Edge of Awareness
By:Lady DeathAngel
Disclaimer: not mine, not profiting, 'nuff said
Warnings: language would be about it for this chapter
A/N: urgh, so, just over a week into posting and I'm alreadya day late! Sorry for everyone who's reading this (and I know you're out there. I've seen the hit counter.) but I was over at my grandparents' house for two nights and couldn't get home to post. Anyway, here's this chapter, complete with lots of Raven. In the next chapter she meets Gar Logan (Beast Boy) and from there the story really gets rolling. Please tell me what you think! Reviews make me happy, happy. :)

So Lucky

Raven thought she was, quite possibly, the most unlucky person ever. It was in the little things, like the fact that she'd moved to a seaside city and knew she would never manage to tan at all; it was in the big things, like the fact that she'd spent three minutes kneeling in her mother's blood trying to revive her before realizing Arella was dead. Now she would be living with a man she'd never seen in her life, a man she hadn't even known existed.

Raven was fervently wishing she was back to being a bastard. She didn't like her father very much.

He was charming enough. He'd smiled at her several times on the hour and a half long drive to his huge home. He'd told her how sorry he was for what had happened and that he hoped they would get along well. For an hour and a half she listened to his life story. He told her he was a self-made billionaire, that he hated animals and kids but regretted never meeting her before. He had a fiancee named Linda who Raven would 'love to pieces' because she was 'just great'. He spoke bitterly about her mother but Raven might have missed it if she'd been ignoring him. He told her to call him 'Trent' and he called her 'Rachel'.

By the time Raven met Linda, she wanted to shoot herself in the head. Linda was tall and blonde and tan and gorgeous. She smiled at Raven ten times as much as Trent did in the first five minutes of meeting her. She told Raven her life story. She was an English major, a teacher at a local highschool ("We can car-pool together. You'll love my car, it's so cute."). She, unlike her significant other, loved animals and kids, had tons of friends and went to tons of parties ("But I always find time to grade my papers. I'm the queen of multitasking."). She was madly in love with Trent, and was looking forward to having Raven around ("I haven't had a female roommate since college, can you imagine? It'll be so nice to have another girl around."). She told Raven to call her whatever she wanted since they were going to be such good friends. She called Raven things like 'Honey' and 'Sweetie' and 'Baby' and 'Rach'.

Trent left to pick up food and Linda showed Raven around the house. The floor was standard fare: a dining room, kitchen, family room, bathroom, washroom, and rec room. The second and third floors belonged to Linda and Trent and were off-limits, but Raven was not to worry because her rooms were 'to die for.'

"Trent called a decorator the minute he heard you were coming," Linda said as she led Raven past the first floor family room and into the foyer of the house. "The entire basement is yours."

There was a door adjacent to that of the coat closet that led to a set of steep, black carpeted stairs. They padded downward in the relative dark, their paths lit only by the strip of sunlight that drifted through the open door. After a minute Linda flipped a switch and they finally reached the bottom of the stairs. There were beads, Raven noted with a raised eyebrow. Not bad, she decided as she parted them with one hand. She looked at her very own den and smirked. Not bad at all.

"This is the den," Linda said with another huge smile. "Your own main room. The TV's huge," she continued, indicating a modern looking entertainment set. "Plasma. There's a DVD player, VCR, the best cable package on this coast complete with VOD and DVR. Tons of movies are in there too. We didn't know what you'd like, so we got a bit of everything. Your entertainment system's over there." She pointed to a far wall with a huge stereo sitting on top of a large glass case that would fit Raven's sizable CD collection comfortably. "The couches are very comfortable. We were told that they're quite popular with college students."

The love seat, sofa, chair, and ottoman were all blue and she wondered who had told these people about her favorite color. Linda took her to the bathroom and opened the door.

"This is your bathroom! The color scheme's a bit different in here, but I called in a friend and I think it's wonderful."

The room was huge, for a bathroom. There was a walk in shower off the left and a huge tub off to the right. The toilet was next to the walk-in shower, and next to that was a ledge that made an L shape until it became a counter and then the sink, which ran another segment of the wall before cornering into another L shape. All the taps looked modern, the counter and ledge tops a tan hue, the walls cream colored. The floor was decorated with many soft, fluffy, tan mats, the closet stocked with toiletries and towels and washcloths also in a tan color. There were plenty of candles and the overhead lights could be set low or high.

"It's nice," Raven murmured.

Not quite her style, but even she could appreciate a little decadence in her life.

Last was her bedroom. Linda said it was wonderful and opened the door with a flourish and a loud "ta-da!"

Raven liked it immediately. The bed was probably a twin and made of a mahogany wood that was dark without being freakishly so. It was high up (it needed freakin' stairs) and shrouded in a black, lacy canopy. The duvet was black satin as were the pillowcases and sheets. The walls were painted in a rich blue and were plain, but Raven had more than enough posters to fix that problem. There was a wardrobe across from the foot of her bed, a large closet, a desk that was perfect for her laptop, and a bookcase that she ached to fill. The lights in her room could also be set to her mood and she wondered, vaguely, if she could do the same in her main room. All in all, it was 'to die for'. The one bright spot in her otherwise shitty life.

"I like it," she finally told Linda.

The blonde smiled wide.

"Great!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I can help you unpack and move in!" she added as they made their way back upstairs.

Raven wanted to tell her not to push it, but couldn't figure out a polite way to do so. She'd always been a private person and wasn't sure how she felt about letting this complete stranger handle her stuff. Still, she didn't want to alienate her. The woman's bubbly personality was a stark and almost pleasant (if annoying) contrast to every other one she'd had to live with the last seventeen years. Especially her mother's. But she didn't want to think about that. She carefully put it out of her mind and helped Linda set the table, hoping she could remember what went where, subtle nuances that she'd have to adjust to in her new home.

By the time Trent had gotten home, Raven was almost in a not-so-bad mood. She was quiet and settled into her seat wearily, but the food smelled good and despite the fact her father was obviously a hedonist (if the modern furniture and 'bigger is better' attitude of the house were any indication) and her future step-mother was only a few years older than she was and called her 'Rach' she didn't feel so unlucky anymore. They had Chinese takeout which was good and way more substantial than the macaroni and cheese that Raven had been living on for the last two weeks, too. Always a plus.

"So, you'll be starting school tomorrow," Trent informed her. "I've had all of your credits, vaccination records, birth certificate, and other appropriate papers transferred to San Paulo. It's the most prestigious private school in the area and their standards are high, but I'm sure you can handle it. "

Raven made a small, non-committal noise around a mouthful of Sesame Chicken.

"You can ride with Linda," her father continued. "She'll lead you to the front office and they'll have some papers for you to sign along with your class schedule. You'll be okay?"

Raven nodded again. Even if she wouldn't be 'okay' exactly, she'd survive. She hoped. After dinner she made her way back to the basement, Linda hot on her heels.

"I can unpack myself," Raven said over her shoulder. "You don't have to help."

"Oh, it's no problem, sweetie. I want to help."

Raven sighed and tugged on her earlobe, a nervous habit she'd picked up from her mother, and stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

"I don't like other people touching my stuff," she said, turning to look at Linda.

Something flashed in the woman's eyes, but it was gone quickly and she smiled warmly.

"Well, if you're sure you can do it alone."

She turned and Raven bit her lip before calling out her name. Linda turned with raised eyebrows.

"I guess some company wouldn't be so bad," she said softly.

Linda grinned and parked herself on the couch while Raven set up her things. She kept up a conversation that was mostly one-sided about fun things to do in Jump City. She asked quite a few questions about Raven's life; Raven wasn't interested in answering anything personal, but she didn't mind talking about her old school or her old town.

"I'd love to see some pictures of your mom," Linda announced loudly, while Raven hung up t-shirts in her closet.

"I don't have any," Raven called back, her fingers clenching around the fabric of a tank-top. "We didn't take pictures."

It was a lie. Raven had exactly one photo album that she refused to look at. She had every intention of shoving it under her couch andforgetting it existed.

Raven finished unpacking and organizing her things around ten and Linda excused herself with a hug and an exuberant, "goodnight, hon!"

The door to the basement clicked shut and for several minutes Raven stared at it, her body still warm from the first hug she'd received since her mother had died. It took her a moment to realize that she was tearing up, the burning of her eyes and the sudden heavy knot at the back of her throat sure signs that if she couldn't control herself, she'd be up half the night, sobbing and wishing fervently for her mommy.

Clenching her fists and blinking the tears back, Raven went about getting ready for bed. She flicked off the light to the main room, went through a boring nightly routine, pulled on a big t-shirt, shucked off her jeans, and climbed into bed. She rolled onto her side and fingered the canopy for a few minutes, carefully not thinking about anything.

It took her hours of thinking about nothing before she finally fell into a fitful sleep.