Not much I have to say. I'm about to board my flight for Orlando, so sorry no Mailbox Time this time. Hope you all enjoy today's chapter!
Updated: August 9th, 2019 1:45 P.M. EST
Chapter Forty-Eight: Healing the Rift
…
"Ugh…"
…
*Gasp!*
Raven opened her eyes and sat up straight on her bed. She looked around herself fearfully. 'Where am I?! What happened-'
Almost immediately, memories started to rush back into her mind cutting off her original thought process. The memories were of being hurt, and of laying on the ground in so much pain. Then of being picked up, going through some light tunnel, blearily watching the house set itself up with trees all around, and then being laid onto her bed before entering a healing trance…
"You okay Rae?"
Everything pieced back together into one clear picture inside of Raven's mind. The fear and surprise drained just as quickly as they had come. Raven took a deep breath. Then she looked calmly to the side.
Beast Boy sat alertly in his chair. He was looking at her and waiting for her to respond.
"How long was it this time?" Raven asked. Her normally dry tone sounding hoarse.
Beast Boy gave her a cup of water, and she gratefully drank it as he talked. "Only a couple of days. Your healing powers kicked in shortly after the home was all set up…" Beast Boy hung his head. "… thankfully." He finished.
Raven finished the cup of water and set it down when she finally saw the old bloodstains on his arms and uniform. She couldn't tell if the blood was hers or his. "Was it bad?" She asked.
He didn't speak. Raven didn't press at first. She instead decided to examine herself. The cuts and burns she had had before looked to have all been healed on her arms and legs. She moved her cape out of the way to look at the skin of her stomach… and found to her surprise that she was dressed in a fresh leotard.
'What?' She thought in confusion. On quick examination, she also found out that she was in a fresh cape too. 'How? I thought they were damaged in that fight-' She started to think.
"Sorry, Rae. I couldn't really salvage your other cloak and leotard…" Beast Boy spoke up.
Raven looked back to him. "You were in the middle of your healing trance, and your powers were trying to fuse your torn clothes into your skin… and you had already looked bad enough… so I had to… I was already afraid you wouldn't make it, and when your clothes started to fuse… I had no choice." He stumbled before finishing.
'Oh gosh. Please don't have Rae kill me for this.' Beast Boy mentally begged inside his mind.
Raven stared calmly at him. Embarrassment, anger, and a bunch of other different emotions were bubbling up inside her…
However, she also noticed some other things as she stared at him. He was in the same torn uniform he had been in when he appeared to rescue her. He had bandages wrapped around his knee and around his chest. He had bruises and burns on most of his visible patches of skin. And the heavy bags under his eyes proved that he must have neglected sleep caring and worrying for her the last few days. If his smell hadn't given that fact away.
Plus, she could sense that he hadn't tried anything. He was far more concerned for her welfare than he was to see her undressed.
Raven took another deep breath to calm herself. It struck at her pride, but it didn't matter. After what he'd done for her. "It's fine Gar. If my clothes were fusing to my skin, then I'm glad you did what you did… thank you." Raven said quietly.
…
"Oh, um, sure. No problem Rae." Beast Boy responded back quietly and nervously.
The two were quiet for a moment… Beast Boy itched at the side of the bandage on his chest…
"Come here." Raven finally said calmly.
Beast Boy blinked in surprise. "What?" He asked.
"Just sit on the bed for me please so I can examine you. You look like a train ran you over." Raven said calmly.
Beast Boy still looked unsure, but he got off his chair and then limped over to her bed. He shakily sat down next to her, and she started to use her healing energy to work on the burns and scrapes she could see on his arms. A look of relief came onto his face.
"I want you to put your knee up here so I can see it," Raven ordered calmly.
Beast Boy's relief disappeared. "It's fine Rae. You just woke up and everything-" Beast Boy tried to say. He didn't want her expending too much energy at once.
"Garfield. Shut up. And put your knee up here." Raven ordered calmly again.
Beast Boy immediately shut up, and obediently put his wrapped knee up on the bed. Raven calmly poked at the bandage with one hand. Beast Boy grimaced at the pain he felt.
"Did you dislocate your knee and try to put it back into place while I was out?" Raven asked.
"I guess you could say that. But I think it'd be more correct to say the Beast did that and not me." Beast Boy said unsurely.
Raven rolled her eyes. "Tell your Beast he's a dork for me." She said as she started to heal the torn ligaments in his knee.
The look of relief came back onto Beast Boy's face. 'Hey Beast, Rae said to tell you you're a dork.' He thought mischievously inside his mind.
'Tell our mate she's also a dork if she thinks it'd be better to face an enemy with a dislocated joint then with an aching joint.' The Beast grumbled inside his mind.
Beast Boy chuckled at the Beast's comment. While he was chuckling though, Raven decided to poke the side of his chest with her other hand. Beast Boy almost gasped from the pain he felt. "Dude, not cool!" He said loudly.
Raven smirked a little bit. "I thought I told you you needed to take it easy with these broken ribs here?" Raven calmly asked.
"Well sorry, I was kind of in the middle of fighting with Superman as the Beast when that happened." Beast Boy responded with an eye roll.
"What did you do after he broke your ribs?" Raven curiously asked.
"I kicked the sorry guy's butt into next week and heroically carried you out is what happened!" Beast Boy said proudly. The nervousness from before melting away.
Raven rolled her eyes as the healing energy coming off her hand started to work on healing his broken ribs again. "Sure that happened." She said blandly. Though she somehow knew that was how it had happened.
"Hey! I'll let you know I'm being serious here! Cause I kicked Superman's butt so hard-" Beast Boy was saying indignantly when he gasped in pain and bent forward. "-that the worst thing he did back to me was breaking my ribs." He groaned out breathlessly in a higher-pitched voice.
"Twice?" Raven asked.
"Yeah, something around there." Beast Boy said in a breathless pained tone.
"Then I'd be careful speaking if I were you. Your 'broken' ribs are also poking at your lung." Raven said monotonously. "One wrong move and you'll make my job a lot harder."
Beast Boy rolled his eyes, and Raven went back to quietly healing Beast Boy. She finished his knee and focused on his chest area with the ribs and the massive burn across his chest. Beast Boy shifted uncomfortably as he felt his bones, muscles, and skin moving back to their proper places.
"How come it's taking longer this time Rae? It's starting to hurt and itch." He complained.
"Last time I hadn't just woke up. And I'm having to deal with leftover damage from the last break too. That's why I asked you to take it easy before." Raven said monotonously.
"It's not my fault I had to fight Superman." Beast Boy said sarcastically.
"You could have at least defended yourself better during the fight," Raven muttered back sarcastically. Though she knew he was lucky to have only come out of the fight with injuries as minor as this.
Beast Boy grumbled and had to try his hardest not to itch at his side. "Could you at least hurry it up somehow?" He grumbled.
"Do you want me to leave it broken?" Raven asked.
"No, I just want you to finish so it'll stop itching." He said.
"You could try and fill me in on what happened while I was dying then if that'll distract you," Raven said sarcastically.
…
That comment kind of put a damper on Beast Boy's attitude. Raven sensed it and looked up into his face while her hands continued their work. "I was kidding Gar, you know that right?" She asked.
Beast Boy looked away. "Yeah… I guess." He said somberly.
Beast Boy didn't move after that. Raven guessed what was on his mind, but for some reason, she was too scared to try and address it then. So she sat in silence, and finally, several minutes after starting her powers were done healing Beast Boy's twice-broken ribs, along with the hairline fracture in his jaw.
"There," Raven said as she pulled her hands away.
Beast Boy itched at his side. He grimaced at the residue pain still in the area, but he looked a lot better now. Still, it looked like his mind was still troubled about something…
'Maybe I should ask-' Raven started to think as she gathered the courage.
"By the way, I read over the note Rose gave us." Beast Boy said, which interrupted her thought process. His hand reached back and picked up a folded up piece of paper off the nightstand. He unfolded the top part of it so Raven would be able to see it.
Raven wanted to ask Beast Boy what was on his mind but instead took the paper from him. "How about you shower and change your uniform while I read this." She suggested.
"Sure. Just don't look, dude." Beast Boy said as he walked away.
Raven didn't respond and started to read what was on the note.
To Beast Boy and Raven,
If you're reading this, then congratulations! You've hopefully gotten past your argument with each other and survived your fight with Superman. Way to give Superman the beat-up of a lifetime Beast Boy! I'm also hoping he had the balls to tell you, Raven, about his feelings for you. Honestly, the amount of tension I foresaw between you two was thick enough for me to cut with one of my katanas.
Oh, I'm getting ahead of myself here since there's more than one possible outcome to this situation. If you didn't beat Superman and were caught, then the rest of this is probably irrelevant. If Beast Boy didn't tell Raven his feelings for her then I'm sorry for throwing you under the bus green guy, but come on, it had to come out eventually. So if you did manage to escape (and after you have the balls to finally tell that goth witch about how you feel for her Garfield), then get back to Jump City ten days after I hand this to you. You have at least that long before the Justice League has a plan prepared to capture you two. None of them want you two to escape since they now realize how dangerous you two are.
My dad will be waiting for you in the first base you Titans found him in. I still don't know how to explain it, but he found a way for you two to get over Nabu's Barrier. If I did end up giving this to you because I chickened out of fighting Superman to fight Starfire instead, then know that we're both wishing you the best of luck.
We'll meet again soon, Titans.
Rose Wilson AKA The Ravager
…
...
"I'm still confused." Beast Boy said.
Raven looked up from the piece of paper to Beast Boy. He was now dressed in a clean uniform, and his hair was wet from his quick shower. She hadn't realized she'd been staring at the note for the last few minutes. "About what?" She asked.
He sat on the bed again. "I'm just saying. She knew in advance almost everything that would be coming our way. Why the heck didn't she warn us about any of this in person?!" Beast Boy asked comically.
Raven had a sense that he wasn't just talking about the fight with Superman. "… maybe it was because things wouldn't have worked out the way they had if she had told us all that herself." Raven suggested.
Beast Boy thought on it. "You know… I guess that does make a little sense… we didn't exactly trust her abilities all that much when we were first with her." He said quietly. "Maybe I should update myself on who this Xatu character is?" Beast Boy said hoping to change the subject.
Raven gladly went along with the change of subject. She still didn't feel to address the other one quite yet. "It's Nabu, not Xatu." She corrected him. "He's a Lord of Order." She started to explain. "Commonly known by the name Doctor Fate."
"Wait, a Lord of Order? And Doctor Fate's real name is Nabu?" He asked quizzically.
Raven shook her head. "Yes. A Lord of Order. A being who helps to keep order in a universe. And no, the spirit of the Lord of Order is known as Nabu. I don't know who is currently bearing his spirit as Doctor Fate right now. But Nabu uses a living person with a magical capacity to be his bearer in the real world since he technically lives inside of a helmet. The person who bears him around is known as Doctor Fate." Raven explained simply.
Beast Boy blinked several times at that explanation. "I'll pretend I understood what you just said there and ask about his barrier." He said.
Raven raised an eyebrow at him. "Are you so tired from watching over me that you forgot the reason why we can't leave North America?" She asked.
Beast Boy opened his mouth to respond… and then he took a few extra seconds in forming his response. "I... wasn't watching over you the whole time… and I thought that Zatanna was the one that made the barrier." Beast Boy said.
"They both made it. Doctor Fate is more well known than Zatanna though, and much more powerful. So it's probably better to say that it's his barrier than to say that it's Zatanna's barrier." Raven said.
Beast Boy scratched the top of his head. "You know what, I guess that doesn't really matter dude. I should be asking you instead if you think we should trust Slade and go back to Jump City or not?" He asked.
Raven thought on it for a few seconds. "I don't know… I'm going to need more time to think about that." She said.
Beast Boy had been expecting a conversation about going to Jump City, and he blinked in surprise when Raven shrugged it away. "Oh, okay then." Beast Boy said.
…
Now with everything else out of the way, there was still one topic they had to address. Raven was slightly nervous about it, and Beast Boy was a thousand times more nervous as he sat in his spot on her bed. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
…
Finally, Beast Boy took a deep breath. "Rae, Raven. I, want to apologize for pressing you for your feelings back at the base." He said.
Raven calmly took in a deep breath. She didn't fear her powers going out of control now. She did, however, fear the effect her words would have on her friend. "It's okay Gar, I can understand-" She started to say.
"No Rae." Beast Boy surprisingly interrupted her. "I've thought on it a lot the last couple days. If I hadn't pressed back there, we could have easily gotten away. I wouldn't have had to go through so much pain fighting Superman alone…" He had a long pause. "…and even more pain when I saw you lying in your own blood and tears on the ground." He said softly.
Raven stayed silent. She couldn't find words to respond to what he had said.
One of his hands moved and gripped one of hers. "I was really scared for you Raven when I saw you like that. The worst part about the last couple of days wasn't the pain… or the loss of appetite, or the sleepless nights… it was from wondering if you'd wake up from that healing trance of yours or not." He admitted quietly.
Raven didn't respond. She did allow Beast Boy to hold her hand though.
…
He took another deep breath, and let go of her hand. "I shouldn't have pressed you then Rae… but I still want… I need to know… how you feel about me?" He asked in an almost pleading voice before he looked up at her.
…
She was silent for a long while. Her face was clear of any emotion. Not even her eyes gave away what it was she was thinking about inside her mind.
…
"I'll give you an answer Gar." Raven finally said at last.
There was a pause… "However, I need to meditate on it first. If that's okay with you." She added.
Beast Boy's ears drooped, and his face fell a little. "That's okay Rae. I guess I can wait outside." He said sadly.
He got off the bed and shuffled towards the door. 'I knew it. I'm dead. I'm as good as dead.' He thought sadly.
"Hey, Gar," Raven said when he was near the doorway.
He turned to face her. "Yeah Rae?" He asked.
"I promise I'll let him know how I feel after I meditate. For now, how about you sleep in the corner over there." She said as she pointed to a corner in the room.
His eyes went wide at her suggestion. "What?" He asked incredulously.
Raven looked at him blandly. "One, you said sleepless nights. And two, I can literally see it on your face. It'd be better if you slept while I meditated. It's going to take a while." She said dryly.
He finally chuckled a little at that and scratched the back of his head. "Sorry. I must look really tired." He said in a more normal tone. The action brought a little bit of a smile out of Raven. "It's fine dude." He waved it off. "It's bright and sunny out there. I can sleep as a big cat or something out there so I don't bother you." Beast Boy said as he walked out the door.
"I'll leave the corner open for you in case it storms." She called after him.
Beast Boy chuckled to himself as he closed the door behind him. He was still nervous, but he felt just a little bit better at that moment. "I'll keep that in mind." He said as he looked out at the new scenery around him.
There were trees all around. Mountaintops could also be seen in the distance. It looked like they had set up shop in the middle of a valley somewhere. The sun was just starting to come up over the horizon in the east, and it's beautiful rays were hitting their front porch through the trees perfectly.
'Wow, I haven't really slept at all in the last 72 hours.' Beast Boy thought in surprise.
'Master. Rest now. I'm too tired to deal with you thinking any longer.' The Beast ordered.
It was after that thought that all the exhaustion and tiredness from the last week finally crashed into Beast Boy. His almost ironclad willpower to stay awake vanished completely, and he barely had time to morph into a large green lion before he fell into a deep sleep on the foot of the porch.
It was lights out kitty for Beast Boy.
Raven sat patiently on her bed for a little bit. She waited until she was absolutely sure that her friend was fast asleep. When she was sure she heaved a sigh of relief.
'Thank goodness. He really needed to rest.' She thought.
Raven then pulled her bag off the nightstand next to her and put her hand in it. She searched around in it for a moment, and then pulled out the object she had been searching for. The mirror that held the portal to her mind.
'It's time I get some clear answers.' She thought to herself.
She stared into the mirror and looked at herself for a moment… then the dark red portal to her mind opened up, and Raven disappeared into it.
The mirror set itself gently down on Raven's bed.
It was about time Raven got answers to her questions.
Author's Notes:
I'm kind of debating on how evil I want to be the next chapter since this one and the last chapter don't really have big cliffhangers to them. I know the perfect spot I could cut it off. But I also know it'd cut off before the moment almost every BBxRae reader on here has been waiting for in this story for over three years. So I'll leave it up to you all to tell me what you want. Do you want me to be evil, or do you want to see the magic happen next week? Careful with our responses too, they might just tempt me to be evil. ;) ;) ;)
Till Next Time!
Allen Blaster
