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Convincing Frosty she should leave would, she decided, be much more difficult than fighting off a full pack of sentinels. Painful, filled with flying debris and most definitely life threatening.

It wasn't so much that she was going on a road trip, no she'd let Paige, Jono, Monet and Angelo go off to celebrate graduation. It wasn't even the fact she couldn't say when she was going to be back.

No.

It was because she was going with Wolvie.

Now, she and Emma Frost had had their arguments during her tenure at the Massachusetts centre. But this one had been a record breaker.

Sean had come running, he'd told her afterwards that he'd thought there'd been a full scale invasion from the shouting. She had told him in all seriousness that if he hadn't come in there would have been a casualty and it wouldn't have been her.

So now she sat, curled up on her usual rock in the grotto.

It was a fairly nice rock, never all that cold, but high off the ground so that she had to climb the side to reach her sitting space. She could see the entire grotto from here if she looked. The light green of the grass and darker green of the trees like turquoise and emeralds. Then the diamond white flash of light off of the stream darkening to sapphire as the water stilled.

Today however she didn't see it, she was looking inwards, to that inner darkness she hid behind the happy girl Friday façade. To what she would have to do.

Her fingers wound through the cracks and tiny pieces of grass and moss that made up it's craggy face and thought hard. She couldn't go without an explanation, but she would go, she had to.

She knew in the back of her mind she sounded desperate, she wasn't kidding anyone let alone herself, she was desperate.

Her head needed to get screwed on straight before she did something dumb, Wolvie had offered the perfect solution with his normal mix of diplomacy and tough guy attitude. She didn't believe any of it, except that she'd had to go to Massachusetts and tell Emma and Sean that she'd be away.

Wolvie had insisted on it, said he'd straighten it out with Storm and the others, but she had to see Emma, she had thought she had the easy option. She was just beginning to see that she had been wrong.

What could the 'Queen have against her Wolvster? Well he was bad tempered, and had a tendency to move against authority, but between them she and the 'Queen had both of those, in abundance.

Jubilee sighed and slipped her waist over the rock's side and felt with her toes for the foot holds she knew were there. It looked as if she was going to have to confront Frosty again, and this time she wasn't going to back down, not even if Sean screamed the place down.

She hit the ground with a light thump and walked through the grass, she could feel it, soft and slightly damp against her bare feet. She couldn't say when that had become a habit, but she preferred it now, bare feet made less noise, and gave her more contact with the world around her.

The doors whooshed open, the breeze hit her face and a shiver hit down her spine like a ghostly caress.

She turned to look back, seeing Everett standing then suddenly, wavering as if through a veil of tears. She hadn't gone back to the X-mansion to mourn him, she'd stayed here. Now she regretted it.

His eyes were mournful, he had loved her, she knew.

She hadn't loved him back.

She couldn't, not the way he wanted her too.

With that she turned her back on the grotto and strode into the corridor, her feet making echoing slaps against the floor.

Wolvie, she thought, would have recognised that stride. False bravo, false confidence sounded with every step.

He should know, she'd stolen it from him.

She didn't bother with the light house sandals she'd worn on the way there; she needed the high she was on to confront Frosty.

Stopping would ruin her timing, not to mention erode her courage.

Of course Sean could always do that for her.

"Jubilee, luv, I dinnae think this be the time to talk to Em"

She ducked under his outstretched arm, sometimes being one of the only mutant's actually smaller than Wolverine was a blessing.

She shot her reply back over her shoulder.

"Tell it ta someone who cares"

Then she rapped on Emma's office door, why she needed an office when she had the cabin no one knew, but she liked it.

"Enter"

Ah there was frost dripping from the regal tones, but this had to be done, so Jubilee was going to do it. She squared her shoulders and pulled her 5'7 frame up to its highest extent, then stepped through the door.

The first thing she saw was the mirror image of her face reflected in the wide gold framed mirror above Emma Frosts head. It was probably meant to be demoralising, but to anyone who was shorter than most twelve year olds very little could be demoralising.

It showed Jubilation Lee in all her semi-adult glory. A long braid that touched the centre of her back wrapped like a cornet around the top of her head, eyes that slanted upwards almost to meet the corners of curving well shaped black eyebrows. And those eyes, not Chinese eyes those, a pure blazing blue like the heart of a gas flame, or hells fire. She'd tried contacts for a while, after the Bastion incident, remembering the gold of her powerless eyes. They were blue now, and furious.

She'd intended to be conciliatory, god knew she would need the grovelling to get Emma to release her. That was not what came out of her mouth, se wondered if she'd been possessed except her voice was it's normal contralto, warm and rich as tubular bells.

"I'll be gone in the morning Frosty"

Emma's blonde head went up like a falcon who'd just been de-hooded, eyes flashing fire as if she'd just been mortally insulted. Perhaps she had, Jubilee couldn't find it in her to care right now. Frost had had it coming for an age now, a humbling of her pride; after Ev' you would have thought she'd learnt humility, you'd have been wrong. It had all glanced off of her like it had slid off of the ice that encased her chilly heart.

Frost by Name. Frost by Nature.

"You are not going any where miss Lee, not without my express permission, and you will most certainly not get that to go off with that rampaging wild man"

The mirror above the desk was to witness several surprising events in its lifetime, but the change in Jubilee's face and perhaps most in those expressive eyes, was one of the darkest. They flared first, then darkened until they touched that colour that only the sky had managed before at midnight when the moon had been covered by clouds. And there in the gloom flared a dark fire, it wasn't the normal shimmer of rage that most adolescents glowed with at some point or another, it was a wholly adult emotion.

"Take it back"

It was a growl that Wolverine would have recognised, he'd trailed around the orient with her, but perhaps mostly he'd remember the feral child who'd once dragged him from a cross. This voice was all of those thing with added maturity bound together with despair.

Emma Frost had never been good at other peoples emotions, despite being one of the worlds foremost telepaths. She just looked back at Jubilee her eyes hard. She'd never given in and never would, no one had ever taken her aside and explained to her the old proverb about oak trees, reeds and a strong wind.

The fire in Jubilee's eye's blazed until it rivalled the one shimmering around her fingers, uncontrolled, or perhaps uncontrollable rage pushing her fire out through the cradle of her skin until it danced around her body.

Then it died, and for a moment with it all the illumination in the room. There was something gone from her face now. Some inexpressible adolescent quality that had clung. She could no longer be described as a 'young adult' only the word woman would fit her now.

Then she inclined her head and retrieved her shades from the pocket of the black jeans she was wearing, slipping them over the bridge of her nose and shielding her expression.

"Very well, goodbye Miss Frost"

Her drawl was suppressed, almost gone as if she was making every effort to be formal, to hold her own with this master of cold formality. An onlooker would have told her there was no need, she burned with her own purpose at that moment.

Before Emma could ask what she meant, Jubilee expanded on her point, as if the latent talent she had for telepathy had changed into empathy. Neither had happened, Jubilee was simply acting on instinct.

"Your guardianship of me ended last year, I've been glad ta stay with my extended family, but I've had it up to here"

She made a gesture just above the hollow where her pulse beat rapidly in time with her blood.

"But now I'm outta here"

her clipped formality was vanishing, too much effort for it to be recalled in icy fury. She turned and walked out of the office, she didn't slam the door. It was shut gently behind her with a click of a latch.

Emma Frost, once the White Queen of the Hellfire Club smiled.

"Goodbye Jubilation, best of luck to you"

If you ask any mother, they're proud to see their children grow up, even if it does mean them leaving with people they dislike, and to put the fire back in Jubilee's eyes she would have seen her leave with Victor Creed.

She stood in a swirl of snowy white, there were things to be done before tomorrow.