Disclaimer: completely useless. Come on, if Marvel wanted to come after me, a disclaimer would do me as much good a toilet paper to stop a grease fire. But I'm not making money off of this, so I hope that mitigates things.
Jubilee sat in the remains of her room, holding her beat-up cowboy hat, and cried.
How could they?
'At least they didn't take it.' A small corner of her mind was relieved. She didn't think she could bear seeing Logan's hat on the head of the culprit. Worse yet would be not seeing Logan's hat, knowing that somebody had it, or had torn it up.
It was charred in three places on the brim. One place was burned nearly to the bowl of the hat, and it was soaked from when the stupid sprinkler system finally kicked in.
What utterly broke Jubilee's heart, despite the other damage, was that it no longer smelled like Logan.
It used to be that she could cover her face with the hat and smell him. She could pick up the scent of his aftershave, and that gel that he used to make his hair stand up like in that certain way.
The smell was comforting. It was like he was there with her, ready to give her one of those hugs that would make the world right.
She needed that substitute more than she admitted. She needed it when she missed her real parents, when she failed one of Frosty's tests, or got in a fight with M. She needed something to hold onto when she saw M and Everett kissing.
Now the hat just smelled like smoke. It smelled like her room. It reminded her that someone broke in and torched her space. It made her remember that she was a victim.
Paige and Ange understood best. They were with her when she gave that impassioned speech about Wolvie to get the hat back, but they still didn't know the half of it.
The Hayseed just hugged her, and said that she could bunk with her.
Angelo just went looking for the guys who did this. Maybe it was a street thing. She appreciated it, but it still wouldn't bring her stuff back.
Someone cleared his throat in the entrance of her room. It was Mr. Cassedy.
"Perhaps you'd like to get cleaned up," he suggested. "We could take that hat o' yours into town and get it cleaned also." His Irish Brogue was as thick as soup, a sign that he was concerned.
Jubilee looked down. She was covered in the soot from the floor. It stuck to her arms, except where her tears had washed it off. She didn't even want to think of what her face looked like.
She nodded and let Mr. Cassedy help her up. It was nice that someone cared, but it wasn't the same. She didn't want a clean, sterile smelling hat. She wanted Wolvie.
But Jubilee never got what she wanted, so she took what she got.