Anna Marie – no, there was no other name – sat in a beige office with a lawyer and a social worker. She was fifteen, and her guardian, Irene, had recently died. The official findings of the coroner were 'heart attack', but she knew better. She had been the one to kill the woman after all, accidental though it was, and educational as it may have been. Damn but she was having issues now. She'd loved the blind woman who'd taken such care of her, and to find out that she was being raised and groomed to help some blue shape-shifter woman and magnetic man take over the world? She was not one bit pleased about that. So now here she was, with the lawyer to see to the final disposition of her late-guardian's properties, and the social worker was there about her disposition.

"Ah know Ah'm young, but Ah'd be strahkin' out on mah own in a couple years anyway," she said. "Ah'd like to keep the house and live on mah own," Anna Marie explained to both the adults present.

"Shouldn't be a problem with you keeping the house Miss Marie," the lawyer said. "Irene had no other family, and had made no arrangements otherwise in the event of her death."

The social worker was less sure, but eventually agreed. "On the condition that you get checked up on once every fortnight until you're seventeen."

Anna Marie smiled and nodded. Then it was just funeral plans and explaining about all the paperwork that would come with her living on her own. A lot of it she knew already, thanks to having absorbed all of Irene's memories when she accidentally killed the woman. A fair amount of that knowledge was also gonna come in handy when it came to getting used to her new mutant powers.

Yeah, mutant, who knew? A lot of people apparently. According to Irene's memories and the visions Anna Marie had been getting since absorbing Irene's powers as well as her memories, there were groups of mutants out there. Anti-human groups, pro-human groups, anti-violence groups and pro-violence groups. Groups that were pro-mutant and wanted to just avoid people because they figured they'd just be hated for being different, and lots of these groups around the world. It was nuts, really. And then there was her, little Anna Marie, with the potential to be the most powerful mutant ever, and there was at least one of these groups that knew about her already.

An anti-human, pro-mutant, pro-violence group. Thing was, as far as Anna Marie could tell, all the groups that Irene had heard about and had visions of – and that she was now having visions of – all had their hearts and ideals in more-or-less the right place, but for a lot of them, their methods were shot to hell.

And wouldn't ya know, but all of them had nick-names for the people in them. Irene's had been Destiny, because she'd had visions of the future. Creative much?

Well, first things first, from now until one of those groups showed up – and she had a feeling that wouldn't be long coming – a girl living on her own needed to know how to defend herself. She could just lay her bare hand on the skin of whoever might be trying to nab her, but then she'd be stuck with that person in her head with her and Irene, and frankly, she didn't necessarily want that. A steel baseball bat was purchased, and she signed herself up for karate lessons. Okay, so it was a contact sport, but she could wear gloves and long sleeves and she'd be mostly fine. If she got a little skin contact, then she'd just learn faster.

The trick would be learning how to take memories and strength and powers at will, rather than all the time, and to not hurt the person she was taking them from unless she wanted to... if that was even possible. Well, the meditation exercises she got from a book at the school library helped sorting out herself from Irene and integrating everything properly without having to keep being confused about who she was exactly.

The stuff she got from touching people didn't go away after all. It got integrated, it got processed, some things faded, but everything did, in the end, stay with her. Just at different levels of potency depending on how much she'd absorbed and then how dedicated she was to using whatever it was she'd collected from the other person.

It was a month before someone other than her social worker or someone from school knocked on her door. She'd been meditating in her living room, the bay window wide open to be able to hear the river and the sounds of the bayou wildlife, and was currently sorting through the memories – simple as they were – of a bird she'd gotten close enough to pet earlier that day. So much for the idea of animal companionship, and so much for being able to turn it on and off at will. All the same, she got up from where she'd been sitting on the floor and didn't bother to pick up her gloves on the way to the door.

"Can Ah help you?" she asked as she stood in the half-open doorway, leaning on the frame while holding onto the door handle in case she felt the burning desire to shut it in the face of whoever it was.

"Heard about a mutant in the area," said the man in a black-and-orange uniform who was standing on her door step.

"Didja now?" Anna Marie countered curiously, raising a hand to pat the man's cheek. "Ah think you got the wrong state, friend. The comic convention happens in New York."

The man's image flickered, and was soon replaced by a blue woman with red hair. Anna Marie wrapped that red hair around her fist and dragged the woman inside. She knew this woman from Irene's memories. This woman had adopted her when she was four and thought that made her a mother.

Anna Marie held this woman down until she couldn't feel a pulse in the woman's wrist, then grabbed a thin cloth and started CPR. Like hell she needed another heart attack linked to her name. Once Mystique – the blue woman – was breathing on her own again, Anna Marie cracked her skull with the baseball bat and dragged her out to the river. She wasn't really a violent girl, but she knew, knew, this was the most likely way of getting it through to this woman to stay the hell out of her life.

Though, that school that had other mutant kids in it sounded like it might be cool. Hanging out with other kids as freaky as her might not be too bad. Of course, that depended on the other kids that were already there a whole lot, and she'd never really been a social butterfly.

On top of that, she now had another whole person – memories, powers, strengths, the lot – to sort through in her meditation.

~oOo~

A year later, and a lot had happened to Anna Marie. For one thing, she'd changed her name. Legally. Her name, full and in total, was Rogue. She liked it better than Anna Marie, and it didn't say anything about her powers or a bad take on her real name, so it wasn't putting her in the same sub-level of creative as the sorts who called themselves Destiny, Mystique, Magneto, Sabertooth, Juggernaut, or Professor X – though, granted, only the last one was a slant on his real name, and was more like an abbreviation than anything else. Oh yes, she's learned a lot from the memories she'd taken from Mystique.

Heck, she'd learned a lot from the coma patients at the hospital where she volunteered on Saturdays, and even more from the old folks at the home where she volunteered on Sundays. Especially from the ones who'd decided to burn through their kids' inheritance before going. It meant she knew how to do all sorts of things you'd never think a Mississippi girl would know how to do, and she made sure she kept up her meditation, so she never had to worry about having extra personalities to deal with, even though she kept all the memories and experiences.

One old lady had toured the world in her youth, and Rogue had gotten five different languages from her, as well as an appreciation for different sorts of food. Another old woman knew everything there was to know about gardening. A slightly scarred old guy knew how to catch catfish with his bare hands. One coma patient knew how to drive snow-mobiles and jet-skis – he woke up a week after Rogue touched him, which was quite the change from her usual experience. She guessed the pain and the pull of her powers on his life experiences was enough to pull him out of it while at the same time exhausting him enough to sleep for another week. Another coma patient, a guy in his late thirties who'd been 'asleep' for about five years, also woke up a week after she touched him. From him, she got all sorts of crazy moves, as well as a lot of natural-healing-type know-how, since the guy had trained with fighting monks in Tibet for about fifteen years of his life before a mild stroke and sent him here while he was visiting family. It was actually really nice, getting to see the families of the coma patients go all glassy-eyed and choked up with joy, seeing whoever it was wake up at last.

Right now though, Rogue was at the school dance, well covered and not actually mingling so much as just enjoying the night air and the sound of music from inside the building while she watched the water run by underneath the extended porch that was part of the hall the school had rented for the occasion. Then she heard the heavy footsteps of someone who had just been pushed forwards.

"Can Ah help you?" she asked, turning around, fully prepared for it to be a bad joke at her expense, a dare between two jocks to trick the aloof, pale girl with the odd hair into making a fool of herself.

The one behind gave his friend a thumbs-up, and the blonde in front of her stuttered.

"Uh... Dance! Would you like to? With me that is... together?" he asked, and it was clear from the way he stuttered it out, the gestures of his friend behind him, and the total lack of smooth involved that it was no joke.

All the same... "Ah'm really just hangin' out here," she said, not wanting to go into the crowded room that was an accident waiting to happen.

But the jock was kinda cute, and he looked like a kicked puppy when he figured out – remarkably quickly for a jock – that she was turning him down.

"Aw heck, why not?" she allowed, a smile touching her face. She was still a teen-aged girl after all, she had wants and needs of her own. A little affection was kinda high on that list, her mutation aside.

Plus, the way the jock lit up like Christmas had come early was even cuter than his kicked-puppy look.

"What harm can come from just one dance?" she suggested. "Ah'm not fond of crowds though, so could we dance out here instead?"

The jock nodded vigorously, and his friend clapped him on the shoulder before heading back inside.

"I'm Cody," the jock introduced himself, grinning as they started dancing to the music they could hear coming through the open door.

"Mah name's Rogue," she answered.

They talked a bit more while they danced, but didn't swap phone numbers at the end of the night. It was an evening that left Rogue feeling good about herself as a girl in general. She'd attracted an upright, stand-up, down-to-earth nice-guy. She knew because she'd scraped a little bit of her skin against his, very briefly, while they'd been dancing. Not enough to have to deal with having large amounts of Cody in her head, or to give him more than something that felt like the jolt of static electricity passing between two people, but still enough to get memories and experiences from the cute quarter back. It was flattering to know he'd been staring at her all week.

Still, she declined his request for a date. She'd delved into Irene's power for a moment, wanting to know if it would be a good idea to go out with a guy she couldn't really touch, only to get a vision of people waiting for her to come home so that they could talk to her.

"Ah'm real sorry Cody," she said. "But Ah applied to a school up in New York state recently, get out an' see the world a bit, ya know? Ah probably won't still be in Coldecott by the end of the week. If Ah weren't goin', you can be sure Ah'd say yes though."

Cody's shoulders slumped, but he nodded gratefully and smiled sadly.

"You'll look me up if you ever come back down?" he asked. "I think you'd be a great friend to have, even if..."

Rogue smiled. "Huh," she chuckled to herself, genuinely flattered. "Sure Ah will Cody."

The boy relaxed, his smile a little wider and he nodded again before taking her gloved hand and kissing her leather-covered knuckles lightly, then waved and walked back into the hall where the rest of their school year were dancing.

When she got home, there was a whole crew outside her front door, one of them the man who Mystique had impersonated a year ago. She was fairly sure it wasn't Mystique again though, as it was quite the company.

"Y'all had better come inside," she said, shaking her head tiredly as she walked through them to her front door.

The house was pretty bare actually, especially given that it was occupied solely by a teen aged girl, but Rogue had sold a lot of Irene's nick-knacks and any furniture that she didn't use regularly fairly quickly. The emptiness of the house helped with the clarity she sought in her mind.

"Um, nice place you've got here," offered the red-head once she was inside.

"Kinda bare though," added the slightly younger brunette.

"Kitty," hissed the two older teens.

"What?" the brunette, Kitty apparently, asked.

"Yeah, don't scold the girl f'r speakin' her mind," Rogue put in as she turned in her living room to face her visitors. "So, y'all want somethin' ta drink?"

"That's right decent of ya to offer," the large man – who Rogue knew to be called 'Wolverine' thanks to Mystique's memories – said with a slightly crooked smile.

"Take the mask off inside sugar," Rogue said, tapping his chin very lightly with the bare tip of her finger, having taken her gloves off once she was inside. That amount of contact really only drew out the man's knowledge of what people would like to drink, since that's what he'd been thinking about. Surface thoughts only for that one, and not at all difficult to sort and categorise within her own head.

"Make yerselves comfortable," she offered, then ducked into the kitchen, not bothering to watch Wolverine shake off the 'static shock' feeling he'd gotten from her tiny tap.

According to Wolverine, it would be water for 'boy scout' and 'red', hot chocolate for 'half-pint' and 'elf', tea, water or a glass of wine (whichever they were offered) for 'Chuck' and 'Storm', and he'd like a beer but wasn't expecting one.

Once Rogue had put the milk on to heat, she grabbed glasses out of the cupboard and pulled a couple of bottles out of the hard-to-reach part of the corner cupboard. It was where she hid Irene's wine from the social worker. Rogue didn't drink it, but she did use it in cooking. A waste of fine wine maybe, but it sure made her gumbo great. For herself, and the man she'd gotten the drink preferences from, Rogue pulled a couple of root-beers out of her fridge. It wasn't real beer, but it was as close as she was able to offer him.

When the hot chocolates were made, Rogue loaded everything up onto a tray and took it into the lounge room, where she set the tray down and started passing the drinks around.

"Y'all are gonna have to talk to mah social worker about me movin' to a different state," she informed them as she handed a glass of wine to 'Chuck' where he sat in his wheelchair, brushing her hand against his to get a better idea of him.

"Oh my!" the bald man exclaimed at the skin-to-skin contact, and would have dropped the glass if Rogue hadn't still been holding onto it as well.

"Tingles, doesn't it?" she commented with a wry smile.

"What tingles?" asked 'boy scout', worry for 'Chuck' in his voice.

"Mah power," Rogue answered. "It's touch-based," she explained, handing over the glass of wine more carefully this time before moving over to 'boy scout' – who 'Chuck' called Scott, so that was more likely his name. Chuck himself was actually Charles Xavier, which agreed with Mystique's memories.

"Ah absorb memories, experiences, energy, strength, mutant powers through touch," she explained, and lay her hand over Scott's cheek. "It starts off as a tinglin' feelin', like a static shock, but the longer Ah hold on, the more powerful that 'tingle' gets, and the more of your memories Ah copy."

She took her hand away when she felt the power building up behind her eyes. Scott's power.

"For that much, you'll be tired a while, but you should be fine to go to school tomorrow," Rogue explained, aware of the red glow that was currently coalesced around her eyes.

"How... How are you not just...?" Scott asked, confused.

"Ah may not have much control over turning mah own power on an off," Rogue said, easily figuring out the boy's question. "But it's up to me if Ah use the powers Ah absorb from other mutants."

"So you've got my powers and Chuck's now?" Wolverine asked.

Rogue shook her head. "Ah got surface thoughts from the light contact," she answered. "Give ya a jolt and let me know what yer thinkin' at that moment. It needs to be a bit longer contact to get yer powers."

"That is completely awesome!" exclaimed Kurt – she'd gotten his real name and his alias 'Nightcrawler' from Scott and Chuck both. "Do me next! Teleporting can only be useful, ja?"

"Sure," Rogue agreed with a laugh, and lay her hand on Kurt's cheek. A short while later, Rogue disappeared from in front of Kurt with a bamph and reappeared back where she'd left the drinks.

She shook her head sharply and sat down quickly. Rogue swiped her root-beer and took a slug before closing her eyes and sorting the Charles Xavier memories from the Scott memories from the Kurt memories from her memories.

"Rogue?" Chuck – she knew his real name, but she liked Logan's name for the man. She'd gotten his real name from him, Scott, and Kurt, but only just realised while sorting through.

"Ah'll come with ya," she said, not opening her eyes. "But like Ah said, you need to talk to mah social worker, the school Ah'm currently attending needs to be notified as well, an' this house is mine, as well as all the stuff in it, so that needs sorting out."

"Of course," Chuck said, and Rogue could hear the smile.

~oOo~

Once in Bayville, Rogue realised very quickly that she would no longer have time to volunteer at old peoples homes or in coma wards. The homework from school and danger-room sessions at the mansion were going to be really packed on. On top of that, there was fixing her X-men uniform before she was going to be told to wear it.

"What's wrong with it?" Jean asked, confused as she watched Rogue pulling off a good amount of the colour that went down the body of the uniform.

Rogue raised an eyebrow at the girl. "Ya do know yours makes yer butt look twice as big, don't ya?" she countered. "That bright green does ya no favours either. Kitty's isn't as bad because she's jus' smaller in general, but no way am Ah gonna wear a large bit of bright colour down me."

Jean's cheeks flared almost as red as her hair before she turned and left Rogue to move all the colour onto a bib that stopped just below her boobs. Also, like hell she was gonna wear yellow gloves. Belt, okay, shoulder pads, okay, but she was gonna wear real boots with her outfit. She hadn't let 'pep' kill her braincells after all.

"What did you say to upset Jean?" Ororo asked when she came in a few minutes later, her tone more amused than accusatory. "She was incoherent with impotent fury."

"Ah may have pointed out her uniform wasn't exactly flatterin' to her figure," Rogue answered with an unrepentant smirk. "Hey, Miss Munroe, can Ah ask you somethin'?"

"Of course," the darkly-skinned woman answered, sitting down on the bed beside the girl who had a great deal less white in her hair.

"What's it like? To feel the weather all the time?" Rogue asked, cocking her head curiously.

Ororo smiled indulgently, and there was just a hint of proud respect glinting in her eyes. "You know Rogue, you're one of the few people I've met who realised, right off, that it is all the time," the older woman pointed out.

Rogue shrugged. "Even when the weather's fine, it's still weather. Ooh," Rogue cut herself off with a wince. "Bet that was tough when it first surfaced, huh?"

Ororo chuckled, but it was a tired chuckle, and she nodded her head. "It was," she agreed, "and I was in Tanzania at the time, so when I got control – and I got control quickly out of necessity – I was revered as a goddess."

Rogue smiled, pulled her feet up on the bed, wrapped her arms around her legs, and rested her chin in the dip between her knees. "Bet that felt good."

"At first, certainly," Storm agreed. "But I was under a lot of pressure from a lot of people, and I wanted something else for myself."

Rogue nodded. "Ah think Ah get where yer comin' from. One o' the old folks Ah minded when Ah was a volunteer back home, she said somethin' like... Now how did it go? Oh yeah!" Rogue snapped her fingers as the memory surfaced. It was actually something the woman had told her, something that had been told to her by her father. Rogue put on an old-woman voice, using Mystique's power to make it resemble the old woman from her memories as much as possible. "Ah hear people all the time sayin' that with great power comes great responsibility, an' they're always meanin' that responsibility to be for the better of the people around yeh, but it's important to remember that yeh've got a responsibility to yerself first, or yer no good to anyone."

Ororo laughed at Rogue's old-lady-impersonation, but nodded all the same and patted Rogue on the shoulder. "Exactly," she agreed, then she felt the tingle.

Ororo hadn't remembered, for that brief moment, that Rogue's power reared up at skin contact, hadn't been bothered that the girl was wearing an off-the-shoulder shirt, and that she herself wasn't wearing gloves – as she only really did that when in uniform. For some reason though, she couldn't seem to pull her hand free, and the tingling was beginning to become painful.

Distantly, she heard Rogue gasp, and felt a pair of hands pry her fingers off the slim shoulder and lift her hand away from the pale flesh that was such a contrast to her own.

"Damn it,"Rogue said quietly. "Ah didn't even think until Ah started to feel the air currents. We're both gonna have such headaches. C'mon Miss Munroe, breathe."

It was a good five minutes before Ororo had recovered enough to talk.

"How long do you predict the headache lasting?" she asked.

Rogue laughed weakly. "The rest of the day at least," she said. "Unless headache pills will work. Ah know they won't fer me, but they might f'r you. Eatin' will help too, if ya can stomach anything."

"To the kitchen then," Ororo said, bravely.

Rogue chuckled. "Lay down," she instructed kindly. "Just for a bit, let me get a shirt with shoulders to it, an' then Ah'll help you get down there. Yah migh feel a bit woozy for a short while."

Ororo nodded, then raised a hand to her head as she regretted the action, and lay down on Rogue's bed until the girl came back, more fully covered, to help her down to the kitchen.