Title: Freedom is a Funny Thing
Author: J. Hallmark
Email: arabian@ite.net

Rating: There's a "hell" or two, so I'm going with 'PG.'
Summary: Rogue reflects on her new-found freedom.
Pairing: Logan and Rogue all the way (Teensy Scott/Jean)
Disclaimer: Marvel and Fox own 'em. Lucky dogs.
Archive: Go ahead, but please let me know.
Author's Notes: I must confess, my intense dislike for Jean and my intense affection for Scott shine through. Oh, and this one hasn't been beta-read, all mistakes be mine.
Feedback: Muchas Gracias!!!

Despite being able to move safely through a crowd, the party had been too much ... too many people, too many close brushes of skin for my emotions to take. Three years of living with a touch that could kill created habits that were hard to break.

But I was learning.

Every day that passed I became a bit more comfortable in my own skin. 'My own skin.' Had that saying ever been more apt for another person? Likely not. Still, it was true in my case and as time passed, my comfort level grew. Surrounded by a small group of people I knew well, it was easier each time to just relax and not concentrate on all of the skin that lay bare to the world.

Arms. Neck. Legs. Feet. Hands. Fingers.

And all it took was one word. And some immense mind control. While reading a book on psychic power (yes, the Professor actually reads those books despite the fact that he probably knows more about it than anyone else on the planet), he came across a simple truth that had been neglected in all of our tests and exercises: hypnotism. Since he sees any form of mind control as something to be avoided at all cost, he had never looked into how such a common form of control might help me.

The chapter - Healing Through Hypnotism - opened his eyes to the possibility that it just might do the trick. And what do you know? It did. First, the Professor tried a simple hypnotic command, one I'd chosen. The poor man had done his hardest trying to come up with one that wouldn't embarrass me, but I figured, 'oh hell, let's have some fun here.' So Charles Xavier had said to me, "when I clap my hands, you will quack like a duck," and damned, if I didn't start quacking and squawking as soon as he did the clapping. I was susceptible, all right. After that, it just became a game of fine-tuning and narrowing my hypnotic concentration on one thing - controlling my 'gift.'

After six months of intense focus and mind games that were actually rather interesting, the Professor and I decided to give it a go and Scott offered to be my guinea pig. With my keyword in place (a word that you wouldn't normally hear in everyday conversation and one that only the Professor and I were privy to - 'muttonchops' ... figure it out, shouldn't be too hard), we assembled in the med lab with Jean nervously hovering over both Scott and I. I could tell by the tight line of her mouth that she wasn't too happy about her fiancé's altruistic gesture. Considering what this little test might mean for me, I didn't have it in me to feel for her the tiniest bit. He'd volunteered and insisted over my objections. I had been willing to wait until Logan came back.

Logan.

Logan, Logan, Logan. He knew of course. Two months after the Professor and I had begun our little mind games, Logan had dropped in for one of his unscheduled visits. He came back 'home' every couple of months or so, checked in with the Professor, went on a mission or two if necessary, needled Scott by harmlessly flirting with Jean and spent every moment he could with me without being too obvious about it. Everyone except for the Professor thought that I was the kid sister he'd never had. It simply hadn't crossed anyone's mind that Logan - the big, badass Wolverine -could actually have fallen for the girl with the poison skin.

And yet he had. My feelings for him were, of course, no mystery. 'She has a crush on him,' they all said and I hadn't felt it important to disabuse them of the notion that that was all it was. They left us alone and it allowed Logan to live in his world of delusion that I too bought the whole "brother/sister" act. He'd seemed to conveniently forget that once upon a time, he had opened his entire mind and heart to me.

Perhaps, he wasn't head over heels in love with me that night up there on the Statue of Liberty, but it was the closest thing to love that man had ever remembered feeling. Something in me had opened up something inside of him. That was why he had risked his life. And that was why he had given me his dog tags. I don't think at the time that he even realized what it meant - he had just needed to give me something of himself ... not as a keepsake, but as a promise.

Returning within two months, he had stayed for about a week. And it was then that I began to realize that absence had definitely made his heart grown fonder. He would flirt with Jean, compliment her with his words, his eyes follow her with obvious intentions so that everyone could see ... but when no one was looking, that feral gaze would turn upon me and whether he realized it or not (and I believe that it was a not) I could feel every slow caress, every growing desire, every piece of clothing he removed mentally. His affection for Jean was all for show. His affection for me was deeper than even he had been willing to admit.

By the time he'd come back that first time, I had already finished my classes (being been close to graduation when I'd left Meridian as the result of having skipped the third grade) and was working with Scott, Ororo and yes, Jean to become a member of the team. After five days of pretending I was just his kid sister, he came upon me in the gym. At one in the morning, no one had been around, so I was dressed in less than usual. A tight, white tee-shirt, black running shorts and that was about it.

The way he'd looked at me that night ... let's just say that if he'd ever turned a gaze like that upon Jean, Scott would have incinerated him in a heartbeat. But it wasn't Jean that he was looking at. It was I, Rogue, Marie, 'Kid.' Our eyes met in the wall-length mirror and he looked away almost immediately, actually coughing and muttered a gruff, "you should be in bed, kid."

The 'kid' sounded like a curse coming from his lips and he was gone the next morning, a hastily scrawled note slipped under my door. Again, the man seemed to not realize that I knew him, inside and out and the fact that he would even proffer an explanation of goodbye, no matter how short and unfeeling as his note had been ("Kid, going back on the road. Logan.") meant that he cared. A hell of a lot.

Still when he came back again - another two months down the line - he continued the game, flirting with Jean, playing big brother to me and I was content to allow him his illusions that I bought the act. The simple truth was that no matter how in love with him I was - and I was - I wasn't ready for a relationship of any kind, even with the Logan of my dreams.

Certainly not a physical one ... but more than that, it was the emotional beast that had me wary. Having your first kiss turn into a B-rated horror flick, getting kicked out of your home, being on the road for eight months and avoiding contact with everyone you met had a way of affecting a person's point of view of life and relationships. And it didn't help any that the guy I was sure I would eventually be having a relationship with wasn't ready to own up to the fact that he even thought of me that way. So we simply went along our merry way. And it was good, giving us both the opportunity to get to know each other the traditional way (i.e., through non-life-absorption) without all of those pesky complications that supposedly come with the 'relationship' handle.

As I said it was good, very good and very platonic ... until Logan returned two months after the Professor and I had latched upon the hypnotism idea. He had heard the theory, seen the simple belief that it would work in the Professor's eyes and had high-tailed me outta the Professor's office to somewhere private. I can still remember the conversation word for word. No, not because it was such a blindingly romantic moment, the kind you treasure and hold dear for your whole life through, but because of the brevity and lack of subtlety. This is Logan we are talking about.

"Marie," he began, not kid, not Rogue, but "Marie." And then he had looked at me straight in the eye, allowing free reign to all of the feelings that he had believed he'd kept so hidden from me before now.

"You're mine."

I believe I smiled and I know I responded with a simple, "I know." And that was that. He told me that when I was ready he would be there to help me test it (and test it and test it and test it). After all, he'd taken two licks from me and had kept on ticking, who better? But then later that day, the Professor received a lead on Logan's past that was just too good to pass up. I didn't expect him to stick around and he didn't expect me to expect it. So two days after he'd returned and our feelings were realized, he was gone again.

But not before the damn fool had kissed me.

And delayed his departure by about four hours. Still, the grin he'd sent my way upon waking in that oh-so familiar med lab told me in no uncertain terms that the delay was definitely worth it.

In the four months that he had been gone, I had received one postcard from him and the Professor one jumbled report. That had been two weeks before we had planned to test the hypnotism theory and the Professor feared that Logan might not come back in time. So Scott figured that that wasn't all that fair to me and had volunteered his services. After much resistance (on my part, and Jean's) and insistence (on his), he had been calmly awaiting a touch that could conceivably knock him out, put him a coma or even possibly kill him.

Have I mentioned that Scott is the sweetest guy in the whole world? No? Well, he is. And Jean is an idiot for not realizing what she has in him. Of course, Jean had been the one glaring at us during that first experiment, so maybe there's hope for her.

Suffice it to say, it had worked. I could touch, but also absorb feelings, thoughts, mutant powers without the life-drain. I was free. Hallelujah.

And yet, one month later I didn't feel free. I felt as caged as I hadwhen gloves were my constant companions. I've allowed fleeting brushes of flesh upon flesh, but with the exception of the experiments I have not initiated any kind of real contact. It's too soon, I suppose. Too much for me to take.

Or maybe I'm just waiting for Logan to come back home.

Either way, that's the reason I'm outside all by lonesome enjoying the sun streaming down on my lightly-clothed body. It's a white summer dress, a thin, flyaway material that leaves my arms and shoulders bare ... the kind of clothing that I had thought forever lost to me. And I loved wearing it, loved seeing the copious amounts of flesh revealed ... but there were copious amounts of flesh and maybe it is just too damn soon because I had been a nervous wreck at Kitty's birthday party. And so once the presents were opened, I'd sneaked out away from all of those body parts that I still could not touch without fear.

Freedom, it's a funny thing. I had spent so much time banging my head against the locked cage that was the reality of my mutant gift uncontrolled, that I had never taken note of the mental cage I had erected ... the cage that had kept me from getting too close to people - but for Logan. I had walked through life the last three years with an invisible shield surrounding me and now that the shield was no longer necessary, I was still fumbling with the switch. Of course, maybe I was just waiting for Logan to come back home and turn the switch off for me.

And here he was.

The sun was so bright it was blinding me and so I turned back towards the mansion and there he was, walking towards me looking as utterly delicious as possible. Tight jeans, a black shirt, a leather jacket, hair all wild and mussed up, shaped in that funny way of his. And there was a quirk of a smile on his lips and I could just see the glint in his hazel eyes as he got closer and closer to me.

And with every step he took, I felt the cage bars bending and then he was before me. "Hey, kid." And for the first time in three years, four months and some odd days I voluntarily reached up to touch someone's flesh without gloves and without fear of reprisal. And as I touched his face, my fingers lying gently against his cheek, brushing at those muttonchops, I recalled the last human face I had touched with bare skin.

It had been his.

It had been his face, but now there was no rush, no pull that screamed his agony and sent my body throbbing with painful intensity as his thoughts and feelings rushed into me. Now there was only Logan and the soft texture of his skin, the bristling feel of his hair and then he laid a hand upon my face and I hadn't even realized I was crying until he brushed a tear away.

I tried to speak, but the bars were breaking and my throat was tight and I could only look at him and touch him. And then he said my name -"Marie" - and only he called me that and I was free.

I was free. Joyous laughter burst from my lips just as I leaned up to him, and his eyes were so soft and so sweet and did I say that Scott was the sweetest man? No, no, not Scott - but Logan, my Logan, the Logan of my dreams that was standing here before me and he was real and his lips were a breath away from mine.

And then the breath was gone.