Part Two

Jubilee awoke to sunlight in her face, streaming in through half-shut blinds; buttery bars of warmth that deepened the hue of her skin and made her wispy hair gleam almost white as it splayed out on the pillow, an ebony puddle on a snowy background. Not surprisingly, it was the confusion that first hit as the sedative tried to wear off. Her surroundings were both familiar and foreign, until she remembered that she had been placed in Logan's room for the time being. The musky scent of his cologne and the bittersweet odor of his cigars assailed her senses as she took a deep breath and tried to sit up. It was the pain that stopped her.

Crying out, she fell back against the pillow and gritted her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut as a tear leaked through her thick lashes and rolled down her cheek to land in the curve of her ear, where it flashed in the sunlight before dripping into her hair and vanishing amidst the obsidian locks. The part of her that was amazed she was not dead wished she were, for then she would not have to suffer this excruciation. Why had they saved her, when what she had wanted was to die?

She breathed shallowly, for every inhalation brought a tightening pain to her rib cage, just above her stomach, and she wondered where they were now. Probably gone like they always are when I need them, she thought bitterly, but low voices outside the not-quite-shut door informed her of her erroneous assumption. She couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but she was sure she heard her name at least twice. After a few drawn-out moments, Logan entered the room, followed closely by Hank, with the worried faces of Jean and Sabine hovering in the doorway before drifting off to another reality where pain and suffering did not exist.

"Well, well, well," commented the blue-furred physician, a toothy grin a mask that could not hide he sorrow the was feeling at seeing the resident firecracker in such a state. "It would seem your pyrotechnic protegee has recovered from her sedated slumber. How are you feeling, my fine fractious friend?"

Jubilee didn't respond, for she had been paying no attention to the royal blue of her doctor's face, but rather the indigo of his companion's eyes, which were clouded with fatigue, self-blame, and above all, intense concern for her. Reaching up with her good hand, she smiled slightly when he took it, his hand rough and warm.

"I'm sorry," she rasped, meeting his gaze so he could understand the sincerity of her words. He only stared back, but in his eyes, she could see he condemned himself even more. Sliding her hand from his grasp with a frustrated sigh, she looked to Hank again, who was busy checking her blood pressure. "I feel ... like hell," she told him, and when he looked up, he once again smiled.

"Very understandable, considering the trauma your body has endured. I'm giving you another sedative, and you should be out until dinnertime."

"Don't leave." A sudden wave of panic overtook her, and she looked helplessly to Logan.

"I won't."

"Please..." The sedative began to take effect, and her fear rose as she fought to keep the beckoning sea of darkness from overwhelming her. "Don't go." With that, she fell silently into the black folds of slumber.

The two watched her a moment, then Hank moved to shut the blinds. As the bars of gold vanished and the room was bathed in chocolate shadows, Logan, never straying his gaze from the angelic face that rested peacefully on his pillow, wearily inquired, "What can we do, Doc?"

Hank placed a comforting hand on his friend's muscular shoulder, but his words were less than consoling. "I have not an answer for you, Logan," he replied softly, "except stand vigil and pray, for what ails her is not in body, but in mind and spirit." With that, he turned, then hesitated. "Oh, and don't forget to talk to her when she comes around again."

Logan could only nod as he listened to the rustling of cloth and the door clicked quietly shut, leaving the room silent, save the slow, steady breathing of the girl he almost considered his own flesh and blood.

(Written by Dana Night)

* * * *

Logan watched the little girl for a long time, silently sitting beside her on the bed, waiting for her to awaken from her painless slumber. She looked so innocent and free as she slept, the only signs of pain visible above the navy blue blanket being the cut on her cheek and the large red and purple bump on her forehead. Logan looked down at her skeletal hands, one clutching the blanket, the other resting peacefully on her stomach as she lay there, asleep.

Picking up her translucent hand to tuck into his own, Logan noticed a faint raised mark on the underside of her wrist. Turning her hand over, his super-sensitive hunter's eyes spotted the pale pink-purple welted scar almost immediately.

So this ain't the first time the kid's done somethin' this desperate, Logan thought, rubbing his large thumb over the line, following it down her blue veins.

Turning to the closed door, he could hear Hank out in the hallway talking to Jean and Sabine quietly about Jubilee's current condition. Logan dropped Jubilee's hand and walked to the door, opening it softly. "Hank ... can we talk a sec?

"What is troubling your mind my furry counterpart?" Hank turned and walked back to Logan's doorway. "Is something wrong?"

"Yeah ..." Logan looked over Hank's shoulder at Jean and Sabine, who still stood in the hallway behind him, listening. As they turned to leave, Logan motioned for Hank to come inside the dark room, moving to sit on the bed. Hank perched himself on the edge of Logan's small and rather beaten and shredded green couch and stared intently at young Jubilation's face. "This ain't the first time she's tried t' take her life Hank..."

"How would this information be so readily available to add to your vast intellect while our young sparkler is still heavily sedated and has not had time to converse with you of her own will?"

"English version?"

"How is it that you know this while Jubilee is still asleep and hasn't talked to you as of yet?"

"Feel her wrist right here..." Logan motioned him over, lifting her hand to show the pale underside to Hank's eyes.

"It is her veins that are able to be felt due to her starvation during Operation: Zero Tolerance, no?" he said, running his fingers over the veins Logan pointed to.

"No. There's a mark...faint, but it's there." Logan reached to his left and twisted open the blinds to allow some light in through the window. The sparkling light of the last hours of sun splashed across the bed, once again shining on the pale, sleeping body beside the two furred men. Logan pointed along her wrist and Hank exclaimed, seeing the very faint, purple welt now as the light turned her skin to ivory and porcelain.

"My stars and garters, you were right!" Hank followed the trail along her veins with his eyes and Logan reached across the bed and gently pulled her hand from the bedcovers. An almost identical welt appeared on the others wrist's veins, but longer and deeper by the color, visible slightly even without the light shining on it.

Logan shook his head sadly. "These weren't here before the whole Zero Tolerance thing. She tried it while she was there, probably first thing she did considering I found her in a straightjacket in the desert. And now this..."

"She is indeed sick my friend. Emotionally, spiritually, physically and psychologically."

"Well, third time's the charm, Hank."

"Indeed. The third time is the charm as the saying so suggests."

"I gotta stop her from gettin' to the third time."

Logan folded Jubilee's hands over her stomach again and sat still on the bed as Hank went back to his perch on the couch. Wiping a piece of hair from her eyes, Logan dropped a kiss on her forehead and turned with a pained look to Hank to await the time when she would wake again, a tear slipping down his face as he looked to the floor.

Seconds slipped to minutes, minutes slipped into hours and as Jean telepathically called the team to dinner, Logan waved for Hank to leave, saying he would get something to eat later. Hank glanced worriedly at his teammate and friend. The man hunched over the still body on the bed, watching the young girl's face expectantly for signs of her waking and Hank realized that he couldn't move the small man if he had wanted to, intent as he was.

"Go on, Hank. I said I'd stay and when she wakes up I plan t' be here..." Logan looked at the blue furred hulk in front of him through the dark shadows and pointed at the door as Jubilee's eyes fluttered once, twice and then opened painfully to the dark room.

(Written by Nova Zion)

"Wolvie.." the angel spoke, her voice but a breath of air, holding no substance to the ears of normal humans, but to Logan's hypersensitive hearing, it held all the anguish, love, agony and confusion that those two syllables ever had. "It hurts."

"I know, darlin'." And indeed he did, for so great was the bond that held the two together, he could practically feel the pain that each intake of breath, each subtle movement, each throbbing sore brought.

"Hank's here. He'll get you somethin'." As he spoke, the furry physician moved back toward the bed, where he injected a clear liquid into her IV, then, satisfied that his patient would be all right for the time being, he left the room, knowing protegee and patron needed this time to themselves to discuss matters of life and death.

"Wolvie," Jubilee whispered once the medication had begun to take effect. "You cryin'?"

Knowing this was not the time for showy machismo, he truthfully replied, "Yeah, darlin'." Her blue eyes, large and slightly glazed, questioned him, and not a word needed to pass from her lips. "Because I don't wanna lose ya kid."

"Lose..." She winced as the effort of speaking aloud brought pain to her tender ribs and the many cuts in her back. Lowering her tone to a whisper once more, she lifted one frail hand to his damp cheek, assuring him, "Hank said I'd be okay. I'll be all right, Wolvie."

He shook his head, taking her hand in his large one. "Not if this keeps up."

"Whaddya mean, Wolvie?" Panic and concern in her voice drew his gaze upon her thin face, where her eyes, which had always been so bright and lively, now stared in terror back at him from the deep, purply hollows in which they had sunken. Without saying a word, he turned her hand over and showed her the scars he had discovered just hours before. The girl snapped her hand away and turned her face from him, tears glistening in her eyes as she tried vainly to blink them away.

The golden light that had been resting lightly on the closed blinds faded to a pale rose, then a bright red that pushed impatiently at them, trying to get through. A single sliver of crimson escaped, slipping silently inside and landing on the navy blue blanket where the ailing girl's heart beat imperceptibly. Disturbed by the sight of the blood-red laceration of light, Logan reached over and brushed the blinds with the back of rough knuckles that had seen many a fight and, more importantly, brushed many a tear away. The light vanished, and the sun sank from the sky, allowing the shadows of night to scatter across New York.

Logan sighed, looking about the room, his eyes never resting until they once again reached Jubilee's face. "I r'member - vaguely -- when the Weapon X Program caught me. I don' r'member much b'fore that, but I think. ... I think the fear I felt ingrained the memory into me, whether they wanted t' take it or not." Slowly, her head rolled back to him, and their eyes met.

"Y-you were scared?"

He nodded. "I was madder 'n' hell, and scared outta my mind, girl," he replied softly. "They took me 'gainst my will an' tested on me."

"Were their hands cold?" He gave her a blank look, and she cleared her throat slightly and repeated, "The scientists who tested on you. Were their hands cold?"

"I honestly don't r'member, darlin'. I jus' know that, when they started, I wanted t' kill 'em, an' by the time they were done, I wanted t' kill myself." Her eyes widened at this, but she did not interrupt. "Then they started takin' my memories." He shook his head as if trying to rid himself of mental cobwebs as the shadows that would probably never be revealed beckoned to him, begging him to remember. "If you could know how frustratin' it is, not t' even know yer real name fer sure or not.. Not knowin' whether or not yer memories are true ones, or ones some twisted mind made up.."

The room fell silent once more, and through the floor, they could hear low voices as the rest of the team enjoyed the evening meal. It was Jubilee who finally broke the silence. Looking to the far wall as if the scene were playing there, she confessed.

"When I was ten, my dad hit me. Slapped me across the face. I'd used some document o' his ta spit out my gum in. He got mad an' slapped me. I was so relieved, I ran ta my room an' cried fer half an hour. I'd finally gotten an emotional response from him. After that, I started lyin' an' skippin' class. I still kep' my grades up, so that if the principal ever called 'em in, she could tell 'em how bright I was. Never happened. After a while, I started takin' stuff, first from teachers, then candy an' stuff from the convenience store down th' street from the mall, 'til finally I was takin' stuff from the mall; bracelets an' toys an' stuff. All I ever wanted was fer one of 'em ta say, 'I love ya, J.' I knew parents were supposed ta say that to their kids. I mean, I'd seen it on TV an' stuff, an' I'd even heard one o' my friend's moms say it. My friend got all embarrassed an' stuff, an' I couldn't help thinkin' how stupid an' how lucky she was." Her eyes refocused, and she looked to the burly Canadian. "I made it a point from then on t' tell people I love 'em."

Leaning over, Logan brushed his lips lightly against her one pristine cheek in a soft kiss. "I love ya, Jubilation," he choked, and the girl was amazed at the level of barely-controlled emotion in his deep blue eyes and gravely voice. Love, swirled with guilt and anguish at seeing her in such a state; but above all, love.

"I know," she whispered sadly. "I love ya, too, Wolvie."

"You can tell me anythin', darlin', ya know that."

"I know." She gazed in pensive sorrow up at him, then away. "Right now, though, I'm real tired."

"Sleep, darlin'. I'll be right here when ya wake up." At his reassurance, her eyes fluttered closed like butterflies lighting upon her sickly face, and her breathing became even as she fell into silent repose, and finally, asleep.

Logan watched her a long moment before moving onto the couch. His stomach growled, but he ignored it. At that moment, a pack of wild horses couldn't drag him from her presence. At least, he thought with a tired sigh, at least I've made some progress. He knew it was only the tip of the iceberg, but that was one step further than he had been before, and one step farther down the road to her recovery.

(Written by Dana Night)