A/N - Hey again! Just letting you guys know that after much consideration, and after reading several of your reviews, I will keep this story at M, just to be on the safe side. And it'll save me the trouble of having to change the rating once more if I decide to write another lemony scene... Which I probably will. No confirmation at this point, but it's probable.

On a side note, I LOVE getting reviews, and even though I probably won't be able to reply to everyone that reviews, please know that I'll do my best! Chapter Four is in production, and will probably be getting published in the next week.

Also, I'd love to hear any and all predictions as to where this story might end up, just for kicks!

Disclaimer: I will no longer write disclaimers on every chapter, since it's painfully obvious that I do NOT own DC, Teen Titans, Teen Titans Go!, or anything that even resembles the show. Just to be clear, and avoid possible legal action...

Enjoy!

Raven kicked at a nearby stone, sending it flying beyond her realm, sent to float the starry expanse forever. She also stubbed her toe. But she didn't care. She was growing frustrated by the minute. The talk she'd had with Happy had seemed remarkably productive. She'd expected Happy to simply babble nonsense, like she tended to do, yet she'd been pleasantly surprised by her thoughtful contributions. It set her expectations soaring regarding the other emotions. She'd been unpleasantly disappointed.

Timid's maze was dreary as ever, and just as jumbled, but the fearful emotion was nowhere to be found. She'd gotten lost three times in that infernal maze before she'd finally gave up, and backtracked her way to the middle. She made it to the exit after two more tries, finding new twists and turns she hadn't expected, but not once did she see any signs of the grey cloaked girl.

Rude, on the other hand, had not been hard to find. She was simply lying on top of a beaten-up barcalounger, her body in a none-too-flattering position, munching on a cold slice of pizza. She'd always been one of her more ridiculous and unnecessary emotions, but she was also one of the easiest to control. On this occasion, however, Rude was uncharacteristically talkative, providing rather colorful commentary on her dream. She'd sprinted across the realm, dodging discarded pizza boxes and beer cans along the way, trying to ignore the crude emotion flying next to her. If her dream had made her nervous, some of Rude's observations made her outright panic. She'd made it through physically unharmed, but she had more than a few mental images that she'd not be forgetting anytime soon. She wasn't sure how she could bring herself to talk to Beast Boy ever again after that. Let alone look at him. She shuddered. Whether it was in disgust or excitement, not even she could tell. She blamed Rude for that.

She had hoped Brave would be of more help, and she'd actually crossed her fingers when she walked into the Greco-Roman styled amphitheater that Brave called home. She'd found the forest-green emotion sparring towering, shadowy figures made of smoke and energy. As soon as she'd spotted her, the smoky apparitions vanished, and Brave turned her attention to the newcomer. But once again, she hadn't been of much help. For the most part, she ignored her, performing a variety of exercises as she talked. But when Beast Boy's dream was brought up, she could have sworn the emotion had actually blushed. Any hopes she could have harbored at gleaning more information from her courageous counterpart were quickly dashed by her sharp comment.

"Hmm. He's cute. Got a nice but too. If you need my help asking him out, I'm all for it. The bedroom, however, is more Lust's department." Brave said teasingly, giving her a smirk, and then watching her storm off towards the exit arch.

"Unless you wanted to try something new!" Brave yelled out as she stepped towards the arch. "I wouldn't mind experimenting with Beast Man!"

Now, there she was, a few feet away from the door into Knowledge's library. She wanted to believe that her smart half would be more cooperative, but by now, she wasn't too keen on getting her hopes up. She swallowed as much air as possible, trying to calm herself down, and pushed the door open.

Mahogany bookshelves surrounded her on all sides, reaching up into the murky depths of the ceiling. If there even was a ceiling. Raven suspected the bookshelves went up for miles, or maybe even forever. She didn't really have time to check, and she didn't really care either.

The library was almost as bad as Timid's maze. She usually had the shelves memorized in their chaotic ordering, but now she was finding fantasy among travel guides, memories mixed with fantasies, and hopes mingled with fears. She shudder, not wanting to overly analyze what this new order meant. She supposed she'd have to ask Knowledge herself.

She found the studious emotion floating in mid-air between two nearly-empty bookcases, a dozen or so books orbiting her at breakneck speed as she flipped through one of the lengthy volumes. Raven gave a small cough to try and get her attention. It apparently worked, although Knowledge gave little indication of it, other than the books slowing down, and a quick glance her way.

"Hello Raven. I was wondering when you'd show up."

"Believe me, I got here as fast as I could."

Raven lifted herself up to Knowledge's height, mirroring her position, sitting cross-legged at her emotion's eye-level. Knowledge simply kept flipping through the yellowed pages of the book before her.

"You know why I'm here?"

"I should hope so, otherwise my purpose is defeated."

Silence shrouded the room, interrupted only by the sound of a swishing page.

"Well?" Raven asked impatiently.

Knowledge looked up at her and stared blankly at her. Raven suddenly felt uncomfortable beneath this emotion's steely gaze. There was something behind her eyes, as if she knew something she herself didn't. It shouldn't have surprised her, but it was still unsettling.

"There are many things I could say regarding the topic you've come here to discuss. However, I think it would be for the best if you asked more specific questions. It might make this process easier."

"What process?"

"The process of allowing yourself to see."

"I don't understand."

"If you do not understand, then neither can I."

Raven rolled her eyes. Knowledge was one of the few emotions she tolerated having a conversation with, but she had the tendency to complicate things.

"Alright fine, I'll ask…"

She thought for a few seconds, Knowledge never taking her eyes off of her. It didn't help her think, but the silent pressure finally pushed her to voice the question she'd been so hesitant to ask.

"Why Beast Boy?"

"Why Beast Boy?" Knowledge repeated the question, frustration tugging at her voice.

She bit her lip and nodded, any confidence she'd had about the question slowly fading. Her emotion huffed, and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, giving her a look of annoyance.

"I assume you meant to ask why Beast Boy appeared in your dreams…?"

"Uh-huh." Raven nodded again.

"Right. Like I said, specific."

"I don't have time for this!" she spat angrily, struggling to contain her temper.

Knowledge simply sighed and started to float back down. Raven followed her promptly, although her landing had lacked the finesse of knowledge's. She was still steaming, hating how evasive her nerdy clone was being. She followed her with her eyes, as Knowledge reached up, and plucked the book she'd been flipping through before. She held its cover out for Raven to see.

"This is a collection of all the jokes Beast Boy has told you over the past six years."

"That's it? I expected it to be longer."

"This is volume eight."

"Oh." Raven said quietly. It didn't really surprise her. Still, yet another emotion was beating around the bush. She really didn't have much patience left for such nonsense, but she did her best to remain pacific.

"I've been leafing through these, and I find the task tedious, repetitive, and I still haven't been able to find anything truly appealing in any of his so-called jokes."

"Well, there's no surprise there."

"Prior to that, I browsed through some of your memories of Beast Boy."

"And…?"

"Most of them are of minor annoyances, some of major annoyances, and the rest are usually miscellaneous and insignificant encounters."

"Happy got her point across much faster than you."

Knowledge cast her a depreciative look. She half-expected her to stick her tongue out at her.

"My point is, that all the empirical evidence I've managed to sift through so far, would indicate that your relationship with Beast Boy is rather negative."

Raven frowned. Now that made no sense. Sure, Beast Boy was annoying most of the time, and yes, she'd snapped more than once at the green changeling. But she considered him one of her closest friends. All the Titans were her friends, but the others respected her privacy and personal space. Beast Boy didn't.

Ever since their first encounter, he'd done everything he could to disrupt her peaceful seclusion. Be it interrupting her meditations with a lame joke, or cut into her reading time by attempting to include her in some sort of social activity. But over the years, Raven had begun to realize that she'd relished his constant attempts at including her. It made her feel as though they wanted her around, and not just physically, but as their friend. It made her feel as though she were part of something beautiful, that she'd never experienced before. But most importantly, she'd realized how he made her feel as though he wanted her, needed her. And in some small way, the feeling was mutual.

Knowledge appeared to have been eavesdropping in on her mental process, but Raven couldn't really chastise her for that. Technically, she was part of her own mind. However, that was no excuse for the smug grin that now plastered her dorky doppelganger's face.

"What?" Raven snapped at her, feeling overly exposed, for what felt like the twelfth time in the last two short hours.

"That's just it. The empirical evidence does not support the fact that we feel something for Beast Boy that goes beyond basic tolerance."

"He's a friend… A good friend…"

Knowledge just smirked. And Raven couldn't help but notice the distinct tone of a blush appear on her cheeks for just a fraction of a second. She quickly realized that she was mirroring Knowledge, and she raised a hand to touch her warm, flushed cheeks. Suddenly, as if pulled out of thin air, a gargantuan tome appeared in the air between the two Ravens. The apparition fortunately distracted Raven from any wayward thoughts at that moment, her blush temporarily forgotten. The book bore a faded green cover, and looked as though it had been given plenty of use. Knowledge apparently ignored her as she continued her own monotonous speech.

"This…" Knowledge said, drawing in a small breath, "is one of the more popular books here in Nevermore. It's constantly being checked out, hence it's unfortunate state. Rage herself stopped by once to browse through it, until she eventually slammed it against the nearest wall and attempted to burn this whole place to the ground."

Raven knew she should have been worried, but all she felt at that moment was sheer, unbridled curiosity.

"What is this?" Raven asked softly, her voice barely audible over the sound of her own heartbeat.

Knowledge smiled and pushed the book forward, which fell into her arms. Raven gasped at the weight. It was heavier than she'd expected, and much larger too. She opened the book, and flipped the thick pages, not really taking much in. Although, it had a distinct smell. Not just the usual smell of parchment and ink, but she couldn't quite place it.

"That book is a complete recollection of every selfless deed and kind action Beast Boy has performed. Specifically concerning you."

Raven frowned, and looked up at Knowledge, questioning her with a curious expression, before she returned her attention to the words in the pages, choosing to read a random passage.

Raven blushed yet again as she was reminded of the events scribbled on the page. One morning, not two months back, when she'd woken up, and found that her tea had been already set up, along with a plate of waffles, a blueberry muffin (her secret favorite breakfast food), and a tiny note from Beast Boy that read "-Get well soon! Love, Gar-". It had been sitting on a tray just outside her bedroom door, but she'd found no sign of the perpetrator. She blushed just as she'd blushed when she'd read the note. She remembered it had been the day after a particularly lousy fight against the Hive Five, and she'd ended up exhausted beyond all reason, and more than a bit bruised.

"The tea was absolutely dreadful."

Raven looked up again at Knowledge, just in time to see her smile slyly. After two seconds of silence, they both shared a quiet chuckle, reminiscing about the bitter concoction Beast Boy had made for her. She'd never expected to share a laugh with her usually dreary, logical clone, but the memory of how Beast Boy had failed at something as simple as brewing a cup of tea, while trying to do something nice, simply caused something warm to bubble up deep within her chest.

"Yes, it was…" Raven took a breath, calming her sudden bout of laughter. As she toyed around with the warm memory, Knowledge spoke again, but this time with a distinctive softness to her tone, and a rather uncharacteristic shyness.

"His behavior towards us over the past years defies any and all logical reasoning. Especially when you consider the fact that we seldom respond in the kindest of ways…"

Knowledge's voice appeared to falter at this, and Raven herself could feel a sort of darkness looming overhead. It was quickly accompanied by a tug from within her stomach, and she almost felt sick. She knew the feeling, and she knew it too well for comfort. It was guilt. Simple as that. She looked up at her emotion to find her suffering the same fate. It was extremely uncomfortable, to say the least.

"Ugh, I hate feeling like this."

"Then you should know what you have to do…"

Raven's heartbeat became erratic, and she struggled to look up at her emotion. She was right, of course, as was usual. But as much as she knew what she should do, she also knew what it might entail.

"I can't tell him… I couldn't bear the embarrassment…"

"But you would willingly allow him to suffer for your own comfort?"

"He doesn't suffer! He should know by now that that's how I show my… fondness…"

"He should, shouldn't he?" Knowledge asked her incriminatingly. "Yet you know deep down that he takes your words to heart. You can see the hurt on his face clear as day, every time he walks away after one of our… comments."

Raven knew she was right. After all these years, she'd started to appreciate Beast Boy. But she didn't know how to show it without releasing some form of emotion. Every time he told a joke, or pulled a prank, or tried to get her to play his stupid videogames, she'd force herself to respond. But it was always with a witty remark, a sharp comeback, or a cruel putdown of the activity he was proposing. She meant it playfully. It had become their trademark routine, and she enjoyed it. But she knew it hurt him nonetheless. And she knew she couldn't respond any other way. Not without risking losing control, or worse… without him misunderstanding or drawing the wrong conclusions.

How would he have reacted if after one of his jokes, she laughed? Or if she actually accepted an invitation to go to the arcade downtown, or for a stroll in the park? She would have probably gladly done either. At least Happy would have. But what if he took it as more than just a sign of her accepting friendship? What if he thought she felt… something else… towards him…?

"But it's not just friendship anymore, is it?"

"Huh?" Knowledge had broken into her thoughts once more. It was honestly starting to annoy her. Knowledge just stared at her with her usual calculating stare.

"What you feel towards Beast Boy, it is no longer simply friendship, am I correct? It's developed into something else entirely. It's gratitude. It's admiration. It's affection. And yes, perhaps, even attraction."

Raven paled, her greyish skin fading to almost transparent. Every word that knowledge uttered seemed to pierce her like a blade, and it dug deep into the middle of her chest. It made breathing seem more complicated than it really was, and thinking rationally was practically out of the question. Thoughts, emotions, memories, ideas, they were shooting around, mingling and crashing and racing so fast she couldn't focus on any one of them.

Unfortunately, her mindscape reflected her thought process, and the library around her began to rumble. The very foundations of the world seemed to be shaking, and books began to whiz about, flying from one shelf to the other, others seemed to simply float around, while some even spontaneously combusted. Knowledge stood her ground, appearing unfazed.

"Raven. You have to relax. I understand that it's difficult to process this. These are brand new feelings you have to deal with. But we cannot continue if you don't calm down."

She closed her eyes, and ushering forth all her strength, willed her mind to calm itself. Finding her center was always difficult when she was inside her own mind, but soon enough, she felt her makeshift meditation start to pay off as the world surrounding her shuddered to a standstill. Silence reigned, and the chaos ceased as everything around her froze in place. Slowly, one by one, the books around her began to move back to their respective places, and her mind slowly became clear once more, her worries temporarily taking a backseat in her mind.

Raven groaned, lifting a hand to rub her throbbing temples as she felt the telltale signs of an oncoming headache.

"Ugh. Why does this keep happening?" She asked her emotion, shutting her eyes tightly in a vain attempt to ease the pain. Knowledge gave a sad sigh.

"These… emotional tremors, will continue until you settle your feelings for Beast Boy, whatever they may be."

"What… What do you mean?"

"It means that your current emotions contradict each other when it comes to Garfield, and so long as this is happening, your mind will suffer the consequences. You'll have to choose, and choose wisely. After that, it's just a matter of development." Knowledge responded.

She hated how Knowledge spoke of everything as if it were painfully obvious. She hated the fact that Knowledge expected her to do something so incredibly difficult and potentially embarrassing. But most of all, she hated the fact that she was right. Even if it was because she herself knew, deep down, what she had to do, hearing Knowledge remind her was torturous in and of itself.

But it was something that had to be done. That book, that damned book, had triggered all of this. To anyone else, it might have been just a particularly lewd scene in an otherwise great book, but to her, it had been the catalyst to an emotional unbalance. It had created the dream, and for some reason, placed Beast Boy in its midst. She still didn't particularly understand why, but as much as she hated to admit it, she was starting to see a few reasons as to why that may have been. Still…

Knowledge's lecturing tone once again broke through her thoughts, although this time, she was practically grateful for the distraction. She wasn't sure where her train of thought had been heading, but she wasn't particularly keen on figuring it out either.

"I think it would be best if you talked to someone…"

"I know. I just have to figure out what I'm going to say to him…"

Knowledge chuckled with mild amusement, leaving Raven perplexed, and slightly miffed.

"No, not Beast Boy. Someone else entirely. Someone you haven't seen in a long, long time. Someone who lately, had been dying to speak to you."

Raven gulped. Knowledge's vague description really left no doubt about it, but all she could do was pray that she was wrong, and Knowledge was referring to someone else entirely. She knew that wasn't the case, but it never hurt to hope.

Then again, with the way things were going…

Damn…

Beast Boy never really did like books. They were usually long, tedious, full of boring, wordy descriptions, and had the tendency to include few, if any, illustrations. Besides, words were never really his thing. They often became jumbled when he tried to focus, and the focus in itself was difficult for him to maintain. Something to do with his shifting DNA and the animalistic instincts he'd developed. Sitting still for extended periods of time was particularly unbearable.

But he did his best, regardless of how much he wanted to drop the blasted book and go do anything else at all. He knew Raven had been reading the same book for the past few days. He also knew that she'd been reading the book when she'd fallen asleep that morning, although he was pretty sure she was half-asleep even when she'd started reading. And now, he was pretty sure he knew why she'd looked so uncomfortable over breakfast.

Sitting against the cold walls of the hall, directly across from Raven's door, Beast boy sat with his legs splayed out haphazardly in front of him, with the book firmly in his grip as he forced himself to read on. He'd flipped instantly to the page Raven had bookmarked, figuring he wouldn't have time to read the whole thing up to that point, nor would he want to.

It had started out pretty difficult to understand, but he figured that was because he'd skipped some twenty-something chapters. But eventually, he got the gist of it. Some dude, apparently a stable boy or a chimney sweep or something else lowly and degrading, was confessing his love to a princess. Or something. There were a lot of fancy words involved, and he wasn't sure what half of them meant, so he focused on the other half.

By the time he figured out what was going on, it was too late, and he found himself caught in the middle of a rather intimate scene in the book. His eyes widened and a deep blush appeared on his face, leaving him a rather unbecoming shade of maroon. He felt his lips dry up, and the collar of his uniform suddenly seemed rather tight, as well as some other parts of his spandex suit. He crossed his legs and kept reading, praying that no one chose that particular moment to wander the halls. For a moment he thought he might have been misinterpreting the entire scene, and perhaps it was just his mind playing around in the gutter. He read a few choice words which only served to deepen his blush, and convince him that there were no other interpretations of the scene. He had no idea that there were so many ways to describe, well, doing that.

It was embarrassing, sure, and awfully detailed for a book. But Beast Boy quickly found that those weren't the main reasons for his own sudden discomfiture. He was slowly realizing that those very same words had been previously read by none other than Raven. And for some reason, that felt, weird. Shameful. Even dirty.

He was shortly reminded of the time the five Titans had sat down to watch what had seemed to be a perfectly innocent movie, and he recalled their reactions when they were caught off guard by an impromptu love scene. The mortification he'd felt at that moment was similar to what he was feeling now. Of course, it could have been worse. Raven could have been sitting right next to him. He quickly remembered that Raven had in fact been sitting next to him during that movie a few months back. And how he'd quickly scooted away as she mirrored his actions.

Beast Boy slammed the book shut, and flinched at his own action, his sensitive ears overwhelmed by the sharp noise, intensified by the echo of the empty hall. He closed his eyes and leaned back against the wall, trying to think of anything but the book he held in his lap. He failed miserably.

He settled on thinking about Raven. What she'd looked like that morning. She'd seemed extremely tired, and had acted like a zombie for the better part of breakfast. He remembered having watched her flip lazily through the book before she'd set it down, spine-up, to stretch in a cute, silent yawn before resting her head on her hand and promptly falling asleep.

Whoa, Beast Boy found himself suddenly interrupted by his own voice in his head. Cute? Dude, I thought I'd stopped thinking about her like that a long time ago?

He mentally reprimanded himself, while memories began to flood his mind. Although he was grateful for blood being circulated towards his brain and not other parts of his anatomy, the feelings that those memories brought him were none too pleasant.

He remembered six years back, when the Titans had first formed, along with a crush for a certain dark, secretive empath. He wasn't sure what had brought about his infatuation towards the young sorceress, but it had steadily grown into an almost full-blown obsession. Seeing her smile and enjoy herself became like a drug to him at some point, and he desperately did everything he could to get results. He ran out of decent jokes in about two weeks, but he never gave up.

And then Terra appeared. His heart lurched, and his intestines seemed to play tug of war with his spleen as some of his darkest memories resurfaced. The blonde, fun-loving, earth-wrangling girl had been everything he'd wanted from Raven. A true friend. Someone to laugh at his jokes, to hang out with and play video games with, and to just sit down and talk to. He should have known it was too good to be true. The betrayal hurt almost as much as losing his parents had. Her death had outright left him scarred.

It had been shortly after Terra's death that Beast Boy returned his attentions to Raven. But his already-fragile heart took a beating day after day from her constant rejections and snide remarks. Eventually, he gave up, and it hurt like hell. But he had finally understood that she'd never feel what he felt towards her. A brutal, but necessary, reality check.

But his feelings had never really disappeared. He'd only done his best to keep his hopes regarding his cold, unfeeling teammate, virtually nonexistent. Yet while he'd read the scene, a part of his mind had imagined Raven and him playing out the scene. And now it was occupying most of his mind's eye.

He shook his head, trying to get the scenario out of his head, but as much as he tried, he found that he really didn't want to. The sex part was great and all, and he reminded himself to keep that stored in the back of his mind for a different occasion. But the scene that haunted him was the boy's confession of love to the heroine. He'd felt as though the character was somehow based on him. And he kept imagining himself confessing his feelings towards Raven. Kneeling before her and letting his heart speak every word it had so painfully kept stored away. The relief he'd feel for finally being able to let everything out, and no longer have to walk on eggshells around her.

But in his head, every single time, Raven responded the same way. Rejection. Cold, unfeeling, absolute rejection. And he knew that that was the way it would play out in real life. And if it hurt that badly in his own imagination, he didn't want to picture it happening in real life.

He gingerly stood up, struggling to keep his balance on left leg as he tried to rub his right leg free of millions of tiny pins and needles. With the cursed book clutched tightly under one arm, he closed his eyes, and made up his mind. He wouldn't be able to understand the situation. Not with his feelings in the way. He needed help. Someone who would be honest, and unbiased, and most of all, not so embarrassed by the book that they'd be shocked into an awkward silence.

That left Cyborg clearly out of the picture, as he could just imagine the awkwardness of the whole situation. Robin might be of help, but talking about Raven with him just seemed, wrong, for some reason. So there was only one person he could go to. Someone to ask for help with deciphering Raven. Someone who might be able to give him some more insight into what had happened that morning. And maybe even some help with his own conflicted feelings.

He gave a resigned sigh and trudged off towards the common room, hoping he might find her watching television or cooking some weird Tamaranean meal. Step by step, he shuffled away from Raven's room, silently hoping that his twisted plan would somehow yield result.

Well, what's the worst that could happen? He thought to himself…

He would shortly find out.