Finally got a break in my big project, but I may not update very much for a long time.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Chapter 13

Beast Boy had just about had it. Up to here. The time to wait for his friend to return was over, and he was going to have his revenge. All those years of being thought too weak to do anything about what he needed, he was going to change that now.

He'd been "dead" for too long. Because of him, she had fallen into sadness, and now she was lying in the hospital wing, perhaps never to be awakened again. As soon as he'd had a word with her, he'd be off. Off to seek out and confront the idiot who couldn't see past his own emotions. The idiot that had done this to her.

He tentatively pushed the door open, making sure that he checked first to see if, in all reality, he really was going to be alone with her. Then he slowly crept over to her bedside and knelt down beside her sleeping figure.

"Hey, Rae? I know..." he choked a bit, then found his voice and continued. "I know you probably can't hear me, but if you can, please at least listen to what I need to say. I know that there's a chance that you won't come back, and I've seen your mind, so I know that you're probably in turmoil right now. I'm sorry that I was part of the reason. If I could, I'd just take everything that's been heaped up on you and put it on myself so that you could be free, but I can't, so here you are now."

Her breathing slowed for a moment, as if she were letting out a sigh of content. And was it just his imagination, or did a smile creep over her face? Perhaps she was not dying after all, but merely in a trance, as she had done before when he himself had lost it.

"Hehe," he laughed cautiously. "I guess that means you can hear me. Um...well, I guess what I wanted to say is that, well, back there, when we found you in the streets with him, part of me was just glad to see that he was feeling something, even if it was remorse, but the other part of me just wanted to lash out at him and knock him down right then and there for even thinking about hurting you. And now, I guess, is as good a time as any to tell you what I've been wanting to tell you for a long time now," he paused, wondering if this really was a good time. Perhaps he should wait until she was actually conscious...but no, if she were to never wake up, he wouldn't be able to forgive himself if he had never told her this. "Well, Rae, I think I..." he took a deep breath. "Well, I think I love you, but if you don't love me back, that's okay now. I've finally decided that whatever you want to do, it's all right with me, as long as you're happy." He smiled. "That's what love really is, I guess, is having the courage to let someone you love choose for themselves, isn't it?"

When she failed to move in response this time, his smile dropped, and he hung his head. He reached out to stroke her hair, then pulled his hand back for a moment, wondering if she would really allow him to do so if she were hanging on a thread of consciousness. But his feelings got the better of him, as often happens to those hopelessly in love, and he decided that it would be okay after all. Tentatively, he reached out and pushed a thread of her beautiful hair back away from her eyes and just gazed down at her face.

Even in these most dire times, she could still manage to be beautiful. The windows to her eyes had their shutters tightly closed in the lock of near-death, and her face was pale as the tomb, but she had that rare elegance, like the soft frost on a delicate flower. It seemed such a shame to him that a frost should have to come upon this flower, for it was such a lovely thing, and to be defiled by such evils as the wintry frost seemed unbecoming.

As he ran his trembling fingers over her face, he felt her warm breath on his hand, assuring him that she was still in the land of the living. He had to stifle a laugh as he imagined what exactly Love was saying about all of this, if indeed Raven was aware of what was going on, but he didn't care anymore. He was no longer in Nevermore, and thus he had the freedom to finally express himself.

Gently, as if by some slip of the hand he might cause the delicate petals of this perfect flower that were her lips, he brought his hand over those pale petals and was glad to feel warmth there as well, despite their white hue. She seemed so calm, even this close to death, that he was amazed at her gentle wonder.

"Rae, I want you to know something. I'm going after Robin," he said quietly, and a dark look crossed his eyes and his heart as well. He took her limp hand in his own and gently kissed it before continuing, "I'm going to make him pay for what he did to you. You were the only one who still had any hope in him, and yet you had to be the one that he did this to." Tears started to form in his eyes, but he brushed them away. Not now, he told himself. He couldn't cry now, not while he spoke to her of bravery and courage and avenging the wrongs that had been committed against her. "I'm going to find him," he whispered once more, biting his lip to keep the unseemly tears away.

For a moment, it seemed to him that the heart monitor registered a skip in the normal, steady, beat of her heart, but perhaps it was merely his imagination, for he saw no telltale rise of her chest nor any sign of change at all. Maybe he had just been imagining the clues that he had believed led him into thinking that she was just waiting for him beyond the boundaries of consciousness. Or maybe she could hear him and didn't care that he was pouring his heart out to her. That last hurt him to the core.

He looked to the window. He could hardly believe it, but already the sun was beginning to crawl out of its resting place in the sky. He sighed at this; in another life he would have complained at being up so early, but now, when he knew that he was going to avenge her, it didn't even matter to him anymore. Any joke he may have cracked before seemed empty in his mind. The others were wrong; they didn't have their jokester back. This past month or so had changed him from a flippant boy to a serious young man, one who was serious about what he did, one who was almost at the border of obsession in his quest for revenge.

"Rae, when you wake up," he paused. "I say when because I know that you will wake up, because I would die if you didn't. But when you wake up, please don't get on to me about being obsessed or anything, because I'm not. I'm not going to turn into somebody like Robin, I promise. I would never, ever hurt you in any way, Raven, and I want you to know that. If I seem obsessed now, it's only because I can't bear to let anything happen to you. Seeing you like this..." he trailed off, trying to find the right words to place exactly what he was feeling. "It breaks my heart. It breaks my soul. And I have to fix that, even if it means that I have to challenge one of my old friends." He paused, finally taking in what he was saying. "Rae, Robin's not our friend anymore. You know that now, don't you? He's not the same old Robin that we used to know, and I don't know if we'll ever be able to bring him back, even if we can bring Star back."

The window danced with a pink color, then fading to a light purple color. Purple...he sighed. Purple like her hair, the beautiful decorations that only added to the flower's beauty. Purple like her eyes, those glimmering jewels that seemed to outshine even the flower itself, as if she had been the most beautiful flower in the world and someone had paid tribute to such gentle softness by adorning it with two of the rarest gems in the world. She seemed to be too perfect, as if she had been created by angels as a test to all men on the earth.

Then there was a bright flash as the sun rose with all its brilliance. He blinked for a moment, trying to regain his bearings, then stared out into the waters that were still the slightest color of purple from the earlier dance that seemed to be almost a tribute to the girl now lying beside him.

He looked down at the frail hand in his own. Noticing a faint scar that ran across her knuckles, he traced that with his own fingers, quietly wishing that he could take all this, all this pain and bring it upon himself so that he might free her from it. But he was not able to do so, and now he was again powerless to do anything but to sit here and hope that this strong young lady could pull through so that he could find out if she really had heard his pleas.

Hearing the slight sound of footsteps that signified someone else's approach, he quickly kissed her gently hand once more, his eyes falling over the scar and thinking for a moment that it was the equivalent of the thorns of a rose before he transformed suddenly into a fly and waited for whoever it was to open the door.

The thundering footsteps of one and the light, stealthy footsteps of the other told him immediately who it was before the door was even opened, and he decided to delay his quest for revenge for a few minutes and listen to what these two could possibly be talking about at the crack of dawn.

"The way I see it, there had to have been some sort of stimuli to wake Beast Boy up, some sort of brain wave that might have caused him to come out of it. I'm picking up the same chemical in Star, but I just can't get her to wake up," Cyborg said as he hobbled akwardly right to the computers.

"Maybe she doesn't want to wake up," Red X said simply, causing his companion to whirl around in shock. He shrugged, then clarified, "Think about it. If you had just seen your boyfriend taunted with your own death to tears and insanity and then felt yourself slipping away before you could do anything to help him, how would you feel?"

Cyborg whistled slowly. "I guess that does make sense. But we need to wake her up if we have even the slightest chance to bring Robin back. He's already over the edge. You said yourself he even attacked the press earlier yesterday. If we're ever going to have even the slightest chance of shaking him back to reality, we've got to bring her back now while he's still having trouble not feeling anything."

X nodded, then added quietly, "I wish you could have seen the kid's face, Cyborg, when we found him with her in that puddle." He shook his head. "It was one of the scarier things I've ever seen. His face was just deathly pale and he looked like he had died years ago. He wouldn't even talk, or even let go of her until we insisted that she needed medical care."

"I've never seen him like this before," Cyborg agreed sadly.

"Somebody needs to knock some sense into him," Red X continued bluntly.

Neither noticed the tiny green fly on the wall nodding its head. He agreed with them absolutely, but he seemed to be the only one that was going to do anything about it. Oh well, he'd fought Robin once before, he'd just do it again on his own. He knew from experience that if he could put the jokes aside long enough, he could prove more than a match for many. All he had to do now was leave to start this journey of his.

"That's why we're going to bring Star back," Cyborg said, and the little green fly stopped in mid flight. As much as Beast Boy wanted to get revenge, he was also concerned about the welfare of his best friend.

Come to think of it, Starfire really was his closest friend. Sure, Cyborg would joke around with him and play video games with him, but when it came down to advice and sharing each other's sorrow and trying to help each other out, she was always there for him. She had endured the threat of Robin and Raven's possible relationship right alongside him and worked hard with him to prevent it. They had probably shared more laughs than he and Cyborg ever would, although this was probably because the naive Tamaranean actually laughed at his jokes. Now that he thought about it, she really was his closest friend, and he found that he wanted her safety more than he could push himself towards his revenge against Robin.

"How are we going to do that? We'd have to go inside her mind or something!" Red X sighed, a bit put off by how confident Cyborg sounded.

"Exactly. Didn't you know that Raven was an empath?"

The little green fly's eyes narrowed. They'd better not try and wake Raven up too early to save her. As great a friend as Starfire was to him, not even her safety could come before that of Raven's.

"Yeah, but I don't know how that's going to do us much good now that she's in a coma," X pointed out.

Cyborg smiled. "I know we'll have to wait until she wakes up, and maybe by then I'll actually be put together," he paused, gesturing towards the spots where his leg and arm were supposed to be, "but the point is that when she does wake up and has the strength to help us, she can go into Star's mind and convince her that we need her to come back. That Robin needs her to come back if he's ever going to be sane again."

Well, the plan could work, but he wouldn't let them touch Raven until she was good and ready, he decided, finally taking his leave. The little green fly became a small green bird that exited through the roof of the tower, pausing just over the spot that Raven had earlier pushed Robin off the roof before continuing on. All of this pain, all caused by one stupid mistake. Well, maybe he could correct the situation by wiping out the source of the mistake...

TTTTTTT

Raven was starting to find herself overwhelmed by the hoard of short emotions that came to her for support. Surprisingly, Timid was the first to ask for help. The poor thing had shrunk almost as badly as Little Love had, and she seemed almost too small for her robes. Indeed, she actually tripped approaching her to ask for help. She had scooped the cute little emotion into her lap and gladly given of her power to her.

Now she was tired and weak, but her emotions had the strength to continue on for a few more days without dying. The only problem was that, now that she was in a coma, even Intelligence would shrink if she didn't find a way out of this soon. Her mind was slowly detereorating, and she could do nothing about it.

So when the yellow-clad emotion came running up to her, she wasn't surprised to find that she had shrunk about a foot in the past few hours. "What's new in the outside world?" she sighed almost dejectedly.

"I've got good new that's bad for you and bad news that's just plain bad," Intelligence replied, then corrected herself, "What I mean to say is that there is much to report, but even that which seems good to others is not neccessarily expedient on your part."

"Out with it, girl, some of us are in dire need of some help, here!" Rude shouted.

"It appears that Cyborg and Red X have discovered the cause of the apparent death and revival of Beast Boy, and they believe that they can do the same for Starfire, but there must be a mental trigger in order for such a thing to happen, but she has retreated into her mind, so they need Raven to go into her mind so that she can pull Star out of this coma-like state and restore order and perhaps bring hope back for Robin-"

"YEAH!" Love shouted, then immediately blushed and backed away, muttering, "Sorry, please continue."

"Now for the terrible news. Beast Boy has decided that he must enact revenge on Robin, and, after much doting and confessing his love-"

"YES!" Little Love shouted, then blushed as her sister had done. "What? Aren't I allowed to be happy about that?"

Clearing her throat, Intelligence continued, "And he's gone to try and hunt Robin down!"

Raven's eyes widened at this revelation. "He did what now?"

Intelligence nodded. "And if the two of them have their say..."

Raven bit her lip, looking away for a moment. "How can I stop it, though?"

"Well, you could always try and help Starfire, and get her to stop them," Little Love offered.

"But it could take a long time to even get her close to recovery!" she sighed.

Love put a hand on her shoulder. "Did it ever hurt to try? I'll tell you what. Intelligence and I will keep the less strengthened emotions from going out for three days. Three days, remember that Raven. Then you have to come back and help us out again, alright?"

Raven nodded numbly. "Do you really think I should?"

"Do you want to save Robin-"

"AND BEAST BOY!" Little Love bellowed from behind her sister.

"Right...and Beast Boy too...I guess...Do you want to save them or not?" Love asked, casting a strange look in her sister's direction.

She sighed. "More than anything, even life itself."

"That's exactly what I wanted to hear. Now, let's get situated. We'll hold down the fort over here and report what anyone else says to you when you get back," Bravery said, stepping into the conversation.

"If she gets back," Sadness said quietly, causing all of the emotions to cast nasty looks in her direction.

Raven took a deep breath. "Alright. Let's do this," she said finally.

In Starfire's mind, one would have expected to find flowers and such things that would remind one of happiness. Instead, it appeared very similar to the outer reaches of Raven's own mind: scarred, broken, dismal. At this point, Raven wasn't even sure if there was anything left TO save.

Suddenly, a small sound, much like a stifled sob, echoed in the dry air. "Go away," sobbed the pitiful voice, and she rushed towards it.

A hunched over, white-clad Starfire was sitting in the middle of this dry wasteland against the sole tree in her mind, yet this tree was withering, and would surely die soon. The girl had something in her hands, but what it was, she couldn't see at the time.

"Starfire, it's me! Raven!" she cried out joyfully, trying to convince her friend to come back, but instead several more leaves on the pitiful tree dropped off, and tired eyes, worn out from crying, looked up at her.

Finally, the white-clad Starfire held out her hands and showed her what she had been holding so close to her heart. Choking back a sob, she said quietly, "He left me." She peered closer at the wrinkled thing and saw that it was, in fact, a tear-stained memory of the outside world. A mask.