Disclaimer - I do not own Teen Titans...but I wish I did...

Chapter 9: Haunting

The fainting wasn't the worse thing going on in Titans Tower. Scorpio managed to wake up about 5 minutes after on the big sofa in the main room, still complaining about the pain in her ankle and insisting that she couldn't fight. But the Titans had seen the holes in Robin's clothes, and he had told them the story. There would be no question about it.

What was worse, though, was the fact that Slade had returned and that he had 2 new apprentices, one that seemed to have the same powers Slade had when he was working for Trigon. "We'll need all the help we can get," Robin had told Scorpio. She didn't doubt that.

She had only been a Titan for about 2 weeks, but everyone could see a difference in both the tower and her. No longer dirty or smelly, the tower had made a complete turn around, since the day they had found Scorpio. She was constantly working on it, doing dishes, folding laundry, dusting off the shelves and such...and training almost everyday; meditating with Raven and working out with Robin. It was enough to wear her out, but she kept on. I do owe them, don't I? She had changed too, her eyes no longer had a gentle, fearful, fragile look as they had before. They were full and proud, and her muscles had grown as well, but not to a hideous point. They were still girlish and almost charming, but they were new.

Now Scorpio sat in her room, on her bed, staring down at the journal that still haunted her. Raven had given her the best and the worst present she could ask for. Best, because she had brought back the gift of writing. And worse, because she had reminded her of the past. Scorpio furrowed her eyebrows in thought. You should've rotted in the pool...along with the rest of Saphiria.

She had opened it the day before, the way the gypsy had taught her. Transform. And she had, and now she sat on the bed reading the frayed and wrinkled pages.

September 17, Year 14

Journal,

Nem and I have created a plan to get out of this damned convent. It will take a lot of strength to presaude the gaurds, but I think I can handle it. They are just men, after all. And Scorpions can do anything, just like Mama used to say.

Nem, on the other hand, is scared silly and keeps telling me not to try it. That it is too dangerous, that if I do get away, what will become of her? But I told her that I would come back, not just for her, but for Jet as well. For all of us that have been condemned here just because we are different. Nem doesn't belong here, and neither does Jet, but I dragged them into it, and I promised them that I would get them out. We all need a miricle.

-Rella

Scorpio could feel the tears rise behind her eyes again, but she held them back. I'm sorry, Nem.

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Raven was at the table sipping her tea and watching Beast Boy try to cook. Scorpio had been in her room a lot for the past few days, ever since Raven had gotten that journal of hers. Raven knew she missed it, but there seemed to be something wrong with it...

"Friend Beast Boy, why can't we just wait for Scorpio to make the breakfast?" Starfire asked him as she watched the kitchen get dirtier and dirter. "Her appetizers are most wonderful."

"I don't want to wake her," Beast Boy replied. " 'Sides, this cooking stuff is easy. I always thought that cooking with real meat would be so hard..." He added sausages to the pan and Raven and Robin watched as they popped in all directions and stick to the skillet. Raven and Robin exchanged looks of disgust. Beast Boy closed his left eye and stuck out his tounge, pulling even harder on the sausages.

"Man, who said she was asleep? It's almost like...12:00." Cyborg retorted from the table, drinking some coffee.

"She has to be, what else can she be doing in there?" Beast Boy asked him. He had given up on the sausages and had came to sti next to Raven, Robin and Cyborg, allowing Starfire to make "the breakfast."

"There are a million things she could be doing, Beast Boy," Raven told him. "You don't know that she is sleeping for sure." Idiot...

"Well...then I'll go check," Beast Boy told them.

"You'd like that," Cyborg mummbled. Beast Boy could feel his face flame up in red amber, but he pretended he hadn't heard anything and kept walking. Cyborg...

On his way to Scorpio's room, he began to sweat like crazy...for some reason or another. He didn't think it was what Cyborg said...it couldn't have been. He hadn't even had felt this way about Terra...had he? He couldn't remember.

He knocked on the door and she answered quikly, much to his distress. Raven was right, she hadn't been sleeping.

"Um...hey...Scorpio...It was just...uh...getting late and I...I mean we...were just wondering if you were...um...OK..." He was choking on his words and his tongue felt so fat in his mouth that he wanted to spit it out.

Scorpio showed no signs of indifference, but noticed Beast Boy's sudden change in tone and action. She raised a dark brow and came out of her room, closing the door behind her. "Are you feeling OK?"

"Yea..yes...I'm fine..." Stop CHOKING! What are you doing...?

"OK...because you don't look fine. Do you have a fever or something?" She lifted her hand to his forehead and pulled it back when it had met his skin. He really was sweating like crazy, her hand came back to her wet. "I think you have a fever, Beast Boy. In fact...I'm sure you have a fever." She wiped her hand on her black pajama pants. "Maybe we should call a doctor or something--"

"No! No...really I'm fine. I was just...uh...working out...you know...with Robin." He smiled and then looked behind him. "We should go to the main room now...and eat something..."

Scorpio raised her brow again and crossed her arms over her chest. "OK..." She followed him out of the hallway and into the main room, where Cyborg gave Beast Boy another uncomfortable look and smirked in her direction.

"Morning, Scorpio." Robin said as Scorpio came to fix the mess that had happened in their kitchen.

"Yes! Good morning friend. We are...in need of your assistance." Starfire told her.

Scorpio shot a look at the dishes and the black sausages. "Looks like it," she smiled. She began fixing the mess, quikly and forcefully, managing to actually use her powers when Raven asked her to have some tea. Raven made good tea, but she never added sugar in it, and so she only had about 2 sips and threw it out. In about 12 minutes the kitchen looked normal again, and fresh eggs and apple-cider bacon was already on the table. The Titans thanked her and she continued knocking around in the kitchen as Robin went to the moniters.

"Slade hasn't been in town for a while," Robin told them. "He has to be up to something..."

Cyborg looked at his back blankly, with some concern for his obsessed friend. "Chill, man. The dude's got 2 new apprentices, he won't be coming back for any of us any time soon."

"We don't know that for sure," Robin said, still facing the moniters. "And we don't know that those 2 are his apprentices. They could just be hench men."

"A hench man with heat sensory off the charts?" Cyborg asked.

"What Cyborg's saying," Raven told Robin, "Is that he won't come back for us, so we shouldn't worry about the city. An apprentice with that kind of skill is good enough for Slade."

Robin didn't answer, and no one had expected him to.

"Do we have any pictures of the 2?" Starfire asked. "Perhaps we can identify them."

"Not one," Robin told her. "Every time they sense a camra, they take it down before it senses them."

Beast Boy had stopped sweating, but he couldn't stop wondering why...why...why...Why this sudden interest in someone he had never minded before. And why all the sweat? The only time he could remember sweating this much was when he had beaten Adonis, and even it hadn't had been so sudden. It wasn't that he loved her, it was something else. Something unnatural...something that he couldn't explain. With Terra it had been so easy, loving her the first moment he saw her, only to be betrayed in the end. And this...why...

Now he was fasinated with her hands, and he longed to see her mark again. That glowing blue aura...Stop! Stop! Stop! He had to stop, Raven was right next to him, and she was shoting him looks of warning everytime he thought about it. He remembered what she had said. "Don't even try, Beast Boy. She's dangerous." Was she? She didn't look it. She looked so fragile and beautiful and so...shadowed. He kept staring at her hands, working on the counters and dishes, until finally she stared back and crossed her arms over her chest again.

"What, Beast Boy?" She asked in annoyance. "What?"