Disclaimer: I don't own TT

Wicked

Anthem

---

I woke up today
to find myself in the other place
with a trail of footprints
from where i ran away
it seems everything i've heard
just might be true
and you know me
(well you think you do)
sometimes, i have everything-
yet i wish i felt something

---

'So, Boy Wonder…Who are you running from?'

'What?'

'Who are you trying to protect?'

'I-'

'Its their screams, isn't it, Robin. You still hear them when you close your eyes, don't you?'

'Stop,'

'And look at what you have become, your team falters because of you.'

'No,'

'Can you hear them yet, Robin? They are dying because you failed, because you weren't strong enough to save them.'

'No,'

'Its all…your….fault.'

"No!"

Silence.

Robin sighed, looking over at the sleeping girl beside him, wiping cold sweat from his face.

It was so real.

His arms shook, fatigue and adrenaline pulsing through them.

That voice, it sounded like-

"Knorfka…me vhorsec flannnghec.."

Robin nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Urrrg…Star…"

The alien was curled against his shoulder, slipping slowly down his arm and onto the couch.

She was so innocent, a warm smile creeping onto her face as she murmured in a foreign tongue.

Pulling strands of hair from her face, he felt that old twinge in his chest.

Guilt.

("They are dying because you failed...")

He moaned, the bruises on his wrists had begun to show.

1:08

Looking back down at Star, he wondered if she had really understood what he told her.

"Please…forgive me."

He pulled a blanket over her thin shoulders, smiling a little.

She was beautiful, caring, optimistic…everything anyone could ever ask for.

He could have given her anything she asked for, would have given anything to make her happy. But she didn't want just anything, she wanted him.

("Star…Please listen. I-…I really like you, I do…But, its…"

She could see her face crumble, tears brimming.

"Star…Oh, no…Please, please don't cry."

He reached out, hating himself, as he embraced her shuddering frame.

"Its…If something happened…I don't…I don't want to hurt you. Can't you understand? I love you, and I wish I could make this stop…But if we do this, someone is going to get hurt…I-"

"No, friend Robin, I understand. You do not wish to harm myself or Team relations through our coupling."

"Starfire, I-"

"Please, Robin. Sit with me now, we shall speak of familiar things as the night passes, when I slumber, you may take your leave."

She sounded so stoic, so sad…So unlike herself.

He wanted to die.

"Alright, Star…Thank you.")

'Sometimes, we give up the things we want the most in order to preserve them.'

Robin stood, taking on last look at the sleeping girl.

"I'm so sorry…"

---

"Shit!"

"Cyborg!"

"Robin!"

"What are you…Are you ok?" The Boy wonder asked. He had just stepped out from the living room when he had collided with the behemoth.

"Yeah…" Cyborg chuckled, "Just got my ass kicked."

"What?" Robin allowed Cyborg to pull him to his feet.

"Tried to talk to Raven…Big mistake."

"Aha…" The Boy Wonder cringed, Cyborg and Raven had always had a good relationship, he thought above all the other Titans, Raven would have confided in the eldest. "So, I'm guessing it didn't go well then?"

He was rewarded with a dark glare.

"Look, Rob, I want some answers. And as soon as I get some aspirin, you're gonna spill, got it?"

Nodding meekly, Robin tipped his head in the direction of the Changelings room,

"Did you take care of him?"

Cyborg shook his head sadly, watching the door.

"I don't know what's up with B…He's really scaring me, man. Reclusive, cranky, hell, I don't think I've even heard him crack a joke in like…Three days."

Robin looked pointedly away, he knew Cy wasn't going to take this well.

"Aww man…I hate it when you do that." Cyborg covered his eyes. "C'mon…We better get this over with."

Sighing, the two boys walked silently to the kitchen.

---

The scabs ached dully as he pulled a thin jacket over his arms, hiding the soiled bandages.

The voices egged him on, chiding behind the guilt and anger, luring the beast within him further toward the surface.

He wanted it, needed it more than anything else.

He had already died, twice, why not tempt fate?

A detached smile grew on his face as he made his way to the window pulling hair from his eyes.

He pulled the window pane over on itself, stepping with a learned grace onto the ledge hardly five inches wide.

The boy spread his arms to the sky, leaning his head back to watch the clouds.

Slowly, he pressed up on his toes, letting the wind pull him out and away.

---

"Please, please…not again…"

Beads of sweat stood out on her face, stinging as they rolled into her eyes an over her parched lips.

Raven's pupils began to dilate as a low shudder coursed through her body, arching her back and pointing her chin. She clung to the sheets about her, her nails cutting through the cloth and into her skin.

Short panting gasps escaped her mouth as she fought against the coming darkness.

"I won't…I can't…not again…"

Her lurid violet eyes rolled into her head, mouth stretched in a silent scream as she rose from the bed, still clinging desperately to her purple sheets.

The bed melted from below her, time ceased to exist.

The world as she knew it, had ended.

---

Flames tore at the remnants of the Tower, vast and endless before her lie a barren waste land smothered in a red sky. The silhouette of Jump City dead beneath a crimson moon, the waters that once framed it long dry, leaving miles upon miles of cracked earth.

Raven could hear her heart pounding in her head, her breath rasping though a dry mouth.

Where was he?

Raven pressed her back on what was left of her bed, closing her eyes and slowing her breath.

She could hear something shifting in the room.

'Don't open your eyes, concentrate.'

Slowly, she could hear something approach. Low, dull footsteps echoing softly on the aged steel of her floor.

Thoughts began to tumble into her head,

'You know he/simple as slicing/lips/cut/kill'

She snapped, lunging into the dead air, blind and fearless, her hands grasping ancient cloth, wrapping deftly about a thin neck.

A hand swiped across her face, sending Raven sprawling.

"Really now," the mottled chords of his voice ringing out into the silence, "Was that necessary?"

The shade before her laughed, stepping into the harsh glow of the red moon.

"Why Raven, its been awhile, hasn't it?" His low voice reverberated throughout the room..

"You're not real!" Screaming, she writhed on the ground, her hands searching over her head as she tried to scramble away. "You're not, you're not!"

Her hands covered her eyes as she collided with a corner as she began to rock and scream, "Not real, not real, you can't be here. This place is mine and you can't be here!"

Again, the voice filled the room, but this time, its tenor was flawed, seeming to be filled with hundreds of other voices, screaming and laughing all at once.

"Look at me." It commanded.

"No, no I won't. This is my world and I won't look, I won't!" Raven screamed again, her voice hoarse and ragged.

"Look at me." This time, it was like thunder, and now she could hear all the screaming inside that one voice.

Red X was gone, in his place a unimaginable monster stood. The thing before her was not an illusion, it wasn't one of her night terrors, it was like nothing she had ever seen before.

Three arms protruded from its shoulders, writhing against one another as if of their own volition. Charcoal black skin rolled lithely in the red glare of the perpetually setting sun. Four eyes glared at her, one set atop another, two red, two an chilling blue, framed by a mass of deep blue hair.

A stark smile pulled up the corner of the creatures mouth, revealing a snaking black tongue.

It began to move toward her, its many hands busied with something tied about its waist.

"Oh Raven, don't tell me you don't recognize me?" Mocking hurt, it advanced. Raven's eyes flashed over the creature, stopping to stare at the belt fashioned solely of the heads of her emotions.

Knowledge, Fear, Rage, Lust, names burned into the flesh on their foreheads.

Slowly, the heads about the creatures waist opened their eyes, burning hot red light into space, their mouths moving in unison.

"Mother always told you not to let your imagination run wild Raven, now just look at what you've done."

---

Robin sighed, he couldn't find the strength to look Cyborg in the eye as he told the story.

As he finished Raven's story, he brought his hands to his eyes, trying to bite back the tears.

"…"

"Cy…I'm sorry…" He knew that Cyborg felt it was his place to care of the team, and that he was especially protective over Raven.

"…"

"Cyborg?" Slowly, Robin pulled his hands away from his mask, suddenly frightened by the meta-humans silence.

Cyborg sat across the table, his strange blue eye staring blankly out the far window.

Robin had expected anger, remorse, confusion, the silence was balking.

"Cyborg…"

The cybernetic man turned his head, easing it into his palms as he trembled softly.

"I should have known…."

"What?"

"I should have known there was something wrong. The drugs in her system, her problems with her powers…All those nights she-…" He stopped, wiping tears from his eye. "God damn it."

"Cyborg, its not your fault." Robin whispered, "We all should have been watching more carefully, but the fact is, we had to save Beast Boy. You know that if we wouldn't have gotten there when we did, he would be dead."

"It doesn't matter," Cyborg's jaw tightened, how could he make Robin understand? "What did we save after all? Beast Boy is loosing it, and Raven…She's…"

"Cyborg, there was nothing any of us could do. It was just one of those things we couldn't sto-"

"Don't you get it, Robin? We weren't there when she needed us! You know how hard it is for her to trust people? Since the day we met I've been trying to get her to trust me, to trust the team. I told her that if she ever needed me, I would be there for her. And you know what, that one moment when she needed me the most, where was I? Dicking around after some shit-head bank robber! And she…she…."

He slammed his fist against the table, watching numbly as the top splintered and crumbled.

Robin fell back trying to skirt the flying debris, too startled to try and cushion his drop.

"I'll kill that bastard, X…if it's the last thing I do…I will make him pay for what he's done."

---

do you know how far this has gone?
just how damaged have i become?
when i think i can overcome
it runs even deeper
everything that matters is gone
all the hands of hope have withdrawn
could you try to help me hang on?
it runs...
---

Z