Masquerade in X

by Dyce

Although this story is still for Pebbs, this part is for Trisha, too, for I have foisted the dreaded Moviefic upon her. I'm just bad to the bone. *innocent angel expression*

This is a spin-off series from the Godless Arc, which can be found at http://www.geocities.com/minisinoo/dyce.html . You don't really have to have read the Godless Arc to read this one, although a few scenes will make more sense if you have. Clarification on the plot-twist can be found in my live-journal, at http://www.livejournal.com/talkpost.bml?itemid=17068807 . I hope.

This story was written for Pebblin, who asked really, really nicely. I like Pebbs. ^-^

She was hot.

She supposed that meant she wasn't bleeding to death. According to television, if you were bleeding badly, you got cold.

That was just great, wasn't it? Bleeding to death was a relatively quick way to go. She was pretty sure she had a broken leg. Judging by the stabbing pain and all. And the rest of her was pinned under an assortment of heavy stuff.

She almost wished she was bleeding to death. Thirst was a much less pleasant way to go.

* * *

The plan had been a long weekend in the mountains. Tabitha, Dani, Jubilee, Paige, and Monet, along with Bobby, John, Remy, and Mondo. Scott and Jean had brought them to Xavier's palatial eight room 'cabin', which had a spa and a well-equipped gym, but no television.

Jubilee had been seriously ticked off about the lack of television. "How are we going to keep up with the real world?" she demanded, waving a finger in Scott's face. "Huh? How're we going to know what's going *on*? ARMAGEDDON could happen while we're stuck up here, and we wouldn't know about it! We'd wind up being the only people alive, and we'd all have to breed with each other, and I swore a solemn oath that Drake was never going to reproduce, so we have to get back to civilisation before it's too late to die with everyone else!!"

Scott did his little self-assured grin thing. "Jubilee, I promise, if we're the last survivors of the human race, you don't have to breed with Bobby. You can breed with John. Now go wash up for dinner."

Jubilee stalked off, waving her hands and mumbling. Everyone else - including John and Bobby - was collapsed around the den in hysterical giggles.

It had been a good start to the weekend. By the time they'd finished dinner, everyone had been having enough fun to let the adolescent dignity slip a bit. Even Remy, who'd been melodramatically mooning over Marie ever since she got thrown into a jeep and driven out of his life, unbent enough to demonstrate a few card tricks.

* * *

Oh, god... she didn't want to think about this now.

Take a breath. Take another breath. Blood in the mouth from a cut lip, want to spit it out. Swallow it instead, don't know when there'll be anything to drink.

Try to move. Left arm has a little give under the beam that's pinning it. Good. Work that. It's slow, but there's lots of time.

Lots of time.

* * *

Jean and Scott eyed each other over the kitchen table.

"You miss Logan, don't you?"

"Of course I don't miss him. I hardly knew him. I didn't like him all that much."

"Oh, you did too," Jean teased. "You just didn't want anyone to know, because it'd ruin your tightass image."

Scott produced his sexily lopsided grin. "Well... he had his good points. Good with kids. Didn't hit on you *too* often."

"He wasn't hitting on me, he was hitting on the white picket fence that surrounds me like a halo," Jean returned, smiling back. "I guess he doesn't meet many nice girls."

"Probably not. And I don't think spending all his time with Sabretooth and a bunch of mutant adolescents is going to get him any dates." Scott made a face, slicing carrots absently. "I'm still not sure that was a good idea."

"Neither are they, you know that." Jean said softly. "But their cubs are in danger, and they're afraid. The Professor and I both think it's a very encouraging sign, at least in Sabretooth's case."

"I know, I know," Scott mock-grumbled. "If he can feel compassion for the kids, then it's possible he's not entirely evil. I think you're coming at this the wrong way."

"Oh, really?" Jean raised an eyebrow. "You don't think he's showing compassion?"

"Not really. I think he's doing what his instincts tell him is right." Scott waved a handful of cauliflower for emphasis. "I spent a lot of time working with Annie, and I think she and Creed are... different. You know how she keeps saying stuff like 'I'm a cat, not a monkey,' and 'I don't get primates'?"

"They are both of feline-like physiology," Jean agreed cautiously. She... and the silent eavesdropper who was hiding in the shadowy doorway... both knew Scott's Building-Up-To-A-Point voice.

"I think that's a big part of what's wrong with Sabretooth," Scott continued, falling into lecture-mode. Both Jean and the observer sighed quietly. "He functions mostly on instinct. Annie... and Clarice, by extension... are his cubs, so he protects them. It's not necessarily an act of compassion, it's an act of nature. Logan's doing the same thing, although he doesn't know it. Marie is like a daughter to him. He thinks she's in danger, and he's trying to protect her by moving her to a new den, somewhere hidden. It's what a lot of animals do."

"Uh-huh. So, this isn't a hopeful sign for Sabretooth?" Jean prodded. She liked it when he got all lecturey. She was the only one who did.

"Oh, no, it is, but not because he's finally showing human traits like compassion and mercy." Scott was getting into it now, abandoning the preparations for dinner and leaning his hip on the edge of the table while he gestured with his hands. "He's not showing 'human' traits, Jean, because he's not thinking like a naked pink ape. He's reacting like a lion. Well, mostly... there are some cheetah and panther traits there too. You can't expect a feline to think like a hominid." He cupped the air with his hands. "It makes sense, when you think about it like that. His whole history... he's like a rogue lion, lashing out at humans because he fears them, but with a few normal instincts occasionally surfacing, like his submission to Magneto as the pride leader, and his urge to protect what he identifies as his cubs." His shoulders slumped a little. "As much as I utterly loathe having to say this about a mass murderer, his actions may not be entirely his own fault. He's functioning on a very primitive level. So is Annie. When something hurts or scares them, they lash out, without moderation. Like when she got into that fight with Roberto."

Jean raised an amused eyebrow. "And you put all this together all by yourself, Pontification Man, in between teaching classes and saving the world?"

Scott blushed. "Uh... no, actually, I asked Annie. She told me a lot of other stuff about body language and scent-traces and stuff that I didn't quite follow. But she seemed pretty sure about it all. Actually, she seemed surprised that we hadn't figured it out already."

"Huh." Jean shrugged, looking dubious. "Maybe." Then she grinned. "I like it when you get all analytical."

Scott grinned lopsidedly. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah..."

Jubilee grinned, and sneaked away before things got any mushier.

* * *

Now she paused to take a few deep breaths, trying to gather her strength. She could feel an empty space around her head and shoulders that echoed the sound of her breath back to her. It was loud enough to tell her that the room was probably mostly intact, if she could get out from under the layer of debris that was pinning her to the floor.

Her leg was definitely broken. But if she could dig herself out, there was enough broken wood lying around that she could probably splint it. Then...

The cabin might not have collapsed completely. Or maybe there was some kind of escape tunnel. There usually was, in Xavier's places. He was a man who liked back-doors.

Left arm was free. Bruised, scraped, sore, but free. Wearily, she lifted it again, and started pushing at the debris on her chest.

* * *

"Get down!" Scott grabbed Dani and Jubilee and hauled them into a doorway as a chunk of wall hurtled past them.

"What do they want?" Dani whimpered. Jubilee was silent and trembling, mouth a thin line in her pale face.

"To scare the hell out of us," Scott said grimly, smoothing Dani's hair gently as he risked a quick look out. "The Professor contacted Tom Cassidy a few days before we left. I don't think he wants Theresa to go to school with us."

"This is his way of turning down a scholarship?" Bobby managed, huddling beside them in the doorway. "Geez, I'd hate to see him when he gets a parking ticket."

For once, Scott didn't say anything about inappropriate times for jokes. "We've got a problem," he said grimly. "Jean's gotten the others close to the plane. They're relatively safe. Cassidy and Theresa aren't trying to kill anyone, just smash up the house and scare us a lot. That doesn't mean they're making an effort *not* to hurt us, though. And they're not going to stop smashing the place up so I can go down to the basement and open the hangar doors."

The hangar was well-hidden... so well that it literally wasn't possible to get in from the outside, unless you knew where the release switch in the basement was. Scott had told them that, but he hadn't gotten around to telling them where it was.

"You can't go," Jubilee managed, trying to keep her hands from shaking. "You'd get killed going back in there."

"I have to," Scott said grimly. "I want the three of you to head for the hangar. When it opens, get inside. Jean's not a great pilot, but she can get you out of here."

Jubilee looked at him almost wistfully. She'd been at the school for over a year now. Scott and Jean and Ororo had found her in a mall in LA, making a fair living off her wits after being orphaned more than a year before that. And when they'd found her... well, they'd seen a cute little kid, plucky, scrappy, all those cute words. Who just needed a home, a little love.

Part of her was like that. After a year on her own, most of her wasn't. But they'd been so nice, and she hadn't wanted them to be scared or put off. So she'd buried the darker parts of her deep inside herself, and used the techniques Jean and Xavier taught her to keep them buried, seperating herself out like milk and cream. And soon, youthful, bouncy Jubilee was back, just like she had been before her parents died.

But youthful, bouncy Jubilee was no use at all in situations like this.

She could see it in Scott's eyes, the puzzled surprise as he looked into *her* eyes and saw the sparkle fade. Jubilee sank back into memory, Jubilation rising grimly past her. She'd liked being Jubilee again. But this was important.

She didn't really enjoy hitting Scott, but she did, hard enough to send him reeling back into the wall before he collapsed, unconscious. "Get him to the hangar," she told her bewildered classmates, rubbing her sore hand. "Now. I'll open the doors."

"But you don't know how!" Bobby objected. She liked Bobby. She hoped he made it.

"Xavier always hides everything the same way. I know where it is." Jubilation peeked around the corner. For now, Cassidy and his pet redhead were out of sight. "I'm smaller than you guys, and faster. I should make it."

"Okay." Dani visibly pulled herself together, and leaned down to drag Scott's arm over her shoulders. "We'll wait for you as long as we can."

"Thanks." Jubilation nodded briefly, then headed out into the hallway.

* * *

The plane had taken off a few hours ago.

She'd felt the vibrations in the floor.

The basement was psi-shielded, she was pretty sure of that. When the house had come down, and Jean hadn't been able to sense her, they must have assumed she'd been killed.

They'd come back, of course. It was going to take at least six or seven more hours, though. They'd have to get back to the mansion, get the students to the medlab to be checked out, then muster enough X-Men to come back to perform the twin tasks of finding her body, and hiding the evidence that the cabin had been more than it seemed.

Jubilation wasn't going to lie there that long. She'd dug herself out, ripped up her flannel shirt and used it and a couple of chairlegs to roughly splint her leg. The secret passage wasn't hard to find... she'd spent long enough going through Xavier's files late at night to know how he thought.

It had taken her a long time to drag herself up to the surface. The tunnel came out near the hangar, and by the time she got there all she had the strength to do was curl up in the entrance of the tunnel and put her head down on her arms. Just a little rest. Just for a few minutes. Then she'd go to the hangar, where they'd be sure to find her. Just a little rest...

* * *

Juggernaut was angry.

Tom had brought him here with the promise of revenge on his weakling stepbrother, but when they got here, all there'd been was a couple of do-gooder geeks and a bunch of kids. Tom hadn't even let him knock the place down. He'd said Terry needed the practice.

Much fucking good it'd done him. The ungrateful little brat had turned on him when he tried to blast two of the kids who were dragging the boy in red shades. She'd run off with them, in their weird-looking plane, and now Tom was still pummeling the wreckage of the house in fury.

Cain had wandered off. He was bored, and it was better not to be around Tom when he was like this. He said angry, hurtful things. Tom was Cain's best friend, but even best friends were assholes sometimes.

So he was poking around in the woods, and he found a weird looking little hatch in the grass, just popped up a tiny bit. Kneeling, he pried it up carefully with ham-sized hands. He didn't want to break it yet, just in case. He looked down inside.

On the bottom of what looked like a tunnel, a tiny Chinese kid was sprawled either sleeping or unconscious. She was filthy, covered so totally in mud that it was hard to see most of the bruises... but not all of them. Her leg was tied up with makeshift splints, too.

Oh, hell.

He'd seen this before, or something too much like it.

He told himself firmly that residual guilt was what made him power down to his weakest, smallest form, the only one small enough to fit down the hole. It was guilt that made him pick the kid up gently, cradling her clumsily in one big arm. She whimpered in pain, and he froze, waiting until she'd settled down before clambering awkwardly up the ladder.

The Juggernaut was impervious to empty, meaningless things like guilt, or remorse, or pity.

But he hadn't been the Juggernaut in Vietnam. It still made him cold and queasy inside to remember some of it. One small act of expiation might be a little out of character, but he could let it slip by. He'd just get the kid to a hospital or something...

...the X-Geeks had to have realized they'd missed one by now, right? They wouldn't just leave her... would they?

Part 2

Jubilee drifted slowly back to consciousness.

She could feel Jubilation hovering close to the surface of their mind, clearly worried. Jubilee was worried herself. She remembered stuff that Jubilation did, although it all felt a bit distant and unreal, and she was pretty sure Jubilation had left them in the bottom of a muddy, dirt-smelling tunnel.

Now she was lying on smooth sheets and a hard mattress, with something around her wrist and a thin pillow under her head. She opened her eyes, and looked up at an off-white ceiling, framed in blue curtains on a thin metal rail. She was obviously in a hospital.

So... who had brought her here? Definitely not the X-Men. If it had been the X-Men she'd be in the nice, familiar MedLab right now. Who else could have found her?

Her eyes traveled down. Pale blue hospital gown, sky blue hospital blanket with her arms looking pale as they lay on top of it, cast-covered leg sticking out from under the blanket... and in the corner of her eye, a flash of orange.

Orange?

She looked around, and blinked. There was a man sitting next to her bed. A very large, rather mean looking man with scruffy orange hair. He was looking at her with an expression that was a comical mix of curiosity and nervousness. "Hi," he said uncertainly.

"Hi." She frowned in puzzlement. He was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, so presumably he wasn't some kind of social worker or cop or anything. "Who're you?"

"Well, if anyone asks, I'm your dad," he said, looking a bit embarrassed. "I had to check you in as my kid, or they wouldn'ta let me."

"Oh." Jubilee raised an eyebrow, and checked quickly with Jubilation. Jubilation advised playing along. "Okay. Did you find me?"

"Yeah, in that little tunnel." The man nodded. Sheepish didn't fit his face well. He looked like his customary expression was more in the angry/resentful range. "The X-Geeks left ya behind."

Jubilee blinked. She blinked again, putting together the reference to X-Geeks, the only other people who'd been at the cabin, and the face that matched a computer-file on the X-Men's enemies that she'd skimmed through once. "Hey! You're the Ju-"

A hand the size of a small moon plastered itself over her face. "Shh!" he hissed. "I saved your life, kid. Which Tom's not happy about, but I just... well, I did, and you should be grateful."

Jubilee nodded as well as she could with a heavy hand covering her face all the way up to her eyes. He took the hand away after a second, and Jubilee made a face at him. "You didn't need to save me. They would have come back."

"Yeah? Wanna bet?" the Juggernaut said cynically, leaning back in his chair. "Look, you were in shock. If you'd stayed unconscious down there for more than a few hours, ya woulda been in trouble."

"I..." Jubilee bit her lip. He was right about that. And they had left without her. Maybe they wouldn't have come back in time... surely they WOULD have come back, but if they thought she was dead, they might not rush...

Jubilation eased back up in their shared mind, nudging Jubilee gently aside. Jubilee was distressed and frightened enough right now, she didn't need to deal with this guy. Besides, she might let something important slip. Jubilee talked too much when she was nervous. "So why'd you rescue me?" Jubilation asked, raising an eyebrow. "For a hostage or something?"

"No." The Juggernaut frowned at her. "Do you do that often?"

Jubilation blinked. Nobody had ever noticed before, except Scott, who'd been looking right in her eyes while she switched over very fast. "Do what?" she hedged.

"You look... strange. Different." The Juggernaut looked definitely suspicious. "You just switched to, I dunno, your hero persona or something, didn't you?"

Jubilation couldn't help being a little impressed. "Not... exactly," she admitted slowly. "Most people don't notice."

The Juggernaut shrugged. "I did." He held out that enormous hand. "I'm Cain, by the way."

"Jubilation Lee." Jubilation shook, blinking a bit. She'd never had a one-on-one conversation with a supervillain before, but she didn't think this was how they were usually supposed to go. "So why DID you rescue me?"

He shrugged, looking painfully embarrassed. She supposed admitting to a selfless urge had to be embarrassing for a supervillain. "I just did," he said lamely. "You looked... small. An' lonely."

Well, she could see small. When he was in Juggernaut form, her head couldn't come much above his waist, and even now, when he was somehow much smaller, he was still more than twice her size. Lonely, though... that sounded like he was projecting a bit. He didn't seem the type to get mushy over random adolescents, so he probably had his own deal going on. "Thanks," she said anyway. She didn't smile. Jubilation rarely smiled.

"Yeah, well, just don't tell anyone," he grumbled. He was kinda cute when he got all bashful, she thought with surprise, like a really big puppy who knows he's been naughty. "Your secret's safe with me," she assured him, and then winced a little. "If you keep mine."

He looked surprised. Not the fastest thinker in the world, which was reassuring. Jubilation liked that in a potential enemy. "What secret?"

"This. Me." Somewhat to her own surprise, she realised she was going to tell him. She wanted someone to know about her, and who better than a secretly soft-hearted villain who she'd probably never have to talk to again except in the course of battle? "The me you're talking to now, I mean, as opposed to the one who was here originally."

His forehead rumpled up as he tried to make sense of that. "Not sure I follow. You don't want people to know you have a superhero persona?"

"Not exactly. Jubilee IS my superhero persona. I just... am her a lot." Jubilation sighed. Too late to change her mind about explaining it now. "See, there's kind of... two of me. Jubilee is the cute, scrappy one, who everyone knows about and is gonna make a super-great X-Man one day. She's still thirteen, though. She's me before... other stuff happened. See, I lived on the street for a while after my parents died, and I had to grow up pretty fast, and... stuff happened, and then the X-Men found me and they got a little freaked by me so I brought Jubilee back. Uhm. I kind of subdivided our personalities. We're both ME, it's just she's me at thirteen and I'm me at about thirty. People usually like her better." The spate of words slowed, and her lips quirked ruefully. "Wow. Guess I really wanted to talk about it. Never told anyone before."

To her surprise, Cain didn't laugh, or look puzzled, or seem put off. Instead, he gave her a clumsy pat on the hand. "Doesn't sound like much of a life ta me," he said commiseratingly. "Everyone trying to make you be something yer not. I know how that goes."

His hand was warm on hers, heavily calloused, and Jubilation looked down at it. "It's better than where I was," she said quietly.

"Yeah, can't argue with that, I guess." Cain shrugged, taking his hand back and rubbing it over his wiry hair. "I dunno, I just... it's like me and Tom. Tom can be an asshole sometimes, but he's my friend. He likes me the way I am. You should have friends who like who you really are, not a shadow of who you used to be."

"Maybe." Jubilation leaned back against the pillows, suddenly feeling exhausted. She needed time to think about all this.

"Oh, yeah... I wasn't supposed to stay long." He stood up, scuffing a foot against the squeaky hospital floor. "They said you gotta stay in for observation. I'll come and check ya out tomorrow, and then you can do whatever you want. Go back to the X-Geeks or... whatever. But you stay put tonight."

"Okay." Jubilee might have argued, but Jubilation remembered the time before the X-Men. A relatively comfortable bed and a meal or two wasn't to be sneezed at. "I... thanks."

"Yer welcome." He gave her another sheepish look and pushed awkwardly through the curtains, seeming more than ever like an ox-sized, clumsy puppy.

Jubilation let herself drift off to sleep. She could think about it after a little nap.

* * *

The next morning, Cain stared uneasily at the limp blue curtains. Tom had been furious at the way he, Cain, had blithely ignored Tom's pain and rescued one of the treacherous little X-Brats right on the heels of Theresa's heartless abandonment. He could understand why Tom was upset, and he was aware that his explanation of his own behaviour had been weak at best. He just... seeing little Jubilation lying there in the mud had taken him back to before he was the Juggernaut, dragged up bitter, painful memories that had nothing to do with Tom or Charles or Cyttorak or anything but Cain Marko's own self. And unlike all those other things, this had seemed like something that he could fix. All he had to do was take the kid to a hospital, make sure she got better, and then that would be it. He could put a tick in the 'Redemption' column of his soul.

Then he'd talked to her.

At first, she'd seemed like just another X-Brat. All cutesy and wussy and purer-than-thou. Then something old and cold and hard had peered out of her eyes at him. It had been downright creepy, actually, the way her eyes went hard and her voice flattened out and she eyed him as if she was wondering how he'd look without his head. And then he'd felt suddenly, horribly sorry for her, knowing that she'd either have to leave the only home she had, or spend the rest of her life hiding who she really was, pretending to be sweet and nice so people would like her. He knew what it felt like to have everyone think that you were vicious, good-for-nothing scum who unfairly picked on Saint Charles, who never did anything the tiniest bit wrong... but for Jubilation it was worse. Her unbeatable rival was a part of *her*, a facet of her own personality, and she couldn't even hate it properly because it would mean hating herself.

He hated getting emotionally involved in stuff. He was just going to go in, say hi, check her out of here, then throw her in a phone-booth or something.

When he stuck his head through the curtains, she was looking right at him. Her hair had been brushed, and she looked a lot better than she had yesterday. There was some colour in her cheeks. Her big brown eyes, though, were as hard as little pebbles. "Hey. Jubilation, right?"

She nodded. "Hi," she said guardedly.

She was clearly suspicious of his motives. Good. If he was her, he'd have been suspicious of him too. "How're you feelin'?" he asked, because he was pretty sure that was the convention at times like this. "Well enough t' leave?"

"I'm fine." She levered herself into a sitting position, and jerked her head at the small pile of clothes on the chair beside the bed. "Go outside for a minute so I can get dressed."

Cain just knew he was blushing. "Uh... yeah. Sure." He backed out hastily, turning around and looking out over the ward. A nurse bustled past and gave him a little wave, and he returned it rather sheepishly. This pretending to be a parent thing was a surprisingly involving lie.

After several minutes... and a few tiny grunts of effort that he'd pretended not to hear... the kid spoke up. "You can come back in now."

When he went back in, she was sitting awkwardly on the bed, plastered leg stretched out in front of her. Somehow she looked even smaller than before in the brightly coloured t-shirt and faded shorts, and the big hoop earrings that framed her narrow jaw. "What?" she asked, and he realized he was staring at her.

"Nothing. Ya look... younger." He shrugged, and indulged his curiosity a little. "How old are ya?"

"Fourteen." She shrugged too, hitching up thin shoulders. "I told the X-Men I was fifteen, though. Jubilee works fine for being a juvenile fifteen, and it's not quite as incongruous if I come out."

Aw, hell. Fourteen years old and already living a lie. His granite-like heart twitched a little in unaccustomed sympathy. "Oh. I filled out all the paperwork and stuff already. We can go now."

Her lips quirked. "I'm gonna need a wheelchair or something," she pointed out. "Or crutches, even. I can't walk on this."

"Oh, yeah." He felt sort of dumb for not noticing, so he didn't really think about what he was doing when he leaned over and picked her up. "I'll take ya out to the truck." Then he looked down, and belatedly realized that he had a small, surprised armful of little girl that was gazing up at him in bewilderment.

They looked at each other for a moment.

"Thanks," Jubilation said, almost shyly. She probably only put her head down on his shoulder in order to make the whole father/daughter subterfuge more convincing, but he was rather alarmed to realize how nice it felt. He'd never really thought what it would be like to have kids. The idea had never seemed relevent to him. But this was really kinda... nice. She was so little and sad, so badly in need of someone who understood her.

He managed to get her out into his oversized truck without raising any suspicions among the hospital staff - he hoped. He hadn't used his real name anyway. He swung her up into the passenger seat and got in himself, racking his brain for something - anything - to say. He couldn't just push her out into the street without saying something. How the hell did he get himself into these things? His interactions with people went so much better if he just focused on threats and hitting. He was good at those.

"Were you looking for the Professor?" she asked after a few minutes of silence.

He blinked. "Huh?"

"When you came to the cabin. Where you looking for the Professor?" She looked at him, old eyes in a soft, babyish face. "You're his stepbrother, I know that. I saw your file when I was going through the computer one time."

He blinked again. "I... uh... yeah. We were looking for Chuck."

She giggled a little, then looked surprised at herself. "I never heard anyone call him that before."

"Yeah, well... I remember him when he was a snotty little brat in a Fauntelroy suit," Cain muttered, fists clenching a bit on the wheel. "We got a lot of history."

"You don't look nearly old enough to be the Professor's older brother," she said, giving him an evaluating look. "Is that because you're invulnerable?"

"I guess. I dunno." He shrugged, looking over at her. She looked... wrong, sitting there with perfect damn posture, fine hands folded in her lap, and the bright t-shirt a jarring note in the picture of reserved dignity. Maybe it suited Jubilee. It didn't look right on Jubilation. "You always dress like that?"

She nodded. "I always have." She looked down at the shirt, then gave him an inquiring look. "Why?"

"It doesn't suit you." He blushed, realizing that he was actually trying to give someone fashion advice. Hell, this girl was really getting under his previously impermeable skin.

"I guess not." She shrugged, and gave him a lopsided little smile. "They're Jubilee's clothes, really."

He pulled over suddenly, causing horns to blare as he skidded over to the side of the road. "And how long can ya keep doing that, huh? Burying all of yourself except for one little part way down in the bottom of your mind, supressing everything you are until you're so twisted and bitter with it that you can't straighten yourself out again?" He shook his head. "Look, I'm not exactly God's gift to the human intellect, but I know what happens to you if you spend your life pretending to be something you're not. It messes you up inside."

She bit her lip, looking away from him. Even like this, she was still a child - although most people seemed that way to him now. "It's just until I'm old enough that people won't freak," she muttered.

"There's always gonna be people who freak," he countered, suddenly very angry at whoever was too faint of heart and dense of head to appreciate strength of purpose in someone just because they were a kid. "You can't spend the rest of your life hiding who you are just to make a bunch of weaklings happy." Impulsively, he reached out to touch her shoulder. "There's always gonna be weaklings who're afraid of someone who's strong," he said quietly, holding her eyes with his. "Don't let them hold you down. You can do better than that."

"How?" she whispered, and he'd finally breached the cool shell that Jubilation held around herself. For the first time, he thought he was talking to the real girl, inside Jubilee and Jubilation. "I don't have anywhere to go except back to the school."

He sighed. "I'm gonna regret this, but... look, Terry's gone now, so I guess we've got an opening... Tom and I'll take you on for a while, okay? Teach you the ropes. You're a tough kid, you'll do fine on your own once you've had a few pointers."

Fear warred with the need for independence in her eyes. "Pointers?"

"Things you need to know to get by on your own." He wanted her to agree. He wanted this stubborn, fragile, powerful child for his own, as Tom had had Terry to raise. It was strange, how suddenly it had happened, but... she wouldn't hate him, for being a thug or a little slow or for being jealous of what he could not have. Maybe, if he was right, she'd even get to understand him a little.

She thought about it for a long minute or two. Then she nodded slowly. "I'll try it," she conceded slowly. "For a while, at least."

He smiled slowly. "Good. Wanna go get something to eat?"

"I could murder a cheeseburger," she admitted. "Is Black Tom going to be mad?"

"Yeah, probably. He yells a lot." Cain shrugged philosphically. "He'll get over it, he always does. Don't let him get to ya. He doesn't mean half of it, he just has a bad temper."

"Okay." She leaned back into her seat, and gave him a small, reserved smile. "Any chance of picking up some new clothes?"

"Sure." Cain was in an unfamiliarly expansive mood. "Something that suits both of you."

He watched her out of the corner of his eye as he pulled back onto the road. She looked more relaxed now than she had before. A little smile still curled her lips, and her earrings swung gently against her jaw.

He had hopes for this. Cain Marko wasn't an optimistic man by nature, but... there was something about this kid. Something special.

(End part two)

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