Terra, a girl I had little known and too much detested visited my dreams that night, as if to ignite impending rebellion within me against Slade, her boyish, warped figure with a voice resembling male pre-pubescence and the mean, hateful things it spoke being bad enough, when coupled with the knowledge of who she was speaking in the name of made her a sickening symbol of everything the Titans—anyone, really—strove not to be.

At first I did not hate her—in fact, I pitied her even after she'd tried to kill me and presented my badge to Slade like Red X's chips. At first, that little mattered—because what more or better should I have expected from Slade?—and because Terra didn't know any better; she may have constantly claimed to be anything but helpless but when it came down to it, she was really nothing more than a stupid and easily manipulated child who served as a catalyst for Slade's plans and nothing more. So I did not feel threatened, frankly, and even when she tried to crush me with the rock controlled by her weird powers I felt sorry for her because I knew that she was inevitably doomed and little we could do would change that; and when she died I mourned for her and asked god—if there was one which existed, though attempts to speak to such a god were not typical of me—to protect her from Slade in the afterlife—to keep her from that pain again. And when it was all said and done, I thought of her from time to time; once, only a few weeks after her death, I dreamed vividly of Terra and the cavern—stone crumbling and emerging a beautiful version of the girl said to be so evil, emanating anything but such vibes and serving almost like a lighthouse or a sense of hope—simply put, a warm energy there, one that was safe and holy and good, and everything felt okay. She held out the badge to me—the R in all its glory, unharmed, and smiled at me. When I woke up, I didn't think of what I would do. I went to the cavern.

Two in the morning twilight barely illuminated the place—and it was soon lit solely by my flashlight. My boots echoed against the stone floors and water dripped and sounded—and still I heard the sounds of talking within the walls; I heard the sound of soft crying and the sound of something being kicked or beaten. I heard Slade's voice blend to a low and horrifying murmur, eerily echoing the dripping water and the tapping of my feet. I felt like something was standing behind me and as I made my way further downwards, the feeling only grew stronger;

And yet, when I came to the figure, the feeling was dispelled. Terra stood there in all her wonder, those last moments of her life captured in that solemn statue's face, marking perhaps the best and most noble thing she had ever used her powers and soul and spirit to do. Like in the dream a warmth emanated from the statue and the coldness that I had felt, the certainty that some large, tattered corpse, strings of flesh hanging off its face and its hands cold and bony and smelling of embalming fluid, was immediately so distant it seemed like a dream. The whole cavern felt to have the attitude of a warm and welcoming household where one could rest and not worry of the evils of the world—and even more so when I picked up the badge, sitting at the base of the statue.

Like new, polished, beautiful, gleaming up at me from the base of the statue, was the R. I took it, and exchanged it for my communicator. A spell was broken—and I felt it, more certainly than anything I had in my life.

That night, I thanked her.

But hatred really only started to creep in, defying the love and bond we had had in our troubles with Slade in the cavern that night where we had freed each other from eternal wondering and unrest, when she returned—or so has been told to me; what we had vowed to do for her so that she could once again do what she was meant to do, to be one of the Titans, and to light up Beast Boy the way she always seemed to do, became the very thing that pushed me into loathing and resentment. Because what was once a hopeful and cherished idea of reuniting and all that would entail became the very thing that shattered my best friend's heart;

When Terra decided that no longer she remembered him—that, that once so important and valued part of his life, as if had never existed and he was just hallucinating, like me when I believed Slade had come back and it was so terribly real but I was continuously reassured there was something wrong; and both of us were left feeling frustrated and tired, angry, and alone in ways that were different and yet so similar at the same time. For me, Slade might not have ever existed in my life—and maybe we had never faced Terra; and because there was confusion on so many levels of who actually existed any longer that it was impossible to tell, really, if I hadn't died long ago at the hands of Jack, or maybe if I was just asleep in the cave in Gotham and had dreamt the whole thing, never leaving. Maybe the war still raged and Deathstroke still seasoned the kids in 'Nam—but maybe Slade never lost that eye. And maybe Jericho could talk.

Who knew anymore? Things used to be so cut and dried.

One day, I visited this high school Beast Boy claimed Terra now went to; the only one in our city where regular kids fell into the anonymity of tests and quizzes and homework—where the biggest problem became waking up one morning and realizing they'd acquired an unsightly zit; the kids who ran from danger and whose most excitement came from their significant other at some school dance. To be honest, the kinds of kids I looked down upon and secretly felt better than—looked at them slyly to hide my smugness because I knew they were looking at me and thinking—what a badass, he's so cool, you know how many times he's saved the city? I wish I could get with him. And that had never been a question or a mystery to me—not even the least bit. Even then, as the girls in the hallways giggled and blushed and waved at me, some coming up to me and practically rubbing themselves on me to be noticed, that conception of the kids was strengthened that much further, as I noticed their boyfriends looking enviously and helplessly at me. I had no respect for these kids and yet, they made me feel fly.

One of the girls was especially cute, and reminded me of a fellow Titan—a pretty girl with locks of wild hair almost covering her entire face, and with eyes that distinguished her even in the drab school-uniforms—yuck—and made her stand easily above that gray inconspicuousness; her skin was pale and powdery but the facial features were further heightened by dark makeup and stones that matched her red eyes dangling from her ears. She did not come up to me but watched me from the corner, smiling, not needing to because I noticed her instantly and pushed the red-haired girl who had been admiring my cape off of me; I went to her instead and noted, of course, the heated and hateful looks girls gave her—and I think she noticed to, but like me it only made her eyes gleam further—and the way the boys sighed with thankfulness that their competition was "taken."

"Argent, is that you?"

"Well if not who'd ya think it was, darlin?" She said, and hugged me. When I hugged her back, I swore I felt rage-driven fire heating my back, only neutralized by the boys' relief. "But keep it down, baby, yeah? I don't want any a' these hoes knowin."

As we pulled apart, I said, "What are you doing here—Silver? I thought you went back to New Zealand."

"Almost, yeah," she said, at first looking deep in thought but then smiling, "Yeah, but after those wankas in Paris I didn't want to set another foot in Europe. I know we got 'em but—you know, Gabe and I didn't find it much romantic anymore."

I smiled, knowingly. "You and Harold?"

She responded, similarly, with a knowing and sort of dreamy smile at the name of the trumpet wielding phantom, though she said, teasingly, "Yeah? What's it to ya? Should I announce it so you can get 'ya chickies back? Or is this better for you and Star?"

I blushed, but smiled and laughed at her, hitting her shoulder playfully. "Yeah, that's good, better for me and Star. And for you and—Vox? Gabe? What's he go by now?" I said—perfectly and seamlessly deflecting the conversation away from Starfire and I (and even thinking back on it seems so stupid).

Still, even being one to tease, she was too caught up with the idea of her beloved that she couldn't be bothered. "Oh, yeah, Vox, he's changing his name to Gabriel cause he's afraid one of them wankas'll come back and track him down. Ya know before the two of us were so secret, and we were revealed at the worst time—so he goes by Gabriel now and I go by Claret, and we've been hangin here incase those wankas get un-froze."

I smiled at her. "Claret? I like it. But you don't have to worry about them—I don't think they'll be back—if ever, not for a while at least, and you know we'll be ready if they do."

"Yeah," she agreed, but then her smile left, and she adapted a tone of seriousness, "but ya never know—and it's not like we got all of them, did we? That can't be all the scum of the world."

"It's not," I said, and thought of Terra. Briefly, just maybe, in the reaches of my mind, the one villain who hadn't showed his face even when the thought of destroying the Titans came to mind, or the knowledge that myself and Joseph would be there and pretty weak for the taking (though this was not even apparent to me at the time)—Slade, not immediately, not brightly, not importantly, but he was there, I think—and yet not enough to be acted or thought upon, unfortunately. "But we've got it, here, if you want to go back home. We're always in touch."

She smiled and patted her pocket, which vaguely seemed to contain the communicator I'd given each of them before they left—one that was now, with the help of Cyborg, virtually impossible to tap into its signal. But then, the hand fell away and her face once again became serious. "Yeah, Robin, you don't think you should leave? Me and Gabriel have been hearin things…"

"Hearing things?" I said, slowly, looking into her ruby eyes which seemed to be for the first time anything but confident and knowing—which, for the first time, seemed to possess depths of fear and uncertainty. "What have you been hearing?"

"Well, you know, Vox has been frequenting the city, ya know, watching out for trouble, and so have a lot of the others, cause they're worried about you…you know, we're just afraid that one of them's gonna come back. It's been pretty quiet and ya know, that never means anything good."

"What have you been hearing?"

She hesitated, but then said, slowly, her delicate hands gripping the communicator once again, "Well, you know Vox is watchin' out for that little mute kid—Jericho, yeah? He was with him the other day and Jericho told him—telepathically, I guess—when they were thinking about the BHE, that we didn't get all the criminals who really mean something—and he said you were in trouble. He said—he said his father wasn't with the villains and that he foresaw some guy, the father, named Wilson coming back for you—whoever that is. He said that his father hates the BHE cause they were more powerful than him, and was waiting until they were out of the way to make himself known again. I don't know, Jericho was sure that he'd come back soon and try to take down the Titans again. He said that while we fought them Wilson was standing in the corner, watching. We didn't know what ta think."

At the time, the name "Wilson" and the connection to Jericho meant nothing to me. "Well, whoever it is he's talking about, we'll be ready for him. I want Gabriel to keep his eye on Jericho to make sure this "dad" of his doesn't get his hands on him. But you don't have to worry about me."

"You sure, Robin?" she said, hesitantly, looking at me again with the eyes that were more scared than ever, filled with uncertainty and this odd, forward thinking perception that this time talking to me would be her last.

I was sure—and that sureness, my own certainty and overconfidence was what ended up damning me. "I'm sure, Claret. So why are you here?—wearing this…uniform? It's not black you know," I said, teasingly, laughing, smiling, shaking off the distant feeling, the feeling in the back of my mind, the knowledge that soon enough I would be met with my fate at the hands of my most hated enemy, the one enemy who got to me and crippled me as a person. In denial, I covered these weak thoughts with a haze of falsified awareness and staged happiness, forced laughter, and the idea that even if an enemy struck, I would have no trouble bringing them down, as I always did.

She smiled, and laughed, too, and the tension and odd feeling of dread had completely left the conversation; the thoughts of knowledgeable, realistic Robin, dismissed immediately. "Well we've been all over town trying to watch out for trouble. Ya friend, Raven—she said that there's a girl needs to be watched out for here when she heard about what Jericho said. So I been watching this hoe, Terra—at least Raven's sure it's her. I don't know. But she hasn't moved any earth since I got here. A normal little hoe to me."

"You've seen Terra? I came to talk to her," I said, thinking too little about Claret's words—Raven said there's a girl needs to be watched out for when she heard about Jericho… "She's been ignoring Beast Boy—and I need to find out why."

"Uh, I dunno, Robin. I don't think it's her. You'd think a girl who could move the dirt would have been showing some signs of that by now, yeah? I'm gonna keep watching 'a, but I don't think it's anything you gotta worry about. I've talked to her—I said, you hear about the Teen Titans? You hear how they saved Paris?—and she said she heard about it but that was all. She said she could never do what we do. I think she's just some normal girl—and she doesn't even go by Terra. She said her name's Avrretta, and she's only been in Jump City for the school year—and ya Raven told me she used to be friends with you guys, like three years ago."

"Yes," I said, slowly, looking at her and mimicking her past look of being deeply engrossed in thought, "but she could be lying."

"Yeah, she could be," Argent replied slowly. " but I don't think she is. And I don't think she's any trouble. But I've got my eyes on her anyway, so you don't have to worry."

I looked at her for a few moments, and then said, slowly, "Are all the other Titans still here?"

"Most—we're all staying close 'case Wilson decides to show up. And they want me to tell ya that if he shows up, call us—don't fight 'im on your own. Jericho says he can talk to 'im."

Needless to say, when this Wilson showed up a few days later with his single, glowing eye, shining mask and warrior-esk armor, we didn't. I wouldn't let the others—because in the back of my mind, as one might recall, I had a very good and firm knowledge that who we would face would be this Wilson—unknown to me then—and he, Slade, was my fight. Again with condescension I didn't need any little Honorary Titans to help me defeat him—I never had. And yet, I would learn soon enough that even if we had called them, they would have been no use.

They were all unconscious that night.

"Will you talk to Terra—Avrretta—for me? Try to get her to give up something about Beast Boy—and since she doesn't know you're a Titan she probably won't lie about it, even if she lied about her name and her past. It doesn't matter; if she's Terra she'll want to talk to someone about Beast Boy because I know she still loves him. So if you can get her to talk about him, we'll know she's our girl and I'll take over."

"You got it, Robin. Good to see ya, again, yeah? But I gotta git—a test next period," Argent said, and laughed at the idea of it.

I grinned and reached out and took her hand and shook it. "It was good to see you too, Claret. If you or anybody else needs a place to crash, you know where to come."

"That's great, Robin," she said, and grinned. "Yeah, I might just have to take you up on that."

I laughed. "Sounds good."

"I'll tell Gabriel to keep an eye on that Jerry, yeah? And if we hear anything else about Wilson, we'll let ya know—and call us if you see 'im, yeah?"

"Yeah, okay," I said, and watched as she was already prancing off down the hallway, receiving fiery looks from her competition. "Okay."

Outside the school as I was leaving, I noticed Terra sitting beneath a tree, watching the kids as they walked by, alone, her hair dangling down over one of her eyes, making the vibe that she was very content to be alone—shrouding her in a shyness we had never seen from her when she'd been our friend. I walked past her without saying anything, but our eyes quickly locked—if only for the smallest second, but they locked. I could see in those eyes even for the briefest of moments—the blue eyes shining with the knowledge of everything we had done together, that strangely forged relationship with not only me but everyone else on the team and how that affected her in the deepest of ways; how she understood that the two of us were bonded together and knew, that no matter how she tried to hide, that bond, that breaking of curses would never be forgotten or dispelled. I loved her in that moment and she loved me, too; for a moment, it felt as though we had just met for the first time and yet the two of us destined to have met and would never be separated thus. I looked at her and wanted to run to her—and she did, also. Tears were contained—but I had been the one who freed her and she loved me for that. Unspoken, silent but warmer and brighter than anything since, when we locked eyes everything felt okay; when we locked eyes she almost did what we both so desired, stood on her feet and ran to me and embraced me—and we were almost joined completely by the bond we had established in breaking the curse of Slade. No longer did it matter if she'd be best hiding from the world so as not to repeat her dangerous and uncontrolled past—because I was her friend and would be there for her forever, and so would the others. I felt my eyes filling with tears, suddenly, though I had no idea why—because I was not sad in the least, and no more was I hating her and what she had done to Beast Boy. I had hope and the tears that were gathering in my eyes were of that hope, that wondering, that certainty of the future, that Terra and I would always be able to rely on the other because we understood that pain and what it did to the mind. In that moment, I was sure that Terra and I would embrace—not just hug, but embrace—as we wanted to and share that warmth and eternal comfort, and the Slade or Wilson or whoever he was would be wiped from our memories as we lapsed into warm, late-summer twilight. We would never be separated then. In that moment, I wanted to kiss her more than anything else—and she wanted to, too.

But then, it was gone, and she looked away, down to the previously disregarded textbook laying in her lap—that love, that bond, completely forgotten, again, distorting reality, as if it had never really existed at all and I didn't know what to think. As she looked away, the beautiful blue eyes closing, I saw a single tear glide down her cheek; and likewise, one single of the tears gathering in my eyes fell beneath my mask and traveled down my own cheek, one which could not be controlled but was not attempted to be. I reached out a gloved hand, slowly, timidly, and the words left my mouth before I could stop them.

"Terra…" I said, my lips shaking, a lump in my throat, "Terra, it's me, Robin…"

She did not open her eyes or turn her head; in fact her mouth pursed more tightly together and she seemed to struggle to keep her eyes closed, to keep her head from turning so that she could look at me and into my eyes. She hugged the textbook close to her chest and slowly stood up, still not looking at me, her eyes completely closed but tears streaming swiftly down them, and, opening her mouth to release a shuddering sob, she turned and ran, in the opposite direction. The leaves on the tree quivered in the summer breeze and I was left alone, as the sun sunk in the sky. That wind seemed to whisper to me in that moment—I'm sorry, Robin. I'm sorry.

She used to visit my dreams. Once we had broken the spell, we would sit in lonely fields and stare at distant mountains in the blaze of the warm, comforting afternoon sun as it set and she would smile at me—and her body would be glowing with the beauty it possessed. When we touched there was an endless bliss that touched the very reaches of my soul and called me into infinite peace and harmony—as if, no longer were there any villains but simply the warm realm of the comfort relationships brought. The two of us would sit in that field, embracing to drive off the evil, and we would watch the sun set, though darkness never came. We never talked; looking into one another's eyes was enough to convey everything we felt—and it was beauty. Magnificence. Unprecedented—almost made me forget about Starfire, back in the world of the wakeful.

That dream was always the same and I dreamed it frequently.

But after she returned—after that night when we locked eyes for the last time—she never visited my dreams again until tonight, and I never sat with her in that field again.

The warmth was lost.

And hatred crept back in as it had when things were shrouded by Slade; when things were darker.

Tonight, sleeping in Slade's dreary domain, the dreams of Terra would reflect that darkness as if my mind was directly influenced by the environment in which I now slept. In the dream—our field was on fire. Slade stood in the field, his shadow in the fiery, dancing light thrown over Terra and Beast Boy, who were huddled together, shaking, staring up at Slade with wide eyes, expressions of pure horror taking them. Their confidence and elegance and perfectness—the two of them united like Terra and I in our bond—had crumbled and lay around them, the hulls shriveled and crumpled. Slade, with the burning insignia on his forehead and flames coming from his eye and slots in his mask, had turned the other Titans to stone—except me, Raven, and Jericho. Raven clasped Slade's shoulders and filled him with this horrifying power used to destroy the Titans, and to further the conquest; Jericho stood near, his eyes glowing, repeating—watch out for father, Robin, watch out for father…I talk in death only, Robin… And his voice—an actual voice, actual spoken word—muddled by Terra's screaming—Robin—the field is burning! You're letting it burn—Stop the field from burning!

But she was silenced by the two looming and ominous, malevolent, encompassed figures, who spoke in sickening harmony, their voice, singularly, taking upon it the satanic tone of Trigon—Silence, Terra, Silence Terra, Silence Terra, join the Titans—rise Avrretta!

And she was turned to stone; Beast Boy's shrieks of horror, too, were silenced as stone became him.

Then out of the stone that was Terra raised a girl dressed in a dull, dreary uniform, clutching a blank textbook, her eyes empty and gray like TV static. I looked into those eyes but there was nothing—no current which would carry us to safety and harmony. And without word she turned and walked away, her hands at her sides, echoed only by the sound of flames crackling and Joseph's murmuring—Robin, watch out for my father—I speak only in death. And the girl, Avrretta, Terra, left that field and faded into flames.

Raven and Slade turned in time to stare at me with burning red eyes, each—the three seeming to join to create a perfect incarnation of Trigon. Raven's cape fluttered around them, and their red energy mingled with hateful and menacing darkness encompassing their bodies so that all I seemed to see in that moment was two shadow figures, whose only features illuminated were a creeping smirk and narrowed eyes. And they walked to me while Jericho chanted, softly—watch out for father, Robin, he chooses you, all else will fade before you—I speak only in death, Robin.

When they were before me, a single dark hand crept out, the fingers outspread and the palm open; the two shadow figures leaned forward and loomed over me now, where I sat, pressed helplessly and frozen against the fluttering tree, its leaves crackling as fire took them. When they spoke to me, it was as one, and flames flared up around us, making the ground crumble and fire encompass me; It said—give me that badge, little one, give me that badge, Terra speaks only in life—and Avrretta speaks only in death, give me the badge, give me the badge, little one…

And the badge appeared, a decrepit R caked in dirt and rusted as years' worth, in the shadow hand; the figures interspersed throughout the field—Beast Boy, Starfire, Gabriel the angel, Claret, and Joseph—crumbled as distant shrieks sounded. Raven, clinging to the other, immediately hardened to rock and then dissipated as the others as the wind gusted.

And Slade and I were left alone in the flames.

I woke up screeching.

0~0 0~0

"Would you mind telling me what you were dreaming about, Robin?"

Slade stood over me as I sat on the side of the bed; at the current moment, sweat was still dripping down my face in thick rivets, trickling down my exposed chest and gathering on my shorts, and I was still shaking in the aftermath of that strange and haunting but somehow extremely relevant dream, which I already understood I would never forget. My heart was just barely at the desired rate—again, now still too fast though a vast improvement from where it had previously been, just scraping the surface of 130 BPM; having woken up to Slade and his various needles, I realized that my heart had probably been racing even in the earliest stages of the dream—and he told me that he saved my life, because had that heart-rate gone unchecked, and I, allowed to continue to sleep, it would have undoubtedly ruptured from the pressure—stopped dead in its tracks dragging me from life in the most horrid of ways, with the most horrid last impression. When I woke he had been injecting me with several different substances, possessing calming effects, I assume—and to be honest I don't doubt that that was what had saved my life; but I give him no credit for it either—because again to be honest, I was feeling at this moment that if I died, it would not have mattered either way.

Now my naked fingers gripped the bed, digging into the mattress with such strength that my fingernails ached and the seams of the sheets and mattress were heard to rip. Likewise my teeth were clenched so violently, I heard them grind and crackle within my mouth. My head was down, because I didn't want to look at him, as I growled with this sudden, hateful ferocity taking hold of me as I emerged further from the dream. In fact the sight of him after something like I had dreamt, as it had been when I opened my eyes, was enough to fill me with an endless supply of rage—so much that it became almost impossible to keep from lashing out at him, jumping, clawing at him violently with these aching and tried nails until I ripped into the metal and reached the very center of his person, what pushed me toward death now.

The progression of this was anything but progression because it was anything but slow. I think the minute I saw him after such a dream, where I had been instilled with this crazy urge, this undying need to preserve everything within me, the integrity of my friends, the rage had flooded in without a single, groggy moment to consider it. He had been throwing questions my way almost immediately after I arrived in the wakeful world, almost as quickly as my hatred came, along the lines of my health—stupid questions like are you okay? (do I look okay, you moron?)—and only further managed to enrage me. His voice became like that red fire that had filled my world, and the only thing I could think—not, what about where you are now, what do you think of this?, not even, what does that dream mean?, what should you do?, was how much I hated his disgusting, wearing voice and how I longed, more than anything, to rip his vocal cords from his throat in that moment. I thought of nothing else, because that voice enveloped all other thought, and the questions continued until I could not handle it any longer. "Shut the hell up!" I had barked, and for a while there had been the silence—that of his stunned, disbelief at how I had talked to him, his little Robin. And in that silence my heart-rate fell, if for a few minutes—and even in that silence the thoughts did not return and briefly I fell into a gray void which provided more comfort than I had felt in all of those last few weeks—I fell, and stayed there until he spoke again;

Rage, reignited when he spoke—"Robin, I understand you're upset, but you will not talk to me that way, young man."

My head had snapped up and I looked at him, feeling fire burning as brightly in my eyes as had in his in the dream. "I'll snap your neck if you ever call me that again."

The eye widened, in brief dismay at how I was speaking to him, but then it narrowed, and the fists clenched, "Now, young man, watch those threats of yours. You wouldn't want to try to make good on that, believe me."

I threw my fist towards his stomach only moments after considering what he had said, after only moments of looking into his eyes and alerting him that I wasn't going to take that crap as rage burned hotter and more wildly—but that was all he needed to be prepared. He caught the fist before it could come in contact with the armor. I thought he would fling me against the wall, twist my arm, crush the fist—something to give me an excuse to continue fighting him; though that would have been too much what I wanted and when it came to Slade, what I wanted was less than important in the grand scheme of things. And it didn't matter if he himself wanted to fight—because he would not give me that satisfaction no matter how much he wanted it himself. So he released my fist; and for a few moments, we lapsed into thoughtful silence; and my hands came back down to the mattress and clenched there if they could not dig into Slade's bare flesh mercilessly.

He was looking at the suit hanging on a hook on the wall—the only other thing in the room besides the bed. The suit, with its sleek metal buckles and straps and wristbands glinted at me; the S on the left side, over the heart (the pounding, racing one), seemed to twist into a sadistic smirk thrown at me as it sparkled in the low light cast by the fixture bolted onto the wall near the door in this haunted place; and as if it was an image of myself it hung there in a deflated, subservient fashion—hung over, like I had been when, so many years ago, I had vowed to obey him for that last time; but the S stood up and out and smirked at me, its smile tossing light in all directions. In the S, I saw the reflection of Slade's eye as he examined it, and the fingers were unconsciously digging more deeply into the bed.

"So, were you dreaming about me, boy?" Slade said, half turning back to look at me. "Is that what makes you so angry?"

The fingers, if any indication, tore through the mattress, though it was thick and quality, sewn without faltering or hesitation—total confidence. "I don't have to tell you," I hissed through the clenched teeth, my eyes, focused on my bare feet, as if, picking some point and fixating the gaze on it would keep me from going insane in the presence of Slade. "That's not my job!"

"Ah, but it is, my good little boy," he said, the eye narrowing. "You belong to me now and you will do as I say unless you want your worthless little friends—all of them—to meet an early death."

It was then that my head snapped up; my mouth had fallen open as the jaw loosened, the eyes, now wide as they stared at the single glowing eye. "You—"

That shining eye mimicked mine in its wideness—but his was derived from a crazy, intense passion stroked within him like that which he had possessed when under the influence of Trigon—like in the dream. "Oh, I like your new friends, Robin. They're just that much more reassurance that you will be my good little boy."

In a moment that revoked déjà vu, there was a storm of thoughts mingling in my mind almost as to dull all thinking to a helpless and muddled gray—and yet, of all the thoughts I could have voiced, one, so inappropriate, so unimportant to that moment, so foolish, slipped effortlessly out of my mouth, heightened by a wild tone stoked by this blaze of emotions, immediately;

"Who is Jericho?" I shrieked, standing up off the bed and pulling the bed-sheets and a good deal of thread from the mattress, embedded within my fingernails now, as I did. "Who the hell is Jericho?"

And in déjà vu, there was no surprise from Slade; simply, the eye narrowed as he turned to face me in full, offset by the gleaming smirk of the S lurking in the background like a headless body, a brainless and demonic, creeping corpse: "My son, Robin."

It was then that I could not restrain it any longer, cause or no—

I lunged at Slade, shrieking out the mixture of my emotions.

And even when I had my answer, I continued to shriek—

"Who is Jericho? Who is Jericho?"

Author Note:

Hey everyone-I'd like to thank everyone who has reviewed/followed/favorite the story. I would like to encourage everyone to leave feedback, suggestions, comments, etc. And I appreciate it if you have; I try to take them into consideration to improve the story.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter, and if you'd like more let me know (also suggestions or things you'd like to see happen are always welcome).

~VC

P.S. (Pissing out the window, and Sh-ing out the window, are two different things!)

Holy Sh#t UPdate-Saturday

Holy shit-I did something soooooo completely stupid today I won't be able to sleep. Well, not stupid, but I am f##ked. See, I was at an antique store today and I saw this picture-of a burial plot with a bunch of flowers and the headstone said something like Clarice, or something. I just bought it immediately without even really thinking about it. Then later on at another store I found a photo; this bright eyed baby Who I think might be dead-a Victorian death photo, yeah?. I got them home and put them on my wall, and for a few minutes I was okay.

Then my heart started to race and I looked at them and realized-holy shit, there is something not right about these photos. Holy shit. I get physically sick when I look at them and that's just after a few hours of having them, and even after taking them down I'm scared as hell D= Holy crap, I'm not gonna be able to sleep so I'm gonna try to update this again to take my mind off them, but if you never hear from me again it's because I've gone nuts and am in the hospital! Oh god, I should burn these things but I want to sleep with them under my pillow instead!

Tell Slade he's an ass-le!