AN: I do not own Teen Titans

Chapter 8

"Come on, Raven, you gotta at least try it," said Cyborg.

Raven just shook her head.

"But it will help you to speak to us," said Starfire.

Raven mouthed a, "No!" and crossed her arms firmly.

"Like Cyborg said, we just want you to try it out," said Robin. "Please?"

She shook her head again and turned away from her four friends defiantly.

"Come on, Rae," said Beast Boy. "You gotta at least give a test drive."

Ravens eyes went wide. She turned around swiftly and she grabbed the trinket from Cyborg's hand. She turned it on and pressed it to her throat. "Don't-call-me-Rae!" said a robotic voice.

"Ha! Got you to try it," said Beast Boy triumphantly. "And, dude, you sound like a computer!"

Raven growled and said, "Shut-up!" She turned to Cyborg and said, "I-don't-like-it."

"Okay, so it needs some upgradin," said Cyborg. "But, for now, you can use it to talk."

"I-would-rather-be-mute," said Raven, tossing the contraption back over to Cyborg, who quickly caught it.

"But Raven," said Starfire, flying in front of her friend before she could storm out of the room. "We wish to hear you speak again. We do not care if you sound like the machine of the vacuum."

Raven just stared at Starfire for a second. Then she gently pushed passed her and left. She had had to go three days so far without speaking, and as hard as it was, she refused to sound like a smoker who had had their larynx removed.

"Well that went well," Cyborg sighed.

"Don't you think you can make something that could actually sound like a voice?" asked Robin.

"Even if he does, she's not gonna want it," said Beast Boy.

"I do not understand why she does not want to speak," said Starfire.

"Of course she wants to speak," said Beast Boy. "She just wants to speak in her old voice."

"Then why isn't she helping us find Adrienne?" asked Robin.

"Duh! Cuz she thinks she can't be found," said Beast Boy. "Raven told me that when Adrienne first stole her voice she had searched everywhere for her, but no trace was ever found."

"When'd she tell you this?" asked Cyborg.

"Yesterday," said Beast Boy.

"She told you all of that?" asked Robin. "How long did that take?"

"A while," said Beast Boy. "And a lot of paper, but she didn't mind and neither did I."

"Wow, I guess you were right about this thing bein your… thing," said Cyborg.

"I am just glad Raven has someone to do the talking to, even if she can not talk," said Starfire.

"Speaking of which," said Beast Boy. "I'm gonna go see if she's okay." And with that he ran after her.

Raven made it to her room and slowly closed her door. She couldn't believe they wanted her to use an artificial larynx to speak. She might not have had her voice, but she still had her pride. Not that her pride made up for the fact that she felt depressed.

'Look at yourself!' she scolded. 'How dare you feel sorry for yourself?! So what if you don't have voice? A voice is just a tool for oral vocalization. Many people live without speaking vocally, and so can you. So stop being depressed and get on with your life. It's pointless to feel bad for the loss of anything, so stop it right now!'

A knock echoed through her room and she was startled out of her thoughts. She went back over to the door and slowly opened it. There stood Beast Boy, smiling like he always did.

"Hey, you okay?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Sure?" he pressed.

She rolled her eyes, sighed, and nodded again.

"Look, don't worry about that fake voice thing," said Beast Boy. "Cy'll think of something."

Raven shook her head and made a motion with her hands that clearly said, "I don't want him to."

"Robin says that you hafta have some sort of voice," said Beast Boy.

Raven threw up her arms as if to say, "Oh well!"

"That way, if you're in trouble, you can call out for help," said Beast Boy.

She placed two fingers in her mouth and made a very loud whistle. Then gave him a look that said, "I'll just do that if I'm in trouble."

"Well, what if your mouth is covered?" he asked. She just stared at him for a moment. "Oh, duh, then it wouldn't mattered if you could speak. Well, what if your hands are tied?"

She whistled again, this time fingerless, showing that she could whistle fine if her hands were tied.

"Come on, Raven, you can't just go through life without a voice," he said.

She gave him a fake smile and nodded firmly that said, "Yes I can."

"No you can't!" said Beast Boy. "How are we supposed to understand you?"

She pointed back and forth between them, which said, "We're communicating right now!"

Beast Boy opened his mouth to say something, but stopped short. "Huh, I guess we are," he said, realizing this. "But, still, don't you ever wanna talk again?" He watched as a pained expression crossed her face. She looked down then closed the door, separating them.

He sighed and decided to leave her alone. He always seemed to say the wrong thing, even when he truly didn't mean to. He headed to the common room to find something to do. He found Starfire in the kitchen just getting ready to cook dinner.

"Hello friend," said Starfire. "Is Raven alright?"

"Yeah, she's fine," said Beast Boy. "But she doesn't want anything to help her speak."

"She is being the stubborn, correct?" asked Starfire.

"Yeah, pretty much," said Beast Boy, waltzing over to the couch and flopping down. Unfortunately he hadn't seen the shoebox that was already sitting there that was full of their vacation photos. He quickly jumped up and grabbed it. "Star, who left the pictures here?"

"I believe Robin was looking through them," said Starfire.

"Well why didn't he put them away?" asked Beast Boy. "I mean, that's like something… I would do."

"He was called away by Cyborg's announcement of the talking device for Raven," said Starfire.

"Well where's he now?" asked Beast Boy.

"I believe he is in the room of training," said Starfire.

"Figures," said Beast Boy, rolling his eyes. He opened the shoebox up and looked at the hundreds of pictures. He had nothing better to do, so he decided to go through them. Seemed like forever since he looked at the vacation pictures.

He chuckled to himself as he sorted through them. They had done so much in Tokyo, and there was still plenty more that they didn't get a chance to do. He really had never had so much fun before. He was sure that they all, with the exception of Raven, had an awesome time. But why was that? Why was she always the exception?

He looked for all the pictures that Raven was in. There was only one out of the whole bunch that had her solely in it. The rest she was in she was only in the background, not really paying attention to the fact that a picture was being taken. And in none of the pictures did she seem very happy or entertained.

"What was with her?" he asked himself softly, so that Starfire couldn't hear as she cooked. "I mean, usually she can find something to do to keep herself busy. But she was on my back the whole time."

He looked at the pictures of him signing autographs and getting hugs from his fan girls. He was smiling and gloating in every picture. Then he began to see a running theme with each of those pictures. In the background he could see… Raven. Yeah, of course he could see his other friends in the pictures, but she was in every single one.

"That's odd," he said to himself.

He looked closer to see what she was doing. It just looked like she was standing there, off to the side where she thought no one could see her. And she looked… sad, but angry. There was a better word for it and he searched his mind. She looked… she looked… jealous? Yes, that was it! She looked jealous.

"What the heck?" he said, looking even closer at each of the pictures. "Why would she be jealous?"

He remembered back and tried to make sense of this. He slowly began to put the pieces together and realized that she had always been extra short tempered when he was talking about all of the girls he was meeting and how many numbers he was getting. It seemed like whenever he mentioned other girls she would snap at him.

"Does this mean… she likes me?" he questioned. "Why would Raven like me?"

"Pardon?" asked Starfire from the kitchen.

"Uh, sorry Star, just thinking out loud," he said with a quick grin. He grabbed the few pictures he had been studying and headed out of there and to his room.

Once his door was safely locked he began to think about what he had just discovered. "Alright, why would Raven be jealous about a bunch of fan girls?" he asked. "A, she wishes she had as many fans as me, B, she wishes she could get my autograph, or C, she… has a crush on me. But why would Raven have a crush on me? I mean, yeah, I'm totally hot and funny and cool and beyond dreamy. But why would she realize this now?

"And out of us three guys why would she choose me to have a crush on? I mean, Robin's more like her than anyone else. But, he is taken by Starfire. And Cyborg seems to understand her, too. You never see her yelling at him for being annoying. But then, they're more like brother and sister. Still, why me?"

They all seemed to treat Raven the same way, except for him. They respected her boundaries, they followed her rules for fear that something could happen, and they were each mature around her. All but him. And that was because… he treated her like a real person. Not someone to be feared or tiptoed around. He treated her like she was normal, like she could feel emotions and she wasn't a half demon.

"I better go talk to her," he sighed. "I mean, I'm probably getting all worked up over nothing."

He convinced himself this, put the pictures away, and headed over to Ravens room, again. On the way he kept telling himself that he was crazy; that perhaps his mind was playing tricks with him.