We're all sitting down to dinner, well, I say we, but I am sort of at the fringe of the group as always. Outwardly people are trying to be nice to me, but I can just tell that inside they are freaked out by the thought of even being near me. It's always been that way for me, at least since these powers developed. I don't think much about my life before then, why add regret to my daily dose of self-torture? So I'm here at the school, I do my lessons, and I keep to myself, but Professor Storm insists that we have one dinner together a week as a group, and the headmaster agrees with it, so here I am, not wolfing down my food and disappearing as usual, but sitting at the periphery of the dinning room, long sleeve shirt, gloves, even to eat with, and a scarf wrapped around my neck; maybe I'm paranoid, who's really going to get close enough to touch my neck here? Especially since they generally treat me like I have a force field around me?

I shouldn't really make the 'they' generalization, the professors aren't really scared of me, though maybe they should be. They do their best to inject a little human contact; a hand on my shoulder, or an arm around me, Professor Storm especially. She really does seem to want to save the world that one, I can't remember, it might have been Kitty, someone told me she had a rough childhood before Professor Xavier found her and brought her to the school. Maybe that's why she watches over all of us so compassionately. Yeah, the professors try.

So anyways, I'm sitting near the back window that looks out to the gardens, minding my own business as much as possible when he comes into the room. Professor Logan, the Wolverine. He teaches us about fighting: what else eh? Big guy like that. Has a chip on his shoulder the size of all Louisiana; and I should know, bein' from there and all. Of all the professors he's the biggest mystery to me, which is odd because I've spent the lost time with him. He's the one who brought me out to the school in the first place. We kinda ran into each other in the middle of nowhere, and while the ride back was mostly quiet over the week or so of driving it wasn't boring. It started off with a bang, a few scrapes, but we made it back. I'd been flying under the radar as much as I could up to that point in my life, but the bad guys finally figured me out and they haven't let me sit still much since then. It's been the safest here at the school which is why I've stayed here; though trust me, I have been tempted to run a whole bunch of times. But anyways, back to Professor Logan. He didn't talk much, but he sure could drive fast, and he never seemed to get tired. We stopped a few times to rest, but I got the impression that he spent most of his nights watching out the filthy windows of the roadside motels we stayed at; he was in one chair when I fell asleep, and always in the same one when I woke up. He had to have slept at some point I suppose.

I tried to ask him about his powers, I mean I'd seen his ability to heal when we first met up, and nobody could miss those claws. But he did admit that he had a good sense of smell; which freaked me out a bit in case I was a little stale after all the hours in the truck and the limited changes of clothing. There wasn't much time to wash things out in a quick overnight stay. He didn't complain anyways. Then he asked me about my powers. That's where things got quiet. I mean, how much can you explain when your fabulous power is the ability to steal powers from other mutants just by touching their bare skin with yours. Not that I think he was expecting to touch me, but he got real quiet after that. But you know what, he always pops in to see how I'm doing when I'm hiding alone in the library. It isn't hard to figure out that he's a loner too; so in an ironic kind of way I guess we share our loneliness.

So anyways, back to my thought, Professor Logan comes in and heads right for me, says he needs to talk to me about something and do I mind stepping out for a bit. It's like the man can read my mind, I'm thrilled to get out of there, whatever the excuse. I tidy up my plates, pop them back on the counter and follow him out into the garden. It's not really stunningly warm out, but hey, it wasn't freezing either. We walk along into the gardens for a minute, out of sight of the dinning room windows and the eyes now glued to them. Professor Logan is a nice looking man in a feral kind of way, and there are a few female students who wouldn't mind taking a walk with him into the woods somewhere. Yeah, girls talk in the dorms, I'm not stupid, I listen. I get the impression Logan; I mean the professor, can smell it on them. And they aren't that subtle when they flirt. He seems to ignore them. I have caught him looking at Dr. Grey; he gets a sad look on his face sometimes. But I don't stick around to watch, it isn't any of my business.

Once we're far enough away from everyone the Professor stops and turns to talk to me.

"Look" he says, "I ain't gonna sugar coat this, Professor Xavier has got some intel that things are gonna start getting hot for you again, and he wants to make sure you're prepared. I'm telling you this not to scare you, but because you deserve to know the truth. You've seen some bad shit in your few years and," he stopped talking at that moment, looking like he was trying to find his words.

"Thanks," I answered, trying to end the awkward moment. He nodded at me.

"He wants me to start training you a little differently than the others."

I nodded at him, hey; any help in keeping myself alive was good wasn't it?

"He also wants me to hang close to you for awhile, until this threat blows over." He looked a bit embarrassed, almost as if he was asking my permission, which had to be out of character for him.

Now I'm thinking to myself the only time this threat is ever going to blow over is when all the bad guy mutants succumb to some evil killing virus, which basically means never. But I continue listening.

"If we're gonna be hanging out there's a good chance we're gonna haveta fight together, and I want to make sure we can do that without me killing you. So we're gonna be partners for awhile. And when we start moving together well then we'll bring in some of the other students and profs to spar against us in the danger room. Are you up for that?"

I said yes, and we kept walking for awhile, he was his usual quiet self and I was a bit lost wondering if I was supposed to be doing something else. We were getting further away from the mansion.

"When do we start?" seemed like the most logical next question.

"How about tomorrow afternoon, I can swing by your class and get you after lunch?"

It seemed reasonable to me so I agreed, but we were still walking.

"Was there anything else you needed to tell me?" I asked. He stopped walking again.

"I'm not going to be able to really go easy on you, you know?"

"Are you trying to scare me Professor?"

"Just enough to keep you alive." Then he put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it a bit. It felt comforting, and I let him lead me back to the mansion. Before we went in though, I had one more question.

"Am I allowed to tell anyone what we're doing?"

"Maybe not for the time being, ok Rogue?"

"Ok."

I have a room of my own now, one of the benefits of being a senior student, plus I suppose it keeps the other students a little safer from accidentally running into me in the dark. So I had gotten up and opened my door to head out to the shower and a little box nearly fell on my foot, I guess it had been leaned up against my door. I knew enough about the security of the mansion not to be frightened that it was something sinister, whether they told the students or not, I had the feeling that every package and letter that came in the front door was well examined before it ever got to us. I was, however, quite curious, so I picked it up, and figuring I could leave off the shower for another five minutes I closed my door again and went back to my bed with the box. It wasn't gift wrapped or anything, a very non-descript cardboard rectangle. I held it on my lap for a moment before sliding the top off. What was inside astounded me. It was black, and even folded I knew what it was. It was a real X suit, I didn't even know what the fabric was, but I knew the look of it immediately. It was the same uniform that all the professors wore when they went out as the X-Men. I think I must have stared at it for well over my five minutes before I even dared pull it out of the box. It wasn't a joke, oh my god, it was my size, even had the real patches on it! I nearly squealed with delight. As I stood up to hold it against myself in front of the mirror a small piece of paper fluttered to the ground, it must have been tucked at the bottom of the box. I carefully put the uniform back down on my bed and picked up the note.

'Just thought that you should have something appropriate to train in.' It was signed in a rough L, not that I would have expected some stylized 'Logan' in elegant script at the bottom of the note. Then I would have known for certain that it had been a joke. No this was genuine, and it put a little smile on my face as I tucked it into my bag.

I love taking showers, for those few moments you can't hear anything but the running water, and your mind can wander, sort of like during that delicious time between waking and sleeping when you can direct yourself to the nicest fantasies. Today was especially nice, the day had started out so well with a surprise for me. Stuff like that never happened to me. I closed my eyes and let the water run over my head, and I let my thoughts go. This time they strayed to Logan, nothing really distinct, I mean I only had a few minutes to shower before I was expected in the computer lab for morning classes. It was just a dream of him being close to me, willingly, actually wanting to touch me. It kept the positive vibes of the morning going.

We took a lot of our classes on-line, the regular high school or university level courses were distance education, which worked out well for all of us. We couldn't employ enough 'normal' teachers to cover all the subjects we took, and the teachers we did employ, the X-Men professors taught us more about how to manage our powers, and keep ourselves out of the hands of the Brotherhood and our own government. In truth, very few of us were ever going to have normal jobs; me especially. Its isn't as if I could go into any kind of public field, I couldn't touch a patient in a hospital, comfort a child in a school, or serve up fast food. If not for the ever present threat of death or capture from the brotherhood I suppose I would have been destined for some kind of call center work. "Good Evening, I'm calling from company X and you have been selected for a special offer,…"- Not.

Professor Scott Summers taught us about the history of human warfare and politics and current affairs. Professor Storm taught us about social sciences. Professor Logan taught us about fighting, and defending ourselves; of course. But Dr. Grey taught us about defending our minds from attack. She was the most powerful telepath on Earth, possibly even more powerful that Professor Xavier. She couldn't give us her powers, but she tried to teach us how to direct our minds to cloud our thoughts and make it difficult for someone to get into our heads. This was a one on one course, and she tried to meet with everyone old enough at least twice a week. This afternoon was my turn. I went from the computer lab to lunch; eating quickly, and trying not to think too much about my first scheduled training session with Logan. I called him that in my mind only mind you. I knew if I was thinking too much about him, that memories of my shower fantasy might creep in, and I would be mortified if Dr. Grey caught even a hint of it. So even though I kept my bag, with my new uniform folded in it wrapped over my legs for its comfort, I tried to direct my mind to something more banal before meeting her in her office.

The easiest, and I say that relatively, way to keep someone from dragging something important out of your mind, was to keep it focused on something else, some strong memory or thought that you could keep rooted in. It was also important that the memory not be one of anger, it was too hard to control anger and too easy to have your concentration disrupted. Those were about the only memories I had, so I focused on something else. Rain, that worked well for me, or at least I was trying to make it work well for me. I could focus on the patterns of the falling drops, concentrate on the noise they made, Dr. Grey seemed to think it was a good place to start. We start with meditation before she starts any type of psychic assault. So I breath and calm myself, all good techniques she has taught me, and ones that I use regularly to calm down after stressful situations, and before I sleep. The room was quiet right then, so it was easy to concentrate. We all know that the real world won't be like this, but you have to start somewhere. Part of me hopes, just a little part of me, that all this training might develop some latent psychic abilities, maybe, just maybe I could somehow learn to control this power of mine. Pipe dream, I know, but when you don't have hope then you don't have anything.

I don't know how much time had passed, I did recognize the feeling of Dr. Grey probing into the first layers of my subconscious and I forced my thoughts to the rain, great driving sheets of it, with the regular pounding I often watched outside my windows. I felt her push harder, and I focused harder in response. I was still calm, and if I could have taken the effort to feel it, I would have been proud of myself, but I didn't want to waver. There was a knock at the door, I ignored it, but I couldn't ignore the sight when it opened. Professor Logan was there, dressed in his battle gear, the same black uniform that was folded into my bag even now; the rain vanished and an image from my dream, of Logan holding me popped to the surface. I felt Dr. Grey pull away from me quickly, but I did not know if she had seen, if she had understood. If she had, her face betrayed no trace of it. She turned to Professor Logan with a smile on her face.

"I'm sorry if we took too long Logan, Rogue has been doing so well I wanted to keep testing her." Perhaps she hadn't seen anything I hoped to myself. She turned back to me with a proud smile. "You are doing a wonderful job Rogue, I look forward to continuing to work together." But now I knew I had even more motivation to build up my psychic shields. Now I had other thoughts in my mind, thoughts I desperately needed to keep to myself.

"Are you ready kiddo?" He had a curled up smile on his face, almost as if he was pleased to have this assignment. As always, I found his facial expression comforting. I stood, grabbing my bag. I thanked Dr. Grey for her kind words, and her help, and then I left with Professor Logan.

I ducked into the change room as he set up the Danger Room and emerged in my new black outfit. It fit really well, and it felt much more fluid on my skin than I had imagined it would. They always looked like heavily padded leather when I watched the X-Men leave on their missions, but they weren't that at all. Part of me really wished that there was some more padding in mine because I had a feeling that I might end up with a lot of bruises from this activity. The Professor turned to look at me, and I swear I saw him take in a little breath, I guess I didn't look too bad in the suit after all. Or maybe I just imagined it. He motioned me over to where he was standing, the pile of foam mats beside him were as good an indication as any that I had been right to expect bruises. He explained to me that if he was going to protect me, the first thing I would have to learn to do was anticipate where he was going to strike, and make certain I was out of his way. A Herculean task to say the least. But I could certainly listen to his cues and follow his lead, which I did for the next hour, regularly getting tossed into the mats, or diving for the floor. He whirled and swung around, almost as if he was trying to catch me, but whatever his intention I managed to stay out of his way. He seemed pleased when we were done and clapped me, perhaps a little too hard across the shoulders. We both headed back to the change room. With little concern for his modesty, or perhaps because he simply did not view me as someone who required those niceties, he stripped off the top of his suit, and let it hang around his waist while he opened his locker to fetch a towel. God his chest was beautiful, I could trace every line of muscle under his tight skin, and it glistened with the sweat from the workout. His skin wasn't smooth, but I found myself drawn to the roughness and the scars and the dark brown curls that heaved up and down as he breathed. I had to tear my eyes away before he noticed me staring. For the second time that day I had to wonder if I had been entirely successful in that. But I grabbed up a towel for myself and turned towards the girls showers.

"Good job today kiddo, same time tomorrow?"

"Sure." I tried to sound enthusiastic, and certainly a part of me was, but I could already feel the ache crawling over my muscles, and I knew it was only going to get worse.

I had been right, it got worse. The next lesson involved more of me getting tossed around the room, put at least this time it seemed to have a greater purpose. Logan, I'm just going to call him that from now on, because even my fingers hurt and it saves me a few strokes on the keyboard, as actually sparring with me a bit now. No claws yet thank goodness, but he told me that I should try to learn his fighting style, so that it would be easier for me to complement him if we had to fight together. Ok, what he really meant was, so it would be easier to keep out of his way. Style? They had called him a beserker for a reason hadn't they? But as I watched him move, over and over during our hour together I found that I was able to discern some kind of rough pattern to his movements; nothing that would ever betray him to an enemy, but by the end I actually managed to spring away from him once or twice and land on my feet instead of my backside. I had some martial arts training, indirectly, but, hey, there's yet another sad story I don't want to think about anymore. But it did me some good. I think Logan even smiled at me as I made my last landing.

Once again he clapped me on the back once I had stood. I took the praise for what it was and headed to the showers. He called to me.

"Look kiddo, tomorrow I have some things I have to do away from the school, I can set it up so you can have some time here on your own or you can take the day off, what do want?"

I knew exactly what my aching muscles wanted, to sink into my bed and not get up till next week, but I also knew what he wanted to hear.

"I'll keep training if that's ok."

Now I knew that he was smiling, I even saw the gleam of one canine as he smirked at me. I must be crazy.

I skipped the dinning room that night, grabbing a tray and heading back to my room. I wanted to work on a history assignment while I could still wrap my brain around it, and I didn't want anyone seeing how stiff I really was; or asking the questions that would go along with the observation. Thankfully it didn't hurt to chew. I washed a decent steak sandwich down with a coke and got to work looking at Canadian Battle plans from WWI's battle at Passchendale. While historians will continue to debate the exact numbers it would be safe to say that that tiny swath of land cost a half a million men their lives over the course of three years, winning and losing territory in a muck filled hell hole. Perhaps irony, or futility had been the motive behind this class assignment. But as I continued to read and look at old photos all I could feel was sorrow. I made the notes I needed and bookmarked some battle maps to return to later. I was going to close it down when there was a soft knock on my door. I figured it might be Storm (dropping the Professor here, same reason), she did stop in every once in awhile to see how I was doing. I was in my PJ's and just left my laptop on my bed as I padded to the door to open it. I'm not sure if my shock or Logan's was the greater.

He stammed as he spoke, which was unusual for him.

"Sorry, " he turned his eyes to the ground, "I just wanted to make sure you were ok after today, I didn't see you at dinner."

"I was just working on an assignment so I ate in my room." The bruises on my arms were obvious, I wear a tank top to bed mostly, because I'm alone in my room and there's no one to hurt. "Look, you had better come in, it will be less embarrassing for us both if someone else should come down the hall. "

He stepped into the room, but kept his eyes on the ground until I told him it was ok to look up, that I had put on my robe. He seemed quite relieved.