Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans.

Author's Note: Just a slight change in format- italicized words are either Hope or Raven (depending on the point of view) instead of thoughts, 'which are in apostrophes.' Your sanity is one of the sacrifices I'm willing to make to have disembodied voices in this story.

Never fear shadows. They simply mean there's a light shining somewhere nearby.

- Ruth E. Renkel

Of Formatting and Disembodied Voices

Raven sat in the bottom of her hole, fuming. She had worn a perfectly level ring all around the pit through her attempts to escape before conceding that it wasn't going to work. Her powers still didn't work, and her shouts for help were answered with an eerie silence.

She cradled her head in her hands. "God, I hope that at least Beast Boy's alright."

Her train of thought was derailed when the aforementioned changeling landed at her feet. Before she had a chance to register his sudden appearance he was standing up, staring at her, and stammering.

"Umm… hi? I'm Beast Boy… wait, you know that- you're Raven! Gah! Sorry, I'm a little… wait- who are you?"

Raven blinked in confusion. Who did he think she was- a different Raven?

I'm Hope, and I think we can help each other out of this mess.

Raven blinked again. That voice… sounded uncannily like herself.

'Who is this Hope girl?' thought Raven, 'and why can't I see her?'

Her thoughts were interrupted as Beast Boy spoke up.

"Hope, huh? I don't think I met you the last time I was down here. What's with the white outfit? I thought only… never mind, you can explain once we're out of this hole."

'And how does he plan on doing tha-'

Raven gave a slight squeak of surprise as the green gorilla threw her up and out of the hole. Whatever she had expected of her friend, it had not been that.

Hee hee! That was kind of fun Beast Boy!

Raven didn't particularly care for this "Hope" girl. For one, she seemed like a shameless flirt. And giggling? Ugh.

"So," said Beast Boy, "there's your mess taken care of…"

More giggling.

"Or maybe not. What's going on with this place, anyhow?" he asked. "I mean, this is the first domain I've found that hasn't been absolutely trashed."

That's Raven's doing, I'm afraid.

'At least she's not so damnably chipper anymore,' thought Raven. Then a realization struck her. 'Wait, what mess? What am I getting blamed for here?!'

Raven was about to vocally express her indignation when, once again, Beast Boy simply vanished, leaving her standing alone once more in the featureless black landscape.

Behind the half-demon, off in the distance, four red pinpoints of light flashed in the darkness.

"Why would Raven be trashing her own head? How would she be trashing her own head?" Beast Boy was, to say the least, confused. Then he remembered something…

"Wait! Anger's cloak wasn't red anymore- it was black!" he was on to something- he just knew it!

Hope shook her head. "Self-Loathing," she corrected.

Beast Boy cocked his head and raised an eyebrow. "Pardon?"

"Anger isn't Anger anymore, she's Self-Loathing. The reason Raven's mind is in such a state is because all of her emotions have become corrupted. Anger became Self-Loathing, Rude is Shame, Timid is Guilt, Brave is Fear, Intelligence is Doubt, Wisdom is Uncertainty, Happy-"

"Dude! They got Happy?!"

Hope sighed. She had hoped he wouldn't interrupt her. "Everyone was changed. Happy is Grief now. I'm the only one whose change didn't lead to 'the dark side'- hence the reason they're all in black, and I'm not. Subtle, isn't it?"

"This sounds like some messed up version of 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' to me."

The white-clad emotion groaned. "I was really hoping you wouldn't say that."

Robin awoke with a start. It took the Boy Wonder a few seconds to figure out why he had awoken. Then, it hit him.

Starfire was floating a foot above their makeshift bed, the object of her affection still tightly in her grasp. Robin, unlike the beautiful alien, was not immune to gravity. The resulting rotational force had placed him in quite a predicament indeed- Robin was dangling below Starfire. He began to despair of getting any sleep at all- the position was fairly uncomfortable, after all- when whatever was making Starfire hover began to dissipate. Slowly, she came back to Earth, coming to rest upon the hapless leader of the Titans.

No, Robin was definitely not getting much sleep tonight.

"So you're telling me," said Beast Boy, "that Raven's mind looks like something from a B-rated horror flick because why?"

Hope sighed. She sincerely hoped he'd get it this time. "Because she feels absolutely terrible about what she did to you, is worried that she irreversibly damaged you, and is afraid that you'll never forgive her."

"So… this is my fault?"

Hope growled under her breath. Suddenly, a brick wall appeared beside her. She turned to face it, and began to hit her head on it.

"No, ow. It's, ow. Not, ow."

She turned back to face Beast Boy and the wall disappeared.

"So… it's not my fault?"

Hope smiled.

"Well that's a first!" Beast Boy seemed to be very proud of that fact, if his puffed out chest was any indication.

Hope giggled at the changeling's silliness, before adopting the more serious tone frequently associated with Raven.

"The most important thing to do right now, however, is to get you out of here."

Beast Boy was, to say the least, slightly surprised.

"What?! Why?"

"Simple- Raven's mind is collapsing on itself," Hope answered. "If it goes while you're in here, you'll be stuck here forever. Now, I'm what you might call an expert on Raven's hopes and wishes, and 'I hope Beast Boy is safe' is a higher priority than 'I hope the world doesn't explode' and even 'I hope Beast Boy can forgive me.'"

"I do, by the way."

"So, as you can see, my top priority is getting… wait, what did you say?"

Beast Boy looked at the diminutive Raven.

"I forgive her."

Hope was skeptical. "No way you're forgiving Raven that easily- I mean, that's faster than even I could have hoped for!"

"Well, the other emotions kind of left quite the impact. I mean, what Raven's doing to herself is just as bad- if not worse- than what she did to me. What kind of person would I be if I coldly turned away from her when she needed a friend more than anything else? She did everything she could to help me, I can do no less."

Hope was amazed. "That's… amazingly mature. Raven's very lucky to have a friend like you."

Beast Boy blushed and turned away. "Er… thanks!"

If he'd been looking, he would have seen the flush of red on Hope's cheeks as well. After a few seconds passed, they both recovered enough to continue on.

"So, if I tell Raven that I've forgiven her, will it help?"

Hope nodded. "Immeasurably. As an added bonus, it's another reason to get you out of Raven's head as soon as possible."

Beast Boy nodded, and the two continued walking in silence. That is, until Beast Boy spoke up once again.

"Hey, out of curiosity, which emotion were you originally? You never did say, after all."

Hope's eyes widened at the question. "Uh-"

"And why are you so short?"

Hope folded her arms and let out a 'hmph!'

"You're one to talk about being short- even Raven's taller than you."

Beast Boy laughed. "Yeah, but not for long! I'll be growing like a weed in no time… and no green jokes."

Hope adopted an air of injured innocence. "Would I do that?" she asked, placing a hand on her chest.

"Yes."

"Hmph. Well fine, if you must know, I'm a midget because adult white Raven is off limits for anyone but Raven. Some big deal about 'being whole' and all that jazz."

The rest of the distance to the Forbidden Door was traveled in silence, with Hope furiously hoping that the changeling wouldn't remember that his first question hadn't been answered- it was painful enough lying to Beast Boy about her size. The truth was that she was so small because Raven refused to acknowledge her existence- if Raven couldn't accept her, it was too much to hope for Beast Boy to be able to. There was a miserable irony in the incarnation of Hope lacking faith, but there it was all the same.

Raven could sense her alter ego somewhere nearby. Her powers still eluded her, but the hairs standing up on the back of her neck were all the warning she needed. Warily, she continued her search for Beast Boy. Suddenly, she heard a voice off to her right. Moving as quietly as possible, she approached the voice.

Well, here we are. You know what you need to do, right Beast Boy?

"Yep- get out and talk to Raven as soon as possible."

Good luck!

Raven caught a brief glimpse of Beast Boy, and was about to call to him when some thing materialized in front of her.

Some thing with four red eyes and tentacles. Tentacles that, at the moment, were dragging a gagged Raven under a billowing black cloak.

Hope watched as Beast Boy walked towards the Forbidden Door. She had little doubt that Beast Boy would be able to set things right. He walked through the swirling portal…

"Um… Hope? It's not working." He illustrated his point by jumping in and out of the portal a few times, then sticking his arm in and waving it around. Hope cursed under her breath.

"What was that?" shouted Beast Boy, having been able to tell that Hope had spoken, but not well enough to make out what she had said.

"I said," the emotion shouted, "that the door doesn't work while Raven is asleep!"

Beast Boy walked back from the portal and stood next to Hope. "So…"

Whatever Beast Boy was about to say was interrupted as the ground began to shake violently.

"What's going on?!" he cried out, his eyes wide open in a panic.

Suddenly, six women in black cloaks appeared in a circle around the pair.

"Raven's having a nightmare."

Shadowy tentacles emerged from underneath the corrupted emotions as they began their advance.