Things were looking bad. John had been accused of being a traitor and aiding an enemy of the state, a nuclear warhead had been stolen and was now being held for ransom by a international arms dealer, and in the best interest of the country John was about to be tortured by the very men who trained him in the first place in order to find out where the nuke was before midnight.

It had been all but too much for Sarah, she had grown up with John and he had been like an older brother to her. He had shown her right from wrong, comforted her when she needed to be, and protected her when the other kids in the project had tried to pick on her. So she sat in a dark hallway in Titan's Tower, and all alone with no one but her memories to keep her company. She remembered when they first met…

She was twelve when she was enrolled in PROJECT: GHOST, the fifty other children had all been corralled into a single underground compound that the people who worked there kept referring to as a 'Blacksite'. She felt lost among the sea of other children and young adults and was completely alone, a perfect target for two bullies that had been enrolled in the program.

They didn't want anything in particular from her, just wanted to show the other kids who was boss around here. They shoved her, called her names, all the things that bullies do; and poor lonely Sarah was too timid to stand up for herself. She wish her parents hadn't given her up for adoption, she wished she was home, wherever that was.

One of the two boys was about to slap her when HE showed up. John showed up like a knight in shinning armor to a scared Sarah. He rushed the first and biggest boy and tackled him to the ground, pummeling him into the cold floor with his fists. The other boy was about to hit him from behind when he felt someone grab him by the collar and throw him to the ground, Dan the avenger had showed up just in time too.

The two boys ran off in fear of the duo, John and Dan. Dan stood silent with a triumphant smirk on his face while John turned his attention to Sarah.

"Hi, I'm John." The older boy said as he extended his hand to her, a hand she was more than willing to take.

"Sarah?" she heard a voice ask her from behind. She dried her eyes on her sleeve and tried not to look weak as she turned to face who was talking to her, Beast Boy. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she said, trying not to let her voice crack, "I'm fine… I just… I just need to be alone for a while."

Beast Boy felt pity for the young woman and sat down next to her, saying nothing for a while before saying, "I know how you feel."

She didn't even look at him and just kept on starring at the wall, not looking but thinking about her now incriminated adoptive older brother. Beast Boy continued none the less, "I fell in love with someone once, a girl named Terra, and I thought I could trust her. I gave her my heart and, in the end, she was a traitor."

Sarah turned at him quickly and was about to interrupt him but Beast Boy continued, "But I saw that she wasn't evil, she was good at heart and simply was confused about herself and her place in the world, and she showed that she wasn't evil but a hero in the end."

"But John isn't a traitor!" She shouted at him, "He would never do that! NEVER!" Beast Boy hesitated to continue, and Sarah saw he was holding something back, "What happened?"

"Colonel White just received permission to torture John to find out where a nuke is hidden." He revealed slowly so as not to hurt her. He failed.

Sarah immediately broke down; it was just too much for the poor young woman. She felt like she was twelve again, scared and alone. Beast Boy immediately wrapped his arms around her and held her closely as she started to sob into his chest. He patted her on the head and whispered gently, "It's alright, I know John is innocent, it's gonna be alright."

He held her like that for a while, soothing her and trying to make her feel comfortable in this confusing time. Sarah calmed down eventually but stayed where she was, it was the first time in a long time that anyone outside the team had been there for her, and treated her with such affection. She looked up from Beast Boy's chest and into his eyes and the two kept their gaze for a moment; the two slowly moved their faces closer to the others. Until the two's faces were only a few centimeters from each other, she brushed her lips against his shyly but lovingly, then the two kissed.

The kiss was gentle at first but grew more passionate. It was not like the kiss that you would see from two teenagers who were only thinking of sex, this was a kiss that meant so much more. It was the kiss of love.

Love

That word was empty at the moment a soldier's fist connected harshly with John's stomach. "Where's the nuke traitor?" the soldier asked, spitting out the word traitor like some horrible curse word that was too dirty even for a battle hardened soldier to mention.

John coughed sharply, trying to regain the breath that was knocked out of him and simultaneously suppressing the urge to vomit. They had been at this for the past two hours now, taking breaks every now and then, and the soldiers so far were trying their best to interrogate him without messing him up too much, almost like they were restraining themselves. A soldier grabbed a tuft full of John's hair and the two met eye to eye as John gave him the same answer he had been giving him for the past two hours, "I'm no fucking traitor," he paused for a moment as he gasped in air before continuing, "Asshole."

The soldier let him go and pulled his fist back about to hit him again and hard when one of the soldiers restrained him saying, "He has a visitor, Colonel says to leave him be till she's done."

She?

The soldiers left the room and in walked a person John had been hoping would walk in, Raven. He couldn't tell if it was the lighting or his desperation, but right now she was the most beautiful sight on the face of the planet. He gave a tired smirk as she walked in and the door closed behind her automatically.

"Hey there beautiful," he wheezed, he always resorted to jokes when things looked bad, "how do I look?"

She ignored him and knelt down in front of him, looking him straight in the eyes, she didn't know what to think of him. She had been betrayed before, and she could tell the he wasn't a traitor, but the evidence still inspired doubts within her. "Like shit." She finally replied in a monotone.

"You have a sense of humor?" John said with a smirk on his bloodied lips, "If I wasn't in so much pain I'd feel a sense of pride or accomplishment."

"What do you expect me to do?" Raven snapped. She looked away and tried to regain her composure before continuing, "Mason Thorn is willing to sell the nuke back to us for thirty million dollars in government funds…"

"Not going to happen," John said, "If I know the bosses back in Washington they'll send you in with Colonel White and just have you kill him or bring him in alive, either way they'll never pay his demands… When and where is the meeting point?"

"Library at midnight." Raven answered.

"He's smart," John said, "and this is what he's going to do: he's going to change the time and place at the last minute to throw you off and prevent you from setting up any surveillance or a trap, that's how he's going to try and gain the upper hand."

"But whatever you do, bring Mason in alive. He's the only one who can prove that I'm innocent."

Raven nodded before saying, "But just in case…" she then leaned forward and lightly pressed her lips against his. John's eyes widened at the unexpected move and if the soldiers were watching their attention was on the two kissing and not on Raven's hands wrapping around John's neck, reaching down, and then pressing a small item into John's handcuffed hands. John almost didn't notice it at first, but when he did he tightly wrapped his fingers around the item and Raven's thin fingers. Raven slowly pulled her lips away from his and John let go, slipping the item into his back pocket for safe keeping. "Good luck." She whispered.

She stood up and John fully observed Raven as she stood, his beautiful angel of mercy. She turned and walked away after a final good luck look and left the room. Thank God almighty for that beautiful woman. Then the soldiers walked back in, this time with a tray of serums.

One of them produced a syringe and said, "This here is pain in a bottle." He then stuck it in John's neck and pushed down on the plunger, he waited until every drop was gone before pulling it out. Then John felt the effects, he immediately began to spasm, losing control of his muscles as pain shot through his nervous system uncontrollably. It didn't take long for him to pass out from the pain. Fortunately his new good luck charm was safe in his back pocket.

As John predicted Mason called back at seven thirty in the afternoon stating, "Change of plans, come to the west side oil refinery in half-an-hour. Don't be late."

John was also right about the Colonel and the government, they weren't going to give in to Mason's demands. So the Titans, Dan, and Sarah (who was going to hang in the background monitoring the whole thing via satellite) were on their own with the special ops group a half-hour behind them, they just had to stall Mason until they got their or take him down themselves.

The team arrived at the refinery at the designated time, it was dark and there were few lights in the jungle of pipes that transferred oil to many different parts of the refinery. They stood there until a black van, the same that was used to steal the nuke, arrived a single man got out from the passenger side, they couldn't see him until the lights of the van sprang to life and standing before them was the infamous death dealer himself, Mason Thorn. The meeting was on.