It was the sound of loss that still echoed down the hallway, with each step he took. Most days he could push it aside, remember a time before her smile lit up this place. A time before, when he'd been only a lost child, looking for something, even though he didn't know what it was, until he found it.

Today was not one of those days. Today, her laugh rang in his ears as clearly as if she was really there, laughing at one of his jokes. Today was not one of those days he spent cheering up his friends with his usual brand of comedy, putting himself out there to lighten the mood. Today, he could use a little cheering up himself.

Beast Boy closed his eyes, wishing someone would just put their arm around him, and tell him they still missed her, too. Maybe even tell him, for once, that he was worth something to them.

He made a point of walking to the main room before he found himself standing in front of her door again. His eyes glazed over, he nearly ran into Raven coming through the doors as soon as they opened. He quickly snapped to attention, stuttering an apology, which she simply shrugged off and continued on her way. He sighed, shoulders drooping again, and continued on into the room.

Only Robin was there, his back to the door, eyes glued to a computer screen. Beast Boy approached him and looked over his shoulder at the map spread out across the screen. It was Jump City.

"So...what are you up to?" he asked, scratching his head. It was always like walking on eggshells when Robin got all focused like this.

"Planning patrol routes that cover as much area in as little time as possible," Robin answered, not looking up. "I also want to cover all the places we fought Slade before, just in case."

"Uh...like his old hideout?" Sweat began to prickle on the back of his neck. Even in pairs, going somewhere like that could be a lot more dangerous than some open place in the city.

"No. We covered there as a team last night. Nothing's changed, and I don't think there's anything there that's still of any use to him."

Relief let Beast Boy's shoulders relax once more.

Robin suddenly switched off the monitor and straightened, stretching. "I was just about to try out the new route, actually. Want to come?"

"Uh, yeah, sure," he responded without thinking. It was probably a good idea anyway, to help him get his mind off of Terra. Unless the abandoned amusement park was a stop on the route, that was.

Raven stood still in the middle of her room, undecided. She wasn't a big talker, but she found herself wondering which would help her most: meditation, or talking to Cyborg. Personal problems and unruly emotions could simply be meditated away, but Robin was a different story. The Titans themselves were a different story.

She sighed, resignedly, before turning and walking from her room. She had grown so much since coming to Jump City, as evidenced by what she was about to do. She was not a leader. She did not initiate social interactions with people. She read in her corner, nothing but a wallflower. She watched, spectated, thoroughly convinced of her own self-unimportance.

True, she had grown and overcome much. But defeating Trigon, her father, had only been the threshold to a much bigger set of obstacles. She still instinctively recoiled from the idea of going shopping with Starfire, or to a carnival with Beast Boy and Cyborg. She loved her friends, a kind of love she'd long ago never hoped she'd have, but there were still those times when her shell took over. She was relatively sure there always would be.

But not today, apparently. Swallowing the thoughts telling her to go back to dark hole that was her room, she knocked on Cyborg's door.

She didn't have to wait long before he was there, surprise making his eyebrows jerk upwards a few levels. "Raven! Hey, uh, what's up?"

"We need to talk." She looked past him into the darkness of his room. That was one thing she'd always liked about his room. "May I come in?"

"Uh, yeah, sure," he stuttered, confused. He moved out of the way, scratching his head, as he watched her cross over into the dimly lit room and closed the door behind her. "Is something the matter?"

The reality of what she was doing suddenly hit her full force, rooting her feet to the floor in the middle of the room. Computer screens flickered and little blinking lights bathed the room in an odd cave like feel. She quickly closed her eyes and assumed a meditative trance, and breathed.

"Uh...Raven?"

She turned around to face him. "Slade," she breathed. "If he really is back, we..." she sighed, trailing off as she gathered her resolve. She really wasn't good at this. "We need to be ready."

"We're not ready?" Cyborg raised his eyebrows, surprised. "Raven, we beat him before, we took down Trigon, and we defeated the Brotherhood. I think we know how to handle one guy. Even if it is Slade."

"Slade is devious, and he plans. He probably already has us in his crosshairs. He underestimated us before, but he-"

"What do you expect us to do?" he cut her off, his voice serious now, his eyes narrowed. "What can we do that we haven't already? We've taken all the necessary precautions, even Robin's got his act together."

Raven sighed, staring sightlessly at the floor. "I don't know," she breathed. "I just think we should have a plan of action in case...in case the worst should happen."

Cyborg took a step toward her, arms raised to the height of her shoulders. "Raven, I don't think-"

"If something happens to Robin, we still need to be able to lead ourselves, Cyborg." There was a strength in her flat monotone that she hadn't been sure she'd be able to let out.

"What do you mean? Like a backup leader, in case wants to turn Robin into his apprentice again?"

"Or worse," Raven finished.

She felt the wave of cold surprise and horror that washed over Cyborg for the split second after she spoke, but instantly he was stepping toward her again. One would have thought that there was nothing comforting in his cold, prosthetic hands, but as he placed them on her shoulders, she felt only warmth. There was always a warmth around him, a fire that perpetually burned in his eyes, and it came out in the way he could move even the machine parts of himself. They were him, in a way she knew she could never truly understand.

"And you think I should be that leader," he finished softly.

"Yes."

But he shook his head. He backed away, turned around to gaze into the darkness, and sighed. "No, Raven, I think it should be you."

Now it was her turn to be surprised. Her head jerked up, eyes boring burning holes into his metallic back. "You put together and led the Titans East," she insisted, still in her monotone. Though there was perhaps a new fierceness to it.

"Yeah, but Raven, that was against Brother Blood. He was MY bad guy, and that...that was something I just had to do, for me. You know? This, Slade, I..." he turned around to face her, arms gesturing and waving for emphasis. "I agree with you that Slade is one bad dude. But you've got an intuition for this guy that I can't match. He's smart, and we need somebody who can be just as smart. I may know a lot about computers," he said, tapping his head. "But you're better than I am at outsmarting the bad guys. And you'd make a great leader."

Raven took in his praise and compliments much like she'd take in a cup of unsweetened tea. It was bitter, an assault on everything she believed about herself, but not unwelcome. Refreshing. And it imbued her with a new strength, because she knew Cyborg meant everything he said.

She looked down. "Thank you." She didn't know what else to say. But how could she think of leading a team? Her friends? What if she messed up? What if someone got hurt? What if...

"But hey," he interrupted her thoughts, slapping a hand on her shoulder. "We're not gonna lose Robin this time, so don't worry about it too much, okay?"

He was smiling, and there was confidence in that smile, but his eye told her that he knew they had reached an unspoken agreement.

Should anything happen to Robin, Raven would take his place as the leader of the Teen Titans.

There were two great advantages to having Beast Boy along for a patrol. One was that he could do all of the things that Robin couldn't. He could fly, and so he could see things that Robin might miss, and he could turn into a bloodhound and sniff for the woman they were after, and he could fit into and smaller spaces, in case there was need of that.

The other advantage was that he couldn't fly Robin himself. The reason why this was an advantage was because of Robin's thorough love of swinging though his city by means of his own gadgets and physical prowess. He worked hard to stay in shape, he loved testing his body to its limits, and he liked to use patrols as reflection time.

And he'd certainly had more to reflect upon of late. Putting Slade out of his mind had been a common practice for him ever since the Brotherhood made its first move, though that mask had never left his dreams. But now, now that he was convinced that Slade truly had returned, he didn't feel how he'd thought he'd feel. He had thought that he'd feel...invigorated, ready to meet the one foe he had never really beaten, the one person who really could push him to all of his limits. It was a thrill.

But tonight, he just felt...scared was the wrong word. He was not afraid. He did not fear Slade, or even himself anymore. But he HAD worked hard for this city, and his friends. He'd lost a friend to this man. But it wasn't anger alone that surged through him at the thought of Terra. There was also indignation. How dare that man come back, after everything he'd done?

He shook his head, banishing the thought. Maybe once he'd been able to believe, on some level, that Slade did have some sense of honor in him, that after their cooperation against Trigon, Slade would leave the Titans and Jump City alone out of some sense of respect. But he knew now that that had been a silly thought. Slade wasn't honorable. He was a criminal. Nothing more.

But still. Some part of him felt betrayed. Just a little. There were similarities between the two of them that he just could not ignore, and even though he had grown up since those days he'd worn that disgusting black and orange, he still hated to see qualities he loved so much in himself brought out in such a negative way.

Maybe part of him was still afraid that the face under the mask would be his own.

Beast Boy suddenly dashed up to him and changed from bloodhound to human. "I think I found her!" he barked quickly, before changing back again and sprinting down the street.

Robin instantly jerked into a sprint himself, following the green dog to the back entrance to the warehouse of another tech company. When Beast Boy suddenly skidded to a halt in front of the massive garage doors, Robin quickly scanned the scene. No guards, security cameras taken out. But how did she get in?

"Up there!" Beast Boy barked. Robin hadn't even noticed his partner had changed back, but the little green Titan had suddenly shrunk and grown feathers as Robin turned to look at him, and then he was propelling himself through the air toward a vent near the roof of the warehouse.

Robin squinted to get a closer look. The grates were bent. Beast Boy latched his talons into the grates and tugged, jerking the whole piece of metal out of the wall. Too easily. Catching it before it hit the pavement with a crash, the boy wonder gently placed it up against the wall and then looked back up at Beast Boy.

But he was gone. Scratching sounds echoed from the newly made hole in the wall.

Robin smirked, bringing out his grappling gun and aiming it at the rooftop. It was a simple matter to get up to and into the vent, and it was plenty large enough for him. "Beast Boy, wait up!" he called softly, hoping his voice would carry ahead of the sounds of his hands and knees against the metal sides of the vent. The hard part was keeping his steel-toed boots from knocking around.

He suddenly remembered to call the other Titans for backup. His hand reached for his communicator, and then he thought better about having a conversation while trying to be sneaky. So he just pressed the alert button instead. They could track his signal, and find their own way in. He and Beast Boy could hold their own for now, he figured.

He froze as a tremor ran through the entire building. Then he heard and felt something very disturbing.

Beast Boy stopped moving, and then craned his head back to give Robin a questioning look.

Both of them yelled in shock, then fear, as the warehouse collapsed around and on top of them.

Then everything went black.