Scott and Jubilee, Tuesday night

[x-cyclops.livejournal.com]

After overhearing this argument, Scott goes to talk to Jubilee, who gets the straight goods on what happened today, why Madelyn was involved, and something of a kindly delivered verbal smack upside the head. Scott doesn't so much as raise his voice, and Jubilee is left with quite a bit of food for thought.


Jubilee carefully folded her shirts, placing them in her suitcase. She wasn't running away, this was different then last time. She was choosing to leave, and she'd walk out the front door in full view of everyone. She wasn't going to stick around and watch people put themselves in dangerous situations when they didn't have to.

She'd need to get them to send the bigger stuff on once she found a place. She supposed she'd have to find a real job now. Oh well, being a cop probably wasn't for someone like her. Probably never would have gotten in anyway.

She'd survive. Heck, maybe she could even go down to New Orleans for a bit, find out if it was anything like how Gumbo had described to her.

Anywhere but here, really. She needed to get away before they made her any softer. The arguement with Mads today had proven just how much she'd let down the walls. She cared about people here...she so needed to get away.

Scott stood soundlessly in the doorway, watching her for a few minutes before he finally decided it was probably time to let her know that she was being watched. "Jubilee," he said very calmly.

Jubilee barely glanced at him, continuing with her packing. It was probably rude of her but she didn't particularly care right now. "Scott," she acknowledged.

"What are you doing?"

"Building a doomsday device with which I'll take over the world." she replied, putting a pair of jeans that Kitty had helped her pick out in her suitcase. "What the hell does it look like I'm doing? I'm leaving."

"Mm-hmm," Scott said, still watching her. "Why?"

"Because it's a little disconcerting sharing a house with a bunch of walking corpses. At least, they will be by the time the X-men are done." Jubilee replied, yanking a picture off the wall.

It was a photo of her suitemates and her. She couldn't remember when it'd been taken but it'd been sunny and she'd been happy. She hesitated for a second, and then placed it in the suitcase.

"Walking corpses. Uh-huh." Scott leaned against the doorframe, folding his arms across his chest and regarding her steadily.

He wasn't going to go away. He'd probably stand there and just watch her pack everything if she didn't speak but he wasn't going to go away. How...annoying.

Jubilee sat down on her bed, giving him her full attention. "You know, after the 'rents died. Well, the thing most people came up with was 'They're in a better place now'. Like that helped at all. I mean, fine, they're in a better place. What about me? I get to stay here. I get to wake up at night screaming for my mother and realising she'd never gonna be there ever again. You learn to stop counting on people to be around. Only, I started counting on people here. I care about Mads. An she put herself in danger. She's human, she could've died. I won't sit by and watch while people I care about die, Scott."

"Jubilee..." Scott paused, mustering a very thin smile. "Do you have any idea why she put herself in danger?

"It doesn't matter why." Jubilee replied.

She paused for a second, clenching her hands into fists as she realised how that sounded. It did matter, it just...Damn it. "Why'd she do it?"

Scott gave her a very direct look. "Because in October, she was there when they found five dead children in a Mistra safehouse. Dead from the conditioning that the six children downstairs were about to undergo before they were rescued."

"What?" Jubilee asked, her eyes somewhat wide as she digested the information. "She never...I."

"I'm trusting to your discretion." And amazingly, he meant it. Like he'd told Madelyn, the girl was far from dumb. She'd realize this wasn't the sort of thing one spread around as gossip. "But that's what would have happened to our six guests downstairs, most likely. What would have been done to them - exactly what was done to Nathan when he was that age, by the way - would have killed probably all but one of them. Those are the odds they were facing."

"I know. I saw it." Jubilee said softly, thinking of the dream she'd shared with Nate.

She realised that Madelyn and Nate must not have said anything about that. Gods, she hadn't known Madelyn had been near a Mistra base. She felt like such a shit.

"They didn't know," Scott said calmly, knowing that he was giving her information he really shouldn't be, but to hell with it. He didn't have any intention of standing back and watching her walk out that door. "This time, I mean. When they went in. They thought it was a medical evac, found out halfway there that the... bad guys were after the people in the crashed helicopter, too. The children."

So Madelyn hadn't been deliberately put in danger. She'd thought they'd taken her in there, knowing what Mistra could do and hadn't cared. Heck, she'd thrown accusations at Madelyn about wanting to get back old FBI glory days, only this time around the people she was fighting outmatched her completely.

She'd been her old self, the one who cut people to ribbons verbally if they ever dared to get too close.

"I didn't know that." she said, pulling her legs up against her.

"It would have been dangerous to leave Madelyn in the Blackbird," Scott said crisply. "Even if she hadn't been needed to help with the wounded - and there are a lot of wounded, Jubilee. The kids weren't badly hurt, but some of the people who initially rescued them are." He shook his head. "The team couldn't have left her behind. If any of those Mistra operatives had circled around... the safest place for her was with the others."

Oh God. How was she going to fix this? She'd gone off at Madelyn, she'd said some really horrific things. She'd been an out and out utter brat and all because, realistically, she was looking out for her own hide.

She picked up another shirt and put it in the suitcase. Then she remembered her conversation with Nate that first time she'd come to see him. She couldn't run away, not even if she'd done something that Mad would have to now hate her for.

She pulled the shirts from the suitcase, piling them on the bed. "You heard what I said?" she asked, wondering if he'd been there for the fight.

"Heard some of it. You do have a very penetrating voice, Jubilee." Scott straightened, letting his arms fall back to his side. "I will tell you one more thing," he said, his voice quiet but almost fierce. "I am so... very, very proud of everyone that was on that mission. So proud. I don't throw around the term 'superhero', Jubilee, because I think it's rather fucking tacky when you get right down to it... but everyone on that plane? Are heroes, in the absolute best sense of the word. They went right into a miserable tactical situation, where they were outnumbered and probably outclassed by most standards, too. But they hung in there. They saved innocent lives, and saved those kids from pretty horrible deaths." He wasn't going to get into what Morgan's capture/rescue meant, although it was just as significant, if a different level.

Jubilee nodded, at a loss for words now. She felt like the hugest bitch in the world. But it was something she'd done, she'd said those things without really finding out what had happened or why it had. She'd reacted, like she always did. Tears prickled at her eyes and she blinked rapidly, staring down at her feet.

Scott paused for a moment, then came over and stood beside her, laying a hand on her shoulder. "I know you're afraid of losing the people you care about," he said quietly. "Jubilee, do you think you're the only one? I have had Alex back for less than two years. My grandparents for not even two months." He swallowed past the lump in his throat. "I watched out the window of the Blackbird while the woman I loved sacrificed herself to save the rest of us, and as angry as I was at her, as furious as I was at her for leaving me..." His jaw clenched, but he forced himself to go on. "She saved lives. I can see it now... I can be proud of her for it."

"I know it's not fair but I'm so fucking scared that I won't deal this time. I almost didn't when my folks died. Mads is like...she's family, and if she dies. I know I can't keep her wrapped in cotton wool. It's not even that she's human, not really. I just, maybe if I'd been there. I don't know. I was sittin' back here when she might've died and I wouldn't have even known about it till you guys got back."

"You have to deal," Scott said, squeezing her shoulder gently. She looked up at him, her eyes suspiciously bright, and he sighed. "Either way. If the worst happens, if it doesn't. If you want to care, if you don't want to shut off your feelings for the rest of your life, then you have to deal, Jubilee. It's that simple. The people you care about have their own lives, their own reasons for making choices and taking risks, and if you can't respect that..." He shook his head. "Maddie is every bit as much of a fighter as any of the X-Men," he murmured. "She just fights a different sort of battle, most of the time. It doesn't always come after ours, either."

"I know. An I know what a selfish brat I am some...no, all the time. I wasn't always. It's just easier to look after yourself first when there's no one else around." Jubilee replied, before shaking her head.

She turned her head to glare out the window, realising she'd left a bra hanging off the lampshade beside her laptop with a wry smile.

"It's always about me, isn't it? Amanda was fuckin' right. Everything I do, even the way I think. It's about me. Shit, I'm even makin' excuses, sayin' that it's the way I've been for so long, so that should make it okay. Only, it doesn't make it okay. An even me feelin' bad, I don't know if that's cause I know I hurt her, or if it's cause... Fuck. I shoulda congratulated her, you know? I should have been there, tellin' her how proud I was of her. An I am. I always am, even if it feels strange to be proud of someone like that when they're older then me."

"It's not too late to do that," Scott said, then smiled a little. "Well. I mean, you'd probably need to apologize first..."

"You think so?" Jubilee asked, somewhat hopeful.

It was a bit hard being melodramatic when the person who happened to be listening to you was taking it all in stride. Self-pity was somewhat counter-productive, she supposed.

"Go and see her, when she's gotten some sleep," Scott advised, tacking on the amendment quite deliberately. Madelyn didn't need a remorseful Jubilee knocking on her door just now. "And don't just talk at her, Jubilee." He smiled a bit. "You've got it in your head that if you throw enough words at a situation like this that you can fix it. Sometimes it's a better idea to listen."

Scott's words stung. Jubilee had liked to think she'd moved on some in the last few months, enough that she didn't just fling words around. Then again, she'd done exactly that in the first place with Mads. Groaning aloud, she grabbed some clothes back out of her suitcase and walked over to one of her drawers.

"Okay. I...Cyke, I know I ain't exactly been all that great at the emotional stuff lately, an I didn't exactly prove my new found ability to give a shit about people with what I said to Mads. But...Dude, that fuckin' hurt."

"Good," Scott said calmly. "Because if it hurts, you won't forget I said it. Making progress is all well and good, Jubilee, but you've got to watch the backsliding."

She opened her mouth to snap at him, and then thought better of it. Having an argument with Scott Summers wouldn't change anything, and would probably do more harm then good. At least the guy was actively talking to her now, and seemed willing to seek her out, even if it was to tell her she was being a shit.

"You this hard on everyone, or just me?" Jubilee asked, suddenly curious.

Scott raised an eyebrow. "Depends entirely on the situation," he said. "Whether I'm hard on people or not, I mean. I always figured that my saving grace is that I'm hardest on myself, but that's a matter of opinion, I suppose."

Jubilee nodded, eyes still thoughtful, although turned inward now. "You know, sometimes I wonder what it is I'm so scared of all the time. Sometimes it's bein' alone, an sometimes it's not bein' alone. An a lot of the time, it's the thought that I'll let people down. That someone's gonna trust me, an in the end I'll protect myself first and them second. Maybe that's why I want ta be a cop. To prove to myself that I can serve, rather then just take. Mads says I gotta deal with my shit before I'd ever pass a psych exam. Guess I'm glad you're hard on me, then."

"I'm afraid that I'll let people down pretty much every minute of every day," Scott said candidly. "It's always there in the back of my mind, however much I think I'm focused on the task at hand. I don't know, maybe it comes with the position of responsibility... I try not to think too hard about it. That way lies madness and all."

"Maybe we feel responsible for people, cause someone has to. When the shit hits the fan, someone's gotta be wondering 'did everyone get out okay?', rather then 'what do we do to fix this'. The files you kept, something tells me you didn't do that just to give yourself nightmares. Maybe there's got to be someone that thinks 'what if', so that everyone else doesn't have to, so that they can do what needs to be done when it needs doing. An maybe I just think too damn much." Jubilee replied with a wry shrug.

"That sort of thinking's worth doing," Scott said, and left it at all. It wasn't a bad direction for her thoughts to be going, but there were certain lines he didn't want to cross in terms of encouraging any of the kids.

Jubilee looked down at the photo of her suitemates, silent for a time as she thought about the school and the people in it. "Thank you, for comin' to talk to me."

"Thank you for listening," Scott said with a faint smile, turning towards the door. "Don't mean to preach and run, here, but I do have a few things that still need checking on."

Jubilee grinned, gaze humorous as she bowed slightly from the waist where she sat on the bed. "Don't let me keep you from your rounds, Dude. You're welcome to come back any time though, Preaching or not."