A.N: Okay, this update took way longer than expected. Sorry about that. If people could please actually review this chapter, that would be cool, especially because the last chapter didn't do so super in the review department. But I still love you guys...most of you, that is...

Disclaimer: Don't own Teen Titans. Never have, and probably (sadly) never will.

Slade

"Wake up. Slade, wake up."

After a moment of disorientation and confusion, Slade was wide awake. He remembered seeing a nearly transparent, green-clad Raven in the hotel mirror. He assumed it was she who had somehow...sucked him in to this place, wherever it was, before catching him off guard and knocking him out with a knife-hand to the throat. The girl standing over Slade looked as much like Raven as had his attacker, but (like the afore mentioned assailant) something was off about her.

"Raven?" he asked, getting to his feet.

She nodded. "Sorry about Br-that, um, messenger. She gets carried away. Not unlike some other messengers I know."

Slade ignored the unnecessary comment and took a moment to look Raven over. She looked sick, to put it simply. She looked starved, and even if Raven hadn't been fed since before her capture she shouldn't have looked so hungry. She was clothed in a knee-length brown dress with a white bodice and what seemed to be a white petticoat peeking out from beneath the skirt. Even more shocking was the detail Slade noticed last: the scabbed over area on Raven's forehead where her red gemstone had been embedded. "What happened to you?"

"Oh, this?" said Raven, tugging at the skirt of her dress. The deadpan way she said it assured Slade that Raven had not been broken yet.

Raven sighed. "I woke up hanging from the ceiling, they didn't feed me, they took away my powers with my stone, and decided I needed a wardrobe change. Long story short."

"Nothing else?"

"Well, I breathed a lot, and slept, and my heart beat, and-"

"You know what I mean." Slade could be a very blunt person. Usually that didn't bother him. Now he wished he would have been more roundabout with the comment. For once, Slade was afraid to hear the wrong answer.

Raven looked down at her bare feet, closing her violet eyes for a moment. When she opened them, they echoed back her next statement. "I hoped you wouldn't ask about that."

Was he surprised? No. Then why did this have such an impact on him? You already know. So what do you do next?

"I'm sorry," Slade managed to say.

"Right," said Raven sarcastically. "The only reason you're here is because my subconscious is totally naive, and you haven't found another way home yet."

"Your subconscious...?"

"Forget it." She turned away. "I can't believe I actually started to trust you. After everything you've done, after Terra-"

"This has nothing to do with that!"

"Of course it does! This is just you lying and manipulating people into doing what benefits you. But who could blame you, Slade? After all, you were just trying to get your life back."

"Raven-"

"So you rescue me, and then you kiss me, and then you leave me alone! In there with him! He told me I was lucky to be the daughter of a demon and then he-he... I can't do this anymore! And you being here now is worse than you not being there before."

Slade snapped. He grabbed Raven's arm and spun her around to face him. "I have been looking for you for three days, taking out things that shouldn't even exist for you, and now you're telling me you don't care? I am so sorry that I'm trying to rescue you. Have fun in the dungeon, since you apparently don't want to be saved."

Then he noticed her shocked expression, and let go of her arm.

Raven blinked a few times, then whispered, "You werelooking for me? This whole time?"

Slade rolled his eye. "I thought I already established that."

"Why?"

"Because I'm in love with you, that's why."

A.N. And let's stop right there. Hee hee. I'll be trying to update on at least a weekly basis from now on, so chapters might be shorter. Just a heads up. Please review!