Chapter 2
[An hour later]

Terra had finally calmed down to the point Edward was able to drop his mental shields and that meant fully reopening the link to his girlfriend. He had risked it earlier and almost paid for it dearly.

Beast Boy looked ready to kill, though. He wasn't an empath or a telepath, but, even he felt her pain.

Terra looked at Edward, who handed her yet another tissue.

"You'll help me find him, won't you?" she asked in a small voice.

Edward nodded, "Of course, Terra."

"Thank you," she said, closing her eyes. Within a minute, Beast Boy said, "She's sleeping finally."

"You going to be OK?" Edward asked.

"No," Beast Boy said, "Not until her nightmare is finally behind her. I don't know what really happened when she was working for Slade, but, if it's hurting this much…It had to be bad."

"Gar…I'm sorry," Edward said.

"For what?" Beast Boy said. It was serious enough for Edward to use his real name.

"For this," Edward said, "I was advised not to let her find out so soon after she was rescued. This is why."

"She had to find out eventually, Edward," Beast Boy said, "Best she find out now instead of during a mission."

Edward nodded and said, "True."

Raven had come back in after the long talk with Robin and Cyborg. She saw Edward and Beast Boy there. As she walked around to the other side of the couch, she saw Terra there.

"Wore herself out, I see," she said quietly.

"Yeah," Beast Boy said.

"I'll get her a pillow and a blanket," Edward said, "Rae, would you..?"

"Go, I'll sit here," Raven replied.

Edward slowly got up and headed for the exit. Raven sat down and asked, "How is she?"

"Not good," Beast Boy said sadly, "She's in so much pain. She doesn't fully grasp what happened or why Slade's back from the dead."

Raven sighed, "Damn reporter."

"What reporter?" Beast Boy asked.

"There was a news report," Edward said, coming back into the room with one of his personal pillows and blankets, "Slade's mark was found on the side of a building. Terra saw that and knew Slade's alive. Slade also knows she's here as the reporter also had footage of the fight with Malchior. Someone with a video camera recorded the fight. They probably are laughing all the way to the bank, too.

"Let's move to another room, though."

Raven gently levitated Terra off of Beast Boy and soon as he stood up, Terra was placed on the couch. Edward placed the pillow under her head as Beast Boy put the blanket on her. He placed a soft kiss on her forehead.

They moved to Edward's room to continue the conversation.

"Can't we sue the person?" Beast Boy asked.

"Nope. Freedom of the Press comes into play here," Edward said, shrugging, "We should be glad of that, though. Had this happened 250 years or more ago, there would not have been a fight. People back then would have killed everyone on the team as witches, especially you, Raven."

Beast Boy's ears drooped hearing that.

"What we can do it give her our love and support right now. That will be the best thing for her," Raven said.

"She going to want payback," Edward predicted, "I can understand that. But, we're heroes. We don't seek vengeance. And, this could be seen as such."

"What about Malchior?" Beast Boy asked, "Wasn't killing him an act of revenge?"

"Partially," Edward relented, "He had hurt Raven badly. First, he broke her heart. You can see that aspect cause you were there…you helped her in a way that she acknowledged with one of her rare hugs, right? Then, he invaded her mind and tried to destroy her from the inside out. How he got into Nevermore, we'll never know, unless he got in the same way you, Cyborg and I get in. But, that doesn't answer why he didn't emerge outside the Tower.

"Regardless, this was also a matter of protecting Raven. Not to take away from you, dear, as I know you can protect yourself very well. Sometimes, though, even you have to admit you need help, right.

"Something else to remember: I allowed Terra to finish Malchior off for a reason. Her and I didn't know the entire story behind Malchior and Rae. We were the two Titans NOT influenced by vengeance…For me, it was protection of Raven. For Terra, I accepted that as payment of a life debt."

"Right," she said, "I couldn't even get off a distress call through our link, but, I'm glad that you knew there was a major problem and rushed to help. I had to accept the help as I couldn't fight him off."

She leaned over and kissed Edward on the cheek, "Thank you for doing that."

Edward blushed, "You're welcome."

He continued, "I know from experience that there's a fine line between protecting and outright revenge. I'm worried that our geomancer friend will go right into revenge. Sadly, I don't know the entire story outside what was in the media at the time."

"It was bad," Beast Boy said.

"Agreed," Raven said, "We had taken Terra in a few years ago when she was battling a huge scorpion…"

[Flashback]
[Author's note: From "Terra"]

The Teen Titans had been alerted to a giant scorpion chasing a teenager and went to assist the girl.

Turned out that when then got there, she was cornered and as Robin directed the team to attack, the girl's eyes started to glow along with her hands.

A natural land bridge ripped itself away from the canyon walls and with a yell, the girl dropped the bridge onto the scorpion, killing it.

The team realized that the girl led the creature into a trap.

She raised a temporary pillar of rock to where the team was still in awe of what they saw.

She jumped from the pillar to the ledge. The pillar crumbled a moment later.

Robin broke out of his trance and approached the girl.

"I'm Robin. We're the…" he said, holding out his hand.

She opted for a fist bump, "Teen Titans! Rock on! It's cool to meet you guys! I'm Terra and you're Cyborg, Raven, Starfire and … "

She pointed to each one in turn and when she got to Beast Boy, he said "Boy Beast! Uh, I mean Bass Boot…No!"

"Beast Boy?" she said with a giggle. That elicited a scream and then a turtle spinning in mid-air.

"Dude! He's hilarious!" she said laughing.

He poked his head out of the shell and said, "Hilarious? Me? Really?"

Terra winked at Beast Boy who promptly returned to human form and passed out. Cyborg goes to catch him and pulls his arms away at last possible moment. Beast Boy hits the dirt for a moment than wakes up.

Starfire, meanwhile had floated to Terra and said, "Curiosity abounds." Then in rapid fire, she said, "Where do you come from? How did you get here? What is your favorite color? And, do you wish to be my friend?"

Terra, taken aback by the questions, said, "Earth, walked, red and sure."

Starfire said, "Hello, new friend!". She grabbed Terra into a Starfire bear-hug. That meant Terra would have to straighten out a few joints when Starfire released her.

"How's it going?" Terra asked, clearly being strangled. Starfire released her and, well, Terra spent the next few moments putting a few joints back and massaged a few newly formed bruises. (Edward, listening to this, winced, knowing when Starfire hugged him, he would end up massaging in the same places for a few moments while they healed.)

Well, the team found out that Terra was camping out in a "lonely cave of darkness" as Starfire said. In fact, the team insisted that she stay for a night. Considering that Starfire was dragging Terra prompted Terra to agree to the plan.

Little did the Teen Titans know…Terra was extremely hungry. She literally cleaned out the fridge while the team stood there, jaws on the floor.

Starfire came over and asked if Terra would try her homemade glorg.

The others yelled "NO!", but, it was too late, Terra devoured the gelatin, licked the plate and said, "Tastes like sushi mixed with ice cream. Got any more?"

Starfire was giddy as she went off to cultivate the fungus. (Edward had his own thoughts on glorg taste, but, generally agreed with Terra's assessment.)

Having eaten the team out of house and home, she asked where the tub was.

30 minutes later, the tub looked like a war zone with mud everywhere.

Cyborg said, "Whoa! Mud bath!"

Terra quipped, "Sorry…Guess I was due for a rinse."

Robin looked in and made a face with his tongue sticking out. Raven looked quite angry at the mess and the bad joke…Then again, the empath didn't find much humor.

Terra washed out her clothes in the sink and called it a night, falling asleep on the couch.

The team realized that Terra was well and truly homeless and decided to offer her a permanent place at the Tower. Robin decided to ask her to train with the team the following morning. He had concerns over her abilities and wanted to see how she did.

Terra overheard that and grew concerned. She knew she barely had control over her powers and decided to leave the next day.

She went down to the rocky side of the island and was using her powers to skip stones across the surface of the water.

Beast Boy joined her and sat down, "So I'm guessing the couch was too lumpy?"

He picks up a stone and lets it fly. Instead of skipping, it merely splashes down and sinks. Terra laughed and floated another stone into Beast Boy's hand. This time, the throw was perfect and it skipped several times.

After making several funny faces at each other, Terra told Beast Boy she was leaving in the morning, but, Beast Boy convinced her to stay. Beast Boy finds out the "hard way" that she can't fully control her abilities as he's accidentally dumped off the small boulder he was sitting on. It splashed a lot of water on him and after spitting out the sea water promised not to reveal it to anyone else (mainly cause Terra was angry at herself, though.)

The training session went well and it was revealed that Terra, despite her marginal control over her powers (and destroying a fair amount of the course in the process) set the course record that stood until Edward broke it years later.

Beast Boy encouraged her throughout the training session and when she finally made it through, she grabbed him into a hug, whispering, "You said I could do it and you were right!"

Robin was about to offer her a place on the team when everyone's alert indicators started flashing.

That's when Terra ended up face-to-face with Slade for the first time, and confirmed to Robin that she wasn't able to control her powers. Terra had gotten enraged at Slade and caused an underground tornado as her abilities went totally out of her control.

Beast Boy arrived shortly after Slade retreated as a mole and went under the whirlwind. He returned to his human form and was able to grab onto her.

She realized it was Beast Boy and started crying.

"I'm here, Terra," he said. She calmed down and was able to get her powers back under control. They landed gently as she wept.

After they returned to the Tower, she was offered a place on the team and Robin goofed and mentioned she didn't have control, but, the team would help her. She misunderstood, due to Slade planting a seed of doubt in her mind, and left…

[Back to the present]

Edward took that all in and started pacing.

"Looking at this from the outsider view," he said, "Terra already had a rough life. I knew about the unexplained earthquakes in areas of the country where they shouldn't have been possible.

"Her explanation of why she was outside Jump City bears that out. I'm not sure why folks suspected Terra as the cause of those tremors, though. I'm going to have to do some digging to see why. Regardless, she apparently craved something that we take for granted…friendship, acceptance, and trust. And, that was undermined by Slade."

"What will we do if she wants payback?" Beast Boy said.

"Weren't you listening?" Raven said, "We support her. We got her back, period."

Beast Boy was properly chastened then because Edward had said that earlier.

"I'm with Raven here," Edward said, "Terra deserves a chance to find closure and if that means beating Slade to a pulp, it's going to suck to be him."

"There's something else, Edward," Raven said, "One of the side effects of my father restoring him to life is he's got something in common with you."

"Don't tell me…" Edward said, actually dreading the answer.

"He's immortal," Raven said.

"Crap!" Edward said, "Means that even if he's beaten to a bloody pulp, he can regenerate. Depending on how bad he's injured, though, depends on how long it will take to recover."

"I know," Raven said, "I've seen you recovering in seconds from scratches and scrapes up to several minutes from an otherwise fatal injury."

"It usually makes up to 5 minutes to repair broken bones, as well," Edward said, "But, the problem here is what kind of damage will Slade take before he's down for a while?"

"We don't know," Raven replied, "This is the first time he's been even hinted at for since he sided with us to defeat my father."

"Common enemy?" Edward asked.

"Sort of," Raven said, "He petrified the population and the team barely defeated him."

"When was this, dear?" Edward asked.

"About two years ago," she replied sadly.

Edward strained to recall that time and actually couldn't.

"Odd," he said after a moment, "I don't recall that."

"No one does except us," Raven said, "It's better this way, trust me."

"That right there isn't cool," Edward said, "But, as your father is already gone, nothing to do there. I'll thank Slade for helping save the planet, but, with respect to Beast Boy…Terra deserves payback. I'm in."

He held out a hand. Both Raven and Beast Boy put their hands on top of his.

"I hope the others will want to help out," Edward said.

"Cyborg, Starfire and Robin will help," Raven reassured her boyfriend.

Raven looked deep in thought for a moment and said, "Terra's waking up, I think."

Beast Boy went out to check.

"We have to bring the others in," Edward said.

"Certainly," Raven replied, "We can't have this any other way."

Raven went to get Robin and Cyborg. While she was getting them, she ran into Starfire and said, "Meet in Edward's room, please, Star. Something bad happened while you were gone."

"What happened, sister Raven?" Starfire asked.

"We'll tell you there," Raven said.

"All right," Starfire said, "I'll meet you in friend Edward's room."

She floated away.

A few minutes later, Cyborg, Robin and Raven were returning to Edward's room.

"Hi, again," Edward said, "Looks like Starfire needs to know what happened. Who gets to tell her?"

Robin sighed, "I will.

"Starfire, Terra knows Slade's alive. She isn't taking the news very well. In fact, she's having a meltdown. We didn't want Terra to know for a while yet."

Starfire looked shocked, "Tell me, how did friend Terra find out?"

"One of the local TV stations ran a report about Slade's symbol being found on a building. She must have seen it," Edward said.

"She did," Beast Boy said as he and Terra came into the room. She looked terrible, eyes swollen, nose red, etc.

They sat down and she leaned on Beast Boy.

Starfire went to give her a hug and Robin said, "Easy, Starfire."

Starfire backed down, but, Terra reached out to the Tamaranian girl and hugged her instead. Starfire reached up and hugged her back…very gently this time.

They saw the tears forming in Terra's eyes as Starfire held her.

"I'm here, friend Terra," Starfire said gently, "The Slade won't bother you here."

"How can you be sure, Starfire?" Terra asked.

"Because I won't let him!" Starfire said forcefully. She meant every word of that.

"None of us will, Terra," Robin said, "The Teen Titans have your back this time."

The team gathered around in a group hug, even the reclusive Raven. That show of strength was what Terra needed to see and feel for herself. She still had bouts of low self-esteem at times, but, this was different.

Terra was slowly turning her sense of panic into a resolve that would test her and the team…