In the midnight hour...
3/20/2007
Logfile from Jubilee.
=XS= Medbay and Lab - Lv B2 - Xavier's School
Walls are sterile white and surfaces gleam in polished stainless steel, the large room a vision of cool science tinged with the faint medical smell of antiseptic and filled with the soft whirring of autoclaves, refrigeration units, and various medical scanners and devices. Four hospital beds are present near the entrance, curtains rigged to allow for privacy, but pulled back when not in use. In shielded alcoves off the back wall are the resident doctor's pride and joy: A full-body X-Ray machine, as well as an MRI unit and other heavy-duty imagery equipment. Between the alcoves, through a thick glass window, a small operating theatre can be glimpsed. In the lab section, an electron microscope and a pair of gene-sequencers take place of pride, glassware and smaller equipment kept securely locked away in the cabinets underneath and above the work surfaces.
Drugs have been set in place once again, the night slipping by in something much more like a coma than sleep. But Rogue is awake again, feeling unrested and in pain. The knockout drugs have proved, at least, somewhat useful. Rogue is back on her badly (but effective) spun mental platform, on her knees and broken in the span of her mind. But on the platform she is. The nurse staff, after several times checking up on the incidents, have finally allowed Rogue to occasionally burst into occasional tears in peace.
At the latest bout of tears, Jubilee snuffles and pushes herself upright in her bed to lean dangerously over and twitch the curtains aside. "Ro," she mumbles sleepily across the darkened space between them. "Whatsa matter?"
While usually Jubilee is enough to lighten the darkest of Rogue's moods, the second the voice of her best friend is heard her tears flow harder, the sobs doubling until she's nearly hiccupping. She pulls away unsuccessfully, bandages on her wrists below where even the soft restraints were forced to burying into her skin from last night's incident. "J-j-j--" Rogue attempts to whisper out past the bouts of gasping air.
Jubilee holds her position for a moment longer, just to steady the sleep and drug-assisted vertigo before sliding unsteadily off the bed and yanking her tethered iv line with her as she pads over to Rogue's side. One of the nurses appears around a corner to check on the sounds, but she subsides when Jubilee promises, "Not goin' anywhere but here." She hangs onto the bed's railings and reaches to rest a hand on Rogue's stomach. "Scooch over," she orders.
Fright coats Rogue's eyes as the hand rests on her. Still, she's in not position to do much about it. There is a hesitance, short and firm, but with a tiny little sob she scoots as told, her arm bending up as the ties on it keep her from moving all too much. "Why don't you hate me?" the southern accent whispers out into the dark of the medbay.
Jubilee turns and settles on the perch provided, wrapping her hands around the IV pole an leaning heavily on it. "Cause I'm kinda dumb like that. Thought you woulda figured that out by now," she snorts. Above the bandages, her hair, cut short to keep it out of the way of her injured ear, spikes into a freakish halo in the dim light. "Whatsa matter?"
Rogue snaps herself up, shifting and ignoring the bite of the pressure into rubbed areas of her arms. Her face is tucked quickly into Jubilee's side, tears staining the material with dark little splotches. There are words, completely inaudible as she instead falls back into violently emotional sobs. After a long time she finally peels red streaked eyes up to her friend. "You'll let me out of here, won't you? Just the binds. Ah won't even run," eyes twist to the medicine cabinet nearby, complete with locks and alarm systems placed there with good reason. "Just one more favor as m'b-b-best friend, JubiFruit. Before you stop carin' about what m'gonna do."
Jubilee holds Rogue as best she can until she cries herself out, helplessness lessening at Rogue's request. "Sure, Ro..." Her fingers work at the binds, loosening one without thought to the implication of her words. As soon as Rogue shifts over enough to allow it, she pulls on knee onto the bed and turns to face her.
Rogue's fingers curl in, eyes down at the progress as she finally sits up and pulls her arms into her, shoulders glad for the new position to roll in to. Eyes are dragged back up to Jubilee, fresh tears taking control. Unbound hands push up into Jubilee's lap as the girl turns. She hefts herself up, swiftly moving to hug the other girl into her as best as she can without disrupting the bandaged areas. "I love you," Rogue murmurs as tears roll without sobs to interrupt her smooth breathing. There is a pause before Rogue is slipping away, back off the bed and peeking around. The nurses are gone. She slides up to the medicine cabinet, eyes up as a hand runs along the locks.
Jubilee settles into the hug, and so very nearly falls over whan rogue slips away. She catches herself and turns her head, comprehension of Rogue's action's dawning slowly. "Huh? Ro? What're you doin'?" she calls out, frowning and wiggling back to the edge of the bed, her momevements feeling molasses-caked.
Cup of coffee in one hand, clipboard in the other and white lab coat flickering out behind her in agitated cat tail motions as she makes her way down the corridor, Moira walks with practised steps along the exact path that triggers the door release and allows her to enter the medbay with the fewest steps taken: the thinking person's special brand of laziness. She takes a sip as her movements slow to allow the door to pull fully open, and then her eyes widen in an interesing mixture of surprise and complete, weary lack thereof. "What in the world is goin' on in here?" she asks, though her tone is not particularly challenging as she makes her way towards the desk and sets her clipboard down, keeping hold of her bitter, hot talisman.
Rogue doesn't answer, still silent as tears build up and break their walls. The lock is taken, held, and weighed. She lets her hand fall back, moving to grab a metal casing of a pill separator and crack the glass of the cabinet door. "Go back to bed Jubilee," Rogue mumbles miserably lifting the metal case for the first blow to the cabinet. Moria's entrance gets a surprised jerk and glance back. No time. The metal is smashed into the glass, a hand darting up to grab at the first bottle of pills she can come into contact with. Her movemnts are ragged, memories flooding up and sending Rogue into a sort of deja vu as she fumbles to pop the top of her prize.
Deja vu indeed. Jubilee is halfway across the medbay, hardly registering Moira's arrival. "Marie D'Ancanto, I'll never forgive you if you do that," she warns in slow-running panic as she closes the distance.
"Holy shite!" exclaims Moira, giving up the pretense of subtlety as she thumps the emergency call button on the desk and slams her coffee down with a sloshing spillage of dark liquid and matches Jubilee's run towards Rogue at a slightly slower pace, hampered by old bones not quite yet woken up. "Rogue, lassie, put those down," she urges, coming up to her and reaching out for the bottle of pills.
Rogue pushes herself back, sliding a foot along the counter edge as she stumbles backwards from the two. "Go away, you daffy ol' bat! How is this 'ny worse then being tied to a bed for the rest of mah life?" The pills are cluched tightly into her chest as her attention is swung to Jubilee. "He kissed me, Jubilee. Ah kissed him. The part of you in me. Ah wanted him. He wanted me." Rogue staggers over a few cords leading over to the beds as she backs herself away into a corner. "You might not believe it, but it's true. Wesley tried to have sex with me just last night and Ah didn't try to stop him." The last few words are barely spoken, cried out with anger, pain, and desperation. Rogue is shaking, the pill bottle tilted up to her lips as her eyes screw tight.
Jubilee grabs the IV stand trailing behind her like a puppydog on a wheels and whirls it around to tip it over and into Rogue. The action pulls the line from her arm as it falls in a twirling mess of plastic bags and metal hooks.
Swearing in an interesting combination of Scots and English, aloud and under her breath, Moira makes a lunge for Rogue in time with Jubilee's IV-battering, her arm reaching between Rogue's arm and torso to try and push the two apart.
A third person arrives on the scene, neither an old woman nor an injured teen, the overnight guard from the comsys room, and with a quick assessment of the situation he makes a far more athletic run towards Rogue than either of the other's managed, reaching out to grab and still her.
The IV stand is a successful hit, knocking Rogue back into the wall. The bottle jostles in her hand, a few of the pills bouncing out and falling to the floor. She starts after them, getting caught up in Moria's pillblock. The bottle is forced away, falling from a shaking hand. Pills scatter far and wide across the floor. "No!" she gasps, struggling for it helplessly as the guard pins her back. Hot tears blur her vision and wriggling out the corners of her eyes. "Lemme go!"
Jubilee backpeddles a few steps, rubbing her arm where the needle had ripped free ruefully as she watches the struggle with concern. For the moment, Rogue's words are ignorned.
"Get her back on the bed," Moira instructs at a bark, and the guard complies with a glance around at the minor carnage of the medbay. He has an interesting job. "Jubilee, lass, you sit down and we'll see to Rogue. Get yourself sat down, alright?" The heavy brogue of startled worry receded, the Scotswoman's accent has receded to almost perfect standard English, a clear and no nonsense tone as she picks her way towards the bed to help in strapping Rogue down. "Rogue, try to be calm. Try and get yourself on top, aye? You're strong enough to take charge again."
Rogue eyes lock up into Jubilee's for a brief connection. Her own eyes, red-ringed and tear filled, are dashed with fright. A silent plead is given to Jubilee right before the dragging of the guard wakes her back up to her surroundings. "Don't you /dare/ put me back in that bed!" Rogue says shrilly, fighting against both guard and Moria. "Ah /am/ me, Doc! Damnit, why can't you just leave me be?" Frustrated grunts accompany strong resistance to the restraints, but two against one is never the best of odds. "Fuckin'--" she hisses, tears and snot running down her face.
Jubilee turns slowly in place, following the group's progress and still selectively ignoring what she can't process at the moment. "Don't we still have Forge's force field thing around somewhere?" she asks quietly, paled by the activity and her own antipathy to the restraints.
"Sit down!" Moira orders Jubilee frustratedly as she tries unsuccessfully to wrestle one of Rogue's flailing arms into a restraint. "Bloody hell, Rogue, I am not leavin' you free to hurt yourself or anyone else over this. Stop your strugglin' an' let me make this safe an' we'll find some other way to sort this out. I will not leave you in this thing longer than I have to, but right now I don't have any choice."
"/Safe/?" Rogue bites back, growling as her arms are shoved into the restraints. "What the /hell/ do you think Ah was doing? Don't bullshit me, Doc. This is me, these are mah /powers/. Why the hell don't /Ah/ get a choice?"
Jubilee sinks obediently into a seat. Unfortunately, there is no chair in sight, so she just keeps going until she hits the floor with little jerk of surprise. It's okay, she's okay. "Ro?" she whimpers. "Please. Don't."
"These aren't your powers, not how they should be workin'," Moira says, loudly and firmly but with an edge of determined compassion, "an' nor are you in any state o' mind to be makin' decisions like this. You're in the best place in the world to get the kind o' help you need, an' everyone here wants to help you, so you /let/ us help you before you go doin' anythin' rash that ye cannae undo, anythin' that'll cause a whole lot more damage than you're seein' at the moment."
Rogue pulls on her wrists, blood rushing to the surface and flooding the rubbed spots red as she fights like a caged animal for another few moments. It's Jubilee's words that finally press her back into her pillows, eyes up on Moira and allowing silence to fall in for a moment. "She'll understand," the girl insists in a hoarse whisper. "She doesn't now but she will. When she realizes what Ah've done."
Jubilee sits because she is a good girl, she is. Especially when on drugs! Yay! Unfortunately, the drugs aren't all that good to her, and currently, she's pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arm around them to help the knot of nausea in her tummy. She winces as the motion cracks the forming scab on her back, but the sensation is carried away quickly enough.
With a frown across at both Rogue and Jubilee, Moira looks up at the guard with clear exasperation. "Alright, can ye take care o' these pair for just a few minutes? There'll be all hands on deck down here in just a wee while, they'll help out wi' these two. I'm going to see if I cannae find Forge or his bloody gadgets, so help me." With the affirmative nod from the guard, she heads quickly out of the door and up to the elevator.
Moira's exit apparently releases Jubilee from her orders, because a few moments after the formidable doctor disappears, she rocks to her knees and pushes unsteadily to her feet. The guard starts forward to assist, but the little firecracker ignores him as she starts back to the foot of Rogue's bed to look at her friend with a reproachful expression.
Rogue eye's are quick to avoid Jubilee, instead claming herself up as Moria leaves with a deep breath. "Why'd you stop me?" the skunk-haired girl mutters down at her lap. Tremors of shakes take her now and then, but slowly she begins to calm herself down. The guard is completely ignored.
"Cause you mighta died." Duh. "I don't get... I mean. /What/ was that about Wes an'..." Jubilee shoots another look at the guard and edges around the bed back to her side. "You tricked me into lettin' you out." This is very sad and very serious.
Rogue shies back, tears dry run and nothing more than slicked streaks on pale cheeks. "Would'ah been better that way," she replies weakly. There is no attempt to look up at the other. "He kissed me. He found me all tied up like this an' said it was hot an' Ah guess Ah encouraged it. He touched me, kissed me, an' started to climb up over me takin' his pants off." Brown eyes barely budge from their stare down, though they do slightly move off in the direction of the guard. "So once this goon takes off you can just do whatever the hell you want to me." In the main part of the med bay starts up a commotion.
"He... he wha-" Jubilee gapes, looking like a fish out of water and going a little green around the gills. She hangs onto the railings tighter, the edged biting painfully into her palms. The commotion in the medbay sweeps in as two nurses bustle in to check on the patients. Jubilee refuses to return to bed, and a compromise of a chair is reached, while she's reattached to the large bag of saline mixture and medication. Rogue is similarly fussed over.
"Ah swear it wasn't me doing it, Jubes! Ah swear!" Rogue tries to protest as nurses slide between them, blocking the view that the girl is now desperately trying to obtain. She struggles, weakly, and refuses the medicine given to her. After a few moments Rogue is instead injected with sedation. She hisses angrily at the nurses, throwing a colorful and wide variety of words at them. "Jubes, please. Ah'll get out of your life soon as Ah get a chance, but you gotta know that wasn't me."
"I... I do. I mean, I don't know... I mean. I don't understand, Ro. He... he tried to... I mean, /Wes/?" Anger bubbles under the confusion, and she leans forward, her nose level with the railing, desperate to force a different understanding of Rogue's words through her foggy brain. "He tried to... rape you?"
Rogue blinks hard, preemptively trying to shake off the sedation that will be quick in coming. "No! God, no," she yelps. "He... he just knew it wasn't me an' he-- Ah dunno, Jubilee. Ah encouraged it. Somehow... somehow Ah wanted it." Rogue explains miserably.
She straightens and scrubs at her face, stopping when it pulls on the skin on her right side. "What? But... you said... He-- You were strapped down. He kissed /you/?"
"He did," Rogue repeats, squinting her eyes closed. Her mouth tightens, a disgusted knot in her stomach as memories float back to the feel of his lips, his breath, the feel of his tongue against hers. She dry sobs just once. "Ah'm so sorry."
Jubilee's fingers creep up and slide through the railings to touch Rogue's arm, and her eyes shine with tears. "For what? You didn't do anything. He--" Her other arm wraps around her stomach and she bends over, resting her forehead against the railing and closing her eyes.
Rogue whimpers, nudging into that touch with a desperate need for connection. "Ah love you, Jubilation Lee. Ah always will," her voice cracks unhappily, muddling down a bit as she blinks wearily. "Ah'll do anythang. Please, tell me how to make this better." Eyes peek back up to the smashed medicine cabinet, the glass already swept away. Shame fills her, face screwing up and turning away quickly.
"Just... just don't run away from me," Jubilee begs, not looking up. Her hand withdraws, and she turns to lift out of the chair and reach for the trashcan set near her bed. The usual side effect of drip morphine is expelled, and she sits listlessly with her arm stretched across the bed, her head resting on it.
Rogue is quiet at this, eyes wide on Jubilee. She doesn't answer, concern instead taking hold of her. "What've Ah done to you?" Rogue asks mostly to herself, fingers griping at the sheets of the bed.
Jubilee lifts her head and swings around to look at Rogue. "Nuthin'. It wasn't you," she says simply, grimacing at the taste in her mouth.
It's not a smile that finds it's way to Rogue's face, but recognition is there despite the heavy drugs on her mind. "One day you're gonna realize Ah'm no good for you, Jubilation Lee." The voice says fondly, tone roughed in the face of her situation.
Jubilee pours a cup of water from the pitcher set on the table by her bed and swishes the water around before spitting it out and setting the trachcan near the foot of her bed. Then slowly, she moves from the chair back to Rogue's side, eyes kept down, to nudge Rogue back over again in a repeat of how the the whole series of events started. "Move over."
And, as last time, Rogue does just that. The terrible thoughts of what interaction will be their last have subsided for the most part, but the idea is still thought upon for a brief moment. Her body is a bit drug-heavy now, taking a little more effort to scoot with her arms tied down.
Jubilee sits and swings her legs up, fitting herself into a bed not meant for two, curling against Rogue. Her arm drapes heavily across Rogue's middle, and it's no doubt uncomfortable for them both, but she tucks between Rogue's side and restrained arm anyway.
Something taps deep within Rogue, fresh tears producing themselves as Jubilee tucks herself in. Comfortable or not Rogue makes not a single noise of protest. Her head bends in, searching for an embrace her arms cannot give. Lovingly she nuzzles her nose into Jubilee's hair, breathing in and out slowly to calm herself. "Ah'm never gonna run from you," she whispers through her tears.
Jubilee squirms a little more into place and closing her eyes and exhaling a sigh against the cotton material of Rogue's medbay scrubs. She scratches her ear against Rogue's shoulder, then tilts her face up to press an unthinking kiss against the lips nuzzling her hair.
Cold air traps in her lungs, heart racing and eyes shutting tight against the sensation of Jubilee's lips against hers. Slowly they soften and press back, only for a brief moment before she has the sense to pull away. Eyes reopen to the world, glazed over with tears and deep seeded emotion. "S'better then Ah imagined," the little sedated Rogue murmurs to her best friend, a smile on her lips for the first time in days. And there she stands, strong on a platform where all other voices are, for the moment, silent.
Jubilee curls back down and snuffles drowsily into place, responding with a muffled "love you" before sinking into exhausted sleep.
Gallant attempts are taken to stay awake, to keep the feeling she's holding on to as long as she can. "Ah know," she whispers back. The tingle on her lips finally dies, ushering back with a sigh of release from the girl. Her head turns back down into the dark mess of hair, heart content with the familiar smell as drugs coax her under their influence.
3.20.07 - Rogue confesses and decides something a little drastic. Wesley is in /so/ much trouble.
3/20/2007
Logfile from Jubilee.
=XS= Medbay and Lab - Lv B2 - Xavier's School
Walls are sterile white and surfaces gleam in polished stainless steel, the large room a vision of cool science tinged with the faint medical smell of antiseptic and filled with the soft whirring of autoclaves, refrigeration units, and various medical scanners and devices. Four hospital beds are present near the entrance, curtains rigged to allow for privacy, but pulled back when not in use. In shielded alcoves off the back wall are the resident doctor's pride and joy: A full-body X-Ray machine, as well as an MRI unit and other heavy-duty imagery equipment. Between the alcoves, through a thick glass window, a small operating theatre can be glimpsed. In the lab section, an electron microscope and a pair of gene-sequencers take place of pride, glassware and smaller equipment kept securely locked away in the cabinets underneath and above the work surfaces.
Wesley whistles as he walks the hall, not necessarily the most appropriate of actions around the sick, though at least it dulls to a hum as the medbay doors whoosh open. He heads directly to Jubilee's bed, noting the sleeping form of Rogue. "Hey there," he greets, dumping a backpack at the foot of the bed. "I come bearing gifts. Well, sorta gifts."
Jubilee startles up in the bed, pushing up out of her doze with a blink at Rogue that turns into a glare for the boy at her bedside. "You can jus' bear them on outta here," she spits angrily, fighting with the blanket into a sitting position.
"Huh?" Wesley stops short, a half-step back leaving the bag where it rests. "You got like x-ray vision now or something? I know it's your textbooks, but...thought you might like not getting behind."
"Ok, fine. /They/ can stay. /You/ can go." The blanket is finally defeated and lays flat and docile across her lap.
"What did /I/ do?" Wesley asks, stepping up to the head of the bed to be closer.
Jubilee presses back against the pillows, pulling away as much as possible. "Oh, I dunno. Maybe force yerself on m' best friend when I was outta the room?" The corner of her right eye show white lines in the reddened skin as her eyes narrow.
Wesley's mouth forms a silent 'oh,' and he stands there uncertainly a moment, head dropping to look at the floor. "That wasn't a dream. It sure seemed like..." he finally says, looking up. "It wasn't me! I mean, it was, but it was like...sleepwalking or something. The things she was /saying/. She sounded just like...like Jean. Putting the whammy on me or something. Making me move and say stuff I didn't want to. Then...Bobby showed up, and...she snapped out of it. When I woke up this morning, it seemed so bizarre I thought I'd just dreamed it all or something."
"Maki-- /Wes/!" Jubilee suddenly quiets and shoots a glance at the sedated girl. "Wesley, she was /restrained/. How the /fuck/ could she /make/ you do anythin'?" she hisses.
"I can't explain how it works," Wesley sighs, sliding down to rest himself against the foot of the bed. "Ask her. Or the Professor or something. I just...shoot water from my fingers. Never really paid attention to the whole 'messing with your head' thing."
"Wes..." Jubilee starts, catching herself before the plea in her tone can develop into an apology. She huddles in the bed, pulling her knees up to her chest. "She said you... That... She said she couldn't stop you. That she didn't-- want--" She trails off, remembering more of what Rogue actually had said.
"You should believe her," Wesley soothes, a hand cautiously reaching up to rest on her knee. "She probably didn't. She didn't want to hurt you, did she? But /something/ in her did it anyway. S'what everyone's trying to figure out. M'just glad Bobby showed up in time," he adds quietly.
Jubilee rocks in place, dropping her legs and wrapping her arms around her stomach. "But... but she had Pyro in her head right then. She had him in her head and his powers. She couldn't make you do anythin'. I mean... unless she'd touched a telepath... or... somethin'."
"Living around here, how /couldn't/ she?" Wesley shrugs, giving her knee a reassuring squeeze, encouraged at not being immediately rebuffed. "They'll figure out what's wrong. Jean, the Professor. Doc Tag. They'll figure out how to fix it."
"But..." She looks over at him, confused and worried. "But she thinks you... that... You kissed her, didn't you?" Medication-muddled thoughts keep tripping over themselves.
"I...I think so," Wesley admits, looking away and staring down at the tiled floor beneath. "Aw, crap. That means she's probably got some of me in there too. /Just/ what she needs when she's trying to get better."
Jubilee closes her eyes and turns her face away, but her hand creeps to his surreptitiously. "This is all so mucked up," she exhales.
"Tell me about it," Wesley mumbles, letting her hand slip into his and giving it a small squeeze. "So...you don't hate me then?" he asks, a slight hesitation audible in the question.
"No. I don't know. I don't know what to make of anythin'," she murmurs quietly, turning her head back, but still not looking up at him.
"Well, that's a start," Wesley says, a finger tracing along her knuckles. "You've been through a lot, then have to deal with this too. And you're back here /again/? Want me to put in a mail forwarding or something?"
"If you do, send it to some cabin in the ozaarks. I'm totally heading for the hills the second I get out o' here," she replies, attempting a pathetic little laugh.
"We could, you know..." Wesley offers carefully. "Get away for a while, I mean."
Jubilee peeks up at him, still wary. But underneath it is the need to trust those she cares about. "Like where? Your folks?"
"Hah, no," Wesley chuckles. "One room or two regardless, I'm not sure they'd understand. The Ozarks. Or Canada. Who knows. Somewhere different. And quiet."
She considers this, eyes drifting away as she sluggishly flips through different ideas. "Maybe. Yeah. They've got someone comin' in tomorrow who might be able to help. With this." She gestures generally at her ear, then tugs the blanket up higher on her lap. "I don't think I should leave Ro just yet. Not until she's fixed, ya know?"
"I wouldn't expect any less," Wesley smiles at her. "She's lucky to have a friend like you. Both ways, I mean." There's a brief pause, then he asks, "You getting tired? Want me to get you anything?"
Jubilee chews her lip, then finally looks at him. "Draw the curtain. Don't think she'd like to wake up an' see you hanging around. But you could just maybe kinda sit? And talk to me?" She shifts and scoots down to curl on her side facing him, a hand held out.
Wesley nods, standing and pulling the curtain slowly to keep the noise to a minimum. "Yeah, that I can do," he agrees, settling back onto the bed and taking her hand. "I still can't believe that Heroes is taking so many weeks off..."
Jubilee actually manages to hold a semi-credible conversation with him for a while longer before drifting off to sleep, leaving Wesley alone with the two sleeping girls and his CONSCIENCE.
3.20.07 - How is Wesley still alive? HE HAS NO CONSCIENCE.