Amanda and Jubilee: Set after the Love potion stuff.

[x-jubilee.livejournal.com]

Backdated to the 18th Feb 2004.



Jubilee paused for a moment as she dusted her hands at the small stand
beside the parrell bars. She could have sworn she heard a noise, but
perhaps it was just the late hour making her imagine things.

Looking down, she noticed the slight shake to her hands. She closed her
hands into fists and then shook them out, willing the shakes to stop.
She couldn't afford unsteady hands when she was doing a workout,
especially not one when she was on the bars. Looking up at the uneven
bars above her, she smiled. Gymnastics was something she'd always
excelled at, it had been her one escape after her parents died. No
matter what place they put her, every school she'd gone to had at least
had a gym. When she was flying, body stretching and tucking and then the
sharp shocks as her hands gripped the bars and pulled her into another
leap and twist and roll, when she was doing that, nothing else mattered.
There was someone in the shadows...
The girl flew on the bars. Like a bird. Amanda stood in the shadows,
watching Jubilee with something like awe. So much grace, and yet so much
power... She'd been on her way to the kitchen when she'd heard someone
coming, and ducked into the gym, thinking to hide. She'd been cursing
her luck at the irony of the person she'd heard choosing the gym to come
into, when Jubilee had finished her warm up stretches and began work on
the paralell bars. After that, she'd been transfixed...
Jubilee came around on the top bar and launched herself into the air,
feeling the air against her face as she manoeuvred for the landing. Her
feet landed squarely and she arched her back in the traditional finish,
her arms high above her head.

She could almost hear the roar of the crowd in her ears as she brought
her arms down and walked over to where she'd placed her towel. She'd had
a chance at National championships once but she'd had to pull out at the
last minute. Her foster parents at the time had finally decided she was
too much of a problem for them and she'd been shipping half way across
the country to another set, it was about then that she'd given up on the
idea that she'd ever find a proper home, or people who could care for her.
Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she pulled off the palm guards she
was wearing and placed them on the bench. Why was she feeling so tense?
Usually the parallel bars made her feel better, the freedom letting her
escape from this place to somewhere else. But not tonight, tonight it
felt like there was something in the air, somethingÖsome watching presence.

Shrugging it off, she walked over to the pile of matts stacked neatly in
the corner and dragged one to the centre of the room. She'd been meaning
to practice some of her Katas for a couple of days and now was as good a
time as any.

One of the more simple ones, she decided, since it had been so long any
of the more complicated patterns would peter out half-way through. She
rolled her shoulders to stretch out the muscles, took a breath, and
launched into the Fourth Pinan, an older form of a shotokan karate kata.

She started tentatively, testing her memory of the movements, but as she
found her body remembered the sequence much better than her brain, she
relaxed. Double handed block, followed by a flurry of punches, kiai at
the end. Turn two hundred and seventy degrees to face the new opponent.
Block, open the opponent up. Front kick, followed by a front and then a
reverse punch. Turn and repeat.
As she moved and found the flow, she let her thoughts drift, trusting to
her body to find it's balance, it's centre. Things had been crazy
lately, with classes and the things that seemed to keep happening to the
people here. If she didn't know better she might have thought the place
was cursed, or at least on an ancient burial ground or something.

This latest thing with the love potion, she hadn't been around for it
but she could see how the others were being affected. She could
understand the anger, she'd be angry too if her mind had been controlled
in some way.

Something else was bothering her though, some niggling memory that
seemed just at the back of her mind. Irritated at herself she completed
the last moves of the kata and paused, panting.

Despite herself, Amanda was impressed. Personally she doubted the
effectiveness of the fancy stuff in an actual fight, but she had to
admit it looked good. And Lee wasn't half bad. Then the dust, raised by
Jubilee's pulling down of the mats and the heavy workout she'd been
doing, finally reached Amanda's nose, and before she could help it, she
sneezed.
Instinctively Jubilee dropped into a defensive crouch, her eyes scanning
the surrounding area for the source of the sound. She noticed the
shadows by the coke machine and called shakily, trying to crush the
panic slowly spiralling in her gut.

"Show your fucking self."

'Oh pants' Amanda thought, realising she'd been rumbled. Hands raised to
show they were empty, she came out of the shadows slowly. "No need t'
panic, Lee," she said. "'S just me."
Jubilee stayed in her defensive crouch for a few seconds and then slowly
relaxed her muscles as she saw Amanda step out of the shadows. Falling
back onto the mat, she looked at her long time, considering and then
spoke. "Can't sleep?"
"Somethin' like that," Amanda said, echoing the other girl's carefully
neutral tone. "Haven't much, since..." She let the sentence falter, not
really sure how to phrase, 'since I fucked everyone over'.
Jubilee stretched her legs out in front of her, wondering exactly why
she was feeling anything but hatred for Amanda. It wasn't as if she'd
ever given her much of a chance, although if Jubilee was really honest
with herself she hadn't exactly made the brightest move when they first
met. She knew all about mistakes, she'd made enough of them in her short
lifetime. She nodded her head to the other half of the mat. "Well, you
can at least help me stretch, grab my leg will ya?"
Amanda's eyebrow rose, and she bit back the off-colour remark that rose
to her lips. If she had to be honest, it was... pleasant to have someone
speak to her and not mention love potion disasters in any way. She moved
over to where Jubilee indicated and grabbed the girl's calf in her
hands. "Um, where did you learn that? The stuff on the bars?" she asked,
partly to make conversation, but also because she wanted to know.
Jubilee grunted as Amanda pressed her leg into a stretch and then
smiled, remembering. "When I was a little kid, I used to watch my mother
compete. I can remember my Dad sitting me on his shoulders so I could
see her over the crowd. She taught me most of it and after, any school I
was in, I always applied for the gymnastics team if they had one. If
they didn't, I used to find a local place that taught it, and I'd sneak
in at night when no one was around." Jubilee paused and held out her
hand to Amanda for an arm stretch. "When I'm up there, it's like she's
not dead and the world feels right again, if just for that moment."
Amanda listened to the happiness the memories evoked in Jubilee's voice,
unsure as to why the girl was being so friendly - she had effectively
doped her room mate. "Um, yeah. Sounds... good. You miss yer folks,
then?" It wasn't really a question, but Jubilee's attitude was confusing
her, on top of the nagging cravings she was feeling. It was too soon to
use the crystal she'd picked up just yet, had to make it last...

Jubilee raised an eyebrow, curling her legs into a sitting position.
"Yeah..having them killed in front of you kind of has that affect on a
person." Jubilee stood, pulling Amanda up with her and looking around.
"So, I'm absolutely starving, how about you?" Jubilee knew she was
confusing the girl. 'Probably wonders why the hell I'm being so nice
after all the shit everyone else gave her' she thought. The fact was,
Jubilee was just too damn tired to fight with anyone and the fact that
she hadn't been sleeping at all at night lately made the hours between
sunset and dawn very lonely. Having someone to talk to at this hour was
a novelty not to be chased away, even if it was someone she didn't
particularly like most of the time.

The mention of food settled Amanda's confusion. She hadn't been eating
terribly regularly the last couple of days - the thought of eating made
her feel ill, most of the time - and her stomach, apparently behaving
itself this time, growled loudly. And if Lee was going to kill her,
well, better to die on a full stomach. "Food good," she said,
unconsciously mimicking Jake. "If you can't remember the last time you
ate, that's a bad thing, right?"

Jubilee laughed suddenly, shaking her head. "Yeah, it's a bad thing.
Come on, wouldn't want you to die of starvation. I'd probably have
everyone accusing me of murdering you the way this place has been
working lately."

Jubilee led the way out of the gym, heading for the teacher's kitchen.
At this time of night, no one was really around to care and besides,
they had better chocolate. And right now, she could really got a triple
chocolate fudge sundae. "Bet you're wonderin' why I'm not toasting you
for the potion crap, right?"

"It had occurred t' me," Amanda said, warily

Jubilee nodded, opening the door to the teacher's kitchen and gesturing
for Amanda to go before her.

"See, my thought is, you've already been torn up one side and down the
other by everyone else. Seems to me anything I could say would just be
repetitive. Besides, someone wandering around at sparrow's fart just to
avoid getting more of the same, well, I'm not about to rub salt into the
wound. Besides, it's no fun being a bitch to someone who's too damn
battered to fight back."

Jubilee opened the fridge and crowed in triumph. "Bingo! We have the
beginnings of my world famous Triple Choc Fudge Sundae and Maple Syrup
Pancakes. Guaranteed to clog at least one major artery or your money back."

The thought of that much sugar made Amanda shudder internally, but she
decided to let the younger girl kill her with chocolate. Besides, at
this stage of things, she'd happily eat shit on toast, as long as it
looked enough like food. "I appreciate it," she said, referring to the
not being kicked whilst she was down. "An' as soon as I'm back on me
game, we can have a right ol' bitch at each other, right? Just in case
people think we've gone soft on each other or somethin'."

Jubilee chuckled and placed the ingredients on the counter. "Yeah, can't
have that. Gotta think of my rep as Queen bitch round these parts. Oh,
by the way, if you want real food, there's left over chicken vindaloo in
the fridge. Must be Pete's, can't think anyone but someone from England
would touch that stuff with a ten foot pole."

"That's 'cause you Yanks wouldn't know a decent curry if it jumped up an' bit you," Amanda said with a snort, diving for the fridge. With Pete's attitude towards food, he'd probably already forgotten it was there. She sniffed at it suspiciously, found it still fresh, and dug in. "So, just what is it with the corndog thing, any way?"