Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans.
a/n: Well, you guys wanted it, so here it is: the alternate ending. Personally, I don't think this version wraps things up as nicely at the real one, but it's a different take on how things might have gone down. It's also not as happy and clean-cut, so please excuse any bad pacing or OOCness the characters take on.
Just as a side note, the chapter begins somewhere in the middle of The Forever, right when Raven's telling the Titans she must leave.
Thank you all so much for your support. Here's my measly gift to you.
Chapter 17: The Forever (Alternate Version)
Starfire floated over from the kitchen. "Is the Trigon coming back?"
"No. But I'm not."
Alarm splayed across each Titan's face.
"What?!"
"Raven!"
"No!"
Tears burned the rims of her eyes, but Raven forced them to recede. "It's nothing you guys did wrong. It's something I have to do for myself."
Robin was already up and walking. "Raven, what's going on? Why do you have to go?"
"Because of me."
Raven shut her eyes. Damn it. She'd told him to stay outside.
Shock struck each and every one of the Titan's expressions. "Who are you?" asked Starfire.
Raven could feel Slade smile behind her. "An old friend."
It clicked for Robin first. With a cry of anger, he began to charge.
"No!"
A wall of black energy cut off Robin's path. His visage was rimmed with white behind the boundary of her powers.
Raven was desperate. "Just hear me out, Robin."
"Slade?!" he yelled. "You've been working for Slade?!"
"Settle down, Robin," Slade ordered darkly. "And listen to your friend."
"I don't take orders from you!"
"I'm not working for Slade!" cried Raven, wincing as Robin punched the barrier. "I'm...in love with him."
Raven didn't think the Titan's could have been more surprised. She was wrong.
"Say what?!" Cyborg's red eye was popping out of his head.
"Zombie Raven!" Beast Boy shrieked, pulling out tuffets of green hair. "Raven's being mind-controlled!"
Slade snorted at the changeling. "Interesting theory, Beast Boy. But have you ever considered that Raven may just love me of her own free will?"
"But - but you're so old! Why are you so old?!"
"No!" Starfire's gaze was burning green. Righteous fury. "Raven would never do such a thing!"
You will not dishonor our friend with your trickery!
Raven's heart was breaking into a thousand pieces. "No, Starfire. I love him, of my own free will."
Her friends looked as if she'd lost her mind.
Slam. Slam. Robin was punching the force field again. "I - don't - believe - you!"
"Robin!" she exclaimed sternly. "Stop!"
To Raven's surprise, he did, huffing and puffing and glaring through the black wall.
She took a deep breath. "You guys are my family, and I care about you more than anything else. But...I'm not happy here. And Slade hasn't bothered us in a long time."
"That doesn't excuse his past crimes," Cyborg growled, stepping in for Robin. Hadn't she said something very similar, not too long ago? Jesus, how things changed.
Raven put her hands up in a calming gesture. "I know, I know. But he's changed, and so have I. I promise, I'm not his apprentice, or anything like that. That's why I came here. I wanted to let you know we're going to Azarath."
"For what?" Beast Boy stepped around the couch, serious face back on.
Raven and Slade shared a look. "We're...going to get married."
Robin looked like he was going to choke. Starfire's face lit up, then died down again.
"Personally, I did not wish to come here," Slade said dryly. "But Raven insisted on saying farewell to you all. Be grateful she did not listen to me."
Cyborg was shaking his head. "Rae..."
Raven bit her lip. The tears were falling now, unbidden yet refusing to vanish. "I love all of you. But look at us - I can't have both of you. And I've been here for years. Now, I have to try something...different."
Robin hollered something unintelligible, took out his bo staff, and proceeded to whack the barrier.
Damn, son, whistled Brave.
Rage smiled wickedly. I always liked him.
God, why couldn't she stop crying?! Angrily, Raven wiped the traitorous moisture away. "I'm sorry. I'll always remember you."
"Raven!" Starfire was firing a stream of starbolts at the barrier. The black wall flickered slightly, caving under Raven's emotions.
Summoning all her strength, Raven screamed, "Azarath, Mentrion, Zinthos!"
The barrier broke into four streams of black lightning, striking each Titan square in the chest. She flinched at the sound of her best friends dropping to the ground like dead insects, temporarily stunned.
Slade walked beside her, observing the Titans with mild amusement. "You know," he drawled, "That's the second time you've done that in front of me."
Raven gave him a sharp look. "Having fun?"
It was Slade's turn to glower. He clasped his hands behind his back and leaned forward, meeting her gaze. "My dear, if you believe your pain brings me any sort of enjoyment, then you and I have much to work on."
Raven blinked, huffed, and felt nothing but love for the man before her.
What now?
"Let's go."
She took one last, long look at her family. No matter what they thought of her now, she would always care for them.
Goodbye. Be safe.
This time, she said it to herself, privately, and led Slade to her room, where they would open the portal to her birthplace.
.
Azarath was always a quiet place; for starters, it was filled with monks and people who lived under the principles of pacifism. Secondly, the entire location was considered a holy place, which left little room for any sort of tomfoolery.
Now, it was no different. However, Raven was pleased to see it was no longer in flames.
"Did you know Trigon burned everything here, right before the End?" Raven glanced at Slade, who was surveying the golden buildings and the occasional white-cloaked being who passed by. "Were you there for it?"
Azarath. My last hope.
"No," answered Slade simply, eyeing a bridge above their heads. "Trigon mentioned it, but it was before my resurrection. I had no part in Azarath's destruction."
Secretly, this was an incredible relief to Raven. She could forgive him for a lot of terrible things, but the ruin of her former home would be one Raven would always have a hard time with. It was good to know he had no hand in that part of their past.
He had his hands on a lot of other things, snickered Passion, elbowing Intelligence slyly. Intelligence scoffed and turned away from her deviant sister, who was too busy laughing at her own joke than to care about Intelligence's dismay.
Arella's home was towards the heart of the city, one of the residencies closer to the temple. A dove fluttered by Raven's ear, and she knew Arella was aware of their arrival.
Raven turned to Slade. She was nervous, and irrationally so at that. Could it just be that she was afraid that Arella wouldn't approve of Slade, not in a 'for the greater good' way, but in more of a mother-daughter way?
No. That couldn't be it. It just wasn't Raven.
Still, Raven began to wring her hands when she began to speak. "Look. My mother is a pessimist. I'm completely certain she won't approve of us."
Slade rolled his good eye. "As if anyone did."
Touché, you sexy bastard. Passion made a gun with her hand and fired it in his direction, making a whoosh sound as she did so.
"It's not that. Arella is an important member of Azarath. If she disagrees with us, we can't get married here."
Slade's face softened, ever so slightly. "Is it really so important to you?"
Suddenly, Raven felt very small.
"Yes." she muttered, flushing.
Slade studied his lover with a meaningful expression. Then -
"Raven, if this is a condition to our engagement, I will do everything in my power to fulfill it."
"It's not - "
And then they were kissing and Raven was horribly ashamed and horribly thrilled at the same time and she could hear doves chirping around them and the sun was so warm on her back and the wind was blowing her cape up and she loved him, she loved him, she loved him...
.
"Arella?"
Arella looked up from the dove in her hand, which was cooing contently. Even after all she'd been through, the woman was still beautiful, still young. Members of Azarath were generally celibate, but in kinder moments between the two, Raven wished Arella would find someone to treat her better than her husband did. Demons didn't do well in marriage, after all.
"Raven."
Arella offered a small smile to her daughter, but it faded quickly when her eyes roved to Slade.
"Mother - "
The wife of Trigon held up a hand. "I know, my child. There is no need to explain."
Raven shut her mouth, bidding the frustration she felt to yield. Arella's holier-than-thou attitude was difficult for Raven to deal with, most likely because Raven herself behaved similarly. Still, it didn't make the dynamics of their relationship any easier.
Slade took this as his cue to step forward. "Arella, is it?"
Raven's mother raised a angular eyebrow at him. The dove flew out of her grasp, perhaps sensing a change in her mood.
"My name is Slade Wilson. And I'm in love with your daughter."
"Are you?"
There was no sympathy in Arella's tone. But Slade was not one to be hindered.
"Yes, I am." He cocked his head. "I understand this is very sudden. I am a parent myself - if my child came home one day with a stranger, I would be skeptical, too. But I assure you, my devotion to Raven is absolute."
Raven, if we weren't in front of your mother, gasped Passion, I would make you rip down Slade's pants right here, right now, and show him your devotion to his -
"Raven is but a child." Arella's expression was cool, but her words cut with a firmness Raven had never heard before. "And it is clear you are much...older."
"Mother!"
Damn. Raven was torn between wanting to throw herself off the apartment roof or slinking quietly into the shadows. Never, never in a million years would she have believed Arella would embarrass her in front of her fiancée. Trigon must be feeling a little chilly today, because Hell must certainly be experiencing some kind of snow day. Grimly, Raven hoped her father was enjoying this, considering she certainly wasn't.
"Arella," Slade said in that velvet-smooth voice, "If the only objection you have to our engagement is our age difference, then is it really so terrible?"
"Did you help my husband fulfill the prophecy of Raven's birth?"
"Yes," Raven answered quickly for him. "But things are different now, mother. You of all people know things can change. Mother, I...I love him."
Arella gazed long and hard at her daughter. She sighed.
"Raven, I do not condone this decision. You understand the danger of any intimate relationship you may have."
You forever had the love of your people, Raven, even knowing what would come and what that would bring.
Perhaps, at one point and time, Raven would have wholeheartedly agreed with her mother.
Now, it was different.
Raven stepped forward and took her mother's hands. Arella looked down at their intertwined grasp, expression blank, yet letting the longing she wasn't supposed to feel bleed through her emotional buffer.
"Mother," she began. "I do understand the danger of loving him. I know you're thinking of the greater good. But..."
Inadvertently, she glanced back at the man she loved. Slade smiled, a real, warm smile; it gave her all the answers she needed.
"I love him. And I want to spend the rest of my life with him."
At first, Arella said nothing. A dove or two made clucking noises behind them.
What now?
"If that is what you truly believe is right, my daughter, then so be it."
Kindness was filling Angela Roth's eyes, a kindness from one woman to another. Raven embraced her mother, clinging tight.
"Thank you."
Arella lightly patted her daughter on the back, told them to follow her inside, and disappeared in a flock of flying doves.
Joy lit everything in Raven's vision. She very nearly bounced back to Slade; Happy encouraged Raven to throw her arms around him.
"I love you," she told him, honestly.
His body shook with laughter beneath her, and pressure crossed her spine as Slade returned the hug. "What now, my dear?"
What now?
Raven looked up at his craggy, worn, handsome face.
Her answer - the one she'd been searching for all along - was not verbal.