Less than an hour after her first kiss, Marie had been riding in the back of an ambulance. She had watched the doctors try to resuscitate the boy's unresponsive body, and wished she could shut out the whole scene. She'd wanted to get rid of the sirens above her head, the frantic instructions hollered from the front seat, and her mother's worried expression. Marie's lips were still warm. For just a moment, her first kiss had been incredible.

The boy's name was Cody, and they had practically grown up together. When they became teenagers, they had flirted off and on until the afternoon when they were alone in her room. She had secretly been planning the kiss for a long time now, and was practically giddy with excitement while she talked about her plans to travel the continent.

Cody was not a great kisser. That didn't matter so much; his tongue left her lips feeling hot and alive with the sensations of taste and touch and skin and salt and then... cold. Despite her mother's protests, Marie had hastily covered every inch of her exposed skin. Sweat drops pooled in the small of her back. Her winter coat was not comfortable in the hot, July weather. She'd only folded the material closer around her body, feeling as though the exposure of her pale skin would set off some sort of catastrophe.

Then there had been the questions. People in various uniforms with different typed up and official looking questionnaires were wanting to know what had happened. She didn't know what else to tell them. I kissed him, and he went cold. They had asked for a sample of her blood with a suspicious look, and mentioned that she might have to come with them to someplace where they could help her, figure out what had happened.

All of this had happened in the space of one afternoon.

She sat at dinner with her mother and father. Dinner had been a silent activity, with only the clinking of forks and spoons.

"They said he's going to be okay," Marie's father said quietly. Her mother gave her a concerned look.

"Honey... do you have any idea what happened? The doctor said it wasn't a seizure, but..." she reached for Marie's shoulder.

"Mama... don't touch me." the girl sobbed, "I don't know what happened, but I think it was because of me." Her mother's face softened.

"Marie, I thought you'd outgrown this phase." Her father chastised her.

"It's not a phase," she insisted, "I've been afraid. I know that other people have touched me and nothing's happened, but I feel..." she took a long look at her gloved fingers, as though expecting to see an answer in them, "I'm different now. Something's wrong with me."

---

That night, she packed a few changes of clothes and a handful of keepsakes into her camping bag. Everyone had heard the rumors; something new was happening to people across the world, and no one knew what happened to them after they were told, "come with us" by the state department. She had nearly made it out the front door when she was startled by a sharp voice.

"What do you think you're doing?" She turned around, and grabbed the handle of her bag with both of her gloved hands.

"I'm leaving," she said.

"To do what?" her mother asked, "Run away to nowhere? These people can help you; if you run away from them, you're... just a little rogue with no place to go." Rogue. That sounded like an accurate description of the life she was about to lead.

"If I stay here, bad things'll happen, Mama. You know that."

Her face disintegrated into tears, and Marie could do nothing to comfort her mother. Seeing her bury her reddened, contorted face into her own hands cut through the girl. She wanted to embrace her mother, to bury her face into the nape of her neck and inhale the scent of honey, sweat, and dishwashing liquid that always seemed to cling to her. Marie wanted her mother's embraces and her the soft feeling of her hair against her cheek, her honeyed southern accent punctured by flawless grammar, her piano playing, and her ladylike manners. If it wasn't for her skin, she would have been able to touch, to heal, or to comfort again. She settled for a gloved touch on the wrist. Her mother was crumbling. Marie had to be the strong one. Her mother wept into Marie's covered palm, and touched it to the side of her face before softly whispering,

"I know, Baby."

"Goodbye." She hoisted her suitcase onto her back, and started walking into the night.

---

In a bus stop somewhere in Tennessee, a dark figure climbed the steps to a bus. The bus would take Marie as far as Jackson, where she would hitch a ride to Meridian, Mississippi. The girl was dressed entirely in black, right down to the dark opera gloves that covered her arms. She wore a set of dog tags around her neck; they did not belong to Logan. She had returned Wolverine's tags to him a long time ago. Instead, the plates bore her own name: "Rogue."

Hitching rides had become an art form for Rogue. She had learned the subtle science of climbing into a truck and riding it somewhere in the general direction of her intended destination. Her life had become a saga of screeching tires, honking horns, and asphalt. She frequently ended up in different places than she had intended, but hitchhiking had become an adventure for her. She would stow away or beg for rides across the continent, and learn the stories of the people who traveled those roads. For an ordinary girl her age, it would have been a dangerous activity.

It seemed logical for the students at Xavier's academy to choose different names for themselves than the ones they had been given at birth. They were set apart from the rest of the world; how could they go on masquerading as people with normal names and lives? Scott called himself "Cyclops." Logan went by "Wolverine." Even as a teenager in Mississippi, she had wanted to travel, had been fascinated by the little countries across the sea and the landmarks on her own continent. Marie was a drifter at heart. It seemed only natural that she should call herself "Rogue." She was glad that she had kept that name, and thus kept a part of her mother with her.

Her dark jeans were buckled with a leather belt that had a silver Canadian flag on the buckle. The buckle had been a gag gift from Logan several years ago. As she took her seat on the bus, she could hear the whispered murmurs of "freak." Rogue paid them no mind.

"Marie?" A familiar voice greeted her. Her eyes fell on a boy about her age, with dark curly hair hair and brown eyes. There was something about him that reminded her of home, and it took her a minute to remember the association, and the days they had spent together.

"Cody?!?" she greeted him, "I haven't seen you since..." she stopped herself, "Well, a long time ago."

"Right." he agreed, looking equally awkward. Since the kiss. Since that afternoon in her room. Since her big plans to travel the world that had been realized, but not in the way either of them had expected.

"Sit down here," he said, moving cautiously away from her. She noticed the careful way that he avoided any contact with her body.

"It's all right," she said nervously, "It's just my skin. As long as you don't touch my skin, I can't hurt you."

"Oh." The other passengers turned around to look at them, and Rogue smiled uncomfortably. She was sure they must have made a strange pair; the nice looking Mississippi boy in the blue flannel shirt and the black clad girl with platinum streaks in her hair.

He looked at her dog tags. "Rogue," he read aloud, "Does that stand for anything?"

"It stands for a lot," she answered, "it's kind of a long story."

"I can tell," he smiled. She was inches away from his lips, and she quickly drew herself back.

"Where are you heading back from?" she asked.

"College," he answered, "Going home for the summer."

"Oh," she nodded, trying to decide what to say next.

"So... you seem like you're okay now." He gave her a strange look.

"Marie, why'd you run away like that?" She hadn't expected a question like that.

"Cody," she started, "I... I had to. What do you think would have happened?"

"You didn't even stick around to say goodbye. I mean, you put a guy in a coma and then when I woke up, I didn't know where you were. I just wanted to make sure you were all right." He had grown so much, and yet reverted to a teenage boy in a matter of seconds.

"Well after what happened, I didn't think you'd wanna see me again."

"Marie, all I wanted was to see you again. I thought you hated me." She closed her eyes.

"Cody, I never hated you. You were the last... second to last person I ever touched." she turned to face him, "I feel you sometimes still. I remember it so intensely."

"It didn't have to be like that. They could have helped you. Instead..." he made an obvious gesture at her long satin gloves.

"Let's not do this, Cody," she begged, "I'm sorry I ran away, and I'm coming back to see if I can make things right with my mom and dad and with everyone else. It's been years since I talked to any of them." He fell silent, and looked at the gray seat in front of him. "Cody, what is it?"

"Your dad. I heard it from my mom a while ago."

"What happened to my dad?"

"He passed away," he told her, " God, I wish you didn't have to heart it like this, but no one could get in touch with you." She unconsciously fingered the dog tags at her throat. Deep inside, she had known that something like this was going to happen. She couldn't expect to return home and have anything be the same.

"How's my mom?"

"I'm not sure, but my dad says that she really wants to see you." The tires squealed to a halt in front of a desolate bus station. "Marie, can I give you a call?" he asked. She hesitated. It was too tempting to be near those lips and too painful to relive those memories.

"Cody, it's nothin' personal... I was glad to see you, but I think it would really be better if you didn't." He nodded.

"Right."

"You understand?"

"Yeah." She thanked him, and left the bus. She could feel the stares on her back, and wondered for the first time if coming home was such a good idea.

---

A flood of memories overwhelmed her as she mounted the steps to her old house. The neighborhood hadn't changed much, but her mother's garden had gone to waste. Dead magnolias graced the edge of her house. No one responded to her gentle knocks on the door, so Rogue carefully turned the door handle.

"Mama?" she called softly, "Are you here?" She could faintly hear the gentle plinking of the piano in the other room. She pushed the door open and took a few steps inside. The lights were off, except for a desk lamp over the piano. Her mother remained absorbed in the action of moving her fingers across the keys. Rogue dropped her bag on the ground, and the woman jumped. She turned around on the piano bench, and Marie saw her face for the first time in years. Her face had aged more than it should have in such a short time. She looked at Marie's boots, and her eyes moved upwards to her black gloves, to the white streaks on her hair, and finally to her eyes. She put a hand over her mouth as she realized who it was that stood before her.

"Oh my God, Marie!" She wiped away a tear, and laughed softly, "Girl, what on Earth have you done to your hair?" Marie's vision blurred with tears as she smiled.

"I like it," she said weakly. She couldn't bring herself to recount the horrible night on the Statue of Liberty or the touch that had saved her life. Marie's mother tenderly stroked her hair, the only part of her daughter that she could touch. Marie hooked a gloved arm around her mother's waist, and carefully placed her head near her shoulder. This careful affection worried her, and she kept her muscles tense in case she accidentally brushed an inch of lethal skin against her mother's face.

"I missed you so much."

"Me too. I missed everything."

"Are you home to stay?" she asked hopefully. Rogue shook her head.

"I have another place now. I can't really talk about it, but there are people like me there. Other mutants." Her mother flinched at the sound of the word.

"You're not a mutant. You're not dangerous."

"I'm me," Marie finished her sentence. Her mother couldn't seem to stop running her fingers over her daughter's hair.

"I ran into Cody on the way home," she said, "He told me about Daddy. Mom... I'm sorry I wasn't here for it. I'm sorry for everything."

"You could stay here, you know," said her mother, "We left your room just like it was. Just in case... I don't know, honey." Marie shook her head.

"It's too dangerous. I just came back to see you again."

"All this time, I pictured you lost and alone somewhere. Looks like you've taken care of yourself pretty well."

"I've had help." She idly fingered Marie's dog tags, and read their inscription aloud.

"Rogue," she smiled, "I think I know the story behind that name. You're not a rogue; you're just my little Marie."

She returned her sad smile, even though Rogue knew she was not little nor her mother's nor Marie.

"Do you really have to leave?"

"First thing in the morning," Rogue replied, "it's the only way I can do this."

She was gone before the sun was even up, with a breakfast of grits and pancakes in her belly. She had been up half the night talking to her mother about the academy, against her better judgment. She patiently waited for the bus, and touched the tags again. She was planning to buy another one; this one might read "Marie," or something entirely different, just to remember her first identity. For years, she had been afraid to return home and even more afraid to face her family. It was a strange feeling, leaving Mississippi for the second time. As she boarded the greyhound, she found an empty seat near the back. She took off one of her gloves, and stretched her fingers before replacing the covering. She looked out the back window and watched Mississippi grow smaller and smaller, until she couldn't even be sure if the dot on the horizon represented her hometown.