I Hope You Had the Time of Your Life
Jubilee flopped into bed at the end of the night with her dress still on, the silver heels dangling from her fingers falling to the floor with a soft thnk. Katya startled up and onto the bed to curl up next to her mama away from the scary noise, and Jubilee lifted one arm to give the little cat a heavy-handed pat on the head.Â
If you'd asked her if she cried at Scott and Jean's ceremony, she'd have lied through her teeth with an enthusiastic 'no'. There's been lots of excited gasping at how pretty everything was, the flowers, the ceremony, Jean. Especially Jean. Her big sister, or as close as she'd ever get to one, all decked out and happier than Jubes could remember seeing her in much, much too long. She had indeed teared up as soon as she caught sight of wetness sparkling at the corner of Storm's eyes, and then again when the happy couple kissed. Never enough for actual waterworks to start, mind you, she wasn't that big of a sap, and it wasn't like she'd never seen the lovebirds sweetly swap spit before. But she couldn't think of any two people who deserved happiness together more than Scott and Jean. And now hopefully...they were one step closer to that.
The Professor and Storm and the Doc had said a bunch of lovely things during the toast, and Jubes had fought harder than she could remember not to clink her glass and demand that the happy couple smooch. A lot. But no matter. Once they got video footage of the wedding and reception, she was making a montage of all the times the pair had planted one on each other over the course of the day. Set to Celine Dion. And putting it on Tumblr. For all the world to see.Â
Jubilee would have also lied if asked if watching Jean dance with her father made her think of what her own wedding would be like. Oh hayl nah, she was way too young to think about that kind of junk, she wasn't nearly that sappy, there was no one she could ever imagine marrying (unless the guy was Matthew Lewis; she'd have made sooo many exceptions for grown-up Neville Longbottom). But yeah, she'd kind of wondered whether her dad would be happy for her, whether he'd like the guy she'd ended up picking, whether he'd cry like her mom totally would. Jubes couldn't imagine dad crying, he wasn't emotional like that, but she could see his grin clear as day in her head.Â
The rest of the reception was fantasmically excellent, as she'd expected. Jean looked gorgeous, Scott was grinning more dreamily than a stoner in Disneyworld, Rachel looked pretty as a princess in her dress, all her girlfriends looked beautiful and the guys dapper as all hell in their suits. Even hayseed Sammy cleaned up nice when he put his mind to it. Jubes loved her own dress, the pink one-sleeved sequin number she'd bought in London, even if her escort still hadn't warmed to it. Not that Jono's opinion mattered more than a molehill or anything. Nope. She hadn't been able to coerce him into dancing with her, but she'd far from expected him to, anyway. And Tabby, Amara, and the rest of the girls--and even Icecube and Jamie, when they put their minds to being goofs with her--had more than filled Jubilee's dance card for the day. She'd been supremely miffed that Wolverine had been conspicuously absent  throughout the whole affair, and not simply because she'd wanted to try and needle him into dancing with her, too. But when she figured the guy'd been like a pseudo-dad to Scott, too, the least he coulda done was show his face to congratulate the kid on getting married. She'd be sure to give Wolvie a piece of her mind for that later, when she next saw him. Whenever that might be.
She'd even managed to snag a dance with Jean somewhere over the course of the afternoon, the two girls goofily slow-dancing to an upbeat song, with Jubes leading and pretending to be the man. The song ended with a hug so tight Jean'd had to pry Jubilee from her waist, the two giddy as little kids playing dress-up for a little while. She was so happy for Jean she could've combusted with it, and Jubes told her so with a hip-bump that sent the redhead back towards her new husband. She'd made sure to elbow Scott in the ribs a couple of times and make some innocently suggestive remarks about how gorgeous his new wife was, and earned herself a punch in the arm for her troubles. But Scott'd laughed, and her job there was done. It was nice to see him happy for a change. Very few people had shouldered as much as Scott had in recent weeks, and if there was anyone in the world who deserved a slice of unadulterated joy, it was Scott Summers.
In hindsight it was kind of weird, having a whole day when she couldn't remember even once looking over her shoulder. Everything else they'd been worried about, all the crap and the fear and violence, was a million miles away. And she thanked whatever power-that-was that would listen for letting at least this one single day go right. Â