Disclaimer: Ha ha ha not owning anything!

Chapter twenty-four! You may hate this chapter at first but bear with me here. Sorry if this is too long. The chapter I'm really looking forward to is 26.

Note to Cloud: I am SO getting revenge on Slade for kicking you!

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The disturbance was not far away from Titans Tower. A few blocks away from their favorite pizza place, a large monster was causing destruction. It had already torn up the asphalt on about half of the street, exposing the dirt beneath. The Titans sped up to where it was doing its act of demolition.

"Dude, what is it doing?" Beast Boy asked as they stopped about nine yards away from the monster, which had strange black tentacle-like limbs protruding from its hideous purple head, which were giving off a strange fizzing noise. It also had no visible eyes but seemed to be watching them anyway.

"I don't know, but it's going to be stopped," Robin said, taking off his helmet. "Titans, go!"

Before the monster knew what was happening, five teenagers were on it like scary on an animal suit. Robin attacked it from one direction, throwing disks at it in hopes of freezing it immobile. Cyborg came at it from another, blasting it with his sonic boom. Beast Boy came from the left side, attacking the thing in the form of a bull. Starfire and Raven swooped in from above, Starfire blasting it relentlessly with Starbolts and Raven using her powers to slam it into the wall behind it, doing the most damage of the five.

"Good, Raven!" Robin called, dodging a blow from one of the monster's fists. "Keep him against that wall!"

The other four used the monster's helplessness to attack with renewed fury. Raven kept it enveloped in black psychic energy so that it could barely move itself two inches away from the building.

"I'd avoid those tentacles if I were you!" Cyborg said, landing on the ground after taking a leap off of one of the many arms and hitting it with a blast. "They've got some sort of weird electrical current going though 'em!"

"Listen to Cyborg! Stay away from the tentacles!" Robin said, dodging one of the long, black tentacles as it took a swipe at him. "Starfire, Raven, get away from those!"

The two girls hovering above the monster's head moved away, but not quickly enough. The tentacle brushed Starfire's arm, singing the flesh, but Raven took the full blow. The tentacle hit her full in the stomach, sending her flying across the street and through the front window of a store.

Beast Boy saw the entire scene happen in slow motion. He saw Raven being struck and flying across the street to go crashing through the glass and then heard a loud thud as she came to a stop against something. "RAVEN!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. He morphed into the shape of a falcon and flew as fast as he could across the street and though the broken window, looking frantically around the store. The scent in the room was cold: blood and burning flesh.

Raven was lying on the floor beside the back wall. The plaster of the wall was severely cracked from when she had slammed into it. She wasn't moving. Her leotard was burned away on her stomach where the tentacle had hit her and the skin was red and blistered. She was bleeding from where the glass had cut her, on her face, neck, legs, and arms. Beast Boy placed his hands behind her shoulders, lifting her up into a sitting position. Her head flopped limply to one side.

"No," Beast Boy muttered. "No! Not again! Please no! Oh God, no!"

Images flashed through his mind. Images of Terra, images of Terra lying dead before him, her blood staining the dove-white snow. A drop of Raven's blood fell and landed on his arm, its warmth and vitality was too much for him, and he burst into tears, lying Raven back down on the floor. He dropped his face into his hands, sobbing uncontrollably as the world came crashing down around him yet again.

"Why?" he screamed though his tears. He looked up at the sky, anger tearing through his veins. "Why would you let her die? What did she ever do to you?" he screamed, his throat growing ragged but he was too desperate to stop. His sobs came in choking gasps and he leaned away from Raven and vomited on the floor, pouring out his soul with the contents of his stomach. "Fuck!" he screamed when he had finished, throwing himself forward, his forehead on Raven's shoulder. "Fucking hell!" he could think of nothing to do but screech obscenities until he felt like his throat was bleeding. He could see nothing.

He heard a sound behind him, voices that seemed muffled through his despair.

"Beast Boy!" said Robin. The sobbing changeling sat upright and looked at him, still sobbing breathlessly, his head spinning and he felt as though he was going to pass out. Robin knelt down quickly beside him, picking up Raven's arm and placing two fingers on her wrist. Beast Boy lowered himself to the ground, pressing his forehead into the bits of broken glass, tears mixing with the blood that began to run down his face. He could hear nothing over his sobbing and felt Robin's hand on his shoulder. "Beast Boy!" he said loudly. "Raven is going to be alright! It's OK! Stop it! She's only unconscious!"

Beast Boy refused to believe him for a moment, sitting up and crying even harder, unable to understand why Robin was lying to him. "No she isn't!" he choked. "Don't lie!"

Robin looked bewildered. "Beast Boy, she's unconscious. She's going to be OK," he said.

Beast Boy understood the truth in those words the second time he heard them, and he sobbed even harder, though now with relief. He grabbed the Boy Wonder in a hug and Robin patted him awkwardly on the top of the head before he was released. Beast Boy controlled his tears. "We need to….get her…back to the Tower," he said, still struggling to catch his breath. The crying had left his head throbbing. Robin nodded.

"Cyborg, Starfire, she needs help badly, right away!" Robin said, turning around. "We're going to have to go back and leave this thing loose until we can make sure she's going to make it."

The prospect of her not making it almost made Beast Boy break down again, but he sucked it up, leaning down and picking Raven up carefully in his arms. "Let's go," he said shakily, standing up.

XXX

Beast Boy walked ahead of the others down the hall, still carrying Raven. He hurried into the Med. Bay and lay her down carefully on the cot that he remembered her being on before when everyone believed that he had hurt her as The Beast. He waited for the others to come in and watched Cyborg hook Raven up to the wires and machines. He felt sick and dizzy and worried beyond all belief. It felt as though his entire life was teetering on the very edge of some dark abyss. If anything happened to Raven, he was going to slip over. He was going to fall in.

"Is she gonna be OK?" he squeaked.

"We can't be sure yet," Robin said. Beast Boy swallowed several times.

"I understand," he said quietly.

Starfire was crying soundlessly, and Cyborg was attempting to comfort her as Robin stared at the monitors for a moment. "Her heart rate is stable," he said. "That's the best we can ask for right now. I'd like to stay, but we need to stop that…thing before it destroys half the city. I wouldn't be willing to risk it under any other circumstances, but the city needs us."

"So does Raven!" Beast Boy protested.

"You stay here and keep an eye on her," Robin said. Beast Boy nodded.

"She's gonna be OK, right?" he asked helplessly.

"You know I don't know that, Beast Boy. All we can do is hope for the best right now," Robin said.

"I know. But…she has to be OK! I love her, you guys!" Beast Boy said.

"I know," Robin said, placing a comforting hand on Beast Boy's shoulder. "But there's nothing we can do about it now. Just wait. Starfire, Cyborg, we need to stop this thing. Beast Boy, call us if anything develops."

"OK," Beast Boy replied weakly as the other three left the room, leaving him alone with Raven. Alone with Raven and his misery. "Oh God," he moaned, grabbing Raven's hand and squeezing it tightly. "You've got to be OK, Raven! You can't die on me! I need you! I love you so much! Please be OK!"

Raven only lay in silence.

Beast Boy gave a sad little sigh. He got up and went to get a damp cloth, hoping that when he came back she would be sitting up and waiting for him. She wasn't, however. Beast Boy removed his gloves and carefully used the cloth to wipe the blood from her cuts and clean the huge, painful-looking burn on her stomach.

"Please wake up!" he pleaded, wiping the dried blood from a cut on her temple. "If anything happens to you, I'm not going to make it. I'm seriously not. Please don't leave me. I can't do this alone."

Her pale face was still and she made no response. He sat there watching her for what seemed like hours, though it couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes. He memorized every detail of her face and remembered what her eyes looked like when they were open. He remembered the kind of feeling he got when she smiled at him. He remembered the wonderful feeling he had been filled up with when she told him she loved him too. He remembered kissing her in the park as the world passed by around them, how everything had melted away completely and he wanted to stay in that moment forever. He remembered what she felt like pressed up against him. He remembered their first kiss, on that night after his nightmare about Terra's death when Raven had comforted him. He remembered the times on the roof when they had connected so meaningfully. He remembered the day he had realized that he loved her. He remembered all the times since the Titans had began that he had spent trying to make her laugh. He remembered the day they had met with special fondness. The beginning of something that he had never even dreamed of.

She had been so quiet, so distant, and he had been so reluctant to talk to her at first. She had been so mysterious, and it had almost scared him. She was pretty. He knew it. She didn't. He had no idea how to react. "Hi…uh…your name is Raven, right?" After that first 'hi' he gave her, he had wanted to keep talking forever.

"Hello...Beast Boy, was it?" her hello had held nothing more than irritation and a deep wish for him to go away. She didn't even look up from the book she was reading.

"Yeah. Um…what're ya reading?"

"A book." she had been so sarcastic. It had made him want to laugh because of her reaction to him. There was nothing more than annoyance coming toward him from her. So why had he stayed? He had had no idea that he would fall in love with this girl someday.

"I…um…like your cloak. It's cool." he had felt so stupid after he said this.

She had looked up for a moment. "Thanks," she had said simply but sincerely, clearly not used to compliments.

"I like that red jewel thing on your forehead, too. It's…um…shiny." he could have slapped himself.

She seemed almost embarrassed, now. "Thank you," she said very awkwardly.

"Yep." he had known right at that moment that he wanted to get to know this girl better. He didn't know why. He just wanted to be her friend. She was so dark, so quiet, so withdrawn. 'I need to hear her laugh,' he had thought. 'I am going to make her laugh someday.' and there the quest had begun.

Beast Boy was surprised that he had remembered so much about that first day. Thinking back made him long to hear her voice again even more desperately. He dropped his head into his hands. "Please wake up, Raven. I really, really miss you. I'd do anything for you to be OK. If you're OK I'll…eat an entire cow…I'll wreck a Moped on purpose…I'll stop telling my stupid jokes!"

"Don't do that. I like your jokes," said a voice. Beast Boy's ears perked up and he looked up. His eyes widened, relief and joy filling the spaces that had been filled with fear and doubt. She was watching him with a slight smile on her face. He climbed up onto the cot with her.

"Raven!" he said loudly, throwing his arms around her tightly and holding her against him. He could feel himself starting to tear up. "Oh, God! I thought you were going to die! I thought I was going to lose you! I was so scared!" he said, starting to shake as she hugged him back.

"It's alright," Raven said soothingly, rubbing his back in small circles.

"I'm so glad you're OK," he said unsteadily. "I was so afraid I was going to lose you. Oh God Raven, I love you so much."

"I love you too, Beast Boy," Raven told him softly. "I don't want you to ever forget that."

Beast Boy nodded, giving her a tight squeeze and letting her go. He looked at her for a moment. "That burn is pretty bad. Does it hurt a lot?" he asked.

Raven looked down. "Yes," she said, staring at the red and blistering skin. A glowing white hand hovered over the burn for a moment, and then it vanished, there was nothing but the smooth grayish skin of Raven's stomach and no evidence of the burn whatsoever. Beast Boy reached out his hand and touched what used to be the burn lightly, surprised that something so painful could disappear so completely. Raven jumped slightly, and Beast Boy drew his hand away quickly. "I'm sorry. It's alright," Raven said, gently guiding his hand back to the bare skin of her stomach. He ran his fingertips lightly over the smooth skin, watching Raven's face carefully. He drew his hand back after a moment and bent down, kissing her lips softly, barely aware that he was straddling her. She returned the kiss, looping her arms around his neck at first and then wrapping them around his body as the kiss became more intense. The kiss continued passionately for a few more minutes, and then Raven broke away and worked the top of Beast Boy's outfit down, letting it hang around his waist and kissing him again, running her hands over his bare back. Beast Boy shuddered slightly with pleasure as her fingers trailed gracefully down to his lower back and then up again. She took her lips away from his and trailed down his neck and to his chest. She covered his chest with a progression of short, quick kisses as her hands continued their journey. They stopped at his lower back and went down a bit lower-

"Uh…sorry to interrupt," said a voice. Beast Boy and Raven both jumped at once and looked in the direction of it. The other three Titans were standing in the doorway, their eyes bulging to inhuman sizes.

"Well, that's not something you see every day," Cyborg said, looking slightly disturbed. "Two of your best friends half naked in a bed…"

Raven and Beast Boy were both blushing furiously. Beast Boy pulled his shirt all the way on and climbed off of Raven, standing on the floor beside the cot and unable to conceal his embarrassment. He was nothing compared to Raven, though, who looked like she would enjoy nothing more than hiding in a hole.

"On Tamaran, I believe that this would be called an attempt at the beginning of the act of making the babies," Starfire said.

"Right you are Starfire, right you are," Cyborg said. "I was really wondering when you two were going to stop kidding yourselves and admit your feelings."

Beast Boy looked around for something, anything to change the subject. "Um…by the way you guys, Raven woke up. Isn't that great?" he asked awkwardly. "She's OK!"

"Gee, I had no idea! Alert the press!" Robin said. Cyborg and Beast Boy started laughing. "It's OK, Raven. We're not going to be shitty about it or anything. We all knew how you two felt, anyway," Robin said kindly.

"Good. Because if you said anything rude I was going to have to-" Raven began.

"Whoa. Easy," Cyborg said. He walked over to Beast Boy and Raven and threw an arm around each of their shoulders. "Now what do you say we all go and get a pizza, my treat?"

"That sounds great, Cyborg. Let's go," Raven said in a surprisingly chipper voice.

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Next chapter soon. Sorry if this chapter was too long. I got really into writing drama again.