At the north pole their existed a little known cave in the Arctic Circle. Only a few people on Earth were aware of it's existence, which was fortunate, for it was a natural wonder of the world, and were the general population aware of it, it may have very well been destroyed years ago.
This cave was unique in that it led into an underground cavern, miles beneath the surface of the Earth. And it was this cavern in truth, that was the real mystery and wonder. It was a place that time had truly forgotten, a self-contained ecosystem that remembered the days when Earth had seen the mighty thunder lizards roam it's surface, long before man had ever come to walk in their place. How it was possible for such an ecosystem to exist, none could say. Perhaps heat from volcanic fissures below the surface warmed the cave enough to allow the growth of plant-life, and the reflection of such fissures off the crystal-like ceiling overhead simulated sunlight. And perhaps, just perhaps, there was magic at work, that made it all possible. It was one of the great mysteries of our world.
Dinosaurs lived down here, as did all manner of exotic plants and animals both big and small. But of primary interest were it's two unique residents, metahumans with strange powers and honorary Titans.
Our first was Gnarrk, a caveman from an era long gone, frozen in ice and revived centuries after his old life, now content to live in the underworld, content to live away from the modern world that confused and terrified him. And the second was a young girl named Kole with the power of crystal within her very body, who had quit the modern world that sought her for her powers, eking out a simpler existence with her best of friends, Gnarrk.
Today, the two were exploring a recent change in their underground home. A shift in the blocks of ice above their heads (the result of global warming melting the arctic circle, though they did not know it) had caused a cave-in to the southeast of their tree home. Out of curiosity, the two had gone to investigate it and see what they could find.
What they -had- found had amazed them.
And this was from two young people who had fought off supervillains and regularly hunted long-extinct dinosaurs for their dinner.
Immediately, Kole had done what she felt best under the circumstances… she called her friends, the Teen Titans. Hearing that something odd was going on in the Arctic Circle, they had promised to send aid as soon as they were able. That aid arrived later that very same day in the form of a teleporting sorceress in a blue cloak, the enigmatic Raven.
"Gnarrk!" greeted the cave-man politely of the same name, though he did so safely behind the much smaller form of Kole. Technology and magic alike both continued to scare him.
"Hi Raven," said Kole, the bubbly, pink-haired girl not afraid in the least as she made her way up. Raven nodded her head to the greetings, shrugging off her hood.
"Nice to see you again, Kole… Gnarrk," she replied, her voice flat and emotionless as always. She could have been sincere, probably was, but it was always hard to tell with Raven.
"We're glad you came, this is really something you need to see. You especially Raven," said Kole, leading the way as the merry threesome headed off on the trail towards their discovery.
"Gnarrk," agreed the caveman with a nod as he knuckled his way along after the two girls.
"I fail to see what it could possibly be of any interest to…" said Raven, and then her voice caught in her throat as they reached their destination. The cave-in from earlier hadn't really collapsed onto anything, it had shifted aside to -reveal- something. A something that Raven instantly recognized, though she'd only seen it once before, in one of her books.
"My god," she swore.
"Yeah Bee take care… no really, you're welcome… yeah I had fun too… alright, later…"
A click, and the phone was hung-up. Or rather, turned off, since it was built into his left arm and short of removing the appendage it was impossible to get rid of.
Natural part of being unnatural.
Still, it made driving a lot easier. Which was fortunate, since Bumblebee had chosen to call him in the middle of Jump City's rush hour, and the streets were overflowing with vehicles of every shape and size. Drivers weren't too pleasant either, and more than once Cyborg had been cut off by some angry worker hoping to get home and unwind. Ah well… once he got to the bay he could make much better time. Not many cars had built in rockets, after all, like the T-Car.
It had been an eventful week for Cyborg, who'd been spending some time in Steel City with the East Titans, helping upgrade their security systems, though that had mostly been a pretense. Since things had quieted down in recent years, it had been easier for the core five Titans to relax and pursue more leisurely activities. For Cyborg, that meant seeing his friends in Titans East. Speedy, Aqualad, Mas y Menos, and especially Bumblebee.
He'd even been introduced to a new member of the team this time around, the horn-blowing Herald.
Bumblebee's boyfriend.
Easy-going and friendly guy that Cyborg was, when he'd been introduced, he'd reached right up and shook the man's hand when they'd met. He'd been alright, in his own way. He was a shy, quiet sort, but that made him perfect for the louder and more confident Bumblebee to boss him around. No outsider could possibly be confused as to who wore the pants in -that- relationship.
He was happy for both of them.
At least, that's what he'd told them, he mused as he parked the T-Car in the underground garage of Titan's Tower, alongside the R-Cycle and the B-Ped (still needed repairs, he noted). And perhaps he was happy for them. They deserved one another. And after all, Cyborg and Bumblebee had never worked out quite well in -that- way. For one thing, they were too competitive, too bossy with each other, too stubborn. They'd gone out on a couple of dates but those had always ended awkwardly. And Cyborg suspected he knew why.
Sarasim.
She'd been his first real love. Jinx had been a harmless crush (well, not harmless maybe) and Bumblebee was just a friend, but he'd never felt as strong as he did about anyone than he did about Sarasim.
Another sigh. Artificial lungs had no need for oxygen the way a full human's did, but the effect was the same. A gesture of sadness. Sarasim was gone… had been gone for millennia. Even though they'd won the battle against Krall, it hadn't made any difference. Not really. He'd been glad they'd won, of course, good triumphing over evil and all, but sometimes he wondered what was the point?
"Does anything we do really matter?" he wondered aloud as he walked down the corridors towards his room. Long years of being the Titan's odd man out (Robin and Starfire were head over heels for one another, and Raven and Beastboy were a couple whether they admitted it or not) had brought him into the habit of talking to himself. It helped to think aloud, sometimes.
"Do we really make a difference with what we do? Or in the end, when all is said and done, is it all for nothing?"
"Gee," came a deadpan response from a side-corridor. "And here I thought -I- was the depressing one."
"Hey Raven," said Cyborg as he passed her by, barely giving her a nod to acknowledge her presence. "How'd things go with Kole and Narrk?"
"GN-arrk," she corrected him. "And it was… well… interesting actually. Uhm… Cyborg…"
"Yeah?" he said, coming to a complete stop and turning to face her. Raven looked as if she had something important to say. And with Raven, that could range anywhere from they were out of herbal tea to it was the end of the world. Cyborg braced himself.
"We… well… we have a guest. It's someone I think you'd like to meet."
"Oh, who? Fixit? Spike?" he asked, rattling off the two best guesses he could think off of the top of his head. Neither dropped by frequently, but most of Cyborg's close friends could be counted on both hands… with fingers to spare. And all of Titan's East were still back in Steel City.
"They're waiting in your room," said Raven, in an uncharacteristically rushed voice, grabbing a hold of Cyborg's arm and hauling him down the corridor after her. "I really think you'll want to meet them right -now-," she added enthusiastically.
Cyborg quirked his one remaining eyebrow. This was getting weirder and weirder by the minute. And it got even weirder when Raven didn't follow him into his room to introduce their guest, instead letting the door seal shut with him inside and her outside. Really, with Raven you got an off day here and there but this was beyond weird.
"Hello?" he said. The room was dark, he hadn't bothered to power-up the lights yet. However, his infra-red optic sensor showed him that a warm body, humanoid, was standing just beside his work station. Whoever it was, they jumped when they heard his voice, turning to face him.
"Cyborg?" came the voice. A voice he recognized instantly. A voice he needed no machinery in his skull to tell him exactly matched the pitch of hers. But… no… it was impossible. Yet… he'd seen the impossible before. Could he dare to hope?
"… Sarasim?" Click. The lights came on.
There she stood, a radiant vision of beauty and elegance, clad only in a simple loincloth that clung to her body like a second skin. Sky blue eyes, jet-black hair, richly tanned skin… she hadn't even aged all that much. She looked almost the exact same as when Cyborg had last seen her.
"Sarasim?" he asked again, instantly running a self-diagnostic to see if his core processor wasn't breaking down.
Immediately it was cancelled as she stretched out a hand, placing it lightly on his right cheek, the one still composed of human flesh. And he -felt- her. Not registered a touch, the way the rest of his body did, but really -felt- her.
She was real enough for him.
Raven, having lingered outside of Cyborg's room long enough to ensure everything was alright, immediately made her way to the living room. She did not need to be an empathy to sense that both Cyborg and his guest were going to want to be left alone for a long, long while.
Which means she had to break the news to the rest of the Tower's residents that they'd just gotten a new guest.
So it was she arrived, book in hand, in the living room of Titan's Tower. And because of Gnarrk and Kole's earlier alert, the Titans quickly dropped what activities they were doing so they could listen to her report.
"What'd you find, Raven?" asked Robin, all business-like as usual.
"It's… complicated," replied Raven after a moment, sitting down on the couch. "Suffice to say Titan's Tower is going to have a… a guest of sorts for a while."
"Really? Who? Where? Is she pretty?" asked Beastboy, plopping down onto the couch beside Raven, asking the last question with an exaggerated waggle of his eyebrows. Inwardly, Raven smirked, though outwardly she grimaced. Sometimes she wondered about that boy.
"I don't know her name, she's in Cyborg's room now, and I'm fairly sure she's spoken for…" remarked Raven, answering his questions in rapid fire, just as he'd asked them. Long years of living with Beastboy had kept her wits sharp, if nothing else.
Sensing the other Titans wanted some elaboration, Raven laid the book down on the coffee table before them. With a quick gesture the book's pages glowed black and obediently flipped open to the correct page.
It depicted a victorious battle of armored warriors, triumphant over a scaly-green giant, who now lay under the boot of a warrior-princess with sword upraised.
"That," said Raven, tapping the image of the girl, "is who Cyborg's guest is."
Beastboy managed to neatly sum up the collective Titan's thoughts in a single, short phrase.
"Dude...!"
"It's… just so amazing you're here…" said Cyborg. "I… I didn't even know what'd happened to you."
Sarasim smiled gently. "As was the case with me. You vanished as mysteriously as you appeared, Cyborg. I saw the dark hand pluck you out of the battle… in fact at first I feared it was another of Krall's tricks," she added with a frown.
Cyborg chuckled to himself at that, shaking his head. "Nah… Raven was just… well… she tells me she wasn't able to be delicate about it. Locking onto my position across five millennia and yanking me back to the present…"
His voice deliberately trailed off, realizing he was wandering into technical areas, to say nothing of magical areas, that Sarasim would have no understanding of.
"… I'm sorry I wasn't there," he said.
Again, that gentle smile came, and she rested a hand lightly on his mechanized shoulder. "You were there when it mattered, Cyborg. Without you, we might have lost the war... but we were victorious, and no small part of that we owe to you."
"That means a lot," he said. "I… uhm… do you want anything to drink? You must've walked a long... I mean…"
Again, that gentle smile. She knew Cyborg was a man of action, not words, as was evident now, when he did not seem to know what to say. It did not matter to her. She knew and accepted it. Even liked that part of him.
"No, I am fine… I merely wish to sit and talk…"
He indicated the stainless steel table he used for his night-cycle repairs. It wasn't much but Cyborg's room was somewhat lacking in ways of furniture. At least, suitable furniture for people who didn't have cybernetic enhancements. And that became abruptly apparent when Sarasim grimaced as she sat down on the steel bench.
"… it feels like ice," she remarked idly, tracing the side of it with her finger. "You truly rest upon this?"
"I… don't… don't feel cold as much, anymore," he replied reluctantly.
"Ah, because of your armor," she said, with sudden understanding.
"… yeah… because of that."
A momentary awkward silence descended upon them… Cyborg, who did not like to speak of all that he'd lost because of the accident so long ago, and Sarasim, who could never comprehend any of it at all.
"So how did you get here?" asked Cyborg, changing subjects as he sat down beside her. "I wasn't aware of any temporal taxis you could've hailed."
She laughed softly at that. She didn't understand the joke, but she did vaguely recognize it -as- a joke from his body-language. "It is… a long tale," she replied.
"I got time. And if I don't, I'll -make- time," he added emphatically, placing his hand over hers gently.
She smiled, and the tale poured forth from her lips, as she recounted all that had passed since the Great Battle, the defeat of Krall, the empty months afterwards, the eventual decision to leave behind her people, the witch, the journey north… and then finally, the end of her long journey. Where Raven, with her knowledge of mysticism, had figured out how to awaken her in Gnarrk and Kole's hidden underworld. Then Raven, recognizing her, had brought her to Titan's Tower.
"I have traveled many leagues to find your home," she said as she finished with her tale. "To find you, Cyborg," she added, more softly, her bright, sky-blue eyes gazing up into his, unflinching as they regard both the warm gray orb of humanity and cold red gaze of machinery. Most people could not look into Cyborg's other eye and not shudder, at least a little. Sarasim did not. She looked past his eyes… to his heart and soul.
Neither knew what they were doing, neither was really thinking… and perhaps that was for the best. They were letting emotions and the magic of the moment guide them, as Cyborg reached down and cupped Sarasim's slender chin. She tilted her head up, and he leaned forward. Their lips met… gently, simply, tenderly… and in that moment, both realized just how much they had missed the other… just how much their lives were… incomplete without each other. They were two halves of the same whole.
How long that kiss lasted, neither could tell.
And neither really cared.
Author's Notes:
Someone pointed it out a while back, that it seemed unlikely Cyborg would've understood the language of Sarasim's people (English having not even been invented at that point in history). My counterpoint is the use of English amongst spare-faring aliens like the Gordanians. It's a plot hole common in Teen Titans. Go with the flow. There won't be any explanation for it here.
I -was- originally planning to end the story right here, but frequent and positive feedback has inspired me to write more. I apologize in advance, however, for any plot-holes that develop due to a lack of planning ahead. That said, stick around, things are about to get a lot more fun. Oh, and I bumped the rating up a notch too. Bam!
Yomiori-Wolfdemon: And to think I was trying to branch out of Teen Titans into other fanfiction… but damnit if the series doesn't draw me back in. And yeah, lots of people never liked that episode, but damnit if it's not one of my favorites.
Jimmy the Gothic Egg: Admittedly, this couple -is- harder to write about in the animated series, but when I was browsing fics earlier, I did not see one single fanfic about Sarasim! Besides, both Jinx and Bumblebee are cool, but I see them with other people (sometimes each other).
SxStrngSamurai13: Oh you will see, believe me.
Todd fan: Yes, yes it is very sweet.
Koriand'r Star: Actually because of all the reviews I'm getting, I'm planning to extend it into something more meaningful. Wish me luck.
Ray1: Seems nobody did, nobody even seemed to notice her, I can't find a scrap of fanfiction or fanart about her anywhere. That, to me, is unacceptable.
Blackbird: Oh I could never disappoint my loyal readers. Torment, yes, but never disappoint. I'd toyed with the idea of making this a one-shot, then a two, now it's evolved into a fully-fledged story.
Ultimate R-Man: Best pairing indeed, and yeah, he has, but that's because none of them seem to last very long, and the best one was close to impossible (until I came along). But yes, whatever the reason, ideas are coming, and stories are writing themselves.
Comet-hime: On occasion Sarasim will get mentioned in a story, but usually compared to Bumblebee. You can put down the sticks, Princess, I promise on the grave of my writer's block I will continue to write more.
