xi. Chapter Ten


Hours passed before whatever impulse had driven her into Jump City wore off. When it did, Raven did not know where she was, and could not remember why she had left in the first place. She felt as if she had been sleepwalking. The time between leaving the tower and seeming to wake up in the thick of the city was almost blank.

Raven looked about her, at the unfamiliar storefronts, unfamiliar faces and street names, cars rushing anonymously by as fast as she could blink in a gust of exhaust. Nobody had recognized her, or if anybody had, they had said nothing to her. She was a plain face in the crowd. That was one thing she had never been before.

For a moment, Raven allowed herself to enjoy it. She was nobody. She could walk into any of the doors lining the sidewalk, she could sit down at one of the restaurants, she could browse about the bookstore, and no one would remember it the next day, or even know that she had been there at all. She was like a ghost, floating, unfettered by recognition, lost in the crowd, swallowed by it, one single droplet in the sea of a thousand faces. She was free, really, to do whatever she wanted.

She looked up at the sky, gray and overcast, and she thought about flying.

It was a few more moments before Raven admitted to herself that she didn't know what she wanted to do, that she had no idea where she was going, and that she was flat out lost in a part of the city that she did not recognize. Why had she left the tower? What was she doing?

She looked at the skyscrapers towering over her, and she was so low, low to the ground. She felt as small and insignificant as a bug.

What was she doing?

I can't go back, thought Raven suddenly. She stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, surprised by the fierceness of the idea. She had nowhere to go. She had nobody to go to. There was nothing for her to do. Her breath misted in the morning chill. She could not go back.

She could not return to that slow slipping away from her friends. Best to cut the ties quick like a bandaid, like a yanked tooth. She had been on her own once, in the time before the Titans. She would find a way to do it again.

Her mind seemed to shake itself, to stir slowly and fumblingly like a body rising from long sleep.

First she would need money - no, first she would need a plan. Money could be the first part of the plan, though. Okay. First she would find a bank and withdraw from her account. How much did she have in her account? Enough. It was enough, right? It would have to be enough. Then she would need to get away, because the Titans could trace the withdrawal. Were they looking for her? Well, she could take the bus -

She remembered sitting next to Beast Boy on the bus, in borrowed clothing, holding that silly doll he had given her, staring unhappily at her knees. She was a fool.

- But she would have to take the bus. And then she would… and then…

Before, it had been just a tweak of her powers, a light brush of persuasion into the susceptible mind of the landlord, and she had had a place of her own with no papers, no guardian, and no real identification. This time she would have to do it the hard way. When she thought about it, she realized that she didn't really know what that would entail. She was resourceful, and she would find out, but for now it was too much.

Raven walked. Without knowing where or why, only that she should. She had to. Her back was stiff and her legs were sore. There was nothing else for her. She had to.

Go.

She shook her head, to clear it.

Her hair was still damp, and the wind had filled it with fly-aways. It was cold. She was wearing linen pants and a sweater, and she wished she had dressed warmer.

Focus, Raven told herself. She began to watch for street names. As a Titan, she was required to be familiar with the geography of the city. It was not long before she had a vague sense of her location. She began to walk slowly in the direction she believed would lead to the bank. There was no hurry, because she realized that she had all the time in the world.

"Raven!"

She stopped dead in her tracks at the sound of Beast Boy's voice. Oddly, she felt no surprise. She turned around to see him pushing through the sidewalk traffic to reach her. He stopped in front of her and bent over, gasping for breath. Raven stared down at his head of pine-green hair, his lean and wiry body. She saw his ribs shift beneath his uniform with each inhalation. He raised his head, caught her staring, and straightened up.

"Jeez, Raven, we - we've all been looking for you," he said, finally, awkwardly. "What… why did you leave?"

It took a few false starts, her mouth flapping uselessly, before Raven could produce the words.

"I just needed to get out," she told him, because she had no better answer. "For a little while. To clear my mind."

"O-oh." Beast Boy seemed to lose some of his energy. His shoulders slumped.

"I'm sorry," said Raven abruptly, "for making you look for me."

He looked surprised. "What? Raven, that doesn't even matter."

She shook her head, pressing her lips together. At Beast Boy's arrival, some people had begun to stare.

"I didn't mean to worry you," she said. "But… I…"

I have to go. She couldn't tell him that, because he would ask where she was going, and why, and maybe even if he could follow. What could she say to that? How could she explain, when she could not explain it even to herself? He would not simply let her go.

"You know, it's… it's not safe for you to be out her alone," he sighed. "I mean, something could have happened to you. What if that thing that attacked uson the train came back?"

"It didn't," she frowned. She had not thought of that at all, before. Strangely, the danger had simply not occurred to her.

"I know, but…" Beast Boy stopped and visibly gave up the argument. "Well, anyway, are you ready to go back? I can call the others."

"No," she answered, too quickly. "I don't want you to do that."

"Can I call them to tell them you're alright…?" he asked slowly, his brow creasing in confusion.

"Please," said Raven, looking at a spot on the ground to one side of his shoe. "Just… don't."

"Why?"

"I... don't want you to."

"But…why?" Beast Boy asked again, looking at her searchingly.

"I can't go back," she said, willing him to understand. With everything she had, she willed him to see what she did. She wished he would see that she had to go, and leave her. At the same time, she knew that it was not in him to do that.

"What do you mean?" There was a note of exasperation in his voice. "Where else will you go, Rae? What are you doing?"

"Don't ask me that," she told him, angry because all her wishing had not worked, because it never, ever did.

"You don't even know!" he cried, correctly interpreting her answer. "Raven, you can't just wander around by yourself until you think of something."

"It's worked pretty well so far," she murmured darkly.

"There's still somebody out to get you - remember that?"

"No, I forgot," Raven snapped, suddenly furious with him.

"It's dangerous and…" he groped for a word, "and stupid!"

"Stupid?" she repeated, hating him with her eyes. "Coming from you, that doesn't mean anything."

Beast Boy returned the glare full force. A little part of her said to stop this now, and she squashed it recklessly.

"What is your problem? I've been nothing but nice to you, ever since we met, and you - you just -" He broke off, cutting his gaze to the side with a sharp turn of his head. She didn't care.

"I never asked you to be nice to me -"

"God, nobody should have to ask, Raven. That's just sad."

"- I never asked you to help me," she barreled blindlyforward as if he had not spoken, "because I don't want you to. I don't want you to worry about me. I don't want you to care about me. I just want you to leave me alone."

Beast Boy stared at her. His usually expressive eyes were forbiddingly blank. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

"Then what are you doing standing here, talking to me for?" he said in a cold, quiet voice that she had never heard before. She shuddered, and briefly wondered what he had done and how she could undo it. "Get out of here, if that's what you want. Go."

Raven needed no second urging. She whipped around and began to walk away quickly. Her fists were clenched tightly, her head bowed. The Tower was secondary anymore. She just wanted to get away from Beast Boy,and that cold, quiet voice. Another thing that she had ruined. Why did she have to ruin everything she touched?

"Wait! Raven!"

Raven didn't want to wait. She had to get away. She pushed through the sea of people, half-running, stumbling, barely looking at what was ahead of her. She crashed into purses, shoulders, and elbows, but she did not care. A strange kind of desperation had taken her over and was moving her forward, controlling her legs to pump faster, her heart to beat like a drum.

She knew that Beast Boy must be following her, and that he was the faster runner. She didn't dare look back. The only way to go was forward, forward, forward.

Abruptly, far faster than she had expected, she had reached the end of the block and was stepping off the curb. There was no time to stop herself. She hurtled forward, and when she looked up, she was looking into oncoming traffic.

The phrase deer in headlights had always seemed stupid and unlikely to her, but now she finally understood it.

Before she knew what was happening, arms pulled her backward and out of the way. A line of cars sped by with a blast of horn. The breeze they made as they went past tugged at her hair. Raven hardly noticed.

She leaned into a body that she knew somehow to be Beast Boy's. Her legs were weak, her arms were loose, and she was heavy and boneless. She sat down clumsily on the sidewalk, shivering. Her throat was dry. Her heart was going like a jackhammer. She thought that it might burst out of her.

She felt like such an idiot. She was the one who hated attention, but now people were staring, and she was the one who was sensible and smart, but she had been so utterly stupid. She wanted to take it back and do it over. Her entire body seemed to burn with shame, seemed to burn down to the bone.

"…Raven?"

If she'd had her powers, she might have been able to take the hit. As she was now… she did not know what would have happened. She was frightened and embarrassed of it all.

A hand touched her shoulder. She realized that Beast Boy was crouched in front of her, looking at her with concern. She wondered how long he had been there.

"Raven, are you okay?"

Raven squeezed her eyes shut tight, swallowing thickly.

"I'm fine," she said, in a strangled voice, as if it pained her.

He sighed. "You're not fine."

Not fine, she thought dazedly, not fine, not fine…

"Do you think you can get up?" asked Beast Boy gently. Raven blinked, bringing the world back into focus.

"Yes," she answered, nodding. She took his hands without thinking about it, and he pulled her to her feet.

"Good," he said. His arm went around her, to steady her as they walked a short distance to where there was a bench outside of one of the coffee shops. She was glad to drop down onto it. She leaned deep into the back of the seat.

"We don't have to go back home, if you don't want to," Beast Boy offered, after a moment.

Home, she thought absently, wonderingly.

"Is it okay if I call the others, though? Later, I mean… not now."

She nodded numbly.

"Raven…?"

"I'm sorry," she said abruptly. "I don't know why I…"

I don't know why I'm like that. I don't know why I said those things. Raven frowned and looked away uncomfortably.

"It doesn't matter anymore. I'm… I'm just glad - I'm glad you're alright… and, look, I'm the one who should be apologizing," said Beast Boy,diverting the blame tohimself, as he always did. "So… I'm sorry. About what I said. Before, and… in the hospital room… thing… um."

That was something she had not allowed herself to think about. Raven rubbed her eyes, suddenly very tired.

"No, you were right." Her voice was thick with emotion, but she told herself she would not cry. She sighed heavily, breathing out all the tension in her. "You were right about everything."

"A guy could get used to hearing that," Beast Boy joked, trying to defuse the moment. One corner of her mouth went up, against her will.

"I think it's a one time thing," she told him.

"Rats."

"Yeah." Raven stared at the ground. "I have… a lot to think about."

The jewel, the attacker, her powers and the Titans, and life without them both. How could she even begin? It was all too tangled together, a jungle with no light squeezing through the claustrophobic trees, hot and dark and no way out. There were too many things she did not know.

"Forget that, Raven,"said Beast Boy simply, breaking her from thought."I just want you to be happy. That's all."

She turned to look at him, surprised, thinking of what the elder had said to her on Azarath, years ago after Arella's death.

'…despite the dangers, I wish you would allow yourself some happiness…'

For a moment, she was utterly, absurdly grateful. She had people to care about her. If nothing else, she could count on that, that she had friends who loved her, without reason or restraint. Even on Azarath, even when her mother was alive, she had never been sure as she was now.

"…thank you," said Raven, quietly.

"C'mon," said Beast Boy, standing from the bench. "Let's get out of here."

Her eyes darted back to the street corner. Nausea washed queasily over her as she thought of that moment of frailty, of near-death.

She stood up too quickly, and the blood rushed to her head, making her dizzy, but she began walking anyway, with Beast Boy next to her, and it seemed a long while later that shecared enough to askhim where they were going.

"Nowhere," he grinned.

Raven did not like the sound of that.

"Beast Boy," she ground out dangerously through clenched teeth. "Tell me where you think we're going. Now."

"Aw, come on, Raven, can't you stand not knowing for a little while? We're almost there." He waggled his eyebrows in a way that was probably meant to be enticing.

"I don't care. Tell me."

"No. Just trust me. I have a good idea."

"You have an idea?" she echoed flatly. "That's reassuring. Now I really want to go."

"Talk all you want, but we're going to have fun, and you know it."

She arched an eyebrow sceptically. "I do?"

"Yeah." Beast Boy jabbed a thumb at his chest. "Because I'm a party animal. Get it?"

She rolled her eyes. "Maybe you should explain it to me."

"That one must have been really funny," he said, ignoring her,"because you forgot to laugh."

"Riiiight…"

It was easy. In Beast Boy's company, it was too easy to forget about leaving, to stop up the thing inside that told her to go. She was slipping back into old habits, into the rut of the familiar, as if she were lowering into a bath, the water sliding over her like a glove, fitting close and all around.

As Beast Boy had said to her earlier in the infirmary, it was easier just not to think about it.

"We're here!"

Raven looked up at the building they had stopped in front of.

"Oh, no…" she said, even as she battled the sinking feeling of inevitability. "If you think I'd even set foot in there…"

"Don't be a spoilsport, Rae," Beast Boy cajoled. "It'll be fun."

"Define fun," she muttered.

He grinned widely, flashing fangs. "It's that thing you have whenever you're with me."

"I think that's called irritation, Beast Boy."

"Close enough," he said, waving a hand airily. "Come on, Raven, they have more songs than ever before!"

Raven glowered at the large sign above the doorway and folded her arms stubbornly. "Nothing you can say is going to get me to sing karaoke with you."

But within a half an hour the entire team was seated in a private room with a television on one wall and a couple of microphones. Beast Boy had called Cyborg, who in turn had called Starfire, who in turn had dragged Robin with her. Robin and Raven were the only ones who didn't seem enthusiastic, both sitting in a slouch with their arms crossed over their chests.

Although Robin shot her curious glances from time to time, the rest of the Titans seemed too distracted by the prospect of making fools of themselves to ask Raven any questions about her dissapearance. That was fine by her.

She settled into the plush lounge chair to watch them with reluctant amusment.

Starfire sang loudly and off-key to some of the most irritating songs that Raven had ever heard. Cyborg belted out the words soulfully, whether it was show tunes or reggae. Robin muttered all his lines during the one duet that Starfire forced him into. His face was bright red the entire time. Beast Boy dedicated all of his songs to her. Most of them were sappy, and every one of them was ridiculous.

For her part, Raven was forced to say, "I don't sing," more times than she cared to.

But even so, an odd kind of contentment settled over her at this rare normalcy. She drifted away from thought. She laughed with the others. She was just happy, because her friends were happy.

She could feel tiny hands taking her deeper into the well-known trenches of life as it used to be. The surface world of leaving seemed to drift further and further away.

It was late by the time they all returned to the tower. Raven could not bring herself to say that she could not go back with them.

She sat in her room, unwilling to go to bed. She did not know when she would be able to leave again, and she found it difficult to think about. Each time she did, she was met with the same problems as she had been that morning, until she felt like a rat in a maze, turning the same corners again and again, hitting a trail of dead ends.

Her room was dark. She had wanted the others to think she had gone to sleep, although she wasn't sure why. She wondered how much time had passed since they had come back to the tower and realized she did not know.

Eventually, Raven opened her door and padded quietly down the hall towards the kitchen to fix herself a cup of tea. As she approached the living room, she saw that the doors were standing open, spilling out a yellow square of light onto the floor. Voices floated out to her from within. She stood frozen, listening.

"…Have you talked about this with anybody else…?" That was Cyborg. Robin's voice answered, trying for lightness.

"You'd have heard about it already if I had, the way news travels around here."

"Look, man…"

"I know. I really don't want to be the one to say it, but…"

"Then just don't say it, dude."

"But this can't go on forever," Robin pressed. "We're all distracted by it, and I don't know what to do. For the good of the team…"

"Raven is part of the team," said Cyborg.

Standing outside the door, Raven shivered. Her heart gave a sudden spurt of rapid beats. She waited through a long silence. When Robin spoke at last he sounded weary, like a man who had combed the desert and found nothing.

"She's no longer an active member. How can she be?"

Everything seemed to stop.

A rushing sound rose in her ears.

Go.

Dimly, she heard Cyborg say to Robin, "give it time."

"I have given it time! Something has to change."

Raven knew. She remembered now why she had wanted to leave them - so that she did not become a problem. She had wanted to unburden them before they even felt the weight of it. Now, it was too late for that, and she had to get out, out before it grew worse.

Go. Go, now.

"… but this is Raven we're talking about. Not some part that needs fixing - Raven. You can't just make it better."

"I know. I'm not saying... That's what makes this so -"

Go.

Raven left before he finished the sentence.

She walked back to her room in a haze. Her only thought was to leave, to leave as quickly and as quietly as she could, to slip seamlessly away without leaving behind so much as a ripple in their lives. Still dressed from the day, she tugged on a jacket and her shoes and then left.

She walked. The city was only a blur in her peripheral vision. She walked right through it, not caring, not caring what her destination was or if she even had one. It seemed she walked for ours, but oddly she did not feel tired. She did not feel anything at all.

She could have been asleep. She felt, at least, as if she were in a dream.

Her vision blurred, but it did not matter because she had no need for sight. Her body moved on its own, as a machine. She was only a passenger, allowed to float away, if she liked, like a dandelion seed.

Nothing, nothing, nothing. Blankness, the deep dark of hibernation.

And then, hot smoke clutching her throat on the inside, the rich smell of fire filling all her airways and stopping them up.

With that pain, the world swam back into vision. Raven blinked. There was no fire, no smoke. She swallowed. Her throat felt dry. She scanned the area in confusion, not knowing where she was.

Old, dead buildings surrounded her, graying with age. Some had deep black scars of charcoal as if from a fire. She stood before a black pile of rubble. The rubble of the old library.

Raven's heart constricted. Her eyes were saucer-wide and her mouth hung open. She was suddenly afraid, so much that her jaw ached and her legs gave out beneath her. Briefly, she thought of that morning, of stepping off the curb and staring into headlights.

If she closed her eyes… The childhood habit came back to her. If she closed her eyes, she would be safe. If she could not see them, then they could not see her.

She screwed her eyes shut, and pointed her face toward her lap, needing something to hold on to and not caring what it was.

"Child…" said a voice that tugged at something dangerous and buried in her mind.

Raven looked up, and she could not breathe.


A/N: I know, I know, one step forward, two steps back.

Let me defend this chapter to you, though - I have had this part in my outline since the beginning. It's not stricty necessary to the plot, and I know you all want to see some action. Yes, I could have brought Raven to this point at the end of the last chapter, but that felt rushed to me, and if you have been following this story, you can probably tell that I don't like to rush. I didn't think that Raven had enough emotional momentum at the end of the last chapter to carry her all the way to the library ruins, a place she would normally avoid when she's in her right mind. Also, I wanted a fun chapter, with a little bit of resolution for Raven and Beast Boy before the big showdown. And to top it all off, I have always wanted to insert a karaoke scene into this fic, and reading Mezzo-chan's wonderful collection of drabbles 'Funny Valentine,' in which there is a karaoke segment, reminded me of that. I have always pictured Beast Boy singing the White Stripes song 'Hypnotize'from the Elephant album to Raven. Yes, I'm weird :P

I promise lots of action in the next chapter.

And a note about Robin and Cyborg's conversation - it may sound a bit like Robin wants Raven to leave the tower, or something, because that's what Raven is thinking about, but I tried to make the dialogue sound very ambiguous. It's really meant to be Robin venting some frustration about the situation. He cares about Raven, but at the same time she is causing problems for the team, and he is frustrated because he doesn't know what to do about it. But I hope that can be inferred from the conversation...?

Anyway, thanks as always for the excellent reviews! I want to urge you all strongly to review this chapter, or any other chapter, because it would really be great on my end if you did. Feel free to tell me what you think!