Jubilee and Dr Strange log.

[x-jubilee.livejournal.com]

Characters involved: Jubilation Lee, Dr Stephen Strange
Date: Tuesday 2nd November 2004 5:00pm
What Happens: Dr Strange comes to talk to Jubilee about what happened with the Demon and shows her Amanda's experience with magic. Jubilee decides to come clean on what she's done to the rest of the school.
Song: 'The Butcher' by Leonard Cohen



Jubilee was seated cross legged on a bench in the rose garden. She'd been trying to meditate but she still had a splitting headache that even the headache pills Madelyn had given her only took the edge off of. She hadn't even tried to analyse her response to what she'd done when she'd destroyed the demon. It was still to close and in some ways, too scary to contemplate.

She'd never believed she had that much power and the fact that she was still learning control became just that bit more alarming when the thought of what she could do out of control was suddenly more then apparent.

She opened her eyes and started as she noticed a man watching her.

"Jubilation Lee?" the man said crisply, coming forward as he realised she had seen him. "Doctor Stephen Strange, Amanda's magic tutor. I would like a word with you, if I may." As always, the magician was dressed in suit and tie, charcoal grey this time, and his expression gave little away.

'Oh boy,' Jubilee thought, feeling a stab of apprehension.

While she didn't think the man in front of her would go into froggings, she couldn't be entirely sure, and she had nearly gotten his star pupil taken to a demon dimension.

"That'd be me, and have all the words ya like, I ain't goin' anywhere." she replied.

"I had a conversation last week, with Mr Wisdom. He mentioned a rather foolish thing you had done." Strange came and sat down on the bench opposite her, back straight and hands folded neatly in his lap. Every inch the man in tight control of himself. "I take it the events of All Hallow's Eve are now making some sense to you?"

Jubilee kept her own posture loose with some effort, wanting to go into a defensive ball but unwilling to do so. Whatever this man had to say to her, she'd take it. Her actions had caused events to escalate to a point where people had gotten hurt, there was no hiding from that.

"Yeah, I kinda figured it out when Patches sent me the banquet of flowers." she said, focussing on his face.

"Ah, Patches. Yes, he has something of a sense of humour. Not a very good one, as I'm sure you realise." Strange's tone was neutral, controlled - screaming at the girl would achieve nothing but defensiveness, he could read that from her aura. "I suppose what I wish to know, what I cannot understand, if why someone such as yourself would have dealings with such a man. Why you would put another's person's life so carelessly in jeopardy."

"I didn't think I was. Just wanted information I could use in case Mandy came after me. She threatened to, if I ever told anyone about the scars. He told me they were an augmentation spell, somethin' to give her more power. He just fed on what I already thought, I know that now. He didn't seem dangerous, just some slimy creepizoid. Just like all the others I'd seen, speak a big game but not much in the way of danger if you push 'em." Jubilee muttered.

She shifted but kept her eyes on his face, she wouldn't allow herself to look away. "I asked him for something to remove the scars. I thought if they were augmentation, then if I took them away she wouldn't be able to hurt me. And it was just blood he was askin' for. I thought it was a bit weird but it was just blood. Maybe the people the guy ran with thought they were vampires or somethin', ya know?"

"Back in April, when Rack found Amanda again, he used her blood to track her," Strange said quietly. "Blood is life, Jubilation - why else would there be so many stories of vampires? It's never 'just' blood. But you couldn't have known that. What I do have to ask, if you thought Amanda was such a threat, why it was you didn't seek advice. There are teachers here, as Miss Rasputin has been quick to point out. They have the interests of all the students at heart. If you believed there was a threat to the school, to yourself, why not speak to them? Why have dealings with such an odious little man as Patches?" Despite himself, a hint of Strange's frustration entered his voice. He was trying to remain calm, but the sheer stupidity of this, the cost it might have had... they were beyond his ability to accept mildly.

"They wouldn't have believed me. Heck, they probably would have dragged me in front of her and told me to apologise for even thinkin' such a thing. I'm just the fuck up 'round these parts. Jubilation Lee, big mouth, little brain, right? That's what they think of me. It's all they think of me. Dude, she turned half the school into an almost orgy and turned Jake into a frog. Ain't no way was I gonna let her come at me with nothin' to stop her, just cause the folks 'round here think I'm a brat."

Jubilee sighed, thinking back to what she'd been like back then. She couldn't say she'd changed all that much, she was still a brat who jumped in feet first. Scott had been right, it was a habit. One she was determined now more then ever to stop. Before she managed to get someone killed.

"I did tell Wisdom, when Amanda posted that journal entry. When I figured out Patches had been lyin' to me. I'd forgotten, ya know? That I even had that stuff. There was all the other stuff that happened afterwards, the fight with Amanda and I. Just slipped my mind till then. I would've gone after Patches, stopped any of what happened from happenin'. It wasn't like I was just sittin' around waitin' for a demon to come take her to hell."

"You would have gone after Patches, would you? And what makes you think you'd have been able to stop anything?" Strange asked, but not in the mild tone of earlier. His voice was angry and stern. "You know nothing of magic, and yet you say your fear of what Amanda showed she can do made you take incredibly stupid risks to stop her from harming you. That your fear of being ignored drove you to not seek help from the staff, and yet you 'forgot' what you'd done to defend yourself from this great threat. And now
you say you would have stopped him." Strange snorted. "Your arrogance is unbelievable, surpassed only by your ignorance."

He reached into his pocket, drew out a crystal. "Magic is not parlour tricks for children's parties, or young girls who wear too much eyeliner and own too many black candles. It runs deeper and darker than that. I think you should know what it is you have meddled with. Are you brave enough to let me show you?"

His words stung and if she'd had anything to defend against them with, she'd have used it. Problem was, he was right. She'd lived by her emotions for a very long time, reacting by the ebb and flow of them to any given situation. If this was her karma, then so be it.

"No, I'm not brave, I'm a coward. I'm arrogant and ignorant, like you said. I can't excuse what I did, or explain it and I think I'm waitin' on Xavier to tell me to leave right now. It'd be the Karma I'm expecting. But show me anyway." she whispered, dropping her eyes at the last, the effort of looking him in the eye too much.

"Amanda's already showed me the post she made, so I do not think she'd object to what I'm about to show you." And sometimes, Strange reflected, you had to bend the rules a little to get the appropriate result. Jubilee was far too dangerous to Amanda to continue unchecked - Halloween had proved that. He concentrated on the crystal, and a milky white light stirred in its depths. "This is Amanda's experience of magic," he said, holding out the crystal so she could reach it. "All you need to do is take it, and you'll see the whole story."

Jubilee hesitated for a moment, her eyes on the crystal. Didn't she have enough of her own pain? Did she really want to take on whatever Amanda had in her past as well? It was obviously bad, Dr Strange wouldn't be so damn fired adamant about showing it to her if there were fluffy bunnies and spring flowers in that thing. She took the crystal, wrapping her hand around it firmly. Sometimes the whole of the universe came down to gestures. Whether she wanted it or not, she'd set something in motion that wouldn't stop till she saw it out. It was time for her to pay the piper.

It wasn't like seeing a movie - images didn't unspool behind her eyes with her as an observer. One moment she knew nothing, the next she knew _everything_, _felt_ everything. The pain of a mutant power brought on far too early, of learning magic when she was not ready for it; the nosebleeds and headaches and nightmares. The sensation of having someone push his hand _into_ her chest, drawing the power out of her. The fear and hatred and desperately wanting to please, to be loved. The beatings and the verbal cruelty, the putdowns and isolation and the feeling that there was no escape, _ever_. And finally it all culminating in a cold night in May, with a knife like fire against her skin and then the demon, the same demon, reaching for her from its portal and trying to take her with it, its claws burning like fire as the tore down her legs... Jubilee flinched and dropped the crystal, but Strange had been ready for that and caught it before it could smash.

Jubilee stared at Strange in shock, realising that the wetness she felt on her face was tears. She reached up to wipe them away and quickly lowered them to clench in her lap as they shook uncontrollably. She knew the pain of wanting to be loved and not finding it. She knew what it felt like to be beaten but she at least had had the memory of her parents to help her through it. She understood now why Amanda had envied her and the shame of what she had done to the other girl almost buried her. Fresh tears prickled at her eyelashes but didn't fall, she wouldn't allow herself tears, she didn't deserve to release this pain just yet.

"I didn't know. I swear I never meant... I never meant that." she said, thinking of the demon, of what Amanda had been through and what it must have been like to see it again.

She remembered Amanda trying to give herself to it, in order to save everyone else. Could she have done the same? Having just experienced Amanda's early life in the briefest of instants, God help her, she didn't know.

Strange watched Jubilee impassively, dark eyes flickering slightly. "Magic isn't a children's book, something to be taken lightly," he told her, tone still stern. He had to ensure Jubilee _understood_. "And it doesn't care what you mean or don't mean - there are always consequences. _Always_. Amanda has no choice - her mutation marks her out. You do. Stay away from people like Patches, stay away from people like me. Stay away from our world. Keep to the light." He tucked the crystal back in his jacket pocket,
stepped away from her. "Tears won't wash out the blood, Jubilee. You were lucky this time; there won't be a next time."

"Should I tell her...them? The teachers, they said I shouldn't say anything but she apologised, for the demon. She thinks it's her fault. Only, I don't know if me wanting to tell them is just to get it off my chest. I don't trust myself any more not to make the wrong decision just because it feels right."

"It's a lot to forgive. Possibly too much." There was a brief flicker of compassion in Strange's voice. "I know you want guidance, to be told what to do, that you feel like you're drifting rudderless... but I can't give you that guidance. It's not my place. I can tell you that of all the places to be in, to make such an apology, this is probably the best one to be in."

Jubilee smiled wryly as something suddenly became apparent to her. She'd been asking people for guidance for awhile now, and always been refused. In the end, it was up to her to find the right way, even with all the failures she seemed to be prone to. Time to stop asking for help and to start helping herself. Starting with a full disclosure of what she'd done. She might never be forgiven but at least people wouldn't think it was Amanda's fault.

"Thanks. I think I'll think about it for awhile. I don't know if you'll take this the right way but. Well, I hope I never see you again," she replied.

"Entirely taken the right way, considering I told you to stay away from people like me," he said with a brief, wintry smile. "Thank you for your time, Jubilation." He gave her a brief nod, and with one, harsh-sounding word, disappeared.

Jubilee sat and watched the spot where he'd disappeared for some time before her shoulder reminded her that she needed to be taking some more pain killers. Wincing slightly, she stood and walked inside. She'd need to write out a journal post and post it tonight. She'd deal with the yelling after that. Karma had to be served, it was one of the few things she knew solidly in a world that seemed to change by the day.

Behind her, rose petals fell silently on ground starting to grow cold with winter, and were still.