Author's Note: First off, I'd like it know that I have been watching and paying attention and would therefore like to thank all you dudes who bother reading this at all and continue reading chapter after chapter with six month intermissions of pain and torment. Thank you for sticking it out with me, enduring the waits, giving feedback, theorizing, and just reading the darn thing at all! Special thanks to lizzpercush for giving me my much deserved kick in the butt. Now, onto why this took so long to write. I've got a good one this time: every time I sat down to write/ read over I'd get maybe 1/2 an hour into it before someone decided they needed to talk to me or ask me to do something or plan out my future or discuss what one aught to bring to a dorm or something of the like. And my mother's been sick and needing me to do stuff for her/ drive her places and if there's one thing that just kills your will to live or do something you enjoy it's having a sick family member. Anyway, most of this was written in hour chunks (usually I get on a roll and go for at least three per section when I write, but there you go) so some parts, I feel, transition a little abruptly, but today the house is empty except for sleeping mother and I have had time to smooth it out a bit. Have fun and I'm immediately starting work on chapter 18. I'm thinkin' 20's a good number.

Additional Note: There have been many of you who have rightly commented on my spelling/ grammar/ word usage and kindly offered to be my beta reader. I'd like you dudes to know that I'm not just ignoring you because I'm lazy or something; I'm dyslexic and dysgraphic . Pretty much means I get words and letters mixed up (can't always tell the difference between right and left either). So when you point my mistakes out, sometimes I understand and other times I don't see the difference. With the spell check list sometimes I pick out what I meant and sometimes I don't. I appreciate the offers to help my by being my beta, but I am trying to get it right and if you just fix it for me I'll never learn. If you could point out my error in context and then show me what is correct, that would be very helpful. Thank you all!

Disclaimer: Granted, I need the profit, but I'm not makin' any. Stuff belongs to the people it belongs to, I only claim ownership of that which is mine. Don't sue me, I have no money. Seriously, my little debit card had insufficient funds for gas yesterday. No joke.

When you fight with someone, offer up your own life and safety to defend them, and receive the same in return, a bond is formed. You may not always get along or even like that person, but when push comes to shove there's a mutual appreciation. You'll do what it takes to protect them, choose their well-being over your own, because one is of little use without the other. It's an understanding, a trust, and a dependance. When you feel that way about someone, you presume to know them. Even more so when you live with them. Day to day life is like an ongoing behavioral experiment, constant tests and unknowing observation. One might even say unwilling. Years of compiled data and examples which define an individual. Phrases they let slip, veiled references to horrors long past, hints at a truth that may or may not even exist. Long hours of talking and even longer hours of watching, listening, sensing, and soon you enter what is considered to be an intimate relationship.

And in the intimacy you find the lie that you can judge who this person is, that you can dare claim to know them. But in the end this proves false. The physical intimacy of offering one's life for another, of living in close corridors, of sharing not-so-deep secrets and truths in the quiet prove to be only surface knowledge. Who that someone is is written in bitter tears cried alone in the night, whispers that escape into dark solitude, desperate monologues shouted to the shadows and forbidden thoughts or memories muted in the black. In the end there comes a moment when you realize that through all the time and closeness and willing sacrifice that someone has only entrusted the darkness with their true self. And that time only comes when the darkness decides to betray them. Everyone has secrets.

Raven stood quietly as it happened. She took in the ice-cold cuts of fact, letting them slice away everything she thought she knew, leaving nothing but raw, uncomforted humiliation at her own arrogance. All this time... All those years and battles and intrusions. The hesitant way he threw himself into everything, the envy in his eyes as they passed through the park, his stubborn refusal to grow up. She was supposed to be his friend- more than his friend, his self-designated guardian as he was hers. She was supposed to be an empath, supposed to know things about people they didn't know about themselves. She was supposed to be smart, to analyze people and discover their secrets. Yet never once had she bothered to wonder why the green boy right in front of her got caught up in the crime fighting business at such a young age, where his parents- his real parents, were. Why sometimes he had less of a concern for his own life than for that of the thief, why he was always incessantly advocating for the petty criminals or misled youngsters with such a passion you'd think they were all his younger brothers. It never seemed important.

Robin was motivated by an almost vengeance like, all-consuming, need to fight crime. Starfire by a deeply ingrained an innate sense of justice and Cyborg by duty to his fellow man. Raven herself fought crime and evil out of sheer guilt for the atrocity she was destined to commit. These things she had come to know as time passed, like flecks of gold washed up on the banks of her consciousness. There was never any work or effort involved in acquiring them or distorted reflections of truth, they'd just come to her. A few weeks into their relationship she'd made the general assumption that he, like the rest of them, had suffered some kind of loss at the hands of unfairness and never thought past that. Beast Boy fought because that's what he did, because he didn't know much about doing anything else, or so she had thought. Now as Garfield painted the gruesomely unexpected tale of the changeling's origins, the pieces of her observations fell together in a new way. Where once the data indicated resignation now it showed a mutilation of guilt induced duty, terror and compassion and self-revulsion lurking in determination's shadow. Pain so well concealed it might as well not even be there but for the way Garfield gritted his teeth and chewed the words as they came out.

It seemed to Raven that she was listening for hours to the deepest, innermost secrets of Beast Boy's being, though the whole tale couldn't have taken more than fifteen minutes. Garfield spoke slowly and emotionlessly, as if reciting dry lines from a Shakespeare work he didn't understand. Fake. Unenthusiastic. That didn't matter, didn't change anything. The words spoke for themselves... and the eyes. Despite herself, Raven was trapped by the web of feeling in his gaze, caught by eyes as restrained and tormented as her own. For though the voice was Garfield's mocking, sadistic tone, the eyes were Beast Boy's. Soft eyes, guilty eyes. Humiliated, invaded, angry, helpless as a conscious puppet watching itself dance to others pleasure. Yet conflicted, pleading for her to understand, to have compassion. Above all else to listen to his secrets, to go through the doors she wasn't supposed to see, to know what hidden truths had been gnawing at his soul for so long. To share in the darkness. Begging for her to understand him as he understood her. And understand she did.

A façade more perfect than her own; so perfect that even as Garfield explained how Beast Boy had watched his parents die and set up his thief captors, realizing later he'd had the ability to save them or that such games could only have one possible outcome, Raven still couldn't believe she'd been wrong. That the care-free, ever-hopefull, annoyingly-funny man who knew when and when not to pull out the big guns was nothing but a coverup for what he perceived to be a morally ambiguous past. That somehow not knowing how to control your abilities when you're a kid makes you responsible for your parents death or that being betrayed, kidnapped, and offered the choice to obey or be abandoned makes you a willing criminal. That people thinking you're a monster makes you one. Beast Boy did- at least, a part of him did. The secret part, past the doors of his mind no one was supposed to know about. The part he'd only ever shared with shadows and dreams. And Raven understood what hold Zinara and this 'Other' had over him. They'd shared his pain and told him what every guilty person wants to hear: "It wasn't your fault." Then they'd pinned the blame on the world, offered him a chance to help make it right, help ensure that no one else would ever know his suffering. Who wouldn't, in the name of selflessness and charity, jump at that chance? Whispers and song twisting bleeding thorns into soft, crimson petals and beaconing him to rest there. There was just one problem.

"Dose that clear things up for you, Rae," Garfield finished bitterly, glaring over his shoulder where Raven's cold palm still rested. "Do you get it now? Everyone he's ever met has found some way to hurt him, intentional or not, some way to bind him. This is the only way." Raven let her hand fall back to her side, her fingers slipping lifelessly from his shirt, her expression blank and unreadable. She didn't say anything, which prompted Garfield to continue his encouragement. "In that black heart of yours you know it's true. He may love you, but he's never trusted you. Zinara's giving him what you couldn't, what you didn't even know was necessary: redemption, retribution, importance. She saw what was in front of you the whole time, and you're so humiliated that all you can do is block their way. And in your vanity all you've ever done is prove me right. So maybe you should try to minimize your own contribution and leave him alone!"

All the lies and misconceptions. All the ideas we allow ourselves to believe. All the opportunities for blunt, painful, mortifying honest that just elude the comfortable mind. Agendas, beliefs we're all looking to prove, stubborn pride in our own deductive abilities. There's only ever one truth. The evidence is out there, everywhere, everything. Each event and feeling can be used as justification for something else. Zinara had gathered hers and arranged it into what seemed to be a rational argument, but she'd left out bits and altered others. Dropped translucent curtains over all other paths. Then she believed in it, believed in herself and her way so passionately, so forcefully, that she'd given her twisted mutilation of truth the face of reality. And Beast Boy in that damn naiveté of his believed her too.

Raven didn't know what was right and what was wrong. Whether it was she who was good or bad or the world. How it was that you could look into the face of a child born into Hell on Earth and see more joy and faith than in that of the 'happiest man alive'. Now that she looked back there'd always been something, a hidden ache in his gut, an acid edge to his comments on family. Did she recognize it before? Or was she just feeling guilty for being so arrogant as to assume she had a handle on the individual known as Garfield Mark Logan. Does learning someone's past change who they are or how you feel about them? Should it? Based off this new information Beast Boy did have reason to seek isolation, but he never had. He had grounds to despise superstition and wrong doers, yet he protected them. Justification for vengeance he'd not once pursued or even mentioned until now. So which was the real him? The goofy hero or the resentful villain?

"Beast Boy," she whispered quietly, staring down at the floor. She'd thought the name would feel inappropriate now, after all this, yet it tasted more real than anything she'd heard that night. He was, after all, a shapeshifter. He could be anything, any organic, living, entity he chose, exist wherever he wanted. Goodness knows animals seem more accepting of their kin than humans. Still, he'd chosen to be a man, a super hero, a member of a team. He'd chosen to always be by her side, to take care of her when she wasn't easy to take care of, to learn things about her she herself never knew. That she could laugh, could cry, could believe in stupid things like luck and male determination, confront her own emotions and find them less intimidating than she'd thought. Even if that was all a lie, there comes a time when the lie becomes true. And in an instant she realized that none of it mattered because truth or lie, real or not, good or bad, she wanted to be with him again. No barrier could stand against that kind of emotion; nothing could stop her. Nothing would stop her, not even Beast Boy himself.

"You idiot!" With a fiery glint in her eye and a fury to rival any level of Hell, Raven looked straight into Beast Boy's eyes and struck him full across the face. Garfield took the hit quite well considering he'd had no idea it was coming and had been too busy mocking her to block in any capacity, stumbling back and cradling his cheek, a look of utter bewilderment in his smug face.

"You of all people should appreciate the logic of it all," he yelped indignantly. "When you have a problem, you find the root and eliminate it. People cause all his problems, so remove the people. Simple, effective."

"I'm not talking to you," she bit, furious. "Beast Boy, I know you're there, and I know you can hear me. And YOU ARE AN IDIOT! Letting yourself be so easily controlled... it's pathetic. You should have more respect for your self and your accomplishments!" Raven wasn't quite sure if she'd ever felt so much righteous fury in her entire life, noting in the back of her mind (the very back) that Starfire would have been proud. "Nature happens and sometimes people do terrible things for terrible reasons, but that has nothing to do with humans as a species. It's the individual's choice and the individual's fate, just because you happened to be there doesn't make you responsible. So quit being so selfish; there are those of us who need you!"

Beast Boy's eyes widened, his face taking back it's soft, well humored tone, though at the moment it held the look of one who'd just seen a purple elephant go by. This was Raven, the quirky, dark, creepy, powerful, can-be-hard-to-get-along-with, girl of his dreams. This was the woman who seemed to make it her personal goal in life to 'put him down'; you know, the one who threw him across the room? The woman who on more than one occasion made him feel like the tiniest speck in the cosmos while still retaining the ability to promote him to center of the universe and luckiest man alive with nothing more than a small grin. Raven. Raven needed him. Raven admitted to needing him.

Zinara had not too long ago told him the exact same thing, for the first time in his life, he'd thought. But, and this was a more profound realization than it sounds, it was different when Raven said it. He'd just met Zinara, and she had a goal, a mission, and she'd sought him out to help her with that. To be her right hand man, to be important, to love her and justify her. She needed an assistant, a partner, a relationship, affection she'd long missed and contact she was dying to have. She needed someone, not specifically Beast Boy. Granted, he'd fallen into the part, but her someone could have just as easily been some sailor, or fisherman, or Aqualad for all he knew. True, Zinara had been inside his mind, with unrestricted access and the ability to manipulate, and she knew things he'd never told any one before, and found misery does indeed love company, but she didn't know him. Not really. She'd decided who he was and how she felt about him ten minutes into their twisted excuse of a relationship and stuck to her guns with all the passion of a wild fire. For all intents and purposes changed him into the man she thought he was. She'd made him her doll, very valuable and important and personally significant, but a doll nonetheless. Even so, Beast Boy was replaceable to the half-siren.

Raven, though... They hadn't really gotten off on the right foot. Actually, the first year of their affiliation she hated him. Over time they found themselves to be friends, then he'd felt more. And more. And one day he found he was in love with her. Sure, she insulted his intellect at least once a day (sometimes it was justified), and they argued, and they ground each other's nerves into the ground, and some people would say he didn't stand a chance in the battle for he affections. Despite all of that, he needed her. When he was feeling so pent up he was about to explode, Raven was there. When there was no one to talk to or be with, there was Raven. She understood what it was like to be afraid of one's self and she never asked why because that wasn't what mattered to her. What mattered to Raven was Beast Boy, Garfield Mark Logan, the green changeling she'd lived and fought with and protected and been protected by. What she'd done for him and he'd done for her. And she needed him.

For a moment, Beast Boy's face broke into his wide, lopsided, honestly happy grin. Raven scowled at him like she wanted to hit him again until she'd beaten in her point, which just made him snort in pure, unadulterated, joy at how much she cared. It was in a weird, creepy, painful, Raven way, but she cared. About him. He started to reach towards her, as if trying to make sure it was all real, but before his elbow could get past his side a sharp grimace tore at his face. With a pained gasp he doubled over, heaving, clutching his abdomen with one hand and head with the other.

"Don't fight me, Gar," he muttered to himself, hand sliding down the bridge of his nose to cover his eyes. Raven's eyes narrowed, schemeing. "This is what's best for you. Trust us. Just go back to sleep... It will all be over when you wake up." If you wake up. "Stop resisting. Let go."

"Beast Boy," Raven snapped, moving in quickly. She could pull him out, end it all now. He'd asked her to save him from what he was planning to do, now was her chance. If she acted fast enough. With one, fluid movement, she brushed his arm out of the way and pulled his face to hers, looking deeply into his eyes. Beast Boy's eyes. "Beast Boy, listen to me. They're manipulating you, you know that. Stop letting them!"

"You stay out of this," Garfield growled, but he seemed to lack the bodily control to pull away.

"Beast Boy, it's me; talk to me. You're stronger than you think. You know what you need to do, what you should do."

"You're just trying to use him like everyone else! If he listens to you all he'll ever know is torment. If you really cared you'd let Zinara and I complete our task. You'd help us build a new world, one where he can be happy!" His eyes faltered, dropping slowly to the ground, persuaded by his other side. She gave his head a none to gentle shake, her voice firm, gravely.

"You came to me when this all began and told me it was like you didn't have a choice. But you do, Garfield, you have a choice. You asked for my help because you didn't know which one was right, because you trusted me with the darkest corners of your mind and soul. Trust me now, let me help you. Come back to me, Garfield, please." A hint of the bubbling attachment she'd been becoming more and more aware of since the possibility of loosing Beast Boy had become a reality, the possession she couldn't fathom but felt nonetheless, slipped into her voice. This feeling she couldn't define, the one which gave her more strength and focus than all the meditation in the world, became audible for an instant. Beast Boy looked up at her sharply, suspiciously, and for the first time in her life Raven had no idea what he saw in her eyes.

Slowly, cautiously, as if moved by sheer, emotional instinct, Raven drew herself in closer, cupping his chin gently with her thin, cool hands, her eyes moving to his tightly set lips. She didn't know what she was doing or why or how, but she didn't fight it. She let the emotions, the moment, the intuition that whatever this was was the right thing to do pick her up and sweep her to a place she'd never been to before, a place she found oddly comfortable. This was how she could save him, make him remember the goodness in the world as it was, she knew it. No proof, no evidence, no reason or logic. Just sheer, unadulterated, knowledge. Here, between them, there was truth. His arms tentatively found their way around her waist as hers slipped to the back of his head. She pulled herself onto her toes so she was parallel with his face. He leaned down slightly. Her eyes closed, chin tilting to the side. Their noses brushed. She could taste his breath.

A sharp jolt shot through the Tower like a nervous twitch, taking the ground out form Raven's unbalanced feet. Beast Boy took her weight, holding her close and looking around like a startled predator. The sound of metal groaning and twisting filled the air and the room gave another, violent lurch, as if the building itself was dry heaving, trying to force something from its insides. Pressure was building steeply, pushing down on the two of them and the wild fantasy that their island was being swallowed by the sea flashed through Raven's mind. In the distance there was a sharp, high cry and Beast Boy gasped in agony, clutching Raven tighter, pulling her into his chest until she could feel the trembling tension in her own gut. Something was trying to get out, but couldn't. Slowly, he fell to his knees, pulling her with him in a rather awkward manner. Then, with a grunt that sounded a great deal like 'Raven', he tucked her head under his chin and spun her around, neatly sandwiching her balled form between the wall and his own body.

The song began in his chest like a small muse was situated next to his heart, buzzing, then humming, then vibrating in the air all around them in infinite beauty and feeling. Gold coated her vision and as she peered past his neck Raven saw the world around her contorting, sucked away as teeth tear flesh from the bone. Curving and twisting, being pulled apart by the light and the song of ten thousand voices all clashing and fighting and coming together like the ocean, and within the chaos a beauty beyond anything Raven had ever thought possible. So, this is what it felt like. Like her very existance depended on the song, like when it ended she would just die of loss. Like the source was the most important thing in the world. The world rippled around her and her skin came alive like cold breath. The many voices became one once again, the sensation in your throat as you fight the urge to cry for the sheer beauty of it. Then ringing silence as the memory of the voice continued to sing and the world became solid once more. Then it was over, the world empty and dull in its absence. Then... nothing.

Raven blinked, worming her way loose of Beast Boy's grip just slightly to pear out from her protective alcove. Right were the line between her body and the changelings had been there was a thin, milky barrier which hazed everything on the other side. The control room, the door... her room no doubt. Trapped on the other side. As she shifter Beast Boy's head collapsed onto her shoulder, pulling her attention back to the green boy in her arms. He was breathing hard, eyes closed, weak arms still defiantly fastened around her shoulder blades. Whatever had just happened, it had taken a lot out of him, used him for its own purposes. The emotional drive from not half-a-minute before had abandoned her and, in spite of the comfort of her body and celebration party a large group of her emotions seemed to be attending in Nevermore, Raven felt rather awkward in this position. With Beast Boy, no less. She wasn't really the nurturing type... At all. Rolling her eyes at the irony of the situation, she gave him a gentle pat on the back of the head. For Raven, it was a very affectionate gesture. He didn't move.

"Beast Boy," she said uncertainly, scrunching her chin into her chest to look at him. "Beast Boy?" No response. She attempted to shift out of his grasp so she could give him a proper checking over, but his fingers curled into her cloak in a weak, but affective attempt to hold her in place. She drew her lips together and sighed through her nose. This wasn't the first time she'd been here, nor would it be the last (it seemed if Beast Boy was going to collapse onto someone, it was always Raven who received the honor), but given the circumstances it seemed rather insensitive to do what she normally did and dump him on the ground or somebody else. "Um, Beast Boy," she tried again. Nope. "Garfield?"

"Mmmmmm, give me a minute," he grumbled into her neck, nestling in closer. A grin twitched at her lips. Had this been a week ago he would have been so dead, or at least, severely bruised. Funny how much can change in a week. Funny how much can change in a minute. She found her hand stroking his head, fingers gliding smoothly through surprisingly silkie green hair, and she scowled at it disapprovingly.

"It's been a pretty long day," Raven said absently, staring at the solidified, grey wall between them and the rest of the Tower.

"The longest. Day. Ever." Comfortable quiet. Raven's hand came to a rest on the back of Beast Boy's neck.

"It's not over yet."

"Mhh."

"Beast Boy, are you back?"

"Mm hm."

"Tell me what happened?"

"Mmp mm."

"Beast Boy, what just happened."

"You smell nice." Raven grabbed his shoulders firmly and pushed him up, giving him a stern look in the face. His emerald eyes were only slightly open and groggy, pupils dilated with fatigue. "Whaaaaaat," he whined, not really looking at her.

"Garfield Mark Logan, I know you're tired, but we still have work to do."

"Work, what work? Rae, what are you talkin' about?" Raven very much wanted to rub her brow, but felt that if she let go for so much as half a second he'd just fall back over and go back to sleep. So instead she settled for an exasperated sigh.

"Do you know where you are?"

"In a room..."

"Nice job, Einstein. Which room?" He screwed up his face as if thinking really hard, head lolling forward. Raven gave him a shake. "Do you remember what's happening?"

"Raven I'm tired! What's this all about? Can't you just let me sleep for five minutes?"

"Beast Boy, you just woke up. We don't have time to sleep. Or have you forgotten?" It was meant as a rebuke, but the vacant expression in his eyes made Raven wonder. For a moment his face screwed up in exaggerated concentration, like he was trying to remember things he didn't really care about for her sake.

Not really remembering. It's more like... thinking about a dream.

"Can't you remember Zinara? The Half Heart? Any of what's been happening this past week?" Raven probed gently. She knew it was cold-blooded, maybe even cruel, to request such information, to drop it back over his head like a slab of cement. She knew even if he tried some of the memories weren't his to remember, or were so twisted and contorted they could hardly have come from anything he'd done. She knew it was kinder, softer, easier on him to just let him nap on her shoulder for a minute. Didn't he deserve that much? Just five minutes of bliss? But she also knew there was no time for kindness. There was hardly time for memory or thought. All too soon they'd be out of time and it wouldn't matter how he felt about her or she him or whether or not they were happy or mutilated because they'd both be dead. Beast Boy had chosen the life of a super hero, this pain, this responsibility she was thrusting onto him when he was at his weakest was one of the attached strings. Don't so much as J-walk, don't get involved with the media if at all possible, and when you're at your absolute worst fight your hardest. There was no other choice.

His face lost the exaggerated, playful thinking lines, his mouth relaxing and his eyes sliding out of focus. For a moment they were wide and innocent, staring into a world past what Raven could sense, seeing things beyond what Raven could see. Watching it all happen again. Lips tightened, nostrils flared, back stiffened, neck taking the weight of his head like a penance. Eyes swirled with pain, guilt, confusion like drips of blood into still, clear water, twisting and coiling until they'd completely reddened the orbs. He knew, he remembered. All of it. The innocence, the child-like glint she'd come to expect and love, the passion for life, deadened. He knew everything, and it was killing him inside.

"Yeah," he said, voice rasping in his throat. "Yeah, I remember. Most of it any way." She gave him an achy grin, rather forced, but probably the most supportive thing she could have done for him. He wasn't watching. His green eyes were fixed intently on the wall right above her head, expression desolate. "Damn," he muttered.

"Beast Boy-"

"I know, I know," he said, brushing her off. "We've got work to do." They sat for a moment in uncomfortable silence, both knowing full-well just how quickly the clock was ticking but neither willing to bring up what had to be discussed. Finally, with a sigh and shadowed grin, Beast Boy looked straight at her and said "Why does it take the end of the world to get you in my arms?" Raven blinked and, upon realizing that they'd just been sitting there for the past however long holding each other for lack of a better term like a couple of love struck adolescents, blushed deeply and whacked him over the head. He laughed earnestly and she stood up, sidestepped him, and walked over to the Tower's newest 'enhancement', pointing with her eyebrows raised expectantly.

"Explain." He gave a long, tired sigh, pushing himself to his feet and leaning against the wall. It was Beast Boy, but the characteristic glint in his eyes had dimmed and every move or expression seemed strained and forced. Like his body was made of steel and just being there with her was an effort. It was getting harder and harder for him to come back. What would she do when he couldn't- or wouldn't, anymore? They were all running out of time.

"What makes you think I know any more about it than you?" Evasive. Still on her side. Raven's fury flared, but she kept it in check. Remember your mission, remember your reasons.

"Beast Boy, lets not do this again," she breathed both sternly and pleadingly. "We both know better. Now, what is this?"

"A wall."

"Don't make me hurt you."

"Too late." Stunned pause, like she'd been deservingly slapped. Beat.

"Beast Boy."

"What do you want me to say?" His voice cracked, abandoning their thin attempts at normalcy and he threw his arms open as if to invite a blow to the chest. She stared at him emotionlessly, unyielding, and he dropped his hands to his sides noisily, scoffing. "Raven, I didn't choose this! I didn't choose any of this! I was a kid with no greater aspiration than to be the next Tarzan. I didn't want to steal, but I'm good at it. I never wanted to take on the responsibility of this super hero crap, but I have to make up for what I've done!"

"What does this have to do with-"

"Don't play dumb! I know he told you... I know he told you everything." She couldn't think of anything to say to that. He had his reasons for keeping his past secret and she'd just ignored them for personal gain. She'd taken advantage of him and they both knew it. Of course he was angry.

"Can we discuss this later," she offered quietly, trying desperately to keep the edge out of her voice and not dig this hole any deeper than it already was. Unfortunately, the ground seemed to be falling out from beneath her. If Zinara couldn't take him he was going to leave. Her emotions too long treated with leniency pushing against bonds. Hard to control.

"No, we can't discuss this later because Zinara's gonna finish what she started later and we'll never see each other again!" Snapped.

"Wrong. If Zinara succeeds we'll both be dead later! Along with the rest of the world!" That shut him up. Beast Boy looked away, ashamed and cornered. She pressed froward, trying to justify her double standard and work, jabbing her finger at the new wall. "Now what is this."

"Raven," he tried weakly, unable to look at her. "I can't. Don't you understand that I can't?"

"I understand that you won't." He swallowed dryly, letting his eyes close for an instant, preparing himself for something that looked to be very painful.

"I promised Zinara I'd help her."

"You promised this Team you'd help us."

"Don't you think I know that," he snapped. He gave her a very frustrated, exhausted, ready to explode look and dropped his face into his hands, rubbing his brow. "I never wanted to be a traitor Rae, but you're all making me one. I can't help one person without betraying another, can't act on one instinct or advice without violating the other. Everything I do or say or think makes me a traitor to someone or something I care about and if I do nothing... I'm in too deep to do nothing. It'd only make me more of a mole than I already am."

"Beast Boy, you're not the one doing all this. You didn't start it, that Other did, the one Zinara pulled out-"

"He is me!" He lurched towards her, closing the distance fast, as if to startle her into understanding. "I may not always be the personality in control but everything he does, everything he says, everyone he hurts, I let him do it. His actions are my actions and I'm responsible for them. So don't tell me it isn't my fault because it is!"

Raven was... impressed. Quite frankly astounded. Not so much at the revelation that Beast Boy was indeed an honorable man, but that it wasn't a revelation at all. Had the circumstances been different, she might even have given into the impulse to throw herself at him and knot her finger in his hair, maybe. Currently Beast Boy was holding his brow and grimacing and the world was in danger of imminent destruction and she was trying to verbally beat the key to saving them both out of him. Not the best time. As things were, all she could do was stand there and try to find something to say that could be of some use. He wavered like he was about to fall over and she reached out an instinctive hand to steady him, but he knocked it away fiercely, giving her an icy glare. Beast Boy baring his fangs, but still Beast Boy. Not an animal, not the other.

"You're right," she whispered, the words sour in her mouth. Utter confusion came into his eyes even as he tried to hold onto his anger. She met them cooly, even, dare she think it, compassionately. "You're right, you are responsible. You made a choice, good or bad, and this is living with it." He looked like he was going to be sick, her honesty slicing over a nerve cluster close to his heart. Teeth ground, breath tore, his fire burning against her snowy skin. Raven's face remained passive, controlled, but her hand reached out to him again, expecting to be bitten yet finding its passage cautiously unhindered. He flinched, but she persisted. Her fingers traced his jaw line and held his chin, held his gaze. "That doesn't make you a monster."

"Doesn't it? Isn't that the definition of a monster? Something that's done bad things? That will do bad things?" Sounded more like something she'd sooner say than him. Raven closed her eyes and shook her head in a frustratedly bemused manner.

"How is it your little optimistic, Disney version of the world applies to every creature which deserves the term 'monster', yet when it comes to you every thing's just black and white. If there's anyone in this room that deserves to be called evil it's me, but oh no, you'd never have any of that! Never admit that more often than not I'm more demon than human, never stopped trying to convince me even those of us with skeletons don't have to be controlled by them. And you were as right then as you are now.

"You've always shown me that even though I was told I'd do nothing but bad I'm still capable of great good, that I shouldn't feel guilty for things that aren't my fault and that I don't do good things because I'm an evil person pretending to be something I'm not, but because I'm a good person trying to prevent evil. Even when I bared my most ugly side you still found me beautiful and even in my darkest hours you still believed in me, still were there for me. When you needed luck you gave it to me and when something made you happy, Azar knows you tried to force that happiness onto me. You put so much faith in me and save none for yourself. Now tell me, why is it that you can see all that virtue in me, but not in you? It's right there, Beast Boy, right there! Just look."

"I'm hurting everyone whose near me, Rae, whether I mean to or not," he whispered, engulfing her hand in his and pulling it from his face. As if he were too dirty to be touched, or too afraid. "And if I'm wrong, if I pick the wrong side, even people I've never met are going to suffer. I could kill everyone in an instant. Do you know what that's like?" His voice was high, thin, self loathing. She hesitated for a moment, considering his question. Looking for the right thing to say.

"Yes," Raven answered honestly. "Yes, I know what it's like. To be caught in between, one half wants this and the other its opposite. To know that just by being there you're putting everything at risk. To have the power to end it all, but fear what that means. I understand guilt, power, responsibility, confinement. I understand what it feels like to have no choice but to be called traitor by someone." He looked at her with those big, fearful, innocent green eyes, so much like a child and yet so miserably aware of the world's reality.

"What do you do?" She looked at him analytically, eyes hard and voice steady.

"You get up. You pick a side. You move 're a hero, Garfield Mark Logan, whether you meant to be one or not, and beyond that a human being like the rest of us. Push aside all the words and politics you have only one duty to betray: your duty to do what you know is right no matter what. Sometimes you'll need to talk to people to figure out what that is, sometimes you'll just know it."

"What if I don't know what's right? What if everyone I talk to tells me something different?" She gave him an ironic grin and shrugged.

"You take your best guess." He snorted at that, staring down at her with a weak, but nonetheless honest, trademarked Beast Boy smile.

"My best guess, huh?"

"Preferably your best correct guess. But that's not for me or Zinara or anybody else to decide. Just do what you have to do."

An intimate moment of silence passed between the two like holding someone close without touching them. "Thanks Rae." She gave him a smile, tiny, more in the eyes than the lips, yet a smile nonetheless. But the pressure of a ticking clock is enough to shatter anything and all too soon Raven felt the urgency of her mission again.

"Now, about that wall," she said cautiously in her best diplomatic monotone.

"I knew it," he moaned, hands fastening behind his head as he stared imploringly up at the ceiling. "I knew that was coming."

"Beast Boy, we all have our charge. Help me do mine."

"What if I don't wanna." Playing, teasing. It was a good sign. She shot back.

"Then I'll have to pin you to that wall and beat it out of you just like when you try to hide my extra shoes." He laughed openly and richly at that for a couple of seconds, then sobered up and gave her a very serious look.

"You're going with Robin, aren't you. You're going to try and stop Zinara."

"It's the right thing to do."

"And me?"

"If you side with her, we'll be enemies, no matter what we think or feel. There's no way around it."

"There is one way, you know."

"Not an option."

"All right." He paused for a minute, licking his lips and thinking intensely. Raven folded her arms, setting her feet slightly apart. "Before I do anything," he started hesitantly, fidgeting nervously with a shredded glove. "You have to promise me something."

"I've been making a lot of promises to you these past few weeks, haven't I."

"Raven, this is serious. You have to promise that the instant I'm done or it looks like I'm... not quite me anymore you're going to teleport out of here and into the living room."

"Why?" It wasn't a suspicious question, she just genuinely didn't understand what he was trying to communicate.

"Because the things I'm going to tell you aren't common knowledge. Because Zinara wouldn't want you or the Team to know them and that means He doesn't either. Because up 'till now I've been able to stop him from hurting you but I don't know if I can control myself much longer. Because if you don't get this stuff to the Team, the Titans will fail to stop Zinara and the world will be split. Got it?"

"Yes."

"Do you promise?" Do you promise to abandon me?

"...Yes."

End Note: A beat in drama is used to indicate a pause, but I put it up there for the double effect. Let's all tell Kilarra she's clever, ok? ^^