A/N: I wrote most of this one together with the last one, so it was just as hard, but maybe even a bit more because I kept trying to get them REALLY peeved at each other, really like to the point where they scream and yell and what I got was...well...you'll see.

Thanks: Individually: On emsscraps. Like, tomorrow.

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Estranged
Part VI: Robin

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"If you could step / into my head, tell me / would you still know me?"
- So I Need You, Three Doors Down

'You.'

The answer whispered through his mind like a ghost, a specter of things that might have been and never were. He knew he had missed her from the moment she had stepped out of his life. He had accepted that the empty ache he fought against in the few restful moments before sleep claimed him had her name, her face, and scent. But he hadn't realized how much he wanted just to touch her. To know she was real.

The word was there, forming on his lips, aching to spill into the tense, angry air between them, and yet he stopped it. She had been in his city for three days. She admitted to being there because she had to be, not because she wanted to be.

He might not be able to deny wanting her as she seethed righteous anger in her white hotel towel, but he'd be damned if he'd tell her that when she so obviously wanted him gone.

Unable to answer with truth, he found himself at a loss. He didn't know what to answer her because although he did want her (and he could admit that, at least to himself) and he wanted to hold her despite the anger that still seethed inside him, he also wanted something else. He had come to her room that night because the thought of her leaving Blüdhaven, leaving him, again without talking to her one more time had seemed ludicrous, blatantly wrong. Yet, how could he tell her what exactly he wanted from her when he didn't know what that was himself?

It was so much like the random day her voice had been on the other end of a random telephone call he received at his desk. He had been so surprised, he hadn't known what to say. For the first few moments, he thought she would ask for his help or say that she needed him. When it became obvious she didn't, he thought perhaps she had simply wanted to hear his voice, that she might perhaps say...something. When she seemed intent only on small talk, he had cut her off and hung up as soon as he could. It had scared him how much he had missed just the sound of her voice, but the woman who spoke to him on the other end of the line that day was not Raven. There had been no sign of her in that voice, the voice that asked him superficial questions about his job and his life and generalized questions about how he felt held no resemblance to the intuitive and perceptive voice he remembered. The voice that spoke to him that day was like a pale outline of the Raven he knew she could have become and he hadn't been able to bear it.

"I'm tired of this Ro--" she clenched her eyes shut, and he could almost hear her mentally berating herself for slipping so easily into the old, familiar name. "You practically push me out of your life for daring to intrude upon it and although I tell you I'll be leaving again, you show up on my balcony but you can't even tell me what it is you want." She looked at him, and he couldn't even determine what it was in her eyes. It was almost anger, almost frustration, almost pain.

He didn't know what to tell her. The only answers that came to him were too close to truths he wasn't ready to share yet. "I didn't push you," was the only thing he could think to say. "You went away on your own, I never said I wanted you to go." He wasn't sure if he was talking about their confrontation earlier that night or if he was talking about another moment, years ago.

She scoffed and the harsh sound cut across the space between them like a knife. "Please," she said disbelievingly, "Every inch of you wanted me gone, I could feel that plain as day."

He looked up at her so quickly, that he knew the surprise must have been laid bare in his eyes before he could control or hide it. "No, I didn't want you gone."

"Then what did you want?" she asked, and smiled but not like she was really amused. "It keeps coming back to that, doesn't it?" she shook her head. "And I'm tired of that too." He could practically see the need she had to do something with her hands and he was surprised to realize that it was something that hadn't changed, even despite all the years.

Raven had always had a problem fidgeting. Oh, not bad enough that people would notice, maybe not even so bad that she would notice, but if were really and truly annoyed or frustrated or impatient, she would fidget somehow. Slight taps of her finger against the nearest object, picking at her own nails, picking at invisible lint, whatever. He could practically see the desire to fidget running up and down her arms but she held back which only let him know how very angry she was and how hard she was trying to control it.

What right did she have to be angry? He hadn't even taken on an angry tone with her, not once since he showed up on her balcony.

Suddenly, he couldn't remember why he shouldn't be angry. "You're tired?" he asked, his eyes raising slowly to meet hers. "Then why don't you just go, Raven?" his tone was deceptively low and calm. "Go back to your perfect little life in your perfect little town." He was surprised at the bitterness in his tone and wondered at how she wasn't able to feel it when it was so blatantly obvious to himself. "It's what you do best, isn't it?" he prodded, trying to hurt her. "Run away?" He saw the shocked surprise and although at any other time he might have stopped, he wanted to force her to understand what she had done, or the way it had seemed to him, even if he didn't say it outright. "Run away and pretend that there was ever a time when you were anyone other than Rachel Roth, M.D.?"

"How dare you?" she asked, her voice wavering with the effort of not screaming. "You fucking bastard," she hissed, "Do you have any idea how hard it was to walk away when I did? How hard it was to not come crawling back when I was lonely or sca--" she stopped, suddenly realizing what she had said and had been about to confess to. She exhaled. "I never forgot where I came from, I was never the one who cut off communication with everyone, Robin, I was the one who called you, remember that?" She took a step toward him in her anger, then another. "You didn't care what happened to me at all – us --- none of us." She shook her head as if she had mentally gotten caught up in some other thought and had to shake herself to get back on track. He might have argued had he had the chance, but she continued before he could shape the words. "I called you, and when I did, you couldn't get me off the line fast enough." She pinned him with her angry, demanding gaze. "But I ran away?" she scoffed, crossing her arms and glaring at him. "Don't make me laugh."

"Oh, I remember your call all right," his jaw was tight with restraint, as if only the steel in it kept him from speaking more than he wanted to speak. "And maybe you can answer something for me that bothered me quite a bit," he said, deceptively calm and casual, "Why did you call me that day? Was it some special occasion I forgot?" He neared her another step and she apparently didn't notice because she didn't back away. "I thought maybe that you might have needed me, my help, for just a moment, I even entertained the thought that maybe you just wanted to hear my voice, but --"

"Why would I want to hear your voice?" she interrupted, her voice laced with sarcasm and maybe a little pain. "When you made it so abundantly clear that you didn't care what the hell happened to me one way or another?" she pressed. "Oh, wait, you checked up on me, didn't you?" she sneered. "You knew I was a doctor and where I settled, you knew it..." she laughed but it wasn't really amused. "What trouble you must have gone through to find out all that information about me!" she crossed her arms over her chest, a bit awkwardly since she was still wearing the towel, but she was too worked up to do much about it then. Instead, she narrowed her eyes at him, even the mockery of humor gone from her eyes as she continued, "when all you had to do was pick up a goddamn phone and I would've told you any—all of it."

When she had first thrown the hairbrush at him and demanded he get out of her room, he had had a moment of difficulty coinciding the woman in front of him with the girl he had known. And although her words, her expressiveness and her gestures were still almost alien to him, it was in that moment, when she glared at him and he had to really look into the depths of emotion in the so deep amethyst of her eyes that he saw her. It wasn't until he saw her and recognition flooded through him like warmth that he felt the despair overcome him.

While he had thought she had changed too much and had morphed into someone unrecognizable to him, it had been easy to be angry, easy to push aside the fact that she was there, within touching distance of him and that she hated him. It was easy to pretend he more angry than hurt, more unfeeling than empty. With the recognition that she was still there, that this woman was exactly who Raven the girl had always promised to be, it was all he could do to keep from falling on his knees in some strange mixture of grief, despair, and gratitude.

"Why did you check up on me, Robin?" Some part of him realized she was so upset she hadn't realized she had used his old name more than once already, but he wasn't about to point it out. It sounded right, somehow, hearing her say it again, even if it was said in anger. "Did you think I might be going around divulging Teen Titan secrets?" she swallowed and some emotion came and went too quickly on her features for him to name, "Your secrets?"

He didn't want to answer her question. He didn't want to tell her that he had found out everything about her as often as he could in what could only be described as moments of weakness. He couldn't tell her that he had woken up one night unable to sleep and had somehow found himself looking at her as she studied through the night from across two rooftops, careful of pricking her empathy. He wouldn't tell her that throughout the years he had grown more bold (or perhaps he had wanted her to feel him) and had been there the day she cried in barely contained joy at the cry of a child she helped birth. He didn't know how to explain why he was there and yet couldn't make himself call out to her, speak to her, call her.

When she had called him, he had thought...

"Why did you call me?" he countered instead.

She shook her head. Her voice, when it came, was more than monotonous, it was almost dead; "Because I forgot, for a moment, how very far away you were from me."

He knew, almost instinctively, that she meant more than actual distance. He knew it, and if he thought about it, he might just know what she meant by it as well, but he didn't want to think about it. "So you spoke about the weather instead? You asked about my job? How I was doing?" he asked. "That was never like you, Raven, you've changed...you started changing the moment you left."

She shook her head, hard, and it looked as if she were coming to some hard decision. "I never changed," she argued, but the heat and derision was gone from her tone. It was dead and quiet, a shadow of the voice she had been forced to have for so many years and the thought that it was his presence that brought that out in her again pained him more than he was willing to explore just then. "I simply became more fully what I always was inside but had never been allowed to be," she answered. "Can't you see that?" she looked at him as if he had let her down. "I thought of all people, you would be the one to understand that the best..." she trailed off and looked away from him, unable to meet his eyes.

"I did know you the best," he said before he could stop himself. "I knew you like no one ever could, and I always knew that the happy, laughing, caring woman that plays with the kids in the park and helps the old ladies in her small town by taking in their groceries or giving them rides in her car was always inside you, I knew that, but that wasn't who called me that day, Raven," he said emphatically. "It was some stranger, not even who I knew you could become, someone else entirely."

It wasn't until after he'd spoken that he realized what he'd said – all that he'd said. He hoped she didn't realize the true implications of his words, but he didn't think it would escape her notice. He could actually see the realization dawn on her face like she'd witnessed some unspeakable horror and was only just now starting to make sense of it enough to become really horrified.

He saw her battle with herself and waited in nearly breathless anticipation as to what she would decide. He tried to think of something else to say, some way to stem the tide of the accusation that was to come, but he came up blank.

"You did more than just gather information about me, didn't you?" she asked. "You actually came to Shaver Lake," she said, more than asked. "You came all the way to my home and watched me," her tone was growing more horrified by the word and just when he thought she might burst into screams or call him some other nasty names, the anger seemed to crumple in on itself and when it was done, her face was empty. She shook her head. "Maybe you're right," she spoke, and it was almost a whisper, "Maybe it's been too long now..." she looked up at him and for the first time since the very first time they had met, he felt she looked at him as if she were looking at a stranger. "I don't think I know you anymore, either."

The mere fact that she didn't argue the point, didn't yell or scream or be coldly defiant and demanding he answer her twisted him inside the way none of her angry words or scowls had. The way no one ever had been able to get under his skin, her look of surrender undid him. And the way he had reacted to all such emotions lately, that she would give up so easily turned into anger at her purposeful misconception of his words. It occurred to him with startling clarity that she didn't want to face the deeper meaning of his words, she didn't want to question his presence in her town. He had practically seen her lips forming the question, why before she had turned away from it and given up, deciding to go for the easier route and that made him angry too. He was angry at her for not asking him, for trying once again, to push him away from her, but he was even more angry that he didn't know how to make her face them-- how to make her face him.

"That's not what I meant and you know it," he ground out fiercely, the first hint of anger he'd shown since he appeared on her balcony.

She shrugged and waved her hand as if she were swatting at a pesky insect, "Whatever, it doesn't matter does it?" she asked, her voice a curious mix of anger and fatigue. "Just leave me be." She turned around to walk away but he was suddenly there, in her space, inches away from her back and she tensed the split second before his hands grasped her bare upper arms.

For a moment, she felt nothing except the current of his touch as it spread from the point of contact electrifying each of her nerve endings and making her feel as if each one had been numb before that moment. But then she felt his anger and his frustration wash over her and underneath it all, riding the undercurrent, was the warm press of his aura and the faint scent of lemon and sage she always had associated with him. She might have stumbled if he hadn't instinctively tightened his hold of her.

Suddenly, she was facing him and she didn't remember turning. His hands were still on her forearms, however, the initial feeling of electrical current fading and leaving behind only a heat, so she could only assume he turned her and she let him.

"Why are you doing this?" she asked. "Why are you bringing this all up now?" She glared at him but the anger was fading, he could see it, fading to pain and the kind of expression he had never wanted to see on her face after they defeated her father. "You asked me to leave and I'm leaving..." She turned her face away from him, letting her still damp hair rush forward to hide her from him, "Just let me go."

He could have answered any of the other questions she had shot at him. They were reasonable enough, but the fact was he didn't know the answers to them. The only thing he did know was that he wasn't going to let her go, so he said the only thing he could say:

"No."

And when her face turned to him in surprise at his simple yet determined answer, he lowered his head and seized her lips.

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A/N: ((hides and ducks flying projectiles)) Yes, another cliffie. I'm evil, I know. I'm sorry, but the pov of changing again, and you know that means a new chapter. I have the next chapter written...well, written in first draft form anyway. Or maybe outlined? Since these chapters are literally right after each other timeline wise, it's hard for me to remember how much I've written and how much I've just sort of outlined. But I know where it's going, from here to the end, so no worries, me hearties. Just give me some time to get it nice and pretty for ya.