Disclaimer: Do I honestly need to keep saying this? Sigh Me no own, you no sue.

A/N: So, I hope you're all ready for a heaping helping of angst ice-cream. No worries, I don't plan on making the rest of these an emo-fest 2006, but with a theme like "Dead" well, what do you expect? It's likely that this group will be the only one with interrelated drabbles, as well. Most will be self-contained.

Thanks so much to those of you who took the time to read and review! It makes me all fuzzy inside. Read and enjoy, and please feed the author!

Dead

Robin didn't have the words, but she hadn't needed them, anyway. She could see the stifled tremor of his hands, the sickly pallid of his skin. And as she met his eyes, any hope evaporated.

"Dead?" It wasn't really a question.

He took her hand, placing the broken communicator and remnants of his mask in her palm.

"Rae, I'm—"

"Don't," she said, voice unwavering, eyes turned stone. "There's nothing to be sorry for."

His grip tightened. "It's okay to hurt, Raven."

"People come. People go. In the end, we're all ash."

When she walked away, he almost believed her.

Alive

Irony left a bitter taste in her mouth. It was cruel the way it coiled around her fingers in the grass stains on her hands, drifted through the sweet apple blossoms and sunlight, warm on her back. Echoed in the laughter of children passing by her forest of stone.

And it hurt. Every sight, smell, and sound a brutal mockery. It wasn't right that everything around her should seem so alive when he was—

"Oh Roy, how can you leave me here like this?" The words were whispered, soft, speaking not the pain of death…

But the pain of life.

Rose

Robin dared not move. Feared if he spoke, she'd dissipate like the apparition she'd become over the last few weeks. Of course, he knew she was aware of him.

Raven was always aware, painfully so.

Tentatively, he stepped toward her, taking in the grave soil on her knees, and the single red rose dangling from her fingertips.

"Grossly inadequate, isn't it?" She spoke, twirling the rose, mindless of its thorns. "Yet it's all we have."

"What will you do now?" He wondered if she could feel her tears as keenly as he could.

"I will live, Robin. On his behalf."

Stars

The room went completely still as she entered, her petite frame swathed in a whisper of black silk and lace, lavender tresses pinned up in soft waves, and sapphires sparkling like stars along the long, smooth column of her neck.

Bumblebee approached cautiously, but her expression spoke of gratitude. "We weren't sure if you'd come."

Raven smiled. It was tiny, only a slight turn of her pretty lips, but for the first time in a year, it met her eyes. "Roy taught me the value of what it is to feel. It's time I remembered that."

They couldn't agree more.