Nathan and Jubilee log

[x-jubilee.livejournal.com]

When: Thursday 16th December 2004 Time: 8:30pm
Who: Nathan, Jubilee.
What Happens: Jubilee convinces Madelyn to let her see Nathan to make sure he's okay with her own eyes. She falls asleep waiting for him to wake up and gets dragged into some rather nasty dreams.




Something has been taken from deep inside of me
The secret I've kept locked away no one can ever see
Wounds so deep they never show, they never go away
Like moving pictures in my head, for years and years they've played

'Easier to Run' - Linkin Park

Jubilee crept quietly across the shiny plastic floor of the Medi-lab,
her shoes making almost no noise as she walked toward Nathan's bed.
She'd promised that she would be quiet, so she was.

She was here to see Nathan, to check that he was okay. Madelyn had
been reluctant at first but Jubilee had pleaded with her, using every
trick in the book. Madelyn had finally said yes, as long as she was
quiet. She spotted him, laid out on his normal bed, an overstuffed
chair pulled up beside it. She supposed unlike a normal hospital, the
staff here didn't take secret delight in torturing visitors by giving
them supremely uncomfortable chairs. Jubilee had always wondered
whether it was a ruse in order to make patients get better faster,
through group consenus that if ones visitors had to sit in those awful
chairs one more time, there would be hell to pay.

She padded across the floor and checked the chart on the end of his
bed. She couldn't read most of what it said, but it seemed to indicate
he wasn't in any immediate danger. She sat down in the chair, pulling
her feet up under her. She'd just wait for him to wake up, make sure
he was okay, and then go.

Several minutes later, a soft snore filled the room...

---

He was supposed to be calm. The teenager leaned back against the wall
of the building behind him and took a deep, cleansing breath, then
another. Just like MacInnis had taught him. The anxiety faded, but
didn't vanish. He frowned and tried experimentally to push it down and
away, a trick Samuelson had just shown them the other week. That had
better results. Well, Samuelson had said it was a way to make the
conditioning work for you when you were on a mission.

A mission. He swallowed, hand slipping into the pocket of his coat and
around the grip of the gun. He was only the third member of his class
to have gotten his first orders already, and the other two had never
come back to the training barracks. He didn't know whether that meant
they'd succeeded, or failed. Not that he had asked. You weren't
supposed to wonder about things like that.

Jubilee was someone else. It wasn't the type of thing she was used to
feeling. But she wasn't looking out of her own eyes, and those weren't
her feelings. Nor was that her hand against a gun. She could hear
someone else in here with her as well...where the hell was she?

'A mission' came the thought, unbidden.

That sounded like Nate, only younger. She looked out of the eyes that
weren't her own and felt the solidness of the wall behind her
back...his..their back. It seemed easier to think of it like that.
They were thinking of the mission, they were holding a gun. They were
holding a gun? What the fuck?

There was a moment of strange disorientation, and Nathan blinked.
Couldn't space out, he told himself. If he spaced out and lost his
target, he'd fail - and he didn't really want to find out what
happened if he did. He somehow thought it wouldn't involve being given
another chance.

'Who is the target?' she asked, silently.

It had taken her a moment or two but she was getting better at this
multiple awareness thing. There was a her, and a maybeNathan and a
'them', the 'them' was the easiest to maintain but she could ask
questions and get answers of a sort, although to the 'them' it was
somewhat like talking to yourself.

Nathan brought the picture of his target back to mind, the
unremarkable face of a man in his middle years. His hand tightened
around the gun as a car pulled up by the curb, but the person that got
out was a woman. Not his target. He breathed out, telling himself to
stay cool, to concentrate. There was a window of nearly an hour in
which the target could arrive. He might be here for a while.

It looked like they was going to be here for awhile, if He/their
thoughts were any indication.

'I'm going to have such a headache from this.' came the passing
thought, her own, rather then his or theirs.

She supposed she could pass the time by hunting through 'Nathan's'
memories. She wasn't sure if it were possible but it wasn't like she
didn't have time to rummage. She guessed it would depend on whether
this was just her dreaming that she was dreaming she was Nate...wow,
that was a mindful. She probably would have felt guilty about taking
advantage but it wasn't like she'd asked to be dragged in here,
wherever here was. Besides, it was an almost impossible temptation,
the chance to look through memories Nathan would never impart while
awake. Jubilee's natural curiosity couldn't resist that kind of lure.

Another car pulled up, and Nathan swallowed as the door opened to
reveal his target, stepping out and half-turning, smiling at his
driver as he closed the door. Taking a deep, shaky breath, pushing the
lingering emotions down hard, Nathan strode forward at a brisk walk,
checking to make sure the gun wouldn't get caught on the fabric of his
pocket. He picked up the pace, as if he were in a rush, dodged around
other passers-by until he deliberately bumped against the man.

"Sorry," he muttered, the gun out of his pocket and pressing against
the man's side. Before the target could do more than look down,
startled, Nathan pulled the trigger.

They'd just shot someone...no, scratch that. They'd just killed
someone. They were running now, not stopping to look back. They knew
the quarry was dead and that the mission was complete. Now they just
needed to make sure they weren't caught.

Jubilee wrenched herself away from the combined awareness, sickened by
what she'd just witnessed. She'd killed someone but it hadn't been so
cold, hadn't been deliberate. How the hell could Nate have done that?
She struggled as she felt herself being dragged back under, she didn't
want to see any more of this. But this wasn't her dream and she was
just a guest here.

Running, and the whole scene blurred, until he was lurching to his
knees and vomiting up what little was in his stomach all over
Samuelson's boots. The tall man stepped back with a sigh, and Nathan
struggled to get control over himself. But he couldn't. Zen level had
fallen all apart on him on the way back, and now he could feel it, the
echoes of the man's death in his mind...

"Have you not been paying any attention to what I've been trying to
teach you?" Samuelson asked him coolly. "You have to forget guilt,
Nathan." The booted foot slamming into his ribs didn't come as much of
a surprise. Not really. Gaspping for breath, choking on his own vomit,
Nathan tried to move away, but Samuelson followed, his shadow falling
across him. "If you can't kill without feeling," the instructor went
on just as coldly, "you're a liability." Nathan managed to get control
over his stomach and look up at him - just in time to catch the
backhanded blow across the face.

She surfaced briefly during the beating that followed, scrambling to
hold onto herself, to hold herself away from the dream. The horror of
the killing, of the remorse and guilt of the man's death and finally
the sheer fucking pain of the beating combined to make her want to
scream out a denial. She fought to escape, trying to find the egress
to this most unwanted experience. The fact that she was feeling the
beating herself, feeling each blow had been unwelcome. Although, if
she'd given it a moments thought, she might have realised it would be
so, since she'd been able to feel the gun in Nate's hand.

She was being drawn downward again, back into that shared experience.
It wasn't fair...but then life never was.

The memory of the beating blurred into a dizzying impression of
antiseptic smells and white-suited figures and pain, until it all went
still and quiet, and Nathan was sitting on the roof of the facility
days later, staring up at the stars over the desert. He shifted his
arm in the sling, wincing wearily at the pain. No painkillers. You
didn't get painkillers when you'd screwed up.

Jubilee sat down beside him, finally having extricated herself from
the combined awareness. She had a matching sling on her arm though,
the opposite to Nathan's, something odd about that but she didn't have
time to examine it. She looked up at the stars. "Beautiful, aren't
they?" she said conversationally.

She wasn't sure if he'd be able to hear or see her but it was better
then silence. This hadn't been anything like the time Amanda had
stumbled into her dreamscape. She hadn't made Amanda relive the
memories with her, afterall.

Nathan stared out dully at the stars. There was someone sitting next
to him, but he didn't know her. Didn't really want to know her. It was
someone new, which meant she probably wouldn't live very long.

She needed to get out of here, find a way back to the Medi-Lab. Not
that she didn't enjoy sharing in the killing, beatings and general
shittiness that seemed to be Nathan's dreams, because really, who
wouldn't? Okay, sarcasm helped stem the small panicky bit inside her
that said she was going to be stuck in here forever. This one memory
had been bad enough, she wasn't particularly sure she wanted to go
through all of them, not when she could feel them, experience them
just as he did.

"Not talkin' hey? Well, can't blame ya. Pretty shitty thing they did
to you, ya know? Good thing you're not here anymore then, ain't it?
Good thing you got people who love you now." she said, wondering if
the reminder would be enough for him.

"Go away," Nathan muttered, his voice hoarse. He let his head rest on
his knees, wincing again at the pain in his ribs as he shifted. "They
hear us talking up there we'll both wind up with penal measures."

Would they see her? She wasn't sure, dreams had never been her strong
suite. Certainly gallivanting around in other people's dreams wasn't
something she did on a regular basis. It was easy enough to deal with
her own nightmares, she knew what worked with them. She didn't know
what went here, and she had a very uneasy feeling that knowledge was a
premium when it came to mucking about in other people's headspace.

"Penal measures?" she asked, the soul of innocence.

Might as well find out what she was in for if this did all turn pear
shaped.

"You know." They really shouldn't be up here together. That was just
asking for it. "Solitary. No rations. Corporal punishment." He pointed
to the mountain to the left. "The post, if they decide we've done
something bad enough. I know someone who went to the post. They
brought him back all sunburned and delirious a couple of days later
and he died. Then they buried him in the desert."

Jesus fucking Christ. She'd academically known that Nate's life as a
kid had been pretty shit awful but 'Corporal punishment'? For just
talking to each other? What twisted little fucks were these people?

"Dude, that's pretty fucked up. Where are we, anyhow?"

"Home." Nathan's voice was expressionless. "You shouldn't ask
questions like that. It'll make them think your conditioning needs
work, and you don't want to end up in the white room again, do you?"

Jubilee shivered, she wasn't used to Nate sounding so...well, dead,
really. Angry, definitely. Teasing, if she caught him in a good mood.
But not this nothingness, it was in some ways more scary then finding
herself trapped in a dream. The Nate she was used to, she could have
counted on him to help her out. This one? She wasn't sure.

"White room? Dude, look, much as I like playin' twenty questions and
all. I'm not really here. Or at least, I am, but this isn't real.
You're like, ancient beyond belief and hangin' out blind on a Medlab
bed, not a teenager and I'm just visitin' and I'd really, really like
it now if we could get the fuck out of here, because I'm beginnin' to
feel a tad jumpy."

That was an understatement and she'd just taken a risk by pointing out
the unreality of the situation. She wondered if that old thing about
not waking sleepwalkers counted if you were inside a dream. Or the one
about if you died in a dream, you didn't wake up. She hoped not, she
didn't relish the idea of waking up a vegetable. And she got a feeling
this place could turn violent if 'The post' and 'The White room' were
anything to go by.

"The white room," Nathan said, just as flatly. "Where the ones with no
faces get inside your head. Don't be stupid and wind up back there
again. You probably won't live through it again. I watched them bury
the ones who didn't make it out in the desert one time."

'The ones without faces...Telepaths?' Jubilee wondered.

Time to go, if she couldn't just simply get Nate to wake them up, she
certainly wasn't going to spend time hanging around in this place.
Standing up, she reached down to tug at his arm.

"Come on, we're gettin' out of here. An since you're the dreamer, yer
comin' with me. Let's go take a look at your desert, hey? If we're
lucky, it'll be some Matrix like symbol and the moment we step out
there we'll wake up."

'Although, Nate never really struck me as the Matrix watchin' type.'
she thought. 'Still, it's do this or sit around...not exactly known
for my sitting around abilities.'

Nathan moved like lightning, seemingly ignorant of his injuries. He
had Jubilee pinned on the ground, one arm twisted up behind her back,
before she could react. "Don't touch me," he said, his voice low and
hard. "You don't get to push me around. I have to take that from them,
I don't have to take it from you!"

She wasn't afraid, at least not of him. Which was pretty fucking
stupid because this wasn't the Nate she knew, or it was but it wasn't.
Definite headache when she woke up, especially if she kept trying to
work this place out. Maybe it was just easier to go with it. interact
with the world, see where it took her...with her own unique style, of
course.

She glared up at him. "Dude, much as lovin' havin' my arm almost
dislocated, wanna get off me? I wasn't pushin' you around, I'm just in
a little bit of a hurry. Ya know, you wanna stay here, be my guest.
I'm gettin' the fuck out."

Nathan let go with a little push, to give himself room to back off
before she could get up. "You won't get very far," he said flatly,
sitting back down. "The obedience imperatives will stop you if you try
to run. I'm surprised you're not getting the headache already."

Jubilee rubbed at her arm, this Nate was beginning to get on her
nerves. Not least of which because she already had a headache, she
just didn't think it was because of any 'obedience imperative'...at
least she hoped it wasn't. She wished she knew more about dreams. She
had the terrible feeling that she was missing something here,
something important.

"How do these 'obedience imperatives' work?" she asked.

Nathan settled back down into his cross-legged position, staring back
out at the desert. "I'll tell them," he said very quietly, after a
long moment. "If you don't leave me alone, and they find us. I'll tell
them your conditioning is broken." He looked sideways at her, and
there was hate blazing in his eyes suddenly. "I'm not going back to
the white room," he spat at her. "Never again."

She wasn't going to get any help from him. It had taken her awhile but
it had finally sunk in. This Nate, wasn't the same and seemed
completely unwilling to help her. She'd need to get out of this
herself then.

"Fine, I'll leave you alone. Good luck with the hired zombie act but
I'm gettin' outta here."

Now all she had to do is find the exit, she'd noticed a door in the
northern wall. Maybe that'd lead her out of here.

She opened the door and found herself in a white room. It was large,
empty save for medical equipment surrounding something that looked
like a dentist's chair. Only a dentist's chair didn't usually have
restraints. There was a mirror the size of a large window on one wall,
but otherwise the room was featureless.

The room shook suddenly, as if an earthquake had hit the building, and
the door flew open behind her as she jumped out of the way. Four very
large men in white appeared, half-dragging, half-carrying a Nathan who
looked to be a little older than the one on the roof. Nineteen, maybe.
He was thrashing desperately, snarling curses under his breath. He
looked like he was in agony, but he kept fighting.

She moved toward the men, they didn't seem to see her at all. Testing
this theory, she placed a hand against one of their shoulders and saw
it go straight through. So that answered that question, she wouldn't
be able to change anything here. It hurt to watch Nathan struggling
and in pain and not be able to help at all. Instead, she stepped back,
watching whatever scene this was unfold in front of her.

They forced him down into the chair, one of them placing a mask over
his face. Nathan's struggles got weaker, and he finally went limp, his
eyelids fluttering. Three of the men fastened the restraints, while
the one with the mask set up an IV with the ease of obvious practice.

Jubilee moved closer, trying to get a look at the IV. She was pretty
certain she wouldn't recognise the name but she could always ask
Madelyn about it later. She felt...helpless. She knew these men can't
be doing him any good by the way he'd been struggling. And if this was
the white room he'd been talking about. Making a note of the markings
on the bottle, she walked over to the mirror, placing a hand against
it. It had to be two-way, she wondered who was behind it.

The door opened again and four more people came in. Three men, one
women. All in white, as well, but more normally built than the four
who had dragged Nathan in. The woman switched on the light above the
chair where Nathan was twitching, as if growingly aware of their
presence. She looked up at the three men, then nodded and laid her
hands against Nathan's temples. He convulsed in the chair, a scream
catching in his throat, and the room tilted and warped, the
perspective changing until Jubilee was the one in the chair, feeling
them in her mind.

It felt something like the time Nathan had gripped her mind in order
to show her Alison's pain, only not. There was no gentleness to this
touch, no thought to not damaging. She was fighting against it, trying
to slip away from the minds that had a grip on her thoughts, throwing
up memories to distract them.

It didn't work. It never worked....

Jubilee screamed, a long high shattering note that sounded more like a
wounded animal then a human. It was then that she realised she could
feel the chair under her, and could once again smell the curious smell
that all medical type places seemed to have. She opened her eyes,
noting that Nathan had opened his eyes and was blinking up at the
ceiling. She didn't know if she could say anything without screaming
again. She could still feel them, ripping at her mind. The white room.

"N.Nate. I s.s.saw the w.w.white room." she said, stammering over the
words in her fear.

Someone was there. Groggily, he tried to identify the stammering
voice. "Who's..." His voice cracked and broke, giving out again, and
he started to cough, his whole body shaking with it.

Jubilee got the shaking under control, getting her feet under her so
she could stand. She staggered slightly and clutched at Nate's bed,
pins and needles sweeping across legs. Not unexpected, since she must
have been sitting still for so long. "It's me. It's Jubilee. Nate,
tell me it's over. Tell me this isn't just another dream. Please?" she
said, her voice sounding small and frightened still.

He couldn't catch his breath. The coughing wouldn't stop, and although
he heard her voice, he still didn't recognize it, didn't understand
who was pleading with him, why...

The scream had sent Madelyn practically leaping from her chair, the fearful
babbling accompanied her dash to the medlab room Nate was in. The coughing
was her priority 'though, at least for now. "Easy, Nate, take it easy..."
she soothed, raising the bed slightly so he could breathe easier and
debating whether it was safe to give him another dose of Moira's drug
cocktail. The number of drugs he was on meant she couldn't even give him a
simple cough suppressant - taking his hand she continued talking calmly and
soothingly to him, telling him where he was, who she was, that Jubilee was
there... At that, she glanced at the girl now huddling into herself on the
floor, and wished desperately for Jamie's power. Immediate issues first -
she just hoped Jubilee would understand that.

She'd curled herself up, like she used to do when she was a child. It
had always seemed that if you could make yourself as small as
possible, they wouldn't notice you. She knew that Mads was there,
helping Nathan. But, what if it was wrong, what if what she knew
wasn't really what she knew. They'd been wearing white as well, and
they'd done things to her...no, Nate's mind. But...what if? What if it
was her mind, and this wasn't here and Gods, help...please be real,
please be real.

There was enough space between the coughs now that he could start to
catch his breath, and Nathan sagged back against the pillows with a
choked moan, the pain in his chest almost unbearable. And he was cold
again, freezing cold, but there was no strength in his hands. He
couldn't even pull the blankets up around himself. He closed his eyes,
one darkness to another, no change at all.

He was shivering - Madelyn pulled the blankets up around him since he
obviously couldn't and lay her hand gently on his forehead as he slipped
back into troubled sleep. His temperature was stable, for now, but there'd
be another spike to deal with before morning, guaranteed. Satisfied that he
was stable for now, Madelyn turned her attention to the crying, shaking
girl on the floor, crouching beside her. "Jubilee?" she said softly, as
gentle as her voice had been when she'd been dealing with Nathan's panic.
"Honey? It's all right, you're safe, it was just a bad dream..." She'd
caught enough of Jubilee's babble earlier to know there'd been a dream, at
least.

It was a trick. They were tricky, the people in white. She knew, she'd
seen. This wasn't Mads, it was them and this wasn't Medlab, it was the
White room. She should have listened to the other Nate. She should
have...what? Been obedient.

"I'll be good." she whispered, flinching away.

"Ssh, hon, it's me, Mads. I'm not going to hurt you..." If Jubilee flinched
away any more, she'd be under the bed, and that would be a difficult place
to get her out from. What the hell had happened? "Firecracker, listen to
me, okay? You had a bad dream, but you're awake now, and what you saw can't
hurt you." Carefully she reached out, keeping her hand palm uppermost -
non-threatening and harmless, that was it.

"T.They were in my...no, his head. Only it was mine and I...I can't trust
this. You c.could be them." Jubilee said. "He told me it would happen and I
didn't believe him."

The last came out in a rush, her eyes a little wild as she stared up into
Madelyn's.

"Who told you, Jubilee? Who is 'he'? And who are 'they'?" This was a lot
more than a simple nightmare, Madelyn was realising, and she glanced up at
Nathan's sleeping form. What she knew of Mistra and the conditioning
process came to the fore and she remembered what Nathan had told her about
the conditioning room. The white room. Quickly she shrugged off her lab
coat, knowing that was probably not helping the situation. "You're not
there, Jubilee, and I'm not them. I'd never hurt you, you know that. I
can't hurt you, not like that - no powers, remember? Just plain old human
Mads..." Reaching out again, she lightly brushed Jubilee's shoulder with
her fingertips, letting her feel the contact. "See? I'm real. Right here.
You can pinch me if you like, only not too hard because I bruise easily."
Normal, calm words, letting the concern bleed through, but with enough of
their normal banter to reassure her.

Jubilee reached up, hand gripping Madelyn's arm for a moment, eyes
suspicious. When nothing untoward happened, her eyes suddenly filled with
tears and she was launching herself into Madelyn's arms, gripping tightly
along the other woman's back as though she was afraid if she let go,
Madelyn would disappear.

"Gods, it was so and he was hurting and I couldn't help. They hurt him,
Mads. They hurt him so badly just for caring. And they didn't want you to
feel anything, or else. And he was so resigned, like it was just the way
things were. I couldn't do anything to change it, and then they were in my
mind and there was nowhere to run. And I'm never gonna whinge about how bad
my dreams are ever again."

Madelyn rocked back slightly with the force of Jubilee's movement, ending
up sitting on the floor with a small bump. Stroking the girl's hair, she
held her just as tightly with the other arm, while her mind analysed what
Jubilee was saying. 'He' was obviously Nathan, and 'they' were Mistra - by
the sound of it, she'd been inadvertently sucked into one of Nathan's
dreams, and considering the big man's personal history, it hadn't been a
pleasant trip. "Hush, hon, it's all right, Nathan's all right now. That's
in the past and they can't hurt him any more, or you." She pushed aside
thoughts of those five body bags that had rested in their morgue after
Vermont, and the one survivor now asleep under the same roof. "And it's not
a competition - everyone has bad dreams, things that scare them. It's not
about whose are the worst."

Jubilee shook her head, pulling away from Madelyn as her complexion paled.
"Mads, you don't understand. I was in his head, and it was a dream but they
saw me. They knew I was there and they tried...they tried to get me.
I don't know what that means."

Madelyn gently grasped Jubilee's arms and pulled her back. "Jubilee, listen
to me. It was a dream, a memory. It wasn't _real_. They saw you because
somewhere, in Nathan's subconscious, _he_ saw you. To say he's got a lot of
stuff in his head is an understatement, but up until he came here, anyone
going _into_ his head without his express consent and a lot of preparation
would have set off any number of triggers the people in white planted in
there. The triggers are gone now, but that doesn't mean the defences are as
well. Nathan is _free_ - those bastards can no more get into his head any
more than I can. The real people in that room have no idea you even exist."
If they're still alive, which I devoutedly hope they aren't.

Jubilee nodded, shuddering as she remembered the feel of those minds. She
caught onto Madelyn's words and held them like a shield against the cold
voices she could still hear the echoes of even now. It wasn't just that
she'd shared Nate's dream, it was that for a moment, she'd felt herself
giving in, doing whatever those voices wanted just to get them to stop. She
wasn't sure she believed what Mads had said, those voices, the
recognition... it was so real But she wouldn't go borrowing trouble,
best to leave it now.

"I'm sorry, Mads. Guess I keep doin' this to you, don't I?"

"It's all right, hon, it's not like you meant to. Nathan's running a
temperature - I'm guessing it's messing with his shielding, even though his
telepathy's still mostly out. These things happen - I shouldn't have let
you see him." Holding Jubilee close, Madelyn glanced up again at Nathan on
the bed. Still asleep, and breathing; the sound was unmistakeable, with the
virus clogging his lungs the way it was. "How about you come keep me
company in my office and I'll make us some chocolate, hmm?"

Jubilee slowly unclenched her fists, moving back from Madelyn as she
banished the voices she could still hear faintly in her head. She had a
feeling she'd have echoes of the dream for awhile but right now, hot
chocolate and Mads company would make it better.

"Sure, Mads. When did I ever turn down hot chocolate?" she said with a
shaky smile.

"That's a girl. Just let me check on Nathan and we'll go do the girly
thing, hmm?" Madelyn kept her tone light, and absolutely normal - it
wouldn't make the fears go away, but it would bring Jubilee back to a more
realistic frame of mind. She quickly checked Nathan's breathing and pulse
and temperature - the latter was creeping up a little, as she'd thought
might happen.

Jubilee pulled herself back onto the chair, her hands pressed to the
material, a connection with the real world. She breathed deeply, trying to
calm the panicked fluttering of her mind, reaching for meditation
techniques to stem the flow of jumbled thoughts. She could make sense of it
all later, no use going into a mental breakdown now.

"C'mon kiddo, let's get you warmed up again, okay?" Madelyn finished with
Nathan, making a few notes of the incident on the chart before turning to
Jubilee, hand held out. "If you're really lucky, there might even be little
marshmallows, if Hank hasn't eaten them all."

Jubilee gripped Madelyn's hand, pulling herself out of the chair. Together
they walked toward Madelyn's office, Jubilee looking back only once as they
reached the door. A shiver went down her spine as she thought she heard
whispers in the darkness but she shook it off, little marshmallows waited
for no teenager.