Yay! I've finally updated! And it's the last chappy! Aren't you all so proud? -glances around at crowd, grin fading as she realizes that they don't look proud at all… Rather, they look somewhat miffed- All right, I have an excuse… Okay, no, I don't. That was a lie. But… You can understand, right? …Right? -dodges toaster- Erm… On to the fanfic! -runs off, an angry mob trailing-

Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans. I do, however, own several light-up ice cubes and a plastic robot.

Confusion had numbed Raven completely, as she sat on the couch and stared at the floor. The only part of her that was still functioning properly was her brain, which seemed to be trying to make up for the uselessness of the rest of her body by going through twenty questions a second. It was just after noon, and the empath had been like this for the entire day; not entirely sure of her surroundings, or how she'd gotten there. Amazingly enough, and quite luckily, too, her body didn't actually seem to need her to function; she'd managed to clean her room, made herself tea, and attempted to read a book, all without actually realizing what she was doing.

A thousand questions whirled and spun through Raven's tired mind almost like a dance. 'Why am I scared of Beast Boy?' 'Is this for real?' 'Why do these things always happen to me?' 'What if this is a trick?' 'What does this mean?'

"Hey, Rae… What're you up to?"

The empath let out a startled cry and jumped at the interruption, a nearby pillow picking itself up and shredding itself into a thousand pieces in response. Picking fluff out of her hair, Raven turned to glare at her intruder; crap, it was Beast Boy.

The changeling laughed nervously. "Sorry to scare you."

'How did he… Oh.' "You didn't scare me," Raven returned icily, voice shaking ever so slightly. Why would she be scared of him? He was scared of her, not the other way around!

"That's good… D-Do you need help with anything? You seem… I dunno, kinda spaced out today."

"The only thing I need," Raven replied testily, "Is to be alone."

"Well… You've been alone a lot lately, and, y'know, I figured you could use some company." Beast Boy's nervousness betrayed him, as he hopped from one foot to the other.

"Your company, I don't need," Raven snapped, teeth clenched, "All I need, Garfield, is for you to stop bugging me. Leave me alone! I don't need your company, I don't need your help, and I certainly don't need you!"

The words stung, like a slap to the face. Raven watched, horrified at her words, as the changeling cringed. For one long second, his expression was one of hurt, of pain… Like a wounded animal. She hadn't meant to say that… But it was too late, the damage was done. A moment later, the changeling gave her a weak grin.

"Sure… Of-of course. I… I should have realized. I'm… I'm sorry," he choked out. His dignity trampled, he shuffled out of the room, once more reminding Raven of a dog that's been beaten for returning the stick. She opened her mouth to call out, to stop him, but her words stuck in her throat, and all she could do was watch him leave.

Suddenly exhausted, the empath slumped down onto the couch, head in her hands. Despite all her efforts, she'd only managed to make things worse. Much worse. Beast Boy would never even want to look at her after this.

His expression, emblazoned forever in her memory, replayed itself over and over again in her mind, and each time, she hurt more than the last. How many times would she wound him like this?

Needing to get away from her thoughts, or at least to find some logical order in them, Raven decided to retreat to her one safe place. She stood silently, head down, hood drawn, and shuffled to her bedroom, hardly looking up. She thought she may have bumped into Starfire on the way there, but wasn't sure; she wasn't paying attention. Wordlessly, she slid her door open and crossed to the bed, snatching her mirror up on the way past. Seating herself in the middle of her bed, legs crossed, she quickly retreated farther into her mind.

As the empath opened her eyes, she found herself on the familiar stone path in the dark, starry forever that was her mind. A stone archway lay up ahead; needing to talk to someone who understood her, she made her way towards it.

As she stepped through the archway, the typical black abyss of her mind disappeared, a new scene materializing in its place. Raven looked around in confusion; this didn't look familiar.

The scene spread before her was dimly lit, if anything; the sky was painted with streaks of pink, purple, and gold, like a perpetual sunset. And endless rose patch stretched out to the empath's right, and a calm sea stretched to the left, a sandy beach between it and the path that lay before her. She gazed about, slightly bewildered; she didn't know she had a place like this inside of her.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Raven turned to find one of her many emotions standing behind her, gazing back at her with dark, peaceful eyes. Like the landscape, the empath had never encountered this emotion before. Her robes were a deep, luxurious red, and her expression was tranquil and content, like someone who is completely at peace with the world.

"Who are you?" Raven asked bluntly.

The emotion laughed softly, her voice light and melodious. 'So much unlike mine,' Raven thought, with a tinge of regret. She found herself almost ashamed to be in such a creature's presence.

'Stop that,' she scolded herself mentally. 'She's your emotion. She belongs to you

The emotion smiled sweetly at Raven's previous question.

"Ah, Raven. You do not know me? Oh, but you will." She pointed to the roses, then recited,

"Things like this need time to bloom.

If it should show up too soon,

Then it would be killed by frost,

And all its hope would be lost."

Raven stared at her emotion incredulously. "What the heck is that supposed to mean!" she blurted out angrily. The emotion merely laughed again, infuriating Raven even more.

"Raven, you seek to know these things too soon. But give it time; you will know."

This was too much for Raven. "If you won't give me a straight answer," she snapped coldly, "Then I'll find someone who will. I came looking for advice on how to deal with Beast Boy, not a bunch of jumbled-up rhymes."

The emotion's serene expression suddenly fell at the changeling's name. "Ah, Garfield," she lamented softly; her voice hardly ever seemed to rise above a whisper. "You wounded him with your words. You did not mean what you said, but he does not know that."

Raven stood in silence for a moment, partly taken aback at her emotion's sudden change of mood. "I-I don't know what to do," she finally admitted.

"Apologize," her emotion replied swiftly. There was a hint of sharpness to her otherwise soft voice, as if she thought that Raven should have been able to figure that out for herself.

The empath studied her emotion. "How?" she asked, breaking the short silence. "He probably doesn't even want to look at me after what I said to him, let alone let me talk to him."

The emotion gave a small, secretive smile, her eyes sparkling with hidden knowledge. "You may be surprised," she replied. "I know many things that you have not yet realized, Raven, though it is all in your mind. Remember, I am part of you. Trust me. Trust yourself."


There were tons of hidden messages in Raven's mysterious emotion's speech, and several meanings for each, and still the empath couldn't figure out what her emotion had hinted at. As well, they'd managed to dance all around the subject that Raven had gone there to discuss; why she was afraid of Beast Boy. Now, she was more lost and confused than when she'd started.

'Well, at least her instructions were specific,' the empath thought glumly. The elusive emotion had wanted her to apologize to Beast Boy. She figured she could at least do that much.

She rose from her bed, looking around at the gloomy and ominous décor of her room, as if searching it for an answer to her problems. She'd been in the habit of hiding out here for years, even before her nightmares. She had to, in order to keep her friends safe. She really did want to be part of their lives, instead of just someone standing on the sidelines, like at their games of football, but she knew it was an impossibility.

That was what bugged her about Beast Boy.

He knew her predicament, but still her tempted her with thoughts of acceptance and belonging, and that made being an outsider that much harder. Either he enjoyed tormenting her, or he really did want her to open up. Neither option was particularly favorable.

'Well,' she thought with a resigned sigh, 'Might as well get this over with.'


Thunk, thud… Thunk, thud… Thunk, thud…

The repetitive sound of a rubber ball hitting the wall and then the floor were the only noises to be heard in Beast Boy's room. The changeling threw and caught the ball, and threw and caught, and threw, and caught… It was an activity he could do without thinking about, which was good, because his mind was on other things.

Namely, Raven.

He couldn't for the life of him figure out why she acted the way she did.

"I mean, I know she can't show emotion," he reasoned to the bouncy ball, "But when she does, why does it always have to be negative? And why is it always directed at me?"

He thought of her last words to him, and winced at the memory. She might as well have slapped him in the face. It would've hurt less. Whoever said that words would never hurt him was an idiot.

'For years now, I've been trying to get her to open up, and become part of the team. Have I just been driving her off all along?'

He stopped a moment, the words "become a part of the team" finally sinking in. Wasn't she already part of the team? After all, she was a Titan, right? It was always hard to tell with Raven, and lately, it was becoming more and more difficult. One day she was there, and then gone the next… Who knew where Raven stood?

It took Beast Boy several moments to realize that, even though his hands were still trying to bounce the ball off the wall, the ball itself had given up long ago, and hadgone off exploringsomewhere.

"Crap," he muttered in exasperation, and began shuffling through the piles of clothing on his floor. His search was quickly ended by a sharp knock on his door.


"Beast Boy?" Raven called nervously, standing outside his bedroom door. She'd finally managed to drag herself down the hall to his door, though she'd dreaded every step of the way.

'Please don't be here,' she mentally begged, 'Please don't be here, please don't-'

"Hey, Rae."

'-Damn.'

Raven looked up at the changeling, her words stuck in her throat. He looked so surprised to see her there… And he had every right to be, given what she'd said earlier.

"Beast Boy… Earlier, I didn't mean to say that. You don't bug me… Not all the time, anyway. I… I'm sorry." Having finished her speech, the empath swallowed, then looked up hopefully at the changeling.

The delight in his face surprised her. She wasn't quite sure what she had expected, but it certainly wasn't that. He looked so happy - so genuinely, honestly, sincerely happy - that Raven almost felt like smiling herself. She quickly squelched the feeling.

"It's okay, Rae. I know I can be an idiot sometimes."

Raven did smile at that. Somehow, it felt like an enormous weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

And then his arms were around her, and he was hugging her. The touch was so warm, so unexpected, that something inside Raven exploded, as well as something glass down the hall. The empath pulled back, her face a mask of astonishment.

Beast Boy's face was bright red, which looked odd for a boy with green skin. "Rae, I'm really sorry… I-I don't know why I did that, I just-"

Raven was down the hall before he had time to finish. In that simple touch, things had become as clear as day to her.

Minutes later, the empath was in her room, the door closed, her mind in shock. She knew why her powers had reacted the way they did just then. She knew why she'd had nightmares for months. And she knew why Beast Boy had been in those nightmares.

She was scared of Beast Boy. Well, not of him, but of him becoming too close to her, and what could happen as a result. That was what her nightmares had been about. That was why she'd driven him away.

But… Why was he the only one who affected her like that? She couldn't possibly like him… Could she? The empath had to smile. There wasn't even the slightest chance of that. But maybe she could tolerate him.

Maybe, just maybe, everything would be okay.

Alrighty, folks, that concludes 'Imaginary Monsters'. Honestly, this story should have been finished months ago, but it just... wasn't. I apologize for that (as well as my crappy attempt at poetry)... All I ask is that I get no more toasters.- Anyway, like always, remember to read and review, and be on the lookout for 'Shades of Grey' sometime soon! -salutes-