Author's Note: I'm glad that all my attempts at creating a realistic Azarath have been such a success. Thanks go to my reviewers, you wonderful people you! :-D

Omg, I wrote this chapter while listening to Britney Spear's "Every time" and I almost cried! Whew. I don't know. I'm crazy. The first part is a bit sad… bit dismal. CURSING IN THIS CHAPTER!

Chapter 12: Falling

Let me rest in peace.

That treasure so desired

Which taunts me in my pain,

May grasp and comfort me

In my greatest escape.

"Rest Me In Peace" Raven Roth

A month went by, then a second, both with no disturbance from Trigon. He seemed to be either leaving his daughter alone for the time being, or Raven had successfully stowed him away. But although Trigon's silence was a relief, it was a tense one. Like the calm before the storm, the apprehension and anxiety built up, an uneasy rest before a hurricane. The Titans handed over the crime-fighting regimen to the Jump City police, taking all their time trying to nurse their comrade to health. Tensions were high, and explosions of short temper were frequently occurring due to frustrations and exhaustion. Starfire's cheeks seemed permanently stained red, her emerald eyes always glossy and red-rimmed with tears as she saw the other female of their team withering away before them, desperately trying to hold on to life for her child and her friends.

"YOU DIDN'T HAVE TO SHOVE ME, DUDE! WHAT'S YOUR DEAL?!" Beast Boy exploded at Cyborg, who'd bumped coldly into him on his way to the kitchen. Cyborg whirled around, narrowly missing colliding with Starfire, who backed away from the two and stood awkwardly on the side, out of the way, watching the scene with watery eyes.

"What's my deal?! WHAT IS MY DEAL?? MAN, HAVE YOU BEEN ASLEEP THIS ENTIRE TIME?!" He shouted, a bit of spit spraying on Beast Boy, who made a face of disgust.

"You're not the only one who cares for her, Cyborg!" Beast Boy retaliated, angrily shaking a fist at Cyborg. "You're acting like we don't even CARE that she's dying!!"

"Shut up, you bastard!" Cyborg roared, shocked and angered that Beast Boy would bring up the tender subject, though it lingered in all of their minds.

Beast Boy scoffed.

"Me? Bastard? What about that kid, huh, Cyborg? THAT'S THE BASTARD, CYBORG! THAT'S THE –"

In a swift movement that sent Beast Boy flying, Cyborg punched him in the face, hitting his nose with a crack. Beast Boy slammed into the table, sliding down and crouching with his hands over his face, eyes squinting in pain. Thick blood trickled between his fingers, red and slick on his green skin.

"Hey! HEY! What's happening here?!" Robin demanded, running into the room after hearing the crash. He spotted Beast Boy hunkered down on the floor, nose oozing and spotting the floor with dots of red as it dripped from his face. Robin turned to Cyborg, immediately realizing what had happened.

"Why'd you hit him, Cyborg? We've got enough problems without you two fighting."

Cyborg ferociously glared at Robin, a vein throbbing in his temple.

"Robin, don't tell me you wouldn't hit somebody who called your kid a bastard." He said with forced calm, still breathing heavily. He looked down at his hands, which were clenched into tight fists. A stain of red tinted the metal, hardening to a crust on his knuckles.

Robin hesitated for a moment, but plunged onward.

"Still, you can't just beat your teammates up, Cyborg!" He declared, standing firm.

"You need to shut up, bird brain, or you're gonna get what he just did." Cyborg growled, a warning in his tone.

Robin raised an eyebrow contemptuously.

"Is that a threat?" He said coolly, standing tall and reminding Cyborg just exactly why he was the leader of the Teen Titans.

"YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT IS, PUNK!" Cyborg snarled, moving to attack the swift teen in front of him. Robin set his footing and glared menacingly at him. Beast Boy took his hand away from his bloody nose and made a rude finger gesture at Cyborg, who mouthed, 'I'll get you later, kid,' with as much fury as he could spare.

"No!" A new voice rang out. Starfire floated mournfully from her place in the shadows, her face streaming with tears. Her halo of bright hair seemed dimmed, as though a veil of sadness dulled her vibrant features. Her weeping was the only thing that could break up shouts between the men, and she brought her hands to her face and shook with silent sobs, sobs that echoed through the walls of the tower with their noiseless meaning. The Titans were falling, and she was crying for them.

"Starfire, I…" Robin began, but lost his words as his throat tightened and he pulled her into a comforting embrace. Her sobs gained momentum and she shook, tears wetting Robin's shoulder as she cried.

Cyborg put a hand on her shoulder.

"Star, I'm so sorry…" He said, but he, like Robin, trailed off.

"It was really, really stupid of us to fight like that." Robin mumbled into her hair.

Beast Boy stood from his crouch next to the table and looked at his friends guiltily. The three young men wore faces of shame.

"Sorry," They all said at once.

Starfire hiccupped from her place in Robin's arms, pulling away.

"Do you not see what we have become?" She whispered. Her voice was barely audible, but not a word was missed. "We are turning against each other, one by one. Worse than the Rekmas, this is our plight! In our love and concern for Raven we forget our love and concern for each other. Please, friends, please. Do not fight. The fight should be aimed, not at each other, but at the beast which plagues Raven and the child in her womb."

There was a silence at her words. The team was collapsing, falling from the inside out. Cyborg, Beast Boy, and Robin had to admit that she was right. Starfire stood silently, gazing at her mute friends with her innocent green orbs, her pain and heartache clear as day in them.

. . . .

Her father remained dormant inside her, but Raven's condition didn't improve. The enchantress was ashen and sickly, never gaining weight despite the nutrients in the food that Cyborg and the Titans forced her to consume. Her frame, so thin even at perfect health, was gaunt, but her stomach was rounding. She'd explained to them all that her pregnancy would be considerably shorter than the average human woman's, due to her half-demon heritage, amounting to about five months. Cyborg worried every day for Raven and their child within her. Raven woke often after fitful grasps of sleep, and sometimes when the illness lessened, when she sat silently in her room when no one was there, she would pick up a pen and write poems. Her poetry released some of the emotions, making her breathe and rest easier.

Now, Raven breathed in deeply, inhaling the smoke of the incense she'd begged Cyborg to light for her before he'd left her side that night. Every time she breathed in the scents of her past, she drifted back to when things were easy, when she was just a little girl being taught the ways of Azarath by the granddaughter of Azar herself.

"Azarath. Metrion. Zinthos!" A nine-year-old Raven cried out, suspended in the air. Her blue cloak billowed behind her in the wind, and her eyes were glowing white diamonds beneath her hood. The Azarathian sun shone pale on her bare legs, cooling as the day dwindled. She thrust her white palms outward, yelping as the black power burst from them with such intensity that it threw her backwards and into a tree. An older woman approached her and extended a hand to help her up as she rubbed the back of her head, wincing from the blow.

"Child, you grow too strong." Azar said, shaking her head of curly white hair and pushing the single coiled wisp of black out of her face as the wind rushed around them. "But with the strength you lack control. These are not the powers of a normal Azarathian woman, child. Your lineage provides you with strange abilities that I know not yet how to tame."

Raven looked down at her boot-clad feet, staring into the blue fabric until her eyesight blurred. The forest around them was quiet in the ways of nature; gentle swishes as the wind rustled through the leaves of the trees, miniscule crunches as forest creatures stepped daintily among the foliage debris, the faint trickle of icy water that flowed slowly and consistently between slippery rocks and damp gullies. The wind had picked up, caressing the forest with its soft hands. Pallid sun was fading beneath the horizon, and the far away homes of the village south of the wood seemed to glow as the light passed behind them on its way to exchange places with the dark. Raven and Azar stood in the middle of the wood together, attempting without success to tame Raven's fluctuating powers.

"I believe the only thing that will help you is meditation. It calms you and gives you control." Azar continued, causing Raven to look up from her boots. Azar looked at her charge with penetrating sapphire eyes, and Raven averted her gaze, unable to hold eye contact with the noble woman. Azar's expression softened.

"Raven, look me in the eye." She pushed her white curls away again as one flew idly into her face with the breeze. Raven looked up at her tutor, and gem colors clashed.

"You are special, Raven. You mean hope for the world. Let us break from this, and meditate together."

Raven nodded, her purple hair bobbing in its short cut.

"I am tired…" She said slowly, looking around at their forest surroundings. The shadows were darker now, more pronounced as night tiptoed behind them like a stalking cat. "All right."

Azar smiled.

Back in reality, Raven grimaced as a wave of pain struck her, wishing for Cyborg, though he could have done nothing to help her. She found herself idle, wondering whether death was truly fascinating, whether death was truly the greatest rest that desperate people found in their times of weaknesses. She shook her head roughly as the thoughts of suicide pulled at her, but woozily regretted it as her head spun.

'Father, I will kill you one day for everything you have done!' She thought murderously, her anger building.

'Ah, but before that, daughter, I will kill the child who threatens my kingdom… but not you, for with you, there is always hope for… a change of heart.' A horribly familiar voice spoke in her head, sarcastic and evilly amused.

Raven gasped, brought her index and middle fingers to her temples and breathed deeply.

'Get OUT!'

But instead of being forced away from Raven's mind, he came forward, springing on her as she instinctively curled into a ball, her thin arms wrapped around her protuberant belly. Her face contorted and she ground her teeth together, holding on and desperately trying not to let Trigon take control. But the purple dimmed from her eyes, swallowed by fire, and her straight white teen sharpened into daggers as she was shoved into a corner of her mind, trapped and bound with psychological ropes. Trigon let out a laugh, harsh and alien to her throat, and stood. Raven's body wobbled, and he had to grasp the bedside table in support, but commanding strength he led her from her room. Her screams were silent, angry and pained, her mouth trying unsuccessfully to utter words. The darkness of her mind surrounded her, and she could vaguely make out the reddish hue that was Trigon's presence lingering over her, pulsing with her heartbeat and leading her body like a puppet.

The show continued. Trigon walked his marionette into the living room of Titans Tower, neglecting to flick on the light switch and standing in the dark, looking through the wide expanse of windows before him and gazing at the full moon. Stars dotted the sky like dripped bleach on a dark shirt, smudged and lackluster. Raven thought of what Robin and Cyborg would say, something like,

"That sky looks bleached –"

"It must be a villain – "

"We hate dirty laundry – "

"Time to dry clean some evil."

She let out a snort of amusement, temporarily forgetting her situation at the comforting thought of her friends and their idiotic one-liners. Trigon twisted her face into a scowl.

A sleepy yawn was heard behind them, and Trigon turned to see Beast Boy half asleep, stretching and blindly walking into the kitchen for a late night glass of water. He scratched his side in a gesture reminiscent of a chimp, yawning again as he turned with his glass to head back to his room. He looked around, and gasped.

"Raven?!"

Trigon shot out with Raven's powers, capturing Beast Boy and covering his mouth before he could yell.

"Be quiet, fool." His horrible voice hissed. Beast Boy's eyes widened in fear and recognition.

"MMYFFHON!" Beast Boy yelled, his voice muffled by the hold Raven's powers had over him. He swung his legs back high and twisted, wriggling out of the darkness and hanging from it by his knees. He flipped over backward and landed with a stumble before Trigon, who stared down at him with burning eyes.

Beast Boy darted away, running as fast as he could, narrowly avoiding an onslaught of dark energy as Trigon advanced on him. The changeling shuddered into the form of a cheetah, picking up speed and racing to Robin's room, where he unceremoniously barged in, urging the sliding door to shut faster than it did. He leaned his back against the closed door, breathing a sigh of relief and moving to wake the leader of the Titans. But Robin had already sat up, masked eyes open immediately, hair tousled from sleep and clothes wrinkled.

"Beast Boy, what is it?" He demanded, throwing the covers off of him. He scooted sideways and sat on the edge of his bed, slipping on his metal shoes. Beast Boy answered, panting.

"I, well, and she was there and –" He cut to the chase, sparing Robin the details. "Trigon's got her."

Robin let out a curse, standing.

"Get Cyborg and Starfire. I hope they're ready, cause this is going to be one hell of a fight."

Author's Note: All right, it seems that the average pages (in Microsoft Word) for each chapter is about 5 to 7. And you might not think it, but it's surprisingly hard to write that much, since it barely shows how long it really is when you read it on ff.net. So, be proud of yourself and all your fellow writers out there, cause I declare today NATIONAL FF.NET UNAPPRECIATED WRITERS DAY!! WOO!!!

Throws confetti and offers reader a flag