Yay, another chapter...and...FINALLY...some Raven/Beast Boy...

Chapter Six

Beast Boy carried Raven close to his chest as they descended a floor into the medical lab. In his own time, it was barely a room, however in the future it encompassed most of the floor. Raven, the future and conscious one, answered his thoughts.

"There are many members of the Titans now, and during large battles, many injuries. When the Tower was rebuilt, Victor decided that the medical area needed to be enlarged."

"Titan Tower had to be rebuilt?"

Raven nodded, opening a set of doors leading to a private medical room, gesturing for him to lay her past/present self down. "I went a little crazy, got a little distracted...allowed Trigon to destroy the Tower."

"Trigon? Your father?"

She nodded, her purple eyes flickering dangerously. "We stopped him though. In this time, he's gone for real."

Beast Boy nodded. "Is that what allows you to...emote?"

Raven laughed. "In a way, yes. Mostly I can show my emotions because I no longer fear them." She gestured to the Raven that lay on the bed. "I, we, grew up in a very distant place. We were taught that emotions were bad. The Azarathians thought they were teaching me the good thing, so that my father wouldn't be able to control me. They were wrong, but their hearts were in the right place. After the second or third time he snuck onto Earth through my emotions, I learned that I didn't need to suppress them. I needed to control them."

Beast Boy nodded. "So...um...is she going to be alright?"

Raven studied her past self, so young in mind, body, and soul. Even unconscious, her mental shields stayed up, never relaxed. It was a state of living that she herself had dealt with for far longer than this girl. It was easy to get a read on how her mind was recovering. "She is unconscious, but as her mind heals, she will drift into sleeping. In a few hours, she'll wake with a head ache, and a little hunger." She glanced at the worry on the green boy's face, seeing it there stirring emotions she didn't want to remember. Or rather, ones she didn't want to regret, not anymore.

Even as she told him this, the edges of her senses stirred, telling her of two people heading this way. One, she expected, and the other, she expected long gone. It seemed that he felt the need to protect her from this, from something she knew she didn't need protecting from, or rather, she hoped.

"You can stay here with her, until then, if you wish. I must return."

Beast Boy looked surprised. "You're leaving me here, all alone?"

Raven gently touched the side of his cheek. "I trust you. I always have" Even with my heart, though you never realized it, but she kept that thought to herself, instead walking to the doors and letting herself out.

In the hallway, it was dark, and she pulled those shadows to her, an element she was comfortable with. Emotions she'd long languished in. Keeping them held to her, she walked slowly down the hallway, stopping just around the corner as Arsenal and Changeling walked into sight. They weren't speaking, but rather were glaring in unsaid emotions, one of which was envy and jealousy. Raven smiled a bit, such emotions had long ago been her food, what she survived on, but those were old times, times best forgotten.

"Roy? I thought you were leaving?"

He nodded, stepping away from Changeling, who'd stopped when she spoke, still several feet away. "I wanted to check with you before I left," unsaid: I wanted to make sure you could handle seeing him again, I know you're fragile and some part of me loves you and wants you to be okay.

Raven smiled, pushing a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm fine. Beast Boy and myself are settled, I am healing. You and Nightwing should go. You've duties to other teams."

Roy nodded, and leaned over, brushing a kiss against her cheek, lingering there for a few seconds. Raven allowed him to linger, enjoying the brief touch of an old lover to settle the anxiety that rolled in her stomach. With a small smile, Roy walked away, up the stairs, and out of sight. Changeling and Raven stared at each other.

"Gar. I take it you're here to spy some more." It wasn't a question.

"Someone has to make sure y'all don't cause too much trouble."

"As if we ever did before?" That was a question. For once in her life, Raven didn't know what was going on in Gar's head. He was an enigma to her, his emotions and thoughts locked against her by some training, and from his methods, probably that bitch Zatanna.

Gar shrugged. "We caused trouble, but we had fun while we did it."

"We were kids, it was all fun and games to us."

He shrugged again. "We're not kids anymore."

Raven stepped closer. "So we abandon our old friends and toys for a new way?"

He shook his head. "I abandoned no one."

She smiled. "I know."

He looked at her in surprise, unconsciously stepping forward too. "So you don't think me a traitor? The others do."

"I know you better than them. I understand why you stayed away. It doesn't mean it doesn't hurt."

He didn't know what to say. Of all the Titans, Raven had been the one he'd loved the most, in the same ways, and different. He'd long ago accepted that they'd never be together the way he'd once wanted. Too many things now stood between them. He stepped back. "You and Arsenal? I can say I didn't see that coming."

Raven let the smile slip from her face slowly, but kept the amused air about her. "Roy? We're never really together."

"You seem to be together."

"Ah, but...I am with him, but he's not with me. Roy is a free-agent. Goes where he will, with who he will." It was a situation she'd accepted long ago. Roy, as Speedy, had loved and lost Donna, Wonder Girl. He'd never gotten over losing his first love, just as she had never gotten over her's. It was one of the things that'd pulled them together. Pain. The inability to love again. And lust.

Gar looked at her hard. "You deserve better."

She ignored the comment. "What are you doing down here?"

"I wanted to check on the rest of the Teen Titans," he explained, before changing the subject. "You don't really think this will prove anything?"

Raven cocked an eyebrow, before moving aside to let him pass. "I have nothing to prove. I know what's right. I know what's true. I feel pity for you, that you no longer believe what I say, even when your life is in danger."

Gar walked past, but not before leaning close to whisper in her ear, "You pity me now, but once you loved me." And as he walked away, even with his animal hearing, he didn't hear her whisper back.

"I still do." It was good that he didn't though. Raven and Garfield Logan, in this time and place, could never and would never be together. Too many problems, issues, and people between them. A long time ago, they might have stood a chance. Now they stood on opposite sides of the spectrum. Hero on one end, and vigilante on the other. The distance was not traversable.

For the two in that medical room, however, there was no distance. There were few problems between them, and only one person to interfere, and Terra was long gone. Beast Boy, having a terrible thirst, and waited only a minute to follow Raven, and thus, heard the entire conversation. Though young and inexperienced in the ways of adults, and the nuances of unspoken words and long silences, he could tell that something had happened between himself and Raven, something he didn't know, and didn't plan, but something he wanted to know fully about.

He returned to the room, just as Changeling and Raven turned the corner, taking a seat by Raven's bed, impulsively taking her hand. She looked so small and vulnerable on the white sheets, her dark and almost black, but more purple hair spread out behind her. Her cloak lay on the table beside them, and as the footsteps echoed outside the door, he rose and began to cover her with sheets. When he turned back to the door, he came face to face with himself. He was surprised by how little he'd changed in five years.