A/N: Hi everyone! I was worried that the last chapter just didn't fit in, but it seems to have turned out alright!

Hey Strider! Awesome Review! Please send me an email so that I can properly respond.

Be warned, there is quite a surprise in this chapter. I almost thought about cutting it, but I didn't feel right about it.

Again, this is sort of a short chapter. I prefer to write in blocks of about 3000 words though.

As usual, I do not own anything from Teen Titans

Chapter 6: The Guest of Honor

Beastboy stirred and opened his eyes. His room was dark, but the door was open a crack. 'How did I end up here…?' Beastboy was bewildered. He was wide awake, but nothing made sense. 'What am I doing here? Was all of this a dream…?' He thought back, but the images were blurry, and didn't fit together. 'Terra!' Beastboy sat bolt upright, and rubbed his eyes.

'Did I dream that a cute blonde girl that liked me was here in the tower?' Beastboy tried to sort his mind out, but it was still foggy. As he pondered this, his room darkened, and then lightened again. 'What was that…' As he looked around his room, he saw a chilly pair of blue eyes staring at him. 'Am I still dreaming now?'

"So, you're awake." Raven's chilly voice cut through the silence. "Are you ready to get up?"

Beastboy looked at Raven dumbfounded. "Why are you here, Raven? You never check on me, let alone come to my room. Am I still dreaming?"

Raven tilted her head to look at him, giving him a peculiar stare. 'The drug Robin gave him must have messed up his sense of reality. Great. As if I didn't have enough to worry about today.' Raven pondered the situation as it related to the test. 'I can't test him like this. The residual drug has to come out of his system first.'

Beastboy watched as Raven seemed to be picking him apart with her eyes. "Beastboy, if I bring you some of the tea I drink, will you promise to drink it all?"

Beastboy looked at her, and again his brain was not really processing right. Hadn't he accepted the herbal tea before? Or was that still part of his dream as well? "Of course! Why wouldn't I?" Beastboy answered, but his uncertainty showed. "Raven, was a blonde girl with the power to control rocks really here?"

Raven stared at him in shock. Then, she was horribly tempted to tell him that it hadn't happened. The whole roller coaster would stop here. Beastboy would shrug it off, and would probably not be depressed anymore. He would chalk it up as a weird dream. No tests, no Beastboy running off to save his girlfriend. All back to normal.

'You always tell the others to deal with reality. You always tell them that the truth and the past cannot be changed, no matter how much you want it to.' Came the surprising answer from her conscience. 'And yet you would lie to him about something this important to satisfy your own needs.'

Raven sighed. It would be easier to lie to him. It would be better for all involved. 'I've always attacked my problems head on. I may lie to myself and others,' she mentally choked, but knew it was the truth. 'But not when it mattered. This matters to Beastboy.'

Raven took a deep breath. "Beastboy, how much do you remember?"

Beastboy scratched his head, but his eyes looked sharper. "It still feels like a dream, but we went to the desert and this girl was there. She said she wanted to join us. She messed up the bathroom, she ate Starfire's fungus, she slept on the couch in a bathrobe…she taught me how to skip stones. Then, Slade was detected in the mine. She came with us. Slade disappeared, and then she did too. I went after her…Robin offered to make her a Titan, and then said something about training. Terra freaked and left.

As Beastboy talked, he seemed to become more sure of himself. "It all happened, Beastboy." Raven answered calmly. "Terra left us about a week ago." Raven paused. 'Depressed people get freaky when you tell them that they haven't been acting normally. I'd better just lead him.'

"She was angry. She thought that you told us about her problem." Raven found it difficult to continue. "We don't know where she is. We assume she's back in the desert."

Beastboy still felt loopy, but he did his best to follow Raven's words. As his head cleared a little, he noticed something in the not quite darkness.

Raven was wearing just a nightshirt.

'No way!' He mentally shouted. 'I can't possibly be awake! Raven would never come in here dressed like that. She wouldn't even leave her room in that!' He felt his sense of reality unraveling again. He clutched his head.

"What is it, Beastboy?" Came Raven's flat question, but she was genuinely worried. Beastboy wouldn't lift his head to look at her, so she made her way to his bed. "Beastboy!"

"No! No! I'm still dreaming!" Came Beastboy's surprising answer "This isn't right! You aren't in here checking on me in your nightshirt! You can't be!"

Raven looked at him in amazement, and started to blush. Then, the blush went away in an angry flash. A nearby light bulb exploded. 'How dare he categorize me!' Raven mentally fumed. Her thoughts after that weren't very coherent, or very complementary to Beastboy.

Meanwhile, Beastboy was staring at the now destroyed light bulb in horror. He dreamed vividly, but not that vividly. "You really are here, aren't you, Raven?" Beastboy asked in a half awe, half fright. He started stuttering "Thi…this is…isn't like you." He looked like he wanted to continue, but words failed him.

Raven found herself amused at the way Beastboy was suddenly scared out of his wits. She knew it was cruel, but her "Who cares today box" was still out, and she was going to scare him even more. She was already at his bed, but she took a seat close to him.

Beastboy didn't know what to do. 'This is nuts! Raven is sitting on my bed, one foot from me in a nightshirt!' He was actually trembling, but he didn't know if it was fear or anticipation.

Raven leaned forward toward him, and he instinctively shrunk backward. Too bad his headboard was right behind him. 'Eeep! What next!' Came Beastboy's frantic thought.

Raven's face was inches from his. "What isn't like me?" Raven breathed the question. "And what do you plan to do about it?"

'Oh, my god! What does she want me to do?!' Beastboy was looking at her in pure terror. 'Wait a minute. What do I want to do?' Beastboy suddenly thought to himself, and instantly calmed. A surprising answer came to him. 'I want to kiss her.'

The moment was perfect. Raven was too busy enjoying the moment of terror she had inflicted to notice how Beastboy had calmed. Beastboy leaned forward with an expression of wonder on his face and gently kissed her, touching her cheek with his right hand.

Raven was so stunned, it was as if she had been hit by a bolt of lightning. Beastboy's stuffed animal collection flew across the room, as if hit by hurricane-force winds. Her eyes flew wide open, but Beastboy didn't press his momentary advantage. He withdrew from the kiss with his eyes shining brightly. Raven couldn't tell what the spirit behind the kiss had been. It hadn't been passion, or anything forceful. It had felt like sunshine and butterflies. Could it have been happiness?

Beastboy, for his own part, wasn't sure why he had kissed her. It had just seemed right at the time. It made him feel awesome, however. He felt as if he'd endured weeks of darkness and cold to find the sun shining and the warmth of summer returned. He felt as if all things were possible.

Oddly, the events of the last week flooded back to him. He remembered how all of the Titans had tried to help him after Terra had left, even Ms. "Hands Off" Raven. Then he remembered about the saber-tooth tiger incident. He blushed.

"Ah, Raven?" Beastboy asked sheepishly. Raven was still picking up the pieces of her composure, but managed to nod at him. "I've been a real handful for the last week, haven't I?"

Raven inwardly sighed in relief. 'The drug must be wearing off. Wait…did he kiss me because he was feeling loopy?!' Raven stopped herself. 'Sort that out later. Tea, and then I'll haul him off to the bath.' "Yes, you have. I'm glad you're feeling better." She looked at him closely "You are feeling better, right?" Raven asked skeptically.

Beastboy noticed that she was still less than a foot away from him. Her proximity and his wobbly mental state added up to an unusual way to answer her question. His survival instincts were usually better than this, but the week of depression suppressing his mischievous side together with Raven's overt doubt of his recovery led him to one way to answer that she couldn't possibly doubt.

He tickled her.

Raven was shocked to the core again. Helpless laughter escaped her mouth, and the rest of the electronics in the room including Beastboy's clock exploded. Beastboy, for his part, continued to tickle her writhing form, but had the presence of mind to stay away from her chest. Even so, he knew he would be lucky to walk away from this one. 'Oh, well. C'est la morte.' At least he would die happy.

Raven found her center, even as the tickling continued. 'I think he's had enough fun for one day.' Raven carefully pushed with her mind, and a black aura surrounded Beastboy, pushing him away and into the air. Raven smiled a demonic smile as soon as she got her breath back. Beastboy noticed the smile, and began to sweat. 'Maybe today isn't such a great day to die,' He thought to himself. He mentally prepared himself to shift into something big with a hard shell.

"Well, Beastboy. On any other day, that would have gotten you killed," Raven began in a mock pleasant voice, but she still had that unnerving smile on her face. "However, Starfire has more interesting plans for you today. You get to drink your tea, and then you belong to us for the morning." Raven smiled beatifically. "Don't expect help from Robin or Cyborg, either. They're out on patrol."

Beastboy looked at Raven in pure dread. 'Not good. Not good at all.' His mind raced in circles. Between the two of them, they were capable of just about anything. To top it off, since they weren't from earth, almost nothing would be off limits to them short of torture or death. And he wasn't even sure about those with Raven. He started trembling in abject terror.

Raven brushed a lock of hair behind her ear, noting that Beastboy was about as freaked out as was possible, short of fainting. 'Hmm…we're both pretty messed up today.' Raven smirked. 'To think this all boils down to love. Whoever said "love hurts" was right.'

Raven sized up her little fish. 'To think that I said that Star's plan was a waste of time. I was wrong. It will be perfect payback for what he just did. I warned him before never to do that again.' Even so, Raven was feeling a little guilty. 'In some ways, this is going to be worse than anything he can imagine. On the other hand, it's not like we're going to hurt him.' Raven tapped into her powers again, and rose into the air. She gently kissed him. "Don't worry so much, you little imp." Raven said to the helpless and hapless Beastboy. Her dark aura covered every inch of his body from the neck down. "It's just going to be me, you, Star and a camera. I think you'll live." She said with dark humor.

It was Beastboy's turn to be stunned. 'Why did she kiss me?' He wondered to himself. He still felt the imprint of her cool lips. It reminded him of a windy autumn day.

To say that Beastboy was dazed would be an understatement. 'Nothing makes sense today. Why is she acting so weird? And why am I playing along?' Raven had made it clear to him when the Titans were newly formed that she didn't appreciate being touched, made fun of or being the subject of his practical jokes. He'd more or less left her alone, but something in his nature just made him want to reach out to her and understand her.

After the battle in her mind, he felt he had a better understanding of what was going on with her. She was capable of the emotions she seldom showed. She might even be as emotional as Starfire, although that was probably not possible, Beastboy thought with a grin. No one he'd ever met was as emotional as Star. 'Raven is shackled by her powers,' Beastboy thought glumly. It was a shame. Although he'd almost gotten cavities from her, the Raven in the pink cloak he met in the mirror had opened his mind to something he hadn't thought was possible.

Raven had a heart.

It was hard to sift through her sarcasm, bad temper and overt coldness, but Beastboy thought he was finally seeing the real Raven after that battle. A lonely, sensitive girl. Someone who felt that she had to face all of her problems alone. 'Who's to say she's wrong? The others try to help, but I have to face my demons alone as well.' Beastboy shuddered. At least his demons weren't four-eyed and as big as skyscrapers.

'I have to face myself, too, sometimes. Where she has too much power to control, I don't always have enough.' Beastboy felt like he had fought well in the mine this time. His stegosaurus transformation had worked against Slade's robots. Too many times, though, he came up short. He felt like he was letting the team down when he wasn't able to compete with villains like Plasmus.

Raven was still an enigma, though. Even though he felt closer to her after that experience, she still pushed him away. He tried to be more gentle and understanding with her, but she still was as cool and remote as ever.

"Beastboy!" Raven's voice interrupted his thoughts. She was looking at him peculiarly. "Are you going to drink this or not?!" Raven's frustration was clearly evident as she held out a cup of her tea for him.

"What?" Beastboy asked, snapping out of his reverie.

Raven took a deep breath. "I've been trying to get your attention, but you've been in la-la land. Are you going to drink this?"

"Oh, yeah. Sorry." Beastboy nodded at the tea. He was still encased in her force field. 'I can't believe I didn't notice her bringing me down to the kitchen. Since when can she hold someone this long?!' This was nuts! Raven's powers seemed to be growing by the minute. 'It used to be that she could barely throw a fire extinguisher, and now she's lugging me around?' Beastboy thought with disbelief.

Raven, for her part, was wondering what he could be thinking about so hard. She noticed that he had stopped sweating and trembling earlier, after she kissed him. She raised the cup to his mouth, and let him drink slowly.

Beastboy wasn't thrilled at the taste, but it was ok. 'Kinda minty,' He thought to himself. It was harder than he thought to drink it, though. Raven was giving him small sips, but it was weird not being able to use his hands.

Raven noticed his expression. "Fine. I'll give you your hands back. You do anything other than drink this, and it's back to being trussed up." Raven relaxed her powers down to his waist.

Beastboy let out a big sigh and took the cup from her. 'I don't think I like what she has in mind. She's not planning on letting me go after this' Beastboy thought glumly. 'Don't think about it! Star's plan can't be as bad as all the stuff I keep coming up with…can it?' Beastboy made a face. 'Not much I can do about this.' He finished the cup of tea. As he did, Starfire flew into the room.

"Friends! All is in preparation!" Starfire announced joyously. She did smile a bit evilly at Beastboy, however.

That smile made Beastboy nervous, but he was in for worse. "We're not quite ready, Star." Raven responded. She walked over to her bubbly young friend, and whispered in her ear. Starfire looked shocked for a moment, but continued to listen. As she did, a Cheshire cat smile appeared on her face. "An most unusual idea, Friend Raven. It should be very entertaining."