Edit: Sorry guys, wrong doc...
Author's note: This story is a sequel and will not make sense unless you read Dreaming by Day. And review. Preferably.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans. If I did, they wouldn't have been cancelled.
"Maybe instead of strings it's stories things are made of, an infinite number of tiny vibrating stories; once upon a time they all were part of one big giant superstory, except it got broken up into a jillion different pieces, that's why no story on its own makes any sense, and so what you have to do in a life is try and weave it back together, my story into your story, our stories into all the other people's we know, until you've got something that to God or whoever might look like a letter, or even a whole word..."
~Paul Murray
Arch 1, Chapter 1: Bits and Pieces
Alone in her cell, the girl took a deep breath. This was one of the rare moments that she could. They were doing everything they could to break her, but she would not let them. She could not let them. A pair of wide green eyes refused to let her go. Or was she the one who could not let go?
Focus.
She looked up. She could see it now, the world she loved and lost in. She could see it, still shifting, waiting for her return.
Soon.
So many strands, constantly weaving forward. So many people meeting and leaving, living and dying, crying…
Six months, that's all she had to endure. Then she could finally return. Six months…
How much could happen in six months?
Watch.
All the little threads of people, constantly spinning and entwining, constantly conflicting. All the little bits and pieces weaving themselves into a reality…
So much happening at once. How to keep track of them?
Wait for me.
The day of capture, two strands…
The news was on. Rose and her mother watched as the Tower in Steele City burned.
"You don't think she'll still do it, do you?" She asked her mother.
Adeline Kane shook her head. "I almost wish she would." Then, noticing the surprise on her daughter's face, added, "If she truly wanted to end the world, she would have skipped the dramatics."
"Right." Rose seemed unconvinced. Suddenly, her pocket vibrated and beeped. She pulled out the Titan's communicator Cyborg had slipped her before she left Jump. Curious, Rose flipped it open. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she glanced at her mother and left the room quickly.
"Dad?"
"Hello, Rose."
"How- What-"
"Melody is sleeping. I took her communicator to make this call. She's planning on ending the world tonight. I need you to go to Gotham-"
"Hold on, I thought you were working with Mel."
"I've been keeping an eye on her. I don't disagree with her reasoning, but I do have a world to protect, if only for my last living child."
Rose could think of nothing to say, though her chest suddenly felt warm and heavy.
"But the Titans will need back-up tonight, Rose. I want you to go to Gotham and find Robin, take him back with you to your brother's grave. Understand?"
Rose nods.
"Good. Hopefully I'll see you tonight, daughter."
Say something! "Dad?"
"Yes?"
"I love you."
Slade's expression softens. "I love you too, Rose."
Four months, three strands…
What Nightwing had been too preoccupied with Slade to notice was the way his graveyard alert was tripped a second time that night. In fact, when he got back to his terminal, he dismissed the flashing icon as Slade's exit. If he had taken the time to read the information, he would have found that to be impossible.
Leaning against the cave wall, obscured in the shadows, the figure had heard every word Nightwing and Slade exchanged. The darkness was just barely enough to obscure the red slanted X across his white mask from both men as they parted ways. If any of what was said meant anything to him, he didn't show it.
Instead, once the cave was once again empty of other living beings, he walked out and stood in front of the grave. For a long moment, he stares down silently.
"Who's the moron now, kid?" He asked after finding his voice, placing a hand on the headstone. "If you had just waited a few more hours, if you had listened to your girl, I would have been there. I could have cured you. But that's how you've always dealt with things, isn't it? Silently bearing it out, playing at being noble." His other hand felt the bruised jaw under his mask. "I had thought you had more fight in you now. I thought that, maybe, if could hit me like that, you could fight this. Maybe if it was for her…" He shook his head.
"I brought you something. She asked me to the night we met for the last time. Not much good it can do you now." He produced a sealed vial containing a single, pure white flower with six thin petals and nestled it in the bright Tibetan wildflowers. "She called it the flower of life."
He paused again, eyes still locked on the headstone, then his hand falls and he turns away to follow Slade's exit. "It looks like death is determined to keep us from meeting again."
The cave darkness swallows him.
One strand…
It's not in the circuitry, is it? It's not the machine that resists you, it's me! My spirit! That's the part you can't break!
His solitary room was just silent enough to echo with those last words. It had been years since Cyborg had uttered them, yet they still played over and over in his head.
Brother Blood rolled over on his cot. He wasn't supposed to be updated on current events passed his walls, but the guards talked, and he had become adept at picking up even the faintest whispers. The Titans had fallen, briefly, taken down by the death of one of their own. There were rumors of hero academies, and of reported sightings of new heroes.
Fresh blood.
Then it struck him.
Spirit.
He began to cackle loudly. The half-man had been right. All he needed to do was break their spirit. What better to break their spirit than their new found fear of death?
Two strands…
"Are you sure this is what you want?" Arella asked her daughter. She didn't like this sudden decision to leave, especially since it had only been a few hours since Raven's last wave of emotions shattered the support beams of the room she had been in. It was a miracle the building had not collapsed on her.
"No, mother, this is what I need." Raven had that gleam back in her eyes, the one Arella recognized as determination. Joining the Titans had been good for Raven.
"And what should I tell your friends when they call again." She asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "And they will call again."
Not even the reminder of her friends was enough to make the girl pause in her packing."Tell them what I've been telling them all along: I need time to sort out my thoughts. Alone."
"Please, Raven, at least tell them where you will be going." Arella eyed the bag on her daughter's bed. It looked far to small to carry the essentials she would need to go on her own, and there was more than one book crammed inside already. Raven ignored her, slinging the packed bag over her shoulder.
"I can't. I don't even know myself."
"Then why are you going?"
"It's my fault Joe's dead," her daughter replied before disappearing into the black portal she had summoned. "I have to make things right again."
She felt her focus spiraling out of control… So many strands, all so intertwined in a single, knotted whorl of tragedy and desperate happiness, winding together in flashes of color…
A boy in blue punching the wall of Wayne Manor out of frustration…
An unexpected yellow flash of headlights…
A blood-red ritual…
Ruined white silk…
An orange fireball igniting the silhouette of a running man...
And finally, to end it all, a single, black and green eye.
It was more than she could take. Mel closed her eyes, shutting out the world she was fighting to protect.
Six months. What's the worse that could happen?
Oblivion.