Gomenasai!Gomenasai!Gomenasai!

I've been really sick,that's why this update is late!Again, gomenasai! My stupid parents won't let me go on the computer when I'm sick, or even on Sundays,so I have very little time when I'm sick for 3 weeks straight.

Oh,and I swear,'Evilator',you are possibly the stupidest person I have ever met.Maybe this chapter will explain the obvious,retard.

And I just realised that I haven't been dedicating chapters lately,so this week,the lucky reviewer is,of course: Silver-Night2!

Flattery goes a long way.Muahahahaha! I am now the Empress of Cliffhangers! And this chapter will show you why!

Hehe.I am so evil.

Chapter 5
Alas

Beast Boy normally wouldn't even bother raising his head towards the intercom on the wall.Most of the time he just sat at his messy desk,and let the tears drip onto the laminated photos of Raven.But something in Cyborg's voice,a mixture of excitement and panic,had somehow riled his curiosity.He carefully stowed the picture back in its album before standing up and making his way to the door.

He strolled down the metal corridors slowly,his face devoid of any feeling.Finding himself in front of the medical bay doors,he took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself.He stopped almost instantaneously,confused.

Prepare myself for what? Beast Boy thought to himself. Cyborg didn't say anything important...Only "...Especially you,Beast Boy." What does that mean?What's behind this door?

Beast Boy shook his head,before closing his eyes,and re-opening them to the mediocrity they normally held.No use in over-analysing it.Whatever that's behind this door is probably nothing.Maybe one of those girls has some complicated problem that Cyborg needs us to help fix.Whatever.

And with that last remark to himself,he slid open the metal door.

Nothing was out of the ordinary,except for the two girls lying on two of the white beds.Cyborg sat on a chair nearest to the door,head bent over the chest of one of the girls.His hulking form obscured both of their heads from Beast Boy's view.Upon hearing the door clang shut behind Beast Boy,Cyborg looked up as the last stitch was completed,and swivelled slowly in his chair to face Beast Boy.

Beast Boy took a double take at the expression on Cyborg's half-metal face.A huge grin spread across his features,but shook a little,as if he had just had the biggest shock of his life.He just had.But Beast Boy didn't know that yet.

"...Dude?" Beast Boy was pretty shocked himself at the expression filling Cyborg's features.

Cyborg practically bounced out of the chair.He grabbed Beast Boy's shoulders roughly,and started shaking him back and forth."Dude!Dude!You have to tell me!Tell me I'm not insane!C'mon!"

Beast Boy couldn't see much except for Cyborg,and Cyborg was really starting to irk him.He pushed Cyborg's over-sized hands off of his shoulders,and quickly regained his composure.But not his temper,which had been running rather high lately.He glared at his robotic friend.

"WHAT!"

Wow.How astonishingly witty.

Cyborg seemed to calm down at the changeling's outburst.Well,at least he stopped bouncing.He took deep breaths,and finally allowed Beast Boy a view of the two girls on the beds.The girl furthest from him,the redhead,was looking incredibly beautiful,long hair billowing around her petite form.But Beast Boy didn't even glance at her,all his attention focused on the teenager Cyborg had just finished healing.

"Rae...Raven?"

And as if on cue,Raven's eyelids flickered open.

-------

Ranae's eyes flickered open in a second,almost instantaneously registering the white all around her.Her first thought was that everthing had all been a dream,but the lingering pain in her chest told a different story.Was she in the hospital then?She could hear wavering footsteps,drawing closer.Someone was walking towards the bed?A nurse?Struggling with her body for a moment,she turned her stiff neck so her head lay sideways.

Beast Boy?She was genuinely suprised.Why would he even bother coming to see her in the hospital?He probably saw people get hurt everyday.Why would he bother with her?Another second,and she saw a bunch of highly advanced machines as well as a highly advanced cyborg behind the changeling.Dumbfounded,she reached the obvious conclusion.

She was in Titan's Tower,a foot away from the grass stain of her dreams.

Cool.

But...huh?Beast Boy's face was contorted into a strange expression.Recognition?Hope?And something else,something that burned below the surface,roaring into life.

A strand of hair fell over her eye.She reached a shaky hand up to brush it away,but Beast Boy was faster,having reached her bedside.Instead of letting go though,he held the strand loosely in his black-gloved hand.

Wait.Something was wrong with that hair.Was it really hers?It didn't look right.It looked...

Violet.

"R...Rae...ven?"

This was not happening! It wasn't possible! Quickly regaining full use of her limbs again,she threw herself into the corner of the bed,away from the startled Beast Boy,hands grasping at the long violet locks that tumbled around her frail form.She huddled into a ball,somehow trying to keep herself from the truth.Even so,tears began pouring down her cheeks.Her voice shook under the weight of tears.

"I can't be Raven! I'm not Raven! I---I'm Ranae! Ranae!" She began to unconciously rock,somehow hoping it would halt the tears.Beast Boy withdrew,even more shocked than before.

She's not Raven?But she is.I'd know her face anywhere,even almost a year on.Another part of his mind argued back.She doesn't act like our Raven.Our Raven never cried,and even when our lives were on the line,when we'd crack a stupid joke,she'd turn it around right back at us,make us the butt of the joke.That's our Raven.Beast Boy stopped.When had he started thinking about her as his Raven?A clang from behind him brought his thoughts to a halt.

Robin and Starfire had appeared in the doorway,both looking a bit tousled.Almost a year on,and a lot more aware to the ways of the world,Beast Boy struggled with the urge to grin like he used to.But the tears of the girl behind him instantly brough a halt to any thoughts of cheer.Starfire was the first to react,however.

"FRIEND RAVEN!"

She plowed through the roof,spraying ceiling material onto everyone present.Beast Boy,Robin, and Cyborg(who had already begun operations on the red-haired girl while Beast Boy was occupied) merely glanced before returning to the matter at hand.However.Ranae,or Raven,whoever she was, was pretty shocked by this turn of events, and her tears stopped almost immediately,disbelief traded for pure astoundment.

Beast Boy took advantage of her brief moment of silence to grasp her hand comfortingly.She looked hesitantly down at their hands,and then back up to his face.Something in Beast Boy prayed for her to get angry,and throw him out the window.Or at least push him away.But her eyes simply wavered,and tears spilled down her ivory cheeks.

Behind them,Robin stepped forward eagerly,but faltered at the protective way Beast Boy gripped Raven's hand.

He smiled knowingly,and stepped backwards out into the corridor,not wanting to spoil the moment.He'd go get Starfire.

Raven just sat there crying.Beast Boy felt so helpless.For want of a better idea,he sat down on the bed next to her.She instinctively leaned forward into his chest,clutching at his uniform and soaking the coarse fabric.Beast Boy had to stop himself from flinching at her touch.Raven---if she even was Raven---was acting like an ordinary girl.That wasn't right.Raven was beyond extraordinary.A beep interupted his thoughts,but not the girl against his chest,whose tears were finally beginning to even out.

Cyborg stood up quickly and reached for the computer,where the beep had come from.He typed in a few commands,and watched the screen as information began to parade across it.He typed a few more commands and the computer began to hum and whir.A printout quickly "vrrr"-ed next to his hand and he tore it off,checking it over before grabbing the shoulder of the girl wrapped around Beast Boy.She looked up uncertainly,eyes still brimming with tears.

He smiled a small comforting smile,and handed her the printout.She took it,hand shaking, before slowly scanning the page.Nothing made sense to her.She looked back up,and Cyborg explained.

"On the left is your DNA,and on the right is a sample of Raven's.They're identical.No matter how much you want to deny it,y'all are Raven.Even a clone,or a twin sister would have a small irregularity.Your'all the real thing."

He turned around,and sat back down to work on the girl Ranae had known as Jira,and the girl that Raven didn't know anymore.For a few more seconds,she stared at the paper,the proof of her identity.But then her eyes started leaking again,and she burrowed into Beast Boy's uniform once again.

"I can't be Raven! I don't deserve to be Raven! How is this possible?"she yelled,voice muffled by the cloth.

Beast Boy had had enough.Seizing her arms,he pulled her from his chest,and spoke to her in a voice that could almost be called frustration."You are Raven,and it is possible! Why is it so bad to you!"

She slowly looked up,her eyes now visible to him.But on her face was no look of remorse,or depression,or distress.Only unbridled joy.And on Raven's face,it scared him more than anything else.

She threw her arms around him,and flung him onto his back."It's not.All I've ever wanted is an adventure and now...now I have it."

A blush rose on his cheeks as her arms tightened around him.

Cyborg coughed rather noisily,and Raven quickly jumped away from Beast Boy,a blush now mantling her cheeks as well.Cyborg grinned mischievously before turning back (again) to his work.Standing and peering over his shoulder,Raven saw that her friend's chest cavity had been opened,exposing stark white ribs and glistening red muscle.She quickly choked back the bile rising in her throat.

Beast Boy put his hand comfortingly on her shoulder,causing her to turn and smile weakly at him.He couldn't help it.No matter if she wasn't the Raven he knew,he still had to comfort her.He couldn't bear to see her in pain,but her current state was worse than pain for him to see.At least he'd found her.He had begun to think that he'd never see her again.

Scratch that,he'd known he'd never see her again.

Thank an invisible guy in the sky for human error.

Cyborg chuckled again,and spoke over his shoulder to the two teenagers behind him."If y'all are quit flirting,we can find out just who this girl really is."

Beast Boy and Raven both turned away from each other quickly,faces lighting up like christmas trees.They both looked cautiously over Cyborg's shoulders,Raven this time focusing strictly on (what she thought was) Jira's face.She didn't think she could take another look at her friend's insides without also observing that sugar bread again.

Cyborg took the same instrument as before,and slowly slid the metal band off the stark white bone.His eyes travelled up to her face,and all that could be heard was a rather audible whistle.

"No wonder we couldn't find her,"Cyborg mused.

Raven looked at the tumbles of pink hair,and the soft pink smirk adorning her pale features.Pcitures,sounds,whispers of memories came poring through her mind.

"Here kitty,kitty,kitty.What's the matter,afraid of a little bad luck?"

"Attack pattern Alpha!"

"You could have been one of us."

For a second,she could see every memory she had ever had of the villain Jinx.Alas.

Raven crashed to the floor,eyes unseeing in pain.


MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

BOW DOWN BEFORE THE EMPRESS OF CLIFFHANGERS,PUNY MORTALS!

I'm sorry,but I just love that 'Alas.' bit.Whee!So coolio!

And no stealing either of those words!'Alas' and 'coolio' are officially my right as Empress of Cliffhangers!

Don't forget,reviews make me try and get better to provide you junkies with your regular daily intake of Teen Titans!