Morning Becomes Jubilation
by
Silly Mamma
Not Mine. Don't Sue.
I'm taking a wee break from the Generica epic to take a peek in on Logan and Jubilee. I'm curious to find out how people will react to this, so please do let me know. I'm as interested in the negatives as in the positives.
I do not believe this is a standard "Logan/Jubes" treatment (what a relief after being so generic!) that most people will expect. However, I do think it is a natural outgrowth of some of the more-common 'fics.
To answer a question posed from my last effort, I've been writing fan fics now for about a total of two and a half weeks. The feedback is proving addictive. I may have to take a nice break before diving in again.
Take care
NOW
Jubilation Lee Lee, better known as "Leelee" to her friends, may have slowed down, but she certainly cannot be stopped. She likes wearing polyester leisure suits of the brightest tropical hues. If it doesn't offend the eyes and bend your color perception, she won't wear it. And she always wears a yellow windbreaker on top with hoop earings to match. Old habits break very hard. She plays Mah Jongg on Tuesdays, but don't believe for a second that she's not a force to be reckoned with. All her friends tell her, "Leelee, you're really something else." And she is. Something extremely else. For Florida, that is. She also serves as president of her condo association.
She moved down to Florida a few years ago at the suggestion of her kids. They thought the bright tropical sun and slow pace of life might help her enjoy her retirement. She fully expected to be bored, swallowing the bitter pill of relocation out of family necessity. Fortunately, her fears were ill founded. Florida has plenty of action to keep a former super hero, however retired, active and busy at any time of life.
Ohare, her older boy, runs a car dealership in Dade county. He was the one who found the condo. He even helped her finance it. He's married to a girl, twenty years younger than him. Leelee doesn't like her much, although her pregnancy has recently made her more palatable. Sunny may have married him for his money, but at least she's producing a grandchild and that makes her acceptable in Leelee's eyes. Anyway, Ohare has always been her favorite. He has his father's eyes.
McCarren, just turned forty-three, still lives up in New York with his wife and girls. Leelee is always on his case to come down and visit, but busy lawers don't get much vacation time. They usually spend what vacation they have down in the Carribean with babysitters and scuba gear. Leelee makes it her business to fly up at least twice a year to spend a week or two spoiling the girls and intimidating her daughter-in-law. Leelee is very good at both.
Guardia, Leelee's baby, doesn't exactly live anywhere at all. She's always travelling on some business trip or another--tradeshows are her life. She stops for a weekend here or there, but otherwise spends her days racking up frequent flier miles. Leelee admires her independant spirit. Dia isn't likely to be tied down any time soon--perhaps ever. Still, Leelee worries that she's taught Dia all the wrong lessons about life, marriage and commitment.
THEN
Jubilee rests with her head on Logan's chest. She smiles.
"You look like the cat that ate the canary," he observes.
"And why shouldn't I?" she demands. "I've finally gotten what I've wanted for so long."
"Sure kid. I just hope what you've gotten is really what you wanted."
"Mmmmm." Jubilee stretches. "It is."
"You happy, kid?"
"You know I am."
"Good." A pause. "And it's good thing you're legal too. You didn't fudge about your birthday, did you?"
"Nope. I'm totally and absolutely legal." She kisses him on his cheek.
"Right then."
Time passes.
"You know," she continues, "there's something I've been meaning to ask you. For years now."
"Whats that?"
"What's a Wolverine?"
"It's a mountain in Canada. I thought you knew that, kid."
"No. Not the mountain. The animal. What sort of animal's a wolverine?"
"Oh. That." He shrugs. "I'm told it's a member of the weasel family."
A long time passes before Jubilee stops laughing.
NOW
Leelee holds the letter that sparked her wrath even as she looks around the ruins of her living room. She hasn't paffed out of control for years but the letter is beyond anything.
"How dare he!" She screams.
Guardia sits on the couch, carefully patting out the smoke rising from bits of the cushions. "Mom," she says as gently as possible, "I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about.
"How dare he! After all these years!"
"And who exactly are we talking about here?"
"Logan, dammit. The letter is from Logan."
"Who's Logan, Ma?"
"He's a man." Leelee takes a deep breath. "A man from my past. From before I married your father."
"And he wrote to you? Isn't that a good thing? Maybe he's a widower? Maybe he just wants to get in touch... You know, rekindle old flames and all that?"
"You don't understand."
"Hey, Ma. I'm the daughter. That's supposed to be my line."
"Dia, sweetheart, you really do not understand."
"Was he, um, special to you?"
Leelee sighs. "More than you could know. He was everything. He was my life. And he left..." Well, she asked him to leave.
Guardia begins to put two and two together. "Ah." she says.
"He left me and I was alone. It was the worst time of my life." Leelee knows this isn't exactly accurate but hell, who's going to catch her on the details?
"So what does the letter say?"
"He's coming down to Florida in a few weeks. He'd like to stop by."
"Are you going to say yes?"
"I'm not sure." This is harder than Leelee thought it ever would be.
"Well, I'm sure about one thing..." Guardia says, smiling.
"What's that?"
"He had to have been important."
Leelee blinks. "How do you get that?"
"Well, he's named after an airport, isn't he?"
Leelee cannot help herself. She smiles back at her daughter.
THEN
The sticks are blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. Every one of them. About a dozen or so lie scattered around the sink. Blue plusses. Blue double lines. Blue. Blue. Blue.
Jubilee cannot believe it. Her heart is filled with joy. She runs down the hallway again to check, but the team still hasn't returned. She cannot wait. She's got to find Logan. Tell him the news.
The next few hours are among the hardest, but most exciting, that Jubilee has ever spent. She runs over the scenario in her mind. He'll be so happy, she says to herself.
Visions of their little blue heaven fill her head. They'll move down to one of the groundskeeper's huts. The baby will love her and Logan and they'll love the baby with all the love in the world.
Nothing could be better, happier or more wonderful.
Jubilee is the luckiest girl on earth.
NOW
The phone rings again and the answering machine picks up. Leelee sighs with relief as the message begins to play. "It's me. Jubilation." she says. "Yes, I'll be there on the fourth....See you then."
THEN
Jubilee stands in the middle of the floor, tears streaming down her face. "I need a break," she says. "Mac just doesn't give me any time to myself. I'm up nights feeding him. I change his damned diaper and either he pees in my face or he has to be changed again fifteen minutes later. I haven't gotten more than three hours of sleep for the last three years and I cannot take it any more. And Harry.... Don't get me started on Harry. They don't call 'em the terrible twos for nothing..."
"I'm sorry, darlin'," Logan says. "What can I do?"
"If it doesn't involve birth control and a time machine, I don't want to hear about it. I've got to get away from here."
"I've always said we could hire a babysitter and..."
"Mac's just too litte. I couldn't. I couldn't leave him alone here."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"I don't know. I don't know. I just know that I need a break. I need a break and I need to get away from the kids. I've got to spend some time being a grown up. I'm too young for this. I can't take it any more."
Logan holds her as she sobs, ignoring Harry screaming in the background and the ominous tinkle of expensive crashing that accompanies his temper tantrum.
Something is going to give. Something has to.
NOW
He meets her at the cafe'. She smiles to see him. Even now, her heart leaps as he enters. Naturally, he hasn't changed. At all.
"You look beautiful, Jubes." he says.
She knows he's a liar, but somehow, she doesn't mind. "Have a seat," she says, adding "young man" after a second just because she can. And she decides to get down to business. "Where have you been?"
"You told me to stay away."
Just because he's right doesn't mean that she's going to let him get away with anything. "For forty years? Don't you think that's a bit excessive, even for you?"
"You told me to stay away for a hundred. Don't you remember?"
"I didn't mean for you to take me literally."
"I didn't. Here I am." His logic is inescapable.
The waitress arrives in the awkward pause, handing each a menu. "Can I get you some drinks while you look over the menu?"
Logan orders a beer. Leelee opts for an ice tea. The waitress writes this down and then walks back into the building to fetch their drinks.
They look at the menus, intensely.
"So how are the boys?"
"They're good."
"Did you ever tell them?"
"They know that Rickenbacker Lee was not their father, but they are under the impression that I was a widow before remarrying."
"He was a good man."
"Yes. He was. More importantly, he was a good father."
Logan begins to say something, changes his mind and says "Yes. He was."
Leelee decides to take mercy on him. "I wasn't the best of Mothers, Logan. I was way too young. And even when I was older, with Dia, I wasn't very maternal. Rick was happy to stay at home and take care of them. He didn't mind my work with X-Strike. When I was away on assignment, he was always there. I always knew the kids were in good hands."
"I tried to be there for you and the kids, Jubes."
"I know, Logan. Wait, I know what you're going to say. I've had forty years to think about this, so please let me say it. It was both of us. Both of us were into our careers. You assumed that I would keep up my end with the kids and I thought you'd work some sort of magic and take the burden off of me. It wasn't fair. It wasn't realistic. And I'm sorry." The waitress arrives with their drinks and takes their orders. As she leaves once again, Leelee continues.
"I was young, Logan. Way too young. If I'd been older, I'd have looked for a guy like Rick from the outset. You see, it was like this. You always took care of me. I thought you'd take care of the kids as well. And that wasn't a fair assumption. There's a lot of difference...wait, let me finish...a lot of difference between comforting a teen and being a hands-on parent. I'm not saying you were a bad father. But you were a father who expected the mother be the mother. And I just wasn't that sort of mother."
Logan exhales deeply. "I didn't expect you to understand that," he says.
"Forty years is a lot of time for introspection, kid." Leelee says.
THEN
"I love you, Mac. I love you Harry. You don't know how much, I'm gonna... How much I'm gonna miss you."
Jubilee stood there hands on hips. She is all business. "You've taken care of the support checks?"
"Yeah. Direct deposit, darlin'"
"Don't call me that."
"Please, won't you reconsider...? The boys need me."
"You want shared custody? Go ahead and get a lawyer and sue."
"You know I can't do that, Jubes."
"What? No ID? No citizenship? No damned Weapon X memories?"
"Please?"
"Get out of here, now. Go back to your X-Men. And don't come back for at least, and I mean at least, a hundred years. Do you hear me? Do you hear me?"
Quietly, he says "I love you Jubes." to her departing back. Then he turns to pick up the crushed pieces of his life.
NOW
"Leelee, you are a marvel." Janice lays the tiles down on the table. "How ever do you attract one so young and so...muscular?"
"Yeah," says Lillian. "What's your secret?"
"I owe it to persistence, girls." Leelee smiles. "Everything good comes in its own good time."
Four pairs of eyes are drawn once again to the sliding glass door. Outside on the small deck of Leelee's condo, a muscular young man lies on a lounge chair in the sunlight applying sunscreen to the delight of the onlookers. He can hardly be over forty-five.
Fran sighs. "Boy, Leelee, you've got it good."
Smalltalk and chatter continues to merge with the soft sounds and clicks the tiles make on the table. Logan, his keen ears listening, soaks it all in along with the rich sunshine. He's back with his Jubes. And if his boys think that he's just some old-lady fling, well, that's all right with him. He knows Dia won't squeal. Logan aims to be the best he is at what he does, even if what he does may embarass the kids.
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