Log: Madelyn/Jubilee: Visiting graveyard

[x-jubilee.livejournal.com]

Who: Madelyn Bartlett, Jubilation Lee.
When: Friday January 7th 2005
What Happens?: Madelyn and Jubilee visit her parent's graves. Jubilee makes a decision.




Jubilee held the umbrella high as she stepped out of the rental car,
looking at the gate to the cemetery. Now that she was here, she didn't want
to be. She didn't want to look at their graves and acknowledge their
deaths. She didn't want them to be gone, not when she was still here. It
wasn't fair, and it wasn't right.

"I don't know if I can do this, Mads." she said.

Madelyn pulled the hood of her rain coat up over her hair, the drizzle
tickling her nose lightly. "No-one's forcing you to, firecracker," she said
quietly - she'd expected something like this. "It's up to you." She didn't
add that Jubilee would be the one dealing with the consequences of not
going through with it - she didn't have to. "Either way, I'm here if you
need me."

Jubilee nodded, walking forward and through the gate in front of her. She
looked around, and walked off to the right. She'd gotten directions before
she'd left the school, if they were accurate her parents shouldn't be far
from the front gate. Her hand was pale against the steel of the umbrella,
the white of her knuckles the only evidence of the strength of will it took
her to move one foot in front of the other.

Madelyn followed, a little way behind - she didn't want to crowd the girl,
and this was a pretty personal moment. The cemetary was a small one, set on
a hill like so much else of San Francisco was, and well-tended. The drizzle
was thickening into a cold rain - rather appropriate, given why they were
there. Stopping under a large beech tree not far off from the cluster of
graves Jubilee was heading for, Madelyn leaned against the bare, wet truck,
hands shoved into the pockets of her coat, eyes on the small figure in the
yellow slicker.

She'd reached the graves now, her eyes brushing over unfamiliar names as
she looked for the right ones. Finally, when she could avoid looking at the
names no more, she let herself focus on the graves she'd come here to see.
They were white marble, the names done in tasteful black lettering. They
looked to be well cared for, no weeds to mar the brilliance of the marble
of obscure the simple names. She placed the red poppies she'd brought with
her in the little vases provided. Poppies for remembrance. The umbrella
slipped from her hand as she knelt in the wet grass, unnoticed the moisture
soaking into her jeans.

Magneto, Sabertooth, people like this were allowed to live in the world.
But her parents, people who just wanted to live a normal life, they were in
the ground. She could feel the anger choking her, wanting to get out, to
find voice in a howl of outrage at the vagaries of the universe in which
such things could be allowed.

Instead, she brushed her fingers over her mother's name, remembering how
she had been and how her father had been, they would not want her to rage.
If such things happened in this world, then she needed to change the world
so they didn't. It would be what her parents would do. It would be the only
thing they would accept.

Finally, tears mixed with the rain on her face and brought with it, not
acceptance but an iron will to change, to see the world change. She would
do it, she swore it.