Chapter Ten: Memories

Robin sat there by the light that was a red glow of nothing, the light above the door showing him the way out of the room where he sat alone except for her fallen form, staring. He wanted so badly to touch her, or at least to speak, but nothing would come past the hard lump formed in his throat.

"Raven..." He finally managed to choke out. "Raven, how did I... When did I... Why did I..." He fell silent for a moment, staring in the oppisite direction. "Why did I let it happen?"

He looked back at her face, which had obtained an other-earthly glow that scared him under the demonic look of the red light. "Why..."

"It's just like last time. I let you down. Just like last time, I let you down."With that,he tried to turn his head from her to hide his shame, but it was as if his face were stuck facing her and he could barely blink for fear that in her fragile state shewould fall away from him. "I... I'm so selfish, I let you down..."

"I let you sacrifice yourself for me. I let this happen. Raven, how... Why were you ready to forgive me?"

He sounded as though he were preforming some sort of half-crazed monologe, but still Robin continued to let the questions pour from him, never removing her from his view, never letting himself look away, imagining her amysthist eyes staring back at him with an accusing quality as they so often had in his dreams.

Even despite this, she looked so, so pale and helpless...

Was that my mistake? "I never should have thought of you as helpless in the first place. Then you wouldn't have left, wouldn't have had something to prove, and..." He paused, swallowing the lump in his throat that was fighting to reform, but he dare not let it because that would stop him from talking, and the words felt important, as though they were leading him up to something of great importance.

"And you wouldn't have ended up this way."

Even as he spoke the words, his whole being knew them to be true. "It... Raven, I'm sorry. I know you can't hear me, but I'm sorry." With that being said, he put his head down into his hands and was silent, the first of many teardrops spilling from behind his mask, down over his green-gloved arms, and onto his bare skin.

It shimmered in the light and he found himself looking over at it. It reminded him of a time of hellfire, when Raven had been alone and he'd wanted nothing more than to help her out. Well, I didn't help this time...

Or last time.

The thought itself must have had an ability nothing else had, because for the first time since the incident, still so full of a new pain, Robin began a flashback to the events he had tried to shut away for so long, bringing one of Raven's hands to be held in his, unaware that she was, at that very moment, lost in tossing and turning dreams outside her control of the very same thing.


"Another incident... Robin, Slade's been painstakingly active in this area lately. We really need to be careful this time. He's started to kill people more frequently, and everything... Well, from Rae's calcutations, doesn't look good. He wants something from at least one of us." Those had been Cyborg's words that night as the alarm went off in Titan's tower, the indictator on the screen in the shape of an 'S'.

"Yeah, I know," he had said, waving his hand arrogently, "But more people are going to die if we don't go. Titans, move out!"

The ride had been, of course, like any other. It was once they got there that it began to mess with their entire world.

Slade had delievered some corny one-liner that Robin couldn't remember, and he had responded with something equally bad before yelling the phrase that, from there on, made the memory seem to him like it was happening all over again. "Titans, go!"

He remembered the sting of the rain, the cries of his teammates as they fought back with everything they had, and of course, even the way the wet pine trees had smelled. They were on the outskirts of the city, and the battle spread to the forests easily. It had been there that the fatal moment had come.

"Say whatever you like, but you're not getting away, Slade!" Robin had yelled. "Capture him at all costs, Titans!"

All costs. Those words would, of course, make a huge impact on the team and cost him happiness for a long time.

Slade had then drawn the knife as he saw Starfire and Beast Boy coming towards him. "Do you all want to go down this way?" He had asked, mockingly smirking. "Do you all want to go down and then let me walk away, or are you going to do something about it?"

That was when Raven had stepped forward. He could still remember how she looked, head thrown back in the rain and the wind catching her hair, intensity in her every movement. "Don't you dare harm my friends," she said quietly. "You're going to have to go through me for this, Slade."

Slade didn't seem to change in expression at all, but instead turned and started to run. And run. And run...

"He's getting away! Titans, capture Slade at all costs!"

The Teen Titans had taken off running in all directions, Robin following Raven so that they could double around and cut them off, but he lost sight of her floating form and found himself running straight, running straight...

Tripping.

"I knew you'd come," a voice far above him had mocked. "I knew you'd come to fall by all my power."

"Shut up, Slade." And he had tried to rise, but hadn't been able to rise, and so he fell back down to the ground,struggling to cover his face with only one thought: Is this it?

And that was when Raven had latched her arms around Slade, keeping him back, and in all the confusion Starfire ended up at his side, but then...

How it happened, he would never know. But Raven's hands slipped, and slowly, slowly, a knife came from nowhere and, although Robin thought he could reach out and stop it, cut deep into her stomach.

Slade got away, dashing very, very quickly. "I'll be back, Titans."

And that was when he had begun to yell. "How could you let him get away? How could you? How could...?"

The rest of the days went by in a whirl, from Raven standing to her wounds healing to him screaming at her to her leaving. And when she left...

That chunk of his heart had disappered. And just when he thought he had gotten it back, it had been taken away from him again.


All my fault...

"But I'm going to set this right. I'm going to set this right if it's the last thing I do." He kissed her forehead, trying to ignore the warped look of her face.

"Everything's going to be fine. Everything's going to be fine. Everything's going to be..."

What's the point?

"Fine." Even as he whispered the word, he couldn't stop the tears from falling down over his face, and so they lay there, glistening on their intertwined hands and Raven's face.

It's not fine...

Raventhedarkgoddess: Um, R+R, I guess. Nothing much to say, love you guys!