This is a short one! But I wanted to get all the sad stuff out of the way. More to come later!
Taking trips back and forth from his bathroom and his closet, Dick packs his bag. He didn't have to bring much, but he's taking more back. He doesn't think he'll be coming around here quite so often. He packs in another shirt and hears on knock on the door.
"Go away, Raven," he calls sharply. He hears a small sniffle on the other side of the door.
"It is not Raven," says the muffled voice that can only be Starfire. Or Kori. Whatever, he doesn't want to talk to either of them.
"Then go away, Starfire." The doorknob jiggles, but he ignores it. He locked the door, and hopefully she won't be so determined as to break it open.
Crack… Okay, he was wrong. He turns around to see the Tamaranean storm in.
"Raven said you left," she states.
"Obviously," he says sarcastically. Hurt flashes across her eyes, but it doesn't phase him. He sees her look down at his bag.
"What are you doing?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" He tuned back around to zip up the bag.
"Why are you being like this?" she asks, her voice suddenly closer. He looked over his shoulder to come face to face with her. He just shrugs, slinging the bag over his shoulder. He stepped forward, but she pushed him back. "You cannot leave."
"I was planning on leaving tomorrow anyway. What does it matter if I leave now?"
"Because I do not want you to."
"Why don't you go dance with your boyfriend." Her eyes began to glow green. Wow, it really doesn't take much to piss her off.
"So that is what this is about? Dick we are not together."
"No," he says, looking her in the eye. "We're not. Thanks for pointing that out. So you'll have no problem running away with Xavier Redd."
"Stop it. He is merely my acquaintance."
"Yeah, 'cause everybody just gets up and dance's with people they barely know."
"Do not speak with the sarcasm, please."
"How about we don't speak?" he asked pointedly, avoiding her gaze as he pushed past her.
"Please," she says, sounding so broken. He stops, after only taking about four steps, to look back at her. Her eyes were no longer glowing, and a tear dripped down her orange skin. He tried to rein in his emotions, but she looked so… so sad. Why is she sad? She looked perfectly happy with Xavier. "Please do not go."
"I don't understand," he breathes, resigned.
"I cannot say that I do either, but I was beginning to," she says as she takes the steps necessary to get to him, wrapping her hand around the strap of his bag as if to pull it off. "We are starting over, Richard. It was nice, did you not think so?"
"It wasn't enough, Starfire." His voice became so quiet as he tried to prevent it from breaking.
"I was not enough?" He looked down at her, meeting her tear-filled eyes. He cleared his throat.
"Star, I need to get back to Bludhaven. I've taken too much time off. I have a life."
"A life that I am not a part of?"
"You didn't want me!" he snaps, and she jumps back at his sudden rise in volume. "You told me to stay away, me to leave you alone, and now you're the heartbroken one?" He takes a deep, calming breath. He doesn't want to fight with her. Doesn't want to lose her completely. "Starfire, I don't know what to think anymore. Maybe we just need time away from each other, think things through. No matter what happens, we'll still be friends. Even if it isn't like we used to be."
"I cannot help but think of something that Bruce said… perhaps we should stop all together," she says, lowering her eyes.
"What about Bruce? Stop what?"
"Trying to repair this."
"You're saying… you don't want anything to do with me?"
"I believe you would be better off without me." She still wouldn't look at him.
"Bull shit, you're just letting me down easy. One second you're all 'Oh, X'hal Richard, do not go!'" he says in a voice mimicking hers. "And now you're saying that you don't even want to try to be my friend, let alone my girlfriend again. Seriously Starfire, you need to get your shit together, because I can't take this bipolar thing you have going on anymore."
"Richard, please stop with the yelling. Let us talk about this rationally."
"No, it's okay. We're not friends anymore so conversation isn't necessary. Welcome back to Earth, good luck with the Titans, and have a nice life. Goodbye, Starfire."
...
As she watched Richard walk away, it felt like a grublak beast thrust it's claw through her chest and tore out her heart. She was faintly aware of the gasping pants that puffed out of her mouth. Her chest heaved, unable to find that breath to make the pain go away. She felt completely and utterly empty.
She had made her decision that night. She decided to be with him. To love Richard and hold him for as long as he would have her. It was while she was dancing with Xavier that she realized she never wanted another man to hold her. That anyone's touch that wasn't Richard's was unwelcome.
She wanted to tell him that. Wanted to shout it down from the Shra'n mountains of southern Tamaran. She couldn't wait to go back to him at the ball, to dance with him and laugh with him. But then Raven called for her attention to alert her of Richard's leaving. Immediately, Starfire knew that things would not work out as she had hoped.
She would have given up anything for him. He would say jump, and she would ask how high. She would charge into any battle, fight any beast, if it meant that he would be there when she came home.
Starfire loves Richard. But Richard loved her, to the best of her knowledge. Their recent conversation leads her to believe that she will indeed be forgotten, but she hopes it will not be so easy. Part of her hopes she'll haunt his every thought, driving him to speak with her again. She doesn't know what she would do if she never got to speak to him again.
When did she end up on Richard's bed? She smoothed her hand over the deep red blankets as she lay on her side in the middle of the bed. It was so large and comfortable. She remembers when they would spend nights at the manor, and she would fly over to his window at night so they could share a bed. Back when they were together. When everything was perfect.
She noticed the fabric growing darker by the corner of her eye. Tears dripped over the bridge of her nose, down her cheek, forming a dark puddle on the blankets. She reached up to grab a pillow, pulling it down flush against her chest. She held it, gripped it so unbelievably tight, imagining a situation where Richard came back to her. He walks through his bedroom door, crossing the space between them to lay beside her. He wraps his arm around her and kisses her lips, telling her that he loves her too. He never stopped, and he never will.
...
He leaves a note on the bat computer for Bruce before he heads through the teleporter. One second, he's in Gotham, the next he's in Bludhaven. He doesn't know if he'd really call it home, but it's all her has right now. He walks through the apartment, barely noticing Flash sleeping on his couch. He makes a beeline for his bedroom, where he closes his door a little too loudly and lets his bag slide off his shoulder.
What has he done? He collapses down to his knees. He sits in the dark of his bedroom, the only light coming through his curtains. What is she doing right now? Did he hurt her? Does she feel what he does?
But it was his own fault. He stormed away. Then again, she proposed that they stopped trying. It was her. But what was that thing about Bruce…?
Her words cut right through him, invading his heart and leaving him with an empty soul. There was a pulsing feeling in his chest, like his heart was about to jump out. She couldn't mean all that, could she? She didn't want to stop trying. She didn't want him to go. She has to love him.
He has only ever felt like this once in his life. Four years ago, on an old oil rig in the middle of the ocean. He listened to those heart-breaking words and felt his knees buckle beneath him. It was only one other time where he faced the fact that the one thing he loved above all else was gone. Taken from him forever.
It was so much harder knowing that she was alive. At least when she had "died", he knew that she still loved him. Losing someone by choice is a different kind of heartbreak.
I was getting a little depressed while I wrote this... but it had to be done! Now we're moving on to bigger and better drama :)
Reviews please!