Madelyn, Jubilee - Monday morning

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Back from Las Vegas, Jubilee drops by to visit her favourite doctor, and holiday plans are made.



You've been waiting a long time
To fall down on your knees
Cut your hands
Cut yourself until you bleed

Black and Blue - Counting Crows


Jubilee was whistling on her way down to the Medlab. She wanted to touch
base with Madelyn now that she was back, make sure the doctor had been
taking care of herself while she and Clarice had been away. Not that
Madelyn wasn't an adult but sometimes she could get a bit engrossed. She
needed someone to take care of her, someone that she would listen to,
someone named Kurt. There had to be a way to get those two to notice each
other.

She wasn't usually someone that people could consider a matchmaker.
Considering her own limited experience had consisted mostly of sex and no
actual emotional connection, she wasn't the best person to be thinking
about romance. It all seemed so damn complicated and if her fellow school
students were any indication seemed to have a lot of misunderstandings and
general mucking about. Why didn't they just say what they meant?

She supposed 'I love you' was a little more daring then 'Do you want to
fuck like rabbits? Look, here's a convenient closet.' Sometimes she
wondered if her lack of emotion in this particularly area wasn't a good
thing. Maybe she could just leave love completely off the agenda. It wasn't
like she was needing to pop out a sprog at any time in the future, since
her family didn't expect her to continue on the 'Lee' name. That little
honor belonged to her cousin, something she was profoundly grateful for.
Besides, the thought of 'needing' anyone, rather then just wanting people
around was...scary? Weird word to use but she thought that maybe that was
the best one she could come up with. Needing people was scary and not
something she particularly wanted to do.

"You have thoughtful face on, firecracker," Madelyn said as Jubilee almost
walked past her office, so caught up in thought was she. "Good trip?"

Jubilee grinned, backtracking and walking into Madelyn's office. She
perched on Madelyn's desk, reaching over to snag a particularly violent
coloured blue donut. "Not bad, although there could have been less mad cat
ladies involved."

"There's always mad cat ladies involved somewhere," Madelyn said sagely,
glad to see the blue donut go - it had been looking at her funny.
"Especially when buses were involved." She gave Jubilee an assessing look.
She _looked_ all right. "I know you can't give details, but in broad
terms... everything okay? Some of those emails had me worried."

"'Bout as much as they can be okay, when it comes to me. Just a little
tired, Mads. Nothin' a few hours of good uninterrupted by 4am wakeups sleep
won't cure."

Jubilee looked down at the blue donut, taking a bite out of it and chewing
thoughtfully. It tasted alright, if a little like liquorice...she wasn't
entirely sure why you would want a liquorice donut but obviously there was
a market somewhere.

"Well, I'm glad you're back, in one piece and triumphant. From the very
little I've heard, you all did an amazing job." Madelyn leaned her chin on
her hands and looked up at the girl perched on her desk. From the general
tone of her emails, the comment then about 'when it comes to me'... Her
firecracker wasn't in the good mental place. "It can't have been easy,
living in close quarters with some people," she said generally. "And since
everyone's back in one piece, I'd say you did well with controlling that
temper of yours."

Jubilee smiled, trust Mads to realise that being in the same area as Amanda
would have been hard, it hadn't seemed to occur to anyone else. At least,
it had but they'd all seemed to think about how hard it was for Amanda,
rather then for her. Although, she couldn't particularly blame them, Amanda
did have a lot more reason to be upset with her, then she had to be upset
about being around her. It had been hard to be around her though, not
including the thought that she should be feeling something like guilt when
she was around Amanda, and the realisation that she wasn't. It gave her a
fucking headache.

Was she being fair? No, definitely not. She was feeling sorry for herself,
and not particularly giving anyone the benefit of the doubt. But she was
just so fucking tired of being tired, of thinking about what she should be
feeling and yet still not feeling it. Yet, she still kept up the show,
because to do otherwise seemed like giving up.

"I did okay, I guess. I got into a fight with Nathan though, so the holding
my temper thing didn't work out too great."

"A fight or a discussion? There is a difference, even when Nathan's
involved. As long as the two of you didn't end up screaming obscenities at
each other, I'd be more inclined to call it a discussion." Madelyn doubted
Nathan would have actually fought with Jubilee during a job - no matter
what the cause, he was too professional for that. And Jubilee was fast
developing the 'I'm a fuck-up' attitude that needed addressing with the
Mallet of Logic.

"Well, more a heated discussion, I guess. It ended okay, anyway. The hug
shocked the fuckin' hell out of me though." Jubilee said.

It was a mark of how much she trusted Madelyn that she was even talking
about the conversation with Nathan. Jubilee didn't often have people
telling her that she was a good person, or giving her hugs either. It
wasn't something she'd talk about just like that, even if for others it
might have been nothing at all.

"Definitely okay, if there were hugs involved. Especially from Nathan,
considering the history you two have. Could be he sees something similar to
what I do," Madelyn said off-handedly, as if she wasn't giving a pep talk,
no, not at all. Talking to Alison so much was having an effect on her. "Oh,
and speaking of hugs, and people thinking well of you... I was talking to
Carlie on the phone last night. I was explaining that the place pretty much
empties out for New Year's, so it wouldn't be as entertaining for her to be
here then, but she was thinking maybe coming for a couple of weeks in
January? She misses her long-lost twin, I was told to say."

The smile that Jubilee gave her then was like a flash of sunlight between
storm clouds. "Carlie's comin' to visit? Dude, that's so incredibly cool.
Like, can she stay at the mansion? How's she been? I totally miss her too.
Got her somethin' in Vegas too for Christmas. This wicked cool sparkly
t-shirt I saw."

"Well, considering the disasters this place goes through on a regular
basis, I'm not exactly happy about her staying here, but apparently I don't
get a say in the matter. She's just finished her first lot of finals and is
demanding fun, lots of it, as soon as possible, so we've cut a deal - she
comes for ten days or so in January, and stays in the spare room in my
suite, and if anything happens, I reserve the right to put her ass on the
first plane home." There was a definite air of law being laid down there,
but it was only for a moment. "I can pass your present onto her when I go
home, if you like. Unless you want to wait and pass it on yourself? Or
not-wait and pass it on - you know you'd be welcome at Mom and Dad's for
Christmas, if your stomach's recovered from the last Bartlet family
gathering..."

It surprised her, although it shouldn't have. It was just that she'd never
gotten an invitation to go home with someone for Christmas before.
Christmas was for family though, Mads might have only been being polite.

"They wouldn't mind?" she asked, trying to keep her tone carefully neutral.

"Jubilee, something you should know about me. I never make offers I don't
intend to honor," Madelyn said seriously, meeting Jubilee's eyes.
"Sometimes stuff gets in the way and makes me break my promise, but I
always try and make up for it later. So, no, they wouldn't mind. I already
mentioned it to them, and Dad especially told me to let you know you were
welcome."

"Then I'd love to come. It'd be nice to see them all again. An you'd be
savin' me from spendin' the time hangin' around this place feelin' sorry
for myself."

Jubilee hesitated for a moment, seeming to come to a decision. "Mads, I
been thinkin' about goin' back to Cali sometime soon, next month, really.
There's, well... I wanted to visit my folks. I don't know what you call the
date someone dies but, it's comin' up again and I thought that maybe I
should go visit them, ya know? I ain't been back in so long, seems like a
good time. Would you...would you come with me?"

"Of course," Madelyn said immediately, and then looked a little sheepish.
"Got a date for me, firecracker? I should probably make sure there's no
life-or-death things I can't cancel. But they'd have to be life-or-death,
mind. I know this is important, and I'm... well, I can't say glad, it's not
the right word. But I'm glad you asked me."

"Probably round the 7th. It's not the actual date they died but it's pretty
close, I think. I can't, well, I can't remember what day it was but I know
it was January. But I know it was close to the beginning, rather then the
end. And thanks, Mads. Now all I gotta do is talk to Chuck and get the
money for plane tickets."

Jubilee looked thoughtful at that, she'd turned 18 only a little while ago
and she hadn't talked to Charles Xavier about what she was going to do with
her life. Technically, he wouldn't be her guardian anymore, and thus had no
real obligation to look after her. She'd need to find a job soon, if she
could figure out what to do.

"You don't need to grovel on my account - I can cover airfare. And the 7th
should be fine..." Madelyn had pulled her appointments diary out from under
the pile of read-outs on her desk and was consulting it as she spoke.
"Nope, all clear. I'll arrange to be off-duty for a couple of days around
there - if there's an emergency, they can get a locum in from one of Moira
or Hank's connections," she said, remembering Scott's talk of a while ago.
During one of the crises - the sad thing was there had been so many, she'd
forgotten which. And she'd talk to Charles about her covering both tickets
and not letting Jubilee know, if there was an issue, which she doubted.
"You know, if you wanted to find out the exact date, I could do that fairly
easily. The FBI database has a record of every homicide for the past thirty
years, and I still have buddies there who wouldn't mind giving me five
minutes' research time. I'd just need their names and address."

Jubilee nodded, smiling wryly. "Thanks, that'd be great. I know people
might think it's morbid but knowin' the day, it'd just be nice. To be
honest, I think the case is still open. They never found the guys that did
it and I was only 8, so I don't think I was all that helpful in describing
them."

'Eight years old and significantly traumatised by seeing your parents
killed.' Madelyn didn't voice the thought. "Then it definitely
shouldn't be a problem to find the date. Would you like me to ask about any
progress on the case? It's not like they would have kept you in the loop,
and once you were on the streets, you wouldn't have been easy to find.
Something might have turned up since."

"Please. It'd be nice to know whether there was anything. Heck, if they
wanted to talk to me again, I could probably do that too. I'm older now but
I still remember, I don't think I could ever forget them..."

"One step at a time, firecracker. I'll see what point the case is at, talk
to the people running it and see if they need anything more. If they do,
well, we could always drop into the LAPD while we're over there, okay?"
Action of some sort would be good for her, although Madelyn didn't hold
much hope for there being much in the way of progress. Or for Jubilee to
add to the evidence.

Jubilee nodded, taking another bite of her donut. "So, anything interesting
happen while I was gone?"

"Besides Jamie's Boiler Beach, not a damn thing. It's been disturbingly
quiet," Madelyn said. "Oh, we have a new face, but she's still resting, so
I'd appreciate it if you don't announce that to the general public. She's
having some powers issues." A faint smile crossed Madelyn's face. "Hasn't
been letting herself sleep for a few days."

"New face?" Jubilee said, piping up at the thought of someone new. "What's
her name? Can I see her? Is she down here or like in a room somewhere?"

"Did you miss the part where I said she hadn't let herself sleep for a few
days and she's having powers issues?" Madelyn asked, gently but with a hint
of exasperation. Jubilee was worse than Clarice for 'in one ear and out the
other' sometimes. "She's not up to seeing anyone except us right now -
she's in the Box."

"Oh." Jubilee said, a shiver passing through her. She knew about the box,
she'd been in it herself once. "That's gotta suck. Think I might go, Mads.
Got practice to do with my violin an I think Alison would be pissed with me
if she comes back to see me still pluckin' out nursery rhymes."

Madelyn nodded, knowing full well Jubilee had her own issues with the Box,
but not regretting bringing the topic up - she needed examples to remind
her to think about others. "She'll be fine once she's caught up on sleep
and the Professor has talked to her. But for now - keep it quiet? I
probably shouldn't have told you, and you wouldn't want to get me into
trouble with Hank and Moira, would you?" She winked at Jubilee as the girl
slid off her desk, preparing to flee.

"Ya know I'd never tell anyone anythin' ya told me in confidence, Mads. Let
me know when the girl's up and around? I'm always up for givin' people a
tour of the place."

"I know you wouldn't, firecracker - just letting you know it was in
confidence. And I will. She should be much better after a couple of days'
worth of sleep." Madelyn smiled at Jubilee. "You have a good day,
firecracker."

Jubilee grinned. "I will. Going rollerblading later on. If you wanted to
join me, well, I'm told I'm pretty good at teachin' people how not ta fall
on their ass."

"I'll keep that in mind, kiddo - not today 'though. I've got to be
responsible doctor person today." She made vague shooing gestures at the
girl. "Go on, firecracker, go and have fun. I'll catch you later."


Jubilee grabbed one of the chocolate donuts on her way out, humming softly to herself. Rollerblading, maybe some time down at Boiler Beach. Life was looking up.