'Who first tells you what love is,
Mother.
Who first dries the tears you shed when you feel it's barb,
Mother.
Who do you hold when Mother leaves you
Love.'

**********************************************************

Her lungs were burning, she really should've kept up her running but what with trying to earn her rent and food she really hadn't had the time.

By the time she got there it was all over, Kitty was hunched over Logan, her head dripping red. Storm still flying and aiming a small tornado at Juggernaut, the army had finally turned up and were getting his cage ready. Scott was occupied with Sabertooth as was Bobby, no one was watching out for Kitty or Logan. As she approached the pair a man pushed out of the crowd his face filled with hatred. A small pin badge telling of his affliations, FOH enamelled in their colours of red white and blue.
"Oh no ya don't!" She locked her hands around his neck and squuezed as the man tried to stumble toward the dazed Kitty. Logan was beginning to stir on the pavement, he needed only a little more time to recover, then he could care for Kitty. Marie watched as Kitty slumped forward, across Logan as he began to get up. Keeping her grip tight on the FOH man's neck she felt him stumble even as he punched her in the stomach. A snapping feeling that burned through her abdomen told her that he'd broken a rib. Anger raged through her and she let the memories flood over her own, powered by adrenalin she snapped the man's head backward. Driving her knee directly up into his groin, once, twice, three times, each time her foot dropped she stomped his insole with her booted feet. Last time she drove it into his ankle, smiling as it snapped, consciousness was fading fast on the man and she let him drop. Her foot hovering over the pavement, instinct screaming at her to kill him, to use her body weight to step on his throat. Checking around her to see if anyone was watching her, she made to do it, only to find Logan's eyes on her.

The look in them was one of pride mixed with sorrow, that she'd considered killing when he seemed to think she was better than that. He pulled Kitty up and made her safe while keeping his eye on her. Her heart was almost beating out of it's chest, she wanted to run to him, to hold him, to touch him. But he was on a *mission*, people needed him, Kitty needed him. He noticed the man at her feet and just nodded at the street behind her, for her to leave. To leave him with the blame, the injuries that the man had sustained would be attributed to his skills and the bravdo of the man wouldn't allow him to admit he'd been beaten by a woman.

They stood on opposite sides at that moment, her a human and Logan a mutant fighting for her right to 'choose' to be human. It was then she realised exactly what she'd chosen and the true cost of it all. She'd lost him, she'd never be 'Rogue' again, never have the feeling of being complete. Logan had always touched her skin or no skin, but now his hands clenching and unclenching he was unsure of her. And it was that that made her run into the city away from the sounds of battle, into the maze of humanity she'd thought she'd wanted.