DISCLAIMER: Not mine…

A/N: These are musings. These are Cody's memories. "These" are music lyrics. More comments at the end. :)

BLAZING GLORY:

CHAPTER TWO: HERE'S TO FREEDOM:

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For a few seconds, the moment was just perfect…

Then the entire street heard Marie's hysterical screaming.


Three weeks later:

The first time Cody set eyes on Marie, he thought she was a joke. She looked like the most innocent thing in the world pretending to be bad ass. He'd told her such a goody-goody didn't belong with his group. But then she punched him in the face, told him to stop being an asshole and asked his friends if they wanted to go hang out down by the creek.

Marie woke up from her sleep with a loud gasp. Her hair was everywhere, sticking to her sweaty skin. She took deep breaths as she pulled her hair back, untangled herself from the bed sheets and struggled to fix her tank top back in place.

It happened again.

She looked around the room, aided by the soft light coming from the night stand lamp. Seeing nothing different she moved to stand up from her bed, but as soon as she got on her feet, the world tilted and she landed back on the mattress. Only then did she notice that she was shaking.

For three weeks straight, at the most random moments, she'd been having these strange…episodes. Episodes where she viewed herself as Cody.

She made another move to stand up, this time successful, and slowly made her way on bare feet to the door of her room. The floor was freezing, effectively jolting her completely awake. 'That's right,' she mused, 'summer had gone long ago. It was autumn now.'

They always felt so real. Too real.

Marie opened the door and made her way silently down the hall. Her uncle had been called back from his business trip. He was mad at her, of course, for interrupting his oh so important work. He was also furious at her for becoming a mutant, and not doing so in a silent manner. It was bad enough that she was a rebel with no morals, and now she was a freak. What would his boss think? Muffling a snort, she crept down the stairs, skipping the creaking step.

She still didn't fully understand what had happened. One moment they'd been cuddling, and then Marie began to feel something very powerful going into her. All of a sudden she wasn't just Rogue.

Dear Uncle was in the living room working on something in his laptop. He was sitting on the couch, with his back turned to her, so she quickly crossed the floor to the kitchen.

She was also Cody.

Taking an empty glass, she filled with water from the sink, sipping at it, as her mind began to wander.

Now he was in a coma, battling for life. All because she had touched him.

She froze all of a sudden, and didn't feel the glass of water slip through her fingers. She didn't even hear it crash into a hundred pieces on the floor.

His girlfriend was amazing. Fourteen-year-old Marie hated the simple, quiet life, preferring to go out and discover and get lost in the middle of nowhere just so that she could fight for a way back. They skipped school regularly; because she wanted to see the couple of towns around Caldecott. Then they started travelling out of the county, then out of the state. Cody was never going to forget the time when they went all the way to California on a whim from her. After all, it was then that he realized he was in love. When they returned, he started calling her his 'sexy Rogue.' The first time she heard it, she had only blinked, then smiled and told him to brace himself, 'cause she wanted to know what all the New York hoopla was about.

A sharp sting spread over her left shoulder, bringing Marie back to reality. She looked behind her and found her uncle, face red as a tomato and neck vein popping, glaring at her with undisguised irritation.

"The hell's wrong with you?!" he bellowed at her. "Look at the mess you made!" he pointed at the floor, where the glittering shards were spread. She looked down, and noticed that in his shaking fist was the kitchen rag, half of it hanging, the other half crushed in the man's hand. Realization struck, making Rogue's eyes narrow. He'd hit her. With a rag, but he'd hit her, nonetheless. Slowly, she raised her head again, making sure to meet her uncle's beady eyes with her own. Wild emotions ran through her, beginning with annoyance and ending with pure, unadulterated rage.

Just like that, she became a predator and he the prey. Uncle's posture shifted suddenly from furious to guarded, his red face paling rapidly. His lips trembled, and recognition passed through his eyes, a recognition that made Marie freeze for a moment. Then, unexpectedly she took one step forward, narrowly missing getting cut by the shards on the floor. The man jumped and scuttled back, until he reached the wall, pressing his back completely against it.

Seconds passed between them, the only sound breaking the silence was her uncle's heavy breathing. It was then that Rogue made a decision. Anger under control, Marie looked at the pathetic man with disgust. "Fuck you," she declared with an even voice, and turned around to start walking back to her room.

In three weeks, what little happiness she had managed to gather for herself had quickly been destroyed. Her boyfriend could die at any moment. Her friends were too scared of being close to her, some hating her for being a "mutie." She was untouchable; her skin a poisonous expanse ready to suck the life out everything it made contact. Even when she touched inorganic objects, she could feel something inside of her searching, searching for anything with living energy on it. Her mind was a mess, and she had to fight from falling apart out in the public. Nobody worried, nobody wondered how she was dealing with it all.

Marie took the steps two at a time, reaching the top in record time and stomping her way to her room. As soon as she reached it, she closed the door with a resounding bang, and locked it for good measure. She began moving around her room, pacing back and forth, trying to bring order to her thoughts.

Nobody cared for her there. Ever since she arrived, she could feel how she didn't really belong. But she was just so stubborn; forcing herself to carve a place she could call her own in the tiny town. It really was futile, like trying to make two mismatched jigsaw pieces fit together. Try hard enough and the pieces are bound to get torn up. That was what happened here. She tried to delay it, travelling to places outside the town for days, keeping away from the town's normal structured life. In the end it all just blew up in her face.

She stopped pacing all of a sudden, her gaze landing on her leather boots, her guardian angels. Liquid warmth began spilling down her cheeks, as she realized that she's never fit in anywhere, and now she was poison. How pathetic she was.

As soon as that thought crossed her mind, a scream, coming deep from within her soul, made its way out. It was full of anger, and pain, and that horrible sadness she had been trying to push back since the last three weeks, since the last five years, for about as long as she could remember.

At the end, her voice cracked, and she must have blacked out for a while because the next thing she knew she was kneeling, pain blossoming from her kneecaps, back resting against the foot of her bed. All her strength was suddenly gone.

Marie was a nice gal at just fifteen and crazy in all the right ways. But Helen was in college. And was blonde. And smiled and laughed at everything he said. And asked if her girlfriends could join them in bed.

It was like someone had stabbed her in the chest, and thrown her into a freezing lake for her to die. Her entire body began to shake, her head moving left to right as if denying what she had just seen. But she did…and she knew it was true. It was another sound she made then; a growl like a furious caged monster. She stood up suddenly, walking before she knew it into her bathroom, turning on the harsh bright lights. A pair of ruthless green eyes stared at Rogue from within the mirror. She averted the gaze and took a look at the rest of herself. She didn't know what she was looking for, not until she met her own glare again.

She had changed. Not because of her mutation, no. She had changed long before someone gave name to the new her. Marie had died a long time ago, way back when she had lost her innocence. She had been uprooted, become dishonest, a cheat, savage, unpredictable, disobedient, until she had finally stopped belonging amongst society altogether. She had become the embodiment of a rogue. She was Rogue.

What the hell was she still doing in Caldecott?

Blindly, she reached for the ceramic toothbrush holder on the sink and clutched it tightly until her knuckles turned white. Then, as if she had been stretched too far and let go, she snapped, arm rising and falling quickly, throwing the object against the mirror in the process with all her strength.

Not waiting to see the results, Rogue turned back into the room, and with a barreling force crashed into the bed, sending it rolling on its wheels to the other side of the room stopping only with the wall. With its hiding place revealed, Rogue took the large duffel bag and dropped it on the disturbed bed. She opened the bag and rammed her hand in, searching until she felt leather and pulled the article out. It was a blade.

Quickly pulling the tan leather sheath, she checked to make sure the blade was alright. The metal shined even with the poor lighting. At 13.6 inches long, an edge sharp enough to split hairs, and a teethed back, the hunting knife was anything but a joke. Whenever she travelled to places unknown to her she always took it for protection. Sometimes it was even a practical object to have. She sheathed the knife back and threw it into the bag, before going over to her drawers and doing the same with her clothes and other helpful objects.

It took her less than half an hour to pack everything she wanted and needed. She closed the bag without a second thought, its zipper making the only sound in the entire room. When she was done, she took a step back and a deep breath before taking off her shirt and pants. She stood naked for half a second, before the coldness seeping through the walls moved her into action again. As she reached for the clothes she'd laid out on the bed, she heard Dear Uncle's footsteps coming up the stairs. She changed directions instantly and went for the dressing table next to the door on her room. With a hard push she shoved the wooden furniture in front of the door, and then returned to her clothes.

Warm underwear, knee-high socks, long-sleeved undershirt.

Uncle's steps were going down the hall now.

Thick skinny jeans, black plain sweater, tie the hair back in a ponytail.

And she could hear the man stopping on her door.

She pulled on her long green coat as her legal guardian called for her.

There was banging on the door as safe heavenly boots finally hugged her calves over the jeans.

The door knob clicked opened as she finished putting on her gloves. She almost forgot her scarf.

Dear Uncle was trying to push the door open, and found himself struggling with the weight of the dressing table. Rogue crossed the room with the bag in hand, and went to work on the window. Damn thing was always getting stuck.

But as Mr. Workaholic finally made enough space to squeeze into the room, it was too late. His eyes found her immediately, and she stared back at him for a full second before throwing herself off the opened window. The man froze on the spot, and started back to life at the sound of thud. He rushed to the window, searching wildly for a broken body only to see his niece running full speed down the street.


There was a long-developed hitch on her side from running for so long. She was already nearly on the other side of town though, and that was the important thing. Stopping for a moment to catch her breath, she rested her hands on her knees, flashlight pointing at a random angle.

As soon as she got out of the house she headed for the cover of trees; even in the dark she knew her way around the small forest. The cold was getting to her though, even with the layers. Breath regained, she stood upright again, and pointed the flashlight forwards. A small smile appeared on her face as the light hit asphalt only a couple of yards away, and she turned off her flashlight. She reached her destination quickly, and looked ahead to the other side of the road, where Al's Diner was still open at one in the morning.

As fast as possible, she crossed the deserted road in a crouching pose, hiding herself from the diner behind the trunk of a parked SUV. She looked around the corner at the building, large windows showing sleepy couples and truck drivers making their way through the food. No one was paying attention to the outside. Good.

Crouching even lower, she moved from her hiding spot, trying to reach a car she spotted at the end of the parking lot, where there were no diner windows in front of it. She stopped briefly behind every car and truck, trying to not be seen as much as possible. When she reached her destination, Rogue looked back at the diner and found that no one could see her from the angle she was in. Perfect. She looked back to see her prize: it was an old blue Honda. Hopefully it wouldn't make a ruckus starting up.

Creeping over to the driver's side she hoped against hope as she pulled on the handle…smiling triumphantly as it gave and the door opened. Not wasting any more time she threw her duffle bag on the passenger's seat, and positioned herself under the car wheel. She turned the flashlight back on and placed it in her mouth so it could shine upwards. Her left hand cracked opened the panel as her right hand reached down into her right boot and pulled on the green handle of her butterfly knife. She opened it quickly, and set herself to work on the wires until the Honda's engine started with a low purr.

No one inside the diner heard or saw the small blue car pull out of the parking lot, and no one was going to discover it missing for another half hour.

Rogue turned on the headlights only when Al's was completely out of view. The road ahead was long and lined with trees, little shining eyes belonging to deer glinting between the trees whenever the light hit them. Rogue didn't pay any attention to them. The car was freezing inside, even with the heat turned all the way up. Balancing the wheel on her knees, she reached into her left boot, and pulled out a battered pack of cigarettes. Opening it, she pulled out a cigarette and a cheap green lighter that she'd hidden there. She placed the cigarette between her lips, and clicked the lighter open. The little flame lighted the inside of the car for a second before she clicked it closed. The smoke was a welcomed warmth in the middle of the night, and she let it linger inside of her before releasing it.

Deciding there had been too much silence for the past couple of hours, she turned the car radio on and selected a station. A sardonic smile crossed her lips at the song they were playing, before humming along with it.

For a moment she wondered what exactly was going to happen to her, but then she just shrugged off the worry. It was too late now, it was time to live for the moment and stop thinking about tomorrow. She realized this was a rather self-destructive way of living, but really, what other life-style fitted her? It was better than crying in a corner anyways.

"You'll never see me fall from grace," she sang softly along to the song.


It had been her sixteenth birthday a couple of months back. She'd been in Oregon then. Now she was working under the table as a waitress in a little restaurant in Bellingham, Washington. A decision she was quickly starting to regret. Alex, the son of the restaurant's owner, looked like he had fallen a little too much in love with her, or what he believed was her. She said she was a nineteen-year-old French girl named Adelie Aiton. It helped that she had a pretty face that could look innocent enough when she willed it. Sometimes, she had way too much making up aliases.

Smothering a grimace, she served plates full of food to the only clients left in the restaurant at 10pm; a couple and their little toddler son.

It wasn't easy hiding her mutation, but as long as she stayed on the northern states she could pull off wearing layers of clothes with long sleeves and still walk amongst society, like she was some undercover agent in a foreign country. Using gloves inside were harder, so she just made an extra effort to be anti-social, so that no one tried to make contact. She had an alright relationship with her boss, after all if she wanted to keep her job then she had to show him some kind of respect. But it was his son that wasn't taking the hint.

"Adelie! How are you today?" the 21-year-old boy greeted her as soon as she went to the back of the kitchen and inside the boss's empty office. He was visiting for the weekend from college again. He wasn't so ugly, really. Eyes a dark grey, and hair a dark brown, he could be called handsome. He was definitely fit enough, and tall enough. If she wasn't poisonous she would have mused taking a tumble with him. But no, a murder was not what she needed at the moment.

"Fine, thank you," she answered curtly, making sure to pronounce the "thank" with a slight lisp. She walked past him, ignoring the fact that he seemed to watch her every move, and headed straight to the bathroom.

It was a small fit, and for a moment Rogue wondered how in the world the rotund boss managed to squeeze in, but then she quickly dismissed the thought as she remembered she was about to use his toilet. She preferred to use this bathroom over the one made for the customers, she liked the privacy it offered. As she did her business, her mind wandered for a moment.

Fall gave into winter, and winter was just vanishing into spring now. That was how long she had been gone. There'd been bad moments, as well as interesting ones, but she could honestly say that leaving Mississippi was the best decision she had ever made. She'd even changed again, if only slightly, by becoming calmer and more level-headed. But only a little bit. After all, she had a lifestyle to upkeep.

After she finished, she began to wash her hands on the sink, when she caught sight of herself on the mirror. The image before her was interesting, as if she was seeing herself clearly after a long time. Something that was partially true.

There was no anger marring her face, and her eyes looked softer, as if all the rage had vanished. But that wasn't right, because she could still feel the ire and disappointment, and the pain bubbling up inside of her. Maybe she had resigned herself? Well, whatever it was, she couldn't really dwell upon it at the moment. Her shift had just ended, and she could finally put to good use the salary her boss gave her earlier today. Yeah, tonight seemed like a good night to go on and skip town.

When Rogue opened the bathroom only to be forced back into it, her idea became even more concrete. The door slammed closed, leaving her and her attacker in total darkness as he pushed her back against the wall, the tiny room giving no space between them.

Rogue didn't think twice. She reached with bare hands towards the man, and made contact with an upper arm and his face, grabbing at the flesh with a vice grip. Memories flooded her mind instantly.

"Oh God," she whispered as she realized who she was holding, what he wanted to do with her, and how wonderful life energy felt shooting up into her veins.

As silently as she could, she heaved an unconscious Alex to sit on the toilet, where he promptly slumped over and hit the side of his head against the tiled wall with a soft meaty thud. For a moment, she leaned against the sink, trying to catch her breath and organize her thoughts; all of a sudden feeling as if she'd just shrunk almost an entire foot, and suffering vertigo because of it. Her breasts also felt a bit funny to her, until she managed to completely push Alex's psyche all the way to the back of her head.

"Shit!" she cursed in a low whisper then, as she realized she had just absorbed the boss's son, inside his office bathroom. "I've got to get out of here," she mumbled as she noticed how tremors ran through Alex's body. Without any further ado, she pulled on the bathroom door, only to find it wouldn't open well enough because Alex's legs got in the way. "Dammit!" Rogue climbed onto the boy's lap, the heel of her boot crushing certain parts of his anatomy she knew he was going to miss. He deserved it. The small space she had managed to open was big enough to slip through with only a bit of trouble. Once she did so, she closed the door shut softly, and fixed all her clothes and hair back in place. As she regained a normal breathing pattern, Rogue began to plan.

She'd seen a very pretty postcard of this place in Alaska, and she could easily imagine herself living there for a while.

Her pace was brisk as she made her way over to the lockers, taking off her apron as she did so. The lock to hers opened easily with a hard yank, and she pulled the door open, making a metal clang as it hit the door next to it. There was only a thick black scarf and a long green coat hanging inside, one pocket holding thick knit gloves, another an envelope with the week's salary. All of today's tips where hidden inside her bra. She pulled on the gloves and the coat, and then she wrapped the scarf around her neck.

After she finished, she made a beeline to the exit on the back of the restaurant, cutting through the kitchen where only Marty, the night chef and Betty, another waitress, were left. Marty was busy cooking up something or other to feed himself, and Betty was just finishing up washing most of the dishes. Both had been making enough sounds to cover up the bathroom incident. It was better to hasten her pace though; she wanted to be pretty far ahead when one of them discovered Alex's comatose form…if they found him tonight, and not the boss tomorrow morning.

"'Night, Adelie!" Betty called out, one sudsy hand rising and waving.

"Adieu, Betty…" Rogue mumbled out, already out the door before she finished the last syllable.


Even though Rogue had been staying on a motel, all of her things were on the back seat of her latest car, neatly packed into the same duffel bag. It was easier this way if she had to run, as she was doing now. What she wasn't counting on, though, was how low the gas tank was. Within three hours of driving north the old black car just sputtered to a stop on the side of the road.

For a while, Rogue just stared at the car wheel in disbelief. Then, "Aaaargghhh!"

This could not be happening, she was in the middle of freezing-nowhere, the only light being provided by her car. Not happening.

"Mother f*cking, piece of sh*t! Argh!" With each syllable, Rogue punched the center of the wheel, each hit giving out a small blast of the horn. She kept going on like this, cursing, and hitting not only the wheel, but also different aspects of the car, until she got tired. Then she just sat there, staring forward out to the endless road as she tried to catch her breath. A lock of hair had fallen away from the braid she had pulled it into earlier, and she blew it away subconsciously as she decided what to do now.

Beyond ticked off did not begin to describe the state Rogue was currently in, and yet she was thinking straight enough to know she had to keep moving, in case the police got called. She had to go out there. Into the darkness. Into the cold.

Letting out a groan of frustration, she reached into her bag to fish out the flash light, and make sure she had spare batteries just in case. Next she pulled out her hunting blade, tying the sheath securely around one of her jeans' belt loops. She didn't trust the darkness as far as she could see into it. Once done, she closed the bag, opened the car door, and hefted the duffel over her shoulder. If her math was right, the next town was ten miles from here. Her wrist watch said it was currently 1:15 am. Rogue was not amused. But she wasn't about to start complaining in the middle of nowhere…again…so she just began moving toward her intended destination, thankful for having decided to wear her trusty leather boots—the lovely guardian angels—tonight.

One hour in, she had decided the blade on her hip wasn't enough, and took out her butterfly from her boot to hold in her hand. Just in case. Her car lights had long since faded in the distance, and she was now using her flashlight. Even though spring was around the corner, it still was horrible cold this far north. The trees were still frozen over, and was that? Yes, a flurry had just begun. Tightening the scar around her, and pulling the coat's hood over her head, she continued to stubbornly trudge on.

Five minutes later headlights brightened up everything in front of her just before she heard the growling of a truck engine behind. The top of her body turned back to look even as she continued walking forwards. With a tightening of her knife, she watched the progress of the truck up the road, until the 18-wheeler stopped next to her. Only then did she stop walking.

The passenger door opened, and she could see from her place an old fat man struggling to sit properly back in the driver's seat. After a couple of seconds, the truck driver took a look at her, concerned pale blue eyes meeting aggravated striking green ones.

"It's really dangerous to be walking out here in the middle of the night, you know? Where you headed, girlie?" A deep voice, peppered with a California accent boomed out of the old man, making Rogue lower her guard, just a little. Truck drivers usually traveled far. Maybe the next town didn't have to be her destination now.

"Where are you headed, Mister?" she decided to lay on the southern accent real thick, it almost always let her get away with anything.

"Well," the man began as he scratched in thought, staring at the reflection of the rearview mirror for a while before looking back to her, "I can take you as far a Laughlin City."

Rogue had no idea where that was, but it wasn't in Washington, and the man was heading north, so that must mean Canada. For the first time in days, the corners of the sixteen-year-old's mouth pulled upwards into a smile. Conspicuously, she hid the butterfly back into a coat pocket and turning off the forgotten flashlight.

"Deal," she answered, before hauling herself up into the passenger's seat.


A/N: The thing about the practicality of Rogue with hunting knives…well, I'll be using it next chapter so just wait and see.

The song playing on the car radio is Freak on a Leash by Korn, thank you very much.

Kudos to Elizabeth, for drinking rum in the name of freedom, while marooned on an island with the legendary Captain Jack Sparrow.

Oh! And for last chapter! Kudos to Lara Croft, for admitting there's no rest for the wicked with a smile on her face.