Sorry for the long wait on this story. Everyone knows all the different things that come up. Some times though its just laziness, and I am sorry about that. Thank you very much for the reviews last chapter; KF Fan, Angelfly06, Featherpen13, Realfanficts, Nequam-Tenshi, Skyler-A-Teloiv, Tennisgal456, Anonymous Reviewer. Enjoy!

Chapter Four

Letters Home

Jinx stepped into sickbay, just as she predicted it was quiet and empty. "Raven?" It took a good minute but Raven did appear beside her. It happened so quickly that Jinx nearly jumped out of her skin. "Could you not do that right next to me?"
"Sorry, it's a bit random. Do you need something?" Jinx took a seat on a nearby bed.

"Tell me everything."

"Everything?" Jinx nodded confidently.

"Yes. You guys didn't build that thing all in one night. I have a day and half here still so I want the whole story."

"I guess that's fair," agreed the old and tired Raven.

"Good, now what happened to Wally?"

"Well like I said, we didn't know where he was for months. Then one day, out of nowhere, he just showed up."

You're not going to have too many off days as a Titan but when they do come it's not really all that great. We can rarely plan to have a day off so normally we end up being bored out of our skulls. The day Wally returned was just such a day. I suppose criminals decided that had had enough for a day, so they did nothing. Much to Robin's dismay we couldn't really apprehend a known criminal unless they actually committed a crime.

I say upon my corner of the couch reading some new vampire story a young fan had shoved into my hands, I think they were planning to make a movie out of it or something. Beast Boy was currently being nursed by Starfire as during training he had suffered a…well……serious injury.

"It is a hang nail," said Starfire irksomely. Beast Boy moaned pitifully.

"Are you sure, it hurts really bad…"

"I think you will make a full recovery," she said rising from his side. Cyborg couldn't help but chuckle to himself as he retrieved a generous snack from the fridge. Raven glanced over her book at him and rolled his eyes.

"I'm serious dudes, this totally stings!"

Raven slammed her book shut. "You go through worse things fighting dangerous criminals on a daily basis. Put a band aid on it." In a huff, Beast Boy took flight from the common room in search of said band aid. Not long after he left Robin returned from the obstacle course outside. He seemed quite winded and dabbed his sweating face with a towel.

"Robin! How went your trial through the course of obstacles?!" Asked Starfire brightly. He shrugged.

"Eh, I've done better."

"Hey Rob," called Cyborg. "You're gonna want to see this." The other three present crowded around Cyborg and the metallic teen displayed camera footage of none other than Kid Flash standing at their doorstep. The image was grey and slightly fuzzy but it was without a doubt him.

"Well this is…..unexpected," said Raven with folded arms.

Robin nodded in agreement. "Yeah, so much for boring day. Let him in." Cyborg parted the large doors guarding the entrance and in the blink of an eye Kid Flash was in the common room. He was in their presence before they even turned away from the computer console.

It was a little shocking to see him as he was. At least, I thought so anyway. It was clear he had only slept when he had to and that letting facial hair run amok was not a concern of his. A brown satchel was also slung over his shoulder.

Kid Flash trotted down beside Robin and grasped his shoulders like a madman. "Robin…..I know what happened to Jinx." Robin glanced to his left and right at his friends then carefully removed Wally's hands from him.

"Wwwhy don't you rest for a minute then tell us what you learned-"

"NO! This can't wait, we can't wait!" He drew from the satchel a disk and held it in his trembling hands. "We have to act now!"

"Wally calm down," insisted Robin. But Wally was beyond reason. Robin knew the look in his eye, the very same one he had when he had been forced to fight an imaginary Slade. He sent Starfire a short nod and before the speedster could react she had zapped him in the back with just enough magnitude to render him unconscious. Robin bent down and picked up the disk. "Raven, take care of him."

I really hoped that it wouldn't involve something too mental or deep. Tapping into Robin's mind for a short time was as much of knowing someone that deeply as I cared for. Starfire helped me gather him and we took him to sickbay.

Raven and Starfire took to task cleaning up Kid Flash and mending a few sprains and broken bones. It begged one to question what he really went through just to get his vital piece of information. While preserving as much of his modesty as possible they removed him of his torn and dirtied costume and provided him with a new one. For the past few months Raven had been schooling Starfire on the basics of human anatomy and medicine, thus the Tamaranian now proved to be a valuable assistant. Kid Flashes recovery took a full four days and on the fifth he finally came to.

We took shifts, keeping an eye on him day after day. It made missions a little stringent as one of us had to stay behind. But on that fifth day it was my turn and he came around.

Wally groaned and blindly reached a hand up to his forehead. Raven quickly set her book aside and rushed over to him. He startled somewhat at her touch.

"Easy," she said quietly. "Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself after we went through all this trouble."

"Raven?" he groaned.

"Yes."

"Where am I?" She arched a brow at him. Had he been so far-gone that had in a sense been sleepwalking the whole time? Raven placed a glowing hand over him.

"Titans Tower, you didn't look so good." She began checking him for any recurring injuries. He squinted his eyes as even the dimmed lights of sickbay caused him slight pain.

"How long have I been out?"

"Five days," said Raven plainly. She picked up a chart next to his bed and read through some of the notes she and Starfire had made. "I don't know what hellhole you ran through but it sure did a number on you; dislocated shoulder, three cracked ribs, a sprained wrist, and…….and a blister on your foot. Those are just the highlights; we also had to reacquaint you with two pints of blood. For all intents and purposes, you're lucky to be alive."

"Yeah well…..the disk! Did I still have it?!" HE said trying to shoot up from his bed. Raven intercepted him and forced him back down.

"Easy killer, we have the disk you brought with you. Robin tried to look at it but it's been encoded." Wally settled back down on his pillow and sighed with monumental fatigue. "Wally, can you tell me what the password is?" His eyes were drooping.

"Jinx…." Not another word. He passed into slumber right then and there. Raven sat beside him stock still. Her hands moved to shake him awake but their movements faltered. Instead, she pulled the blanket further over him. It was farfetched to believe they would be able to learn anything from him as soon as he woke. Just then however an idea came to Raven. She set the sickbay computer to alert her to any change and promptly departed to the common room.

Upon entering she found that Robin, Cyborg, Starfire, and Beast Boy were still hard at work trying to gain access to the disk's information. Cyborg even got the green light to try some hacking tricks. Raven wasted no time in giving them another idea.

"Try 'Jinx'," she said. Robin swiveled around in his chair and sighed.

"We did." The Azarathian's face fell.

"It was the first thing we tried," added Cyborg. Starfire and Beast Boy looked just as somber at their so far unsuccessful efforts. "Heck we even tried 'Wally and Jinx'. So far…..nothing. I was just about to bypass the password altogether and scan the base code line by line."

"You can do that?" asked Raven.

"Well, there's a risk that data could be lost. But I don't see how we have a choice."

"Wally woke up," she said quickly. They all stood up excitedly. "If we just give him time he'll be able to tell us." Robin was never keen on waiting; impatience was a difficult personality trait to beat.

Jinx held her legs up against her chest while she listened to Raven's story. The aged Titan paused for a moment. Jinx worked stiffness out of her neck and sighed.

"So, I'm guessing he eventually told you what the password was."

"Oh yes, he did. It was 'Jinx_TeenTitan'." A tiny smile painted over Jinx's face. Raven shrugged. "We were close I guess you could say."

"But……what happened to him, why was he so injured?"

"Well he never gave us the full story but apparently the people he had to question didn't really appreciate his methods or him being a Titan. When you have the biggest criminals in the world gunning for you, no one's fast enough." Jinx thought about Wally constantly ducking and dodging out of sight. She thought of him always hiding just so he could a way to save her.

"What happened then?" she asked.

Wally gave us the password just as I thought he would the very next day. The disk contained several different files but the first one we saw was a set of blueprints and mapping.

Cyborg's eyes moved from line to line, his mouth slightly ajar. Wally of course already knew what was on it but it was seeing the look on his friend's face that made him hold his tongue.

"What is it?" asked Beast Boy.

"They're plans for a Chronoton Detonator," said Robin. He looked back at Wally. "Where did you get this and why?"

"Because I think this holds to key to what happened to Jinx, she wasn't destroyed she was sent through time."

"Say what now?" said Beast Boy.

Kid Flash stepped up beside Cyborg. "I got these from the same person Dr. Light did, Chang. And after I 'convinced' Chang to cooperate he gave me the names of other people who could shed further light."

"It is a fantastic theory," said Starfire. "But what proof is there to support it." Robin considered that a sound question and looked to Cyborg.

"Well?"

Cyborg thought long and hard, constantly looking up at the plans and side notes. Finally he began snapping his fingers and jabbing and excited finger in Kid Flash's direction.

"You know man; you might be on to something."

"Are you serious?!" exclaimed Beast Boy.

Cyborg bounded up next to the screen to explain. "The Chronoton Detonator works by altering the fabric of space time in its blast radius. It creates a bubble and separates everything in range from the normal flow of time."

"Which was also how Light was going to protect himself," said Wally.

Cyborg continued. "So let's say that Dr. Light, who let's face it isn't brightest bulb in the house, get's his hands on some bootleg plans from Chang and slaps it together. He sets his trap and lures us in and thinks he's got us in the bag. Then along comes Jinx, she causes the slightest malfunction…."

"And you get unknown and unexpected side effect," finished Robin. Cyborg nodded with a smile. Starfire looked absolutely amazed.

"But this…this is incredible."

"That's not quite the word I would use," said Raven. "It it's true, and Jinx has been sent through time….which way did she go?" At this Cyborg's triumphant smile faded.

"Oh yeah, well…that's one part that we can't figure out. If it did go down that way she could have been sent either way; past or future."

"Can we help her?" asked Starfire

"Only if she was sent to the future," said Wally. "On the disk is a head start on what we will need to theoretically build our own time machine." As if the theory of Jinx's fate was fantastical enough. "If she was sent to the future we can have the machine waiting for her when she shows up, whenever that is. If she went to the past however….." His voice trailed off. He didn't even want to think of their fifty/fifty chance.

Robin took up the torch. "We just hope she went to the future, and that's what we'll plan for."

"What if while we're working on this thing she shows up because it only sent her a few weeks ahead of us," said Beast Boy.

"I think that pretty much speaks for itself," said Raven. The quiet consensus that followed was basically everyone's order to begin working. They would not stop for another thirty years.

Jinx was now pacing around sickbay. Once she absently lost track of where she was going and actually walked straight through Raven's projection. The act unnerved them both but they quickly forgot about it.

"So why you?" she asked Raven. "Why were you the one who stayed behind?"

"Simple logic, the stasis tube would do most of the work while I helped it by periodically healing myself." Jinx looked away from the hologram and walked up to Raven's stasis tube. She was very old and her hair was milk white. She looked as though she were merely taking a nap. "You actually came in the nick of time; I'm not sure how much longer I could keep this up."

"You guys spent years building this time machine?"

"Decades," replied Raven. Her face grew sad and tired; she sat down on a nearby bed. Jinx looked up Raven with concern and stepped back over to her.

"Raven?" She sat down beside her. "What is it? Please tell me."

The Azarathian's visage flickered again. She looked up into Jinx's eyes. "You don't wanna know."

"Yes, I do. I have to know what happens." Raven wished she had deactivated her program before she had showed her hand to Jinx. Now she had no choice but to continue into the darkest chapter of their history.

"We…we worked on the machine as often as we could. We literally turned our backs on having what bits of a normal life we had. Robin and Starfire even gave up on each other. There was simply…no time. Things would come up and threaten the world as they did now and again for us." Raven actually smirked a little. "Isn't that funny, to call something like that routine." Her smile was not long to last though. "Eventually, Slade made himself known again. As you can imagine, that caused all sorts of trouble in Titans Tower. Star City was the first to go, Wally never the tower again after we began building the machine. One by one, governments fell to Slade like flies to a bug lamp. Soon only a small portion of the United States was left, and Robin decided our latest attack on Slade would be the last. He was going to put Slade down for good."

"Did he?" asked Jinx.

Raven shook her head. "He planned the attack based on some intelligence we received from the resistance. What we didn't know was that Slade had infiltrated the underground and fed us the Intel." Jinx backed away slightly. "We walked right into a trap and found ourselves s-surrounded. There was no way out. He gave us the chance to surrender but….no. Slade brought the walls down around us, he showed no mercy. I was saved by two girders that crossed one another and blocked bits of concrete from crushing me, Cyborg and Beast Boy pretty much had similar miracles spare them."

"And…Robin and Starfire."

The holographic Raven flickered. "They weren't so lucky." Jinx's arms found the mattress behind her and it was all she could do to steady herself. Raven noted Jinx's weakened limbs. "They at least died together."

"Wait!" Said Jinx through a shaking voice. "A-Are you saying that Slade's attack started in Star City?" Raven nodded. Jinx nearly yanked every strand of hair out of her head. "If I had been there, I would be with Wally in Star City and we could have stopped him. We could have ended it there!"

"It wasn't your fault," assured Raven. "Especially this happened while you were giving your all as a new Titan. You can't blame yourself and honestly I won't let you." Jinx stood up and turned away. She hugged her arms to her sides. Raven was nearly out of options for lifting her spirits when she remembered something. Finally she could pass Jinx a small bit of good news.

"Jinx?"

"What?" she said curtly.

"Wally left something for you." As though she had speed powers of her own, Jinx whirled around and stared at Raven bug-eyed.

"H-He did? What?! W-W-Where?!" Raven, smiling, led her over to a computer screen where a simple thought brought it to life. Various icons displayed before them, with a more prominent one pulsing in the corner.

"He wrote you a letter," said Raven. "As he told me once, there's nothing like getting good old fashioned mail. Only this one's been waiting over two millennia to get to you." Jinx stared at the screen as though it were a swirling spiral. Raven lowered her head with a small smile. "I'll leave you be." Raven dematerialized a second later. Jinx looked around and found a computer pad beside other medical instruments. She connected the pad to the wall screen and immediately downloaded the letter. Once the transfer was complete she took the pas back to the bed and sat down to read it. She tapped the icon on her small screen, bringing up the letter before her eyes.

Hey Jinx, this is going to be the most colossally stupid question in the history of stupid questions…..but how ya doing?

Jinx had to pause and laugh. Was there no end to his boyish quirks? How did he think she was doing?

If you're reading this then we guessed right and you got sent to the future. Listen, I am so sorry for everything that has happened to you. I can't tell how far you've gone or what you've seen, but since you haven't come back by now….it's probably nothing good. You and Raven have probably already had this talk, but I hope you aren't racking yourself over the coals about this. I mean, yes…things went from bad to worse to just plain tragic. But if you can make it back then all of it will be undone, we can change the past. If things do go south though, there's something I want you to know; something important.

Jinx repositioned herself as her heart skipped a beat.

Jinx, when I first saw you with the Hive Five I thought you were kind of cute. And I gotta say, I really really didn't take you for the unicorn type. I don't know, maybe it's just because you struck me as someone who was into both pink and skulls…..that didn't come out right. It's not that I thought you were into really weird stuff, just not mythical creatures with….you know what I'm getting off topic here. Let me start over.

The new Titan rolled her eyes up at the ceiling.

Okay, here we go. Jinx, that first rose was just me flirting with a cute girl. The second rose was to ask you out on a date, later that is. And the third rose was me telling someone how beautiful she is and how much I love her. I hope you make it back Jinx. I hope you make it back so I can tell you all of this in person. You'd probably make fun of, the amount of times I'd stutter. I mean seriously, even writing this, I've had to press 'backspace' like five hundred times now. Just come home Jinx, we'll be waiting for you.

The super hot guy who left all those roses for you,

Wally

Jinx set the pad down on beside her and leaned back against the cushion of the mattress. Did he really mean everything he said? Apart from all the goofiness and buffoonery anyway. Jinx had long ago promised to get home but she was determined like never before, if not just for her and Kid Flash's future but that of everyone else as well. It simply boggled her mind how one person can make such a difference. She would. She would not let their sacrifices and toils go to waste. She was going home, whether the forces that sent her to the future liked it or not.

Well only one chapter left for this. I told you guys it was a short story. Don't fret, I'll give it a bit of time and give you guys a pretty good conclusion. Laters! And Happy New Year!