A mouse darted across the hallway. Charles wheeled after it and, looking behind the bookcase where it had dashed, gave an exaggerated sigh. Two boxes of crackers and half a dozen apples.

Scott! he called mentally.

"What?" Scott's vocal response could barely be heard as he was several rooms away.

Answer with your thoughts, said Charles. It's rude to shout.

Scott trotted down the hall and appeared in the doorway. "Fine, no shouting," he said, having conveniently ignored the request to communicate mentally.

Charles pointed to the food on the floor, staring at Scott with disapproval. "There is plenty of food," he said. "You have money for food. You have free range of the kitchen. Stop doing this."

"Yessir."

Charles didn't have to be a telepath to know the boy had no intention of complying.

Before meeting Charles Xavier, Scott Summers only had one source of information about rich people: the movie star and his wife from Gilligan's Island. It wasn't like he'd watched the show a lot, but the kids in the orphanage had liked the reruns, so he'd caught an episode from time to time.

The key information Gilligan's Island taught Scott about the wealthy was that they owned a lot of clothes and were very concerned with their hair. He'd even remarked on it, when he was ten and trying to read a book while the other kids watched TV: "I just think they really overpacked for a three-hour-tour."

The professor didn't fret about hair since he was bald, but he did seem to own a lot of clothes, nice ones that fit him well and made him look distinguished.

Since coming to live at the Xavier estate, though, Scott had noticed quite a few other differences between the rich way of doing things and the normal way.

There was a big difference in what the professor would call 'culture'. Normal people went to movies; rich people went to plays. (The professor took Scott to one, something abstract about a woman who was having an affair – Scott couldn't follow the plot.) Normal people watched TV or got high to relax; rich people had hobbies. (The professor's hobby was chess. He played in a club on Wednesdays.) Normal people read cheap paperbacks; rich people read literature. (The professor handed him a copy of Othello and encouraged him to give it a try, but Scott found it impenetrable.)

There was also a difference in money, not just in how much, but in what it was and how it was handled. In Scott's experience, you either had money or you didn't, but either way, it just sort of sat there and existed. But to rich people, having money took effort. The professor spent several hours each week on what he called, 'the business of the estate,' which had something to do with investments and banking and taxation.

There was a final difference, although Scott was not completely sure it was due to wealth. It was a sort of confidence – no, not confidence exactly, because Scott had known many confident poor people – but almost an obliviousness, a sense that things were fine and if by some chance they weren't now, they would be soon. For example, the professor had seemed confused when Scott said he couldn't remember the last time he went to the dentist. He had repeated the question, as though Scott were being deliberately obtuse. He was genuinely surprised that Scott didn't know his own suit measurements. He took in orphans who could very easily rob him blind – well, maybe…that depended on how honest Xavier was in his promise to stay out of Scott's head.

Charles Xavier was Scott, in the dream. Scott claimed he never remembered his dreams, even though he woke trembling and sweating, sometimes with a yelp or a whimper. He often lingered between sleep and wakefulness, trying to claw his way out of a dream that he couldn't identify, but dreaded resuming nonetheless. Charles' curiosity had led him to rationalize a small intrusion, to convince himself that it was for Scott's own good.

Dream-Scott was a good deal smaller. A child, a young child. He had a terrible headache and he could not see. There were tight bandages over his eyes. He was only partially awake, but he realized that his hands were restrained – not cruelly, with handcuffs, but with soft wristbands. If he focused on the sensations along his skin, he could feel the soreness of an IV, the stickiness of monitor leads, the heaviness of a feeding tube. He wanted to scratch at and push away the things attached to his chest and face and arms – probably why he had the wrist restraints.

There were hands on his genitals, lukewarm and smooth. The smoothness was rubber gloves. This was not right. He knew that. He had learned about good touch and bad touch and private parts and no one was allowed to touch his private parts. The hands – the people the hands belonged to – were talking, but he couldn't understand their words. They sounded stretched out and smashed together and loud and quiet. All he knew was that someone was holding his penis and he didn't like it. He knew what he was supposed to do. He was supposed to say 'no' and tell his mom and dad. He cried out for his parents, but his voice sounded soft and strange, even to himself, and they didn't answer.

There was something cold and hard at the tip of his penis. And then, and then, a sensation he couldn't describe, one he had no point of reference for. His penis felt stretched on the inside as the cold thing entered him. It hurt and it felt wrong. He could feel his bladder empty and he feared he wet the bed.

At that moment, Charles realized what Scott was dreaming about: they had catheterized him while he was hospitalized after the crash. Probably many times, but this particular instance must have stuck in his head because he was conscious enough to register it, but not clear and mature enough to understand the necessity of the procedure. This wasn't abuse, just an unfortunate reality. He could understand how Scott could still be both frightened of the memory, and ashamed of his fear, knowing now that the hands which had assaulted him belonged to responsible nurses, not heartless pedophiles.

It was strange, Charles realized, that he had taken so long to recognize the insertion of a urinary catheter when he self-catheterized multiple times per day. Of course, Charles had no idea what a catheter felt like, and the young Scott had no idea what it looked like.

Charles exited the dream gently, on psychic tiptoes so as not to disturb his sleeping ward.

"Why?" asked Scott, finishing off his second bowl of breakfast cereal, despite the time being 2:30 PM.

"To make a backup copy, if nothing else," said Charles. He would have thought that would be self-evident. A flimsy pair of metal-rim glasses were all that held back Scott's powers, since he apparently had no control over them at all. "Perhaps something more like goggles, something that attaches more firmly."

"You can take them from me if you really want to, but I'm not handing over my glasses." Scott had an annoying habit of being utterly literally accurate, and he knew that he couldn't stop Charles from doing whatever he wanted.

"Why not?"

"Because then I have to sit around blind."

Which could mean just about anything. Scott was a little old to be afraid of the dark, but sitting in enforced sightlessness would unnerve just about anyone. Maybe bullies had taken his glasses for kicks. Maybe Winters had taken them for punishment. Maybe he had simply misplaced them and been forced to paw around blindly in the absence of a concerned parent or friend.

It wasn't irrational, that Scott didn't fully trust Charles, not with something so vital. And yet, Charles needed to examine the glasses long before that confidence could realistically be expected to develop.

Don't wait for trust, thought Charles to himself. Don't argue with his logic. You can't convince him to ignore the evidence of his own life. Don't fight the defect – replace it with a strength.

"Look," said Charles, without preamble. He drew a coin from his jacket pocket and held it up. "A quarter." He dropped it on the floor. "Close your eyes. You know where it is. Pick it up."

Scott obediently dropped to his hands and knees. "Do I at least get to keep the quarter?" he asked. He pawed at the floor systematically, starting several feet from the coin, and eventually brushing it with his fingertips. He raised it over his head, less in a gesture of triumph than an expression of 'Are we done yet?'

"Put it back down on the floor. Right there where you are. Keep your eyes closed. Walk to my study, then back and find the coin."

Scott shuffled slowly, feeling in all directions and clinging to the wall when he found it. Still, he didn't open his eyes, nor did he ask for verification that he'd found Charles' study. He turned around and went back the way he came, feet dragging over the floorboards. He was mouthing silently to himself. He dropped to his knees too early, four or five feet away from the quarter, but he still found it more quickly than he did the first time.

"Again," said Charles.

Scott was walking more normally now, lifting his feet, however fractionally. His hands hovered with more purpose, seeming to expect landmarks.

"Again," said Charles.

Scott was counting his steps now, reaching out to doorways for confirmation of his position, rather than grasping at them like life preservers. It was a shockingly quick transformation. He stopped inches from the quarter and knelt on one knee, reaching to the left where he knew the coin was. Scott stood and pocketed the quarter. "Thanks," he said, opening his eyes for the first time in twenty minutes.

Charles held out his hand expectantly, though he wasn't sure whether he was requesting the glasses or the quarter.

Scott was whispering to himself, "Six steps to the tile. Five steps to the pantry. Eight steps to the hallway," not even looking in Charles' direction. Still, he took off the red glasses and held them out.

"A trade," said Charles. He pressed his pocketwatch into the boy's palm. "Listen to it tick. Count the seconds. I'll return your glasses before you reach three hundred."

Scott's mouth was still hanging open, but he wasn't whispering step counts anymore. He held the watch to his ear. "Six minutes," he said, "or I blow a hole in the wall."

Charles taught Scott the rules of chess, as well as a few simple strategic guidelines – controlling the center, castling early, keeping knights away from the edges – but the boy hadn't taken to the game. Charles found this immensely disappointing. The purpose of chess was to develop strategic thinking, the sort that would be needed in combat; Scott's ineptness did not bode well for his eventual role on a team.

Except…Scott wasn't really bad at chess, so much as he wasn't really playing chess. He kept insisting that he wanted his pawns to use their turn to dig traps for the horses and trying to argue that he should be allowed to put another piece inside of his rook as some kind of mobile battlement.

Scott suddenly lunged to the left, bringing his hands together in perpendicular arches. "Got one!" he cried, pleased with himself. He returned to the path, holding his prize out to the professor. "You want it?"

Charles smiled at the slow pulsing glow of the firefly. "That's quite all right." They were taking am after-dinner walk along the paved paths of the property.

Scott shrugged and opened his hands, letting the bug crawl along his fingers. "I like these guys."

"You look happy."

Scott clearly thought that was a very strange thing to say, because he knitted his brow and completely failed to respond.

"What makes you happy, Scott? Besides fireflies."

"I'm happy when no one's pushing me around." Scott blew gently on the insect on his finger, encouraging it to fly away.

"That's not happiness; that's the absence of fear."

"Well, then I don't think I understand the question." Scott shrugged. "What makes you happy?"

"Many things. A good book, going to the theater, an evenly matched game of chess." Charles gestured to indicate that the list could continue. He waited to see if his contributions would spark any response from Scott. When none was forthcoming, he added, "When I was your age, I liked models."

Scott drew his chin to his chest and raised his shoulders, blushing and making himself smaller. "I don't really-"

"The kind you assemble," clarified Charles. "Such as model planes. Not the kind you photograph. Though, I suppose, most young men enjoy the other kind as well."

"I like airplanes," mumbled Scott quietly, almost inaudibly. "Real ones. Not just models."

It was gratifying for Charles to finally hear Scott express some kind of interest or desire, some will to approach a goal instead of just avoiding harm. They took the long route around the grounds as the sun set.

"Why do they stop?" asked Scott. "The fireflies. Why don't they light up when it's night?"

"I'm not sure, but all animals live in a state of constant balance between long-term goals and immediate survival. I have to imagine that whatever goal is served by their luminescence is eventually outweighed by the increased risk of predation."

Scott said nothing for a moment, clearly processing what he had just heard. Finally, he said, "You're really smart."

Charles ignored the compliment, unsure how to respond. "Do you think of yourself as intelligent, Scott?"

"No." This was said in a matter-of-fact way, without self-pity.

"Why not?"

"If I was smart, I wouldn't haven't gotten caught up with Jack Winters."

"I don't think that was a matter of intelligence. Mr. Winters exuded a low-level psionic field to which you had no resistance."

"But you could resist it."

"I believe that as a telepath, I have some natural resistance to others' telepathy. I also have practice."

"You can learn that with practice? I mean, could someone else? Someone who's not a telepath?" asked Scott, unable to keep the eagerness out of his voice.

"It certainly seems possible," allowed Charles.

"I want to study that." There was an intensity in Scott's tone, sounding almost greedy. He added a perfunctory, "Please."

"You would have to allow me to probe your mind. You can't learn without a challenge."

"Like environmental pressures that promote evolution," answered Scott.

Charles knitted his brow and pressed his lips forward. This was a pleasant surprise. Scott had described himself as a mediocre student, and his school records more-or-less corroborated this. The boy had just demonstrated a good understanding of evolutionary biology in the form of a meaningful, if obscure, analogy. "How did you know about that?"

"The director at the orphanage really liked Darwin," said Scott, as if that were the most normal thing in the world. He caught another firefly. "I really like these guys."