TheUbu (I'd be Ubu but someone took it!)

I'm a crazy Canadian and some of my writing may reflect that. Don't be alarmed and run for the hills, I'm sure it won't hurt too badly.

You guys are awesome! Thank you all for wishing me good health; you've all help raise my spirits!

CalliopeMused is currently working on a story called Dance of the Skeletons ( http/ www. fanfiction. net/ s/ 2583304/ 1/ ) and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Calliope is a very talented author and it shows in all her work, so I suggest anyone who's looking for a great story to check this one out!

Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans; any characters contained within are not mine and belong to their respective owners with whom I have no affiliation.

Chapter Sixteen

Beast Boy stared at the ceiling above his bed. There was little more he could do, for the pain he felt was unbearable. His body no longer hurt, no, his body had gone numb shortly after he left the other Titans back in the common room. What hurt now was his soul, his essence, his very being. Whatever you wanted to call it, it was screaming for release.

He'd done his best to ignore it, staring at the ceiling and simply watching the muddle of colors that drifted across his vision. He knew the colors weren't really there but just a result of the pain and he tried to keep focused on the bland white of the ceiling. He'd been chanting out the three-word mantra the moment his door closed and just listened to the sound.

"Azerath Metrion Zinthos… Azerath Metrion Zinthos… Azerath Metrion Zinthos…"

He listened to the words so intently that they had gone far past the point of loosing all meaning. He didn't even known the meaning of the words besides the fact that Azerath had been where Raven was born. Now the words seemed like little more than meaningless sounds, more akin to the creaking of a door or the pounding of surf on the beach. It was almost funny to think that those three words were meaningless when it felt they were holding him there in that room. Those three words, as if his soul in those three words he did outpour. And it was true; he was sure that if he didn't put absolutely everything he had into the chanting, he'd slip away from the world, from his friends, and most importantly, from Raven.

'I can't slip away, I have to be here for her.' He resolutely thought.

'I wish she were here.' Came Timid's quiet voice. 'It feels nice when she's here.'

What was Raven thinking right now? She was probably worrying about him. Why did he always have to do things that made her worry? She'd probably just worry more if she saw him, but he couldn't help but want her there. How long had he been alone in his room anyway? He told Cyborg that he'd come down for a physical before dinner but he felt in no shape to do that. Cyborg would know something was wrong even if there was nothing physically wrong with him. He didn't want to allocate any of his attention to looking at the alarm clock that was on the desk across the room, for fear of loosing his grip on reality. It felt like he'd been meditating there for days but he'd completely lost concept of time, for all he knew, he may have only been there for a couple minutes but it was impossible to tell.

A light knocking came to the door before it quietly opened and shut. Raven. He could feel her, her concern and love washing over him. He could immediately feel his limbs again, they were sore but that was nothing compared to the hot and unpleasant burning feeling inside. He turned to look at her as she neared him; she wore an expression of concern and sat next to him on the bed.

"Why did you heal Jinx? You're in no condition to do that!" She chided.

Beast Boy rolled over and wrapped his arms around her waist. "You wouldn't be here if she didn't help, I need you here Rae. I owed her that at least."

It was nice to feel her warmth against him; it was relaxing and gave him something to focus on since he'd stopped chanting.

Raven was quiet for a moment but eased herself into a lying position next to him in the bed. She was careful to not break the embrace the whole time and she looked into his eyes.

:-:-:-:-:

"You wouldn't be here if she didn't help, I need you here Rae. I owed her that at least." He said.

'I need you too Beast Boy.'

Just being able to feel that he was there with her relaxed her mind. She knew that he must be in an unimaginable amount of pain; she'd dealt with pain in the past, but nothing the likes of twelve gunshot wounds over the course of a day.

She lied down next to him, still in his arms, and looked into his eyes. It relieved her to see a sort of calm in them but she shivered slightly to think of what he was going through right now. She reached her arms up around him and began to stroke her fingers through his hair.

"Does it really hurt?"

He closed his eyes and slowly nodded. "It does."

"Do you think you're going to be able to talk to Robin after dinner?" She asked.

"Probably not." He sighed. "I know you didn't want the others to know Rae, but I think they're beginning to suspect something. Robin isn't dumb and Cyborg will see something's wrong when I go for the physical. Is it alright if I tell them?"

Raven thought for a moment. 'I never wanted the others to know because I thought they'd make a fuss over it. This isn't really my decision anymore though.'

"You can tell them if you want to. After all, they're your powers now so it's your choice." She squeezed a little closer to him. "I wish I could take away your pain…"

Beast Boy gave Raven a smile but she could obviously tell it was forced. "You do Raven, you really do."

Beast Boy really was a selfless person. It didn't matter what the situation was but he'd always try to make others feel better. He was good at it too because Raven felt relieved and knew that it was his doing.

"Cyborg said he wanted to look you over at five o'clock." She turned to see the clock on his desk. "You've got four hours so you can take a little nap. It should help with the pain a little."

"Yea, I guess I could go for a little sleep." He gave Raven a gentle squeeze. "Do you mind staying with me?"

She smiled and pulled the blanket that was bunched up at the foot of the bed to their waists. "What do you think?"

:-:-:-:-:

'It's already quarter to six! What's BB doing?' Thought Cyborg as he strode down the hallway towards Beast Boy's room.

He arrived at the door in a short amount of time due to his quick pace and knocked loudly. "Yo B! You're late for your physical."

The door opened a fraction of the way allowing Beast Boy to slip through and close it just as quickly as it had opened.

"Sorry, I was taking a nap." He said in a quiet voice.

The metallic Titan chuckled slightly. "It's nice to see some things don't change."

Beast Boy mumbled something and the rest of their trip to the medical bay was relatively quiet. Once they arrived, Cyborg instructed Beast Boy to sit on one of the medical beds as he started wiring electrodes to the console next to it. He placed electrodes around his head and on various other places of his body. He was almost finished attaching the last wire when Beast Boy spoke up.

"Cyborg, I have to talk to you about something."

"Sure." He replied.

"You're my best friend and there's very little in my life that I've kept from you. I haven't been honest with you guys over the past few days though."

Cyborg had stopped what he was doing and gave him his full attention.

"It's about these healing powers." He said, raising his hands. "They can make it as if an injury were never there but there's a cost; I get the pain that the injury caused."

Cyborg remain silent for some time, simply mulling over the shocking information he just received in his head.

'He gets the pain?' Was the only thought he could string together.

"So you're saying…" He didn't finish his sentence.

"That even though I'm physically fine, I feel like I've been shot twelve times and then some."

"S-So why'd you heal Jinx?"

Beast Boy sighed. "She saved Raven, I owed it to her. I didn't want to tell you guys this before because I figured I could get by. I'm going to tell Robin but I don't want Starfire to know, she'd worry way too much and wouldn't ask to be healed when she really needed it."

"You're saying that Raven was doing this all these years? She never said a word…"

"Did you really think she would? That's just the kind of person she is." The pale Titan replied.

Cyborg said nothing and turned to the screen on the console.

"You're vitals all check out, you're in perfect health. Does it still hurt?" He asked.

"Yes. The pain gets focused to the inside and can last a long time. That's what Raven said anyway."

Cyborg walked over to the cupboards and searched through the medicines. After finding what he sought, he returned to Beast Boy's side.

"Here." He said. "Take two of these every four hours. There extra strength but I really doubt that they'll stack up to a full clip of 9mm ammo."

"Thanks." He replied and looked at the clock on the wall. "When's dinner?"

:-:-:-:-:

Starfire looked up from her dinner and surveyed the other five occupants of the table. She was happy that everyone was enjoying the meal that she and Robin had prepared. It was just a simple risotto, another meal that Robin had taught her, but it was quite flavorful and she relished the time she spent making it with him.

The only people talking were Cyborg and Jinx, they seemed to exude a certain comfort with one another that surprised her. She knew that she was rather quick to make friends, but there was something seeded in the way they interacted far deeper than she would have thought, possibly deeper than either of the pair knew. She was happy to see Cyborg so natural now; she'd noticed a change in his behavior over the past couple days but Jinx seemed to bring the same old cheerful Cyborg back to the surface.

She then turned to look at Robin who was sitting beside her. He looked tense and it was understandable. He'd be talking to Beast Boy about Dr. Light's death. It was his death plain and simple because Starfire refused to believe that Beast Boy, her longtime friend and teammate, would ever willingly end a life. The fact remained that Robin had to address him about it.

She gently rubbed his hand and looked at his questioning expression. She only smiled in response to his unasked question and he returned the gesture. Starfire's eyes then fell on Raven. The green Titan and been glancing at Beast Boy with concern at least every other minute and it slightly confused her. She could have been concerned about the pending conversation with Robin, but it seemed different, almost as if she was checking on him. Despite her obvious concern, she did look to be pleased with the food and her proximity to Beast Boy.

Finally, she looked at the pale Titan himself. Unlike Raven, he'd eaten very little but Starfire took no offence. It seemed the switch had pertained to the eating habits also because it was usually Raven who ate little and Beast Boy who had the almost insatiable appetite. He was different now though, earlier he had left directly after healing Jinx and he was behaving oddly. His eyes were almost completely closed now, very similar to the way there were at lunch she noted, and he didn't look like he was paying attention to anyone.

'Raven has never behaved in such a way.' She thought, scouring her memory for any similar incidents in the past. 'Could it simply be the impending conversation with Robin?'

It was sad to think that two of her friends would both be dreading a form of interaction with one another, but this situation was understandable. Starfire tried to look on the bright side though, after they spoke with one another they would be able to sort this out and put the whole thing behind them. With this new optimism in mind, she happily took a sip of her mustard and continued to eat her dinner.

:-:-:-:-:

Beast Boy followed closely behind Robin into the study. The walls of the room were covered in newspaper clippings and pictures that he was sure were all linked to Slade in some obscure way or another and the desk was a mess of files. There hadn't been a single hint of Slade since the battle with Trigon so much of the information was dated, but it seemed that Robin wasn't about to let his guard down.

The masked leader sat behind the desk and gestured for Beast Boy to take a seat in front of it.

"So, what happened yesterday?" He asked.

"I killed him. I know you guys think it was some kind of demon inside me but it wasn't; I had total control of what I was doing." He looked down at his hands. "I just got so angry that anyone would try to kill Raven that I wanted to kill him. I wanted him to suffer for what he tried to do… I don't know what's wrong with me…"

Robin stared at him through his mask. It may not have been possible to discern his emotions from his stoic expression, but Beast Boy could feel them. He felt confusion, incredulity, and a slight hint of mistrust. Though he'd never felt mistrust empathically before, it wasn't difficult to identify the unpleasant feeling his friend was emitting.

"You wanted to?"

"Yes." He simply answered. "And I feel that I would do it again to someone who tried to do harm to Raven… I… When I was unconscious I talked to my demon side, he told me that it's a part of me now. Demons kill and they enjoy it, it's just their nature, my nature."

Again, Robin was silent, turning the new information over, examining it in his meticulous manner.

"I'm not going to try and justify why I did because it was murder plain and simple, but what's going to happen now? You compromised yourself to protect me. Jail is no longer an option." Said Beast Boy.

"I did." Robin replied. "But you don't think you should go to jail, do you?"

"I committed a crime and should therefore suffer the consequences. You probably know a little something about my past so you know what kind of people my parents were. Being geneticists who constantly worked around and with animals, they raised me in a way to respect all life. That's one of the reasons I'm a vegan. We all have burdens from our past but I've never felt more disgusted with myself then after I came to in my mind." He said.

:-:-:-:-:

"I did. But you don't think you should go to jail, do you?"

"I committed a crime and should therefore suffer the consequences. You probably know a little something about my past so you know what kind of people my parents were. Being geneticists who constantly worked around and with animals, they raised me in a way to respect all life. That's one of the reasons I'm a vegan." Beast Boy explained. "We all have burdens from our past but I've never felt more disgusted with myself then after I came to in my mind."

Normally, a comment like 'came to in my mind' would cause question, but Beast Boy, Cyborg, and Raven had explained the strange happenings they experienced in her mind several years ago.

"What do you think should happen then?" Asked Robin.

"I don't know… I joined the Titans to help people, I thought that I could atone for my past, but what I did was wrong."

Murder was wrong and people were supposed to pay for their crimes, but Robin couldn't punish him. Not just because he was a friend, but because what he did wasn't some demonic act against some random person. Had it been Starfire in Raven's position, he could see himself killing Light even if there were other means of protecting the one he loved.

"It was, but I can't punish you for it." He sighed a slumped back in his chair. "Even if I could, I wouldn't. You're a friend and I trust you with my life, my friend's lives, and hell, even Star's life. I can't fault you for what you did because it wasn't demonic, it was human, and I know I would have done the same thing had I been in your position."

It was now Beast Boy's turn to be silent and absorb the information his friend provided.

"Is their anything else you want to talk about?" Robin asked.

Beast Boy replied after another moment of reflection. "Yea, there's one more thing. You'd probably guessed something was up before this but it has to do with the healing. Whenever I heal an injury, I take on the pain that the injury caused. It was the same with everything Raven healed but she never had so much over this short a time."

Robin's intuitive mind connected the proverbial dots quickly and he stared at the pale empath before him in a whole new light.

"So when you healed Star, your back, your eleven gunshot wounds, and Jinx's gunshot wound, you absorbed the pain?" He asked.

"Yes. It gets focused on the inside and depending on the severity, can last up to a week I'm told." Beast Boy explained.

"So how are you walking around now if you feel like you've been shot twelve times?"

"Cyborg gave me some heavy duty pain killers before dinner. They help a bit but I can still feel it pretty strongly. He and you are the only one's I've told, besides Raven of course, but I want to keep it that way. If Starfire ever did get injured, she'd rather stay that way than come to me for help."

Robin nodded in agreement. He hadn't really expected the conversation to turn out so well but he felt that he now had a better understanding of his friend. He could relate on a stronger level than before. So what if he'd done wrong? He didn't try to deny it, he did want to face up to it, and he still wants to help people; that's what it meant to be a Titan.

:-:-:-:-:

"So how do you think they're doing in there?" Raven asked, after having waited for fifteen minutes with Cyborg, Jinx, and Starfire.

"Chill out Raven, he'll be fine." Said Cyborg.

The four Titans were sitting in front of the large screen television and Cyborg was playing one of his favorite racing games against Jinx. Each race was relatively short due to the fast-paced reflex intensive nature of the game, and every round the metallic Titan had invited her and Starfire to join. Starfire had politely declined, professing she had no idea how to play where Raven just plainly said no.

It was funny to see Cyborg playing on the game station with someone besides Beast Boy or Robin. Raven had never really paid attention to the screen when anyone was playing on the game station, but she'd been around it enough to know who was winning and at that moment, it appeared to be Jinx. She probably could have figured that out without looking at the screen at all because of Cyborg's intense concentration and the fact that he wore a fairly annoyed expression every time the round would end.

"So how long did you say you've been playing this?" Jinx taunted, having just won another round.

He tossed down the controller. "Long enough to know when I'm beat."

"Don't worry about it Cy, you were only beat by a girl."

Raven's attention was taken away from her friend's grumbling as the common room doors hissed open. Both Beast Boy and Robin stepped though wearing equally unreadable expressions.

'What it'd give to be an empath again.' She thought.

She met him half way to the couch and he smiled.

"It's all going to be ok." He gave her a small kiss. "I'll tell you about it tomorrow but I think I'm going to go to bed now."

"See you in the morning then." She said as she hugged him. "Good night."

:-:-:-:-:

Not long after Beast Boy settled into his bed, he fell into a pleasant slumber where he escaped the discomfort he was becoming all too familiar with. His emotions that were scattered throughout his mindscape were all going about their existence in their usual manner. It had been tense for all the emotions for most of the day, uncertainty and dread were strongly felt by all, but a general calm had set in and it appeared that all would truly turn out right.

The general calm had set in everywhere but a certain arid red sandstone canyon where a crimson clad emotion stood, chained to the wall. His outward appearance was calmer than it had been for the better part of his existence, he was no longer fighting against his binding but a battle raged within him.

He was fighting for all he was worth to keep the invader of his being at bay. This parasite threatened to take over and do harm to the one he loved; that was something he wasn't going to let happen.

'Make it easier on both of us and just let this happen now.' Trigon's voice rang through his head. 'Whether you fight or not, I will gain control.'

Rage had stopped responding to the demon's threats and taunts; they only proved to test his resolve and attempt to break it.

'You don't feel like talking? Such a pity. The end will come soon enough for this boy, sooner thanks to your unchecked display of rage.'

The emotion held strong against the assault and kept his mind focused on Raven. She could give him the strength to fend off this abomination.

'What is it that enrages you more? The fact that you can never have Raven, or the fact that you will ultimately be her demise?'

A strong pang of longing mix with grief struck his heart at the demons words. Though he knew they were meant to break him, they were no less true. He had decided that protecting Raven from her 'father' was his higher calling, but what did he get in return for his suffering? She loved the weak one, everything he strived not to be, and it was starting to eat away at him. This longing was causing far more damage than Trigon ever could.

'Her death will be pure agony and I'll be sure to leave enough of you intact to hear he screams.' He said. 'All of this fighting and you'll only end up failing. You're pathetic, weak like all the others in this meager mind.'

Weak? He was the strongest of all these weaklings. He wasn't weak, no; it was Trigon who had been defeated, not him.

'Who's the pathetic one Trigon? Six mortals were able to defeat you, I'm more than enough to handle the likes of you.' Rage spat.

'If you think that you, nothing more than a manifestation of a human emotion, can possible compare to the power of Trigon the Terrible, then you're sorely mistaken.' Replied Trigon.

'Is that so? Why is it then that I, a simple manifestation, have held back your power for seven days? Your threats don't scare me.' He retorted.

'It will be so pleasant to kill her. Just wait, you'll look into her eyes as I extinguish her life. You'll taste her blood as it slowly flows from her body. You'll hear her cries for mercy. And do you know the best part? You won't be able to do a thing about it.'

Rage wiped the unpleasant thought from his mind and tried to stay focused on holding Trigon's influence back. It was hard to think of anything when the images of Raven suffering played in his mind.

"You'll never win Trigon." He said aloud. "I'll make sure of tha-Ah!"

Rage clutched his head as a fiery pain lashed through him.

:-:-:-:-:

Back in Beast Boy's room, the dark empath was laying quietly asleep in his bed. He grunted in his sleep as he felt a pain in his head but did not wake. Slowly, very slowly, his two closed eyes split to from a second pair directly above the original.

Oh noes! What have you done Trigon? Sorry this took so long but my typing is very slow and my sessions on the computer must be kept short. I had been taking painkillers before, but I dislike the way they make me feel (very difficult to write and make sense of things) so I've stopped taking them. This results in the shortened time I can spend at the computer so it takes me way too long to finish chapters. I'll try to get chapter seventeen out faster than I did this one but it will probably still take a week and a bit.

I've lowered my Coca Cola consumption because I can no longer get the exercise I did before. Keep in mind that this was over such a long time so the number of cans consumed is four.

Over 600 reviews! You guys are the beset ever! I wish I could respond to all your great reviews, but it would take me far too long to do that in my current condition. If you have any questions that you would like answered, please send me an e-mail and I promise I'll do my best to clear up whatever seems to be unclear.

Thanks for taking the time to read my story!