A/N

So this is a sequel of sorts, maybe not the official sequel, but a sequel in some capacity to "A Farewell Without a Word" and "Hollow". This story will make more sense if you've read those two, but I do think that you can just read this without a problem. Happy Valentines Day!

~Choose~

Raven idly stared out over the horizon, watching as waves formed and surfers went out to meet them. The beach she was on was crowded, but under the shade of her umbrella she was left in relative peace. She didn't feel peaceful herself, instead she was feeling somewhat melancholic. It felt like ages since she'd last been at the beach on the other side of the country with her friends, and she almost didn't want to come here in the first place. Indulging herself like this, especially while thinking about her friends, was never going to make her feel better, it was going to have the exact opposite effect and she knew it. But Raven couldn't help herself either.

Not a day went by when she didn't think of everyone, wondered what they were doing and if they were happy. Usually among her first thoughts was if they'd moved on from her, and that thought was quickly dismissed every time it came up because she hadn't moved on from them and it was a safe bet that the opposite was true as well. It took a lot of effort not to look up what was going on back in Jump City now that she was gone, and each day that went by was harder than the last. She'd made up her mind and chosen this path, she knew that it would be difficult, but often times it was hard to resist the temptation not to look back.

One of the things she did constantly think about was if they were still looking for her. For the first few months that thought was based in fear, because of the truth she'd left behind and what would happen if she was forced to confront it. But after those first few months and a few states distance between them, that fear eroded and changed into something else, something she recognized all too well: Longing. She wanted to go back so badly to see her friends again and eat breakfast and fight crime and yes, she was even willing to put up with the paperwork and charity events that she famously loathed if it meant she could go back to her old life.

But it was too soon; if she went back now old wounds would open, wounds that hadn't even come close to healing because whenever she thought of that certain someone her heart would try to wrench itself out of her chest.

Raven sighed as she wondered what Robin was doing for the millionth time that week. She knew that it was probably the same as it had always been, minus her: Fighting crime and spending time with his friends. And his girlfriend. Her thoughts shifted to Starfire, and Raven wondered who was probably hurt more between the two because of her leaving: She'd been close to both of them, and in the end Starfire was the last person she thought about when she'd left. Sighing and closing her eyes, Raven tried to focus on the sound of the waves through the cacophony of noise from the rest of the crowded beach.

Not two minutes later, someone sat down to her right and said, "You look upset."

She looked up and frowned at the young man. He was probably around her age, maybe a couple of years older than she was. He had light brown hair that matched his eyes, was a little lean, and judging from the way his hair was messed up, he'd definitely been in the water recently. "Is there any particular reason you care?" She asked after a moment.

He shrugged. "No." Was all he said, smiling at her eye roll. "My name's Matt." He held out his hand.

"Rachel." She replied, reaching forward and shaking his hand.

"Nice to meet you." He told her. "So… what's wrong, Rachel?"

She regarded him for a moment as she thought to herself, "Should I even bother? Can I tell enough for him to understand without revealing everything?" Enough time passed for Matt to raise a brow. "I guess I've got nothing to lose. And I haven't had a real conversation since I left the Titans." Clearing her throat and looking back out to the ocean, she said, "I miss my friends."

Matt nodded in understanding. "Where are they?"

"In California."

Another nod. "How come they're there and you're here? Did you move because of college or something?"

"No." Raven shook her head, debating internally what she should say next. "They're there because there is their home, and I'm here because I needed to… think about things." She decided on.

"Think about what things? Did you wake up one day and suddenly realize that your friends aren't who you thought they were?" He asked, his tone light but serious.

"No, nothing like that. I-" Raven sighed. She didn't want to talk about this, but swallowed her anxiety and spoke anyway. "In that group of friends, there was this guy. I was in love with him." She said quietly, the first time she'd ever admitted it out loud. "But he wound up with someone else."

Matt waited a moment before he responded. "You must've been pretty deep in love if you had to go all the way across the country just to think about things."

His response made Raven snort. "You have no idea." He laughed, and she waited for him to quiet down before continuing, "I didn't think I would fall in love with him when I first met him. And in all honesty, I don't hand out my affections that easily, so you can imagine how hurt I was when I saw that he had decided to go with another girl."

"Does he know?" Matt asked, leaning back and placing his hands in the sand. "Did you ever tell him?"

"I…" Raven cringed slightly and her voice fell a little. "I wrote him a note." It sounded so dumb when she said it out loud.

Matt started laughing, and Raven picked up a handful of sand and threw it into his face. After sputtering and wiping it away, he cleared his throat and asked, "What did he say when he found out?"

Raven shrugged. "I left before I could find out what he would tell me."

"Well that's dumb!" Matt threw his hands into the air in exasperation. "You should go back and find out what he has to say!"

"It doesn't matter what he has to say. He's been with that other girl for two years now, so I doubt he'd suddenly turn heel and be with me." Raven replied.

"Who cares about that other girl?" Matt shook his head and looked out to the sea. "If you want my opinion, you should try and break them up so you can be with him instead."

"Well, the only problem with that is that the other girl is also a good friend of mine." Raven nodded at Matt when he looked back to her with a shocked expression. "Yeah, so you see my predicament. I want them both to be happy, and I don't want to get in the way of that."

"Hmm…" Matt rubbed his chin as he thought. It was almost two minutes before he responded, long enough for Raven turn back to the horizon. "Would he be happier with you?"

"What?" Raven's head snapped up, and her brow knit together.

"Would he be happier with you?" Matt repeated the question. "Because if he would be, I say you should try to win him over anyway. And this is a little pessimistic, but… Not all relationships work out. Things might not work out between your two friends. And if it doesn't… then you can be there for him."

"I'm not going to hover around him hoping his relationship fails so I can be his rebound girl." Raven said quickly. "And to answer your question: I don't know. Maybe he would be happier with me. If I'd known beforehand what was going to happen, I would've told him sooner. I know for sure that if I had acted sooner, I would make him as happy as I possibly could. As happy as he made me."

"So what's stopping you?" Matt asked with a smile.

"Did you hear a word I just said?" Raven retorted with a frown.

"I did. And it sounds like you've got two choices: Be happy, or be sad. I think you should go for the first option. Maybe it's not the kindest thing in the world to ruin his girlfriends happiness, but sometimes there's nothing wrong with being selfish. And if you succeeded in you quest, maybe this girl would understand and you could be friends again someday."

Matt sounded so genuinely optimistic that for a second Raven was left in silence as she tried to think of a legitimate reason to counter his points. "I can be happy without him." She finally said once her voice came back to her.

"Didn't you say they'd been together for a couple of years now? Have you been sulking this entire time? Because if you have, I don't think you can be." Matt leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees.

"And who are you to tell me what I can and can't be?" Raven asked defensively.

Matt raised his hands in a gesture of peace. "No one. You can be whatever you want, but I think that you want to be with him. Am I wrong?" She started to answer, but he cut her off. "Because if I am wrong, then wouldn't you be with him now as a friend, like you said you were before?" Matt sighed before continuing, "And even if you end up happy without him, it might not be the same kind of happiness that you had as before."

Raven didn't respond, mulling his words over in her head. It wouldn't be a bad thing, to have a different kind of happiness than before. But Raven knew he'd hit the nail right on the head: She did want to be with Robin, which was why she was here across the country sulking. And in all honesty, she didn't know when this 'sulking' would end. Maybe it never would. Maybe for the rest of her life, Robin would be her biggest what if, her 'what could have been' and no matter where she went or who she ended up with, Robin would always be there in the back of her mind. If that was the case, what was she supposed to do? Never see or speak to him again?

That didn't seem right. Or fair. But when had her life ever been fair?

Her life had always been a constant uphill struggle. First the struggle to control her powers as a child, then as a crime fighting heroine, then the attempt to resist the prophecy of her birth, then the struggle to overcome her sorrow after Robin and Starfire got together… But she'd come out on top everytime before now. If she went back to find out what Robin thought of her confession, what would she find? If she went back to try and convince him to pick her over Starfire, what would happen?

"It won't be that easy." She said quietly, finding a way to put out that spark of hope that had ignited in her. "I can't just walk back into his life and expect things to work out…"

"It probably won't be easy." Matt conceded. "But that doesn't mean it's impossible."

Raven narrowed her gaze. "You seem really intent on changing my mind."

"Yeah well…" He suddenly looked sheepish and looked away, down the beach. "I guess I know what you're going through." He raised his hand and pointed. "See that girl in the red two piece, with the brown hair in the ponytail?" When he turned back to see Raven nod, he continued. "That's my wife, Evelyn." He raised his hand to show the ring. "But we wouldn't be together if I hadn't fought for her. Literally, at one point." He smiled and shook his head. "So I know a thing or two about your situation. And I know that in the end it was worth it."

Raven heard someone calling Matt's name, and saw that his wife was walking over to them. "Hey, who's this?" She asked, choosing to stand rather than kneel down.

"This is Rachel, my…." He gestured to her, letting her complete that sentence.

"Acquaintance." She filled in.

Evelyn raised a brow. It looked like she was about to say something to Raven, but then she looked down at Matt. "Cheryl and I are hungry, so we're going to go get some food. You coming?"

"Yeah, sure." Matt stood up, brushing sand off his swimming trunks. He looked down at Raven, smiling widely. "Well, I hope things work out with you, Rachel. See you around."

He turned and left with Evelyn, and Raven could hear her asking what he was talking about.

Raven sighed and pulled her knees up to her chest, resting her forehead on them lightly. She sat there for a few minutes before standing up, making her way through the crowd and along the beach until she was back in her hotel room. She shivered thanks to the cold air conditioning and shut it off, pulling the blankets up and over herself as she pulled her phone off the nightstand.

The only thing she'd put on the phone were some songs from artists she liked, but other than that there was nothing on it. No photos had been taken or saved, and she'd left the wallpaper on as the default background that it had come out of the box with. There weren't any contacts saved, but there were a few recent calls in the list, all to places she could order food from while she'd been travelling.

Typing the number she'd memorized a long time ago into the dialpad, Raven's thumb hovered over the call button before she pressed it. She took in a shaky breath and held it as she swallowed hard and raised the phone to her ear. Every ring that passed raised her level of apprehension, made it harder to resist the temptation to hang up and teleport the phone into the sun so they couldn't trace the call back to her.

"Who is this and how did you get this number?"

She expected that response, at least, calling his private cell phone that only three people in the world including herself knew the number too. Exhaling slowly and closing her eyes, she wished she'd thought of something to say because all that came out was a simple, "Hi."

He inhaled sharply, loud enough for it to come out over the phone. "Hi." He said back quickly.

An awkward silence settled between them, and Raven started to panic. "So what's up?" She asked, breaking the silence and now really wishing she'd spent some time to think of something to say.

"Uh… Nothing, really. I'm just… sitting down." He answered. "What's up with you?"

"I'm sitting down, too." She said, resisting the urge to laugh, but when Robin laughed quietly she joined in too.

Another silence settled between them. "How come you're calling?" He asked. "Is something wrong?"

"No, no. I… missed you." She admitted. "And I wanted to talk to you. But now that I'm actually doing so, I don't know what to talk about."

Robin laughed again, quiet like before. "I know what you mean. That was always on my mind when we were searching for you. And we still haven't stopped looking for you." He paused for a moment, but his next words came out lighter than before. "I don't suppose you'd make it easy on us and tell us where you went?"

"Mmm… Maybe." She pursed her lips together, smiling a bit. "How are Cyborg and Beastboy?"

"They're doing alright. They miss you too. If you wanna talk to them, they're in the other room. I can take you to them." Robin said.

Raven took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Maybe in a bit." She swallowed the lump in her throat. "How's Star?" She asked, since she knew there was no point in putting the question off for very long.

It was several moments before Robin answered, but his response wasn't what she expected. "She went back to Tamaran."

Raven's eyes widened in shock. "What!? When, why?"

"About seven months ago." Robin sighed. "Things were getting difficult between us for a while before you left, and then after you left, I was preoccupied with looking for you, so it was... kind of the last straw between us."

"I'm sorry, Robin." She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. "I didn't know, I didn't think that you two would-"

"It's okay. And it was a mutual decision between us, anyway. We talked about it for a while, and we both agreed it was for the best." He said, his voice heavy. Neither of them said anything for a while, but Robin ended up being the one to break the silence. "I got your note, Rae."

Raven tensed, pulling the blankets around her closer. "...And?"

"I promised myself that I'd tell you what I thought of it when I saw you again." He told her quietly, voice barely above a whisper. "So if you want to know what I think…"

"Do you really have to do that to me?" Raven asked with a groan.

Robin laughed, and she could hear his grin through the phone. But whatever he was going to say next was cut off when alarms started blaring from the other end. "Damn it. Raven, I've got to go-"

"I understand. I'll call you tomorrow. I promise."

"Alright. Take care of yourself."

"You-" The call was disconnected before she could finish, "-too." Looking down at her phone, she sighed and closed her eyes. She'd really done it. She'd actually spoken to him. In hindsight, it had been an impulsive decision on her part to promise to call him tomorrow, but right now she wasn't regretting the choice. But she was regretting not calling him sooner; in spite of everything, she wished she'd known that Starfire had left Earth so long ago. If she'd known, she would have done her best to put her personal feelings aside and be there for him.

But she was glad to know that he had the boys to fall back on in her absence. They hadn't let her down in the past, so she doubted that they'd let him down. And she assumed they hadn't since they were all still on a team together after she and Starfire had left.

For a while Raven just sat there, repeating the conversation in her head over and over again and wondering what she should do next. Ultimately, she decided to think up a topic of conversation for tomorrow, as well as what she'd tell Cyborg and Beastboy when she spoke with them. It was better than having another conversation with awkward pauses after every sentence.

After that, she wondered where she would go. She'd only have the hotel room for one more night, so she'd have to pack up and move on. But as to where, she didn't know. Now that she hit the east coast, there were only a few places that stuck out in her mind. None of them seemed particularly enticing, however. She could make her way back west, maybe visit places she'd skipped along the way.

The thought of Titans Tower had been on her mind long before her call with Robin, and after talking with him the urge to return was overwhelming her. It would be so easy to teleport across the country, using the emotion she was currently feeling to power herself and just... poof. She could be right back with her friends, helping them win whatever battle they were currently fighting.

Her thoughts were pulled back to what Robin had told her before their conversation had ended. "So if you want to know what I think…" A part of her wanted to think he was just playing hard to get, and another part of her wanted to take it as an open invitation to go back, and yet another part of her had no idea what to think.

Standing up, and grabbing some fresh clothes to wear, she decided that after calling them tomorrow, Raven would make up her mind as to whether or not she went to see them.

And depending on what Robin told her would determine whether she would stay.