Part Fourteen

Logan went to the bed and sat down, rubbing Jubilee's back as the lifeless eyes stared ahead, the fingers clenched into fists and her lips cracked from not eating or drinking since the flight through the window. Logan knew he never broke promises for Kitty, but every time he'd made a promise to Jubilee, who was younger, more alone, he'd never kept it. He knew that if he left now to join Kitty, he'd just be breaking another promise, one which now mattered because it held the little child before him from finding her wishes.

"Go get the chair Hank and tell Kitty that I'll come for coffee around lunch time." Logan watched Jubilee shudder and she turned her head to meet his eyes. Turning to the furry man before he left, he called out, "And get Jeannie t' come up too."

"I shall return to your company in but mere minutes." Beast called as he exited Logan's room and bounced down the hall towards the stairs.

"Can't he ever talk in English?" Logan muttered, stroking Jubilee's hair down from the ever-persistent cowlicks that had graced it for the last few days. "Jeannie can help ya get washed up and dressed and I'll make the wheelchair nice fer ya."

"No." Jubilee pushed his hand away from her head and stared at the corner behind his head, waiting for a response from him.

"Why not darlin'? Ya wanna go like that?" Logan waved a hand at her and watched her blank face for a sign of emotion. Sighing, he closed his eyes and searched for something to say, anything to take away the anger and pain pouring off of her. "I said I'd help ya and I'm not leaving you alone."

"I take up too much of everyone's time. If I'd just gone back to the Academy, you'd all have something else important to do instead. I'm not that big of a deal and I'm not supposed to be here. I want to be dead and let you get on with your lives." Jubilee pulled away again and Logan grabbed her wrist as gently as possible, stopping her from blasting him away.

"I could never get over losing ya Jubilation. Never. No matter what you think, you matter to me and to everyone in this house. Everyone would be affected by your death and to think they wouldn't is wrong. If you died, I'd leave this team again and never come back."

"Fine, whatever." she saw the hurt that it put in his eyes and hung her head, not wanting to see.

"I know that bothers ya Jubes, no matter what ya say. Someday when yer better, I'll take ya away from here, just us two fer a while." Logan pulled her into a hug and she complied, wrapping her arms around his back and locking them. Logan was once again amazed at how thin she was, the knots in her spin poking into his arms as he hugged her. He rubbed a hand up and down her back to reassure her as she let out a sob into his shoulder.

"Ya can say whatever ya want to get people away from you J, but I know how ya really feel. I've been there, you can't hide it from me. Remy's been there, he knows what you feel like right now. If you ever think we don't care about you, ask one of us and we'll smack some sense into ya. Once yer better of course."

"You don't treat me like you care." she whispered into his neck, breathing in his aftershave with a strangled sob. "Yer like my parents. You always promise me things and you always say you love me, but you break all those promises and you don't act as though anything I do affects you..."

Logan stopped rubbing her back, choked by her words. "Jubes..."

"No. You think that I can just be told something and sent away to the corner until I'm needed again. You've promised me so many times that you'd take care of me and never let anything hurt me..." she paused and lifted her shirt to her ribs, grateful for the matching shorts she wore. She touched the light scars across her belly and sobbed again, the bony fingers clenching her stomach.

"And then you let something like this happen...and you think that this was just a problem to get over..." she showed her wrists to him and then dropped her shirt back down and touched her face. "And that this will all magically go away again like it did all those other times. Let me tell you something Wolvie...this isn't the second time I've tried to kill myself. This is the fifth time! I was committed when I was younger because I tried to off myself so many times!" she finally stopped spewing out her hurt and anguish and huddled in the corner, watching him for the disgust she thought would come into his eyes at her truthful revelation.

"Why?" he asked, moving back on the bed to sit near her. Shocked at his wanting to know, she moved a bit and began to fiddle with the drawstrings on her pants, waiting for him to get comfortable. "Why did you try it when you were little?"

"'Cause my parents didn't love me." she whispered. "I heard my father say it when he was talking to my mom. They didn't want me and they wanted to send me away to my aunt and uncle in China. I was a mistake that they didn't want and they never even thought of pretending to love me."

Logan didn't know what to say. The anger coursed red and fiery through his veins and he would have killed the Lee's if they hadn't already been murdered. "When did you do it?"

"When I was ten. I stopped eating until I weighed so little that they had to notice because the school sent me home from fainting. My dad punished me, but all my mother did was stuff me until I threw up. She didn't mean to, but she didn't know how to take care of me, so I just got worse knowing she didn't love me and all I was, was a burden to her because she was supposed to be busy."

"When did you do it again?" Logan wrapped an arm around her back, but the little girl was lost inside herself, staring ahead blankly as she recalled her horrifying life of neglect and suffering. Tears filled Logan's eyes and he wiped them away as she absently put an arm around his waist, leaning against his shoulder like they used to do when she was on the X-Men team.

"A month later. I cut my wrists. Those are the scars you saw, not from Zero Tolerance." she fingered the pale purple welts on her skin without looking. "I used my dad's letter opener when I was supposed to be playing in my room but I pressed too hard. He found out it was missing and came upstairs, calling my mom. She started yelling that I was staining the carpet and my dad called the hospital to come and get me. I woke up in the hospital bed with my wrists in casts and they were signing the papers in my room to send me to China with my family. They took me home that night and then they were murdered."

"J, I'm sorry this had to happen to you..." Logan stroked her hair as tears slipped down her face, but she stared straight ahead still and clutched his shirt, wetting the fabric with salty water.

"And then I went to the Juvenile Hall and I was stuck with a girl who said she wanted to kill me. I knew she had a knife so I teased her and she stabbed into my ribs, but a guard broke it up and I was stitched up, good as new." Jubilee snapped out of her thoughts and buried her head into Logan's side, sobbing. "And then I came here...and everybody treated me nice and I got you to take care of me, but you left and they sent me away. And Bastion got me and gave me the operation and let the guards do whatever they wanted to me and nobody knew..." she started to pull away from Logan, sure he was disgusted with her, but he pulled her back, knowing she needed any kind of love right then. He hugged her and she finally gave in tightening her grip around his neck. Logan felt her shaking in his hold and she began to whimper in hurt as he sat with her, the sun rising in the sky.

"And then I was alone at the Academy and I called and you wouldn't even come and visit me unless the whole team came. And I missed you so much. You were the first person who loved me, but you broke your promises just like everyone else. So when I came here again, I decided to try again, but you found me...and now I'm being selfish, just like I was with my parents. You have better thing's to do than watch me. Let me die if you don't care enough to love me." she shook harder, beginning to hyperventilate. "I suppose you think I'm just a crazy mess now? Go ahead, you can tell me how disgusting I am. My parents made sure I knew after I tried to kill myself there. They told me I was a waste of time and they made sure I knew how much of a mess I was..."

(Written by Nova Zion)