Sober

A/N: So this is chapter 6. As fair warning I'm letting you all know that the sweet, sugary sappiness you all enjoyed last chapter will not be found here. This chapter is all sadness and angst and all that other wonderful stuff that I do so much enjoy. However it is still a Starfire based chapter. Please don't hate me for what comes in this piece, okay? I really did feel bad writing this one.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans; they belong to DC Comics, the evil lucky dorks that they are. Nor do I own the song 'Sober'. I'm just borrowing it from Kelly Clarkson and her record label.

Ninety days. Seven hundred and twenty hours. Forty-three thousand two hundred twenty minutes. Three months. Funny how no matter how she calculated it, no matter what she called it, it still meant the same thing. No matter how she looked at it, three months had still gone by.

It had taken Kori a while to realize that the battles you don't see coming are the ones you're destined to lose. They're the ones that end up shattering you, breaking you, pulling you into the undertow.

Kori never saw Her attack coming. Too preoccupied with her immediate competitors, she'd never once seen Her as an enemy, as competition. She'd never seen Her as a threat until it was too late. Till She body slammed Kori's heart to the floor, till She managed to take the one thing that Kori wanted most in this world, till She took Him.

Kori could've sworn that she was dreaming that day three months ago. That what she was seeing and hearing were apart of some terrible dream. That it was all part of some sick, twisted nightmare, designed to torture her and break her heart. Because there was no way what she was seeing could possibly be true, it just couldn't be. She was a princess, was she not? She was supposed to be the one getting her happy ending, her fairytale dream come true. She was supposed to get her Prince Charming.

But she'd made a mistake. She had foolishly believed that he wanted her, that he didn't have anyone but her in his heart. But he did, he did have someone else. He had Her. And she was in the common room of the Tower, holding his hands, looking adoringly at him as he went to one knee before her and began speaking the words that Kori never wanted to hear him say to anyone but her.

She tried to look away. Tried to clear what she was seeing from her mind. No such luck, the image remained. Burned forever into her retinas. Him and Her, together forever.

Kori knew when the girl in the wheel chair gave her response. It was the exact moment her heart shattered. The exact moment she felt thousands of its torn, jagged fragment pierce her deep inside; somewhere near where she was sure that life-giving organ had once resided. It was the exact moment the wheel chair bound girl, with her slightly darker than Kori's sealed her answer with a kiss.

She moved throughout those first weeks in a haze, trapped in a stupor. Letting the waves of her pain and heartache wash over her, drown her. She let the pain fill her soul, got drunk on its intoxicating ability to numb her heartache. She didn't feel anything. She didn't fly. She didn't cry. She just allowed her pain to ease her through the days, ignoring her friends, and their constant questions and concerns. She let the hurt lull her into a waking sleep.

Then one day she woke up.

She had crashed, she had burned, she had broken and eventually she had cried. But she came out alive, if not a little bit broken-hearted and lonely. She had taken the garden that was her spirit, dying and overgrown with weeds though it was and cleared all the anger and jealously away. She didn't need to hold on to them, didn't need to give tem anymore room to grow. All that remained were the flowers of her catharsis, her new beginning, and her renewal.

She woke up. Caught a glimpse of who she was. Found herself, who she was, on her own, without Him. And slowly she moved forward. She flew again, lived and laughed again, but this time for herself. She let go of the drunken stupor she'd been holding so tightly to. She got closer to letting him go completely.

So here was she was. Three months later. Taking part in the wedding she had once planned for and dreamed of. Except she wasn't the one in white today and he wasn't marrying her. She wasn't becoming Kori Grayson today. Instead she watched as He took Barbara's hand in his. Watched as he married her.

But that was okay. She was still there, still sober. She wasn't drowning on her heartache. She was still smiling, still standing, still breathing. And although it spasmed with a phantom sort of pain, her heart was still whole, was still beating.

A/N: So because I'm mean like that I decided to break Starfire's heart this time around. She was so happy last chapter it only seemed fair. Plus the song has been beating up my plots for weeks; trying to find a place it would fit. So I wrote this. It seems a little…. fragmented to me, although that may be because my grammar checker keeps popping up and telling me that this sentence or that one is fragment and needs revising. Eh…anyway the next chapter may or may not be happy. Depends on how I feel. Would it be overkill two happy chapters almost in a row?