Housekeeping: It's official, I've managed to write the first OC fic, where the OC never appears...I blame Emma…I promise Mattias is still a part of this fic, but Jubes is dealing with some pretty bad stuff right now...It's a journey people! ;)

Oh and I have a favour to asked. Two years ago there was a Jubilee/Bobby fic on called "Entertain me" written by the same author who wrote "Times Change and We with Time". Now I have copies of "Entertain Me" and most of "Times Change and We with Time" saved for the OHXFFA, but I can't find a copy of Entertain Me's brilliant sequel or the last few chapters of TCAWWT anywhere. The author sadly has also gone AWOL. If anyone has a copy of either or even just a part of them. PLEASE send it to me, I really want to save this one. You'll totally get kudos on the archive once it's up and running.

This week we've had more kind words from regular reviewer Verthril and a new fav from dorcagastelum. Thanks guys, you keep me motivated. :)

Chapter Seven: Mothers, Daughters and Franz Listz

With Raizo now in charge of the situation, what followed was many months of intensive vampire therapy condensed into just two weeks of tears and soul-searching. Hank and Logan had argued for a more leisurely pace, but the steadfast Forgiven leader insisted that the sooner Jubilee returned to her normal daily routine, the faster the allure of the addiction would fade.

So involved were Jubilee's sessions that even as he slept, the elder vampire's calm Bohemian voice echoed in her dreams. She was starting to wonder if there was any place one could hide from a motivated Raizo.

As the therapy started to have a positive effect, Jubilee felt the need to feed slowly fade away. This allowed Hank to reduce the quantity of Logan's blood she drank each day and switch her back to synthesized haemoglobin. She felt like a baby being weaned from the bottle.

After the first week the euphoric, runaway-train sensation dwindled and in its place settled a familiar sense of self. Growing confident that the young vampire had a certain amount of control over her "urges", Hank felt it was safe to allow her to leave the containment chamber for short periods, as long as she was accompanied by one of the Forgiven.

The doctor had expected the naturally outgoing firecracker to welcome this new development, anxious to be she'd be reunited with her son. But Jubilee seemed unwilling to leave the safety of her cell. No longer a hostage of her baser nature, the returning clarity meant dealing with matters she would have rather avoided.

Like the overwhelming regret and shame she felt over the death of the Jersey Stalker. Yes, he had been a murderous psychopath, but X-Men don't kill. Cyclops and Storm might have looked the other way as X-Force assassinated people for the greater good, but Charles Xavier had ingrained in Jubilee a strict, at times even narrow, moral code: X-Men don't kill; the ends do not justify the means.

She drifted off to sleep with that thought running through her mind. When she opened her eyes a few hours later, the comforting walls of the containment cell where gone, and so was everything else.

Around her the world was an empty black void. She able to stand, though she knew there was no ground beneath her feet. The place was devoid of light, temperature and life.

It took a moment for her sleepy mind to realise where she was. A world without reality or substance, where Newtonian physics were mere suggestions: the Astral Plane.

'Oh for funk's sake, I really don't need this right now!' Jubilee shouted out into the void. It did not answer back.

Knowing she'd be stuck there for a while, and with nothing better to do, Jubilee picked a random direction and started walking. She knew it didn't really matter whether she moved or not, because there was nothing to amble towards, but it helped to feel like she was doing something. Until whatever or whoever had brought her there decided to show itself, she was a permanent guest.

Boredom was just starting to set in when Jubilee heard faint music in the distance. Someone was expertly playing a gypsy-esque tune on a piano. Listening more intently, Jubilee tried to remember where she had heard it before. Something from her childhood, maybe?

As a youngster she'd spend many hours playing at her cellist mother's feet as she practiced for performances. Was this the same oddball tune her mom had complained never sounded right on a cello? Jennifer Lee had loved the melody, but hated the orchestral arrangement for cellists that lacked the speed and liveliness of the original piano version.

The title was on the tip of her tongue… and then she heard her mother's ghostly voice whisper it in her ear: 'Liszt… Hungarian Rhapsody No 2.'

She knew it was an illusion created by the astral plane, but still, hearing her dead mother's voice so clear made her blood run cold. A large part of her want to flee far away from the cheerfully haunting music, even as she forced herself to go towards it.

As Jubilee felt herself getting closer to the origin of the music, the spectral world around her started to take form out of the black. The darkness above her filled with stars, a full moon appeared behind some clouds and the nothingness on which she was walking was now a lonely, icy road lined with snow-covered trees.

As the music grew steadily louder, the familiar outline of a wrought iron gate appeared before her.

The gate wasn't locked, a clear sign that none of what she was experiencing was real. The last time she had seen this gate it was fastened shut by the most secure electronic lock money could buy.

Beyond the gate, a large redbrick building materialised, and in its lit windows she could make out the shapes of silhouetted figures moving inside. Though she knew they were just part of the illusion, Jubilee couldn't help but pick up her pace, anxious to reach the building's façade.

To her annoyance, a porch light brightly lit the steps leading up to the entrance. It shouldn't have. One too many random explosions had left the building's wiring in a sorry state, and no matter how studiously it was rebuilt over the years, the porch light always burned out in the colder months. Jubilee threw it a disgusted look, and as if it could sense her thoughts, the light duly extinguished itself.

She climbed the steps and paused at the front door, running a hand along the heavy cherry wood and listening for the voices she could now detect just above the piano melody. Closing her eyes, she rested her forehead against the door and waited.

And as if she'd willed it, the volume of the piano lowered, and the other voices quietened as one young male voice shouted above them, something indiscernible in a faint Midwestern accent. It was followed a moment later by a different masculine voice swearing and muttering back in a foreign tongue.

Listening to the two friends bicker good-naturedly, Jubilee felt a knot form in her throat and she struggled to bite back bitter tears. She longed to stay and listen, but knew that was impossible. Taking a deep breath, she straightened, mentally pulled herself back together and pushed open the door to Xavier's Massachusetts Academy, Snow Valley.

Jubilee wasn't all that surprised to find that beyond the door was just another black hole. Somehow she had known the owners of the phantom voices wouldn't be waiting for her on the other side.

Behind her, Franz Liszt's tune echoed eerily once more, louder and closer than before. Whipping around, she found the front door had vanished and in its place was the school's spiral staircase.

Having seen much weirder things growing up X, she climbed the stairs without giving their sudden appearance a second thought. At the top, the carpeted hallway of the girl's dormitory appeared, even though the dorm hadn't been housed in the main building. Shaking her head at the inconsistency of astral-ecto space, Jubilee made her way down the hallway.

It seemed to go on forever, stretching far off into the darkness. At first she tried opening the closed doors that lined both sides, but most were either locked or opened onto dead space.

As the lost girl wandered on, she noticed the music in the air never seemed to end or even reach its famous crescendo. Someone was expertly weaving together the different parts of the recognisable melody into a new, complex whole.

The existence of the piano was strange in itself. Everything she had seen so far, as distorted as it was, had been part of the original academy years before. But the school had never needed a piano, and any music heard in the building either blared from an iPod or drifted from up from boy's dorms in the basement as Jono practiced angst-filled punk ballads on his Gibson.

Distracted by her thoughts, Jubliee nearly smacked her face into the garishly decorated door that materialised before her. She recognised it instantly. Monet had spend days bemoaning the boy band posters and stickers Jubilee had glued to its expensive wood.

This time the world did not give way as she opened the door. Jubilee was forced to squint as her sensitive eyes adjusted to the sunlight streaming in from the window on her left.

She was back in her old dorm in Massachusetts, but it was much larger – Jubilee was pretty sure she never had a self-playing baby grand in the corner. Everything else, though, was just as she had left it on the morning the human students had burned it all to the ground.

As much as she wanted to jump on her old bed and rifle through the knick-knacks of her childhood, it was the woman rocking a napping Shogo in her arms that interested her more.

Emma Frost spared her student an aloof glance and continued rocking the boy. 'I tried Brahms' Lullaby, but he seems to prefer this,' she said, referring to the much softer version of the Hungarian Rhapsody the piano was playing.

'What do you want, Frosty?'

For the most part, Jubilee was unconcerned that the former matriarch of the Hellfire Club was holding her son. While Emma was the kind of woman you wouldn't leave your husband alone with, she'd dive into boiling lava to save a child.

'Me? I'm just checking in on Shogo.'

'Shogo's fine.'

'That's not what a little birdie told me,' the White Queen said as she smiled fondly at the boy in her arms.

'Wolvie is gonna freak when he finds out Hellion is spying for you.'

'Spying is such a nasty word. I prefer to think of it as staying abreast of current events. Julian is merely relaying minor topics of interest. Am I not allowed to check up on my student and her son? I do regret that this current unpleasantness between Scott and Logan has prevented me from meeting Shogo until now.'

Jubilee stared up at the much taller woman in disbelief. 'Unpleasantness? "Fearless Leader" murdered the Professor.'

At the reminder of her former lover's crimes, the White Queen's eyes blitzed daggers for a split second, before her cool persona settle in once more.

'You should be more careful when condemning others, Jubilation. Need I remind you that if it wasn't for Scott Summers you would have been staked right along with your little boyfriend Xarus.'

'Firstly, Cyke just hated that Dracula had something of his. Secondly, I'm not your damn student anymore. And thirdly, you've checked in, everything's fine, now do me a favour and check the hell out.'

'I would, but I prefer to stay and see how this is ends.'

An antique crib appeared next to the baby grand and Emma gently laid the sleeping child in it.

'How what ends?'

'This new little vampire drama of yours. It's no secret that you're hiding in the basement. People tend to gossip.'

Not willing to admit Emma's intel was correct, Jubilee stood by her son's crib and fussed with his blankets, avoiding the other woman's knowing gaze. Hoping to the distract Emma, she waved a hand around the room.

'So all of this? Are you doing it or am I?'

'A little of both. The psy-link I've created between us is easier to maintain if the environment is familiar to both of us. I might have created the world, but your memories aid in solidifying the illusion, colouring in the details. I could, of course, do it on my own, but it would require a considerable amount of concentration.'

Satisfied that Shogo was a comfortable as he was ever going to be, Jubilee started to inspect the contents of the room, digging around drawers, paging through old sketchbooks and occasionally picking up a long-forgotten toy.

Emma let Jubilee have her moment, as the head of Frost Enterprises knew when someone was trying to avoid her, but she was also hesitant to push her former student, who had a habit of reacting in unexpected ways when cornered.

Then again, if it was left up to the vampire, they might be stuck in the Astral Plane for a very long time.

'As I see it, Jubilation, there are two possible outcomes to your current situation,' said Emma abruptly. 'After you leave here, you can either get up, get dressed, slap a smile on and be a responsible parent to that baby boy. Or you can disappoint me and use that stake Visigoth slipped you when Raizo wasn't looking. It's hidden under the mattress, I believe. How very original of you.'

To Emma's relief the there was no outburst, no explosion of temper. Instead the girl simply sank down on her old dorm bed and picked up one of the many photo frames that stood on the nightstand. Each photo was a frozen moment of a happier time, a more innocent time.

When Jubilee finally spoke, Emma had to strain to hear her for the quietness of her voice.

'You think this is easy?' Jubilee whispered. 'You think I can just forget and go on with my life like nothing happened?'

'No, that's not what I believe. For someone like you, I believe walking away from what happened in that sewer is incredibly difficult.'

'Someone like me?' Jubilee asked, dumbfounded.

'Don't play dumb with me, dear, you know what I mean' – still seeing the utter confusion in the girl's red eyes, Emma filled in the blank – 'someone who believes they're one of the good guys.'

'I am one of the good guys.'

'No, you're definitely not,' said Emma, with a sly smile on her perfect glossed lips. 'Having had to endure teaching you for three years, I can honestly say that you, Jubilation, have never been a poster child for good behaviour.'

Slamming the frame she held hard on the nightstand, the firecracker's cool veneer cracked.

'OK, so I haven't always been a saint, but I've spend nearly every day of my life since I was thirteen training to be an X-Man, and I'm not about to be lectured on ethics by a former member of the Hellfire Club!'

Used to these bursts of temper, Emma let the wave of anger she could feel through their temporary psy-link wash over her. The telepath had hit a nerve, and she was oddly pleased with that development. Anger proved there was still some fight left in the girl.

'You and I are a lot alike,' Emma explained. 'We're the subtle shade of grey between dewy-eyed saints like Jean Grey and evil monsters like the Jersey Stalker.'

'Don't you dare say bad thing about Jeannie. She would've found another way to stop the Stalker. She would never have done what I did.'

'What is it you think you did, exactly?'

And for the first time Jubilee said out loud the words that haunted her dreams: 'I murdered a man.'

Emma shook her platinum locks. 'No, you stopped a monster who was about to rape and murder you.'

'That doesn't matter,' Jubliee growned back through gritted teeth. 'I'm an X-Man. We don't just kill people.'

'Ah yes, I forgot Charles Xavier taught every X-Man to be a good little martyr. You're right about one thing, though: Jean Grey would not have killed the Stalker, but she would have ended up in the morgue raped and murdered.'

Jubilee, still seething, was not willing to admit there was some truth to Emma's words.

Glancing down at frames on the bedside table, Emma's pale blue eyes scanned the collection of X-faces. Some where stunning in their beauty, others were remarkable in their oddness, but even among this unique menagerie, one young man stood out from the crowd.

'I lost Sync, an omega mutant, because he sacrificed himself for a bunch of brats. Does anyone other than us even remember him?'

'It doesn't matter who remembers him,' said Jubliee. 'Everett died a hero.'

'And because of that we'll never know what else he was capable of. Everett Thomas was a brilliant young man; he had the brains, looks and enough natural charm he could have sailed into the Oval Office if he wanted.'

Fighting to regain some control of her rolling emotions, Emma turned her back on Jubilee and when she spoke again her voice was cold and as hard as diamond.

'I didn't teach you kids to be martyrs, I taught you how to be survivors.'

As Jubliee contemplated that for a moment, Emma suddenly changed the subject.

'Now really, I must push you for a decision. The baby or the stake?'

Inwardly, Emma flinched at the bluntness of her own words.

'You don't get it. I can't…' – Jubilee faltered as she to put her fears into words – 'I just can't… What if I lose control again and… and… hurt Shogo?'

Emma turned back to find a sight she never thought she'd see: Jubilation Lee quietly sobbing to herself.

Never the most comforting of counselors, Emma made a rare exception in this case, sitting down next to distraught Jubliee and wrapping her arms around her erstwhile student.

'You won't hurt him, dear. You are a survivor, not a murderer. Yes, you killed a man, but because of you did hundreds of girls have been spared a fate worse than death.'

Later, Jubilee couldn't say how long they sat like that. In any case, no one would believe her if she told them. Jubes crying in Emma Frost's arms? Not in a million years!

The few remaining members of Generation X would always have a complicated relationship with their former headmistress. While they were never the most loyal of students, they all acknowledge that the psychic had had a subtle but lasting effect on what they had become: survivors.

As Jubilee got up off the bed to dote over her Shogo in his crib, Emma watched as a metamorphosis took place, the once scared child now a world-weary adult woman, a whole lot older than the girl she had coaxed into the Astral Plane.

Jubliee picked up the sleeping astral form of her son, and as she held him she noticed the piano had ceased playing.

'I never knew you played piano,' Jubilee said as Emma stood next to her.

'Oh I don't. Cordelia was the one with the musical talent.'

'You sure you never had a lesson?'

'No. Why?'

'Because I haven't either, and if all this is made from our experiences, then who was playing the piano?'

Intrigued, Emma rested her hand on the boy's head for a second and then smiled a knowing grin.

'Well now, isn't that interesting,' she purred.

'What?'

'Oh nothing, dear, you'll find out soon enough. Now it's time to say goodnight.'

Before Jubilee's could respond everything went dark again and she woke up with a start. The White Queen, the piano and the academy where gone, replaced by the stark metal walls of the containment cell.

And though she remembered her whole conversation with the telepath, she couldn't understand why she suddenly felt like the need to hum Franz Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No 2.

Next time: Ok I'm not making any promises. There's two other shorter sections between this and more Jubes/Mattias. (Heaven knows I'd like to get back to writing a slightly lighter tone for a bit) Looking at the layout I have of chapter 8, I might be able to fit both in without causing my beta to want to smother me in my sleep. The poor boy can only handle so much X-Men stuff in a week.

Whatever happens there will be...Gambit...Cecilia...and some pretty unhappy Shogo.