Disclaimer: I own nothing related to the Teen Titans or the DC universe.

Chapter 10

Raven phased into the floor, and Terra turned on her music.

"Honey, are you okay?"

Terra's adopted father stood in the doorway, looking suspicious and even a little protective. No doubt he wondered if there was a boy in the room. (He probably suspected that Dick Grayson kid who had the gall to pay for the doctor's visit.) And, like any good father, he checked the closet for hiding young gentleman callers, under the bed, and, absurdly, out the window, despite her room being on the second floor.

"Whatcha doing, Dad?" Terra asked easily, turning a page in the book that she wasn't actually reading. It was a book Raven brought, and it was one of Raven's favorites, but Terra could read it later if she really wanted.

"I thought I heard voices," her father said, still looking suspiciously around the room. "Anything you want to tell me?"

"Dad, how am I supposed to have anyone over when I'm on the brink of death?" she chuckled, swooning dramatically to prove her point.

He smiled and laughed easily, "There's no harm in making sure. I'm your father; that's my job."

"Thanks for doing your job, Dad," she sighed, her eyes on the book. Raven wasn't sure if that was a good idea, since the book was hard to follow in the middle, but then she remembered that Terra wasn't actually reading, and it was okay. One of these days, Raven would lend the book to Terra so she could actually read it all the way through instead of just using it as an excuse to keep her father at bay.

She envied Terra, and she wasn't afraid to admit it. After all, Terra found herself a family and a real father, someone who inspected her room for boys and cared about her social life and that sort of thing. But Raven quickly squashed those feelings, since it wasn't fair to Terra. After all, could she help the amnesia? Could she help that they stuck her in an orphanage?

"How come you're not asleep?" her father asked.

"Because I can't breathe," Terra shrugged. "I took some medicine earlier and I'm waiting for it to kick in."

"Oh," her father nodded. "Well, if you need anything, don't hesitate to let me know."

"Yes, sir," Terra nodded.

"Love you."

"Love you too, Dad."

"Good night."

"You can come out now," Terra whispered after the door closed behind her father.

Raven phased back out of the floor, letting her soul self collapse in around her slowly to give the full effect of the magic. After all, Terra couldn't remember everything, and it was always a good idea to give her a little show of power to remind her of her place.

"Sorry about my dad," Terra whispered, so quietly that even the soft music nearly drowned her out. "He's convinced that I'm secretly dating Dick Grayson just because he paid the hospital bill."

"Yeah, I figured that one out for myself, thanks," Raven smirked, then sat down on the bed next to Terra, leaning her head up against the wall. "It's too early for healthy people to go to sleep. Want something to pass the time?"

Terra tilted her head at an angle that made all her hair fall across her face except for the few strands she kept tucked behind her ears, "Where did that come from?"

Raven raised one eyebrow, "Where did what come from?"

"Beast Boy said--"

Raven held up a hand to stop whatever Terra was going to say, smiling. "Beast Boy," she said, slowly and carefully, "hasn't quite wrapped his head around the idea that I can be nice."

"He said you weren't a good listener."

"And did you spill your guts to him after he said that?"

Terra blushed, looking at the floor, "A little bit."

"That was his plan. He doesn't let on, but he's a tricky little manipulator. What did you say?"

The floor must have been really interesting. "I told him about Slade. About how he hurt me."

Raven waited patiently for Terra to continue, knowing there was more to that story. Gently, in a completely not-prying voice, she pressed, "And?"

Terra shook her head, still entranced by the floor. "I just . . . I only remember bits and pieces. I don't want to remember, because every time I do . . . And all I can think about is a jagged rock pointed at Beast Boy and . . . ."

Raven waited for her to pick back up, but she never did. But she could sense that Terra was ashamed of the memory, so she did the only thing she could think of: she put a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Look, Terra, remembering isn't the hardest part, you know."

"It's not?"

"The hardest part is learning to live with the things you remember," Raven nodded.

"How can you know that?" Terra asked, wringing her hands. "I mean, how can you know everything will be okay? It's not like you watched him die and thought you were responsible and--"

"Him?" Raven repeated, and then she understood. She turned Terra to face her, staring directly into her eyes, "Every time I see you, I see glimpses of something round on a metal table. What is it?" Raven knew that it was related to Terra's shame, and she thought she knew the answer, but she had to be absolutely sure.

"It has an 'R' on it," Terra said miserably. "And I know you told me not to pine, and I know I'm a horrible person and I'm breaking Beast Boy's heart and I'm sure if I could remember everything, things would be different, because apparently I asked Beast Boy on a date and everything, so there must have been something there, but all I can do is pine when you told me not to and think about the memory that I don't ever want to finish and I can't get out of my head --"

Raven held out her hand to stop the run-on. When she looked closer at Terra, she could see tears in her eyes, tears that were just waiting to fall but were afraid to because she wasn't with Beast Boy. And, even though it really, really wasn't Raven's style to do this kind of thing, she knew it was probably the right thing to do and Starfire wasn't here to do it. So, she pulled Terra in close for a hug and tried not to think about how wet her cloak would feel when she put the hood back on.

"How do you know?" Terra managed to choke out after she'd finished the worst of her cry. She kept sniffling and dabbing at her eyes every once in a while, her eyes puffy and red, but it looked like, just maybe, she might be okay for now.

"How do I know what?" Raven asked patiently. It was just like the Terra she remembered to ask vague questions like that, without referring to anything Raven could really latch on to. It was easier to talk to Robin, because he was direct and said exactly what he wanted from a conversation. But Terra wasn't Robin, and hadn't she just been giving advice not to pine? She really didn't want to be a hypocrite.

"How do you know what the hardest part is? How can you possibly know how I feel?"

Because she went through the same thing, because she had to have Robin tell her about her old life and remind her of her powers, because she had amnesia and thought she lost her powers, too. But Terra couldn't know these things, not so soon, maybe not for years. Raven hadn't even told her friends until it was absolutely necessary, and besides, Terra really didn't need to know in the first place. Her problems with Trigon were personal, and Terra wasn't technically a Titan anymore. It was need-to-know information. So, Raven went the easy way out. "Terra," she said with a rare smile, "I'm an empath. I know how everyone feels."

"Right, I forgot," Terra mumbled, staring at the floor. "I'm not so good with the details."

"You used to be," Raven smiled, trying to figure out how to steer Terra away from the conversation and away from anything that might lead to talk of Trigon. "When we first met you, we didn't even have to introduce ourselves. You knew all of our names, some of the villains we defeated, and that kind of thing."

"I guess I'm not the same person I was back then," Terra shrugged.

"No, you're not," Raven said bluntly, which surprised Terra, obviously. "You're more concerned with how other people feel than how you feel, and that's something the Terra I knew was never good at."

"I'm not sure whether that's a compliment or an insult."

"Split the difference and consider it both."

"That doesn't make me feel better at all; you know that?"

Raven just smirked, "But that's not why you're no good at details. You're not remembering things that are connected to Slade because those memories are too painful. And one of the worst memories, I think, is when you sent him information about us -- our strengths, our weaknesses." The shock of remorse running through Terra's body confirmed Raven's suspicions.

"I wish I could just remember everything at once and be done for it," Terra sighed, frustrated. "I don't like that my head is blocking out the good stuff with the bad stuff. Why is it doing that?"

"Because every time you had fun with us, you were also analyzing us, which was a bad thing. Every time you hung out with Beast Boy, you were afraid to lose him. It's simple, Terra. When you were working for Slade, nothing was truly fun anymore. Everything had a darker twist to it."

Terra cocked her head at that funny angle again, then muttered, "You know something, Raven?"

"What?"

"Beast Boy was wrong."

Raven just chuckled dryly, "He's wrong about a lot of things. Which thing is he wrong about this time?"

"You can be a good listener if you really want to," Terra said simply.

Raven smiled.

TTTTTTTTT

The security perimeter around the Tower was a challenge, to be sure, and he always relished the thought of a fresh challenge, but some of the enjoyment drained out of it when he knew he wasn't the only cause. (He reminded himself, of course, that he had still been getting used to his new body and recovering from his encounter with Trigon -- finding a new lair, rebuilding half of his robots, that sort of thing -- while the Titans took on the Brotherhood of Evil. He'd left them alone for too long, so he couldn't expect them to only fear him. Soon, though, he would scramble back to his top spot on their list of most hated villains -- he rather enjoyed that honor.)

It was a problem, because he couldn't quite tap into the communications. It had been relatively easy before -- a simple adjustment of the communicator he still had from Robin's time as his apprentice. He hadn't been able to hear much, just bits and pieces, but he could pinpoint locations, draw them out. But with their problems with the Brotherhood of Evil, they had learned to keep better care of such easily tracked devices.

He was honestly quite surprised at their general lack of care with such things; Robin had been trained by Batman, hadn't he? How could he let the Brotherhood of Evil tap into their communications? Hadn't the Dark Knight taught him the uncompromising importance of security? And besides, didn't Robin know that any good military mind -- General Immortus included -- tampered with communications before any strike? It was a general rule, one strictly adhered to. Robin was going soft, and Slade was surprised to find himself disappointed by that fact.

He sat before the viewer screens, watching the silent Tower. It was just after dinnertime for them -- although, he was sure, they weren't done eating yet. There was usually ice cream or some form of chocolate involved after the actual meal. But he didn't expect to see anything there, not unless there was a robbery in progress -- which there was about to be. He was watching Terra's house, too, where the Titans were taking turns watching over her.

He hadn't been able to take the chance of placing any cameras in the actual area, since he knew they would make a clean sweep to make sure he didn't do just that. (Robin, especially, would be able to find them, and then what good would have come of all the money he invested in those cameras?)

Not that the alternative to cameras was any better. Sending his robots out to do spy work wasn't necessarily smart, but he couldn't do it himself and coordinate everything behind the scenes at the same time. The problem was: the robots didn't have any imagination, and they weren't exactly experts at being stealthy. As a matter of fact, they just weren't stealthy at all. It was the advantage of an apprentice -- he could send them out to do it and count on them to actually hide.

Of course, Terra hadn't been incredibly sneaky, either. Robin was definitely better at stealth, while Terra was just good for destroying things and bringing a city to its knees -- a good asset to have, but horrible in a jam with her skills limited like that.

The final screen showed a nice little mine shaft, something relatively easy to hit yet vital to the city. He'd sent out a good hundred robots -- another disadvantage of the nonhuman minions was that they couldn't think of their feet, and as a result, even if only one or two of them returned, the mission was a success so long as the job got done. This way, he'd draw the Titans out, make them show their faces. After they discovered his listening device, he was interested to see how Robin would react, but they hadn't come out of hiding yet, besides the regular changing of the guard at Terra's palce.

Slade was surprised that Robin hadn't taken the first watch -- but then again, the boy might know what Slade, through his listening device had already realized: that Terra harbored a secret crush for him. And with this latest development -- this relationship with that alien girl -- he wanted to avoid any awkward situations. After all, the boy hardly knew what to do with a good emotion when it came his way; what was he going to do about two sources of extreme emotion?

In fact, he noted, Robin and his girlfriend were the only ones who hadn't actually taken their turn watching the house. If he didn't know better, he would say the two of them were probably finding some private time to themselves. But he knew better, knew that Robin wouldn't be relaxing any time soon, not until he found out what he, Slade, would do with the information he now had at his command, information that could absolutely ruin everything he'd worked so hard to build up.

No, Robin wasn't relaxing. The question was: what was he doing, then?

Well, Slade was going to find out for himself. He commanded the robots to begin their attack, then sat back and waited, smirking behind the metallic mask.

After a few minutes -- the time it took for the alarms to go off and for the police computers to process those alarms and what they meant, then send that information to the Titans -- the alarm in the Tower went off. (He could tell because of the red lights flashing in the reflection of the windows.) He smiled to himself, leaning forward, his hands folded patiently.

He watched Beast Boy and a dark shape that had to be Raven leave the Tower, and he watched Cyborg leave his place outside Terra's house moments later. He waited, watching the Tower, but no Robin or Starfire. Of course, that only proved that they were't at the Tower or at the house. Where were they?

He didn't like this. They shouldn't have been able to sneak away. He'd been watching the Tower from every angle, and he'd even once been underneath it -- there were no underground tunnels. There were no passages out of that Tower that he couldn't see the exits to. They should have been in the Tower. And, if they somehow managed to slip past his cameras around the Tower, they surely couldn't have gone very far -- he had surveillance everywhere, and surely something would catch them.

He looked at the screen on the left and saw the three other Titans arrive to fight his robots, destroying several upon their arrival. (This didn't concern him, as he hadn't put much work into these particular models; he only needed them to draw the Titans out -- there was no need for any of them to return in one piece.) But still, he did not see Robin or Starfire.

They couldn't have left the city, could they? From what he knew of Dick's relationship with Bruce Wayen -- who, Slade knew, was most likely Batman, considering Dick's identity -- it wasn't likely that Robin would return to Gotham. At least, it wasn't likely that he would come back with Starfire. She wasn't exactly the easiest person to explain away, and he was already having problems with his identity. An alien girl would only bring more questions.

Besides, they couldn't have made it all the way to Gotham without him seeing them, could they?

A gloved fist pounded on the edge of his chair, and he gritted his teeth in frustration. He was going to have to go all the way to Gotham, wasn't he?

TTTTTT

"And how, exactly, are you going to explain her to the press?"

"I'm sure Babs could do something with her."

"She can't even speak English, Robin!"

"Shut up, Bruce. We're working on it."

"Excuse me. Shut up? You invite yourself over and then start ordering me around?"

Robin's eyes narrowed, "She's right here, Bruce! You can't just sit here and insult her!"

Starfire sighed, her legs tucked up underneath her chin as she sat in the corner and watched the exchange sadly. They'd been bickering like this ever since they first arrived at the Batcave (until that point, Robin had been determined to observe radio silence, since he didn't want to talk to his father foster about the situation yet.)

They hadn't even gotten around to addressing the real problem yet. Bruce still didn't know about Slade and the bug they found in Terra's camera. He only knew that Starfire knew about the identity that was secret, and he wasn't pleased about it.

Really, they'd just been arguing about her for the past half hour, and when she tried to break in and say that she didn't want to be the cause of so much contention, they both shrugged her off. They were so alike, really; maybe that explained why they didn't get along.

"And the eyebrows? The skin?"

"Hey, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure you can fix that with makeup."

"And you're just expecting me to go along with it?"

Robin smirked, "No, that's the beauty of it, Bruce. You can look as upset as you please. It'll make the press even more interested if it looks like you don't approve, because that would explain why I haven't talked to you. But the press'll believe anything if there's a girl involved."

She sighed again, staring intently at the ground. She didn't want Robin to be unhappy, didn't know that Bruce Wayne did not want him to get emotionally involved with anyone. She thought that, by coming here, they were helping to keep the secret that was so important and that Bruce would help them to find some way out of Slade's grasp.

An older man who looked quite distinguished for his age -- he must have been the one Robin called "Alfred" -- cleared his throat and knelt down beside her, offering her a plate of cookies that smelled absolutely delicious. "Thank you," she said as she took one, delighted to find that they were still warm and gooey -- fresh out of the oven. "Tell me, do they always fight like this?"

"Only recently, Miss Starfire" Alfred sighed, smiling warmly at her.

"Then, they used to be friends?"

"Once upon a time," he nodded. "They used to be very close."

"What happened?"

"I'm not really sure," Alfred admitted. "I suppose the tension slowly built up between them until, one day, they exploded at each other."

"But what caused that tension?" she asked, reaching for another cookie. Robin was right; Alfred really did make the best cookies in the world.

"I suppose it was a number of things, but I believe they were simply too alike."

"Too alike?" she repeated after she swallowed a bite of cookie.

Alfred nodded, "Neither will admit it, but everyone else could see it. They practically become father and son, and Master Dick wanted, like any other young man, to be treated as an adult."

"Was he not?"

"Master Bruce believed he was doing the best he could, but he could not stop thinking of Master Dick as the little boy in the circus tent," Alfred smiled softly. "Master Dick left because he wanted to be like his father -- like Master Bruce. He wanted to make a name for himself, and he couldn't do that if he was still considered a child."

"Yes, Robin would not care to be treated as such," she nodded, thinking of Slade and how he talked down to Robin, which made him that much angrier.

"You're barking up the wrong tree!" Robin shouted at Bruce Wayne, bringing her attention back to their argument. Had she been comofortable being part of the conversation, she would have asked why on earth Mr. Wayne would bark or climb a tree, but she let them continue, afraid of what they might do to her.

"What are you talking about?"

"Look, Bruce, I didn't come here just because of some stupid magazine article."

"No, you came here to force your girlfriend in my face!"

"Not everything is about you, Bruce!" Robin shouted, much louder than before.

They stared at each other in silence for a moment, each fuming at the other. Had they been Tamaranean, their eyes would have been glowing with anger.

"Perhaps you should step in," Alfred murmured.

"They will be angry at me again."

"Try again," he said. "Explain to Master Bruce why you are actually here. I don't believe Master Dick will be able to stop arguing long enough to explain himself."

"You may be right," she nodded, then stood up slowly. "I thank you for your insight." She took a deep breath, then said, with as much strength as she could muster, "Perhaps I can explain our plight, Robin."