Jubilee’s dream:
Jubilee is lying on a deckchair in the sun at a pool, just lazing. Is she warm enough? a voice coming out of nowhere asks. Mmh, she mutters. Is she thirsty? She agrees. It’s there, if she wants it. A cocktail glass with blood appears next to her.
reality:
She awakes from the dream with her head hurting. A flask with the sign “drink me” is next to her bed. Sighing, she drinks the blood and opens the window. Outside is a grey cityscape covered with snow. Where is she? Jubilee wonders.
Siberia, Wolverine tells her as he enters. Less than five hours of daylight and general overcast. He though she could use a break from all that sunshine. He sure as hell could.
What did she do to deserve this? she asks belligerently. And San Francisco’s not that sunny. She wants a list? he asks. And who said he was talking about the weather? How’s she feeling?
Same problem, different day, is Jubilee’s curt reply. Meaning? he asks. Meaning he still can’t really stand to be in the same room as her, she accuses him. That’s not true! Really? she asks and pointedly drinks some of his blood from the flask. She drops it in a spell of weakness.
What has he done to her? she slurs, then orders him to get his hands off her. Ignoring her orders, Wolverine carries her to bed and calls her an idiot. The X-Men are damn lucky there’s nothing worse to clean up than a weak attempt to frame her for murder. And she’s lucky he didn’t put a damn leash on her!
He thinks having to rely on a steady supply of his blood isn’t a leash? she snarls. They’re trying to help her, he replies, to grow up. She can’t, she’s a vampire! Bohoo, he replies unimpressed.
Jubilee holds her head, announcing it is capsizing. Take it easy, he tells her. Plasmapheresis. He shot her full of plasma for monkeys? she asks. No, souped-up healing factor. He shot her full of soup? Think of it as concentrated blood and shut the hell up, he recommends. It’ll take a while to work it out of her system.
She didn’t kill those people. she begins. He has to trust her. No, he doesn’t, he tells her, and she makes it hard for him to even want to. A hundred dead guys in a shipping container isn’t her on a blood sucking bender; it’s human trafficking and a matter for the authorities. Then shouldn’t it have been fourteen year old girls from the Ukraine? she asks. On balance, it’s more men than women, he explains. But making cement and growing vegetables isn’t illegal yet. That doesn’t make it right! she snarls. He didn’t say so and even if he did who died and left her their moral compass?
She didn’t do it, Jubilee repeats. He knows but it would help if she remembered how she ended up in that shipping yard in the first place. Well, she can’t. He throws her a bag with some clothes and a phone. He orders her to turn it on. Does anyone know they are here? she asks. The people who need to know… know. He’ll see her downstairs.
Sometime later Jubilee, dressed in a black bodysuit, her ubiquitous yellow coat and yellow shades, walks into the lobby. Her skin hurts. Except it doesn’t. When the receptionist sees her, he whips out a huge crucifix. Well, she guesses room service is probably out of question, she figures.
Outside, Wolverine is expecting her on a motorbike. As they ride somewhere, Jubilee remarks the guy in there treated as something out of a foreign remake of The Exorcist. He’s superstitious but needs the cash. Forget him, Wolverine recommends, then asks her to keep the vampire hijinks down to a dull roar. Her heart beats. Except it doesn’t.
They end up somewhere in the midst of nowhere. Is this some stupid X-Men version of “Outward Bound?” she demands. She bets he got his wilderness first responder badge before he could walk or talk. He retorts that she keeps talking about what she can’t do. He wants to know what she can. She’s not in the mood, she replies. Isn’t there something else he would like to do?
Dragging her by the shoulder, he snarls what he’d like to do is tear her apart! She’d like to see him try! Then he’ll take her eyes out first and give them ringside seats! She’s not going to fight him, she announces. They’ll see, he retorts and hits her across the chest. She flies backward. When she tries to get up, he kicks her in the face. Get up! he orders. She asks for one second. Fine, one, he begins.
Jubilee hits him hard. She can count! she shouts. Stop doing everything for her! She somersaults and kicks him with both feet into the chest. Wolverine unsheathes one claw.
Instead of fighting him up close, she holds up his motor bike. This is heavier than she thought, she announces mockingly. She thinks she’s gonna drop it on his head. “Don’t! he tells her. Why not? she asks. Because he doesn’t want to walk back! he seethes. Not her problem, she announces and drops it.
Much later, Jubilee is sitting in the hotel bar. He enters and pours himself a drink. Is he mad at her? she asks. Has she had something to drink? he asks before telling her he is not mad. She has and wouldn’t blame him if he were. He remarks she seems less testy and uses his claw to cut through the legs of the stool she sits on. Very mature, she mocks as she lands on the ground. She’s sorry his tough love experiment didn’t work and if that was their only reason for being here, can they go home now?
Home? he asks. Back, she corrects herself. It’s not the only reason. S.S.C.C. he replies. Serial shipping container codes. It identified the box and its origin. Her box came from around here.
Why does he even know that? she wonders. He did a job for Scott once, he replies. You work for the X-Men long enough and you learn all kinds of things. Like Emma doesn’t like it when you stand on the back of her cape. Nightcrawler’s two-fingered poker technique could be very distracting. And there is actually a temperature below which it is not safe to put your tongue on Colossus. Her turn.
She muses. She can do more handsprings than the Black Widow. He congratulates her. She thanks him, then stresses she means it.
They’ve got company, he remarks. The owners silently put a bottle of vodka in front of Logan, who thanks them sarcastically. He thinks that stuff is giving him a brain tumor.
Do they fight? the owner asks. Logan explains that they have nothing to worry about. They are done fighting. He means, do they fight other things, the woman clarifies. Undead things. They arrived a month ago. A building full of them. Shipped in to do the devil’s work. The mines are shut, the good men are gone and now they are all up here. They are what they have been left with.
Who brought them? Logan asks. A very bad woman, he replies. She paid well but she was very bad. She did not tell them her business but they saw her in the night. They are killing the animals. They are alone. They will be next.
What woman? Jubilee wonders to correct herself. What animals? Logan promises to have a look. He suggests Jubilee get her skates on and they go kill something. Is than an invitation, grandpa? she asks as she drags him up. Unless she’d rather stay here and tell ghost stories, he replies. But there is one condition. When he gets back, he wants the hot water fixed, he tells the owner.
Later, they look at the building in question. Jubilee breaks a lock to enter. Moments later, she is attacked by a crowd of zombie-like beings which turn out to be little more than a workout for her. Eventually, Jubilee is the only one left standing. Feels pretty good, doesn’t it? Wolverine asks. He got any of Dr. Rao’s monkey soup left? she asks.
Later, Jubilee calls out Logan’s name, first softly then a little more loudly. Wolverine awakes and asks her to sleep it off, please. He then notes that she really smells like vampire; she might need topping up. More weakly this time, Hubilee mutters that she’s sorry. She should have told him. Apparently weak and being dragged by the collar by the red-haired vampire woman, who tells Wolverine with a raised eyebrow and a grin not to get dressed on her account…
