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It hurts to think sometimes.

In those moments where things are oh so clear, like the edges of broken glass.

So clear that you can see your face in the shadow of an idea, if that's the way you look at it.

Other times you see a thousand faces, each expression subtly different, like a schizophrenics nightmare.

Clear as glass, reflected in the mirror of your soul.

Glass is sharp.

****************************

Jubilation Lee stared out across the lake, watching the night blackened water move, her expression pensive, her eyes hidden behind black shades that had so recently replaced the pink she had worn for so long. She was nineteen years old and had no idea of what to do with herself.

Well no, that was wrong, the problem was she had too many ideas. She could stay and join the X-Men as people seemed to expect, she could remain in Gen X, frosty would love that. She could quit the superhero business altogether, become an engineer, a fashion model, work for industrial light and magic.

The last thought brought a reluctant smile to her lips, it hurt. It had been a while since she'd smiled, at least genuinely. She could admit it to herself, sitting out here, alone. Trying not to think.

But thoughts have a way of creeping up on you, she conceded the point to herself reluctantly, she remembered the times she'd sat here. After Illyana, sobbing helplessly at her first taste of death.

No, Not that, but the first time someone so very close had died and she had been so close, when her parent had died she'd had no chance. But with Illyana there had been that nagging sensation of, 'I could have done better, if I'd been a better person she wouldn't have died.'

It brought a half smiling half weeping quirk to her lips to think of it, of the tiny dark child and of the little blue doll that she still carried in her case every where she went.

The next truly personal thing that had brought her here had been Wolverine, as it always tended to be. When Apocalypse had¡¦.. she let the thought tail of. She didn't want to think about it, oddly it still hurt.

Bastion, ah God, there was a looped maelstrom of emotion. She supposed it should have been like the memories of an Apocalypse driven Logan and too painful to touch. But it wasn't, it was like a bruise, she wanted to poke the memories and feel them under her minds eye. So she didn't forget them, even if everyone else tried to.

Her thoughts ground to a halt again then, she hit her mental rewind and looked at the metaphorical last sentence. It sounded a teensy bit sick, even to her. She shook her head, dark hair shaking in the wind, blue lights catching the starlight. As a wry laugh left her lips she shifted position so that boot encased legs dropped over the edge of the jetty, to ease the pins and needles that had been paining her.

She couldn't seem to help herself though, her mind remembered even when she didn't want it too. Flashback's of his hands on her skin and his taste on her mouth. The constant feeling of restraint even as her mind struggled to break under torture to offer her the sweet oblivion she had been so very very desperate for.

Holding on had seemed like a miracle, something to be praised and cursed at the same time. Her mind had teetered on the brink, and the knife blade had seesawed, literally, against the vein.

In the end it had seemed the cowards way out, X-Men don't run, she'd said once, that odd quirk of the lips flashed into place again. No they didn't run, they embraced oblivion, as Scott had. Her head bowed, as if all the deaths she had seen had seen and participated in became a weight for the back of her neck.

It felt like that sometimes. Perhaps it did for everyone, but when your sitting staring out over cool water in the middle of the night it feels as if you're the only one alive, let alone the only one feeling the weight of your depression.

Yes. That's what it was, the depression monster, creeping out from underneath her bed to whip her with her failures. With the memories she repressed fiercely. And with the choices she didn't want to make.

Sometimes memories hurt.

A lot.

She fell back onto her elbows, to stare up at the stars through the panels of black glass, she was indolent for only a moment, she heard a twig cracking, behind her and to her right. She didn't visibly stiffen, she'd learnt that over the years not to do that, it gave away the fact you knew they were there.

"Come out, where I can see you, or I fry you like a used 50 watt bulb"

It was a corny line, but true, that was her intention, otherwise you would have any tom, dick, or super villain thinking they could sneak up on you. She rolled onto her stomach soundlessly and waited.

A low chuckle floated in on the evening air, and she relaxed instantaneously, she knew that sound!

"Don't think I'd much like that darlin'"

And Logan strolled out of the undergrowth.