A/N: Hey guys! I told ya I'd return! ;) Oh and kudos to some of you for discussing Roy/Speedy with me. Let's just say that Dr. Strange loves his patients like guinea pigs and not people... (he was Arkham's Hugo Strange btw - sorry if he seemed terribly off, I forgot how his evil-scientist-persona is supposed to come off as!) ...Not sure what else to blab on about so I'll save whatever dignity I have until the end of this chapter. Lol, now get comfy!
I also wanna say, that this is my first ever, EVER fic, like since I've been here from 2005, to have EVER reached 10 chapters! Double-digit party celebration, virtual drinks will be passing around! Lol.
(We are the music makers.)
"Ahh! Arrrgh…!"
"Patient! Are you al-"
"No! I-I'm not! Can you-! Aaar… is there anyway you can-"
"Here! Let me help you-!"
"Oww! Ah!" she hissed. "I-It's my stomach ...it ...I-"
"Wait! Stay right here! I'm going to get you a wheelchair. Then I'll swing you over to the medical ward!"
The sound of feet running away echoed throughout the hallway.
Rachel breathed heavily for couple more seconds as she froze in her position on the floor. She counted to three in her head and waited.
Silence.
With a quickness she didn't know she possessed, she jumped up and ran for the doorframe to the male staff washroom.
At 5:28 p.m., she dug into Dr. Wilson's coat pocket, retrieved the keys, and bolted for his door to unlock it with quiet success.
x
"Don't go in at five," Rachel whispered. "Sneak in after midnight. I'm sure that hallway is just as deserted as mine."
x
1:32 a.m.
That night, Richard snuck into his office and seasrched aorund until he found a flashlight and the unguarded keys to the cabinets. He opened a couple of its shelves and searched through them for twenty minutes. As he pored over the crinkled papers and scrawling of blue and black ink under the poor lighting, his mind went to different places.
One of them was Kory's bright face as he remembered the last time he remembered seeing her a couple days past.
'Goodbye Richard!' she had said jovially. He lifted his head from his small bowl of oatmeal and rubbed his blue eyes of sleep before smiling at her.
'I don't think I understand, Kory,' he said with raised eyebrows, 'You just came in.'
But Kory shook her head, red hair swaying in the dim caf's sunlight. He realized for the first time that it was perfectly brushed and neat, and there was a jeweled pin holding it in place on one side of her head. When he looked her up and down, he also noticed that in place of the dull grey, hospital dress she always wore, there was a magenta-colored sweater dress and thin dark-blue scarf wrapped around her neck. She wore black tights and soft, brown boots.
'You mistake my cordial greeting for an immediate departure,' she giggled. 'I am here to sit in the company of my 'family' one last time, before I depart tonight.'
'D-depart?' he put two and two together. 'Y-you're leaving? Already?'
She nodded again and grasped her tray with a melancholy face before sitting down across from him at his table. Richard's nurse eyed her warily but didn't say a word behind him. Kory could sit anywhere without supervision – she was a cured patient.
'Quite so. After nights of looking out that darkened window and wishing and doing my best, Dr. Wilson and the town court have been so kind to push my release date three weeks sooner. No real debate either – they just, haha, said 'Well, of course not! Anything for Miss Corina!' I'm being so terribly humble about it though. I should be more excited. Everything and everyone outside must have changed so much in five months! And Bludhaven …so many opportunities to endeavor upon…"
Richard watched as stars twinkled behind Kory's green eyes with an energy that made her look more youthful than she already was. He felt himself feel it pour off of her, teasing him in his own shriveling state.
'What about Garfield? Won't he be leaving too?'
She shook her head thoughtfully.
'That, I do not know. I would very much like him to leave with me so that we may start our lives together. But Dr. Wilson and the court have only ordered release for my case. But I suspect he will not be far behind. We shared both in the quick progress of healing ourselves.' Richard pulled off a small smile and reached for her hand, something he wasn't able to do before at the windowsill but proud to do now.
'Live your life, Kory. Hopefully, if I get out by the time you become a famous astrophysicist, I'll find you and Garfield.'
He remembered how Kory laughed behind closed eyelids.
When Richard was done looking around through the manila-coloured folds, he left the doctor's office and went to tell Rachel.
"I didn't find anything on either of us yet," he whispered the first night into their investigation. His heart was still pounding from the thrill. "But you're not gonna believe it." She widened her eyes. "What?"
"There are ...others like us. A lot of unexplained murders with distinct bruising left on the patients."
Rachel absentmindedly drew up a hand to rub the mark on her forehead. He continued, "Wrists, ankles, necks, …faces. At first, I thought it was nothing, just something you and I… but they've all been written in red ink, Dr. Slade's penmanship. So it can't be-"
"Coincidence?" she whispered. But he shook his head as he glared out her window.
"Highly unlikely."
x
Every so often, Richard and Rachel would skip days for assurance that they wouldn't get caught, and when Richard felt confident that he didn't have to go it alone, he let her sneak in with him. Rachel was quiet like him and calculating and he was growing to trust her more everyday. Lie after lie had been piling up since his arrival at Arkham and so Richard found it hard to stay really comfortable with anyone anymore – Kory may have been sweet, but as he guessed, she was bipolar. That fact was apparent, no matter how fishy everything around them was.
One night, Rachel found some interesting facts on a couple files and told Richard when they returned to their room.
"Starfire's gone," she whispered solemnly but Richard grew confused.
"Who?" Not realizing what she'd said, she widened her eyes and blushed in the dark. She looked away timidly.
"It was a nickname ...I gave to a girl here. I think her name was …'Kory'. The …the same girl that I saw y-"
"Did you ever meet her?" he asked. He realized he had never mentioned Kory to Rachel before and felt a little guilty. Rachel shook her head and gave him a rueful smile.
"I've never met anyone here, remember? But I …knew what she was like. Anyone could. She smiled everywhere she went, but had violent temper tantrums. I used to catch her looking at the stars at night in the hallway. I peeked once or twice." Richard gave a knowing smile.
"So …Starfire," the name was so strange, but had that delightful surge of freedom he felt when Rachel mentioned her 'wonderland', "was …she in Jump City too?"
Rachel nodded after a long pause.
"Although I never met her in person, I-I always wanted a friend like her, warm and bright. In my world, she was my best friend and could fly too. But her powers were strengthened with emotion, not stunted like mine. She was incredibly strong and had green glowing eyes that …Richard, am I creepy? For…i-imagining all this?" Rachel finally asked with sad eyes. Her voice had taken on a monotone edge, void of emotion like she didn't care what he thought – or rather, cared too much to show it. But when she sighed and sank her head, Richard put a hand on her shoulder.
"No," he whispered firmly and tenderly, "It makes you special and strong. You've created a security blanket that's stopped you from shutting out the whole world and succumbing to irrationality." But Rachel shook her head.
"But the Raven I made can't control her emotions so she does shut the world out. Tell me, why would I do that myself if I wanted to make myself a comfort there?"
Richard squeezed her shoulder.
"Because I believe you have your reasons, even if you don't know for sure yet. …You're making a difference in the Jump world, remember that. And you have a friend in Starfire …helping you to do that."
And for the second time since he met her, another tiny curve of a smile appeared on Rachel's face – if only her room had the light for him to have seen it.
Rachel proceeded to tell Richard about the strangeness she found in Kory's disappearance. He never touched her file.
"When I read her papers, they said her sentence to remain here was ten years. But...she came to Arkham in the late spring. Not only that …there was also a strange red stamp marking over her photo ID."
"But she was being released anyway," he said with a valid point. "Maybe it was an approval stamp."
Rachel shook her head. "I don't know... nothing in the file stated her court or release date. Just how she got in but, not how she's leaving. And there were a lot of comments on her character and physical traits. You'd think the stamp would signfy her mental progress but ...now I'm not so sure..."
It didn't make sense to Richard. Patients who came to Arkham came because they had no family and it was the only place in society they could belong to. Nothing added up, and it only made Richard and Rachel more determined to put the pieces together. He felt a twinge of worry for Kory but tried to swallow it down with a, 'She'll be alright.'
"There's something else. I don't know if you ever noticed when you were with her because her dresses were long-sleeved," Rachel whispered with just the tiniest resentment in her voice – luckily Richard didn't pick it up. "But it said she had a permanent bruise mark …right hand, near the wrist."
And strangely enough, Richard thought of the red-haired patient, Pamela, he saw in the gardens – crying, and rubbing her eyes with her hand ...having the same placed bruise.
(We are the dreamers of dreams.)
A/N: Aaah, finally I wanted this chapter out of the way! Can you think of nothing more delicious than having Kory come out as Starfire and then disappearing just as suddenly as a cured patient? Well, save your stars cuz she ain't coming back into the story anymore. I loved writing her but the train must keep rolling! Haha, well more to come in the next chapter - hopefully by tonight! I'm recharged and ready to continue typing ...at least until by the end of this week! Then I gotta start studying for my History midterm next week. Ahem so...
Thanks for reading! Stay gold. Now for my mailbox:
RxRFannnnn: Hey theree! :) Thanks for your lovely thoughts! And I'm glad, you didn't expect that kind of mind-trip ;D You're an open-minded one and I like it - lol, and I'm also glad that my story hasn't come off as totally obvious ...sometimes folks who right big mysteries get so wound up and fly off the handle and I- Lmao! Look, I'm doing it again! Lool, thanks! :) Just wait until I start to write my other RavenRobin AUs - they're gonna be just as confusing! ;)
SladeRavenFan: Thanks Amy, sorry I confused you! :3 Don't worry about figuring out the cameos - they're only my lame attempt at fillers and they're really unimportant. Lol but Dr. Strange ...hmm haha, I don't even know how to describe what he means to Roy (who btw, is Speedy - Wally/KidFlash hasn't cameoed yet, but now that you mentioned him, I think I'll bring him in - thanks for reminding me! :D) ...Uhm, let's just say for the premise of the plot that I thought this,
"Roy was an orphan like Richard, Rachel and etc., but unlike Dr. Wilson's patients who are all mysteriously involved in their parents' death, Roy grew up badly and liked to torture people with throwing knives. Doctor Strange took him in and since he's a bit of a nut too, he transformed Roy's deadly accuracy with weapons into an art form as an archer. They both know Roy's not being treated - but trained." Well that's what I thought. Scary enough for ya? ;)
crazynerd: Aww thanks cn! You deserve some virtual huggin' -lol, or at least, a high-five if you aren't into strangers hugging you- ;D Lmao, I know right? Roy will always (and forever be) a sexy beast! :DD
jayenator2.0: New meat to dissect -as in, my new reviewer- thanks so much for your review! Lol yeah, 'luv' is a strong word but I know what you meant! ;) I'm really humbled that you enjoy the dark and twisted as much as I do! I hope you'll stick around until the end - I'll preview more twisted stories for RavenRobin by then! ;D Much love! PS: Send forth any good RavenRobin fics my way! I've read soo much over the past six years but you never hit them all! :)
No Line on the Horizon: Hey no-name! Lol I say that because I stalked your profile to ditch formalities and address you by your real name but none was there and writing an acronym like NLOTH sounds strange - I mean lol, look at mine: HHITC..? :p Lol but seriously, thank you so much for your kind review! I'm really glad you liked the premise of the AU split enough to decipher it for yourself :) I sometimes wish to see more story arcs away from the actual comic/cartoon world so I'm glad my first attempt wasn't a complete fail. :) And thanks for letting me know how the RichardRachel relationship is being percieved to my audience - when I wrote it, I didn't even think it might come off as a sibling-rela, I thought it was mutual friendship - but I see what you mean now! :D I want it to change in the future, definitely, and now that this info's been brought to my attention, I'll have to polish my later chapters for it bloom considerably from sibling to ...well, you'll see! ;) Also, I totally see what you mean about Rachel's personality. In her own defense, she was locked up tight in isloation for about eight years so I guess since then she's still an emotional newborn around other teens - especially Richard. Unlike Raven, Rachel is more emotional and afraid but I'm glad her childlike state is so striking to you. Don't worry! In a couple of chapters, I'll make her a woman! ;D Or ...at least like an actual teen! Lol TYSM - and sorry about my long-ish response! :p
There you have it, guys! I swear my mailbox is longer than the actual chapter lol! :O Until later tonight ...at least I hope.