Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans.
Author's Note: So this is a one shot I wrote that I didn't want to stick in Falling Feathers because 1) I'm lazy and 2) I want it as a one shot. Problem with that? Anyway, it's really sad, but I love it almost as much as I love Journey to Nowhere. Please read and review!
...Waiting For The End...
The scene is a quiet hospital, just settling into the late hours of night. The sun is due to rise in some time, but until then the white lights cast a soft glow over the room where our characters are. A nurse stops to look in around the door, but seeing that there is nothing wrong, closes it again and leaves those inside in silence.
Raven sits next to a bed, hands clasped in her lap, shoulder length hair falling gently across her face. She is awake, staring at the floor in front of her, and waiting for time to pass though she wishes deep in her heart that she could rewind it instead.
On the bed, a white sheet over his fading body, he seems to be asleep, the steady rise and fall of his chest a reassurance for Raven that something had yet not… happened. His DNA, along with his desperately coping body, is unraveling. From the fights, the aftereffects of various chemicals he was involuntarily exposed to, age, and sheer exhaustion, he has a death sentence on his life from his own body. All Raven can do now, because not only does he refuse to let her attempt to heal her but she could not anyway, was wait with him till the end.
The slumbering figure stirred, and a weary voice whispers from him.
"Raven, why did you love me?" Raven looks up and over to his deeply lined face, her own nearly untouched. With a faint blush at being caught worrying, she turns her gaze back to the floor, hands showing her agitation as they rub against each other. A hand slips out from under his cover and catches one of them, squeezing gently. Her eyes grow imperceptibly sadder, but she gathers her thoughts and tries to find somewhere to start.
"I… I guess it was because I always have. Even before Trigon, there was something in me that was drawn to you. Don't get the wrong idea," and she cast a sharp violet eye over the grinning man, "but love was forbidden. If I felt, it would give Trigon more power… power he'd channel through me later. But… you were funny. You tried to make me smile, to get through, when others just accepted my words and left off. Then again, you always were hard headed." He uttered a weak laugh, the movement shaking his once strong frame. She noticed and turned her eyes away, angry and upset that she could do nothing. Changeling closed his eyes too, sorrowful, for he could not console her.
"You know, you look almost the same as the day I first met you. You were standing off to the side, alone, and radiating controlled anger… but I felt that you were lonely. No one can be that mad without reason, and I figured your reason was the limits forced on you by your birth. Plus, when I saw your face, I wondered how you would look if you smiled. And here you are, fifty years later, just as mysterious and lovely as then." His hand releases Raven's to lift and touch her smooth grey skin, eyes opening to meet her. She covers his hand with one of hers, and he feels a hot tear run by his fingers.
"Now Rae, don't cry for me. It should be me, really. I'm going to leave you all alone." She shook her head slightly, battling a sudden eruption of emotions.
"I'm sorry."
"For what, Rae? For loving me?" The faint nod, which he was only aware of because of the movement against his hand, gave him the answer. "Don't be. Rae, no matter what, don't regret loving. It will be the one thing that will keep you from ever moving on with life, and you still have many years left. Huh. Who would have guessed it: your father giving you a gift in his very blood so you would live much longer than any human." He pushed himself up, hiding the wince of pain from over abused muscles.
"Tell me what you've learned, Raven. Tell me what loving has taught you." His voice was gentle and coaxing, drawing her anxiety out and bidding her to talk. Taking a breath, she calmed.
"Love… is Trigon's anti-thesis. He cannot touch it, feel it, or penetrate it. There's a song with two lines: "They say anger is just love disappointed / They say that love is just a state of mind". They're right. Anger really is just love gone wrong, so when someone truly loves, His influence weakens or doesn't exist. As long as I love, the world is safe. But I didn't love for that." She looked at him sadly, pushing the words out with no hint of the emotionless person she had once been. "Choosing to love is a state of mind. I choose not to love, but deep inside I wanted to, so badly, that when I found you it happened whether or not I wanted it. When we banished Trigon from our world, I was free. Free to love. And I choose to.
"I chose to be with you." Changeling nodded, letting himself fall back gently as his control over his body weakened.
"Who would have guessed… Beauty and the Beast, huh?" Raven felt his hand start to slip and took it, placing it on the bed next to him. Bending over slightly, she looked into those eyes of forest green she loved so deeply, so much, it hurt her as much as it hurt him whatever happened.
"Love knows no boundaries, love." One last, sweet and bitter kiss as her tears fell openly, and then he smiled, eyes closing.
"I love you, Rae." She stood next to his bed, one hand resting lightly on his.
"I love you too." Her voice cracked, and she swallowed, eyes looking out the window to where, on the horizon, the faintest lights of orange and yellow, purple and red, touched the sky. A sigh escaped him and she turned her still youthful eyes back to his treasured face as he relaxed, slipping peacefully into the death he had known was coming.
"Good bye, Changeling. Beast Boy. Love." She let her tears empty themselves, watching as the darkness outside receded from the light of day, and dried her eyes. A white clad nurse looked in and came back with a doctor, who stepped to the opposite side of the bed and checked his pulse and heartbeat.
"Time of death: 5:58 AM on June 31st, 2057…" But all this slipped by Raven's notice, as she bid goodbye to the spirit of one whom she had truly loved, and welcomed however sorrowfully the new day into her life without him.
And the sun looked down through the window, onto the sight of a half demon who looked no older than 22 watched them cover up her love with a sheet, say their hurried sorries, and then leave. And those who know could have sworn the sun cried that day.
The End