A/N: I don't really have anything to say here, so...um...random note for the day: If you ain't the head dog, your view never changes.

Expect another chapter tomorrow.

Thanks: Again, thanks for the response guys. I'll respond individually through 'review response' if I have something to say to you. Otherwise, thanks to everyone.

Home: Chapter 3
New Experiences
by Em

"At home one relies on parents; away from home one relies on friends."
- Chinese Proverb

"You've never been to a circus before?" he asked incredulously.

Raven reached for the cotton candy in his hand and pulled off a healthy wad of fluffy purple. "Never," she confirmed before popping the bit into her mouth. She let it melt on her tongue for a moment before finishing it off, "It was never a high priority," she explained. "But I have seen some of it on television."

Robin shook his head, "It's not the same thing..." he looked off into the mostly bare sand arena before them. They had excellent seats: far enough away to see the whole arena and close enough to see the grooves in the sand. He smiled as memories of happier times came back to him. He had thought returning here would be much harder than it was turning out to be, much more painful. He was pleasantly surprised to find that it wasn't.

When he turned back to smile at her, the half formed smile melted into surprise at the sight of Raven sucking on her index finger and thumb in turns, presumably to rid them of the sticky cotton candy as she looked out across the sea of people coming to sit in their seats. His mouth went dry at the sight and he hated the fact that he was so aware of her when she was so obviously not aware of the way the attention she was paying to her digits focused his attention on her lips, the white of her teeth as they nipped at her fingers and the pink tongue darting out to lick up the remnants.

'This,' he reminded himself, 'is why it is so hard to spend any amount of alone time with Raven.' Ever since he had admitted to himself how attracted he was to her, it seemed she couldn't do the simplest of tasks, no matter how innocent, without it turning him on on some level. He swallowed and reached at his feet for the cup of soda he had bought along with the cotton candy. Thankfully, by the time he looked at her again, she had managed to pull off all the candy from her fingers.

Only momentarily glancing at him, she reached across him to pull off another chunk of cotton candy with the same fingers she had just cleaned off and Robin had to repress a groan, 'Here we go again...' he thought, taking a bite out of the cloud of cotton candy in the hopes of finishing it off before he'd be tortured with the finger cleaning ritual all afternoon.

"It's like a show before the show, isn't it?" Raven asked, taking small nibbling bites off the fluff in her fingers as her eyes followed the casually dressed clowns whose job it was to walk around the audience as they settled and entertain them until the show could start.

He glanced at what she was talking about, smiling at the clown that was 'flirting' with the beefy man sitting along the edge of one of the first rows a few feet down from them, but within a few moments, his attention returned to Raven. He remembered that look on the faces of the kids he'd see every week when he performed and every day he could get away from his school work long enough to sneak into the big top and watch his family perform. He remembered feeling the way she must have been feeling. So many people, so much excitement buzzing in the air...

But for an empath?

"Are you alright?" he asked suddenly.

She looked at him and the shock flittered across her expression for the briefest of moments before she licked her lips free of the candy sweetness, "Yes, of course," she said, "Why do you ask?"

"I didn't stop to think what being in a place with so many people at once might do to you...you know, because of the empathy."

She smiled at him, just the minimalist hint of relaxation of her lips and reached for more cotton candy, "I'm fine," she told him. "I have been able to control myself in crowd situations for quite a while now," she said, and he could've sworn there was a hint of humor in her voice.

He blushed and munched on more cotton candy, "Right, sorry," he mumbled.

"But thanks for asking," she added, looking back at the clowns before he could meet her eyes.