Hello people! I am back, finally. It took much longer than I expected and I apologize greatly for that. My Wi-Fi has not been fixed, but I can finally write! Please enjoy and review. :] Also, it would be wonderful if you could tell me what these people eat/drink besides pizza, tea, and tofu. :} Thanks in advance to anyone who drops me a line. I listened to Maroon 5 and The All American Rejects while writing this time.

"B? Hey, BB!"

"What, Cy?" I groaned through the door.

"Rob wants to talk to you."

"'Kay." I pulled myself out of the bed I had just thrown myself on… I glanced at the clock on my nightstand… Three hours ago. I was tired. Between two idiots attempting to rob a bank, a hostage situation at the video store, and a prison break – after being drilled by Cyborg about what happened at the carnival – caused me to gain a total of four hours of sleep. Which included my nap. I needed to rest soon.

When I entered the Common Room, he was the only one there. Robin sat at the table quietly, going over some sort of paper work. I yawned and made my way towards him without speaking. "Beast Boy," he greeted with a nod. Robin hadn't even looked up. I was used to it though.

"Hey, Rob."

The silence continued for a bit. He didn't look up at me – only the digits and occasional letters on the papers. It was sort of nerve-wracking the way he made no move to get to the point. That wasn't really how Robin worked.

"You wanted to talk" I finally blurted.

Robin waited until he'd jotted down a few more notes next to all the figuring he'd done on the page. Then he finally met my eyes with his own. Something serious glinted in them. For the first time I began to wonder why the Boy Wonder had called me down here. I wasn't sure what we were about to talk about, but the no-nonsense that pooled in his eyes made me nervous.

"Lately, you've been improving. You train a lot more, you've gotten faster, and you change quicker." I cracked my knuckles under the table, thinking of how natural but uncomfortable my shifting was. "You don't even miss a beat and I've seen the way you work out now. You spend less time hanging out with Cyborg and playing video games, too." Robin leaned back n his chair, eyes still hard and now curious.

"Why are you doing it?"

I blinked. That wasn't what I really expected. "Cy's just gotten sooo easy to beat-" I started to joke. His face stopped me. Robin was serious this time. So I gave him the truth. "You guys shouldn't have to pick up my slack. I should have been this good a while ago. Until lately, I didn't care that much."

"And why is that?"

This, I hadn't thought about as much.

Everyone had something they seriously wanted to do. Maybe they had something or someone they wanted to protect with their life. I never really had any goals that took a while to accomplish, and my parents were long ago dead. All of my friends could easily take care of themselves in just about any situation. So that left me with virtually nothing to try for. And doing it for myself seemed like something selfish and useless. So that one was right out the window. I always knew that even if I had nothing to be better for, I wanted to be better. Then I saw the raven that injured herself purposely. She gave me a reason. She gave me something to fight for, something to be better for, and someone to think of when I was ready to quit.

I wasn't about to say all of this out loud, in front of Robin, though. So, I gave him a second-best answer.

"I wanted to be better for myself and the people I love." Half-truths aren't lies, right?

Robin just nodded and stood up , heading towards the weight room in his strong silence. Exhausted, I climbed back into my bed and dreamt of nothing for five hours.

The next morning, Rae was the only one in Common Room, much like Robin was last night. But she sat in front of a cup of slightly sweetened green tea and a giant book written in some language I would never need to know. Starfire was refereeing for Cyborg and Robin's latest sparring match. I could see them from the window. It made me smile to see them so happy and alive. The actual training started in two hours. I hoped to get some weight lifting in before that. I could always change my plans to keep Raven company though.

She sat quietly – as always – absorbed in the humungo text. I peeked over her should, listening to both of our heartbeats quicken a bit. She wasn't used to people so close I guessed.

"Whatcha reading?" I asked.

"A book."

"Of what kind?"

"My kind."

"Which kind is that?"

"The kind that is so old no one remembers it had a name before."

"What a fine kind that must be!" I laughed, heading to pop a couple of bagels in the toaster and grabbed a bottle of water.

"You're in a great mood," she observed.

"Well, kicking butt and getting to sleep late without being yelled at is pretty up-lifting to me. What about you?"

"I don't sleep late."

This made me laugh again. "I figured something like that." Tying not to be obvious, I glanced down at her sleeves while waiting on the machine to pop out my breakfast. She had them pulled up a bit, and only a couple of faint, scarred lines remained. I relaxed, leaning against the table with a grin. My morning was officially great.

Rae just quirked her eyebrow at my noticeably better mood. I pretended not to notice as I slid next to her with the honey-covered bagel and water. She sipped her tea, and then glanced back at her book. I grinned as her purple orbs slid over the small text. She did everything so quietly.

Within no time, the silence was too much for me to handle. Listening to nothing but steady heartbeats and breathing easily tired me. Just as I was about to comment on how quiet she always is and entice her into a game of teasing, we were called away to fight some other bad guy. As usual, of course. In less than a minute, all of the Titans were rushing towards Jump City to save it and anyone within its limits.

Somewhere around an hour later, I was still sweating and hanging back while Robin dealt with the clean up. Starfire floated around an injured Cyborg, inspecting the damage done to his arm. Cy explained something to her, and she audibly gasped. He laughed in return, reassuring her that he was fine. All he would have to do is modify something or another. Tech talk wasn't a language I knew well. Suddenly, Raven glided right past me, a dark look on her face. I jogged after her without thinking.

No one asked where we were going, or what was going on. Even though she knew I was following her, Rae slipped on her holographic ring – and I followed suit – so we blended into the crowds of our beloved Jump City. After a minute, she slowed down and I kept a brisk pace at her side. She led us to a recluse café on a dark street. A dark-skinned teenager with a tattoo curling around his left cheek at the counter nodded to her with a grin that made his ink dance. The dark-haired girl led me to a table in the corner – only two stools sat beside the granite top. I slid into the seat opposite of her, waiting for when she was ready to talk about what she seemed so worked up about. Not that I didn't know, or anything.

Because I did know. The dark look on her face and the way her eyes were narrowed were the results from our battle that no one here would ever know we fought. I liked it that way, though. So when a petite, brunette waitress that greeted Rae as 'Rachel' took our order – one white tea with little sugar and a strong black tea – commented on the quiet girl's mood, my teammate just looked off with a glare. Our waitress took no offense, laughing it off and promising to be back soon.

While I waited for the girl before me to talk about what bothered her, I looked around the place. It was a medium-sized café with midnight colored walls and hard wood floors. The decorator went for something along the lines of a modern, cozy café with a darkened exterior. It was remotely odd, but nice. A few people sat at tables, and a teenage couple hung around the counter, talking to the inked boy. Above the boy behind the counter was an amazing painting of a lake and a tree. I looked at it for a long time, just imagining the water actually rippling the reflection of the weeping willow at its shore. The only thing that threw me out of my trance was my friend's little sigh. As always when she was upset, her face was passive.

It showed nothing.

And something about it made my heart ache. Even when she didn't have her grayish skin and purple hair, with the hood to symbolize her name – I knew that look. I knew what she would do as soon as someone left her alone. Over the months, I'd figured most of it out. When she wanted to hurt herself the most, you could barely tell. That's what I looked for – her passive face.

"Rae?" I didn't use either of her actual names. I used the name I had given her.

Her response was a small glance to tell me she was listening to whatever I had to say next. That was enough for me to go on.

"I'm glad you didn't get hurt."

Now she was more than glancing at me. The raven-clad, raven-haired, and raven-named girl half-gaped at me. Her amethyst eyes were confused and surprised – she had probably been expecting a lecture or encouraging speech that neither of us needed to hear again. I'd only told her the truth. Well, part of the truth. I hadn't said that I was glad that this time it was I who shielded her and she whom was saved.

Okay, I wasn't happy that she needed saving, just that I could help her. It's probably a good thing I didn't say that outside. I would have screwed it up and looked like a jerk. And then failed at whatever I've been trying to do all these months. Sometimes, I wasn't sure if I wanted to save Raven from herself or make her see how much I felt for her. Maybe it was both now.

"Are you serious, Be…" She trailed off, not sure what to call me in public.

"Garfield." My face was a lot pinker than it'd been a minute ago, now that I'd actually told her my name. That didn't happen a lot, actually. "And yes, I'm serious." With my face back to its original color and my grin less playful, I continued. "I didn't like that you needed help, but I'm glad I could help you."

The brunette approached with a secret smile, handing us our drinks with it fully intact. I wondered how much she had heard, and how well she knew Raven. She left without answering any of my silent questions.

As she drank her tea slowly, Raven looked at me with her wondering eyes. I didn't take a sip yet, letting it cool down first. Finally, she put down the now half-full handle-less cup. "I don't like needing help," she admitted slowly.

"I know. Sometimes we just need it. Like when I was still messing up in all of those fights. You have to remember that." My grin finished the sentence for me. "By the way, I like this better than you ignoring what I say or snapping at me."

"I like it better too."

I don't know if it was how she said it or that she'd admitted it out loud. For some reason, I had a feeling this was our decline. Disaster's decline – so it could only get better from here. We were finally somewhere besides stuck in the middle. Raven and I talked for a couple hours after she said that. She told me about how it felt to need saving, and how much she hated it. I understood and told her so. We talked about how similar and how different we are. She testily brought up how much I watched her, and worried about her. That was a subject we got through swiftly, but explained a lot. Our friends came up, her companionship to Robin and my friendship with Cyborg. The raven-haired girl told me she wasn't used to doing girly things with Star but didn't know how to get used to it. We avoided talking of relationships, Terra, and Malchior. Touchy subjects were open for discussion, but we understood. I asked about her self-harm when we were leaving.

Raven gave me the most truthful answer I could ever expect.

"I needed some way to be in control – of life, of my feelings. That was the best way I thought of at the time. Until some green weirdo told me a secret – there were better ways to do that. And he said a whole lot of other things that confused me. Men are confusing, and you are one of the worst."

Her response sent me laughing loudly as we walked down the sidewalk. People looked but never said anything straight to us. I moved closer to her, leaning down a bit. "This is the last day the carnival's in town. Would you want to come with me for a while, Rae?" She hesitated again, but only a bit. Her face gave me a tentative smile, and she nodded.

"That'd be nice. It's my kind of fun."

"Sometimes, we're the same kind. Ever notice?"

"Sometimes, we are. Yeah."

A very short chapter, but its here. I am working on the final chapter. It will go up before or during the weekend. Thank you to all of my supporters, fans, favorites, reviewers, alerts, ect. You all are great. :]