This chapter (and the story, really) is for Kayasuri-N, who told me what didn't make sense, what to post, and gave me a scene used in this chapter. The hint for just what scene is to her full blame and credit: Logan is speechless after it happens. This chapter took just one draft- sometimes, things just fall into place. Keep your dental professional handy for this chapter: this has been a warning from a pre-med writer. (As for Logan's last line for the story- did you expect anything less?)

Reviews? Thanks, authors love them.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
"She's going to go get what?" Victor asked.

"A mirror," Logan said. "That, I don't get, but the rest makes sense."

"Perhaps you could explain it to me, then," Starfire said. "I understand that her father is a demon who wishes to destroy this world, and who wants to cause Raven to lose control of her anger so that he may control her body and open a portal through which to send his forces. I do not understand why she desires a reflective surface used in preening."

Logan understood what was going on, but hearing it in Starfire-speak confused him for a few seconds. "Check, check, and check," he said. "So, her anger ran a hostile takeover and decided to not take orders from daddy anymore. Raven told her father what anger was up to, the demon pulled back his strength, and then Raven knocked her anger out of control." The way Raven had said it, her anger talked. She hadn't been able to explain that very well, which is why she had gone to find her mirror. "As for the reflective surface? No clue."

"Whatever did happen, it's not going to make the news," Tim said. "I ran a little interference with the one reporter who smelled a story, and explained that I would have a suit for libel against the paper within two business days. None of us would give an interview, no eyewitness testimony. Jenny Watson has a torn-up yard in a privately owned house."

"Raven was amazing, even when she looked like she was going to beat the snot out of us," Victor said. "She said she'd never lost control like that before, right?"

"Right," Logan said.

"This is a good thing, then. Raven knows what it feels like, and what to avoid." Victor meant every word, and heard a heartbeat just past the common room's doors. "If things ever get bad, we know she could win." She was their security blanket, even if she did occasionally glow an ominous shade of red.

The doors opened. Raven had a mirror gripped solidly in two hands.

She set it on the table, very carefully. "I said that explaining how my emotions was difficult. That's not completely true. The words aren't that hard, but they do make me sound like a very good candidate for a psychiatric ward."

"I'm sure Logan would never think so," Victor teased. She knew he wasn't serious, and walking on eggshells would only give any tension room to set. "Grape soda, Logan. Where do you get this stuff?"

"Well, just look at her beautiful eyes," Logan said. "Eyes are supposed to be some big focus of sonnets as far as I know. I know Shakespeare wrote lots of them, fourteen lines, iambic pentameter... anyway, her eyes. Amethyst is completely wrong, but grape soda has the dark color."

Raven smiled, just a little. "You'll have to repeat just what you said, sometime. I don't remember it." Her world had been flashes. They had seen Rage in control, not the chaotic war of emotions. Even Lazy and Timid had fought at Raven's side to get control back. She had needed to cut the demonic influence from Rage before she could take control of her own mind back.

"To tell the truth, I'm not completely sure I remember," Logan said.

"I have it on tape," Cyborg said. "I see at twenty-five frames a second, high definition."

Something in the mirror giggled.

Four Titans stared at the mirror and took a small step backwards. That had sounded like Raven.

Raven only sighed. Of all the emotions to see first… she had hoped for Wisdom, or at least Curiosity, but diving in headfirst just might be easy. "This is a portal into my mind. My emotions are very strange, by your standards. They talk back, fight, and never can get along."

Raven still wasn't sure if it was a good idea, but Wisdom approved for once.

"If you'd like, you could meet them," she offered shyly. Timid, unused to the obvious attention, would have fled further into the corners, but she, Brave, and Wisdom were in charge of watching Rage's manners.

Curiosity, not hesitance. She knew that emotion. The day she had met these people was the best of her life.

Dark energy spread out from the mirror, slow but steady. The control was all hers, and the effort took all her concentration, but she did it. A moment later, they were in her mind.

It took Raven a minute to sort out the chaos. The emotions had agreed to all meet in Happy's sector. Happy had the most space, the fewest dangers, and the least foreboding decorating scheme.

Timid was hiding behind Brave, as usual. Brave was torn between the important duty of watching Rage and the fun idea of fighting Robin herself. He was a good teacher, and he had made Raven finally know what to do with her fists, but Raven couldn't beat him. Brave definitely could, but she had to watch Rage and Timid.

Wisdom wasn't much of a talker. Raven knew that she would keep Brave, Timid, and Rage in check. Timid wasn't much of a threat, physically speaking, but she was very easily upset. She would very quietly wonder for months why Raven hated her, if she wasn't there when the Titans came to visit, but she would cry if any one f her friends even looked at her the wrong way.

Raven had just stopped a fight between Curiosity and Lazy when she knew that something was wrong. She paused and took inventory.

Rage, Timid, Wisdom-check. Brave, from her battle stance near Rage, was asking Tim about several techniques Raven still thought were physically impossible.

Happy-barrel rolls with Starfire.

Curiosity was pumping Victor for information about just how a few biological systems would work in case Raven needed to heal him and with several unrelated questions that seemed to involve how electricity worked.

Lazy was displaying her rude side by making a few finger gestures Raven hadn't taught her. Raven didn't think she had ever seen that last one.

That left… oh dear.

Raven turned just in time to see Affection kiss a very surprised Logan on the cheek.

Of course everyone had seen. Raven blushed. Tim and Victor stared, probably unaware that their mouths were hanging open. Starfire and Happy were smiling. Brave pumped her fist; she and Affection made eye contact and grinned. Rage growled. Curiosity started pestering Wisdom, Wisdom smiled in the serene way most likely to make Curiosity smack her in frustration.

Lazy wolf-whistled.

Timid, despite her best efforts, fled.

Back to normal, then. Raven glared at Affection and Brave. "Both of you, go find Timid," she said sternly. "Remember what we discussed? That still is a possibility." They blanched.

Affection waved goodbye to Logan before grabbing Brave by the arm.

Logan still hadn't said anything. Raven still hadn't stopped blushing.

"So, who was in the purple?" Tim asked, very carefully not smiling.

"Affection," Raven said. She would see the humor in the situation when someone put out the fire in her face. "Brave is in the green. The two of them usually find some way to mortify Timid. Lazy in the orange also responds to Rude with the same lack of politeness, Rage is in the red, Curiosity in yellow, and Wisdom in brown."

"You were right, Rae," Victor said. "There is no way to explain all of this. If I wasn't looking at this, I'd think somebody put something in your tea." There were some advantages of a video memory. One was the look on Logan's face. Another was proof of continued silence: Logan still hadn't said anything. This had to be some kind of record.

"It was very nice to meet all of you," Wisdom said politely. "If you'll excuse us, Rage and I will head for one of the other areas now."

Raven nodded. Wisdom was one of few emotions that pretended to defer to her, even if she did so while making nicely worded statements about what would be best.

"When you said that anger took over, you meant that girl in red," Tim said.

"Yes," Raven said. "It just sounds extremely odd to speak about emotions as if they're separate from me. It's easier to just meet them than explain."

"Is all your mind like this?" Victor asked, gesturing at the overdose on pink. He was open-minded. He didn't think a giggling Raven in pink was too out there, but her entire mind in pastels? That would just be weird.

"No." Raven pointed at one of the stone arches. "That would take you into another area. Most of my mind is suitably dark, but all of the emotions have their own places. This is Happy's. Curiosity has an entire library, Lazy has a very impressive mess, and Wisdom's entire domain is covered in mirrors." That place unnerved Rage, which guaranteed Wisdom her privacy.

"This place is something else, Raven," Victor said, "but I can tell you right now what the weirdest part is."

"What's that?" They understood, now. Happy, midair, twirled at Raven's emotions. She liked being expressed, even if it was just a little.

"Logan hasn't said a word for the last two minutes."

"This is weird. This is very, very weird."

"You called me," Victor reminded her as she took a seat. He hadn't thought she would come. "I've seen odder earlier today. You want to know just what was said, I want to know how you know what happened."

Jinx wished she wasn't so curious, sometimes. She would love to blame the hero, but she had called him. "Off the record?"

"Unless someone's in danger," Victor said after a minute.

"Close enough." Jinx wasn't the type to take hostages- too messy, not effective, and too much notoriety of the mob-and-pitchforks sort. "We have a base in the area, and caught it on a surveillance camera."

"You didn't catch the audio the first time around?"

She should narrow her eyes, toss her hair, and stalk from the restaurant. Instead, fingers twined in hair dyed dark especially for the occasion of an early dinner. Dark hair, brown contacts, and a pair of glasses just to complete the normal-girl look. He was just as much in the background with some kind of hologram.

"I read her lips. I couldn't see his from the placement of the camera," Jinx said.

"It might be better to play the audio." Victor couldn't repeat ten words with a straight face, let alone the good parts. "Playback memory came with the cannon."

No pity from her quarter. She had read about the town's star track runner years ago, and scorned editorials lamenting the loss. She had done a little research in the last few weeks about Victor Stone, the guy without a secret identity. Now, he looked a bit heavy for a sprint. Midrange had been his event. He was all-state academic and athletic teams.

She had been staring. She could blame him but then she wouldn't know how to get the demon Titan to back down out of a tantrum. Jinx had seen what happened to Deathstroke. She, Giz, and Mammoth had gotten off easy.

"Let's hear it, tough guy," she said, almost five seconds too late.

He didn't comment that she hadn't said a thing for 4.8972 seconds, not that he was counting. His brain ran cross-comparisons with real-time data, and he could analyze a page of data in the time it would take to open a spreadsheet on a computer.

He played Logan's rant, with Raven's commentary. Raven could be a threat, but she wouldn't be. She had talked to them again after they left her mind, and had said only one name when asked who her father was- Trigon.

Trigon.

She could tear the city apart, but she wouldn't. Victor wished people wouldn't be afraid of his friend, but criminals couldn't have that same luxury. If they thought Raven could do all those things… she wouldn't have to do any of them.

"You know, it's not just the bad guys in this town that are crazy," Jinx had said 2.3411 seconds ago. Victor was only a little behind.

"Tell me about it. Earlier today, Changeling was quiet for two minutes straight." Logan didn't have much of a secret identity, but it was just polite- he thought. What was the protocol for talking to someone with her kind of lifestyle?

"You've got to be kidding me! I don't think Changeling could find quiet in a library."

She leaned back and crossed her legs. That was the kind of thing you did when the hero started looking at you like that. "Is this the part of the program where you're sorry I'm a bad girl?"

"This is where I'm sorry we're out acting like we're John and Jane Q. Citizen," he said. "You can understand just how hard it is to shut Changeling up. I have a few guesses about living with some strange people."

"Are you proposing that we do something like this again?"

"Without any pretense," Victor said. "I'm going to catch heck from my team." Not from Starfire, at least- she was a softie for romance, and she could kick Tim's ass. Victor wouldn't hear more than teasing.

"Gizmo and Mammoth made a few cute comments. I made a few cute suggestions, and they shut their mouths." Her smile was cute, too- if you liked diabolical.

"We'll try this again sometime, then," Victor said, testing the waters.

"Maybe," Jinx said, but her smile said yes.

With all the first date (however unintentional she claimed it had been) awkwardness settled, they ordered dinner.

Victor had a computer for a brain. Jinx managed to be faster. She paid the bill for dinner.

He retaliated by taking her out for ice cream.

"Was that-"

"Mmhm."

"And?"

"Yes," Starfire said.

"Do you always-"

"Know what you are going to say? You can be slightly predictable, Robin," Starfire said with a smile. He started to protest. She tossed her hair, knowing very well just how the motion carried. He was distracted, just as predicted.

Starfire had said she would need days to find the 'right' dress, but Raven had refused to listen to that argument. Instead, she had taken Starfire straight to a store that sold only dresses. The laconic sales staff had become very, very attentive after Raven asked them to check the balance on Robin's debit card.

Robin had arranged a bank account through his code name. No one needed to know his money came from Bruce Wayne. Counting the zeros was enough encouragement for the suddenly energetic workers.

"I don't think you always know, Starfire." The distraction of Victor and a dark-haired woman with Jinx's smirk had derailed his carefully laid-out plans.

Starfire set down her fork, finished with dessert. "You do not?"

"What am I thinking about now, if I'm so predictable?"

"Kissing me."

He had two choices. He could pretend she was wrong or he could live with how cute Starfire looked when she was smug.

He kissed her.

Yeah, he could live with the smugness.

Raven was trying to get a break when she went outside. Tim and Starfire were adorable, but Starfire had the emotional restraint of an infant, with a diva's range of emotions. Tim's smacked-hard-between-the-eyes bliss was slightly quieter, but he had Victor to back him up on that.

The t-shirt and jeans Victor had been wearing over his hologram were a loss. Tim, resident expert on improbable laundry, hadn't even offered to save them. Near one short sleeve, the infamous Black Cat chocolate ice cream from the stand on the corner of Main and Bogue had made a territory. That would have been enough to doom a shirt. After paintball, there was no use.

Raven had expected something interesting. Victor had gone to find Jinx after a suspicious e-mail, according to what he had said. He had caved after just a few pointed questions and admitted that she was a fun girl, and he trusted her enough to know that she wasn't going to ambush him.

Dinner, ice cream, and paintball- those clothes wouldn't work as rags for the T-car.

Victor had only smiled, and mentioned that they might not bother with hair dye and holograms next time.

"Next time?"

After establishing that Victor was happy, and Tim and Starfire's dinner had gone well, Raven was ready for a little time to check on her emotions. When she had been at the mall with Starfire, Timid had remained in hiding. It was best to coax Timid while Raven still didn't have much energy for telekinesis or anything else. She had healed Tim's broken arm. Healing took more energy than most fights.

She could turn around and go back inside, but that would just make the next meeting awkward. She didn't want to avoid him. Even if she did, they lived in the same building.

"What are you doing out here?" she asked. He must have left the room with Victor. Raven had been talking to Starfire about the dinner with Tim, and about going to the mall again the next day when they had more time to shop. Shopping actually wasn't that bad, not that anyone but Starfire needed to know.

"Remembering how to skip rocks." Clunk. "Trying to, at least."

It was dark enough that Logan wouldn't be able to see she was blushing. Wouldn't be able to see well, she amended. He did have better night vision than she did. She sat on the other part of the flat rock, leaving a foot of space. "I've never done that," she said.

"Really?"

"Never ridden a bicycle, never eaten cotton candy. All kinds of things," she said.

"Skipping rocks is easy enough for right now," Logan said. "All you need is water and a rock. It's best to skip rocks when there aren't waves, and rocks that are mostly flat give you the best shot."

She had a rock. It passed muster. "What do I do with this?"

"You throw it like a Frisbee."

"Add that to the never list," Raven said.

"Bend your wrist in, then your elbow. Move your arm out fast, and snap your wrist when you do it," he said. "That'll get the rock to spin, which somehow helps it skip. I could go look up why it works, but that'd take all the fun out of it."

She looked at the rock. She looked at the water. She was better at fighting physically, now, but she always had used her mind first.

Raven spun the rock fast on its center, six inches above her palm, then shot it forward with a flick of her finger and watched it hop across the water.

"Somehow, I don't think I learn to do it your way," Beast Boy said. His rock skipped twice. "That's you… who knows how many, me two."

"It's a competition?"

"It's a game," Logan corrected, "and one thing off the list of things you get to learn to do. There's a fair in town, and I think the Ferris wheel and cotton candy are requirements."

"It's a long list," Raven said. One week ago, the look in his eyes would have made her run away to go meditate- but Timid was nowhere to be found.

"What else haven't you done?"

Had she moved closer? Had he?

"Lots of things," she said. Bravery and Affection didn't seem to be looking for Timid, and Curiosity was only egging them on.

"Ever been kissed?"

Eight emotions crowded in Wisdom's realm. Raven seemed to think the mirrors just told the truth, and that was it- but Raven didn't know everything.

Wisdom's mirrors did not lie, could not be deceived by magic, and had provided the material for the mirror that Raven held when she wasn't visiting them. Wisdom knew how it worked, Curiosity wanted to know, and everyone else left the mirror-from-inside-the-mirror idea alone.

The mirrors also showed just what was happening outside Raven's mind, and they hadn't had such an interesting view since… who knew. Rage had slammed them off to the side the day before, but she was already forgiven. She was Raven, too, and had Trigon to deal with.

Bravery, Affection, and Happiness were too giddy to form sentences. According to Lazy, coherent sentences were always too much to hope for, but she hadn't protested flying all the way to Wisdom's part of the mind to see what all the fuss was about. Timid snuck glances at the mirror, then blushed as red as Rage's cloak. Rage glowered, of course, but she had sat against the wall to have a very good view.

Curiosity just sighed happily when Raven and Logan made their way back to the tower. Empathy was very, very fun sometimes. The emotions from their teammates would be enough for all sorts of new theories and notes. When Raven was asleep and not having any sort of interesting dreams, Curiosity had to find something to do.

New developments would make life in the Tower very interesting, with the changing emotions alone. Curiosity polished her glasses against her cloak. She liked interesting.

THE END