Chapter 2: Heartbroken
Dear Diary,
Dr. Ivanova suggested that I start this journal to help sort out my feelings, but what is there to sort out? In the time it took me to blink, I lost everything that meant the most to me. My daughter, my wife and our unborn child with her; they're gone. Vanished. Spirited away in the space of a heartbeat. What am I supposed to do with that? How am I suppose to explain to myself that I couldn't protect my own family? None of us could have seen this coming--we were all sitting around the dinner table. I found myself looking back and thinking of the last thing I said to them. My last words to Olivia were, "Eat your dinner." I can't believe it. I may never see her again and that's all I said. I'm only grateful that the last thing I remember before the flash was putting my arm around Raven and whispering in her ear that I loved her. But if I really am grateful, how can I feel so terrible? Perhaps it's the fact that I may never get to say it to her again. How could this happen? We've just got to find them. We have Speedy, Aqualad and Mammoth now. We'll find them soon, right? The empty place in my heart is only matched by the empty place in my bed at night where Raven should be. I can't stand it. I pray every night for them and I talk to them. That seems to help. I tell Olivia to be a good girl and to be strong, like her mother. I promise her I'll see her soon, though I don't know when that will be. As for Raven…smirk…well, I won't go into details, but needless to say I feel a whole lot better when I'm finished. We're going out to search again tomorrow, diary, and we're widening the search area again. Five women and two kids don't just vanish into thin air. They have to be somewhere, and we're gonna find them. We'll find them if it's the last thing I do.
Yours, Beast Boy
Beast Boy tucked his diary back in his desk drawer and made his way to the living room. He found Robin rocking back and forth as he fought his way through the video game he was playing. He was so engrossed in it that he didn't hear Beast Boy come in. Beast Boy sank down next to him and Robin invited him to pick up the other controller. After a while, racing each other around the virtual track, Robin finally won. Robin let out a victorious "Whoo-hoo!" and momentarily smiled. He looked over at his friend and his head gained a curious tilt.
"What's up, Beast Boy?" Robin asked.
"Do you ever wonder…"
"…What they're doing?" Robin finished. Beast Boy nodded. Robin looked at his watch. It was nearly midnight. Robin set the controller on the coffee table and leaned back.
"It's getting late. The kids are most likely asleep, but I don't think the girls are. I'll bet Torque, Jinx and Terra are still awake, talking quietly so that the kids can sleep. I'll bet Raven's got Olivia beneath her cloak with her. Raven's eyes are closed but she's not sleeping; she's listening to the conversation. But Star's asleep. I'm almost sure of it. I'll bet whatever monster has them captive has them in a place with very little natural light, and that would wipe Starfire out. She needs sunshine. I imagine that she's got Jason in her arms, holding him close so that she can protect him," Robin said. Beast Boy listened, tears glistening in the corners of his eyes.
"You've spent a lot of time thinking about this, haven't you?" Beast Boy finally said. Robin smirked.
"Yeah. I like to think that their scheming--that their planning some way to escape. Torque and Jinx are just gutsy enough to try it and I know Terra would follow them. Starfire would be cautious. She's too wound up in her emotions sometimes," Robin continued.
"Yeah, and Raven would try to be the voice of reason and might even convince them not to go through with whatever plan they manage to come up with. Sometimes her lack of emotion is her undoing," Beast Boy added. After contemplating the television screen for a moment, Beast Boy furrowed his brow and looked at Robin again.
"There must be more to this than we're seeing," Beast Boy said. "With their powers, you would think they would have ripped into whoever was trying to capture them. I mean, between Raven and Star alone…" Beast Boy let the end of his sentence trail off and Robin nodded. They all knew what their female comrades were capable of—so why hadn't they done anything yet? As they contemplated this, Cyborg joined them. The look on his face was one of concern.
"Is everything all right, Cyborg?" Robin asked, pulling his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.
"I just don't feel comfortable having Mammoth here. We don't really know where his loyalties are right now. Who knows? Who's to say he won't be a threat to Jinx when the girls come home? If he tries anything, I can guarantee you…" Cyborg was interrupted when Mammoth entered the room heading for the kitchen.
"I can guarantee you, Cyborg that I don't work for Slade or Brother Blood anymore. I didn't come here to harm Jinx. I came to help rescue Raven and Olivia. If I had wanted to hurt Jinx, I could have done it long ago. You have no reason to mistrust me anymore, Cyborg," Mammoth lifted a box of leftover pizza out of the refrigerator and left the living room, leaving the three other Titans alone in companionable silence again.
"He's got a point," Robin said softly.
"Yeah, but I'll believe it when I see it," Cyborg murmured, standing and leaving the room. Robin and Beast Boy looked at one another with quiet apprehension. They would have to monitor the tension between these two friends very carefully. Before they could ponder this too carefully, Speedy was the next to enter the living room. He took an apple from the refrigerator and then joined the other two by the couch.
"I'll play the winner of the next round," Speedy said casually. Robin smiled softly and Beast Boy turned around to reach for the controller.
"Do you think we're really going to find them?" Beast Boy said out of the blue.
"Of course we will!" Speedy interjected before Robin could reply. "I mean, we're the Titans, aren't we?" Robin and Beast Boy looked at one another skeptically for a moment and then looked at Speedy. Speedy snorted softly and hopped onto the back of the couch, planting his feet on the cushions. "…are we gonna find them he asks…" Speedy muttered incredulously as he took another bite of his apple.
Robin and Beast Boy had no idea just how accurate their estimations of their teammates were. Far away, the girls were being held as not just prisoners, but as slaves of Brother Blood. Blood had originally intended to use their vast intelligence to maintain the technological components of his latest strategic base, but after looking at the children, he decided he had something else in mind. He had his captives taken to his mountain retreat. There, they would maintain not the technology, but the household itself.
When the girls found out about this, Torque snorted and squinted up at Brother Blood.
"He seems to think that housework is something we're not accustomed to," Torque said sarcastically. Brother Blood didn't hesitate as he hit her across the face.
"Choose your words carefully, wench. They may be your last," Brother Blood threatened. The others stayed silent as they were all herded down into the cold cellar where they would make their sleeping quarters for the next several months.
Personal Log,
Speedy, Mammoth and I been living with the Titans for over six months, and all of us have kind of fallen into a familiar pattern of daily life. Aside from the crime-fighting the comes with the territory of being a Titan, we have expanded our search for the girls several times to no avail. I don't understand it; shouldn't we have heard something of them by now? Could they really be dead? I don't want to think about that, and I know the others haven't, but I wonder if it's time to start being realistic. It's been so long without so much as a blip on the radar that I'm beginning to wonder just exactly what we're up against. Are they really dead or are they just hidden so well that we can't see them? I find myself being drawn to my morning swims in the pool. I miss the ocean, but I can't afford to be away from the Titans for too long. I feel a pull of brotherly loyalty that keeps me within arms reach of them: ready and on call at a moment's notice. I look at the pictures of this well-oiled machine of a team and I see something more—I see a family with several smaller families at its heart. I found a photo album once and glanced through. I couldn't help laughing out loud at some of them: the food fight at BB and Raven's wedding reception for instance. Others broke my heart. Pictures of Olivia, Toby and Jason as they grew, Robin and Starfire's wedding, football games in the park, birthday parties at the pizzeria...I almost envy them—this camaraderie they have. I like working alone, that's a choice I make, but part of me still wishes that there was someone else I could talk to. I mean, a flounder is only so challenging on a conversational level.
Sincerely, Aqualad
Ten months after the girls' disappearance:
After one particularly trying day of searching, Speedy threw down his bow and quiver on the roof of the Tower.
"Does anyone else realize quite how ridiculous this is?" He yelled. "We've been bending over backwards for half a year looking for them! If these women are even half as brilliant as you guys keep telling me, then they should have been able to at least point us in the right direction! We've been battling left and right and searching with every spare minute, but for what? Just to widen the search area and look again!"
"What do you want us to do? Give up?" Beast Boy shouted.
"No. I want you to be realistic. You've been licked. Some bad-ass villain out there with a whole lot of power reached down and let you have it where it hurt the worst and almost a year later, you're still smarting!" Speedy replied.
"What do you expect? If this was your wife and child you wouldn't stop at anything to find them!" Robin cried.
"Yo! If you guys are done, we've got another message coming in!" Cyborg shouted up through the stairwell. The others rushed inside to see the view screen screaming brightly colored maps at them. The blinding flash near the middle of the screen marked out a densely forested area. Not many roads went back that far, but there had been an explosion and the computer registered a target it had been searching on for months.
"The emissions from the explosion consisted of the usual trace elements, but the computer found some other things too," Cyborg explained. Along with the usual elements released in an explosion, there had been traces of the same combustible plasmoid compound found in…
"Starfire!" Robin cried. "That's the compound released in her starbolts!" Seconds later, the computer registered Starfire's communicator signal but it didn't last long. The team wasn't able to complete a connection before the signal fizzled, sending the Titans' hopes crashing to the ground. Before any of the others could argue, all six young men were bounding back out the door, sure that their prayers had at last been answered.