"I know. Of course ya did," Jubilee almost shouted. "And that's not a reason-"

"I swore my heart to seein' her happy. And my life for her ta be safe," he continued quietly, as if she hadn't spoken. "And then, I killed her." A small gesture with the one hand of protracted claws cut off the teenager's protests abruptly. "There ain't much left ta me, now, girl. Ya don't wanna take this last thing from me, do ya?"

Jubilee's heart clenched and an edge of fear crept into her voice when he fell silent. "That's not right, Wolvie. Or fair! I mean, what happened is awful ... worse than awful. But you gotta look at the big picture, at the bunch of folks who still need ya around." She gnawed her lip until she tasted the salty, metallic taste of blood. "A whole buncha folks, Wolvie. Like me," she added in a small voice, gulping back more tears and fighting the bizarre numbness that had begun to spread through her. "Remember me, huh?"

"Yeah, darlin'."

"But?" She held her breath.

"But this ol' canucklehead ain't no good fer ya. You'd be much better off jus' goin' back ta th' mansion and lettin' Chuck teach ya about yerself. Ain't nothin' but a bunch o' trouble followin' me. Never has been."

Paradoxically, Jubilee wanted to hug him close and kick him hard, but her legs refused to lift her to do either. "You're talkin' crazy, Wolvie. You know that's not true!"

He didn't respond and the cold feeling in the pit of her stomach hardened into terrifying certainty. While her thoughts banged around incoherently, asserting that he couldn't, he wouldn't do such a thing, she struggled for a reply - for a reason that he had to be wrong, for a means to stay his hand. "But-but you can't!" she stammered wildly, fingers gripping his arm so hard they cramped. "You can't even die! Your healing factor-"

"Can't cope with everythin'." He finally turned deep, dark eyes to meet hers now. Grey shadows circled them, but despite the haunting pain, they were full of gentleness. "Y'know that, girl."

She groped for words, panic heightening her voice. "You just can't! Mariko would hate you for it! I know she would! And-and so will I! You-you can't abandon me just because they took her! Whatever happened to 'I'll be there for you, darlin'?"

He bowed his head toward the naked sword before him. "The blade's already drawn. It demands action, blood. Ya wouldn't make me dishonor myself more by resheathin' it."

Confusion and fear overwhelmed her. "What're ya talkin' about? Dishonor?" she squeaked. "I'd rather have ya dishonored than-than dead. What a stupid tradition! It's sick! Who the heck cares what that stupid sword 'demands'!"

"It's th' samurai's way, girl. My way. There's no other."

Jubilee struggled for a reply, knowing innately that one existed but unable to drag it into her stunned mind. "Well," she stumbled, "well, if it's blood you've gotta have, then I can give you -" She reached almost blindly for the bare blade.

Logan's hand closed like a vice over her wrist. "Jubilee, the blood debt is mine," he rasped. "The choice is mine. For praise or blame, like the choice to ... murder ... her, this is something I must decide. Something I must do ..." He nodded slightly toward the door behind them. "... alone."

"No!"

Regret etched in the rugged lines of his face, Wolverine extended one hand to tenderly brush her cheek. It was the gesture of an intimate friend, light, tracing over her familiar features, lingering and remembering. She turned away a little, averting her eyes, and snatched her wrist from his grasp, only to feel miserably alone when the cool, callused fingers fell away. His gravelly voice seemed to come from a great distance. "Go to Yukio, now, Jubes. Be strong for her and the team, when they arrive. I didn't mean fer it ta be like this, but know that I love ya, kid. You've been the best o' my life fer a long time."

"I can't believe you're doing this! You! You said you'd be there for me! You said you understood about loss! I can't believe you want me to feel like you do now!" She heard herself screaming at him, desperate, out of control. His quiet voice answered that the pain would pass, parroted something stupid, probably about disgrace and honor and better lives. She didn't hear it as she shouted louder, trying to make him understand in volume what she lacked in words. "It won't go away, you moron! I'm your partner, remember? If I lose you, I lose EVERYTHING that's important to me! AGAIN! And this time it will be my fault. Why can't you see that? Or are you so self-centered that you've lost sight of everybody else!"

Her eyes scanned his face, searching it for some fragment of hope. Nothing met her gaze save that same sad tenderness, the expression of a man who did not wish to hurt her but who accepted the possibility with deep sorrow. Struggling against her heart as it surged in her throat, Jubilee backed away from him in horror and disbelief and flung herself at the door before her knees remembered their numbness and refused to move again.

The door swung closed behind her with a final click. Jubilee's legs gave way beneath her and she slid down its etched surface, tearless, voiceless. No wails, no screams. A blessed darkness hovered at the periphery of her vision and she scrabbled toward it, feeling the world sink slowly into a grey haze.

It could have been hours. It felt like days, or like a dream born out of her dry sobs and nerve-wracked brain. When she heard the soft footsteps beyond her head, nothing registered. When the door creaked and gave beneath her shoulder and cheek, she merely slipped to the floor entirely, curled tight and near insensible. Only when familiar gentle hands seized her arms, lifted her slightly, did she dare look up, her head heavy, the hallway spinning. But even in the chaos of shock, one thing was clear. Logan had emerged, stripped to the waist, blood streaming from a rapidly healing gash over his shoulder, but with the ritual wakizashi sheathed in his hand.

Wolverine gathered her to him, holding her trembling form against his chest. Dimly, she thought she heard her own relieved voice giggling, thought she felt her fist weakly pounding against him. "Hate you ..." she murmured wearily. "I really would ... really ... Don't you dare ... leave me ..."

His voice rolled above her head, like nearby thunder to her exhausted mind. "I deserve that, darlin'. You're right." The skin of his chest was icy and smelled of candles and incense and the bitter tang of blood, foreign and yet more welcome than anything she could ever remember. He muttered against her hair, breath warm on her forehead. "C'mon, darlin', let's get you ta bed. I'm gonna need ya, girl, if I'm ta repay Matsuo for what he's done. An' make amends fer my own foolishness."

Jubilee smiled softly, nestling her head against him. "No more killing?"

"No more killin'," he agreed. "Not me. Not while I've got family ta protect. I owe that punk more than my own death." In her relief, even his grim promise sounded warm and familiar. "What I owe 'im isn't quick, an' it isn't pretty. Blood remembers, I heard an old sensei say once. These blades o' mine will have blood. An' more."

"A world o' hurt?" She relaxed in his arms as he carried her towards her room. /Family, he said. Me./

A world o' hurt, darlin'." He growled quietly and the reverberations tickled her ear. "Fer us all."

Behind them on the brilliantly carpeted floor, a dropped sword lay abandoned in the shadow of the doorway, safe in its protective sheath.