Rose Coloured Glasses

by Indigo

2:00 A.M.

His breathing went in the span of instants from the deep, measured cadence of sleep, to the sharper, measured cadence of waking breaths.

It had taken years and years, from the moment Charles Xavier had brought him to the School for Gifted Youngsters to become so practiced and well-versed in the understanding of his own body that he had consciously chosen to wear this groove in his circadian rhythm.

It was after most had gone to bed, and before the rowdier ones, like the Cajun, came home. It was Scott's quiet hour. His time to contemplate the world.

It was a difficult thing to get up out of the warm bed. His warm wife lay sleeping beside him, her dreams sending an intangible, comforting radiance shimmering through the corners of his mind.

But he was Scott Summers, and his devotion to the Dream meant that occasionally he deprived himself of thirty minutes snuggling with the love of his life. He could live with that. If the Dream came true, he would never be deprived of another minute, another second, with his beloved Jean.

Myopic, the others called him when they thought he didn't hear. Tunnel-vision. And, if he was brutally honest with himself -- and he always was -- Scott had to admit they had something of a point. But it was a necessity of vision.

Warren flew -- that was the nexus of his existence. He looked like the angel and had been gifted with wings that allowed him to soar where others could only follow in machines... loud, noisy, heavy, polluting machines. He had his money and could throw it any cause that he believed in. As an X-Man, he'd put in his dues, but Scott occasionally suspected it was Bored Rich Boy syndrome that drove the angel to don the X.

Rogue had had something to prove once. Scott was willing to allow her a chance. Second chances were part of that dream. That dream he gave his single vision to. She had proven herself. Repeatedly. No matter how she'd been before, Rogue had earned the right to the X, and she wore it with no less pride than Scott himself.

Scott permitted himself a private smile, a silent chuckle. He knew they thought of him as Xavier's Yes-Man. As Teacher's pet. He had been called worse, when he was merely scrawny Slim Summers. He had endured worse as an orphan, torn from his brother's side.

"Why?" Jubilee had asked him once. "Why is this dream so flamin' important to you?"

He had not corrected her language as she'd expected. She'd been so surprised the bubble gum had popped all over her nose and chin.

"Why?" Scott had repeated, handing her his glasses and donning his visor. "Look through these. What do you see?"

"Red," Jubilee had answered. "Like my own shades."

"Yeah," Scott confirmed. "Red. That's what the public sees when they see the news. Or a talk show. Every time the muties get bad press, the public sees as red as my ruby quartz."

"People are sheep," Jubilee had said with surprising cynicism for one so young.

"Some of them. The rest are open minds that must be taught to hate -- or taught not to. The X-Men have to stand for the greater ideal, no matter how much flak we get from the world. The Dream is important for all the minds that are open and all the minds that will be born -- we have to make the world a place where there's no need for a mind to be open or closed." Scott had plucked a rose from the vase Ororo had left on the table and offered it to Jubilee.

Jubilee, for all her flash-in-the-pan, brash-in-the-mouth attitude, was a clever girl. She had picked up Scott's meaning at once. "You want the Dream to be more than just lip service to peace between races. You want a world it's safe to be a kid in. You want a world it's safe to have kids in."

Scott nodded. "A dream within a dream," he confirmed. "Jean and I want a family of our own. But in a world where our baby could be born with wings or a tail, or glowing purple eyes -- it's not safe. And it's just looking through rose coloured glasses to imagine differently."

Scott had decided anyone as quick-witted as Jubilee might well be able to take his place, Storm's, as the leader of the X-Men when finally age or death forced him from the mantle of duty he wore as Cyclops.

The Cajun was a puzzle box to Scott -- or, he had been, at first. For all his devil-may-care attitude, his shifty ways and his intentionally adversarial charm, Gambit genuinely cared deeply about Ororo. And about Rogue. He even cared deeply about Jean and Logan. While some personal honor prevented him from outwardly saying so, he considered these people kin on some deep level. What would make them happy made him happy. His dream within a dream fit Scott's. And Charles'.

It was almost daylight when Scott looked up -- the actinic glow of false dawn beginning to tinge the sky. His evaluation had been completed. The X-Men who remained in the mansion and wore the X were as committed to the dream as ever -- though none so committed as he.

He heard Jean sigh from the bed, and rose to pad silently across the bedroom to her side.

He removed his own rose coloured glasses, sought the embrace of his wife, and the surcease from his thoughts brought by dreams of the mundane sort.

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