By Weirdness Magnet

Written sometime in 2000

Disclaimers: They aren’t mine.  I just play with them a lot.

Spoilers: None

Summary: Jubilee gets by with a little help from her friends.  (Not like that.  Get your mind out of the gutter).

Continuity: None, really.  Sometime when Generation X was still a comic book.

Rating: G

**

"Damn."

Jubilee scowled at her monitor. This shouldn't be that hard, she groused to herself. It was just one stupid exit essay for Frosty. As if she didn't have enough to stress over about her upcoming graduation, now Frost plopped an essay on her, the topic of which was supposed to be “My Goals and Ambitions In Regards to Xavier's Dream.”

"I want you to reflect on what you've learned here over the last few years, and what you hope to accomplish as you leave the Academy," Emma had instructed.

"I'm gonna be an X-Man, and fight for truth, justice, and all that stuff," Jubilee had replied. "Like, that's what we all plan to do when we leave here. You know that."

Emma had sighed. Then she had ordered her to go write the paper. As Jubilee left, she saw the headmistress press her fingertips to her forehead as if she felt a headache coming on.

"Three more weeks," she heard the woman mutter. Jubilee couldn't help but smile; they had been grating on each other's nerves for close to four years, and the stress was getting to them both now that the end was so near. (Not that Jubilee was intentionally exacerbating the situation occasionally. No, not at all.) Just three more weeks and Jubilee would be on her way the Mansion, Wolvie, and her new place among the X-men.

That is, of course, if she could finish this stupid paper. As slack as the assignment sounded, Frost would never let her slide by. Emma Frost expected Jubilee to actually consider the topic carefully, rather than write the slapdash garbage that most students at regular schools get away with. She demanded effort and excellence and usually got it from her students. Jubilee only hoped her teacher would appreciate all her effort as the teenager pounded her head on the keyboard in frustration.

Paige stuck her head in and found Jubilee angrily deleting the typing her forehead so efficiently produced. "How's it going?"

Jubilee glared at her.

"Okay, wrong question." She peered over her shoulder at the paragraphs she'd written so far. "Can I help?"

"No."

"Please?"

"No. It's not done yet."

"I can proofread."

"Your spelling is worse than mine."

"Read it to me and I'll help you with your ideas. It sometimes helps to talk it out."

"Go away. It's not done yet and I hate it when you look at what I'm writing."

"Me? Why?"

"I don't know. It's just...embarrassing. Like you're going to judge what I've written and it's so incomplete and unpolished and you're just going to make fun of it."

"You act like I don't understand the writing process at all," she clutched at her chest and gave a mock-pout. "I'm hurt."

"Fine. Your grasp of the writing process amazes all those around you. You still can't read it."

"Pretty please?"

"No, already!" she growled, but Paige was already scanning the screen eagerly.

"Is 'hallowed' supposed to be spelled with a pound sign in the middle?"

"I'll fix that."

"I entered the hall#owed halls of this school four years ago on a mission: to gain the knowledge and training I would need to make Xavier's dream of peace between mutants and humans a reality in the 21st century," Paige read. "Wow, that was ambitious of you, wasn't it?"

"Shut up."

"Hola," Angelo said, poking his head in the door. "You almost done, Jubecita?"

"No," Jubilee and Paige said together, which earned Paige a glare from her Asian roommate.

Angelo stood behind Jubilee's chair and peered at the screen. "You spelled 'hallowed' with a pound sign in the middle."

"The pound sign is silent," Jubilee muttered. "Now will you both go away?"

Monet's face appeared around the half-closed door. "What's going on?"

"Jubilee's paper. She's having some trouble with it," drawled Paige.

"I am not having trouble," she pouted. "It just needs polishing."

"Polish, sure," Angelo squinted at the second paragraph. "Then wax, buff, repeat." Jubilee swatted a flap of skin dangling from his arm.

"It's not that bad," Paige said helpfully. "Just move the second sentence here--"

"And change this word to 'stronger'," added Angelo. "Or did you actually mean to say 'stranger'?"

"Where?" Monet wedged herself in to get a better look at the screen, completely blocking Jubilee's view.

"Second paragraph, first sentence: 'Organized anti-mutant groups have gotten stranger over the last decade,' " he read.

"I don't know. Could go either way," Monet smiled.

"Definitely 'stronger'." Paige typed the correction in.

*What's going on?* Jono's psionic voice called. *Did I forget the team meeting?*

"We don't have team meetings," Monet reminded him.

*Good. Being a superhero-in-training cramps my schedule enough without the fuss of team meetings.*

"We're offering our assistance with Jubilee's essay," Monet informed him. "I assure you, it needs our input. Desperately."

"It is not that bad! If you people would just leave me alone I might get it done before graduation!" Jubilee wailed.

"But if you moved this line up here, it would really drive the point home," Angelo advised.

"Yeah, but if you left it here and moved this sentence to the second paragraph," Paige's finger brushed past Jubilee's nose and pointed at the screen, "the effect would be a lot more meaningful, in terms of the whole paper."

Their voices became a jumble as they tried to think of ways to aid their fellow student, who was squished in the crowd around her computer and thinking of ways to cause them all horrible searing pain.

"What if we--"

"Move that one down to the bottom."

"Put that phrase here--"

*Are you sure that's how you spell 'annihilate'?*

"Not there! Down there!"

"Are you nuts? That totally ruins the point of the third paragraph!"

"Does not!"

"Does too!"

"Does not!"

"What is going on in here?"

The students turned to see Emma Frost standing in the doorway. Her expression was cold and stern and typically gave anyone who looked upon it the feeling that they'd just been caught at something completely wrong and they were about to get called on it. "I could hear you all the way down the hall. What, pray tell, are you all doing?"

A moment of sheepish silence passed.

Emma stood with her hands on her hips and put on her best Headmistress Scowl. "Jubilee's got a lot of work to do before she graduates, and I don't like you distracting her. If I haven't given you enough homework to do, I know of some bathrooms that could use a good scrubbing. With toothbrushes. Specifically your own." The group shuffled their feet and traded guilty looks. A long pause passed while Emma's scowl deepened.

"They were helping, Ms. Frost."

All eyes slowly turned to Jubilee. Emma glanced at the semi-incredulous faces looking at her. "Really, now."

"Yes ma'am. I'm having trouble with my exit essay, and they were helping me... retool it. A bit." She looked at her schoolmistress with all the sincerity she could muster.

"I see." She surveyed the group thoughtfully, then waited just long enough for them to squirm before speaking. "Since Jubilee claims you were helping her, I'll let this go. But if I find you interfering with her studies, I'll make certain all your free time is put to constructive use. Understood?"

Downcast heads nodded complacently.

"Good. Now out." The four students filed out of the room, knowing better than to look anything but guilty. Emma closed the door behind them, leaving Jubilee finally alone with her paper.

She turned back to the screen and gave what used to be known as her paper a read. Her displeasure at being shoved aside lessened as she read the changes her classmates had made. She scrolled down further. Yep, it was all the text she'd originally written, but moved around a little (or a lot) to make better use of it. In her original version some ideas were lost in the jumble of other thoughts, but now they were neatly arranged to make the best impact upon those who read them.

Jubilee read through it twice and gave up. There wasn't anything to fix; even her worst spelling errors had been repaired (thank you, Jono!). It was done. At first glance it appeared to be a completely different paper, but it was still hers. It was just a better version of hers. And wasn't that what this school was all about: to take what was in a person and make the best use of it?

"Whoa. Aren't we waxing philosophical," she muttered. She added her name to the header. It was a great paper, she thought. The best she'd ever written, even though it was sort of a group effort. Frost would barely believe it was from the same Jubilee she started teaching to those many years ago.

An evil thought came to her mind and she gleefully scrolled down the page. She tapped a single key and clicked "save.” Now Frosty would know it was hers.

Sean Cassidy walked in to Emma Frost's study. Emma was leaning back in her large leather office chair thoughtfully scrutinizing a paper. "Did you get her off all right?" she asked without looking up.

Sean nodded. "Our latest graduate is on her way to Westchester as we speak. I don't think Angelo is taking it well--his skin was droopier than usual."

"We'll all miss her, but it's not like they're never going to see her again."

"But it won't be the same," Sean said solemnly.

Emma sighed a little wistfully. "No. It won't."

Sean jerked his head to the page in her grasp. "Jubilee's essay?"

"Yes. I must say, it's her best work yet. She really put some effort into it, and it's quite remarkable. Had she been more studiously inclined she might have been quite a scholar."

Sean flipped through the pages. "Isn't this the one the others helped her with?" Emma nodded, to which he asked, "Are you sure she wrote the whole thing?"

"The ideas are obviously hers; her style is distinct, as is her choice of words. It looks like they merely made changes to make the most of them." Emma relaxed into the chair as Sean scanned the paper.

"Xavier's dream isn't only about mutants and non-mutants living in peace, but also about the freedom for each of us to become the best versions of ourselves and to use our unique abilities to benefit all. I know that I have only started to become who I know I can be, and my hope is that who I become will be someone Charles Xavier would be proud of." Sean read.

"If that doesn't sound like the biggest load of--," he started.

"Sean," Emma warned.

"--I've ever read," he finished. He looked at Emma, whose eyes were a little shinier than usual.

"Well, it does," he insisted.

"Yes," she said quietly. "But does that make it any less true?"

He looked quizzically at her. "Not like you to suddenly go soft on the students."

She shook her head. "Perhaps her expression of the idea is a bit trite, but she has genuinely reflected upon it. She is of the generation where philosophy is what fits nicely onto a bumper sticker. The dream itself isn't so complex; why should the expression of it be so? As an X-Man, Jubilee will spend the rest of her life having that philosophy tested--better it be something easy to remember for when times are hard."

"You're proud of her, aren't you," he said quietly. It was a statement, not a question.

"Of course I am. I'm proud of all the students here," she said firmly, regaining her composure. Sean cast a sidelong glance at her as she busily shuffled papers around her desk. He swallowed a smile and returned to the paper.

"Why is there a pound sign in the middle of 'hallowed'?" he asked.

"I've learned not to ask." She closed her eyes wearily, but smiled. "But definitely her best work yet."

~end