Chapter 3
It had taken most of the first half of the day to get the children settled in. Starfire, especially had taken quite some time in making her preparations. She did so much that her room was almost unrecognizable. What could she say? She was thrilled to have them and she knew they would stay because that's what she wanted and what she wanted she always got.
Raven on the other had made no effort to make little R.A feel welcomed. She couldn't. Doing that would have meant that she was lying to herself because she didn't want her to stay . . . she didn't want anything to do with her. . . .
She wasn't going to fix her a nice bed, or set out a space in her closest for her and she wasn't going to ask her if she was happy because that would have meant caring, something that apparently she wasn't able to do; well atleast that's what Cybourg said before leaving . . .
"So where will I sleep?" R.A asked when she walked in and found Raven meditating. Something had told her that disturbing her was a bad idea but she wanted to know. She had walked through Titan Tower and saw each of her friends with their mothers being all happy and enjoying each other's company. They were laughing and fixing things together that they would use later. That was the norm with any mother child relationship. That was how it was supposed to be . . . so why hadn't her mother looked at her even once. Was she somehow undesirable? That couldn't have been it . . . she had done nothing wrong and she was willing to be the perfect little girl . . . if only she got the chance.
Her heart sank when she saw Raven point to a blanket that was just outside the door. She had passed it on her way in but she never thought it would have been used for that.
"But I thought it I could sleep in here with you . . ." She said in a small voice. She wasn't trying to be a nuisance; far from it but she had to try. If she didn't then she would disappear and that thought terrified her. Her heart sank even further when, without looking at her Raven shook her head and pointed to the blanket again.
"Hey Raven, Robin wants us all down in the meeting room." Terra said, leaning against the doorpost. As she stood there she looked in at her. She couldn't help but wonder what BeastBoy say in her. What did she have that she didn't . . . ? For starters Raven wasn't a very social person so it couldn't have been her personality . . . unlike Raven her skin actually held some colour and well she considered herself the life of any party, yet despite that Beastboy seemed to have been drifting. It wouldn't be for long though. She had a plan and B.J was going to help her accomplish it. They would be the perfect family and Raven would be out of the picture. For now she would play it cool.
Raven sighed then got up. This meeting was more than likely about the 'mini T's' , as Beastboy called them and she wasn't interested. No matter how she had tried she was never able to love and she was sure that if she tried again she would only get hurt . . . or she simply wouldn't do it properly; either way meant failure on her part and she had had enough failure in her life, she didn't need anymore. Walking by Terra she realized that her body had tensed. She knew Terra was taking whatever it was between her and Beastboy seriously but she was going to the extreme. Raven had got the picture loud and clear; Beastboy didn't belong to her and she planned to steer clear of him. What other option did she have? There were certain wars that could never be won and this was one of them. Terra knew how to get what she wanted and at any cost. She could do things for Beastboy that Raven would never be ready to do and she could make him feel more like a man than Raven could. It helped to admit from early on that you had no chance that way you wouldn't have expectations. Avoiding expectations was the key to avoiding disappointments, which her life just seemed chock full of.
Entering the meeting room only served to make her feel guiltier than she already knew that she was. Starfire had her two sitting on either of her legs, both playing in her hair and giggling. She watched as Terra took her own into her lap once she took her seat. It all hurt more because she knew she wasn't planning to have R.A anywhere near her. In her mind R.A couldn't have had a worst mother.
Beastboy looked over at Raven as she took her seat next to Terra. This was good because it meant that he would have been able to look at her, using the excuse that she was actually looking at Terra. His brows crinkled when he saw R.A take a seat on the opposite end of the table. Somehow he knew this would have happened. She had a hard time letting herself look and that would unfortunately be reflected in her relationship with the kid. He knew it wasn't her fault, she couldn't do any better and he wasn't about to judge her as he had heard Terra doing just that every morning. Instead he wanted to help her; he wanted to teach her how to love again. He wanted to be the one that she opened up to the one she trusted enough to let all her emotions run wild instead of anger, hurt and sadness. It was a goal he would work towards because he loved her and she deserved the best quality of life and love available.
Robin walked to the wide screen that had charts and info on it. He looked it over once more before turning to them.
"Well I have no idea how to really explain this very much but it would seem that they aren't necessarily your off-spring so much as they are . . . well . . . an extension of you. The DNA is conclusive and it is very monotonous in composition which proves the earlier theory that Slade must have stolen some genetic modifiers from the lab on his last heist." Robin said, displaying a chart of the DNA comparisons. It was strange. There was more to it than that but he couldn't figure out what . . .
"You're wrong." R.A said, glancing briefly over at her mother. "We're not just strands of replicated DNA. I know for a fact that she's my mother and I happen to know what happens depending on the attitude of the mother so don't tell me I'm DNA 'cause I'm not. This is real and whatever happens is real."
"It's true; we snuck away from our dimension even though we were warned not to because of the implications if we should fail."
"What would you fail?" Starfire asked, intrigued by just about everything either of her children said.
"Our mission is very simple; gain love."
"What?" Robin asked, not following. He couldn't see why that would have been so necessary. That didn't seem like enough of a reason to leave a dimension; there had to be more to it than that. . .
"Wait so you all left, not knowing whether or not we would accept you and all for the sake of love?" Terra asked, also finding the idea abit ridiculous. It didn't make any sense for them to do that.
"Well that's not technically it . . ." B.J admitted. "We were pulled from our dimension, we just started faded. We were taken to the elders and they told us what was happening and that it was the first vanishment, as they call it."
"Vanishment? Is that even a word?" Beastboy asked. This wasn't making much sense to him either.
"Yes, you see our dimension technically doesn't exist." Brightfire told them. "Everyone that is there is waiting to be—literally. We all wait until the time arrives for us to appear in whatever dimension we are destined to be in which is this one. The elders said that the second vanishment was the one we needed to avoid and that one led to the gates of death; there's no return from that one."
"Yeah and I'm guessing we came her because of some loop in the time dimension because we had atleast another couple years of waiting according to the biological clock that we have built in we aren't supposed to be here but something set everything out of whack." R .J said. He turned and reached into his pocket. "It was this thing I believe. It's distorting everything and messing up the natural ordre of a lot of stuff." He said showing them a picture. They all gasped involuntarily. It couldn't have been. Haeline Thyusfai . . .
Slade was up to something!
"You've seen it?" R.A asked, puzzled by their looks.
"Yes . . ." robin barely managed to answer.
"Great, hand it over, the elders said if we could find the disruptor and break it then we would be able to return."
"I'm afraid we can't let you do that. Starfire said.
"Why not?" her twins asked in unison.
"Because then you would leave me and I do not want that!" She whined.
"But we'll see you in a few years." Brightfire, corrected.
"Yeah unless you speed up the process." R.J suggested.
"So then . . . that would mean that you do have fathers?" Terra asked. She knew that if that was the case then B.J was definitely going to belong to Beastboy and in that case they could have started working to make him permanent.
"Well yeah . . ."R.A answered sounding a little uncertain.
"Really? Who?" Starfire asked, overly ecstatic. In her head she already knew the answer but she wanted to be sure; she wanted to hear them say that she and Robin would be together forever and they would have children together.
"We're not telling you." B.J said, matter of factly.
"What? Why not?" Terra couldn't help but ask. I mean shouldn't the answer have been so simple? It wouldn't have been of any consequence seeing as how the truth was already known. She was going to get Beastboy and they would be together and they would be a family and Raven would simply disappear into the background. Now she didn't personally have anything against her but when it came to her man she wasn't prepared to take any chances.
"Because it would throw a lot of things out of whack." B.J said. At the moment our futures aren't certain so to make things fair game we can't tell you." He knew himself that R.A wasn't the only one in danger or disappearing but for him it would have been different. At the moment both he and her had to be in a struggle with the end of their line blurred. It had no end because there was technically no beginning to either. No matter what happened he had to ensure that his mother and father stayed together and that nothing made him divert from the path. This was a dangerous game and though they were all friends they understood that atleast one of them would have to go throw the second vanishment without actually having a life in the first place. For now they were both existing and that was only because technically they weren't.
He and R.A exchanged knowing glances. They planned to play fairly but at the same time they were playing to win . . .
