WARNING!! READ THIS FIRST! Okay, this is the sixth chapter, literally. I had a writer's strike posted up as the fifth chapter, but that is a real chapter called "Believe for Me" now. If for some reason you have read this fic before I made the change and haven't read that chapter, go back now. PLEASE, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

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Stoic by Eternity's Voice

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I opened his eyes. My world was a multitude of red, red, and red. I hardly cared. Nothing, absolutely nothing had blown up.

I walked around the garden, my steps sure for the first time in months. It was a relief to just walk and not worry about tripping or falling. I focused on a rose bush. The blooms were perfect. They were a lovely crimson, but the stems were a blackish color I wasn't sure I could stand. Turning my head this way and that, I saw that most of the garden was covered in that sickly shade. I frowned. I didn't like the way the strange ruby lenses distorted my sense of color.

Despite that, I still didn't want to blink. My eyes had been closed for so long; I wished they could stay open forever. I walked along the paths, picking some of every plant with a bit of red, even pink, in it. I could see the color, truly. It didn't lie to me. I wanted to see like everybody else did, but that would probably never happen. Seeing red as red would probably be the closest I could get.

.

I stayed in the garden for hours. The daffodils were vivid orange and normally blue flowers were a delicate violet. The water at the fountain swayed and eddied with pink tinted water. I would never be able to see it all, but I could try. I had never thought about what could be seen before the accident. But now, every blade of the horridly colored grass was important. I had quite forgotten the professor and Jean, but they had left me alone to have some lesson on the girl's telepathic ability.

Suddenly, I realized that I could see the only two people in my life now, instead of placing some vague picture of them in my imagination. I knew Xavier was in a wheelchair, preferred suits or comfortable sweaters, and had gentle hands. I didn't know what the professor liked for colors. I sincerely hoped it wasn't green.

I wondered about Xavier's hair. Perhaps it was long and in a ponytail or something strange like that. Jean had joked about its length once or twice. 'Jean...what about her? What does she look like?' It had to be beautiful. She deserved to be beautiful.

'Professor?' I thought, summoning up a faint mental picture of having a conversation with the man. It was a sort of cue that we had worked out to let the professor know it was okay to enter my thoughts. Such a signal was important in a house with two mind readers.

*I am in the library, Scott.*

I smiled faintly as I got up. It had been a long standing mystery as to what was written in those walls of books. I wasn't the most avid reader, but curiosity ran me over from time to time. It wasn't likely I would read any of the professor's texts though. They were probably all non-fiction or those books my teachers had called classics. Those were so long and dull, it was no wonder that the authors were all dead. The wonder was that the students forced to read them didn't keel over from boredom themselves.

I laughed as he remembered my five minute attempt to navigate Moby Dick. I had dreamt of wheelbarrows for the next three nights and had never figured out where the garden tool fit into the plot of a sailing story. Not that it mattered anymore that I never finished the monstrous novel. I was in New York, and I was obviously no longer attending the Missouri school that had assigned it for summer reading.

I entered the library. The first thing I saw was my foster father's hairless head. Despite an enormous effort, I still burst out laughing.

Xavier wasn't bothered at all and chuckled a little too. "I suppose it was too good to last. I enjoyed you thinking of me with a full head of hair. Oh well. That's quite a bouquet you have there. Very monochromatic. I assume red is your favorite color?"

I looked down at the collection in my hands. Even without the lenses, it was startlingly red. "Green was my favorite color. I...I just wanted to see them for real."

The professor smiled, understanding. "One day, you'll see all colors, Scott, perfectly. It will just take work and time. Until then, try to be careful with that visor."

"I kind of feel like Gordi from Star Trek."

"Don't think it hasn't crossed my mind," he laughed. "Just enjoy your sight, Scott. Jean was in the front parlor last I noticed."

I turned to leave. "Thank you."

A bur of motion caught my eyes and I turned back towards the professor. It felt good to not be forced to speak to communicate and to see the occasional hand signal.

"Scott," the professor asked after he had gotten the my attention, "I must ask you something. How many more young people living here could you stand?"

I started at the question. There would be more kids? I understood why Jean was there, because of her telepathic powers, but more? After living in an orphanage for years, I loved nothing more than a Small family. I clung to the idea. Other kids would feel like an invasion fleet come to destroy my life. I opened my mouth to flatly refuse him, but I made the mistake of looking in the professor's eyes. There was a tear jerking hope there, like a little boy's in front of the pet shop window where the baby puppies played. I sighed, "A few, but just a few."

"Don't worry, Scott. I don't want more than two children per adult. There will be two older people staying here as well. I hope you won't mind."

I didn't mind adults if it meant the new kids wouldn't take the professor away from me. Jean was going home for the fourth of July anyway. If the new kids had parents, then I still would have the holidays for myself.

"I still get my own room, right?"

"Oh, definitely."

I decided I very much liked the professor's smile.

.

I went off to find Jean. Even though I could see, it was a little hard to find my way through the mansion I had traveled by touch for so long. I would miss turns or walk too far. It was very beautiful and regal though and I didn't mind exploring a little more than I had meant to. Eventually, I stumbled across the kitchen entrance, literally. I forgot the step and tripped up into the room. I was never going to memorize that I had to step up there.

"Jean?"

"I'm here, Scott." Her voice sounded excited. I was excited. I started to walk through into the living room but stopped. I fished around in the cupboards for a vase and put the flowers in it. I went in and set the flowers on the glass table in the center of the room. I looked up and one of those movie moments where the whole world shifts to focus on one thing happened. It focused on Jean. 'Wow.'

We sat and laughed and talked. Our conversation was about stupid things like the films she was going to make me see now that I could, in fact, see. Beautiful words kept revolving in my head and I sincerely hoped her shields had grown strong enough to block it out. A faint smell wafted in and our stomachs growled on cue. As we got up for dinner, I followed behind her. She absently shook her hair behind her shoulders and I blinked.

Jean's hair was red. I was seeing her as she really was, beautiful. It was a wonderful feeling to know that the lenses didn't lie about that.

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Yow, that came out cute. Oh well, that's adolescent puppy love for you. At least he liked her before he could see. Kudos for Scott.