Chapter 1: Coming Home

Everything was just the way she remembered it.

Jubilee put her bags down on the floor just inside her old room and looked around. It was still the same as she remembered it, although there was a heavy layer of dust on top of her boom box and every other surface. Well, when she was younger she had made it clear that no one was to enter her room to clean it or touch her things, so she supposed she shouldn't feel too upset at the dust.

The boy-band poster over the bed was the same too. And when she opened the drawers, she found that some of her old clothes were still tucked in them, though there was no way she would be able to fit into most of them now.

Ororo bustled into the room, carrying a box of plastic garbage bags. "Put the clothes you don't want in here," she said, "Rogue and I need to go out later, so we will drop them off at the donation center for Kurt's church." She put the box on the bed, sat down herself, and looked around. "Goddess. All that dust. I think I forgot to clean in here the last time we went through."

"It's okay," Jubilee said. "Gives me something to do." She reached for a trash bag and opened the top drawer, starting to toss clothes out. "Oh, wow…was wondering where that shirt had gone…must have forgotten to take it with me when I left…oh, boy, look at this! You'd think with all the mutant powers in the world we'd at least figure out how to keep the spiders and moths out of the drawers!" Ororo laughed and started sorting clothes, putting the ones Jubilee didn't want into the bag.

When the drawers were mostly empty (there were a few oversized t-shirts that would still fit her) she turned her attention to the bags she had brought. After such a long time at college, it was good to be home again, and to be able to go from sharing a room with other girls to having one of her own again. Reaching for the first suitcase, she abruptly changed her mind and reached for the duffel bag again. The first item to come out was Logan's battered old cowboy hat. She had carefully tried to preserve it in the same condition in which he had given it to her so long ago, but there was only so many things that could be done to keep a hat in good condition, and lately, with all the moving around Jubilee had done, it had become somewhat the worse for wear. She ran her fingers caressingly over the curved brim, smiling in tender fondness at the memories she had of the person who had given it to her.

"Well, ya gonna sit there all day lookin' at the hat, or are ya gonna come an' give me a hug?' came a gruff, growly voice from the doorway, She looked up, startled, and saw Logan, leaning against the doorframe and chewing on a toothpick.

"Wolvie!" Jubilee jumped up, the hat flying out of her lap, and ran to hug him with a squeal of delight. "I missed you I missed you I MISSED YOU!" She flung her arms around his neck, distantly noting that she no longer had to reach upward to do that, and squashed him in an enthusiastic hug. Then she reached over, plucked the toothpick from between his teeth, and kissed his cheeks frantically. "I have missed you SO much, you would not BELIEVE how much, oh, Wolvie…" She finally ran out of breath and let him go, stepping back.

Behind Jubilee, Ororo was still sitting on the bed, although her face was pink with suppressed laughter. Logan too, looked uncommonly flushed. He grabbed the toothpick from Jubilee's hand, then settled his cowboy hat back in its accustomed place low over his forehead. "Take it easy, kid, ya only just saw me last summer," but he grinned nevertheless at the happy smile on Jubilee's face. He missed her fiercely, too…but he'd never go slobbering all over her like she just had. He had to preserve his male dignity.

"Yeah, but that was LAST summer," Jubilee exclaimed as she picked up his hat and dusted off the top of her dresser with one hand, making a clean spot on the surface to put Logan's hat on. "That was almost, like, a whole year ago! I haven't seen you since then, can't I miss you?" she reached into her duffel bag and took out a small package. "Here," she said, tossing it to him.

He snatched it out of air before it could hit the floor. "What is it?" he asked, staring at it as though it might bite him.

She rolled her eyes. "It's a present." When he continued to look at it, she grinned. "It's not going to bite, Wolvie, you can open it."

He started to tear at the paper covering it, and Ororo, sensing Jubilee's wish for privacy, picked up the bag of discarded clothes and made a hasty exit, murmuring something about 'donations' as she slipped past Logan in the doorway. He nodded to her as she passed, then turned his attention back to the package.

Inside it was a small gray velvet box. And inside that was a tiny pendant on a bed of cotton. He stared at it. It was a small J etched on a silver dog-tag like charm, plain and unornamented. There was a loop on top just big enough for a chain.

He stared at it for a moment, then looked up at her. "What's this for?"

She smiled brightly at him. "I took a jewelry-making class last semester and I made it for you. It's a friendship charm. They're really popular. You wear the one with my initial on it, and I wear the one with your initial on it. See?" And she tugged the neckline of her t-shirt down to show Logan another dog-tag charm, this time with an L on it, on a silver rope chain around her neck.

"Jubes, ya know I don't wear jewelry," Logan said somewhat haltingly. How was he supposed to tell her he didn't want to wear it, especially since she seemed so proud and happy of it?

"Well, yeah, I know you don't usually, but we're friends, I thought maybe you wouldn't mind wearing it for me?" Jubilee looked at him with that hopeful-puppy look in her eyes he'd come to know, and hate, over the years. Hate, because he never could deny her anything when she had that look in her eyes. "And I made the hole big enough to fit on a regular bead chain like the one you have your dog tags on, so you don't have to get a chain for it, you can wear it beside your other dog tags." She peered at him, finally noticing his look. "I…I thought you'd…like it."

He looked up, jolted out of his dismay at her timid, unsure tone. Hell, he didn't want to wear it, but there was no way he was going to break her heart by telling her so. Not on her first day home. He took the silver charm and opened the fastening on his dog tag chain, and started to slide the charm on. It came to a stop beside the other tags, and he closed the chain and slipped it over his head. It came to rest on his chest, the metal warming almost instantly until it was comfortable. He was surprised at how light it was; he couldn't feel a difference.

Jubilee hugged him happily and commenced unpacking her bags, stuffing clothes into the drawers. Logan shook her head. Not that he was all that neat himself, but apparently, as much as things might have changed since she had left the mansion for the Massachusetts Academy, some things still stayed the same. Like Jubilee's eternal sloppiness. It must be a thing with the younger generation, he mused as he watched her practically dump the contents of her second bag directly into a drawer without blinking an eyelash. Bobby was the same way.

She opened a smaller bag, and took out a couple of pictures. One was of Jubilee and her friends at the Massachusetts Academy; she, Monet, Paige, Everett, Angelo, Mondo, Artie, Leech, and Jono waved from the picture frame. The second one was of a young man with peculiarly wrinkled grayish skin…Angelo, Logan remembered…making a weird face apparently just as Jubilee clicked the picture. She carefully ran a finger across the glass, wiping away a smudge before putting it on top of her dresser, just beside Logan's hat and in front of her makeup and toiletries.

She saw him staring at the picture, and smiled sadly as she looked back at the picture. "It's my favorite. We were playing around with Paige's new camera before the whole…Zero Tolerance…thing began, and Ange just stretched his skin out in weird directions right before I clicked the shutter. I started laughing before I hit the button, that's why the edges are all blurry." Her voice broke, and she brought a hand up to surreptitiously wipe away a tear from the corner of her eye. "I miss him."

"I know," said a new voice, and Logan and Jubilee both jumped. Paige had stopped just outside the door, in the hallway, and she was looking straight at Jubilee. "I miss him too, Jubes." She stepped in, and both girls reached out to hug each other at the same time.

Logan knew they were going to start crying in a minute. And he hated seeing girls, especially Jubilee, cry. He mumbled something that he would never be able to recall later and fled down the hall to his own room, where he walked in and kicked the door shut with his foot before sitting down on his bed.

Pulling the bead chain with his dog tags on it off, he reached for the small silver charm again. She had made it for him, she wore a similar one…and he wore two of his own, so why did he feel so uncomfortable about this? It wasn't that it was uncomfortable to wear, not as though it were a ring or something that would tie her to him for the rest of his life. There was no commitment involved; he was still free, still able to leave when he felt like…and it wasn't for the rest of her life, anyway. She might have returned from college, but maybe she'd want to go to grad school, or get a regular job…and she'd leave the X-Men, and he wouldn't have to worry about it. About her. About what might happen when he wasn't with her.

Stop that. He shook his head. He was getting paranoid. Seeing her again had just brought back bad memories. Most of them involved the period of time right after he and Bobby had taken her limp, lifeless body off the cross the damn Church of Humanity had nailed her to. It was also when Angelo had died. He couldn't shake the fear that had gripped him when he'd seen her; fear that, yet again, he'd failed another person who mattered to him, and let her die. Too many women in his life had been like that; he didn't want Jubilee to be one of those women.

The silver charm felt warm from his body heat as he slid it off the chain. If one of his enemies saw the charm, they would know Jubilee was important to him, and would try to use her to get to him. He couldn't put her in that kind of danger. He tucked it back into its box and closed the lid, leaning over to drop it in the top drawer of his night table. Settling the chain over his head, fighting the memory of Jubilee lying much too still on the beds in the medlabs with tubes all over her and heavy bulky bandages on her wrists, he grabbed his hat, shoved his arms (and a new package of cigars) in his jacket, and headed for the garage. As he passed Jubilee's room door, he saw Jubilee and Paige sitting on her bed, with Rogue and Ororo sitting on the floor, and all of them exclaiming over gifts Jubilee had bought for them.

It was good to have her home.