'The welcome heat is a blessing,
A Spring sun turns soon to summer heat,
Blistering, burning, warping all out of true.
Did you think you could escape it's all seeing gaze?'
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The harbour was the same, the same stones that had kept the sea at bay for nearly three hundred years, but now the boats that crowded the walls weren't fishing boats. They were refugee boats, filled with mutants running from the United States and Canada.
Marie looked over the rag tag bunches that waited for pick up, their faces haggard and pinched. Hunger had made it's mark on them, but that wasn't the only marks she witnessed when they came ashore. They did in parties of twenty, coming ashore to get what medical aid they could provide. James was out with Logan watching the sea lanes for the patrol boats that came once in a while.
Sarah helped her in the small cottage on the harbour edge, she'd been quick to use her powers as a child. Using them to calm and cull violence if necessary, she'd even used them against her father once. He'd lost his temper after a refugee had stolen from the farm, taken food that was his families. He'd meant to go after the man but Sarah had stopped him dead, reminding him that they had enough and more to spare. She'd always been able to reach him, to get under to his darkness that he still hid from her on occassion. He had nothing to hide behind with her, she'd known him from the moment she was born and she'd never feared her father.
James on the other hand was her son, he was more like Logan than he knew. Sensitive, caring, a sense of honour that burned through his gaze like fire. Quiet he moved with stealth over the rough ground like his father, a twin of him. Many refugee's thought they were brothers, not father and son. Luckily neither of them had inherited her gift, her full powers had begun to return after ten years of absence. She'd been putting out the washing when her hand had brushed against her son's, seeing the shock run across his face as she'd felt him enter her mind.
It's pull had been slow, as if she were only taking a small sip of the life that was coursing through him. She was able to control the full flow of it now, not only taking surface emotions and thoughts but everything, like she used to. When she'd told Logan that night he'd made her touch his skin, she had done as he'd asked her. A miriad of thoughts and feelings rushed through her, pride, love, hope, everything he loved about her came forward. There was no pain this time but her skin that had been scarred by accidents with the sheep and farming had healed. He made her touch him every night until her skin healed at the moment it was cut. It was only when Sarah reached her eighteenth birthday did she finally noticed that her body had stopped aging.
Sarah had smiled at her mothers state of mind and she'd just reassured her own mother as her thoughts about death and losing her children went through her. "Hey don't be so down mum, we both know he would've done it while you slept if you hadn't willingly. He loves you, it's as simple as that." She'd hugged her then, her ageing stopped somewhere around her early thirties. She'd always be young, in her prime, like Logan himself.
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Marie's mind went back to the view in front of her, she was glad Scotland had refused The Mutant Control Bill, England had a monitoring system but it was only a front. They didn't care for the subjugation of it's citizens like the American's felt the need to do. Many other world powers had lined up against America's hard stance on the mutant pheonema over the years. Africa was finally coming together over the problem, their view was that if someone had powers that could help others they should be rewarded for them.
It was only last month when the last batch of refugees had gone through that she actually caught some of the news. There on the front page was a picture of The New African Alliance, various leaders from around the vast continent stood in rows smiling out to the camera. It was Ororo's shock of white hair that led her to see the face she hadn't seen for nearly twenty years. A scar line ran across her face, running from her chin to the middle of her left cheek. Ororo looked peaceful in the picture, she looked as if she'd finally gotten her piece of heaven.
When she'd shown Logan the picture he'd just looked right through her, his words darkening their world for a moment. "At least we'll know where to find her." It had been then that she'd realised things weren't forgotten between them and the X-Men. They'd been postponed and now their children were self sufficent and able to live on their own safely, she knew that he'd want to finish what was started all those years ago when they'd locked him up.
Used him as a guinea pig to save the world, the cure they'd synthesised from his blood had worked but not as good as the real thing had been. Some had died, but not as many as could have if they hadn't had his blood to work from. Marie knew it was a bone of contention between them, she wanted to let it go, leave it in the past. But her inner Logan told her it would never be over until they were *dead*. They took him from her, from his *family* and didn't think anything of it, used him, doped him, tortured him as they drew vast amounts of blood from his body. He deserved to pay them back for the crimes they'd done to him, to *her*. He reminded her that their son was like *him*, his body was like his fathers, able to heal hurts, healthy, strong. Would she like to see him on a table like that?
Tearing her eyes away from the mental image he'd given her she forced herself to look at the two of them up on the cliff. So alike, yet her son had never gone through the terrors and pains Logan had. He was more balanced, more even minded and she could only wonder if that was what Logan *could've* been. James had a temper yes, but it was tempered with sense, making him a cautious fighter but no less than his father. In fact James often outflanked his father when they sparred, using that extra edge he'd gained from her. That *feeling* of calm she kept within her, it was Sarah who was the reckless one.
Turning her steps back toward the small huddled group of refugees seeing Sarah waving at her to come quickly Marie ran down the hill that at her real age should have left her with aching joints.
When she got down there Sarah bustled her into the small stone house, what she saw there nearly made her heart go into overdrive.
Jubilee was sat there with a small bag in her lap, age had lined her skin and her once bouncy spark had all but left her. She looked dazed and confused, as if she didn't recognise the woman in front of her. "Jubes?" At the sound of her name Jubilee turned to look at the woman in front of her. A cold darkness went through her eyes as she tried to back off into her seat she was resting in. Her once proud voice cracked and haunted, filling them both with hurt as her words echoed around the stone building.
"No you can't be real, you're dead, they told me. You died, he wouldn't lie to me, he wouldn't lie!" Jubilee hugged herself as she rocked back and forth, the barcode tattoo on her skin told of her treatment. She'd been in an internment camp, the letter on her skin read 'M' which meant 'Medical'. Wherever she'd been she'd either been working in medical or had been a 'subject'.
Marie dropped herself to touch the covered knees of her once enemy, seeing the blankness in her gaze, the despair that dripped off her. "Jubilee? Who told you, where were you?" She just shook her head and closed her eyes, Marie looked to her daughter and nodded. Sarah scanned Jubilee's mind, the images of twenty years flooded into her mind. Carefully screening them one image at a time, discarding those that didn't make sense or were too painful to touch. When she was ready she held out a hand to her mother, it was easier this way, more private. No-one else needed to know about the suffering that had occured to those around them. Each person had to deal with it in their own way and as such it made easier dealings with everyone.
Opening the link to her skin Marie felt the images ehr daughter had taken trickle into her mind.
**********************************
Logan watched as Marie hurried into the small stone house on the quayside, his senses telling him something was wrong. James looked at his father, the same look was on his face, his face quirked into a smile. "Come on or we'll never find out," Logan let his son go first down the cliffs to the harbour. Looking out across the sea he could see a storm gathering over the waves. Building a new world out of clouds, one that threatened to crash land here. Grunting to the wind he began to go after his son, there was nothing he could do to stop the weather. That was someone elses power, someone he'd be going to visit soon. Marie would come with him but would James and Sarah? Sarah he wasn't so sure of but James would want to follow him, bonded so tightly to his mother. Sarah would try to reason with him, try to tell him that he didn't need to revenge himself on those that had hurt him. But she was still young, still hadn't given into the things Marie and James had. That arguing with him was pointless, he'd do it anyway, besides he knew that Sarah was curious about the word outside their home. She looked after the well being of those that passed through here, helping those who needed to forget about the horrors they'd been through. Yet seeing it through someone elses eyes had never been the same as experiencing it herself. That was why she'd needed rescuing off the rooftop one summer evening as a child. James had been doing it and she'd seen it in his mind, how he used handholds to get up onto the slippery slates. Thing was she couldn't get back down like he had an so he'd had to rescue her, when he'd asked her why she'd just answered, "James made it look easy." To which he'd replied in his best fatherly voice and smile, "That might be so pumpkin' but you're not James." She'd looked at him as if he'd been stupid but it had sunk in, she'd learned fast and it had been hard to keep up with her for a while.
Moira had given both kids schooling in return for help, so they would be able to move away if they wanted to but he didn't see it happening anytime soon. Sarah seemed to be the only one not to carry his gifts, her skin was normal as was her aging. It seemed strange to him to have a son that was so much like him, he only hoped he'd be able to keep off the radar long enough to have a family of his own.
Following James into the small harbour he could hear Marie and Sarah talking, the vision of the person they were next to made his claws fire. Sarah was putting her hands up to her father as soon as she saw him and the anger radiating off him. "DAD, NO! Listen to mum first, please!"
Sarah's face was red, blotchy as if she'd been crying, Marie faced her husband, her voice ringing out as James cleared the rest of the refugees out of the small building and back to the boats. "Logan you need to see this, you need to see what happened to her. If you still feel as if you want to have it out with her at least wait until she's mentally able to understand what you want from her. Promise me."
Those two words were things he dreaded to hear, to promise her, to set it in stone, to be anchored to one option alone made the Wolverine in him angry. But he saw the need of them sometimes and this looked like one. Grudgingly he ground out the promise, when it had been said Sarah reached out to him. Her face looking calm and her eyes blurred behind tears as she touched her fathers skin. Her voice whispering to him as she gently pushed the images into his mind, "Thanks dad, I love you."
Her wave of love eased the flow of images that filled his mind, but what he saw gave him no respite, it only made them hurt all the more.
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~She was running, an injured Hank was with her, they were fighting against a huge crowd of humans. Scott and Storm were trying to keep a path clear for them, ahead Bobby was running toward the blackbird. Suddenly Bobby threw an ice wall in front of them, nodding at the wavering figure of Scott through the ice wall he retreated with Scott and Storm into the blackbird. Holding up the injured Hank Jubilee screamed at the huge plane as it began to pull into the sky. Betrayal, so painful it sapped every little bit of strength she had, dropping to her knees in front of the ice wall. Battering her fists against it as the crowd of humans smashed against them, feeling her body take blows but nothing was as bad as the betrayal she felt rip her soul in two. They'd left them behind, left them to the tender mercies of the mob because they were too slow. All she had given to the team had meant nothing, her mind still screaming out as she fell into blackness.~
~Awake again, three am, the cells crowded and her tattoo aching. Hank was keeping her safe, he'd fought off several other mutants to keep his claim on her but she knew he wouldn't be unchallenged for long if she didn't ally herself to him. Even though it was only a twenty by twenty foot room there were over fifteen mutants in here with them. Everyone had a bit of space to call their own but even when the dark was thick sound still carried. Other women were here, their cries had been stifled as their new owners had secured their position with them. Jubilee knew she had no choice, neither did Hank, swallowing her hate at the circumstance she moved toward him.~
Logan watched detached as he experienced Jubilee's memories, the pinching pain as Hank took her body, her tears as she clung to him. Her face out to the rest of the cell because it wasn't safe to show your back not even when you slept. How Hank had whispered his apologies to her, the words he used were so out of place there, her heart shattering as she realised her hopes of rescue were none existant. They'd left them both to the mercy of the authorities.
~Working at a lab, her mind whirring as she tried to sort out what sense she was making of the work they were doing. Hank worked it out first, they were building a bomb of sorts, a bomb filled with disease, they'd been working on a delivery system for the aerosol agent. Hank had been watched, his calculations double checked, they'd both been beaten because of his attempts at sabotage. Hank now walked with a pronounced limp after they hamstrung him, she had scars all over her skin where she'd been cut repeatedly knowing Hank was sensitive to the scent of her blood.~
They'd hurt her worse than that before and Logan felt the spike of anger run through him at the burn of the memory. Of a group of human lab techs, guns trained on them, forced to rape her repeatedly in front of Hank. Her mouth whispering over and over 'It's not *me*, it's not *me*.' A supression collar on her negating her powers so she couldn't fight back, finally when it had been over, stinking of sex and pain she'd been forced to stand naked in the room as Hank worked to fix what he'd damaged. All the while his gentle face twisted into a hate filled visage, self hatred directed inward. It was his fault she'd been damaged and Logan recognised the look in Hank's eyes. The next memory didn't surprise him, in fact he wondered what had taken the large doctor so long.
~She'd been in the hot room, setting up the petri dishes when Hank had just locked her in there. Her eyes went to his huge soft palmed hand as it closed around a phial, the breaking glass shards going everywhere. Sirens sounded and Hank moved like the wind, he slapped his wet hand on several men as they entered the room and pushed through the open door. The damage was done, the genie out of the bottle and Hank was out there killing everyone he could. All she could do was cry in her suit, abandoned again, the tiny life in her stomach quivering with her shuddering cries.
Later,much later someone came to get her out, dressed like she was in suits from head to toe. Pulling her out they dragged her through the place, bodies lay everywhere, they finally passed Hank as they left the facility. He'd made it outside, a grin on his face, and the bullet holes that peppered his body coloured him in red poppy patterns that were only now beginning to brown. Her eyes were pulled up to a soldier who spat his words in her face, "Because of a fuckin' freak like you we're back to square one!" His eyes dropped to her bump and his dead eyes glittered with cold malice, "Maybe you won't be as much a wreck as this place is but you'll wish you were by the time we've finished with you!" As his words entered her mind Jubilee knew Hank hadn't saved her, he'd just abandoned her like everyone else had.~
It didn't stop, the images of her pain, of her torture went right through him. How her baby was taken from her the moment it drew breath, how she'd been sent to work in the factories with other women. Making clothing, a sweat shop where she had to shiver and shake as her body underwent fever. Her unsuckled milk going sour in her body, poisoning her slowly, the heaviness of her chest and hte burning fever that never seemed to lessen. Beaten down, punched, kicked, her mind at a loss until she was on the bus one day that took them to and from the factory. A news screen showing the New X-Men fighting alongside the military, the X-Men fighting against mutants who were trying to stay free. Scott and Bobby leading others into the battle, their well fed faces a world away from those she saw around her. It was then she made her mind up to escape or die trying.
She'd sneaked into a case of suits, gotten someone to help her short out her collar. That alone had nearly killed her, the burn on her skin still weeping as she'd tucked her bone thin form into the box. She'd reached her end, if she escaped she'd be free, if not she'd be shot. Either way was better than the way she was living, she took her chance and luckily for her it had paid off. The suits had gone to a retailer in the UK, she'd slipped out at Liverpool docks. Run the gauntlet of security, and made her way north, she listened to rumour about a place where mutants could go. Where they could be free, a place out in the cold north, it took her nearly nine months to get here. Along the way she'd met with several others who'd told her their stories, they were so similar in such awful ways that Logan's mind reeled away from their memory.
~The final memory was of when she was in the mansion before she'd even joined the team. It was Scott and the Professor, they were telling everyone who'd been a friend to Rogue or Logan. Anyone who'd had a run with either of them, he took his time, schooled his face as he'd told her that Rogue was dead. Killed by a human organisation, her body had been found in the southern states, they'd i.d'd her from her dental records. There really wasn't that much left to look at, and as for Logan they suspected that he'd been recaptured. To all intent and purposes they were both dead.
Jubilee's heart lurched in her chest, she hadn't meant to make Marie run away again, she hadn't known how Logan was being treated. All she'd known was that he'd been helping them, not how. But they'd gone, run away and they'd been captured, killed because of their treatment of them. She made herself promise that if her friends needed her she'd do everything she could do to help. Her next thought was Hank, he hadn't known either but he'd be devastated at the news of their deaths. She excused herself and went to see Hank.~
The callousness Xaiver used made Logan's head spin, he was using their supposed death's to gain him more fighters for his twisted cause.
When he came round to the world of the living he looked at the shell of the kid he'd seen twenty years ago. She wasn't the same person, this one wasn't even close to the original. Looking at Marie he watched her tears fall down her skin and looked at Sarah, her mouth was tight lipped and thin. "Go show James, he needs to know. We're leaving in a week, pack light." Sarah went to her brother, leaving Marie and him with Jubilee who was still repeating "You can't be alive, he said you were dead. Both of you. If that never happened...."
Logan picked Jubilee up, shaking her out of her repetition, doing it until she actually *saw* him there. "Jubilee, Jubilee we're *really* here. Look at me goddammit!" Jubilee for a second actually had some fire in her eyes until it just slipped away from her again. She did look at him though, her face breaking into a weak smile as her mouth formed the words he'd never thought he'd want her to say. "Logan? Is it really you? I'm so sorry Logan I didn't know what was happening to you, Hank...." her tears squashed her voice as she finally broke down. Logan slid with her to the cold ground as the thunder echoed around the harbour.
The sun had gone in and when he looked up into the eyes of his wife she just touched his shoulder and left him alone with a ghost of a memory that had human form. She went to face the storm with her children, watching as James's face twisted into the image of his fathers. Sarah wrapping his hand in hers, her voice reaching her hearing over the waves. "We're going soon James, soon." James found his mother's gaze and she nodded to him, seeing his return nod he took his sister away from the small house and back home.
When she went back in Logan was holding Jubilee in his arms, the small rack thin woman was sleeping but the look Logan had in his eye was all for one man.
Xavier.
His time was coming and Logan wasn't alone this time, this time he had his family with him and they wouldn't rest till he paid for his cruelty. Walking to him she wrapped herself around him, kissing his cheek and looking down at the broken thing that had once been human. "Get her to Moira, I need to walk."
Logan left her there, Marie got on the radio and contacted Moira, she'd be here as soon as the weather cleared a little. The institute helicopter would pick Jubilee up, she needed better help than they could give her. Touching her long dark hair Marie couldn't help but wonder what Jubilee would've done if the roles had been reversed.
Shaking her head Marie chastised herself, Jubilee wasn't her, she'd just been through hell and back for nearly ten years while she'd been hidden away, safe. It was time to go back, to do some payback and her skin itched at the thought of it.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
What else could I do but write this on the Solstice? We get a look at how the world is now, the Bill and it's work are out in the world. Logan and Marie have some grown children now and we get to see the beginnings of the end....
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