Summary: "Had it really been twenty years since he had last seen her? So much had changed, and yet, so much more had stayed the same." SpeedyBee AU.

A/N: The idea to this piece came to me as I was trying to nap, and the resulting jumping-up-for-joy and accompanying shout of excitement that I finallyhad another TE-related fic idea scared the bejeebers out of my poor sister. As my overly-enthusiastic reaction you just read about may tell you, I really enjoy this piece and the idea behind it. I hope you do, too!

Disclaimer: I barely have enough money to by the updated version of The DC Comics Encyclopedia. What makes you think that I have enough money to buy Teen Titans off of DC? Nope, I don't own anything, only the idea behind the story…

What Has Come Undone

By guardyanangel

It had been far too long. Nothing could be done to fix what had come undone.

Such thoughts were the ones that rang through Roy Harper's mind as he leaned against the wall of the hall that held his twentieth high school reunion. He wasn't entirely sure what had drove him to actually come here- God knew that he had never been close to very many of his classmates in school, and that hadn't changed with the passing of twenty years.

Okay, so maybe that was a lie. He had been close to quite a few of his schoolmates, but chance and circumstance had changed all of that. He hadn't seen some of his former best friends in years, and as took a careful sip of his champagne, he studied the crowd of once-familiar faces.

There was Richard Grayson, now one of the richest men in the world. He'd been an infamous playboy back in high school, but judging by the ring on his left hand and the matching one of Tamaran Hotels Inc. heiress Kori Anders' hand as she clung to him happily, that image had been left behind with the rest of his high school antics.

At the same table as the happy couple was Victor Stone, former football player and current leader on robotics, chatting it up with his best friend, Garfield Logan. Roy had read that Gar was trying to break out into the punk rock industry, which was only confirmed by the strange shade of green the jokester had dyed his hair.

Roy wondered how well that change in hair had gone with Gar's on-again-off-again girlfriend, Rachel Roth, who wasn't present at the table now, but Roy had seen her walking in with Gar before, so he assumed that they were back on again.

As he took another sip he allowed his eyes to continue to rove about the hall, spotting his former best friend and Olympic-Gold-winning simmer Garth Poisedonis standing next to a woman with pale blonde hair, carrying a small baby with Garth's dark black hair and her light blue eyes.

The woman must be Daphne then. He had heard about her and Garth's engagement and subsequent marriage through the grapevine, but had been too busy to manage to drop by for the wedding.

Yet another lie. He'd gotten really good at doing that, lately, especially to himself. Why else would he have subjected himself to coming here, surrounded by his clearly successful former classmates and having nothing of his own to show off? He was once the adopted son of another one of the richest men in the country, but arguments had driven a rift in between him and his adopted father, a rift that hadn't not been bridged in a long, long time- so long, Roy wouldn't be surprised if he had been written out of his adopted fathers' will.

Either way, the abundance of money that had likely won him a spot among his old friends was gone now, had been gone for almost fifteen years- fifteen long years that had not been kind to the redheaded man that had once been such a promising teenager. He had acquired a playboy status that far surpassed Richard Grayson's former one, and he had the long line of women ticked off at him to prove it, as well as one six-year-old, dark-haired beauty of a daughter, Lian who was being watched by a babysitter as he hung about in the presence of friends who were now strangers and her mother, Jade, sat in the dim confines of a jail cell.

He and Jade's relationship had been a disaster from the start- he could see that now. Still recovering from quitting the drug heroin that had been one of the forces that drove him down into the hole he was in, Jade had been like a shovel that he happily used to dig himself even deeper.

Used- yes, that described their former relationship well. She had used him as a safe haven from the several people after her head due to the series of crimes she had committed, and he used her to help bring himself even further into the pit that he'd begun to make in the final two weeks before graduation.

There, now he had stumbled upon it. He downed the last bit of champagne in his glass and signaled the waiter for another one. Every thought always seemed to lead to her somehow, her and the relationship that they had begun in senior year, the relationship that upon its ending had driven him to pushing his adopted father away, to his heroin addiction, to the dependency on alcohol he was beginning to develop.

And, curses upon his head and speak of the devil, there she was now, entering the hall with a beatific smile on her face and a man who was clearly her husband on her arm. Karen Beecher- it would be something else, now that she was married- his first and perhaps only love, and the woman who had destroyed his life.

Grasping the glass the waiter had just handed him carefully, Roy pushed himself away from the wall and headed towards her. Had it really been twenty years since he had last seen her? So much had changed, and yet, so much more had stayed the same. She still wore her hair in tight buns on either side of her head, and she wore the same shade of lipstick that she had since freshman year. However, she carried herself with far more grace and womanliness than she had when they were high schoolers, and the ring on her left hand proclaimed to all that she was no longer as stubbornly independent and feminist as she had once been.

Seeing her made him miss her more- her strong personality (not to mention her incredibly beautiful appearance) had always drawn her to him, and seeing her- clearly successful and even more clearly happy, while he was clearly neither of the two- made his heart ache for what could have been.

That, plus the alcohol that was beginning to buzz through his brain, was the explanation he would later give himself as to why he walked over to her.

"Well, look who finally decided to show up," he joked slightly as he approached. She looked up, and for a moment surprise and something else flashed through her eyes as she recognized him. A wry smile hesitatingly appeared on her face.

"Why, if it isn't Roy Harper. You're one to talk- you haven't show up to a single one of these reunions for the past twenty years!"

"My apologies, Karen Beecher," he responded, feigning an appropriately chastised look, "I had other things on my mind."

Karen smiled quivered slightly as she responded, "Actually, it's Karen Duncan now. Roy… This is my husband, Malcolm Duncan. Mal, this is Roy."

"It's a pleasure," Mal said, extending his hand. Roy shook it with his free hand, and echoed the sentiment. Malcolm smiled briefly as he pulled away, and then continued, "Well, the two of you seem to have plenty to catch up on. I think I'll go have a look at the food, if it's alright with you, Kar."

"No problems," she responded, her eyes only barely betraying the lie. "I'll be with you soon."

Malcolm nodded, dipped his head towards Roy, and departed.

The mood changed significantly as the reason they both were faking smiles and cheerful greetings left, and the two stood silently for a moment, Roy studying his glass carefully as Karen followed her husband's departing back. After a time, however, Roy spoke.

"He calls you Kar."

Karen started slightly, "I'm sorry?"

"He calls you Kar. You never let me- ah, any of us- call you that when we were in high school."

Noting his fumble, Karen quietly replied, "Things change, Roy."

"Yes. That's true." he replied carefully, taking a sip of the champagne.

She studied him cautiously before she began to speak. "I heard you have a daughter now."

"Yes, Lian. She's six."

"Congratulations. I didn't know you got married."

"That's because I didn't."

An awkward silence fell over the two again, and they both looked elsewhere. Karen attempted beginning a conversation once more as she spotted Garth.

"I didn't get to go to Garth's wedding. Were you able to?"

"No… I had other things on my mind."

Karen studied him again carefully, taking in the bags under his eyes, the ragged look within the eyes themselves. They may have broken up more than a decade ago, but deep down Karen knew neither of them had really wanted to, and Roy still had a special place within her heart.

Quietly, she questioned: "How are you, Roy? I mean, really? You look like you have slept in days."

Roy smiled wryly at her, running a hand through his red hair. "You always could read me like a book, Karen. That's one of the things I lo-liked about you."

Twenty years, and he still couldn't say the dreaded l-word. Love. The fact that he wasn't able to say it, that he couldn't voice exactly how he felt for her, was what had driven them apart, even though Karen knew somehow that he had felt something for her that he never had for any girl before- she could see it in his eyes.

His eyes, once so expressive. They looked so dead now. It almost broke her heart.

"Really, though, Roy. Are you doing okay?"

He met her eyes with his dead-looking ones, and both of them knew he was lying when he answered, "Of course."

Karen frowned at him, but decided not to press it anymore. There was something else that he deserved to know, something she should have said at graduation that she never got the chance to, something that its lack of being spoken had eaten at her for years.

"Listen, Roy… I hope I didn't hurt you… When we ended things, I mean."

And now she could see the old Roy again as a bit of anger flashed through his eyes, "You didn't hurt me, Karen," he replied, the barest bit of his ire clear in his voice, "You just completely destroyed my life."

Still so angry… So much rage could destroy someone- she knew that. She had seen it in her father before her, saw it sometimes in herself, saw it clearly now in Roy. Life really had never been easy for him, losing his parents at an early age, his adopted father's lack of true parental skills, his struggle to maintain the tough aura he had developed by the time he got to high school. He had been angry, amongst other things, within high school, and when he was at extremes for them she had almost loathed him.

But, as the years had passed and more and more she had seen the more vulnerable side to him- that was the Roy she had fallen in love with. That was the Roy she missed. This Roy she could pass by easily, and if it weren't for the pleading of Roy's adoptive mother Dinah not long after he had vanished from their lives, she would have.

But she had promised to Dinah, who Karen loved and idolized almost as much as she had her late mother, that she would try to find the boy- man, now- that had meant so much to the both of them during her high school years, albeit for different reasons. Dinah Lance-Queen needed her beloved 'son.' Karen Beecher needed her first true love.

And so it was for Dinah and the girl that she used to be that Karen subjected herself to the long rant that Roy had begun.

"After we broke up, I went to off to Star City College, just like I planned, and you went off to Harvard, just like you planned. It should have ended like that, right? We were over, not unexpectedly- high school relationships, especially amongst seniors, are never meant to last. My string of girlfriends should have proved that.

But you- I don't know why, but you completely changed me, Karen. And when you left- when I left- I couldn't go back to who I was, not completely. I did a lot of things I'm not proud of, sometimes with people I'm not proud of knowing- how do you think I ended up with Lian? You- or, more specifically, breaking up with you, had a devastating effect on me, Karen." he paused, glaring at her, and she felt her heart break as if she had just broken up with him once more as she gazed into his pained green eyes.

"It would have ended up the same, Roy. We were just like all other high school relationships- Another love story that never got to the happily-ever-after part." she answered, "As much as you- and I- wanted it to be otherwise, Roy, we have to accept the truth. Life isn't a fairytale. No matter how much we dream, eventually, we always wake up to reality."

"I know that it would have happened eventually, but we weren't supposed to end like that, breaking up right before graduation. I mean, Gar and Tara- or was it Rachel, then?- either way, they were meant to do that. They were the couple most likely to part ways before graduation- for them, that was what was meant to be. But that wasn't what it was supposed to be for us, Karen. We should have just let it die out on its own- you should have just let it die out on its own!"

"I know," she answered, "And I'm sorry. But that doesn't mean that you should have let your whole life go to hell- Dinah misses you. Ollie does, too. They don't deserve to be cut out of your life like that."

He blinked in surprise, "You've… talked to them?"

"Yes. Ever since you broke ties with them they've been asking me to help them find you. I guess they know I must have had something to do with it."

"You had everything to do with it," he muttered, but he didn't sound as angry now. They were silent for a moment, and then Roy met her eyes, the deadened look gone in his, with pure sincerity left. "Karen, you know… I think… back then… I really loved you."

After twenty years, the truth. Too little, too late, but Karen accepted it with a bittersweet smile. "I know." she told him quietly "I think I really loved you, too."

And now the air hung with wishes of what could have been, and Karen and Roy looked at each other in a way they hadn't in twenty years and never would- never could- again. Like it or not, thing had changed. Twenty years had passed since Karen Beecher and Roy Harper were the couple of their class. Karen Beecher was Karen Duncan now, and Roy Harper had a daughter waiting for him back home. The call of Malcolm Duncan from across the hall reminded them both of that, and as Karen went off towards her husband, she and Roy locked eyes one final time, sadness in both of their eyes.

She walked away from him then, stopping only as she heard him call to her once more.

"Karen!"

She turned. "Yes, Roy?"

He hesitated, before a smile made its way across his face. It looked like it hadn't been there in a while. "Thank you."

She smiled back. "Thank you. Take care of yourself, okay?"

"You, too."

And with that, Karen made her way towards her husband, and Roy put down the glass of champagne he was still holding and headed out the door. He needed to take care of his daughter, and if he got some sleep now, maybe he'd be able to give Ollie and Dinah a call.

It had been far too long. But maybe something could still fix what had come undone.

A/N: Wow, this thing is a behemoth! Definitely the longest one-shot I've written thus far, but also one of the ones I'm happiest with. Just a few things I'd like to note:

1. Garth's (Aqualad's) last name comes from the name of the Idyllist colony that is his true home- Poisedonis.

2. Daphne is my version of the word Dauphin, which is the French translation of the word Dolphin. Dolphin is the name of Aqualad's eventual wife in the comics. He does end up having a son named Cerdian with her, as well.

3. I think most of y'all will probably know that Jade is the real name of Cheshire in the comics, and the Cheshire and Speedy (Roy Harper) have a fling that results in Cheshire having Lian. Cheshire's eventually arrested for terrorist acts and Speedy gets custody of Lian.

4. Speedy was addicted to heroin in the comics, but he managed to quit with the help of Black Canary (Dinah Lance, eventually Dinah Lance-Queen) and Green Lantern (Hal Jordan.)

5. Malcolm Duncan is the real name of Herald in the comics, and Herald and Bumblebee are married in the comics. Her name is actually Karen Beecher-Duncan, but I felt there would've been too many hyphens (there's already loads in here) so I just kept it Karen Duncan in here. :)

6. "We were just like all other high school relationships- Another love story that never got to the happily-ever-after part." This line was inspired by a line from Forever-Jinxed-13's Flinx fic Life Goes On. Look it up! It's really good! :D

Anyways, that is all I have to note about this piece! If you feel I've missed explaining anything, or if you just want to say something about this piece, please review! I love reviews almost as much as I love Teen Titans. :D

Regards,

Guardy