Chapter 5
It stayed silent in the apartment for a few moments as he locked the door and pulled off his coat.
"You hungry?" he the asked from the kitchen as he unpacked the groceries.
"Kind of," she responded. She went to the kitchen to help him unpack. "What did you get?"
"Whatever I could. Have you looked outside?"
"Yeah. One hell of a storm."
"It came out of nowhere. Everyone is stocking up to stay indoors. There was hardly anything left when I got there. Frozen pizza sound good to you?"
"Anything sounds good right now. I've been living off of Garf's tofu for the past few days. Not exactly the greatest welcome back to the world of the living."
Dick laughed at her comment, though she could tell he was a bit uncomfortable at the mention of her coma.
Raven sat on the counter as she watched him zip around the kitchen, moving from the cabinets to the freezer to the oven to the sink, all while looking at the task to follow rather than the one at hand; preheating the oven, unwrapping the pizza, baking it, simultaneously putting the rest of the groceries away.
"Raven?"
"Huh?"
"Did you hear me?"
"No. Sorry. My mind was somewhere else."
"I asked you what you wanted to talk about."
She was a bit shocked. "Direct, aren't you?"
"You know I am. It's how I was raised." It might have been a cold reply were it not for the smile he said it with. "Well?"
"I'm not entirely sure," she began. "You see, I put myself in what one could call a trance. Waking from it and seeing… her, it was too overwhelming. A lot of my mind was obliterated, specifically my memory. I've managed to piece together almost everything, but there are still whole chunks of my past that are still missing. Every time I ask Vic or Garf, they're always really evasive or vague about it. I was hoping you could fill in the blanks."
He was silent for a few moments. His back was turned to her, leaning his weight on the opposite counter top. "So," he finally said, breaking out of his own trance, "What do you know?"
"I know that twenty years ago Starfire disappeared. Three years later, I disappeared. You guys stayed together for a year before you split up; Beast Boy joined the circus, Cyborg went solo here in Jump City, you went back to Gotham. Four years later the quakes hit. That's when you guys came together again. I came back too, but kept disappearing. Sometime between when you had gone to Gotham and I left here, you became Nightwing. You three sort of stayed together until the city was back on its feet, then nine years ago you all completely separated. Beast Boy joined the circus again, Cyborg stayed in the tower, and you disappeared into No Man's Land.
"Sounds like you've got most everything. There's not much to add."
"Cut it out, Dick," she practically whispered. "There's something none of you are telling me. I can feel it, not just in your minds but in the walls. It's hanging over the tower like a cloud an no one wants to admit it's there."
There was a pause.
"Will you tell me where you were?" he asked calmly.
"What?"
"If I tell you what happened before you left, will you tell me where you were and what you were doing there?"
"Yes. I'll tell you anything you want to know."
"You're positive you want to know?"
She nodded.
"Okay. It started three years to the day that Starfire vanished…"
(RRRR)
Oh snap! Sorry. Really. The next chapter is written, I just need to finishediting it. Watch out y'all! It's gonna' be a doozie!