A/N: Okay, I'm back with a new chapter (finally!) Now, the day after I posted the latest Author's Note, the rumors and talk behind my back ceased because I made friends with enough people in my grade that next to no one believed it. And the few who did came and apologized. 'Jack' himself apologized also! I was completely surprised… he gave me a big bag of Chex Mix (an inside joke and obsession of both of us) and a card he wrote himself. I'm not that easily won over, but I don't want to squash him anymore. And I think I might let him off the hook just because of how sincerely he apologized; I could tell he meant it. But I'm going to make him earn my trust and friendship back. Any way, I'll stop boring you and get on with the story. By the way, to those of you who said something about how unrealistic it was for Raven to act the way she was in the last chapter, I've got an explanation for that right now, don't worry. By the way Lily, I wasn't done, so if you are reading this chapter, then I hope it sort of completes what I started, and I do know what I'm talking about because my sister was sexually abused by her ex-husband. (My life is so weird right now I can't possibly be making this up!)
Disclaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans.
This chapter is dedicated to: Techna, CuTtEr.WiTh.A.cAuSe, loner of shadows, raerob4ever
Labeled 'Bad'
Chapter 7: Repercussions
Raven went back to school the next day. Luckily for her, nobody found out because Rich had just told everyone that Raven was sick. Raven preferred everybody not knowing because then she had less to worry about and the rumors wouldn't flare up again about what other people thought went on because they weren't clearly informed of the entire situation.
The day was expected to go by normally, but it didn't. Getting back together with Rich was very distracting to Raven, but that wasn't what caused the day to be abnormal. It started out normal, Raven went through her whole morning routine and when Rich came by to pick her up, she got into the car with him.
When they got to school, Raven got out of the car and it wasn't until she kept getting bumped or even too close to people that she started freaking out. Rich tried to comfort her, but when he tried to touch her she just pulled away and looked really scared. She got her books out of her locker she ran into the girl's bathroom and locked herself into a stall only to come out when the hallway had cleared out enough for her to be able to walk down it without being touched by anyone. When she came into class she just slide in trying to be unnoticed so she could just sit in her seat and sit through the rest of class.
The same thing went for the rest of her classes until lunch when a teacher came up behind her. Putting his hands on Raven's shoulders, he bent down to try to ask her what was wrong, but she quickly dropped her sandwich and ran away. Where she went, Rich didn't know, but she left their teacher with a really confused look because he was actually her favorite teacher besides their gym teacher.
"Is she alright?" he asked Rich.
"No," Rich said, getting up from the table and exiting the lunch room in hopes to see Raven before she turned a corner in the school and he couldn't find her anymore.
It took him twenty minutes and he had already missed the first ten minutes of gym, but Rich found Raven in the office lying down on the bed in the clinic waiting for her Dad to come pick her up.
"Raven, what's wrong? You've been acting weird all day!" Rich exclaimed, his voice full of concern for his girlfriend.
Raven ignored him and turned her head the other way. She really didn't want to talk to anybody.
After waiting for five minutes without an answer Rich started talking again. "Is it something I did? If it is, I am so sorry. I never want to hurt you ever; can you just talk to me?"
Raven still remained silent; she was lost in thought and very frightened. Rich moved from where he had been standing and went over to sit next to Raven on the bed she was lying on. When Raven felt him sit down, she leapt up from the bed.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" She cried.
Rich was very taken aback by her violent reaction to him getting close to her.
"Raven your Dad's here," The nurse said.
Raven ran out of the room, tears falling from her eyes, and Rich could only sit and wonder why she was so disturbed. It took him until the end of the day when he was sitting in the parking lot waiting for Damian to be done with soccer practice.
Upon arriving home, Raven ran to her room and just lay down her bed. She shed her silent tears alone until she fell asleep from exhaustion. She didn't wake up until four pm when she smelled dinner cooking. But Raven had no appetite; instead, she got out of bed, ran to her bathroom and threw up.
Not having any energy to do anything else, Raven went back to her room and fell back to sleep.
"Hello, this is Trenton Roth; I'm calling because I'm concerned about my daughter. She was raped two days ago and she seemed to be fine, but I guess while at school today, she wouldn't let anybody touch her, let alone get near to her. When another teacher came up and put his hand on her shoulder to ask her if everything was okay, she ran off to the clinic so that she could be sent home. What should I do to try to help her? I don't even know what's wrong…" Trenton said. He had found a number that people could call if they had been sexually abused so that they could get help dealing with life afterwards.
"Well sir, I would suggest having a doctor check her out, just to see if nothing else is wrong, and then if everything checks out, I could schedule an appointment for her to meet with one of our psychiatrists." The woman on the other end of the line said.
"Okay, I'll try that, but I think that there may be a bit of a problem at the doctor's office because she won't let anybody but immediate family come close to her, not even her boyfriend," Trenton said.
"Well, first of all, your daughter is more likely to protest stronger against going to a male doctor, so if your family doctor isn't a woman, you might want to take her to the hospital and having someone there help you," the woman replied.
"Alright, thank you very much," Trenton said.
"Well, what did they say?" Nanu inquired.
"The woman I spoke to suggested that we take Raven to a female doctor and have her checked out to make sure that she's physically ok, and then if we find nothing very wrong with her, we can call back and they'll set up an appointment for Raven to meet with one of their psychiatrists," Trenton informed his trusted friend and housekeeper.
"I'm not sure if Raven would like it very much if we took her to go see a doctor. She won't come out of her room, let alone wake up!" Nanu exclaimed.
"I know, but I don't want to wait too long and then find out that something's wrong that we could've fixed if we would've had more time. So tomorrow, will you take Raven to the hospital?" Trenton asked.
"Why don't I just take her to Dr. Johnson?" Nanu inquired.
"Because the woman I was in the phone said that Raven's less likely to react as violently towards a female doctor and as you know, Dr. Johnson is a man," Trenton said.
"I gotcha, okay, I'll take Raven to the hospital when she wakes up tomorrow morning, I'll call you when we get the results and then you can call that place again to set up a meeting with a shrink for Raven," Nanu declared.
"Alright, but for now, let's bring Raven down here, she can sleep on the couch if she wants, but I don't want her all alone," Trenton said.
So he went and woke Raven, she came down the steps, eyes still glazed over with sleep. She lay down on the couch and was back to sleep in seconds.
The next morning, when Rich came by to pick her up, Trenton came out and talked to him. Telling Rich about what they were going to do, just so he wouldn't call later and possibly freak Raven out more.
Around nine am, Raven woke up, and Nanu had her get dressed. By ten o'clock, they had left the house, Raven being forced out with the threat that she would have to eat lunch if she didn't.
After arriving at the hospital, Raven and Nanu sat in the waiting room for about twenty minutes and then they were called into the doctor's room.
Dr. Smith started out by taking the basics, Raven's height and weight. Then she checked her pulse, blood pressure, and eye sight. She then sent Nanu out into the waiting room to fill out some papers and sent Raven into the bathroom with a cup for a pregnancy test. When Raven came back with the cup, the doctor checked out a few other things before leaving to go find the results.
A while later, Nanu and Raven were just sitting in the doctor's room waiting for the results to come back for the pregnancy test. Raven was just in a daze, still tired and upset and Nanu was sitting nervously waiting for the results.
Dr. Smith came into the room.
"Excuse me, Nanu, will you please step outside, I'd like to talk to you in private," Dr. Smith said, making the nervous housekeeper even more so. Nanu quietly got up from her chair and shuffled out into the hallway.
"Well, first of all, Raven is not pregnant, so there aren't any baby expenses you're going to have to worry about. And all of our tests showed perfect results. There is absolutely nothing physically wrong with Raven. We think that while at school the numbness of what happened to her wore off and realization swept over her like a gust of wind and it was just too much. We'd recommend calling one of the hotlines or just taking Raven to see a psychiatrist," Dr. Smith said.
"That's what we were planning on doing as soon as we had Raven checked out," Nanu said.
"Alright, I just wanted to make sure that you didn't leave here and not know what to do next," Dr. Smith replied, "You're free to leave whenever you want to."
Nanu gave the doctor a warm smile and then turned back into the room and got Raven out of there so that they could go home.
"You're not pregnant," Nanu said, and then looked in her rearview mirror hoping to see a reaction from Raven. She picked up a wave of relief take off some of the edge from Raven's face, but it wasn't a major change, just enough to make Nanu feel better. "Now I know you're probably not going to like this, but I'm going to call your father when we get home, and he's going to call this hotline that he had called yesterday afternoon and set up an appointment for you to meet with a psychiatrist."
Raven didn't speak, but her face contorted into a look of somewhat disgust. She still hadn't spoken since one pm the day before. Going to a shrink meant that she would spend an hour in a room with a person she didn't know who was trying to make her talk.
When they got home, Raven went up to her room and went back to bed. Nanu called Trenton.
"Hello?" he inquired, taking the call his secretary had just transferred to him.
"Trenton, I just got back home with Raven. Everything checks out, she passed all of her tests with flying colors, except one. Her pregnancy tests came back negative, so she technically failed that one, but I think that's good news." Nanu said.
Pure relief swept his features clean almost all worry. "That's great! Will you go ahead and call that hotline and set up a meeting with one of their psychiatrists?" Trenton inquired.
"Of course, I'll get right on it," Nanu replied, and then she hung up with Trenton. She scuttled over to the fridge to find the number for the hotline which was probably buried underneath a pile of school papers. She found the number and dialed it.
"Hello, you've reached the sexual abuse hotline, how may I help you?" The same woman from the night before inquired.
"Hello, I would like to set up an appointment for Raven Roth with one of your psychiatrists, when is your next available time slot?" Nanu inquired.
"Well, we've got an opening for tomorrow morning at eleven o'clock? Would that work?" The woman inquired.
"Yes that will do just fine. Now, I'd like to ask, just to make sure that I'm doing the right thing. Should I keep Raven out of school until she is ready to go back, or should she go to school tomorrow morning and we'll take her out for her appointment?" Nanu inquired.
"You should definitely keep her out of school at least until she's seen our psychiatrist, then she'll give you instructions on what to do, but I would definitely recommend keeping Raven out of school until further notice. You don't want to cause her anymore pain." The woman suggested.
"Alright, thank you," Nanu said, and then hung up the phone.
The rest of the day Nanu spent trying to convince Raven to eat. Around six, Raven got somewhat of an appetite and she ate half a piece of toast which was progress, very little, but progress none the less.
When Trenton got home, he went and sat with Raven on her bed.
"You know, it would probably be best for you if you talked to someone, you haven't said a word since you told the nurse you wanted to go home yesterday and it's got me worried. I'm not saying you half to talk to me, but when you go see the shrink tomorrow morning, I think it would be best if you didn't give her the silent treatment," Trenton said.
Of course, he got no response. Truthfully, he wasn't expecting one. So after a minute of silence, he began speaking again.
"You know, Rich is really worried about you. Damian says that when he's driving him to and from school, he seems really out of it and distant. Rich really misses you and he still thinks that he did something wrong. Why don't you call him tomorrow when he gets home from school?" Trenton suggested, just planting the thought in her head, still not expecting a response.
Raven just looked at him through half closed, sleepy eyes. Her father returned her gaze with one filled with a longing for her to speak to someone. They sat in silence for a while, neither knowing how much time had passed.
"Smells like dinner's ready, are you going to come down and join us?" Trenton inquired.
In response, Raven turned over and went to fall back asleep. Her father just left the room, shutting the door. His concern for Raven even greater now, knowing that she had only eaten half a piece of toast in the last 28 hours and that she was probably dehydrated. Walking down the steps and into the kitchen, Trenton's ears picked up a sound that he had not heard for years. He could hear the bawling cry of his son.
Upon entering the kitchen and seeing Damian in this hysterical state, Trenton couldn't help but 'break down' and shed a single tear.
"Damian, why are you crying?" Trenton inquired, figuring it had something to do with Raven, but what aspect was what he wanted to know.
Damian suppressed his tears as much as he could so that he could talk.
"I'm j-j-just w-w-worried a-a-about R-ra-raven." Damian choked out.
Trenton sat down in the chair next to the one Damian was sitting in. He wrapped his arm around Damian's side, pulling him closer. "I know, I'm worried too, but Nanu took her to the hospital today to get her checked out and she's perfectly fine. And tomorrow morning she's going to see a psychiatrist. After she goes there, then it's all down hill from here, we've just got to be strong for Raven and help her out in every way we can." Trenton said.
"Okay, I'll try to be strong, for Raven," Damian decided.
"That's my boy, a true Roth to the end!" Trenton cheered, "What's for dinner Nanu?"
"I made hamburgers hoping to coax Raven downstairs to eat one, so I'll be right back," Nanu said. She hurried up the stairs and entered Raven's room. "Raven, I made hamburgers, just the way you like them. Do you want to come downstairs and eat?"
Raven moved a little in a way to let Nanu know that she was thinking about it. And she did, Raven thought about going downstairs. After Nanu left her room and closed the door, Raven moved to get up, but as soon as she got one leg out of the bed she realized she was too tired to go downstairs. So she traded sleep for hunger pains which she had gotten used to any ways. So she spent the rest of the night in her room, drifting in and out of sleep. Every now and then, she would become restless until she used up the bit of energy she had.
The night went by quickly and when Raven woke up at nine the next morning, her eyes were attacked with the bright evilness of the sun's glare.
"Good, you're up. We've got two hours before your appointment; it's about a fifteen minute drive, so we're going to leave at 10:30. But you need to take a shower before we leave," Nanu said to the newly awake Raven.
Raven didn't move, she just stared out the window, but she knew she did need to take a shower it had been about two days since her last one. So she slowly got out of bed and made her way to the bathroom. She turned on the hot water and began undressing. Thoughts of possible scenarios caused Raven to think twice about getting naked. Her mind was playing tricks on her; she kept thinking that the second she stepped into the shower Tlaski would come into the bathroom. Before returning to the task at hand, Raven walked over to the bathroom door, locked it, and then put a barricade in front of the door. Then she undressed herself slowly and stepped into the steamy shower.
The warm jets of water helped Raven relax some, taking parts of her mind away from her two day long reflection about what had happened to her. As time went by in the shower, Raven began to ease up even more. Her thoughts leaving behind the horrific incident a few days ago and going to other things, like how concerned she knew her family was for her and how much she was missing Rich.
'Dad says he misses me a lot, but was he just trying to make me feel better?' Raven thought to herself.
She only spent a few more minutes reflecting while sitting on the floor in her shower because the water soon began to turn cold. She got out and dried off. Before leaving the bathroom she got completely dressed in the clean clothes she had brought in with her. Even though it was 60 degrees outside, Raven was freezing. She had on a long-sleeved white shirt with a light blue t-shirt on top of that and a pair of beige cargo pants.
She hung her towels up on the door and then she walked silently down to the kitchen to see what Nanu was making and whether or not she felt good enough to eat. Nanu had made waffles, Raven's all time favorite.
"Good morning Raven, have a good shower?" Nanu inquired.
Raven nodded her head as some of the thoughts of her rape came back into her head, but not all of them thankfully.
"That's good, well, I made waffles, and you can eat however many you can stomach," Nanu said, putting a plate in front of Raven.
Right as Raven was about to look away from the waffles because she didn't want to entice herself with food she might not even be able to keep down, her stomach let out a long, loud growling noise, giving away Raven's true hunger.
Raven reached over and grabbed a waffle. She didn't even bother putting it on her plate and cutting it up. She just tore of chunks and stuffed them into her mouth then chewed vigorously. About five waffles later, Raven was full.
"I'm guess you liked the waffles?" Nanu inquired.
Raven swallowed the last bit of waffle that was in her mouth then cleared the buttermilk feeling out of her mouth. Swallowing the rest of her orange juice, Raven looked up at Nanu.
"Thank you," Raven replied.
Overcome with joy that Raven and finally uttered some words, Nanu just smiled.
"Any time child, now finish getting ready, we've got to leave in half an hour," Nanu said.
Raven walked up the stairs without another word. She brushed her teeth and then pulled her short hair back into somewhat of a ponytail. She got her shoes on and then went back down stairs and watched a little bit of TV while waiting for Nanu to take her.
The car ride over to the clinic would have been completely silent, had it not been for Raven's Jimmy Eat World CD playing. When they got there, Nanu signed Raven in and then they went and sat in the waiting room.
Ten minutes later, Raven was called in a Nanu got up to leave because she wasn't about to sit around for an hour and read year old magazines in the waiting room.
"Hello Raven, I'm Dr. Braddock, when I spoke to Nanu on the phone earlier this morning, she said that you have just seemed to be completely stranded in thought and that you haven't said anything since you were taken home from school two days ago. Is this true?"
Raven nodded her head, but she had a feeling that it would probably help her out if Raven verbalized what was bothering her instead of forcing Dr. Braddock to read her mind.
"Alright, I'm just going to ask you a few questions, if you feel like speaking to me and answering the question, that is absolutely great, but if you would prefer not to say anything, that's fine by me. But I'd like to tell you that if you talk to me about this, I may be able to help you deal with this, at least partially deal with what happened."
Raven nodded to show that she understood what the psychiatrist was suggesting.
"Okay, the first thing I'd like to ask you is, about how long do you think it was between when you were raped and when you became frightened of human touch?" Dr. Braddock inquired.
"About two days," Raven replied, shocking the doctor by answering the first question. It had seemed on the phone that Raven was very stubborn and that she would probably not get very many results from her.
"Two days is an awfully long time to realize what happened to you. This experience must have startled you a great deal. Did you know that man who raped you?" the doctor asked.
"Yes, he was my history teacher," Raven said.
"What do you mean by was?"
"I got him fired earlier this year because he tried to feel me up at school. The police are pretty sure that's why he came after me."
"I'd suspect so. Now, why didn't you find it necessary to speak to anybody upon leaving school?"
"I was just lost in thought for a while and I was really upset too," Raven said.
"Now, you're father told me that you've got a boy friend, tell me a little bit about him."
"Well, his name is Rich and he lives a few streets away from me. He's really caring and I feel really bad about ignoring him two days ago at school. My dad said that he thought he did something wrong. But he was actually the one who found me and rescued me from the creep Tlaski," Raven said.
Dr. Braddock's method for getting a patient to ease up and begin talking a little more freely was working. She started with the simple questions and then started asking more personal questions. Soon she would have Raven open up as much as she needed her to and then she could really look into her soul and try to figure out what would be the best way to deal with Raven's situation.
"" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" "" ""
A/N: How'd you like this chapter? I'm sorry it took so long to update, but I've been sick, and then you all know what has been going on in my life recently. But I've got the new chapter. Now, I've got a little bit more 'drama' planned for Raven's reactions, but I'm going to have to make things a little unrealistic to make the story end the way I want it to. So I'm apologizing in advanced. But skipping over years upon years of healing that may never take place ever is how I'm going to have to make the current story connect with how I want it to end. But I think that as long as I get the ending right, it might make up for a fraction of the errors I've made with the realism (or lack there of) in this story.