A/N: I'll get around to editing previous chapters to remove errors... eventually. Revisions to previous installments will probably begin around chapter 10 and occur every 10 chapters from there on out... probably. Here's hoping!

Chapter VII: Osteal

Raven had given up meditating in front of Terra's room in favor of summoning a spellbook from her own and idly flipping through it for what Beast Boy would make a face at her for calling some light reading. It was something she'd read before, but it only once; the vague familiarity of the incantations—which focused primarily on knitting flesh back together after sustaining the severest of injuries—helped her mind wander from the presence to her back beyond the door. Partway through the introduction of the tome, she considered putting up a barrier of dark between her and Terra—but for what? What would it accomplish? It wouldn't make Terra go away; it wouldn't make her feel any better in the long run.

When the other Titans returned to the Tower, it was right around ten. The time had passed by a tortuously slow pace, seemingly to spite her efforts to pass it by easier. She felt them before she heard the raised, muffled exclamations of a trade off between Cyborg and Beast Boy. Disappointment lingered like a dark cloud trailing them—that was Robin, she knew. Starfire was hopeful; Cyborg was exhilarated; and Beast Boy—

He was always so much.

It seemed, she noted, that she was beginning to grow accustomed to the low level of emotional output from Terra.

But Terra would wake up, sooner or later, and then Raven would have to grit her teeth and bear it.

"Raven!" she heard Beast Boy call her name from far down the hall. She pressed her lips together into a thin line and, summoning all the patience she could muster, took extra care to take a deep breath as she carefully marked her place in the tome and shut it. With a twitch of her wrist and a slight probing from her mind, the book whizzed down the hall back to her room. She heard Beast Boy's exclamation of "whoa, hey!" knowing that it had flown past him to its destination in her room. Ordinarily, she would have felt a humorous twinge, but that sick feeling she'd felt earlier was still lingering under her skin.

The only way she could articulate what it felt like to see that manifestation of not-Terra was a vaguely nauseating feeling that spread from her abdomen up to her fingertips. Beast Boy might have called it woozy, but she didn't think he needed to know about it—even if she did admit to herself that she would probably need to address what had happened earlier, either with Cyborg or Robin. Probably Robin, all things considered, but Cyborg had a way of lifting her spirits when she thought some part of her was buried underground. Either way, she really, really wasn't looking forward to it.

"Raven!" Beast Boy shouted, and she closed her eyes briefly at the flare of pain behind her temples. Had his voice always been so piercing, so loud? Or was it just that the silence had finally been shattered, unceremoniously so? "That was so not cool!"

"It was pretty cool," she heard Cyborg protest in good humor, and when they rounded the corner, Raven was only partially surprised to see that Beast Boy was struggling to get what looked like a fake mustache off his face. She narrowed her eyes and peered at the other Titans: Robin was tossing away a rubber nose, Starfire was ringing something horribly bright pink out of her hair, and Cyborg was shaking what looked like glitteroff his shoulders.

Mumbo, she remembered, and was, for a moment, glad that she didn't have to clean her clothes because of Mumbo's antics.

"You know, I'm not target practice for your powers," Beast Boy said as the other Titans neared her position. Raven levitated for a brief moment so she could gently set her feet on the ground. Her legs were stiff from sitting for so long, but she said nothing of her creaking joints and aching shoulders.

"If you don't want to get in the way of my things," Raven said flatly, "then maybe you should work on your maneuvers."

Beast Boy flushed. Cyborg laughed.

Robin and Starfire stepped forward so they were forming a line of Titans, the two of them in between Beast Boy and Cyborg.

Starfire's eyes were bright like springtime; even Robin, knowing that Mumbo had not been apprehended, seemed to be in better spirits than she expected.

The buoyancy of their collective moods was something that might have been ordinarily contagious—not that she would ever tell them that—but not this time.

No; she could feel it—that sick, that dark, whatever it was. It went all the way to the bone.

Suddenly, explaining the situation to them seemed too tiring to bother with.

Besides—now that they were home for the time being, she could go back to her room.

"How did it go with the watching over of Terra?" Starfire asked, clasping her hands in front of her.

Raven glanced at Robin briefly before answering. "Fine."

"Did Terra wake up?" Beast Boy asked, stepping closer. "Did I miss anything? Are—"

"No, no, and no," Raven cut him off.

Beast Boy's mouth hung open for a moment before he snapped it shut and regrouped against her cool tone. "Why are you in front of her door, then? Huh?"

Raven opened her mouth to respond, to say the kind of thing that would cut him and render him hurt and not wanting to pursue this line of questioning any further for the time being, but then Robin reached out. Not quite touching her shoulder, but almost.

"Raven?" He said. "You seem...different."

"I'm fine. Everything's fine."

"You look like you're gonna kill me," Beast Boy said, as if he was now just seeing whatever Robin could, "like, in a way that's...more than usual."

Raven meant to step around them and start down the hall, but she realized her friends were blocking her path as passively as they could manage.

Subtle, she thought, but had to hand it to them: she hadn't noticed it when they first came in, and that meant Beast Boy was learning. Slowly, but surely.

Starfire took a tentative step forward. "Friend Raven," she said, voice just barely above a murmur, "are you all right?"

Raven looked from Beast Boy, to Cyborg, to Starfire, to Robin. Taking a deep breath, she put up her hood, shrouding her face in shadow. It was safer, somehow, in her own, personal kind of dark.

"I...saw something."

Cyborg's eyebrows shot up. "Terra?"

"No," Raven said firmly in order to kill any alarm that was about to arise from her friend's. "...at least, not really."

They were looking at her imploringly. Not Beast Boy, though; his eyes were narrowed and locked on her.

"I saw her, but it wasn't her."

Beast Boy made a face. "You're not making any sense."

She held Robin's gaze for a moment, hoping that her expression and the intent behind it was meaningful enough for him to understand: his posture and expression adjusted minutely, ever so slightly relaxing in realization. "But you're okay?"

Raven resisted the urge to stiffen as Starfire unconsciously began to drift closer to her, her feet barely touching the floor.

"It was nothing." Seeing that he wouldn't budge, she amended, "it's over now."

Beast Boy kept looking between them, bewildered. "Okay," he said just as Raven was about to continue, holding his hands up, "what the heck are you guys talking about?"

"You remember Wicked Scary?" Cyborg asked him.

Beast Boy's brow furrowed. "Yeah? So?"

"So," Cyborg said, "don't you remember what happened after we watched it?"

Beast Boy's expression and aura emitted puzzlement until it seemed a switch was flipped in him: he visibly brightened, snapping his fingers in triumph. "Oh! You mean that time when you did that super creepy thing with your powers 'cause you were scared!"

"Yes," Raven deadpanned, "that."

"You were scared?" Beast Boy peered at her closely.

"I was not," Raven told him curtly.

"Then what?"

"...can we talk about this later?" The question came out flat, sounding as unapproachable as a viper hidden in the reeds. "I have things I need to do."

Robin was quiet for a beat, then: "of course, Raven. We'll take it from here."

Raven stepped to the side to let them pass her; one by one, they filed into Terra's room. "Terra!" she heard Beast Boy whisper-shout. "Terra! I hope Raven wasn't mean to you while we were gone!"

The empath meant to start heading to her room, but she did not—could not—move. She listened intently as the door slid shut.

She couldn't make out Terra's response, but the former Titan was now surely awake. The blonde's aura stretched, coming to wakefulness. Raven readied herself to stifle the urge to flinch.

"Where did Raven go? No, she wasn't in her room," she heard Cyborg say after Terra's muffled voice sounded in the quiet again. "Seems like she was right outside your door the whole time."

Abruptly, Raven turned and left for the roof. She wasn't sure what she felt, then: a combination of too many things to name, but she felt it all over. It, an almost tangible haze crawling over her, followed her up the stairs and out into the open air. She could feel it threading through her bones—her DNA strands, even—and tried to take deep, calming breaths, hoping that she wouldn't have to stay at the Tower the next time the Titans were called into the city.