Shout-Outs:

Animelover56348 – I'm glad it worked for you.

Devoted Guest – Hey, I've filled you with d'awwww!

JOHNXGambit – Easy, just read the next chapter. No warm fuzzies here.

Shugokage – Thanks, I try.

Lord Anubis Judge of the Dead – Thanks. Although it is a little disorienting to be complemented on cuteness by a guy called "Lord Anubis, Judge of the Dead!"

LadyoftheGags – I hope you don't mind a little bitter to follow your sweet.

Bouts of Insanity 42 – Sorry to lose you.

BloodRose101 – Thanks. It's a tough balance. I like to throw in enough facts to anchor the story in reality, but I don't want to turn these chapters into an undergraduate thesis on irrelevant material that's gonna bore everybody.

Darkness on the Rise – I confess. I lifted the idea for Raven's triple voice from David Edding's "Polgara the Sorceress." It's one of my favorite reads.

Katwizzle – Glad you liked it. Hope you stored up the cute.

Gyhy – Nope – I will finish this story come hell or high water. I'm almost done. There will be a clear ending, and the final chapter will end with – 30 -, so everyone will know. I swear – I will not quit until it's done.

Guest – Thanks. Glad to hear from you.

Jimmy – You're very kind. But really, it was cheesy. I mean, I could practically smell the cheddar as I wrote.

Shadico – Here you go. Hope the wait wasn't too long.

Victorthe3rd – The secret to Changeling's success as a man is that he doesn't try to be perfect. He just tries to be better than he was yesterday. He tries to put himself in other people's shoes and feel the way that they do. Most of the time. Some times he really screws the pooch. (That's an old NASA expression. Did you know that?)

TW – Yeah. I wanted to do something seasonal and started it in plenty of time. Then got too busy to get it out for the Holidays.

Huntress of the Shadows – Glad you liked it. Hope the next update doesn't disappoint.

Dablman2020 – Glad you are enjoying it.

Nuka – Sorry to lose you.

"Another turning point a fork stuck in the road.
Time grabs you by the wrist directs you where to go.
So make the best of this test and don't ask why.
It's not a question but a lesson learned in time.
It's something unpredictable but in the end is right.
I hope you had the time of your life."

Egg1 – glad to hear from you. Review when you can. I'll manage.

Chobow – Glad you liked it. I like to sing, but I'm completely untrained. But I know good when I hear it.

Paragon the Half-Dragon – I really love writing Starfire's fractured syntax.

KoppaSensei – Thanks. Sorry for the gripes, but I can't please everybody. Glad you like most of it. I try not to expand on the mythos more than I have to go grow the characters in logical directions. As to dating advice, well, I don't want to come off like a GI Joe cartoon ending, but sometimes I can't help myself.

00cLosetFreak00 – That has to be the most laudatory piece of hate mail I've ever gotten. Rest assured, sending someone into academic tests unarmed because they simply could not put my work down is some of the greatest praise I see. Thanks.

Caprichoso – Well, it's certainly longer than I originally planned, by like, two orders of magnitude. I had a series of scenes I wanted to write. But I had to write a boatload of other material for the scenes to fit the characters and be within the realm of believable. I'm still enjoying the story, but I can see the end from here. Just a few more scenes. I'm not sure how much more verbiage they are going to generate, but I've decided that I'm going to wrap the project up in no more than one year from starting. One of the things that's made it so long is that I keep finding tropes I want to try to put my own spin on and see if I can make it entertaining. I'm still flirting with the idea of The Return of the Ex. (Terra – boo! Hisss!)

Rubicsage – Yeah, me too. I thought about going into Jesus and Santa, but it was all so academic already. I didn't want to bore the readers any more than I had to to make Raven and Robin's points.

Tatsumarusmith – Thanks. I put a lot of effort into balancing enough details to make the scene believable, and too many details, which make the scene boring.

RandomDalmatian326 – I'm glad you're enjoying it. Sing all you like. I'll hear it in my heart. Or at least in my ego.

Anna1119 – I do read a lot. But a lot of it comes from life experience. I'm almost certainly older than you.


Author's Notes:

Okay – once again, I'm posting at 2 AM and I have to work tomorrow, so you're getting it short and sweet. Spoilers. Well, not really. But brace yourselves. We had warm and fuzzy last chapter. Buckle your seatbelts. We're in for a bumpy ride. What can I say – people make mistakes, and you can't have a tearful reconciliation without someone royally screwing up first. Farther down the road – a dramatic confrontation between Cyborg and the rest of the team. An epic battle for the fate of Tamaran! A quiet moment between Rita and Raven becomes noisy!

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?"

"I do." - Lamont Cranston


The seasons turned, as seasons do, and two years went by before the young people realized they were gone. Youth can be like that. When you're young, your youth seems like it's going to be there forever. Then you turn around and wonder where the time went. There were two more cozy Christmases in Titan Tower. And many, many birthdays. Raven's, of course, was usually marked softly. Her friends took to approaching her one at a time in quiet moments during the day to provide her with a small gifts and wish her a Happy Birthday, not making a Big Deal About It at all. Changeling was always last, and usually took her out for a quiet dinner where he would give her his gift, and remind her that "we're all glad you were born. Especially me." But things never stay the same. There were changes around Titan Tower, Jump City, and all over the United States. Control Freak's acne cleared up. Plasmus developed insomnia. Raven discovered "sunlight." Oh, she was never going to be found lying on the beach in a string bikini and covered in oil. But she did come to appreciate the sights and scents of the great outdoors. Often she would take a book and find a shady spot somewhere on Titan Island.

It was not too long after that, though, that things changed. It was just another routine day in Jump city. The skies were clear, blue, and filled with white puffy clouds. The early spring morning was brisk, but held the promise of a warm afternoon.

The alarm went off in Titan Tower and the team swiftly gathered in the common room.

"Trouble in the jewelry district," said Robin.

"That's odd," said Cyborg, "I'm reading seismic disturbances. Big ones."

None of the Titans spoke of it, but one name floated in their heads. They knew one person who could make the earth move for the entire city at once. Terra.

"I've found the epicenter. It's near the surface here," said Cyborg, pointing at the map on the widescreen.

"Titans, GO!" shouted Robin, and they headed for the door.

The team roared through the town, Starfire leading Raven and Changeling in a three-point arial formation, while Robin and the Cyborg drove the R-cycle and the T-car on the ground immediately below and behind them. The team screeched to a halt in the plaza at the heart of the jewelry district just as the ground began to shake and rock. A fissure opened in the center of the plaza, and a giant auger punched up through the ground. It was an ugly vehicle, lacking any elegance or grace in its design. Cyborg winced and shook his head. It resembled a large tank made out of old, blackened iron. Unlike a tank, it had no turret, and its forward section was clearly designed to tunnel through rock and earth, but lacked the skill that similar gear built (or funded) by General Immortus had.

A hatch opened on the top of the mole-machine, and a fat, greasy creature in dark glasses and wearing a hardhat emerged. He raised a large microphone, opened his porcine lips and spoke.

"I," he said pompously, "Am the Underminer. I may live beneath you, but nothing is beneath me! All mineral wealth is the rightful property of the Underminer. All oil, coal, and jewelry are hereby confiscated!"

"Um," said Cyborg, "Haven't I heard of him? I mean, doesn't he usually work near Metroville?"

"I guess he decided he wasn't in the Incredibles weight class," put in Changeling.

"Well," said Starfire as starbolts flared at her fingertips, "we shall teach him that he is still doing the 'punching too high.'"

"Hey Underminer," called Robin, "Be careful. Making a mess in this town can get you put under the jail."

The Underminer sneered. "Your sword better be sharper than your tongue, boy!"

"Yours is duller than your wit! Titans, GO!"

The doors of the Underminer's mole machine fell open, and hoards of mole men poured out. The team waded in, with starbolt and sonic cannon, dark energy and flash bang grenades. And, of course, lions and tigers and bears. (Oh my!) In a very few minutes it was clearly illustrated that the Underminer wasn't going to fare any better here in Jump City than he had in Metroville. Abandoning his troops, he slapped the doors of the mole machine closed and fled into the subterranean spaces beneath Jump City.

The Titans left the city police to round up the Underminer's troups and chased the Underminer as he fled into the darkness. The mole machine moved faster than anyone expected. Apparently the near-blind villain had wandered about far below the city's infrastructure before finding his way to the jewelry district. He'd cut a complex network of unstable tunnels that wound around and around, turning back on themselves in an Escher-like pattern of chaos. The mole machine roared up and down the tunnels trying to shake off the Titans, who remained in close pursuit.

It was about a mile below the city streets that it happened. Starfire slowed down and summoned up tight starbolt, taking careful aim.

"If I can damage the mechanism, the machine will stop," she thought, "and we can extract him from the 'can' at our leisure."

Her eyes narrowed as she sought out a weak spot on the rear of the mole machine. Changeling raced alongside her in the form of a fox, the small, slender body ideal for the tight turns and narrow spaces underground. His vulpine instincts shivered, nudging him. Something wasn't right. Then he heard it clearly. Rock grinding on rock. The emerald fox glanced up. His eyes widened, but in the dim light he felt it more than saw it. Changeling launched himself toward Starfire. Morphing in mid-air, his human form caught her torso in a flying tackle, and shoved her over to the wall of the tunnel, shouting "Starfire! Look out!"

The tunnel shook and rocked as the ceiling collapsed. The entire gallery above rained down into the tunnel below, blocking access both forward and behind. Changeling shifted into the form of an elephant and stood over Starfire as the rocks and earth rained down around them. When the cavern grew silent, Changeling slowly shifted back to his human form, his back cautiously retreating from the quivering ceiling above him. He groped about in the pitch darkness. He flickered into an owl, but could see nothing. Low light vision isn't no light vision. She shifted into a bat, and fired his sonar.

There – at the edge of the floor, next to what used to be the wall. He turned back into his human form and spoke.

"Starfire?" He gently grasped her arm.

"Are you all right?"

She didn't speak. She didn't move. With great care he explored her head for wounds. Starfire's thick mane of hair had cushioned her skull from the impact of hitting the wall. She shifted under his hands. He quickly sat back on his heels.

"Star?"

"Why is it so dark?"

"There's . . . there's been a cave-in Star. I haven't got a light."

Starfire's left hand flared, holding a green starbolt aloft, illuminating their prison.

The reduced cavern was oval shaped, maybe ten feet in diameter, rising to a dome above their heads about thirteen feet tall.[1] The walls were made up of large boulders and moist earth filled in the cracks between the stones "This," thought the Changeling, "is not good."

"Starfire," he started, "I, um, can't feel any breeze, even with my enhanced senses."

"No need," said the Tamaranian warrior. "I can make short work of this."

Starfire rose and extended her arms.

"Wait!" shouted the shapeshifter.

Starfire blinked. "Something is wrong?"

"Star, that roof is very, very unstable, and I think the entire weight of the city is sitting on top of it. If you try to punch through it, you might bring it all down on our heads. Unless you think you can . . ."

She shook her head, lowering her arms to her sides. "I am stronger than I look, but it is more than an earth-mile to the surface of the city. All the Boundless Confidence in the world will not allow me to punch through all of that."

"Let me see what I can find out."

Changeling shifted into a bat, and scanned the walls with his active sonar, then into a blue tick hound and sniffed carefully around all of the walls. He returned to his human form.

"It's not good, Star. I'd turn into a spider or a mouse and start trying to work my way out, but I can't feel any moving air or smell anything but more dirt and rock."

"Perhaps you should do the checking again."

"Star, I'm pretty sure . . ."

"Check again!" she said, raising her voice.

His head whipped around. Starfire was looking at him very intently. The light in the room wavered. He glanced down at her hands. Her hands were shaking ever so slightly.

"Okay, Star," he said quietly. "I'll check again."

In the form of a bat, rat, and mouse, he inspected the walls. As a hound he sniffed, snorted and smelled. He looked for a way out every way he could think of. But eventually he was forced back into his human form.

"Wow," he thought. "Starfire smells . . . different. There's still that hint of zorkaberries and spring rain, but she also smells . . . musky. It's probably because she's been sweating. And we're closed in and I've been hunting scents really hard."

"I'm sorry, Star, there's nothing."

"So we are . . . buried alive?"

"Starfire, no. Our friends have already missed us and are looking for us. It's only a matter of time before Cyborg locates us with his sonic thingy, Robin figures out we can't get out because the cave is unstable, and Raven gates us out of here. We're going to be fine."

The redhead slowly sat down. Her breathing was a little rapid.

"Are you . . . you know, ok?"

"I," she glanced away, "do not like the closed in spaces."

"That's what I smell," Garfield thought. "I smell her fear. I've never smelled fear from her before."

He spoke. "You have claustrophobia? I never knew."

"No one knows. I do not discuss it."

"But, why Star? I mean, we're your friends."

Her eyes narrowed and she turned her head back toward him. Her green-on-green eyes seemed to glow, reflecting the pulsing light of her starbolt.

"I am a warrior of The First Water, trained by the Warlords of Okaara," she said through clenched teeth. "I have mastered all seven weapon styles including the empty hand! Without fail, all of my opponents have fallen before me. To have an irrational fear is to have a weakness."

This was a side of Starfire that Garfield had never seen. The silly, naïve alien was gone. In her place was a hard, abrasive soldier. No. Not a soldier: a warrior.

"Geeze, Star, everybody's got weaknesses."

"'Everybody," she said darkly, "Is not, by birth, the Supreme Ruler of all Tamaran. On my planet, to show weakness is to invite a beating. And I did not wish my friends to see my . . . shame."

"You have nothing to be ashamed of. We've all got limits. Heck, most of my personality is made up of limits."

Starfire relaxed a little as she smiled. He sat near her, a tower of strength in the crushing darkness. He'd always been a great friend. He was so full of smiles and laughter, even if she barely had the cultural background to 'get' his jokes. "You are most kind. I do not know that I will ever get used to the kindness earthlings show so casually."

"You make it easy."

"I give you the thanks," she said, looking at his lean silhouette in the flickering light of her shaking starbolt. "It is not usually as serious as it looks right now. I do not have the trouble in elevators, or cars, or tunnels. It is only when I am someplace small that I cannot . . . punch my way out of."

"So . . . how do I help you?"

"Just the talking helps. I am working very hard to not think of the weight of the city pressing down on the roof above our heads. And maybe if I sit closer to you."

And so they talked. He told her stories of his childhood in Africa, and she of growing up a warrior princess. Starfire slid closer to the Changeling, her arms wrapped around her knees, and her eyes tightly focused on the floor.

"So," Changeling asked after a while, "How is it that you are the heir apparent, when your sister is older?"

Starfire made a face. "When we were young, she was unable to summon the joy of flight. It was only much later, as an adult that she learned to fly. Unable to feel joy, she was judged to have a disqualifying flaw."

"Harsh."

"It could have been worse. Had she had a visible birth defect, she would have been exposed on the mountainside near the city."

"Exposed?"

"Left alone, a helpless infant, for the warrags to come and consume her."

"Eaten alive?"

"Or death by starvation."

"Star, I don't know what to say. You really are very different from us, aren't you?"

"I am," she replied. "I do not do the 'fitting in' well. I begin to think I never will."

"Don't say that," he said. "You fit in just fine."

She looked up at him. "You smile so easily. I have always admired that. It is so very different from home. Only my k'norfka ever smiled at me, after the Gordanians came."

She licked her lips. The darkness at the edge of the green light seemed to press closer. She could feel the weight of the earth pressing down on the shaky dome of rock over her head. The mouldy scent of the earth filled her nostrils.

"You never told us what happened." The musky scent in Changeling's nose grew stronger.

"I do not like thinking about it. It was my own sister, who did it to me. She betrayed us to the Gordanians. She pretended to broker a peace treaty, but the cost of peace was that my parents give me over to the Gordanians as a prize. I was given to the Citadel; they are slavers. I was a great prize. They did not sell me, but rented me, a year at a time."

She shuddered, and then shuddered again. Her breathing began to increase.

"I was used in ways I do not like to remember. It was demeaning and humiliating. That is why I was so violent when I came to Earth. I had escaped, and the Gordanians, having captured me, were returning me to the Citadel for my next 'rental.' I would rather die than return to them."

Starfire hugged her legs even closer, squeezing her eyes shut. Hot tears forced their way from between her lids.

"When I was bad, they put me in The Box. It wasn't a real box. I could have punched my way out of any real box."

"Then what . . ." Changeling tried.

She spoke over him, her words hurried and choppy. "It was a series of overlapping forced fields, only as wide as my shoulders and as tall as me. They would throw a cover over it so that I was in the dark, and barely able to move . . ."

"Starfire," said Changeling.

"They tried to break my will to escape . . ."

"Starfire . . ."

"I will not be caged . . . "

"Starfire!"

"Ever, ever again!"

She looked up, her lips pulled back in a grim snarl, her eyes in an unfocused, thousand-yard-stare.[2]

Changeling grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, hard.

"Starfire! You're not at the Citadel. You're not in the box! We have space to move, air to breathe, and our friends will get us out soon."

Her eyes lost their thousand-yard-stare and focused on his, jade into emerald. Her scent hit him like a hammer blow. She smelled of power. Of rising tides and rolling thunder. Of stampedes and of wildfire. There was no trace of zorkaberries or spring rain. She licked her lips and stepped closer. Her arms rose between his and twined around his neck. Her starbolt flickered out. The only light remaining in the tiny cavern came from her green-on-green eyes, which glowed with a phosphorescent fire. She pulled him close. She smelled of fear and passion and need.

"Star?" he whispered, confused.

No. Not really confused. He wasn't confused at all.

She leaned forward, eyes on his, and pressed her lips to his. She tasted of the rich, life-laden jungle and the endless veldt, of prey stalked by day and slain by night, of fresh hot blood, of victory and triumph. Her body was muscular and healthy under his paws. She would bear strong, powerful cubs. He didn't think again for a long time after that.

And it was, in fact, a long time later that he rolled away from her. His senses came back to him, and he felt the dirt and stone of the cavern floor under his naked buttocks. His stomach clenched, then would have fallen into his shoes, if he'd been wearing any. He swallowed nervously and his hands began to shake.

"Oh Jesus, Starfire, what have we done?"

No answer.

"Starfire?"

A starbolt flared, and lit the tiny cavern. Starfire sat before him, nude, reclining on one elbow. She ran her free hand through her thick mane of hair, combing out the worst of the snarls and scattering the dirt and small pebbles she'd picked up while squirming face-up on the cavern floor.

"You are all right?" she asked.

"All right?" he responded, "How can I possibly be all right? I've betrayed Raven!"

Starfire's eyes widened, then drooped sadly at the corners.

"Oh. Oh. I . . . had not thought of that."

"Thinking? You were thinking at all? I know damn well I wasn't! How could I do such a thing?"

He squinted his eyes shut and turned away.

Starfire spoke into the silence. Hesitantly, she said, "Because you are my friend? And I turned to you in my fear?"

"What?"

"On my planet . . ."

She stopped.

"Do not roll your eyes and stop the listening! I have worked very hard to fit in and be like an earth-girl. Mostly for Robin, but to be your friend, and to be part of this team and nobody cares enough to listen when I talk about my home. Well this time you will do the listening, and you may not accept, but you will understand!"

"Okay, okay. Sorry. I'm upset, worried and scared. It's making me . . . short tempered."

Starfire calmed down, mollified. "Just listen. On my planet, sex is often 'the casual.' Well, far more so than among earthlings, anyway. On my homeworld, if I were upset or angry, or just needed sex, I might appeal to a friend."

"Most Americans, in fact, I think most Earth-people don't do that, Starfire."

"Do no you not think that I know that?" she snapped. "I am not the stupid. I only sound like an eight-year-old in your language."

The alien girl took a deep breath and continued. "I have observed in humans that the reproductive urge is sometimes linked to anxiety, or danger. [3] In my people it is even more so. In our pre-history, our anthropologists tell us that when the primitive Tamaranian tribes went to war, the night before the battle there would be large celebrations with food, intoxicants and . . . indiscriminant intimacy. Even in modern times, it is the custom to spend the night before going to war with . . . people you are close to."

"Humans do that, too Starfire."

"Perhaps so," she replied. "But, you live muchly by your instincts, do you not?"

"I think maybe too much, right now."

"The fault," she said, "Is mine, I think. Your senses are very sensitive, and my pheromones, I think, unduly affected your . . . higher reasoning."

"No, Starfire, it took both of us to do this. I have to own my half of it. And figure out what I'm going to say to Raven."

Starfire began to gather her clothing and dress.

"Friend Changeling, must we say anything? I confess that, now that I am thinking clearly, I do not look forward to telling Boyfriend Robin about this. No, not at all."

"Starfire, even if that wasn't dishonest, you can't conceal a surprise birthday party for ten minutes. There is no way you're going to be able to hide a betrayal like this from Robin."

"You are right. Of course. I am just, afraid."

"Me, too."

The two friends finished gathering their clothes and sat, waiting quietly in the light of Starfire's starbolt. As the Changeling had predicted, in a couple more hours, a tiny obsidian marble manifested in the center of the chamber and rapidly expanded to a hemisphere that vanished in a swirl of power to reveal Raven.

Raven's vision cleared as she stepped from the void to find her two friends sitting at opposite ends of the oval-shaped chamber in the loose earth and rock. Each sat with their arms wrapped around their knees, slightly facing away from one another. Both were dirty and mussed, but in general appeared sound.

"Hi," she said. "Sorry you were stuck here so long. The cave-in was huge. It took Cyborg forever to find you, and Robin and I had to run down and lock up the Underminer before we could help look for you."

She paused. Neither of them spoke.

"Um," said Raven. "You guys ok?"

"We are unharmed," replied Starfire. "But . . . I am uncomfortable in the closed-in spaces, and wish to go home now please."

"But . . ."

"Just take us home, Raven," said Changeling. "We'll talk about it at home."

Raven frowned at her best friend and her boyfriend, then shrugged, and crossed her arms over her chest, and the Void took them all.

On the surface, Changeling broke Raven's PDA protocol, and hugged her, deep and hard. He felt the shape of his body against hers. So different from Starfire's but so much more right. Confused, Raven hung onto him as he leaned over and drew the scent of her into his nostrils. Endless night. Mystery. Books. Candles. And, of course, at the very bottom, the tiniest hint of brimstone. He let go.

"I'm headed back to the Tower. I'll see you guys back there."

Robin and Cyborg joined Raven in giving him a quizzical look as he morphed into an osprey and leaped into the air. Starfire, too, hopped into the air without speaking. The other three people looked at each other, shrugged, and headed home.

Cyborg was the last to arrive. He'd stopped in the garage to refuel the T-car. He could tell that something was wrong as soon as he came in the room. There was a tension in the air. This was clearly not going to be a normal post-mission debriefing. Starfire was standing by the big pay window, staring blankly at the Bay, while Changeling was sitting at one of the computer workstations, pointing and clicking in a distracted manner. Raven and Robin sat at the table, talking in low tones and clearing at a loss to understand why the other two were acting so oddly. Starfire turned as the doors opened to admit Cyborg. Changeling rose with clear reluctance and the two approached the briefing table.

"We need," Starfire began, "To do the 'reporting out' of what happened during the last mission.

Cyborg watched as Changeling and Starfire's eyes met and turned away.

"Uh-oh," he thought. "I don't like to look of this."

Starfire walked up behind Robin's chair and whispered in his ear.

"Now?" he asked, frowning.

She nodded in response. The Titan's leader frowned and rose from his chair, following Starfire to a spot over by the big window. At the same time, Changeling leaned over Raven and said, "We need to talk. C'mere."

The green man turned away and walked away from her, toward the opposite end of the room, near the door, as far away from the big window as possible. Raven's eyes narrowed as she rose to follow her boyfriend across the room.

Cyborg carefully seated himself at the conference table as he watched the two conversations going on at the far ends of the room. He felt more than a little bit like a fifth wheel as the two couples spoke in hushed tones, but at the same time, with the tension in the room, he was glad he was just a supporting player in whatever drama was about to unfold.

About that time, Raven's gravel voice cracked across the room. "What?" she said, harshly.

Changeling spoke quietly again. Cyborg could see the uncharacteristic stress in the green man's face. Raven closed her eyes, bit her lip, and then phased through the floor.

"Raven!" shouted Changeling, dropping to one need and pressing an open hand against the floor plates.

"Starfire!" Robin said, in a near-shout.

Cyborg's head whipped around. Robin's face had gone pale. He shut his eyes for a moment and his mouth flattened out to a thin line. Starfire stood before him, hands clasped in front of her, her lower lip between her teeth and fear in her eyes. Then the color in his face began to return. It flushed red. His eyes opened stared for a moment, and then narrowed.

"Excuse me," he said formally. "There will be no debrief this afternoon. In the event of an emergency, call me in my room. I have some research to do."

He turned on his heel and walked away. Starfire stared after him, a small frown on her face. Cyborg watched as Robin left the room without speaking further.

"You guys want to read me in on what just happened?" he said.

"Friend Beast Boy, would you . . . to the filling in? I find that I . . . need the space."

Starfire rose slowly from the floor and drifted into the corridor leading to the habitat level.

Cyborg turned to the green man and said, "Well."

Changeling turned to watch Starfire exit the room. "I tapped that."

"Wait, you what?"

We slept together. We made the two-backed beast. We rode the skin boat to tuna town. We did the deed of a thousand euphemisms. We . . ."

"I GET it," shouted the larger man. "What I don't get is . . . how you could hurt Raven that way."

"I didn't . . . I couldn't . . . I didn't set out to do it. It was an accident."

Cyborg lumbered closer, looming over the smaller man, his fingers flexing into fists. Changeling just stared up at him as the big man spoke.

"An accident? What, did you trip and fall and just happen to stick your dick in her best friend? What the fuck man?"

"I don't know. I don't even like Starfire that way. I mean, she's hot and all, but . . ."

"So you don't want Starfire, and you just broke Raven's heart for what? Fun?"

"You know what? I don't need this shit right now. If you're not going to listen, fuck you."

The green man flickered, turned into a humming bird, and flashed out of the room.

Cyborg looked around the empty room. "Not where I expected the afternoon to end," he muttered, and headed for his room.

It was several hours later that there was a knock at the door.

"Yeah?" Cyborg answered.

Starfire's voice came through the door. "Friend Cyborg, may I come in?"

"Starfire, I really don't think . . ."

"Please," she interrupted. "Boyfriend Robin will not speak to me, I cannot find Friend Beastboy, and I am afraid to speak to Friend Raven. I need someone to talk to and you are the only one who will speak to me."

Cyborg sighed. On reflection, he totally did not want a piece of this. But this is what friends are for. He opened the door.

"Come in, Star."

"I give you the thanks."

He sat back down and hooked up his charging leads.

"Okay Star. You wanted to talk. Spill."

"I am somewhat confused. I do not understand why everyone is so angry and not listening."

"What's to listen to, Star? Robin and Raven have the basic facts."

She frowned and stomped a tiny foot. "They do not have the facts. Everyone is so busy being angry and rushing away. No one is doing the listening or the trying to understand."

"All right Starfire. I'm listening now. Tell it to me." He leaned back and crossed his arms.

Starfire looked at the cynical expression on his face and his defensive judgmental posture, but realized that he was her best hope of getting anyone to understand. So she laid it out for him. She started by explaining about the Tamaranian attitudes about sexuality. Then about fear and anxiety and how they heightened mating impulses in her people.

"Well," said Cyborg.

"Wait," she interrupted. "There is more. It is about . . . me, personally. I do not normally speak of these things. I am . . . ashamed."

And she told him about her sale, her imprisonment, the box, and finally, about her claustrophobia.

"And so you see, I think that it was my pheromones that . . . loosened Changeling's inhibitions. And I, I needed comfort."

"Well Star, that goes a long way to explaining what happened, but you have to understand . . ."

Starfire suddenly snapped.

"No! It is you who have to understand! I have left my home. I have come over fourteen trillion miles to be here. I have given up a royal inheritance. Your foods are unfamiliar, and most are bland and tasteless. I spend my days and nights chasing criminals that I am not allowed to use my full power on, only to turn them over to law enforcement from whom they escape or who let them go! On Tamaran, we kill them."

Cyborg blinked and began to open his mouth, but Starfire was just getting warmed up.

"I have left behind not only my inheritance, but my responsibilities. My people are probably laboring under the yoke of my psychopathic sister because I choose to stay here with people who do not care to make the least effort to understand me!

She stepped forward and grabbed one of the lower edges of Cyborg's chassis, lifting him off of his feet.

"When I try to speak of my home, my people, my food, or my music, you and the rest of my friends do the rolling of the eyes and the changing of the subject. Well this time you will understand. Down there, buried alive, in the dark, I needed this. And when I turned in my fear to friend Changeling, he helped me. Not because he wanted to hurt Raven. Not because he was greedy or selfish or the horn-dog. But because that is what he does. He helps people. Even freaky aliens he does not understand."

"Starfire, this is a lot to absorb all at once, but if I'm going to try, I'm going to need you to put me down."

She looked down and discovered that she had lifted the seven-hundred-pound man off of his feet. She blushed momentarily and set him back on his feet. The servos in his lower legs hissed as they took his weight. He sat back down. Starfire just waited, looking at him expectantly.

Cyborg weighed his words carefully. "Star, you make some very good points. You're right; we haven't made much effort to get to know you beyond the surface, or to understand where you come from. We don't really appreciate the price you have paid to be here with us. But this is huge. What's happened here isn't just a matter of not knowing which fork to use at dinner. Okay – you've had your say. Was there anything else?"

She shook her head.

"Did you want my advice, or did you just want to unload?"

"Advice please. I clearly do not fully appreciate why this is the big deal."

"This is a big deal. I'm not going to try to speak for all humans. But Robin and Raven are going to regard this as a major betrayal of trust."

"But . . ."

"Star, you've had your say. You and Changeling have torn it off but good. And I'm not sure how to tell you to fix it. Except that both of Robin and Raven are going to need at least a little time to process how they feel. Let them sleep on it, and then try to tell them what you've told me tonight. And stay away from the Changeling."

Down by the waterside, Changeling skipped rocks and tried to think. It sucked that Robin was so bent. He had every right to be, but fixing things with Raven was Changeling's priority. And he didn't think they could be fixed. When he'd gone to his room her clothes had already been gone: candle, bell, incense burner and all. She'd left him. And he couldn't even work up a good mad about it.

"Maybe I can at least talk to Robin tomorrow," he thought, tossing another rock.


[1] (About the size of a full-grown African bull elephant. What a coincidence!)

[2] From Wikipedia: The thousand-yard stare or two-thousand-yard stare is a phrase coined to describe the limp, unfocused gaze of a battle-weary soldier, but the symptom it describes may also be found among victims of other types of trauma. A characteristic of post-traumatic stress disorder, the despondent stare reflects dissociation from trauma.

[3] True story. The subject is still very much open for debate, but most anthropologists will concede that there is a case to be made for the theory that danger makes people horny. I have dialed it up for Tamaranians and for the sake of the drama, but if you're really interested, I found a couple of studies at the American Physiological Association's web site that bear Starfire's reasoning out. psy /journals/psp/30/4/510/ psyc journals/abn/92/1/49/