Disclaimer:…Yeah, I still don't think I own anything….

Offering

"What's wrong?"

Raven looked up and raised an eyebrow in question. "What makes you think something is wrong? I'm perfectly fine."

"Uh-huh." Cyborg nodded. "Which is why your tea's spilling over."

She turned back to her cup and realized that her tea was indeed spilling over. Releasing the teapot from her powers, she levitated a few paper towels over to clean up the mess on the counter. Raven cautiously picked up her tea, careful not to let it slosh over the side, and scowled at Cy.

"Well?"

"I took last shift." The part where she didn't sleep hung between them tangibly.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong?"

Raven narrowed her eyes and sipped her tea. "I already told you; nothing's wrong."

"What, so now you can only talk to one person, too?" She looked up sharply to see his previous smirk replaced by a frown. "We're all friends; you know that. You and Gar, you're important to me, and right now, something's seriously wrong with both of you, and neither of you want to talk about it with anyone except each other, and I know you guys realize that's not the way we do things. What's going on with you, Rae?"

There was a moment of uneasy silence Cyborg wasn't used to before she replied, "I'm worried about him, too."

He stared silently across the table at her. "…Do you think we really should be worried?"

"I'm not sure," Raven admitted. "I mean, in all the time I've spent with him…it really only seems like he needs a friend; someone to fall back on right now."

"But we are his friends." Cyborg's vice lowered almost mournfully. "I'm his friend, and you're his friend. And we've been there for him, every step of the way. I thought we were doing a pretty damn good job."

Raven glanced down.

"Maybe you should talk to him."

"How? I mean, he's not talking to anyone except for you." Cyborg pushed his chair back from the table, causing Raven to look up at him.

Her eyes narrowed. "Maybe that's because you haven't talked to him in ages."

Cyborg shifted in his seat, but didn't say a word.

"Don't friends usually talk to each other on a regular basis?"

"And just when would I have the chance, seeing as how he's always under you?"

Raven raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Cyborg snapped and stood up from his seat. "You two have been practically glued together for these last few weeks."

"I'm trying to be a good friend by being there for him; like you said, remember?" Raven's voice began to rise slightly and the cup she'd been drinking from began to tremble as she clenched her hands in her lap.

"Yeah; some friend. 'Friend with benefits', maybe."

Cyborg suddenly found Raven's face, eyes glowing angrily, mere centimeters from his own.

"Don't –ever –accuseme of somethinglikethatagain."

Cyborg tried to back up, but found that he couldn't move from her gaze.

"Ever."

Her glare melted through him, and he narrowed his own eyes, but still found every muscle in his being refused to cooperate with his will.

Raven moved to push pass him, brushing against him angrily, but she was halted, her mind falling into a flurry of strange visions.

"I'm sorry…"

"He's a human being! He's done nothing wrong!"

A cry. A …baby's?

"Don't…"

"…He's the sacrifice! Him and him alone!"

Beast Boy…tears trailing along his cheeks.

"You're wrong!"

"It's the only way!"

"… do it!"

"Some father!"

"Cold-blooded killers!"

Cyborg…Starfire and Robin were holding him back as he screamed.

"Over my dead body!"

"Damn it, he's my son!"

"He has to…"

"He was born to be the sacrifice!"

Cyborg's face, contorted in pain as Robin yelled over the increasing wails in the background.

"You think this isn't hard enough?"

"I am! You're the one who isn't!"

"You're murderers…"

"You're right."

"You're supposed to be a friend!"

…..and the baby just kept crying over their screams…

"I don't want to do this either!"

"…. die!"

"And hundreds of others!"

"It's my decision!"

"Every last one of you!"

"So we trade his life for our own?"

"….all of you!"

"There has to be another way!"

"Stop it! Stop it…"

Lightning lit the sky out side, and an earth shattering roll of thunder exploded.

"Raven?"

"Stop!" Raven screamed as she fell forward and into Cyborg's chest.

"Rae?" He gently pushed her fallen locks out of her face as he cradled her in his arms.

"Rae? Rae!"

Raven blinked blearily as a dark blob slowly swam into view.

A dark blob? The ceiling. It was just the ceiling.

But what was she doing looking at the ceiling?

"Raven?"

She groaned and turned to her side, letting her eyes slip closed again.

"Raven, are you ok?"

The voice was distorted, and sounded as if it came through a great distance before it reached her. She fought to open her eyes, but her heavy lids refused to cooperate.

But the voice sounds so familiar, something in her subconscious nearly whined in frustration With as much strength as she could muster, she forced her violet eyes open. Blearily, two mismatched eyes suddenly flooded with relief swam into view.

"Thank God," their owner breathed shakily. She tried to open her lips and speak, but found that both were difficult as her mouth was dry, and her throat ached.

Something cool was pressed to her lips, and a second later, a cold liquid was fleeing down her throat. She sighed in gratefulness.

"…Cy?"

"You all right, Raven?" She blinked a few times.

"Where….?"

"Med lab; something freaky happened." He again sighed deeply, moving out of her line of vision as he stepped backward and stood. "What the hell were you doing?"

"Doing when?" she questioned, quickly regaining her ability to speak.

Somebody cleared their throat. "Cyborg says you two were having a fight?"

Raven didn't turn, but she did find the strength to roll her eyes at Robin. "Well, there's something out of the ordinary."

She felt him frown. "Raven, this is serious; whatever happened could have been –"

"Look, you kind of…" Cyborg cast an embarrassed glance to Robin. With barely a lingering glance of question, Robin refocused his attention to Cyborg as he continued, "You touched me, so… I don't know. You had a vision?"

"…Yes." Raven shifted uncomfortably.

"You tried to stop it," he softly added after a moment.

Only Raven heard him as Starfire hovered over the side Raven faced, lowering herself to her knees as she stared wide-eyed at her. "Was it terrifying?" Her purple eyes slid away from Starfire's emerald gaze.

"I just went a little over my limit." She smiled at Starfire. "Give me a few moments, and I'll join you guys down on the practice field."

"No." Robin firmly shook his head. "You need to stay here. We don't know that there isn't something seriously wrong with you."

"I'm telling you, I –"

"You're not going to leave this room." He folded his arms over his chest. "Not until Cyborg gives you the all-clear. That's the bottom line."

She glared, but he was already leaving the room, Starfire behind him. Raven sighed in frustration as she shifted in the bed, unable to get comfortable, and finally, she simply sat up. Silence reigned over the room, interrupted only by the constant beeping of the machines that filled the room.

"Can I at least take out this I.V.?" she asked. "I kind of –"

"Hate needles; I know," Cyborg nodded, moving back to her side and gently taking the offered arm. He removed the needle delicately and turned off the machine, but didn't move from the bedside or drop her hand.

"Do I have to stay here?"

"If it's nothing too serious, I can let you go back to your room, but you'd have to promise to stay there for a little while..."

She shook her head. "I don't like being trapped."

"You wouldn't be trapped."

"You're saying that I wouldn't be able to leave my room. How is that not trapped?"

"You stay there half the time as it is," he countered pointedly.

"But I can leave if I want. And I'm not always in my room. Things are different from what they used to be." She still didn't turn to face him, and idly, he wondered why it bothered him. "I don't like being caged, Vic."

"I can't promise…" Cyborg looked down at his feet, his grip on her cold hand tightening without him actually noticing it. "Damn it, Rae…you scared me. You really scared me." He let her hand slip from his, and then walked back to the computer.

"I'll do what I can."

Beast Boy silently slinked away from the doorway, guiltily disgruntled.

What did he want? She'd just regained consciousness, and he expected the only thing on her mind to be him? Something had gone wrong; very wrong, and he'd actually thought she'd be worried about him and him alone?

He slipped by the elevator as the doors closed on Robin and Starfire much the same as he'd slipped out of the room earlier, without either casting him so much as a glance.

He'd been just as worried as Robin and Starfire when Cyborg had called them in the middle of a sparring session; more so, if it came down to the truth of it.

Could they blame him?

Robin hadn't wanted him to come down to the med-level in the first place, had even tried to physically prevent him from leaving the room, but he'd gotten out anyway, gone down with them, frowning angrily as his heartbeat rapidly sped up; he'd have to remind himself in the future to maybe consider listening to him.

And none of that mattered. Not really.

As long as she was ok; that's all he'd needed to know.

And there was time for things that didn't really matter later.

"…Victor? ...Victor? ...Victor!"

Cyborg's head snapped up.

From the tone of his voice and the look on the British man's face, he'd been trying to get his attention for quite some time.

"Sorry, Alfred," Cyborg apologized. "Where were we?"

"Master Victor, I'm beginning to become concerned." The elderly man's forehead wrinkled with unease. "Is everything all right there?"

"Yeah," he answered quickly.

"…I've noticed the same abnormal lack of attention and willingness with lessons in Masters Garfield and Richard as well as Miss Raven and Miss Kori. Are you quite sure you are all ok?"

"Yeah," he smiled weakly. "There's just been …a lot going on. That's all."

Before him, the worried face's frown seemed to deepen as his small eyes drilled into him questioningly with heated intensity. "… If you need a break…"

"No," Cyborg interrupted him. "It's not interfering with my instructions."

"Master Victor, that's not the type of break I meant. Need I remind you that the Master's offer is still open?"

"Yeah… I know." Cyborg leaned back into the couch he sat upon. The silence in the room became painfully deafening.

"You're welcome anytime; we'd be more than delighted to have you. It might even be just what you need. Obviously, you're much further along in your studies than most your age. One of these days, I'm sure I will have to ask Master J'onn to step in fully."

"Sometimes, Alfred, I wonder if there's really anything you don't know." But he didn't chuckle because he couldn't and was instead squirming under Alfred's continued gaze.

"I am an old man and have forgotten much of the little I once knew, Master Victor. I fear you have lost touch with other aspects," he replied, then stiffened as a thought seemed to occur to him. "I can assure you that were you to take the Master up on his offer, you could continue with your studies. There are resources here you could access from few other places in the world or positions in life that I'm sure you'd find most valuable."

Cyborg managed a half-hearted smile. "With the collective knowledge of the finest minds of galaxies uncharted by the most blatantly ignorant and advanced researchers, what more could I ask for?"

Alfred didn't speak for a moment as he leaned back from the screen. "You sound so amazingly like him, thinking you need nothing more than knowledge, skill, and the will to fight."

"He has Robin; he has you. He's rich. He's popular. Last I heard, he had a girlfriend, and could still have his pick of women. What else does he need?"

Alfred remained quiet a few moments before he lowered his voice in something Cyborg would have labeled as frustration if he didn't know such emotion was reserved exclusively for the Batclan. "I've no idea how many times I've tried to convince the boy the one thing he's lacking is understanding of himself."

Cyborg frowned. "'Boy'?"

"When you get to be my age, Master Victor, everyone is a child in comparison." He smiled warmly. "I shall see you again on Thursday. Homework: rest well. And… consider the offer."

"Yes, sir." The large screen before him flickered off, and the warming image of the smiling Alfred vanished with it. He dropped the pencil in his hand to the table, let it roll off the edge and fall to an open book at his feet as he cradled his head in his hands.

There had been a lot going on, even if he dismissed last week's episode with… Well. He didn't really want to get into that again.

The same thing had already been…. preoccupying was the wrong word. But it had undoubtedly been hanging there, right in the darkest corner of his mind for too long to be healthy.

He wasn't sure when it had started. He'd say it was about the same time… they'd lost Terra. And wasn't that just so fitting how every problem they were caught in the middle of seemed to go back to her now?

Not all their problems, obviously; Terra had never really been at the root of their Slade problem, with all due deference to her time spent as his minion.

He couldn't exactly pin down all the trouble Raven had found herself in to Terra either, though he could admit that they often went at it, and yeah, he had found that slightly amusing, and as a guy, slightly alluring.

Robin and Starfire being happy together didn't have anything to do with Terra. And now that he thought about it, Robin and Starfire weren't exactly 'together' in the sense most people would take it, as in, the two (or at least Robin) were dealing with serious cases of unresolved tension and weren't 'going-out' or even really making any extra effort to spend extended periods of time together alone, and admittedly, had he not known the way members of the Batclan's minds really worked and merely witnessed the two around each other for a set period of time, he would have added 'sexual' between 'unresolved' and 'tension'; but of course, Cyborg knew at least Robin didn't think like that, he really hadn't personally talked with the Batman to interrogate him on such grounds to come to any conclusion dealing with his and his family's mindsets on a whole, Starfire wouldn't understand a word coming out of his mouth if he'd made any of his musings verbal anyway, and just when did start he viewing Robin and Starfire being happy together so wrong?

(Sudden jealousy directed to those who were happy together: not associated with Terra. As far as he could tell. As of yet.)

He needed an excuse to blame this sudden obsession on, reluctant as he was to use an innocent (according to his terms after he'd analyzed each new situation that proved taxing and usually impairing to their already compromised emotional status) as a scapegoat, and now he was just confusing himself, which he found was happening more and more often. And all other questionable reasoning aside, he still had a problem because truthfully, herein came the only problem he could possibly see leading to Terra as a possible contributing factor.

Cyborg had teased Beast Boy about his constant chasing around after her with that dopey 'kicked-puppy' look, but… he'd thought it was just BB being BB again. He hadn't noticed, or had refused to notice, how real his feelings for her had been until he'd witnessed the marked difference in his attitude after they lost her. He'd joked just a little bit more than was normal for him at first, his temper becoming so easily ignited later, and now he simply withdrew from them all. Though it'd been… depressing for Cyborg when BB had changed (because truthfully, he was sure they'd all have gone crazy a long time ago if it hadn't been for the numbskull), that wasn't the part that confused him.

What did confuse him was why he'd worked so hard not to notice BB acting the same way all those years around Raven, and why when it managed to slip into his conscious mind, he panicked and buried it under certifiable thought patterns that had his usual 'sanity saving' defenses scrambling and the place for anything else ceased to exist.

Cyborg shook his head, standing as he heard the entrance doors slide open. Raven entered, gazing intently at the pile of mail she held in her hands. She paused suddenly, looking up slightly embarrassed.

"Sorry; are you finished, yet? ...With Alfred…?" she added as Cyborg looked at her in confusion, raising an eyebrow. "It is one of your days… right?"

"Uh… yeah," Cyborg frowned. "That the mail? Something for me?"

"If you mean something from Bumblebee, no," Raven shrugged, dropping the mail on the kitchen counter as his mouth opened and he frowned slightly in surprise. "Why would you send her a letter? You two talk all the time."

He froze for a moment, considering the opportunity of fixing the entire mess he'd found himself trapped in that he was being presented.

"It's… personal," he offered, turning and stiffly brushed past her and to the still open doors.

Raven watched him, frowning as her gaze fell from the closing doors before she slipped into the dark engulfing the hall, making her way toward her room.

As he froze behind the now closed doors, he tried to inhale, pacified that it was no business of hers that he'd had actually had to gather and organize something he'd wanted to discuss with Bumble over a period of weeks, hadn't spoken to her for a fortnight, though it was a practice they'd picked up a short time after they'd first fallen into the acquaintance bracket and had carried through confidant after she'd moved east with the new team and he'd returned home.

The knotted pain in his stomach acquiesced mockingly.

Raven coughed harshly as she waved away the thick blue smoke hovering around her. She stared bitterly at the small pot she sat before. The sickly yellow surface bubbled slightly as if ridiculing her once the smoke finally cleared. Frowning, she held out her hand, and a black cloud enshrouded her bookcase, focusing in on a large, brown book. It hovered from its place and into her outreached hand. Quickly, she flipped through the brittle, yellowed pages, her expression falling as she slammed it closed and tossed it. It landed in a cloud of dust that settled among the pile of others that had proved equally as useless to her.

Dejectedly, she turned her gaze back to the now milky white substance occupying the little black pot. Her eyes slipped closed and she sighed.

"…Why am I doing this?" she questioned herself yet again.

A knock sounded at her door, and she swept a hand through her purple locks. She didn't answer.

"…Rae?" The meek voice was barely loud enough to reach her ears from the other side of the thick steel door to her room. A few more moments passed before it came again, louder. "Raven?"

She still didn't answer.

"…Come on Rae, it's just me."

Hanging her head, she made a gesture with her hand, and the door glowed black before sliding open and allowing her visitor to enter. He slowly walked to the edge of the bed which she sat in the middle of.

"What are you…" he began, stopping as he caught sight of the numerous half-open jars littering the floor around her bed and the pile of books accumulating at the foot. His eyes widened briefly before they narrowed. "…Oh."

She sighed. "What is it, Gar?"

He shook his head. "Nothing; you're busy…"

She reached out with both hands and caught his head, forced him to look at her. "What is it?"

He averted his gaze. "I just wanted to know if…" He pulled away from her and backed up to the wall, still glancing downwards.

"Gar, if something's wrong with you…" Raven frowned as she moved from the center of the bed and dropped to the floor.

"No," Beast Boy shook his head again, holding up his hands. "No… I just wanted out of here."

"Garfield, it's late; everyone's worried about you being out at night as it is, and now you're asking me to sneak out with you? What are you –"

"I was gonna go… you know," he whispered.

The frown on her face relaxed.

"Gar..."

"I was just thinking… it would be nice if you would come with me again." He shook his head again and forced his hands into his pockets. "I know; stupid." He turned to leave, but Raven grabbed his arm.

"Give me a minute."