Author's Note: I have received a review, as well as several emails asking me when Raven and Blackfire (or Starfire and Robin) are going to have sex. My answer: Even if Fanfiction's Terms Of Service allowed its stories to contain sex, I would not write any unless it fit into the overall storylines (no PWPs in other words) of my fics- meaning I will not write of any characters making love (not having sex; there is a difference) until the 'Something In Common' series is done.

Again, the usual disclaimers apply, nor can any of my original characters be used without my permission. I would also like to tell new readers that this story is the fifth in my 'Something In Common' series, and that reading Parts I – IV are necessary towards understanding parts of this fic's plot. Thank you.

Chapter One: Harum Scarum, Raise Alarum

Three years ago…

"Hagerty!"

"Yeah?"

"Light?"

Rummaging around in his uniform, the guard called Hagerty took out a small lighter. "Here you go," he said, shouldering his rifle.

"Thanks," the other guard said, his voice muffled by the cigarette in his mouth as he bent down.

"Don't mention it," Hagerty said. He sighed. "Ain't this is a boring night," he grumbled.

"Tell me about it," his friend said, taking a long drag of his cigarette. "I mean, you'd think that the government's most top-secret, high-tech research facility'd have at least a TV."

He shifted his rifle to a more comfortable position. "I mean- this is a top secret facility, right?"

"Yep," Hagerty nodded absentmindedly, taking a long drag on his cigarette.

"You expect something interesting to be happening, right?"

"Yep," Hagerty said, still not listening.

"…That's a helluva nice tattoo your wife's got her butt."

"Yep."

"You're not listening to me, are you, Hagerty?"

"Nope."

The other guard sighed.

"Hey sorry, Ollie," Hagerty said, "I'd like to listen to you, but- look, say what you like about the government's Dark Ops sections; they sure ration out some damn fine cigarettes. Wonder what they put in them?"

"Prob'ly some kinda alien tech they got in 51," Ollie replied, leaning against the wall.

"Oh come on. You saying the government stole ET's Marlboros?"

"Sure they did! They got all this other stuff from them aliens," he lifted his laser rifle, one of only a few hundred in existence. "Who knows what else kinda hellbrew they got."

"Heh, I can just see it now: E.T phone home, says 'Hey Ma, them humans stole my Menthols!' "

Ollie laughed. "Listen Hag, if I was gonna go across deep space to God knows where, the last thing I wanna smoke's a pack of- you hear that?" he said, picking up his rifle quickly.

"I heard it, I heard it," Hagerty replied, lifting his rifle as well. As per their training, Ollie pointed his rifle down the hallway they were patrolling, Hagerty pointed his to the ceiling ventilation shafts. "Sorta squelchy noise, right? Where'd it come from?"

"Don't know- damn halls echo every damn place," Ollie said in a loud whisper. "Now shut up, I'm trying to list- there it is again! Down the hall! The other corridor!"

As a man, the two guards pointed their rifles down the hall, where the corridor turned into another passageway, and as they did, that 'squelchy noise' returned, and this time it was accompanied by a guttural growl.

From where they stood, they saw sparks fly in the other passage, just before the lights blew out. Just before that happened, they caught sight of something big in the shadows.

"Er, Ollie?" Hagerty said, his voice trembling.

"Y-yeah, Hag?"

"What else did they get from Area 51?"

"I was just joking, man!"

"I ain't," Hagerty said. "Come on, Ollie, you seen this kinda movie-"

"Shut up, Hag, shut up," Ollie said, reaching for his radio with trembling hands.

"I'm serious, Ollie! The guards're always the first to-"

"I said shut up, Hag!" a terrified Ollie yelled. "S-Squad 52, come in 52!" he shouted into his radio. "This is 91, requesting backup! I repeat, come in 52! 52 please respond!"

Suddenly, the lights at the end of their hallway began shorting out one by one, slowly.

As the two guards backed away, Ollie quickly changed the frequency. Something was very, very wrong. "Squad 39, come in Squad 39! Squad 65! 78! Jeebus Krispies is there anyone out there!" he said desperately, reverting to childhood blasphemy in his terror. "Somebody please respond!"

A sudden screech cut through the air, and Hagerty's rifle clattered on the ground as another light shorted out. "Pick it up, man! Pick it up!" Ollie yelled.

"Like hell I will!" Hagerty said, turning around and running.

Ollie was about to follow him, when his brain kicked in. Wait a minute, he thought dumbly, looking down into his arms. I got a gun. I should use it. What a wonderful idea.

He pressed a button on the stock of his gun, and heard a reassuring hum as the battery charged up. "Come and get it! Heeere's OLLIE!"

What a wonderful idea I had.

And with that shout he blasted away into the darkness. "Who's your daddy? Who's your mommy? Who's your uncle? Say uncle! Say uncle! And after you're done sayin' uncle, you say hello to my leetle friend MR. BOOMSTICK!" he yelled firing and firing away-

-until the moment when he pulled the trigger and nothing happened. As the rush died down, he became aware of a high pitched beeping from his rifle, indicating that his rifle battery had run out.

The pat of a footstep made him look up into the darkness (which, he noted with mounting horror, had not been illuminated by his laser beams, supposedly superheated bolts of light). Out from it, a pale, little girl emerged, her long, messy hair almost covering the ragged (once) white dress that covered her to the knees.

She held out a hand, as if moving to grab Ollie, and that was when the guard's bravery broke. He had been trained to fight aliens, he had been trained to fight other people, had even been trained to fight supervillains, but he had never been trained to fight a "Ghost! Ghost! The freakin' place's freakin' haunted!"

And with those yells, he ran helter-skelter in the direction Hagerty had taken.

The girl put her hand down. A voice next to her said, "You do know I could have taken those two down easy, right?"

"You would have hurt them," the little girl said softly. "Just like you hurt the other guards."

"Geez, you don't have to be so dramatic," the other speaker snorted as the darkness receded, revealing the speaker to be a tall boy. Massive incisions all over his body told stories of horrific surgery. "I just knocked 'em unconscious, that's all."

"You still hurt them," the girl insisted.

"So? It's still better than watching you almost kill yourself using up all your bioelectric energy for all that Hollywood special effects!" the boy said.

The girl was silent for a while. "When we finally get out of here, we're going to steal some food and money- well, some more money-"

"Yeah, that was the plan," the boy said, grinning at the thought of all the unconscious guards' cash in his pockets.

"-and then we're gonna split up."

"Okay, sure, I get you. Where do you wanna meet up?"

"We won't."

It took a few moments for her words to sink in, but when they did… "What do you mean?" he asked quietly.

"I saw how you were with those guards," the girl said.

"Hey, all I did was knock them out-"

"You hurt them," she said. "You broke their arms, their legs-"

"I was trying to protect us!"

"Were you?" the girl said, finally looking at the boy, her eyes burning with anger. "I saw you when you were 'protecting us'," she said, stepping forward while the boy staggered back. "You liked it. You weren't trying to protect us- all you wanted to do was hurt them!"

"Hey, I don't see you complaining about the money I stole! Stole for us!"

"I didn't know you were going to do that to get it!"

"Look, they deserved it! If they had the chance, they'd do the same thing to us!"

"And is that who you want to be? Like them?"

The boy opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out.

"I want to escape this place," she said, her voice returning to a whisper.

"Well, isn't that what we're doing?" the boy asked, trying to inject some joviality into his voice.

"I know it's what I'm doing," the girl said, looking away, before turning back to the boy. "I just wish you were too," she said, before she turned and began walking away.

The boy wanted to follow her, but his legs would not move. "Jessie?" the boy called out hoarsely, the tears in his voice evident in his voice.

The girl stopped in her tracks.

"I lied when I said I was trying to protect us."

The girl did not turn around.

"I was trying to protect you. That's all I want to do."

The girl still didn't speak.

"I promised I'd protect you no matter what, Jessie," he said. "That's all I was trying to do," he repeated in a whisper.

The girl was silent for a moment. "Thank you," she said finally, "but I'm not sure if it would be worth it."

With that, she continued walking. The boy followed, his manner that of a whipped dog. He knew that when Jessie made up her mind, there was no way he could change it.

"I'm sorry, Jessie," he whispered, in a voice so quiet he wondered if he was speaking at all. "I'm sorry."