Authors Note: Hello! I hope that you are enjoying the fiction and are eagerly awaiting updates. As a new author, nothing makes me happier than to see the number of people reading my work rising and I greatly appreciate your even stopping by. If you have a moment and wish to review, that would be wonderful as I am looking forward to some feed back and constructive criticism. Thank you!

Disclaimer: Nope, still don't own Teen Titans, but I'm working on it.

Chapter 2

There he was, again, sitting in the infirmary, in that strange chair that curved up over his head, Cyborg staring at the various monitors on the screen, Robin giving him that calculating look, and the girls just sort of there, concerned. Of cores, things were quite a bit different from the last time he was in this chair. Raven was conscious for one, staring coldly at him, and no one thought he had tried to hurt her. No one was threatening to put him in jail or contain him in some way. He felt different too; he did feel anxious, but not aggressive, territorial, feral. Truth be told, he didn't feel any different from yesterday or the day before. Granted, he did feel irrationally pulled towards the ocean, a little distant, but that wasn't something to be worried about. Was it?

"He looks normal," Cyborg was saying, typing on the key board in front of him and pulling up a scan of BB's brain. He looked over at his cybernetic friend curiously, his trade mark grin splitting his face.

"See! Told you!" he cried gleefully, bounding out of the chair to go rub it into Raven's face that she had been worried. She hadn't said anything about it, which was how he knew. Raven hadn't said a word to him since the battle, but had instead told Cyborg to drive back to the Tower with both her and Beast Boy in the car. As usual, she gave no reason and Cyborg had made no argument. Beast Boy had spent the entire ride making hollow jokes in an equally hollow attempt to lift the grim expressions from his friends' faces. As demonstrated by the lack of response to his bright comment, he had yet to succeed.

"But he wasn't acting normal," said Robin bluntly, his hands folded across his chest, his eyes following Beast Boy as he pranced about the room as if to defy the comment. "You say him back at the docks; he was acting the same way as when he was exposed to the chemicals."

"I know that, Rob," snapped Cyborg, halting Beast Boys dance mid stride. He was really worried, it showed in his voice. "But there is nothing physically wrong with him, no trace of chemicals, no abnormal mutations, no break downs in his genetic code, nothing but some slightly dilated capillaries in his brain!"

"But there has to be something wrong! People don't just decide to randomly jump into the ocean and then start mumbling about music!" Beast Boy's ears drooped at that, his shoulders sagging. He knew that Robin was just fussing over him, he did have a tendency to do that, especially with him and Starfire since he didn't believe they were quite capable of taking care of themselves. Beast Boy had to admit that he was rather ropy and small and young and did get knocked around a lot, but still… did he have to be looking for something to be wrong with him? "He was hallucinating! That's not a normal thing to do." His voice was calm, making it hurt even more.

"Don't you think I know that," Cyborg's voice was loud and angry, a sharp contrast to Robin's as he attacked the keyboard again. "But, I'm telling you, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG!"

"Calm down." Raven's voice was not loud, but it carried across the room like a soprano above the sound of an orchestra. The room fell silent, all eyes (except Beast Boy's, which were glued to the floor, a blush heating his face at being the cause of such an argument), suddenly on the dark figure standing almost directly behind Cyborg. "Has anyone thought to ask Beast Boy what's wrong? I'm sure he has some idea, or do you all honestly believe he's as stupid as he looks?" Robin and Cyborg flinched, guilt working its way into their faces. They had been so caught up in finding out what was wrong with their friend that they had completely forgotten to ask him about it. Hell, Robin hadn't even noticed Starfire's nervous fidgeting about two feet to his left. Slowly, all eyes moved to Beast Boy, who seemed to be kicking at an imaginary something with his right foot, his ears still drooping slightly. Tension was building in the room, almost tangible in the air, the silence like a tight wire ready to snap.

"So," breathed Robin, releasing some, but not a lot, of the tightness in the air. "Beast Boy…" For once, the fearless leader was at a loss for words. Now that he thought about it, he had over reacted a bit. OK, more than a bit, but that Beast inside of his small, almost frail, green friend scared him to into new realms of fantasy. And that was not an easy thing to do. "Do you have… anything to say?" Lame. But at least he had a decent excuse; a scolding from Raven could make anyone meek and he was no exception.

"I, uh, don't know," Beast Boy muttered, not breaking eye contact with the floor as though he were determined not to loose some sort of bizarre staring contest. "I haven't turned into a fish in a while." No one looked like they had a clue what he was saying, he didn't quite look like he knew what he was saying, but none questioned the explanation. At least, not out loud. "And, I'm kinda tired, so maybe I dozed off. Or something like that."

"Perhaps, friend Beast Boy, if you slept, you would be alright and not hear strange music any more," suggested Starfire, sounding happy to finally be able to contribute to the conversation. For half a second, Robin's lips twitched at the child like simplicity of her solution and the innocence of her tone. Reason number 2376748 he loved her. Then again, it was always a mistake to underestimate Starfire, and more often then not, her solutions were the easiest and most affective. He nodded his agreement, causing the alien to smile brightly, shattering the awkward mood to everyone's relief. Beast Boy actually grinned, his ears perking up and his eyes finally leaving the dull grey floor.

"Yeah, that sounds like it'll work! I do feel really tired!" He stretched, not sure if he was happy to be leaving the tight, examination room or just glad to be doing something. True, he loved to be the center of attention, but that didn't mean he liked being under a microscope. It made him feel to much like a… well, an animal; irrational, maybe, but it was just how he felt. And it made sense to him, after all, people didn't put other people under microscopes in the same way they would put an animal under one. Not while they still were people, anyway. "Night," he yawned, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes for emphasis as he bounded from the room a little too energetically.

"He seems quite awake," observed Starfire, blinking after him as she hovered at Robin's shoulder, still glad to have been helpful.

"He just doesn't like the way it smells in here," explained Cyborg, staring at the door as though he could see his green friend retreating to his bed through the thick titanium. "Says it reeks of medicine and vomit from all the times we were sick in here." He didn't mention the blood, but Cyborg had recognized that squeamish look on his face when BB had told him, and the way he kept looking at the medical bed then tearing his eyes away. Beast Boy never really liked blood.

"Hey, Rae," Cyborg continued before the awkward silence could fall on them like a suffocating layer of dust and snuff out any hope of conversation. "You all right? You've been kinda quiet." Raven sighed, tolerating the comment only because it was Cyborg and she knew he was just concerned. The fact that she was always quiet probably didn't really occur to him at the moment.

"Crazy day, I think I'll turn in too," she said in her monotone, her eyes carefully avoiding Robin's. Unlike her other friends, Robin always knew when she was telling a half truth or just lying through her teeth. But unlike her other friends, Robin didn't know when to just give up. That was what made him such a great leader, but it also created unpleasant situations in times like these.

"If you sense anything weird from Beast Boy, you should come and tell us. It might be important." Even without eye contact, he still knew. Silently, she cursed the bond between them, her violet eyes meeting his masked ones sharply.

"I'm always sensing something weird from Beast Boy," she said coldly, halting her progress towards the doors.

"You know what I mean," Robin replied, equally cold, his will grinding against hers.

"I'm not going to report every emotional spike I sense from Beast Boy to you. I do have some respect for his privacy, you know."

"Raven, this is different. You know as well as I do what could be happening to him… again."

"Yes, I do Robin, but that still doesn't give me any right to go digging around in his head. Nor does it give you the right to ask me to."

"I am the leader of this Team, and as such I have to be prepared to do whatever it takes to protect it."

"From Beast Boy?" Her cold remark struck a rather sensitive nerve. He wasn't proud of the way he had jumped to conclusions when "the Beast" was first unleashed, but his pride would not allow him to back down. Not an often occurrence, true, but the other Titans knew that when two people with a desperate need to be in control fought, it was quite a scene that could only be described as funny and scary at the same time. Needless to say, neither Cyborg nor Starfire were emotionally ready for this kind of battle, but Raven looked like she was more than ready to blow something up if she was told to calm down. So Starfire elected to place a comforting hand on Robin's arm, causing him to bite back his retort. Raven noticed his silence, and took the opportunity to finish the argument. "I will not purposefully invade Beast Boy's mind. That would be hypocritical; however," Robin, who had opened his mouth to press the importance of knowing whether or not Beast Boy was on the verge of another unwanted transformation, closed it to let Raven continue. "If I notice anything that I deem important enough to report, I will do so. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to meditate before I sleep."

Beast Boy had made it to his room, but couldn't make it to his bed to save his life. His legs just wouldn't stop moving, his mind wouldn't stop working. What was happening to him? He wanted to believe his excuse, really, he did, but even he wasn't that gullible Just because he hadn't been in a certain shape for a while didn't mean that he suddenly started to get strange cravings that could be associated with that shape. And he had slept like a baby last night, getting a good 13 hours. Perhaps he was just groggy, tired from getting to much sleep. That could be it.

But that couldn't be the only thing… it wasn't the only thing. There was something in his head, a voice almost. Before there was only the presence, like alien fingers on the edge of his thoughts, prodding them curiously. Now, it was like there was an actual person behind the fingers, clawing at his brain; an actual will driving them. And there were yellow eyes in the back of his head, urging him to the water, to a place not far away… pulling him to their owner. He blinked and shook his head, trying to clear it. That wasn't possible, he'd seen some weird stuff in his life, Raven being one of the more exotic, and she had never mentioned having the ability to pull people to her, so it must be impossible. Satisfied with his answerer, he moved to his window top try and open it. Salt water had always helped him calm down, and the sound of the waves against the rocky shore of Titans Island was like an old lullaby from a place just beyond his memory.

The window was barely cracked when it music came to his ears, the smell of salt filling his nostrils, tickling them with its strength. This was what he needed, just some R&R. All that saving the world was hard, so he guessed that it was perfectly natural to get a little stressed out from time to time. He pushed it all the way open, letting the breeze play with his messy green hair as he leaned his head out to take in the scene. The moonlight was dancing across the broken mirror surface of the water, like Terpsichore on a silver stage. Beast Boy could almost make out her figure on the waves, her body swaying to the unearthly singing that teased his ears, luring him in with the promise of beauty. There were no words, only notes on the wind, beckoning him. He had to go, had to find the owner of this amazing voice. Maybe she would sing for him if he found her, when he found her. He found himself perched on the window sill, but found it hard to care. No one would miss him for one night, he could go out and follow the song until tomorrow night and no one would care. And if anything weird happened, he could go talk to Raven, she was good with that kind of stuff. The music was fading, retreating into the wind and without any hesitation, he followed it.

Authors Note Cont: Ya, chapter 2! In case you were wondering, Terpsichore is the Greek Muse of dance. Hint, hint.