Whiskey Lullaby: A Falling Star
By: Little Creature
Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans or the song, blah, blah, blah…
------ Three years later ------
She stumbled into her house and collapsed onto the couch. It was close to midnight. She heard the clock above her television give a single chime signifying it was ten minutes of.
"I'm home early." Her voice called out to no one in particular. For no one was there. She lived alone. A small house in Dakota City just outside of town. It was quiet. Almost too quiet.
It was early for her to stagger in. Most nights she would stay out till two or three in the morning. But tonight, she kept hearing people talk. The rumors flew all around her. Even now.
"He convinced himself that he couldn't live without her."
"So what did he do?"
"Shot himself."
Starfire grew tense as she slipped in among crowd. Fear shot through her limbs.
"She just walked out on him after seven years."
"Seven years?"
The lady nodded. "With no explanation."
She found the tears threatening to fall once again as she remembered why she was home so early. But nobody knew how much she blamed herself.
-Flashback-
She stopped at the door and turned to him one last time. Please say something. She begged silently.
Nothing. So she left. Once the door closed behind her, she burst into tears. She looked up and down the hall. It was empty.
Raven's door was a few feet away. So she knocked. She desperately needed someone to talk to.
No answer.
Why can you not be home?
She brought her bags down to her car and piled them in.
He had nothing to say to me. Nothing. He did not eve try to stop me.
The tears kept coming as if someone had turned on the sprinkler.
She watched the apartment window through tear filled eyes.
She turned the key and started the engine. But before she knew it, she had jumped out of the car and ran back into the building. Up six flights of stairs and to the third door on the left, she stopped. She raised her hand to knock but backed away.
Against the wall behind her, she slid into a fetal position and cried.
He did not even care that I left.
-End Flashback-
She had aimlessly walked the park that night, doing nothing but cry once she managed to make herself leave the front of the door. She thought he would come out looking for her. But he never did.
"Why did you not say something? I would have stayed if you asked." She let the tears fall from her eyes as she stared at the blank television.
"I thought you did not care that I left."
The words sounded helpless. You never tried to call me or find me or ask about me… how was I to know?
"I loved you so much, Robin." She whispered, knowing no one could or would hear her.
"Because of you, Robin is-"Raven's words had hurt her more than anyone's ever could. She never did finish that sentence but she didn't need to. She knew what she was going to say.
Robin is dead.
"And it is all my fault." She sobbed out loud.
She reached to the glass of yellow liquid that was sitting on her side table. It had been there for a little over three hours. The glass was half full. She drank it all.
Since Robin's funeral she had done nothing but drink. It's the only thing that eased her mind. But it made her talk aloud sometimes and other times she just talked within herself. Kind of a one on one conversation.
She tried to limit her drinking to weekends only, at first. But the week was too long and her guilt rose by the hour. So she tried just drinking in the evenings. In the morning her pain was still there if not worse, and a hangover was added on top of it. for years she tried to hide the whiskey on her breath.
Soon though, she was drinking all the time.
"Star, is there something bothering you?" One coworker would ask on a regular basis.She would look to her feet and shack her head. They wouldn't understand.
"We're concerned."
"I am fine." She'd whisper. Just fine.
It wasn't true, though. She needed help. A lot of help. She needed her friends to forgive her for what she caused. Robin's pain. Robin's death. Their pain. All her fault.
"I miss you so much."
New tears fell as she slid from the couch to the floor. She crawled into the kitchen and in the cabinet below the sink; she took out a small bottle that was about three quarters full of whiskey.
I would have stayed. "I only wanted to know that you loved me."
She unscrewed the cover and leaned back against the cabinets behind her. In her first sip, she nearly emptied the bottle. She finally drank her pain away a little at a time.
"You were always so busy with your work." I didn't think you wanted me anymore.
She finished the bottle in mere minutes.
"It is my fault you are dead."
The words stung as she said them. Even admitting them to herself, aloud, didn't help anymore.
She pulled herself to her feet using the counter top as a crutch. She guided herself to the end of the kitchen until she ran out of counter. She fell to the ground.
Her eyes were closed as she drifted in and out of consciousness.
She opened her eyes. It seemed a veil contorted her vision. The room was so blurry, she couldn't make out a thing. But no matter. She had been in this position many times before and therefore knew the path to her bedroom where she would subside until the morning.
She climbed onto the bed. There his picture sat. And she cried again. She never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind. Until this night.
I cannot do this anymore.
She leaned over the edge of the bed and withdrew a pink duffle bag from under it. The blood rushed to her head and she fell to the floor.
Slowly she regained a small portion of her strength. With a moan she climbed to her hands and knees.
Still unable to see clearly, she felt for the bag that she assumed was in front of her. Finding it, she unzipped it. She slipped her hand inside the bag and slid it over the cold metal that lies there motionless.
She made her way back onto the bed with the crude weapon in her hand.
She knelt there facing the wall behind her bed. She put the bottle to her head and pulled the trigger, figuratively speaking that is.
She glanced down at his picture and tried to make out his face. As hard as she tried, she couldn't focus. She really didn't need to, though. His image was burned into her memory.
Cold tears fell onto it as she picked it up in her empty hand and held it to her chest.
"I love you, Robin. I always have. I always will."
She lifted her hand to her head.
"I am just sorry it took me so long to say it. Too late to fix what I have done."
She closed her eyes. She finally drank away his memory.
The gun fell. She held the picture as close to her as she could. The blood dripped down her cheek.
Life is short but this time it was bigger than the strength she had to get up off her knees.
I will join you now, Robin. We will be together, again… and forever more.
Her body fell. With every last bit of strength she had left, she clutched the picture to her chest as the last bit of life left her body.
….
"This isn't happening. Tell me this isn't real." Cyborg looked to the new tomb on the ground.
Raven was levitating over it; her eyes were dry but red none-the-less. She felt there were no more tears left. She had cried so hard and for so long after Robin, that now, she couldn't find any more tears.
Beastboy was leaning back against the tree's trunk, with his arms crossed on his chest.
"I'm sorry Star. I never meant what I said." Raven's voice drifted from her lips. With Robin's death, she tried to convince herself there was something she could have done to prevent it. She knew there really was nothing she could have done. But with Starfire, she felt the guilt tear at her from inside. All those things she said to her…
"Raven." Beastboy looked to him. His green hair lay flat from the rain. The willow protected them from most of the storm, but not all. His voice was strained and quiet.
Raven looked to him but not directly at him.
"You know she knew that."
Raven looked to the ground. "But I never even talked to her since… Robin."
"She knew you were just upset."
"I never told her I was sorry." A pair of hands clasped her shoulders.
"Come on, Rae. Stop." His voice was worn.
Raven tilted her head to the side so she could see the metal man behind her.
"I just…" Her voice trailed off.
"At least you said something to her." Beastboy sighed and wiped away a tear. "I didn't even bother to say hi." They could barely make out what he said last. Raven thought it was more a statement to himself than to the two of them. "They found her the same way they found Robin. With her face down in the pillow." A tear fell down his check. "They had to pry the picture of him from her arms. She was clinging to it for 'dear life.'" His voice was shaky.
"Why didn't she tell him? They'd both still be here." Beastboy said quietly. He hadn't moved from his position from the tree.
"We'll never know." Cyborg let go of Raven.
There was silence for a long time. No one had anything new to say; nothing that was worth saying, anyways.
Beastboy walked over to the grave and stood. Cyborg stood a few feet away to the side. Raven had fallen to her knees between the two headstones after Cyborg let her go. He hadn't been holding her up, but she was weak already.
They stayed like that for a long time. The storm raged on. The rain was penetrating through the protective branches of the willow; they were soaked to the bone. Had their eyes not been red, you would not have known they were and had been crying.
A hand appeared in front of Raven. She looked at it for a few seconds. The green looked eerie through the mist. She let her eyes look up to his.
"Let's get out of the rain." His voice was soft. His eyes told a whole story. The hurt rang like a siren. She couldn't bare to look, it reminded her of her own but so much worse as she felt her friends as well. She placed her hand in his as she looked to the ground again. She let him guide her to her feet.
He held on to her hand as they walked away. Cyborg joined them on the other side of Raven. She linked her arm with his. He put his other hand on hers.
"Who lives in Robin's apartment?" Beastboy asked.
"Some newly wed couple. Why?" Raven said sullenly, glancing back at the tree, where two of her friends lie.
"I'm going to need a place to live. That's all."
Cyborg and Raven looked to him.
"What are you talkin' about, man?"
Beastboy smiled. "I'm moving back to Jump City. I think it's about time we all stick together. Ya'know, help each other out."
Raven squeezed his hand. "I think so too. I can't loose anyone else."
They all stopped as the rain let up just a bit. They turned.
The large weeping willow's branches rustled gently in the breeze. The two headstones looked like gray clouds through the haze.
"They're together now." Beastboy said running a hand through his wet hair in an effort to get the water out of his eyes.
Raven said nothing. Cyborg attempted a smile.
They buried her next to him beneath the willow.They sighed.
"We'll be with them again, someday." Cyborg said softly.
"Yeah. But I wish they were still here." Raven let one last solitary tear fall to the ground. "I guess we never told them how much we love them."
Once again, they could hear the angels over the clouds singing their whiskey lullaby.
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THE END
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A/N- Love is the strongest of all there is. My only weakness is my friends. I love them more than life… I'm afraid to say, if something should happen to one of my friends… my true friends… my best friends… my life would be over. That is how I see the Titans. Each other is their only true weakness; their only true and final destruction. To love something more than life, you would give yourself in their place. If only to keep them from shedding one tear, feeling one broken heart, to keep one bad dream from their peaceful sleep. Love is my weakness. And as hard and strong as the Titan's are… I see love as theirs as well.
