Author's Note:

I wanted to finish this chapter sooner, but I had to clear my mind first and get a couple of other ideas out. In any case, I hope you'll enjoy it. Let me know what you think!

8. All Hope Lost

It was just a tiny flame, a small cresset of joy and happiness burning with a soft light, dispelling much of the oily, tarry blackness writhing in her soul, its gentle scent driving away the stench of corruption, hopelessness and defeat, its welcoming warmth keeping at bay the numbing, otherworldly cold that had relentlessly enveloped her.

It was not last night's act of love in itself that lit it, quick and awkward as it was. It was not the clumsy, short but sweet passion that washed over both as they tried to position themselves to make up for her almost paralyzed left side. It was not the release, pale in intensity when compared to the times when their bond would multiply and mirror all sensations into each other. Not even the feeling that it was overwhelmingly powerful in other ways, meaning as much as a drink of tepid water to a traveler crossing a desert, or a small campfire to someone alone and lost in a cold, dreary night. It was not that they were finally able to enjoy each other again. It was the consequences of the act, not the act in itself.

She was able to think about it without feeling shame or disgust. She was able to wrap the memory around her soul and bask in the warmth it spread through her. She was able to look back at it with affection, and even more importantly, to look forward to tonight, knowing that they would be together again, knowing that she would once more be able to feel his kisses and caresses without remorse and self-loathing.

Her mind went over the events that preceded it. She remembered falling asleep in Garfield's arms, the soothing feeling of being loved and protected hypnotizing her, only dimly aware of being deposited on the bed and falling into the depths of a deep, painful longing as soon as his touch was gone. In no time the formless, senseless nightmares began again and made her toss and turn in bed, tiny whimpers calling out for him and the soothing sounds of his breathing and his heartbeat, her hand groping blindly for him looking for safety and comfort, her nostrils flaring as she sought to feel his reassuring scent around her.

Jinx's familiar presence drove the panic away, but couldn't calm her anxiety; it took Garfield's nearness to have her finally relax. Still, it was unexpected and poignantly hopeful. It meant that she was able to begin trusting her friends again, and that in turn made her feel less ashamed of herself. The virtuous circle fed on itself and slowly cleansed her soul, closed opened wounds and smoothed out some of its deformed scars.

She felt the same sensation of growing trust again as she sat on the couch with Starfire's arms around her. Even without her empathy she could feel Star's unquenchable joy and optimism flow through her as she closed her eye, absorbing as much of it as she could. Starfire's embrace was powerful but gentle, protective and loving, and her nearness was comforting. Raven's lips curled up almost imperceptibly; it was strange for her to look for reassurance in anyone but Garfield.

Starfire stopped the quiet song that she was humming all that time, making Raven look up at the alien's glowing green eyes. Starfire met her gaze and the golden color of her face deepened as she blushed.

"I have the most inappropriate of the feelings, friend Raven," she said in a contrite voice. "I am singing with the joy that I can hug you and bring you some of the comfort, but it comes at the expense of your ill state."

Another small smile touched Raven's face. "Please don't feel ashamed for wanting to bring me peace and relief, Kori."

"I shall endeavor not to do so," Starfire sighed. "Still, I would have more of the preference for you being healthy and unharmed, even if it meant that you would be avoiding the shows of my affection."

Raven looked down, saying nothing. Her throat felt dry and tight. Fighting the sensation, she finally managed to stutter out what she was meaning to ask all that time.

"Kori, I… I know that you and… I mean, I'd like to… you know, if you want to… talk?" Raven concluded lamely, wishing with all her heart to help Starfire but not knowing how or where to begin. Her friend understood immediately what Raven's convoluted words meant and tensed, her eyes becoming hard and cold as clear emeralds.

"I am a warrior princess of Tamaran!" she hissed softly. "I have done the enduring of much more than the handful of hateful words. I do not have the need to do the talking about it!"

Raven straightened up, disentangling from Starfire's embrace. Her hand grasped Starfire's and her deep, violet gaze sought and held the Tamaranian's green eyes.

"Is this your payback for all the times that I have snubbed you, Starfire?" Raven asked quietly, the sorrow in her voice unmistakable. The tall alien looked away.

"I… offer you the apology, friend Raven. It is just that I…"

"I know. It's hard to let it out," the dark sorceress sighed.

Starfire's voice was trembling slightly as she replied. "I know… that his words came out of… the love that he has for me," she said. "After you… left, we all fell into the grip of the sorrow. Dear –" she cut herself off and bit her lip.

"You can say it, Star."

Starfire's jaw muscles clenched, then relaxed as she took a deep breath and spoke. "Dear – dear Dick, he said he could not feel you any more. He made the conclusion that you were… gone."

Raven remained quiet, all her strength needed to fight the rush of shame and self-loathing that suddenly overwhelmed her. She knew it was her father's influence trying to overcome her again, but she also knew that much of it was genuine. She had hurt her friends with her actions, and she hurt herself by not trusting them. Worse, she hurt him.

"A part of my soul withered that day. Friend Cyborg, he was… he was the strongest of us, and he did the carrying through of all of us. But his anguish was visible. D – dear Dick, he… he made to bury himself into his work."

"That is common for him," Raven said in a neutral tone, still fighting her inner turmoil.

Starfire smiled, her eyes far away. "Indeed. He… became distant." The Tamaranian's eyes turned to Raven again.

"I could not withstand the coldness that he had," Starfire almost whispered. "It was freezing my heart. So I faced him and made the demand from him to tell me the reasons for his behavior. And then he…"

Starfire fell silent, gazing at the floor.

"He said something to hurt you?"

The Tamaranian took a deep breath. "Yes. He said… that he did not… that we should…"

Raven shuddered, then pulled herself together.

"He did it because he wanted to protect you, Star. He was lying, trying to shield you. It was wrong, it was stupid, but it was done out of love."

Starfire lifted her head and looked at Raven. A mixture of love, anger and despair shone in them.

"I know. That is why it made so much of the hurting."

"Koriand'r… I allowed my shame to deprive me of my joy. Those two years will not come back ever. They are wasted, gone, frittered away. Don't make the same mistake. Please."

"He… came to me to give me the apology. I… do not know if I should have the trust in his words, or in him."

"What does your heart tell you?" Raven asked gently.

The smile reappeared on the tall alien's face. She embraced Raven again, minding not to crush her.

"It tells me to give him the second of the chances. It tells me that life has the shortest of the lengths to be wasted on the anger and the regret."

Raven smiled. "Good. You have learned my lesson."

A sly smile appeared on Starfire's face. "My heart also tells me to let him do the stewing for a few hours more. Now I am spending the time with the best of my friends."

Her grip tightened and her soft humming resumed. Raven closed her eye, allowing peace and contentment to fill her again.

"Hey," Raven greeted Nightwing quietly, sitting beside him. "What's on your mind?"

"Too many things," he smiled, not looking up from the floor.

She waited for a few seconds to see if he would open up. Fat chance. She sighed.

"You know, Dick, when I had my empathy, I… You were the only one whose nearness would not irritate me. Not even the bond between us bothered me. Your thoughts were always ordered, your emotions under control, your purpose clear. It was a refreshing change compared to Kori's exuberance or Gar's…"

He finally lifted his head and looked at her, still smiling. "Gar's what?"

She smiled back. "Gar's everything. His emotions were…" she paused for a second, looking for words, her eye losing focus. "His soul used to be a churning, whirling thunderball, his feelings so strong and changing so quickly that they made me dizzy. He could go from playfulness to happiness to affection to care to concern to anger in five seconds." A wistful expression spread over her face. "But there was never hate."

Nightwing nodded. "There wasn't. Was that what attracted you to him?"

The faraway expression disappeared from her face. She looked at him and raised her eyebrow.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised that you figured it out. Yes, it did. It was a potent mixture, an addictive cocktail for me. I had to work so hard to keep my own emotions in check… He somehow managed constantly both to shatter my tranquility and to calm me down, as strange as it sounds."

"It does sound strange. How did he do that?"

Again she looked ahead and her gaze became distant. "He… I could feel though him. As if through a proxy. He was a safety valve for me. I could sense his joy and his pain, his excitement and anger, his embarrassment and his determination; all things that were denied to me, all things that I did not have the luxury to indulge in. I could feel them without fearing that they would unleash the destructive forces that I kept chained inside. And yet that same indiscipline and the seeming carelessness that he exhibited with his emotions irritated me." The right side of her lips curled up. "I think I was jealous of him for a while." Her face became serious again. "That was until I understood why he was doing it. Why he was… allowing himself such unrestrained, rampant emotions. It was the only way he had to… deal with his past."

His hand grasped her shoulder and squeezed gently.

"We all carry a burden of pain. It will always haunt us."

She nodded. "I know. I just wish…" She turned her head and looked at him, a large smile on the undamaged side of her face. "That was sneaky, Richard. Did Batman teach you that?"

"Teach me what?" he asked innocently.

"How to twist the conversation to avoid the unpleasant topics."

He grinned at her. "Nah. I learned it all by myself."

She frowned. "Don't be flippant. I'm trying to help you."

His hand went over hers. "I only needed two words to do it, Rae. Am I that good?"

She shook her head, smiling wanly. "You're right. He's always on my mind, especially these days. I don't know where he and Jinx went, but I miss him from the moment I couldn't see him." She suddenly scowled at Nightwing. "You're doing it again!" she growled accusingly.

He chuckled. "You're just too easy a mark," he said. "OK, I'll man up. Ream me out, throw it in my face, rub my nose in it. I deserve all of it, and a hundred times worse."

She gave him a serious look. "Nothing I could do or say would come even close to what you're already doing to yourself."

He looked down again, his eyes clouding with pain and the smile vanishing from his face. He croaked out a hoarse question.

"Why do we do it? Why do we hurt the ones we love most?"

"If we didn't love them, it wouldn't hurt so much" she said softly.

He remained silent, his eyes looking down, not seeing anything, a burning itch spreading from their corners, indifferent to his effort to blink it away.

"It's a question of trust," she continued, seeing he would not speak. "I failed in my trust to Gar. You failed in your trust in Starfire and in yourself. You must recover that trust. Starfire will be easy, as much as she is angry with you she loves you and she will give you a second chance. But until you find it in yourself to trust yourself, you will suffer."

He remained silent, but he finally nodded slowly. She smiled and touched his hand reassuringly.

"Do you remember when Gar reamed you out for not daring to ask Starfire to marry you?"

He chuckled, his gaze still down. "How could I forget?"

"Live it, Richard. Live every minute with her, every moment that the two of you have. It is all you have. It is all you will ever have."

"Shall I take you to your room, friend Raven? You have the seeming of the great exhaustion," Starfire queried with obvious concern.

Sleep was the farthest thing from Raven's mind, though she felt absolutely drained and her frail body was screaming for rest. "Kori, where's Gar? Did you hear from them? What are they doing? Where did they go?"

Starfire noticed the beginnings of a panic attack and embraced her friend, trying as hard as she could to calm her down. It worked to a point; she could feel Raven's panic go away, but the apprehension was still there, sharp and painful. Her shoulders trembled and she shivered. Starfire hummed softly to her, stroking her hair and calming her further, then took her in her arms and carried her to her room.

"Please to try the sleeping now," she told Raven. "I shall be here until friend Garfield arrives. You have nothing to fear."

"Just… hold my hand, Star, will you?"

"I shall do much more than that," Starfire said and lowered herself beside Raven, embracing her and letting her find a comfortable position. "Rest now. I do not wish for friend Garfield to have the anger with me because I did not take the proper caring of you."

They were just dozing off when a purplish-black portal opened in the middle of the room and four figures stepped out of it. It was difficult to discern in the darkness pervading the room, but she could already sense him, her hand going up to touch and welcome him. His arms went around her and everything was good again.

"I missed you," she whispered, her voice choking.

His grip tightened. "I know. I'm sorry. I brought you someone again."

"Who is it this time?" she asked, looking over his shoulder, straining to recognize the newcomers in the gloom. Her eye went wide. "Theron? Mother?"

"Hello, Raven!" Arella said.

"Jinx took me to Azarath so I could ask your mother for help," Garfield explained. "But she said that only the best was good enough for you, so we went together to convince Theron to come with us."

Theron chuckled. "In my defense, I can say that it did not take much to convince me."

Arella placed a hand on his shoulder affectionately. "It did not. He dropped everything he was doing and we came as soon as we could."

"How soon can we start?" an anxious Garfield interrupted. Theron's smile widened. "How does 'right now' sound?" He received a huge grin in response. Garfield turned to Jinx and Starfire.

"Girls, I don't know if it's a good idea –"

Jinx growled at him, cutting him off. "Don't even think about it, Gar! The only thing you're dragging out of here is our dead bodies!"

Starfire's eyes were already glowing in anger. Garfield sighed. "OK, OK, just don't get in the way!"

"Observe who is doing the talking!" Starfire retorted with indignation.

"Calm down, please!" Arella spoke soothingly. "There is no need for anyone to leave. You can safely stay and watch."

"Watch what, mother?" Raven asked from the bed, still confused from lack of sleep and the simple but powerful joy of having Garfield at her side again.

"Watch Theron heal you, Raven."

Raven's eye widened and turned to Garfield. "How did you… Why didn't I think of that?"

He grinned at her. "Sometimes you're too smart for your own good, love. And probably also because your father's influence is keeping all memories of Azarath away from you." He turned around quickly so that she couldn't see the grin drop off his face, replaced by a scowl. All happy memories, at least. As few as they were.

Theron sat on the bed beside her and placed a warm hand on her forehead.

"Relax, Raven. Just close your eye and think of nothing, like when you are preparing to meditate."

She did as instructed. Theron's hand was warm, and the heat started flowing from his hand into her. She could hear him whisper his own mantra softly.

Azarath… Elthanien… Manaram…

The warmth sank deeper into her. A terrible pain flooded her.

Coldness exploded outwards, dismissive, repellent. A black bolt struck Theron and launched him against the wall. His body slammed into the armored paneling with a sickening thud and crumpled on the floor.

The silence in the room was absolute except for Raven's heavy breathing.