Third Time Around

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Reviews & Remarks:

SepticMind:

I like the amount of backstory that's coming in with this! And while I guess this is supposed to be some serious-toned kinda fic, the 'sneaking some fish tacos' bit, as well as some of Raven's other mental comments were damn hilarious xD Raven, why are you always so funny when things are meant to be serious? Jesus woman!

Yeah, I do love me some backstory! And right now, Raven can either laugh about it or cry, and she's ready for some comic relief.

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Skywisechan:

Well it certainly could be the final chapter. Raven freezing to death would constitute a fairly concrete ending. Of course if you want to actually have her freeze to the consistency of concrete then having him find her in the afternoon, (the hangover taking up his morning) and his reactions to that certainly could give one more chapter. I suspect this isn't the end, but still it would be a dark shocker if it were/is.

Hmm. While I do occasionally write the odd dark one-shot, I try not to make it a habit. I like happy endings ... or at least endings that don't send me looking for rope. And I assume most of my readers feel the same way. And Raven isn't entirely human, as has been delineated elsewhere. So ... stay tuned!

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Nightwing wanted the details. You know, the whole Massacree in Four Part Harmony? So. I've thought this over some, and I think the best way to tell it is to … well, to just tell it the way it happened. So please bear with me if things don't seem like they make sense in a place or two.

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* * Morning * *

I wasn't far off the mark about the hangover. Except it wasn't woodpeckers. It was gnomes. With pickaxes.

Hot ones.

Red hot, needle-sharp pickaxes that had been dipped in acid.

I tried a yawn and then gagged: if I had spent the night cleaning all the restrooms in Shay Stadium with my tongue, I don't think my mouth could have tasted any worse. Fixing that was the first order of business.

Then my bladder alerted me to the fact that it was about to explode, which meant that was the real first order of business.

I sat up …

… and fell back over.

Okay. The *first* real first order of business was reconnecting my sense of balance with the rest of my body. Because it was seriously AWOL at that point.

I blinked a few times, which only served to move the gummy gunk coating my eyelids from top to bottom or back. Wiping my eyes just left them feeling scratchy.

Damn this taste. How could something that went down so smooth convert into something so foul?

Oh, yeah. Because it's a poison. Right. Forgot.

Ugh. Don't pee, don't pee, don't pee …

Blearily, I looked around the room, finally realizing that I was in my chair, not my bed. The empty Bacardi bottle had rolled over against the wall. And the room was cold, which made me shiver, which made the pounding/scraping/stabbing that filled my head even more intense, and the pressure under my gut even tighter.

A quick and unsteady stumble to the sink, and I had my head under the running water. Turning my face sideways, I took a few mouthfuls, swished them around, and spat them out. Then I had several short, uncomfortable swallows. Then, using the wall to keep myself vertical, I finally made it to the toilet. Then I went looking for the acetaminophen.

Twenty minutes later I was nursing my second cup of black coffee and wondering when my stomach would be settled enough to allow me to try something solid.

Forty minutes later I'd choked down three saltines and half of a single-serving size container of applesauce, and was brewing pot-of-coffee number three. And I finally felt stable enough that I thought I could go get some firewood. Apparently during my binge of the night before, it had slipped my notice that I'd used up all the wood in the box, and now the fire was nothing but a few dim embers here and there. This irritated me because I knew that what was outside would probably be covered with snow and therefore wet. I hated trying to start a fire with wet wood. In preparation, I pulled out a chunk of cotton felt that I'd soaked with paraffin and set it on the hearth.

Moving to the window above the sink, I squinted out at the thermometer I'd hung from the eave: it read minus twenty-two, Celsius. Damn freakin' cold, in other words, especially for late October. I pulled my aerogel overcoat from its hook and gingerly shrugged into it, careful not to shake my head. It still felt like it might come off if improperly jiggled.

Outside I could see that more snow had fallen during the night. Five or six centimeters deep on the threshold, it had drifted to half a meter against the nearest rick of firewood.

I know. Just terrific, right? Stupid wind.

Moving as quietly as I could in deference of my lingering headache, I stepped carefully through the new powder over to the ricks. A quick dusting-off revealed yesterday's work, and I chose half a dozen of the right size.

As I turned to go back inside, I caught a glimpse of something that made me stop.

Now, you have to understand that I'm sort of a savant where "what's wrong with this picture" is concerned. Maybe it's an intuition-based thing, or maybe I've just had it trained into me, but it has always come naturally, kind of like my ability to pick up and integrate new martial arts forms. At age twelve, from a standing start, I got black belts in karate, judo, and jujitsu in thirty months. I mastered aikido, tai chi chuan and kung fu over the next two years, then spent a year blending all of it into a cohesive style of my own. And I guess it works, 'cause (although I don't have any real desire to go up against the Batman) I can whip the so-called Boy Wonder without too much trouble.

Sorry. Got off topic there.

What I saw was something sticking out of the snow where it was piled up against the lean-to that covered the propane tank. I walked over …

… it was a tuft of fur.

I had a quick flashback of Raven taking off her parka when she came inside. The fur looked like that.

My heart rate doubled.

Dropping the wood, I knelt and scooped snow away, and the next thought that ran through my head was, "Oh, hell, no!"

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I didn't have any real good notion as to why she wasn't dead. She damn well should have been. Her arms were frozen solid to past the elbow, and her legs to just below the knee, and her eyelids were frozen open. Second scariest thing I'd ever seen, and it just about shut me down.

I got her inside quick and wrapped her up in all the blankets I had and got a fire stoked and going as fast as I could. I had a good, basic knowledge of what to do for victims of frostbite, but this … this was above-and-beyond. Her skin wasn't blue or red, the way normal frostbite looks, but it felt like ice, hard and cold and almost slick to the touch … like a candle that had been left in the freezer. I knew not to rub her, knew that she needed to warm up slowly, that she needed warm air to breathe.

Yeah, even though she was only breathing about twice a minute, and that mighty damned shallow.

I wrestled my bed out of the back room and placed it in front of the stove, as close as I dared without risking charring the blankets. I laid her down so that she faced the heat, rearranged the blankets to sort of try to trap it, or at least conduct it along in her direction.

While I was doing all I could for her, my brain was running around like a weasel with its ass on fire. I couldn't figure it out. Really. No clue (and the headache wasn't helping). What the hell was she thinking? Why had she cuddled up against the side of my cabin and allowed herself to freeze nearly to death? It made no sense! Sure, she said she came here to apologize, but … but last night I thought that she was either trying to salve her conscience, or (more likely) she had some underhanded, ulterior motive and needed me as a fall guy again. And I wasn't going to go there, no matter HOW much I'd been missing …

No, Jason. Don't. Just … just don't.

But … none of it made sense.

My head was already in enough pain from the hangover. I did not need this to deal with on top of everything else.

It took hours.

To begin with, I would check on her every few minutes, make sure the firebox was cranked up high, hold my hands against her face. After half an hour or so, I noticed her eyelids drooping. They slowly closed over the next little bit. But her breathing didn't change. It was like … like she was in a coma or something.

I sat beside the bed, watching her. Trying to piece together her motives. And failing.

As soon as she was thawed enough to move her limbs, I got the parka off her, and her turtleneck (her hair is so long … she must have had it up last night) and boots and cargo pants (when the hell did she start wearing stuff like that?) and then climbed in beside her. That's one of the things you're supposed to do: share your body heat. (That's the next-best-thing to putting her into a tub of warm water, but since I didn't have a tub, that wasn't really an option.) Then the victim won't get too hot and have a seizure, or warm so fast that the cold blood rushes in from her extremities and chills her core and stops her heart, or any of the other dozen or so horrible things that might happen.

Except … I wasn't so sure any of them would happen.

She's not human. Not fully. And her demon side makes her … awfully tough. Really. She can take an amazing amount of damage and the next day look like nothing was ever wrong.

But did that apply to freezing to death?

And WHY … in the name of all that was remotely SANE … had she allowed it to happen? That question ate away at my psyche the whole time. I had some tiny, niggling insights, if you want to call them that, about what may have led her to do it. But I refused to acknowledge them.

I spooned up behind her so as not to block the heat from the stove. She was so cold. It was like hugging an icicle. Except the icicle was in the shape of a ravishingly beautiful woman with perfectly arched brows and full, sweet lips and eyes that put amethysts to shame and …

Will You Just Stop It!

I closed my eyes and began counting by prime numbers. When I got to 587 (I always get lost somewhere around 600) I had transferred my focus back to my headache. It was receding. A little. The gnomes had switched from picks to clubs, and some of them seemed to be on a coffee break. Good news for me.

I looked back down at the girl in my arms. She was still profoundly unconscious. I'd placed one arm down along her side on the bed, and her other across my flank, but that was getting uncomfortable. So I moved and scooted and twisted until she was lying at length on top of me, her head just under my chin. In that position, her toes just made it to the middle of my shins. She's such a petite thing, it can lull you into thinking she's as fragile as she looks. And that would be a serious mistake …

. . . . . . . Now I know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder
and all that jazz.
I know that different planetary cultures
prize different sorts of appearances,
and that evolutionary pressures can lead
to some really funky-looking outcomes
(by human standards, that is).
But I'm serious. These alien invaders?
Ugly clean to the bone.
Except I was pretty sure they didn't
have bones.
The Justice League was concentrating
on the main strike group that landed in South Africa,
but there were a few other, much smaller groups
that cropped up here and there,
and one of those was on Vancouver Island.
The Titans were the nearest bunch of hero-types
to their landing site, so they got the nod.
Being as how I was with Raven at the time
– even though Bird-Boy objected … loudly –
I tagged along. Hey, it's my planet, too, you know?
The thing is, though, that I hadn't figured out
how to get my martial arts abilities
to count for much against these … things.
Was gonna say 'guys', but … yeah.
They're something to look at.
Vary a lot in size, but the smallest ones
are about three meters, uh, tall, I guess,
and mass around a ton.
Look sort of like what you might imagine
from the offspring of a giant crab
and a pile of firewood.
They've got somewhere between
six and ten 'legs', depending on how big they are.
Lots of hard surfaces and sharp angles and sharper points,
and completely dead-white
except at the spiky ends
where they fade gradually to brown,
and there's nothing that you might think of as a 'head',
and apparently they don't use vision.
At least not the way we do.
Oh, and they drip slime. And it stinks.
They had these energy-weapon things that shot …
packets of plasma? Maybe? I was never too sure.
But it would blow a big hole clean
through a car.
I made sure to stay well away from the fireworks.
Anyway, after the Titans had been fighting them for a few minutes,
Cyborg figured out that there was a sonic frequency
that they really didn't like,
and he pumped all his power into it
and gave 'em a right old spray.
I think he was expecting it to take 'em down.
What it did instead was make 'em howling mad.
Now, Robin – or Nightwing if you like –
had been trying a bunch of different bird-a-rangs on 'em,
and found out that the thermite-based ones
seemed to do the most damage.
Guess they didn't do too well with heat.
Come to think of it,
this bunch here was about as close to the equator
as any of them ever got.
Funny, and not in a 'ha-ha' way.
Anyhow, I popped over and told him
I could deliver his explosives a lot more accurately
than he could by just throwing them.
I was something like the only game in town at that point,
so he gave in, though I could tell it pained him.
I was able to place the first three precisely at the …
central junction?
The point in the middle where all the leg-things came together.
And it worked like a charm.
Those three didn't move again.
But they were smart,
and they caught on to what I was doing pretty quickly.
The instant I showed up on the fourth one's back,
one of the others tried to blast me.
It was touch and go there for a few seconds,
but then the one doing the shooting
got encased in black energy
and slammed into his nearest neighbor,
and that took them both out.
That also redirected their spleen at Raven.
And, you know, she can teleport,
but it's not a 'blink-blink' thing
the way it is with my suit.
It takes her a second or so
to form the portal and pass through.
And a second was all they needed.
Before I could process what was happening,
one of them had jammed the end of its leg through her,
and had her staked to the ground.

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Pause right there if you will,
and consider this:
I loved that woman.
She was my life,
the reason I'd given up thievery –
hell, the reason I got up each day –
the one person whose good opinion
I valued as much as my own.
My well-being was bound up in hers,
and I placed hers before mine.
And there she lay on the ground,like so much meat.
Just consider that, please.

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Now, I had brought a couple of good blades with me,
just in case,
and I hadn't had much of a chance to use them.
But I'd seen what happened
when that junction-point thing was attacked.
I 'ported over to the alien that had …
that had just …
I couldn't think about that just then.
Had a job to do.
Kill invaders first.
Panic later.
I came in right on top of it,
and put my sword into its middle
with everything I had.
It sort of crumpled and fell over.
I jumped down and landed beside Raven where …
where she was impaled.
Another two good whacks,
and the thing's leg parted company with the sharp end.
I knelt beside her.
If any of the other aliens had been paying me close attention,
they could have killed me right then,
because all I could see
was the woman who encompassed my world,
lying in an expanding pool of her own blood.
The spike had gone into her lower chest,
somewhere around where I figured
the spleen or pancreas or lung might be.
Then a really incredible racket pulled my attention away
and I saw a couple of planes zip by overhead,
and then all that was left of the aliens was little pieces.
Robin and Cy ran over and we got the spike out of her
and Cy started first aid with the kit he keeps in one of his thighs.
Things got really confused after that.
It was late the day after next before I could get in to see her.
Night-bastard-wing wouldn't let me fly back with them.
God, I hate that man.
Hell.
Whatever.
Everyone was back at the Tower
and she was in the infirmary.
Sitting up.
Reading a book.
She smiled when she saw me walk in.
I sat next to her and we talked for a while
and she told me about how her demonic side
sort of takes over when she gets badly injured
and puts her into a sort of healing trance.
Said that the older she got,
the better it seemed to work.
She said her chest didn't really even hurt anymore,
but Cy insisted on keeping her another day for observation.
I was just glad she was alive, and I … sort of fell apart.
I might have cried a little.
Don't really remember.
But she pulled me up onto the bed with her,
and held me while I got it out of my system . . . . . . .

I haven't let that memory run across my mind in …

… well …

… let's just say, 'Quite a while,' and leave it at that.

Yeah. There are many, many words one might use to describe Raven. But 'fragile' was never one of them.

Anyway, wounds are one thing. Freezing solid is something else altogether. Seriously, that's how you prepare bulk food for long-term storage. You put your grain or dried beans or whatever in the freezer for a week and it kills everything that might be there, right down to the bacteria. And Raven, not to put too fine a point on it, is a lot more complex than bacteria.

Around three or four in the afternoon I sort of realized I hadn't eaten anything since the crackers and applesauce, and my stomach wasn't happy with me. This was a problem because I had very little in the way of prepared food. Normally that doesn't matter because normally I have nothing but time, and cooking my own food helps to use up some of it. Today, though …

I carefully rolled onto one arm until I could slide Raven off of me, then eased myself out from under the blankets. She was breathing … well steadily, anyhow, and more often than she had been. Maybe four times a minute. Not too bad. And her hands were back to their usual color. Shaking my head in wonder, I leaned over and started to kiss her forehead like I used to …

Damn it.

Jerking back and standing quickly, I made for the pantry. Four random cans later, I had a pot of soup heating on the stove. Then I noticed it was time to stoke the fire again.

I had to get some wood from outside. My earlier … distractions had prevented my bringing in very much, and I made up for lost time now. She seemed like she was out of danger (hell, for all I knew she was never in any danger to begin with) and it gave me some leeway in my decision-making.

Several armloads later, I was satisfied. The inside box was full, and I had a couple dozen small logs stacked up by the hearth as well. Sampling my soup, I decided that it was hot enough, but I had to add a generous measure of curry powder to get it truly palatable. Seriously, lima beans? When did I buy those, and what had I been thinking?

I was carrying my bowl over to the sink when it hit me: she was floating several centimeters above the mattress!

This must be that healing trance thing she talked about from time to time. I'd never gotten to see it before.

It was already dark enough outside (and my windows certainly small enough) that the slightly glowing blue light coming from her face was easily visible. I set my bowl in the sink and walked over and knelt beside her.

Her features were smooth now, and tranquil-seeming. I noticed a little discoloration around her eyes, sort of like she hadn't had enough sleep for a while. Funny, I'd missed that the night before. Or maybe it hadn't been there, and it was part of the healing? Who can say? Not me.

She was always so secretive. Even during pillow talk … even when she was still flush with afterglow … hell, even in the throes of climax, she never really let her guard down. Not completely. She told me some about her, uh, family issues, and the demonic source of her powers. She told me a little about Nevermore, but I was left with the impression that there was a hell of a lot more to tell. That was sort of 'the way' with her. She'd give you a glimpse, if you were lucky, but plumbing the deeps was simply out of the question.

I loved her anyway. Even knowing that she was being close with most of her story, the parts I knew, I cherished, and treasured, and loved. And she, or so I thought, loved me back, inasmuch as she was able to. She certainly opened up to me more than she did to anyone else.

Like that time when the state fair was held in Jump City, and Starfire begged her to come with them and she agreed as long as I could come, too. We didn't stay with the group. Neither of us liked crowds very much, for our own reasons, and we'd walked out to the gazebo where the band would be performing later. The sound system was all set up, but at the moment it was deserted, which suited us just fine. Clouds had been gathering all morning, and a sudden rainstorm trapped us there alone for close to an hour, and we talked the whole time, sharing bits and pieces of our pasts while she sat there, comfortable in my lap, her soft, soft hair against my cheek, my neck, my lips …

I tried to stop them, to keep them at bay, but the memories would not be denied. That first one, the one about the aliens that had intruded earlier, seemed to have opened the floodgates. It was as if all my efforts to forget (and all my alcohol) had gone to waste.

… We sat together another time, on a disk of black energy, with four thousand meters of air between us and the ocean. No hint of cloud marred the horizon in any direction. At that altitude the stars were almost fierce in their brilliance, and every last one of them reflected in her eyes …

… I took her camping. Roughing it in northern Idaho, a good fifty klicks from the nearest town. She'd admitted to being a total loss when it came to cooking, but the fresh trout that I caught and that she fried was the most perfect, most succulent thing I had ever tasted … until afterward, when we made love for dessert …

… The gang had ambushed us, a routine patrol suddenly transformed into a storm of hot lead. I took two rounds in the shoulder and one in the gut before I even heard them fire, and then we were surrounded by an impenetrable black dome and her eyes were glowing red and her teeth had become fangs and the gangsters' screams, echoing and strange from the other side of the barrier, were harsh and swiftly broken off. Then my head was in her lap and her hands were over me glowing blue …

I knew she loved me. I knew it the same way I know I need air. And yet, she left me. Hell, she didn't just leave me; she threw me away. She made sure I would hate her. She worked at it so hard.

I've wondered why in the intervening year or so. A lot.

It wasn't necessary. I like to think that I would have respected her decision if she'd just told me she didn't want to be with me anymore. Of course, I've lied to myself about a lot of other things, too. But … why? Why did she feel the hatred to be … to be a requirement?

And why the HELL is she here, now, in my cabin?

I had another bowl of soup. I washed up my things. Then I just sat and watched her, and my thoughts began to drift again.

… We were alone in the Tower. Titans East were hosting a shindig and she had no desire to participate, and I had no desire to be anywhere away from her. This was after the Beast Boy Incident, and she had invested a good deal of effort into convincing me that it was all a big mistake and I was really The One. We sat in the common room and talked for a while, and then she got a secretive smile and gave me a sidelong glance that made shivers run along my back. Rising, she took my hand and led me to her room. I smelled the spicy incense before we got to her door, and when it opened and we stepped inside, the darkness was swept away by a hundred candles suddenly coming to life …

I rubbed at my eyes, surprised to find them wet. Then a huge yawn overtook me, and I realized just how tired I really was, both physically and emotionally.

I only had the one bed, and I certainly didn't feel like sleeping in my chair again. That's hard on my back, no matter how fit I might be. So I scooted back in beside her (below her?) and copped a pillow. I was out in minutes.

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When I came to, my thoughts, if you want to call them that, were pretty fuzzy. The sun was overhead (as far as I could tell from the angle of light through my windows) and for some reason I was feeling comfortable and warm and lazy, and I had the strangest, longest, most convoluted dream running around in the back of my head. Raven had showed up in it. Of course it isn't as if I don't dream about her. Often. But this was just really different. It seemed so real. But of course none of the wild things I'd dreamed about would ever happen in a million years.

I'd turned at some point during the night, and was facing away from where …

… wait a minute …

It wasn't a dream.

That's when I finally realized that there was a body snuggled up against my back. And a small arm across my flank. And someone's breath getting intimate with my neck.

"Jason?"

I broke out in a sweat.

"I'm glad you finally woke up."

Her voice was low and sweet and near, and I gave the tiniest of shudders in response. But I didn't say anything.

The hand against my side gathered a fist-full of my shirt and held on tight. "Jason, I have to say this before you … before you send me away again."

I didn't make a sound.

"I am so terribly, terribly sorry. I … I ruined you. It's all my fault. You never did anything wrong. It was all me. All my own stupid fault. And I am so sorry!"

My mouth seemed like it ought to be forming words, but nothing happened. I didn't turn over. I didn't dare meet her eyes. Not just then. I couldn't, for if I did I would surely die. It had taken every erg of self-control I could muster to turn her away last time, and …

"Jason?"

I could hear whole worlds of uncertainty and regret and longing in that one utterance. Drawing a slow breath, I answered, "… What?"

"If you don't want … can't … forgive me … that's … that's okay." Her voice became more rushed. "I mean, not 'okay' in the sense that … of course it couldn't be because … but, what I mean is … I understand. I know it's too much."

Unsure of how to reply, I called on my masterful command of the language and said nothing.

"But I had to say it. You have to know. I came to understand how … how awful I had been. To you. To … to us. I know I … started to explain some of it … before. Yesterday? Last night? When we … we talked. Last." She sort of trailed off nearly to a whisper. "So much pain I caused."

Still, I could think of nothing rational to say. To consider this situation unique would not be a stretch.

"But I wanted you to know. You had to know that much."

Several breaths went by. Neither of us moved. She vented a tiny sigh, and then, "How did I get into your bed?"

I had to gather my suddenly-derailed thoughts for a moment. Were we leaving Apology Land now? Is she changing the subject because she's scared of talking about it anymore? Should I have said something?

Am I over-thinking this? Probably. "You … were freezing to death."

"Oh." After considering that briefly, she continued, "I have something of a recollection of crawling into that lean-to and going to sleep."

I responded, "You were frozen, really. Not freezing. I found you. Against my wall. Outside."

"Hmm." I could feel her swallow before she said, "Was it last night?"

"Yes."

She processed that for several breaths. She never let go of my shirt. "And you brought me inside?"

No, nitwit, I left you there to die alone in the snow. Of course I brought you inside! "… Yes?"

"And you took care of me."

"Yes." That word was a bit steadier.

"You saved my life."

"I guess I did." As if I had a choice.

"Why?"

Okay, at that point I could no longer help myself. Really.

I turned over.

She repositioned her grip to the front of my shirt, this time using both hands; she had her eyes fixed on them.

I stared at her and said, "Why wouldn't I?"

"It was more mercy than I deserved."

My mouth was so very, very dry, but several swallows later I finally managed, "What do you mean?"

"I betrayed you, and mistreated you horribly, and left you stripped of support at your most vulnerable point."

Well, that was … brutally honest. "… … … Okay. Yeah. I guess you did."

"I took on the role of Queen Bitch, and played it to the hilt."

I blinked at her. "No argument."

"And I know there isn't anything I can do now that will truly make up for what I did then."

"Probably not."

"And yet you brought me in anyway." Her gaze still hadn't budged from the front of my shirt.

I couldn't let you die! I would cease to be if you died! But I didn't dare say that. "I'd have to be … some kind of monster to just … to let another person just freeze to death if I could do something about it."

Her eyes finally closed, and she drew a long breath. "A monster like me?"

How the hell am I supposed to answer that? "Well … you were never really put into that position, were you?"

"I didn't have to be. I could be horrible on my own time, without any seminal event to blame it on."

She was voicing a lot of the thoughts that had run through my mind over the last year or so. I couldn't help being bitter. "That is something I've wondered about."

A tear made its way to the tip of her (adorable! flawless!) nose. Her eyes moved slowly up to mine, and my brain ground to a shuddering halt.

Yesterday evening she had been guarded. Willing to apologize, yes, but still playing her cards close to the chest. Choosing her words carefully. Even doing a bit of rationalizing.

No more.

What she had done suddenly didn't matter. What I had suffered suddenly was of no consequence. This woman, here in my bed, was a shattered creature. Her soul lay bared before me. Drawing a stuttering breath, she asked, "Do you remember when I got an assignment to work with Batman?"

What's up with the radical changes in subject? I paused, and had to think about that. It was tickling my memory. "Um … maybe?"

She gave a tiny nod. "He contacted Nightwing because an occult gang had set up operations in Gotham."

Okay. Hang on … "Yyyyyyeah. Yeah, I do remember. Sort of." I racked my brain. "Wait … didn't … didn't I go with you?"

"You insisted. You said I could either bring you along or you'd follow on your own, but you were not about to let me go by myself. I told you I thought the danger was too great for someone not practiced in the arts."

"… Yeah! That …" My eyes narrowed. Why was this just now coming back to me?

Offering me a sad smile, she said, "You came with me. I could deny you nothing, not with that fierce love pouring off you."

Some of the pieces fell back into place. "We worked there for a few days."

"We did. And the gang wasn't being careful. They left magical residue all over the place, and we tracked them down inside a week."

"Right! They were in the basement, under that abandoned church …"

"Saint Cecelia of the Rock."

"Yeah! And we found 'em and broke up some ceremony and … and they …"

"And they were a lot more powerful and more prepared than we had anticipated. I'd thought that they were being careless. That wasn't the case at all. They were leaving trails on purpose, in an attempt to draw in other users of magic so they could drain them for their cult. But they didn't count on having a demi-demon show up."

I rubbed my nose, noting that she still had that death-grip on the front of my shirt.

"We tripped a magical trap. It took me a few seconds to overcome the geas, but by then the mage in charge had figured out I wasn't normal. They attacked. I managed to take out the three major players, and the rest of them ran away. That's when I saw … saw that you …"

Those perfect eyes closed and more tears fell. "The trap had … affected your mind. Three of the League members showed up. Batman had been tracking me. Well, you, actually. He did something to your suit. I left it with them and took you into Nevermore. We …" Her voice choked off and she buried her face in my chest. Her shoulders began to shake. "It took … a long time … to heal you. And … I don't … think I ever really did … a complete job of it."

I discovered that my arms had found their way around her, and I pulled her close. "I think I remember a little bit of that."

She didn't say anything for a while. She couldn't, being too busy crying. But finally … "It wasn't just that you almost died. I think … think I could have … handled that. All of the Titans came close to death many times. It comes with the territory. But what happened to you … could have destroyed your soul."

A chill ran through me that had nothing to do with October on the Canadian border.

"It may have … unhinged me. A little. I got … you might say 'defensive' about you."

I nodded. "That, I do recall. I didn't understand it. And you wouldn't talk to me. I suspected the nightmares were messing with your mind."

"The nightmares were purely secondary at that point." Meeting my eyes again, she shook her head and said, "I was with you. When you were attacked? I was right there! And I couldn't save you. I couldn't keep you … whole."

"… And?"

"And … I just couldn't take it. If you stayed with me … sooner or later you were going to … to be …"

"Shhh …" I hugged her, beginning to understand.

Sobs robbed her of the ability to talk for a couple of minutes, but she finally regained a measure of control. "It sounds so … twisted now. But I really thought … I had to … drive you away. To save your life. Your essence. I had to make you … hate me."

"And you did a bang-up job of it."

That spun her back into another bout of crying. My shirt absorbed a great many of her tears. And that gave me a bit of time to think.

She's half-demon. Although raised as a (more or less) human, she has to constantly combat the innately evil nature in her very DNA. Doing "good" doesn't come naturally to her. She has to make that conscious choice every time she is presented an option. And, really? She did a damn fine job.

I knew this.

She's a textbook mental dichotomy. She is, at once, one of the most stable, disciplined intellects (perforce, given her heritage) I have ever encountered, and yet, in her mind, she is sundered, her Emotions neatly compartmentalized, and occasionally at odds with each other. Or maybe not-so-neatly. But that situation makes things a lot more … complicated than anything the average human has to deal with.

I knew that, too.

On the other hand, she was dead on target when she said she'd ruined me. In more ways than she knew, I suspected. I was certainly ruined for any other relationship. And my dignity, what there had been of it, was in a sorry state. And my trust was ruined.

Had been ruined. Just then, I wasn't so sure. I had never seen her approach anything like the state of vulnerability and helplessness she had here, in my bed … in my arms.

She's in my arms again!

I tried to stuff my inner glee back into its jar. That's tough when it's grown to about a thousand times the size of the jar. So I settled for shoving it into a mental closet for the time being. I had to concentrate …

Handing her a few tissues, I said, "Raven?"

She accepted them without comment and wiped at her face a few times. When she could answer without hiccupping, she met my eyes and said, "Yes?"

"Raven … what do you want?"

That brought on a series of rapid blinks. "Pardon me?"

"What is it that you want? What did you hope to accomplish by coming here? What do you want for yourself? What do you want from me? Or had you thought that far ahead?"

A hesitant nod came first. "Oh, I've … thought about it." She blew her nose. "I've thought about it a lot."

"Then you must have come up with an answer."

Those beautiful eyes dropped again. "Several."

"Would you mind sharing?"

She stared off into space for a while. Finally giving a tiny, one-shouldered shrug, she said. "At first I just wanted to apologize for being such a nasty harridan, to let you know that I was … I was aware that I'd been … difficult."

I chuckled – forcefully – at her description. She may have taken that as a good sign, because a tiny smile – almost unnoticeable and very short-lived – flitted across her lips.

"After some time passed, though … well … my needs … strike that, my desires got … new life. I dreamed about you all the time. I'd been doing that anyway." She breathed a long sigh. "Actually … Jinx figured things out before I did."

"… Say what?"

"She, um, knew … that is, she deduced that I was … um … still … um … I mean, I wasn't really … you know … in love. With her."

I mulled that over, several dozen scenarios flashing through my mind at roughly the speed of a neutrino. "So all that sex you two had …?"

Another sigh. "Was just sex. And she knew it. Felt it. I guess it was pretty obvious."

"Good sex, though?"

She blinked at me. "… Are you jerking my chain with that question?"

"That's a possibility."

"I'm trying to be serious and transparent and you …"

"Whoa, whoa! Sorry." I stroked her hair to calm her down. It worked about as well as it used to, meaning that … well … it worked. She got quiet and leaned into my hand. "So … you thought you were in love with her, but weren't?"

A quick flicker as her eyes met mine for less than a second. "I … don't know that I really gave it that much thought. It was … it was … an alternative." Then she did give me her full attention. "It was an excuse. It was a fabrication that allowed me to … to do what I …"

She faltered. I repositioned my hand to her cheek, and then gently turned her face toward mine. She studiously examined my chin.

"Raven, look at me."

Hesitantly, after a couple of false starts, she did.

"You started trying to find me … eleven months ago?"

A nod was her answer.

"And that's what you've been doing … full time? Since then?"

Another quick nod.

"So, no Titans work in all that time?"

"No. Nightwing … can be, uh, somewhat difficult. Under some circumstances."

"I'll just bet. Did he give you the boot or is this a sort of sabbatical?"

"I'm no longer officially a Titan."

"Huh." I'll have to admit to being surprised. She's such a powerhouse, the Bird Brain would have to be a total idiot to deprive the team of her aid. "And you haven't been back to Titans' Tower at all?"

"No."

"How have you been getting by?"

She colored slightly, which puzzled me. Dropping her gaze back to my chin, she said, quietly, "As it happens, there are a lot of people who will pay for some of the things I can do."

My chest got tight. Really tight, really fast. "Like what?"

"Like … listening in, unseen, to delicate corporate negotiations and letting my contractor know if his counterpart is lying or not."

I just stared at her, an incredulous grin growing. So she hadn't meant … "You hired yourself out as a lie detector?"

"… Among other things." At my raised eyebrow, she hurried to add, "Nothing illegal, though!"

"As if I'd really care, but good for you I guess."

She buried her flaming face in my chest again.

"And you just, what, never had occasion to run back by Jump City?"

"Um … not exactly." My shirt muffled her voice.

"What's that mean?"

"I passed through Jump … a few times."

"… Do you mean to tell me that Nightwing wouldn't let you come to the Tower?"

"Um … no. It's not like that."

"Then what is it like?"

"… Well … I did meet Vic for lunch once. But he didn't tell the others. And I couldn't … that is, I'd been … um …

"Geez, Rae, just spit it out."

"… I couldn't go back to the Tower. Jinx said she'd … she would wipe the floor with me if I came back without you."

On my short list of possible answers, that concept did not appear. "Jinx said that?"

"Yeah."

"How would she know?"

"She's there. She took my place on the team."

"… The HELL?" I'll admit that floored me a little.

"Nightwing wasn't … enthusiastic about the idea. But Jinx can be very persuasive. And she … proved she'd been … 'tracking the straight and narrow' to use her words, since before we started, uh, dating. And Slade had …"

"Whoa. That's okay. Details, et cetera, that I don't think are important right now. But as for Jinx … you mean to tell me she actually threatened you?"

"I told you she figured it all out before I did. She was … very unhappy with me." She glanced up for a second, the color high in her cheeks.

"Ah-huh. And what else did she say?"

"… What makes you think …"

"Transparent? Was that the word you used a moment ago?"

"… Um …"

"What else did she say?"

I could barely make out her words. "That when I did bring you back, she'd give us both a 'welcome home' session in the bedroom we'd never forget."

I totally had to laugh at that. The very idea. "Rae, I think she was jerking your chain with that!"

"She was very convincing."

"She can be, I know."

Stilling and growing quiet, Raven simply hung on to me for a while.

After a couple of minutes passed in silence, I asked, "Is all this … all this stuff you've been telling me … all this confusion and self-discovery and soul-searching … is that what's been going through your mind while you looked for me?"

A few seconds passed, and then, "Yes. Constantly."

"Okay." I stopped to consider my words. "Then what about later?"

"… Later? Later than what?"

"You said that at first you just wanted to apologize. But what about …"

"Oh! Oh, yes." A small frown made itself at home between her eyes. "Yes, well. Later." She once again found the front of my shirt to be fascinating. "… Later I started hoping that I could … that you would … give me enough time to explain my motivations."

"You mean the way you've been doing?"

"… Yeah." It wasn't much more than a whisper.

I solidified my hold on her waist. "And if you managed that? Then what?"

"Then I thought that, maybe, if you listened and … and understood …"

She left that sentence hanging off the cliff, so I helped her. "If I understood why you did the horrible things you did?"

Another nod.

"Well let's suppose for the sake of argument that I did listen and I did understand your motives for treating me so shabbily." She ducked her head toward me again, hiding her face in the wet fabric. "And let's suppose that I decided to give you the benefit of the doubt." She didn't move a muscle. I don't think she even drew a breath the whole time I spoke. "If we make those assumptions, what, then would be the next thing you'd want?"

She gasped. It was a tiny one, but I heard it. "Um … looking at it, uh, like … I mean, if we're going all 'blue-sky' and everything, like no limit, genie-level wish fulfillment … then, uh … what I'd really like … what I'd hope for with everything in me that can hope …" She looked up slowly and met my eyes. They widened a touch at what they saw. "What I'd do anything in this life to get …" She paused and pulled a long breath, letting about half of it out. "… is another chance."

Was I really hearing this? Was this truly possible? "A chance at what?"

"… A chance at us."

I had never seen a more pellucid truth than what I saw shining from those indescribable amethyst orbs.

Moving one hand up to the base of her neck, I gave her a light squeeze, leaned forward, and kissed her forehead. "Well, you know what they say."

"… Do I?"

"The third time's the charm."

The wave of relief that washed over me, just the spillage from her aura, made me catch my breath. But then she robbed it again with her lips, holding me in the tightest embrace I could ever remember.

Eventually we had to break for air. She snuggled in closer and worked her head up against my neck. "I think I like that old saying."

"Me, too." I ran fingers down her arm, eliciting a contented sigh. "And you get a perk with it."

"Really? What?"

"Jinx doesn't have to beat you up now."

Her answering laugh was pure and free and un-forced, and for the first time in more than a year I found a solid reason to live.

. . .

. . .

. . .

A/N: Thanks for sticking with me! Now, please let me know what you think.

Cheers!