Jubes and Carlie: Writing the journal entry

[x-jubilee.livejournal.com]

Who: Carlie Bartlet and Jubilation Lee.
What Happens? After finding out what happened to the people who killed her parents, Jubilee feels she needs to get some things off her chest. Carlie agrees to be her hands.



Jubilee flopped onto the sofa in the communial part of Madelyn's suite. They'd moved Jubilee's laptop from her room with Paige but had decided against putting it in the room she was using here. Considering she'd had to spend so much time sleeping in the first few days after the accident, Jubilee hadn't wanted any excuses to stay in bed.

Since she'd heard about what had happened to the people that had killed her parents, a thought had been forming in her mind. She'd never really talked to anyone about why she kept so many people at arms length. While she wanted to get away from the dramatic journal entries, maybe it was time for something to be said...maybe Carlie could help dilute her tendancies toward drama.

She'd just wait for her here, the party couldn't last forever and then hopefully Carlie wouldn't be too tired to help.

The door popped open and Carlie bounded in, twirling a little. "Dude!" she exclaimed, having picked up the word from Jubilee during her stay and not being able to stop now. "You're still awake? What's wrong, do your hands hurt? I brought you some cake, it might be a bit squashed, but it's still good." She put a napkin-wrapped lump on the coffee table and curled up on the couch with Jubilee. "You so should have seen Mad - she looked. _amazing_. Hank and Kurt were falling all over her all night."

Jubilee grinned, basking in the normality that Carlie always seemed to carry with her wherever she went. It was this, more then anything that made Jubilee reliquinsh all boundries while around her. She glanced at the lump of cake and remembered that she'd promised to ask Madelyn to bring some cake to Marko. She'd do it later, after what she needed to get done was done.

"Yeah, I was out visitin' Marko and then just didn't want to sleep till everyone got in. Carls, need your help with somethin' I gotta write."

"Sure." Almost automatically Carlie reached for the laptop, balancing it on her legs. "Something on your mind?"

Jubilee nodded, trying to gather her thoughts into an understandable whole. "Madelyn told me about what happened to the people who killed my parents. I need. No, I want to write something down. I just want to share something for once, without the world breaking crap that usually needs to happen before I think of it."

"Well, I'm your hands, at least until tomorrow lunchtime..." Carlie said, with a grin although her eyes were sympathetic. She and Jubilee had had many the late-night talk. "Mind if I correct your grammer as we go again? 'Cause you really need to work on that..."

Jubilee rolled her eyes, a smile flickering briefly over her mouth. "Dude, far be it from me to resist your grammatical urges. Go ahead, knock yourself out."

She slid back against the lounge, closing her eyes briefly as she thought about what to say. It was different having someone else writing for you. Speaking words always seemed slightly more real then just putting them on a page somewhere in cyberspace...or in this case, somewhere on the mansion's server system. There was always a certain level of detachment, even if you saw the other people reading said journal almost every day.

You could say things here, in these virtual spaces that you'd never say to someone's face.

"I guess...maybe we should just start with a hello. Most people know you're my hands right now anyhow, so no need to say whose postin'. So, guess something like. 'It's that time again. Yes, you guessed it, another overly dramatic and florid post from your favourite garden variety mallrat.'" Jubilee said, her voice dripping literally dripping with caustic self deprication.

It wasn't intentional...it just was.

"Okay dude, you really need to let up on yourself, y'know?" Carlie had typed the greeting, but paused now. "How about 'I've got something to say and this is where I'm saying it'?"

"Sure, sounds about right." Jubilee replied, it was good having Carlie here, stopped her from wallowing.

She opened her eyes, looking at the other girl, curious all of a sudden. "I sometimes wonder if I ain't hard enough. I do things sometimes, hurt people without thinkin'. Feels like I need to remind myself that I have to watch my tongue..You sure you want to do this? There's stuff I need to say. It could get ugly, I don't know yet but I got a lot of anger tonight. I don't want you hurtin' for me, ya know?"

"I wouldn't be any kind of friend if I couldn't handle the rough with the smooth, Jubes," Carlie told her, looking up from the laptop with an intent expression on her face. "I know it probably won't be pretty, but I can handle it - I'm here for you, okay?" She reached out and patted Jubilee's pyjama-clad knee. "Now, lets do this thing, all right? With minimal self-beating?"

Jubilee snorted, she should have known Carlie would be up to the challange. That strength of character was one of the reasons Jubilee liked her, afterall.

"Okay, well, guess we should start at the beginning. There's not a lot of people that know what happened, I'm not exactly forthcoming on the details. Think maybe I need to say it out loud. So, we'll start there. Hmm...maybe start with 'The night my parents died, I was thinking about my talking to my friend CynJen about a gymnastics meet I'd won a medal at. I didn't know that'd be the last time I saw them. I guess that's not unusual though, most people don't know when they'll last see someone they love. Guess that's what makes it so hard to let go when we do lose someone.'"

Carlie nodded, typing that, although she did press her lips together to keep from saying something. Jubilee needed to say it in her own time, and in her own way. With limits.

Several minutes later...

Jubilee leant back with a sigh, feeling better for having gotten then entire thing down. She could tell that Carlie was feeling tired, it can't have been easy hearing some of the things she'd said, or dealing with Jubilee's anger and pain. "You doin' okay?" she asked softly.

Carlie nodded. It was impossible not to feel what Jubilee had been saying, what she'd been feeling, but Jubilee needed a friend, not a wet blanket. "Not stellar," she admitted. "But I'll be okay." She hit 'post' and then set the laptop aside on the table, impulsively reaching over to give Jubilee a tight hug. "You rock, you know? You really do."

Jubilee grinned wryly. "Thanks. It took a lot of work but I think I'm doin' okay. Your sister helped, you know. Think maybe if she hadn't been there, I'd never even tried to get better. She believed in me, when most other people would've just seen the bitch."

"Mad does that. It's one of the reasons I think she's so amazing, for all I tease her..." Pulling back, Carlie wiped away a couple of tears and grinned. "And you're not that hard to believe in, Jubes. Prickly as all hell, sometimes, especially when you're in pain and bored, but not irredeemable. Now, what do you say to hot chocolate and cake? One last sugar high to end with?"

"You definitely know the way to my heart, Dude. To cake, and all the sugar we can consume!" Jubilee cried, giggling.