January. Vanquishing a demon, at great personal cost p.2

The next day, Gar powerwalked to Raven's locker and drew an arm around her shoulders while he started his usual inane chatter about whatever dropped into his head, and for the first time in her life, she just let him. It was chilly in the hallways anyhow, plus she was thinking he might be saying goodbye.

If it was Raven, and she was facing a friend possibly moving away soon, she'd be detaching from them, so it wouldn't hurt as much when they left. Gar just held onto her tighter. She still didn't understand him.

She only elbowed him to get off her when the rest of their friends arrived.

In contrast, the others just watched her silently. Dick and Kori looked at her a lot and made pauses between conversations, like they were giving her space to talk if she wanted to. Victor, who knew more than them, was quieter than usual, and looked like he was dying to ask, but he held back. He pressed a hand on her shoulder when they split up to go to their different homerooms.

But Gar tugged on her jacket to get her to lag behind. In a quiet voice he asked her what he really wanted to ask her. "Did you talk to your mom?"

Again he surprised her with his selfishness. It was like his juvenile brain had already erased all the caution Vic had tried to instill in him, and he'd returned to the reckless optimism that had been his first instinct the day before.

But it was a warm feeling. All he wanted was for her to stay, and it trumped every other fear and worry. And his gall seemed more appropriate than the fearful scurrying her mom always tried to enforce. It got Raven thinking that she should take a cue from him, and be a little braver, a little more reckless.

"No," said Raven. "But I will."

Maybe she'd been on the fence about it until she said it. Maybe she'd only decided it when Gar asked her with those big scared eyes. She was rewarded for it when his face softened in relief.


Five days later, Raven was having breakfast when Arella flew into the apartment. She dropped a letter on the table like it burned to keep her in her hands, and Raven's stomach dropped. She dropped the spoon into her cereal plate and pushed it away; she wouldn't be able to swallow another bite now.

"He sent more money?" Arella made out. "He'd never done that before. You see now, he's… changing his actions! We need to go now."

"It's because I sent the other money back," Raven muttered.

"What?" returned Arella, stopping cold of going into the bedrooms to pack.

Raven took a deep breath. "I sent the other letter with the money back to him."

"You did what?"

Raven kept her eyes down; if she didn't face Arella, she didn't have to see the way panic filled her eyes until they infected her too, and she couldn't think straight.

"You contacted him?"

"Mom, I'm done with this cat and mouse chase," Raven said, barreling on with the words she'd practiced. "I'm done moving across the country, I want to stay here."

Arella muttered something and crumbled to the floor. Raven finally went to her, and stood over her.

"You know even if he drops by, he's never been able to get through Azarath," she tried.

Arella didn't respond. She had her back to the cupboard doors and cradled her head in her hands.

"Mom," Raven called. "You want to make me move now, when I finally belong somewhere? Just in case he may come, and do what? If he wanted to get custody or something, he could start that from anywhere anyway." Arella didn't respond. "Mom, I'm not leaving. You can't make me." Raven kneeled down. "Azar protects us. Why are you so scared?"

Arella still didn't respond. Eventually Raven had to leave for school.


After school was out, Raven felt the responsibility to go straight home, and be where Arella could physically see her, so she excused herself from club. Dick let her go easily; because clearly it was still understood that she was dealing with something. Raven was just relieved Dick had never pried, and trusted her enough to let her handle it. He'd never even asked about Mr. Light.

As far as she could tell, Gar and Victor had stopped worrying about her too. Gar kept smiling at her like a triumph had been achieved ever since she told him she'd sent her father's letter back –because obviously, he'd kept asking- and she was inclined to feel that way too. She guessed Gar had told Vic, or else Vic had gotten the message that she was intending not to move away when Raven never rounded up Dick and Kori to tell them the bad news.

She was leaving them all to deal with the mission wrap-up today. Sawyer's best friend had come out and told them he now had permission to tell them he was indeed crashing with him, now Sawyer had successfully run away to his aunt in another town. That part was done. The Club was now dealing with his mom, whose calls they had been declining for a week, and who had recently resorted to harassing them at school; today they could finally tell her the truth, since Sawyer's aunt had lawyered up and started adoption proceedings.

When the four disbanded, Vic stopped Gar.

"Gar, wait," he said. "Did nothing else happen, you know, with Raven? With her dad?"

"Um, not since she returned the letter and her mom freaked out," said Gar. "Dude, why'd you keep asking me? Why don't you ask her yourself?"

"You always know what's going on with her!"

Gar peered at his friend. "…I do?"

"Yeah! You bother her for all of us! You find out things so we don't have to!"

Gar frowned. "Oh! So who was saying earlier that I'm callous and I make her lose her patience and I'm a terrible human being for it?"

"I didn't say that."

"And now you're using me to know what's going on?" He glowered at Vic, who was sheepish. Gar narrowed his eyes theatrically. Really his indignation was put on. Inside he felt victorious, because it was clear he'd won in this interaction: Vic had recognized he had a special link to Raven. So Gar just made a show of sighing, and then told him. "She sent the money back and now she's waiting to see what happens," he said, and put his hands up with the pedantry of a superstar's assistant denying further commentary to a flock of reporters. "That's all I know."


When Raven returned home, Arella had picked herself up. She received Raven at the doorway and cupped her face. "You are so strong, kutti. How are you so strong?" she asked, looking at her daughter mystified. But not smiling.

The letter hadn't been moved from the dining table. Arella hadn't unpacked her suitcase either.

Between two of the Azarath buildings was a stretch of grass and concrete that had been an alleyway before they closed off the entrance from the street. It was the closest thing Raven had to a backyard, and there she went that evening with the new letter in her hand.

She imagined Arella was watching down from a hallway window as she burned the letter with the money inside it, took a picture of it with her phone, and sent it to Trigon, with no comment. It was the first text she ever sent him. Then she blocked him.

A quiet vanquishing by fire. It seemed appropriate.

Raven knew better than to be optimistic, but she felt… powerful. Righteously vengeful. Knowing those feelings wouldn't go down well with Azarath, she squished them. Now more than ever she needed to borrow from their purity, she needed not to lean too close to any emotional extreme; she needed to ground herself.

Arella didn't say anything more to her about it that day. They were both in suspended animation. The next day, Arella didn't come out from her room when Raven had breakfast and went to school.

All that school day, Raven felt like she was in the middle of a storm brewing. She couldn't concentrate on anything. It was worse than when her father had first messaged her, but it was also the complete opposite situation. She had contacted him this time. She had the upper hand, at least until his next move.

For the first time, she almost knew what it meant to be upbeat. She was jumpy, and she looked behind her shoulder all the time, and she never spent too long without looking at the time on her phone. She could feel her friends staring at her, sensing something was off with her. The minutes of the day felt like hours. She couldn't wait for it to be over.


School ended eventually, and she skipped Club for the second day in a row. She got on her usual bus, full of agitated emotion. She also felt at peace, like she may have just broken down a barrier standing between her and the rest of her life.

She got off the bus and walked the rest of the way home, like every other day. She was anxious, but she didn't dare walk faster; she didn't dare do anything out of the ordinary. And when she made it to Azarath, she finally breathed.


Raven stared at Azar, not understanding why she had replied to her asking 'Where's my mom?' by handing her a piece of paper.

Azar was mute, hands folded over her stomach, eyes fixed on the letter. With nothing else to do, Raven looked at the paper too. The information came in bits. Her mother's handwriting. The words were useless. She only got 'sorry' and 'listen to Azar'. Nothing that explained why she'd come to their apartment to find all the windows closed, Arella's suitcase gone, and Arella herself nowhere to be found.

Raven looked up. "Where is she?" she asked. "Azar, where did she go?"

"Arella did not want it to be known where she was."

That was the point after which Raven couldn't misunderstand anymore.

Mom, I'm not leaving, she had told Arella. But she had never thought…

From the corner of her eye, she was aware of the others—priests and priestesses watching nervously as she glared at Azar. But Raven couldn't snap herself out of this: she was rooted to the ground. "You let her leave?" Her contained anger made it come out as a hiss.

"Any member can move to another Azarath base if they so desire it," Azar said calmly, meeting her eyes. She had never been afraid of Raven.

"That's my mom," she choked out. It was mainly to fill the silence, because she knew better. This was how things worked. Azarath was individualistic; familial relationships ceased to mean anything when you entered it. But Azar, as always, got her meaning and understood Raven just wanted her to stop talking. She stood and waited. Raven hated her wisdom at that moment.

The others around them were scared. Raven could tell. The highest officials, the ones who traveled with Azar wherever she went, had known Raven as a child, and remembered what she could do. It only added to her mounting anger, because their worries were unfounded: she wouldn't let loose on Azar. She wasn't that far gone.

Awareness of the others helped Raven quench the waves of rage and panic. Once she did that, she didn't know what to do next. Normally, she'd run up the stairs to go hole up in her room, but going back to her apartment to face its emptiness seemed impossible. Going anywhere within Azarath felt all wrong.

She turned right around and walked out of the house.

She walked down the street, going in a straight line until she was stopped by the creek, and then walked along the edge of it, against the freezing wind. She settled down in a deserted spot only when she was out of breath.

Habit led her to parse through the whirlwind of emotions inside her, like Azar taught her, like her meditation books the process felt meaningless. Why was she using these tools, when the main reason she kept her emotions in check was gone?

So she took out her phone. If this was uncharted territory, maybe she'd deal with this like how she felt—like an abandoned kid. She opened her contacts and considered calling one of her friends. She saw herself talking to any of them, asking to come over and maybe spend the night at theirs. Actually taking someone up on the offer they had all told each other at one point, hey, call if you need anything. But she only got as far as picturing it. It was useless—she wasn't a normal kid. And she could never go before her friends and show herself so out of control; she could never take comfort from another person that easily.

It wasn't fair—that standing up to her father should cost her her mom. And how could Arella leave her? How could she think her daughter so strong she could stand up to her father and be left without her mother? If she'd only told Raven she planned on leaving with or without her, Raven would have gone with her, and that would have been the end of that. Standing up to Trigon had been a mistake—just not for the reasons she would've thought.

She was in a fog when Gar's voice broke through. "Dude!" she heard, and she turned to see him, on his face a bright, oblivious smile. "Cool, I was about to swing by your house." He eyed her. "You haven't been home?"

Raven only then realized she still had her bag on her back.

"I took a detour," she muttered, only half aware she was talking.

She knew she must've successfully made her face stone from the way Gar accepted that. He sat down next to her and began talking. Gar was good at that. Sprouting off whatever was in his mind. She let a story of a neighbor he always saw napping on a chair on his porch and whom he was pretty sure he'd never seen awake replace the silence, quell the January wind, and sway the thoughts in her head.

The thing about always being in control, she thought, was that no one could tell when she was upset. But she welcomed that; as long as Gar didn't know what had gone horribly wrong, Raven didn't have to admit it had happened either.

She put her phone back in her pocket, thankful Gar had come to her, because she wouldn't have called him. Gar and Vic had come to her home and been sad at the prospect of losing her, hadn't they? That was why she'd wanted to stay. That was how she belonged here. That was how she could feel safe again. Slowly she dropped down till her head was rested on his shoulder, and the waves inside her quieted. But he fell silent.

At first she didn't care. Then it started to irritate her. The silence was reversing the spell of comfort and normalcy he'd managed to start. But now he was rigid, and he couldn't seem to think of anything to say, and she began to feel indignant. Didn't he hug her at random all the time? Why was this so weird of her? Was this what happened when she tried to reach out? He froze up?

Keep talking, she willed him. Put your arm around me. Do something.

But he did nothing.

Gar willed himself to talk, but he couldn't think of anything to say now. This felt so rare to him –he couldn't even pinpoint whether it felt bad it was so rare-, he felt he'd slipped into another dimension. One where Raven needed him, and tried to look for comfort from him. Whatever was going on with her –he didn't know half as much as Vic gave him credit for, after all, because he was completely lost right now- she had turned to him, and he didn't know what to do with it.

She stood abruptly, and he watched in horror as she turned to walk back home.

"Raven!" He jumped to his feet. She turned. He was conscious he looked scared and unsettled. "I-I'm sorry."

"For what?" she returned.

He gaped at her. What was he sorry about? He was sorry that whatever she needed from him, he couldn't give.

Raven glowered at him without reserve. She didn't care how fair it was: he wasn't the one who had abandoned her, but right now she almost felt he was the one who'd betrayed her more.

Because he'd gotten her to stay. He'd made her start thinking of a better world, one where she could stand up to Trigon and not lose anything in the process. And now, when she suffered the consequences of his ideas, he couldn't rise up to support her, and it made her realize what she'd really lost. What could she do with a friend, when she'd just lost a mother?

Since he still stood silent before her, seeming like he wouldn't figure out how to respond anytime soon, she told him, "There's nothing to be sorry about," and walked away.

Gar was left standing by the creek, wishing he could turn back time just a few seconds.

End of January.


Consequences! Cracks! Drama! And next chapter has another classic Teen Titans enemy! See if you can guess who by the vibes:

Next up: Mid-January. Black hole enters the galaxy.

Steeeveee: Thank youu! I'm glad to be finally back too! ^^

~The Lighthouse