Fallen Rain

Chapter 9

Summary: Rachel (Raven) Roth is a young girl in Gotham City. School days suck for her, and home has never been safe. Dick (Robin) Wayne is the ward of Bruce Wayne of Wayne Industries and has all the luxuries he can afford. What happens when people with two different life styles meet?

As Rachel entered the room she down cast her eyes upon instantly feeling the heat of everyone turning and staring at her. Slipping into the back of the room she looked up greatfully when Robin entered the room strangely on time. He walked passed the empty seat conveniently placed right next to Kitten and went in the back corner, setting his bag down on the desk next to Rachel.

He grinned and sat down in the seat. He leaned across and said, "Man, the whole school has been talking about you. Somehow they figured out that you're now living with Bruce and me."

"I figured as much!" Rachel sighed. "But who would spread that around. Who told everyone?"

Robin's grin grew wider. "I'll give you two guesses."

She gave a sigh and thought about the entire matter. "Ummm...Gary?" Robin shook his head and she contemplated the question again. Suddenly a light flashed in her head. "No, it couldn't have been Gala!"

He nodded. "She apologized to me this morning. I swear she bowed at my feet and begged me. That why I came in early, to see how they've been treating you!" His face grew somber. "How have they been treating you? I hope well because I could have each and everyone sued."

"Nobody's said a word." Rachel said. "No really, no one has spoken with me all day." She turned. "And you don't have to sue someone because they don't treat you like you want to be treated. Its impossible to change them just by forcing money out of their pockets."

He just sighed. "I was simply stating."

A growl escaped her throat. "Well don't"

"You get angry awfly mad." Robin said propping his feet up on the desk and leaning back his hands on his head. "And quite easily might I add."

A balled up fist flattened on the wooden desk and Rachel took a couple of deep breaths. "Thank my dad! Even while mom was still around he took pills to control his emotions, it just happened that he stopped once mom left, and it was too much emotion to conceal.

Robin saw that she wasn't kidding, but before he could say anything Ms. Cunningham stepped through the door her heels clicked on the tile smartly and she glanced coolly over at Robin and she stopped to ease herself into the roll chair.

"Mr. Grayson, for goodness sake would you please get you're feet off the desk." She set down a streaming cup of coffee she must have left the room for. "This is not a class to relax and lounge about in." She turned and looked at him a second time through with a look in disbelief. "Why my goodness! You're early!"

The bell rang at that instant and Gala ran through the door only to be scolded at by Ms. Cunningham. The girl nodded remorsefully and started babbling in Russian. Ms. Cunningham simply ignored it trying to make since of Robin's early arrival.

"Do sit down," Ms. Cunningham simply shook her head and took a large gulp of coffee.

Gala sat in the seat in front of Rachel and gave her an apologetic look.

"Don't even apologize." Rachel slid out the 200 questions packet and followed it by the book. She was way behind on that packet. "I already forgave you." Gala opened her mouth to say something else. "What now."

She opened her mouth to speak then stalled. Finally after a second of thinking about how to let out the words she grinned and pulled out a loose sheet of lined paper. She scribbled something and folded it in a cool way. Then tossed it over her shoulder.

Rachel sighed and opened the paper. She couldn't understand what it said. It wasn't that the handwriting was unreadable, it was that the sentence was in a different language.

'I can't understand a word you've just written.' She wrote out and unceremoniously passed it back.

Gala squealed. Then she glanced up to make sure that the teacher hadn't heard. Ms. Cunningham didn't turn so she lifted her pink sparkly pen with bright pink feathers on the end up and started writing causing the feather to wobble about.

She abandoned the task of folding and threw it back.

'Sorry' it read 'Habit. Anyways I meant to write to you think Robin will go out with me?'

Rachel froze, the words failed to penetrate until the tenth time reading it.

Robin go out with Gala. It was a genuine good idea. They would make a lovely couple, but there was something in the back of her mind that went completely against it. She didn't know why though. She looked from Gala to Robin and then back to Gala. They were a smart match. Was she jealous though?

She shook her head to clear it. No of course not she wasn't jealous.

'I'm not the person to ask.'

'Nonsense, I trust you! I feel like I can confide in you, and honestly I really do want your opinion.'

Rachel thought a minute then scribbled down her response. As she handed the note back she sighed. Why would Robin want to be with her anyways, while she was so plain and ugly? He would want to be with someone like Gala who had the body and the perfect hair.

She heard Gala squeal again as she read the response.

'You'd make a nice couple.'

Robin glanced over when Gala squealed the second time. Ms. Cunningham frowned at the girl and she blushed dropping her head, the smile on her face still contagious. Robin looked back and focused upon Rachel who looked like she was having an inner conflict with herself.

He didn't want that. Rachel meant a lot to him and two weeks ago he was ready to tell her that, but people kept coming in at the crucial moment and ruined the entire thing.

Leaning over he tapped her on the shoulder and Rachel jumped a bit. She turned to look at him with an odd expression her face.

"Whats the matter?" He asked her. She seemed to ponder that exact question. When she told him nothing Robin gave a sigh and gripped her arm tightly. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing!" She insisted again. "I'm trying to pay attention to Ms. Cunningham's lesson but you wont seem to let me." She turned back and looked at the board but Robin could tell that she wasn't quite thinking of just that.

His frown deepened but he didn't pressure her anymore. He tried to focus on Ms. Cunningham too but couldn't, so he started to doodle on some paper he found on the floor. It started off as a costume, the meal from breakfast still fresh on his mind (the hero conversation that Gary started three weeks ago! Gasp!). Then he doodled himself with some kind of black mask hiding his face.

Thats all his life was now. A mask of who he used to be. He had been unhappy for years under Bruce's roof. Bruce didn't hurt him he just didn't have the companionship that he wanted. Then he met Gary. Gary had been inside the locker room getting beat on by Victor and his football goons. After doing some karate moves Gary was protected, Victor impressed, and a lasting friendship made.

A weird way to start but it happened that way. He had never been truly happy until that day when they nearly ran over Rachel. She was the only person who understood him and didn't pity him at first meeting. He could tell that in her eyes she understood everything that he had experienced and more. She had lost her mother, and then her father, except her father was still there, but gone at the same time.

When he had thumbed through the pictures of Rachel in her younger years he wished that just for a second she would smile, in the way that she used to, to him and laugh. He wanted all that to happen because of him. Many times he had come very close.

He sat there his head in the clouds until the bell rang and Rachel gathered her things and headed to lunch. He called out to her and tried to catch up but Gala got in the way. She smiled and seemed to think a little while. "Can I talk to you friend Robin?"

He nodded distractedly.

They went against the crowd and finally when the hallway was empty and the bell had already rung. Gala turned to him and grinned awkwardly. "Robin, I...I sent a letter to friend Rachel about you..."

"You did?" Robin asked. Inwardly he grinned, but on the outside he didn't show a care in the world.

She squeezed her eyes shut and the words simply tumbled out. "Will you go out with me?"

Robin froze. "Wow...this is unexpected." He commented. "Listen I don't like you as a girlfriend."

"You mean I am not even your friend?" Her expression grew even more depressed and Robin knew that none of this was making the situation any better.

"No thats not what I meant."

Gala frowned and wiped at moisture in her eyes. "But am I not a friend, and a girl?"

"You are but a girlfriend is a title that is given to someone you like more than a friend. It's someone you go out with." Robin sighed. He hated it when girls acted this way towards him. He wondered how he would have acted if this was Rachel asking him out. Finally he cleared his head and finished his thought from before. "I like you as a friend not a girlfriend. You'll always be a friend."

She still looked down but nodded anyways.

"You told me that you wrote to Rachel about me..." Robin started. "What was it you said?"

Gala sniffed and wiped her eyes. "I asked her if she would mind if I asked you out."

He stiffened. "And what did she say."

"She told me that we would make a nice couple." Gala told her. "But her expression was weird after that and now that I think about it, she didn't look quite normal once she left for lunch."

"Did she say she was going to lunch?"

Gala shrugged. "She told me she wasn't sure."

He sighed and nodded a thanks. "Lets go to the lunchroom and join them." Robin said taking the girl's shoulders and leading her down to the lunchroom where he planned to join everyone else, if everyone was there.

The way Rachel had run off he supposed that she wouldn't be there. When they entered the lunchroom Cy, and BB were sitting at the table bickering about what could be assumed as meat. Robin lead the girl over to the table and sat her down in one of the hard back chairs. Cy took one look at the sad girl and at Robin who shrugged and motioned his head over to the lunch line.

Cy grinned. "I'm hungry and I think that I'll go get something from the line."

"I'll join." Robin said he lead the way heading for the lunch line, but stood a fair distance from the people in line. Cy joined him in a matter of seconds and Robin turned around, whatever the look on his face was certainly not right to his friend.

"Where's Rachel?" Robin asked when he was sure Gala wasn't straying her eyes to where they were.

His friend shrugged. "I don't know, I thought that I would see her during lunch." He looked over at Gala. "Now what happened?"

"She asked me out, and I told her no." Robin said. "Apparently Rachel and Gala were swapping notes during class and she brought up the question, do you think that Robin will go out with me. Well I assume they were passing notes, because I saw them in class doing it and Gala said that she 'spoke' to Rachel, and neither said a word before, during, or after the class."

Cy grinned again, wider this time. "I think Rachel was bothered by it."

"What! No way! She told Gala that Gala and I would make a nice couple." Robin told him dismissing the thought.

"Ok did Gala say that she seemed different going out of the room, and you obviously must have seen it because you planned on telling her today during lunch how you felt. So you must have been waiting to join her on the way over to lunch, and watched her leave the room." Cy told him.

"Gala blocked the door and I couldn't be impolite." Robin told Cy.

His friend smiled. "So obviously she was bothered by it, I mean what else could she have been bothered about?"

Robin didn't say anything, and for a long while neither friend did. The line while they had been talking mysteriously grew shorter and it was time for them to grab their trays and utensils, choice of liquid, and the meal in that line - which to Robin's dismay was something with tuna inside and resembled a pile of garbage – so they obviously stopped talking until they were spit back out of the line and heading over to the table.

"Maybe Rachel mentioned where she would be to Gala in the note, it's just that Gala forgot." Robin said.

Cy frowned. "Wait a second right after you told her you wouldn't go out with her you immediately start asking questions about Rachel right?"

"Yeah!"

Cy smacked Robin in the forehead. "You dunder head you just made the situation worse. Gala has just been denied and you start worrying about another girl, she's obviously going to be jealous."

"So the answers about her whereabout-'' Robin said, his finger dipping in the pile of tuna something.

"-were never clear from the start" Cy finished for his friend.

Robin frowned. Finally they reached the table and Robin set his tray down careful not to spill his meal. "Gala, did Rachel tell you where she would be?"

The girl looked guiltily up, but shook her head.

Sighing Robin poked his fork into the tuna crap and gave Gala a hard look. "Listen we're freinds, and friends don't lie."

It made her seem more uncomfortable but it didn't make her talk. Finally Robin cut to the chase. "Gala, this is important. Where would Rachel be right now?"

"The gym..." Gala said her voice quiet. "She told me that she was going to go meet a friend there."

"Rachel has more friends than us?" BB asked surprised.

Robin shook his head. "She doesn't. Obviously she was lying."

"About where she would be or who she was with?" Cy asked.

"I think about the friend part." Robin took a glance around and frowned. "Where's kitten?"

A voice came from behind him. "Kitten said that she was bothering you and that she'd take care of everything." It was one of kitten's goons. She slid her hands on his shoulder. "But now that Kitten isn't around to see this why don't you and I get together. I mean thats what I came over here for."

"What?" Robin said his voice obviously surprised that she had been behind him. "What do you mean Kitten's going to take care of everything?"

She grinned. When she smiled it resembled a cat's smile but cat's don't seem evil...most of the time. "Why should you worry?"

"What's kitten going to do?"

"She could be doing lots of things. See before she befriended you she would hang out in the gym during lunch. Kitten quickly realized that and so she would mess with the girl during lunch. The funny thing was Rachel just kept coming. The girls bathroom always had the rest of us in it so she couldn't hide out in there, and there was no other empty room that she could take refuge in so she just kept coming to the gym, and Kitten kept messing with her. One time I joined Kitten, along with like...six other girls and we forced her down on one of the benches. Kitten had brought a lighter to school and burned a bit of the girl's arm. Funny thing was she didn't fight after we got her down, and Kitten found scars on her wrist. So we started the rumor that she was emo, even though they didn't look like they had come from a razor." When no one seemed to be laughing with her the girl shrugged. "What?"

Robin surged upward out of his seat and all eyes followed him out of the room. Cy and BB exchanged glances even Gala seemed quite uncomfortable at the idea of Rachel being hurt. The followed him out all of the tuna grub left behind and Kitten's goon shocked.

He ran through the halls even when he passed like ten teachers who told him to slow down. The gym was on the other side of the campus and he wanted to get there now. His breath came out heavy but he kept running, concentrating on his destination and what he just might find there.

Finally he burst through the gym doors. He glanced around it was empty. Gala, BB, and Cy followed behind they looked around too but found nothing.

Gala spoke suddenly. "Kitten told me once that she would spend most of her lunch in the locker room. The girls locker room."

Robin nodded. "You go in first and if theres anyone in there tell us."

Gala peeked her head through the door and swore she heard crude laughter in the background. "Someones in there, but not changing."

They all nodded and followed her inside the girls locker room. BB glanced around dropping his jaw and giving the room a curious glance. He dropped a fallen towel and rubbed it against his cheek. "A girl used this towel." BB said his voice greatful as if thanking God himself. "I can't believe I'm touching a towel that a girl used."

Cy who was ignoring the moron, listened for the sounds and stood upright when he heard them. "There somewhere down there."

Robin went in the direction that Cy had motioned and the voices grew louder.

"Hold her down! Hold her down!" Came Kitten's voice.

"I'm trying but she's thrashing around too much." Came a voice unfamiliar to him.

Robin surged into the room it was obviously the bathroom, because it had stalls and sinks and soap despensers.

He found Kitten ordering five people around. Rachel was being shoved against the wall. Her head hit the wall with a sickening crack as it hit the tile. "I thought you wouldn't expect me here anymore." She said through clenchd teeth and tried to shove away one of the girls who held on to her arm tightly.

She turned and saw Robin, she stopped moving surprised that he was there, and the girls finally subdued her. Kitten turned and saw Robin as well and order the girl's swiftly to let her go. She gave Robin a dazzling smile as the girls returned to her.

"Hello Robin, we were just talking." Kitten told him

"Yeah right Kitten." Robin said rushing down to Rachel who was now sitting against the wall, trying to get her bearings. "What were you planning on doing?"

Gala entered the room next swiftly followed by Cy and BB who all helped Rachel to stand back up on her own.

Robin growled. "I asked you what you were planning on doing. I know you've been bothering her for a while now during lunch, one of your little friends told me that during lunch. So what were you going to do this time?"

The vile girl was shocked. "She told you! Damn! Listen Robin its not as it seems. I was doing all this for you."

"No you wern't! Robin told her. "I didn't want all this. You were doing it only because you wanted to."

Rachel shook off her friends holds on her and rubbed the bruses that had formed while being shoved against the wall. "I'm fine." She muttered.

He turned to her and sighed. "No your not." Robin said. "You always say you are when you aren't. Sometimes I want to worry over you. So let me this time." When she didn't say anything in response Robin turned back to Kitten and frowned. "You're even dumber than you look!"

He grabbed Rachel's elbo and took her out of the bathrooom.

(Chapter 9 is done. How did you like it? P)