"Robin…!" Beast Boy protested.

"Hear me out," Robin said, putting up his hands in a calming gesture. "First, you told me that Raven said she would be home soon, so why don't we just give her a little time?"

Beast Boy looked at him sharply, but acknowledged with a sigh that his idea made sense.

"Second, I have no idea at all where Azarath is or how to find it."

"It's in another dimension…"

"Exactly. So how are we going to cross into it without Raven's abilities? And third, if she is in trouble, then yes, you should go. In fact, we all should go to help her."

Again Beast Boy reluctantly agreed, absent mindedly handling the gadgets Robin had lying on his desk on the other side of the room.

Robin continued, "But you said that this priest guy and the others were all friendly to her, and that Raven herself said that you should leave."

"They might have been influencing her mind! And this Char-whatever-his-name-is dude seemed like he was taking a weird interest in her…"

"Did you notice that you said 'might have been'?"

Beast Boy glared at him again.

"Look, why don't you sit down?" Robin asked and scooted over as Beast Boy reluctantly sat on the edge of the bed.

"I'm on your side here," Robin continued. "But let's just put in all out on the table. You and Raven have a … complicated … relationship."

"You think, because we argue some times, that she hates me."

"No," Robin said firmly. "From what I've observed, deep inside she has quite a high opinion of your abilities and values your friendship a lot - in her own way…"

Beast Boy smiled a little at that, so Robin continued to the other part of his statement:

"But … Raven is a very introverted person. And, frankly, you come on too strong. It's the same pattern over and over: Everything is calm around here, you try to get her to do something fun, she doesn't want to, you persist, she gets upset, and you get upset and then we have a couple days of bickering until it calms down again…"

"What's your point?"

There was a knock and the door and Robin walked over to press the button to open it. Starfire and Argent stood in the hallway, and Starfire looked very excited.

"We are making the journey to the Mall of Shopping! Friend Argent wants to give me the 'new look'."

"New look?" Robin repeated.

"Beast Boy!" Starfire cried with a smile when she noticed him sitting on the foot of the bed. "Please, you will tell me all about your trip when I come home?"

"Sure thing, Star," he replied.

"Then it is goodbye!" she exclaimed and waved excitedly, then blew Robin a kiss. Argent rolled her eyes at all this exuberance and gave a small half-wave with her hand as the door slid closed.

Smiling and shaking his head a little at that, Robin turned back to Beast Boy.

"You know, you invited Argent to come visit us, and now you're not even going to spend any time with her?"

"Dude, I want to! This whole thing with Raven inviting me to Azarath caught me by surprise. And as for this 'coming on too strong' thing, I haven't been doing hardly anything to bug her for a long time."

"So why do you want to mess it up now?" Robin sat back down on the edge of the bed.

"Look, I'm not everyone's dad here… I want to fight crime, I don't want to get involved in people's personal lives…But we all know you've always had a thing for Raven."

Beast Boy folded his arms. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Hey, I'm a guy, too … I know how good she looks in that leotard – don't mention that to Starfire, by the way. I want things to work out for you."

Beast Boy looked at him in silence.

"Now, I think I have a good way of dealing with Raven, and that is to give her a lot of space," Robin continued.

"Dude, if you remember Starfire's visit to the future, giving Raven too much space just ends up with her alone in a white room somewhere," Beast Boy pointed out. "And didn't we all go to Starfire's planet because you thought she was going to get forced into marrying this green blob?"

"She invited us to come. Then I got a bad feeling when she said she had never even met her groom."

"And I have a bad feeling now. So why is figuring out a way for me to go to Azarath any different?"

"It's more than that. Look, I know that you and Raven had a real fight one time."

Robin noted the shocked expression on Beast Boy's face.

"I'm a detective, remember? I noticed the way both of you were acting funny, and I saw the dent in the kitchen wall that was exactly your size. It wasn't hard to put the pieces together. And both of you lied about it, even though we had all promised never to use our full abilities on another teammate in anger."

{{A.N: As you might recall, they talked about this fight in Chapter 1 }}

"That was a long time ago!" Beast Boy protested. "And it wasn't her fault, it was mine. I said something to her that I shouldn't have."

"It must have really been a doozy…What was it?"

"I'd rather not say."

"Anyway, I hope you see my point here. I don't want you barging into Azarath when she doesn't want you to, and causing some kind of a big problem between you two that isn't going to go away. Plus, she'll think I broke her trust."

"Dude, like I want that? But my instincts tell me something is wrong." He got up and started pacing again. "Why can't you trust my judgment on this? I've gone one-on-one with Slade just like you. I was fighting with the Doom Patrol before this, just like you were fighting alongside Batman. Why don't you have confidence in me? You treat me like I'm a little kid."

"Come on, that's not true…" Robin said with a pained look on his face. "Maybe we can brainstorm a way to get you there later… All I want from you is a solid reason why you need to go, and why this isn't like one of those times when you snuck into her room."

"I can't explain it in words – it's just a feeling I have. And that should be good enough for you."

Beast Boy strode to the door and walked out. Robin stared at the door for a long time after it closed behind him.

.

.

.

Beast Boy walked around the hallways for several minutes grumbling to himself.

"What does he mean 'a good reason'? My reasons are good! I'm not into spooky supernatural stuff either, but those visions of Azar must mean something… And maybe somebody is trying to get her to marry that Charand'r dude … I should at least talk to her…"

He found himself standing outside of Raven's door. Maybe she had come back by now. That would make everything so much easier.

He banged on the door. No answer. He turned into elephant to use its excellent hearing, and listened for a long time. No sounds at all inside. He was going to turn into a bloodhound, but realized that would be useless. Her scent would be everywhere because it was her room.

I've stood out here in this hallway so many times I should have installed a chair! And here I am falling right back into my old ways.

The door was locked, but he figured that he could still get in. He'd just look around briefly and see if there was some kind of way to get to Azarath. Turning into a fly, he went into the ventilation duct and emerged inside her room.

Here I am, proving Robin right, he thought uncomfortably as he morphed back into his human self. I'm just going to look around and try to find that mirror. Not going to snoop.

The room looked untouched from a couple days ago, except it was quite dark now because all the candles had burned down to their base and gone out. He turned on the lights, but it was still dim because bright light bothered Raven's eyes.

The circle of white sand was still on the floor, with two sets of footprints in the center. He stepped inside on top of his old footprints and waited. Nothing happened.

"Azarath …Metrion …Zinthos!" he said, feeling rather silly. Again nothing happened. Of course not – he didn't have Raven's power.

He wandered around. Housekeeping was not her first love, as the room was rather messy and her dirty laundry didn't always make it into the hamper. On her dresser there was no meditation mirror, but there was a small framed picture of a woman, who he now recognized as being Arella. There was also a letter that had recently come in the mail, but was unopened. The sender name was only "M." and the return address was a nursing home – wasn't that where Mumbo was incarcerated? Why would he be writing to her?

He walked over to a heavy wooden trunk which had a lock on it, but the lock was open. He lifted the lid to find a colorful party dress that was neatly folded up – probably a gift from Starfire that Raven wanted to disappear from sight. The only other things were a Garfield book ("I Hate Mondays!") with Garfield colored sort of green on the cover – must be a printing error - and a torrid romance novel with a shirtless hunk tearing a beautiful damsel's dress. That made Beast Boy laugh, but was useless for his present quest. He closed the trunk.

He searched the room a while longer, but there was no mirror to be found. Nor was there any letter summoning her to Azarath (He didn't know what it would look like, but imagined some kind of a parchment scroll). The one interesting thing he did find was a bunch of high resolution pictures of Slade on her desk.

The pictures were of Slade when he was Trigon's "apprentice" and he had the glowing mark of Scath on his forehead. They must have come from images recorded by Cyborg's electronic eye. For some reason, she seemed particularly interested in that mark, as there were many close-ups of it, and also of a shadowy black aura behind Slade.

Interesting, but useless to him. He sighed and mumbled to himself, "There is no way I can get back there without help. It's hopeless."

He transformed back into the fly and went out the way he came in. By the time he got to his own room, Robin's inescapable logic was beginning to have an effect. Was she really in danger? How do I know the old woman I saw really even was this 'Azar'? Why am I acting like this?

He took off his uniform and jumped in his shower. As the warm water flowed over him he was lost in thought: A couple days ago everything made sense. I know I used to have a crush on Raven, but I never got anywhere with her, and I moved on.

Drying off with a towel, he looked into the mirror behind his sink. Isn't is amazing how many impossible things happened? She invited me to go to Azarath with her and help her with her problem. She kissed me – still not sure why – but Raven actually kissed me! And she said something about someday opening her heart up to me – I think that is what she said.

But the boy in the mirror said (in Beast Boy's mind):

But you know what is going to happen? She's going to come back today or tomorrow and she'll be just fine.

You'll be all like, "Hi, Raven! I'm so glad to see you!"

And she'll be all like, "Go away!" and shut her door in your face.

You know that is what's gonna happen. And there you are, right back to being a little kid, being a fool, standing outside her door. After all these years, are going to get your hopes up again and just get kicked in the crotch?

"I just want to talk to her and get everything clear," Beast Boy said out loud to his reflection.

She told her mom she did not like you. She said the kiss was an 'accident'! And right now she is probably so plastered to that Tamaranean dude so you can't even tell who's arms belong to who, who's legs belong to who…

"Aarrgh!" Beast Boy growled, putting both hands on his head.

Argent is here. You first started video chatting with her because Raven shut you out. Now you're going to blow it with her?

"I'm talking in my own mirror!" Beast Boy cried. "I'm as bad as Raven with her color coded mini Ravens!" He looked at the floor. "God, I hope she's okay right now, but…"

He looked back at his reflection. "I do not want to be her fool again. Robin's right, I should just wait."

Beast Boy put on a clean uniform and was fixing his hair when there was a knock on his door.

"It's open!" he yelled.

Robin came in, and before Beast Boy could speak, Robin held up his hand.

"You might not think so," he said, "but I do have confidence in you. I've certainly known you long enough. And I have some ideas, so if she doesn't come home tonight, tomorrow we'll see what we can do."

"Thanks," Beast Boy said. He wisely didn't mention all the doubts he was now having.

But he was full of them.

[Author's Note: So finally we are getting to the part where Beast Boy has to make a hard decision that will cost him dearly. While all this is happening here, things are happening in Azarath, too. And those things need some time to complete, but we will learn about them soon.

Thanks for coming this far and I hope you will keep on reading! Going to be some fireworks.