Jubilation Lee observed the afternoon sun as its rays brought a golden sheen to the raw silk of her armchair. Sitting in a stylish salon of the L'Hotel Sofitel, she glanced with amusement around the room. Lulled by the droning voice of a physicist whose moment of brilliance had long passed, her colleagues fought vainly to stay awake in the drowsy warmth and give the speaker his due respect. A couple of people doodled idly, more than a few stared ahead with glazed looks in their eyes, and one young man even dared to sneak in a game on his PDA.

As for herself, Jubilee managed an interested façade while her thoughts wandered like the motes of dust floating along the sunbeams from the windows. I can't believe he actually believes the drivel that is coming out of his mouth.

The elderly man's theories were as outdated as his polyester suit, and when you combined them with his lackluster public-speaking skills the lecture was almost painful to listen to. One only had to look around the room to see the changing face of modern physics. More than half of the audience was under forty, and a startling amount were in their twenties. New theories bounced back and forth in the intellectual community at the speed of technology, creating a multi-lateral discipline. This wasn't your grandfather's physics, and she herself was partly to blame for the youthful infusion.

Rubbing at her temples, Jubilee sighed as the lecturer continued onto an equally boring tangent. Who would have guessed lil' Miss Fourth of July would ever become a scientist? Would anyone have ever suspected that she would turn in her roller blades for microscopes, or her bitchin' yellow duster for a lab coat? Yet here she sat, one of the foremost experts in physics.

She had surprised everyone when she had decided to put her career with the X-men on hold and attended college. It was almost as though they hadn't expected her to have ambitions in life, aside from being a mutant. It wasn't her fault no one had ever bothered to take notice of her good grades in high school, despite the constant craziness with Gen X. Jubilee sighed at the memory. It was easy to be taken for granted when you were one in a group of exceptional classmates. Just because a girl likes to shop and have fun doesn't mean she doesn't have goals.

To be fair, even she hadn't expected to have an innate understanding of the sciences going into college. She had chosen a physics course on the rumor that the professor was tres hot, but she had stuck around because the material fascinated her. Professor Jenkins may have been a self-important ass, but it was worth going to class to hear about mysterious particles and phenomena she had never dreamed existed. Something about the symphony of motions inherent in atoms and stars alike rang true in her. She understood it on an instinctual level. As though she was born to tinker with the inner workings of the universe.

She soon concluded that it was her powers that made it so simple that she absorbed laws and theories like a sponge. By her junior year she had accelerated her studies at the urging of her professors, and was doing graduate work. Graduate school had flown by so quickly she could barely catch her breath, and by the age of twenty-two she found herself in possession of a doctorate in both Nuclear and Quantum Physics.

Jubilee was jostled out of her thoughts as she noticed the room bustling around her. The audience members had begun a polite stampede for the door the moment the speaker had stepped down from the podium. Only the briefest of applause had disturbed the silence before the crowd had surged towards the exit. Gathering her things, she walked back to her room at a leisurely pace, still caught up in the past.

College had changed her. It had truly been a higher education for her, rather than the generic "college experience" so many people bought into. For the first time in her life she found something she had really excelled at. Her friends and teammates had been happy for her, but didn't know quite how to act around her anymore. Instead of hanging out or partying, she would run experiments late into the evening, or study the latest scholarly publications. The new serious side of Jubilation Lee had taken everyone by surprise, including her.

It was inevitable that examining the behavior of atoms under electron microscopes would give Jubilee a better understanding of her energy control powers. She deducted that she controlled her pafs and plasma bursts on an instinctual level because of latent psychic powers. Jubilee had considered keeping the information under her hat at the time, not wanting to be faced with the burden of another mutant ability. But as she started to experiment, she realized the danger involved with her particular powers and had gone to Hank for a series of tests.

The testing had only confirmed what she suspected, although the magnitude of power she held had been beyond her own expectations. In raw power alone she was an Alpha Class mutant, and with discipline and training she would be one of the most powerful X-men in decades. The professor had been shocked, insisting she begin to train her psychic powers immediately. It was a miracle she had managed to go so long without tripping into others' private thoughts and dreams without knowledge of shielding.

Jubilee chuckled at the memory of how Jean and Xavier had reacted when she had chosen Emma as her teacher. Their egos had been bruised more than a bit, but she had no regrets. Emma hadn't held back like they would, she pushed instead of coddling her. And truthfully, they had bonded during their years together in Gen X. Despite her cool exterior, she sincerely cared for Jubilee and respected her privacy while tutoring her.

Life had rushed by in a blur; her days spent studying and running experiments, and her nights honing her mutant abilities. Often she would teleconference with Emma, doing the exercises and techniques over video till they were both pleased with the results. It was a grueling schedule, but well worth it. She had taken to her new psychic powers much quicker than Emma anticipated, and within a year there was nothing more she could really teach her.

Jubilee glanced around to get her bearings and realized she had automatically gravitated to the area of the hotel where the solarium was located. She had watched the sunset there her first day in Paris, and had returned each evening to enjoy the relative solitude in the bustling city.

The L'Hotel Sofitel was one of the grade dames of Paris, settled cozily against the Seine to make the most of the sights and seasons. It was mid-April and the cherry blossoms along the avenues bloomed in fragrant glory. There was something about Paris in the springtime; it was truly a lover's paradise. Soft misty rains in the mornings offered the opportunity to laze about in bed between high thread-count sheets.

Jubilee smirked, in spite of herself. Be honest with yourself, lazing in bed isn't your style, Lee.

It was true; she had been obsessed with trying to find new ways to manipulate energy and molecules with her powers these past few years. Her pafs now ranged from the barest of flickers to sub-atomic, and she could implode, explode, and even absorb them. By causing the molecules of her body to agitate at certain rates, she was able to move through objects. By controlling the friction between the molecules, she was also able to heat and freeze substances at will. Manipulating the ions of metals was a cakewalk, to her teammates' shock. She even had a theory that she could phase into different states, and perhaps even different dimensions, but had decided that much more research was necessary before taking the risk. The possibilities were endless when the secrets of the universe were at your fingertips.

Due to her mutation and ability to test theories, Jubilee had made leaps and bounds in the realm of physics that no other scientists had been able to. Her theories were at first considered radical, but slowly the scientific community had accepted her ideas as she backed up some of them with lab work. She had written numerous papers on her findings, sharing her work in various academic journals. Some of her theories could not be proven for many years given the limited scope of technology, but Jubilee could hardly offer her own mutation as proof for the logic behind them. So she was dealt with the critics and was content with her success as it came.

Perhaps the most disturbing and least-understood of her powers was her prescience, tickling her senses at the most unusual times. She was uneasy about exploring its scope. She had studied to become a scientist, and as such put more salt in facts and laws. Gone were the days she threw herself into a task based on a gut feeling. And yet…..it was that same prescience that had urged her to enter college instead of continuing as an X-man. She couldn't ignore that sixth sense any more than she could the rest of her newfound abilities and powers.

The afternoon delivered a delicate sunshine through the windows of the corridor, as though it beckoning people to enjoy the spring air. Soon the sun would set and the lights of the city would color the sky in a soft glow that was perfect for couples strolling along the pathways of the Seine, whispering and cuddling in the shadows of park benches.

It's a lover's paradise if you have a lover…which I seem to be lacking.

Jubilee smiled sardonically. She had grown in so many ways, was an X-man full-time again, and was surrounded by people who cared for and supported her. Do I really have anything to complain about? She was doing the work that she loved in the lab when things were quiet, and when a crisis arose she welcomed the physicality of fighting alongside her teammates.

It's not as though I can't take up Bobby or Remy on their offers for dates. I even caught Hank staring the other day, and he's the dearest man in the world.

A growl of frustration escaped her lips, even though she already knew why she couldn't actually date any of her teammates. She had been living like a nun the past few years, rarely finding a man who aroused her interest or her heart. Those she had dated had been casual but friendly flings, each understanding that the other was not seeking more than a companion for social affairs and the occasional lover. Why couldn't she find someone who would make her happy?

Do you really need to ask yourself a stupid question like that, Lee? Logan, that's why.