:Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans. The two week old chicken in my fridge is starting to scare me.
:Author's Notes: The point of this story is to take the 'worst' traits in everybody and blow them out of proportion. List:
Tim: Controlling. Kevin: Aggressive. Miranda: Calm. Rose: Slightly unmodest. Jacob doesn't really have one...
Just in case you were wondering.
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Ever Forward: Pain Is Only Real
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We are humans. That means we are often wrong. It means we are hard put to forgive those wrongs in others, and ask forgiveness for it when we ourselves are wrong. But being human means we can at least try.
Perhaps trying is the hardest part. You know what you must say or do, what orders are to be followed and which ones are just plain mad. What causes problems is trying. Trying to win, trying to stay alive. Trying to forgive and trying to apologize.
Being human gives us emotions. It gives us something to add into that long, difficult equation of life. Suddenly it's not just X + Y; it's X, Y, Q. And Q is undefined. Q is subject to far more change than X and Y together- unless you attempt to get rid of Q. Then you lose something far more precious than gold.
You lose that part of you which makes you human.
-Miranda Nicksson, in a letter to Rose Smith
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Rose slammed her hand down on the desk, biting her lip so the furious words wouldn't come spilling out. Three months. Three months in which everything had spiraled downwards, so fast that after their seven years of working together, in three months everything had been lost.
A sharp stab of pain shot through her hand and she lifted it, wincing as she realized that in her haste, she had hit a loose thumbtack. Using her fingernails the woman pried the metal from her palm, watching the blood seep upwards as it filled the hole made by the tack.
"Damn." Oh yes, damn. Anyone who might have heard her say that would have been very surprised. As a general rule Rose tried to refrain from cursing- it screwed up the translations she ran through her head. But the strain was too much. And everything had changed, so why couldn't she?
Tim… A hint of affection came to her mind at the thought of him, until she frowned and pulled out a tissue to staunch the bleeding. The System team had always known that Tim was a good leader; hell, without him they'd all be dead long before this. But what they hadn't known was the cold creature who thirsted for power, and tolerated no questions.
The creature that had taken over the man who she had known for seven long years.
He was so different now! Peeling up the soaked paper fibers, the only woman now on the Force put another tissue on the minor wound. When Miranda and Kevin had broken that unspoken rule, they seemed to have broken something in Tim. Rose had always thought that he had put that 'law' into place to protect himself; she hadn't asked about his life before the System Force.
She hadn't really wanted to know.
But when the leader of your team started going out on hourly missions, dragging the rest of them with him, and almost taking a chilling delight in bringing down rule breakers…
It was too much. Her mind made up, Rose pulled out a pen from behind her ear and got a piece of paper. For a moment she paused, heart wistfully wondering if her message might change him, bring back the old Tim she knew and cared for… and then shook her head, put the pen to paper, and began to write.
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