Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans.

Grief has limits, whereas apprehension has none. For we grieve only for what we know has happened, but we fear all that possibly may happen.

-Pliny the Younger


Raven awoke with a splitting headache, sitting up on her bed and groaning in complaint. She felt as though someone had driven a wedge into her brain while she slept, and that persistent tapping sound in the background wasn't helping in the least.

Tapping sound?

Oh, someone was knocking on her door.

Concluding that further sleep wasn't a possibility, the empathy reluctantly rolled out of bed and stumbled to the door. Pausing before opening the entryway, she made herself look presentable, brushing her hair out of her face and smoothing out the wrinkles in her leotard. She noticed, with no small amount of surprise, that her uniform was white again, but as she hardly had any say in the color of her outfit, she pushed it out of her mind. Satisfied with her efforts, she unlocked the door and stepped outside, running straight into a grinning Beast Boy.

"Morning, sunshine," he said, smiling from ear to ear as Raven stumbled back a step in surprise. Then, leaning forward, he casually kissed her on the forehead. Acting as if he had done the most natural thing in the world, Beast Boy stood back up and asked a shocked Raven: "feeling any better?"

Raven nodded dumbly, not trusting herself to speak.

"That's good to hear- you took quite a hit yesterday," he said. "We were all worried about you. Feeling up for breakfast?" Beast Boy extended an elbow to her.

Raven nodded silently once more, her mind still reeling. Over and over, the phrase He kissed me! echoed in her head. A vague memory of Dr. Light and a red pulse buzzed in the back of her brain, but her persistent mantra easily swept it away. As it was, she barely registered taking the proffered arm, and would have completely missed the walk to the common room if Beast Boy hadn't spoken.

"You're awfully quiet this morning- are you sure you're feeling alright?" he asked. Raven snapped out of her reverie, noticing for the first time her arm linked with his. She felt a blush rising into her cheeks and surprised herself by leaning into the green boy next to her.

"I was… just thinking," she said, not knowing what else to say. The pair reached the common room door, and her blush intensified as Beast Boy gave a good-natured laugh.

"That's my Rae, always thinkin'." He flashed her a brilliant grin and hugged her arm affectionately before opening the door in front of them.

"Mornin' Rae!" shouted Cyborg from the kitchen. "I made you some of those nasty soy-waffles of yours 'n BB's." He shuddered theatrically as he put two plates of waffles on the table. "Bon appétit, you two! Ugh."

Raven went through the day in somewhat of a daze, astonished at what she was doing. Reading and leaning on Beast Boy's shoulder as he played video games, painting her fingernails and toenails with Starfire, playing video games with the boys (and admitting to herself that it wasn't nearly as bad as she thought it would be), and doing all sorts of other un-Raveny things. She finally 'woke up' standing in front of her door with Beast Boy, blinking more than was normal as she realized he was bidding her goodnight.

"I'm glad you're alright, Raven. You gave us all a good scare." As he wrapped her in a hug, Raven heard him whisper quietly under his breath, "especially me."

Deciding that it was time to do one more un-Raveny thing today, she turned her head and kissed him gently on the cheek.

As soon as her lips touched his skin, she knew something had gone horribly wrong.

Beast Boy knew it too, as he stiffened and pulled back, looking around with a frightened look on his face and sniffing the air. "Raven," he said, his voiced hushed but unwavering "I smell blood."

Seconds later, the two were in front of Robin's room, where Beast Boy said the smell was coming from the strongest. Raven called Cyborg as the changeling cautiously opened the door. Seconds later, he was on the ground retching, his dinner coming up in violent heaves.

A glance into Robin's room told Raven why in an instant- there, tangled in Robin's sheets, were the Boy Wonder and his alien girlfriend. Their bodies had been mutilated- arms, legs, heads, and torsos were all over the bed, blood spilling from them and soaking into the mattress.

They were unrecognizable, they had been slaughtered like cattle; their forcibly scattered remains too coated in bright red blood to delineate to which slain hero it belonged. Raven wanted to turn away, needed to turn away, but she couldn't muster the willpower to tear her eyes from the grizzly sight

Just then, Cyborg came running down the hall and broke her out of her trance, his heavy footsteps announcing his presence. "Beast Boy! Rae!" he shouted. "What's wrong?!"

Speechlessly, Raven turned to him, preparing herself to say those awful words: Robin and Starfire are dead. They never passed her lips. Instead, she gasped as she watched her cybernetic friend freeze mid-stride, halted by the umber energy surrounding his body, his mouth soundlessly forming words behind its cloak. Behind her, Beast Boy stopped retching and looked up at his best friend.

Tearing her eyes away from Cyborg's floating figure, Raven turned to run and tripped over the changeling behind her, hitting her head on the wall as she fell. As she hit the ground, a deafening explosion ripped through the hallway, heralding the end of her robotic teammate.

Flipping onto her back, she frantically scooted away from a stunned Beast Boy, a look of horror painted on her face.

Beast Boy unsteadily climbed to his feet, still staring at the space where his best friend used to be. After a few seconds, he turned around to face Raven.

She could feel the fear radiating off of him like heat, and could see the concern in his eyes. "Raven," he whispered, "are you alright?" It wasn't fear of her, as it should have been. He was afraid for her.

"Raven," he repeated, stepping towards her and reaching down to help her up. "Let's get you out of he-" he froze in place, his hand barely inches away from her shoulder. Raven scooted further away before curling into a ball, closing her eyes, and clapping her hands over her ears. She didn't want to hear-

Desperate sobs wracked her body as the green boy screamed in unimaginable agony. Her hands were a poor defense against the boy's agony-filled cries. She couldn't see him, but Raven knew exactly what she was doing to him- she could see it in her mind's eye, as clear as daylight.

An eternity passed before his screams were silenced. And another eternity passed before she could bring herself to open her eyes. Where Beast Boy had stood before, there was only a fine red mist covering the walls, the floor, the ceiling, and her. Raven looked down at her white cloak as it lay over her, stained red by the blood of Beast Boy, she tried to cry out, but only managed a strangled sort of half-breath.

A sudden thought struck her, and her mind recoiled in disgust. Horrified that she was even capable of thinking such things, she didn't notice her finger slowly traveling along the blood-covered floor in front of her.

She suddenly felt like more of an observer than a participant in this living horror. Her hand moved under its own power, slowly drawing up to her face. Raven's violet eyes went out of focus as the bloody digit entered her mouth, before rolling back into her head with pleasure.

And just as suddenly, Raven came back to reality. Her eyes went wide in horror and disgust as she realized what she had in her mouth, and the world started to swirl and fade before her eyes.

But as everything was going black, Raven couldn't get one persistent, nagging thought out of her head.

Beast Boy had tasted… good.

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Starfire and Robin sat out in the common room, a heavy silence hanging in the air like a thick fog.

Unexpectedly, Robin was the first to break it. "Star? Do you think that-"

He was interrupted by the alarm going off, signaling an emergency in the city that the Titans were needed for. Dashing to the computer console, Robin read the report and groaned aloud. It was the HIVE. Reaching for his communicator, he called Cyborg.

"We've got a report of Jinx, Mammoth, and Gizmo at the downtown Art Museum," said Robin. "Can you make it?"

In the medical wing, Cyborg shook his head in frustration. Can I make it? Of all the stupid questions…

"No, Rob," he replied. "Someone has to stay with them at all times- these things can take a nasty turn for the worse very quickly. You and Star are going to have to take care of those three yourselves."

Robin grunted in agreement and replaced the communicator in his belt. "Alright Star, looks like it's going to be just you and me. Let's take care of them as quickly as possible."

Starfire nodded in understanding before picking up her leader and flying out the window with him, headed southeast towards the museum being robbed. She breathed a quiet sigh of relief at having something else to occupy her thoughts with as they traveled; she would never have guessed that Robin was having the exact same feeling. As she climbed higher over the bay, he began discussing the plan of attack.

"They've got us outnumbered, but if we catch them by surprise we can take care of that. We're going to need one-hit knockouts to start out with, if at all possible."

Starfire frowned in thought before replying. "Very well, I shall knock out Jinx, and you may take down the Gizmo, yes?"

Robin nodded at the Tamaranean as they approached their target. "Sounds like a plan to me." He then threw her a lopsided grin, eliciting a blush in the alien girl's orange cheeks. "Once those two are down, Mammoth won't have any support, and he'll go down like a ton of bricks." They landed on the roof of the museum and waited for their prey to emerge.

Five minutes later, the three thieves exited the building from a door of Mammoth's making. The two Titans smiled grimly as they heard Gizmo's voice scratch out below them. "See? I told you I could scramble the alarm long enough to get out before those scuzz-grubbin' Titans showed up!"

Jinx opened her mouth to reply, and the heroes leapt into action.

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Beast Boy awoke feeling oddly… alive… for someone who had just taken a thirty story fall and landed on some especially unforgiving looking rocks. Still, he wasn't complaining- alive was certainly better than dead, and especially on such a pretty day like today. The changeling found himself lying on his back in some grass at the park. Kicking back and relaxing, he closed his eyes and enjoyed the warmth of the sun beating down upon him. Deciding that the whole 'getting Raven killed and subsequently thrown out of the Tower' thing was just some random byproduct of his overactive imagination, he closed his eyes and started drifting back to sleep.

The warmth of the sun abruptly vanished, replaced by an enormous shadow looming large above him. Beast Boy cracked open an eye to see what was spoiling his pleasant moment.

"Bad doggie!" shouted a horribly familiar voice. "You run away from Soto! But Soto have better collar for Soto's doggie!" Beast Boy tried to roll away from the deranged alien, but before he could get out of the way he felt a metal ring snap around his neck. "Now Soto can control when doggie change!" cried his ecstatic captor as he held up a large remote-control looking device with a few comically large buttons on it.

Beast Boy reached down for his communicator and sent out a distress call just as the collar on his neck zapped him, transforming the changeling into a green dog. Picking him up, Soto carried Beast Boy into the nearby woods, sopping as they came into the clearing where Soto's spaceship was hidden. Attaching a leash to the changeling's collar, the alien tied him to one of the legs holding the vehicle off the ground.

"Stay right here, doggie- Soto has to go find doggie food for Soto's doggie!" Stomping off back towards town, the enormous alien quickly vanished from sight. As soon as he was gone, Beast Boy frantically tried to change form and escape from his entrapment, but Soto was as good as his word- while wearing the collar, the changeling couldn't change. His only hope lay in the Titans arriving before Soto was ready to leave.

Moments later, his prayers were answered as a black raven materialized in front of him, before retreating back and revealing his four friends. Barking happily, he made his presence known.

"Oh, good grief," moaned Robin. "The idiot got himself caught again?"

Beast Boy stopped barking.

"Robin," said Raven, with a hint of warning in her voice. Beast Boy felt his heart swell in appreciation. "That's my line."

Beast Boy's heart crashed harder this time.

"Look, guys," said Cyborg. "That Soto guy is a real pain in the ass to fight, right?"

"Oh yes," agreed Starfire. "He was most annoying to deal with last time Beast Boy was apprehended."

"And, let's be honest with ourselves," continued Cyborg. "Beast Boy here isn't exactly a prime example of a proper superhero. I mean, he's pretty weak-"

"-and stupid," added Robin.

"-and clumsy," said Starfire, throwing in her two cents.

"And let's not forget how unbearably annoying he can be," muttered Raven.

"Exactly. So, why don't we take advantage of this opportunity we've got here and scram before Soto gets back? I mean, why fight Soto for him?"

"Sounds like a plan. Pragmatism makes things so much easier sometimes," said Robin. "Hey Cy- I'll play you in Auto Racers 3 when we get back."

A screech echoed through the air as the dark raven reappeared once more, then vanished- leaving behind one thoroughly crushed green dog. Moments later, the sounds of Soto's arrival made their way to Beast Boy's ears, and he found himself face-to-face with the childish alien.

"Hello, doggie! Soto brought back some doggie food for you!" He held up a gargantuan bag with a green cartoon dog on it that bore a striking resemblance to the trapped changeling. "Now we can go home to Soto's planet!"

A whimper crept out of the dog's throat as it was dragged up the ramp into the waiting spaceship, and into his new life as an idiot's pet.