Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans, or any other DC Comics properties.

Author notes: This story was written as an entry in the Fireplace Writing Challenge, 12/07.

Dedicated to Khaleda, my Beta and pre-reader, who also happens to be the inspiration for much of my writing. Thank you again, Khaleda.

Dead Letters.

by Reika Ikari (Kyrsten Reinhardt Flynn)

A pen clicked against teeth, set in a grin in the afternoon light. Sighing, she ruffled the pages to a well-worn notebook, finally setting the pen to paper.

-

Like most things, beginnings are the best place to start. To be honest, my story isn't really like that. My story, the one I
started realizing was mine and mine alone, began with an ending.

You see, one day I saw someone whom I knew, you could say worked with if you like, die. It really opened my eyes,
despite all that I had seen before, that moment made me realize something very frightening. For all the time I'd been
alive, it was like walking in a fog, walking around outside of the plot, behind the scenes of the movie that was being
filmed. That movie, life, never really seemed to involve me. Sure, things happened, tragedies and comedies and boring
asides, the banality and insanity; the utter normalcy of life happened all the time. Then, sudden like these things are, I
was on camera, and the lights were up, and I forgot my lines.

It was a wakeup call. I realized that the person I lost, someone most would call an enemy, was as important of a part
of my life as my schoolmates. She defined me by opposing me, and realizing at that moment she was gone, I felt like the
fog had been blown off and that now this film wasn't just about them, anymore.

I felt the director's gaze as well. I was lost. So I began trying to structure my life, defining it by writing, by putting things
in my head, all the noise and confusion and anxiety on paper. I wrote, and wrote and sometimes I felt like my life had
become an exercise in what words I could use to describe the time between writing them down.

And I wrote her letters. The morbid irony of it wasn't lost on me. Dead letters. Ones the post office can't deliver for
some reason or another. It's also used to describe say, a letter you'd write someone who you needed to say something
to, but never intend to have read. I wrote dead letters.

Before that day, I spent all my time, every day, all day, at the Academy. Like most institutions for learning, this one was
a rigidly regimented collection of moments that all led you to the same place. Graduation, in whatever form you wanted
to recognize it. I should give you some examples of what it means to graduate from this place, it may help you
understand a bit more about me, and why I started writing letters.

I'm a criminal. To graduate from this place, one has to prove that not only are they capable of functioning outside of the
rules of society, but within them as a disease. We are the corruption of the human condition, I was taught. I always felt
that phrase to be a bit over dramatic, really, but in truth, there you are. People graduate when our headmaster deems
them worthy. Classes, as they were, involved things as mundane as sciences and math, to such obscure topics as threat
assessment and reaction in the face of resistance.

You'd think with all this higher learning, the criminal element would be a bit more successful, wouldn't you? Sadly, that's
not really the case. Graduates tended to get lucky once, find their master plan, and oh some were real lovelies. The
problem with master plans is you like to talk about them, and the more you talk, the more people know, and by the time
you've made your "Super Megalomaniacal Doom Device", chances are there are at least five other people who know.

Chance has a way of working against master plans, in my experience.

The other problem with master plans is you tend to only get one shot. Anything after that initial spark of brilliance is

usually too rife with anxiety, vengeance, or interruption to really gain substance, or momentum. "Stillborn are the
grandchildren of brilliance," a rather morbid friend once said. Criminals, particularly those that aspire to tag the prefix
"Super" to their name should understand this well.

There should be a class on that, not Practical Application of Forgery.

Why am I a criminal? Well, there's a long and complicated path from birth to the back-alley, but it wouldn't hurt I
suppose to touch on the highlights, would it? I don't even know the name I was born with, but the first name my
mother called me was Jinx. I was her bad luck charm, you see. Born out of wedlock in the far East, I was a stain on
her and her family. You see, there was some prestige to being a member of this family, and they had hoped to marry
my mom off to some other family, and increase the whole lot's worth. Being still rigidly locked in the Hindi caste
system, my mother had a dowry for her husband. Starting to see the big picture?

It wasn't very good for the image that my mother had gotten pregnant and ended up doing so with no proper suitor to
blame and rope into a commitment. By the time things got obvious, see mom wasn't the brightest bulb, she was already
quite far along. Too late to blame someone, so the family sent her off to some distant relatives till she was "over this foul
air" she'd caught. By the time I was born, luck had really went downhill for my family, and their fortune and stature had
lost a good bit of sparkle.

Then my mother had the audacity to give birth to a pale, cat-eyed little thing that had a rather shocking head of cotton
candy pink hair. Suffice to say, that was the final straw, and here I'd not even had a say. From here to there is a long
story starting with being sold to an English family who couldn't have children and wanted no questions, to being put up
for adoption to ending up in an orphanage with more kids like me.

Things got strange, then stranger. I found out that my temper could cause people to do things, or cause things to happen
around me. Once I'd connected the dots, it was only a matter of time before the jaded little girl that grew up without a
real name, finally lived up to the only one she knew.

I could be bitter about it, but I'm not. Worse things happen every day, all over. Irony fuels my universe, and it would
only be right that my history, my story be full to the brim with it.

For instance, when my classmates and I had an exam, some time ago, we were sent against this new team of heroes,
these "Teen Titans", with the order to destroy them. Now, I don't know about you, but what does the average kid,
regardless of their background, know about destroying people? Sure, we knew how to exploit, steal, manipulate, and
generally harass people. Most of us had taken at least one Applied Violence class. To actually, well, destroy someone?

We subdued them, took over their headquarters and were doing OK in general. Then they rallied and routed us, and it
was off to the local lockup. Not very ironic on it's own, but it only built up, and finally burst like a soap bubble after that.

You see, if we had just offed the lot of them that one time, a few weeks after they'd made their team, then rest of my life
would be spent robbing banks, lifting precious treasures and being the well-trained bedlamite I was born to be. Instead
I find myself cooking dinner for my roommate, the last person you'd expect, and trying desperately not to trip over our
kitten, Puck.

"Rae, can you keep him with you a bit?" I grouse, trying my damnedest to keep kitten tail well away from my boots.
Yes I wear boots indoors. One never knows when they'll need to dash out for a moment, and if you could see my
closet...

My roommate Rachel perks her head up over the bar, trying to make sure I can see the glare she's leveled at me. She
hates to have her reading interrupted, it still makes her cranky. Despite it, she cracks a little grin, a very little grin I
should say, and makes little clicky sounds to get the unruly little trickster to come find her. "You get to de-hair my jeans,
Jay."

"Considering I cook and clean the apartment, I should point out that I always de-hair your clothes. Would it kill you to
wear something that didn't show cat hair so much?" The tuna salad was my idea, so of course Puck was underfoot. It
was tuna. There's a running gag that Rachel and I have about which one of her felines is more vicious about the tasty
stuff.

At least with Puck around, she's stopped calling me Kitten. Just because of my eyes... I swear. If she hadn't already
been dead once, I'd kill her. But she likes my cat's eyes, and it was one more thing that brought us close. But I
digress...

Beginnings and endings. It's all the same, as you live. Until someone who you knew, who regardless of the situations
you'd been in during your respective day to day lives, dies in front of you.

Rachel's more common moniker was Raven, the empath and resident magical powerhouse of the Titans West, the
San Francisco branch of the Justice League's "Daycare squad" as she called it. Cynicism rules Rachel's life like irony
does mine, you must understand. She's got this dry wit, and seems to always have a reply to any remark. I've seen
professors crumble under her verbal assault, but I don't mind, she's got her reasons, like I have mine.

Raven was always there, from my Academy days, countering me and set to keep me in check. Our abilities were fairly
well balanced, so of course we ended up fighting opposite one another during my Applied Studies sessions. Some call
them heists, robberies, terrorist actions: tomato, tomatoe.

If I had really felt comfortable in the role I had, as study group leader, I'd have switched up the system so I was working
against someone that my innate chance debauchery could well and truly be appreciated by. Truth was, I wasn't really in
it to win it, as they say. The Academy was a place I could belong, could feel safe and secure, and that would value me
for all the things that caused most people to find me lacking. Sadly, I had no real drive for their higher goals, real
destruction, true chaos and anarchy. Sure, I liked my fun, and always had a thing for the dangerous side of things, but
it seemed like where I was heading, wasn't the place I wanted to be. I may have had a rough start, but that's no reason
to kill, to wantonly spread misery.

I prefer candy anyway, to misery.

Of course I tried. Failed myself and likely my study group so many times it's a wonder they didn't just kick us out.
Then the school was shut down, Titans again, and we were left in pretty much the same place most of us came from.

We tried solo work, menial tasks, and then petitioned and submitted resumes to the local Union. The real world gave
us a hearty slap in the face for the effort, and the Brotherhood minced no words in telling us precisely where those
resumes belonged. I've never had a secretary be so rude. She was a very good evil secretary, must have been top of
her class in Public Demeaning.

Irony started to show in the big picture when we all, my old study group, had gotten bored one day around Halloween
and seen the Titans out camping in the woods. It was Baran's idea, the big goofball, to jump out and scare them if
they'd started a campfire and told ghost stories. Until I reminded him he'd had to sleep on the floor in my room after
watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

He gave me the biggest, wettest eyes I'd ever seen and whimpered about not wanting to turn blue, and how he hated
squirrels and I was mean to remind him of such a scary movie. I sent him and Micky home, with instructions to the
little smart aleck to let him be, and make him some tea.

Absolutely no cocoa. Not until he forgot the Chocolate Factory reference. We still had drywall to put up from last time
he forgot to open a door on the way out.

I was left to watch our erstwhile nemeses as they went about some nighttime activity. To say I was curious was a given;
I'd been inside their home, seen the way they lived, been there as they worked as well. I'd never seen them as people,
though. The Titans were simply speed bumps, obstacles, or a test to me. Fascinated and a bit unhinged in my
perceptions, the way one is at seeing a train wreck occur I realized, I trailed them at a distance and kept hidden.

I thought it was a prank at first, when things started happening. Raven looked up at the new Moon, then simply... fell
down. You have to understand, my ideal of Raven is very iconic. Raven is the cool, calm center of the universe, around
which chaos occurs, but does not touch. It's not a pedestal, or some kind of hero-worship, which would be odd with
me being a criminal, just an understanding of her personality. She was marble. You didn't see her crack a smile or lash
out, because she had herself under an iron harness of control. When I saw her fall, something in me just broke.

Raven was human. Like me, she could be affected, wasn't inviolate. Then the red marks and runes flared up on her
skin, and hell broke loose.

Literally.

Something about where I was, maybe, or that she had made brief, but definite eye contact with me when it happened,
spared me from a fate I witnessed throughout the city. I learned from Rachel later that her childhood made mine look
absolutely idyllic. Her father was the devil, after all, and on her birthday that year he came to take his due. Everyone
but the Titans and myself were locked into stone forms, statues forever seeking freedom as the world was washed red
with bloody skies.

The things I saw, I cannot describe. Time meant nothing, there was no day or night, and the things that wandered the
world then are nightmares made flesh. When they had flesh.

Then, as suddenly as it happened, it simply wasn't anymore. The world was back to its usual self, all except for one
small detail.

Raven was gone.

It had taken me a few weeks to realize it, having seen the Titans on various newscasts and editorials, all lacking the
indigo hooded mystic that I was familiar with. One day I was so desperate to know what happened, I held up a bank
and just lounged by the door till the Titans showed up, then started asking them about Raven. Their faces were answer
enough, and it was an odd moment for the police I'm sure, as they arrived to cart the infamous metahuman menace
Jinx off to lockup, only to find her crying and hugging with the Titans, fresh memories of loss still sharp in their lives.

Once I got out, things had changed. It didn't take long, only a minor issue considering I didn't resist, didn't really steal
anything or try to, and then behaved myself during arraignment and my short stay in prison. It was easy to be good, to
appear that I was, even though that appearance had nothing to do with my recent crime. I was battling, warring with
myself over the reality of Raven being dead.

I was released soon after and then I simply drifted. I took up a job, doing of all things, working in a mall fashion store
that catered to the more eccentric side of the spectrum. I lucked out – they thought my hair was a great asset to the
image.

I tried to talk about what was on my mind with my study group, which didn't go over well. It's hard to understand, for
someone who's been conditioned, trained and now believes themselves to be essentially evil, that you can miss a hero.
There was no way we could call each other friends. We only talked during our confrontations, and then it was blade-
edged banter of desperate combatants. But we shared something, despite it. We were both our little clique's misfits,
after all. The dark, somewhat spooky and hard to approach young women of villainy and heroism, we had a certain
bond, stated or not, and it was something we each simply understood and accepted. It was why we always faced one
another, always shared a slight smile before things heated up. Respect. We respected each other.

I heard a rumor once that the Joker, having finally found a way to kill Batman, refused to go through with it. What
would he do with his days? The sentiment may not have been the same, but the spirit was.

I missed her.

As I worked, I found myself having urges to express what was going on in my head, my melancholy, or the odd
moments of laughter in reminiscing. A friend suggested I begin writing, and so one day I picked up this cute little
notebook, and started penning my thoughts. Now I just can't stop. The notebook had turned into a small stack of
them, and now I have a bookshelf dedicated to my own writing.

It goes all over the place. Maybe a third of them are diaries, of a fashion. Random musings and ramblings as I work,
doodles—math even, as sometimes I lose the damn calculator. I have a little notebook on my favorite recipes. There's
maybe four sketch pads, all full, one even has some things pasted into it, from napkins to receipt tapes I found unwary
victims of my muse. I have a notebook devoted to care of kittens, as I view it.

I wrote about everything I saw. Or drew it. Or made notations and diagrams of it. My life had become a study, and in
attending my new "school", I found something that the Academy never gave me. I was happy. All the writing, scribbles
and journals let me understand that there was more inside me than just bad luck and bad circumstances. I began to live,
finally, and it all went into print.

Half of the bookshelf are letters. Letters to you, Rachel.

Before you raise that eyebrow that seems to get such a workout around me, just finish this one passage. Once I
realized that the source of my sudden... awareness of life was the result of facing the reality you'd gone, I felt like it
was only right to tell you. To explain, detail, share, talk to you. Like we never got a chance to do. The first letter to you
I remember so well. Now, that urge is still there. But you're here, with me. And so, again I write, where so often we
simply sit and talk with one another. That first letter though...

I was so angry with you. It hurt, and hurt me deep, that someone so distant and seemingly irrelevant to my life had
swooped in and just made a mess of things. I ranted and raved at you, cursed you, cried on the paper and blurred
the ink and nearly threw the damn thing away. It's still there, in that notebook, on that shelf. You'll see it when you get
back home, from your latest big trip with the Titans.

I moved all of them out into the common room, by the bookshelf we share with our usual reading. I'm sure you're
smiling at this point, or smirking, thinking this is just another of Jay's big ploys for attention. Sure it is. I like your
attention.

It was nearly a year, you were gone. The Titans, as I'm sure you've heard, were a mess. They broke up, reformed,
flipped out, had such issues you'd not believe. Well, you'd believe maybe, the rest of us are skeptics still. I heard
someone was cloned, someone else was imprinted on a computer disk, one of them got booted off Earth entirely, and
that there was a wedding.

But despite all the news, all the televised conferences and appearances, they weren't the Titans, to me. Work was fun
those first six months. Every time one of the guys or girls I'd work with would come in with the paper, all excited about
the newest scoop, I'd just shake my head and go back to my task. But my hand itched. Oh how it itched... and then I'd
read about whatever it was. Soon I was chomping at the bit to get off work, hand the keys to someone else and wrap
myself around a notebook.

Another day, another letter. I'd ask you what you thought about the weirdness that was going on. Who is the new kid?
What did you feel went wrong with this villain, or that accident. How you took the wedding? I found out from you later
it was Starfire and Robin. Wow, it's odd calling them that, now. I slipped last week and called her that when I
accidentally got her "drink" instead of mine at the fourth of July barbecue, and she laughed so hard she floated right
over the picnic table. Anyway, it was how I felt connected to the world, then. Each letter to you grounded me in reality.

I was able to say anything I wanted. In the beginning, it was harsh, you'll see. Maybe you'll see, if you decide to take
me up on this little... gambit. Yes that's a good word. It lasted maybe a month, my anger and fear and misplaced
anxiety. The letters became more pleading, wanting to know about you, to learn about the young woman I'd never get
to learn about, that was so similar to me. When you have nothing but time and the endless parade of band shirts in front
of you to fold and file into little cubbies, you find a great many things to ask someone, to pass the time.

I asked about your childhood, about the places you went to school, if you did at all. One letter I spent offering advice
on your uniform, that silly leotard you gave up in favor of that new one I like. You know, the one-piece dress with the
skirt slit up to your hip. It really suits you more, I think.

I still think you should go with the hood back more.

It's all there in the letters. All my supposedly dead letters, that a year later, became suddenly relevant.

Remember the headmaster of my Academy? Yeah, turns out you had a bad time with him too. You've only briefly
mentioned it, on those nights where you can't sleep and we end up chatting on the couch, sharing a bowl – oh alright, a
tub – of ice cream. I remember that first time I heard you crying, coming in from work late. You were in your room,
door closed and as I walked by I heard this sound. I couldn't believe my ears, but it was you. I popped the lock and
came in to make sure you were alright and you blasted me into the bathroom.

That night we started our little tradition of couch and ice cream. I wrote you a letter that night too. I was up till
daybreak, curled around my notebook, hair all a mess of pink over my head. I wrote about how much it meant to me
that you could talk to me about anything at all. Could share nightmares and hopes with me in the same day, and still
fence with me over that last bit of cookie dough. You fight dirty with it comes to ice cream I have to say.

Meanie.

The news of that day the Titans found you again, back from the dead in the hands of my old schoolmaster shook me.
I didn't believe it at first, and my denial is pretty nasty. You remember I bet. There was a general call to arms, among
the community to help put an end to the Church of Blood, and so many answered. I did too, too curious to stand by
and wait for news. The community came out in force, Rachel. I don't know if you remember it, but there were so many
there, so many that remembered you and were ready to march into hell if needed, all over again, to get you back.

We all gathered in your old place, the Tower, and planned. It was odd, then, rubbing elbows with the people I'd fought
with for so long. Common goals make odd bedfellows, and I found people there, your first team in fact that could
relate to me, how I felt. They all saw me, back in my old uniform, my hair back up in those impossible horns and it was
like coming home again, with the promise of an even better day, tomorrow. No one forgot how we all cried that day.

It was a foregone conclusion we'd get you back, or punish the people who used your memory to wound us again.

We found you, chained up in that horrid place, having fought and fought to get in and through the hordes of mindless
drones and zombies and madness. I'm proud to say I was the first person there. I'm ashamed to say I couldn't believe
it was you.

I'd hinged so much of my life, my real, feeling life, on the fact you were gone. I didn't want you gone! Please don't think
that. I hope you can understand what I mean, because sometimes even I can't. It hurts and makes me laugh and it's
impossible and wonderful all at once. I'm glad you're back.

I was then too. But I had a lousy way of showing it. I can't believe I slapped you and yelled at you for getting yourself
killed. The Titans just looked at me in shock, while I pulled the shackles off and got you up and out, before you were
spirited away by your Titan family. Maybe you don't remember, and I know no one would talk about it, after seeing me
there, spearheading the whole forward assault.

Applied Violence classes finally paid off.

Later, once you'd been allowed visitors you gave me such an odd look the first time I came to visit you. I remember it
like it was a few moments ago, still. Victor, later came by the hospital chapel for his own reasons, and found me
sketching the scene on one of my pads. I never knew a man made half of metal could be so damn quiet. I was so
engrossed in detailing the sketch that I missed him probably, and then he was asking me if he could see the picture.

You comment how I'm always blushing, but I think I looked like a pink haired tomato at that moment. Victor asked me
about the sketch, remembering a time back in the day when I was still in the Academy, and he had snuck in to spy on
us. He asked how I was handling it all, how I was dealing with you being back. All of the Titans had mixed feelings
about me, if it wasn't so obvious. Here I was, an old nemesis, and yet twice I've been an emotional wreck when it
came to you.

How I was handling it… I wasn't. I couldn't. I had no way to. You were gone, and in that idea, I'd grounded so much
of my present. Despite it, I sought you out, put my own life on the line to get you back, help you. It was great seeing
you again, seeing you smile at your friends as they came in to visit you, while I stood by the window, looking in.

Well, this is all common history for us isn't it? Funny, even after you came back, I still wrote you letters. It'd become
a part of my day, to voice my mind, my innermost thoughts and ideas, my pressing concerns and quirky moments to you.

I never believed you'd be there to answer. I never imagined your answers, oddly, either. I'm sure you wondered that, in
hearing me ramble on about them. I believed from the start that there was no way, with how we knew each other that I
could even hope to imagine your responses. And I would not demean your memory, so important to me, by supposing
to understand you so well as to put words in your mouth.

Oh sure I interrupt you constantly, and finish your sentences, but that's because you're right there, and I like watching
you get flustered. I'm the only person who can press your buttons, Rae. Someone has to, don't they?

Three months passed, and each day it was like my letters mocked me. Here you were! I could talk to you, face to face!
But still I found solace in those dead letters. I considered burning them, to force myself to confront my anxiety and you,
and just speak, interact with you.

It took irony kicking in again to finally snap me out of my fugue and realize what kind of chance I'd received. I know
you remember this; we'd ended up out in the college quad all but coming to blows over it. Imagine the looks people
would have had if it came to that! You'd signed up for college classes at Stanford, since Titan's West was based in San
Francisco, and while I wasn't one to call this place home, I'd been here so long it felt that way. So once I had this
apartment taken care of, I tapped into my savings and decided to make a real difference in my life.

I enrolled in college, at Stanford and during freshman orientation, we literally ran into each other. I was nose-deep in a
notebook, scribbling down little bits of impressions, threads of conversation, making little maps of campus for places to,
ironically enough, go write, when I walked head first into someone and we both went spilling to the ground. I was
swearing and recollecting my notebook and then looked up to see you smirking at me, rubbing your head. You had my
notebook in your hand.

I still have no idea how you could miss someone with pink hair and purple platform shoes walking around.

We'd blinked at each other for a while, and then people started recognizing us. Took them seeing us together, which
was always amusing to me. No one seems to recognize us unless we're together, or hanging out with our respective
friends. Oh how people stared! It was like they were expecting us to get in a fight. We did, to a degree, just a little
verbal fencing but it set the stage for the day.

We ended up in the same art class.

Then there was having to share a desk in biology with you.

I was mortified to be paired with you in creative writing. Of all the classes to have you be in eavesdropping range, that
one was the final straw. I accused you in the hall of stalking me and trying to sabotage my attempts to go legitimate and
have a real life.

And you walked away. I remember that look, as you turned. It was the same look I remember seeing in my own eyes
whenever I tried to talk to my classmates, so long ago, about you. The rest of that day I spent with a pen in my hand,
and a blank sheet of paper in front of me, mocking me again. Oh, I deserved it.

I nearly never went back. The next day I sought you out, and slowly, oh so slowly, things changed.

My notebooks stayed in my bag. I stopped needing to buy pens and hide them everywhere, as I didn't use them so
much. One weekend we got together to do research for a project, and things just... worked. It was the first time I'd
heard you laugh.

I just stared for a few minutes, until you blushed and looked away.

Three months later, and people have called us inseparable. You still liaison with the Titans, and sometimes it scares the
hell out of me. I'm afraid I'll lose you, all over again, and I pick up the pen and dull my whirring mind with the smell of
fresh ink. College gets hectic when you're not around, and I function like half a person.

It's odd to think that more than ever, we're our own little team. I remember one time, when Richard had asked me to
work with a special group, odd as it was, they needed someone to foul up the luck of a particular foe. Seems he had
something that was right up my alley to deal with, and I was out with them for about three weeks on assignment. When
I got home, the house was a mess, you'd hardly done laundry and was back to wearing the cloak in public. Then there
were the grades. I can't fault you though, I do the same thing, but don't tell Rae, it's a secret.

Only difference, where you don't clean, I overdo it. Ever see your reflection in tile grout?

Remember when you moved in? We'd been using each other as models in art class, and it was really late. You'd said
something about not wanting to fly back to the Tower, how it was tiresome with being miles out. I know you weren't
fishing for sympathy, but then again, we'd never talked about you visiting either. Strange, isn't it, that we never did
anything outside of college till that week, then it all cascaded.

I was flattered you were so appreciative of my decoration. It's simple, but it's me. I never knew we shared similar
tastes in books either, till you started picking though my bookshelf. I wonder, if that day you found a notebook I wrote
in. Out of habit from my time in the Academy dorms, I kept all my private things in my room, but still, it was my
apartment. There's no telling what you find now and then.

For instance, that day you opened my lock pick kit thinking it was a grooming bag. My ears burned for weeks.

The next week you mentioned how you were looking for an apartment. Tower life was too noisy you'd complained,
for like the fiftieth time. Trust me, I understood. Studying with people around in quantities like the Tower was never
easy for me, either. Of course I was worried about you. Think about it – Titan's West dynamo Raven seeks roommate,
call this number to discuss terms. Some screwball or psycho who won't clean and cook would have snatched you up
and then what would have happened?

Sometimes, when I see you looking around the living room with that ghost of a smile on your face, I wonder if you
knew I'd offer, before five minutes were past.

It really amazed me how little you actually own. I know why, we've talked about it. All the denial of your desires, the
self you were raised to ascribe to like law. Such a pity, I always think, but you never agree. It's alright. We can agree
to disagree.

One thing that actually surprised me, despite how well we meshed over the first few weeks of college and when you
moved in, was how similar our tastes and habits were. After I took up writing, television, games, computers all seemed
to seem so accessory. Turned out, you didn't find much use for those things anyway, that they were part of why you
needed to move from the Tower in the first place. Still, it was at once very peculiar and comforting to find a roommate
that could grocery shop for themselves, and still come home with things that we both enjoy. The only problem, of
course, is when one of us finished off the tea and forgot to get more within oh, two hours.

We really do go through an alarming amount of tea.

I even appreciate your lack of cleaning. Sure, you weren't a slob back home, but I can get a bit obsessed about it.
That you don't makes it easy for me to dive in an work out whatever is eating me that can't be put into words, or drawn
to death. Sometimes you just need to be busy, and you respect that in me.

Puck was something I never expected to happen. I remember it was after one of your trips with the Titans for "work",
and I'd stayed up late, in case you got in. New tub of Ben and Jerry's, a few CD's to listen to or fade back while we
talked, and some take out in the fridge. In you walk, your hood up, cloak all tucked around you, and the first thing out
of my mouth...

"Rae, what's under your cloak?"

You stared at me like I'd just admitted to dying your underwear orange. I had nothing to do with that, by the way.

You came to sit down, and then this tiny mew happened. I swear I thought you uniform was possessed for a second
until you showed him to me. You explained how he an orphan, a victim of the craziness of one of the people you had to
deal with. It's amazing, how cruel people can be. There's lines even us villains don't cross.

I broke open our much ignored few bottles of spirits and we chatted about your work a while, and how college had
been. It was... nice. Comfortable. I still adore those quiet nights, but with how hectic things have become, I know we
won't have so many, now. We named Puck that night, feeding him vanilla ice cream and chasing him around the house.
I honestly think we named him after the Midsummer character, but you still maintain that other silly idea.

Discussing naming a kitten is no job for two rather tipsy, exhausted and relieved college age women. You'd suggested
we name him Plato, and then I'd found out that the little rascal wasn't litter box trained. Not that we had one.

You know how I get when someone stains the carpet. Witty little brat that you are, commenting that my exclamation
wasn't a proper name for a pet. Compromise you said. Puck, you offered.

Cheeky when you know you can get away with it, aren't you?

Never did we discuss if we should keep him. You brought home an orphan, a lost child like we both were. If ever there
was a family that...

Yeah. I guess we are aren't we? Family. After all that's happened, we've gotten so close, grown to know more about
one another than anyone else. I wonder sometimes... you never date. Not that I do, either. You explain that it's because
of your emotions, how if you let them beyond your control, things get strange. You realize, Rae, that it happens anyway?
But I digress, I have reasons too. Writing... it takes a lot of time. The words, planning them, plotting them and giving
them something other than stale existence, breathing life into them isn't something that people understand well. I'd likely
not find someone who could share a bed with my muse.

I see you smirking.

Here we are, aren't we? Somehow, against all odds. Irony, dear. The sum of my life, the definition of it, and the rule by
which I live. One in a million, if there's a chance, I can find it.

Maybe I'm taking a chance like that by writing you this.

But... it's time, you know? All those letters, and here you are. Those nights, rocking you as you wept remembering the
time when you were reborn, they did something to me. Those moments, somber and quiet, so unlike us, it reached out
and made something inside me answer. I've never lied to you, Rachel. For all that I'm still who I am, still Jinx, still
occasionally the villain, I always respected you enough to never lie.

I can't, even now. The truth is here. It's there, too. Dated, folded up, and shelved on that bookcase.

I... hah. More than a year living at the end of a pen, and now I'm at a loss for words.

There's so much here, in this home we share. It lingers on the things we touch, drifts in the air. I find my days and my
thoughts so much revolving around you. The days are so full, but at once I feel this hole, eating away at me. I realize, no
matter what I work for, what happens, what goal I achieve, that since that day...

You are that vital spark. The one person I know can share a bed with me, and my muse, and still smile that ghost of a
smile at me in the morning, and share ice cream or tea with me at night.

Love,

Jinx.

-

She folded up the sheaves of paper and stumbled away from the desk, eyes bleary and pen slack in her hand. The room had a light speckling of dust in the air from the many books resting supine so long in their private places.

"One, last letter," the young woman said to no one. Pulling the notebook to her, she held it gently in a hand, staring at the creased and worn cover, the warping pages, so often thumbed through.

Coming from the shadows of the room, a quiet form slipped up and snaked her arms around the willowy girl, pulling the book away and startling her while the shadow laughed quietly. "No more?" Jinx looks at her in confusion, her pink eyes wide and huge and disbelieving below her matching eyebrows.

"No way..."

Raven, her smile stolen from the sometimes thief just nodded, the violet hair she wore down at home brushing her chin with the motion. "Dear, it's been my favorite book for weeks now." Cradling the notebook, the Titan looked up at her roommate waiting for some sign from the girl, a cue that the admission was too far.

Pushing her shorter roommate back, Jinx, sometimes called Jay by her roommate, simply stared incredulously at the Titan. Finally wrapping her mind around the concept and pushing her rampant anxiety to the back of her mind, she considered the implications, brows furrowing in thought, "You read them? All of them, and I didn't notice?"

Slipping her hand down to the one holding the pen, Raven, Rachel as she was known to her college classmates and Jinx at home, pulled at the shocked girl and sat with her on the couch. "Remember when Puck was missing, and you were looking for him last month?" She asked, running a hand along the cover, before finally handing the treasure back to its owner.

Frowning in memory, Jinx tilted her head in thought. "Right. He was in the closet with the water heater somehow." Reclaiming the diary, she looked at it woodenly. She knew. She's read them all hasn't she?

Nodding, the empath ran her thumb along Jinx's palm, trying to soothe the girl's tension. "I asked if you had something I could read, since the book I was currently into was left in the Jumpjet and the others were off on a mission... remember?"

"Oh my god."

Smirking very briefly, Raven leaned over, pulling the slight frame of the girl who was still reeling from her admission, whom she'd recently decided was very important to her, into a hug. "I quote, "I have some things in my room you can read," And so I did."

Mortified, Jinx just shook her head quietly. "How long... wait." She blinked, her shock fading with the awareness of Raven's arms around her, the quiet expression of contentment on her face. "You... know."

"I'm an empath. I knew something was up before you did. Also by sneaking in to read them; what I read told me a lot."

The feline pursed her lips, glaring half-heartedly at the object of so many of those journals. "That is so unfair."

Nodding as she leaned against Jinx's shoulder, Raven sighed quietly. "It's taken me a while to really come to grips with my own feelings; they're not something I'm used to. So often, someone would use them against me, push me." The sometimes thief slipped an arm around the shorter empath, in answer. Jinx's face was a study in preoccupation, rightly so.

"Can I... see it?"

"The last one? You sure you want to read it?" Jinx teased, snapping out of her internalizations quickly.

Shrugging slightly, the Titan looked up into coral eyes with her own violet. She held the gaze for long moments, watching Jinx's catlike pupils dilate slowly. "It's alright, Jay. I know how this one ends."

Smiling suddenly, Jinx sighed a breath she didn't realize she was holding. "You really liked those letters?"

Considering the question for a few moments, Raven finally nodded. "It was odd at first. I mean, I was dead... and here was all this anger, hurt and pain, sure some was at me, but I saw what was there... I never expected anyone to feel that way, if I were to cease to be. To be hurt because I was gone." Looking away, she blinked back the stinging in her eyes. "Of course I liked them. But I... feel bad that you won't write them anymore."

"Isn't it better, that instead of writing them, I just find you?" her companion asked, somewhat hesitantly. She felt awkward admitting that she didn't feel quite the urge to write as much, but truth was often unpleasant. She didn't rely on the journals, letters as much, because Raven was right here. As her writing waned, her friendship with the Titan had grown. Even now she was questioning whether, despite her decision to end her habit, she truly could. Time would tell. Somewhat quieter, she added, "I barely write those anymore."

"I know, and I don't mind, really," Raven reassured her. "There was just something personal, direct and honest about how you wrote them. It was like you could say anything. Ask anything. I wish I felt that free, sometimes."

"Oh, I do too! It's different when you write, knowing no one would ever read what you've written." Jinx laughed, shaking her head and tilting Raven's chin up, staring into her eyes steadily. Jinx knew this "book" may be done, but life stretched out, boundless before them. "Is it OK though? That your favorite story came to an end? With a cliffhanger, never knowing if Rachel returns Jay's affections?" she teased, realizing they both knew exactly how this chapter would close.

"I don't know, what will I do with my nights now?" Closing her eyes, the Titan's lips curled slightly into a sly grin, her joking, mischievous remark earning her a playful grumble from the thief she loved, "If I had known it would end like this, I never would have told you."
-

-
Author's notes: A bit long, but an enjoyable write. I wrote the "Letter" passage on ruled paper, every initial word, to make sure I stayed true to the idea of a journal. When transcribing it to digital, I realized something was wrong. I then went back and set it to 7.5 inches wide.

Thanks again go to Khaleda, my Beta and prereader. Also thanks to Flame Rising, for holding this contest, where I've met and continue to meet such nice people. Thank you.