Author's note: This story is dedicated to two people, for meritorious service in their fields, and because I'm feeling the caffiene just now. <g> For Dex, who finally convinced me that Cyke isn't the two-dimensional jerk I thought he was, and for Sean Duggan, whose continuous and consistently helpful feedback had kept the storyline going. :) Thanks, guys.

"Yes... I got it... are you sure you don't want us back there? I feel resp-... Okay, okay, but keep us up-to-date. Yes, the MINUTE you hear anything... yes, even in the middle of the night. You all take care of yourselves, okay? Bye." Scott gently placed the receiver in its cradle. As always, his face and actions showed little of his inner turmoil, the habitual rigid control of the leader lending him an appearance of composure.

The appearance was a lie, however. He desperately wanted to scream and shake and throw things, but the carefully constructed facade held firm. He should be used to it, he supposed. Years of hiding his own fears and doubts behind a mask of competence had left him all but incapable of falling apart in a crisis, no matter how much he wanted to.

<<Jubilee... oh, Jubilee, I'm sorry.>> His feet took him to the window, and he stared sightlessly out at the falling snow. << I should have been there.>>

The others didn't understand, he thought with rare, passionate intensity. It was his *responsibility*. Every single X-man, male or female, past or present, was his responsibility. If one of them ever needed him, then he *had* to be there. It was his *job*.

And Jubilee, especially, was his responsibility. He should have known that Wolverine couldn't be counted on to look out for her. Emma, of course, was completely unreliable. And none of the others could see past the bright, cheery facade.

He could. He might be Starched Shorts Summers, the Amazingly Anal Man, the X-Man Most Likely To Fossilize, and whatever else they called him, but he could recognize a behavioral smokescreen at fifty paces, in the dark, blindfolded. Jubilee had just as many fears, doubts, and failings as anyone else. She just hid them better.

They were very much alike, in a way. Like him, Jubilee was an orphan; her only family the X-Men. Like him, she hid her insecurities under a cloak of I-can-do-anything bravado. And like him, when that family failed her, the cloak lost its power to protect her, and she simply lost the desire to go on.

The others had simply never understood how much the X-Men meant to her. He did. They meant just as much to him.

They had both lost everything, more than once. Been utterly alone, unwanted, and unloved - until the X-Men had turned up. And then it had been one last desperate grab for hope and life, one final effort with everything they had behind it.

He hadn't realized how final that effort had been until he'd tried to leave, only to keep returning, whether he willed it or not. He simply had nothing else. He had thrown everything he had into the one thing he thought he could believe in, and there was not enough of him left to live without it.

Maybe, he thought wistfully, maybe it wasn't too late for Jubilee. She was young, and stronger than he had been. She could find her own life, and come back with something... anything... that wasn't dependent on the X-Men. Some part of herself that didn't need them and their dream, that she could fall back on when she needed to.

He rested his forehead against the cold glass, his eyes filling with tears. <<Keep going, Jubilee.>> He thought, willing the thought to somehow reach her. <<Get away. Don't end up...like me.>>

A slim hand rested on his shoulder, and he turned. Jean's soft green eyes were filled with concern, which momentarily banished the dull anguish that had quenched their light for what already seemed like eternity. "Scott? What's wrong? What was that call about?"

"They... Jubilee is gone." He wouldn't try to hide anything from her. Not now. "She... tried to kill herself. Not successfully.." He added hastily, seeing the sudden horror in her eyes. "As far as they know, she's fine."

"Oh, poor Jubilee... what happened? Why would she do that?" Jean's eyes too, filled with tears, then she frowned suddenly. "What do you mean, as far as they know? Isn't she there?"

"No, she isn't." Absently, Scott folded his wife into his arms, resting his cheek on her hair. "She's disappeared with one of her classmates - Chamber, the English boy, I think - and nobody except the White Queen knows where she's gone. Emma, it seems, won't even tell Sean, let alone anyone else. Storm was furious about that, of course."

"I don't blame her," Jean snorted. "What does Emma think she's doing?"

"I think she thinks she's protecting Jubilee." Scott closed his eyes, sliding one finger up under the glasses to dry the few tears that had escaped. "From what Storm said, I gather that Emma blames the X-Men for the entire affair."

"Us?!" Jean lifted her head from his chest and actually stamped her foot. "How dare she? Us? We've been Jubilee's family for years! She's-"

"Probably right."

"What?" Jean blinked, and looked up at him.

"I said she's probably right," Scott elaborated. "We haven't exactly been there for Jubilee lately, have we? After everything she went through with Bastion and so forth."

"Well..." Jean frowned, looking with sudden fascination at the floor. "We rescued her, didn't we?"

"After she was tortured for information, rescued *us*, escaped, and trudged for miles through the desert, yes, we did." Scott shook his head. "Then what?"

"What do you mean, then what?"

"What did we do after that? Where was the support, the reassurance that it wasn't her fault? We just said hello, glad to see that you're alive, even though we didn't actually know that you were missing, bye now, and all but threw her out of the plane at the Academy on our way past." Scott sighed ruefully. "Admittedly that was because I had a nanotech bomb inside me waiting to go off, but *still*..."

Jean hung her head guiltily. "We did, didn't we?" She said in a small voice. "And we didn't even call her to see if she was all right."

"I did." He smiled rather self-deprecatingly. "Well, I tried. I got Sean. Asked him how the kids were doing, if there were any problems, whether he was getting along all right with Emma, then I lost my nerve and hung up. I'm no good at that sort of thing." His voice was as level as always, but the grief in it was plain to hear. "If I'd known that nobody else was going to do it, I would have tried harder."

Jean shook her head. "You were injured, Scott. It wasn't your responsibility to-"

"Yes it *was*." He snapped, turning to face the window again. "I thought you of all people understood that, Jean. It's *always* my responsibility."

She sighed softly, resting her head against his back. "I know, Scott. Sometimes I wish it wasn't so, but..." Her voice trailed off.

She didn't need to finish the sentence, Scott thought wistfully. Jean had always understood his absolute commitment to the X-Men. He knew it hurt her, sometimes, that she was not and would never be the single most important thing in his life, as he was in hers, but she did understand. She might be the only thing that could bring a smile to his face when he woke up in the morning... but the X-Men were WHY he woke up.

"Then you'll understand why I think it's good that Jubilee has gone." He turned back to her, his eyes pleading behind his glasses.

She nodded slowly. "I do. You're afraid that she'll end up like you, aren't you?" Her lips twisted bitterly. A week ago she wouldn't have had to ask.

"Like me," he agreed, hugging her tightly. <<An emotional cripple, spending so long behind the mask that she can't take it off even when she wants to, dependent on someone else's dream...>> He sighed, resting his cheek against her hair. "Without you."

"Scott...I can't be that anymore." Her voice was flat. "I can't see past your masks anymore."

"I know." He whispered bleakly, holding her even closer. "I'll try."

"I know." She leaned against him, knowing as well as he did that it wouldn't be easy. That he could no longer reach out to her from behind the façade of the perfect leader.

That if their marriage - their love - was to survive... either it, or he, would break.