Italics is thoughts

Nope, I don't own any of this, sorry to say. If I did, Raven would have a boyfriend by now, and Cyborg would have found a girl who knows as much about cars as he does.

Setsuna drifted slowly down the corridors, a pale comparison to her usual buoyant self. She was just glad there was no-one there to see it. She wouldn't have anyone worrying for her. It wasn't like her friends didn't have their own problems, and she had never been one to let her smile falter for long. Her dark forest green hair swung to her shoulders, not tame and beautiful, but silky and wild. Her eyes, a smoldering, yet dazzling crimson, were now clouded with anxiety. Her bronze tanned arms hugged tightly to her chest, she watched as the floor passed by beneath her sturdy black and silver boots, adjusting her speed to a statelier pace. It wouldn't do to let them know that she was worried. She'd show up in her own sweet time because to let them know that she cared gave them more power over her. To let that woman know.........was unthinkable. She growled menacingly as the woman's image came into her mind, pleasant thoughts of unveiling her to the authorities mixed with a kind of bland hopelessness. She had once told her older brother that giving up was the worst crime you could commit. He'd have called her a hypocrite if he could have seen her now. But he was gone. He had become sick of putting up with his fathers moping, and then his overnight obsession for the woman who was now his fiancé.

She reflected on her soon to be mother's attitude. It wasn't that Melissa was a bad person, really. It was just that, with her sexy figure and ripe appetite for life and excitement, she was not suited to be a mother. She had no patience for a growing teenage girl's anxieties over looks and guys, although Setsuna rarely worried about either. She had a sleek, athletic figure, with just enough curves in the right places that she didn't need to worry whether she was attractive or not. Melissa did just enough to make sure that Setsuna had money to eat and enough money to keep her out of the house and away from home most of the time. And unfortunately, Melissa was one of those people who feared the unknown. Anything that could not be explained was a threat to her, which meant that Setsuna was on her own with another developing problem as well.

Setsuna didn't feel mistreated at all, just............unwanted. And for some reason that she could not fathom, her father loved Melissa to distraction. Anything that his little queen bee wanted, she got, be it "forget about the kid and let's go watch a movie." To "We're not doing anything this weekend. Let's go rent a hotel room in town and see the sights." Her father always agreed, and in the end, no matter how hard she tried to make them see that she missed them, she was left alone. She had a best friend who had been under similar, albeit somewhat worse conditions than she was. Unwanted, unloved, uncared for, Tony had disappeared from his house years ago. His parents had gotten back from a spontaneous five day trip to Chicago to find most of their household money gone, and almost everything worth taking in his room gone as well.

She was brought abruptly out of her reverie by her inattention to her direction, as she plowed headlong into someone's chest. She heard a slight "ugh" as all the air was blown out of the other person's body and she bounced back slightly, an immediate apology bursting from her lips.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She looked up to see who she had so rudely plowed over. She was shocked by her find.