Disclaimer – I don't own squat.

Warning – Nothing really in this chapter. Do you need warning of Death?

Other – Last chapter. Thanks for reading. It's been real.

Reviews? I would still appreciate getting some.

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Star was in bad shape.

Cyborg had no other way to put her condition.

Beastboy's hands were stained red from her wheezing.

Robin felt that he was being punished for mistreating Raven.

And Raven, Raven was still unresponsive to her friends. She vaguely knew Star was in pain, but her own senses were overwhelmed with the urge to meditate. But she wouldn't let herself do that. Meditating would be admitting to that she thought she was actually a Reaper.

So the three boys had to watch as their girls collapsed and there wasn't a thing any of them could do.

Two days of this stretched on, and Raven was beginning to lose sleep. She could no longer close her eyes without seeing images of Star lying in the hospital room waiting for a death that just wouldn't come.

Finally, if only to get some sleep, Raven settled on a chair in the infirmary, eyes fixated on Star's slack face, and began to meditate.

Almost immediately, she fell out of herself.

This couldn't be happening… could it? She shook her head; no this was a crazy hallucination caused by insomnia and lack of sleep. So she decided to see where this dream was taking her.

It took her to standing over Star, hand raised like a dagger. This was one messed up dream, she chided silently. Her hand dug into Star's chest, pulling out what she assumed was a soul. Acting upon her memories, however fake they must be, she tucked the soul into a small bottle.

She returned into herself, ignoring the flat-line beeping of the heart monitor connected to Star, and walked to her room. As far as she knew, all that happened was her going crazy again. She stored the bottle in her closet and collapsed on her bed, exhausted.

Robin burst into her room half an hour later, waking her up.

"How could you, Raven?" His voice was cracking and harsh.

"What?" She rubbed her eyes. Her dreams and experiences were getting too hard to distinguish. Might as well write this one off as a dream, too, and she muttered, "I'm really sick of this dream already."

"You aren't dreaming, Raven. You took her!"

"Who? Wait… you mean Star? I dreamed earlier that I took her soul. But that was just a dream. I can't really, you know, reap souls."

"You can, too." Robin ran to her closet and saw a solitary bottle lying on the ground, "This is Star's soul! Give it back!" He pulled on the cork top, unable to yank it free.

Raven felt a headache coming on, "We've gone over this, Boy Wonder. I, Raven, am not, and I repeat, am not a Reaper."

Robin threw the bottle on the ground and began stomping on it; for a glass bottle it was incredibly resistant to attacks. Raven took it in her hands, "I don't know what's in here, but I'm not opening it."

Cyborg rushed into the room, looking panicked, "Star's… she's not alive, but she keeps thrashing around."

Raven and Robin stared at each other before dashing down the hall. Beastboy met them in front of the hospital room.

"I'm not sure you should go in there," He laughed nervously, "I thought all those horror movies would get me ready for something like this…"

Robin barged past him, Raven tailing him closely. They stared jointly at their unstable friend. Her arms and legs were pinned down with leather straps, so she wouldn't hurt herself anymore.

Cyborg tapped a few buttons on the console, "All her internal injuries are fine, now. There's nothing physically wrong anymore, except being dead. And it doesn't explain her movements."

Robin stared at the bottle, "Raven, open the damn bottle."

"No! I told you! It's all just lies! It never happened…" Her voice became more and more uncertain as she kept speaking. This was one horrible nightmare.

"Ok. So it won't hurt to open the bottle."

Raven eyed it with distrust, "It's not going to help… Star's gone…"

Robin put the bottle in her hands, "Please, Rae, just do it."

Sighing deeply, Raven tugged the cork free; the soul wriggled out and zipped into Star's mouth. Raven fell to the ground in a faint.

As she went down, Star's eyes opened.

"What has happened to me? I feel as if have been squashed by the rolling truck." A hand flew to her head.

"Star!" Robin stumbled to her side, "You're ok."

She nodded, "Yes, thank you for asking Friend Robin." Glancing around, Star spotted Raven on the ground, "Why is Friend Raven on the floor?"

Beastboy gulped loudly, "Don't know…"

Using extreme care, Robin put Raven on one of the free beds.

"She was helping you and then she fell over. I hope she's ok… She's been through a lot."

Cyborg ran a quick scan, "She appears to be in top shape, so her break down was completely emotional."

"I was afraid of that," Robin released the bitterness he had been holding in, "I did this to her. I was so afraid that I had done something bad that I blamed the first person I thought was acting suspicious. And now she may never forgive me."

Star's normally cheerful face was solemn as she responded, "She may never forgive any of us, Robin."

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Raven sat by the window, despondent. She didn't know who, or what, to believe anymore. It had seemed so clear two months ago. And now… Now she couldn't figure out if she was supposed to be a hero or a mental patient.

The other Titans had gone on with life after Starfire's deathly experience, and she had tried joining them on a mission, but half way through, she neared the brink of mental exhaustion as the extreme tug on her midriff intensified and she fell out of the sky. Luckily Starfire had been watching and caught her before she smacked the hard cement beneath them.

She wasn't allowed out with them anymore. Not that she wanted to. Raven was content to sit by her window, in silence, and watch the world change.

Eventually, the tugging had numbed and she barely noticed it any more. Sometimes it grew stronger when the Titans came home from a particularly dangerous mission, but she never even tried to act upon it.

The insomnia had been getting worse, and the sleeping pills she had started taking now didn't affect her at all. So she spent her nights by the window, too.

Her eating had dropped off, too. It was all Starfire could do to force feed Raven a few pieces of toast at breakfast. Raven refused to eat anything other than that. Starfire was getting sick and tired of this irrational behavior.

The last straw came the day when Raven refused the toast completely.

"Raven! You are not acting like Raven! You must snap out of this, please!"

Raven watched a small blackbird soar through the air and felt a strange yearning to be outside in the fresh air.

"If you insist on thinking you are crazy, why do you not accept it?"

The bird twisted and darted around, carefree.

"Star… can you take me to the roof?"

Starfire was startled; Raven had not spoken in weeks, nor had she moved from her spot by the window. Star was overjoyed by this response.

"Glorious! Of course!"

And maybe the fresh air would knock some sense into the dilapidated Raven, so Star half lead, half dragged Raven up into the sunshine.

The sunlight made Star realize just how gaunt Raven had become.

"The sun feels… good." Raven sighed and spread her arms to the sky.

"Friend Raven, please think of what I said."

"Are you suggesting I let myself be insane?"

"If that is what makes you feel better. Was it so horrible to think you were a Reaper?"

"N..no…" Raven stuttered out.

"Then maybe you should let it be. Meditate, calm yourself. Follow your heart."

Raven stared up at the clouds, "I'm not sure if I want to be crazy anymore Star. Why can't I pretend this never happened?"

"Friend Raven, it did happen and you must deal with the consequences."

"I don't think I'm up to it."

"Please, you have to try."

Raven eyed her, full of distrust, "I'll think about it."

Star nodded, "I hope you will try to meditate."

Raven closed her eyes.

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Another story closed. This one won't have a sequel. I like where I ended it. It's up to you to decide if Raven ever becomes truly sane again. Sorry if you love closure, but I'm not into happy endings. I wrote a few endings for this, one ended with Raven dead and me depressed in the corner, one where Raven got better, and me depressed because this story isn't supposed to be happy, so I decided on something in between.

Toodles, Snix.