Joan was sitting the back compartment of the Reach ship that she and Wally had taken about a week ago. Her face was stoic. Nightwing had found the tracker in the ship which was how the Reach had nearly found them in the beginning. It was impossible to remove so he had decided that they would take the ship to Joan's house. When the Reach found the ship, there would only be the charred remains of her home.

She held the tears back as they flew. Only a handful of members would be accompanying them. Wondergirl, Nightwing, Beast Boy, and Kaldur. They would accompany her back home, trying to figure out what had caused her house, and her family to simply be wiped off the map.

Nightwing had explained to her that an agent had tried to find the house to give them the information they needed to be a safehouse. When he arrived, the agent thought he had had the wrong house. There was only scorched earth. Only burned remains of the house were left. There were three bodies in the remains. Two adults and one child. Nightwing hadn't told her what had happened to them, but when pressed, he said that it appeared as if they were burned alive. He wasn't sure the details, hence the team traveling there.

"Are you okay?" Beast Boy came into the back and sat down next to Joan. While the team had been talking up front about how they would find the real reason for what had happened, Joan had been sitting on her own, trying to understand the storm inside her. She had never expected to go back home, at least not for a while. And here she was, a little over a week later, going back home. But not because she wanted to. Because she had to.

Joan didn't bother to look at Beast Boy. She didn't want to talk to anyone. She sat in silence, waiting for him to go away like Nightwing had when he had asked. But Beast Boy didn't. He stayed put.

"I understand what you're going through," he said, seemingly not to directly address anyone. "Queen Bee killed my mom. I don't think I've ever forgiven her for that, even though it happen three years ago and Bee is dead. I don't know if I ever will. But it's not the fact that she killed my mom that hurts the most. It's that I never got to tell my mom how much I loved her. You see, before Bee got my mom, we had had a huge fight. I was changing because of the blood transfusion M'gann gave me. That's another story. Anyways, she was mad because I was being reckless because of the changes. I still couldn't control it, so I did things without meaning to, and well, one thing led to another and I broke the glass figurine of a rose that my dad had given my mom before he disappeared.

"We fought. We both said things that were never meant to be said." Beast Boy looked down at his hands. A small tear fell his right eye onto his palms in his lap. "I called her a horrid old witch with no soul. I didn't mean it, but I said it." The tears began to flow more easily now, yet his voice stayed strong. It did not waver, it did not falter. Not once. "I never said I was sorry. And now, because of Queen Bee, I never can."

Joan began to feel her own tears burning in her eyes. She refused to let them fall, but Beast Boy's story still pierced her in the heart. She knew that feeling of guilt. She had once pushed Henry off the swings one day and broke his ankle. It was in the heat of rage. She couldn't even remember what had made her so angry. He had gotten an infection afterwards that left his fighting for his life. She remembered the agonizing days waiting for Henry to pull through so she could tell his how sorry she was. The only difference between her story and Beast Boy's was that she got that chance. He never did. She couldn't imagine living with that guilt for the days, let alone years.

"I know what it's like to lose a family member. My dad, then my mom. I almost lost M'gann, my blood sister. I almost lost my friends on Young Justice a couple times. It hurts every time you lose someone and it never gets easier. They say it does, but the only difference is you can say their name without shattering inside.

"But that's what it means to be a part of the team. That's what it means to be a part of a family. We hate ourselves when we lose someone. We break."

"Sometimes, I wonder if it's worth it," Joan interrupted, voicing her greatest fear. "All I seem to do is bring pain, in one form or another. I know that I will continue to bring pain to those I care about most. It's my fate. I don't want to hurt anyone. So why does it keep on happening?" The last question was meant to go unanswered, but Beast Boy answered it anyways, lighting a small flicker of flame inside Joan.

"Because we're a family," Beast Boy said, scooting right next to her. "Pain is part of the deal. We live through it because we have each other. That's why it's worth it. Because in the end, everything that fate puts us through, is nothing because we will always have each other."

Joan looked at Beast Boy. He was fifteen and she was almost nineteen, yet he sounded many years older than her. He sounded as if he knew everything there was to know about life. Beast Boy glanced back at her, smiling goofily, showing his crooked teeth. Joan giggled, showing a smile for the first time in a while.

Nightwing looked back. He grinned crookedly. Beast Boy had done his job well. Joan was no longer sulking in the back on her own. At least she knew she was not alone. As Beast Boy helped Joan up, Nightwing felt something in his chest like disappointment. Garfield had done what he was unable to do. He had connected with Joan.

Nightwing looked away and back to ahead of them. He wondered what he was thinking. He had only met Joan little over a week ago. So why was she having such an effect on him? Because she saved his life? Because he saved hers? She had done the same thing back when he had first saved her. For days afterwards, he thought about her. He had no clue who she was, but she kept on intruding into his thoughts. What was it about her that was driving him insane?

He inhaled deeply, trying to focus his mind. He was about to go back and talk to Joan himself, when he saw it. Her old house. Or rather, what was left of it...

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