Madelyn, Jubilee - Friday evening

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Jubilee comes across Madelyn as she's reading Mick's last letter, and it leads to a talk about grief, Nathan, and why he's reacting - or not reacting - the way he is.




Thank you. For everything.

Mick

PS: I finally figured out how to do that card trick.

Madelyn laid aside the letter on the coffee table; eyes filling again as they had every time she'd read it. They weren't all bad tears - Mick's words had done much to fill the gap she felt, the sense of being apart. Wiping her eyes, she smiled again at the postscript, and the playing card he'd included.


Jubilee pushed the door open, moving deftly as she kept hold of the dozen books she currently held in her arms. She was whistling, a U2 song she'd recently heard on the radio but hadn't been able to get out of her head.

"Yo, Mads. I like totally borrowed the whole library here, I'm thinkin'. You up to studyin' math with me tonight?" Jubilee asked, trailing off as she saw Madelyn sitting on the couch. "You okay?"

"I will be," Madelyn replied, with a watery smile. She extended her good arm, a welcoming sort of gesture. "Come and give me a hug, kiddo? I think I could do with one right now."

"Sure, Mads." Jubilee replied, dropping the books off on the table before she slid easily in beside Madelyn and wrapped her arms around the older woman in a tight hug.

It was getting easier to do this. Maybe the practice with both Madelyn and Beast was finally rubbing off. She wasn't entirely sure she understood things yet but she could do hugs. "What's got you cryin' then?"

Madelyn wrapped her arm tightly around Jubilee, taking comfort in the contact. "You saw the Professor's announcement, about the memorial?" she asked after a moment.

Jubilee nodded. "I think I'm gonna go. I didn't really know them like any of the others, but I thought maybe I should go anyway. They died gettin' rid of some big bads that might have come after all of us in time. That deserves some kinda goodbye from me, ya know?"

"I did. Know them that is. Tim not as well as Mick, but..." Madelyn took a shaky breath, nodded at the letter. "Mick wrote me a letter. In case he didn't come back."

Jubilee was silent for a moment, simply hugging Madelyn a little tighter while still be careful of her arm. So that was why she'd been crying. "What did he say? If it’s okay for me ta ask."

Madelyn nodded. "You can read it, if you like," she said. It was a small gesture, but an important one - Mick's letter was highly personal, but she wanted Jubilee to understand that Mick had been a human being as well as a soldier.

Jubilee nodded and took the letter carefully from Madelyn's hand, reading through it slowly, an intent look on her face.

She was surprised at how normal he sounded - not her picture of what a mercenary would sound like. She wondered if others had gotten letters, or if others had known Mick. It would explain some of the sadness she'd been feeling around the mansion. The vibes this week had been somewhat troubling, to say the least. Certain emotions she was more cut off from then others, sorrow and loss tended to be two she shied away from at the best of times. They hit too close to things she'd had to put aside to survive a long time ago, and was only now realising she could feel again.

"He sounds like a really nice guy." Jubilee replied, handing the letter back to Madelyn. "Wish I could have talked ta him while he was...well, you know."

Madelyn nodded, eyes brimming a little again. "He was a very nice guy," she said with a sniffle. "While he was here, he kept me company on night shifts. He had trouble sleeping, after the conditioning was broken. We talked, the night before I went to DC. It was... Seeing him happy and getting his life together, it was wonderful, you know?"

Jubilee nodded, patting Madelyn awkwardly on the arm. How do you comfort someone who'd lost a friend? No one had really tried with her, so she had no real experience with it. Maybe just admitting that she didn't really know what to say was a good idea? "Mads, I'm not really sure what I should be sayin', ya know? I wanna help ya but I ain't good with the comfortin' bit. So, like, I could just give you a hug instead an maybe you could tell me about him? I never even talked ta him while he was here, but I'd like ta know about him. Cause he was your friend, ya know?"

"You don't need to say anything, firecracker. Being here's enough." Madelyn gave her a small smile and leaned her head against the back of the couch. "Mick was an operative, like Nathan. His conditioning broke, and Alison and Nathan went and got him and brought him back here to help him deal with it." She frowned a little at the memory of how broken he'd been, then reminded herself of how he'd been that last time she'd seen him. "He was strong, a lot stronger than he realised. All of them were, to come through what Mistra did with the ability to care still."

Jubilee was surprised; she thought Mick had been one of Nathan's mercenary friends, not a former Mistra operative. "So, he like, wasn't a mercenary?"

"Neither him or Tim were. They were both former Mistra people. So was Anika." There was no harm telling her now. "Nathan helped all of them get out, in various ways. And then they went back in, to shut down Mistra completely."

"Is that why Nate’s so… well, cold? I thought maybe Mistra had done something to his head again." Jubilee replied, thoughts suddenly picking up speed at this bit of information.

Madelyn had known Jubilee had visited, and that she'd come back upset. "Not at all, kiddo. Nathan... he's been through a lot. Not just physically, although how badly he's hurt is enough to make him close off a bit. But..." She considered how to say this, without giving Jubilee classified information. "When he went in, the plan was that he could use his telepathy to break the conditioning of all the operatives there, the same way he did for Tim in Canada. It didn't work as planned, and a lot of the people's minds were... broken, I suppose is the best way to describe it. He managed to save the kids that were there undergoing the process, but by the time it worked, we'd lost a lot of people. Most of the other operatives, people he knew, got killed. As well as Mick and Tim, who'd only been freed recently. It's a hell of an emotional shock, firecracker, and he's withdrawing emotionally to deal with it." She paused, letting her words sink in. "Sound familiar?"

Jubilee drew back for a second, fighting the urge to close off as she realised that Madelyn was describing what she dealt with every day.

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath and let it out, forgoing the usual protective mechanisms she was used to and trying hard not to be angry because Madelyn was comparing the loss of her parents to some friends Nate had, had. How was that in any way the same?

But wasn't it? Jubilee thought about it, fighting to see through the usual emotional responses and for once trying to understand. Couldn't you hurt just as much when you lost a friend? And maybe to Nate, they had been like family. Chosen family...

"Yeah, it sounds familiar." Jubilee answered, her expression uncertain. "So, is he gonna be like me, then?"

Madelyn watched the inner struggle quietly, and felt a surge of pride when Jubilee asked her question, clearly wanting to understand and not just react. "I don't think so - Nathan's a lot older than you, he's got established patterns of behaviour that you didn't as a child. But right now he's in shock, and he's grieving. The first generation operatives... part of the conditioning was to create a pack mentality, to bond them together so they'd work more effectively together. Losing them was like losing family. As well as an entire part of his life, his identity. It's going to take him time to deal with it, which is why he'll need his friends. All of us." She stressed the last word slightly, so Jubilee would know she was included in that. "We just have to be patient with him, even though it's hard to see him that way."

Jubilee thought about that for a moment, and then about how she'd promised to bring him a paper in the morning. It wasn't much but maybe it was the start of a reason to keep coming back that wouldn't require too much conversation. She certain hadn't wanted to talk about things all that much when people wanted her to.

"Do you think. Well, could I help him at all? Knowin' what that's like a little." she asked.

"I think you could," Madelyn said. "But the important thing is not to push too much - I think you know that, but it's very important he not get too agitated. Thrashing around could injure his back permanently." She knew patience wasn't one of Jubilee's strong points, and she remembered too well previous encounters the two had had. "But distraction's always good. He's not got a lot to occupy his mind at the moment, and it means he spends too much time rehashing things in his head and blaming himself for things going wrong."

"He'll blame himself whether I distract him or not. I did, an even now, I still do. It doesn't matter how much it wasn't. It's just something you do because you feel like there should have been something you could have done, if you'd only thought of it fast enough." Jubilee replied, thinking about what else she could use to distract Nathan. He wouldn't be able to play checkers...although, was his TK still working right now? "Can he use his TK?"

"Yes, he does, but dwelling on it with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling doesn't help. And we all have that tendency to think there was something more we could have done." Pain flashed briefly across Madelyn's face at that last, and she turned her attention to the question. "Not really - he doesn't have the fine control at the moment, and the pain killers he's on mess with his concentration. Well, those and the pain itself. I'd recommend reading to him; it's something he can concentrate on without having to respond overmuch if he doesn't feel like talking."

Jubilee nodded, wondering if Paige would let her borrow some books. She'd never truly been into the recreational reading but newspapers would probably get boring after awhile. She'd ask Nathan what he liked, that was probably the best course. And, she had to admit a small part of her liked reading to people; she'd done it for time to time with the littlies. It was different from reading to yourself. "I think I can do that. So, how about for now I distract you? Up for a game of checkers?"

"I think I still owe you a crushing defeat after the last time you wiped the board with me," Madelyn replied with a small chuckle. The letter and playing card she tucked carefully inside the book she was reading, to be put away safely later. "Get the board out, kiddo."