Beast Boy asked for the hundredth time, "How can you not know? She's you."

Raven sighed, and replied for the hundredth time, "She's a side of me. She exists because I can't control my emotions. She's separate. How many times do I have to tell you?"

"Well.. can't you just ... make her not be separate?"

They were back at the cathedral, but this time they were underneath it, and a warren of small, low-ceilinged rooms filled with books, with white lights recessed into the top of the walls and the ceiling. Wisdom's realm. Beast Boy felt claustrophobic even here, in the largest room. the walls were a deep, solid gray, the bookshelves dark and crowded, and furniture hard and spare. And yet it didn't feel dangerous, or even grim. Just... purposeful. Timid, who huddled beside him, didn't seem as frightened as she did everywhere else, but that might have been because of her bear.

Raven sat behind a plinth that functioned as a desk, a book open in front of her. "Saecula saeculorum," she read aloud, "forever. A lifetime. A span of time..." Raven rested her elbows on the book and propped her head in her hands, sliding her hood back. "Why couldn't she have just said what she meant?"

"She did," Brave said from where she was leaning against a bookcase. "We just can't understand it." She smiled a little at Raven's snort of frustration. "You made us. What we are is because of you. She's too smart for the room." Her smile slid away and she added fiercely, "We have to save her. She's the leader here. If we don't save her..."

"Wait wait wait." Cyborg, on the other side of Timid, sat up straighter. "Is Rage going to - would she actually -"

"Before all this, I would have said never," Raven said tonelessly, head down, staring at the book. "Before it was too dangerous even for Rage to disrupt the balance here. With Wisdom gone, what would I become? But now Rage ... she's received part of Wisdom. She may feel that's enough to destroy Wisdom and take over, to rebuild this place in the image of my father. She doesn't want much." She closed her eyes. "Destruction doesn't require much wisdom anyway."

Cyborg looked at Brave. "But if she takes over, you could fight."

"No," Brave said. "I'm not... I need a leader. I follow. If Rage becomes leader I'll follow." An uncharacteristically somber expression appeared on her face as she added, "I'll still be Brave. But evil. I don't want that."

"Me neither," Cyborg said fervently.

Brave tilted her head at Timid. "Be worse for her. Rage'll make a whole new planet just to put Timid in the middle."

Timid nodded, shaking uncontrollably, and said in a choked whisper, "She'll bury me alive..."

Cyborg seemed almost afraid to look at Raven, but finally turned to her and said, "But you could -"

Raven shuddered, and just barely shook her head.

"But I don't GET this!" Beast Boy yelled. Timid jumped. "Raven, I've seen you cast spells that go through time. You restored the whole world. You're awesome! Can't you just find out what Wisdom said? Can't you just stop being in control for five minutes? I don't want you to die!"

Raven kept shaking her head, but it was Timid who started murmuring frantically "I can't I can't I can't I can't -"

"You can," Beast Boy said, putting his arm around her. He didn't notice that as soon as he did, Raven froze. "You did! Dude, it can't be harder than fighting Rage with that sword, and I saw Timid do that."

"This is different..." Raven and Timid spoke at almost the same time, Raven's voice a hoarse echo to Timid's muttering. "It ... just happened, I didn't have to think ..."

"She's trying," Brave said. "We have to help."

Cyborg said, confused, "Who's trying?"

"Raven," Brave said, patting his arm. "She has to be scared first. Then she can be me. Then maybe she can be wise. It'll be harder because Wisdom isn't here." She went around the plinth and helped Raven to her feet. "Come on. There's enough room to sit on the floor." Catching Beast Boy's eye, she added, "Bring Timid here. Let's sit down."

They assembled in a rough circle on the flagstone floor, Cyborg slightly behind Brave and Beast Boy with his arm still around Timid. Raven sat with her hood back up, the recessed white lights throwing odd shadows over her cloak. In an eerie synchronization of movement, she and Timid reached out and clasped hands.

Raven immediately began trembling with fear, while Timid slumped against Beast Boy. He held her tighter, wondering what was happening.

"You can do it..." Brave half-whispered.

Suddenly Timid looked up at Beast Boy, and said, pleading, "Don't let me go -" then vanished.

Beast Boy, startled, went crashing backwards. "Hey!"

Raven was still shaking, but taking deep breaths, working to get back under control. Beast Boy watched her with concern, rubbing the back of his head where he'd banged into one of the chairs. "Where'd Timid go?"

"She got assimilated," Brave said, moving so she was standing opposite Raven.

"Dude, like the Borg?"

"Like the opposite of the Borg," Cyborg said, his eyes on Raven. "Borgs would assimilate strangers and add to themselves. Raven is accepting a part of herself. She's letting herself fear - but just fear, Rae? That's not -"

Raven was rocking so much that her hood had fallen back, and her eyes were bright like she had a fever. "Have to f-f-feel it first, get it controlled," she gasped.

"So it doesn't overwhelm everything else," Brave said. "Me next." She knelt and took Raven's hands. "You got this. I know."

With an effort of will, Raven stilled herself and nodded.

Her fingers still entwined with Raven's, Brave looked at Beast Boy. "She fought Rage for you. You better be worth it."

Then she too disappeared.

"Don't ask for too much, do you?" Beast Boy muttered. He crouched down beside Raven. "Are you okay?"

Her hands empty, Raven crossed her arms and hugged herself. "I want to fight and I'm terrified," said Raven hoarsely. "Feel like a trapped rat. Can't think." She squeezed her eyes shut. "Really scared."

Gingerly, Beast Boy eased himself down so he was sitting beside her and carefully, ready to dodge at any second, put an arm around her. "I won't let you go."

Raven tensed, and blushed. But she didn't move away and she didn't push his arm off. Beast Boy relaxed. Glancing up, he saw Cyborg grinning at them both. His arms went up into a touchdown signal.

Blushing a little himself, Beast Boy flipped Cyborg off and returned his attention to Raven. "Can you rescue Wisdom like that? Just -"

"No," Raven said, her eyes still shut, "She's too far away and Rage wouldn't let me. I might be able to get a sense of what she meant. Maybe me and two of my sides are strong enough-" her voice dropped and she said, so low that only Beast Boy could hear it, "Don't let me go."

Beast Boy didn't reply, but his arm tightened across her shoulder.

Raven began chanting, her voice so quiet it was almost a whisper, strings of words that didn't sound like English. A bright yellowish glow settled on the stone in front of her.
Beast Boy watched it for a while and then, looking back at Raven, was surprised to see her crying silently. "What's wrong? Isn't it working? What can I do?"

Raven exhaled and roughly wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. "I can feel the part of Joy that Wisdom has," she said, her voice calmer than it had been. "It's like having to keep your eyes shut your whole life and every now and again getting a glimpse of the most beautiful sunrise. I want that, I want to feel that," and Beast Boy had never heard a voice sound so hungry or in so much pain, "and I can't."

"You will," Beast Boy said. "I told you we can fix it. We will, I promise. But now -"

Raven sniffed again and laughed a little, shakily. "But now I need to get on with it and get over the drama." She started chanting again, but then her voice changed to English, still too quiet to be heard easily. This went on for several minutes -

Then abruptly Raven's eyes opened.

Shrugging Beast Boy's arm off her shoulders, she tried to stand and almost fell back down again - Beast Boy was sitting on the edge of her cloak. Pulling it away frantically she snapped, "Come on. I know. Saecula saeculorum. I know. We've got to go now!"

Beast Boy and Cyborg shot to their feet; Raven looked wild, her cloak half off, her eyes unfocused. "We have to go now!"

"But what's the hurry? We -"

"Because Rage knows too!"

Without waiting to see if they followed, Raven ran out of the room, her footsteps echoing as she made her way back to the cathedral courtyard.