Sapphire Bullets 12

DC – Sorry it's late…I know I promised to finish this before the New Year, but the best laid plans of mice and men, etc. Thank you to everyone who read this story, and a sincere thanks you to everyone who's reviewed. No-one was making you, but you did it anyway, because you all plain rock. You enabled me to turn this little story into something I'm truly proud of, and I hope you've enjoyed the ride too. Let's finish this.

Disclaimer – I don't own Teen Titans. However, since Christmas, I do own a couple of scarves that make me think I'm Doctor Who…

Sapphire Bullets 12 – Country Roads, Take Me Home

The Plan had failed. The Meditation Mirror that would hopefully have drawn the false Raven into Nevermore to be ambushed was inaccessible. The emotions stood around, not knowing what to do. Outside, Garfield was fighting valiantly for her, despite how small the odds were. And he was loosing. He was dying. Mr…Smith clamped his hand around the changeling's neck, and Garfield's flesh began to burn.

Pandemonium erupted in Nevermore. Screams and wails filled the air. One scream in particular cut through the rest. The howl of the beast. Beneath Rage, the ground cracked open, red light streaming around her as she bared her face to the sky, bellowing her defiance.

"HE IS MINE!" She roared, her cape flapping in the wind. The cry resounded throughout Nevermore, bringing a quiet stillness in its wake. And through the silence, Raven walked. Separate from her emotions, now she needed it. She approached Rage, standing in the eye of the storm. The two near-identical girls looked at each other.

"False love is strong. Very strong." Raven said quietly. Rage gave her a condescending look through two sets of blood red eyes.

"I'm stronger." She snarled, lunging at Raven. There was a blur of movement, then Rage found herself on the floor, Raven's heel digging into the small of her back.

"Only when I allow it."She said firmly, then removed her foot, standing back.

"Go." She said, her voice void of inflection. Rage stood up, and freed of Raven's usual restrictions, she began to grow. The ground beneath her melted and shattered, and the sky above her boiled and distorted until at last she was the ground and the sky. Rage was free…As the landscape bucked and shattered around her, shaking and thundering as True Rage fought the False Love, Raven hoped she'd made the right choice, and waited for her chance…

The dark magic of Raven flowed around and over the room, slipping over the doors and the windows, sealing it off. The walls creaked with the power running through them, threatening to burst them. The Talons of Trigon stared around them, aghast, until they were bodily picked up and slammed back against the coruscating energy barrier that surrounded the room. Garfield slumped to the floor gently, helped down by a wave of dark power. Black claws grasped him and dragged him towards Raven. He was too weak to resist. Through half-closed eyes, she seemed to dominate the room. Her cloak had somehow returned, and was closed tightly around her as the edges rippled. She looked taller, too. And her eyes…He struggled weakly against the claws. He'd seen those eyes on her once before, and it hadn't meant anything good. He remembered what had happened to Doctor Light in a similar grip, and fought hard, but he was too tired, too weak, too injured to struggle. Raven barely seemed to register his presence, and he found himself dragged behind her. Once he was 'safely' behind her, insofar as he considered anything 'safe' right now, the claws relinquished their grip on him, leaving him helpless on the floor, not yet strong enough to move…He needed…he needed…

"Kid, you OK?" someone said, and he felt coarse hands roll him over. His throat was agony, and Cupid didn't look much better. Gods, however, can take a hell of a lot more of a beating than almost anyone else, and he was faring better than the young boy on the floor with the burnt, smoking neck.

"Hang in there, Kid. I can't heal you yet, I was never too good at it and it's all going into keeping me standing. Can I help?"

Garfield thought hard. His instincts were normally great at choosing the right form for any given situation, but now they were all focused on the pain. He desperately tried to keep his mind focused on everything he'd ever learnt about his powers, countless hours spent with books, with his parents, on the computer, finding out about animals and birds and fish and…fish…

He grabbed Cupid's sleeve.

"Got any water?" He croaked hoarsely. Cupid looked around wildly.

"I got an ice box."

"Take me there."

"Why? You want a cool one?" Beast Boy closed his eyes, part in pain, part in despondency.

"I need water, salt water."

Cupid nodded, uncomprehending, dragging Garfield over to the cooler and grabbing a saltshaker from the kitchen counter. He plunged his hand into the ice, and there was a sudden billowing of steam as it melted. He dumped the salt in, and held Garfield under the arms over the small container.

"Now what?" He asked curiously. Beast Boy turned into a starfish and dropped through the God's hands into the water. Cupid looked blank, and then it dawned on him that Starfish are renowned for regeneration.

"Nice thinking." He acknowledged, then went back to see how the fight was going.

The entire flat was still covered in the dark black magic. It muffled sound and defied touch. It had aura, though, and Cupid felt almost drowned out again, like he had when Trigon had arrived…

The silence was broken by screaming, yelling, and terror so strong he could all but taste it.in the air. He arrived in the main room just in time to see a woman's arm clawing desperately at the floor, nails vainly looking for purchase but finding none as it was inexorably dragged backwards into the unmentionable shadow of Raven's cloak. Just for a moment he thought he saw a suggestion of dead stars in the rustling dark, but then it was gone, as was the hand. Raven turned on Cupid, and her visage was truly terrifying to behold. Those four demonic eyes burned brighter than ever, and her lips were twisted into a cruel parody of a smile.

"And as for you…" She snarled, and Cupid noticed that her voice had taken on a demonic echo of her own voice. Harsh and raw, deep and coarse. Demonic all the way.

"All of this was your fault." She said accusingly, tendrils of her cloak lashing the air around her like sinewy arms. "You put me under a spell! You were the reason we got dragged out here! The reason my home was full of insufferably twee vermin!"

Cupid wasn't sure what she was talking about with that last comment, but she was advancing on him fast, inexorable as the tides.

"Raven, calm down." He pleaded, placating her as best he could. "This isn't the best time. Garfield's hurt real bad, and…"

"Garfield?" Rage halted in her tracks, her four demonic eyes looking as confused and bewildered as possible in the circumstances.

Hesitation.Uncertainty. Cracks in the sky. Raven seized her chances, trusting that her emotions would help subdue Rage, and leapt for the rupture in the sky of Nevermore...

Raven staggered back as if she'd been struck, her face alternating between four red, angry eyes, and two normal, slightly scared eyes. She flickered between the two states rapidly, almost too fast to keep track of. She stumbled back against the wall, her cloak whipping around her as if in protest. Finally, it settled around her, still and submissive, a simple thing of cloth once again. She pushed her hair away from her eyes, a determined look in her now definitely human eyes.

"Show me." She demanded, the monotone in her voice as damning as her lack of emotion. Unsure of the situation and his place in it, Cupid complied. Raven kneeled down by the water-filled container, making ripples in the surface with her fingertips. It took the keen eyesight of a God to notice the white shimmer of healing magic dissipating in the ripples.

The silence in the room was eventually broken by the whine of jets from outside, and Raven's comm. crackled into life with Cyborg's face.

"Raven, are you OK? What's happened?"

Numbly, she thumbed the device onto it's transmit setting.

"I'm fine, and it's over. But Beast Boy's hurt. We need to get him back to the tower." She said quietly. Cyborg nodded serious.

"We'll send Star down to get you." He said, worry for his friend evident on his face.

Raven nodded and signed off, picking the ice box up by the handle.

"Mind if I take this?" She asked quietly, subdued. Cupid shrugged casually.

"Go ahead." He said, looking around the chaos that was his apartment, only doubly so now.

"Keep in touch." He called after her as she moved towards the door, but she gave no indication that she'd heard him. However, she paused in the doorframe.

"Keep the bike." She said. Cupid blinked in surprise.

"You sure?" He asked, unbelieving.

Raven cocked her head to the side. "It's what he would have wanted." She said quietly.

"That remains to be seen, doesn't it?" Cupid said gently, feeling the pulse of life from the cool box, faint but undeniably there. "But let's just say I'm…looking after it for now."

Raven nodded, and closed the door behind her. Cupid, also known as Eros, also known as Amore, collapsed back against the sofa, assessing the situation with his highly tuned professional senses.

"Nice kids." He evaluated, reaching for the remote and a beer.

Raven flew carefully upwards to meet Starfire on the roof of the building. The T-Jet hovering a few hundred feet above them, where it was inevitably attracting some attention . Starfire looked at Raven, concerned.

"Friend Raven! How wondrous it is to see that you are well again! But where is Friend Beast Boy? If he is hurt it is not the time for him to be doing the 'Goofying off'"

"It's 'goofing off', Starfire, and…he's in this box." Raven said, her voice void of everything save her usual exasperation when explaining something to the alien. She floated upwards from the roof, towards the jet, Starfire following behind.

"Please Raven, I do not understand. Why is friend Beast Boy in a small cuboid box?"

"I'll tell you that, Star, as soon as you tell me one thing…" Raven bargained, phasing through the floor of the jet with her incumbent burden.

"Yes, Friend Raven?"

"Why is there a small rain cloud floating above Robin's head in the exact shape of a portrait pose of Sla – "

"Shhh! We're…we're not talking about it in front of him." Cyborg whispered quickly. Raven raised an eyebrow.

"Uh-huh…."

In the centre cockpit, Robin gazed down upon the city, ever vigilant for trouble, pointedly ignoring his own trouble because he had to be imagining it, it would be crazy to think otherwise…But wasn't it crazy to imagine it anyway? This mental tug of war could have continued a while longer had he not sworn he'd seen Slade in a rooftop garden with a cup of tea. He looked away hastily. He could beat this thing. Yeah. As soon as they got back to the tower, he'd see if he couldn't have a holiday…

Slade looked up at the T-Jet calmly, the delicacy of the china cup such a fragile thing in his powerful grasp. He supposed in that way, it was quite a lot like Robin's sanity…

It was several weeks later, and Beast Boy was sat on his rock watching the sun fade below the horizon. His legs were drawn up to his chest, and one of his hands ran fingertips over his neck. The scarring was almost entirely gone now, the only evidence of his encounter with the Talons of Trigon. If it wasn't for the scar and the conspicuous lack of B-Ped in the garage, you could almost believe it had never happened. Raven still hadn't told anyone what happened to them, either, just that 'she'd sent them away', whatever that meant. Things had pretty much gone back to normal, though. Robin had gone on holiday and come back, and Starfire, Cyborg, and Raven had safeguarded from the city from petty crime in his absence. Beast Boy himself had spent most of the time in convalescence, either unconscious, hooked up to banks of monitors, or various other constraints and restrictions. He hated the confinement as much as he hated the uncomfortable silence that had sprung up between him and Raven. It covered everything like a thick frost, and he didn't even have the spirit to break it. He'd been measured and found wanting. So now he sat on the cool rock, watching the sun sink slowly down the horizon, hearing the waves breaking on the shore, feeling the spray on his face and the cool wind in his hair, almost loosing himself in the physical sensations. Almost, but not quite. Someone was approaching him from the Tower, their quiet footsteps given away by the clattering of loose rocks. Soon, Raven stood beside him, like she had after the thing with the Beast. He wondered if this too would be a 'moment', if there would ever be 'moments' again. He could feel the awkwardness between them like a wall. His ears drooped low against his head, his body language conveying everything he could no longer say to her. To his surprise, she sat down next to him, looking out to the sea.

"You know, I'd never really seen an ocean before I met you all that night." She said quietly, shattering the silence into a thousand shards. Beast Boy looked at her out of the corner of his eye, wondering where this was going. She stared out at the waves.

"I would never have been allowed to see something like it in Azerath. I'd read about it, but that's no substitute for seeing it yourself. It's so…odd. It can be quiet one moment, and devastating the next…It can bring life, or it can take it away on a whim…It looks like it goes on forever, and we've gone into space, but we still don't know what goes on all the way down there...There are things down there no-one expected to find…People give their life to it and die because of it, no wiser than when they started…" She drifted off into silence, entering a brief and silent communion with the foamy rushing noise of the waves.

"I think I have a lot in common with the sea." She said quietly, her eyes drifting over to Beast Boy's face. He looked confused, and there was a feeling in his stomach that was somehow equal parts light and lead.

"I can't give you what you'd like, BB. In a better world, maybe I could, but…I can't return what you feel." She said gently. Inside, she felt as if she would split in two.

Garfield nodded slowly, exhaling deeply, as if everything he'd pent up inside was being released all at once. Deflated, he gave her a small smile.

"Yeah, I thought as much." He admitted, doing his best to hide it, put on the old familiar joker's mask. Beast Boy didn't have a care in the world, he shrugged it off. Garfield Logan shrivelled a little inside, even though he'd always known it would end this way. The tragic day-dream fantasy of the hopeless romantic. In many ways, it was the story of his life. At least she wasn't dead. At least she was cured. That was what mattered. He squared his shoulders, and turned to look at her. He fancied he saw sympathy and compassion in the languid pools of her eyes, but…who could say?

"Rae? Just so you know…" He hesitated. "I'd do it all again in a second, even now."

Raven's heart might as well have stopped. She was looking back into the dark green depths of his eyes, and it felt like she saw everything within them. It was staggering how open he was about his feelings, how expressive he could be with just a rise of his shoulders, a twitch of his ears, the set of the jaw…She could feel the walls coming up around him. She knew he'd been wounded too much in the past to stay in this raw state for long. She regarded him thoughtfully for a second, then leaned forward. Her cool palm pushed his hair away from his face, and she kissed him softly on the warm skin of his forehead. Somehow, it was on a completely different level to everything that had gone before. The silent tableau lasted for just a few precious short moments, but would warm the both of them in dire moments for a long time indeed.

The moment ended, as moments are prone to do, and Raven stood up, her aura of mystery once again drawn around her like a cloak, her shield against the world and all it's personal attachments, no matter how much it hurt. However, she allowed a small smile to slip through as Beast Boy sat there, astonishment plain upon his face.

"Oh, and Garfield?"

"Yeah?"

"Tell anyone about that, and I'll throw you out the tower."

Sapphire Bullets (Of Pure Love)

The End

DC – Thank you, everyone, for reading this, for your patience and support. It's been a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you thought of the final chapter. If you'd like to get told about other stuff I'm writing in Teen Titans, let me know in the review. I have kind of a little 'heads-up' I've been sending around signed reviewers, and I'd like to carry it on if you'd like me too. Thanks again.

Peace Out,

DC