Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in the Teen Titans show or comics.
"What?"
"I said, he's gone—left for Boston with his girlfriend, that redhead. He's trying to get a grant from the committee so he can travel to Africa in a couple years. Work on that insane, pet project of his. Anyways, he said to give you his regards..."
She couldn't believe it.
Boston?
Girlfriend?
She...she had thought...
"...left this—hey, are you listening? He left this 'Get-Well' card and number so you could reach him if you wanted to. Uh...Melina? You okay? Look kinda dazed..."
She blinked, then smiled carefully up at a concerned Ryan Delver.
"I'm fine."
Ryan stared at her a moment longer, then sighed. Checked his watch. "Well, okay. I have to go now, got a meeting with my team's sponsor that I can't miss—I'll come back by later, though, and check up on you, okay? And your parents said they'd be by again around dinnertime, okay?"
His voice sounded so far away...
"Right. Thanks for dropping by, Ryan, I know it must be a hassle..."
"Nah, it's no problem, Mel—" He was opening the door, walking out. "We've all been worried about you down at the lab, it's great to have you back."
"...Yes. Thank you."
"See you later, Mel."
The door clicked shut.
She continued staring, eyes empty and fake smile plastered on her face.
After a while, the corners of her mouth began to fall. The plop plop of the IV drip sounded extremely loud in the silent hospital room. The fluorescent light flickered overhead.
"Africa."
Sheets rustled, and she buried her face in her arms.
"Africa...!"
A purple envelope with a "Get-Well!" card inside remained untouched on the bedside table.
Melina Ragonu tapped her forehead with a pencil as she worked on the Sudoku puzzle in her lab, ignoring the bustling crowds and rushing cars passing her outside café table. A cup of coffee sat forgotten on the green wicker metal, no longer steaming.
Seven months.
It had been seven months since she'd woken from her three-month long coma; two months since she'd been released from rehab. One month since she'd bought her own one-bedroom, two-bath, one kitchen and living room condo in Chicago. Only twenty minutes by subway from the Myler Labs extension in the city. She would start working with an old friend and professor from the university in a week and a half.
Mark Logan was leaving for his honeymoon in Nice tomorrow.
The lead tip of her pencil broke when she pushed down too forcefully as she wrote a '5' in one of the small, numerous boxes.
She chuckled.
In five days it would be the anniversary of the accident.
The accident that burned the left side of her body, leaving horrible scars on her left hip and lower abdomen from the glass and metal that had dug into her left kidney and spleen. The accident that had fractured her right thigh in seven places and snapped her right ankle, after it had blown her over three lab tables, through a cupboard of stacked beakers and into a wall. The accident that had given her a severe concussion and three misaligned vertebrae. The accident that had torn her from consciousness and the world for three long, miserable months. The accident that had turned her body and muscles into those equivalent of a child from lack of use. The accident that ruined her relationship with Mark.
The accident that ruined her.
"He just doesn't know how to confront you. He feels so utterly responsible and guilty."
"Just give him time. He'll come around."
"I'm sure he misses you. He just doesn't know how to face you."
"He's buried himself in his work. Maybe a call from you would help...?"
He visited her once—when she woke up. He stayed for forty-five minutes.
"Mel, I'm so sorry—I just—"
Sobbing. Weeping, hysterical.
"I got away with a burned arm and a broken knee. But you—you..."
"It's my fault you're like this. If I had just stopped like you had told me to—"
Calming down. Sense returning.
"I kept researching, because I owed it to you—"
"...A grant. They're offering me it if I can prove the merit—"
BUT.
"I can't work with you anymore, Mel. I'm working alone, now."
"What if something happened like this again! I couldn't forgive myself! I still can't forgive myself—!"
"I'm sorry, Mel..."
AND THEN.
"Marie, this is Melina. Mel, this is Mary. I wanted you to meet her..."
BASTARD.
She...she had thought...
Melina Ragonu had a feverish light in her eyes as she stared at the prize her pet presented her with—so sought after, now finally mere inches away from her.
She reached out a shaking hand, frightening grin on her face, showing all her teeth between her full, lipstick-red lips. She took a sheet-white finger and traced it down a freckled nose, over two dry, cracking lips, down a lily-white, exposed neck. She paused, finger hovering, and then pushed aside the slightly-sullied hospital gown. She pressed her palm into the soft, goosebumped flesh of the chest, tracing a pink, raised nipple with the tip of a nail. Her hand slid down over the carved muscles of the navel, following a trail of light fuzz that led down, down—she halted, lifting her hand with a quiet hiss. Her lips her curving upwards, upwards—she marveled at the shape of his body as it rose and fell steadily, in time with the flutter of his breaths. She moved in again, quickly rubbing places sensitive and forbidden, kissing delicately tips of eyelashes and ears. Licking, biting and sucking that lily-white neck, that gorgeous chest. He was hers.
With a short bark of laughter at that thought, she pulled away, knowing she couldn't get carried away yet. The sedative would be wearing off soon. There would be time later. But for now...hungry eyes travelled over the unconscious form being held up by her pet.
"He's beautiful—just like his father. Except for that hair."
She turned briskly, beckoning her pet with a finger.
That awful, hideous hair.