Ok, I know, it's been a really long time. But I do have an excuse...kind of. A case of super califragy listic sup-whatever, a case of monstrous writer's block. There were a lot of hours put into this chapter of staring at a blank screen:D.

I took the title for this chapter from a really beautiful quote, which goes as follows: "Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no excuse of impossibility; for it thinks all things lawful for itself, and all things possible." I'm not sure who said it, but I really like it:D.

Anyways, I opened a dA account recently, and I've got a (pretty good, in my opinion:D) picture of Beast Boy and Raven, check it out! The link's on my userpage thingy. My username's the same on dA as it is here:D.

Ok, what else? Oh, I don't own the Teen Titans, or Kraft Dinner...ummm...I think that's it...

Thanks for all of your reviews, and for continuing to read my story! I hope to hear from you all again!

Enjoy!

-Liss

Chapter Five. Above My Strength.

"So," Raven began as her surroundings melded into a stark white laboratory, a sharp contrast to the African rainforest she'd been standing in only moments before, "Where are we now?" Beast Boy had taken them into another memory, this time intentionally. Ignoring her question, he pulled her behind one of the glass counters and crouched low to the ground.

"What are you doing?" Raven sighed as she knelt beside him.

"Can they see us?" the green Titan asked her nervously, indicating a couple of white-robed scientists conducting some type of experiment in the corner.

"No, this is a memory. We're only observers," she answered, then added with a hint of incredulity, "It's a good thing too. You do realize that we're hiding behind a clear glass counter?"

"Oh yeah..." Beast Boy peered through the glass at the scientists and blushed sheepishly. Raven stood, dragging him up by the collar of his uniform.

"Where are we?" she asked him again.

"We're still in Africa," he answered, twisting his head from side to side in an effort to locate whatever he'd brought them here for, "At my parents' research station."

"Alright," Raven drolled, wondering what he was looking for, "When are we?" She followed him to the other side of the room, where there was a small medical bay complete with two beds and some very complex equipment.

"Umm..." Beast Boy disappeared underneath one of the beds. His voice was muffled slightly when he called up, "About a week after the monkey thing." She could hear him rummaging around. What is he doing? She wondered, starting to grow impatient. Suddenly his head popped up from the other side of the bed.

"Ok, this is the one," he announced brightly, as if the statement should mean something to her, "I wrote on the frame when I was four."

"You're telling me this because...?" Confused, Raven gave him a blank look as he pulled himself off the floor using an IV stand.

"They're gonna use that one when they come in," he said, flopping down on the other bed with a thud, "We should sit on this one." He sounded cheerful, but she could feel his anxiety. He was dreading whatever he knew was coming.

"When who come-" she began but was interuppted by the woman that she knew to be Beast Boy's mother rushing into the lab with young Gar in her arms, followed closely by a tall, dark haired man. The small boy was shaking in his mother's arms, and his skin was wet with sweat. The woman placed him on the bed that Beast Boy had said she would, and began hooking him up to various machines. The scene before her was eerily reminiscent of Beast Boy's collapse in the tower and the Titans' mad dash to the medical bay.

The two scientists who had been in the corner abandoned their experiments and came over to the medical area. The dark haired man began giving out orders in a choked voice. Raven stepped, unseen by the newcomers, away from the bed that Gar was placed in and sat next to Beast Boy.

"This is the same thing that you have n-" she stopped midsentence as she saw that he was showing the same symptoms as his younger self, his body remembering exactly what it had been through. His eyes were shut tight against the pain of the illness. He hugged himself tightly, looking as though he was trying to hold himself together with his hands. Calling up her powers, she moved behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders. Gradually he stopped shaking enough to talk.

"Thanks Raven," he shivered slightly, sweat beading on his skin, "I'm sorry...I thought-I didn't remember it being so...bad."

"It's ok. No problem," she breathed, teeth clenched with the effort of healing him. The pain Beast Boy was remembering didn't stop, so she had to continually take it away from him. She couldn't take all of it from him though, and she suspected that the pain he was feeling was much more intense than what she was experiencing.

"Who is that?" she asked him, nodding towards the dark haired man who was now searching desparately through the cupboards that lined the walls of the lab. Beast Boy opened his mouth to answer, but instead began to cough violently as his younger counterpart's tiny frame was wracked by a couging fit. Raven moved her left hand to his chest and let the blue light emanating from her hands reach into his body and ease the coughing. Her arms now wrapped around him, she allowed her power to flow through him as he gasped for air.

"That's my dad," he said in a hoarse voice once he had caught his breath, "He's looking for – uhn," Beast Boy let out a grunt of pain and doubled over, head between his knees. The moniter hooked up to young Gar began beeping wildly. Raven increased her efforts in healing Beast Boy even as his parents frantically tried to stabilize their tiny son.

"He's dying Mark!" his mother cried to her husband as she compressed the boy's chest.

"Here," the dark haired man, Mark, had found the object of his search, a needle filled with a bright green serum, "Hold him down! I have to give him the serum!" The little boy was now in the throes of some kind of seizure. Raven had managed to spare Beast Boy from this, anticipating the convulsions and healing them before they had started. She could only do so much though, and he was still shaking and sweating and probably in a considerable amount of pain.

Raven watched as Mark Logan skillfully slid the needle into the twitching boy's vein and injected the serum into his bloodstream. There was a moment's peace, a calm before the storm, where the child lay still and Beast Boy was relieved from his remembered suffering. He sat up, straightening his back and bracing himself for what he knew was coming.

And then Raven, through Beast Boy, was rendered senseless by a blast of pain like none she had ever felt before as the serum coursed through the veins of the young Gar Logan. The shapeshifting Titan was hit with the full force of the pain.

A thrice echoed scream of agony rent through the memory of a dark African night, torn from the lips of a disease ravaged child, the daughter of a demon, and the green skinned teen she held in her arms.

It felt as though every single cell in his body was trying to escape, trying to break away from him. He was paralyzed with the pain, couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't breathe. He heard screaming. The blond child, so young, so small, was screaming in anguish. The boy looked familiar. He tryed to think, tried to remember, but his thoughts were jumbled by the pain. There was a girl too...behind him, holding him...she was screaming. He wanted to take her pain away, wanted her to stop hurting...who was she? He should know this...she was...

Screaming. Hurting.

Raven.

She was trying to heal him...it was too much for her.

"Stop," he grunted, forcing the words out, choking back another cry. She didn't move. She couldn't. The pain was too great, even for her.

Beast Boy knew that it wouldn't last long, knew that it would be over soon. He could bear it by himself, just for a few minutes. He couldn't ask her to take this pain for him. He wouldn't let her. Ignoring his own agony, he pushed her away from him, breaking their connection. Unable to catch herself, she fell off the bed and onto the cold linoleum floor. She lay there, unmoving, eyes shut tightly against the pain she had absorbed from him.

Let her be ok. Please, he begged silently, not knowing to whom he addressed his desperate plea. After a few seconds, she blinked slowly drew in a deep, shuddering breath. Her eyes locked on his, and she knew that she couldn't help him. Her gaze was fixed on him, and she lay as though in a trance, unable to move as she watched him shoulder a burden that was too heavy for her to take away from him.

Without her healing, the searing pain increased tenfold. Beast Boy was beyond passing out. He wished he could, wished the torture would end. Electricity was flowing through his veins, stopping his heart, seizing his lungs. His blood boiled, his skin was crawling, his insides were attempting to vacate his body.

Across from him, he could see his younger self writhing in pain, face contorted in an expression of intense suffering. He could see his mother comforting the blond little boy. Beast Boy knew what was coming, knew that the pain would be over in mere moments.

As he watched, green pigment stained the fair boy's skin, spreading outward from where the needle had entered his arm. The color rippled through the child's body, covering every last inch of him, changing the blue of his eyes, overpowering the blond of his hair. His parents watched in horror as they witnessed the transformation. Mark Logan looked from his young son to the needle in his hands, guilt etched into his features as he watched Gar struggle against both the disease and the cure.

With a final agonized cry that tore through the boy's vocal cords, Gar's small body arched against the bed and he collapsed back into the sheets.

Sitting on the edge of the other bed, Beast Boy, whose muscles had been rigid throughout the ordeal, sagged and began to tip headfirst towards the ground. Raven had recovered and put a hand out to stop him. He was quivering, his muscles beyond his control. As he weakly leaned into her, she healed him, removing the last traces of the pain from his body.

"Don't-" he tried to stop her, but she just ignored him. Too weak to protest, he let the soothing glow wash over him. He was already forgetting the pain from just a few moments ago. He looked over Raven's head to where his parents were checking young Gar's vital signs.

This is way too weird, he mused, watching his father draw blood from his younger self's arm and feeling the needle slide into his own vein. He couldn't help but look down at his arm, even though he knew that he was just remembering what the needle had felt like.

"Are you ok?" Beast Boy's thoughts were interuppted by Raven as she finished healing him. He experimentally twisted from side to side. When he felt no discomfort from the motion, he nodded cheerfully and stood, helping her up as he did.

"Are you ok?" he asked her, noticing that she swayed slightly as she rose.

"I'm fine," Raven answered, brushing off his concern "So that was-"

"Sakutia," came the voice of Mark Logan from behind her. Beast Boy and Raven turned to watch the rest of the memory unfold.

"Marie, we just successfully treated Sakutia," Mark said excitedly. Marie was cradling their son, rocking gently back and forth in an effort to entice Gar to sleep. The other two scientists, a man and a woman both in their forties, stared dumbstruck at the green boy.

"He's green," the man said.

"Ooh, he's a bright one," Raven said under her breath.

"But he's alive," Marie said tenderly, tears beginning to form in her eyes, "We did it Mark." Mark bent over to kiss his wife on the forehead, and ran a hand through his son's hair. Beast Boy felt a pang of longing, which he quickly pushed away.

"You supressed the disease-," the male scientist stated, "But for how long? How long will it remain supressed? How long before it resurfaces?"

"I'm not going to try and pretend that I know what we're dealing with here," Mark answered without taking his eyes off of Gar, "But we'll deal with it when it comes. This was a temporary solution. Marie and I are still trying to find a complete cure."

"You can't just keep giving him the serum," the scientist said, not knowing when to stop, "It'll kill him faster than the disease. It will destroy his body."

"We won't need to," Mark replied, an angry edge beginning to creep into his voice, "Theoretically the dose that we just gave him could last for years, possibly even decades."

"Decades of living as a freak," the scientist said viciously, "You turned him green. As if he wasn't enough of a oddity already, training with that tribe and always messing with the lab equip-"

"That's enough," roared Mark, turning away from Marie and Gar. Beast Boy blinked stupidly. He hadn't realized just how much he remembered. He'd never remembered anything like this happening, had never thought that anybody had ever said such cruel words about him. As his father reamed out the scientist, the scene before them began to grow hazy.

"What's going on?" Raven asked as the room grew dark and then brightened again. Smiling despite the fight that was going on over Gar's newly colored skin, Beast Boy pointed at his younger self. The tiny green boy's head was drooping. Every now and then he would jerk his head up and open his eyes wide in an effort to stay awake, but the small boy was losing his battle to exhaustion.

"I'm falling asleep," Beast Boy laughed.

"Could you possibly take us somewhere where you aren't about to pass out?" Raven asked, trying not to smile at the sight of the young boy trying to hold his head up. Beast Boy nodded, searching his mind for a safe place to take them. It only took him a few seconds to come up with an idea. This time he wouldn't take her to the memory of an event. He'd take her to the most amazing place he'd ever seen.

Closing his eyes he focussed, not on any particular memory of the place, but rather the smell, the taste, the sounds, the feelings he got whenever he went there. He hadn't been in years, since before he quit the Doom Patrol, but the memories came flooding back as though he'd never left.

Opening his eyes he found himself surrounded by a dense fog that he knew would clear as the sun rose over Cape Town. The city sprawled out far beneath him, mostly hidden from view by the fog. He breathed in deeply, the sharp tang of the ocean air stinging his nostrils, the low density of the air this high up making him slightly dizzy.

God, he loved this place.

Turning to Raven, he spread his arms wide as if he was trying to embrace the mountain, the ocean, and the city between them.

"Rae," he said with infectious enthusiasm, "As your personal hero, I'd like to be the first one to welcome you to Table Mountain."

"Yay."

Will You Follow?

"What the hell's taking her so long?" Alarmed by Cyborg's sudden outburst, Starfire looked up from the cooking instructions on the side of the Kraft Dinner box she held in her hands. It had been over 24 hours since Raven had entered Beast Boy's mind, and Starfire had only now been able to convince Cyborg to leave the medical bay and get something to eat.

"I too am curious to know why Raven has yet to return," Starfire said in a soothing voice as she shook the box and listened to the contents rattling inside. She had never prepared this dish before and wasn't sure what to expect.

"I mean, how long does it take to ask him what's wrong with him?" Cyborg muttered. Realizing just how hungry he was, he began to dig through the cupboards for something to eat.

"When Raven and I do the meditation together, time becomes...strange," Star answered as she peeled back the top of the box, "Many hours may pass without notice, or it may feel like days when it has only been minutes. Presumably it is the same in this case." Looking into the box, she saw many tiny tubes inside. She picked one up and examined it closely, delighted by the hollowed out crescent.

"Well I wish she'd hurry up in there," Cyborg grumbled from underneath the counter. Starfire popped one of the tubes into her mouth, her eyes widening with surprise as it crunched between her teeth.

Cyborg continued as he rummaged through old bags of chips, unopened boxes of cereal, and a ludicrous amount of soda, "And where's Robin? I haven't seen him since yesterday afternoon." Starfire's hand, which had been on its way to her mouth with another one of the tiny tubes, flared with green energy for an instant, flashing in unison with her eyes.

"He is in the room of records," she replied softly, still upset with Robin's decision. The tube in her hand was charred black, but she found that it tasted even more wonderful that way. She was elated to find a small package inside the box when she reached for another tube.

"He's been in there since yesterday? What is he doing?" Starfire opened the package to find a fine orange powder inside. This must be the 'pasta' of which the directions on the box spoke. The powder, when mixed with water and milk, must form a sort of paste with which she could put the tiny tubes together.

"He is doing what he deems to be right," she answered non-commitally as she poured water, milk, butter, and the powder into a pot and placed it on the stove. For good measure, she added a cup of salt to the mix before turning the burner on high.

"Which is...?" Cyborg had given up on finding anything beneath the counter and was now raiding the fridge.

"Research," she said shortly, distracted by the fact that the orange paste was beginning to boil over the edge of the pot. Cyborg could tell she didn't want to talk about it. He'd just have to ask Robin about it later.

"I didn't know we had sour cream," he said, having come across a container of it, "Do you know if we have perog-ugh!" He gagged at the noxious odor coming from the container as he opened it. Star peered over his shoulder at the substance.

"Is sour cream not supposed to be white?" she inquired, wrinkling her nose at the black ooze before her, "Perhaps it has soured too much?" She went back to her concoctions as Cyborg tossed the toxic waste in the garbage, then resumed his search for food. Half of the stuff in the fridge was tofu. Who'll eat this shit if...he quickly pushed the thought from his mind, ashamed that it had even surfaced.

"I have crafted our dinner!" Starfire announced happily. Cyborg turned to see what she was talking about. The smiling alien proudly displayed her masterpiece, a mound of uncooked pasta covered with orange goo and sculpted into what he guessed was some kind of flower.

"Uhh..." Cyborg was rendered speechless by the monstrosity before him. Parts of the orange goo had been burnt to an ominous shade of black, and what wasn't burnt was beginning to congeal as he gazed at it in horror.

"Will you not try some?" Star asked as she scooped, with some difficulty, a large portion of it into a bowl. Cyborg took the bowl from her cautiously. What the hell, he thought, raising a spoonful of the stuff to his mouth, Nothing like a healthy dose of raw macaroni to satisfy your hunger.

Just then Robin walked in and sat on the couch in the common area. Cyborg had never been happier to see the masked midget in his life.

"Where have you been?" he asked, placing his bowl back on the counter and sitting next to Robin.

"Researching," Robin echoed Starfire's earlier answer.

"Researching what?" Robin didn't answer, so Cyborg rephrased the question, "What have you been doing?"

"Cyborg, I-I think that I..." Robin trailed off, bringing one hand to his forehead. Something was bothering him. Starfire had come to stand behind the couch, concerned.

"What do you think?" she prodded gently. Robin looked up at her. He felt the same way as he had after the Red X debacle; guilty and ashamed. This time he wouldn't lie to them though. He had screwed up, and he had to take responsibility.

"I think that I did something...wrong," he admitted to them, grateful for the mask that allowed him to avoid their eyes.

"Like what?" Cyborg asked, genuinely curious. If Robin was admitting to making a mistake, it must have been a big one.

"I found out what's wrong with Beast Boy-"

"But that is joyous news!" Starfire interupted him, "Now we may treat whatever ails him!" Robin shook his head.

"That's the thing," he explained, "Sakutia-that's what it's called-has only been treated successfully once, and that was with Beast Boy. Apparently he's had a relapse."

"So why can't we give him whatever cure he got before?" Cyborg asked, wondering how Robin could possibly think that discovering Beast Boy's disease was wrong.

"Because the formula for it was lost after the first time they used it on him," Robin said.

"How did you discover this information?" Starfire asked, feeling bad about being angry at Robin for hiding out in the room of records.

"I...uh...I read Beast Boy's private file," he waited for Cyborg and Star to berate him for breaching the Titans unspoken agreement of confidentiality.

"This is what you feel the guilt for?" To his surprise, Starfire was giggling. He looked at Cyborg, expecting him to be angry.

"I don't think he's gonna mind if it helps us to find a treatment," Cyborg grinned, "Besides, B did the same thing to Raven on her birthday, remember?"

"That's not all I did," Robin continued, relieved that they weren't mad at him. He didn't want to tell them the rest, but he knew that he had to. Maybe they'd understand the rest of his actions. Maybe.

"What?"

"Please tell us Robin."

"I called a doctor," he said slowly.

"So?" Cyborg was looking at him like he was completely mental.

"Umm, I kind of...told him Beast Boy's real name," Robin winced at their reactions. Starfire had straightened abruptly at his words, eyes glowing. Cyborg had clenched his fists and stood angrily.

"You what?" he yelled, "Why?"

Robin began to stammer an answer, but was cut off before he could finish.

"Why the hell would you do that?" Cyborg shouted. Starfire's eyes had gone back to their normal color, but she was still clearly upset.

"I had to, he wouldn't le-"

"What right do you have to go around telling people that?" Robin was starting to get angry with Cyborg.

"What right do you have to judge me for doing the only thing that I could do to save Beast Boy's life?" he yelled, forgetting the feelings of guilt that had been plagueing him since his conversation with Register, "This guy is the only person in the world with any experience at all in treating Sakutia, and he wouldn't help us unless he knew Beast Boy's name. I did what I had to do, ok? I had no choice."

"How could you Robin?" Starfire's softly spoken question pierced through the shouting. Robin, who had stood up to face Cyborg, stopped and stared at her. Her disappointment hurt him more than anything else, more than Cyborg's anger, more than his own shame.

He was trying to find the words to explain himself to her when the alarm began to ring throughout the tower.

"Trouble," Robin walked across the room to the door. When he realized that Star and Cyborg weren't following him, he stopped and turned to them.

"We cannot leave our friends helpless against enemies," Starfire pointed out to him. Great, he thought, now I seem like even more of an ass, not thinking of Beast Boy and Raven. Even so, he knew that they had to go. Jump City was calling the Titans, pulling them away from their own problems to protect its citizens, to defend its streets.

"We can't just-we have to-" Robin stammered, unsure of what to do. Starfire and Cyborg didn't move.

Jump City was calling the Titans.

And with two of their members defenseless and unable to fight, the Titans couldn't answer.