A/N: These Echoes come as they will. I went through a mad inspiration rush some weeks ago and got the first two of the sections in this chapter done. THEN, a few days after that, I was reading it over, thinking that I wouldn't be writing anymore for it, that the first two bits is all there would be, but suddenly, I heard the third one. So I wrote it down. What with one thing and another, the first four practically wrote themselves when I wasn't looking. And then I tried to write the last one and Puck pouted his lip, crossed his arms, and looked at me like I was nuts for even thinking I could tell him what to do with this fic. "Oh, you think you can tell me when this one is going to be written and how?" he asked. "I just thought since I knew where you were going with it and you had told me what the last scene was going to be about..." I tried to explain my reasoning. He, however, scoffed. "Fat chance." (Cause yes, he has lovely flowery speech when he's trying to impress people, but when he's talking to just me, he will use very base words.)

So, the long and the short of it is that although I had four-fifths of this chapter done probably a week or two ago, I didn't get the last bit until the night before I left for the EoD? And that, basically, Puck looked at the few lines I had written in it, shook his head and said, "This is no good – we'll have to start this whole section all over again..." So, he started it, but the rest of that last section wasn't written until today. Basically, an hour or so ago.

((shrug))

What can I say?

Not beta'd.

Thanks: Again, on 'emsscraps' later on. Dangit. I owe you guys thanks for Burn, don't I? Aw, crap.

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Echoes
by Em

"If a June night could talk, it would probably boast it invented romance."
- Bern Williams

Summering
(14: Chimes)

The sound of wind chimes will always remind me of that summer.

Probably because it was the first thing I noticed about the beachhouse as soon as we stepped foot inside it, but then again, it shouldn't be the least bit surprising that something as peaceful as the soft tinkling of the gentle summer wind making music on the small metallic and wood cylinders would draw my attention.

The back porch of the house was full of them. All shapes and sizes, all kinds of metals, some of wood or glass, some even made out of seashells. I was probably the first to hear them when we arrived at the house – the others preoccupied with the nice appointments of the rental house whereas I was drawn by the sound of the crashing waves so nearby. I didn't think, however, that anyone had noticed when I disappeared in search of the sound, but I had barely had a moment alone to observe some of the most prominent wind chimes before Robin found me.

"You always seem to find the most peaceful spot of any place we go to," he said, his voice low so as to intrude on the music of the waves and the chimes as little as possible. I always did appreciate how he could do that. "How do you do that?"

I smiled a little, something I was doing more frequently around them as of late, and glanced sideways at him, "Pure survival instinct." I motioned behind us where the ruckus over which would be the girls' room and which the boys' was already in full swing.

We smiled at each other for a moment, only half listening to the sound of playful bickering inside the house.

"I'm glad you convinced me to come," he said finally, after a while.

I shook my head and looked back at where the ocean was gently lapping at the shore, foam forming in the breakers. "I did nothing of the sort," I argued, but only half-heartedly. When I turned and found him looking at me, I felt my heart flutter at the look in his eyes, "You're a hard-headed mule and you wouldn't have come if you didn't really want to," I tried to inject sarcasm into the uncomfortably intimate moment.

"I wanted to," he admitted, nodding his head. "There's no doubt about that," he shrugged and looked back at the sea. "But if you wouldn't have asked, I probably wouldn't have come."

I frowned. I wouldn't normally have pressed, but I think perhaps I was entranced by the sound of the chimes. "Why not?" I questioned.

"Scared, I guess," he answered.

And I wonder, even now, whether the sound of wind chimes and the ocean served as some sort enchantment for truth telling because I had never ever heard Robin saying anything like that and I wasn't certain why he was saying it then.

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I will never be able to smell the salty tang of the ocean without thinking of that summer.

The smell of the ocean was everywhere. In the kitchen when we were fighting over breakfast, in the living room when we were watching television or playing board games, in the bathroom when we tried to wash the salt water off our bodies, and in our bedrooms when we were trying to sleep.

Everywhere.

The scent of the ocean and the melodious tinkling of wind chimes. It followed us wherever we went, whatever we did.

It was the sound of windchimes those first moments at the beach house that drew me onto the back porch to find Raven there. It was the lulling sound of windchimes playing harmony to the crash of the ocean that called me onto the sand that first night and it was the sound of windchimes and the smell of the ocean I'll always associate with falling in love.

"What do the stars look like from Azarath?" I asked her one night, out of the blue.

She didn't look surprised at my question, but there wasn't really a reason why she should – we had been asking each other all sorts of random questions during these late night rendezvous.

I had to turn a little on my side to look at her, but her expression as she blinked up at the blanket of sky above us hadn't changed.

"I don't remember," she admitted, and she might as well have been saying how old she was. "Do you remember what the stars look liked when you were a child?" she asked.

I chuckled and turned onto my back again, "No," I admitted.

She was quiet for awhile before speaking again, "I don't think I ever looked at the stars when I was a child on Azarath," she admitted in the same bland, almost pensive monotone.

"Why?" I asked, sitting up on my elbow to better see more of her, ignoring the sand biting into my skin.

She turned her eyesight and suddenly, it was fixed on me and I realized how close I must have been almost blocking out her view of the sky and I remember wondering why she didn't move. "Scared, I guess," she echoed.

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I didn't hear the wind chimes until that first night – I was too enthralled by the overwhelming presence of the sea. I had never seen the place where the ocean and the shore met as lovers before, and had only ever seen the salty body of water strike at rocks or edifices like an angry and persistent soldier or smooth and endless like the sky.

There were so many things to draw my attention that first day at the beach house, I am ashamed to say the small, tinkling sound of the metallic and glass chimes did not break through to my conscious until that night, when the whole of the house was still and I was finally settled down enough to hope to sleep.

When I did hear it, however, I was immediately entranced. What lovely music! It was, perhaps, too soft for normal Tamaranian ears, but my ears had long since grown accustomed to the more subtle intricacies of human music and I was anxious to find the source. I turned to my room companion, hoping she might still be awake, and could see the silhouette of her face against the soft light of the stars and the moon let in by the open window just on the other side of her. When I saw the flutter of her eyelashes, I knew she was awake, even though she was staring directly upward at the roof.

"Raven," I whispered, so as not to disturb the music, "Where do you suppose that music is coming from?"

And as if the musician had heard me, it stopped and I frowned, sitting up.

"It'll be back in a moment," Raven answered, her tone no lower than it normally was, but still somehow she managed to make it reverent and quiet. I was quite often awed by Raven's ability to be unobtrusive and still.

Before I could question her, the music started again and I smiled and stared at her, "How did you know?"

She closed her eyes and turned her head toward the window, but I was sitting now and could still see her profile. "It's the wind."

"The wind makes such glorious music in this part of the world?" I persisted.

"Yes," she answered. "Apparently, it does."

The next morning I would learn about the small pieces of metallic cylinders and how the wind uses them to make music, and although throughout that summer I would learn many more things about earth, it wasn't until a few nights after that first night that I would learn a very important lesson about people.

That night, not long after we had arrived at the beach house, I woke in the middle of the night after dreaming of Silkie doing what I had just learned about that day, WindSurfing on the waves outside the house. (Only he was still too short and couldn't reach the bars – poor thing.) I sat up in bed and found myself alone in the room. I was not surprised, since I knew Raven rarely slept through the entire night, even in the Tower. And as I laid back down, listening only half-heartedly for the sounds of Raven puttering somewhere in the house, I heard something else instead.

Voices. Low, murmuring voices, coming into the room through the open window, just under the sound of the crashing waves and the singing chimes.

I couldn't make out what they were saying, and the only reason I thought I recognized them at all was through my knowledge that no one except Raven and Robin could speak in such low tones, even in the dead of the night. Still, I stood from the bed, wondering why they might be awake at such an hour, and padded to the window, looking out onto the porch, searching for their forms in the light of the moon and the stars.

And there they were – Raven leaning against the porch balustrade with her back to the house, bare feet digging in the sand and hair blowing in the wind, her beauty illuminated in the scarce light rather than lost in the darkness. Her face was turned away from where I could see it, just slightly toward Robin on the other side of her.

Even though I couldn't understand their words and I couldn't make out what expression she wore, I was immediately convinced that nothing bad had pulled my friends from their beds so late at night, for their manner was casual and calm – happy even.

But it wasn't until Robin shifted and he stood directly in front of her, and Raven followed him with her eyes, turning her face so that I could see her profile, even more of it when Robin pulled the hair the wind had blown against her face behind her ear that I could see the smile on her lips.

It wasn't a very big smile, as far as smiles went. But where Raven was concerned, I knew exactly how important even that small tilt of her lips meant.

And still—it wasn't until I saw the answering smile on Robin's lips that I learned what love looked like.

I will never be able to think of that summer without thinking of that smile and the music of wind chimes.

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Most of that summer is a blur in my memories, several points highlighted with more clarity by the dredging up of photographic evidence of moments stilled forever in time.

Volleyball on the beach (remembered by the production of the photo of BB spitting out sand after a failed save had him skidding into the warm powder-like sand), windsurfing on the ocean (a picture of Raven fighting to hold onto the mast of the sail reminding me of the way Starfire had let go of her own in an attempt to help Raven only to fall into the water before Raven did) bonfires on the sand at night roasting marshmallows and hotdogs (a picture somebody -- Robin? -- took of me attempting to hold four poles with hotdogs on them to satisfy my hearty appetite enough to make me hungry all over again – those were good hotdogs!) horseback riding (the picture of Robin warily eying the gray gelding he had been given to ride enough to send me into stitches even now whenever I remember the way the Boy Wonder had insisted the horse had it in for him just because it kept trying to turn around and bite at him even after he was on it) were just a few of them.

And then there were the wind chimes. I will always remember the sound of the wind chimes.

They were everywhere.

I'm not sure if the reason the only memory I have clear in my head without the need for photographic reminders is so clear because of her inane comment about the sound of the wind chimes. I don't think so. I think the memory of the sudden fear that slammed into my stomach when Raven's form didn't emerge from under the wave that caught her by surprise will be with me always for the sake of the fear alone. And still, the look on Robin's face as he came out of the water, carrying her in his arms might add to the clarity of the memory. Eventually, when Raven finally caught her breath, assuring us all that she was fine and hadn't really been drowning at all, but had just lost her bearings inside the water, I thought Robin was about ready to shake her.

"I would've found my way back, eventually," she said, as flippantly as Raven ever said anything. "I would've just followed the sound of the wind chimes."

Robin had looked as if he wanted to do something very drastic.

So, though Raven's bad attempt at making light of the fact she had almost drowned was enough in it's own right to have a clear spot in my memory, I think ultimately, it was the look on Robin's face that ingrained the whole incident in my memory forever.

And, although in retrospect, I'm sure he must have had that look on his face many times before (it wasn't like that was the first time any of us had been in mortal danger, not with our professions) and although that day on the beach was certainly not the last time I saw that look on his face, the only thing about that summer I will never forget is the look on Robin's face when he almost lost the woman he loved to a stupid wave.

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It was the Frisbee's fault.

It totally was.

If the Frisbee hadn't flown way off from where it was supposed to go, I never would've had to chase after it and I never would've happened to glance up at the house. I don't even know what it was about the back of the beach house that called my attention that time, it wasn't like I hadn't seen it a dozen times throughout that summer. Maybe it was the fact that the wind blew off from the ocean just then and all the chimes set off at once, making one helluva racket, even as far as I was? Maybe my mind caught something strange even though my eyes didn't really, who knows?

The point is, I did look up at the back porch of the beach house and I might have looked away just as uninterested (after all, Robin lounging on the hammock reading a book wasn't as strange that summer at the beach house as it might've been in the Tower and the presence of Raven somewhere nearby wasn't really strange either, since that's where she was most of the time) but I heard something just under the sound of the chimes and it made me do a double take and narrow my eyes, perking my ears before I had even realized I was trying to verify if I had heard what I thought I heard.

Whatever it was she had said had caught Robin's attention, that was for sure, and he had put his book down alongside himself to give her his full attention, even though he didn't sit up from his reclining position on the hammock, he didn't even move his right arm from cradling the back of his head. But he smiled at her where she stood, leaning against the back doorframe. He spoke to her, but although I heard the murmur of his voice, I couldn't make out the words since the freakin' chimes had started up again and was drowning the particulars. The wind pulled at her hair and she raised a hand from where they were crossed at her chest to push it back away from her face.

Her mouth opened and she spoke again, but I couldn't make it out and I was starting to seriously consider crouching a bit closer to get a better notion of whether I had heard correctly or not but she moved, stepping away from the doorframe, casually stepping onto the wooden deck on her bare feet (I had been surprised to realize how often Raven liked to go about in bare feet at the beachhouse) and she approached the hammock. Robin's eyes followed her movement, the smile still on his face as he listened to her intently.

I think I knew in that moment that something big had finally happened and I remember feeling incredibly annoyed that I had missed it. It was like realizing that a something big and amazing was going to happen, like Haley's Comet, waiting for it all night, and then realizing you'd fallen asleep when it passed.

"...too..."

"...long...?"

Snatches of conversation floated to me on the breeze and I inched just a little closer.

"...always..."

She seemed worried, cautious, I could read her body language easily enough, even thought she was still approaching. "Wha-...do...-ers?"

His body language didn't change, but I could tell he was being careful. Robin was nothing if not careful. He was acting the way one acted when there was a skittish animal approaching them and they were afraid of making a move that would frighten them away. But he laughed. I could hear that clearly enough. "They've...out...bef-...did."

I watched as she came to some decision all on the expressions of her face and I knew that I hadn't missed it – that I was just witnessing it and that I didn't really need to hear them to know what they were talking about.

"Wha-...reading?"

Robin lifted the book and showed her the cover.

"--ites."

He nodded. "I know."

I walked away after Raven smiled at him, I didn't need to see anything else, but I turned back once when I was out of sight of them, over a sand dune when I couldn't hear even the chimes anymore and could only hear Cy and Star calling out to me from the shore below.

It was the frisbee's fault but whenever I hear windchimes, I'll only ever be able to remember how Robin made room for Raven on the hammock and how comfortable she looked as she fit herself into the curve of his body settling her cheek against his chest as he lifted the book so they could both see it.

They didn't even kiss, just lay together on the hammock, and his right hand just eventually found her hand where it rested against his stomach and her legs tangled up in his as they read. That was all. But then again, they didn't have to do anymore. I knew that even then.

I think I'll always associate the sound of windchimes and the smell of the ocean with the first moment I knew, really knew, what love looked like.

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A/N: I warned you these Echoes would be different, didn't I? Yeah. How's this for different? Did it work? I honestly read the first bits of it and thought, "WTF?" but I figured why not? So here you have it...whatever it is...