"We've made excellent progress today, Rogue. You should be very proud, I certainly am."

The Professor followed his words with a quick, gentle squeeze of her bare hands. With a gentle smile that spoke of his understanding of her frustration, he drew their almost daily session of trying to help Rogue control her mutation to an end.

"I think we'll take tomorrow and the weekend off then pickup again Monday."

Pulling her gloves back on, she rose from her chair and gave him a resigned nod.

"Rogue, we will find a way for you to control this. Do not get discouraged or give up."

She simply sighed and ducked her head at his encouraging words. There was no way she could explain to this man why she wanted control and wanted it now.

He wheeled over to her side and gave her now gloved hand another gentle squeeze. "Don't be thinking such dark thoughts. Take a break from all this and enjoy yourself. It's not everyday you get to turn 18, so just focus on tomorrow."

With a half smile that promised she'd try, she left his office.

Tomorrow.

Her birthday.

Yippee, whoo hoo, yay and all that, she thought with dark sarcasm.

She accepted the Professor's assurances that complete control of her mutation would come eventually, but she'd wanted so badly to have made more progress by now. A month of hour or more long sessions almost every day had shown that with careful concentration she could control her skin for short periods of time.

Her control had lasted thirty minutes today, which would have pleased her as well as the Professor if it weren't for tomorrow.

All she really wanted for her birthday, on her birthday, was to be able to touch one person.

Was that really so much to ask for?

While she would have loved to be able to touch him completely, as she did in her dreams and fantasies, just being able to receive a kiss from Logan on her birthday would have been enough.

She was pretty sure he wouldn't have denied her that, even if he didn't see her the way she saw him.

Everyone works to grant the wishes of a birthday girl, don't they?

Sighing, she faced facts.

Unless she learned to control her life/power absorbing skin within the next twenty-four hours or some other miracle occurred, her dreams of touching Logan on her birthday would not be coming true.

~*~*~

Alone in her bedroom after dinner, Rogue sat cross-legged on her bed and meditated as the Professor had taught her in their sessions. Her room was silent, helping to keep her mind focused on her thoughts.

She didn't think of her mutation or a single one of the people that she'd absorbed in her life because of it.

She thought simply of touch.

She replayed scenes and memories of the people she knew exchanging casual caresses, like Scott and Jean kissing or Amanda and Kurt walking hand in hand.

As always, fantasies of her doing such things and so much more with Logan drifted into her mind. The fantasies never interfered with her concentration. If anything, they improved it because making them come true was the goal she worked to achieve every time she did these exercises.

Thoroughly relaxed and thinking only of touching her dream man, she stroked a bare hand down Gypsy's back. The tabby housecat purred and arched into the caress while turning its head to lick at Rogue's hand.

The cat's gritty tongue rasped over her bare flesh twice with no sign of a reaction from her mutation, causing her eyes to pop open.

In the same instant she realized the touch hadn't had it's usual effect on the cat, she felt the pull begin.

Dammit, I was so close, she cursed.

~*~*~

Ten minutes to midnight, the official start of her birthday, and Rogue couldn't sleep. She'd worked on trying to control her mutation for hours until the frustration at failing brought her here.

She'd probably fried her brain with all the concentrating she'd been doing, but a few minutes ago in her room she had had a thought.

If she couldn't control her mutation, there was still time to try for a miracle and she had thought of something that just might get her one.

Now she was rummaging around in the kitchen cupboards looking for something cake-like, a birthday candle, and some matches.

Minutes later and seconds before midnight, she was back in her room sitting at her desk.

On the desk in front of her the flame of a single candle stuck into a Twinkie flickered as she anxiously watched the seconds tick by on her clock.

As the all three hands marked the midnight hour, she closed her eyes and made her wish.

Fingers crossed, she blew out the candle and slowly opened her eyes again.

12:00:10 am, her clock read.

Perfect timing.

Now if only this hair-brained scheme works.