Disclaimer: All characters belong to Marvel Comics and are being used for non-profit entertainment purposes only. The story belongs to me.

One: The Dreamer

***

I had a dream. It was a beautiful thing, all golden and shiny and new. It was full of hope and promises for the future. In my dream there was a wonderful land where justice always reigned supreme, where evil no longer cast its insidious shadow across the world but, instead, lingered at the very far corners, almost conquered once and for all. Hate was a thing of the past, in my golden dream. An emotion that had long since lost all meaning as humanity learned to open its mind and heart to their brethren, no matter the color, sex, or genetic structure.

My dream was idealistic. I realize that now. It was a fairy tale, a wish that could no more come true than the childish hope that one day Peter Pan will fly through the window and invite you to go to Never-never Land with him. I was that foolish in my dream.

Now, Charles, you're saying, don't be so hard on yourself. Everyone has dreams that don't work out. Everyone has these visions of grandeur.

However, how many of these "commonplace" fantasies, the want for a better car, the marriage to the movie star, how many of these simple things have killed and maimed people?

You see I went a step beyond just imagining my dream. I acted to make it real, even though I realized all the time, in the very back of my head, that it would never work. I collected children; I brought them to my posh, upper-class mansion that I called a "school" so parents would have no worries, so the government would have no worries. In my desperate attempt to "make the world a better place" I hunted out those children who had been "gifted" by their genetic alteration.

I led some of those children to their deaths. The blood of mere babes coats my hands, thick and red, something I'll never wash away, like Lady Macbeth and her spot.

I had a dream but it turned into a nightmare.

***

Two: The Lost Soul

I used to love to run through the fields of flowers in the summer. I would pick them and twine them into my hair, pretending that I was a princess. My mother would always say that I was beautiful and my papa would lift me high into the air so that I felt as if I was flying.

When I was six years old, my brother left me. He went away to be a hero, to save the world, to protect it from the evils that run rampant all the time, the evils you can't stop. You see he didn't understand that evil is a natural part of the world, that it must exist for good to conquer it.

So I bid goodbye to him and waited patiently for the letters I knew he would send me. The letters that were stuffed full with his adventures and the sketches of his friends. Sometimes it was a long time between letters, too long. And, during these months where we went without any word from him, I would remember that it was my fault Piotr had been exposed as a mutant because if I had just been playing somewhere else then the tractor wouldn't have been about to crush me and he wouldn't have had to use his power to save me. It was more guilt than a six-year-old girl needed on her conscience.

I continued on, though, picking flowers and twining them through my locks of blond hair, waiting for the letters, allowing myself to dismiss that little voice in my head. I had learned from my parents that when something goes wrong, you keep going.

They had lost their first son to a botched Russian military mission but they kept going. Their second son had left to become a hero but they kept going. A daughter born before me, Anaka, had died when she was born and they had lived through that. And their youngest daughter heard voices in her head. They kept going, just accepting that life is hard and you take what you get.

Long before the time Belasco called to me on Muir Island, I heard his voice in my mind. I didn't know it was him at the time, though. It was just a voice, a playmate, filling my head with stories of magic and glory, the thought that I, too, might be a mutant, that I might be a hero.

Then I met him for the first time, stared into his silted eyes, and knew, knew that my world had been changed forever, melded into something I could no longer control. I was doomed. I was damned.

I wish I had killed him, killed him, and stayed in Limbo to rule over the demon legions. I was loved there. I was needed. But I walked the wrong path and I pay for it everyday.

Sometimes I dream of a field of flowers and I run through it, blossoms in my hair.

***

Three: The Angel

***

In my dreams, I can still fly. I soar high above the earth on my beautiful, white feather wings. I am a bird. I am the sky.

Then, like the flicking of a light switch, I am plunged into nightmares, face to face with the murders who tied me down and took so much glee in chopping off my wings. Blood covered feathers float languidly in the still air in front of my eyes. They provide the foreground of my vain misery. The background is just me, sobbing.

I used to be a prince, blond and fair with blue eyes and the wings of an angel. I used to be free; to be able to escape into the roaring, maddening blue expanse that was hung with patches of fluffy white. I used to be whole, happy.

You watch me worriedly, calling me vain under your breath, as I trace my hand across my cheekbone. Still as beautiful as ever, Warren. Still the blue eyed, blond prince out of a fairytale. But I am so little now. I am empty and hollow, the pain a vague far away throbbing that keeps my awake at night, longing for the tears that never come.

And I wonder if you would stop calling me vain if you could just look into my mind, see the terror and misery as they duel forever in my head. You used to be able to see past the image I projected, the happy prince with his dashing smile and endless eyes. You used to talk to me late at night when I'd wake up sobbing because of the dreams that haunted me. The dreams of my father and how I was always a disappointment to him. The dreams of my mother who never had time and was always bustling off somewhere else. You used to hold me until I stopped crying. You helped me see the dreams meant nothing and the events that they dwelled on were over and couldn't hurt me anymore.

I grew to love you. I fell in love with your words and your voice and the way you could just make me feel better about myself, like I didn't have to hide the sides that weren't perfect. You made me feel like it was okay to be whole. You made me feel safe.

After I had been told you'd died, I spent days crying, weeks. Candy was distraught, worried. She threatened to leave me in a shaky voice as she pushed her hair out of those perfect, perfect eyes, off that model's face. You know that she was always jealous of you, Jean, of the way I felt about you.

Nevertheless, we got through it. I got through the grief, pushed it to the back of my mind with all the other things that weren't sparkly and weren't good. I hid it like I have hidden everything that threatens to rock my boat and I convinced Candy that I loved her more than anything. That it hurt to see you go because you were such a good friend.

She believed me because she wanted to. However, I think she knew all along, in her heart, which was sometimes as cold as ice and then insanely jealous, that there was more to the picture than that. It didn't drive her away. She couldn't afford that. I was a prince, after all, with looks and money and hell, being with me made her all that more desirable. Candy liked power more than you ever did, Jean.

Once upon a time, you were perfect, Jean, you were everything I wanted. Now you sit by my bedside, snap your gum, hold my hand, and tell me it's okay, that I'll get through it, that the loss of my wings doesn't really matter that much. All the while, I watch you face and I see that the lines around your mouth aren't from worry but from disgust. In your head, and under your breath, you whisper nonstop in that voice I used to love that I am vain and I am selfish and I care nothing for anybody but myself.

Perhaps you are right, Jean. Perhaps I am vain and selfish. But the only things I have ever had to rely on are my perfection and myself; they have been the only constants. I turn my eyes away from you and try to close my ears to the sound of your voice. I no longer love you. I am no longer captivated by every sentence you utter, every stinging adjective you use to describe me. All I want to do is sleep because in my dreams, you are perfect again and I can fly.

In my dreams, I am still an angel; I am still a part of the endless, blue sky. I wish there was a way to sleep forever.

***

To be continued...