ROBIN:

There is a moment of stunned incomprehension.

Starfire emits a gasp and drops her coffee cup.

There is a CRACK and then both of us are on the floor. Cyborg has convulsively gripped the couch so hard it's snapped in two.

All our eyes automatically turn to Raven.

It's difficult to tell her expression beneath her hood, but nothing has exploded or gone kaput, so I suppose that Ring of Azar really does work.

"I, er, think I should go inform the reporters," Dr. Sanchez mumbles. Sanchez. Catching him unoccupied was an unplanned bonus. Wally and Sanchez: together, the best possible chance for Beast Boy to live.

It didn't work out that way.

"Yeah." I get to my feet. "Umm... can we--?"

"Of course." His eyes are sad and tired. Strained. Sanchez is one of the best at what he does. (I wonder why I keep reminding myself of this fact.) Losing a patient, any patient, does not sit well with him.

We walk into the OR. A blanket has been tactfully draped over the body lying on the table. Halfway to it, Star can't take it any more and turns and collapses into my arms, sobbing. Raven stops next to us, still hooded, inscrutable. Cyborg alone makes it all the way.

He touches the green skin tentatively. Then, abruptly, he falls to his knees, looking at his hands, choking out in a voice I've never heard before: "I can't feel him... I c-can't feel h-him..."

"Yes, you can!" Raven, removing her hood to reveal a tear-stained face. "Think! You still feel for him. You are still human! And that means..."

"...I can feel him." He gets up, moves to the head of the table, lowers himself slowly, and gently touches his best friend's forehead with his cheek. A single tear forms and falls from his "real" eye, splashing on Beast Boy--

Beast Boy.

Oh my God. Beast Boy... is dead.

It hits me.

When I was little, my parents shone in my eyes with the invincibility and immortality of adults. A presumed constant. I was here and they were here, with me, and that was unchangeable.

It changed, the cherished myth shattered when I was eight years old.

A new myth for my mind to concoct for itself. Superheroes. Good guys, always winning, never hurt, never dying.

An illusion. A self-deluding, protective illusion.

A whole little world, coming crashing down around my head.

Beast Boy lies dead on that table.

Only now do I re-comprehend the horror of death.

Only now I begin to cry.

End Arc One