A/N: Hey everyone, this story is coming to a close soon. This is one of the last chapters. I'm going to write an epilogue and I've got an idea for a sequel, but I'm not sure if I should write it, or at least write it just yet. I've got another story that I've got about four chapters done for it already that I really want to post and see what everyone thinks. So tell me in a review what you think I should do. As soon as I'm done with this story I'm going to post that other story no matter what, but I might write the sequel at the same time. I've also discovered an error in my timing. This chapter takes place over the course of four days, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and Sunday. I'm not going to give them a numerical date, but it's sometime around the end of January.
Labeled 'Bad'
Chapter 9: Are you ready?
When Raven got home, she ate her lunch and then went and got in the shower. She washed every square inch of her body twice with all of her soaps and when she got out; her skin was so raw from being scrubbed so much, it was sort of stinging.
Raven went back downstairs to watch TV. She went into the kitchen first to get something to drink from the fridge.
"Whew, what did you do Raven? Mix every scented thing you own together and put it on? Go sit outside to air out!" Nanu exclaimed.
"Sorry, I just wanted to look clean and smell my best for when I go see Rich today," Raven replied sheepishly.
"You might make him run away because his nose hurts too much. Seriously, go sit outside, or drive around with the windows open in your car, or something!" Nanu cried.
"Alright, I'll pick Damian up from basketball practice today, that should do it," Raven said.
"I guess that'll do, but please, just get out of the room," Nanu demanded.
So Raven left the kitchen and went to watch TV. When nothing but little kid shows were on TV, Raven called Rich and left a message on his cell phone telling him that she was going to pick Damian up from basketball practice.
At 4:15, Raven left her house and drove over to the middle school to pick Damian up. She had five minutes to spare so she just sat in the car and listened to some music.
As Damian walked out of the school, he was looking around for Rich's car, but he didn't see it.
'Nice Rich, you forgot to pick us up,' Damian thought to himself. The look on his face when he spotted Raven's car was about as surprised as it was when she picked him up from school the day she got expelled the year before.
"Raven, where's Rich?" Damian exclaimed as he, Zane, and Tommy climbed into the car.
"I decided to come pick you guys up today. Nanu said I put too many scented things on, so she said to drive around with the windows open to air out," Raven replied driving out of the school parking lot.
"Ha ha, that's funny," Damian said.
The rest of the car ride home, Damian talked to his friends and Raven just listened to her music. When Raven and Damian got home after dropping everybody off, Nanu was waiting for them.
"Oh thank God, you don't reek anymore!" Nanu exclaimed as Raven walked by.
"Very funny, I actually think that I smell okay, but I'm going to go see Rich now, okay?" Raven asked.
Not waiting for a reply, Raven turned, walked out of the kitchen, grabbed her car keys, and then left the house to go see Rich.
When she showed up at the Wayne's door, Ryan answered it. Before Ryan could even get the storm door open, Rich walked up to him, first raised and Ryan ran away. Rich opened the storm door to see a giggling Raven. He walked out, wrapped his arms around her waist, brought her in close, and then caught her lips in a sweet embrace. When he broke the kiss, he smiled down at her.
"What are you smiling about?" Raven asked.
"The fact that you're still so beautiful," Rich replied. Raven rested her head on his chest. "I missed you."
"I missed you too," Raven replied after a little while. She was taking in his scent. It seemed that he had showered as soon as he came home.
"Do you want to come inside?" Rich asked.
"No, because then I'll have to move from where I am. I hate being anywhere else but your arms," Raven replied.
"You can't stand here all day, lets go inside and then I'll make it up to you some how," Rich replied.
"Alright…"
So Raven and Rich went into the Wayne's house. They went up to Rich's room and Raven sat in his computer chair while he stretched out on his bed.
"So Rich, would you mind coming with me to my next appointment with the shrink?" Raven asked.
"Not at all, as long as I don't have to sit in the waiting room while your talking to the woman. I don't think a guy just sitting in a woman's clinic would go over well," Rich replied.
Raven laughed, only imagining what looks he'd get. "No, the psychiatrist actually wants you to come in and talk with us. I'm not really sure why though." Raven replied.
"What time is the meeting scheduled for?" Rich asked.
"Tomorrow at five o'clock. Is that alright?" Raven asked.
"Sure, I've got nothing better to do. It'll be fun," Rich replied.
"So, what else is there to talk about?" Raven inquired.
"I don't know, but are you sure you're not going through this too fast? I mean, isn't this a really traumatic event in your life that should take more than a week to get over?" Rich asked.
"I guess so, but I really do feel fine, I promise," Raven said.
"Alright," Rich replied skeptically.
"I'll prove it too you," Raven said, and then she walked over and lay down next to him on his bed.
"Wow, you really are doing okay, you're already getting into bed with someone," Rich said. "I didn't mean it like that!"
"Yeah, I mean, as long as it's you. If it were some other random person, even if I hated been raped I still wouldn't have gotten into bed with them!" Raven replied.
"Oh, right, of course," Rich replied. "So do you think you'll be coming to school tomorrow?"
"No, I'm going to wait until the shrink says it's okay to go back. She said depending on how well I do every time I meet with her, that I may or may not be able to go back. But I've got a quick question. Would you mind if on Saturday, I spent the day with Dakota? I feel like I've been completely ignoring her for the last week, and I feel really bad," Raven said.
"No, I wouldn't mind at all, you need time to spend with her. I mean, if you hung around with only guys all day, it'd drive you crazy!" Rich replied.
"Cool. So, what have you been up to?" Raven asked.
"Not much, I've being going to this really cool place, its called school; you should come with me one of these days!" Rich answered.
"Sounds fun, I'd love to come. How does, next week sound?" Raven inquired sarcastically.
The two bantered back and forth for a while and then Raven had dinner with the Wayne/Grayson family. At seven o'clock, she went back home to spend the evening with her family.
The next day, Raven got up just like she would for a normal school day, but instead of going through her normal routine, she just put on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and drove Damian and Tommy to school. When she got back home she ate a bowl of cereal while she read the comics. Then she went upstairs, took a shower, and wrote for a while, and then she just lounged about the house doing whatever she could find to do.
That afternoon, after bringing Damian and Tommy home from practice, Raven went to get Rich so that he could come with her to the clinic. She pulled into his driveway and he walked out of the front door.
"I'm ready to go!" Rich cheered as he walked around to the side door to get in.
"Good, if you weren't, I'd be a little worried what else you had to do to get ready," Raven said.
She backed out of the driveway and then drove off to the clinic. She and Rich chatted about everything together. About what they were going to do when they got out of high school, both were next in line to own their father's companies, and both were happy with it. Rich was going to be CEO until his father retired and then he would become president. Ryan wanted nothing to do with the company, claiming that the money was 'dirty money' even though Wayne Enterprises made anything but that. Raven has the same situation. She was going to be CEO until Trenton retired, then she would become president and Damian would be CEO. Upon arriving at the clinic, Raven and Rich got out of the car.
"Are you sure I'm not going to cause every girl in there to freak out?" Rich asked.
"Yes I'm sure, the only thing they'd be freaking out over is the fact that you're taken," Raven replied.
They walked in and Raven told Rich to go sit down while she signed in. When she joined him, she was given a few different looks. Some were people who thought that Rich had gotten pregnant, but the staff members and the people who had been there when Raven was looked at her with hope in their eyes, amazed by how much progress Raven was making so quickly.
"Raven! Good to see you again! Ah, this must be Richard. Come with me, both of you, sorry it took so long, we had to get a few things set up," Dr. Braddock said, shuffling Raven and Rich into a different room than the one Raven had been meeting with her in.
"What is this?" Raven asked, looking at the layout of the room. It looked exactly like her English class room. There were desks set up in the same way as they were at school. There were teenagers in every seat except the two that Raven and Rich sat in during class. There were the same amount of people in there too, thirteen girls and eleven boys not counting Raven and Rich.
"Would you two go sit where you normally sit?" Dr. Braddock asked. Raven and Rich went and sat down at the two empty desks. Then Dr. Braddock left the room, she went into the observation room because a two way black board so that they could watch what happened. As soon as Dr. Braddock left the room, Raven's English teacher came into the class.
"Good afternoon and welcome back Raven. We've missed you. Now, today, we're going to start a new book. It's called Call of the Wildand it's by Jack London. Has anyone ever read this book before?" The teacher asked.
"What is this, I thought we were supposed to be meeting with your shrink, not sitting through a class!" Rich asked.
"I know, just pretend it's a real class, it's probably a really important step or something," Raven said.
So the two sat through the rest of a shortened class, and then Dr. Braddock came into the room.
"Raven, you have done wonderfully. You haven't even had a single noticeable reaction to having all of these people around you. I think that you will be able to go back to school tomorrow! But that's solely based on this; I'd like to spend the rest of this hour speaking to you and Rich. So if you don't mind, we'll go to where we normally meet and talk there," Dr. Braddock said.
Raven was excited, she was almost back to normal, and she would be bale to live her life normally after this. So she and Rich followed Dr. Braddock to the room where they normally met. Rich sat down on the arm chair first and then Raven sat down on his lap.
"Well, Raven, I don't really see any problems at all. The only difference I actually noticed is you seem much more playful, happy, and carefree with Rich around," Dr. Braddock said.
"I know, I told him last night that I am more like myself when he is around than any other person I've ever known. HE and I belong together and having him at school with me in every class will make everything okay. But I wouldn't want to go back if I didn't have Rich there to comfort me," Raven said.
They spent the rest of the meeting talking about what Raven should do if something were to happen at school. Dr. Braddock had already called all of her teachers and explained everything that had happened, she shared her observations, and gave the teachers ideas on how to help, and instructions for what to do or how to react to situations that commonly happened when a rape victim is introduced back into society. Dr. Braddock originally said that Raven should just wait until Monday to go back to school, but not wanting to miss anymore school than she already had, Raven convinced her that she would be okay to go back to school the next day.
So when Raven left, she was in higher spirits. She was going to school the next day which was the last step for her to be back to normal in Raven's mind. Raven called home on their way there and told her family the good news. Her father answered the phone when she called, and he was so delighted that he was going to take everyone out for dinner and ice cream. They took Rich with them too, so instead of going back home, Raven made a u-turn and headed towards the restaurant.
They met up with the rest of the Roth family there and then they got a table. After dinner, Trenton took everyone to their favorite ice cream place and everyone got some. At seven everyone went back home because Trenton didn't want anybody out too late on a school night.
The next morning, Raven got up, got into the shower, got dressed, ate breakfast, and then left with Damian and Tommy to pick up Zane, Rich, and Dakota.
"RAVEN, I MISSED YOU SO MUCH!" Dakota shrieked as she climbed into the car.
"Hey, it's good to see you too; it feels like I haven't talked to you in such a long time! On Saturday, you and I have to have a girl's day, okay?" Raven asked.
"Sounds awesome, I'm in!" Dakota replied.
"Nice, well, on to the middle school, and then the high school," Raven said as Dakota sat down.
After dropping off Zane, Damian, and Tommy off at their school, Raven drove herself and friends to the high school to begin their long day of school work. Every teacher said something about 'how glad they were that Raven was back.' By the time that Raven had made it to lunch, about twenty kids in her grade who she didn't even know came up and told her that they missed her.
When she came into gym, the teacher let Raven choose what game they were going to play that day. She picked prison dodge ball and her team won every game. The rest of the day went by normally and when Raven came home, she had a lot of homework to do. So instead of reading while she waited for Damian to finished practice, she started on her math homework. By the end of the night, around eight o'clock, Raven had caught up with all the homework she had missed. Luckily the four days she was out of school were really light on homework.
Sitting back in silent reflection, it seemed like so long ago that Rich was driving her home that night after he had rescued her when it had only been five days. Time seemed to go by so much slower since then.
'There is no possible way I am getting over this so quickly! It should be taking months or years, or even the rest of my life, not days! I know something really bad is going to happen. It all seems fine, but something is going to happen,' Raven thought to herself.
She went to bed a few hours later and when she woke up at ten the next morning, she got out of bed lazily. She got into the shower, got dressed, then ate breakfast then brushed her teeth. At noon, she called Dakota to go start their girl's day. Raven left her house and then picked Dakota up at hers before going out to lunch together.
"Raven, it really sucks that all of this happened to you. I just want you to know that I'm here for you," Dakota said.
"Thanks, I really like having someone I can talk to. Before I came to public school, I had no friends; I just hung out with my little brother all the time. I think that's why I had so much trouble staying in school, because I had no reason to. Grounding me wouldn't do anything; all it meant was that I couldn't go on the computer for a week. I mainly read anyway, so I wasn't really affected by all of that," Raven said.
"So you're saying that you've got to be acting better now because you've got friends you could be grounded from?" Dakota asked.
"Yeah, that's exactly it," Raven replied.
"That's weird, because that's exactly why I am acting so much better now too! Where I lived before, I had no friends and I had nothing to do. You and I are so similar it's creepy!" Dakota said.
"I know Rich is the same way, but his younger brother, he can't stand," Raven giggled.
"Yeah, you're really lucky to have a guy like Rich, Raven, I hope you know that," Dakota said seriously.
"I know, and I appreciate every bit of it. The other day, I called him, and he punched Ryan because Ryan wouldn't give him the phone. I heard it too, it sounded like it really hurt," Raven said.
"That's too funny!" Dakota laughed, almost choking on her lunch.
"I know, so, where do you want to go first today?" Raven asked.
"Let's go to Journey's. I've got $200 spending money, I want a new pair of shoes," Dakota said.
"Yeah, I think I'm going to get some new skateboard shoes, I miss my old board. I'm going to start skating again I think. I caught a whole lot of guy's attention doing that when I was younger and I love seeing Rich beat people off with a stick," Raven said.
"You do that," Dakota said,
They paid for their lunch and then went over to Journey's to get their new shoes. After they were done there, they went to Pac Sun and got new sunglasses. They shopped around at other places too and then they caught the three o'clock showing of 'The Ringer.'
Without much else to do, and running low on money, Raven drove Dakota went over to get some ice cream before going back home.
"Raven, I'm never going to get a boyfriend!" Dakota complained to her friend.
"What makes you say that?" Raven asked.
"I'm not attractive! And I've got nothing going for me!" Dakota grumbled.
"Alright, stop lying to me, you are very pretty and you've got everything going for you. At school yesterday, I saw Josh and Nate looking at you! I've only been back for one day and I can tell that they both like you. Give them a chance to ask you out, I promise it'll work out okay!" Raven said.
"Which Josh are you talking about?" Dakota asked.
"Josh Stokes, you know, the hot one that you like?" Raven teased.
"OH MY GOSH, you think Josh Stokes likes me?" Dakota asked incredulously.
Raven nodded and smiled encouragingly. Dakota squealed, now excited for Monday to give Josh a chance to ask her out, Dakota was officially though with the weekend.
Raven chuckled at her friends antics. She couldn't remember ever being like that, but then again, she didn't have to. Rich was her first friend since middle school, he was her only friend, and she didn't think any of the other guys at her school were worthy. So she would never have a chance to remember something like that.
After finishing their ice cream, Raven drove Dakota back home. She got her purchases out of the back of the truck and then waved goodbye to Raven. She squealed one last time before calming herself and going back inside. Dakota was really crazy, but that's why Raven liked her so much.
Raven spent all of Sunday with Rich to make up for not seeing him on Saturday. Raven was trying to talk to him about Valentines Day, but he wasn't really listening. HE seemed to want to avoid the subject all together because he kept changing the subject whenever her could.
He really didn't want to let Raven onto anything. He still had the flowers he had ordered for Raven that were going to come to her house on Valentines Day, and he still had to plan that with her family so that everything would go as planned.
When he finally got Raven off the subject of Valentines Day, it was a huge relief, because he was really getting nervous that he was going to let something slip and make her aware of what he was planning on doing.
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A/N: So how did you like the new chapter? I'm pretty sure this is the second to last chapter not counting the epilogue. I am going to write a sequel, but it's not going to be very long at all.