Title: Turn
Fandom: X-Men
Author: Apache Firecat
Characters: Jubilee, White Queen, mentions Cyclops/White Queen and past Banshee/White Queen
Rating: PG-13/T
Summary: Jubilee must save Emma. But there seems to be only one answer.
Word Count: 1,918
Written For: Fan FlashWorks 353: Welcome and 1 Million Words Monday Flash Challenge: "Do you think it's gonna be that simple?"
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to their rightful owners, not the author, and are used without permission.





Somehow, through the battle, through the smoke and haze, the screams and blood, she made it to her. Jubilee hit her knees beside her former teacher. Blood was pulling from Emma. It had already soaked everything she wore from snowy, pure white to crimson red. "Go," Emma whispered, weakly waving a hand in dismissal. "The children need you."

"Who's going to save you?" Jubilee didn't mean to growl, but she did. They'd been through so much together. She used to almost hate Frostie. She actually had thought she did hate Emma Frost, but Jubilee finally recognized the difference in that emotion. She had strongly disliked Emma, but she had never given the older woman enough attention to actually hate her. She had never thought about her for hours on end when she wasn't near her, planning on destroying her, yearning to do so, as she had with the people who had killed her parents, Angelo, and Everett. Even when Emma had helped the X-Men get her to a "safer" location, she had still not hated her.

She had needed to go, Jubilee reflected, not for the first time. She had needed to learn more about her powers, but she had not done so through their classes. There had been so many other, far more mundane subjects they had needed to cover, and so much more for the other young mutants to learn. She had learned about her powers. She had learned about them through trials and tribulations, through battles not unlike this one as the war between mutant and human had continued to build until it had finally erupted full fledged. By that time, oddly enough, she'd lost her powers. She had finally gotten them back, but in that moment, kneeling beside her former teach, now dying, her powers couldn't help her.

"You're always talking a good talk, Frostie." There was so much anger radiating in her that she couldn't help the way she kept snarling. This wasn't the way this kick ass woman should go down. She'd fought so long and so hard; some perp with a gun wasn't going to take her out. Not like she had had to take out her own sister.

Jubilee didn't even realize that she was gently threading her fingers through Emma's damp, blonde hair. The strands were splattered with blood, but it was a soothing action that Jubilee had picked up from raising her own son. There was still so much she needed Emma to teach Shogo, so much she would still like to learn from the woman herself, and in a flash, Jubilee understood more about the woman lying prone in front of her than she'd ever thought she would, certainly more than Emma ever thought she would comprehend.

Jubilee realized her red eyes were becoming wet as she gazed down at Emma. The woman was more than some pretend Queen. She was more also than a fighter, than another warrior for their people, both mutant kind and X-Men kind. She was more than a teacher, more than a friend. Jubilee battled against her tears.

She ducked suddenly as an optic blast ripped through the air. "GET HER OUT OF HERE!" Cyclops ordered. His next words tore at the Vampire's heart: "SAVE MY WIFE!"

"Let me go," Emma whimpered. Jubilee's hand moved from her hair to catch her hand as it tried to wave her away again.

"Everybody always thought you were out for yourself. I never realized before how wrong they were, how wrong we all were." She'd seen this woman suffer. She'd seen her lose so many students over the years, all of whom she would have given her own life to save.

Emma coughed, and blood spit up. "It's not -- It's not that simple." She coughed again, and drops of blood sprayed Jubilee's face, making her stomach growl and her tongue flick over the insides of her fangs. "My life has never been that simple. It has never been that easy. Let me go."

"MOVE HER, JUBILEE!" Cyclops demanded again. She leaned close over Emma's prone body as the battle raged around them. Scott wanted to go to the woman she knew he had actually come to love more than Jean Grey, though Emma herself still didn't understand or accept that fact, but he was the only one currently keeping the enemy off of them.

"I CAN'T!" She looked around for one of their people knowledgeable in medical things and spotted Beast. He was looking at her from across the distance with sorrow in his yellow eyes and his catlike ears laid back against his furry, blue head. One look at the doctor confirmed her suspicions: If she moved Emma, Emma would die.

"It's okay, Jubilee. It's not like I matter -- " Emma's voice broke. Jubilee could tell she was straining against the impact the bullet was taking on her. If only she had known it was coming, maybe she would have shifted into her diamond form faster. But Jubilee knew she'd been fighting with Scott the night before, and she was tired, so very tired as they all were, of this endless war. She also thought she didn't matter in Scott's eyes, at least not against the memory of Jean Grey.

Jubilee had loved Jean, too, and that was part of what had painted her against Emma when Emma had come back into her life and those two had first gotten together. It was part of what had painted her against her, but it wasn't Emma's fault. She hadn't meant to fall for the One-Eyed Wonder. She certainly hadn't meant to fall so hard. Just as Jubilee had never meant to fall in love with a baby and take him on as her own. But she had.

She had loved Sean, too, Jubilee knew, and had never been loved back by him, at least not that Sean had allowed to be seen or known. Jubilee had seen the way they had watched each other, had heard the way their tongues had fenced, and had watched the panic in his face every time they had thought before they were going to lose Emma. Sean had loved her, even if he'd never said a word to anybody about his true feelings. He'd been so honor bound he had lost Moira, not had proper time to grieve, and never pursued Emma as he should have.

She didn't have time to keep thinking about this stuff, Jubilee thought as Wolverine took a roaring leap above their bodies and slashed into the enemy. "DO SOMETHIN', KID!" he bellowed as Scott fried a couple more opponents with his optic blasts.

"GET HER OUT OF THE WAY, JUBILEE!"

"CYCLOPS, IF SHE MOVES HER -- "

"SHUT UP, BEAST!" The emotion that momentarily choked Scott tore at all their hearts. "I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THAT RIGHT NOW! MOVE HER, JUBILEE! WE'LL FIGURE OUT HOW TO SAVE HER!"

"WE'RE THE X-MEN!" Even Kitty, with all her history with Emma, seemed to agree. "WE'LL FIND A WAY!"

They had no teleporter with them. They had no one who could telekinetically lift and move her while keeping her body still. Storm was a world away, on the other side of the continent.

"Let me go, Jubilation," Emma whispered. "Just let me go. I'm so tired." Her eyes drifted closed. "So very tired."

Jubilee growled, her red eyes flashing. Her fangs poked out from between her lips. "You never let us die," she snapped. "Even when it came to killing your own sister, you never let us die." But then she raised her voice in a cry that belied her older years, "WOLVY!"

He turned to look at her. Remy's cards blasted through his opponents, buying the father and daugher team time. Rogue swept down and piled through a string of the Friends of Humanity. Despite the distance between them, Logan knew with one look what Jubilee was contemplating. "Do you think it's gonna be that simple, kid? Remember what you went through."

"I do," she answered, closing her eyes. She truly does. She remembers everything she's been through, all that she's suffered, and all she's learned of everything Emma has suffered. She lost her children, not once but twice, and the second time was because they chose to turn away. Jubilee's forehead touched Emma's, and she opened her thoughts to her, not to scare her or tempt her but to soothe her.

She showed her what she and the other members of Generation X all those years ago should have done. They should have stood before Adrienne, and they should have told her, together as a unit, as the family Sean and Emma and a few members her age as well, had tried to make them into that she was not welcome, and that she could not and would not drive them from Emma. They should have stood together and never allowed her to turn them from their headmistress, a woman who had already suffered so very much and because of that suffering had been willing for so long to do whatever it took to keep children like them from suffering as she herself had.

Jubilee filled Emma's mind with hope with her imagination. She showed her what could have happened, and then she ventured further, letting her share her memory of the one time she had caught Scott crying at Jean's grave -- not because he missed Jean and still ached for her return but rather because he felt guilty for loving Emma so very much. She let her see his love through her own eyes, let her hear the secrets he had shared with her on that cold, Winter day, and as she did so, as Emma finally learned that, despite her fears that Scott would leave her should Jean ever return again, Jubilee pressed closer to her former headmistress... and buried her fangs deep into her neck.

She felt eyes on them. In that moment, she felt her latent telepathy to surge, prompted, undoubtedly, by Emma's vast abilities. She felt Scott's fear, horror, and his eventual trust that Jubilee was saving his wife the only way she could. She felt Beast, Wolvy, and Gambit move around them, forming a protective circle. She heard Kitty's sharp cuss word slip from her mouth but then saw her friend and, in a way, adopted sister roundhouse kick a whole group of guys at once.

One by one, their teammates saw. They saw. They understood. They overcame their fear, overcame their doubt, and accepted that Emma would live. She would live, because Jubilee was turning her. She would live, because despite everything, despite all they had suffered and all their differences, they were still very, very much alike. They were still two mothers, damned and determined to protect children in this world. They were still two women, striving to help those they loved however they could. They were still two X-Men, and they would keep fighting for their beliefs and a world where mutant children like them did not have to suffer the way they had.

And maybe going forward, they wouldn't have to suffer quite so much themselves. Maybe Emma would finally know that she was loved, and despite everything Jubilee had once thought about her, she knew she deserved to be loved. They all did, which was exactly why she had kept Shogo and adopted him as her own. She sat back on her heels, releasing Emma and watching as the Vampirism did its work. They would live.

The End