I'm back . . . with another chapter. Did you miss me?

:D

Anyways, you know the drill. I don't Teen Titans. I never have and I never will do. As for the original characters, they are all fictional and if they do resemble anyone either alive or deceased, then that was done completely by accident.

Chapter Three- A Trip Down Memory Lane

Time: 3:55:02 a.m.

Glowing orange streetlights, intertwined with the beams of yellow light emanating from the floodlights that came from the Jump City dockyards, hints of light from houses on the coastal city that is Jump City; all being blanketed by the infinite amount of stars that hung in the sky like diamonds, shimmered in BeastBoy's forest green eyes.

If any of the Titans had changed the most since their return from Tokyo, it was the changeling. And it showed. His costume remained the same Doom Patrol attire when he became a Teen Titan (the same black, dark purple costume, accompanied with silver-grey gloves and shoes) but his physical appearance had definitely changed. He was no longer a scrawny, weedy little cabbage with legs like he was a year back. After his return to Tokyo, he started to spend less time on pouring hour after hour down the drain on the GameStation with Cyborg, engrossing himself in his substantial amount of comic books or whatever mind-rotting garbage was on the television or trying to spend a portion of his time conversing with . . . her; instead, he would spend almost every hour of his free time in the towers gymnasium. After seven months of endless cardio and muscles regimes, he had built himself up a decent figure. Almost as good as (If not, better than . . . BeastBoy would always grin at the idea of thinking it) Robin's physique. Facially, he still maintained the pointy eyes and protruding fang, but now, he no longer looked like a goofy looking freak . . . a word that would still revolt BeastBoy whenever he entertained the single syllable . . . now, he was at least a semi-attractive freak . . . Better than goofy I guess, BeastBoy smirked a little as this thought would often cross his mind. He allowed his green locks to grow down the back of his neck, brushing the collar of his costume and let the top half of his forehead be hidden by a fringe. His stature had increased significantly; he was just a couple of inches off of six foot, but still had a few more inches left in him. But best of all, (at least to BeastBoy it was the best of all) he voice had finally broken. If truth were to be told, he hated the way he used to sound. He sometimes felt that was a reason why none of his associates had ever taken him seriously . . . The goofy, green freak with a goofy freakish voice, was what would usually plague the changelings mind whenever he allowed it to.

That had all changed now. Now, for the first time in a long time, he had started to feel in his comfort zone and that he could leave everything that made him (what BeastBoy thought) a laughing stock behind. He would not usually allow himself to think this but the more he did, the more he would analyse this conception.

The Teen Titans . . .

Robin: leader of the group and indeed, the most recognisable of all the Titans, not only to his own colleagues but to the entire world. A former protégé of The Dark Knight and one of the most skilled hand-to-hand combatants anyone had ever witnessed. What he lacked in unearthly powers, he made up for with his fists and arsenal of weaponry.

Starfire: Tamaranian princess, a fearless entity and one of the strongest superheroes anyone could have ever imagined. Equipped with her trademark star bolts and eyebeams . . . whoever said that looks were deceiving, must have been referring to Starfire.

Raven (BeastBoy would usually cringe whenever her name infiltrated his mind, like an unwanted virus): daughter of Trigon, empathetic being and the most feared of all the Titans, combined. If she was on your side, you could thank your lucky stars . . . piss her off badly, then you would be expected to end up floating in an unknown macrocosm and not be discovered . . . ever.

Cyborg: the half man half terminator. On the outside, you would agree that he was a behemoth in his own right, but on the inside, he was a warm, gentle, caring being. Equipped with his sonic cannon, a mastermind in anything that was technological . . . he was virtually a supercomputer on legs.

And . . .

BeastBoy: the least intelligent superhero amongst the Fearless Five, the cockamamie changeling who no one could take seriously, no one had the time of day for and completely forgettable. Did he receive any commendations for leading the Titans against the Brotherhood of Evil and relinquishing all the Titans who came a cropper to them? No . . . The Forgettable Hero.

Well, it's true, BeastBoy thought despondently, I don't remember a single person congratulating me or give my a single piece of praise after delivered some hope into the team, saved a chunk of the honorary Titans and contributed so much to defeating the Brotherhood of Evil.

This hurt BeastBoy badly. He never let it show, but inside, the dejection still gnawed away at him.

Yes, on the outside, BeastBoy had always tried his damndest to maintain a positive attitude and it would not matter what it was or who it was that tried to pour cold water onto his spirit, he would still walk about, head held high, a grin on his face and his cheerful essence would still be ever present. But on his own, he could not help prevent the sorrow, loneliness and depression that lingered in his heart.

If anything, his carefree attitude hit a brick wall after he came back from Tokyo with his teammates. He tried to be more serious and forced his bright nature to sit in the shadows. Needless to say . . .

One: It was not an easy thing to do and did not enjoy the solitude he now maintained. And . . .

Two: His colleagues noticed his erratic change of behaviour.

He could recall one instance where Cyborg had try to coax him out of his 'serious-shell' and bring out the joyous, carefree BeastBoy that had gone into hiding. Cyborg had tried and suggested many things: a twelve-hour marathon of either computer games, movies, television shows, with the accompaniment of a barrage of junk foods . . . declined, an infamous debacle of eating meat products over the 'delicacies' of tofu . . . refused, coerce the green teen in pulling 'The mother of all pranks on Robin', Cyborg's offer . . . rejected.

Cyborg had ultimately given up; muttering something about BeastBoy being a boring, self-pitying . . . BeastBoy never caught the last mutters of Cyborg's exclamation, but it was enough for the changeling to react to his cybernetic comrade.

BeastBoy had turned to Cyborg with an irritated sneer etched on his face. Demanding the half man half machine to repeat himself, Cyborg turned his nose up at the changeling and refused to repeat the last section of his sentence. Cyborg could tell through BeastBoy's voice patterns that he had been perturbed by his little snide at his green buddy. Eventually when BeastBoy came face to face with Cyborg, the green teens facial features looked . . . different, was the first word that sprung to Cyborg's mind. Behind those green eyes, Cyborg saw a concoction of animalistic fury, spite, anger and rage; all characteristics that Cyborg thought did not exist in the green bean.

From nowhere, BeastBoy exploded in front of Cyborg's face (Cyborg was very taken aback by the changeling exploding right in front of him) demanding – yes, demanding – that the almost cybernetic being repeat what he said, and to say it to his face rather than mutter it behind his back.

Instinctively, Cyborg immediately became defensive towards the green teen, fearing that if he said the wrong thing at this moment of time, then he ran the risk of BeastBoy tearing his head off. BeastBoy was obviously a ticking time bomb here and he had to diffuse this situation carefully. He thought to start things off; he would tell the cabbage head to calm the hell down and . . .

BeastBoy's bellows tore through the air once again. This time, he went on a tirade about keeping his artificial face out of his business, that he did not have a fucking clue of how he felt and that the worthless garbage bag of scrap metal can go and fuck a toaster for all he cared. With that, BeastBoy stormed out of the living, out of the tower and perched himself on a rock, overlooking the Pacific.

Cyborg was . . . stunned. If anyone had come into the living room and seen the half cybernetic being, they would have been convinced that Cyborg was on standby. Okay, BeastBoy had snapped at Cyborg in the past, but never . . . never, had the changeling ever reacted to Cyborg that manner before. If Cyborg had been honest, bearing the brunt of BeastBoy's 'explosion' had been . . . frightening. Also, BeastBoy never make any nasty remarks about Cyborg's 'condition' either. This among everything else upset Cyborg.

BeastBoy had lost track of the time but knew that he had been sat on 'his' rock for well over an hour now – the same one he perched himself on when Terra left the Titans and decided to join forces with Slade and the time when he had troubles with The Beast – considering that when he had come out to sit on that rock of his, it was at least mid-afternoon and now over half the sun was disappearing over the horizon. Over the course of those hours, he had sat there, head in his hands, the anger boiling up inside him slowly, very slowly, venting out of his system before calming down completely and begun to reflect over what happened. It was only within the space of a few seconds before he begun to feel like shit. His friend . . . his best friend, had just tried to cheer him up and not only had he declined rather dismissively, but after Cyborg had made his remark, the green teen had not only bitten off the mechanical mans head but he had said some – well, to put no finer point on it – rather nasty things to him. What kind of best friend does that?

Rising from his rock, he unclasped his communicator, flipped it open and checked the time. He was quite surprised that he had been sat of his rock, gazing out over the vastness that was the Pacific Ocean, excogitating his actions earlier this afternoon, for almost four hours. Surprised because:

One: he had never such a large portion of time contemplating his action, words or mannerisms and how they had affected that person directly. And . . .

Two: this was the first time he had actually done such a thing (well, he had done a similar thing when The Beast had been quelled due to a concoction Cyborg had given to him and he had reflected on the way he had behaved towards his teammates, especially her, but he was under the influence of another agent, so in his mind, that did not count).

Walking back to the entrance door, BeastBoy's stomach gladly reminded him that he had missed out on dinner. He could not recall anyone paging him on his communicator or coming down to the water's edge to apprise BeastBoy of either the time of dinner. This thought however did not concern him at all as only one thing was on his mind . . . find Cyborg and apologise for his attitude and his unnecessary aggression. He figured that the mechanical man would be located in the garage working on 'his baby' (Yes, even to this day, Cyborg would still use the pet name that he had coined for the T-Car).

The hood of the T-Car was suspended above the cybernetic beings head as he nosed through the innards beneath the hood. Recently, Cyborg had been driving through central Jump City to collect some accessories that he needed for the T-Ship when the T-Car, out of nowhere, started billowing with smoke. This evening, Cyborg decided to check what was wrong with the car. However, he was finding in difficult to concentrate on the job at hand after BeastBoy exploded in his face. Cyborg was extremely rattled by BeastBoy's capricious behaviour. He could easily remember the time BeastBoy lashed out at Cyborg after losing at a computer game and he (BeastBoy) took it really badly and ended up leaving four clean scratch indentations in his armour. But that was because of The Beast, this time however, Cyborg felt like The Beast had no part in BeastBoy's words whatsoever. Cyborg knew that BeastBoy had issues with Raven and that was definitely the root cause of the green beans outburst, but the way he reacted was just too uncharacteristic. He was not angry with the green teen, rather, he was worried.

Cyborg's attention went back to his 'baby'.

"Damn it man", Cyborg exclaimed irritably, "what the hell is wrong with you girl? I've examined you for ages and I cant to the life of me figure out what . . ."

"Dude, a plug that goes into the radiator has been knocked out."

Cyborg was startled by the voice behind him, which he instantaneously knew belonged to the changeling.

"How the hell . . . "

"All you need to do is put it back in and fill the thing up with water."

Cyborg stared wide-eyed at the changeling, before averting his gaze onto the radiator. How the hell did I miss that? He clearly saw that a plug was disconnected from the cars radiator.

"How the hell did you know what the problem was BB?" Cyborg had turned his attention back to the green skinned teen.

"I read about it" answered BeastBoy.

Cyborg eyes went even wider at the changelings answer.

"What . . . you surprised that I can read dude?" BeastBoy responded to the metal man's incredulous expression.

"Green bean, the only material you ever read is comics or the T.V. guide. Since when did you start reading books?" Cyborg asked, with a smile beginning to etch itself onto his face.

The changeling had to smile at this, "When did I ever say that I got that from a book?"

This answer evoked small chuckles from both parties. They eventually died down before BeastBoy opened his mouth to speak again, "Look dude, I'm sor . . ."

"Don't BB"

The changeling froze during mid-speech; "Huh?" was his response.

"Don't worry about it man. Let's just forget that it happened"

"But dude, I said some really nasty shit to you. You didn't deserve that, no matter what you said"

Cyborg exhaled softly before responding "I know cabbage head" he rested his hand on the changelings shoulder, "but I've had worst things said to me in the past".

Almost out of nowhere, the half man half machine quickly wrapped his arms around his friend's neck before pulling him into a noogie. Cyborg rubbed cold, rough, metal knuckles over the changelings green scalp which caused Cyborg to chuckle almost maniacally and BeastBoy to yell in discomfort. Through this simple act of brotherhood (the two were not related in anyway, but they were as good as brothers) BeastBoy knew that he had been forgiven.

The memory of his altercation between him and Cyborg had fizzled away and into another altercation that took place between him and Starfire. This specific occasion was when Starfire had attempted to cheer up BeastBoy with countless amounts of concoctions that she had created. All in order to 'Bring you the happiness and the endless joyousness in boundless amounts that will bring you out of your state of severe unhappiness', Starfire's voice rang in his eyes, louder than a blaring foghorn. BeastBoy also remembered snapping, extraordinarily harshly at the Tamaranian about how he was not unhappy, how he was fine, how she should keep her nose out of his business and went on a tirade about how revolting her culinary arts were; ending the verbal lashing by sweeping the alien foods of the table, onto the floor before storming out of the common room.

Starfire never had anyone speak to her like that in her life. Tears were cascading down her face faster than she had ever known them to. Never had BeastBoy ever spoken to her like that . . . ever. The kind, gentle, bundle-of-joy she knew was gone, and had been replaced by this . . . Monster! The word nauseated her.

BeastBoy had immediately felt regret for what he did. He knew very well that he acted like the biggest bastard in the world, he knew that Starfire only wanted to try and make him happy, he knew that the sweetest, kindest, most compassionate girl he had ever met was in floods of tears because of what he had said and done and that she did not deserve any of that. He just thanked his lucky stars that his teammates were out for the evening; otherwise he would be receiving the biggest ass kicking of his life from Robin and Cyborg.

BeastBoy immediately rushed back into the common room and saw Starfire collapsed on the floor, in floods of tears. The guilt that started in his stomach had now infested his entire being; Starfire was not the only one who had tears coming down her face. He rushed over to the alien princess, collapsed on the floor in front of her, gently embraced her and began apologising profusely for what he said and done to her.

Starfire heard BeastBoy's words whisper gently in her ears. She pulled away from him and intended to give him what-for and make him join her spoiled Tamaranian delicacies. However, something stopped her. She stared into his dark green irises and noticed something in them. Well, she noticed two things:

One: the unfeigned emotion that was pouring from his eyes. And . . .

Two: that BeastBoy was no monster whatsoever.

She was reviled that she had even allowed herself to think of BeastBoy in that light. She hurriedly recommenced the hug between herself and the changeling and began apologising herself. She begun apologising for intruding on BeastBoy's time of emotional distress, apologised for not giving BeastBoy the space that he wanted to have and would understand if he was to not accept any of her apologies.

Needless to say, BeastBoy was stunned with Starfire's surprising act of kindness. So surprised that he cried even harder than he originally did. He was especially shocked that Starfire was apologising of all things when it was he who had been in the wrong. He would have totally understood if Starfire had picked him up by the scruff of his neck and thrown him through the common room wall. She really was the sweetest individual he ever had the great fortune to ever meet. Her kindness was second to none. He knew that he did not deserve Starfire's warmth and generosity and felt bad for allowing himself to be the one who was being comforted; Starfire was always give, give, give and never asked for anything in return. He whispered into Starfire's ear, through choked emotion, that she should not be the one apologising, that he was a such a 'chlorbag varbernelk' (even to this day, BeastBoy still had no clue what this meant, but it brought a small chuckle out from Starfire and that made BeastBoy smile, knowing that he was succeeding in making Starfire feel slightly better) and would not feel any animosity towards her if she wanted to throw him into the living rooms' window and leave him a bloody mess on the island below.

Starfire instantly shuddered at BeastBoy's . . . offer, it you want to put it so bluntly. She instantaneously vocalised her repugnance at the changeling's words and said that BeastBoy was a 'chlorbagvarbernelk' for even suggesting such things. Now, it was BeastBoy's turn to chuckle.

The two of them remained collapsed on the floor for a few minutes, simply cradling each other, first chuckling for a short while accompanied with the last remnants of their tears before becoming silent.

After making up, they cleared up the mess (despite BeastBoy's protests that he should do all the cleaning up as he made the mess, but Starfire refused to let him do it alone. God, she really is an amazing person, BeastBoy cheerfully thought), Starfire promised that she would not tell any of the other Titans of what had happened (BeastBoy gave a small sigh of relief to this revelation) and the pair spent the rest of the evening chowing down on snack foods, watching a movie on their DVD player (Bambi . . . obviously chosen by Starfire . . . BeastBoy allowed her to choose whatever she wanted to watch).

After their little . . . trauma, as Starfire had so eloquently put it, she promised BeastBoy that she would give BeastBoy some space but if he ever wanted to do the conversing, and then he could always turn to her.

BeastBoy responded to Starfire's proposal with a hug and thanked her for being so wonderful. BeastBoy realised something that evening . . . I'm incredibly lucky to have a friend like you Starfire, he meant to say this in his head but ended up saying it out loud. Starfire (who was beaming brighter than BeastBoy had ever witnessed) reciprocated BeastBoy's kind words with a kiss on his check and a gentle hug.

BeastBoy's memory faded away from the altercation that took place with Starfire, to the confrontation that took place between him and Robin. It had taken place on the night that he (BeastBoy) had told Raven, There goes another shot up the spine, to leave him alone after she had tried to confront him . . . again.

After he bellowed at her, he stormed to his room, angrier than he could ever remember. He opened his door with such a force that it shook the walls around him; the slamming of his door was needless to say, over-the-top, but he was furious. He stomped over to his bunk bed (which he had no intention whatsoever in getting rid of) and collapsed on the bottom bunk, which was completely junk free. In fact, his entire room was rid of any unwanted litter after his return from Japan after about a month. He just lay on the bed staring up at the underside of the top bunks mattress; the frustration billowing up in him like an inferno.

Doesn't she understand that I don't wanna talk to her, the thoughts pondered in his mind, she's not made it a secret that she hates me being around her, she hates me trying to talk to her, she hates me trying to get her to open up to me, she hates . . . me . . .

Those final few words stung BeastBoy badly. He knew that Raven hardly liked him, but never had he allowed the word hate be used so flippantly like that.

His pondering had been interrupted by a small beeping noise. A beeping that he had been accustomed to for the last three years . . . the emission of the Titans communicator.

BeastBoy detached the little yellow device from his belt and flipped open the communicator and was welcomed to the black masked, spiky haired head of his leader.

Robins' words, to say the least, were curt, sharp and straight to the point, "BeastBoy, come to my office . . . immediately!"

Before BeastBoy had the opportunity to ask Robin for the reason why he wanted him in the office, Robin disconnected the signal abruptly. BeastBoy was definitely baffled by his leaders demand, half-heartedly, he hauled himself off the bottom bunk, out of his room and made his journey to Robin's office. On his way there, he had to make his way past Ravens room, he swore that he heard Raven whimpering in her room but immediately dismissed the thought. A year ago, he would have been banging at her door, asking her what the matter was, before being inevitably turned away . . . but that was then and this is now.

One short trek later, BeastBoy had reached Robins' office and was face to face with the traffic-light-on-legs himself. BeastBoy saw that Robin had a disconcerting demeanour about his person, which only layered onto his already present confusion and bafflement. His uncertainty was soon enough diminished once Robin began his tirade.

Robin had begun by notifying BeastBoy that he had been nigh-on run down by Raven in the hallway after he (BeastBoy) had yelled at her, that he tried to ask her what the problem was, only to be ignored. Robin stood; facing the changeling waiting for a response. After not receiving one for about ten seconds, Robin prompted BeastBoy to explain himself.

BeastBoy told Robin that she tried to corner him in the hallway, that he did not want to listen to whatever Raven had to say and that he ended their confrontation by telling her to leave him alone and not bother trying to talk to him because he had no intention of wanting to communicate with her (Robin was somewhat surprised with BeastBoy referring to the purple-haired sorceress, not by her name, but by 'she' and 'her' and that BeastBoy had heavily emphasised those two words).

BeastBoy expected Robin to flip out and go on a tirade about unity within the team, that whatever his problem was with Raven that he better let it go, go into her room and apologise for his behaviour and that if he was to refuse to do any of the following, then he would be punished for his disobedience and everything would just be another big pile of mess on top of the existing pile. Instead, BeastBoy was pleasantly surprised with Robins calm, collected and composed demeanour that replaced his disconcertion.

Robin was set on applying his trademark 'arsehole-head' and put BeastBoy in his place so that BeastBoy would end up grovelling to Raven, right in front of Robins masked eyes. But right at that moment, a thought hit him . . .

Raven! The name struck Robins mind like lighting, If BeastBoy is going to understand the magnitude of this issue, then he needs to understand it from the one he's hurt.

Soon enough BeastBoy had been asked by Robin to follow him out of his office. This instinctively baffled BeastBoy . . .

Huh, BeastBoy began think to himself as he followed Robin out of the office and through one of the towers numerous hallways, I didn't expect Robin to react like that. This must be one of those days were Robin isn't on his period.

BeastBoy mused in this thought and gave a small chuckle. He was inevitably pulled out of his stupor by The Boy Wonder (who wore an expression of confusion towards BeastBoy's chuckle; he did not bother asking BeastBoy as to why he laughed) and the changeling realised immediately where Robin had brought him to . . . his temperament slipped back into rage. His eyes scanned over the one word that was engraved on the door . . .

Raven.

BeastBoy turned to Robin and asked him why he was standing in front of her door.

Robin was starting to become incredibly irritated with BeastBoy's blatant disrespectful nature towards the empath. Robin was fully aware of BeastBoy's disdain for Raven for the past few months. Since their return from Tokyo, he noticed a dramatic change in BeastBoy's behaviour, not only to his duty as a protector of Jump City, but to his personality and also to his attitude towards Raven. He had become a helluva lot more serious about his superhero duties, he had taken extra measures to ensure that his physical fitness was at its peak and had started taking additional attention in ever mission the team embarked on no matter how big or how small the magnitude of the mission was. Robin definitely had to commend BeastBoy for his change in attitude, but the adverse effect was that BeastBoy's usual chirpy, smiley, hyperactive personality had taken a nose dive . . . Robin was not sure whether or not he preferred the old BeastBoy to the new one.

Another side of BeastBoy that had emerged and replaced the old BeastBoy was the way that behaved towards Raven. Yes, Robin would openly admit that Ravens behaviour towards BeastBoy was . . . out of character to say the least. He knew that whenever Raven lashed out at BeastBoy, she would do so if BeastBoy had done something that did not settle well with her; but it seemed that during their venture in Tokyo, she would just strike him indiscriminately. He remembered (in particular) BeastBoy innocently suggesting that the Titans should go to Mexico for their next holiday destination, to which Raven responded by hitting the changeling. There were other instances before and after their confrontation with Brushogun that caused Robin to wonder what exactly Raven was playing at. A harmless comment by BeastBoy, leading to a physical lashing by the empath . . . No; Robin did not care what Raven said, BeastBoy did not deserve any of that.

Robin had dismissed the first couple of weeks after their return from Tokyo where BeastBoy had had little to no contact with Raven, believing that he (BeastBoy) would give Raven some distance and time for her to let go of whatever vendetta she seemed to hold against the green-skinned teen. But when those weeks turned into months, that was when Robin had become seriously concerned; not only for the two teammates in question, but for the entire cohesion between the whole team. Robin had brought this up to Starfire and Cyborg, who too were more than aware of the empath and changelings friction, and had agreed to not get involved and let them find a solution, strongly believing that they could not stay mad at each other forever and that they would both completely forget why they were conflicting with one another in the first place. But after a total of six months, no progress had been made, and after tonight's confrontation between the two heroes, Robin had had enough of this ongoing war. He had decided . . .

It's time that this crap comes to an end. And I can only do this in the only way that I know . . .

Robin told BeastBoy to zip his lip and just listen to what was happening inside the purple-haired girl's room.

BeastBoy was initially perplexed by his leaders order. His initial instinct was to question the order he had been given, but thought better of it; he did not want to give Robin the ammunition to get on BeastBoy's case even more than he already was. Reluctantly, he pressed his ear to the door and listened. Because of his animalistic DNA, all of his senses were incredibly heightened; his ears could pick up upon the quietest of whispers. His ear pricked up on the noises that were coming from the room. Expecting to hear nothing but the mantra that the empath would always repeat whenever she was in her state of meditation, his ears were greeted with the sound of . . .

Crying?

Yes, it was crying. Needless to say, BeastBoy was stunned that the blue-clad sorceress was crying. The last time Raven cried was the same day she revealed that the world was going to end. He completely understood her sorrow back then - but then again, so would anyone if they were going to destroy the world - but he could not understand for the life of him, why she was crying in her room and why Robin had brought him outside her door in the first place.

Robin's voice interjected. Over Raven's sobs, BeastBoy's ears rung with Robin's words. Robin told the changeling that before asking him to come to his office and explain what had happened between him and Raven; he went to see Raven first. He reached her room and knocked, not receiving a reply he called her name, but received the same non-response. The detective in him took full hold of his entity and took the risk in opening her door. He only had it open a couple of inches before he saw that Raven was bawling her eyes out on her bed and a multitude of items and trinkets were soaring all throughout her room.

BeastBoy listened to Robin's story and quickly deduced that it was he who had reduced Raven into a bawling wreck on her bed . . . Who else could it have been?

BeastBoy expected at lot of negative waves to flow throughout his body. He had done his best to blank Raven out of his life as best as he could. After the way she had treated him throughout the duration of their time in Tokyo – even before they had left in the first place – and he could not find it in himself to forgive Raven for the way she treated him for all that time. He expected to behave dismissively towards Robin and him revealing how Raven was feeling after hers and BeastBoy's altercation a few moments ago. He had his 'counter arguments' already loaded and was ready to fire. So he was strangely shocked to discover that he felt . . . bad.

He was listening intently to the purple-haired spawn of Trigon, the girl whose actions, words and all-round degrading treatment towards him had caused him to cease all communication with the empath, the young woman who he had avoided for month after month after month as she made it abundantly clear that she did not want to be in any way shape or form to be associated with the changeling . . .

And all he felt was . . . empty.

He was totally convinced that Raven had detested the green teen's existence and had showed that through every hurtful or spiteful thing that she had either said or done to him; that was way he had given up wanting to make the effort in communicating with her. But hearing her wailing in her room, listening to Robin's story, realising that perhaps he had been wrong about Raven not giving a shit about BeastBoy.

Robin's voice once again interrupted BeastBoy's trail of thought. BeastBoy was not paying optimum attention to what The Boy Wonder was yammering on about, but he did catch the whole point of his speech – about how Raven does care about BeastBoy, about how badly BeastBoy had hurt Raven with what he said, about how much he (BeastBoy) really does matter to Raven, about how he (Robin) hopes that whatever feud the two held that they could hopefully forgive one another and move on, about how . . . – BeastBoy did not catch the rest of Robin's speech but he comprehended the whole point of his dialogue.

BeastBoy did not know how long he had been standing outside of Raven's room but by the time he snapped out of his attention that had been transfixed by Raven's sobs, he noticed that Robin was no longer in sight. The first thing that came to BeastBoy's mind was to walk into Raven's room and try and calm down the empath and talk to her. However, taking into account that Raven's room probably still had random flying objects still circulating at a violent pace and that the possibility that BeastBoy would suffer a concussion due to this fact was as good as certain, he abstained from doing so. So, he eventually decided to retreat to his room. Needless to say, he probably was not the only Titan that night that got a crap nights sleep.

An icy chill ran through BeastBoy's entity; this brought him out of his flashback and brought him back into the here and now. He reached for his communicator, opened it up and checked the time.

3:56:24 a.m., his mind registered the time. Initially surprised since he thought he had been 'flashbacking' for ages, he closed his communicator, returned it back to its home (his pocket) and resumed his gaze out onto the coastal city.

His last flashback still lingered in his mind. During that night, he had spent a large proportion of it wide awake (only getting less than three hours sleep that night), simply staring at his ceiling, and reflected on what he heard in Ravens room. Numerous times he felt compelled to go to her room and attempt to make conversation with the empath, but; What the hell do you say to someone who you had abstained for talking to for the last seven months? How the hell are you supposed to start a conversation with someone that who have deliberately not spoken to for seven months? Would the purple-haired sorceress even want to talk to me? all three of these questions had crossed BeastBoy's mind way more than once over the time period he was awake. Apart from the obvious and not so obvious – Raven being asleep during the time BeastBoy was contemplating what to do, or Raven still sobbing her heart out, or Raven just (for some reason unknown to BeastBoy) awake and waiting for the changelings appearance so that she go all demonic and therefore could turn him inside out and take absolute pleasure in doing so – BeastBoy chose to wait until morning (well, technically it was already morning but he knew what he meant) and then he would attempt to communicate with the person he had refused to acknowledge for seven months.

However, once he had awoken, he changed his mind and decided not to speak to the empath. The reason behind his decision . . . he was ashamed.

Raven was someone who had constantly abused him both verbally and physically, had very rarely retuned his kindness, no matter how many times he persisted; she would always give him the backhand (metaphorically and literally) and never want any of his time spent on her. So he gave her space, gave her distance, gave her the solitude and seclusion that she always wanted and craved from BeastBoy. And all he said was eight words to her that night . . . and he was the one that felt guilt? How? Why? That doesn't make one goddamn lick of sense?

The shame clung onto BeastBoy like a virus for the next week, still asking himself; How? Why? whenever he had thinking time (he would never allow either Robin or Cyborg to know that he was thinking, without the impending barrage of snide remarks that would go along the lines of . . . BeastBoy . . . thinking . . . are you feeling well dude?, and all that jazz). No matter how many times he asked himself these two questions, he could not come up with the answer . . .

How? Why?

How? Why?

How? Why?

. . . until earlier this afternoon.

He had replayed the scenarion in his head countless times this evening. He remembered simply walking into the Titans living room, minding his own business, simply wanting to go to the kitchen and retrieve a glass of soy milk when his forest green orbs had to land on the purple-haired sorceress. Meditating as she usually did; this time, she was angled slightly so that she was not facing towards the window, but just so slightly that the sinking sun lit up her face. The reasons why he felt guilt in the first place slightly evaporated along with the reasons he had begun ignoring her in the first place and were replaced by another sensation. A sensation that he had suppressed for a long time but now he dug its way out of the surface the moment he laid eyes on the beautiful young woman who he . . .

WAIT!, BeastBoy immediately came to a halt the second that word entered his mind, Did I really just think that? Did I really think that Raven was . . .

WAIT! he interrupted his first trail of thought, I've just said her name in my head and I didn't feel anger, discomfort or malice towards her. I just felt . . .

His stomach started churning, his palms started gaining perspiration, his heart rate began increasing . . . he bolted out of the living room as fast as he could, neglecting his drink.

He rushed back to his room and did not leave all afternoon and all evening, until tonight, coming out onto the roof. He was not hungry as he had gorged himself on an assortment of junk foods that he had stockpiled in his wardrobe.

And now here he was, the churning in stomach was still present. He was, needless to say, still dumbstruck by this revelation that he had discovered. The girl that he had deliberately abstained from communicating with, hell, even acknowledging her for a total of seven months was all he could think about at this present time. He could not believe it, one moment when his guard had been let down, and all the feelings that he had once had for the sorceress and come charging back into his system like a pack of raging bulls.

But still, the two questions hung in his mind, this time for different reasons . . . How the hell has this happened? Why do all of the sudden I feel like I'm the person in the wrong?

He knew exactly the reasons why he had began his 'Ignore Raven' campaign to begin with, but know, he started to feel that . . .

Maybe, I'm the one who is at fault. What if I did deserve all the abuse? Maybe I had just kept pushing and pushing and pushing until she finally snapped? Gosh, perhaps if I . . .

The sound of a doors lock clicking behind him ended his pondering. He did not have to turn he head to look at who it was behind him. The intoxication of lavender, jasmine and vanilla infiltrated BeastBoy's nasal passages and sent his stomach into another wild frenzy, his palms to gush out in perspiration, his heart beat to thrash almost wildly against his rib cage.

"BeastBoy?"

End Of Chapter Three

And there is another chapter.

To summarize, the entirety of this chapter is meant to show how BeastBoy's and Raven's relationship has deteriorated over time and how (through the events that will occur in this story) they strive to glue the shattered pieces of their friendship back together and realise what they really mean to each other.

So, if at any point you thought that those two were a little OOC; the reasons are stated clearly in this chapter.

Plus – I don't know about you guys – but I always thought that Raven's behaviour towards BeastBoy in the Teen Titans movie was . . . well, kind of horrible. I've read on plenty of WebPages and YouTube comments (YouTube being the website where I saw the movie) that it is meant to show a form of 'tough-love' from Raven to BeastBoy, but I just don't buy it, personally. What do you guys think?

Anyways, I hope you people liked this chapter. If not, leave your comments about pieces you did not like or areas of my writing 'skills' (I use the word very lightly) that you think need brushing up on and I'll try and incorporate some of your criticisms (the constructive ones of course, but then again, who really cares? :D) into the next chapter.

If you can't criticize, then just voice your opinion on this chapter or the whole story so far. Seriously, every positive comment and every piece of credit you give, inspires me to keep writing and to keep delivering the goods.

Lastly, I can't thank all those who have read the story, commented, subbed, and added to their favourites, enough than I already have done. It really does mean a lot to me that you guys read my story as well as everything else.

Until next time . . .

This is GreenRock . . . Signing out.

:D