Chapter Two: Dream A Dream
Cyborg held the newspaper about three feet from his face- It wasn't that he couldn't see it, but he liked to have something to hide behind, something to divert his attention from their different, angry leader, who was talking to Starfire without much enthusiasum of a concept that she had no doubt failed to understand. Normally it would just be busy work for him, something to do- The paper had never connected with anything of importance.
Perhaps that was why he was so caught off-guard by the photograph featured for a human interest article- Even though it was black and white, he could feel the violet eyes drilling into him in all their expressionless apathy, see the hair moving even though the girl in the photograph did not move.
Dressed in a simple black cloak that covered whatever she happened to be wearing, holding a small notebook, Raven stared back at him next to the lenghty text. "Although the interview is not actually with the young author known only as 'Saphire,' the mysterious poet sweeping the nation, we managed to gain an interview with her publishing manager, who...'
Cyborg scanned the article rather than actually reading it. "Are the rumors of connection with the Teen Titans true? Is she actually Raven Roth from the Teen Titans?" It said that her editor had 'declined to comment,' although he had smiled when he said it. The rest of the article was drabble and speculation, though, and he quickly skipped it and prepared to fold the paper up, to put it in a safe place.
Robin snatched it from his hand before he realized what was happening. The picture had caught his eye, and then he had been drawn in. "Cyborg, it's Raven! Where is she? What's she been doing?"
Cyborg sighed, standing beside Robin while he read the article. "So she's been hiding from us... Cyborg, do you think we could find her?"
"Are you sure we'd want to?" Cyborg asked, the words coming out before he could stop himself. "I never stopped caring for her, but if she didn't want to be found then everything's obviously changed." He crossed his arms over his chest and held out one hand to take the newpaper back, but did not recive it. Robin had turned on his heel and fled the small room.
Robin made his way up the steps to his room with the clipping instead. "Why didn't you want to be found?" He whispered to her picture. "Why don't you want us to find you?" He sighed.
"Is it really that important that you hide from me? Do you just not care or..."
"What are you hiding?" He turned to the window, which yeilded no response, and looked out over the grey afternoon with contempt and pain. "Where are you?"
Raven Roth stood in front of a man's desk. As he played with his black ponytail, his five foot seven form seemed to shrink slightly in her angry presense. In one grey-tinted hand she waved the Jump City Times, the other rested on his brown-grained wooden desk. "What," she hissed from between clenched teeth, "Were you thinking?"
"Babe, the public loves you. It's not like I actually did anything, just gave them an author picture of you. I'm building suspense for you, Saphire." He waved one hand, hoping she'd see his point and also lower her voice, because the office in which he worked was no place for her to be screaming.
"You've BLOWN my cover by sending this to Jump City!" She hissed at him, fighting to keep the temper and her anger under wraps for fear of the other people in the office. "I don't care WHAT your reasons are, you need to get back in line and protect my personal information like I asked you, unless you want me to pull my publications out of print and shread my contract!"
Normally the publisher might have taken her hand at this point, but seeing as one was balled into a tight fist that she had brought down upon his desk and the other was still shaking the Jump City Times, he was powerless to do anything but shake his head and sigh. "Listen, babe..."
He was quickly cut off. "Don't call me babe," Raven spat. "Don't you understand anything I ask you not to do, I have my reasons?"
"Saphire," he hissed with growing aggrivation, "You can't keep throwing these fits in my office. You're going to break things and get us both thrown out on our heads..."
"I'm not just another job, Robert, and you realize that. So don't threaten me!" She paused for a second. "Just because you have devotion to this job is no reason to endanger the job. Understand that." She scanned the article again. "And why did you have to hint them back to the Teen Titans, of all things?"
"I didn't hint back," he replied rather snidely. "They came up with that all on their own." Robert moved one hand to take the paper from her. "Besides, fans will go crazy at the tidbit from the new poem I put in there."
Raven's eyes were full of horror when she saw the texted words. "Where... Where did you find that!" She asked him, still struggling with the pain of her emotional anger, longing to lash out at Robert and tell him what an idiot he was.
"Your notebook, among the scraps pile. I remember you telling me that if it was marked 'scrap' I was welcome to it, yes?" He asked with a smirk. He hadn't violated anything this time and he knew it, plainly knew it by the expression that seemed to say, I've won, Raven.
She turned on one heel and left without another word. "How could I have been so stupid..."
The hole in the wall hardley did her misery justice. Robert settled back and began to correct several more poems, self-satisfied, for publication. "Saphire... More like a Diamond, that one. Money maker..."
...Two birds wings beat as one,
But the song of one is miles away.
There's nothing that can be done now.
Nothing we can do or even say.
Mistakes were made and one flew astray.
One little bird lost off the path.
The words are silent with all that we sing,
There's no reason to cry, to whisper, to laugh.
And so the little bird leaves the sorrow behind,
But one becomes the sorrow they hate.
There's nothing to do, to say, to breath.
So I suppose when the wind comes we sit back and wait.
Once, twice, three times Robin read it over, but he could make no sense of the words before him except what he had never known- He missed her, and he needed her. And perhaps she wants to see me again...
"I will find you, Raven."
"I will."
Raventhedarkgoddess: R+R, please. I'm sorry that the update took so long.
