An Answer and a Lack of Tragedy

Disclaimer I don't own the Titans, big surprise right?

RyokoJesseandFiend: thanks for the reviews and the tips. I agree that Raven's talk with her mom was a little rushed and should have been better thought out.

Readerrr Grrrl: Thanks as always. I hope you like this chapter as well.

greenlobster7878: here's more, just hope its quality.

JMPchick: glad you like it. Here's chapter 6

renayumi: no teasing in this chapter, though i might try it for a later chapter, sorry :(

Thanks to all my reviewers and readers, you guys are so good to me.

OK so when i first tried to write this chapter it didn't turn out so well. I couldn't keep the same tone as the rest of the story when I had Robin and Cyborg talking/teasing Beastboy so I tried it another way. This is the other version of that chapter.

"I've grown lengths and lengths and lengths of love since we started this thing out." Interpol 'Length of Love'

How was he in love with Raven? How was HE in love with Raven? The facts had been presented to him by his friends. Their time spent together, their sharing of affection, but were their actions any measure of how they actually felt about one another? Terra had deceived him using the same methods. Still, he knew that Raven would never be dishonest. After all, she had always been brutally honest with him, subtlety wasn't really her thing. This wasn't the point though. The question wasn't if Raven was in love with him, though he wouldn't have minded the answer. The question was, "am I in love with her," he asked aloud.

If he was in love with her when had it begun? The first night he had come to her room? The first day they'd met at the Tower? After Malchior? After Terra? No...none of these felt right somehow.. He had come to realize a very long time ago that loving Raven was not an easy thing to do. In their first year together he had often told others how sorry he felt for the man who did fall in love wtih Raven. He had thought her hateful and weird. Their relationship was a working one only.

In their second year, after Terra and just before Malchior, Cyborg had made a bet with him. It was something he regretted now because at the time he and Cyborg had treated Raven as a plaything, not a person. Somebody to mess around with or make bets on and should she ever get back at them...they would say she didn't play fairly or she just couldn't take a joke.

The bet had been on whether or not he could form a friendship with Raven. He admitted failure after a week of trying to learn how to meditate, cast spells, and read books in languages he had never known existed. He had to wash the T-car for a month, but during that time he realized something in himself. He wanted to hang out with Raven, wanted to know that she liked him, appreciated him. He studied her, watched what she did, and then one morning-

"I fixed your cup of tea Raven."

She raised her eyebrow. "Did you do anything to it," she asked, with just a hint of menace to her voice.

"What? No. I just figured since I woke up before everybody I'd go ahead and make their drinks," he finished lamely.

She picked up the cup and sniffed it before taking a sip. "Its good, thank you."

"Sure."

That was it. Their first civil conversation ever lasted exactly two minutes and 23 seconds. Nonetheless he continued to make a cup of tea for her every morning. Sometimes they spoke to one another and other times they merely sat in silence, she drinking a cup of tea and he a cup of orange juice. Something else had happened too, but what was it? She had...reciprocated. Sometimes when she was out she would ask if he needed anything and sometimes even boughthis grocerieswith her own money. As the months went on this reciprocation continued to grow between the two of them until... until what? Until that first night when he realized something was wrong with her. When he realized that in the last year they had become friends. When he realizedthat he had gained her trust.

A sacrifice, the bearing of one's grief. That's what that first night and all those other nights after that had been. There had never been a thought in his mind on whether or not she'd be able to pay him back in some way. That one day she'd shed his tears or she'd relive his nightmares or know how he felt, this wasn't important to him. He didn't need any reciprocation from her because "I love her." The words spoken didn't send thunderclaps throughout the building. Earthquakes did not make their way through the city. The light bulbs didn't even flicker. It was a truth, an absolute, a part of his being. They affected him alone. So what was he going to do with them?