Disclaimer: Characters and locations are trademarks of DC Comics. Batman was created by Bob Kane (and Bill Finger, does anyone ever remember him? He did most of the work).

A/N: Regarding the chapter title: you know when you're checking in at an airport and you hand over your luggage to someone else? I thought it was a rather clever metaphor for all the confiding that's about to go down.

P.S., Sorry it took so long.

Fully Alive

Chapter Five: Checking Baggage

Robin's hand tapped an excited rhythm on his thigh of its own volition. He had waited a week for Raven to open up, a week since he had half-carried the exhausted girl out of a gritty Gotham alley, and to a sixteen year old detective that felt like ages.

They sat together on Raven's bed, leaning back on her headboard, sitting in for a long night of divulging. Robin's hand continued its tapping.

A pale grey hand reached over and covered Robin's green-gloved one. Raven treated her companion to a withering look. His rhythm stopped.

Raven dropped the look, and calmly asked, "Do you want me to start with my father or mother?"

"Chronologically would work fine," he replied easily.

Raven nodded. "Well, that makes it simple, since my father is millenia old."

Before Robin could question that bombshell, Raven took a deep breath, preparing to launch into the fantasy-horror story that made her life.

"Do you believe in Hell?" she asked without prompt.

"Um," Robin stuttered, thrown off by the question. "I guess so. I mean, I live in Gotham," he joked. Raven ignored his effort as humor.

"Well, it exists. The real deal, another dimension for the dead, with fire and damned spirits and... demons," she hesitated a minute, before pushing through the lump on her throat and pumping out information like a computer. "Demons are very hierarchical, you see. So naturally, the more powerful become rulers. There is no single Devil ruling hell, there are dozens of omni-powerful demon lords, each with their own domain of influence and particular preferences for torture."

She gulped. "There's one such demon more powerful than most. He's toppled dimensions, killed and tortured billions of people of every race on every planet in every dimension he had access to, for no other reason than that he could. The only emotions he feels are rage and hatred. His only pleasure is in destruction. Even you might have heard of him. On Earth he is worshiped by certain Satanist sects as 'Scath' but his true name is Trigon the Terrible."

Robin did not have to sift through the encyclopedia of knowledge Bruce had forced him to learn for the name. Raven was right when she said he might know it: everyone and anyone who battles against evil has heard of Trigon the Terrible. People said it with shivers in their spines and fear in their eyes.

"You can't mean what I think you do," Robin denied nervously.

Raven's legs pulled up to her chest and her arms wrapped around them. From her shivering fetal position, she nodded.

"Trigon the Terrible is your father?" he asked.

Raven swung her head to look at the boy next to her. Her eyes looked dead and hopeless. That said it all.

Shocked immobile, it crossed his mind for the briefest of moments that he may have made a mistake in bringing Raven here. Yet, as he noticed her shivering the thought fled. Immediately guilty, he picked up a blanket from the foot of the bed and wrapped it around Raven comfortingly. Clothes still damp from the cold sweat of her nightmare, Raven gratefully pulled it around herself. Information absorbed, doubts assuaged, and shock swallowed, Robin moved on to the rest of the story.

"How did your mother get involved with him?" he asked.

"My mother, Angela Roth, was the daughter of two loving parents. She grew up in Star City in an upper-middle class area, fairly happily. But... Fate is unkind, and her happy family got shattered. It was a car accident. And Angela never got over losing them, especially when, since she had no capable or willing relatives, she got shoved into the foster care system.

"She got passed around from foster home to foster home. They were all abusive. She said one was very nice, actually, but they got busted for dealing. The point is, Angela lost her family, and tried to replace it with these foster families. She craved love, but she received neglect and dismissal instead. The shock of being unloved for the first time broke her worse than losing her parents."

Raven paused for a moment and looked at Robin. He smiled encouragingly, but she could see his eyes were someplace else: the loss of his own parents, most likely, and the lonely time when Bruce was trying to figure out how to treat a child, leaving the grieving young boy alone and without comfort. Robin could relate to how Angela felt. He couldn't imagine how he would have survived if Bruce hadn't made him his partner, giving him purpose and joy in his life again.

Once again, Raven took the boy's hand. He grabbed hers tightly. He felt bad that she felt the need to comfort him, when she was the one confessing her history, clearly in need of comfort. He waited for her to continue, refocused.

Raven recalled where she had paused and cleared her throat. "Once she got a degree of independence... Around fifteen she started avoiding her foster home. She went into the city, trying to find something to fill the void. She hung out with some questionable people. Partied a lot. Drank a lot. When that failed to make her feel better she tried looking for answers from religion.

"She started with Catholicism, because that's what she remembered har parents practising, but the church she went to was run by an asshole of a priest who didn't listen or help her. I think she tried Islam, but the foster family she lived with smacked her and called her a terrorist. She tried others, but none of them 'spoke to her,' as she says: Buddism was too peaceful, Hinduism was too vegetarian, Mormons didn't eat chocolate." Raven absent-mindedly shook her head. "So, at around seventeen, she delved into less frequented parts of the city, and started researching things like Paganism and Wica and Satanism. She was approached by a group that promised her the 'answers.'"

Raven gritted her teeth. "They... invited her to a few gatherings, told her pretty stories about their beliefs, and glorified Trigon incessantly. The cult treated her kindly, and so desperate for affection, Angela fell for their whole charade. She spent a few months being 'inducted' and getting so brainwashed that she ignored the signs of their more sinister activities. Her foster parents didn't care when she disappeared for days at a time.

"Angela didn't know that the cult had chosen and approached her specifically for a purpose. Trigon had been barred in his own dimension, though I'm not sure how. The cult was working on releasing Trigon, and for that, they needed a woman for him, to be his bride." Raven spat the word, eyes welling with tears of anger.

Robin was beginning to see where this story ended. He almost didn't want to hear it, but the words spilled out of Raven with a ferocity that suggested how desperately she had wanted to confide in someone.

"She left a note to her last foster family, telling them that she was leaving. They never reported her missing. She followed the cult into the middle of the Star City forest in the middle of the night. They drew a circle of runes and put her in it. At dawn they started chanting, and my mother, my stupid, vulnerable mother had never felt so happy, or so accepted. They chanted the entire day, and at sunset, Trigon was able to enter this plane long enough to..."

Raven's breath started coming in thick gulps, but she tried again, "Everyone she thought was her friend all looked as twisted and evil as they were, and she got scared, and the sky was blood red, and so was he." Raven sobbed, "He wasn't beautiful like they said he'd be, and he laughed pure evil, and then he..." She couldn't continue, her tears halted her outburst.

She cried from the pain her mother had passed onto her when she had told her the story, she cried from her own pain of being made by such evil and pain. She cried from hopelessness in the face of her father, she cried because she had to admit that she was the daughter of evil. She cried because she could never be part of a loving family. She cried because she couldn't control any of it, and when the furniture started breaking because of her wild powers, she cried even harder.

All Robin could do was hold his new friend tightly, his grip reassuring and unwavering. He couldn't tell her how sorry he was, because even though what she had told him was horrible, he felt glad that that story ended with her. He cherished his friends, and even if they had met only recently, her divulging her past to him made her one of his dearest. So he just held her as she cried out her pain and frustrations.

Waves of tears like Raven had never cried poured onto Robin's shirt. The deluge didn't stop until Raven ran dry. Eventually, even someone with everything to cry about runs out of energy to cry, and throw furniture with telekinetic powers.

As she slowly sat up, she felt too ashamed to look Robin in the eye. After such a horrifying confession and an embarrassing display of emotions and uncontrolled powers, she felt unworthy of his trust or friendship. Robin sensed her hesitation, even without empathic powers. He grabbed her by the chin and stared her right in her purple eyes.

With all the sincerity and kindness he could muster, he said, "Raven, thank you for telling me that. I'm so sorry that this has hurt you so much. But I'll always be here for you, for support and friendship. You don't need to worry about being alone with your pain anymore."

If she could have mustered one more tear, Raven would have started crying all over again. As she was, her whole body shifted. She looked lighter, her shoulders not so tense, and her lips not scowling. She put her arms around Robin's neck and hugged him again. Usually not fond of prolonged contact, Raven took unique comfort in her friend's hold.

She had a friend. Someone who knew what she was, and cared about her and her feelings all the same. Her world looked so much brighter with a friend to survive it with.

"Thank you so much," she whispered. He didn't answer with words. He didn't have to.

When she finally sat up, less troubled than he'd ever seen her, she said, "I'm ready to finish the story now."

"Wait, wasn't that the end?" Robin asked blankly.

Raven shook her head once. "I still have to tell you about the pregnancy, and how my powers developed, and how horrible they made my mother's life," she told him.

"Oh. Well, in that case, why don't we wait a few minutes so you can shower and change. I'm afraid you'll get sick wearing those wet pajamas much longer," he said.

"You've been hanging out with Alfred too much, you're nagging like an old man," she accused. "But a shower would be nice," she admitted. "I'll be out in ten minutes."

She grabbed a change of clothes and walked into the bathroom without another word.

Rubbing the back of his neck nervously, Robin looked at the ceiling thoughtfully. That story was intense enough to swallow, but that was just the beginning? He decided to check in with Batman quickly, before his mentor got impatient. And he needed to change out of his tear-stained shirt.

Dressed in civvies, Dick took the stairs down to the Batcave. He took them two at a time, the way he always did, despite his considerably fuller head. He found his mentor still parked in front of the computer, a thoughtful frown on his face. As Dick's quickstep stopped just behind him, Bruce, cowl laying down his back like a hood, turned to face his young ward.

"Is your business finished with Raven?" he asked evenly.

Dick could tell that deep down Bruce really cared for Raven's well-being, or at least he would come to care very soon. But at the moment, Bruce was still in crime-fighting mode, and he wanted his partner to help him solve a problem.

"No," Dick answered, leaning casually against the computer, "But she was in a state, so she's gone to take a shower before she tells me the rest of her story."

"Is that what all that crashing and banging was a few minutes ago?"

"Yeah, she was crying, powers went off the walls, with the furniture. Can't blame her," Dick said. Bruce easily picked up on Dick's worry.

"This was about her parents?" Bruce remembered, prodding for answers.

Dick nodded, but said, "Yeah, but I'm not going to tell you. That's up to her. I just barely got her to confide in me, no way am I abusing her trust like that."

Bruce turned back to the computer screen. "I don't think she trusts me," he admitted.

Dick snorted. "Of course she doesn't. She doesn't trust anybody."

"Except you," Bruce countered with a small smile.

Dick raised an eyebrow and said, "Well, it took some hard work, and she's only barely letting her guard down. But c'mon, this is me, the guy who saved her in an alley, gave her a place to stay, and faithfully believed that she didn't topple that school building on purpose. If she was going to trust anyone, it was going to be me. Not the Caped Crusader."

"Don't call me that," Bruce growled. "Though I suppose you have fair point. But what did you come down for anyway? You have more story to hear, I believe."

Dick shrugged. "I guess I just wanted to let you know how it was going, and see how far you were in your research."

Bruce smirked. "You were curious about Poison Ivy's work and couldn't wait," he guessed. Dick looked away, and Bruce chuckled. "Well, I've got the information on all the plants she had on her work table. The computer is trying to figure out what kinds of compounds they could make when combined, but it's just shooting blind. We can't really know what Ivy's making without asking Ivy."

"And you do so love interrogations," Dick joked.

"They're my specialty," he agreed in the same tone. "But that means we have to start our search for her all over again, and that's the part I need you back for. So, when you're finished with Raven-"

"Back into uniform, gotcha," Dick nodded. "Well, I'll just get back to it then. Later," he called over his shoulder as he waved goodbye. Bruce, already back to his work, didn't reply.

Dick's knock on Raven's door was answered by a quiet, "Come in." When he opened the door, he found the girl sitting cross-legged in the middle of her bed, wearing clean pajamas and carefully drying her hair with a towel. While wet her purple locks had waves in them, but Dick knew that they would dry pin-straight.

She had never looked as vulnerable to him. Face pointed down, hair wet, pajamas loose over her thin frame, Raven incited all his protective instincts, despite the fact that most people would think he needed protection from her. If they knew her secrets, that is.

He walked over to the bed with a smile a retook his place seated on her bed. When she looked up at him he smiled even more broadly. She smiled back, and Dick considered that a great success in his mission to get her to open up.

"So, you feel better?" he asked. She nodded. "Ready to continue?"

With another nod, she said, "Yeah, thanks." After a moment of recollection, Raven found her place again, and got back into her story.

"After the, ah, ceremony, after Trigon had, disappeared, my mother was completely wrecked. She was mentally and physically shattered. She was terrified, and she made a panicked run for it. She ended up in front of a nunnery. The irony, right? After all she'd been through with religions, a bunch of nuns found her, brought her to a hospital, and gave her a place to stay and recover." Raven shook her head and rolled her eyes. "At the hospital, they confirmed that she had been brutally, raped," she struggled with the word. "But they could never identify a perp.

"She says that she knew somehow that she was pregnant, even though the doctors said it would take at least a couple of weeks to check. She tried to kill herself. Several times. I think it was my presence in her body that made her attempts unsuccessful. My demon heritage wouldn't let harm come to me, and therefore my mother. Even though they couldn't figure out how she survived, she was in a psych ward for a month, getting counseling, therapy, before they would release her. She was still underage, but she refused to return to foster care. The nuns had continued visiting her, though, and they offered her the chance to become a sister. She accepted. She always claims that when she moved into the nunnery, she finally found the feeling she was looking for all along. She felt welcome, accepted, and loved. And after what she had been through, it helped that she felt safe again."

Raven sighed. She couldn't remember ever talking so much at once, but she found she had a lot to say. "The pregnancy was... painful for her. And scary. Not only did she have the normal fear of any woman with her first pregnancy, but she was trying to hide the signs that her baby, me, was something... less than holy. She was afraid they would kick her out. But despite the strangeness and the pain and the fear, she got through it. I think it was the first time my mother had really succeeded in anything. In a way, she was proud that she had gotten through the nine months successfully. And when I was born, in the nunnery," Raven smiled as tears welled in the corners of her eyes, "she says I was the most beautiful baby anyone had ever seen."

Dick smiled at her. "And I guess you just lost all that charm as you grew older," he joked.

Raven turned to glare at him, her power rising to smack him in the head. "Ow!" he shouted as a black-energy hand hit him over again. "I'm sorry, it was just a joke! You're beautiful! Stop hitting me!"

The assault stopped, and Raven turned away to hide a small blush. "Thank you. Are you okay?" she asked, recomposed.

"Yeah, that's nothing. You should try getting the crap kicked out of you by Batman's gallery of rogues," Dick smirked.

"Pass," Raven drawled somberly. They both smiled mirthfully at each other.

After a minute enjoying each other's companionship, Raven offered, "Shall I continue?"

"By all means."

"As I was saying, I was a pretty little baby, and my mother actually loved me. She had thought that she wouldn't. I mean, she was afraid I would look like a demon, you know? But no, I was just a little pale, with purple eyes. The sisters thought it was God's way of making me unique." She snorted. "God had nothing to do with it."

As Raven shook her head, Robin suddenly asked, "Hey, were you baptized?"

"Yeah, why?" she answered.

"Nothing, no reason. Just wondering, since you were raised by nuns or whatever."

Raven's eyes narrowed in suspicion. "You thought I would get burned by the holy water, didn't you?" she accused.

Robin, caught, shrugged in embarrassment, looking away. "Sorry, but how should I know how you would react to religious icons?" he defended adamantly.

Raven sighed. "I suppose that is fair. No, holy water doesn't burn me, I can enter a church, I received Holy Communion, I'm not allergic to silver or garlic, but I'm pretty sure a stake, wooden or otherwise, through my heart would kill me."

"I didn't suggest that you were a vampire," Robin stated, acting offended over her teasing.

"Mmhmm. Sure. Well, according to the Sisters, anyone can become a nun, no matter what happened in their past. It's a fresh start. So, Angela became a nun, and thus forever had a place to stay happily. Everything was fine for the first few years of my life. At that age, my heritage rarely caused trouble, except to Angela's mind. You know, me being a constant reminder of what happened and all. She loved me, but it was still difficult for her.

"I remember before the problems really started, being happy. The nuns doted on me, and my mother was almost carefree for once in her life, and I was a child without worries. But my powers developed at about age five, and they made everything, just, awful." Raven closed her eyes, boiling with anger. Her clenched fists gripped the bedsheets, and several objects around them floated in the air, pitch black.

With a few deep breaths, Raven managed to release her power with minimal damage to what remained of the room. "Sorry," she said. "I have always hated my powers. They're unnatural. I can't control them. But as bad as it is now, it was even worse when they first appeared. They terrified me, my mother, and the Sisters. Their appearance forced my mother to admit my true origins to the Sisters. They forgave her, of course, since it wasn't her fault. She was just a lonely child when it happened, no one could have expected her to make a better choice.

"But I destroyed /everything/ around me. The smallest thought or emotion set my powers on a rampage, and I kept finding new things about them, but the cost was too high. Learning to move objects at will ended with an unconscious Sister and a trip to the ER. Accidentally phasing through a wall, one of only four times I've managed to do it, nearly incited a heart attack in a hundred and three year old nun." Raven laughed cynically. "The baby they had helped raise from birth, the beautiful creature they had adored, the perfect little Catholic child, was turning into a monster as they watched. I think they were afraid I would sprout four eyes," Raven said as her eyelids shuttered her brilliantly purple orbs and pressed out twin tears. "And then I did. I got really mad one day when I was nine, and all of a sudden I was a four-red-eyed monster on a war path. No one knew what to do, they were terrified. I almost killed the people who had always loved and forgiven me.

"In the end, I guess I tired myself out using all that power, and I just collapsed. I woke up after three days, remembered what I had done, and tried to run away. They stopped me, though. I think they were afraid of the damage I could do. It was their biggest charity to the world: sparing it from me."

Raven stood from the bed abruptly, almost knocking Dick down, and started pacing. Her recollections were making her emotional, and that could prove disastrous to the building's foundations. She hoped to calm herself by burning off some nervous energy.

Still pacing, she told her audience, "It was all horribly stressful on my mother. She constantly worried about what I might do, who I might hurt, who might notice my powers, all the damages she had to find a way to pay for. I was causing her stomach ulcers from the stress. It didn't get any better as I learned how to, if not control, suppress my powers, by avoiding emotion. She thought I was a time-bomb. She was wrong, though, because I managed to stay calm and detached almost all the time. I practiced being emotionless. I got so good at it, it freaked her out.

"When I was fourteen I decided it was time for her to get a break from me. I had always been home-schooled. Of course; I couldn't endanger other children. But I learned about a full-ride scholarship to go to the Gotham Prep Academy for Girls, and I applied without telling my mother. When I got accepted, there was a huge argument about my ability to handle the situation without hurting anyone or letting them find out about me. But throughout the entire argument I stayed dead calm, and nothing blew up. It was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life, but I did it." Raven smiled. "And that's how I convinced her to let me go."

"Would you mind telling me about the recent incident?" Dick gently inquired.

Raven shook her head. "It was stupid. You know how teenagers are. A group of girls singled me out as easy fun, someone to degrade and bother, because I had no friends and was different. Humans are more perceptive than you'd realise. They knew I was different, more than the usual goth kid. I didn't let it get to me for a long time. I nearly had the year done, but eventually, I just got so sick of their bullshit, and I'd been repressing my emotions and powers for so long... It all just snapped. My powers reached out and destroyed the biggest, heaviest thing possible: the support beam of a building's west wing." Raven sighed, disappointed in herself. "I suppose you know from there, huh?" she prompted Dick.

He nodded. "Yeah. That's pretty much everything, I guess."

"And you're still willing to help me? Still willing to talk to me? After everything I just told you?" Raven asked with disbelief.

Dick stared at his friend dead in the eye. With the most serious voice she had heard him use, he said, "Raven, do not ever suggest that I would abandon my friend, no matter what the circumstances, and especially because of things in their past that they couldn't change. I hope you know I'm not so fickle as that."

Grateful, Raven looked right back at him. "Of course you're not. I'm just not used to being treated like a human, I guess."

Flashing a smile, Dick reached forward to embrace his friends. With his arms around her he commanded, "Well get used to it."

Raven had no response to that.

Dick pulled back. Gripping her shoulders, he asked, "Are you going to tell Bruce all of this?"

It took Raven a long moment to think over his question. When she answered, though, she had conviction. "I think I owe him the truth, after all he's done for me. Giving me a place to stay, offering to find me a teacher, and everything. Plus, if he doesn't know what I am, how can he find someone to teach me?"

Dick nodded in approval. "A very reasonable decision. I've got to go help Bruce with finding Poison Ivy, before he goes crazy. You can tell him in the morning, when he has a minute to think about something other than plant-controlling women."

Raven agreed. As he stood to leave she said, "Hey Dick." Once he turned to look at her, she told him, "I hope you don't expect to ever hear me talk this much ever again."

Dick grinned his cocky teenage boy smile. "Of course not." He told his friend, "Get some sleep. If you have another nightmare, you can call me anytime. Night."