Disclaimer: Nooooooo!

I wrote this chapter in one sitting. Oog. My poor arms. Yay! You only had to wait a week! I'm not so terrible, am I? Enjoy! This one jumps around a bit, but remember, this story doesn't go in order of the times the events took place, so…yeah, you know.

I'm sure you already know, but I think I forgot to mention it in the other chapters and I wanted to dedicate some special space in this intro to the glorious fact:

Weee, Garfield Logan and Raven Roth are an official couple in the original Teen Titans comics. Yay for smoochie-face! (:

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We didn't speak of the incident for a very long time. I think he wanted to go on believing I only kissed him out of deliriousness, but I never did know if he truly believed it at all. I just wanted to pretend it never happened when I was around him, pretend I didn't even remember, and I was fairly successful at this campaign. As you already know, we were never exactly comfortable around each other, so the others didn't suspect anything if we began acting even more awkward together. I don't know if we did. I was far too busy trying to convince myself that I could keep control ever myself when I was around him. I remembered far too many times as I lay awake at night or as my eyes flickered to him as we all sat in the living room, the warmth of his silken green lips, the soft, desperate, hot spark that ignited at that first second that our lips met. It was so hard not to remember, all those moment, the various times when we had been near to each other. I had always felt that subtle spark. Had he ever felt it? Did he know I felt it too? Did he ever feel it too? These questions and moments of remembering his closeness threw my mind regularly into disarray.

I threw myself into meditation on a regular basis, hoping it would help but knowing instinctively somewhere deep inside that it wouldn't. And so, I became even more pathetic than I had been before. My life suddenly consisted of meditation, basic human needs, and Beast Boy. There was nothing else. I started out with thinking about how badly I wanted to avoid him, and then pretty soon decided it was impossible, since we lived in the same Tower together, and then my thoughts went to concentrating on hoping that he didn't know how strong my feelings for him were. And so eventually around seventy percent of my thoughts began to center on him. I told myself over and over that it was a pointless crush, that nothing would ever come of it. I reminded myself constantly that we would never, ever have feelings for me back. How could he? I was pathetic. The way I handled situations was ridiculous. Everything about me was pretty much the opposite of what the average teenage male finds appealing in any way shape or form in a girl. And yet, despite all my internal struggle, despite all common sense, despite everything logical in me, my feelings for him continued to grow. The feelings intensified, to frightening levels that I didn't think were safe or possible for me to feel. And eventually it came to the point where my crush bordered on an obsession. And being the determined person that I am, obsession is a very dangerous thing.

I'm the kind of person that, when there is something I need, I will go to any levels to get it. If my friends are in danger, I am willing to go as far as it takes to get them out of it, even if it means going to extreme measures (namely: going demon on whoever or whatever is causing the threat) to save them. Because of this facet of my personality, I've always been constantly compared to Robin. I don't know if it's Robin or me who dislikes that more. But there is one difference between Robin and I. Robin's personal struggles are never exactly…well…secret. No matter what he does to try and keep them under wraps, they always seem to end up becoming a public display (just take his obsession with Slade, for instance, and all the hell it caused through those earlier years). But my struggles are mostly internal. I fight my battles inside with little help from anyone else. I can only think of a handful of times when they actually came out into the open, like the situation with Trigon or my little incident where my secret phobia for horror movies was revealed. And so I wage a constant inner war over whatever problem I happen to be facing and handle it on my own as long as I can. And so this was also the case now. My problems and issues with my feelings raged on behind my calm, collected façade just like they always did. It wasn't any worse than any other situation I'd handled, but for some reason it bothered me more.

A crush, for me, was one of the worst possible things that could ever happen. I like to be in control of my life, of myself, and of everything that affects me in some way. With a crush…well…it was something I couldn't control. In any way. It was just there, something I couldn't stop, something I couldn't change. It was like my own emotions were taunting me, hiding behind a wall and laughing as I repeatedly rammed the wall, trying to bring it down and destroy them, rip every single bit of this newfound tender emotion into only tattered memories of what I had once felt. I wanted him, but I resented it. I needed him, and yet I constantly wanted to deny it. A crush was something I couldn't stand being in the midst of, though I pretty much gave up on fighting it after a very short time. A crush meant change. A crush meant some part of you, while those feelings existed, was not the same.

I haven't always hated change. I'm one of those people who goes with whatever happens with a shrug and an indifferent nod. I face change with little concern…on the outside. But, as time went on, after the defeat of the Brotherhood, change became something that terrified me inside. There was one point in the long, grueling final battle that changed everything, changed everything for all of us in a more subtle way than the situations that this story focuses on. Though I said my feelings for Garfield were the beginning of the changes, that's not entirely true. Because during that battle we were all changed in a different way. A way that didn't really impact our futures, but it definitely impacted my thinking. There was a time during that battle where everything seemed completely hopeless. We had all been separated, initially to distribute communicators to potential honorary Titans all over the globe. We discovered that the Brotherhood was watching our every move…well, Robin discovered it. And so he cut all communication to foil further attempts by the Brotherhood to track our actions. And so there we were. All links between the Teen Titans were officially severed, we were dispersed in separate locations all over the planet, and Robin had been kidnapped and taken to the Brotherhood headquarters by Madame Rouge.

We were all so alone, so separated, and it was at that point that I later learned that all of us had doubted whether we were ever going to see each other again. Things had been bleak during the final battle with Trigon, but all of us had someone there with us, someone to keep us filled with hope that we could succeed and everything would be alright. And so we had been able to go on. But not this time. This time we were all alone. We had no way of knowing what was happening, or even if each other were alive. It was at that point when I almost shut down and lost it, at that time when Garfield went through a bit of an identity crisis, that point when Cyborg doubted his position as a superhero, and at that point when Starfire, for the first time I've known her, lost all sense of hope. I remember being a nervous wreck, sitting there and staring at what had once been my communicator but was now just the plastic shell and a small pile of the shattered mechanical parts that had been inside. I knew it wasn't going to work, that Cyborg wasn't going to send me any more briefings and Robin wasn't going to send me any further instructions, that Garfield and Starfire's periodical check-ups on my safety were no longer going to come crackling through. But I couldn't let it go. I had sat there, tracing the shape of the white T on the front, the symbol of the Teen Titans, who might all have been dead for all I knew. There was no one left to fight, I had no idea where to go, no more instructions on where to come and help in battle. It was hopeless. I had tried for hours to reach another Titan telepathically, but none were close enough. All were in different continents. I had been sure that I would never see them again.

And so now, the thought of change makes me queasy to some degree. The point when I almost lost them scares me even in a memory, and makes me want to keep everything the way it is and never change, makes me never want to let them go. Which was why this crush, this whole situation, made me very uncomfortable. The series of changes swept around me, altering things left and right, and making me wish I could make time stop again for one glorious moment and hold onto the things I had left that had not changed, that I doubted would ever change.

I found myself frequently remembering frequently how wonderful that reunion between the five of us had been after our long separation. I remember how I had found my discarded section of the T-ship somewhere among rubble of battlefields. It had been lying there for quite some time, since I hadn't visited it since I landed it when I went to assist Mas and Menos in a battle against Johnny Rancid a short time after the initial separation. The ship pod had depressed me at first, but then as I had climbed inside, just for somewhere to go, I had found something that didn't seem to possess the marks of being there long. It was a small red, round contraption imprinted on the front with a familiar letter T. Cyborg had fashioned new communicators for the five original Titans to find some way to keep in touch, with a different frequency than the old ones so that the Brotherhood had no way of tracking us, and somehow found some way to assure they were placed somewhere we would find them (Robin never found his, since he was at the time in the Brotherhood's main base). It had been taking a risk, leaving them out in the open, but we all managed to get them. I had tuned it on and it locked on Starfire's signal. She had told me the place we planned to regroup. I was thrilled to hear her voice again. I was off to the chosen meeting place as fast as I could go.

Garfield was the only on there yet when I arrived. He had pretty much broken my spine jumping on me, completely happy to see me, squealing in an almost terrifying manner and squeezing me so tightly I thought my spine might snap. He had clung to me, petting my hair a little, and for once I hadn't minded in the least, I was so genuinely happy to see him. And for once, I had actually hugged him back. And then Starfire had shown up, and there was more squealing and danger of broken spines. My back was sore from all the glomping by then, but I couldn't find it in me to mind too much. The sight of my friends' faces had been so wonderful to me that nothing could have made me want to express any discomfort. And then Cyborg had emerged, and given us the grim news of Robin's abduction. That had sucked the joy out us pretty fast. But, when Garfield had managed to track down the base and we had gotten Robin out and unfrozen Hot Spot and Wildebeest before at last engaging in that final battle that decided the fate of the war. I don't think we've fought with such intensity since. There was a kind of spirit, a kind of energy, that strengthened us all, something about just finally being together again, just fighting as the Teen Titans, united once more. We were unstoppable. And we tore down the Brotherhood from its foundation and left them with nothing, the Brain destroyed (and Mallah, at my own hands, since I had a personal grudge against him since the whole situation when he tried to harm Melvin, Timmy, and Teether), and nearly every other person involved with the Brotherhood had been sent to prison on various sentences. And the war was finally over.

And so now, things went on in a general pattern for some time, a pattern that I became accustomed to. I was constantly thinking of him, constantly trying not to think of him, no matter what thought went through my mind, it seemed to always have something to do with Garfield. Or would you rather I call him Beast Boy? Okay, Beast Boy, then. Whatever. But he was always on my mind. In my thoughts. In my dreams, no matter what the nature of the dream was. Being close to him in dreams was always nice, always warm and safe, but it was nothing like being close to him in real life. The more I dreamed of him, the more I longed to be close to him again. It was a feeling, when I was near to him, that I couldn't possibly begin to explain. It was something warm, tender, and complete. Something that I could never fully understand but enjoyed immensely. I couldn't help but love the memory of those few, precious moments in his arms. I always recalled those times throughout the years when he had graced me with random hugs that I had always secretly enjoyed, though I had always told him to quit it. And so these dreams made it even worse, even more unbearable, that I couldn't have him. And sometimes I could barely stand it. I needed him so much, and I didn't think he would never need me back. All of those things that made it so impossible to live so far away from him while we lived in the same building nearly drove me mad.

It was one night that I had awoken from one of many dreams of Beast Boy that I discovered that music was coming through the wall between my room and Robin's room. Robin frequently listens to music late at night, and none of the other Titans were bothered by it, seeing as on the left side of the Tower, Robin and I had our rooms, and then there was the bathroom, and then on the right side of the Tower, since the two groups of bedrooms sandwiched the Mainframe Room (though living room sounds much cozier), were the other three bedrooms. And so I was the only one constantly bothered by Robin's morbid obsession with staying up far too late and researching, and I continually had to go and tell him to turn off the pulsing heavy metal music that blasted from his chambers. This night, it was only soft, faint guitar music with no lyrics, which surprised me, and I figured he was either changing his taste in music or losing his mind, and suspected it was the latter. He had left his door open, and so I went in to make sure he still had all of his limbs attached , and was surprised to find that the music was coming not from a stereo, but from a guitar Robin was holding.

"What's with the Ben Moody act?" I asked. Robin didn't jump, and I wondered how he knew I was there.

"What?" he asked.

"The guitar," I explained, leaning against his doorframe, which indicated to him that I wasn't going to stay very long.

"Oh yeah. Well…I have to practice up…I just joined a band," Robin said with a bit of a shrug.

This surprised me…Robin has never seemed like the kind of person who would be musically inclined. "A band?" I asked him. He nodded.

"Yeah. Why is it so surprising?" he asked with another small shrug, acting like the Boy Wonder deciding to undertake a musical endeavor was a perfectly normal thing.

"I don't know. I guess I never would have really thought you would…you know…ever do anything in your spare time that didn't involve…Slade," I said truthfully, knowing he wasn't dense enough to be offended by something that made perfect sense. Some people would get fired up, but he wasn't one of them.

"I didn't either back then. But…times are different. I was just getting restless. Needed a change," he explained patiently. There was that word again. 'Change'. I winced a bit. Robin noticed. "What?" he asked.

"Nothing. I just hate the concept of change. You should know that by now." he definitely should have. I think all of us had come to dislike it in some small way since what had happened with the Brotherhood.

"Come on, there's something else that's bothering you, too. What is it?" he was attentive now. When you let Robin know something is wrong, he'll do anything in his power to make it better, and so if you're thinking about not telling him…well…you're thinking wrong. Despite how many things I had managed to withhold from him in the past, holding back was pointless now, because Robin knew I was his best friend and therefore he had license to prod until I told him what was bothering me. The whole Trigon thing had strengthened our friendship a lot…and it was almost creepy how he seemed to know how I thought.

I was always reluctant to confide my problems in anyone, but this was Robin. Pride didn't really matter when you were talking to him. He was just…Robin. I don't think there's really a way to explain it. So I sighed and caved. Sort of. "Well, Starfire was talking to me earlier. She…she has this huge crush on someone but she doesn't want him to ever find out because she knows he'll never have feelings fr her in return. I wasn't exactly sure what to say. What do you think I should tell her to do?" I was the expert at shielding situations. Ha. Sarcasm.

Robin sighed, gently strummed a few more chords, and then set the guitar aside. "Raven, if you have feelings for Beast Boy, and you really want a chance with him, just tell him how you feel. What's the worst that could happen?" he asked. Damn him and his knowledge of how my mind works!

"Any number of unpleasant things could result from my telling him," I argued. Robin gave another sigh, this one laden with exasperation.

"But none of them would be permanent. Sure, it would be pretty unpleasant if he rejected you, but you'd get over it. And at least you'd know. Just tell him."

I smirked. "Wow, and this whole 'tell him' nonsense is coming from the boy who's had a hopeless crush on a certain Tamaranian for almost two years now and hasn't even made an attempt to tell her?" I asked.

"Touche, Raven," Robin said, obviously unable to think of anything to say in his own defense. "I just….well, Starfire and I's situation is…different."

I smirked again. "How, exactly?"

"Well…maybe we're just not…ready for any type of relationship right now. " he knew I wasn't buying it, and gave another sigh, though this one was filled only with exasperation at himself rather than at me. "Look, I guess all I can say is that you should learn from my mistakes and just tell him. Who cares if rejects you? It's better than being afraid of saying how you feel." he picked up his guitar again, comforting himself with a few floating notes before once again giving me his attention. "Believe me. Anything is better than hiding how you feel."

I nodded. "True. But…I just…I don't want to tell him…he's never going to have any feelings for me, so what's the point, anyway?"

Robin gave a small moan of frustration and rubbed a hand over his mask where his eyes hid. "Raven-" he said.

"This discussion is over." I said, using my best final tone. "But really, thank you for listening to my problems. Goodnight, Robin." and I was gone before he could hound me about telling Beast Boy anything any further. I settled back into bed. Robin's guitar playing continued, and it didn't bother me now, it was just like if someone you live with snores. Usually it bothers you, but there are those select nights when it's more reassuring than annoying, because you know that at least someone is there. It makes you know you're at home and not drifting off somewhere into space.

Even though the sound of the guitar was comforting, I couldn't fall asleep. Something in me wouldn't allow my mind to rest, though my body was aching for rest. One downside of possessing my powers is that the body and mind are, at times, completely separate entities, having wants and needs totally independent of one another. And so there I lay, awake but craving sleep and wakefulness all at once. Finally, the sound began to lull me to sleep. But Robin's advice was reluctant to let me rest. The whole idea was ludicrous. Beast Boy would never, ever feel anything for me besides that awkward bond of friendship. I could never even make any kind of move to progress beyond anything other than that…could I?

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I'll try to write more within the week, but if not, I'm sorry (;