Chapter 20: Epilogue
Logan dropped his jacket on the end of the bed and ran a hand through his hair as he sat down heavily on the end of his bed. It had been a relatively quiet night; he'd gone out looking for a little trouble at one of the rougher local bars, and hadn't found it. Half an hour ago he'd finally given up and headed back home. Still unwilling to go to bed, he briefly considered going and getting Jubilee (she was visiting right now from the Academy) and dragging her down to the Rec Room for a game of pool, but he decided against it when he glanced at the clock. It was almost 3 in the morning. And Scott had an early-morning Danger Room session planned; six am, to be precise.
Not that he was complaining. Hell, no. After all the unrest surrounding the Zero Tolerance mess for the last year or so, it was nice to have everything back the way they were before. Most of the new kids he and Ororo had been so worried about had eventually figured maybe the mansion wasn't the best place for them, and they'd moved on. Xavier and the contents of the mansion were back, all the familiar stuff he'd gotten used to seeing.
Jubilee, too, was better. After that night a year ago when he'd bundled her out of the Academy after seeing Emma slap Jubilee around (his blood still wanted to boil over at the thought) they had returned to the mansion only to abruptly walk into yet another emergency when Sauron had attacked him on the mansion's premises. Jubilee, still profoundly grateful to him for rescuing her not only from Bastion's Zero Tolerance forces and from the Massachusetts academy, had tangled with Sauron and won. The incident had restored some of her self-confidence, and the nightmares, borne of her feelings of helplessness and guilt, had abated. Logan knew it was too much to hope that they had gone away altogether, but Jubilee had started eating, started being a little more like her usual cheerful self, and soon afterward had asked him to take her back to school.
Logan sighed. He'd gone out looking for trouble tonight; hadn't found it. Maybe a little trouble in the danger room…yanking off his shirt, which stank of cigar and cigarette smoke and cheap beer, he tossed it in the hamper with the other dirty clothes, padded down the hallways through the mansion till he reached the lower levels, and headed for the Danger Room.
He didn't smell any fresh scents in the corridor outside the Danger Room, so it was something of a surprise for him to see that the simulator was being used. And the code flashing on the panel was, of all people, Jubilee's. Curious, he went up to the control room and looked down through the clearsteel window to the simulator below.
The Danger Room was set up to look like some sort of medical lab. Logan would have said that it looked like Hank's medlab, except for the heavy metal table bolted to the floor, and nearby, a chair similarly bolted down. Both apparatus were bristling with straps. And sitting in the chair was a holographic image of Bastion, strapped down and immobilized..
Jubilee was standing in front of the chair. Just standing, not doing anything but looking, and she was dressed in shorts and a pajama camisole top that left a lot of bare skin showing. Logan knew she'd been talking to Hank about having some scars removed, but he didn't know what or where they were. Now, with her standing right in the cold, stark white light of the Danger room wearing nothing but shorts and a tank top, he could see the circular burn marks from electrified electrodes on her shoulder blades, at the top of her neck half-hidden by her hair, and from the way she was rubbing absent-mindedly at her upper chest and her hips, there might have been some there too.
"How could you do this to me?" she said finally, softly. "I'm a kid. We just found out that you had the Professor back there in the same base I was imprisoned in…and I never knew. Why not him? Why me? WHY ME?" she suddenly screamed, running to one row of cabinets and yanking their doors open. Logan saw the cabinet contained surgical instruments; scalpels, electrodes, bandages, forceps, syringes and other instruments…and then she flung open another cabinet, and he saw instruments that definitely didn't belong in a medical lab. A car battery. Thick rubber hose. Something that looked like a policeman's nightstick. Long, thin canes, a wicked-looking leather whip, some shorter leather straps with handles.
Jubilee saw them, and she just seemed to snap. She began filling her hands with those things, throwing them to the cold, white-tiled floor, yanking out drawers and dumping their contents onto the floor. Logan flinched as he saw a whole drawer full of what some would call 'adult toys' but that he knew Jubilee would see as torture instruments. Her eyes were glowing blue with a cold rage, rainbow sparkles dancing around her form, as she swept an arm across the countertops, sending jars of sterile swabs, tissues, latex gloves, and other items crashing to the floor.
Logan sat back. He had been wondering when this was going to come out; Jubilee had finally gotten past the hurt, the pain, the shame and terror and humiliation of what had been done to her and was releasing the pent up rage inside her by wrecking the lab where she had been tortured.
She grabbed a scalpel, walked over to the holographic image of Bastion, and held it up to the hologram's face. "Remember this?" she hissed. "Remember what your pet doctors did with this? I should do this to you!" She held it up, her fist shaking as it gripped the tiny instrument, threatening the holographic projection of the enemy who had stolen her innocence and scarred her soul.
Logan leaned forward. "Do it, Jubilee," he whispered, even though he knew she couldn't hear him "Do it. Give into that anger. You need to so you can heal."
She held the scalpel to Bastion's face for a long time, fist shaking as she stood torn between her desire for revenge and her own normally peaceful inner nature. Logan could see her inner conflict,. Wished he could help her, take away the pain and anguish and grief she was feeling, but this was her own private trip into hell, and only she could take that trip.
She spun away suddenly, flinging away the scalpel. "I can't!" she howled in anguish. Even now, after you hurt me so badly…and I know you're not real, but I still can't! What's wrong with me!"
The Danger Room lit up in multicolored plasmoids as Jubilee unleashed her power, blasting the cabinets, the table, the mess of implements on the floor. Colored lightning crawled up the walls, leaving blackened scorch marks on the cold white tile; scalpels and other sharp instruments went flying through the air, half-destroyed. When Jubilee couldn't find anything else to destroy, she sank to her knees on the floor, staring numbly at the devastation around her. Bastion still sat in the chair impassively, in the midst of the devastation.
Logan left the control room and entered the main simulator. She didn't turn around, but he knew somehow that she knew someone was there…and she knew who that someone was. "I made a mess, didn't I, Wolvie?" she said quietly, picking up a charred, blackened, barely-recognizable scalpel.
Logan eyed the room. "Yes, ya did," he agreed. "But ya hadda right to." He walked over and sat beside her.
Jubilee sighed and looked up at the holographic Bastion. "You saw?" she waved the scalpel in the hologram's direction.
"Yep."
"I couldn't. Even after all he'd done to me, and I know that's a hologram sitting there in front of me…I still couldn't."
"I know."
"Why?" Her voice was soft, anguished. "Why can't I? What's wrong with me? If I was you, you wouldn't hesitate. Why can't I?"
"You ain't me." Logan's voice was just as soft. "Yer made o' stronger stuff, Jubes. You can control yourself. I can't. S' why we get along so well; you got strengths I don't."
"And you have strengths I don't."
He nodded. "Yeah. Jubes…killin' ain't easy. It ain't supposed t'be easy. Every time you kill someone, it leaves a scar on your soul. I never want you to know what that feels like. Way back when, when ya had yer parents' killer dead in yer sights…and ya didn't kill him…I knew you'd never be able to. You know how precious life is, Jubilee; you'll always respect that. Me?" he sighed. "I lived too long; I seen too many bad things happen to good people. I don't respect the life o' those that don't respect other peoples lives. I've killed before, and I'll kill again. And while I might regrets some o' them killin's, there's a lot I don't regret at all." He stood, going to the chair where the holographic Bastion still sat silently. Popping his claws, he drove them forward, putting the entire weight of his body behind the thrust, and plunged his claws o the hilt into Bastion's chest. Blood welled up around the base of his claws, and the holographic figure gave a funny grunt before it's head sagged and it 'died'. Jubilee watched expressionlessly as Logan withdrew his claws, the simulated blood disappeared, and he came to sit beside her again.
"All the time I was here…" Jubilee's voice cracked a little as her waved hand took in the entire messed-up lab. "When the pain and terror got too much to bear, and I wanted to give up, I wanted to just tell him what he wanted to know so he'd leave me alone…I kept hearing your voice, you telling me to hang on, I couldn't tell, you all were depending on me and I was stronger than I knew…and just thinking about you gave me the strength to hold on a little longer, until they got tired of hurting me and stopped and let me recover. There was a little voice away back in my head that kept tellin' me you weren't going to come, you'd never find me and I'd die there…but I kept clinging to that hope, kept hanging on to the hope that someday, somehow, I'd see you again.
"And then I saw you all come in, and Bastion's guards sent you to the incineration level…I thought I'd lost you. Then you guys came bustin' outta the lower levels…I'd never been so glad to see anything in my life." Her voice broke again, and she took a deep, steadying breath. "Bastion closed the doors. I saw which button he'd pushed, and I ran over there and pushed it to open the doors again. I saw you escape right before Bastion started beating me. And I was lying there feeling him hit me…god, it hurt so much…but as long as you were free it didn't matter what he did to me anymore. I wanted you to turn around, wanted you to come get me and take me away with you…but I knew if you came back in you might not get out again…so I willed you to go, go and get away, and never come back. And then Bastion told his guards to take me back to my cell, and not give me anything to eat or drink anymore…I thought I was going to die. And all I could think about was being sorry I'd ever told you I'd loved you, never told you how much I care about you, how much I respect and admire you and how much hope just the thought of you gave me when I had hit bottom…Logan," she said softly, "I love you. I don't know if I told you that before, but I do. You're all I have. Please," her voice trembled a little. "Please don't ever stop loving me."
Logan couldn't speak for the tightness in his throat and the ache in his heart. Instead he wrapped an arm across her shoulders and hugged her, tightly. "Never. I'll never leave you," he said. "Even if I can't be there fer ya physically, I'll never stop thinkin' 'bout ya, lovin' ya. Understand?"
She nodded mutely.
They sat that way for a time, neither one speaking, just being there for each other, as they had som many times in the past. Logan was the first one to break the silence. "Cyke's got a Danger room session planned for six."
Jubilee groaned. "Don't suppose he'd let me off?" It was a rhetorical question; they both knew he wouldn't. She climbed to her feet. "I guess I'd better get to bed, then. Computer, end simulation." She headed for the door. "And I guess I'd better wipe the recording cameras so no one knows what I was doing here. Jean and the Professor might get a little concerned with this revenge fantasy."
Logan grinned at her. "Don't worry; it's healthy. But if you're that worried, I'll wipe the automatic session-recordings and the logs. You go on up to bed."
"Thanks, Wolvie," Jubilee gave him a warm, happy smile. "You're the best."
"Aw, get on with ya." Logan kept the smile in place as Jubilee left the room and the doors closed, but by the time he turned toward the empty Danger room, the smile was gone, replaced by a cold, enraged mask. "Computer; begin simulation again." The lab sprang back into existence; the same table, cabinets stocked with instruments…and Bastion, sitting strapped into the chair. His lips curved into an unpleasant smile. "Computer. Bastion hologram, full human function."
The Bastion hologram in the chair began to struggle against the straps. "You won't get away with this, mutie! Soon enough my Zero Tolerance forces will find us, and crush you where you stand."
Logan stalked toward the cabinets, ignoring the threat. "Jubilee couldn't hurt you, even as a hologram," he growled, yanking open the cabinet that held the medical instruments. Selecting a scalpel, he returned to the Bastion-hologram. "I ain't gonna hold back. Let's see how well you do when you're the one gettin' tortured." The scalpel sank into flesh. Holographic flesh, but flesh nonetheless. Holographic blood welled up around the thin metal blade. Logan smiled thinly in satisfaction, and continued cutting…
Scott blinked in surprise as he and Jean stepped into the Danger Room. "Logan? You're usually not this early."
Logan turned away from the punching bag he was assaulting and smiled, a feral, unpleasant smile. "I had something I wanted to do," he said.
Scott blinked, then shrugged. 'Okay." He turned as the others straggled in, one by one, most still yawning. Jubilee came in last, rubbing hr eyes. When she caught Logan's eye, she raised an eyebrow in silent question. He nodded back, the barest of movements. She smiled at him, then turned her attention to Scott as he explained the morning simulation.
Logan relaxed as he too focused his attention on Scott. Jubilee would be fine. He was sure of it.
End Notes:
That's it, folks! That's all for Zero Tolerance! Hope you all enjoyed the ride!
Next up: I'll be finishing up 'Eternity In An Hour.' I lost the mailing list of names that wanted to read new chapters, and anyway some people have expressed a disinterest in reading it, so I'll send it out to anyone who asks for it!
See you then!
Amanda
