DISCLAIMER: Generation X and all related characters belong to Marvel and are being used without permission. This fic was written for entertainment purposes only; no money is being made from this story, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Jubilee heard the creaking of door hinges and blinked at the crack of light that slowly emerged from the hallway.

"You’re home late," she greeted her roommate.

Paige Guthrie turned around, startled. "Oh. I guess, yeah." She threw her keys on the nightstand by her bed. "Sorry I woke you up," she said as she leaned over and turned on the bedside lamp.

Jubilee held her arm in front of her face, shielding herself from the light until her eyes adjusted. "'Salright," she slurred with more effort than was necessary. There was no way she’d let Paige know that she had been waiting up for her. Jubilee had a reputation to protect. Besides, if Paige thought she had woken her up, she could lay a much better guilt trip on her.

"Were ya talkin' with Tristan again?" Jubilee asked as she sat up in her bed.

Paige smiled and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "Uh-huh. I guess I didn’t realize how long I was over there. He was tellin’ me all about this great summer house his family has in ..."

Jubilee yawned, already bored by the conversation. Paige had been dating the wealthy little snot for two months, and by now she was really sick of hearing about Tristan. And about his family. And about his money. Especially his money. Unfortunately, Paige seemed to be oblivious to the fact that her never-ending ode to her boyfriend was nothing less than nauseating to her teammates.

"Uh, Paige?" Jubilee decided to jump into the conversation when her friend stopped to take a breath. "You do remember that we have that history mid-term tomorrow, right?"

"Since when do you care about mid-terms?" Paige asked as she playfully tossed a pillow at her roommate.

"Since never," Jubilee scowled, catching the pillow. "But I thought you did."

Paige slumped onto her bed. She picked her neglected history text off the floor and flipped through a few dozen pages. "I'm not that worried about it," she said as she unceremoniously dropped the book on the floor. The blonde girl looked up and met Jubilee’s disapproving gaze. "I'll skim through it tomorrow before class, okay? It's not like I'm gonna fail or anything." Jubilee, for once, seemed hesitant to speak. "What?"

Jubilee just shook her head in disbelief. "What's going on with you, Paige?"

The older girl furrowed her brow in response, unsure of what to make of the question. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, why are ya suddenly blowing off mid-terms? Why are ya stayin' out half the night with some guy ya barely know?"

"He’s not 'some guy.' He's Tristan. And I just told you I’d study tomorrow." She grabbed her pajamas off the edge of the bed. "Why do you care about my grades, anyway?" she asked as she changed.

"Because I think that one of us should," Jubilee retorted.

Paige deliberately shoved her textbook out of the way with her foot. "Look, Jubilee," she said with more restraint than she thought possible. "You are not my mother. I am seventeen years old, and if I want to stay out late with my boyfriend, that's my business. Not yours."

"Oh yeah? Well, it *is* my business when I have to sit here day after day and watch you turn into someone I don’t even know. You’re, like, a totally different person."

"A totally different person?" Paige was losing whatever small amount of patience she had left. This wasn't the first time Jubilee had complained about her relationship with Tristan, and she was getting tired of defending herself again and again. "Why? Because I have a life? Because my entire existence doesn’t revolve around books and studyin' anymore?" She pulled the covers down on her bed and punched the remaining pillow to fluff it up. "Or maybe it's because for the first time in my life I'm doing what I want and not trying to please everybody else?" She stood up straight and grabbed hold of the small chain she wore around her neck.

She noticed Jubilee staring at her as she struggled with the clasp on her necklace. "What?" She threw up her hands in frustration. "What is your problem?"

"This is my problem," Jubilee said, motioning toward Paige. "You never used to act this way, Paige. It's like in the past couple of months you did a total one-eighty."

"Yeah, well, what can I tell you? People change." Paige got the clasp open and dropped the delicate chain on her nightstand.

"Tell me about it," Jubilee said sarcastically. "Ya know, used to be this really nice, smart, happy person. Have you looked at yourself lately? I mean really looked? Because you're not Paige Guthrie anymore -- not the one I know, anyway. You’re just some airhead bimbo who doesn’t care about anything or anyone else and who doesn't do anything except drool over her snooty rich boyfriend! I’m startin' ta think that you’re really a Skrull or somethin'."

Paige whipped around and glared at her roommate. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

Jubilee grabbed the pillow and held it in front of her protectively. "See? Right there. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Everyone knows that Paige Guthrie doesn't act like this."

The older girl rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated sigh.

"Of course not," she said, condescension dripping from her words. "Paige Guthrie doesn't cuss. Paige Guthrie would never do anything like that!" She began pacing across the room. "And she doesn't drink, and she doesn't smoke, and she doesn't talk back to her elders ..." She counted off the offenses on her fingers. "And she doesn't neglect her schoolwork and she doesn’t have boyfriends that people don’t approve of ..."

"Paige, I just --"

"Hmm ... did I leave anything out?" She waved her hand through the air dramatically. "It doesn’t matter. Ah'm sure you'll tell me whenever I start doin' somethin' that Paige Guthrie wouldn't do."

"Stop it!" Jubilee yelled. "God, why are you being such a bitch?"

"Because Ah'm sick of you and everyone else 'round here telling me how Ah should live mah life!"

Jubilee hauled herself up off of her bed and walked over to Paige.

"Hey, I never told you how to live your life." Jubilee’s voice was strained as she faced off with her roommate.

"No, you just tell me what Ah can do and what Ah can’t! Just like everyone else does!" She glared at the younger girl for a moment, then turned around, squatted next to her bed and started rummaging through a pile of papers in front of her dresser.

She paused briefly and raked her fingers through her short hair. "You're right, you know," she laughed bitterly. "Ah'm not the same old 'Paige Guthrie' anymore. And you know what? Ah'm glad. Because she was a sickening little goody two-shoes who never did anything she wanted to do. She was always too busy trying to live up to everyone else’s expectations." Paige sighed. "Look at where that got her. Nowhere." She sat back and thought for a moment, then reached under a small pile of dirty clothes behind her.

"What are you doing?"

Paige grabbed a tube of toothpaste from underneath the pile, then stood up and snatched her toothbrush from the top of her dresser. "Ah'm going to go brush mah teeth," she answered in a clipped voice, not bothering to conceal her accent. "Unless, of course, 'Paige Guthrie' doesn't do things like that?"

Jubilee stood in stunned silence as Paige yanked their door open and stalked into the hallway. She grabbed the pillow she had been holding and aimed it at the door, causing it to click shut.

The young girl's eyes brimmed with tears as she fell back into her bed and looked toward the window, turning her back on Paige's side of the room.

There was no way she’d let Paige know that she'd been crying. She had a reputation to protect.

Paige tossed her toothbrush and toothpaste on the narrow shelf above the sinks in the girls' bathroom. She leaned heavily over the last sink as she replayed the confrontation with Jubilee in her mind.

"Who does she think she is, telling me how I'm supposed to act?" she thought, furious that the younger girl was treating her like a child. She turned on the cold water faucet and splashed her face. Reaching up to her shoulder, she realized that in her anger she had forgotten to bring a towel with her. "Figures," Paige grumbled, and wiped her face on her sleeve.

As she grabbed her items from the shelf, she caught a glimpse of her reflection in the mirror over the sink. Her face was an angry red, her short, blonde hair was flying out in a hundred different directions and she was dripping water from her failed attempt to cool off. Paige looked into her own eyes and saw the rage that she felt inside of her.

She hurriedly took the cap of the toothpaste and squeezed some onto her brush, not looking as she placed the tube back on the shelf. She focussed her attention on the faucet, on the drain, on the tile ... anything other than the mirror. She wanted to avoid seeing that look on her face again.

Jubilee was right. This wasn't someone that she knew, or even someone that she wanted to be like. For the first time she saw this stranger that her friend had described, and she didn't like her. Not one bit.

Tears welled up in her eyes as she thought about the things she had said. "Why did I blow up at her like that?" she wondered as she rinsed her mouth and collected her items. "She didn't do anything wrong. She was just worried about me."

Paige pushed open the door and walked back into the hallway. She hadn't meant for the conversation to get so out of control, but the truth was, Jubilee had hit a nerve with her comments. Lately everyone from Sean and Emma to Leech and Artie had told her that she was acting strangely. Why couldn't they just understand that she was tired of being little miss goody two-shoes all the time?

For as long as she could remember, Paige had always been known as the good little girl. At home, at school, at church ... it didn't really matter where she was, because everyone in her small Kentucky town seemed to regard her as a sweet little angel.

She had played into it, too, even though she had done it mostly to keep up appearances. She would stay at home to help her mother take care of her brothers and sisters when she would rather be with out her friends because it made her mother so happy. At school, she quickly became the teachers' pet because she always studied so much and tried so hard to get their approval.

The problem was that, at some point, what had once been a means of getting attention had become a way of life. That was the point at which she had decided that she would rather go along with other people's expectations than risk being crushed by their disapproval. She had never realized how exhausting it would be to live for someone else.

Now, finally, she had found someone who accepted her even though she had stopped being miss goody two-shoes. For the first time in her life Paige felt free to live for herself, and she vowed that no one was going to make her go back to being who she had been.

She just wished that she hadn't taken out all of her frustrations on her young teammate.

Paige paused before the door of the room she shared with Jubilee. The younger girl probably hated her after listening to her emotional accusations. She turned the knob slowly, pushing the door open just far enough for her to stick her head inside. "Jubilee?"

No answer. Paige entered the room and found her pillow wedged underneath the door. She looked over to Jubilee's side of the room. Paige was unable to tell in the faint light if her friend was brooding or sleeping because the young girl had literally turned her back on her. She closed the door gently.

"I don't blame you one bit," Paige thought with a mixture of bitterness and self-pity as she glanced over toward the girl. "I don't want to look at me right now, either."

Knowing that Jubilee would probably be too upset to sleep, she walked softly toward the younger girl's bed. "Jubes?" A few seconds passed.

"Go away," a muffled voice ordered from under the covers.

"No. I'm not leaving until you let me talk."

"Fine. Talk."

Paige sighed. "No reason why Jubilee should make this easy on me," she thought.

Paige cleared her throat. "I'm sorry for blowing up at you like that," she said in a quiet voice. "I know that you were worried about me, and that you were only trying to help. It's ... it's just that everyone's been giving me such a hard time lately about Tristan, and ... that was no reason to take it out on you." The big lump under the blankets moved a bit. "Do you think you can forgive me?"

Jubilee pushed back her blankets and sat up. Her eyes were red-rimmed from crying, and she wore a sullen expression. "You forgot the part where you’re supposed ta say 'I'm sorry for hurting Jubilee's feelings and for running out in the middle of an argument.'"

Paige nodded contritely. "I am. I acted like a total bitch, and you didn’t deserve what I said. I'm sorry."

Jubilee sniffed. "And, 'I'm sorry that I stayed out most of the night instead of studying for my history mid-term.'"

"Mm-hmm. I think I'll be even sorrier about that one tomorrow." Paige winced at the thought of going into the test unprepared.

"And, 'I'm sorry for talking about myself in the third person.'"

The older girl fought back a laugh. "Okay, okay. I'm sorry for that, too. But I guess that’s bound to happen eventually when we spend so much time around Leech." Relief flooded Paige's face; she could tell from the tone of her roommate's voice that she had been forgiven.

Jubilee paused as she tried to think of more apologies, and a slight smile crept onto her face. "Aaaand, you have to say 'I'm sorry for ever going out with Rat Boy and for making Jubilee think I'm a Skrull, and I promise to go back to studying all the time and to stop wearing clothes that make me look like an MTV reject.'"

Paige shook her head sadly. "I'm not going back to the way I was, Jubes," she told the girl. "I like Tristan. And I like having something to do other than studying. I know I was kind of extreme, and I could've done things a lot differently ... but I really am happier this way. Okay?" She saw that her friend wasn't convinced.

"Look, just because I'm not the same person I always was doesn't mean that I'm bad, okay?" Paige explained. "I didn't like studying all the time and being the good girl, and it's not fair to expect me to give up what I want just so I can fit back into some other role. I wouldn't do that to you, and you shouldn't do that to me, either."

Jubilee appeared to be satisfied with her answer. She nodded and chewed her bottom lip as she considered what Paige had said. "What about the clothes?"

"Oh, like you’ve really got room to talk." Paige smirked and walked back to her own bed.

Jubilee’s jaw dropped in surprise as Paige got into bed and pulled up her blankets. "Oh, puh-leeze," she exaggerated. "At least I didn’t buy a hideous polka-dot dress for the dance."

Paige reached over and clicked off her lamp, feeling as if a giant weight had been lifted from her shoulders. "Two words, Jubes: yellow trenchcoat." She flopped down on the mattress. "God, that thing always made me want to vomit."

"Speaking of puke," Jubilee said, "you really make me sick the way you go on and on about Tristan like that."

For the first time that night, Paige smiled. "Why else did you think I would do it?"