and take it out in a fiery explosion.

She turned to him, her eyebrow cocked in a question.

"Good control," he complimented her, "but too much power. Ya need ta meet power with power. Not too much and not too little. Let's work on that fer a while."

By the time she went to bed every night, Jubilee would be shaking with exhaustion and frustration. She had vivid memories of being able to control her paffs with such precision that she could make delicate pictures of flowers blooming and animals running. The large paffs were easy to control. She would just gather the plasma and guide it to its destination. The small paffs were much harder to direct. They were harder to touch with her mind and the wind tended to blow them in every direction. She could not use large paffs on a space ship. She could end up blowing the ship up and killing everyone.

"Maybe you shouldn't take me on this mission, Wolvie." she said into his chest one night after four days of hard work. "I can't seem to find my control."

She heard him sigh as his arm tightened around her. "I need ya, darlin'," he told her. "Me and you are the only ones in this time period that have any idea what she's like. We're the only ones who got any chance of reaching her."

Something in his voice made her look up. "Wolvie?" she said, her eyes full of questions.

"Q wants her dead but she's part of the universe. She's been around since the 'Big Bang'. There's no destroyin' somethin' that old. She was created fer a reason and killin' her may screw things up so bad that everythin' could fall apart."

"How many times have you fought her?"

"Five."

"And you haven't been able to kill her yet?"

"Don't want ta. Like I said, she's part of the universe."

"Why hasn't she killed you?"

"She has some of Jean's memories. That's why we're the only ones who can deal with her. We're part of her earliest memories of humans. She knows we loved Jean and she remembers that love. She remembers us."

"So she hesitates."

"Yeah."

She snuggled her body tighter against his side, trembling. "Why is she killing again?"

"Demetria Grey can't control her. She just ain't strong enough. Accordin' ta Q, Phoenix ain't fed since the host got pregnant. As soon as the baby's born, she gonna go on a rampage that'll leave billions dead. We gotta find her before that happens."

Jubilee was absently tracing the muscles of his chest with a finger. Her touch was like fire on his skin. Breathing was becoming difficult as his body hardened. He wanted her so bad that it was all he could do not to roll over on top of her and take what he wanted; what he needed.

He could not stop the moan that escaped his lips when her finger brushed across a hard nipple.

"Yer killin' me, Jubes." he said hoarsely.

Her hand stilled. He could hear her sharp intake of breath as she became aware of what she was doing and how it was affecting him. She raised her head and looked into his eyes. The desire she could see in them made her shiver.

For as long as she could remember, she had loved this man. At first, it was as a friend and savior. It grew into a adolescent crush which became a steady, mature, want as she grew older. When she was twenty, she would have given anything to see this lust in his eyes but so much had happened in the last three years.

When she was first captured, she was sure that Gateway had pulled him forward as well and he would find her soon. As the months, then years, went by, she realized that he was not going to find her. She had given up hope of ever seeing him again. Her memories of her escape attempts were vague at best but she knew she had tried several times. She could clearly remember that what drove her to try was the possibility that he was out there, looking for her.

In the back of her mind was an unreasonable anger at him for not saving her from slavery. No matter how much she told herself that her captivity was not his fault, she was still angry with him.

"I ain't gonna lie ta ya, darlin'." he said in a low voice. "I want ya. Sometimes it's so bad that it's all I can do not ta touch ya but I know a lot has happened. Maybe too much fer us ta be together. Fer four hundred years, I thought ya were dead and fer three years, ya thought I'd abandoned ya ta yer fate. We've both changed a lot."

"Have I changed so much?" she asked.

"Yeah, ya have." he admitted. "Ya used ta be so brave, almost reckless. Now, yer afraid of yer own powers. Ya don't trust me and ya don't trust yerself." He sat up and faced her. "I'd give anythin' ta change the last three years fer ya, but I can't. Gateway was right. I was on Orion when ya were teleported in. I was probably somewhere near the marketplace at the time. I wish he had told me ta look fer ya but he didn't and I left without ever knowing ya were there."

Her face paled. "You were there?" she whispered.

"Yeah." he admitted. "I was chasing a rogue mutant terrorist. I caught him, killed him and returned to Earth. I never liked the slave market so I didn't go there. If I had, I woulda found ya and taken ya home."

She had been so close. If he had turned right instead of left, he would have found her and saved her three years of torture. He could smell the tears gathering in her.

"Ya know I don't like slavers. I've torn up the Orion slave market twice. Star Fleet woulda had my ass if I did it again."

She gave him a weak smile. "Trying to clean up your act?"

"Tryin' ta keep my nose clean until Admiral Stone retired. He hated me cause I had seniority and wouldn't dance ta his tune. When he found out how old I really was, he started ta give me all kinds of shit. I threatened ta leave him high and dry and he was ready ta force me out. The Federation Counsel stopped him. He had ta take me, warts and all."

"Wow! You've got friends in high places."

"They ain't friends, Jubes. They know I'm the only one that can take care of the dirty stuff. That and I know where the bodies are buried."

"So you're untouchable?"

"Not really. I still have kin on Earth and they know where they're at. I can't get them killed so I behave myself and say 'yes, sir' when they want somethin' done."

"You had refused to take on the Phoenix again until the Q asked you." she reminded him.

"The Q are the only ones that have a chance of containing her." he admitted. "I knew that takin' on Phoenix would have me off Earth fer a long time and it would be a hard fight. I've been fightin' fer almost five hundred years, Jubes. I'm tired. I just want ta sit back and have some kids that I can watch grow up. I never got that with my girls. By the time each one of 'em was ten, I was off on another mission that kept me away from home fer years. It got so that I'd leave when they were kids and when I got home, they had kids of their own. It hurt so bad that I never saw any of my daughters grow up that I've made sure, fer the past hundred years, that I don't make another kid."

"How are you going to get them to stop calling on you? They probably think you're indestructible by now."

"I don't know, darlin'." he sighed. "Maybe I can get killed on this one."

"Don't say that!" she cried, throwing herself in his arms. "I can't lose you now. I just found you."

"Death may be my only way out." his said, quietly.

She did not know what to say. She had seen his memories and knew that he was as much a slave as she. Star Fleet had control over him that no one else had been able to achieve. They held his family hostage against his behavior.

"What are we going to do?" she asked in a small voice.

He pulled her into his arms and held her closely. Worf was right. If he followed the law, he had to return her to the Ferengi trader that abused her. He didn't have a legal leg to stand on, not that it mattered. He couldn't turn her over to those bastards.

"I don't know, darlin'." he said. "I ain't gonna take ya back ta those bastards I found ya with. We're gonna hafta figure somthin' else out." He buried his nose in her hair and inhaled deeply. His body reacted swiftly to her sweet scent.

"I can't give ya up again." he murmured into her hair.

Her scent surrounded him like a blanket. He felt calmer now than he had in the past four hundred years. She always could do this. Even when he had given himself over to the animal in him, she could bring the out man in him. The beast would always recognize her and calm down.

He ran his hands down her back. She felt so good in his arms; so right. He felt her shiver in reaction.

"Logan?"

"I just wanna hold ya." he said in a low voice. "I ain't askin' fer anythin' more. I just need ta hold ya."

"I'm not ready, Logan." she whispered.

"I know ya ain't, darlin'."

"Don't give up on me." she begged.

"Never again." he promised. He lowered them to the ground and pulled her onto his chest.

She rubbed her cheek against his chest and sighed. "Will I ever be right again?" she asked.

"Give yerself time." he replied as she stroked her back. "Keep talkin' ta Gina. She can help ya get everythin' straight in yer head."

"What if I never remember? I don't think I can live with a big hole in my memory."

"Ya get used ta it." he reminded her.

She laid quietly on his chest for so long that he thought she had fallen asleep.

"Did you ever remember anything?" she asked sleepily.

"Some," he admitted. "Don't matter now. It's ancient history now."

"I guess." She yawned hugely. "Night, Wolvie."

"Night , darlin'."