**

Awakenings

Raven awoke to find Starfire staring at her. Starfire was sitting in a chair next to Raven's bed staring intently. She looked like she might have been watching Raven's unconscious form for a long while. She had in fact not left the room since Cyborg had brought Raven's deeply hypothermic body back from beyond the Earth's atmosphere.

"Oh joy of joys, my friend!" Starfire's green eyes stabbed brightly into Raven's emerging consciousness.

"Joy?" Raven asked groggily

"You are awake!" said Starfire barely able to contain her excitement.

"I know."

Raven sat up and saw that she was indeed awake in her own room in the Titan Tower. She did not know how she got there, but it felt wonderful to be back home. Safe.

"Oh my god. I was in space," Raven recollected.

"Uh-huhhh." Starfire nodded her head enthusiastically.

"It was soooo cold and I was.I was.Hey. I was in space. I mean like.way up there kind of space. How did I get back here?" Raven asked.

"You've been most, most fortunate, Raven," Starfire began as if she had been axiously awaiting to tell the story. "We did not know where you were. We thought you had gone away. Cyborg, however, was able to track you. He said you were travelling at thousand miles per hour. 'Gee,' I said. 'Is that not awfully fast?' and he said, 'Faster than she can levitate, Starfire'" Starfire's attempt to imitate Cyborg's deeper voice was less than convincing.

"Cyborg tracked me?"

"Indeed he did. He said that the last time he had the laundry chore he installed an emergency transponder in each of our uniforms."

"Sneaky." Raven lay back. She listened intently to the story and for the time Starfire's overexuberance was not annoying her.

"Yes. Most clever" Starfire agreed. "He said you were travelling too fast and too long to be in an ordinary aircraft. I was then the one who suggested that your strange tracking signal had the aura of space flight about it. Robin said that Cyborg's tracking equipment must be malfunctioning, and Beast Boy did not understand what was happening. That's when Cyborg stood up and said," Starfire stood on her chair and pointed her finger at the ceiling in a heroic pose that befitted some momentus declaration. ".'I shall retrieve her in the Cyber-Rocket!'"

"The Cyber-who?"

"The Cyber-Rocket!" Starfire repeated with the same flourish as the first time she shouted it.

"We have a Cyber-Rocket?" This was all sounding highly improbable to Raven, but it was making for an interesting story.

"That's exactly what Robin said!" Starfire seemed genuinely impressed by the coincidence. ""We have a Cyber-Rocket?' And it seems that indeed we do. All this time beneath the tower. An old Titan missile with a solid booster. Cyborg salvaged it from an Air Force scrapyard. He described this as a special project."

"Yeah. Well, a thermo-nuclear projectile under your residence is bit of a 'special project,'" Raven was not thrilled by this revellation.

"Oh, no. No atomic boom," Starfire advised. ".Just high explosives. I mean rocket fuel. I mean I can assure you that when it comes to space flight this is much safer than liquid propellant."

"Great."

"Cyborg had this fabulous dream to be the first teen in space, but of course I beat him and you by a long shot. It was a fabulous, fabulous endeavor anyhow, and it is a good thing he did because we were very concerned about how to get you back. Robin said that perhaps you were safe and that we should wait, but Cyborg seemed to feel that you were in imminent danger. You did not have telepathic contact with him, did you, Raven?"

"No." Raven remembered sort of crying out mentally, but she doubted there was anyway for someone could have detected this. "At least I don't think so."

"It was very scary. I was most concerned. Cyborg's engineering skills are impeccable but he had not completed the passenger capsule. It was very unsafe but he said he had to try. He said he could not risk harm coming to you. He knew he could die..."

"Could die?" Raven sat bolt upright. "Didn't he have a space suit?"

"Hmm." Starfire searched her mind for the correct words. "Not exactly a proper space suit, no. It did have a hose attached to some air. I think it was for the water."

"A deep sea diving suit?. That's all?" Her exposure to the hostile environment of space made Raven all too aware that this was inadequate protection from the penetrating cold.

"Do not be worried about your Cyborg in shining armor," Starfire reassured. " He has come through it all safely just like you. Although he was quite frozen and nearly drained of all power when you two splashed down in the waters mere meters away from the tower, he has recovered amazingly well. He has eaten of my recuperative Glorpnik soup and is recharging even now as he plays Gamestation with Beast Boy."

"Wow. That's incredible." Raven hugged her knees to her chest and in that moment noticed the sleepwear she was attired in. "Um, Starfire?"

"Yes, Raven?"

"Can you tell me something?"

"Most certainly of course, Raven."

"Why am I wearing pink pajamas with feet in them and with what appears to be a sort of dancing rabbits pattern?"

"Those are my favorite pajamas," Starfire clasped her hands together with glee. "They are woven from Thalaxian biothermal feedback fibers. They can maintain your body temperature no matter how cold you have become, and you were not unlike being just a Raven popsicle. I put them on you as soon as we got you back inside. I've been waitng for you to recover ever since."

"You have?" Raven asked.

"Of course. Though the pajamas would bring your temperature back up, you were in and out of delirous consciousness. 'A typical result of hypthermic shock,' so Robin said. I fed you some Glorpnik soup and now.you are awake!"

"That explains the taste in my mouth," Raven said dryly. "What's glorpnik soup made from?"

"Glorp. Delicious is it not?" Starfire looked at Raven expectantly.

Raven had another first when she hugged Starfire for the first time. "It's disgusting. But, thank you. Thank you for your care.Starfire."

Starfire sighed contentedly.

"But since you've been watching me all night I am going to put you to bed now."

Raven escorted Starfire to her own room and tucked her in. Starfire fell fast asleep for she was truly tired.

Raven then walked into the living room where Cyborg and Beast Boy were indeed playing Gamestation. A long power cord extended from Cyborg's side into an outlet in the wall. Being thoroughly engrossed in a game of Battlin' Warbots, neither of them noticed her padded foot entrance into the room. She approached the long u-shaped couch from the rear and then stepped over its back settling herself down between the two teen superheroes.

"Awww. What are you doing?" Raven had accidentally jostled Beast Boy's arms as she sat down causing him to miss a block that allowed Cyborg's computer rendered fighting machine to rip off the leg of the Warbot Beast Boy was playing. Beast Boy complained vociferously. "Ah no fair! She bumped me! That doesn't count! We gotta play that over! Replay!"

Cyborg looked over with surprise to see Raven up and about.

"Booyah! It was inevitable anyway. Look who's up. How's our favorite astronaut, huh? You all thawed out? Ya didn't gag to death on Starfire's splorgnik soup? How ya feelin'?"

"Dude, what the hell are you wearing?" Beast Boy enquired. "Pink bunny-wunnies. And they are hippity-hoppity dancing. That's so cutesy-wutesy. And look they got feety-weeties." Beast Boy rolled with laughter on the couch.

"Don't mind him," Cyborg advised. "He's just consoling himself after his sixteenth loss in a row and his pathetic inability to beat me at this game. How are you doing?"

Raven truly didn't mind at this point. She was just glad to be on a couch next to her two good friends.

"I'm fine," Raven said "How is my favorite astronaut?"

"Not really an astronaut. Never made an orbit, just a high trajectory maneuver. It doesn't count."

"It counts with me." Raven raised her face up to his and kissed him on the cheek.

"Are you two gonna do something gross on this couch?" Beast Boy sat back up and reset the gamestation.

"Not with you here I guess," said Cyborg, smiling.

Raven stayed awake for awhile as Cyborg and Beast Boy played round after another round of Batttlin' Warbots. Soon though the exhaustion of her ordeal made her drowsy again. She unconsciously started leaning more and more on Cyborg as she slipped again into sleep. Cyborg did not complain or try to rouse her to go to bed. She seemed so content. He merely just used the arm Raven was resting on less and less. He didn't even seem to care as this handicap allowed Beast Boy to continually gain the advantage and eventually disembowel Cyborg's Warbot with each round.

After a while, being tired out from the rigors of space flight, Cyborg also passed out in the middle of the Gamestation tournament. Beast Boy took this opportunity to beat his dozing opponent repeatedly. After awhile, when he had amassed an impressive string of victories, Beast Boy assured that the record of the streak was recorded for posterity in the machine memory and then stumbled into his own bedroom.

Later in the glow of the theatre screen television Robin came out of his room and found Cyborg, head back and snoring, with Raven curled up under his arm. Robin got a spare blanket out of the linen closet, covered them both up and went back to bed.

**