Jean, Mira
2/3/2007
Logfile from Jubilee.
=NYC= The Mustard Seed Clinic - Clinton - Manhattan
Beyond a barred doorway featuring an intercom for after-hours access and a discreet bronze name plaque bolted to the wall, a short entry hallway with doors to an office and a washroom opens into a large open waiting room. There are no expensive leather couches or tropical fish tanks here, but a work in progress instead: The floor is now partially tiled, and the plastic lawn furniture replaced by restained and reupholstered benches and sofas. An air purifier chugs away in one corner, freshly-patched and -primed white walls are ready for the cans of paint stacked by them, one featuring the beginnings of a graffiti-art mmural. A small box of childrens' toys is set out on one of the rugs, a table with books and magazines for adults beside it. Off to one side, three doors lead to treatment rooms, one of them already furnished and stocked and ready for business. The back wall features two other doors, leading to a large back storage space and the the other, locked and secure, to private spaces upstairs.
The pretense that 'Dr. Black' was ever anyone other than Dr. Grey is thoroughly frayed and faded at this point. The transient rate at the clinic is such that the founder's time as a resident is nearly forgotten by all but the ineffable Mrs. Elsie Matheson, busy at the receptionist's desk and fencing with a new computer. The system is different. It must therefore be grumbled at. But Elsie's grumbles stop for the newest arrival to her desk. "Doc Grey's in exam room three, darlin'," she beams. "Lord o' mercy, don't you look just as pretty as that picture she's got."
Jubilee blinks down at Mrs. Matheson in surprise. "Picture? She's got a picture o' me?" That just kind of floors her and drains all the nervous apprehension that had plagued her every step to the clinic.
Elsie smiles at that, a white flash of dentures amongst the dark cocoa of her skin, eyes crinkled up in amusement. "'Course she does, child," she assures, slow and steady and just a little too amused at the blinking. "Showed it to metoday, right from the book she keeps in her purse with that little Nate of hers in it, and says that you'd be comin' in. Exam room three, honey, right over there."
Jubilee gives a weak smile and shuffles off to the indicated room, pausing to look back over her shoulder at Elsie before pushing into the room. By the time she's entered, her face is an amusing muddle of emotions and expressions.
Jean has been waiting a while. This is evidenced by the fact that she's currently midway through building a tower out of sterile-packaged throat swabs, laid in a hexagon and built higher and higher. She turns as Jubilee enters, the sleeve of her lab coat catching the stack and toppling it with a rustle-clatter of plastic-backed paper. "Jubilee," she greets, a warm smile cutting through the sheepish expression the sound prompts. "C'mere, how are you?"
Jubilee shuts the door behind her carefully, then turns her head to ask, "Do you really keep a picture of me in yer wallet?" She's not avoiding the question. Oh, no.
"...What?" Jean looks baffled for a moment, at a loss for how the question came about, and staring at Jubilee as if sight alone might yield the answer. It fails. And so she waves towards her purse, hanging on the back of the now-shut door. "Take a look for yoursel, if you want. I snagged one of your grad pictures."
Jubilee blinks and stares, then blinks some more before the corner of her mouth kind of edges up into a goofy smile. "I... Uh. Hi." She can't resist. She turns around and reaches to turn Jean's purse around and open it up, rifling inside for the wallet.
The wallet, admittedly, is rather heavy on Nate and Curie (There's one image featuring the two of them curled up and napping on an unsuspecting and sleeping Logan in a deck cheir.) but there are other pictures as well, running from a grinning collection of the First Students at their graduation, to pictures of med school, to, at last, a gaggle of graduate photos of which Jubilee is first and foremost.
Jubilee flips through the pictures, laughing at a couple, including the napping Logan one and stopping when the flipping vinyl does indeed reveal a cleaned and dressed up Jubilee grinning like an idiot. She bites her lip and looks over at the poor, confused doctor. "I..." Can we blame the sudden emotional roller coaster on /something/, please? "I haven't looked through wallet pictures since... like..." She shakes her head and puts the wallet back before turning around and shuffling closer to the exam bed.
"Jubilee..." Jean is baffled, but not rendered immobile. She steps closer to the exam bed as well, and holds out her arms. "C'mere. Hug," the doctor orders. "And then you tell me what's got you down here, OK?"
Ok. Jubilee moves gratefully into a hug, returning the squeeze with a surge of affection intensified for some unknown reason by the fact that Jean keeps a picture in her wallet. The ways of the mutant, orphaned young are inscrutable. A minute or so later, she pulls back, now passing into the 'embarrassed by display of emotion, but secretly squishy' phase.
Jean musses Jubilee's hair as she lets her go, just to heighten the embarassment, and play her part. "So," she points at the bed as she steps back. "-Why- am I down here at my clinic on a Friday afternoon, huh?"
"I dunno. I just asked if you'd be someplace I could talk to ya privately. You picked the place," Jubilee points out, /trying/ to regain some of her defensive attitude before admitting the reason for her visit.
Jean snorts, and points at the exam bed again. "All right, so I picked the place. But we're here, it's private... now -talk-," she mock-orders, reaching over to tap at Jubilee's breastbone with one fingertip.
Now that the moment of truth has come, Jubilee wishes she were anywhere but here. "I... Uh. Um. I think I might need... um. You /know/." << Please, please, please don't make me say it. >>
Ah, enlightenment at last. "A pregnancy test?" Jean asks, picking the most horrific option possible and, if not quite -carolling- it out, at least taking just a little too much pleasure in the phrase.
Jubilee groans and sags against the exam bed. "I hate you, Jean," she whimpers.
"No you don't, you love me." Testament to Jean's good mood that she's as certain on that point as she is, she pats Jubilee's shoulders, and invites "Try again?" in a more kindly tone. "In all seriousness, you've been in my sex ed classes in high school. You know that I feel that if you can't talk about it, you shouldn't be having it."
"It's not the talking about it that's intimidatin', Jeannie. It's the talkin' about it with /you/. Only reason I /am/ is I'm /more/ scared to go askin' Doc Tag or Hank for it. Sheesh."
"What's scary about me?" Jean looks down at herself, taking in the doctor's lab coat worn over a black sweater with little orange and red phoenixes embroidered around the v-neck.
"Jeeeeeean. It's... it's like telling your /mom/," Jubilee groans. "Yer not makin' this any easier. Can't you just kind of... give me it and then forget this conversation ever happened?"
"Hey, you've met my mom. I'm nowhere near that level of scary... although I guess I cheated by going to the student health clinic," Jean admits, before giving Jubilee's shoulder a squeeze and pointing out that "You know I can't just give you a prescription without a checkup and a talk, honey. It's unethical."
"Oh god. I knew I should have just done that...."
"Look at it this way," Jean counsels, with another pat. "This way, I can give Logan some advanced warning so that Wesley doesn't get gutted the next time they intersect and Logan breathes deep." She is not helping. She -is-, however, trying to maintain a calm and composed and not at all laughing facade.
No, she is /not/ helping. "JEAN! He wouldn't!" A moment's thought. "Would he? I mean... I know he did with Drake, but that was like a /long/ time ago. I'm /lots/ older now and... He can't really expect... Oh god."
Jean is just a touch concerned as her joke appears to be having a snowball effect. "Jubilee," she murmurs, touching her shoulder again, lightly. "Relax. I'm teasing." Mostly. "Honestly, Logan's the last of us to think that you're going to stay a chaste virgin your entire life. But he'll be the first to make Wes's life a living hell if he doesn't make you happy. There's a code."
Jubilee wheezes lightly and claps her hands over her mouth as she stares at Jean in wide-eyed horror. "Jeeeeaaan. You /can't/ tell Logan. /Pleaaaaase/."
"Relax," Jean counsels, although she makes no promises beyond "I can't tell him anything that happens in this room anyways. Doctor/patient privilege."
Jubilee forces her breathing back down to normal levels and continues to eye Jean, though she does drop her hands back to her side. "Ok. Ok. So. Exam and talk. You don't need to talk though, really. Really, really. You've done /more/ than enough talkin'." *whimper*
"And here you used to -want- to be part of margarita nights," Jean reflects, but leaves her teasing at that. Instead, she offers another hug, expression gone strangely pensive for a moment.
"I'm still undera--" Jubilee bites off the rest of the sentence in a flush of 'I'm innocent!'
"For a few more months," Jean agrees, letting her arms drop as the hug isn't forthcoming, and instead turning away to collect an exam gown, freshly laundered, and offer it over. "Slip into this, and we'll have you good to go out for some coffee in half an hour. There's a great little place I found near your place, the other day..."
2.2.07 - Jubilee and Jean. There are pictures and talk of Logan gutting Wesley. You figure it out.
Saturday morning. Usually cartoons are on, breakfast bowls scattered around the apartment, and Jubilee is still in her pjs. The first two are still the case, but Jubilee is dressed and scooting around the apartment grabbing keys and gloves and hats and wallets, then jerking the front door open.
In the hallway outside Apartment 1400 stands a figure, not an imposing sort at only five-foot-ten, but the hood of a sweatshirt pulled low lends an air of mystery. One hand is raised as if interrupted mid-knock when the door jerks inwards and away. "Whoa!" Mira squawks and tries to backpedal in the face of an oncoming Jubilee. Which doesn't work so well in rollerblades.
Jubilee squawks too. "Ahh!" Stop. Peer. "/Mira/. What're you doin' here?" She leans through the door and watches Mira's acrobatics.
Graceful as a swan, Mira lands on her ass on the hallway floor. "Hoping to run into you," the girl snorts resentfully, looking up to meet Jubilee's eyes. She extends both hands out, a silent command for help standing up again. "Cassy's been bugging me for days to bring you something."
"Okaaaay." Jubilee eyes her in amused wariness and steps out to assist the taller (much taller thanks to the skates) girl up. She even puts her foot out to help brace the skates until Mira is on her feet. "What'd you bring me?" Jubilee turns around and locks the door behind her.
Mira looks down on Jubilee from the vast distance of being six inches taller. She looks like an ant from up there. "Oh, hang on." Mira pulls back her sweatshirt's hood, revealing a pair of black costume cat ears sticking out of her hair. From her backpack she produces a shoebox. It's one of the fancy sturdy shoeboxes, not like the kind tennis shoes come in. It's also apparently heavy. "Pictures."
"Oh my god! PICTURES!" Jubilee squeals and pounces on the box, taking it and opening the lid as she turns to walk down the hall, apparently assuming Mira will follow her. She rifles through the top few--group shots, nothing unusual or embarrassing here. Until she gets to a picture of a very /not/ amused young Ororo, apparently soaking wet on a cloudless summer day. "Ho, man. I wonder what the story is on /that/ one..." she says, handing the picture over without looking to see if there is anyone to take it.
"Wha- hey! Wait up!" Mira obediently follows, trying to peer over Jubilee's shoulder but simply accepting the picture of unhappy Ororo like a confused secretary. "Keep looking! There's a couple of Jean. She was *little*."
She was. Jubilee fishes up an adorable one of young Jean at what is obviously one of her younger birthday parties. She's not wearing a party hat, but the cake in front of her sports a limited number of candles. "Aw... Jeannie. ... Is it just me or is her hair lighter?"
"That's nothing." Mira swings up in a lazy turn to cut Jubilee off. "There's pictures of Professor Xavier from the 80's or something. He's *always* been bald." She demonstrates, fishing out a picture tilted onto its side to mark it as important. The sweater a younger Charles Xavier wears in a posed wintertime photo is a tragic example of an ill-chosen Christmas present. He still manages to look dignified in it.
Jubilee snerks and slows beside the elevator button, hitting it absentmindedly as she cackles over the picture. "This is /perfect/. Who else you got in here?"
"I didn't have a chance to go through them all on the bus," Mira informs sadly. She zips a few more pictures free and fans them out like a winning poker hand. Which it is. A full house of awkward teenage moments perhaps best left forgotten. "Here's a good one of Mr. Summers. It's not really funny or embarrassing, but he doesn't look like a douchebag. So I thought it was significant."
"Indeed. You might have caught the one an' only time ol' one eye's ever smiled," Jubilee says, craning her neck to look at Mira's hand. The elevator doors bing open.
Mira steps over the seam between floor and elevator. "Yeah, but some people never change." The pictures shuffle like cards, bringing a slightly washed out picture to the front. A scrawny Asian teenager in loud and ill-fitting clothes, standing in a doorway with wide eyes and apparently caught in the act of something. The light reflects superbly off a shiny trail of snot under one of her nostrils. "Aww. How cute," Mira coos.
Jubilee stares in mild horror and reaches for the photo. "Hey, /my/ idea, /my/ choice of pictures. /That/ one goes back into the box!"
The photo is jerked out of reach. That is to say, up and out of reach at Mira's arm length. She's still taller, y'know. "Nuh-uh! Mine now!"
Jubilee refuses to dignify the situation by tackling Mira and knocking her off her skates. Besides. Who knows how many other copies of that picture are out there now. Better to just play it cool... Jubilee grimaces and taps the button for the lobby. "Alright. But if that picture ends up circulated, you won't have a chance, Mira Lopez."
"It's important to maintain leverage." However, the photo is lowered and returned to the box. Mira brushes back her hair, looking momentarily startled on finding the costume cat ears on her head. "Wait, where are we going?"
"/I'm/ goin' to the mall. I've got some shoppin' ta do. I don't know where /you're/ goin', but you can come with if you promise me absolute secrecy."
"I sure as hell didn't take the bus all the way here just to go right back." Mira folds her arms. "What needs to be so secret anyway? I already had to steal that box from under somebody's bed." A bald somebody's bed, but somebody who undoubtedly gave permission from afar. In spirit.
Jubilee shoots a sharp glance at the box, and her eyes widen. Oh, /crap/. "Because... ah. This is kinda somethin' totally different. It's personal..."
"What *kind* of personal?" Mira queries sideways, arching an eyebrow.
"Did you look through that box before you threw the pictures in?" Jubilee counters.
"Not... really," Mira answers uncertainly, as if she's missing the point and realizes it. "There was more than one box, but I stuffed everything into this one so I could carry it easier."
Jubilee lifts the lid again and rifles down the contents until she reaches the end of the pictures, and the beginning of stiff, crackling paper. "Oh, hell-o operator... Mira. Here. Read this." She pulls one out and shoves it at the girl.
"Hey, letters," Mira says. She recognizes what those are. She reads the letter aloud in rapid summary. "Dearest Charles, miss you, said you'd visit, et cetera, et cetera..." Her eyes slowly scan down the page of tight looped script. "... that night we-" A pause. "Ohmigod."
"/Yeah/," Jubilee drawls, cradling the box in the crook of one arm as she steps off the elevator and out into the lobby. "Now you see?"
Mira remains in the elevator for a long moment until she realizes she can move again. She glides after Jubilee and solemnly pronounces, "Holy. Freaking. Crap."
Jubilee snickers and turns to walk backwards out of the building. "Kinda changes your perspective of the Prof, huh?"
"Ew," is the assessment.
"Yeah," Jubilee agrees, pulling the paper out of Mira's hand and returning it to the box.
"So now that you're done putting images in my head I'll never get out, can we go to the mall?" asks the rollerskating catgirl. Or something.
Jubilee grins up at her. "Just remember, there's lots more where /those/ images came from." She waggles the box in mock threat and jerks her head. "C'mon. We'll catch the subway two blocks over."
2.3.07 - Mira drops off more than she realized.