A/N: All right, this is my first ever Teen Titans fanfiction. Amidst all the admitted crap on Cartoon Network nowadays, Teen Titans is not bad. It's pseudo-anime but it sure beats the pants off Code: Lyoko and all…no offense to people who like Code: Lyoko and Totally Spies…Anyway.

Summary: Raven wakes up one day to find herself all alone. Worse still, no one believes her about the Teen Titans! She's put into a mental institution and there she meets a team of doctors, nurses and assistants that seem achingly familiar…. Raven x Robin

A Garden of Roses

Chapter 1: Awakening

There used to be a greying tower alone on the see

You became the light on the dark side of me

Love remained a drug that's the high not the pill

But did you know? That when it snows, my eyes become larger and the light that you shine can be seen.

Kiss From A Rose, Seal

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She jolted awake, soaked with sweat. Lately, she'd been having dreams in which she saw herself being murdered…

Raven got out of bed, still shaking slightly, wrapping her cloak around her. She thought to wash her face, drink some water, to calm herself. But as her eyes adjusted to her dark surroundings, she realized something.

Raven was no longer in Titan Tower.

"Now…I remember," Raven said softly to herself. She sank back down on her bed. She did remember. She knew where she was now: St Agnes's Institute. The finest mental institution in Jump City.

From the outside, St Agnes's could pass for an exclusive boarding school. An old building made entirely of brick, ivy creeped along its walls and gave the place a venerable look. The attached chapel still had stained glass windows and the small garden plot was neat and well-manicured.

Looking out over the chapel, lit dimly by streetlights, Raven felt the new anger surge up inside her. She shouldn't be here! She was as sane as anybody else! And why did the Titans desert her and leave her alone? Why was there no Titan Tower? And why, oh why didn't anyone believe her about the Teen Titans?

She had woken up a few days ago to find herself utterly alone. The bright morning sunlight assaulted her as she realized suddenly she was sleeping outside, on the hill on which Titan Tower should rightfully have sat. But there was no trademark T, no Starfire or Cyborg or Beast Boy. Not even…Robin….

She had almost screamed when she found out her powers were gone. No magic. No defense, no scrying. Nothing. A few people looked at her strangely, the petite, slim figure encased in a cloak and hood, but no one showed signs of recognizing the withdrawn Titan. And so, resigning herself, Raven had shown up at the police department.

"Do you know where the Titans are?" she asked them.

They had looked at her in amazement. One asked who they were. She explained to them, recounted every instance where the Titans had saved Jump City. The police officers shook their heads, asked her if it was a dream. She had shaken her head no, no, no! Why did no one believe her?

The only advantage to losing her powers, so Raven thought, was that she could get as emotional as she wanted with no ill effects. And she took advantage of the fact, asking them why they pretended they didn't know the Titans. How many times had the Titans defeated villians the police could barely dream of taking down? How many times had the Teen Titans come to the defense of the city they loved…of the city that loved them?

But then in the middle of her tirade she was seized from behind by two sets of strong arms and she felt the sharp sting of a needle as it entered her upper arm. Raven was being dragged out of the police station, dumped into a plushy van, and she wanted to know what the hell was going on but her vision was going fuzzy…and before she knew it the world around her spun and all went black.

When she came to, she found she was inside a small room with padded walls and a white bed. "Where am I?" she muttered, but no one answered. "Where AM I?" she said again, louder and louder until finally her voice rose in a screaming crescendo and sobs ripped from her throat and tears made their furious way down her face.

It was the first time in years Raven cried, and she let the burning tears fall and be absorbed into the white sheets of her bed. Why was she alone again? She had finally come to consider her four teammates friends and they had all deserted her…betrayed her….She felt a red-hot anger flood her and she searched in vain for something to throw or break. Instead she just screamed his name.

"ROBIN! RRRROOOOOOBBBBBBIIIIIIN!" she yelled. The cries brought not Robin but two brutish-looking orderlies dressed in white. They came to her, picked her up not-so-gently, and brought her into a room where a man sat behind a desk. The two men strapped her down to her hard wooden chair so she couldn't escape.

"So," the man behind the desk said. "You are at St Agnes's Institute. What is your name?" He spoke slowly, as if addressing a particularly slow child.

"Raven," the dark girl muttered.

"Raven," the man repeated blankly. "Any last name?"

"No," Raven shot back. "I'm…from somewhere else."

The man nodded understandingly. He thought she meant she had emigrated from some other country. "Now, Raven," he said kindly, "why don't you tell me what's wrong."

She resented his condescending attitude and gave him the least amount of information necessary. He raised his eyebrows several times and was scribbling furiously on a notepad, but he said nothing.

"Well," he said, "that's quite the story. Now, I think we'll keep you here for some time, okay?"

"No, it's not okay," Raven said. "Why do I have to be here? Do you know what happened to the Titans? Team Titan? We used to call ourselves the Teen Titans but then…we grew out of our teens." The words came from her mouth unexpectedly. Desperation had reduced her to this quivering mess that spoke readily and was overly verbose.

"I'll ask around," the man promised, but Raven knew he wouldn't.

"Is this really Jump City?" she asked him finally.

"Yes, it is," he answered, looking relieved, as though this crazy girl was lucid enough to know where she was.

"Then…then why isn't anything the way it should be?" she said softly, more to herself than to anyone else. The man behind the desk was looking alarmed that she was talking to herself and pressed a button on his intercom, muttering something. Within moments the two huge orderlies came and picked Raven up.

Raven hadn't the heart, the strength, to resist. It was her second day alone and she was in an insane asylum. To top it off, absolutely no one believed her about the Titans.

Now, awake in the middle of the night, Raven felt her throat burn, a sensation that was all too familiar to her by now. She resisted crying though. She kept the tears from falling, but she willingly let the bitter screams erupt from her. Now that she wasn't chained down from feeling her emotions, she indulged in her anger more than she ever had before.

Unexepctedly her mind wandered and she was taken back to a scene that, by all rights, had happened only a few days ago…

"Raven." The deep, strong voice was a quiet murmur in her ear and she turned, startled in spite of herself. She allowed a small smile to seize her face before she carefully composed it to its usual stoniness.

"Robin," she responded. She let no emotion show through her voice. But her pulse was racing and she could feel his breath on her neck…his hand had crept around her waist and he pulled her down with him as he collapsed on the couch.

"You know…" Robin said. His breathing was coming a little heavier now and Raven knew what he expected.

"And you know I can't," Raven had replied, although she wished more than ever that it weren't so.

"I won't be denied, Raven," Robin said, his voice low. "You've kept me away for too long." His hands were clasped at her back now and she could feel his arms shaking from control. It made her feel…good…to realise that he was aching to rip her clothes off and satisfy himself. With her.

But she also knew the risks, and she couldn't let her emotions creep that high. She knew that Robin was fully aware of the facts but his passion, his needs, completely overrode his sense.

Robin had then leant in, pulled her even closer for a deeply passionate kiss. That was as far as Raven would—could-- let him go.

Showing prodigal strength, Raven wrenched herself from Robin's firm arms and looked him straight in the eye, her eyes regretful. "Robin, you know…" she didn't complete the sentence. You know I want this as much as you do, she wanted to say. But she couldn't, and she didn't.

And then she had walked away.

Raven wanted to see Robin more than anyone else in the world right now. She didn't know what she would say to him, or what she would do. At this point, Raven felt ready to rip him limb for limb for leaving her alone.

On the other hand, she thought, she might pull a Starfire and fling herself on him, happy to be reunited with her…friends.

"I will not think about you any longer," Raven said out loud, thinking of Robin. "I will not think of you any longer. I will not think of you any longer." She repeated the words, willing herself to wash her mind of Robin.

It didn't work.

She would be satisfied with any member of the team. Beast Boy, Cyborg, Starfire…any familiar face would be welcome to her. But she was still angry. She was, more than anything, hurt. After so many long years together, she thought the Titans had become a real family and Raven had let down her defenses a little and had accepted that. She didn't expect them to leave her. Alone. Again.

It wasn't characteristic of Raven to feel sorry for herself, but the circumstances had left her conscious doing a one-eighty on her. Now all she could think of was how to get back together with the Titans. And how they had abandoned her.

Raven was also angry at herself. She hated feeling so pathetic but she couldn't control it. Emotions raged inside her, waging constant battle. Sometimes anger won; other times, it was pity and despair and one emotion that she was afraid to name. But one thing was for sure: She was no longer the ice-cold Raven she used to be.

"Have you had a tough day, Dr Robin?" came a cheery voice.

Robin grimaced inwardly as a pair of bright green eyes stared right at him. "Yes, Star, I've had a tough day," he told the nurse. It was almost midnight and he was just now getting out of St Agnes's.

"Perhaps you should drink a cup of coffee," the other girl said. She thrust a steaming pot into his hands, burning them.

"YEOW!" Robin yelled, dropping the pot. "Star…when you give a person coffee, you're supposed to pour it in a mug or something!" Star was sweet and good-natured, but rather simple, Robin thought.

Star gasped. "I am sorry…very sorry!" she said. "Dr Robin, come to my office and I shall put bandages on your burnt appendage."

"You know what Star…thanks, but no thanks," Robin replied. So that's why she gave me the entire pot, Robin thought. If I were hurt, she'd have an excuse to spend time with me.

"Good night," Robin said, before Star could say anything else. He left quickly, locating his trim motorbike and driving over the dark roads.

A new case had come in yesterday. He had seen the girl's face…she was so dark. Her eyes, which seemed to shine violet, were haunted and hollow. Even her hair seemed to have purple highlights. And something about her face caught him. It wasn't just her beauty. It was the quality of her beauty…so dark and tragic. Robin wondered what had happened to her to make her so haunted. He had resolved then to take care of her personally, be her doctor.

The reason he had become a psychiatrist was because the human mind fascinated him. It was so delicate, but so strong, controlling all the human body did. And then when it went wrong…Robin wanted to fix it. It had been his life's dream to be a psychiatrist. Graduating a year early from high school, he had gone through a seven-year medical program and done his residency and internship in the Psych ward of Jump City General Hospital.

He'd seen a lot of loonies in his time there, some dangerous, many criminals. He'd helped to treat schizophrenics, those contemplating suicide, some obsessive-compulsives, and many clinically depressed. But no one had caught his attention than the girl with violet eyes who was staring out at him from her window.

She looked oddly familiar, though Robin could swear he had never seen her before. It itched at the back of his mind, persistent. He was very good with names, faces, and dates, and so sure of this ability that it was preposterous to think he might have actually forgotten. But how could I forget a girl with violet eyes? he thought to himself.

He pulled off his shirt and pants and replaced them with pyjamas. It was getting too cold not to wear them. Besides, these warm, worn flannel ones were his favorites.

Robin climbed into bed, switching off the light and pulling the comforter more securely around him. He blinked up at the cool, dark, impersonal ceiling for a minute or so before closing them and relaxing.

Tomorrow…I will become that girl's doctor…

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A/N: Okay…so what did you all think? This will be a very short story with very sporadic updates because of how much schoolwork I have! –dies-

Right. Beast Boy and Raven will put in an appearance next chapter…and so will all the supporting characters of Teen Titans. Of course, Rae x Rob, Starfire x Aqua Lad?? Just kidding. Rae x Rob is the One True Pairing!