It's warm. She thought. Am I floating?
She opened her eyes and saw nothing. She couldn't feel anything until she touched herself. She couldn't hear anything, nor did she hear her own voice when she spoke. There was no smell either. Where was she?
All there was…was darkness. Warm, calming, comfortable darkness. Like being under the perfect comforter on the perfect bed. Or maybe being hugged. It was really nice either way.
And it was really weird.
She's awake.
She looked around, unable to figure out where the voice came from. She saw nothing still. What was going on?
Is she calm enough to talk?
The voices were distorted. Who was speaking?
Yes.
Were they talking about her? Who were they?
Bring her out of it then. We need to know what's going on.
The warmth started to fade and it made her sad. It had been like a big hug and she loved it. She couldn't remember the last real hug she got.
Wait…she did remember.
Eddie. She sighed. She missed him.
She closed her eyes as things began to get brighter. She didn't know what was going on, but she was going to be prepared for whatever happened.
When she opened her eyes, she found herself in a very familiar room with very familiar people in it. The Teen Titans Tower common room. The Titans themselves, sans Cyborg, were arrayed on the furniture around her. She was on the couch and Starfire was sitting in a chair, eyes locked on her like a hawk. Robin was sitting before her on the coffee table, undoubtedly staring at her underneath his unblinking mask. Beast Boy was to the side, sitting on the arm of the couch, looking for all intents and purposes like a hunting cat waiting to pounce.
And there above them all, floating in a meditative lotus position, was Raven.
The moment they locked eyes, Rose remembered what happened.
"Ah. I got caught." She said plainly.
"Yes." Raven's response was flat and monotonous.
Rose looked down at herself. She was still in her assassins uniform, yet something was off. It wasn't that her weapons were all missing, no. It was something else….something that had to do with her body.
"I put you in a deep cleansing stasis." Raven said, almost as if answering her thoughts. "The alcohol and nicotine has been purged from your body, as has the sleeping pills that were futilely working inside you."
"Ah." It was all Rose could say.
"Rose." Robin said, leaning forward and resting his head in his hands. "Raven told me what she overheard you talking about on the phone. Now I need to hear your side of this. I need to know what is going on."
She stared at him, her mind wandering through her options. She knew this was going to be one of those pivotal moments in her life where everything changed again. She hated those moments.
But…maybe it was better this way. Maybe it would help to talk.
"What do you want to know?" She asked.
"Everything." Robin replied instantly. "You, your connection to Slade, your connection to us, the kids, everything."
Rose eased backwards and got comfortable, throwing her arms wide and laying her head back to stare at the ceiling.
"Everything huh?" She mumbled. "Where do I even start?"
"I find that, when telling a story, the beginning is the best place to start." Raven said from her floating perch. Surprisingly, she wasn't being sarcastic.
Rose closed her eyes and took the time to gather her thoughts. The Titans patiently waited, which she thought was nice.
"My name," She said slowly, "is Rose Wilson. I am the daughter of Slade Wilson, who is both the mercenary assassin called Deathstroke and your most infamous villain."
"Slade used his real name as an alias?" Beast Boy asked incredulously. "Who does that?"
Rose chuckled. "Pretty sure you lot have noticed that he's got quite the ego."
"That he does." Robin huffed. "Go on."
"As you can tell from my uniform, I am, or rather was, his apprentice." Rose gestured to herself.
"Was?" Raven said. "Looks like you still are."
"Yes and no." Rose replied. "Yes because I'm the only one who he trusts to fill that spot right now. No because…well, I've repeatedly failed him and he's just about disappointed in me enough to execute me."
"He would kill his own bumgorf?" Starfire gasped.
"Sure. He's already killed two wives and a baby mama." Rose shrugged. "Not to mention he's directly responsible for my oldest brother driving himself to suicide andletting my younger brother be maimed and almost murdered."
The Titans were silent as they digested this. Rose didn't understand why they were so surprised. He'd done some fucked up things to them too.
"Please, Rose…continue."
Rose finally looked up and at the Titans, Starfire in particular. The alien girl was as polite as ever with her request. She liked that about her. It was refreshing.
"You asked nicely, so sure. The kids exist because father is trying to make his own army of tank grown metahuman soldiers personally trained by him." She said. "Their whole existence is to kill superheroes. That's it."
Another quiet pause before Raven piped up.
"Those are quiet the lofty goals." She said. "How did he even get our genetic codes?"
Rose couldn't help but to give the empath a wry smile. "This is gonna sound un-Slade-like but…he paid people to go through your trash."
Dead silence.
And then...
"He what?!" Beast Boy all but shouted as he jumped up. The other Titans were just as disgusted.
"I'm serious." Rose replied. "He paid people to go through your trash. Hair, mucous, semen, blood, menstrual blood, whatever he could get, he got. And not just from you guys either. He's got DNA from other Titans too, even before they became Titans. Aqualad, Hotspot, Argent, to name a few."
"That is most disturbing!" Starfire said before floating over to Robin and sitting next to him, grasping his hand.
"You're telling me." Raven muttered as she floated down to sit on the couch.
"Why would he go to such lengths?" Robin asked, obviously pushing his own disgust aside.
"Probably because all his other attempts at having an apprentice failed?" Rose said dryly.
"All?" Robin shot back.
Rose sighed. "My oldest brother Grant, in an attempt to appease father, used a serum similar to the one my father once used to try to give himself powers. When nothing happened he kept upping the dosage until he overdosed and more than half his organs collapsed in on themselves. His death was quite messy. My younger brother Joseph was too gentle of a person and father eventually gave up and drove him away, which led to him almost dying via an enemy capturing and torturing him. Father actually thinks he's dead, but he's not. You, Robin, are self explanatory. I'm not entirely certain about the situation with Terra anymore after hearing some things from Raven and seeing her alive for myself. All I know is that she betrayed him because of Beast Boy and that she turned to stone in the process."
"How much do you know about Terra?" Beast Boy asked agitatedly.
She shrugged again. "I met her only once to spar with her at Father's request. Her hand to hand skills weren't anywhere near mine, but her powers almost evened the playing field."
"Almost?" Raven asked.
Rose couldn't help but to smile darkly. "Yeah, almost. Since the drugs father dearest gave me while growing up triggered my precognitive ability, not to mention giving me the loveliest addiction to them, there was absolutely no way I was gonna lose in a fight to some twiggy blonde skank that was bangin' my father."
There was yet another pregnant pause before Beast Boy spoke slowly.
"Um. Did you say she was…sleeping with him?"
Rose looked at his disturbed expression, then at the others' equally disturbed faces. She raised an eyebrow and let her smile drop.
"You guys didn't know?" She asked. "She was fuckin him from day one."
Almost as one the Titans shook their heads. Rose snorted.
"Well, now you know to add pedophilia to the list of father dearest's crimes."
"Noted." Robin said darkly. "And you? How did you fail him?"
Rose put her head back once more and sighed. Here comes the unpleasant part. She didn't want to talk about it but it was coming out anyways.
"I failed him the first time by not being able to kill the junior hero known as Kid Devil. It tarnished our reputation with our employers in the underworld and he was less than pleased with this."
A pause before her voice softened.
"I failed him the second time by falling in love with Kid Devil and refusing to be his apprentice anymore. I abandoned him almost completely to be with Eddie. It goes without saying that he was less than pleased with this too. Though, that's really putting it mildly because he came to Los Angeles where we were and beat Eddie senseless for over an hour trying to kill him. All because of me."
Another pause. This was the hardest part and she didn't want to talk about it at all.
"And then I failed him a third time by getting rid of the baby I was carrying, mine and Eddie's baby, thus robbing him of a new apprentice. He beat me for that and it almost killed me."
The Titans didn't respond and she was glad. It still hurt as much as it did the day it happened. It probably always would. Why did she tell them that? They didn't need to know the details.
As she wondered why her buried emotions were so strong right now, she felt something warm envelop her hand and glanced over to see Raven's own hand on hers. It was oddly comforting, so she left it there.
Truth be told, Rose's grief and pain was so intense that it was making Raven a little nauseous. But she couldn't very well tell Rose that, so the only course of action was to calm her down.
Time passed and Rose eventually calmed down. Her eyes were still a little watery as she looked back to the leader of the Titans.
"This is gonna sound fucked up, but technically…I'm the reason for all of Slade's interactions with you guys." She cracked a broken smile. This was gonna rock their world.
"You're…what?" A stunned Robin could barely answer. The others were equally stunned.
Rose wiped away a tear. "Don't you remember? You guys had been together for over a year before Slade popped in the picture. That's because during that time I was still his apprentice, working on killing Eddie. When I ditched him, he came after you, Robin, cause of how skilled you are. Then after he failed to get you, he tried to force me to come back. I refused and he brutalized Eddie for it. Then he came back and took Terra from you guys. I sparred with her the same week she came back to you to start spying. Father paid me a grand to do it, I couldn't refuse the money at the time."
Once again, dead silence.
Rose couldn't help but to chuckle again. "I know, small, fucked up world, right? But this was…this was during a time where I was still moving into a gray area, trying to leave behind the life my father forced on me and move into a better life with Eddie. I needed the money and I didn't really have to do anything other test her. I was weaning myself off the drug he kept me on too…"
"Eddie let you come to Jump to do that ?" Raven asked incredulously.
Rose shook her head. "I didn't tell him what I was doing, just that the trip was me bargaining for more of the drug to ease me off it. I lied to him, plain and simple."
Raven didn't reply, nor did the other Titans. She couldn't blame them, she was dropping a lot on them at once. That wasn't all of it either.
"So tell us how the whole cloning thing came about." Beast Boy said slowly.
Rose thought about it. "I don't actually know how father came to that conclusion. I just know that after I got rid of the baby, I got majorly depressed for a few weeks before he sent me off to the League of Shadow to whip me back into shape to-"
"Wait." Robin interrupted. "The League of Shadows? The League of Shadows?! Ra's al Ghul's organization?!"
"Yeah." Rose nodded. "Batman got files on them or something? They're supposed to be super hush hush."
"More like a book." Robin snorted. "That explains why you're so talented."
"Nah, I was better than them before I went there. The only thing they really did was constantly piss me off and get their asses kicked." Rose waved the topic to the side. "Anyways, when I came back from there with Chesire, we found-"
"Chesire?" Robin interrupted again. "The infamous assassin in Asia? The one that was caught working with the Brotherhood of Evil?"
"Yeah, Speedy's girlfriend, duh." Rose said, slightly annoyed that she'd been interrupted again.
Robin leaned forward. "Speedy's what?"
Rose realized that they didn't know about that either, so she decided to get back to the topic at hand and let Speedy deal with that.
"Anyways," She said, "when we got back to the compound, father dearest had already started the project with Brother Blood, though they were having issues getting it off the ground. All their clones of you guys kept dying and the mixes of them kept dying too. When I realized what he was making them for, I knew I had to stop him from making more of me."
"More of you?" Starfire piped up. "What do you mean?"
"More mentally and emotionally messed up sociopaths with a love for hurting people, that's what I mean." Rose snorted softly and smiled a little. "My name might be Rose, but a basket of them I ain't. And whole basket of nutty killers raised by my father are the last thing anyone needs."
"So what did you do?" Beast Boy asked.
"Well, not much of anything at first. Just watched them screw up time and time again. And then…then one day they got it right." She sighed. "Martin was born, so to speak. An artificial life made from the clones of Robin and Starfire. The next day Emelia arrived, which shocked the hell out of everyone. I had to figure out what to do, because father had to leave for South America and left me in charge of security. I didn't have a lot of options either, because father takes being prepared to the point of paranoia."
She gave each of the Titans a good, long look.
"To be honest, my first thought was that I wanted to take them and run. I wanted to use them to replace what I lost, which was a brief and stupid thought. I know my father. He would have hunted me down faster than I could have imagined, killed me, and taken them back. My second thought was to unplug their tanks long enough to let them die, then plug them back in and feign ignorance. I thought about this one a lot, but the issue was that there was always at least one of those scientists watching them. My third idea, however…"
She trailed off as a smile found its way onto her face. It almost made the Titans shiver, it was so crazy.
But it had been her favorite idea of the three and she didn't regret it the slightest.
"Tell me, how insane do you think it would have driven him to make these clones and then find out that they were loyal to the Titans, his sworn enemies?"
"Uh…what?" Beast Boy asked for everyone wondering what she was talking about.
Rose started giggling and it was very creepy. "That's what I did! I heard the scientists say that once the kids open their eyes at least once that they were going to starting imprinting loyalty to Slade onto them as they got tank educated. Sooooooo, I beat them to it! I kept watch on them twenty four seven until Emelia opened her eyes, then started showing her pictures of you, Raven, and you, Beast Boy, telling her that you're her parents, that you're family! I did the same thing with Martin after he opened his eyes too!"
Raven's jaw (and everyone else's) hit the floor. "You are the reason she's so fixated on having a happy family?!"
"Yes!" Rose's almost psychotic smile widened. "It would have driven Slade absolutely mad to find out that his precious tank-made apprentices wouldn't listen to him! To find out that they wanted to see you, be with you! He would be so furious and it would be so fucking epic!"
"But that's not what happened, now is it?" Robin said after a few moments.
Rose's smile and giggles evaporated instantly and her expression soured. "No, it's not. Brother Blood insisted on moving them to a separate facility in case their latent powers activated and destroyed the lab. So they were moved to a bunker in the mountains, just the two of them, an assload of robots, and some scientists to keep their tanks going. That place was also to be their training facility, a test site really, to see if they could actually function. Buuuuuut…we had some, shall we say, unexpected company a few months back."
Robin stared at Rose, who was staring at him intently.
"It was you." He said slowly as realization dawned on him. "You sent in that anonymous information about Slade's hideout in the mountains! You urged us to strike quickly before Slade knew what was happening! You told me about the door and gun batteries!"
"Bingo." Rose grinned. "Wanna know how pissed he was when his precious future appreciates were stolen from what he thought was a secure facility?"
Nobody answered because the look on Rose's face spoke volumes.
"We didn't see anyone there but bots and the kids though." Beast Boy said thoughtfully.
"That's probably because I had already tripped an alarm and pushed the scientists into a secret escape tunnel." Her smile widened. "Such a shame that it was an unfinished tunnel that collapsed. I barely made out alive."
There wasn't a doubt in anyone's mind that the tunnel didn't cause the deaths of those men.
"How did you end up in Jump City then?" Raven asked, torn between awe of how far Rose would go to infuriate Slade and caution due to the girls' mental instability.
"Father ordered me to come here to observe the development of the children and snatch them when the opportunity provided itself." Rose shrugged yet again. "I made other plans though."
"Such as…?" Robin probed.
"To get Emelia and Martin the families they needed to stay out of Slade's hands." She glanced at Raven and Beast Boy. "Even if I had to play matchmaker to do it."
"I knew it!" Raven almost shouted as she hopped up off the couch and pointed at Rose. "Even though you had something going with Garfield , you still kept doing things that suggested you wanted us together!"
Garfield stared at his girlfriend in confusion as Rose threw her hands up helplessly.
"Guilty as charged." She said with a grin. Secrecy be damned, this was kinda fun to rile Raven up. Even felt kinda nice to talk too. It was weird.
"But…how did you know that we could be together?" Beast Boy asked her. "Rae and I, uh…well, we weren't that close then."
"Father's dossiers on you two estimated that there was a ninety percent chance the two of you would end up in a relationship and listed off ways to exploit it if necessary."
If looks could kill, Raven would be murdering Rose with her glare.
"Are you responsible for the deaths of several of our villains?" Robin interrupted them. "And for the jailbreak of the Big Three?"
"Yes and yes." Rose answered him. "I started killing them because father decided to move to phase two of the retrieval plan, which was dropping a fat bounty on the kids and notifying your rogues gallery. I needed to get them to give up completely and to convince father I could still do it before he decided to move onto phase three, which would have involved hiring the League of Shadows to retrieve the kids."
Robin was audibly grinding his teeth at that answer, which made Starfire look at him worriedly.
"As for the three giant stooges, father wanted me to release them. I figure that father assumed I would use the distraction to sneak into the tower and snatch them."
"Nobody came in the tower though." Raven said. "Fixit would have noticed."
Rose nodded. "I know. I went for frozen yogurt instead."
"A lot of people got hurt because of that, Rose." Robin snapped.
"Nobody died but the guard that worked for my father." Rose said smoothly. "I made sure of that. And everybody there has insurance."
Robin didn't answer. He was fuming, absolutely burning up inside over everything he was hearing. It was ludicrous.
"You did all of this…just to make your father mad?" Raven said slowly. "That's beyond petty. Vindictive, really. Spiteful."
"You're the only person in this room that could truly understand hating your father, Raven. Call it what you want, but I have no regrets about what I've done."
Raven had no response. She did understand hatred towards a horrible parent, but she didn't know if she had the tenacity to defy him like Rose had. Such sneaky and underhanded tactics weren't really her forte. She was too straightforward for those sorts of things. This was almost mindboggling.
Beside her, Garfield pondered everything he'd heard. Slade had gone above and beyond the call of crazy with all of this cloning stuff. And Rose? Damn, what a nightmare of a situation. Every animal in him was crying out in outrage. He didn't know how to feel. Was he supposed to be mad at her for deceiving them or glad that she was sort of on their side before they even knew her? She had manipulated all of them…but it was for a greater good, of sorts. Why did Slade have to ruin everything he touched? How was he supposed to feel about all of this?
He didn't have answers and it infuriating.
"So what are you going to do with me now that you know the truth?" Rose asked, interrupting their thoughts.
"That's a good question and one that I don't have an answer to." Robin replied. "This is big and I can't make a decision lightly."
"I'm surprised you don't just throw me in a cell and forget where the key is." She chuckled, although she didn't intend on saying that out loud. Why did she keep talking?
"It's still on the table." Robin replied humorlessly.
"I would not normally say this but…I am thinking that perhaps it would have been better for Slade to stay dead when we defeated Trigon?" Starfire said uncertainly.
"I can get behind that." Raven grumbled. This was not a good day to her.
"I'd have been down for that." Beast Boy agreed while shaking his head. "This is nuts."
Robin nodded. "The ayes have it. But it couldn't be helped. We unfortunately did need him-"
"Okay, yeah, hold on a moment." Rose interrupted. "That's the second time someone has mentioned my father dying and I still have no idea what you're talking about. Someone wanna clue me in?"
The Titans stared at her before Raven spoke slowly. "What do you mean you don't know what we're talking about? How could you not know?"
"I forgot, we didn't make Slade's death public information." Robin said.
"Terra killed him." Beast Boy told Rose.
"Terra killed him?!" Rose was astonished. That little bitch wasn't worth her weight in salt. How could she…?
"She overused her powers and made a volcano under the city." Starfire said softly. "She was turned to stone and Slade fell into the magma."
Rose couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Are you serious?"
Raven could feel the sheer disbelief rolling off the girl, so she got up and went to the computer. It took her a moment, but she dialed Cyborg.
"Y'ellow?" He answered, though the screen stayed blank. The sound of a hammer drill could be heard in the background.
"I need the video file from your memory of the night Slade and Terra's died." Raven said.
"One moment." Cy replied. The drill stopped and replaced by a tapping sound. "Alright, sent to the main computer."
"Thank you." Raven opened up the file as it popped up. It took her a moment, but soon enough it was playing.
Rose couldn't believe her eyes. The whole video was chaos. The flying rocks, the volcano forming, Raven threatening to kill Terra, Terra betraying her father, everything. She watched as her father fell into the lava and very obviously died, then Terra's tearful goodbye to Beast Boy.
When it was done, she could only sit there dumbfounded.
"Now do you believe us?" Raven said dryly. "We're heroes. Lying isn't our thing."
"Okay, yeah." Rose said shakily. "But…if he died, then why's he alive?"
"Because during the battle with Trigon, I was forced to help him get his life back in exchange for his help. He later fought Trigon with us." Robin replied.
Rose looked lost, so Raven turned back to the computer. "Cy, could you-"
"Already sent, Rae." Cy replied. "I don't know what's going on over there but it's makin' me wonder if I need to come home."
"I'll tell ya later dude." Beast Boy said.
Raven booted up the memory file and Rose saw what kind of hell they were talking about. Hell. Literally. It was beyond fucked up. She saw what Cyborg, Beast Boy and Starfire went through, saw the weird copies they fought, saw that thing called Trigon, saw her father fighting Trigon!
"After the battle ended and the world went back to normal, we never saw him again." Robin said as the video ended.
"I saw one of his robo-copies, but that was it." Beast Boy said. "Nothing until the raid on the bunker and even then it was just his cheapo bots."
Rose started to say something about how she had never known any of that had happened, but something caught her eye. A date in the corner of the video.
"That…happened a few weeks before Eddie ran off…" She said slowly.
"Before he died, you mean?" Raven corrected her.
"He ran off." Rose said. "Don't believe that crap about dying."
Raven glared at her for a moment before whipping around to the computer once more. The video was cut off as she started going through folder and files in there, looking for something. The Titans and Rose watched, none knowing what she sought.
But they were soon to find out.
When the video started rolling, there were the Titans and four people Rose didn't recognize. As she listened, they were revealed to be four new Titans that were bring recruited. As she idly wondered if her father knew, something happened.
A man in a red suit just popped out of nowhere.
"Ah, like father like daughter I see."
Rose shivered. What a voice!
The video stopped.
"This man, so to speak, is Landon. He is the King of Hell, having taken over for Satan some time after Trigon's defeat." Raven said. "He came here with a request for us."
"Uh…okay?" Rose said uncertainly. "And this is relevant because…?"
"Shut up and watch."
Rose did watch. She watched as the man showed off his powers, listened as he hit on Raven (who refused to look at the laughing Rose when those parts came up), and watched him dote on Emelia, which was bizarre.
And then…
"Since we all know how that turned out, I'll tell you why I'm here now." Landon's tone turned businesslike. "You see, the other demon I competed with has become quite the nuisance lately. He's quite aggravating, damned wanker. I can't very well make him sod off on my own, that's just going to open my back up to be stabbed. So…I decided to take him apart from the bottom up, starting by taking one of his favorite toys and giving it to you."
"You're giving me a toy?!" Emelia said, excited.
Landon shook his head. "I'm afraid not, young missy. I'm here to give your parents something to watch over. Someone, actually."
Emelia's head tilted. "A person? Who?"
"A young man that the demon lord tricked into selling his soul for superpowers, although the boy had no idea that the powers Neron, the demon lord, gave him were already a part of him."
"Who the heck sells their soul for superpowers?" Superboy grumbled.
Landon glanced up at him. "You'd be AMAZED at what people would sell their soul for, lad. One kid wanted a Klondike bar. That was it! Ice cream! Daffy bastard. Terrible thing to trade your soul for. There's only one thing worth that."
"What is it then, Mister Landon?" Emelia asked sweetly.
Landon gave her a little smile. "Ask your parents when you're older, they'll be able to explain."
"Okaaaaaay!"
"So let me get this straight." Robin said. "You came to Earth to give us someone to look after? Just to anger Neron?"
Landon nodded. "Quite right, young man. You don't have to worry about Neron, he'll be too busy dealing with me to come after the boy."
"Why should we do this for you, man?" Cyborg asked, raising an eyebrow and crossing his arms.
"Because then the King of Hell owes each of you a favor."
There was silence for a moment before Beast Boy slowly said. "Dude…that's crazy."
The demon king shook his head. "Not really. It's good business sense to make an investment such as this. The boy himself will owe me a favor for this and I'll cash it in one day, just as each of you will cash in yours one day. I have no qualms with owing you a favor, it will gain your trust."
"Business sense?" Robin raised an eyebrow. "You're a businessman?"
"Quite so, young chap." Landon's bizarre eyes seemed to glitter. "Hell doesn't run itself, you know. The most precious thing one can offer isn't money, or a soul, it's friends, and having them on Earth is always a plus."
"So why us?" Static asked.
"When he died, he was eighteen and a superhero. That was two years ago, so I'll be resurrecting him at his proper age with his powers intact."
"He was a superhero?" Several people asked. Landon nodded.
"Is he nice?" Emelia interrupted.
"Quite so. He's very polite and a bit goofy, always smiling. It quite weird to see in Hell, truthfully." Landon was quiet for a moment. "But his real smile only comes out when he talks about the girl he left behind."
The video stopped again and everyone looked at Rose.
She was, understandably, quite speechless.
Raven then fast forwarded the video to Eddie climbing out of the hellpit. Rose's jaw hit the floor and her eyes widened. To the empath, it felt like the assassin's whole brain just stopped working.
To Rose, it felt like everything she knew was a lie.
The video kept rolling but Rose wasn't watching.
"Where was his body?" She asked numbly. "I looked everywhere for him. I would have seen his red body. I would have seen blood, debris, a scene of a fight, something."
"When demons, and those who have blood ties to demons like myself, die, their bodies don't stay here on this plane of existence. They disappear, going back to or just to Hell." Raven said softly. "You couldn't find him because he wasn't there."
Rose didn't respond, but Garfield did.
"What about you, Rae? Will you just disappear too?" He asked worriedly.
She shrugged. "I don't know. Spending time around deities like Azar tends to change people. I could stay here, I could go to Hell. I won't know until it happens."
That was not what the changeling wanted to hear. Now he was stressing out even more.
"Eddie told me the truth." Rose buried her face in her hands. "He told me the fucking truth and I…"
"Attacked him and called him a liar." Raven finished for her. "Repeatedly."
It felt cruel to say it out loud, but Raven felt that it needed to be done. If Rose was going to start on a clean slate with them (whether she knew it or not) then she not only needed to confess her involvement with Slade but also come to terms with her own trauma. If she didn't, she never be able to heal and move forward with her life.
That's why Raven had enchanted her with a compulsion of truth spell. She hated herself for doing it, even after having a long talk about it with the others. She felt like she had violated Rose's free will by doing this, a sentiment Garfield and Starfire shared. Robin thought it was better this way, both to get the information they needed against Slade and to help Rose heal. Raven did agree with him on that because it's the most logical route to self preservation for both them and her.
She still felt horrid about it. She could literally feel Rose's mind struggling to process this, to understand that Eddie didn't abandon her, that it wasn't his fault for the things she went through. It was easy to blame someone else if things went bad. But if no one else was responsible, then all the emotions spent towards them meant nothing. All that negativity had no meaning to it.
Rose's fractured mind and broken heart couldn't handle this. She was going to have a breakdown, Raven could feel it.
"Robin." She said. "Do you ever get one of those bad ideas…"
"How bad are we talking? The caped crusader asked.
"Beast Boy type bad."
"Hey!" Garfield said indignantly. "Not all my ideas are bad!"
"Motor oil water balloon." Starfire reminded him. He flinched and said no more.
"I try not to." Robin replied. "What did you have in mind?"
"This." Raven waved her hand and Rose dropped through a portal. The others stared at the spot she disappeared through.
"Where did you send her?" Robin asked slowly.
"Eddie's room." Raven said softly.
"Dude…why?" Garfield asked her.
"Because I don't know where to start the healing process with her." She admitted reluctantly. "Rose is so emotionally and mentally messed up that I doubt my ability to help her even in my own thoughts. Her scars run so deep in her psyche that I'm afraid to delve into her mind least it affect me. I want to help her because, even though she lied to us about who she was, she still helped us in ways we're coming to terms with. She was our friend and ally just to spite her father to begin with. But now…she is our friend and ally. She dropped a lot on us a few minutes ago and in return, we dropped what was equivalent to an emotional atom bomb on her. She's hurting so much right now that I am physically nauseated by being in the same room with her. I have to and I will help her though."
All was quiet for a few minutes.
"You know, Raven…I feel like there's more to that. Like it comes from something else." Robin said slowly.
Raven sighed. It was just like Robin to see through her so quickly.
"It's called guilt." She said softly. "It stems from the fact that I could have stopped Terra from leaving the first time. I could have helped her learn to control her powers. I knew she was afraid of herself, afraid of hurting other people. I felt it the moment she freaked out when you called her out on it. But I didn't do anything. I was so wrapped up in myself that I refused to reach out to someone who needed me, even if she didn't know it."
Garfield reached over and grabbed her hand, giving it a little squeeze. "It's okay Rae, really."
"It won't be happening again." Raven said firmly. "I'm going to help that pain-in-the-ass overcome this, whether she likes it or not."
#$$
Crunch
The aforementioned pain-in-the-ass sat motionless at wherever she now was. She didn't know where Raven had sent her and she didn't really care. She was trying to not have a breakdown, to not cry.
She didn't know what to think anymore, didn't know what to say, what to feel. Everything was wrong and she didn't know what to do.
I'm not going to cry. She told herself. Crying won't solve anything. I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry, I will not cry, I will…not…
She clenched her watery eyes shut and beat her hands against her legs. Pain was the only reliable thing she had in her life. It was the one thing she could always count on to clear her head long enough to refocus. Pain was her oldest friend and it had never let her down before.
I will not cry. She told herself as she punched her leg to punctuate each word. I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not cry. I will not…what's that noise?
She stopped moving her arms, though her trembling couldn't stop if she wanted it to. The sound was odd, barely there but just loud enough to be distracting. Was she not alone?
She opened her eyes and couldn't believe what she saw.
It was Eddie, sitting on the edge of the bed, folding paper. Around him were dozens, hundreds of…paper birds? They were all colors of the rainbow and they were everywhere. She was even sitting on some.
His face was solemn and somber, his dull yellow eyes almost lifeless. He looked, for lack of a better phrase, dead to the world.
It was so unlike him that Rose choked on her own grief as the realization hit home. She wasn't the only one suffering.
"Eddie?" She said softly. He didn't answer, so she reached over and nudged him.
He didn't move at first, then he slowly looked at her. He stared at her for a solid five seconds before his brow furrowed in confusion, then his eyes went wide and his jaw dropped.
"Rose?!" He exclaimed.
She didn't know what to say. "Um…hi?"
He looked her up and down and jumped up, crushing dozens on paper birds. "What are you doing here? Why are you in uniform?! Did you sneak in? You gotta get out of here before the other see you! I'll take you anywhere you need, just get out of here before Robin sees you!"
She was stunned. "You'd still cover for me, even after everything I said to you? After everything I did to you?"
"Of course." He said. "You might hate me, but I never stopped loving you."
She had words to speak, things to say, mountains to tell him, but all that happened was that she choked up. This was too much too fast. She need time to settle down, another distraction, before she had a breakdown.
"What's…what's with the birds?" She asked, grasping at straws.
"They're ducks." Eddie said quietly, almost too soft for her to hear. "I made one for every day we were apart."
Rose had a flashback to the first actual conversation they had, where he choked and messed up his pickup line.
You're as beautiful as…as…a duck!
It was the first time she had laughed at him and it had opened the doorway to getting to know each other and, eventually, their relationship.
And here he was now, surrounded by ducks and thinking only of her.
! $$!
Out in the common room, Raven actually felt Rose's mind go snap.
It was gonna be a long night.