xp_logs | Nathan and Jubilee, early Wednesday morning

As arranged, Nathan and Jubilee meet early Wednesday morning to go over the first of her lists - the one listing her 'mistakes' since January. The conversation goes some interesting places.

Jubilee paused for a minute outside Nathan's door, looking at her watch. She wasn't sure he'd even be in there, they'd set this meeting up before everything happened with Alison, afterall. Shrugging, she knocked on the door, crumpling the lists she'd brought with her in her hand. She's spent a lot of time surrounded by small drifts of paper this week, trying to figure out exactly what to put down. She wasn't usually given to self-examination, or to prose. She'd also taken to drawing around the edges of the paper when she got stuck for what to write. She hoped Nathan didn't mind the little chibi pictures that she'd drawn of her classmates.

Nathan was indeed in there. Despite the fact that he'd actually gotten a reasonable amount of sleep for the last two nights and felt much more like himself, he'd seriously considered cancelling or at least putting off this meeting with Jubilee for a few days. His nerves were still raw, he knew that, and he didn't quite trust himself to keep his temper. But then, this was too important to let his mood get in the way. He'd just have to be the adult here. Appalling thought.

"Come in," he called, saving the draft of the email he was preparing to send to Dom.

Jubilee opened the door and walked in, sliding into the chair and assuming her usual boneless slouch. She placed the lists she'd made on his desk, arranging them neatly before sitting back with a smile. "Hey Teach, kinda surprised you're here. What with everythin' happenin' and all. I'd have understood if you'd cancelled."

"Life doesn't stop because the Big Bad decides to stop it," Nathan said dryly, "or so I'm told. Frankly, I think we could all do to get back to something as close to normality as possible as soon as possible, anyway." He eyed the lists, then leaned over to pick them up. "I'm surprised you've had the time to do these, with everything that's happened."

She shrugged, glancing around the office as she answered. "Don't always sleep at night, was this or watch television. And well, ya asked me to do it, so I made it priority, ya know? Can't get help if I ain't willin' to do somethin' when it's offered. Besides, I ain't been that busy. I'm kinda not in a position to be much good. My power doesn't go toward healin' people, or helpin'. S'got no use other then blowin' things up or makin' pretty lights. And well, there's others already doin' the food carrying and the sittin' with people. Didn't want to get in the way, just so I could feel useful."

Nathan let his eyes scan down the lists. "Did you find this hard to do?" he asked conversationally as he read.

"Depends on your definition of hard." Jubilee replied, her smile wry. "It wasn't a walk in the park but it ain't like I was takin' the Mensa test either. Not used ta the whole self examination thing. Much better at knowin' what others are like."

"No, you're not," he said quite candidly, still scanning the lists. "That's part of the problem."

She blinked for a second, choking back a laugh. Her first thought was to say something pithy and insulting. But this wasn't about scoring points, so she curbed that impulse. Which was a pity, because she had a really good one involving camp fire songs and connecting with your inner spirit. There might also have been cookies.

"Right." she said finally.

Not the most open of statements but she wasn't entirely sure where this was going, and didn't want to fail before she'd even begun.

"You didn't know what Amanda was like, did you?" Nathan inquired without looking up from the lists. "You knew what you thought she was like, and acted rather drastically on that knowledge."

Jubilee nodded an affirmative, wondering if he'd mind her chewing gum. Some people were smokers, she was a gum chewer. It helped when she was nervous. "Pulled the 'this is my turf, don't piss on it or I'll make you sorry you were born' deal on her the first night she was here. Put us off on the wrong foot, I guess you could say. But you can't say I was completely wrong, Dude. She wasn't exactly the perfect Princess for the first few months she was here."

"'I ain't the only one with damage'," Nathan quoted from her list of 'mistakes'. "Or does that only apply when you're the one taking advantage of their understanding to unburden themselves? They empathize with you, you don't have to empathize with them?"

"No!" she exclaimed.

She pushed back on her chair, agitated. She needed to move, do something. Thrusting her hands into her jean pockets, she felt the pack of cigarette's and remembered her conversation with Remy. She needed to learn not to be stupid, it was something she agreed wholeheartedly with him on. She chewed her gum silently for a minute, fingers brushing over the packet as she thought about what he'd asked her seriously.

"I'm selfish but I ain't a son of a bitch." she said finally. "She fucked up, same as me. I shouldn't be usin' that as justification of what I did though."

"No, you shouldn't," Nathan said simply. "Let's play what-if for a minute - what if you hadn't had that discussion about turf with her the first night she was here? What did that lead to, with the two of you?"

Jubilee sighed, she'd long regretted the words she'd said that night. Maybe if she'd kept her mouth shut, gotten to know Amanda better. Well, maybe they would have found out they had a lot in common and there wouldn't have been all the unforgivable things between them.

"We might have been friends, if I hadn't opened my big mouth and made a big deal of myself. We wouldn't have snarked at each other so much, and she'd never have threatened me about the scars. You don't get all defensive when someone ya trust sees somethin' like that, do ya? And I wouldn't have felt like I needed to find out about them. And the stuff with Manny. Lot's of stuff wouldn't have happened, Nate. You don't think I ain't thought about that? But she won't even fuckin' talk to me anymore, s'not like I can change things now. Shit, even if I'd just apologised afterwards, maybe then. But she just, she knew every button ta push and so did I and we just couldn't stop pushin' them."

She sighed again, spitting her gum into the wastepaper basket and looked at him squarely. "There were days, ya know. When I thought maybe we'd squared it, that maybe she and I could stop all the bullshit. But then somethin' would come up and there'd be another fight and then it was one fight too many and there was no goin' back."

"Mm. Life is rough that way," Nathan said without batting an eye and went right on before she could react. "The fight with Scott. Which I overhead, along with most of the mansion, incidentally... why include that on here?"

"Cause it wasn't neccessary, and I was bein' arrogant. He showed me some of the files he had. Don't think anyone could see those without nightmares. He goes the other way when he sees me comin' now, don't think he knows I see that."

It was the longest Jubilee had ever tried to sit still for in her life, especially considering the topic of conversation was the type to make her agitated. She resisted the urge to start jiggling her leg.

"I do that a lot. Think I'm all that, then find out I'm not. Pete took me for a little educational experience, not what I expected. I keep thinkin' I can play in the big leagues, and then find out I'm small time. Usually after doin' somethin' stupid. Goin' after Scott like that, right when he needed to be focussed. That was stupid. I coulda always gone and seen him privately, had it out somewhere people wouldn't overhear. But I did it all in public."

"Oh," Nathan said, "so it would have been more productive to accuse him of endangering your life in private?"

Jubilee glared at him for a second before answering with a low growl of frustration. "No, I don't think it would have been more productive. You want me to list the mistakes I made there? Fine. Thinking Scott knew more then he was telling us. It was an assumption that made me look like an asshole, I know. Second mistake, calling him on it in front of the entire school. And last but not least, being a right bitch to someone who really didn't need it right then. Nate, I know I fucked up there but far as Cyke is concerned, I could go nail myself to a cross out front and he'd still think I was an irresponsible brat."

She took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a second as she repeated a short meditation exercise. It helped.

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "That's twice," he said simply, then clarified when she gave him an uncomprehending look. "Twice you've brought up someone else's actions or beliefs when discussing your actions."

"Huh?" she said, blinking.

"'Yes, I behaved wrongly with Amanda, but she wasn't perfect the first few months she was here anyway.' 'Yes, I behaved wrongly with Scott, but it wouldn't matter what I did, he'd think I was a brat anyway.'"

He was right, she had. It wasn't something she'd noticed before. Thinking back, she realised there'd been a lot of times when she'd used other people's behaviour or what she thought they'd do or think as an excuse for her own. So, what did that mean? She'd always thought of herself as an individual, someone unswayed by opinions or society. Yet, it would seem that wasn't quite true.

"You're right." she said, surprised.

"Don't look surprised. It wasn't as if you were being particularly subtle about it." Nathan scanned down the list of 'mistakes' again. "Most of these seem to have to do with the consequences of that last attack on the school by Pete's old bosses."

"Hmm. Yeah, spent a long time screwed up from that. Didn't tell anyone I was. Took almost setting fire the boathouse for me to admit something was way wrong. I don't fuck up all that regularly, just seems like when I do the consequences are far and wide reaching, ya know? Kinda seems like the universe waits till I'm feelin' particularly comfortable and then just dumps a whole load of shit on me from a high place due to something I did way back when."

Nathan's eyes narrowed. "What precisely did you do that warranted being forced to kill to defend yourself?" he asked levelly.

"Walked out of a bathroom smack bang into some soldier holding a gun at my face. Last time someone pointed a gun at me, it was after they'd blown my mother's head off. So, you could say I was a might bit fuckin' touchy to once again be seein' one all close up like. I panicked, used my powers instead of just disarming him like Logan had shown us. I didn't know I could do that, kill someone with them. They were just pretty lights before."

This wasn't something she wanted to be talking about. She might not be screaming and blowing things up when she talked about it anymore but that night still featured prominently in her nightmares. The soldier had looked surprised, she might have been able to get the gun out of his hand if she hadn't panicked. That was the thing that haunted her the most, that she hadn't had to kill him and that she had.

"Way to completely avoid the question," Nathan said flatly. "That's not what I asked. You told me that the universe dumps on you when you're feeling comfortable on account of things you've done in the past. What did you do that warranted running into that soldier?"

"Stayed up late watchin' TV? Didn't brush my teeth before I put on my jammies? God, Nate, I don't know. Nothin' I could think of, except comin' to this school, lettin' myself get comfortable. Lettin' myself think I might have a chance at somethin' more then just conning people out of their money ta get by." Jubilee said, popping another piece of gum into her mouth. "And maybe it was cause I burnt my foster father before I took off for Cali."

Nathan's blood pressure had begun to rise at her first words, and the last comment didn't really help. He didn't want to know. He wasn't a psychiatrist - he drove his own psychiatrist half-mad. "It's a thoroughly cowardly idea," he said harshly. "Karma, I mean."

"Oh, how you figure that?" she asked, noting the harshness.

She pushed down the desire to put on a vapid expression, the clueless blonde impersonation that she could do that always seem to infuriate her teachers. She hadn't come here because she wanted to continue with what she'd always done.

"Because it allows you to avoid responsibility completely even as you claim that it's all about bearing the responsibility for what you've done," Nathan said. "If something that happens is just payback for something you did previously, it's the universe's doing. It's not yours."

Jubilee stared at him, blindsided for a moment. She opened her mouth to reply and then closed it firmly. It wasn't the kind of statement that a snippy answer would suit. Sitting back, she thought about it, realising that she really didn't have an answer. For the first time in her life, she found herself at a loss for words.

"Don't know how to answer that." she said finally.

"Karma is having your cake and eating it, too. But in a very masochistic sort of way." Nathan set the lists back down, not turning to the other two. Not yet - maybe not today, period. "So what's the fundamental mistake behind all of the mistakes on this list?"

"Reacting." Jubilee replied, having had a long time to think about it while they talked. "Not stepping back and learning something about the situation before I put my boot in. So, I guess impulsiveness is the best word for it, with a complete lack of understanding of the bigger picture thrown in."

"Doing things on impulse isn't always a bad thing," Nathan pointed out. "There are a lot of things I do that have to be on impulse. Impulse can save your life. But only if it's trained, Jubilee." He regarded her somberly. "Yours are not. On top of that, you've got this elaborate self-defensive set of thought patterns built up around the impulsive behavior to shift responsibility away from yourself."

She nodded, expression thoughtful. "So, first step is accepting responsibility then? With, you know, hopefully not getting into the shit in the first place along with that."

"That's a first step, yes." Nathan paused for a moment. "I don't consider myself any less responsible for what I did while I was working for my former employers simply because I was brainwashed," he said steadily. "I still pulled the trigger, or set off the bomb, or whatever... it doesn't matter why, or what I was or wasn't thinking. The only thing that matters is what happened. My finger on the trigger. What is, is."

"I took away everything he was, and everything he ever would be." Jubilee said, remembering an old movie. "How do you deal with that? I feel like every time I try and think my way through it, it comes back to how I feel and that seems kinda selfish. I'm not the one that's dead, ya know?"
"How do I deal with it?" Nathan asked levelly. "I don't. It's there, it's not going to ever go away. I can either wallow in guilt - and there's not quite as much guilt there as you'd probably think - or I can move forward." He smiled thinly. "I've told you that before. I don't believe in absolution."

She snorted, shaking her head. "Well, that does seem to be what I'm tryin' to do right now. The movin' forward, not the wallowing in guilt."

"Did you ever? Wallow in guilt, I mean?" Nathan asked.

Jubilee paused, taking the time to seriously think about it. "Once, long time ago. Before I came to the school. It didn't help."

"You've taken it to the wrong extreme, though," Nathan said. "Deep down, you've gone too far in the other direction."

"You think I don't care that I've hurt people?" she asked.

"Oh, I think you care. But I think deep down, you want someone to tell you that it's not your fault. That you meant well, or at least that you didn't mean ill, so they forgive you."

"Is it such a bad thing, to want forgiveness? To want to feel like I haven't fucked up my life from beginning to end?" she asked.

"Yes to the first, no to the second," Nathan said, rather more coldly than he'd intended. "But the second is entirely up to you."

"Okay." she said, not sure what else to say, feeling like she needed time to think.

He sensed that and nodded to himself. "Sunday afternoon," he said. "With another list. Each of the troubled relationships you have here at the school, and what you think you could do to repair them."

She nodded, pulling out a pad of paper and writing that down.

"Okay, I'll see you on Sunday then."

Nathan leaned back in his chair and watched her go. As soon as the door had closed safely behind her he leaned forward and let his forehead rest against the edge of his desk.

*Thunk.*

*Thunk.*

*Thunk.*