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*…*= thoughts, usually of the last speaker
"...." = speaking
... = In a phone conversation, a pause for the person on the other side of the line to speak.

Jubilee swung her shopping bags happily. Kitty and her had made great time delving through the mall sale and Jean had even convinced Scott to chauffeur them. This was better than Logan because 1) Logan was an incorrigibly a grouch of late. Yesterday, her calming mission had been a disaster on that front and 2) he NEVER carried the shopping bags until a girl was swamped and even then, he’d tell her to just put something back. Jubilee giggled and kicked open her door with her foot before dropping her bags.

“Bobby Backwater snake Drake, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Jubilee yelled in surprise. Bobby was sitting cross-legged on her bed with his shoes on and reading her red folder covered in band stickers.
“Recipe For Romance? The Master Plan? Seriously?” he asked her as if nothing was wrong.
“Ergh!!! You’re the reason the world isn’t safe anymore!” she yelled at him, as she used her foot to carry her multitude of bags inside the doorway and closing it behind her. Scott might be near, helping Kitty and she didn’t want him to come in asking questions. “A girl can’t even leave her door unlocked for a couple of seconds.”
“Oh Jubilee, my jubilation, forget that,” Bobby said in imitation of a southern drawl. “Forget that. What is this?”
“Its my favourite author’s recipe for successful attraction.”

Bobby reviewed the sheets in the folder. “I googled this. You got it from a TV show. The author is a character.”
Jubilee took a deep breathe. “Look Bobby, I didn’t ask for you to B&E into my room but giving me advice on personal documents is a bit much don’t you think?”
Bobby shrugged, “You’d be surprised at the things I do when I’m bored. Devil hands.”
Jubilee rolled her eyes, “You’re not going away are you?”
“Like a bad nightmare, no. The Master Plan, step 1: attraction. Step 2, proximity. Step 3, oh god are you kidding?“ Bobby began reading out loud. “Let them have a taste of each other? Step 4, provide a goal. Step 5, let them get closer if they fall in love. This is beyond idiotic but I’m willing to provide my assistance. Now I notice in one of your notes you want to construct a party of some type here for step 1. I thought they were waaay past that stage.”

Jubilee decided the best thing to do was ignore him. Ignore him and he’ll go away, she told herself. Pulling her new clothes out of their bags ritually, she stopped listening to the boy. Bobby only looked up when she didn’t answer him.

He was slightly taller than her, with gelled shaggy blond hair, deep set blue eyes, and prided himself on being one of the guys in school who was ahead of the trends. And he knew Jubilee, a month younger than him, was smarter than she put on. She enjoyed surprising people who thought she was dumb.
The simple plan was so simple that he was beginning to see the actual brilliance in it. She’d gotten some key team members who could easily remember the plan which was able to change at a minute’s notice. Also if everyone did their part even in small ways, it would be easier to manoeuvre the stubborn pair than manipulate them. It was just the titles of each step that got to him, they were ridiculous.

Moving himself until he was staring uncomfortably closely into her brown eyes, he grinned and asked her again, “Aren’t they past stage one, Herr Lee?”
“Ugh, Drake, tic tac please,” she said as she pretended to pass out. He grimaced and breathed heavily into his palm. “Look, this is super super serious. We’re playing with fire, with the very lives of those who trust us most. We cannot screw it up because some person had the uncontrollable urge to engage in some sort of shenanigan.”
“Hey! You think I’m oblivious to everyone around here? Well, you’re wrong!” Bobby snapped. “ There is no way you can plan a party in this household without me. Not with this family, they’re more ADD than a group of monkeys on ecstasy. You need someone to corral that energy, and that’s me. If each step counts on the one proceeding, you’re little master plan is going to fail without me, Jubilee Lee.”
“Bobby?” she spoke sarcastically slowly, saying his name.
He stood and flung the folder on the bed, the papers scattering over the clothes. Jubilee looked up at him in mild reproach.
“Bobby!” Jubilee screamed in shock.
“It’s gonna suck watching Ororo go off with that Brent jerk, won’t it?” he said as he walked out of the room, the door vibrating with the slam.
“Bite me,” she screamed.
She heard his faint, “Go die!”
Jubilee rolled her eyes. Bobby exaggerated everything, including his one month advance in age. How hard could it be to plan a party? One stupid party. Yeah right.

In the Kitchen:
“Pietro, do you know where we order those awesome cakes from?” Jubilee asked casually. She was carrying a red notebook, a red pen, and was dressed all in white and red. Her hair had fresh new red and pink highlights in it.
“Like the ones for birthdays?” he was perusing one cookbook of a pile in front of him. It was his turn to cook dinner. Generally the X men ate separately from the catered meals of the students at least a couple of times a week. He was deciding between shrimp casserole and shrimp jumbaya. Or shrimp pizzas. There were a lot of bags of shrimp in the freezer. “The ones which the icing designs and towers and are always moist?”
“Yes!! Those,” Jubilee squealed.
“I don’t know, Bobby orders them. Ask him,” Pietro shrugged before returning to his cookbook. Shrimp cocktail? He wondered to himself.
“Oh. I’ll figure it out,” Jubilee said, trying not to let the disappointment reach her voice.

In the danger room:
Jean and Psylocke battled it out, each viciously trying to outdo the other. Jubilee watched them, unperturbed from the viewing booth, far away from the very real blows. When they both paused to catch their breathes, Jubilee pressed the intercom.
“Hey ladies,” she started cheerfully. They both looked up at her with annoyed looks, sweat dripping down their faces and hair, and neither them relaxing their guard. “Just wondering who I’m supposed to ask about renting out one of the conference rooms.”
“Why?” Psylocke asked without looking away from Jean.
“Its for a party.”
“What’s the party for?” Jean panted, her eyes and most of her mind still focused on Psylocke.
“Jean,” Jubilee screeched. “Its just a get together, just because. You know, just because.”
“Ask Bobby,” Jean said before resuming her grappling with Psylocke; the women launching into the act savagely.

Psylocke gained a momentary upper hand and threw Jean to the ground, back first, and leapt on top of her to pin her down. Jubilee watched the two women for a few more seconds before leaving, feeling very much as if she was watching something she shouldn’t be.

At noon, Jubilee took a break for lunch in the garden house. It was quiet but smelly in there, Jubilee thought but she knew she didn’t want to even possible run into Bobby. His name was at everyone’s tongue and she wanted to eat a ham sandwich that wouldn’t tell her to go ask Bobby.
“Hey there,” said the object of her hatred as he sauntered towards her. He’d changed into overalls that were grimy with dirt and sweating from the heat. He had no shirt on and Jubilee told herself irritably not to notice. “How’s the master plan going?”
“Fine,” she lied.
“Oh,” he said, but it didn’t sound like he believed her in the least. “Well then how come everyone keeps telling me to look out for you? Why, are you out to get me?”
“What are you talking about?” she snapped.
“Well, they’re all telling me that they sent you to me to plan some party except the funny thing is, you don’t need my help. Oh no, not from lowly ol’ me,” Bobby continued as if he was talking about how to plant a seed in soil to a first grader at story time. “I’m probably going to mess it up. Even though I plan every, no correction every successful, party that X has ever seen. But naw, I’m probably going to plan some prank like I’ve got uncontrollable prank control disease or something. Yeah, I guess I can see why you wouldn’t want me to plan the most critical stage of your little plan. Except if you can’t even initiate attraction between them then the whole thing is down the drain…”
“You are a complete asshole.”
“Some people like my personality,” he answered simply.
“So will you do it?” she relented.
Bobby shrugged as he walked away.
“I’ll think about it,” he said over his shoulder.
Jubilee’s mouth dropped. She couldn’t believe he’d decided he had better things to do. She had known-known- not to trust that big headed, annoying, condescending- she took a deep breathe, letting it out raggedly.
A minute later his head popped around the corner and he grinned, “Oh grasshopper, you have so much to learn. I’ve already taken leave to organize everything. Now you wanted it for tomorrow night, right?” he asked nonchalantly. Jubilee screamed and threw her box of apple juice at him.
“Some person who has the uncontrollable urge to throw things is going to have to clean that up, you know?” he said as he dodged the flying juice.

In Shaewn’s room:

He really regretted not filling his room up with things now. He was grounded for three weeks and, although he figured this was fair, he was going insane with nothing to do. There were sanctioned areas of the school where he was allowed and if Logan smelled him out of that, he was dead meat.
He wasn’t sure what his Uncle was going to do to Jackie, he had intended to tell him he’d talk to him himself, but Shaewn figured Jackie was a lot more scared of his Uncle than he was of him. If the ass pissed himself scared, the better for him. Maybe it would improve his already tactful manners.

Shaewn had never been grounded before, in fact when he’d returned to his room he was unsure of what to expect. He’d been slapped around enough to learn what not to do, loved often but not enough, never anything or anyone consistent.

*Logan is as consistent as they come. He’s not going anywhere. I can seriously always count on him not being dead. Which is strangely comforting.*

Shaewn was slightly annoyed at how mild his punishment was compared to what he‘d imagined with the idiot pair‘s warning. Instead he got a two hour discussion about the whole situation, about his feelings; he felt like he was back in the counsellor’s chair. Except occasionally Logan reminded him not to lie to him, not angrily but casually, and he cracked bad jokes. He’d liked Ms Munroe’s talk better but Logan was trying as if he got everything out of a book.

“Which I guess he must have,” he muttered. He picked up his knapsack and swung it over his back, leaving his room. He was allowed in the library and he figured he might as well make good use of it. He’d need the computers to start his search for Matt. Not that he had any clue on how to.

*Oh well, no time like now to learn how!*

He wondered how long he should fumble around the highly advanced technology and database resources before he just got McCoy to help him.





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