Jubilee had had a harrowing day. After the burial, she and Paige had decided to stay behind at the cemetery. To her, it felt like leaving the burial ground would make her friend's death final. Leaving would be like accepting his death and moving on, which she knew she was supposed to do. Move on with her life. But a part of her didn't want to move on. She didn't want to accept Angelo's death. So she stayed, as long as she could. Jubilee had no idea as to why Paige chose to remain behind with her. She thought about asking her, but never got around to it.
It happened soon after Angelo had been buried. Everyone else had departed. Some to a reception in Angelo's honor, some to parts unknown. As Paige and Jubilee stood there, holding a quiet conversation, two men with shovels showed up, claiming that they had been sent to unearth their friend's remains. Mutants, they said, weren't welcome at that particular burial ground. Paige had ordered (as if she had any right) Jubilee to go and talk to the director of the cemetery, while she dealt with the gravediggers. In the office, Jubilee found that her pleas fell on deaf ears, while outside, Paige discovered that one of the men intent on digging up their deceased comrade was himself a mutant.
Afterwards, Jubilee managed to separate herself from Paige and Warren, who had joined them. Although she was dreading it, Jubilee planned to visit her old apartment. She had to see it. She had to know if anything was salvageable. She had to know what was left. She took the bus, and then walked the rest of the way, as she had done so many times before. A block from home, an older man sitting on a porch whistled at her and shouted something lewd in her direction. As she had so many times, in so many situations, she ignored the comment and kept walking. A few years ago, she might have yelled back at the guy. If he was really annoying, she might have even approached and hit him. She probably wouldn't have paffed him, but she would have been sorely tempted. But that was then. Now? Now she just ignored him. Jubilee wasn't sure if she liked the change in herself, and was unsure about what may have brought it around. She just felt that the pervert wasn't worth her time.
A second later, though, she heard a loud scream. She stopped, nerves on edge, and turned her head back in an attempt to see if there was anything of interest happening behind her. All she saw was the same old guy, still sitting on his porch.
But there was something.
It might have been her imagination, but it looked as though he was slumped over, like he had passed out.
Jubilee frowned, but decided that she wasn't in the mood to turn back and investigate the old man's state. As she began to walk again, a cat ran by her at top speed, as if running for its life. But there was nothing chasing the poor animal and Jubilee was at a loss as to what was responsible for its terror.
Then the clues fit together and she knew.
"How long have you been following me?" she asked, turning around.
"Didn't need to follow you," responded a familiar voice, "I knew that you'd show up here eventually."
"So you've been lying in wait? Well, that's stalker-ish."
A figure emerged from the gangway of the house that the now unconscious man was sitting in front of. Logan gave a shrug. "You know how it goes. I'm the best there is at what I do."
"And stalking definitely isn't pretty," she finished with a weak smile, which was reciprocated.
She waited for him to catch up to her, and then they made their way towards her old apartment building in silence. Although she had felt the need to be alone, she was grateful for Logan's company. She'd been dreading what she'd find when she reached her former home. Logan's presence made her feel braver, like she could face whatever she found.
When they reached the building, they found that the front door to be unlocked. Jubilee had been expecting this. Pablo, one of the first floor tenants, constantly had visitors over. Jubilee had no idea who her neighbor's guests were and why they were there. But Pablo always left the door unlocked so that his visitors could just come on in and head for his apartment. This lack of security had never really upset Jubilee. She had believed that she was capable of protecting herself (boy had she been wrong), and believed this to be true of Ange also. If anything, she'd worried about some of her other neighbors - Doris, an old lady who occupied another first floor apartment and the Sanchez family, who lived on the third floor.
But today, finding the unlocked relieved her. When she'd turned up at the school, she'd had nothing but the clothes on her back. No ID, no money, and no keys. Jubilee knew that she could paff the lock easily, if she'd needed to. Heck, she'd spent enough time with Storm and Gambit that she could probably pick it, if need be. Plus, she had Logan standing next to her, and she knew that no door could hold him back. But she didn't want to call attention to herself. It was simply easier to turn the knob and enter.
She and Logan made their way up the creaky stairs and dimly lit hallways to her third floor apartment. No one else was around, and Jubilee assumed that that was because it was midday, and most people were off at work. She found herself blabbing to Logan, telling him about the time that Pablo had left the front door unlocked overnight and she'd almost tripped over a homeless man who'd come in and fallen asleep on their stairs. She'd apologized and asked if the man wanted food or anything like that, but the guy had run off, as if he'd expected her to turn him in to the police.
By the time the duo had reached her floor, Jubilee had begun telling Logan about her neighbor directly below her. Hilda, (although Ange and Jubes had started calling her Broomhilda) used to pound on her ceiling with a broom handle if she heard any sort of noise after ten o'clock. Logan listened as Jubilee went on. Some of the stories he'd heard before, and some were new. Every once in a while, he'd offer up a comment or give his opinion on something, but he made an effort to remain silent, listening to her. Whether she knew it or not, Jubilee needed to get this sort of stuff out. He knew his girl. Peppy on the outside, though she carried the weight of the world on her shoulders. He knew she'd been bottling this up inside. He also knew that she needed to let it out, and that getting her to do that was the best kind of help he could offer her. So he let her go on. When they'd reached her door, though, Jubilee stopped talking.
"Everything okay, darlin'?" he asked her.
"Yeah," she lied, taking a ragged breath before reaching for her doorknob. Her hand paused an inch from its destination, and she took a moment to steel herself before reaching forward and grabbing the handle. She gripped it tightly while turning it to see if it was locked.
It wasn't. Somehow, that didn't surprise her. She pushed the door open.
Jubilee had come here not knowing what to expect. Although millions of possibilities as to what she might find in her former home had occurred to her, Jubilee didn't truly believe any of them. And it didn't matter. She'd never imagined finding her home exactly as she'd left it.
Well, not exactly. As she looked around, she noticed that everything was cleaner, as if someone had tidied up the place. Cleaner than it had ever been while she and Angelo lived there. The floors were mopped and the pictures on the wall straightened. The random objects that always seemed to end up on their floor were put neatly away. The mismatched furniture had even been dusted.
As the pair stepped into Jubilee's apartment, Logan growled softly. Jubilee looked at him quizzically, waiting for an explanation. When one was not forthcoming, she asked him, "Smell anything familiar?"
Logan frowned. He seemed to be trying to place whatever he'd just smelled, but then shook his head. "I'm smelling about twenty different scents. Mostly guys, but some ladies too. No one I've ever smelled before." As an after thought, he added, "Plus your scent and Skin's". He didn't mention the crisp scent that the air held, usually indicative of laser fire. There was also a lingering smell of burnt flesh, though he couldn't identify whose. "You sure you don't remember anything about what happened?"
"Nada". A pause, then, "You can still smell Ange?"
"Yeah," he said, giving her a concerned look.
Jubilee seemed to think about that for a minute, before deciding that she didn't want to dwell on that. She walked further into the residence. She saw more evidence of tampering – the dishes were all washed and put away, the trash had been taken out – and it seemed to her that someone had gone through a lot of trouble to make everything look normal. She just wished she remembered what they were covering up. In her room, the bed was made, her pillows had been fluffed, and her clothes had been hung neatly in her tiny closet. Even her laundry had been done. She walked over to her closet and pulled her clothes off of their hangers, stuffing the garments in a duffle bag she found underneath her bed. The duffle bag had been with her for years. She'd used it to move from Xavier's to Snow Valley, and then from Snow Valley to LA.
That task finished, Jubilee found a pair of shopping bags tucked behind her dresser, and filled them with the contents of her dresser drawers. She discovered that she didn't have enough room for everything that she wanted to bring with her, and almost began crying in frustration before it occurred to her that there were garbage bags in the kitchen that she could use. Leaving her room, she found Logan exploring her small apartment. He'd helped himself to one of Ange's beers from the refrigerator.
"Need any help, darlin'?" he asked her.
"Not really. Just deciding what to take and what not to take. Can't take more than we can carry".
"Don't worry about it," he reassured her, "I rented a Jeep. Think that'll hold most of your stuff?"
"Umm...yeah, that should be fine. Thanks, Wolvie," answered Jubilee, who, though grateful for her friend's help, was having a difficult time imagining him doing something as mundane as visit a car rental company. "I don't have much more, just a few bags full, really," she continued, digging under the sink for the containers she needed. Soon, she gathered up her findings and headed back towards her room. Logan followed. He stood in her doorway, leaning against the frame, as she filled two of the garbage bags with her remaining clothes and shoes. He would have offered his help, but he knew that it was not needed. This was something that Jubilee had to do on her own.
Jubilee took down the few pictures scattered across her wall, and Logan couldn't help but notice how she avoided looking at them, as if dwelling on them could trigger unwanted memories, and placed them gingerly in a pile. From under her bed, she pulled the shoebox that contained most of her important papers, such as her state ID and social security card. She placed the box at the bottom of one of the paper bags, and then put the pictures on top of it. Into the other paper bag, she placed several books that she had accumulated. Reading had never been her strong point, so her personal library was rather small. Finally, she pulled his old cowboy hat from her bedpost and placed it on top of one of the bags. The hat was slightly singed from the fire that had consumed most of her possessions, but it was still intact.
Once she had finished, Jubilee stood up and looked around the room, checking for any items that she may have neglected to pack. Finding none, she picked up the remaining bags and made her way to Angelo's room.
His door had been closed when she entered the apartment, preventing her from seeing the interior of the room. Her breath caught as she opened the door. Nowhere was the evidence of tampering more obvious than in Angelo's bedroom. Ange's floor, which was always covered with dirty clothes and God knew what else, was bare. She looked at his carpeting, which was beige and badly stained, and realized that this was the first time she'd seen it since shortly after they'd moved in. Looking closer, she realized that it had even been vacuumed. Angelo's clothes were hung in his closet. His action figures had been arranged on his windowsill, and his bed was made. The room's transformation shook Jubilee to the core, but she managed to keep herself under control.
That was, of course, until she looked at the empty wall space above Ange's dresser. Once, an old corkboard had hung there. He had purchased it at a yard sale on his way back from work. It was tucked away in his room, forgotten for weeks until one night, while suffering from insomnia, Angelo had pinned, taped, and glued a menagerie of pictures and letters to it. The board was overcrowded, as well as battered, but Ange had been proud of his accomplishment. Jubilee understood why. He'd basically taken everything that had contributed to making him the person who he was and displayed it in a colorful story of his life. That board was Angelo Espinosa.
Except that someone had thought that it was too messy. The board, along with its contents, was gone. Jubilee scanned the room, hoping that it had been moved, but she saw no trace of it. It was the only thing of Ange's that she'd come in here to retrieve, and it was gone.
Jubilee didn't cry. She had no inclination towards tears. Instead, she felt herself fill with rage. Rage at the killers, the Church of Humanity. Rage at Angelo, for leaving her. Rage at herself, for allowing it all to happen. Rage at the X-men, for bringing her back and forcing her to deal with everything that had happened. Rage at Logan for the worried look her was casting her way. Rage at Bobby for, well, just for being Bobby. Rage, rage, rage. She felt like she was going to explode.
And then she did.
Or, to be more accurate, Angelo's dresser did as her pyrotechnics flew unbidden from her hands. Over time, she'd gotten better at controlling her mutant gift when she was under emotional stress. Now, she hadn't even been aware that her power had been activated until the sound of the dresser bursting into splinters jarred her from her angry thoughts.
Jubilee frowned at her loss of control, then cast an defiant look at Logan, as if daring him to say something about the incident. He, of course, just met her glare with a steady look, his expression inscrutable.
"Feel better?" he finally asked.
Jubilee opened her mouth to respond, a sharp retort on the tip of her tongue. However, she stopped in the middle of the action as a realization came to her. Then, giving Logan a bemused expression, she replied, "You know what? I do".
"Great. Come on, let's get some chili fries," Logan suggested. When Jubilee replied to his offer by raising an eyebrow, he added, "My treat".
"Awesome! Will you spring for extra cheese? And milkshakes? Ohh, and maybe a pretzel?" she asked excitedly.
"I'm gonna regret making that offer, aren't I, darlin'?"
"Probably," she grinned. "Let's go!"
The duo gathered up the remainder of Jubilee's possessions. At the door, Jubilee turned to examine her former home one last time. She felt the urge to cry, but resisted. Logan, perhaps understanding how she felt, placed his hand on her shoulder.
"Ready?" he asked.
She inhaled loudly before replying, "Yeah," said Jubilee as she flipped the light switch located on her right side, extinguishing the main source of illumination. The apartment was bathed in darkness. "Yeah, I'm ready," she repeated, as she closed the door to her apartment and on a chapter of her life.