Hi. This is my first fanfic.

I'm a big fan of Teen Titans, but I've missed a few shows here and there. So if something doesn't quite match up with the show, chalk it up either to that or to my bad memory. If you tell me, I might decide to correct. Or not, if I'm feeling lazy.

I'd like to believe that my spelling and grammar is perfect, but I know it's not. If you find any mistakes, tell me about them. I'll appreciate it. If you notice that I put a conjunction or a "because" at the beginning of a sentence, I know it's wrong and I do it anyway, so there's no need to tell me about it.

I like Raven, and I like BB. I feel that despite their discrepancies, they'd be good together. If you can't handle that, you probably shouldn't read the fic.

If you feel like reviewing, go ahead. I promise I'll read it, although I won't promise to answer. If you want to flame, you're welcome to it. However, I'd appreciate it if you try to tell me what I did wrong, rather than just deriding the story as a whole. In fact, constructive criticism is always welcome. I'd rather have a truthful and harsh review than one that was simple, unadulterated praise. Criticism, no matter how harsh, can help me improve my writing, while praise will just help my ego.

If you see anything that you don't like, criticize it, please! If it sounds harsh, good! That probably means it's honest!

Finally, I don't own Teen Titans. I guess I should say that. Everyone else does.

Chapter One
Realization

The common room of the Tower was busy. Beast Boy and Cyborg were playing video games (some shooter about monsters and demons that had somehow gotten everything wrong. Demons being killed with bullets was patently ridiculous). Starfire was making some kind of emotion pudding, and Robin was busy in his lair. Raven was contentedly ignoring it all, sitting in the shadowed corner of the room, entranced by the last chapter of her book.

Raven sighed regretfully as she finished her book. She had enjoyed it, but for whatever reason, it left her feeling empty.

Empty. She concentrated on her emotion, allowed it to play freely inside her mind, trying all the while to identify the source and the scope of this feeling. It eluded her briefly, but with her practiced dispassion and self-observation, she cornered it – forced it to divulge its origin. It was loneliness.

She realized that, in her books, the characters always had companions. At the very least, they had someone who enjoyed their company, enjoyed being with them. Often they had friends, people that they could share most any thought or feeling with openly and freely.

Raven realized, with a sudden tinge of sadness and longing, that she didn't. Despite her abilities as an empath, she lacked anyone she felt a strong affinity for, who she connected with. She had no one with whom she could share her feelings with. No one she even fraternized with. She thought Robin had been someone she could freely share her feelings with, but realized, on reflection, that she had been deceiving herself. Whenever she had shared her emotions with Robin, it had been brought on by necessity, not empathy. Even worse, Robin never reciprocated, never confided his feelings to her. He was always at a distance. Starfire, on the other hand, was simply too alien and optimistic to understand Raven. Cyborg was too open, too practical about his emotions sympathize with her, and Beast Boy was just too annoying.

Almost as if to confirm her thoughts, a green hand waved across her field of view. "Helloo. Earth to Raven. Come on, you coming to dinner or not?" said Beast Boy.

She simply glared at him for a second, then replied, "I might be a little more eager if it wasn't you cooking."

He made a "hmpff" sound, and stalked off without a backward glance. Raven relaxed out of the meditation posture she had unconsciously fallen into, and followed, gliding a few yards behind him.

-----

Beast Boy took the sarcasm as he usually did, with an internal sadness and an exaggerated show of annoyance to hide how much it hurt.

He sat down across the table from Raven, taking a moment as he did so to glance at her eternally stoic face. It was as beautiful and guarded as always.

Why couldn't she return just a little bit of the affection he felt for her? Why couldn't she show him she liked him?

Maybe it's because she doesn't.

His mind immediately rejected the idea, not because it was impossible, but because he didn't want to accept it.

But if she did like him, he asked himself, why wouldn't she show it? Was she afraid? Maybe she didn't want the other Titans to find out. Or maybe she didn't want to like him, but did anyway. Or maybe… maybe she really doesn't like me. Maybe she thinks I'm too annoying, or too messy, or too ugly.

No, not too ugly. No way she thinks I'm ugly. Annoying maybe, messy yeah, but no way could she think I'm ugly.

Maybe it's her powers. Aren't they controlled by emotion? So maybe she likes me, but she can't admit it? But she could at least tell me she thought my jokes were funny, or something.

Then he realized he wasn't getting anywhere, that he had let his pasta get cold, and that he had distractedly dropped a forkful of it onto his pants. He decided that he wasn't hungry enough to reheat the pasta and excused himself. He got up to go to his room and get the tomato sauce off his pants, noting as he went that Raven had already left.

-----

Raven had finished her pasta only minutes earlier, and had gone up to her room to meditate. At least, that had been her intention. When she put the book down on her bed, however, she remembered what she had been thinking about – and feeling.

She really was alone here. Her four teammates were allies, not friends. She could share her struggles with them, all the ones except those that happened inside. There was only one person who had ever loved her, and her mother had been gone for years. Since then, she had never stopped being alone.

Suddenly her dresser shot across the room. Her mirror shattered into a shower of glass, and one of her pillows exploded.

Raven lay slowly down on her bed, tears welling up in her eyes.

-----

As Beast Boy passed the door to Raven's room, he heard a crash and the sound of shattering glass. He rushed in to see if anything was wrong and saw Raven lying face down on her bed, feathers sprinkled over her body. He didn't see anyone else there, and when he heard her muffled crying, he realized what had happened.

Beast Boy ran over and asked, "Raven, are you okay?" laying a hand on her shoulder.

The crying stopped immediately, and Raven quickly glanced up. "Beast Boy?" she said, rather incredulously.

"Um, yeah. I was walking by your room and I heard a crash."

She stared at him for a moment. Her sarcasm reasserting itself, she was tempted to tell him she had just been thinking about the sorry state of his jokes, but something about his nature made her hold back.

Instead, she replied simply, "That was me."

"Yeah, I kind of thought so," Beast Boy said as carefully as he could, trying his utmost not to annoy her. "You were crying. Care to tell me what it was about?"

"No."

"Are you sure? I mean…" he stopped when she gave him a nasty glare. "Never mind. Sorry," he said with a sigh. He got up and moved to the door.

As he left, Raven felt strangely regretful. With a swiftness and surety that only she possessed, she found the cause of her distress.

As she examined her emotion, she suddenly recalled Beast Boy's journey into her mirror. He had seemed so concerned for her then. She thought about how he had helped her fight back her raging father, and how he had found out that she thought his jokes were funny. She remembered how she had embraced Beast Boy after the betrayal of Malchior, how much it had hurt her when he had called her a freak. He had called her a freak. That wasn't exactly the type of thing she would want a friend to do.

Maybe it was. That was exactly what Robin hadn't been able to give her, and exactly what she needed. She needed someone who could be as honest with her as she needed to be with him, someone who could allow themselves to open up. It would be nice if he hadn't been so blunt about it, though.

In short, Beast Boy was exactly what she needed, no matter how annoying he might be at times.

As he walked to the door, she spoke up.

"Beast Boy… wait," she said, quietly.

"Raven?" he asked.

"Beast Boy, I – I do want to talk," she said. She quickly added a disclaimer, "That is, I do if you want to listen."

"I'm always ready to listen," he replied. Seeing her give him a tiny smile, he said, "Well, I guess you have to catch me at the right moment."

Raven decided to be upfront about it. "Beast Boy, you've been inside my mirror. You met my emotions." Beast Boy nodded at this, and Raven continued, "I don't know if you realize this, but in most people, emotions are not so distinct. They are part of a greater whole."

Beast Boy's eyes widened slightly at this, not sure what to make of what Raven was saying. "So… you mean your emotions aren't… aren't part of you?"

"They are, but they're distant. I keep them… removed from me because they affect my powers. I force them away so that I can keep watch on them, make sure that they aren't acting in a way that could make me or my powers go out of control."

She sighed. "Doing this has some side effects. Because my emotions are distant they are kept in check – but it also means that I can have a hard time figuring out what they're trying to tell me."

Beast Boy was interested, "So? What have they been trying to tell you?"

"They've been telling me that I've been too… alone. Too solitary. They've been telling me that I need someone to talk to."

"I'm here for you. We're all here for you. Just let us know what you need us to do. Just let me know."

"Thanks, Beast Boy. For now, listening was enough, and I appreciate it. But if you don't mind, I'd like to get some sleep."

Beast Boy got up and started walking for the door, saying, "Sure thing. And since you're in such a friendly mood, maybe you can tell me how funny you think my jokes are."

Raven grinned. "Don't push your luck," she replied as he headed out the door.

Raven smiled. She'd made the right decision by coming to Beast Boy after all. Despite his antics, he was just who she'd needed to talk to.

-----

Outside her room, Beast Boy was amazed and ecstatic that he'd managed not to screw anything up. He'd just been in Raven's room! No one went in Raven's room!

She really needed to redecorate.