Disclaimer: I don't own the Teen Titans.

Author's Note: Well, this was fun.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

-Bertrand A. Russell

One Stone, How Many Birds?

Tentatively, Beast Boy stretched a hand towards the light. His finger brushed the edge, and then all was light.

"Name, please."

Beast Boy blinked hard, his eyes adjusting to the suddenly bright environment.

"Sir, your name?"

Beast Boy blinked again, this time in surprise. In front of him lay a vast expanse of white nothingness… and a desk with an irritated-looking woman behind it. Slightly intimidated by the sheer strangeness of the situation, the green teen shuffled up to the desk.

"My- my name is B-b-beast Boy, miss."

The woman grunted in acknowledgment and pulled out a small rolodex, rifling through it.

"Who are you, miss?"

The woman looked up in annoyance. "Only the most powerful being in existence, Beast Boy."

Beast Boy was shocked beyond belief- he was talking to…

"You're Rachel Ray?" Anyone who could cook Thanksgiving dinner in thirty minutes HAD to be super-powerful, after all.

The woman raised an eyebrow- she didn't recall ever getting that particular response before. "No, I'm God's secretary."

A sudden thump announced the changeling's collapse to the floor. Making a show of dragging himself up the desk, he peered at the smirking secretary.

"God's… secretary? You mean… I'm dead?"

The secretary gave him a deadpan look (reminding Beast Boy very strongly of a certain half-demon) before returning to her rolodex. A moment passed before she looked back up to Beast Boy.

"Is 'Beast Boy' your given name, or a pseudonym?"

Beast Boy blinked. The secretary sighed.

"What's your real name, sir? It is slightly important."

Beast Boy blinked. Apparently, he hadn't quite gotten over the shock of being-

"Ow!" A paper clip fell to the floor beside Beast Boy, it's original trajectory somewhat altered by its impact with his forehead. He looked up at the secretary in time to catch her putting a rubber band back into a small box on her desk.

"Oh! My name- Logan. Garfield Logan."

The secretary sighed. "Thank you, Mr. Logan. Please take a seat in the waiting room. We'll call you when your paperwork is done."

The changeling looked at the woman questioningly. "What waiting room?"

"First door on your left. Have a nice eternity, sir."

Beast Boy turned to his left, and sure enough a set of double doors sat in front of him. Turning back to confirm that these were in fact the doors he needed, Beast Boy found that the secretary and her desk were nowhere to be found. Shrugging off her sudden disappearance (Raven's head was weirder, after all), Beast Boy opened the doors and walked on in. The first thing he saw was the enormous sign that greeted his arrival:

Welcome to the Purgatory Lounge!

Thank you for not smoking.

-The Management.

Cyborg's stomach lurched as he landed on the rocky surface, having been launched roughly from the swirling vortex of Raven's mirror. Unsteadily climbing to his feet, he took stock of the situation.

"Good grief, Raven- what happened in here?!"

The robotic hero found himself standing on a floating piece of rock half the size of the T-car, drifting through the void of his team mate's broken mind. Spinning around slowly, Cyborg scanned the area for any signs of life, but found nothing but rocks and emptiness.

"Well," he said to nobody in particular, "I guess it's time to go exploring."

That brought him to another problem- how to move around. Not being the most agile of superheroes, he couldn't exactly jump from rock to rock. Suddenly, he was struck with a bolt of inspiration. Lying down on his stomach, Cyborg stretched his arm over the back of the rock and transformed it into his sonic cannon. After making sure he had a good grip on the stony platform, he let loose.

"AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!"

Five seconds later, the hybrid hero's flying rock came to a sudden stop as it slammed into another, much larger, stone. Unfortunately, his rock shattered, and he was sent flying out into space.

Luck was with Cyborg, however, and soon enough another platform found itself weighted down with the burden of a slightly shaken (and slightly dented) android. Groaning softly, he pulled himself to his feet and grunted angrily.

"Damnit Beast Boy, you couldn't go get lost in some place that obeys some form of logic- you had to get stranded in Raven's head! I swear, when I find you-"

Cyborg turned around and halted in mid-sentence- his eyes locked onto the green boy and cloaked girl beside him not more than twenty feet away.

"Beast Boy! Raven! Thank God I found you!" Running as quickly as possible, he slid to a halt and began inspecting his fallen friend.

"Broken collarbone, cracked ribs, a pretty serious concussion, multiple lacerations- most of them pretty serious, fractured femurs… oh hell, his heart's stopped!" Not wasting a second, Cyborg ripped off the remaining tatters of Beast Boy's shirt. He held his hands together, a whining noise emitting from his chest as his battery prepared itself for the imminent discharge. Seconds later, the whining ceased, and the robotic hero moved to place his hands on Beast Boy's chest…

"Don't. You. DARE. TOUCH! HIM!" commanded a high-pitched voice. Cyborg looked up just in time to see the black wave knock him away from the shapeshifter. Landing roughly near the edge of the floating rock, he glanced up at the floating girl angrily stretching her arms out to "protect" the changeling's body.

"You're… you're not Raven, are you?" asked Cyborg, mentally slapping himself for not noticing the obvious differences between the little girl in front of him and his friend.

"No," she said, her eyes dull and lifeless as she spoke. "I'm Despair."

Then Cyborg felt the rock crumble beneath him, and he plunged into the void below.

Robin mused over his current predicament, as he dangled in Starfire's grasp up in the clouds. He was fairly certain that his right arm was dislocated, but he decided that bringing Starfire out of her euphoria at ten thousand feet would not be a wise move. Still, he could swear that he felt icicles forming on his cape…

"Hey, Star?"

The Tamaranian princess looked down at him grinning from ear to ear. "Yes, friend Robin?"

"I think we're high enough- do you know which way the Tower is from here?"

Her smile faltered a fraction. "No Robin, I do not."

He flashed her a reassuring smile and pointed off into the distance, to their left. "You'd be able to see it if this fog would lift- good thing that storm passed through so quickly, though. It's about three miles that way, in any case."

Starfire turned her head in the direction that her leader was pointing- as much to see where she needed to go as to hide her diminishing smile from the boy dangling beneath her. She knew that their time alone would have to end sometime, but it didn't mean she had to like it.

The smile returned full force, however, when she got an idea as to how to make the most of what little time they had left. She pulled Robin up, pressing him close to her. He blushed madly.

"Starfire-"

"I would feel better if I had a better grip on you, Robin. I do not like this weather- it does not suit flying very well at all."

Robin felt a sickening crunch in his shoulder as Starfire began to dive and instinctively tightened her grip.

'Well, at least I won't have to worry about her feeling bad about dislocating my arm…' he thought, biting back a yelp.

The home of a demon is never exactly what one would describe as "pleasant," and the residence of Trigon the Terrible was no exception to that rule. The dimension of Hell that his daughter had banished him to was full of fire, brimstone, and the bloodcurdling screams of those tortured souls doomed to spend eternity in unimaginable agony.

Frankly, he'd never felt so much at home.

Kicking back in his leather chair, the towering demon picked up the local newspaper and began looking through his favorite section: the obituaries.

"Oh, hey," the demon muttered to himself, coming upon the name of a certain green boy, "I remember that kid from somewhere…"

Getting up, the embodiment of all that is evil lumbered over to his refrigerator, pulling off an article he'd clipped out from the library's newspaper archives.

"Here we go… Changeling Goes Beserk, Saves Half-Demon. Well, look at that! One of Raven's little friends."

Returning the article to the refrigerator door, Trigon pondered the situation. His daughter had sent him to this particular corner of Hell that he'd grown to… tolerate. It was only right to repay her as best he could.

Walking over to his kitchen table, Trigon the Terrible picked up his cell phone and dialed.

"Hey, Trish? Yeah, this is… yes, it's Trigon. Yeah, I've been pretty busy- yourself? Look- I'm sorry I never called back- I'm kinda stuck here for the foreseeable future anyway. In any case, this call is for business- not pleasure. I'm calling in a favor- it's one of your new arrivals…"

"So," asked Beast Boy, "how long is the wait around here?"

The short Frenchman beside him just glared at the changeling, sticking his hand further into his jacket.

Giving up the angry midget as a lost cause, Beast Boy turned to the woman on his right.

"So, how long have you been here, miss?"

She turned an appraising eye on him, before smiling and stretching a hand towards him.

"A few years- and please, call me Angela."

He took the outstretched hand and shook it firmly. "My name's Garfield, but you can just call me Beast Boy."

The woman gave him another smile. "Pleased to meet you, Beast Boy."

The door to the lounge opened, causing the woman to jump. Glancing at whomever was entering, she gave a small sigh of relief and turned back to Beast Boy.

"Worried about something?" asked Beast Boy, noticing the nervous behavior of his companion. Angela studied the changeling intently for a few moments, reminding him very strongly of-

Angela turned away, heaving a sigh. "Yes- I'm terrified of the day I see my daughter walk through those doors. She's a good girl at heart… but there are certain… circumstances… that might prove unfortunate for her."

Beast Boy nodded. "I know what you mean, sort of. There's a girl that I know who used to be in that situation. All her life, she'd been told that she was destined to be nothing but trouble, but for as long as I've known her she's done everything she could to help people. Finally, the thing that everyone was worried about came… and she beat it. She beat it good, too. The girl's destined for great things- too bad I won't be there to see them." Beast Boy looked down at his feet, then glanced over at his companion. "She kind of looks like you, too."

"GARFIELD MARK LOGAN, PLEASE REPORT TO THE FRONT DESK IMMEDIATELY!"

Beast Boy gave a startled squeak at the announcement, falling out of his chair in the process. Quickly standing up and brushing himself off, he turned to Angela.

"Well, ma'am- looks like my ticket skipped to the front of the line." The Frenchman gave him a dirty look at this. "It was a pleasure speaking with you- I hope everything works out for your daughter."

He turned and walked away, just reaching the door as he heard a voice behind him cry out for him to wait. Turning, he watched Angela run up to him, eyes wide.

"Please," she said, huffing from the physical exertion. "What was your friend's name?"

"GARFIELD MARK LOGAN, REPORT TO THE FRONT DESK NOW!"

Beast Boy opened the door to the lounge and looked back at the woman.

"Her name is Raven," he said, before turning and exiting. He never did see the woman's reaction.

The door shut behind him and vanished into the blinding whiteness. Taking a step forward, Beast Boy found himself suddenly (and inexplicably) directly in front of a very irate secretary.

"So," she said, "it looks like you've got friends in low places."

Beast Boy was confused again.

Cyborg gulped.

Unbeknownst to Despair, the android was extraordinarily stubborn, extraordinarily resilient, and most of all- extraordinarily stubborn.

Which was why he was currently dangling by his fingertips from a rock out in the middle of… nowhere.

Pulling himself up slowly, so as to not attract attention, he peeked over the edge of the platform holding his friend. Fortunately, Despair's back was turned, and his reconnaissance effort went unnoticed.

Dropping back down out of sight, Cyborg made his decision. Slowly, he let the winches connecting his hands to his wrists release, lowering himself on titanium cables until he was below the floating rock. Kicking his legs, he swung back and forth, until finally…

BOOM!

Two rockets- one a flare, one a smoke round, shot out from his feet and arced up towards the top of the rock. At the same time, Cyborg retracted his hands, pulling himself up to the opposite side of the platform from where the rockets would appear. Sure enough, he climbed up just in time for the two shells to detonate.

Despair rocked backwards, completely thrown off balance by the sudden assault. Frantically, she looked around for her attacker, but the combined flare and smoke made it impossible for her to see.

Then she heard a whining noise behind her, and spun around to see-

Cyborg pressed his hands down hard, releasing the built up charge into Beast Boy's chest. He didn't have time to inspect the results of his efforts, however- Despair's sudden appearance behind him quickly made that impossible.

"I SAID NOT TO TOUCH HIM!" she screamed, enveloping Cyborg in a black energy field and raising him into the air.

Beast Boy coughed.

"Ow!" protested Cyborg, finding himself suddenly on the ground and ignored by the cloaked girl.

"Ra…ven?" croaked Beast Boy, slowly opening an eye.

"BEAST BOY!" cried Despair happily, hugging him tightly around the neck.

Cyborg blinked.

'What the…'

Cyborg blinked again.

And found Raven sitting next to him, her mind whole, and the girl clutching Beast Boy now garbed in a vibrant purple.

"WHAT THE…"

A black patch of energy covered his mouth, cutting him off.

"Careful, Cyborg," said Raven. "There are children present."

Affection looked up from hugging Beast Boy… but only long enough to throw an impudent glare at Raven for her remark.