Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.
Coyote – Chapter 7
" . . . and when I woke up, she was gone. Charlie took her, but I don't know where. His address isn't even on the internet, so I can't find her. And she's not answering her communicator." Gar's agitation was strangling him.
"Well," Superboy said as he rubbed his chin, "don't you two have some kind of psycho-link? Seems like you would."
"You mean psychic link? Sometimes, I think so. But I'm not picking anything up."
"Man, that's messed up." Connor ran thick fingers through his hair. "Look, with my hearing, I couldn't help but hear every word you said to her that night. You know, the time we had our little tiff. Dude, you can't talk to someone like that unless you love them." He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and removed a picture from it. He fingered the edge of the photograph. "And I don't mean googly-eyed puppies and kittens and moonlight and magnolia kinda love. I mean deep down in your blood and bones and guts kinda love." He sighed and held out the picture he was holding. "For what it's worth, buddy, I'm on your side. Cyborg is so wrong on this."
"You think it's real?"
"I know it is."
Connor pressed the picture into his hands and walked away. Gar studied the fuzzy image. He must have taken it with his cell phone while we weren't looking. It was her, in the red dress, during that fiasco they called a first date. One slender finger was resting against his lips, and she was almost smiling. He closed his eyes. What had she said? We were talking about Murphy's Law. And how she was trying to make me smile.
He wandered the rest of the island's perimeter, halting every now and then to gaze at the picture.
We both know that some things don't matter, not when you've seen what we've seen, done what we've done. What did you say? Love has its own logic. It may not make sense. But it doesn't have to.
She was trying to make me smile. Do you know why I love her, Vic?
Because she makes me laugh. She makes me really, really laugh. Not to use it as a mask for hiding what I really feel.
Because I can't hide what I really feel from her, anyway.
Besides, she likes the way I smell. I don't meet someone like that every day.
He drew the other pictures he'd found from his shirt pocket. One was tattered and bent, rescued from the remains of the old New York tower. It was an image from long before Trigon had taken her over, maybe from when the team first formed. It was one of the few pictures she had allowed to be taken of her then, maybe by Donna. At least, it was one of the few with her hood down. Her face had been softer, rounder then. There was steel and vibrancy in those deep blue eyes. Her eyes were still blue. She wasn't smiling, but her face told a story of hope.
The next picture was night to the previous one's day. It was a black-and-white print of a video monitor image, taken not long before she had disappeared, not long before that long nightmare with her father. She probably didn't know about this picture; she never would have allowed it to be taken. That magnificent hair was thinning out. Those blue eyes smoldered above haggard hard cheekbones. She wasn't smiling, and her face was devoid of hope. It's like she was already dead, he thought. She wore her hood all the time after that, like she really was a ghost.
His face contorted with the memory. We kept telling you we'd help you, but we never did, did we? Like we didn't want to deal with it, deal with you. But you never complained about it, ever. I'm sorry.
I'm so, so sorry. Because now I know what really killed you, then. And it wasn't just your father. You died because . . . He brushed his eyes with the back of his hand, realizing they were wet. The rest of that thought twisted in his gut. And now that I know you better, I'm really sorry. It's like we were always scared of you, even when you weren't fighting him
But something's changed. I'm not scared. Not now. I can't tell you why, but there is a reason.
Arjh-no-ree, a memory whispered into his brain.
I wish I knew what that meant. Arjh-no-ree. Something happened with that guy, Raven that BRU guy. I wish I could remember what I saw. I don't know what or why, but it told me something. And because of it, I'm not scared.
He held all three photos in front of him at once like a hand of cards. Like three different women, but all the same. And the most recent picture was the youngest image of them all.
He stopped at a bush that shaded the crest of the hill. Its familiar aroma halted his steps. Rosemary. He slipped the photographs into his shirt pocket. The tiny shell she had given to him on the beach rattled against his fingernails. He drew back his hand at the roughness of it. Then he ran his fingers through the tiny green blades of the bush, bruising them slightly to release their oils. He brushed his hands against his cheeks and his nose, breathing in the woodsy perfume. Shivers cascaded down his spine. He held his fingers in front of his face for what seemed like hours, reliving the smell of her hair. The memories that the scent awoke in him...recent memories...
Come home. Come home now.
(break)(break)
He found Vic at the kitchen table, alone. The same table where the three of them shared their meals through the week, just them alone. Where they made fun of her because she ate rabbit food. Where she made faces at Cyborg's Dagwood Special Sandwiches, piled high with glistening meat. Where they talked about how their days had gone and how tomorrow might be even better. Where he and Vic were finally getting her to open up to them.
Where they had forged their little family.
"Tell me where she is."
"No, Gar. We've discussed this before. She needs the rest. And so do you."
"Why do I need a freakin' break? And why have you separated her from everyone she knows? She's all alone out there. Tell me where she is."
"She's with Charlie, so she's not alone."
"Like he knows how to help her. She needs our help. She needs my help. Not some stranger's!" He pulled the pictures out of his pocket and threw them down on the table. The shell bounced out with them and clattered onto the floor. His finger stabbed at the haggard picture of her. "Look at the picture, Vic. Look at it! This is the picture you showed me before her father got her that time. Look at it and tell me what really killed her back then."
He shoved the image into Cyborg's face. A silvery hand pushed Gar's shoulder back as gently as it could to avoid the fury shaking in his fist.
"We all know what did it –"
"No, you don't. But I'll tell you what happened. She didn't even have to tell me. I really looked at this for once, and I really remembered what happened. She starved to death. Lack of food, lack of touch, doesn't matter. She starved to death, Stone." He squeezed his eyes shut and shivered. When he opened his eyes, they were rimmed with tears. "Do you really want that to happen again? Because it could."
"I know we don't want to go through that again. I sure know she doesn't want to. But are you sure of what's going on here? You sure it's you feeling this way?"
"What're you getting at?"
Cyborg crossed his arms and lowered one determined eyebrow. "Remember Wally?"
"Wally, Schmally. That was a long time ago. She was desperate to get him on the team and didn't know any better." His voice was getting louder. "She does now. She is not, I repeat, not manipulating me. This is for real, Cyborg."
"You're my best friend, B.B. I don't want to see you hurt like he was."
"And, like always, nobody cares about her." The flat side of his fist rammed into the table in front of him. "Do you? Do you care about her at all?"
Cyborg was silent. One brown eye closed.
"Why are you doing this?" Beast Boy demanded.
A shiny fist whipped through the air and into the table. A crater formed in the target area, and a crack whipped through the wood and metal. Two clear-cut halves of table tumbled to the ground. The sound of them collapsing into the floor echoed through the ground level of the tower and died away before Vic answered.
"Because, damn it, Gar, I love her too!"
(break)(break)
A/N: Raven's eyes weren't always violet! They were blue in her old body.
The "before" and "after" pictures explained: The "before" and "after" refer to events that took place before the "Terror of Trigon" incident, when her father fully took her over. Her face changed from a soft and slightly round look (even though she always had high cheekbones) to a very eerie, haggard look right before the Terror of Trigon took place. The takeover was actually very long in coming, as she absorbed more and more pain and endured more and more torture on their many missions. When Wally really started to hate her, she really went downhill. There is a scene in "Terror of Trigon" where Vic and Gar are looking at the "monitor" picture and discussing how much her face had changed over time.
"Donna" is Donna Troy, the Wonder Girl of the 80's era. She is now known as Troia. Her "day job" was that of a freelance photographer.