Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans
Like I promised, it gets better this chapter. No more scary stuff.
Grey clouds spread over windswept skies. Snow drifted down in white streams over barren earth. In the lonely frost of morning, the forested roads were bereft of motion save for the floating petals of icy, alabaster flowers floating through the air. Time passed and the sun rose into the sky, then dipped as Apollo's chariot rode its course across the heavens. It hovered midway over the horizon, suspended and half obscured behind wintry clouds, glowing with ethereal light through the veil of constant, slow snowfall.
She meandered through the grey plane of earth, dreary eyes set on divergent paths through ancient forests. Through deep shadow and radiant light, the dark figure passed like the image of a raven fluttering across cypresses and pines, bare evergreens amidst snowy winter. She stopped there, breathlessly gazing toward the clouded heavens. Beneath the cover of her hood and the curtain of her black hair, violet eyes shimmered with the reflection of the masked sun.
Quiet footsteps marked her path forward once. Flowing wings of wind carried her through the depths of the snowy vale, marred only by the faintest speckle of ash amidst the pristine glow of winter. There was a soft breath, floating through the air in a muted cloud, then silent cold immediately following. Her steps continued.
Amidst deep shadow, luminous sunlight broke the patterned fringe of cedars and firs. Out in the open, violet eyes graced the sky through ceaseless snowfall. Grey skies wept frozen tears in pale cascades onto breathless earth. Light and dark danced together at the boundary of cinereal earth and stern cypresses. She stepped forward and stopped. Sunlight broke the endless darkness halfway across her body, cleaving her flesh in two. Her breaths came swifter, held in frigid wind as white puffs before her eyes. Her brain urged her to move, but her heart refused.
She dared not look back. Behind, the labyrinthian darkness loomed over her body, silently threatening, quietly waiting. Her heart said yes. Her brain refused.
The light beckoned. She took a step forward. The breaths came faster. Incandescent illumination carved searing pain into her flesh. She stepped forward anyway. As if tearing herself from the darkness, she emerged from the trees in a cloak of pitch black, willing herself to move forward. Radiant sunlight greeter her for a moment, before turning to grey once more.
Darkness and light mixed in monochrome chaos, like ash raining from the heavens. Violet eyes bore two points of color amidst pallid light.
Grey stones grew from glacial earth. The snow slowed nearly to a halt, suspended in ivory oblivion among the shrines for the dead. Past the fringe of the trees near the center, through the jaded sunlight, and into barest shadow once more, she wandered through the headstones, eyes cast in glassy stupor. At last, she stopped at the far side, under the leafless branches of a cherry blossom.
Bells tolled in the distance. Effulgent ringing held time still in a surge of undying harmony through the deepening winter. They came to life, a chorus of metallic voices singing in brilliant tones, drawing breath in the still, still air.
Violet eyes closed. She hung her head, waiting and listening. A pair of flowers slipped out from her hand and rested at the foot of the gravestone.
Time passed.
Dimly, awareness returned and she slowly realized that there was someone standing next to her. He stood a reasonable distance away, close enough to reach out and touch, but not close enough to be intrusive.
...
Rachel chewed on her lip and clenched her hands into fists. Her eyes rose. The deep color of her irises brightened from nearly pitch black to a deep mauve.
"Hey, Rae."
She opened her mouth perfunctorily, but no sound came out. Something about her expression must've been different because Garfield held his hands out in a placating gesture.
"You don't have to talk if you don't want to. And if you want me to stop, just stop me. Alright?"
Her silence was imperturbable, but the inflection in her eyes and lips told him to continue.
"I thought about it a bit, and I guess it's kinda obvious now, but somehow I didn't realize it before. This is your mom's grave, right? Same last name as you. Roth. And you were growing that flower for her."
She didn't meet his stare, but beneath her lashes, the color of her eyes darkened back to almost black. Her posture was different from normal. Crimson bled through her violet aura.
"Hey." Garfield fought the urge to move closer, wanting to avoid scaring her off. "I know something bad happened. I know it must've sucked, but c'mon Rae, you don't need to suffer like this for it. Nobody wants to see you in pain like this. 'specially your mom."
Her lips trembled.
The blonde boy sighed. Words weren't getting through to her, but then again, they had never been his strong point. Frustration welled up. He had to be able to help her, somehow. There had to be something he could do, but clearly he wasn't approaching it the right way.
"Rae?"
She stood there, the pale contour of her face a mask barely restraining deep undercurrents of sensation threaded through her body, long buried beneath the icy barriers of her psyche, but withheld no more.
The expression on his face was all sympathy. Whatever had happened, nobody should have had to endure what she had gone through. That much seemed clear.
It became a physical effort. She was trembling with the effort of keeping it in, and for the first time, Garfield caught sight of the stress lines around her eyes and lips, pale skin marred by deep shadow and the hint of crimson color in her eyes.
It was too much. He couldn't just simply stand by and watch her suffer like that by herself.
A swift step bridged the gap between them. She didn't protest, but didn't look at him either. He reached out, but decided that touching her would be a little awkward, given her usual reaction to that. With only that little distance separating them, the tension in her body was clear. Garfield stood back again. He looked at the name on the grave.
Arella Roth.
The flowers at the foot of the headstone were a little small and wilted. It must've been all she could manage to bring without clipping her carnation - not that that would have been appropriate anyway. It was only two, tiny flowers, faded hearts cast down alone at amidst the pallor of dead earth. It didn't seem right.
Garfield reached into his jacket. In the grey light of jaded skies, white petals emerged, a little crumpled, but otherwise blooming brightly in the drab air.
"Hey. Rae, you should be the one to put this there."
She finally looked up. Her face was a mask of confusion.
"Gar- field?"
"Ah. Sorry, there was only one left. It's all I could get ya. They don't grow well for some reason, like you saw. Here."
He placed the white rose into her hand. Violet eyes ran over it as she touched her fingers to the petals. They were soft and pliable, still fresh - this wasn't just one of the left over flowers he had, but was something he had clipped specifically for her.
Rachel knelt and placed the flower by the two violet ones, then stood again. Her face disappeared under the shadowy curtain of her hair. Garfield stood as well, studying her curiously.
Drip. Drip.
"It's raining."
He looked at her quizzically. "Isn't it snowing?"
"It's raining," she insisted stubbornly.
...
At that moment, he realized that those were tears streaming down her face. She tried and tried, but simply could not hold it back any longer. She squeezed her eyes shut, crystal liquid trailing down her cheeks and dripping from her chin.
Garfield held his arms out.
Rachel rushed forward and threw her arms around him in a fierce hug. The blonde boy put an arm on her head and held her against him. She was quiet and still in the embrace, but the wet spot on his shirt grew steadily as the minutes passed through frozen tears raining from the sky. Silence held quiet vigil, where the white petals of icy flowers rained like floating crystals. Moments passed by, seconds falling into eternity amidst the cascading snow.
...
The strength left her body rapidly. Rachel slumped to the ground and Garfield followed, waiting patiently as she wiped her eyes. Half hidden beneath the plane of her hands, the trembling curves of her lips and brows told him just how hard she was still trying to fight it.
It was like everything else, really. She tried and tried, but always failed. Failure spilled from her eyes ceaselessly, shamefully... but uncontrollably.
...
Time passed on flowing wings of wind. Through dreary light, each second passed as a floating flake of crystalline ice. She bent her head down, dark hair masking her face in shadowed darkness. Agonized silence radiated from her. It was almost terrifying, watching her struggle like that. What kind of willpower must she have had to keep it to herself and still hold it in, even in a situation like this?
It couldn't have been good for her, could it?
Still, when she looked up, her face was smooth again. Memory faded back to confines of her mind.
"I'm sorry."
Now, more than ever, her voice was a quiet lull that was not exactly a monotone, but a slightly ragged mask of restraint. The barriers were back; they threatened to break free again, but she held them down with as much strength as she could muster. The strained lines on her face deepened. There was so much pain in her eyes. Even if he tried to let her have her space... enough was enough.
"You can't do this to yourself." Garfield blurted out.
"Gar..."
"You need help. Professional help. Like, I think the university has-"
Red rimmed eyes looked up, exasperated. "Gar, I've tried that before. It's not the same thing as having friends of people your same age."
"You can't keep holding it in."
Rachel sat quietly, rubbing her eyes gently. She pressed her legs into a more comfortable position, then looked up again, a little calmer than before.
"I'm not."
"You have to talk. Please. I don't wanna see you go crazy."
Pale lips pursed into a downward curve.
"You can trust me."
The dark haired girl nodded. "I think I can trust you."
"I can keep a secret. You know I wouldn't-"
"I know. I know, Gar. Just... just give me a moment."
Rachel swept her hair out of her face. Her eyes were back to their usual color, if a little duskier and shadowed by exhaustion. Deep within, vermilion color marred the veiled amethyst, but it was only fleeting, gone by the time she was done rubbing away the tear tracks on her cheeks.
"I don't know." She shook her head. "How do I put this? Maybe... I think you probably know about me already."
"Of course I know you."
"No, not that. I mean you know about me. What happened to me, maybe even why I turned out like this."
"I do?"
"Probably. I think you would know. My father was the head of a big pharmaceutical company. And a drug lord. Ring a bell?"
"Hmmm..."
"I may have also changed my surname. Roth is my mother's maiden name, but I was born under the name Skaath."
Green eyes widened. Of course he knew about that. Trigon Skaath's arrest had been one of the most publicized events a couple years ago, not because he was the boss of a large corporation, but because he had been documented as one of the worst child abusers ever to live in Jump City, and possibly even in the whole country. The evidence, of course, was publicly available, but honestly had been too sick for him to want to read it before. Somehow, it was a travesty that that man had not gotten the death sentence, but then again, for the years of torture he had put her through, death would have been too lenient a punishment.
"Gar? Gar, you don't need to pity me. Don't cry."
Was that true? He reached up and found that, indeed, his eyes were wet. "I... didn't know," he croaked out.
"I didn't mean for you to. You couldn't have known."
"I'm so sorry."
"Don't be. It wasn't your fault."
"It wasn't, but just thinking about what happened to you, I don't... I can't help it."
Green eyes fixated on her pale, slim form. Here was a girl who had lived for ten years in living hell. She was a person who had truly had her nightmares come to life, whose terrors of the night were reality, who was completely and utterly alone in her struggle to stay alive, let alone sane. It almost sounded fake the first time he had heard about it; it was a story that was too extreme to be true, something so twisted and horrible that it had to have been a work of fiction. Who could have endured something like that? Who could have had the strength to survive through that and continue on without any support at all?
Yet, there she was, right in front of him. No. She had been there all this time, and he simply hadn't known. He hadn't bothered to figure it out.
"I'm so sorry."
Instinctively, she knew he was referring to something else. To think that even after all that, she still had such a degree of empathy...
"I didn't want you to find out," she murmured. "You weren't supposed to know. It's not your fault."
"Still. I should have tried."
"I would have just been rude to you. I'm sorry. I'm such a terrible-"
"Don't say that," Garfield snapped. "You're not. I understand where you're coming from. I know what it's like to be secretive. I know why. Okay? So please, don't feel like you did anything wrong. It's them. Trigon, and whoever that masked man was. They did it. It's not your fault."
"It's my fault for being an ass to you."
"You're not," Garfield insisted. "Nobody could go through that and just forget about it. Honestly, I'm still a bit shocked that you were strong enough to deal with it for such a long time all by yourself. And I'm... really sorry that you had to do it alone, too. I'm so sorry, Rachel. I'm so, so sorry..."
His voice began to crack at the end.
"Don't be." Rachel was shaking. "It's in the past. I... Please don't pity me. Please stop."
The facade of calm she had put up began to corrode again. She blinked rapidly, trying very hard to hold it back. The desperate look she gave him told him one thing. I want to forget about everything that happened.
He totally wasn't helping her do that.
"Sorry," Garfield took a deep breath and willed himself to stop. "Sorry."
What could he say? If she didn't want to talk about it... but she had to. Clearly, she couldn't handle holding it in forever, but maybe this wasn't the time, nor the place. Maybe it would be right to be patient a bit longer. After all, what good was dwelling on the past if it only made her miserable?
"Hey. Uhm, it's kind of cold, and I think you've been out here for a while. Hours maybe? You don't need to answer that. Anyway, you could probably use something hot to drink and some food, so why don't we head back to my place and-"
"Where all your friends are?"
"Right, privacy. Then you won't mind if I come to your place and stay with you for a bit? Rae?"
She wasn't going to tell him to leave her alone again, right? There was absolutely no way he could do that again.
Rachel looked down. "Please."
Warm steam clouded her reflection in the mirror as she stepped out of the shower. Rachel dried her hair quickly, dressed briefly in a set of silken pajamas, then shuffled over to her bedroom. The scent of lavender tea greeted her with refreshing fragrance. She refused everything but a bit of jam and toast, opting to sit in a pile of blankets as Garfield stood by her bed.
"You can sit by me."
"I'm a little dirty though."
"You showered before you came out to see me. Your hair was wet."
Leave it to Rachel to be observant like that. He sat by her and waited as she finished her food. She set the plate down on her nightstand, then turned toward him, chewing on her lip.
"What is it? You can tell me-"
"No. I would... if you do not mind..."
"I don't."
The dark haired girl closed her eyes and turned her back to him. "Forgive my immodesty, but I would like to show you. Is that okay?"
"If you're comfortable doing it, it's fine with me."
She wordlessly slipped her top off. Pale skin emerged as she covered her front with a blanket. From a distance, her skin was smooth and flawless, glowing with the luster of gleaming ivory, but as he drew closer, the numerous scars covering her back became apparent. Most of them were small, blending in easily with the tone of her skin, but then again, that would explain why it was very easy for her to hide them... and it would explain why Trigon hadn't been caught earlier as well. Even if he had known it was coming, there was still something deeply unsettling seeing the remnants of her memories carved into her body.
"May I touch?"
"Well..."
"It's fine. Don't feel pressured. I was just asking."
"No." Rachel took a deep breath. "If I can't trust you, then who else will I be able to?"
Garfield looked down. There was a burn mark on her lower back; he touched it carefully with his finger, running lightly over some of her other scars as well. As he looked up, something didn't seem right, and he parted her hair a bit. A sharp intake of breath warned him to be careful.
On the back of her head, there was a spot where the bones weren't aligned properly, as if someone had hit her with something hard, but hadn't bothered to set the bones back in place when they were healing. Come to think of it, that was probably what had happened.
The blonde boy clenched his hands into fists, shaking with anger. He closed his eyes and pounded a fist into the bed.
"I'm gonna pay that monster a visit."
"And what good will come of that?"
"I'll give him firsthand experience in what it's like to get beaten to a pulp-"
"You'd just be thrown in jail for doing that."
"Believe me, even if he's got rights, the police wouldn't give a crap if trash like that-"
"Garfield. That's not right and you know it."
"He deserves it."
"He might..." she sighed. "But that won't help anything. I would rather you not. The past is the past. He's gone. Both mentally and physically."
He's gone. Both of them.
"I can't just sit here and do nothing."
"You haven't done nothing. Garfield, helping others isn't about getting revenge for them. It's about helping them."
"I..."
"There's no point," she repeated. "If anything, it would be my fight, not yours. But please, I don't want to dig up anything like that ever again. I feel... it would be better to just let it be. Okay?"
"If that's really what you want..."
Garfield clenched his hands several times, working out the simmering rage. Wasn't she right? It was her life, and that man was her father. If she didn't want to deal with it ever again, then maybe it wasn't his place to force it. Maybe... maybe, for once, it would have been right to listen to her because it really was about helping Rachel, and not about satisfying his own sense of justice.
"I can respect your wishes."
She turned toward him. He averted his gaze. She raised an eyebrow quizzically.
"Something wrong?"
"No, uh, well, you weren't wearing a shirt, so..."
"I am now." Rachel put a finger to her lips. "That's... sweet of you."
"What is?"
"Both things. You caring enough to listen to me. And respecting my privacy."
"I know what it's like to be in your situation. Hell, I don't really - I think you had it way worse - but I mean c'mon... I'm not heartless. I, I just don't know, Rae. I can't believe you had to go through that. It makes me so sad for you. And angry." His hands curled into fists again. "You have no idea how bad I wanna go mess that guy up right now. But, if you really want me to just let it be... I think I can do it too. I respect you, you know. This is for you. So I'm going to respect what you asked of me."
Cold fingers touched his cheek. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you?"
Green eyes lifted, surprised. "How so?"
"When we first met, I wouldn't have picked you out for being the way you are. I thought you were just like everyone else. Like... the people who make friends easily and know how to live a good life, but run away at the first sign of trouble. I didn't think you could understand anything about me."
"You're not trouble."
"I am to most people. We both know that I am very difficult to deal with."
"It's worth it."
Her lips curved up. "Thank you. Truthfully... I made a quick judgement about you before, and even when you started proving me wrong, I didn't want to let you get close."
"It's not your fault. I get why you'd be afraid. Yeah, I know. Me trying to understand people is kinda surprising, but just by lookin' at me, you wouldn't know what I've been through. Same for you."
"It's not just that," Rachel murmured. "For example, many guys your age wouldn't have passed up the chance to ogle a girl, but you looked away almost immediately. Granted, I'm not particularly good to look at, but-"
"You're plenty attractive."
"We don't need to warp the truth here." The dark haired girl pursed her lips.
"I mean it. You know, the other day- actually..."
"Actually what?"
"This isn't the right time. We can talk about it later."
Violet eyes fixated on a spot below his face, somewhere along his chest. "You're talking about that, aren't you? You like me, don't you? That's why you're saying all these things."
"No! I mean-"
"... I see."
"Rachel." He touched her shoulders gently. The words came out with a bit of effort, but they came out nonetheless. "What I'm trying to say is, yes, I like you, but we're good friends, right? It'd be weird to not like your friends. And I really, really want to try to help you. So I'm going to do everything in my power, if it's going to make you feel better. That's what close friends do. And that's what we are."
She looked up. Her eyes pierced into him. She knew that he wasn't being totally truthful, and there was no way he could hide it.
"Alright, fine. I'll be real with you. I think... how do I put this? Uh, you know I've dated a lot of people, but none of my relationships have lasted very long. It's not like I hated them or anything, but they just lacked something. For me, just a pretty face and being nice isn't good enough. I want someone who can understand me, and someone who I can hopefully understand too. But not everyone has the same experiences as me, you know. Being abused, having nobody care about you, being alone..."
Rachel tilted her head.
"I'm not very good at explaining these things. What I'm trying to say is, I think we clicked in a way that I never had happen to me before. Sure, we had some rocky moments, but getting close to someone means knowing how to work past them, right? And that's never happened before. That's why... you know."
"I see."
"But I don't want to force it on you either. Like, what's the difference between being good friends and being a couple, anyway? Minus, well, you know, the physical aspects- but I don't really want that from you," he blurted out.
"... right."
"Agh! What I mean is, knowing what happened to you, I don't-"
"I understood your intention. You don't want me to feel pressured. So there would not be much of a difference between being friends and being together."
"Yeah."
Rachel tilted her head back. "Even so, I don't know about this. We have known each other for a while, and I do believe that you are the first person besides my mother whom I could trust. No. I think you are the first person who I can trust on this level. Even so..."
Her eyes turned back toward him. Garfield seemed... slightly disappointed? Of course he would be. He had given her so much of his time - his life - and she met him with was apathy? And come to think of it, they had clicked pretty well, so why? Rachel sighed. As always, she was the problem. Every single time.
Her feelings must have showed in her expression because he tilted her chin back up. "Hey. Don't feel bad."
"I'm sorry," she began wiping her eyes again. "I can never seem to give anyone what they want."
"Rae. It's fine. I don't even want anything from you. Wait, no. I want you to be happy. Just worry about yourself for once, okay? This isn't about what I want."
"It still matters."
"It doesn't."
"You've taken so much time from your life to help me, and I can't repay you-"
"Rae. It. Doesn't. Matter. I did it because I wanted to, not because I expected anything in return. So relax, and stop worrying about it. Okay? We're friends. It doesn't have to go any further if you don't want it to."
"But you want to try-"
"Honestly, I don't know what I want. All I know is, I care about you, and whether that's as a friend or something else, it doesn't make that much of a difference."
She was silent. He let her be for a while, but it was painful to watch her just sit there and tremble, trying to hold all of her thoughts back.
"Rachel. Please tell me you're okay."
The dark haired girl looked down at her hands. "I'm fine. I have been fine."
"You haven't."
"No, what I mean is..." she took a sharp breath. "I feel better now. For real. I'm just... not used to it. It's not every day you find someone who cares so much."
"Oh I can't help it. You should know that by now."
"I do. That's precisely the reason we're friends, you know. I... I like that about you," she blushed faintly. "That's why you're a surprising person to me. Because you constantly find a way to defy my expectations."
"That's what I'm good at," Garfield chuckled softly.
"Believe me when I say I feel better. Please don't think your efforts have gone to waste or anything. I really appreciate everything. I just... have a hard time showing it."
"No, I get it. I was the same way before. It doesn't just all come out at once. These things take time. I'll be patient with you if that's what you need."
Rachel offered him a brief, tired smile, then sat back. She closed her eyes briefly and slumped. The shadowed lines on her face were back, but this time, her expression was no longer agonized repression, merely that of sheer exhaustion. He couldn't blame her, really. It must have been a long few days for her.
Whereas the darkness of the night had once been perturbed with twisted memory and wretched sensation, this twilight was peaceful. Tranquility set in like the cover of warm blankets over the lull of quiescent sleep. Rachel relaxed. The dark bags under her eyes were still there, but finally - finally - the shadows covering her face were gone. For once, she looked like the heavy burden weighing on her shoulders had been lifted, where sleep came not in wicked nightmare, but instead in peaceful repose.
The dark haired girl struggled to open her eyes again, not wanting to just fall asleep on him, but he shushed her quickly.
"You should sleep. You need it."
Not surprisingly, she didn't protest. Darkness drew deep shadow through her room, lit only by the faint glow of violet light from her bedside lamp. He watched her breathing slow for several minutes, until the thick night faded into the grey limbo of sleep and dreams.
Not wanting to disturb her, Garfield got up slowly and moved to leave. At the last moment, however, a hand reached out and caught his wrist. Her breathy, sleepy voice greeted his ears.
"Stay?"
...
"Of course."
A/N: So, I was planning to get this out earlier, but then I started doing other things (playing games, writing music, etc.) and it got delayed. Whoops.
One more after this.