Eyes Closed

Raven couldn't help but show emotion tonight. She hated it, so much that her heart burned and her eyes watered and her chest tightened. She drew her hood up over her head, hoping that she could hide the emotions that were broiling within her, but it didn't work. The air around her sparked and crackled with dark energy, and the negativity surrounding her ate at her very soul.

Still, Starfire dared to get near her. "Raven," she said softly, "please. Do not isolate yourself. I will be leaving shortly; do you really wish to spend our last times together in this tragic loneliness?"

Raven didn't turn her head around to look at her. She closed her eyes, a single tear sliding down her face. Quickly, she wiped it away with the back of her hand.

Starfire didn't dare get any closer to her, for fear that the dark energy would consume her. But she reached out with her hand, testing the air around Raven. Her skin vibrated with the powerful emotions that surrounded Raven.

"Raven…" Starfire tried again, her voice cracking slightly. "Please, be not this way."

"I don't want to be this way," Raven replied. Her voice was steady, luckily. She stopped trying the meditate, and put her feet back down on the ground. Slowly, hesitantly, she turned towards Starfire. Even underneath the shadow of her hood, the pain in her eyes was as clear as daylight.

Steeling herself, Starfire took a single step forward. Then another. Then another. She still couldn't reach out and touch Raven. Still too much distance. Starfire wished that she could easily close that distance. To just reach out and touch her, to pull her into a fierce hug, to kiss her as deeply as she could, to tell Raven all that she meant to her without words.

"Why?" Raven asked her.

"Because…" Starfire tried to say. She took a breath and tried again. "Because this is what I must do. I have the responsibilities to my people, to my planet…"

"You once said that Earth was your home," Raven replied. "You once said that you would protect this planet. That this was your home world." Raven couldn't help it; tears were streaming freely down her face now. Around her the air grew thicker and more hostile, and she could feel her resolve about to give out.

"But it is not the place of my birth," Starfire said as softly as she could. She reached her hand out again, trying to touch her. Just a small touch of the hand; anything. "And even after years on this planet, I still feel like such a stranger. My language has not fully adapted…"

"It sounds perfectly fine to me," Raven countered.

A long moment of silence passed between them.

Raven turned back away from her, walking a few steps away from Starfire. She couldn't face her, she didn't even want to look at her. The betrayal she felt deep down was knowing at her, combining with guilt. Raven knew why she felt guilty. It wasn't betrayal; it was sadness. Sadness of losing Starfire, anger at Starfire leaving, and guilt that she was putting so much blame on her. Starfire did not deserve this treatment, and Raven knew it. But this was the only way she knew how to react; it was the only way she could react. All the teachings of Azarath had slipped away from her the moment Starfire announced she would never return to Earth.

"Please, Raven…" Starfire begged. "Do not leave it this way."

"Leave," Raven choked out.

"But Raven…"

"Leave!" Raven screamed, and through a book at her. Starfire dodged it with a small shriek. Normally, at such an attack, she would fight back. But she knew Raven too well. She was hurting and she couldn't cope and her anger was controlling her.

Starfire couldn't blame her. She herself would have torn up the entire city if it meant staying by Raven's side, but it wouldn't help. Galfor was dead, Ryand'r was missing, Komand'r was banished from the planet. She was all that was left.

"I'm sorry Raven," Starfire said as she turned to walk away. "I hope that we will meet again someday."

Raven put her hands over her eyes, and prayed for just the same. "I hope so too," she whispered.

xxxxxx

"It's not your fault," said Nightwing.

Raven glanced over at him. "Go away," she told him.

He stayed. Nightwing slowly approached her, as cautious as if he were facing a wild animal. Raven heard him approaching, felt his emotions growing stronger the closer he got, but he didn't kick him out. She just let him inch his way closer, not seeming to care.

Honestly, she didn't think she cared about anything anymore. Now that Starfire was gone, her life seemed as bleak and empty as before. No, more so. Because this time, she knew what potential there was in her life. Her dull and bleak world had been transformed without her even knowing it, shining vivid with color and vitality, lit by a great star that shone upon her world. And now that it was gone, the grays looked grayer, and the silence emptier.

"Raven…" Nightwing put a hand on her shoulder. He was expecting her to slap it off of her, or for her to blast him through the wall, but she did nothing. She just sat there floating, looking out at the ocean and the growing storm her lack of resistance, Nightwing decided to sit cross-legged beside, staring out at the ocean with her.

"You're worrying us," Nightwing said. "All of us. Even those in the Justice League have taken notice. They want to know if you're alright."

"I will be," Raven said. "I'm not going to get over this easily."

Nightwing nodded, perfectly quiet. He wanted to say something. To tell her something that would revitalize her, to give her back her will to live, but he could think of nothing.

Raven was the one who broke the silence.

"Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I can imagine that she's still here," she said. As Raven said this, she closed her eyes and started picturing Starfire, imagining her shining eyes, her bright smile, her mental and physical strength. "But I can't feel her. There's no emotion. There's no soul. There's no spirit. She's gone." She paused, feeling her eyes burning beneath her eyelids. "She's never coming back."

Nightwing put his hand back on her shoulder and gave it a sympathetic squeeze.

"If I keep my eyes closed, though, the image can look so real. I can almost feel it. I can almost feel her. And for just a moment, just a second, I feel like I can reach out and touch her, and that she will say something, and she will laugh and smile, and will be beside me trying to meditate…but then that moment's gone. And it's getting harder and harder to picture her." She paused again, taking deep soothing breaths. "My memories may fade but she will always remain."

Nightwing nodded when she finished speaking, though she didn't see it. Maybe she could feel it, or sense it, or however empath's figured out emotion. Even after all these years, he still wasn't clear on the basics.

Raven opened her eyes then, and turned to look at Nightwing. "Tell me how to move on," she told him.

"What…?" he stuttered.

Raven stared at him, her eyes demanding answer.

"I…I'm not sure how you can move on…"

"You've survived heartache before. The death of your parents. The death of your brother. Your estrangements with your adopted family. You lost Zatanna, you lost Starfire, you lost Batgirl. And look at you now. Still happy. Still 'chipper.' Your mind is easy and untroubled. Your sleep is peaceful. Your demeanor is casual. Tell me how to move on."

That had hit a nerve. With each sentence, he found himself being pulled even lower to those dark parts of his life. The death of his parents still gave him nightmares. The death of his brother still made him weep. And Batgirl, whom he had wanted to marry…she had left and he had no idea what had happened to her or where she had gone.

"I guess…I guess time just heals all wounds."

"Time?" Raven asked. "It has been months, and still these wounds do not heal."

"It takes more than just months. Often years. Sometimes decades."

Decades? Raven thought, her heart turning bitter at the word.

She pushed Nightwing's hand off of her shoulder. "Leave," she demanded. Nightwing knew how she was when she was in these moods. Temperamental. Easy to set off. Not someone you wanted to be around. He knew that the best course of action was to leave her alone when these moods set in. He could already feel the air around him starting to crackle.

"I'll be inside if you need me," he said, and left her alone on the roof, staring out at the stormy ocean.

xxxxx

"Oh, Raven," Starfire whispered, holding her picture in her hand. It was one of the few things from Earth that she still had with her. She often had the picture with her, tucked into one of her sleeves or bracelets. At night, she would have it laying on her pillow, there to remind her that Raven would always be with her, in some way or another.

Tamaran just wasn't the same after her stay on Earth. She missed so many of her friends, her mentors, her Raven. When she closed her eyes, she could picture that it was Raven's hand that she was holding, and not just the flimsy photograph that she carried around with her. One of the few tethers she still had to Earth.

Starfire was loathe to admit it, but Tamaran wasn't her home world anymore. It was Earth. It was Earth that was in her heart, that flowed through her veins. She had felt like a stranger on Earth, but she felt much stranger on Tamaran. Old customs that she had long since forgotten, palace hallways that she had roamed since birth. She often followed hallways blindly, thinking them to be corridors in the Titans Towers, but she never did arrive where she wanted to. Far too often, her feet would lead her to what should have been Raven's room, but it was never there. She would always stand in front of the door, her hands on the stone, wanting X'hal to take her away from all of this and return her to where she belonged.

"Grand Leader?" came a hesitant voice, afraid that she had been in prayer.

"What is it?" she asked, tucking away the picture of Raven.

"You are needed in the Great Room. For the discussion of freed Tamaranians?"

Starfire nodded slowly, taking a deep breath. "I will be there in a minute," she told them, and closed her eyes again. They scampered away, not wanting to be infringing upon the Grand Leader's prayers. Starfire stood there as the minutes ticked by, eyes closed, imagining Raven and trying to make the mental picture as vivid as she herself. But to no avail. Raven wasn't real anymore. She was lightyears away, and would most likely never be welcome on Tamaran, no matter how much Starfire would try to dispute the old customs, strengthened through fear.

"No foreign aliens," said the tradition laws.

"Just look at what happened when we did try to allow foreigners on our planet. The Gordainians took everything from us, and then they took more," said the people of Tamaran.

Her heart ached. She had hoped, dreamed, that she could have brought Raven home with her. She would have given it all for her, she would have loved her, cared for her, make sure she was well provided for, lived in relative comfort. But somewhere, history or fate or whatever had gone wrong, and now they were almost an entire universe apart.

"I would trade it all for you," Starfire whispered. "I would have cared for you."

When she opened her eyes again, the world around her looked strange, foreign, alien. Even empty. But she couldn't keep her eyes closed forever. People—her people— were waiting for her to discuss what she be done about Tamaranians who had escaped Gordainian control. She was Grand Leader. This was her life now. Earth was becoming a distant memory, a plant smaller than the tiniest of stars in the night sky.

As she walked to the Great Room, she pretended that it was Raven's room she was going to instead.

xxxxxx

Their eyes closed and their dreams began.

Starfire had been awake for far too long, the demands of being the Grand Leader taking its toll on her, combined with the stress of losing everything and everyone she loved. All she wanted to do anymore was sleep. And to pretend. And to dream. Every day she was face to face with someone new, and no one, no matter how relatable or charming they were, could ever replace her friends on Earth. So as she went into her bedroom that night, two servants already there asleep on their own cots, she didn't even bother with turning down the covers. She fell onto the stiff bed, looking up at the ceiling until her eyes closed and she saw Raven again.

Raven was slipping away. Highly potent sleeping gas filled her lungs, despite her efforts to filter it, and she swayed on her feet. The ground retched forward, rolling underneath her feet, and she barely was able to stumble towards a fellow teammate before she pitched forward, mind black and muscles as loose as jelly. The blackness swam in front of her eyes and clouded her mind, suffocating her and dragging her deep down into her own subconscious.

And then her dreams began. She saw Starfire in that world, waiting for her.

Starfire outstretched her hand to Raven, and she eagerly took it. Starfire pulled Raven close to her, putting her free hand on Raven's cheek, and she leaned into it.

"Is this real?" Starfire asked as she stroked Raven's cheek, her eyes becoming puddles. "Or is this a trick from V'ham?"

"I think it's real," Raven replied, and leaned forward to kiss her.

As their lips touched, all become vivid again. She could remember every inch of her, as real and detailed as if she were standing there in front of her. The skin beneath her fingertips felt too real to tell a lie. Her kiss carried the life that sustained her. For those long moments in the darkness, they were together again, reunited in the dark and dismal world that became their oasis. Dreams and blackouts and unconsciousness closed the universe between them, and their arms wrapped around each other.

But those dreams never stayed.

They never did.