A/N: Thank you so much for reading! Enjoy!

Chapter IV: Deadset

Raven followed Starfire down the hall; she was planning on going to the roof, but then abruptly changed her mind: she entered her room, not offering any explanation to Starfire. She wanted to be alone. She needed to be alone. In the still dark of her room, she felt instantly comforted. She went to the bed, but, instead of climbing onto it, seated herself in front of it on the floor. Shrugging off her robe, wiggling her toes in her boots, she exhaled slowly, and brought her hands up in the air above her knees.

Quietly, under her breath: "Azarath... Metrion... Zinthos."

She began to levitate.

Now that she alone, it was much easier to focus on her emotions and smooth out their uneven edges. Breathing deeply, she centered herself. Going through the list, she suppressed a sigh: happiness; timidity; bravery; rudeness; knowledge; passion; sloth; rage. She sorted through them and made time to examine each and every one. Acknowledging them was not something she would call a highlight of hrt fsy, but she did not want to endanger her friends; she knew it was possible that her emotions could manifest physically, and that was something she hoped to avoid for the foreseeable future.

But her mind kept drifting to Terra. Time after time, she tried to refocus on something else, but it was the same, through and through: Terra. Why? Terra...

Her mind conjured up a series of images: Terra, meaning to drown Raven in mud with a wicked grin on her face; Terra, outside her room, laughing with Raven after her commenting on Beast Boy; Terra, in what Raven thought would be her final moments, bursting with golden light; Terra, turned to stone—

—and herself, cloaked not only in darkest blue but also in grief, standing before an entombed Terra; herself, waking up in the dark during a storm calling out Terra's name; herself, recalling dream after dream of the blonde former Titan walking away from her, deeper and deeper into the crumbling abyss.

They'd all dealt with it in different ways. They'd talked about it, as much as they could, before they clammed up and could speak no more on it for fear of their composure breaking.

And now what? Were things supposed to go back to how they were before Terra revealed herself to be a traitor? Would her fellow Titans really be so quick to forgive Terra for all the harm she'd caused them—purposefully, by choice? And how did they know they could trust her? Slade might be gone, but that, as far as Raven was concerned, didn't excuse Terra from any scrutiny or suspicion. She'd lied once, and thus was capable of doing it again.

For Raven, it was not a matter of if, but when.

A knock at her door drew her out of her meditative state; she clenched her teeth against the aggravation that flared up within her as she said, as inhospitably as she could, "what?"

"Raven?"

It was Robin.

She shook her head and squeezed her eyes shut. She didn't want to talk to him now. She didn't want to see any of them, probably for as long the sun was up.

"Can we talk?"

Raven elected not to respond. Perhaps he would go away—

The door slid open. She felt her blood pressure spike. Calm down, she told herself, but rage was making a racket inside her, trembling with the rest of her emotions.

"I know you're ups—"

"I'd like to be left alone."

He sighed. She continued to keep her eyes shut; however, she listened as he walked closer to her, his pace slow yet steady.

"How did you know?" He asked softly. She cracked open an eye and saw him looking at her imploringly.

He wanted to know, and she hardly had any answers herself.

"I don't know."

"But you knew, didn't you." It wasn't a question.

"Yes."

Robin remained silent.

"I felt it," Raven said eventually, turning her head to meet his gaze full on. "There was...nothing, for the longest time. And there was just—everything, all at once."

Robin nodded. "Any idea what caused her to..." Wake up? Come back from the dead? Become a girl again?

"No idea," Raven said; irritation made her voice flat and dry like a wind-burnt desert. Again she felt that bitterness inside her, trying to rise up; again she swallowed it down.

Going to have to get used to that, she thought darkly.

"You said...you said you tried everything, didn't you?"

Raven's eyes narrowed. "I told you I did." And she'd meant it. She'd tried everything, gone through every ritual and spellbook she knew or could dig up. But nothing had worked. Nothing had taken. Terra hadn't come back.

Until today.

"So—"

Robin was cut off sharply by the blaring of the alarm. Raven immediately got to her feet as Robin tensed up and flipped open his communicator.

"Robin, come in!" Cyborg's voice came through loud and clear. "Mumbo's out again!"

Raven moved to follow, reaching for her cloak, but Robin put a hand. "We got this," he said in a low voice, and Raven became eerily still.

What?

"It's best if you stay here with her," Robin explained. He was somewhat apologetic, but either he'd made the decision on the spot or had decided when Raven was otherwise occupied. "Someone should be at the Tower when she is...just to be safe."

"Babysitting," Raven echoed her complaint from earlier.

Robin nodded. "Just for now," he said. "She shouldn't be any trouble—Star said she passed out as soon as you guys left her room—but I know that you won't let your guard down."

Out of all of them, Beast Boy was most likely to fall victim to another ruse, followed at a distance by Starfire. Cyborg and Robin were close to being on the same page with their reservations, but Cyborg's role could not be substituted or removed when it came to missions—that much had become clear over the years. And Robin—well, he was the leader, and as long as he could lead, he would lead his team.

Logically, that left Raven.

She could understand it, but she didn't like it.

"Please," he said.

For a long, tense moment there was nothing between them but noise.

Then Raven said: "fine," and stared after his retreating form until the door shut and she was, once again, alone.