Rachel Roth is 26, youngish and dark, dressed prim-properly in a drab grey suit with her hair all tied up.
She looks near 40 as she walks into the big apartment complex at exactly 10:14.
The young bachelors lounging about stare with raised brows at this odd newcomer who walks with an army gait and a searing glare.
Miss Roth walks up the stairs, up, up, to the third floor, takes a quick right, and ends up at 32C.
Knock, knock.
"Roy."
No reply reaches her through the metal door.
She sighs in that exasperated stop-being-so-immature sort of way.
"Harper, I know you're in there."
To the sound of silence she beats her fist against the door.
"Damn you." she mutters, and she sits on the wall across the room, ignoring the greasy stains and faded carpet.
Rachel pulls her hair down.
"You know why I came here?"
"You know why I care?"
She nods her head.
"I came because I've watched you suffer for so long. I've watched you fall apart the last 10 years."
She gets up, pacing back and forth.
"I helped you, you know. I watched your daughter. I took away your pain. I tried to pretend everything was okay, because that was what you wanted."
"Even when you betrayed me, even when you started using again, I forgave you!"
Faster steps.
"I tried to save you, honestly I did. We all tried, me and Garth and them. We tried, and you turned on us."
Rachel Roth twitches uncomfortably in her jacket, tearing it off as if it is an affront to her existence.
She points an accusatory finger at the door.
"All those costume changes. Speedy, Arsenal, even Red Arrow. You were so dangerous, even back then."
She is angry now, and her voice quivers with barely suppressed rage.
"And Lian. You couldn't just very well leave her alone. You had to involve her in your twisted… in…in your…heroism."
"But I, I knew, from that point on."
Rachel sneers.
"You're no hero. You always forgot I was an empath."
She rests her head softly against the door.
"You forget how much I know."
"Look," she says, loosening her blouse.
"I'm still Raven."
"I'm still that girl you promised you'd come back to, all those years ago."
Somewhere within 32C she hears a grunt.
"I came here…I came to apologize. For not being able to save you."
Rachel slides down to the ground leaning her head back.
"I don't know if I can do this anymore."
The minutes tick by, nonchalant and indifferent.
It is 10:23 when she loses her temper.
The world trembles under her powers, tendrils of energy snaking out of the ground.
Rachel Roth screams and pounds at the door with all her might.
"ROY HARPER, COME OUT!"
The metal gives way under her fists.
"You bastard, you coward!"
Lights shatter, sending sparks and sockets careening around the corridor.
"Come out and face me!"
The door falls, thuds to the ground with a clang.
"Damn you, you…"
Her voice falters as she walks tentatively into the apartment.
"Roy?"
He sits on the couch, his red head drooped down dejectedly.
So tired he looks, the circles under his eyes dark and gaunt against his flesh, the scars leering jaggedly on his skin, and the fresh bruising just above the crook of his left elbow.
Rach- Raven Roth stares at him.
"I can't hate you."