A/N: Yeah, I'm a day late again. Oh well, it's the Holidays, give me a break. So, uh... Here it is, the last real chapter. Next week I'm posting the Epilogue, so sit tight.

They made their way in silence through a maze of corridors, and Beast Boy was reminded painfully of the events following his first intrusion on Raven's privacy. Admittedly this was a rescue mission, but there was something taboo about entering someone's mind without their permission.

"You think she'll be angry with you."

Beast Boy was so surprised by Timid's words that he jumped slightly. "What?"

"She won't be, you know. She gave you her consent." The Facet continued to make her way through the halls, not once looking back at him.

"I... How?" he asked, cocking his head to one side out of canine habit.

A brief glance over her shoulder told him she had heard. "Through us. We are facets of her personality, remember, not figments of her imagination. Figments are much more dangerous, but she has very few these days."

"Are we getting close?" he asked, eager to get off the subject of what other deadly things could be lurking in the dusty corners of Raven's mind.

"Yes."

A while longer they walked in silence, before they came to a door. It was simple and white, like so many of the others they had passed.

"This," Timid said softly, "Is where I leave you. You will find the Victim through this door." Without another word the gray robed Facet vanished in the opposite direction.

Hand shaking, Beast Boy slowly opened the door. The sight that greeted him was a long set of stairs. They weren't spiral like those leading down to Knowledge's office, but narrow and straight. They seemed to be constructed of stones and rotting wood, and Beast Boy winced at the thought of having to descend them.

First one foot, then the other crossed the threshold. Soon enough he was making his slow way down the stairs, guiding himself carefully by the light emanating from the still-open door.

Then it slammed shut.

Beast Boy froze. "Timid?" he called, but there was no reply. The stairs merely echoed with the sound of his own voice. "Hello?" he said, his tone quiet and cautious.

The echo came softly. "Hello... Hello... Hello... Hello... Hello, Beast Boy."

The last three words came from somewhere directly behind him, and he followed his animal instinct to run. He shot down the stairs, shifting forms constantly as he stumbled and tripped. Blind panic clutched his chest like an iron talon, digging its long nails into his heart. Maniacal laughter reverberated on the stairs. Soon enough the ground leveled out, and the sudden transition sent him flying across the room to land face-first against the ice-cold floor.

Beast Boy whimpered, curling up for a brief moment to ease his bruised ribs. He shot up, however, when he fathomed where he was. It was the Victim's dungeon.

Chained to the walls were each of the Facets, cloaks seeming to be a uniform black in the halflight. Some struggled, others simply hung there. He heard Happy and Love singing songs he distantly remembered from a musical. Finally his eyes fell on one last pair of shackles, these ones empty.

They hadn't caught Timid.

Somehow this thought filled him with confidence, and he turned to face the stairs. The confidence he had so recently gained vanished, however, as the Facet in question was thrown through the door to sprawl on the ground at his side. He knelt to examine her for injury, and found her shaking.

"Timid?" he inquired gently.

"Sh-sh-she..." Timid pointed at the door, crawling backwards as quickly as she could.

Beast Boy stood to face what he knew must be there, and was not disappointed. There stood the Victim, the same rust-colored eyes peering curiously at him from behind the curtain of mussed black hair.

"I see you've found me then, my little emerald. Well done. Rest assured that your lovely lady-friend will be rewarded for making my job that much easier, but for now I'm afraid I must cut the pleasantries." She moved toward him so quickly he could still see her after-image hanging in the air where she had just been. A gag came crashing down between his teeth and a rope twined itself around his hands, rendering him mute and helpless. He was thrown against the wall of the dungeon, gasping for air through his gag.

An instant later Timid was being shackled to the wall with her companions. She sobbed fearfully, but was soon quieted as the Victim took her place in the center of the room. A placid smile made its way across her face, and she chuckled. "Isn't this fun? It'll be just like a slumber party! Except you'll be the only ones sleeping, and I don't have enough sleeping bags for everybody. Oh well! Who do I start with?"

She made her way slowly around the room and stopped in front of Beast Boy. "You're kind of the odd-one-out, aren't you? I'll get rid of you first. That way the rest will all match!" The Victim's thin hands wrapped around the collar of his shirt and lifted him into the air.

Desperately, Beast Boy transformed into a hulking tyrannosaurus rex and bit the gag efficiently in two. The Victim jumped back deftly. "No fair!" she cried, tossing her head and pouting. "If you're going to use your powers that way, we'll just have to take them away from you!" A snap of her fingers and he was a boy once more.

Shocked, Beast Boy muttered "What... How did you...?"

The cheerful smile lit the Victim's face once more. "Raven is getting weaker, little emerald. After I kill these silly creatures she'll be all mine." She snapped again, and the dungeon became a blank white nothingness. "You," she said, "Are the Facets' final hope. Their only champion. This will be our battlefield, little emerald. I will defeat you here, in the purity of Raven's serene heart. This is the place where she will feel you die, and it will be more terrible than a thousand of my daggers. By the time I finally kill her she will be all too eager to join you."

The green changeling opened his mouth to make a retort, but found that he couldn't speak. The Victim advanced on him. "Being the kind and generous person that I am, I will give you one final gift before your demise. At whose hands would you prefer to die?" Her form became blurry, then clear again. Before him stood Starfire, smiling graciously. "The gentle one? The one who takes care of you and your friends in times of need?" Now Starfire was replaced by Cyborg. "Perhaps you would prefer to die in the arms of your best friend." A blur. Terra gazed spitefully at him with eyes blue as twin lakes. "There's also the woman who rejected you, the dazzling young lady who threw you away like the filthy rag that you are." There was another blur, and then it was Robin who stood before him. "Then again, it just might be the leader, the boy who you have always envied beyond reason. It would give you a cause to hate him, the one who has the looks, the women, the talent... Or maybe..." Now Raven stood in Robin's place, smiling happily the way he knew she never would, arms extended to embrace him. "Maybe it's her, Beast Boy... The one you have always loved... The one who could never love you... The one who hates you for everything you are..."

She twined her arms around him, and he couldn't bring himself to remove her. She breathed against his neck, moved her lips to his ear, and whispered, "I can kill you now, Beast Boy. I can kill you now as you stand in the arms of a woman who otherwise would never look your way. You would go to the grave with the feeling of her hands on your back, her lips on your lips..." Raven pressed her mouth over his, and he accepted it.

He fought with himself, half of him longing to die here and now so that this would be his final memory, the other half screaming that this was wrong. But no, the first half argued, How could it be wrong? Raven loved him, she was kissing him, she wanted him! Then he realized something.

Her lips were soft.

Beast Boy had observed Raven's lips as though it were a religion. He had watched their movement, memorized their texture. Raven's lips were not soft. Raven's lips were chapped from hours spent breathing rhythmically in meditation. Her lips were course and dry and imperfect, and these were soft and round and moist. This was not Raven.

He reeled back, shoving himself away from the Victim, and she opened her mouth in shock. He felt whatever spell she had worked to mute him collapse, and he took advantage immediately.

"Do you know who I am, Victim?" he asked, snarling furiously.

The Victim took a step back. "You are Beast Boy," she spat, "A changeling, a weak little nobody whose own parents made him a freak. An ugly, short, discolored child who found his only solace in friends who accepted him because they, too, were freaks."

But Beast Boy had the upper hand now, and he would not let her win it back. "No. I am Beast Boy, a changeling, a boy whose parents knew so much about genetics that when he got sick they not only cured him, they improved him. A happy, strong, life-loving boy whose friends accept and admire him for who he is, and who in turn admires them for who they are. Now, Victim, do you know who you are?"

She took another step back, looking unsure of herself. "... No..."

He advanced mercilessly, his words cutting the atmosphere around them like one of the Victim's daggers. "You are a lost little girl, alone and afraid, without a soul to turn to. You are an abandoned child whose only company lies in those she dismembers or disembowels. You are the daughter of parents who did not understand you, just like the rest of us. You are not above anyone, you are not below anyone. You have suffered, as have we all. You have inflicted pain, as have we all. You are my equal. You are Catherine."

Catherine froze. Her eyes were wide and terrified, her hands clutching her chest. Her expression was one of pure horror and misery, and slowly began to change. The lips drew back in a grimace, the brow drew down in a glare. Fear turned to fury, and for a moment Beast Boy thought that the plan hadn't worked. Then, slowly, excruciatingly, fury turned to pain. Catherine doubled over, retching violently on the floor. Blood splattered from between her lips, spraying across the ground in all directions, soaking Beast Boy's shoes. With the blood came wrinkled pieces of paper, each bearing a name. The names, the changeling soon realized, of her own victims. She was purifying herself.

Deftly, carefully, he came to stand beside her. For several moments she continued to rid herself of the names, and he placed a hand cautiously on her back. Finally she ceased, and turned to look up at him. It was Raven's face he saw, gazing apologetically into his eyes. Her cloak was a pale green, far paler than Courage's.

"I'm sorry..." she whispered, "It's all my fault..."

Guilt. This was Guilt, the Facet Raven had neglected. The Facet who had become the Victim. "Not at all," he said, "Though I doubt that'll help you."

She looked thoughtful for a moment, then replied, "No. It's my fault."

Beast Boy was quite suddenly bowled over by a flying pink projectile. He was knocked backwards several feet and fell flat on his back, a buzzing Happy sitting precariously on his chest. "Hiya, BB! I knew you could do it! We were in quite a jam back there. Timid got all mopey, but I said 'Hey, cheer up, BB'll take care of it!' And you did!"

Staggering to his feet, Beast Boy took in the sight around him. Several Facets were helping Guilt to get her bearings while others just milled about. Many of the positive Facets were celebrating loudly with each other. He hunted out Knowledge in the sea of cloaks and found her straightening a new pair of glasses on the bridge of her nose.

"Hey," he said.

She looked up stiffly, then replied, "Oh, hello again. Congratulations. It seems you've saved us all. An absolute miracle, mind, and against all previous calculations and any discernible logic, but you've done it. You'll go down in my records and Memory's stones, you know."

Beast Boy smiled. "That's all well and good, but can I go home?"

"Certainly. Is there anyone you'd like to talk to before you go?" The question was asked knowingly, as though she was already aware that there would be.

He located Love easily. She was trying to convince Hate to dance with her, wobbling about comically in her sightless state. Distracted from her earlier activity, however, she was all to willing to speak with him.

"What is it you want to know, Sweetling?" she asked pleasantly.

Beast Boy fidgeted. Was there any easy way to ask the question he was about to pose? "I... Well..." Oh, to hell with it. "Does Raven like me? Like, like me like me?"

Love grinned at a spot just over his left shoulder. "I'm only a piece of the whole," she said, "Even if I liked you, once my emotion is processed through the others it might come out differently. It's all relative. Ask Knowledge about the system sometime." Then she winked a sightless eye and tapped the tip of her nose conspiratorially. "I'll let you in on a little secret, though; you've got a fighting chance." And she waltzed off into the crowd, just like that.

Knowledge appeared at his shoulder. "Ready now?"

He nodded.

A/N: Yup. Wow. Uh-huh. Hope you liked it. Remember, Epilogue next week.