"But we got rid of him," Cyborg said again.

Patiently Raven said, "But now he's back."

All the Titans were sitting around a table in their favorite pizza place. Raven had insisted. The only place she'd been in the last two days were asleep in her room and in the ward and she was getting tired of it, she said. She wanted pizza.

Robin didn't need his close friendship with Raven to know she wasn't telling the truth. She would happily spend days in her room holed up with a good book. She was trying to get Beast Boy distracted and away from what had just happened.

It had worked. Sort of. Beast Boy had happily agreed to pizza, had squabbled with Starfire over the grossest toppings, and had inhaled three slices as soon as their order had arrived at the table. But

when nobody was talking to him, he became edgy. He kept looking at his hands as if afraid they were suddenly going to change to paws.

Raven had explained what had happened, along with Beast Boy's first attempt at meditation and his "dream." Cyborg in particular was having a hard time understanding. "But we got rid of him! That Beast was a disruption of B's DNA, it's not a real thing!"

"You got rid of that one, but once Beast Boy had changed the Beast still existed in potentia."

Cyborg stared at her.

Raven sighed. "Once he's changed into a form, he can do it again. It doesn't matter that it's not a real thing. Once he changed into it once, it's real for him and can be again. Some part of him has chosen that form to hold all his anger. Beast Boy has shut all that away. And now it's trying to break out."

"M'm nff -" Beast Boy swallowed the mouthful of pizza he was chewing and tried again. "I'm not angry! Not like that." He shuddered. "Dude was spitting."

"You suppressed the Beast before, shut him away in your subconscious. And he's getting stronger." Raven emptied a packet of sugar in her tea and stirred. "The readouts Cyborg and Robin took proved it. When the Beast arrived your neural activity spiked. My guess is he was bringing the screaming out of your subconscious, trying to make you so tired you wouldn't put up a fight. He's been pushing you. That's where all those primate changes are coming from."

Robin reached for a last slice of pizza. "Why not try what happened before? Make Beast Boy angry and change then?"

"Because it didn't work," Raven said. "Beast Boy was able to overcome what was essentially just a destructive force." She glanced at Beast Boy, "I told you, you have –"

Abruptly she stopped herself. She was going to stay I told you, you have a strong heart – but she had told him that in Beast Boy's dream. And he hadn't mentioned it. Furious at herself for the near-miss, she took a sip of tea and started over: "I told you, you have to keep chanting. You need to stay focused to resist him."

"I know..." Beast Boy smiled slyly at her. "You did a pretty good job kicking his butt, though. And you stopped the voices!"

"What I did is not.. it's not good for me to do," Raven said, looking away. "It's dangerous. You need to learn to control this yourself."

"Oh," Beast Boy said, crestfallen, "Does that mean you're not going to help?"

Raven drank more tea. "I'll help. But -" She looked straight into Beast Boy's eyes. "You've got to understand this, Gar."

He blinked at her use of his real name.

"We did destroy my father. That's true. But I'm still half-demon and that will never change. Rage is almost the embodiment of that heritage. All she wants to do is destroy. It's fortunate that she can help us right now, but don't think that means she's allied with us or friends with us. She just wanted a fight. We can use that – for now. But later –later we could end up worse than where we started."

There was a short silence. Then Beast Boy said, "Raven – if it would be better that you didn't help -"

"Stop trying to be heroic," Raven said flatly. "It's annoying. If you want to make it easier on me, then do I what I tell you to instead of making jokes. This will only be over when you can control the Beast."

You should have told him to try doing something else, Affection said.

I'm supposed to be helping Beast Boy, not teasing him, Raven answered.

Not teasing, Affection said smugly. Just reminding. Just reminding.