Wow, thanks so much to everyone who reviewed! Your continual support definitely pushes me to write…

To each their own opinion about pairings…

With the "Spell-O" game, I actually did use a Scrabble board. The points and words are accurate. Heheh. Geek moment.

Shards of Distortion

Chapter Five: Red and Black

"Robin!" she whispered. "Robin, no!" Raven sat up, the boy lying in her arms. His normally strong body was weak and limp. He shifted slightly, looking her in the eyes.

"Raven…" he murmured weakly. "How are you feeling?"

"I… Robin, you shouldn't have!" she looked bewildered.

"Really… it's no problem…"

"No, it is! You really shouldn't have. Stop trying to be the hero all the time," she said, a little more harshly than she had intended. She continued, more softly. "You don't understand… You haven't cured me. You haven't done anything… just caused pain for yourself. There is no virus. No disease. Just my powers. Just me… I'm destroying myself somehow… And you can't stop it," she said sadly.

Robin frowned. "Why? I don't understand," he whispered.

"Because… I…" Her words got stuck in her throat. She forced them out. "Robin, I can't love you," she said, tearfully. It hurt her so deeply to say it. But she couldn't put him in danger… She was dangerous.

He stared at her for a few moments. A few really long moments, seeming like eternity. "Well, this is awkward…" he muttered, struggling to get up but was too weak to lift himself out of her arms.

"No, you don't understand," she said, more gently. "People get hurt if they get too close to me. Robin, I almost destroyed the world!"

"But you didn't, did you. You… saved it…" Raven put a hand to his burning forehead. A cold, refreshing tear fell onto his face.

"Robin… I can't. What about Starfire?" she asked, quick to change the subject.

"Star… is my friend. Our friend. And she'll realize it's for the better…"

She frowned. "Robin. How can you do this to her? How can you be so in love with her one day, and the next with an entirely different girl?"

"Because I wasn't…" His words came out slowly with much thought put into each. Raven looked at him quizzically. "I thought I loved her. I really did. She's beautiful, kind, understanding… And I wanted to love her. It gave me security. I knew she loved me, and that I wouldn't be hurt. So I told myself I loved her… and believed it," he explained to both her and himself. He was still figuring it out for himself.

"Raven, I didn't want to love you. For the longest time, I denied I could even possibly like you. But… love has a way of exposing the truth… I didn't want to love you because I knew it would be difficult. I convinced myself I loved Starfire… but really had never known true love. It was a crush. She was everything I could want… but still not real love. Raven… moments ago I realized I loved you. And moments ago, I found out what true love feels like. No matter the problems that arise, the challenges to come from it, I will still love you, and nothing will change that. I couldn't stop if I wanted to."

"Wow. The only thing that can deceive the Boy Wonder is himself," she said, voice absolutely dripping with sarcasm. "And you just used the word 'love', or the past participle of it, thirteen times. Plus phrases such as 'true love' and 'love has a way of exposing the truth'. Beyond sappy. Pathetic, even." She stopped herself. Now was not the time for her cynicism. She tried a smile, but it didn't quite work. It was more of a not-scowl. Good enough. "That was sweet though. I guess. I wish I could tell you the same…"

"Please… tell me why not," he said, on the brink of drifting off into a fevered slumber.

"Because… because I'm scared," she said softly. She was tired too, though not physically. Her mind was weary. "I'm scared."

"It's okay… to be scared…" he whispered. "I'm afraid too."

"What of?" she asked. She could predict the cliché answer approaching.

"Of losing you," he said quietly, both proving her prediction right and surprising her by making it sound so genuine and sweet.

Another tear trailed down her cheek and onto his face. "Sorry," she said, quivering slightly. She laughed both softly and harshly at the same time. "I'm an emotional train wreck, aren't I."

Robin smiled. "Yep. But it's okay. About time you let your emotions out…"

Raven smiled back to humour him, although did so weakly. "You're really sick… you should rest…" she started, but realized he was already asleep.

The boy she had long yearned for had kissed her. He had taken her illness (she had to admit she felt a lot better. Physically, anyway). He loved her, and was sleeping in her arms… And now she was rejecting him. She reluctantly slid her arm out from underneath him, tucking him into the bed meant for her. 'A lonely heart is better than a broken one,' she reassured herself, though she found herself thoroughly unconvinced.

"Starfire, sorry, but 'glrrnxt' isn't in the English dictionary…" Cyborg said. "You miss your turn. Beast Boy, your turn."

Beast Boy stared at the Spell-O game board with its many coloured squares and lettered tiles sitting upon it. 'Hmm…' he thought to himself. He then looked down at his own letters. 'A-M-D-L-H-C-O-T,' he read in his mind. 'Amdlhcot? Cothldm? Ohldmc? Tldg. Acoh. Docmt.' He pondered for a long while, trying to make a word.

"Hurry up, BB," Cyborg said impatiently.

"I'm thinking, dude. Genius at work," was the automatic response. After several more minutes, he shouted "Aha! Got it!"

He carefully put down a tile adjacent to an 'I'. "Ha! 'It'," he said, triumphantly.

"Excellent!" Starfire grinned. "You are quite skilled at this 'Spell-O' game, Beast Boy!"

"Er… two points," Cyborg said, sighing. They had been at it for a couple hours now… he looked down at the board. "Seat. Me. The. Hit. Sad. Lid. To. Toe. Be. Bet. Let. It," he read off, in the order they had played them. He then looked at the scores. "Me – twenty-seven. Beast Boy – twenty-nine. Starfire – … zero. This is just sad, guys."

"I'm winning!" Beast Boy grinned.

"Yeah… with twenty-nine. Robin usually has in the hundreds by now, and Raven is usually in the three-hundreds…" Cyborg said.

"Yes, I recall Raven won last time with the word 'alomancy'. She made 'area' and 'scary' as well, and it was located on two of the triple word squares and one of the double letter squares... It was worth exactly two hundred and thirty-six points," Starfire grinned. "She is very good, yes?"

"I doubt that was even in the dictionary," Beast Boy mumbled.

Cyborg laughed. "That's what Robin said when he lost."

"She said it was a type of the divination," Starfire said. "Where the diviner throws salt crystals either into the air or a fire and is then to interpret the patterns they make."

"Why do you memorise these things…" Beast Boy wondered. "And how?"

"Oh, I do not know. Perhaps it was because I saw Raven smiling so much after winning the game, and having, as you say, 'whooped' Robin."

Cyborg and Beast Boy couldn't help but smirk and snigger. "And now I'm whooping you guys!" Beast Boy laughed. "Or at least, beating you. Winnin' by two points!"

"Beast Boy's winning? That's depressing," a voice said behind them. They jumped.

"Raven!" Starfire squealed. "How are you feeling? Why are you out of bed? Where is Robin? Do you wish to join us?" she asked in a rapid flurry of questions.

"Uh… I'm better. A bit sore from being buried under a pile of concrete and stuff, but… I'm not sick. So, felt like getting out of bed. Robin… is the one who cured me," she said slowly. She didn't know up; she knew they had those faces on. The dumbstruck ones with their mouths hanging wide open and you could practically see the question marks floating above their heads.

"The thing is… Robin sort of stole it from me. He took my illness… and now has it. He's asleep right now. My powers somehow enabled him to do it… See, my powers were sort of what caused me to become sick in the first place," she explained. "If you hadn't noticed, I haven't exactly been… cheerful. Not that I've ever really been, but…" the others nodded simultaneously like bobble-head dolls, understanding.

"I wanted something… and couldn't reach it… And now that I've reached it, I can't let myself have it," she said softly. "So, you see, he hasn't really cured me - he's only temporarily fixed it. I can't get out of it. I'm trapped. My powers will destroy me. I'm destroying myself…" she confessed sadly.

Silence followed. "Why can't you let yourself have what it is you want?" Beast Boy asked cautiously.

She shook her head. "I just can't. It'll hurt me. And all of you…"

"But Rae," Cyborg said. "Your sadness is hurting everyone too…"

She gave a soft smile. "Come on. Let's play Spell-O, shall we? We can't possibly have Beast Boy win…"

Raven sighed, stirring the pot. She sincerely hoped Beast Boy, Cyborg and Starfire were okay fighting without her. Of course they were, she laughed inwardly. They were more than capable. They were quite honestly better off without her for the time being. She frowned at the contents on the inside of the pot. "Gross," she said, as the soup stuck to her ladle like slime. "So much for thoughtful, home-made soup…" She poured the soup out, into the sink. The soup slowly oozed down the drain, as she watched it with fascination.

She had no idea what time it was. Late, she figured, from the darkness revealed by the windows. It was hours after the riveting game of Spell-O, which she had managed to win even halfway into the game by almost two hundred points. It had been too long since her last shower, she decided, and decided to bathe.

She kept the water cold. In a slightly masochistic way, she was punishing herself yet found it refreshing. She thoroughly washed her indigo hair and scrubbed herself clean. She then dried herself in a mechanical way, then decided to put on some of the clothes she had bought with Starfire at the mall.

She wanted to show Starfire that she indeed would wear some of the outfits she had purchased with her, and besides, she wasn't going to need her costume. She wouldn't be fighting for a while. That's what she told herself, anyway, as she tried to shove the concept of impressing Robin back out of her mind. She looked at herself in the slightly cloudy mirror, though, realising she was not even close to being pretty. Definitely not sexy. Even though she was cured, she still looked a bit ill. Her face looked a bit hollow, either from her sadness or her starving herself.

The skirt she had bought was now considerably looser. "Good," she said, pulling her top on. She had his attention, so why did she still starve herself? Maybe she wasn't hungry, and had lost her appetite for a long time. Maybe in some perverse way she liked watching the others' reactions, or liked doing it to herself. Maybe she didn't know when to stop. Maybe she couldn't.

She clipped her hair with the gem-encrusted hair clip she'd gotten at the mall. She swiftly traced her eyes with kohl, then applied an eerie red eye shadow to her lids. Not like she was going anywhere. Just… for fun, maybe. No, Raven didn't have fun. She knew why she was doing it, but didn't at the same time. She was the one denying him, not the other way around.

She walked out of the bathroom and into the kitchen area. She watched the water boil, then added a package of Insta-Soup to it. She stirred it almost lovingly, however scowled at it slightly when the noodles stuck to the bottom, burnt. She shrugged. "Soup sucks, anyway."

Robin slowly opened his eyes to see her. Raven. The splitting image of beauty. Well, now, anyway, for she wore a beautiful smile. Not forced. Not fake. It was slight, but natural. Her face was less hollow and her weariness seemed to fade when such a rare event occurred. He blinked, slowly realising she wasn't in costume. She stood at the doorway in a sleeveless black top and a red skirt, complete with black boots. Her hair was clipped so that strands of her indigo hair fell in her pale face in just the right way. The clip was encrusted with jewels that matched the one in her forehead, and the same ruby hue was smudged around the outer edges of her dark eyes.

"Stop teasing," he said, once remembering he couldn't have her. She had done it just to spite him, hadn't she. She feigned confusion. Cruel girl.

"Brought you some water," she said, about to hand him the water. She then seemed to think again, and gently forced his head up and brought the cup to his lips. "Sorry… no glasses. Just cups."

"I guess I can forgive you," he said. He spoke quietly, strained. He could hardly focus on what she was saying.

"You alright?" she asked, noticing him shivering like mad. Her lips spoke nonchalantly, but her eyes said otherwise.

"Fine," he muttered. He didn't want to be weak in front of her. He couldn't allow it.

"You're brave, you know," she said, reading his mind.

"I had to try… Your immune system was weakened – but I could have fought it off…"

"I mean, Robin, you're brave to like me," she said softly. She sat on the bed and gently stroked his feverish forehead.

"Why… are you doing this?" he asked a few minutes later, just barely above a whisper.

"Doing what?" she asked, innocently enough.

"Come off it, Rae," he said. He could barely concentrate on stringing sentences together, let alone stop his teeth from chattering.

"Well someone's gotta take care of you. And seeing as I'm completely useless and dangerous fighting, I'm stuck here. So, you know…" her voice was in its usual dull tone.

"Why the outfit?" he asked. His head was swimming, her red and black ensemble blurring in his eyes.

"I wanted to show Star appreciation… and, you know, it's not like I'm going to be needing my costume for a while…"

"It's… red…" he mumbled, his mind blanking. "And black…"

"Good for you," she said with false enthusiasm. She was relentless. Even when he was sick…

"They work well together," he said, pulling the covers up further. "…They look good. Like us…"

"Feeling pretty today?" she laughed.

"Red… and black. Me… and you. And I think you were thinking it subconsciously," he said with a smile.

She rolled her eyes. "Cocky little…"

"Please, Raven. Tell me…" She looked at his pale sweating face. He was shaking and she could feel it. And he was pleading with her…

"Tell you what?" she asked. A bit of warmth had returned to her voice.

"Tell me why you're here. Sitting on my bed…"

Reasons of just bringing him water, or just checking to see if he was still alive, or that the bed was actually meant for her, sprang to mind and almost came out. She swallowed them, though, and thought a bit.

"I'm here… because I am your friend. And… I want to be more than that. But I can't," she said. "Part of me says I can't risk ruining our friendship and everyone else's." She laughed slightly in a self-depreciative way. "Of course, that's a small part of me, because I'm selfish. Another part of me wants to just give in, make myself happy. But most of me says that I can't do that, because it'll hurt me in the end," she said sadly.

"My powers make it impossible to love… I have to rid myself of emotion. And… love is pretty much that. You can't love without feelings. And… I can't get rid of them, but I have to try. Otherwise, I'll destroy everything. Robin, you see how I'm destroying myself. It's because of you. My powers aren't under control. It nearly killed me. And… they're hurting you," she said softly.

"My powers are good, sometimes. I can help fight crime. I can save people. I can help my friends. But they are bad, too, a lot of times. They created this illness. They killed a man, ripping out his heart. And now… they won't let me love you. I'm sorry…"

"You're afraid," he stated.

She stared at him. "Yes."

He smiled slightly, to the best of his ability. "Ever consider the possibility that loneliness will hurt more?" he asked quietly.

She stared at him. "Sadness is an emotion too… and it's destructive. Look at yourself. Sadness, unlike your powers, is never good. Never good, unless it can teach someone how important things like love are," he said. "I'm here… if you need me… and always will be…"

"I'm glad you're here," he whispered. "I think I needed you…"

He was shivering violently. It pained her to watch him suffer like this. She placed a hand on his forehead, feeling it burning. "You're so hot," she stated.

He managed a smile. "You're not bad-looking yourself…" he muttered, drifting off into yet another fevered sleep. She lay down on the bed beside him, pulling the covers up around him. She gently placed her arms protectively around him as she had done earlier that day in that same bed.

"I'll be here when you wake up," she promised, stroking his hair. "And I'll let you know that I need you now more than you need me," she whispered.

END OF CHAPTER!

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- Penguin Pop