A/N:This is a direct follow-up to Chapter 8 from this series, titled, "Fight" with the prompt being "I promise I'll be back". Almost as soon as I'd finished that one-shot, I knew I had to write this one, and the theme of "Wait for Me" was a perfect counterpoint to that one.

Keeping the Stars Apart
(11: Wait For Me)
by Em

"here is the deepest secret nobody knows/ (here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud /…/ and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart / I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)"
- e.e. cummings

Victor watched the metal needles glint and shine as they seemed to fly in her hands, clicking as they came together seeming to dance with her fingers even though her expression was perfectly blank. It looked, to him, as if her hands were a acting completely independently of the rest of her.

He frowned and turned to his companion. "Are you sure she's alright?"

Starfire looked at him as if he had asked the dumbest question known to man. "I do not believe it is possible for her to be alright," she answered simply. Noting the look on his face, she sighed. "the knitting is normal," she said. "she does it whenever she is worried but has to wait."

"That is gonna be the worlds longest scarf," BB remarked. When the others looked at him he shrugged. "she's been at it since he left," he offered.

"She's worried."

"We're all worried," Roy remarked. "It's been days since he should've been back but no word -of course we're worried."

Karen shook her head sadly. "Not like she is, Roy," she answered.

Star nodded. "She is worried," she added.

"She has excellent hearing," came Raven's monotonous voice even as the needles continued to click and move. "She is getting tired of her friends talking about her as if she were about to break," she added, continuing to look at her hands as they moved, "and she is not worried," she said clearly.

"How could you not be?" BB asked before anyone could stop him.

She shrugged, "I'm just not," she answered.

"But I thought you two'd-" he cut off as Victor jabbed him in the ribs.

Raven's hands stilled for a moment, and then she looked up to meet their eyes unerringly. "I'd know," she answered simply. At their looks, she smiled a little. "If he were in trouble, I'd-" she stopped suddenly, like someone had cut off her breath. Her expression went internal and everyone else in the room stood up, almost starting for her. Starfire reached her first, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"Raven?" she gasped softly, almost fearfully.

Ignoring her, Raven stood up, the ball of yarn she had been working with rolling from her lap and the needles slipping from her fingers into a useless heap.

"Raven?"

She ignored them all, walking as if in a daze through the room, as if following a song no one else could hear. She stopped near the window, her eyes distant, her expression vacant.

And suddenly, she turned and started walking, her steps urgent toward the stairs. By the time anyone had even thought of following her, she was practically running up the stairs. The team burst through the doors after her in time to watch as Robin-no, Nightwing-stepped out of the helicopter and their eyes met even as the blades of the helicopter stirred the hair around both their faces as it took off silently.

He smiled at her, soft and tender and welcoming and they started to walk towards each other. She was just starting to smile back when his legs gave out under him and he collapsed to the his knees on the ground.

Starfire, just clearing the door to the roof behind them gasped, and Cyborg and Beast Boy who had been hanging back to give them time for a reunion, jerked into movement, but Raven was already there, her hands glowing blue and searching.

He reached out and took her hand in his, drawing her eyes to him. "Not back five minutes and you can't keep your hands off me, huh?" he joked on a half-whisper.

Her lips quirked, but she gave him a raised brow. "You know me so well," she deadpanned, even while taking in his scrapes, the cut on his shoulder that might need stitches, the fact his eye was slowly swelling shut.

He grinned and squeezed her hand, tensing to stand up. "It's my ribs," he told her, allowing her to help him stand. "I suspect one or two are broken," he shook his head a little as she drew his arm around her shoulders. "Why do they always go for the ribs?" he asked lightly. He looked down at her and really smiled, leaning forward, despite the pain it obviously brought him, to touch his lips to hers in a soft, tender kiss. When they pulled away, he raised a hand to push her hair back from her face, letting his palm linger on her cheek. "I came back to you."

She smiled at him then - it was small and uncertain, unused, but it reached her eyes and her hand came up to take his on her cheek, squeezing it a little. "I was waiting," she said softly.

"I know," he smiled back.

And, as they made their slow way into the building, Raven supporting some of his weight, Robin looked at all their friends waiting around the door and quipped, "What'd I miss?"