Teen Titans
Fragile Dreams

A/N This chapter will be normal length... for an interlude. Thanks for all your reviews! The music is going to be a little different this time. It isn't actually in the chapter, and no character actually hears it this time. The song was submitted by Water81, AKA Jebus of Nazarath… thanks for that. He also helped me proofread this chapter, so give him a shout of thanks, guys… without him this chapter might have been late. The song is dedicated to Raven's gold emotion for reasons that will become obvious. The sound track is going to get expanded soon thanks to some research by Water81, also. The name of the interlude has been changed from Silence to Paradise.

For clarity, I'll explain the timeline here. This interlude takes place after the episodes Deception, wavelength, and Titans East pt 1, and during the middle of Titans East pt 2.

Disclaimer - Think about it. If I owned Teen Titans, I wouldn't need to be rewriting the show, now would I? Paradise in Me is owned by K's Choice.

Fragile Dreams Chapter 16 - The Third Interlude: Paradise

Consuming far too much
Ignoring the world to touch
The ones who don't have food at all…
I'm breathing, I'm wondering how
We watch Wheel of Fortune now
I close my eyes and try to see
A piece of paradise in me

Beat me up
And smash my brand new TV
To help me look for
A little piece of paradise in me

I'm dancing, I'm writing songs
About what bothers me the most
About those who can't dance at all...
I'm only jumping, I'm only freaking out
And I wonder what it's all about
To close my eyes and finally see
A piece of paradise in me…

-K's Choice, Paradise in Me

The better part of a month after the fight with H.I.V.E. academy, Raven wasn't sure how to feel. She hadn't been meditating much lately... only when absolutely necessary. She hated to admit it, but her gold emotion was starting to scare her.

It sounded so incredibly convincing while telling her to do thing she knew to be too dangerous. Why did it always seem right? Raven knew she couldn't allow herself to feel with her current level of control... she had been taught that since her birth. The instilled desire to show her emotions towards Robin since five months ago was insidious.

Raven didn't want to think about it anymore... she needed to get some tea. As she walked to the main room, however, she heard Robin yelling from the control room. She entered just in time to catch the end of a conversation between Robin and Cyborg on the screen. "You already HAVE a team, Cyborg!" Robin yelled at the screen, "You can't just walk away!"

Cyborg's voice lowered back to a cold whisper. "Watch me..." The screen went black, and Robin just blew up.

Robin slammed his fist down into the console. "Damn it Cyborg!" He swiped his hand sideways, knocking a collection of object sprawling across the room. "Why do you have be such a stubborn, independent, arrogant..." He raged.

Robin quieted as Raven softly laid her hand on his shoulder. "You mean like you?"

With anyone else, he might have taken offense. Instead, Robin just sighed heavily, and took several deep breaths before he whispered back, "Yeah... exactly like me..." He leaned back in the chair and looked up at her.

Robin gazed up at Rae's beautiful face, cloaked in the shadows of her hood. It was startling and vaguely exciting to have their lips so close to each other. He felt the strongest urge to kiss her, but stifled it. 'Bad idea, Robin. You're already as close to her as your ever going to get. Don't ruin it.'

"So, he quit again, didn't he?" Robin couldn't help but notice that she seemed shaken up. Robin looked at her with concerned, caring eyes.

"You haven't been meditating again, have you?"

Raven's hard violet eyes softened for a second, in that moment Robin felt like he knew everything about the young empath. He could actually feel her pain, her internal struggle. He wanted to help her, more than anything he'd ever done. Robin lifted his hand to the one on his shoulder. "Rae... please tell me. What's wrong?"

Her eyes hardened, and she tried to pull away. "I don't need any help!" Robin wasn't going to let her go that easily. As she pulled back, he spun the chair around and stood, refusing to let her hand go. "I can take care of myself! I don't need your pity!"

Robin wrestled with the dark mystic as she tried to push him away. "Raven... not needing help is not the same as not wanting it." Raven stopped struggling with him as she considered that, her body relaxing. For the first time, Robin finally noticed that sometime during the fight he had unconsciously wrapped an arm around her, pinning her left arm against her body and resting lightly just below her neck.

'Not needing help... not the same... not wanting it...'

Her independence had never allowed her to need anything from someone else before, nor rely on help from others. But Robin was right... desiring help and needing help were not the same. Wanting help still required letting someone deep into her trust, however, allowing someone into things about who she was that no one had ever seen before. Did she want help?

The answer surprised her. From him she did.

She could feel his breath brushing against her face, swaying her wispy lavender hair. His face was just inches from hers. Raven was scared... this was exactly the situation she had wanted to avoid. She didn't want to ask the question of whether or not Robin felt something for her... now that was all but unavoidable. She could feel Robin's heart rapidly beating, and knew her own heart was going just as fast. She couldn't catch her breath... she was breathing too rapidly. She closed her eyes... and Robin's lips brushed hers.

Every emotion in her body went haywire with the physical contact. It felt like electricity flowing through her body, lighting up every nerve in her body at once. Her hands unconsciously moved around Robin, pulling him against her.

Raven gasped slightly, and a small bolt of black energy shot out and shattered the big screen. The dark empath shot away from Robin like a lightning bolt, clenching her eyes in an attempt to regain control. She fell to her knees. 'Control, control... calm down,' she thought. It felt like her entire body was on fire, but she finally managed to lock her emotions down. Raven opened her eyes, and say Robin kneeling on the floor beside her.

He looked at her with emotion that his mask couldn't quite conceal. "Raven..." he started. He never got to finish.

Robin's communicator beeped just a second before Raven's did. "Friend Robin! Friend Raven! Friend Beast Boy! I do believe that friend Cyborg is in the trouble." Star's unusually dour voice came over the radio. "Brother of the Blood has gained control of the Eastern Tower!"

"We better go," Raven stated simply, and ran out of the room without a glance backwards. 'So... it would seem Robin does feel something for me?' As she ran, she could hear someone laughing in her head and could make a reasonable guess which emotion it was.

Robin watched Raven leave without a second glance at him. 'You shouldn't have kissed her. How could you be that stupid? Now she just wants to get away from you.' Robin tore a glove from his right hand and brushed his lips softly with it, savoring the lingering feel of Raven's lips on his. He was more positive than ever now that he loved that girl, and he had just royally ruined any chance he might have had with her.

On the other hand...

She didn't pull away from him. She didn't slap him or shoot him down in any way. She had only broken the kiss when her emotions got out of control. Robin's knowledge of Raven had glaring blind spots, but he did have a general idea that her emotions produced the energy her powers fed off of, and that's why she needed to keep them in control all the time. She had only broken off the kiss when it became unsafe to continue.

'At least I obviously made her feel something...' he thought, but it failed to make him feel better. What did she feel? Robin sighed: now he was going to be more hesitant than ever to try and discover her feelings. "Wow, Robin… you just really fucked that up, didn't you?" he mumbled under his breath.

Robin forced those thought out of his head. Right now, Cyborg needed help. He could deal with his personal problems later.

I'm only jumping, I'm only freaking out
And I wonder what it's all about
To close my eyes and finally see
A piece of paradise in me…

The next day, Raven was meditating on the roof while the rest of the Titans, the rejoined Cyborg included, played an intense game of volleyball. Her emotions had been in a mess since Robin had kissed her. She had since decided on the obvious: Robin had to like her to some extent. So her gold emotion was right… he did care. Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be that easy for her.

Raven had learned a great deal more from her first kiss, as well. She wasn't ready to try to get close to Robin. The emotions that the simple act of kissing him brought out of her were beyond her control, and deadly. If she dared to try and get closer to him, she would risk hurting him or even killing him: her lack of control was too...

"Raven, look out!" Beast Boy yelled. She opened an eye and saw the ball speeding towards her. With a thought, her soul-self caught the ball dead in the air, stopping it instantly and throwing it back at BB hard. He got knocked over as he caught the speeding ball, tumbling to the ground.

She saw Robin rub the back of his head. "Uh, Raven? Are you sure you don't want to play?"

"Yes! Come and volley the ball with us, friend!"

Raven closed her eyes. "I'm positive." Turning her concentration inwards, she continued her thoughts.

...dangerous. She had actually avoided being alone with Robin whenever possible over the last twenty-four hours. Raven was worried that Robin might feel like she was avoiding him because she didn't feel the same for him as he obviously did for her. It was quite the opposite, and the Azarathian girl wasn't so lost in thought she couldn't appreciate the irony: she had to stay away from Robin so she could tell him, someday, exactly how much she wanted to be with him.

Raven needed to become stronger before she could risk expressing her own feelings for Robin. She wouldn't be able to live with herself if she got him hurt… they were lucky yesterday. Until she had enough contr...

"HEADS UP RAE!" This time, Raven just sighed in annoyance and levitated to the side, allowing the ball to fly off the tower. Raven attempted to return to her thoughts, but was distracted by... the silence. It was too quiet: all noise on the roof stopped. Raven turned to her teammates and opened her eyes too see them all staring at her in stunned silence.

'Are they really that mad at me for not getting the ball?' Raven thought, but her musing was interrupted by an amused voice from behind.

"So. What team am I on?"

Back in Steel City, three figures were sitting in the darker corners of a smoky bar. Jynx, Gizmo, and Mammoth hunched inside a small booth in the back, trying not to draw attention to themselves. Steel City wasn't safe for them anymore… not with the new team of the Titans in control. They were wanted people, and there was little doubt the Titans would come down on them hard if they revealed themselves.

Since Brother Blood's defeat and the fall of H.I.V.E. Academy with him, there wasn't a safe place for them anymore. Gizmo was reading some paper in the dim light, and Mammoth was just pounding down soda after soda. Jynx wanted to hit him. It was hard enough avoiding notice when you were a 7 foot tall giant… did he have to be half sticking out of the booth too?

Jynx had been distracted lately… ever since Stone's… 'Cyborg's…' infiltration of the H.I.V.E. Academy, as a matter of fact. It was absolutely ridiculous, but she found herself feeling betrayed, as though Cyborg's actions were a deliberate slight against her personally. She had really like him, too: First time she had stronger feelings than just a crush in her life. 'But he was a traitor,' she thought to herself, sipping a soft drink slowly. She had the sudden urge to throw it across the room, but repressed it. She wished she had something stronger to drink. Maybe Shimmer could... She shook that thought from her head. The last thing she wante to do was actually ask for a favor from the arrogent bitch. Besides, it wasn't long before her thoughts forgot the drink andrefocused on him.

'How could St… Cyborg do that to me?' Illogical as she knew the thought was, it wouldn't leave her. 'He hung out with me all the time when he was one of us… did Stone ever actually like me?' she thought, not even bothering to correct herself, 'Or was he just faking everything?' Jynx shook her head, attempting to banish all thoughts of Stone from her head. Her future was at stake right now, and she couldn't let him take that away from her by making her lose focus.

Glancing over into the main area, Jynx saw Mammoth's sister leaning against a pool table, holding a cue. She held out her hand, and some guy reluctantly slapped a couple of bills into it and then stormed away. Hanging up the cue, she started heading towards her teammates. Shimmer laughed as she approached, but her gray eyes remained emotionless. "My lord do they all suck at pool," she exclaimed, slapping forty dollars down on the table, "I'm not even cheating them!"

"We're all very proud of you, Selinda. However, your talents at playing pool aren't going to help us find new work, or help us get out of the city," Jynx snapped at her, voice dripping with sarcasm. Jynx knew her internal conflict was making her on edge and she should handle Shimmer's flippant manner with more tact, but she was too tired to mince words right now. She really plain didn't like the gothic member ofher team: She had too much of a superiority complex. While Shimmer supposedly served under her, she was almost insufferably insubordinate and Jynx always had to watch the transmuter carefully.

"Oh, calm down Jynxie," she said in a sing-song voice, not quite mockingly. "We'll be ok." She turned to where her brother was still slamming down drinks. "Oh dear, it seems dear Baran needs another drink or two. I'll go get them," she said, snatching back up one of the twenties. She was about to walk out into the main area when Gizmo jumped up.

"Ah HAH! Look at this!" he yelled, waving his newspaper around in one upraised fist.

"Quiet down!" Jynx whispered harshly at him, looking cautiously around. Convinced no one was paying undue attention to them, she turned her attention back to her dwarf of a companion. "Now, let me see that," she said, taking the newspaper right out of his hand.

It was the Underworld Star, she noticed for the first time. The newspaper was only published twice a year, and contained news intended for some of the greatest criminals in the world. Where Gizmo had found a copy, she had no idea. The small section Gizmo had excitedly circled in pen was a small paragraph written by a famous villain. Jynx had heard of him: He operated out of Bludhaven. She read through the entire article, and then passed it to Shimmer and Mammoth, never saying a word. As soon as Selinda finished, it was to Jynx's utter lack of surprise that she was all for the idea. "We should go! That sounds just like our ticket!"

Jynx was more skeptical. "I don't know. Bludhaven really doesn't seem like the smartest place for us to go."

Shimmer ran both hands through her loose orange hair, brushing it back and out of her face. "Oh come on! You were just saying how we needed to get out of this town! Here's the perfect chance!"

"Marching right back into contact with the Titans isn't exactly what I had in mind! The Titans are the reason I want out of this city." 'Not to mention Cyborg,' she added to herself.

"We'll have backup this time. It won't be like H.I.V.E. again." Shimmer argued, a wry smile slowly coming over her face. Her eyes remained expressionless, however. "Or perhaps is it that you've lost your nerve? You're too nervous to go back to Bludhaven again? Worried you'll get taken for a fool by another traitor, Jynxie?"

Jynx had heard enough, and she was not in the mood for a full-blown argument with Shimmer right now. Besides, she really didn't have any better ideas. "Fine. Pack up, we leave tomorrow." She sat up from the table and walked out of the bar. As she left, she could just hear Selinda snidely whisper "Stupid witch."

End Chapter 16
A/N
Well, THAT certainly got the ball rolling, now didn't it? I also think the H.I.V.E. scene turned out really well, too. Well, this will be a REALLY easy quiz for anyone who had read the comics, but what do you think the former H.I.V.E. students found in the newspaper?

On a final note, I realized I've been spelling Bludhaven wrong all alone... it's not Bloodhaven, that's just how it's pronounced. My mistake... I'll go back and fix that one of these days.

Anyway, REVIEW! We're almost to 150...

Next Chapter on Thursday!

Next time on Teen Titans - Fragile Dreams:

Terra makes her return to become a Titan
And what happened to Terra while she was gone? Did Slade find her?
And what's going on with the H.I.V.E. kids?

Next Episode – Titan Rising

Ok, I want to clear this up. I recently got into an argument about what powers certain people have, and what I call them. Since different people wrote many of the comics on these characters and even more different people do the show, getting a completely accurate picture is impossible. However, this is my impression, and that's what I'm sticking to.

Slade Wilson (Deathstroke) – Enhanced control over his body and mind, huge amounts of combat training. Also has more advanced technology at his disposal that practically anyone on earth, including nanobots.

Mammoth (Baran Flinders) – Super strong, and not very smart. Sometimes referred to as a giant by me, for obvious reasons.
Gizmo (Mycron) – Technological genius with no actual powers. Sometimes referred to as a midget or dwarf, again for obvious reasons.
Shimmer (Selinda Flinders) – Matter Transmutation within a three foot radius of her body. Can make practically anything, but not much at once.
Jynx – She's a magic user. Most of the spells she uses involve altering probabilities, but that's not the only magic she can use. Sometimes referred to as a witch.

Terra (TaraMarkov)– Control over the earth. I refer to her as a shaman sometimes because she has control over an element, which seems shamanistic to me. Also, I just needed something else to call her once in a while. Shaman works.
Cyborg (Victor Stone) – Mechanically enhanced human with a sonic cannon built in.
Beast Boy (Garth Logan) – Shape shifter able to take on the form of practically any animal he has seen. Sometimes referred to as either a changeling or a shapeshifter, in reference to his abilities.
Starfire (Koriand'r) – Super Strength, flight, and ability to project energy in the form of rays and starbolts. Sometimes referred to as either an alien or a tamaranian for very obvious reasons.
Robin (Dick Grayson) – No powers, just lots and lots and lots of training under one of the greatest fighters in the world… what the HELL could the true master teach Robin that Batman couldn't? Seriously…
Raven Roth – Now here's were it gets interesting. Her powers are really hard to figure out, since both comic and episode writers tend to forget about what she can do at times. Raven's powers are really separated into 2 areas. First, she has arcane (magic) in nature powers, taught to her in Azarath. She rarely uses these except to focus her stronger power, empathy. Her emotions essentially produce energy, with interesting effects. This allows her to read mind, produce bolts of energy, and project a soul self. Her soul self allows her to levitate objects and herself, walk through walls, teleport, shield herself, and… well, practically anything: it just depends on how much emotional fuel it's given. On a third note, she knows some martial arts for the mental discipline aspect. I sometimes refer to her as an empath or a mystic, referring to either side of her powers.

If you don't like any of that… tough. I plead artistic license.