Madelyn, Jubilee - Friday night

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

After changing Jubilee's bandages, Madelyn settles down to give her some news. About her family's murder, and the fate of the killers.



Madelyn finished re-bandaging Jubilee's hands - the burns were healing nicely - but rather than packing up and sending Jubilee on her way straight away, she gave her a very serious look. "Do you have time for a talk, firecracker?" she asked, setting the stainless steel bowl containing the soiled bandages on the floor of the spare room in her suite. "I've got some news for you. About your parents and the people who killed them."

Jubilee had been mentally half way out the door as Madelyn had finished fixing her bandages, thinking about the DDR game awaiting her in the TV room. She'd managed to nag Kyle into a rematch. Thusly, it took her a few moments to focus on Madelyn's words. Jubilee frowned and then schooled her features into a calm, emotionless mask, readying herself for whatever news Madelyn might have.

"Sure Mads, I've got time." she replied.

"First of all, I'm sorry it's taken me so long to get back to you - it was a bit of a mess, being an old case..." Madelyn temporised, seeing the mask fall into place and trying to think of the best way to tell this. Straight up, she decided. Jubilee never wanted coddling. "The men who killed your parents are dead," she said bluntly. "For almost five years now. They were arrested and did jail time, and three months after they were released, they were found shot dead in what looks like a Triad execution."

It was not what she'd been expecting. Although, considering she'd not heard anything at all about it in ten years, she couldn't now say what she'd expected. She felt cold, frozen solid...how was she supposed to feel?

"Why didn't they tell me?" she asked finally, her thoughts racing like a hamster on a wheel.

"Let's go back to the start, okay? When I explain, it'll make more sense." Jubilee nodded dumbly, and Madelyn took a deep breath before starting. "First of all, the two men that killed your parents were part of a Chinese Triad. There's a few operating on that side of the country, in San Francisco especially. By the looks of it, they were sent to silence a particularly troublesome local trader who was agitating for his fellow business owners to stop paying protection money." Madelyn saw the look of confusion cross Jubilee's face and elaborated. "Your next door neighbour, who was also called Lee."

"He used to come by and see my Dad. Was never really interested in listening to whatever it was they talked about but he was a nice guy." Jubilee replied, tone slightly less cold in remembrance.

Madelyn nodded, glad the mask was slipping. "By all accounts he was. But he attracted the wrong sort of attention, which was why the hit was ordered on him. It was sheer bad luck and incompetence of the killers that they went to the wrong house." She reached over and touched Jubilee's shoulder. "I know that probably makes it worse, knowing it was a mistake, but at least you know why now."

She'd felt so guilty, sitting swathed in a policeman's coat as she watched them take her parent's bodies away that night. She couldn't understand why she was still alive when they were dead. A social worker had come, and she'd placed her hand on Jubilee's shoulder and her voice had been soft and comforting. Jubilee hadn't wanted comfort though. She hadn't felt that she deserved comfort when she had survived. They were her parents and she was meant to be with them. What was so special about her that the two people she loved most in this world were dead and she was still here? She couldn't think of an answer, could only think that it had been a mistake. That she was the one that had been meant to die, and if she hadn't been here, they'd still be alive.

But things had changed, she'd changed. She didn't feel guilty any more. In fact, she knew that her parents would have been upset with her for feeling guilty. They would have wanted her to live, and be happy.

"I always thought that one day I'd kill them." Jubilee replied, a single tear sparkling and slipping down her face, followed quickly by another. "I always thought it was the only way to go on. That if I could find them, and kill them that it'd make everything mean something again."

"C'mere kiddo," Madelyn said, scooting over on the bed to wrap Jubilee in a careful hug. "That's the thing about revenge and killing, it doesn't make everything better. At the end of the day, you'd have blood on your hands and your parents would still be gone. And they wouldn't want that, no parent would." Digging a Kleenex out of her pocket, she wiped the girl's tears away, since she couldn't, and then asked, softly. "Do you want to hear the rest? About the arrest and why you weren't contacted?"

Jubilee pressed her face into Madelyn's shoulder for a second, drawing in gasping breaths as the sobs took over. She pressed her hands close to her chest, not wanting to hurt them more by clutching at the older woman. Finally, getting herself under a small amount of control, she looked up at Madelyn with red rimmed eyes. "Sorry about that, I don't usually get all weepy on people. But, I want to hear it all. Tell me why they didn't say anything, why they let me think these guys were lose all these years."

Her tone had hardened slightly at the last, minute sparks glinting in her long hair.

"Kiddo, you don't need to apologise to me, not for showing how you feel, never that..." Wiping away the last of the tears, Madelyn kept one arm around Jubilee's shoulders as she talked. "They were arrested, about a year after the murders, but there wasn't enough evidence to convict them for that. What they did have was enough for a breaking and entering charge. At the time you were considered too unreliable as a witness to be called to the stand - you were just a kid, and a traumatised one at that. Child Welfare convinced the police that to put you through that would be too damaging."

Jubilee nodded, remembering that around that time she would have already been placed with her first foster family. She supposed it wasn't fair of her to be angry they hadn't told her, not when she was just starting to get used to her new place in the world. But...she was angry, and she couldn't let go. The raw and angry wound was open again, maybe now was the time to deal with it, if she was ever going to. "I know I was just a kid, I know it's not fair that I'm angry at 'em. But I can't help..."

Jubilee shook her head, opting for silence again till Madelyn had finished. Maybe there was something she'd say that would make it okay again.

"Further investigations were done, and evidence of two other murders were found against them. Faced with those charges, and the death penalty, the killers cut a deal. They'd plead to the lesser charges, in return for giving evidence in a number of drug trafficking and extortion cases." Madelyn kept her tone calm, factual, but her arm around Jubilee's shoulders was comforting. "They did five years in prison, and then were released on witness protection. It didn't help. Three months after they were released, they were found dead."

'Good' she thought.


She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt, pulling back from Madelyn for a moment, her emotions still blatantly obvious on her face. She wasn't hiding anything tonight, she was too damn tired for that.

"Do they know which Triad it was?" Jubilee asked, her tone carefully neutral.

"No," Madelyn replied, suddenly glad the investigating team hadn't identified them - she didn't want to lie to Jubilee, but there was no way she'd tell her that information. "The information given was on rival Triads, which was why they were executed, but they never said who they'd worked for." She was so hurt, so angry... but at least she knew now. At least she could move on.

Jubilee nodded, the spark of anger, the urge to vengeance dying stillborn as she realised she'd not get a name. So, they were dead, the people who killed her parents were dead and she could move on, safe in the knowledge that they'd never come after her.

She was safe...whoever the Triad who had hired them had been, it hadn't been after her. As much as she might want to hunt down whoever had ordered the hit in the first place, she wouldn't be given a chance.

She wasn't sure where that left her. Except to feel free and relieved and guilty still that she had lived but not so much now, even that was getting better.

"I wish they'd known a name. I've been waiting all these years...but I. Am I free now, Mads? Can I care now without anyone gettin' hurt cause of it?"

"You always could, kiddo - you caring for someone was never going to get them hurt... But you are free now. You can let it go, all that anger and guilt, and move on. The past can't hurt you unless you let it." Madelyn itched to wrap her in another hug, but she didn't want to push - it had to come from Jubilee.

Jubilee nodded, thinking about the future about what she wanted to do and who she wanted to be. She could feel the start of a shift in view. She wouldn't have to be looking over her shoulder anymore. She wouldn't have to cut herself off from any feeling in case being close to her meant someone got her. She looked at Madelyn, a smile bright as sunshine spreading over her face as she leant forward and hugged Madelyn tightly, not caring about her hands for a moment, just wanting to share the newfound freedom she'd been given.

It's over, Mads. It's over. she whispered fiercely, joyfully.


Happy tears stung Madelyn's eyes at the gesture, and she hugged the girl almost as fiercely. "There's nothing holding you back now, Jubilee," she murmured. "Nothing at all."