A/N: Maggie, if you're still reading this, I'm sorry, but this may be your least favorite chapter.

"You understand, then. I did what I had to do."

There were aspects of being an unofficial Titan Brand enjoyed: greater freedom, an "allowance" or stipend of sorts, a sense of camaraderie he hadn't felt before (with one notable exception), and no longer having to be afraid of being tossed out of the Tower for a single mistake. However, there were also facets of the position which chafed and irritated. Mostly, these were the bureaucratic activities: after-action reports, expenses, and a duty roster. No longer was Brand only on-call for emergency situations, he was expected to to take part in group training, maintenance, paperwork, and patrols.

Patrols were – for the most part – he least objectionable, but it depended heavily on who one was partnered with. If he could have just gone out on his own and walked his "beat", that would have been one thing, but the patrols operated on the buddy system, where no one was supposed to go off alone. Leaping from rooftop to rooftop with Robin was challenging, but informative. Riding along with Cyborg in the T-car was comfortable, though the bionic Titan never passed up a chance to razz the Weapon. Starfire was chatty, but not abrasive. Beast Boy was intolerable.

When the new schedule went up and Brand had seen he finally had a patrol with Raven, he felt a mix of excitement and anxiety. In the intervening week since Thanksgiving, not a day and barely an hour had gone by without his mind drifting to the kiss the two had shared. The feel of her lips, the warmth of her body, the little sound she had made, all of these had driven him to distraction, a welcome reprieve from dwelling on Janus and Saber and Red X.

The memory was soured, however, by the instant backsliding which had occurred the next day and continued since then. It was as if Brand had just arrived in the Tower, angry and untrustworthy, utterly ignored by Raven, who kept her distance without even seeming to try. The very thought made him wince.

I screwed up, he thought for the umpteenth time. I don't know her as well as the others, but I know enough. She can't deal with that kind of contact. Especially from me.

"As if a failed science experiment like you had anything to offer anyone, much less an ice queen like her," Saber said in his memory. Brand clenched his fist.

And yet... despite everything, he couldn't make himself regret what he had done. If that brief moment was all their relationship would ever amount to, it still would've been worth it.

Brand tried desperately to hold onto that thought the following night during the long, cold, quiet patrol. The sorceress didn't even look at him the entire time, her hood up and concealing her eyes, communicating with him in mono-syllables. He kept to the streets while she soared above him, out of reach and out of earshot unless he wanted to have a shouted heart-to-heart. Raven was clearly avoiding him on purpose.

It was pure pain.

His break came – ironically – when he stumbled upon a burglary being committed downtown. A trio of masked thugs in dark clothes filed out the door of a darkened house, one carrying a bulging sack of pilfered goods, the others sharing the weight of a large television, all three heading to the unremarkable van parked nearby. For an instant, Brand wasn't sure what to do; his experience with the Titans until now had only been with larger threats like Kardiak or the HIVE. Stopping such a relatively mundane crime was almost a novelty, one he hadn't been prepared for.

So he swaggered his way through. Drawing the T-sword from behind his left shoulder, he strolled towards the burglars, one lip curled upward in a smirk. "Masked Movers, right?" he asked. "I think I've seen your commercials. 'We only move at night'. Such dedication."

The thug with the bag turned disbelieving eyes to the teen. "Get out of here, kid," he snarled. "You haven't seen nothing, you understand me?"

"Watch it, Rick," the taller of the pair carrying the TV warned. "I've seen this one on the news. He's one of them Teen Titans."

'Rick' reached into his jacket. "This ain't no costumed freak," he sneered. "It's just a punk with a stick." The man's hand emerged with a gun, and Brand's expression broadened into a hard smile. In an instant, he crossed the remaining ten feet separating him from the thug, swinging the T-sword laterally from left to right to sweep the man's feet out from under him. As Rick fell – appearing to move almost in slow motion to Brand's senses – the Weapon reversed his attack, hearing a clang and feeling the impact as he struck the gun out of the burglar's hand. It slammed into the wall of the house and fired harmlessly into the darkness before falling to the ground.

Even as Brand turned to the others, he saw the shorter member of the pair yanked back by dark bands of energy with a scream of fear, disappearing into the night, his half of the TV dropping onto the sidewalk. The taller man stared at where his friend had been a moment ago, then his eyes flicked to where Brand – wearing a lazy smile – walked towards him. He dropped his own half of the television and raised his hands.

"I give up," he said, his voice high and panicked.

"Smartest thing you've done in a while, I'll bet," Raven quipped as she floated down from above. She turned to where Rick was just now getting back to his feet, rubbing the back of his head where it had hit the concrete. "What about you?"

He wasn't happy about it. That much was obvious from his expression, but faced with the "punk with a stick" and a "costumed freak", he decided to follow his compatriot's example, putting his hands up and surrendering. With a gesture, Raven floated the shorter man back in front of the house. He was already trussed up with clothesline.

"Neat work," Brand murmured. The girl didn't respond. "What do we do now?"

She still didn't look at him. "Tie them up. Wait."

The Weapon's lip twitched, but he pushed down his resentment and did as she said. She must have contacted the police while she was still in the air, because – only minutes later – a couple of squad cars pulled up, lights flashing and sirens wailing. By the time the burglars had been put in the backs of the cars, the stolen goods returned to the house, and Brand and Raven's depositions had been taken, their designated watch was almost over.

The police pulled away and all was quiet again. The sorceress glanced over her shoulder at him once, then turned and began to float upwards.

"Wait!" Brand said, surprised to hear his own irritation so clear in his voice. Her ascent stalled, a moment of hesitation. "Are we seriously going to do this?" he asked.

"What is it, Brand?" Raven asked, dropping back to the ground. In stark contrast to his own tone, hers was flat and emotionless, almost bored. To the Weapon's hyper-sensitive eyes, however, the tension in her shoulders was apparent.

He walked up behind her. "You know damn well what it is," he said. "I did something I shouldn't have. Got it. How long are you going to keep punishing me for it?"

A brief pause. "It's not punishment," she said.

"Then what?" Brand asked, exasperated. She didn't answer. "Don't shut me out, Raven," he pleaded, coming around to face her, peering under the dark brim of her hood. "Come on, I want to talk about this."

She turned away, and he was facing her back again. "I want to talk less." Now there was emotion audible in her voice: annoyance.

"Is that going to make things better?" Brand countered sarcastically.

Another hesitation. "... no."

A cold wind whistled down the boulevard. It was late, and it was December. No one else walked the streets at this time of night, and there were no cars. Distantly, the sounds of the city could be heard, but – for now – it was just the two of them.

"It's not going to work, Brand," Raven said. "We're both too messed up to be anything more than what we are now. I can't be free enough with my emotions to get close to anyone, and you..." she glanced over her shoulder. "You told me yourself, you're a clone. What do you really know about people? You fixated on me because I was the first person to really talk to you. That's all it is."

The Weapon felt himself tremble at her callous appraisal of their relationship. "You're wrong," he said quietly. "It's not like that."

Now she turned to face him fully, and there was sudden heat in her voice as she closed within a single pace of him. "Then tell me. What do you want from me? What is it that you expect? Do you think we're going to go on dates? Get an apartment together? Marriage? Children? You have to know a 'normal' life isn't possible for either of us. What is it you see when you think about us in the future?"

Brand's jaw dropped and his mind went blank. What do I want? He asked himself. What kind of future could we possibly have together? It was a difficult question, one he didn't have an easy answer for. The reason for that was stark and clear: he rarely thought about the future except in the most abstract terms. Would he die tomorrow? Would he kill next week? The thought of an extended future with Raven hadn't crossed his mind.

"Maybe you're right," he admitted at last. "Maybe I haven't thought it through. I don't like dwelling on what might happen later because I don't want to think about what I could do. That doesn't change what I want: It's this. Us, working together, talking, sometimes arguing, but all I've looked for – all I wanted since I woke up in that desert – was to be with you."

The sorceress's face, barely visible under her hood, had slowly reddened at his words, but at the last phrase, all the blood seemed to drain away, leaving her pale. Her violet eyes – shining with indignation a moment ago – went cold and bleak. "You don't know what you want," she said hoarsely, her tone a mix of frustration and sorrow.

This time Brand was sure he was in his right mind when he leaned down to kiss her, taking the girl by the shoulders and closing the small gap between them. He didn't lunge for her, he gave her time to escape if she wanted, but she didn't move. It was an action born of desperation, of denial, of resentment at her rejection of his feelings. If words couldn't convince her, maybe this would. Her kiss was cold this time, her lips soft but unmoving, and the sound she made was almost a quiet wail of despair. But for a brief moment – glorious, as Starfire would say – she responded, and the Weapon felt her heat and hunger, her hands reaching up to bunch at the collar of his jacket, pressing her body against his.

Then she pushed him away, hard enough to break contact, but not out of his grasp, her hood slipping off her head and revealing the livid color in her cheeks. "We can't!" she gasped.

"Stop lying to me!" Brand shouted, his own breath short. "Stop trying to convince us both there's nothing going on between me and you!"

Raven's lips pressed together to form a thin line, twisting out from under his hands, her eyes filled with pity and something else. "There isn't," she whispered.

The next day, Brand lay on his thin mattress in the room he had first been given when he was allowed sanctuary at the tower. They had offered to move him after his induction as an honorary Titan, but he hadn't felt right about it, still unsure if he should stay with the Titans, still unsure if he should remain in Jump City. It was his way of punishing himself, he knew, for a past he'd had no control over and a future that was conceivably worse.

Punishing himself was the order of the day. The Weapon had spent the entire morning and a long, sleepless night beating himself up for making the situation between himself and Raven even worse than it had been before. And for much the same reason. His "fixation" had become something more, something physical, and it was more and more difficult to ignore it.

The question she had asked and the surprising answer he had provided spun around in his mind over and over again. "What do you see when you think about us in the future?"

"Us, working together, talking, sometimes arguing, but all I've looked for – all I wanted since I woke up in that desert – was to be with you."

She hadn't expected his response; had denied it, but Brand was certain it had been correct. And still, somehow, wrong. At least to Raven's mind.

He lifted a hand to his aching temples and massaged them wearily. He couldn't figure her out. Every time he thought he understood her, something would happen to show him he was as far from ever from the answers he sought. He refused to believe the girl was right about him, that he didn't know what he really wanted. No, there was something else going on, something she still kept bottled up inside. But what?

"Don't push her. She takes... time."

A frown crossed Brand's face. It had been a while since he had thought of his vision/hallucination of Not-Raven; the one he had seen after being knocked out by Killshot. A long time ago now, or so it seemed.

His bed vibrated, and a digital, upbeat tune filled the little room. Brand glared at the new black and yellow communicator which had been given to him which lay next to him on the mattress. "Duty calls," he mumbled, sitting up and snatching the device, flipping it open with an already-practiced flick of the wrist. It was probably Robin calling them all out for some supervillain attack.

The face he had been expecting didn't appear. Another one did.

"Beast Boy?" Brand asked, not even trying to hide his annoyance. "What do you want?"

He didn't look happy. The usual smile was gone and his emerald eyes were worried. "She's gone," he said. "I checked her bus stop, the school, even her foster home, and I can't find anything. You gotta' help me out, man. I'm scared something happened to her."

The Weapon furrowed his brow. "Who are you -" he stopped himself. "Terra?" The changeling just nodded. Brand bared his teeth, showing his displeasure through the tiny camera of the communicator. "Are you serious with this? It's the holiday season, she's probably on vacation somewhere."

"Doing what?" Beast Boy asked scornfully, a tone the white-haired teen had never heard from him. "Visiting her family? She doesn't have one she's willing to acknowledge. She's a high school student in a home, she doesn't have any money. Where would she go?"

"Fine. What's your guess?"

"I don't know!" Beast Boy said, his voice rising in volume and pitch. "What if it's Janus? What if it's Slade? This is exactly why I've been keeping an eye on her! Come on, dude... please."

Brand set his jaw. "Why me?" he hedged.

"Because you're the only one who knows I've still been watching over her."

A long sigh escaped the Weapon and he looked away. He didn't want to deal with this. One finger traced the raised "T" on the top of the clamshell communicator. "Where do I meet you?" he said at last.

The green-skinned shapeshifter was a bundle of nervous energy by the time Brand reached him fifteen minutes later at Murakami High School. The school was a blocky four-story edifice that stretched two wings east and west, both lined with windows. Brand barely spared a glance at the structure. School held no nostalgia for him, and he couldn't imagine actually having to attend such a place as a student day after day.

"About time," Beast Boy complained as he approached. He wore a heavy coat and an annoyingly long stocking cap against the December cold. "What took you so long?"

The Weapon gave him a withering look. "Want to see how long it takes me to go back? We could test that right now." He spun on his heel, walking back the way he had come. The changeling rushed in front of him, waving his arms.

"All right, all right, I'm sorry!" He said. "I'm just worried, you know?"

"And here I am," Brand said. "Try and remember I came from the nice, warm Tower to help you with this particular goose chase, and..." he reached out a hand, forefinger extended to jab the younger teen in the chest. "Don't irritate me any more than you have to."

Beast Boy rubbed his chest where the Weapon had poked him. "I already apologized," he said. "But I have a bad feeling. Ever since we found out about the kidnappings, I've been terrified someone would go after Terra again. She's powerful. Too powerful. They wouldn't pass her by if they found out where she was."

"If it's the same girl," Brand sniffed.

"Dude," the shapeshifter said, and – as on the communicator – his tone was harder than Brand was used to from the normally happy-go-lucky teen, a product of impatience or something else. "You think this animal thing is just a party trick? You think I wouldn't know? I know her scent, just like I know yours, and Raven's, and everyone else's. I can tell you haven't eaten yet today, and you didn't shower last night, either. I still smell her on you."

The Weapon's eyes shot wide. "What?!"

For once, it was Beast Boy who was smirking; a humorless expression. "Told you. Didn't really expect it, though. Seems like you two would make each other miserable."

There was something in his tone Brand didn't like. He glared down at the changeling, realizing suddenly that he didn't have to angle his neck quite as far to do so as he did three months ago. The kid is growing up, he thought. Getting too big for his britches, more like. "That's none of your business," he growled. "And I have too much on my mind to worry about whatever your problem is with whatever may or may not be going between me and Raven. Maybe you should focus on one girl at a time."

For a moment, Beast Boy didn't back down. Then he seemed to shrink back down into a goofy kid again. "She's my friend," he said, looking away. "I don't want her to get hurt."

Brand's lip twitched. Was he talking about Terra or Raven? He picked the less uncomfortable option. "Then let's go find her," he said. "You made your point about the scent, so what's the deal? You track and I back you up?"

"Yeah," the changeling said quickly, clearly relieved to get back to business. "I should be able to find her, but if there's trouble, I might need some help." The Weapon didn't bother to answer, just waved an arm to indicate the younger teen should get on with it. Beast Boy shifted down into a bloodhound and began sniffing around the sidewalk in front of the school. He followed what seemed to be several false starts for a few yards before returning to the gate. At last, the young Titan found the most recent trail and began following it. Brand shoved his hands into his pockets and followed, feeling both annoyed and silly.

The process was interminable to the Weapon. Over and over the changeling would follow a lead for nearly a mile, then go back to an earlier location and start over. It was a blessing and a curse that Beast Boy couldn't speak in animal form. A blessing because Brand was still angry, a curse because he was horribly bored and even an argument would make the time go faster. They passed the bus stop where he had first seen Terra and stalled for a long while at what he assumed was the foster home the girl lived. Eventually, they veered away from the respectable parts of town and off to the outskirts.

Beast Boy shifted back into his human form briefly, down on one knee, his eyes fixed on the trail he had been following. "I don't like this," he said. "The path is pretty fresh here, but she's moving fast. Keeps stopping, too, like she's looking around."

"Was someone chasing her?" Brand asked, intrigued in spite of himself.

"I can't tell," the changeling said, shaking his head. "I don't think so, though. There's nothing else recent going this direction." He lifted his eyes to peer at where the ground rose ahead of them. "Why this way?" he asked, almost to himself.

"What's down this way?"

Beast Boy glanced over his shoulder at the Weapon. "That's where she and Slade holed up when they were working together and took over the city. A lot of bad memories there." Those memories held him in thrall, his green eyes losing focus as he spoke. "He was controlling her somehow, but Terra turned against him anyway. We thought she killed him. He came back, though." The shapeshifter shivered and he focused on Brand's face again.

"Slade was after Raven next time, working for Trigon. He brought Slade back from the dead and gave him new powers just to deliver a message to Raven: She was going to destroy the world." Brand just stared. "I wasn't there when it happened, but... it messed her up pretty bad. She tried to hide it, but we could all tell. It was like..." he trailed off and turned away.

The Weapon found his hands had closed into fists. "What happened to him?"

But the shapeshifter was done telling stories. "He got away," he said simply, then turned back into a bloodhound and took up the trail again. Another half hour passed as they traveled, but either Terra's scent was clearer now or Beast Boy was confident he already knew where the girl had gone. He shifted back into human form before they even reached the mouth of the cave, apparently no longer needing to track the geo-kinetic with his much-vaunted sense of smell.

Beast Boy hesitated a long time before entering the cave. Brand crossed his arms and watched him, waiting for the changeling to make a decision or give an explanation. The explanation came first. "I've been here lots of times," Beast Boy said. "Terra's powers set off a volcano under the city, big enough to wipe out the whole town. She stopped it, but it turned her into a statue or something. Froze her into the stone. We had no idea what had happened or how to turn her back. I visited her all the time... talked to her." He sighed. "After we beat the Brotherhood of Evil, I came back, and... the statue was gone."

"You found her again, attending Murakami," Brand finished. The younger teen nodded.

"I was mad for a while. I still am, sometimes. About her losing her memories or pretending to. After everything that happened, everything we all went through, it's unfair. But eventually, I was just happy she was okay, living a normal life. I wanted to protect it... protect her."

Brand's patience was running thin. "Then why stop now? Let's go."

"I know, I know..." Beast Boy said. "It's just... there's a part of me that thinks I'm going to go in there and she'll be a statue again. I know it doesn't make any sense." He shook his head quickly, like a dog shedding itself of water. "Let me go in first, just in case. She doesn't really know you, and I don't want to freak her out."

A little laugh slipped from the Weapon's lips. "Am I here as backup or moral support?" Beast Boy didn't answer. He entered the dark entrance of the cave.

You're being paranoid, Beast Boy thought. There's nothing going on. She probably comes here sometimes to remember what happened, to think about what she did... what she almost did.

It was a reasonable explanation, but – somehow – it rang hollow. The memory of the trail was alive in his mind, almost visible to him through the girl's scent. Her scrambling, panicked flight from her house to here, constantly looking around at some phantom presence. The light from the cave entrance vanished behind a turn in the tunnel and the changeling opened his communicator, using the soft glow of the display to show the way.

Not that he really needed it. He knew the way by heart.

As he came closer to the center chamber, the former core of Slade's operations, his sensitive ears picked up the sound of sniffling. A strange mix of relief and trepidation tightened the shapeshifter's chest. She was alive, but what was wrong with her?

"Terra?" he called out softly. The sound stopped, as if the source was now holding their breath. He entered the large open space which had formerly held the blonde's statue and paused, keen eyes scanning the area. It wasn't as dark as it should have been, almost like...

He looked up to find a sharp stalactite hanging above him, surrounded by a familiar yellow aura. "Whoa!" he shouted, leaping to one side.

The stalactite soared across the room to crash into one wall, the glow disappearing. "Beast Boy?" A tentative voice called. "Is it really you?"

"It's me," the changeling said, peering into the deeper darkness. "Where are you, Terra?" She emerged from the shadows a moment later, wearing dirty jeans and a thin jacket over her skinny shoulders, running to him and throwing her arms around his shoulders in a desperate embrace.

"I should have known," she cried. "I should've known you'd find me. You're the best, Gar."

For a moment, Beast Boy felt the warmth of her words and her hug, wrapping his own arms around the girl. Then, like the tide going out, the tender feelings drained away, leaving something cold and angry and hurt. "So you do remember," he said. It wasn't a question.

Hearing his tone, she let go of him and took a few paces back. She wouldn't meet his eyes. "Yeah... I'm really sorry about lying to you, Beast Boy, but you have to understand. I wanted to put my past behind me for good. I wanted to be normal. I couldn't be 'Terra' anymore."

"I would have understood if you had explained it to me," Beast Boy said. "But instead you left me wondering: Did you have amnesia? Was it the Titans you were hiding from? Was it me?"

"I was trying to hide from myself," Terra explained. "Everything I ever tried to do, I screwed up. Do you have any idea how many times I tried to help people and hurt them instead? And every time I did, I ran away, started over somewhere else, and... I'm so tired of running." She glanced up at him, her blue eyes bright in the darkness, her blonde hair matted. "So I gave it all up. My powers, my name, my past... everything."

Part of him wanted to remain angry, but the changeling also felt himself sympathizing with the girl. No one knew better than he did what she had gone through. "So what happened?" he asked. "Why did you run away from home again? Why come here?"

Tears leaked from Terra's big eyes, making clean trails down both dirty cheeks. "Because I was just lying to myself, Beast Boy," she said, her voice quavering. "This whole time, I wanted to pretend I could drop everything and start over, but it was a lie."

Her hands lifted to either side of her head, covering her ears as she sank to her knees onto the rocky floor of the cave. "I was stupid," she sobbed. "So fucking stupid!"

"What are you talking about?" Beast Boy asked, alarmed at the sudden change in the girl and her fragile emotional state.

"I started hearing him again," the girl explained in a hoarse, high-pitched whisper. "Started seeing him at the corner of my eyes. He's never going to let me escape. It doesn't matter where I go or what I do."

Dread crystallized in Beast Boy's guts. "Who?" he asked, though he already knew.

A voice came out of the deep shadows at the other end of the chamber. It was cold, precise, deep.

And familiar.

"I believe she's talking about me," the voice said. And like a nightmare forming out of the nothingness, taking shape out of fear and loathing, a figure emerged from that darkness. He stood tall and strong, wearing armor and a death's head of a mask; half black, half orange. Terra hands clutched at her head and screamed at the sound of the man's voice.

It was Slade.

A/N: This is it, folks. We're getting close to the end. This is the final arc of "... Love and Hate", so if you wanted to start throwing me reviews or comments or whatever, now would be a great time for it.

There actually was another arc planned between Janus and Endgame, but I realized fairly recently that it was unnecessary and distracting. Not bad, just unnecessary. Besides, I'm close enough now that I actually have a chance of finishing the story (and finishing without missing a day in my posting schedule no less) and having another arc in there would reduce the chances of that happening.

As for comments specific to this chapter... I was surprised that the feedback I received for "Holiday" was as positive as it was. I figured people would just be rolling their eyes. That reaction is one of the reasons the beginning of this chapter is the way it is; I wanted to focus a bit more on the romance. Of course, then I turn around and add tension because... that's what I do. Not only with Raven's reactions, but with Beast Boy's nascent jealousy (throwing the shippers a bone).