Nathan and Jubilee log.

[x-jubilee.livejournal.com]

People involved:Nathan, Jubilee
Date: Friday 5th November 2004 Time: 12:00 noon.
What Happens?: Jubilee comes to see Nathan to apoligise for some things she said to him some time ago. She also ends up asking him to help her start thinking again. To her surprise, he agrees.




Jubilee paused outside Nate's office door, she wasn't entirely sure this had been a good idea but she needed to ask him why he hadn't condemned her. Considering how she knew how he felt about Amanda, he was the one she'd most expected to be calling for her to leave the school, at the very least. Concentrating on Madelyn's recent words to her, Jubilee knocked on Nate's office door with her good hand.

Nathan looked up from the computer, identifying the presence on the other side of the door. "Come in, Jubilee," he called.

She pushed the door open, hunching her shoulders before she winced and straightened them again. Stitches obviously didn't lend themselves well to overly defensive posturing.

"Hey, Nate." she said, her normal exuberant tone missing. "Wanted to appoligise for that day in the kitchen. I, guess you kinda know by now, I wasn't just talkin' about Manny."

Nathan raised an eyebrow. Well, that he hadn't been expecting, he thought with some interest. Was this her way of leading off into something else, or was this really what had been on her mind? "You've been pretty distant ever since," he said curtly, and a little unfairly, given that he'd been just as distant. But he wanted to see just how far she was willing to go with this. "Why the sudden need for an apology?"

She leant against the wall near the door, not wanting to sit down right now. She'd been thinking a lot about what she'd said since that day. Back then, she hadn't known Patches was going to summon a demon but she still had an awful lot to be forgiven for. She'd lied to him, that day and used Manny as an excuse to hit out at him for making her feel bad. It was only now that she had spent time thinking about everything she'd done in the past year that she realised she had a lot to answer for.

"Because I was wrong, and I said things to hurt you because you were saying things I didn't want to hear. And because I couldn't not say sorry when I figured out just how wrong I've been for most of this year. I don't think I'm doin' this cause I expect you to say all is forgiven. I just, I wanted ta start doin' the right thing for a change."

He raised an eyebrow. "I'll say the same thing I said in your journal," he said coolly. "It took a fair amount of guts to come here. It's not easy to stand up and say 'Yes, I was wrong' and mean it."

Jubilee shook her head, her thoughts turning inward. "You keep tellin' me I got courage. I'm just a coward, Nate. I spend most of my time fuckin' up cause I'm tryin' to find ways to run, or to protect myself. What I did to Amanda, that ain't the act of someone that's got any right to call herself brave."

She remembered what Strange had shown her, everything Amanda had gone through. She wasn't sure if the memories would fade in time, or just mingle with her own.

"Why haven't you asked me to leave? I kinda expected the teachers to want that, after me almost gettin' people killed. You...Amanda bein' what she is to you, I'd have thought you'd want me gone." Jubilee said.

She hadn't wanted to talk about that. She'd merely come to appoligise and to go. But the memories of Amanda's past and her own memories of what it meant to make mistakes, and what you could expect afterwards. Even with Madelyn's reassurances she still couldn't quite understand why she wasn't being punished.

Nathan gave her a long, steady look. "What you did to Amanda was... you know, I can't call it evil, and I can't call it stupid. It's hanging out there in the space between the two." He shrugged, his expression still cool. "But what to do about it is the Professor's decision, not mine. He would be the boss, and this would be me respecting his decision. You're still a student here and I'm still going to teach you."

"And if it was your decision to make?" she asked. "Would you have asked me to leave?"

He pondered the question for a moment. "Probably not," he finally said with another shrug. "No one actually died, and you didn't really know what you were doing. You don't throw a child out onto the street because she's been stupid. You try and give her the opportunity to learn better."

Jubilee smiled. "You're easier on me then I would have been. I was close to calling my Grandfather and asked for a plane ticket to China."

She sighed and pulled up one of the office chairs. "I had a feeling it would only be running away again though. You can't really prove that you can do things right if you leave every time you make a mistake."

Nathan made a noise that could have been taken to mean numerous different things. "I thought you'd learned that the last time? When you ran away after the fight."

"I'm dense. It takes awhile for these lessons to filter through." Jubilee said, flicking her hair back over her shoulder and then smiling at herself.

Uber Californian mallrat airhead always took a few days to disappear. She'd spent so much time playing that role over the years that it was very easy to slip into. She wasn't going to touch on the fact that her normal personality was only a few notches in the other direction. She supposed it was well past time she started using her brain again, she had a fairly good one by all accounts, afterall.

"I ain't about to run anywhere, Nate. I'm stickin' around and I'm gonna do the right thing. Marie-Ange was wrong though, when she said I didn't expect anyone to take me up on throwin' me in the lake. Mads tells me people don't go for the Crime & Punishment style of things round here, and considerin' how long I've been around, I should have known that. Just, not what I'm used to."

"Mm," Nathan said again. He supposed it was time for a little constructive bluntness here. "What do you want from me, Jubilee?"

"Help." she said, honestly. "I've been working on instinct so long, I don't know how to think anymore. There's others I could ask but, well, you ain't got any reason to be kind to me. I need that, someone who won't be easy on me."

She shook her head, getting up from the chair. She shouldn't have asked that, she wasn't even sure exactly how anyone could help her start thinking before acting again. It had been a stupid request, especially now when she had no right to ask for anything.

"I'm sorry. Just ignore that. I don't want anything from you. Just wanted to apoligise and go. S'all I was plannin' on. I'll just go, hey?"

Nathan didn't even bother telling her to sit down. He sat her back down, with a restrained but firm telekinetic push. "Jubilation," he said, his tone glacial. "What were you just about to do?

"Run away." she said, smiling bitterly.

"Exactly," Nathan said bluntly. "Either you deserve the help or you don't, Jubilee. I have no intention of trying to give it to you, only to have you decide a month down the road that you're really a bad person who doesn't warrant the assistance. That would result in an utter waste of my time."

Jubilee nodded, trying to put why she'd tried to leave into terms she could explain. "It...After I asked, it seemed like a stupid thing to be askin' for. I mean, it's a brain, it ain't like some set of weights or like goin' runnin' or somethin' is gonna help. I don't know how ta train myself to think differently then I do, to not run. I just, didn't want ta hear you say no, or laugh at me for askin'. I want to be different. If you're willin' to help, if you can help, I won't quit. I promise I won't."

Oh, he had to be insane. Quite literally insane. Then again, that had never been in question, had it? He raised a hand and a piece of paper and a pen floated over to her. "Three things," he said calmly. "Before the next time you come to see me - let's say Wednesday morning. I want you to make three lists."

She took the pen and paper and looked up at him. "First list," he said, "all the wrongs you feel you've done to people since January of this year. Second list, the lessons you've learned in the same time. Third list, at least five reasons why you came to me. That I wouldn't be kind to you can't be one of them."

She nodded, gripping the pen and paper tightly. "Okay, I can do that. Um, I'll see you Wednesday?" she said, shifting in her chair.

"Wednesday morning. Seven AM. Here," he affirmed. "Write this all down," he said, when she would have gotten up. "The time, the day, what I want." She blinked at him, then obeyed. "They say writing things down helps you absorb the information," Nathan said. "We'll see. It's just a first step. Harder to ignore anything when it's down in black and white."

She smiled once she'd finished writing it all down. The words all spread out before her, she felt a moment of accomplishment. She was moving forward now, a first step, she hadn't realised how good that would feel.