I am SOOOO unbelievably sorry for not updating Trust is a Must for awhile now! I know I normally update faster than this, but social life, emotional situations, and whatnot got in the way.

Now, let's get a move on and enjoy this chapter!

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Teen Titans, unfortunately.

Shadow made his way up the stairs, up to the roof where his beloved Raven was meditating, controlling her emotions as usual. He smiled at the prospect of being able to annoy her. However, he frowned at the thought of having to change his teasing style. If he acted like his old self, then Raven would start to connect the pieces and he couldn't afford that. He noticed that she started to already get suspicious of him and shouldn't give her any more reasons to suspect that he is her long-lost teammate.

He opened the door and welcomed the sunlight. There, near the edge of the roof, was his black bird. She, as usual, was mediating by the edge of the rooftop with her blue cloak whipping against the fierce wind. Raven seemed unbothered by this.

Shadow went to Raven, and instead of saying anything or playing a prank, he sat next to her, waiting patiently until she was gone. He did not have to wait long for Raven had seen this as an opportunity to finally speak with the mysterious Shadow.

She gently sat on the cool surface of the roof and after a moment, spoke softly, almost as if she was scared of driving him off," What are you doing here?"

Shadow so desperately wanted to say," To see how my black angel is doing," but he couldn't risk revealing his and/or Nakama's true identity. Instead, he said," Just checking on what you were doing. Checked up on Cyborg and since your leader seems to be hostile to me, I found it best to just look for you."

Raven nodded and went back to her thoughts. Now that she was closer to Shadow, she could feel his aura better. She noticed that there seemed to be similarities between his and Beast Boy's but she couldn't tell if they were one and the same. She hadn't felt her lost teammate's aura for over seven years or so.

After a few moments of silence, she asked quietly," So, how are you enjoying your stay so far at the Tower?"

Shadow leaned back casually and with a slight smile," Well, I'm not really sure yet. But I can tell you this, it has been pretty quiet. Too quiet. In fact, I feel like I walked into a graveyard. No offense, but seeing as this Tower has superheroes in it, I would have at least expect a lot of shouting, a lot of fighting, and a lot of noises, not for it to be silent as a grave." He turned his head to Raven, silently asking her for an explanation.

Raven let out a heavy sigh and debated silently whether she should tell this strange person the truth or not. In the end, she decided to reveal a few parts to it. She started speaking, aware that Shadow was paying attention to every word," Well, before, we had another teammate, but after his leave, the team, just, well, started falling apart. Before long, the atmosphere got pretty tense. That's pretty much what happened."

Shadow looked back at the sunset with a thoughtful look on his face. 'Interesting,' he thought to himself, 'Things fell apart almost right after I left. Hmm, they missed me that much? Well, not Nightwing, but still, the team was affected that much?' Neither he or the Beast could believe that their old teammates was affected that much. It was overwhelming to know that he was missed when they didn't even do anything to help him.

While Shadow was reflecting on this interesting find, Raven suddenly recalled a flashback. It had happened while Beast Boy tried to save Raven when her powers suddenly stopped working.

Flashback:

There were Slade robots surrounding the whole team. Robin broke them with his martial art skills, Cyborg utterly smashed them, Starfire blasted them apart, Beast Boy turned from one animal to another, scratching them and avoiding their attacks at the same time, and Raven used her black energy to protect her teammates while being on the offensive.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, her powers stopped working. Unfortunately, it stopped working at the wrong time. A Slade robot was about to pull its fist back for a brutal punch and Raven didn't have any defense against the punch that was about to be thrown.

She closed her eyes, waiting for the impact. Instead, what she felt was something pushing her aside and then a huge, loud crunching sound and then what sounded like metal pieces dropping to the floor.

From the floor, Raven hesitantly opened her eyes and immediately regretted looking. She gasped and quickly went to the object that saved her from sudden death.

Beast Boy was in wolf form, lying on the ground in a pool of his own blood. The punch had broken most of his bones and tore some of the skin. The green wolf started whining in the pain he was feeling.

Raven looked down at Beast Boy, panicking on how to save him. Around them, Robin and the others were trying to protect them from the robots, trying to give Raven some time to give him some treatment.

Raven desperately tried to use her healing powers, but they seemed to be blocked by something or someone. In desperation, she took her cloak off and wrapped it around the wound. Since it was stretchable, it could wrap around his body about 4-5 times. The blood quickly seeped through the cloth, but it seemed to help Beast Boy as he stopped whining.

The rest of the team had finally enough of the robots and Cyborg took about half of them with his sonic cannon, Starfire about a quarter of them with her eyebolts and starbolts, and Robin and Cyborg combined the cannon and the disks to form the "Duo Attack," wiping out the rest.

Cyborg immediately assisted Raven and Robin in getting Beast Boy in the T-Car without trying to damage the wounds even more. Then, Star carried the leader while Cy drove the car as fast as he could while making sure that at the same time, looking back BB every now and then.

Then, the usual procedure happened with hooking the wolf to the machines and then making sure he doesn't lose too much blood.

For a few days, it was touch and go for awhile, but in the end, Raven managed to get her powers unblocked and could heal the wounds. After that, everything went smoothly from there.

End of flashback

Back then, Raven had a crush on Beast Boy that was starting to develop into love. She could never forget the amount of fear she had felt that week. She was oh so scared of losing her crush.

Shadow sensed that Raven was in deep thought about something and so desperately wanted to know why, but he knew that he shouldn't interfere with her thoughts. He had to let her influence them herself, not him to do it.

He joked slightly, "Well, it seems that the Tower is getting just plain dreary. At least try to be more cheerful."

Raven turned her head to slightly glare at Shadow and said in a threatening voice," Maybe I don't want to be gloomy. Maybe I have no choice, but to be like this."

Shadow raised his hands in defense," Whoa, back up there a second. What I'm trying to say is, that if you want to make the place seem more colorful, add a bit of personality to it."

Raven merely continued to glare and growled," Well, my personality is just fine, thank you very much."

Shadow rolled his eyes, not that Raven could see thanks to his mask. "Dude, all I'm just trying to do is help you guys. You don't have to take it; I'm just suggesting it."

Raven now glared at Shadow with a suspicious look. In her mind, she and her emotions were curious as to why this stranger, who appeared out of nowhere, wanted to help her. She quietly growled out," Please leave. I want to be left alone now."

Shadow nodded, understanding how broken she seemed to be inside. He decided that, for once, to leave her alone. He saw how, how sad the black bird was and he knew that this conversation had unlocked something inside her. To give her time, that would be the best path for now.

Meanwhile, just as Shadow was starting to relax on the couch, Nakama and Starfire walked in the common room, chatting, laughing, and holding lotsof bags.

Shadow turned around and smiled at them," You guys had fun?" Starfire nodded vigorously and went to put the bags in her rooms. Just as she left behind the doors however, they opened again to reveal none other than the leader himself.

Nightwing nodded to Shadow in greeting and spoke to Nakama,"Hello there. Nakama, is it? I'm Nightwing, the leader in case you haven't figured it out yet." Both Nakama and Shadow exchanged looks at this. Nightwing continued, pretending not to have noticed anything," Well, just to get to know you better and work with you a little, do you mind helping me out with some papers?"

Nakama looked at Shadow, who nodded, agreeing that she should go. She, in turn, also agreed, and followed him to his office. Little did she know that she would uncover a secret only Shadow had found out in the past.

And there's the end of another chapter! *applause* And once again, I'm sorry for not updating for awhile. And I'm also sorry to say that this might happen again. My situation right now is very precarious, but I'll try to work on the next chapter when I have time.

Please review! Because the more review this story will have, the more pumped I will be to quickly update it once more!