Cognitive Dissonance

Chapter Eleven: Accident

"Kenzie, stop it!"

"No-oh," sang the girl with the stick. She was innocently pretty: freckles dotting her nose and red highlights in her dark brown pigtails. And she was poking an anthill.

The boy at her side was younger, probably her brother, brown eyes panicked as he pulled ineffectually at her arm. "You're gonna hurt them, McKenzie, and anyway they'll crawl all over the place, and it'll be gross."

McKenzie smirked. "You don't like gross? I do."

Terra edged away from them, the idea of ants crawling all over her really not very appealing. Not like she wasn't used to bugs (she'd been chased by ones that were bigger than McKenzie), but these were new pants, and besides, she was on a date. Who let little kids do stuff like that at restaurants, anyway? Well, okay, they were outside the restaurant, but still. Terra wasn't a huge fan of little kids. Their hands were always sticky.

Beast Boy kind of looked like maybe he wanted to join McKenzie in poking the anthill, but settled on opening the door for Terra. The little kids' high pitched voices faded as a blast of air conditioning hit her (it was already hot, especially this early in the evening), and the last thing Terra heard was something about how the boy was going to "go tell" on McKenzie if she didn't stop. The hostess realized who they were and only looked a little bit shocked as she showed them to a table, one with a good view.

They did this all the time. It was normal. It was okay.

Except when it wasn't.

It wasn't okay because this wasn't any ordinary date, wasn't any ordinary evening. It was the last evening before Terra's life exploded. Because Terra had planned this. She'd asked him, the whole thing was her idea, because she figured that it would be a good way to break the news. After all, everybody else was distracted because it was Robin's birthday or whatever, so at least this way she'd only have to deal with Beast Boy, and maybe by the time he decided to let the others know, he wouldn't be mad anymore and maybe he'd be on her side.

Cyborg had given them an odd look when Terra announced where they were going and when, but she promised him that they'd be back early. And anyway, Robin looked absolutely miserable, so the best way to be nice to him was probably to pretend that it wasn't really his birthday. He seemed to hate it whenever anybody tried to actually be nice to him. In fact, Terra had been almost surprised to hear the word "birthday" connected with "Robin." He was one of those people that seemed so much better than everybody else that you wondered if he even had things like birthdays. Because Terra already knew that he didn't sleep unless somebody made him, didn't eat unless he had to, didn't waste time, didn't waste words… And a birthday suggested a birth, which meant that there was a time when Robin had been a child, and that just didn't seem possible.

She shuddered. He was going to be really mad when he found out.

It took Terra a few seconds to realize that Beast Boy was looking at her expectantly—he must have asked her something, or maybe the waiter had asked her something, but they were both staring at her now, so Terra just nodded and murmured, "Water's fine." Luckily, that seemed to have been the right guess. "And can I have some lemons, please?"

I think you'd be the better judge of that, Slade's voice slithered into her brain the minute she'd gotten the words out. Can you?

Why couldn't he ever just let me talk the way I wanted…

"Are you okay, Terra?" Beast Boy was staring at her from across the table, messing with the silverware. She was glad there was silverware. The last time they'd come to a place like this, there had just been chopsticks and she thought she'd starve before she figured out how to use them. Beast Boy had taught her, but he wasn't a very good teacher, and she'd almost wished Robin had been there, because she was pretty sure that he would have taught her right, even if he made her feel like an idiot for not already knowing. She was glad Slade hadn't been there, even though if he had been she definitely would have been good with chopsticks by the end of the meal. As it was, she'd managed to use them enough to eat, but still wasn't very good.

She yanked herself back to reality. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm great. It's…it'll be fine."

"Terra?"

"So—I can't read anything on this menu; what should I get?" Well, she couldn't exactly read it, because some of it seemed to be in Japanese (Chinese? What was the difference, anyway…) but she would have figured it out. The point was the she wanted Beast Boy to order for her. She couldn't figure out why. But it was important that he did, especially because Terra's life was about to explode.

It turned out that Beast Boy wasn't exactly sure about the menu, either, and it took a rather involved conversation with the waiter for him to find something that was "cruelty-free." Terra announced that she was having what he was having and pretended that she knew what she was doing, though she mostly ended up staring out the window, wondering if McKenzie had really destroyed the anthill. He hadn't really ordered for her, but maybe it was close enough. Even though she wasn't sure why it needed to be close.

If Terra weren't so stupid, she would have thought of a better way to handle this than the one she'd picked. But she was stupid, so the only thing she could do was tell Beast Boy because Slade…well, Slade scared her, and every time Terra had to look Starfire in the face she thought about what that drug might have done to her, and what her lifeless body might have looked like. Terra had seen dead bodies before. She'd been the cause of dead bodies before. Crushed under a rock slide so that only a blue-tinted hand was visible. Some guy. Some guy who maybe had a job and a family and a life and Terra had taken all of that away…and she couldn't—wouldn't—do that again.

And Slade had tried to make her. Had whispered in her ear at Bunny Golf that he would make her, would make her do anything he wanted. Who knew what that would be.

Something hitting her face made Terra turn her attention back to Beast Boy, who sheepishly put his straw back in his drink. She picked up the straw paper from where it had fallen onto her blouse, and began folding it into smaller and smaller pieces, forcing a giggle when she realized that he'd probably done it to make her laugh. He was so great at making her laugh—this didn't count because Terra was upset, of course. How long before Slade asked her to…to….

They were going to be mad. They were. But maybe mad was better than dead.

After dating someone for two months, you'd think that you'd be able to avoid the horrible silence that comes with sitting across from the other person with no clue what to say, hoping that your food would arrive so you actually had something else to do that didn't involve failing at conversation. Truthfully, they usually did manage to avoid it, but Terra's mind was swimming right now, and usually they went out with the others. So she was glad when the waiter brought their food, though the relief faded somewhat when she realized that she wasn't quite sure what it was.

"So it looks…kinda like seaweed wrapped around some really grainy marshmallows…it's not gonna bite me, is it?" Terra was known for eating anything, but after her body had finally believed that her food supply wasn't liable to be taken away at any moment, she'd become a bit choosier in what she put in her mouth.

"Naw, it's sushi," he said. "Cruelty-free sushi."

Terra paused with her hand halfway to her fork. "That's not, like, raw fish or anything, right?"

He gasped extravagantly, fixing her with a scandalized look of false horror. "What do you take me for?"

"Just making sure." Terra giggled. Oh well, it can't be weirder than Starfire's cooking. "…Hey, this is actually pretty good."

She let awkward silence seep back into the air again, only slightly less awkward than before since now at least she had something to do with her hands. Even with Terra at a loss for words and trying not to fidget nervously in her seat, Beast Boy was absolutely, obliviously happy. It made her hands shake. And she felt her heart in her throat when she wondered again—how much longer before she was asked to do something she couldn't get out of?

Will this be the last thing he ever eats?

"Beast Boy?"

"So you like it, right? When you said you wanted to go out, I didn't really know where but we always eat pizza so I thought maybe something different would be better…"

"Umm…Beast Boy?"

"I mean, not like pizza isn't good or anything, but—"

"Beast Boy!" Her cheeks got hot when she realized how loudly she'd said it.

An invisible switch was flipped behind his eyes and they lost that harebrained, mischievous glint before you could snap your fingers. Terra never yelled at him. Ever. He had the look of someone who had just swallowed the wrong way but didn't want anybody to know it.

"I've gotta talk to you," said Terra.

He stared down at his plate. "Well, we're talking now, aren't we?"

"No, not that kind of talking," she said. Liquid fear settled into her belly.

"Oooh." Beast Boy grimaced. "You do know that the thing every guy is afraid of most in the world is to hear their girlfriend say that it's time to talk."

He was preparing himself for something, and it was almost-probably the exact wrong something. "Oh no, no, not that kind of talking, either!" she said quickly, reaching across the table to touch his fingers. "Beast Boy, I'm not so stupid that I don't realize how lucky I am, y'know."

He blushed and looked at his plate again, though this time appeared even less interested in what was on it. "I'd say something, umm, witty, but I'm too busy being flattered."

Everything in the whole universe was perfect until she remembered why it could never be perfect, why she could never be happy, not unless she told. And she was pretty sure telling would ruin everything, too. Her throat constricted when she thought about him, the faceless reminder of what she was bound to. She'd never even seen what he looked like. There was something wrong about that. There was something wrong about all of it.

Tell the truth, just tell the truth. She wouldn't do it for herself, couldn't do it, but maybe, just maybe, she could do it for Beast Boy. Terra was not going to murder her boyfriend. She just wasn't. And even if it meant him not being her boyfriend anymore…well, no matter how awful it would be, it was less awful than him being dead.

I have to do this; I've gotta. No. More. Lies.

"Babe, you okay? You've been acting kind of funny all night." His voice was jammed somewhere between embarrassed-beyond-belief and concerned-beyond-belief. He squeezed the tip of her index finger gently. "You know…you know you can tell me anything."

Hopefully. "I do have to tell you something." It came out in a rush of air.

"Okay, well I'm lis—"

"Not here!" She whispered it, fighting down the panic, ignoring his looks of confusion. Hopping down from her chair, she grabbed him by the hand, much more forcefully this time, dragging him behind her to the back of the restaurant. Right past their waiter who started to ask them if everything was alright but didn't get very far, past the tiny fountain with a bunch of pennies at the bottom, because she couldn't say it right out where anybody could hear. Who knew what they would do. Besides, you couldn't say Slade's name out in public. It was a curse, it was evil, it was like saying "Bloody Mary" to the bathroom mirror twelve times, you didn't do it…

"Terra what in the name of…okay, I am so not going in there!" he yelped, twisting out of her grip and pointing accusingly at the door she had led him to.

"Oh yes you are!"

"But Terrr-ruh, that's the girls' bathroom!"

"Yes, yes, and nobody's in there, and that's a good thing because nobody can hear this, Beast Boy you've gotta do this for me, please just come on…" She could feel the panic, fizzy and electric, growing and twisting and threatening to cause some serious problems. Terra couldn't remember the last time she'd had trouble with controlling her powers, but she knew enough about herself to sense when the dam was threatening to break, and if she didn't make it stop, it was probably going to look like some giant McKenzie had thought the restaurant was an ant hill.

He tapped his finger against the crook of his elbow, eyes screwed up in a very good imitation of physical pain. "Do you have any idea what the guys will say? Do you have any idea what Raven will say?"

"Please." She hadn't meant for that to come out as wobbly as it did.

Beast Boy sighed. "You had to pull the voice, didn't you…fine, but if I see any…girly stuff, I'm so out of there."

He opened the door with the look of a guilty grave robber and Terra gave him a strong shove to his back because he wasn't moving fast enough, scooting into the bathroom behind him after looking over her shoulder at least six times in every direction. It wasn't that she actually thought Slade was watching…okay, it was totally that she thought he was watching. If he could tell when Terra was eating tomato soup, he could certainly tell when she was about to betray him.

Once she had shut the door, the electricity under her skin started to fade and her body became her own again. The bathroom was small, with two stalls and an ivory sink and it smelled like cheap flowers. Somebody should really clean the mirror. It was all cloudy and had soap stains everywhere. A broom with most of its bristles missing leaned forlornly against a corner. Thankfully, the place was actually empty, but she wasn't taking chances. Terra picked up the broom and jammed it through the curved door handle, bracing it against the sink. It wouldn't stop the person she really wanted to stop, but it would keep everyone else away, at least.

Beast Boy had his eyes firmly locked on the middle of her face, determined to look at his surroundings as little as humanly possible. He fidgeted nervously as he watched her barricade the door. "Umm, here's a better way, if you want." He pulled something out of his pocket, opened the door a crack, and then closed it again with the thing beside it, squeezing it into the space right above the lock just before Terra realized that it was a penny. Beast Boy grinned. "Fourteen years of locking people out of stuff pays off."

She bit her lip and tried not to check for Slade's face in the mirror. That would be worse than Bloody Mary. Way worse.

"Ter, what is the deal? I…you…you didn't have to lock me in the girls' bathroom just to make out with me, y'know."

The corner of Terra's mouth twitched but she didn't laugh. "I have to do this quick, before I get too scared to say it. But first…you've gotta promise me something; no, you've gotta swear it—you've gotta swear on whatever is really important to you."

"Okay," he said quietly.

She started pulling at a snarl in her shirt. "…because if you hate me, that's okay, and if you want to take me to jail, I guess that's okay, too, but you've gotta promise that no matter what I say, you won't leave me here."

"Terra, I'd never…"

Clenching a trembling fist, she cut him off in that high pitched, wispy voice that you used when you would be shouting if you weren't trying to be very quiet. "Swear it, Beast Boy! Swear on Cyborg, Raven, Robin, Starfire. Swear on their lives that you won't leave me here, or I can't tell you." If he wanted to take her to jail and make her do community service like Kitten, that was fine, because scraping gum and dodging vomit sounded like paradise compared to being left alone waiting for Slade to find her.

His mouth hung open slightly, not in a jaw dropping way, just as if he had forgotten to close it at some point in the conversation. Some slow, sticky seconds trickled by as he stared blankly at her, and she waited, wondering if she'd have to run. "I'm not going to leave you, that's just crazy…but really, what's the deal? It's just a restaurant…"

"Do you swear?"

"Yes, yes, I swear! What's going on? You're scaring me, Terra."

She considered. She had made him swear before, and things had gotten very messy because of it, but he had never really told: she wouldn't be here with him tonight if he had actually done it. Believing him made sense, and it was all she had left now. Either that or…the other thing. And she did not want the other thing. She took a deep breath, and thought that maybe she understood why McKenzie's brother didn't want her to poke the anthill—it was so full, twisting and writhing with thousands of bodies beneath the surface, and you'd never know to look at it, but once you pressed too hard with that stick, it exploded and you could never get it back the way it was. But for better or worse, right now she was going to have to be McKenzie, so she let the words crawl out of her like a thousand black ants.

"Okay. Beast Boy, I lied to you. I lied to all of you."

"What did you lie about?" He was amazingly calm. He even stepped closer and reached for her arm, but she pushed him away.

"No, don't do that, you'll wish you didn't. I—I…I lied about everything. Everything," she said miserably, hair falling into her face. A thought occurred to her. "Everything except you, I didn't lie about that. I really do like you, Beast Boy, so please don't think I don't."

"Alright, I'm really confused," said Beast Boy.

She grabbed a lump of blond hair between each fist, just because she wanted something in her hands. "Slade, okay! I've…been working for…Slade." It felt like tumbling off a cliff to say it.

Beast Boy had been meaning to say something else, something that was probably reassuring and dismissive, but it never came out. He opened his mouth, then closed it. He swallowed. Three times. The name hung in the space between them, making the air thick and hard to breathe. Slade could do that. Even when he wasn't around.

And then, finally, "You're a week early for April Fool's, you know."

"But it's not, it's not April Fool's and it's not funny—oh my god, none of it's funny at all—I spied on you guys, I told him stuff, I did stuff with him, and I pretended to be sick 'cos he wanted me to meet him, and poor Starfire brought me soup for nothing, don't you remember…and I don't even like tomato soup!" Terra didn't realize she was crying until she tried to get a breath but couldn't. She didn't realize Beast Boy was holding her until she tried to take a step back but couldn't.

After awhile, the words he was saying started to make sense. "…can help you if you'll just tell me why, and what about tomato soup?"

She tightened her arms around him briefly before shrugging out of his embrace, noticing that he let her go without much protest. "Forget the soup." Staring at a roll of toilet paper on the floor so she wouldn't have to look at his face, Terra made herself keep talking. "It's just what I said. I lied. I worked for him. I stole stuff from you guys and gave it to him—I did so many bad things…and I'm sorry. I am. You said you wouldn't leave me here though, you swore, please, he'll—he'd…umm…"

"What would he do?"

She had to say it all; she couldn't just pick the parts she wanted. Anthills didn't work that way. "He'd do the thing I already did and shouldn't have done but I did it anyway. 'Cos I did things with him. Bad ones. Those kinds of things."

His face clearly indicated that he did not believe things could possibly get any worse. "What…"

"That. I did that."

"Huh?"

"Sex." And for just a moment, Terra was back in her room the morning after, looking into her mirror and making herself say it out loud for the first time. "I had sex with Slade."

There were so many things on his face that she couldn't even begin to figure out what they were—she wasn't good at emotions like Raven, wasn't good at anything. "You—you—did you want to?"

"I don't know!" The tears and the panic returned full force. "I didn't, but I should have, and it was terrible—everyone says it's good but it's not, don't believe them; maybe I wasn't even supposed to tell you 'cos it's a secret, but nobody said it was a secret, but it must be or everyone wouldn't think it was good!"

"…Terra…"

"I…I…sorry…please…didn't mean…not supposed to…" She hiccupped. "Help me." Terra looked at the floor. Shame had a tart, pungent taste. Like blood.

Beast Boy's face seemed to twitch uncomfortably as if he were having an argument with himself, then he reached out to Terra and grabbed her hands. She hadn't even realized how badly she was shaking and didn't have the space to be embarrassed. He had a soft look in his eyes that meant he kind of wanted to hold her again, but knew that it was not a good idea. "You…are insane. Insane, Terra, do you understand that?"

She nodded like a toddler being told to eat her vegetables.

"And maybe I'm even more insane for even thinking of suggesting this, but I think you need help, not Slade."

"We're not finished discussing what you did to my friends. But I guess that can come later." He could really sound stern when he wanted to, but there was some element of sympathy in the way he held her hands. His grip wasn't like Slade's at all: she caught herself before she entertained thoughts of whose was better.

"So…what do I have to do now?"

He released her hands, crossing his arms over his chest and sighing with finality. "Tell the others."

"I can't…" One glance at his eyes stopped the protest. "…'kay. Beast Boy?"

"Yeah?"

"Am I going to be bad forever?"

He turned away, began coaxing the penny out of the door. "Let's just go tell the others, Terra."

In other words, yes.

Even the hallway looked angry. At her.

It was still early enough when Beast Boy led her into the elevator, without speaking, without even looking at her. Robin hadn't cared that they'd be late, anyway, had seemed grateful that they weren't making a big deal out of it. The short walk to the living room felt like forever, and she wondered if this was what criminals felt like who were being led to their execution. But it wasn't. They couldn't execute her yet without a trial or anything, that wasn't fair; even though she was guilty, it would at least give her some time to prepare herself for it. And then the automatic door slid open too soon and she was face to face with the thing that had haunted all her nightmares for months.

"I have located the correct remote for use of the DVD player!" Well, somehow Terra hadn't expected her worst nightmares to take the form of Starfire with her head under the couch, but close enough.

"Guys? Terra has something to tell you."

"About time y'all showed up," Cyborg said cheerfully. "We were about to give up—"

"Guys," he repeated, small and solemn in front of Terra. "Seriously. This can't wait."

From the look on Robin's face, he'd heard the desperation in Beast Boy's voice before anyone else did and was out of his seat before Terra could blink, seeming almost glad to have a problem. Right. Because he was always fixing problems. Except he couldn't fix this one. Not this time. "What happened, Beast Boy?"

"It's alright, you don't have to get up." Beast Boy took Terra's hand loosely, leading her over to the couch to stare like an idiot at four confused superheroes. It certainly didn't look like a party; nobody had decorated or anything. Robin probably hadn't allowed it. Of course, the living room was about to seem way less like a party. "Like I said, Terra has something to tell you. All of you."

He let go of her hand but stayed next to her, a small comfort that Terra was glad for. "You guys, I…umm…I need to tell you something."

"Yes, we gathered that," said Raven, who finally convinced Robin to sit down again. Their hands were almost touching.

Sitting together on the couch like that, the four of them almost looked like some really insane version of the Brady Bunch. Terra started twisting a piece of her hair, focusing on the way it curled up around her fingers, pretended that what was about to come out of her mouth wouldn't ruin her life, tried to keep the air in her lungs because she needed it to speak. "Sorry. And umm, first of all, I'm sorry. Really, really sorry. I really do like you guys, and I didn't want to hurt you, or whatever, and I'm sorry."

"It's alright, kiddo; just tell us." If only Cyborg knew how not-alright it was.

She took a deep breath. "Well, it's about…Slade." She imagined that Robin flinched back slightly—but she didn't imagine it when Raven held his hand.

The other words she needed wouldn't come, so she had to wait until Starfire spoke up from the arm of the couch, "What about Slade?"

This was it, and she had to tell, and Terra couldn't stop the pitiful sound that was somehow coming from her, and she definitely couldn't think of anything to say until Beast Boy supplied, "Tell them, Terra."

So she did. She had to. "I…I lied. Slade was…I did…I've been working for Slade. And I did…stuff with him. Like, really bad stuff. Like, did stuff you know?"

When no response came, Beast Boy sighed. "What she means is—"

And before she could even think of what he might put on the end of that sentence, Raven was on her feet, eyes flashing crimson with sudden recognition, righteous fury. "I know exactly what she means. That's it. You did, didn't you?"

"Umm…did what?"

"You slept with him," said Raven. She strode towards her, punctuating each word with another, ferocious step. "You slept with him, didn't you, you dirty whore? And you weren't sorry. You weren't sorry at all."

"Was too!"

"Now you're a lying whore."

"But I—" Terra didn't say anything else after that, mostly because she was crying, mostly because Raven's fist had connected with her face and she could have sworn that she'd felt her nose break, and Raven wasn't stopping, was hitting her and screaming every bad word Terra knew and a few that she'd never heard of…and suddenly, finally, it stopped. Well. Raven was still screaming but she wasn't hitting her anymore, and when Terra opened one cautious eye she realized that Cyborg was holding her with her arms pinned behind her, dragging her away from Terra, face grim.

"Raven!" he shouted. "You have no right to accuse her of something like that!"

"The hell I don't. I knew she'd done something. I knew it." She tried to twist out of his grip but Cyborg held her tightly, which Terra was grateful for. But the next words out of her mouth were almost worse than being hit. "Admit it any time you feel like it, but you'd better do it quickly if you want to use your voice, because I'm going to tear you apart—and I think I'll start with your vocal chords."

"Get a hold of yourself, Raven," said Cyborg fiercely, shaking her. "She didn't do that, right, Terra?"

"But I did!" Terra sobbed, cringing away and trying to hide behind Beast Boy, who wasn't a very good hiding place because he wasn't big enough. "I did and I'm sorry and it was bad and I didn't like it and I was wrong and please, please don't kill me!"

And Raven would kill her, Terra realized. There was nothing Cyborg could do about it once she decided to use her powers, she'd kill her like she almost killed Slade at the hospital, and Terra kind of wished that Raven had killed Slade at the hospital, because then at least none of this would have happened.

"Do you even comprehend what you've done? Do you comprehend what he did? Are you so stupid that you don't even know what 'comprehend' means? Cyborg, let me go!"

"No!"

Poor Starfire didn't know which way to turn, looking from Terra to Cyborg to Raven and back again, pain plastered all over her face. "Please, we must not fight each other! Nothing will be accomplished with such…"

Then, somehow, Terra wasn't looking into Raven's blood red eyes anymore, because somebody else was looking at them for her—Robin, standing between her and Raven, breathing heavily and looking ready to pass out. "Stop it—Raven, stop it now!"

Raven stopped. Completely.

"This isn't Terra's fault," he said, and Terra felt a rush of gratitude. It was the first thing she'd heard all night that she liked. "…It's mine." Raven started to say something that probably wasn't very nice, but Robin interrupted her. "It is. I'm a horrible leader not to have known this would happen, not to have protected her. Guys, I know how Slade manipulates people. That's all this was, and I didn't stop it when I should have."

Robin turned to face Terra then, and she saw him flinch away at seeing her face—maybe it was because he was disgusted with her, only with what he said next, Terra didn't think it could be that. "I'm so sorry. You didn't deserve this. It's…it's all my fault."

But that was wrong, it had to be, Robin was good, he was so good, he put everyone before himself, always—there was no way this could be his fault. So Terra put her face in her hands because he was just trying to make her feel better and it wasn't working.

Starfire started to tell Robin that it wasn't his fault at all, but Beast Boy had other ideas. He stepped away from Terra slightly, glaring at Raven.

"Robin's right. He did the same thing, Raven, the same damn thing. He lied to us, he stole stuff for Slade, he even fought us. And I don't see you hitting him, huh?"

Cyborg had relaxed his grip on Raven after she'd stopped struggling, so she was able to twist an arm away from him, almost grabbing Beast Boy by the shirt but missing. Her words didn't miss, though. "If you ever compare Robin's sacrifices to that whore's fucking Metal Face again…"

"And you will not speak about Terra in such a manner!" Starfire's raised voice made Terra cringe, and when she snatched up Raven's wrist, Terra was too shocked to continue crying.

"Guys," Robin interrupted weakly, as if his last outburst had taken all the strength he'd had left. "I—I need to leave."

Beast Boy gaped at him. "You can't—"

"We'll handle this as a team when we can all address it rationally." He looked meaningfully around the room. "Without hitting, screaming, or name-calling."

"You can't just go leader mode on us now!" Beast Boy was back at Terra's side, and when she reached for his hand he didn't shove her away. Thank god.

"I just did, Beast Boy," said Robin. He turned to Terra, his mask seeming a thousand miles wide. "Until proven otherwise, this is on my shoulders, and you're still one of us."

"I'm sorry," said Terra miserably.

"It's okay. Cyborg, take her to the infirmary and get her face taken care of. I want her contained there and kept away from any computer, though. No offense, Terra. Everyone else, drop it until tomorrow."

Terra didn't want to be locked in the infirmary but the idea of Cyborg taking care of her face didn't sound half bad, because it was really starting to hurt…and Cyborg had been really nice the last time, when she'd sprained her wrist.

"I'm not dropping anything until—"

"Raven. Tomorrow." He met her incredulous glare evenly. Terra thought that he was going to be in a lot of trouble for telling off his girlfriend. Even if his girlfriend had just punched Terra in the face.

Cyborg, for one, seemed to think that this was a fantastic idea, and let go of Raven as soon as Robin got her to promise that she wouldn't attack anything. Gently peeling Terra away from Beast Boy, he began to lead her out of the room without a word. Beast Boy started to follow but Cyborg shook his head. Terra thought that was for the best. She felt like she could talk to Cyborg right now, if she could talk to anyone, but not Beast Boy. She'd said what she needed to say to Beast Boy and somehow—somehow it hurt too much to think of saying any more.

"That hurt?"

Terra held the ice pack to her cheek, leaning back against the pillows carefully. "Uh uh. Not as much anymore."

"Good," said Cyborg, turning away from her to clean up. He hesitated, then said in a rush, "I need a blood sample, too."

She blinked, putting her arms instinctively behind her at the thought of a needle. "Blood...?"

"Yeah. I'm sorry, Terra, but I have to."

"But—But why?"

He hesitated, then said softly, "Because you said you slept with him. And that means there's some tests we need to run. Have you—" his voice broke off, and she thought he was blushing, but couldn't be sure since his skin was so dark. "Have you started having your menstrual cycle yet?"

Biting her lip, she shook her head. She'd researched afterwards, when she'd thought maybe she was pregnant, so she knew what he was talking about. And she knew the blood she'd had wasn't it.

He nodded, looking relieved, and gently extracted one of her arms and tied a rubber cord around it. "Then you almost certainly can't have gotten pregnant yet. Um. When. Did it happen, I mean. Or if it was more than once, I need the first and last dates."

"It was only once," she whispered, not sure what he was talking about, feeling her blood pulse against the cord. "Um. It was a couple weeks ago. Maybe like a week after the fight. You know. The one at the hospital."

He nodded, and poked the needle in her vein, and she looked away, biting her lip. "Long enough that something could show now, then. We'll have to do a couple more over the next few months. It could show up to six months after."

"What could?" she demanded, frightened now, as he took out the needle and swabbed her arm with something and then put a big square Band-Aid on it.

He shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I mean, he's probably clean. He seems way too paranoid to catch anything. We're just being on the safe side."

"On the safe side of what?"

"HIV. Hepatitis. Did he—was it unprotected sex?"

She blinked, confused. "Who would protect it?"

This time she was sure he was blushing, and it would have been funny if she wasn't so scared. "Was he wearing a condom?"

"I don't-- I don't think so. But they're—they're like diseases and stuff, aren't they? You think I got a disease from it?" she asked, trying to remember what she'd heard about the words he'd said earlier. They'd never seemed like they had anything to do with her before, so she'd never paid much attention.

"Probably not. We just have to be on the safe side, right? Just till I say we're clear, if you bleed or anything, make sure you clean it up, wrap up whatever you clean it with in plastic and throw it away, okay? No bloody tissues in the trash, don't touch anyone till you've cleaned with soap and water and it's bandaged. Even if it's just like a paper cut, don't leave it uncovered, okay?"

She stared at him, barely able to breathe. "What's wrong with my blood?"

"Probably nothing! Just if it is something, you don't want to risk passing it on to anyone else, okay? I'll have the preliminary results for you tomorrow, but like I said, it can take up to six months to be completely sure. Don't worry about it. Just -- just be careful if you bleed, okay?"

She managed a jerky nod, feeling the blood pulsing through her veins, knowing it was poisonous, dangerous, something to fear. How could anyone think that sex was good?

He nodded. "Okay. Seriously, I'm probably just being paranoid. Anyway, I guess that's it for now," he added, moving towards the door. Reaching it, he paused. "Look, I'm sorry about having to keep you in here and all that," he said hesitantly. "It's not that we don't trust you…"

"It's just that you don't trust me," Terra finished. The way Cyborg looked over his shoulder with that…guilty look made her feel like maybe it would be okay if…if… "Cy, can I ask you something?"

"Sure." He placed something in a biohazard bag, then removed his gloves and tossed them in, too.

"What's gonna…happen to me?" She almost choked on the lump in her throat, dissolving into a puddle of coughing until Cyborg offered her a glass of water.

He sighed, pulling the blanked up to her waist. "I'm not sure how to answer that, kiddo. I don't want to make promises I can't keep."

"You guys aren't gonna…punish me, or whatever, are you? Like, hurt me and stuff?" Or kill me.

"Are we going to—no, we're not going to hurt you! Jeez, Terra!"

She looked up at him, trying to believe him, cheek throbbing where she could still feel Raven's handprint. "Oh. Well…that's good, I guess."

"Look, I can't say for sure what's going to happen tomorrow. A lot of that will be up to Robin, you know. But I think you should know him well enough to know that he'd never condone anything like that, alright?"

"Condone…?"

He smiled. "It means he'd never agree to it."

Well he could have just said that... "Oh. Okay. And Cyborg?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm really sorry. Like, really. If that helps." She rolled onto her side, facing the wall. "…At all."

She felt his huge hand on her shoulder. It could practically cover half her back. "It does, Terra." Cyborg settled the blanket under her chin, getting up to dim the lights. "And I know you are."

Terra squeezed her eyes shut as the room went dark, covering her ears with her hands because she didn't want to hear the lock clicking. But she heard it anyway.

It's my birthday today! Reviews are the best presents. ;)