"That's amazing!" exclaimed Beast Boy, starting towards her.

The girl shrieked, spinning around to face him. A wave of water hit Beast Boy, leaving him standing there shocked and sopping wet.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry!" she gasped, a hand to her mouth. Colour rose in her cheeks. "Are you okay? Y-you gave me a fright…"

Recovering from his surprise, Beast Boy changed swiftly into a dog and shook himself dry. Morphing back into human form, he wrung the last of the water from his ear. "No worries," he grinned.

"So… you were saying?" the girl queried with an embarrassed smile.

"That was awesome!" Beast Boy said.

He came up hard against a wall when she replied, sounding puzzled, "Huh? What was?"

"You know, the thing, with the water…" he said, trailing off.

"I don't know what you're talking about," she laughed in a perplexed way.

"Dude, you must know what I'm talking about!" Beast Boy cried incredulously, flailing his arms about. "You were the one doing it!"­­­

"I already told you!" she hissed, suddenly angry. "I wasn't doing anything with the water!"

Beast Boy raised his hands. "Whoa, take it easy," he said, immediately backing down. "I just thought-"

"Yeah, well you thought wrong!" She began to step away, a frightened look pulling at her features. "Look, I… I have to go," she concluded, flustered. "You must've imagined it."

With that, she walked quickly away down the path in the opposite direction to where Beast Boy had come from, to merge into the forest.

A completely bewildered Beast Boy watched her go, his ears drooping slightly. "But if I imagined it," he said, speaking to nobody but himself, "Where are you going?"

X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X

"Beast Boy!" Starfire greeted him as he entered their camp. "Was your exploration successful? What did you discover?"

"There's a stream over there somewhere," Beast Boy replied slightly sheepishly, gesturing behind him.

"Very specific," remarked Raven, who was sitting on a folding chair in the shade of the trees, reading from her book.

Beast Boy shot her a glare before looking around the clearing. "Uh… where exactly are the tents?"

Starfire came to stand beside him, and looked anxiously across to where the material of one of the two tents was spread out on the ground in preparation. There were two Robin-and-Cyborg-shaped figures underneath the material, struggling with the tent. A lot of shouting was coming from them.

Beast Boy walked over to survey their progress. An instruction booklet was lying tossed on the ground. He picked it up, and compared the picture in the booklet to the tent in front of him. He could see no obvious likenesses. "Have you guys done ANYTHING since I went?"

There was some rustling of fabric shifting, and Robin appeared from a flap, looking extremely fed up. A vein throbbed in his forehead. "Well, maybe we would have if CYBORG would just listen to me!" he said acidly.

"You are NOT saying this is MY fault!" Cyborg's indignant – and slightly muffled – voice came from somewhere inside the folds of tent material.

Beast Boy sighed as Robin disappeared again, and the bickering began once more. "Why don't you just look in the instruction booklet?" he suggested dryly.

"NO!" refused two voices simultaneously.

"Raven?" said Starfire tentatively. "Should we not begin the construction of our own fabric-house?"

Raven looked up from her book and spread her hand. The instruction booklet disentangled itself from a surprised Beast Boy's fingers and soared across the clearing to land in her open palm. She studied it for a moment, then looked up again at Starfire. "I guess."

"Wonderful! I shall retrieve the bags," beamed Starfire, heading over to the T-Car and opening the boot. Carrying bags and bags of heavy poles and material was no difficulty for the Tamaranian. She piled them all into her arms and set off to where Raven was climbing to her feet.

"Azerath Metrion Zinthos," murmured Raven.

The bag on top of the heap Starfire was holding rose up, and various metal poles spilled out to hang in the air. Raven examined them all, glancing occasionally down at the booklet she was still holding. Then, with a wave of her free hand, the poles all soared through the air to match the arrangement in the book. The remaining bags lifted from Starfire's hands, their contents all gliding smoothly from inside them. The bulky material slowly unrolled to become the shape of the tent. Poles positioned themselves and ropes snaked about before being lashed down by pins flying from the sky like bullets.

Eventually, the tent was standing in front of them. Starfire looked startled as the empty bags dropped back into her hands. "Is it fully functional?" she queried cautiously.

"Fully," confirmed Raven, already settling back down to her book.

Starfire carefully entered the tent. "It is quite spacious," she commented. "Should I set up my – stuff – to one side?"

"Knock yourself out," answered Raven.

Starfire looked hurt. "Why would you wish me to do that?"

"It means 'go ahead'," explained Beast Boy with a laugh, who had come to inspect their tent. "Not bad," he observed, poking his head in. "Looks a heck of a lot better than the guys' tent."

"Yo, BB!" yelled Cyborg, outraged. "Either come help us, or get lost!"

"Anyone else in the mood for an ice-cream?" groaned Robin, emerging again.

The response was a general 'YES'.

"There's a dairy near the entrance to the camp grounds," Robin announced, wiping his forehead. "Who's going to go get them?"

"Beast Boy," voted Cyborg and Raven simultaneously.

"No way!" retorted Beast Boy heatedly.

"Well, you're not exactly helping," Robin pointed out.

"A simple activity might keep you entertained," suggested Starfire tactfully.

"But-" began Beast Boy.

"Hm… actually, maybe it's not simple enough," stated Cyborg, shaking his head doubtfully.

"Huh? What's that supposed to mean?" Beast Boy demanded suspiciously.

"No offence, man, but you'd probably forget which flavours we wanted by the time you got there," Cyborg replied.

"What!" cried Beast Boy, puffing his chest up indignantly. "I so would not!"

"Prove it, then," said Robin slyly, catching on.

"Fine then! I will!" declared Beast Boy.

Robin and Cyborg exchanged a smirk.

"I'll have vanilla," said Robin, dropping some coins into Beast Boy's palm.

"Chocolate for me," Cyborg said.

"I desire… hmm…" Starfire tipped her head to one side, contemplating her options. "Do they have cheese flavour?" she proposed. Beast Boy stared at her, and she started blushing.

"Perhaps they should," said Robin hastily. "But I don't think they will. Maybe you should get… strawberry?"

"Okay," she agreed quickly.

"What about you, Raven?" called Beast Boy, turning to the solitary figure seated in the shade. "Lemon perhaps?"

"You're hilarious," came the sarcastic reply. "Get me boysenberry… or blueberry."

"What's the magic word?" Beast Boy teased.

The instruction booklet flew from the sky to whack him on the head. "NOW."

"Ow… Close enough." Beast Boy started to walk away down the road, rubbing his head and wincing. Suddenly a thought occurred to him, and he turned mistrustfully back to the rest of the Titans. "Cyborg, are you just saying that to-"

"If you don't think you can manage," called Cyborg sweetly, "I'll go for you!"

"No way!" Beast Boy yelled. He set off down the road with reinforced determination.

X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X

"Chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, berry," Beast Boy muttered to himself as he strode along the road. "Chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, berry."

With a confident smirk, he stretched his arms above his head. He could so do this.

"Chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, berry. Strawberry, vanilla… no… wait." He stopped walking. "Chocolate, vanilla, strawberry… lemon? No, that was what I said to her… Vanilla, chocolate, berry… no, wait, strawberry was what Starfire wanted. Uh… cornflakes? No… was it mint!" He hung his head in anguish. "Oh, man!"

"Chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, berry?" offered a voice from the shadows of the forest.

Beast Boy turned to stare as the girl he had seen earlier that day walked out from the trees; now she had a black backpack on her back. "It's you!"

"It's me all right," she laughed.

They fell into step.

"Where are you going? To buy ice-creams?" she asked.

Beast Boy glanced at her. "Yeah. I'm sweltering hot."

"That's a lot of ice-creams for one person," she laughed.

He joined in sheepishly. "I mean, they're for my friends and me. Not just me."

There was an awkward silence as they continued down the road together.

"Look, sorry for freaking before," she said finally, biting her lip. "I… thought I was alone. I didn't know you had seen me… you know…"

"Doing the thing with the water?" Beast Boy suggested when she appeared lost for words.

"Yeah," she agreed with a smile. "The thing with the water."

"It's okay," Beast Boy assured her quickly. "It doesn't matter."

She looked at him sideways. "You… you don't think I'm a weirdo?" she asked hesitantly, as if she did not really want to hear the answer.

"Of course not! I think it's awesome. That you can…" he trailed off.

"Do the thing with the water?"

"Do the thing with the water," he agreed, laughing.

"I never introduced myself," she said suddenly, stopping. Beast Boy stopped as well.

"I'm Rose," she said, extending a lightly tanned hand.

"Beast Boy," he replied, shaking it.

Grinning at each other for no real reason, they continued on their way. The dairy had slowly been approaching. Now it squatted in front of them.

Beast Boy opened the door for Rose with a charming smile. "Ladies first."

"What a sexist," she replied, laughing to let him know she was joking. She entered the dairy. Beast Boy followed her.

There were no other people in the dairy, apart from a bored-looking teenager leaning against the counter reading a magazine. He closed the magazine and flashed them a quick polite smile as they made their way over to the chilled glass container with the tubs of ice-cream inside.

Beast Boy studied the different ice-creams in the glass container, and then counted out enough coins to pay for five.

"So, what'll it be?" asked the employee, seeing Beast Boy had obviously chosen.

"I'd like five single-scoops," replied Beast Boy, placing the money on the counter.

The teenager picked up a scoop. "Which flavours?" he prompted.

Beast Boy opened his mouth to reply, but Rose got there first.

"Chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, berry."

"How long were you following me for?" Beast Boy laughed.

"Long enough," she said with a smile.

The employee serving them didn't ask, just placed the four ice-creams in the ice-cream holder on top of the glass and waited expectantly.

Rose glanced at Beast Boy. "What about you? Aren't you getting anything?"

"Oh, yeah," said Beast Boy sheepishly. "Uh… another chocolate one, thanks."

"I'd like a single cookies-n-cream, please," added Rose. She fumbled about in a pocket in her black skirt for the money. "Just a sec…"

Beast Boy placed an extra coin on the bench. He smiled at her.

Rose started to colour, and averted her eyes. "Beast Boy… I can, you don't have to-"

"Don't worry about it," Beast Boy told her. "It's not my money anyway." He laughed, and Rose hesitantly joined in.

They left the dairy each carrying three ice-creams, with some difficulty. At first, they just walked at the normal speed, chatting lightly. But before long, they were sprinting down the road, trying in vain to lick up the trails of melting ice-cream sliding down their arms.

Finally, the campsite came into view. Beast Boy raced up to Robin and Cyborg, who had finally managed to begin constructing something looking vaguely like it could sometime become a tent. "Take it!" he panted. They both rescued the slimy cones from his grasp, thankful for the serviettes plastered around them, and started working to lick up all the liquid trickling earthwards.

Beast Boy bent over double, trying to get his breath back, still laughing breathlessly. Starfire approached him.

"Where is my iced cream?" she questioned him curiously.

Beast Boy blinked and straightened, looking around. "Rose?"

She was standing on the road, at the border of their campsite, watching him uncertainly. The ice-creams were still in her loose grasp. She now seemed oblivious to the stickiness dripping down her arm. Beast Boy gestured her over, and she timidly walked forwards, as if she had been forbidden to enter.

Starfire flew to her, and took her ice-cream, thanking her heartedly. "Welcome to our campsite, stranger!"

Raven's ice-cream climbed into the air, and flew towards the silhouette still seated in the shade under the trees. Rose watched it go in astonishment. She reached Beast Boy, Robin and Cyborg, and stood slightly behind Beast Boy, studying the others cautiously.

"This is Rose," Beast Boy proclaimed. "Rose, meet Robin, Cyborg, Starfire, and Raven," he said, gesturing to each in turn.

Rose shook Robin and Cyborg's hands, smiling hesitantly. "Hi."

"Pleasure to meet you, Rose," said Robin politely.

Rose withdrew, and stood looking uncomfortably around.

"Wait til you see what she can do!" Beast Boy grinned.

Rose looked at him with a shocked expression, like she hadn't been expecting him to tell anybody about her talent. "It's… it's nothing."

"It so is not nothing," Beast Boy argued, seemingly confident enough for the both of them.

"Whereabouts is your campsite?" Robin asked, directing the question to Rose.

"I… I don't have one," replied Rose, cringing in embarrassment. "The owners just let me stay here, because… I have nowhere else to go."

Robin and Cyborg exchanged a startled glance, then looked at Beast Boy to see if he had already found this out. When discovering that obviously he hadn't, Robin replied, for lack of anything else to say, "Don't you get cold?"

"It doesn't bother me," Rose answered with a shrug.

Starfire swooped over to them. "Why do you not stay here with us for the time we are here?" she suggested slowly, an idea brewing in her head. "We have plenty of space for another in our tent."

Rose stared at her wide-eyed, then looked at Robin anxiously. "No," she stammered, "I couldn't…"

"Yes, you could," urged Beast Boy.

"I guess it would be no trouble," added Robin thoughtfully.

"I…" Rose began.

"Why not?" said Cyborg.

"We're only here for two nights," Beast Boy said.

"But…" Rose looked around at all the encouraging faces turned towards her, and her resolve started to weaken. "You're sure I wouldn't get in the way?"

"Absolutely!" beamed Starfire.

"I… I suppose it's only for two nights…" Rose said.

"Is that a yes?" Beast Boy pressed.

Rose rolled her eyes at him. "Yes."

"Cool!" he beamed.

"What is it that you can do?" questioned Cyborg.

"The thing with the water?" contributed Beast Boy when she said nothing, just stood there staring at Cyborg with a strange half-frightened half-bemused expression on her face. This time she didn't laugh at their private joke, but turned her face away, deep blue eyes looking anywhere but at the four ans standing before her. She muttered something incomprehensible.

Beast Boy had a go at translating it. "You'll show us?"

Her head shot up, eyes wide and brow furrowed. "No!" she said, too quickly and too loudly.

They stared blankly at her.

"Well, okay then," Robin said eventually. He glanced at Cyborg. "Let's go finish the guys' tent. Feel free to make yourself comfortable in the other," he added to Rose.

"You guys better get a move on if you want to be finished by nightfall," Beast Boy said.

"Ha, ha," Cyborg grumbled sarcastically. "Shut up, man."

"I hope you enjoy your stay with us, Rose," Starfire said with a sweet smile. "Now I must continue arranging our temporary plastic furniture."

As she flew off, Beast Boy turned to Rose, a concerned look on his face. "Dude, what happened there?"

Rose hung her head. "I'm sorry. I just..." she began, then stopped mid-sentence. "I knew this wasn't a good idea," she murmured sadly.

"This isn't some sort of test that you're gonna pass or fail," Beast Boy explained disbelievingly. "We only offered some shelter. You don't have to live up to any expectations. We don't have any expectations of you! What's the big deal?"

"I'm just not used to blabbing around about my 'talent', okay?" she hissed maliciously.

Beast Boy looked incredulous. "So I'm supposed to pretend that you have no 'talent' to my friends? You can't make me lie to them," he warned her.

"I wasn't trying to!" she protested furiously. "What the heck gave you that idea?"

"Calm down!"

"I am calm! You want to see me mad!"

She glared at Beast Boy, hostility burning in her eyes, fist unconsciously clenched so tight it began to crush the cone of the ice-cream she was still holding without her even noticing.

"No," Beast Boy said eventually, relaxing his aggressive posture with a sigh.

Rose blinked, looking surprised at the sudden withdrawal.

Before either of them could say anything more, Robin called, "Beast Boy! Come here for a sec!"

Beast Boy gave Rose a look that tugged at her heart, something that was a cross between confusion and disappointment. Then he ran off to hold some pole or other in place for Robin and Cyborg.

Rose watched him go, looking ashamed and miserable, feeling compelled to run after him and beg for forgiveness. She felt even more alone then when she was actually by herself. Standing isolated, abandoned by the one person who linked her to these strangers.

Standing abandoned on the street.

She rubbed her forehead wearily, then set her face into a determined expression. She would not stuff this up for herself. She had to learn to relax. Let go.

But it's so hard. After…

Rose gritted her teeth. Maybe it was finally time to define the line between the past and the future.

X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X

"So, who's going to cook?" Robin asked. "Because I'm definitely not."

"Not me," chorused Cyborg and Beast Boy.

"No way," called Raven from inside the girls' tent.

Starfire looked from face to face. "What is happening?" she questioned innocently. A smile started to dawn on her face. "I have been assigned to prepare our evening meal?"

"NO," countered Robin, Beast Boy and Cyborg together, understandably reluctant to have some Tamaranian who-knows-what shoved down their throats.

"Rose can't cook! She's our guest!" Beast Boy pointed out.

Rose gave him a small smile. So he was not mad at her anymore, if he ever had been. He had been tied up doing chores setting up the camp for most of the afternoon, so she had spent the time instead with Starfire, itching to know if he was speaking to her or not. The alien girl seemed not to notice Rose's discomfort at being around them, and her cheerful chatter had a way of making you feel like maybe you did belong after all. She had learnt a lot about the Titans and what they did from Starfire.

"No, I don't mind," Rose shrugged. "I have to do something to earn my keep."

Beast Boy started to protest, but she cut him off. "Beast Boy, don't worry. I promise it won't taste too bad," she said with a grin. "I stayed at a café for several months once, working. I learnt the basics there. And besides, all I have to do is chuck a whole lot of stuff in a pot. I know where the campsite stoves are."

"Well, that's a step ahead of the rest of us, I guess," Cyborg said with a shrug.

X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X

Rose glanced around.

"Listen, guys," she said hesitantly, her voice sounding small and pathetic even to her own ears. She cleared her throat, and said, louder, "I'm just gonna go for a walk. Is that okay?"

The six of them were seated on folding chairs placed – thanks to Starfire – in a rough circle, facing inwards to one another. They had just finished eating dinner, and the plates were still on most of their laps. Raven was still finishing off her food.

Robin raised his eyebrow. "It's pretty dark," he stated, staring around at the ominous-looking trees surrounding their clearing. "You sure?"

"Yes," she confirmed steadfastly. She was starting to get that all-too-familiar ache from somewhere inside her. Like someone had a hold of something inside her chest and was tugging it slowly downwards.

"Well, it's your decision," Robin said.

Rose smiled, and stood. She carefully placed her used plate, cutlery and empty glass in the dirty dishes container, and headed off by herself into the night. Towards the stream.

The Titans watched her go.

"What do you think about her?" Robin said softly. "Should we trust her?"

"We still haven't seen what she can do," Cyborg pointed out. "Only BB has."

"What exactly is it that she can do, anyway?" Robin asked curiously.

Beast Boy hesitated. Rose had seemed so reluctant to share her special talent with them, although he had no idea why. For a moment he felt as if he might as well be ripping clumsily through her delicate veil of privacy and running off with the remains. Then he reminded himself of where his loyalty primarily lay. "She has some form of control over water."

"I think we should wait until she shows us the full extent of her powers before we judge her," Raven suggested. "We don't know how much of a threat she is to us."

"Dude, I don't think the issue is whether or not we can trust her," Beast Boy said. "I mean, she obviously doesn't trust us. Shouldn't we start there?"

"She trusts you," Robin said, speaking so pointedly that Beast Boy started to colour.

"You all talk of her as if she is some form of project," Starfire commented in a concerned tone of voice before the changeling could say anything else.

"We need to know if we can trust her," Robin explained. "Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to invite her to stay with us."

"What? Why! It's not like she's gonna attack us in the middle of the night!" Beast Boy exclaimed furiously.

"But how can we be sure of that?" Robin countered. "We need to find out more about her."

"For example, where can she possibly be going at this time of night?" Raven said.

"Beast Boy…" Robin began.

Beast Boy rolled his eyes. "Fine, fine, I'll follow her. But I'm not going to just spy on her, and report back to you, alright?" He changed into a sleek cat, and was soon gone. Away into the dark forest.

He could guess where she had gone.

X-x-X-x-X-x-X-x-X

"Rose."

She was sitting on the bank of the stream, near the bridge where he had first seen her. Her head whipped around, and her muscles visibly tensed, then, when she saw it was him, relaxed. "Beast Boy?"

"I just came to, you know, check if you were okay…" Beast Boy said, walking forwards tentatively.

She didn't say anything, just watched him as he approached, her eyes glinting slightly in the moonlight. He seated himself beside her, and they both faced straight ahead. The only sound was the river.

"So… are you? Okay, that is," he said eventually, breaking the silence between them.

"Yeah."

Rose absently twirled her finger in a slow circle. A strand of water split from the lazy stream, spiralling gently upwards towards her finger.

Beast Boy watched the water. He was thinking furiously of something else to say. "Dinner was delish!" he grinned eventually. "You're a great cook."

Rose gave a wry laugh. "My one and only skill. I guess I have to be good at something."

"Are you kidding?" he demanded incredulously, gesturing to the water floating in mid-air. "You're telling me that's not a skill?"

She pursed her lips. "'Skill' is not exactly the word I'd use," she said after a while.

"So what word would you use?" he asked curiously.

Rose abruptly withdrew her hand, releasing her hold on the water. It fell back into the stream with a small splash. "I'd say curse would be closer to the mark," she said, trying to make her voice sound cheerful and carefree, like she was making a joke. All the same, her mouth went tight as she finished speaking, and she stared fixedly ahead.

Beast Boy watched her face in a confused manner, then turned his gaze also to the river running below them also. "I don't get how…" he began uncertainly.

Rose exploded. "Of course you don't 'get how'!" she yelled. "Where you come from, your abilities are seen as amazing, wondrous, and something to wish you had! But did you ever wonder what it could be like? If things turned the other way? You don't know how many days I spent alone, just because of this!"

There was a short silence, Rose's words ringing in the air. Then she began to speak again. Her voice was quiet this time, sadness and loneliness draped through it. "You don't know what it's like. To have people scared of you, seeing you as a threat, or a freak. Like if they got too close, they'd become infected or something."

Dazed, Beast Boy said, "Sorry… I didn't mean to-"

"Beast Boy, let me tell you a story," said Rose, talking over him as if he hadn't even spoken. "Once upon a time, there was a little girl.

"She lived with her family in an average-ish house in a small village. When she was very young, she found that she could make the water move, without touching it. For a long time, nobody but her knew about this.

"Then, one day, she made the mistake of sharing her ability with others. She had practised and practised until she was very good at controlling the water." A sleek sheen of sarcasm flooded over Rose's words. "She was thinking to put on a grand show for some selected people of the village. Her parents let her go through with it in an amused fashion, right down to special invitations, because she didn't tell them what exactly the 'trick' she was going to be doing was.

"Humans fear things they don't understand. They were first shocked at what she was doing with the water. Then they were afraid. And they didn't want to be afraid.

"They…" Rose's voice grew soft, and her eyes moistened. She wiped them hastily, her motions jerky as if she was angry at herself for getting upset over something she had promised not to. She licked her dry lips and determinedly continued. "Her parents couldn't stop them. The people cast her into the river there and then, and shouted to her as she floated away, that she was unwelcome to their village – to the only home she had ever known.

"She… never saw her family again."

Beast Boy didn't know what to say. "I'm so sorry," he said awkwardly. He gingerly placed his hand on her shoulder. "That's horrible."

"Yeah, well, that's life, isn't it?" said Rose humourlessly. Still she kept her head straight ahead, looking into the water. A smile that didn't reach her eyes tugged at the corners of her mouth. "It was lucky for me that the people didn't think about what to do with me before they acted, or else they might have 'disposed' of me another way. But as it was, although at first I nearly drowned, I used my control to help keep me afloat. My powers were far too weak to control the whole river, but at least they could control enough water to ensure my survival."

There was a pause.

"I'm used to keeping my powers a secret. Most people react to them badly. That's why I was so defensive when I first met you, and the others," Rose said, speaking quickly as if the words had been bottled up, and a cork tugged from in front of them. "People who weren't afraid of me, and even possessed unique talents of their own." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I thought it was just too good to be true."

Beast Boy squeezed her shoulder comfortingly. The seconds ticked past as they sat there, Beast Boy growing more and more acutely aware of his hand still resting on her shoulder. He didn't want to withdraw it, for fear of her misinterpreting it as he had finished sympathising and was ready to get on with life. But it was almost painful to leave it there.

"I guess we should be getting back," Rose said eventually.

She half-turned towards him in preparation for standing, and briefly touched the hand on her shoulder with her fingers. He glanced at her, and she smiled, acknowledging… something. Beast Boy wasn't exactly sure what. He wasn't even sure that she knew what. But whatever it was, it was acknowledged in that small moment.

Then they were both climbing to their feet, and Rose started walking away.

"Rose," Beast Boy said suddenly.

She turned to him, and he found that he couldn't find the right words to express what he was feeling. He fumbled for them as they slipped through his grasp. Away they went, into the vast nothingness lurking in the corners of being.

"We… we're here for you," he said eventually.

Rose gave him a smile, small, but filled with gratitude. Her eyes seemed to light up. Beast Boy felt a strange chill run down his spine.

She said nothing.

She didn't need to.