Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ Evermore ❯ Up and Down the Hill ( Chapter 10 )

Chapter 10: Up and Down the Hill

The water sparkled like its surface had been scattered with diamonds beneath the brilliant noonday sun, that day. It was a perfect day to be swimming, just hot enough out to make the time spent in the water refreshing, but not so much so that it was truly uncomfortable to be out of the water. Not that it really would have mattered to the two young girls, as they were quite content to remain in the water indefinitely. The two splashed about relatively close to one another, Raven; in her black, one-piece suit that could easily have been mistaken for her leotard, had it not been for the low neckline and lack of sleeves; for the most part happy to just float on the surface of the water and allow the waves to carry her as they would. Starfire; wearing her modest, two-piece that was rendered in purple with silver colored stars of various sizes and designs drawn about its surface; on the other hand, was enjoying herself exploring the watery depths, constantly diving down and gleefully examining and categorizing everything in sight.

Raven idly watched the Tamaranian's excursions, realizing that even if she was as able at exploration as her love, that she still could not join with her in the adventure. Not just due to her jaded skepticism, the ultimate counter to Starfire's wide-eyed wonder, but simply because she felt separate. The man had frightened her, frightened her to her very core, and now it felt as though there was some form of invisible wall between herself and Starfire. She wanted to touch the other girl so badly, to just hold her again even for just a little bit, that it physically caused her pain. But she feared what would happen if she tried, how Starfire would react in light of what had happened yesterday. Honestly, she wished to do so much more, but after what had happened, there was a very slim chance any of it would be allowable.

Regardless, her body still desired, despite all her resolve against it, and so she attempted to lose herself in the motion of the waves, to forgot her physical form and know only that which was in her heart and mind. That still hurt too, due to the thing her heart desired more than any other, but in the world of abstract, wishful dreams could soothe that pain.

* * *

Starfire loved to play in the water. It was just so simply invigorating to slip into that liquid filled world, a whole other unexplored realm of the earth. Swimming itself was somewhat like flying, except in many ways it was quite different. It required much more effort, that was for certain, but the Tamaranian had never been one to shy away from a little physical exertion. She had been told that it was dangerous, but it did not seem to be so to her, almost all of the animals she had met thus far had been quite nice, very friendly in many cases.

Not only that, but discovering what lay under the "endless" blue of the waters around Titan's Tower was fascinating to her. So very many diverse forms of life; plant, animal, and others; and almost inconceivable formations of terrain. She explored deep crevices to the very maximum depth she could manage, searched through deep caverns, many of which were so incredibly large that Starfire felt like nothing more than an insect, a mite inside of them. It was all so very amazing that it filled the crimson-haired girl with giddy joy, so much so that she returned to the surface in a rush, breaking the surface in a spray.

And, sadly, in her rush, she missed the form skimming only just a little below the surface of the water, bearing down on the area where she was going to surface. And so, when her vision cleared and she found a small speed boat heading straight for a collision course with her, only moments away from impact, she could do little more than scream.

* * *

Raven snapped instantly out of her reverie at the scream that had sounded out, Starfire's scream. Unerringly, she looked to Starfire, and, to her utter and complete horror, realized that her love was only seconds away from being struck dead by an on-coming speed boat. Through the sheer force of her overwhelming desire to save Starfire, the raven shadow rose up about her instantly, and then she was floating in the water right before the alien, between her and the boat. Fluidly, Raven summoned the strongest protective barrier she could manage, throwing it up before herself, and then she simply braced herself, praying.

With a sound like thunder, the boat crashed into the dark magus' shield at breakneck speed, and the whole forecastle of the ship fairly shattered. But, at the same time, Raven's protective barrier burst apart, and though what remained of the boat was thrown back and beginning to quickly sink into the ocean and no longer a threat, the sundered pieces were. As soon as she felt her power break, Raven threw her arms out wide to block the largest area possible, and for doing so, she received all the injury. Most of them were superficial, small cuts from shards of fiberglass coupled with a number of embedded splinters, but when a large chunk of the under prow came flying into her outstretched left arm, a severe "CRACK!" announced the breaking of a bone. With a strangled cry, Raven slipped under the surface of the water, the shock of the injury paralyzing her and destroying her ability to keep afloat.

* * *

Horrified, Starfire watched Raven slip beneath the waves, and almost immediately she dove down after the ashen-skinned girl, snatching Raven up in her arms and pulling her very close before almost literally rocketing out of the water. She hovered just over the licking ripples and waves as she looked down to Raven, worry strongly written on her features.

"Are you all right, Raven, are you sound?" She asked quickly, fearful for Raven's health.

The dark magus' eyes were clenched tightly shut in pain, but she nodded slightly.

"Fine . . . I'm fine . . ." She whispered through her teeth.

In her elation, Starfire almost hugged Raven, but stopped just short of doing so, realizing the pain it could cause the girl. And, at the thought of causing pain, Starfire's features grew stony, and she briefly looked around, as if searching for something. Suddenly, she glided over to a small bobbing shape in the water, what turned out to be a young man, apparently the pilot of the ship.

"You are uninjured, correct?" Starfire asked before he could cry out happily at the hero's appearance, just a little coldly.

He nodded dumbly, just a little surprised, and she gave her own harsh nod.

"Then you may get yourself to safety, as I have an injured friend to care for." Without another moment of delay, Starfire turned about and flew off toward the tower, cradling Raven in her arms.

Even as she did so, she felt the dark magus shiver, and realized that a cold wind had picked up and was blowing across them, chilling the injured girl and only making her more uncomfortable. Carefully, the alien girl turned about once again, facing her back to the wind as she pulled Raven a little closer, using her own body to shield the other girl. Her skin drew up in goose pimples as its temperature dropped, and Raven suddenly shook her head, denying Starfire's attempt to inconvenience herself to help Raven.

"Why do you do all of these things for me, Raven?" The Tamaranian asked in disbelief, notably refusing to turn herself and put Raven back at the mercy of the freezing wind as she slowly continued her flight to the tower. "Why do you do these things that upset you, that make you uncomfortable, that hurt you, for me?" Starfire referred not just to Raven's saving of her life and subsequent injury, but to the many other things she had realized recently, not limited to her agreement to go to the park, despite knowing that people like that man could be there, or to the wedding, despite the same possibility.

Since that time yesterday, Starfire had learned much and it had hurt her deeply to find out about all the hatred that many felt for those who were simply different. It had explained much of Raven's odd behavior; and forgiveness for the lies she had told was a foregone conclusion, considering the circumstances; and caused Star even more grief as she realized exactly how much anxiety Raven had been suffering through since they had begun dating. And, as if to counter Starfire's very thought then, Raven smiled through the pain of her broken arm.

"Love . . . you . . ." She whispered through her agony clenched teeth, still smiling up at the alien girl, even with her eyes tightly closed.

Even despite the pain that tinted the smile, it was still Raven's rare smile, and it warmed Starfire's heart to see it. She remembered all the times she had been graced with that smile, all the time they'd spent playing over the last two weeks, and even all the time they had spent meditating, as it had brought its own unique form of enjoyment. They finally reached the tower at that point, entering into its heated confines with a glad sigh. Able to face forward once again, Starfire turned, and began to make her way up the stairs to the tower, heaving to the floor that housed the infirmary. On the way, her memories of carrying Raven's bleeding, dying form to the same place not long ago were evoked, and a stray thought came into prominence in her mind.

What if Raven were dead, if she had died back then, or had been struck dead by the boat during the accident? The terrible thought triggered a cascading waterfall of other, progressively more disturbing thoughts. She would never be able to talk to Raven again, never play with her, nor spend time with her in any way at all. That was frightening, but it paled in comparison to the next in the line of the relentless assault. She might never have been able to enjoy that wonderful dance that she'd had with Raven, or at the very least never be able to share another with the dark magus. A heart-wrenching thought, to say the least, but the last . . . it was by far the worst. She would never be able to kiss Raven again, as she had on that day, to wake her from her nightmare.

That thought brought Starfire to a pause, even as she was carefully lifting the ashen-skinned girl up onto the examination table in the infirmary itself. It had come from out of nowhere, from the unknown depths of her mind, but the all-consuming horror, the vehement, impassioned cry of "NO!" that seemed to ring forth from her very soul, a hundred times greater than the feelings evoked by any of the other thoughts Starfire had considered. Calmly, she laid Raven atop the table, and then went to the console at the side of the room to activate the auto-care systems. After doing so, she returned to Raven's side and looked to her curiously.

It was true, she wanted to kiss Raven more than anything else in the world then. The thought of losing Raven hurt her, deeply, and, though she had not noticed it before, being with Raven made a soft, warm feeling rise up in her heart. As she stood by the side of the table and watched the machinery do its work, she knew that she loved Raven, as Raven loved her.

* * *

The waves rolled gently in from the horizon endlessly, as if pushed in by the sinking sun at the edge of the world. That very object's descent had a beautiful effect on the ocean and sky, bathing both in a burnished gold-like ambience, and it made for quite the scene indeed. A scene that both of the female Teen Titans, seated atop the roof of their Tower, watched with quiet awe, sitting next to one another as they did so. Raven now sported a thin cast on her left forearm; but she seemed more than able to ignore its minor annoyance; simply staring out into the slowly red-tinting sky, a slightly melancholy look on her face. Starfire, beside her, looked considerably happier, and similarly watched the sunset, but with a much more rapt attention. After another few moments, Raven finally asked the question she had been mulling over for more than a day.

"What will we do next, Starfire?" Some of Raven's depression slipped into the question, but this only made Starfire smile, as she knew she could banish those feelings with but a phrase.

"Well, after the events of today, I believe a meal of relaxation would make an appropriate dinner." Her smile gained a mischievous quality, as she tried to see if she could lighten Raven's mood any beforehand.

Raven chuckled, softly, but remained in her same position, gazing out at the sea with her knees pulled up against her chest, sadness obvious in her posture.

"You know what I meant, Star." She responded quietly, though without any real scorn in her voice. "What should we do now, should we stay together, split up, or . . . what?" It was obvious, simply from the tone of her voice, that it hurt Raven to ask such a question.

Without saying anything in response at first, Starfire simply played with her hands, curiously aware that her brain was unwilling to allow her to say the thing she knew Raven wanted to hear. Finally, she managed to push forth some aspect of her true feelings.

"I . . . would like to stay with you, Raven." She looked over at the dark magus as she spoke, hoping what she could not express in words would be read in her eyes. "I am most happy when we are together." Raven's violet eyes lit up at the words, and she turned fully about to face Starfire, smiling.

"That's great, Starfire!" She hugged the alien, though a little awkwardly due to her new cast. "But . . ." She drew away, returning to normal. "The question still isn't quite answered. Where do we go from here?" Starfire did not answer immediately, instead shifting her gaze back to the sea, troubled by the nagging feeling at the back of her mind.

And, off in the far distance, her eyes caught sight of a brilliant, crimson colored bird, though its apparent coloration might have been a trick of the distance and the light cast by the setting sun. Regardless, it made the thoughts connect in her mind, and she suddenly understood what was holding her back. Robin. She lowered her gaze, ashamed.

"Perhaps it would be best if we remained as we are, for right now, my friend." She murmured despondently, and Raven responded in kind with a disappointed sigh.

"Oh . . . okay." Growing nervous at how quickly she was depressing Raven, Starfire stood, laughing with an equal amount of nervousness.

"I shall go make that meal for us now, yes?" Without waiting for an answer, the alien girl made a bee-line for the door to the stairwell.

Watching her go, Raven apprehensively chewed on her lower lip, trying to second guess her decision. But, at the last moment, as Starfire laid her hand on the door handle, she called out,

"Wait, Star." The Tamaranian stopped, and slowly turned about to face Raven, apprehension still evident in her features. "We need to talk about . . . something else." The dark magus gestured for Starfire to come back and the alien girl did so, though she did not sit down beside Raven.

"Yes, Raven?" The ashen-skinned girl looked up at Star for a time in silence, still unsure, but finally lowered her gaze to the surface of the roof and let her shoulders slump.

"Before you decide for certain, there's something you need to know."

"Go on, Raven . . ." Starfire tentatively prodded, worry already growing over what Raven might be planning to reveal.

"I didn't tell you before, but I think that you have a right to know." The dark magus took a deep breath, steeling her resolve, and looked back up at Starfire. "When I was trapped in that nightmare, I met a monster that called herself `Anbu.' She is me, but she also isn't at the same time, she's somehow a part of me, and she was trying to kill me to take over my body." Starfire gasped at the revelation, and Raven nodded sadly. "She's horribly powerful, she was just about to succeed in her plot when you saved me by waking me up." Then Raven looked away, her voice falling to barely a whisper. "And . . ."

"And?" Starfire asked in almost morbid fascination, too disturbed to simply let Raven trail off.

"She . . . she swore that she'd kill you, Starfire." The crimson-haired alien's eyes went wide at that news, and she blinked a few times in disbelief before speaking.

"That is . . . disturbing to hear, Raven." The dark magus nodded ashamedly.

"I'm sorry, you can go now, I won't try to talk to you anymore- . . ." She began, but Starfire saw almost instantly where the words were going, and stopped Raven outright.

"No, Raven." Raven looked to Starfire's face, surprised by the sheer conviction behind the denial. "This changes nothing." Star touched the other girl's cheek, gently. "Regardless of whatever may be in you, you are still the same Raven I have known since joining the Titans, the Raven I befriended, the Raven I have spent the last few weeks helping and being with, and you are still the same Raven I- . . ." She choked herself off, realizing what she had been about to say.

But, even then, Raven watched her with eyes that begged for her to finish that thought, to speak those coveted words, and with no idea how to truly resolve the situation under her current constraints, she improvised.

"We must calm down, both you and I are getting too upset, Raven." She turned partially, indicating her intent to go back inside. "I will go and prepare the meal for us, it will help to settle our emotions and think clearly." This time, the Tamaranian stood stock still, waiting for an acknowledgment from Raven.

Eventually, Raven nodded uneasily, and watched Starfire go, just as the sun set in the distance, and the sky began to darken.

* * *

`It hurts, to have to do this to Raven.' Starfire thought, as she moved swiftly through the halls, having just emerged from the stairwell that ran up to the roof. `It hurts immensely, which I suppose is another sign of my much greater feelings for her. It feels almost as though I am trying to tear my own heart out, having to put her through even more than I already have, albeit unknowingly until just recently.' Door after door slid by, their appearances and disappearances not even registering in her mind as her focus lay deep inside herself. `I want to cry, almost, for all the pain it is placing inside of me. It is wrong of me to hurt her like this, needlessly, when I could so easily end it by speaking the truth.' The passing of the door to Raven's room, though, was noted, and Starfire's eyes lazily but intently held their gaze on it as she walked past. `I love her.' She smiled faintly, dreamily, and continued on. `I must, to be so greatly affected by her, both positively and negatively.' She came by the main recreation room, and stopped as she heard a voice coming from the video screen set in the partial-panorama view windows.

". . . And later in the week, we'll have some pretty nasty cloud cover moving in, a prelude to a severe drop in temperature and a hard rain storm that will go on well into- . . ." The voice cut off there as Starfire absent-mindedly hit the first button she could find on the remote.

Though, instead of shutting off the screen with the power button, she simply changed the channel. The moving image that formed on the screen then was cruelly coincidental, that of a large mob of people at a political rally, voices impossible to understand due to the large number of people saying many different things all at once. But, the signs they held up made their purpose perfectly clear, signs that read, "Queers Will Burn In Hell," and other similar messages.

`She must have been so incredibly afraid of her feelings for me, living on a world like this.' She continued mentally, just barely restraining her overpowering desire to throw the remote right through the screen.

After a brief moment of focus, she hit the "power" button, shutting off the television, and then left the room.

`She deserves nothing less than the utmost of love and devotion for what she has gone through, most of it, in one way or another, for me. I want nothing more than to take her in my arms and promise that I will never let her go.' In the lobby of the tower, with the huge, "T" shaped doorway, Starfire looked up toward the ceiling sadly. `But I cannot. I cannot tell her those things, cannot give her what she wants so very much, cannot end her suffering.' She stood before the hard, steel-cast door to a room, Robin's room. `We never said the words, but both Robin and I understood that we were in love. Not much came of it, because of how little time we had to spend together, but it still existed between us.' She stumbled clumsily down the long stairwell to the basement of the tower, coming to a stop at the bottom with her back against one of the supporting girders after tripping on the final step and falling up against it. `But my feelings for him . . . they no long even feel like the love of spouses, they feel more like familial love, like my feelings for Blackfire, but stronger, and less restrained. I no longer love him in the way that I did, that I love Raven now.' The cold, brisk wind blowing across the rooftop of Titan's Tower stung the skin of Starfire's cheek, and made her eyes water as she stared out into it.

She was alone, as Raven had left the rooftop some time ago.

`Until Robin knows of my change in heart, until I am no longer bound, I should not, cannot tell Raven of my feelings for her. Doing so could bring about catastrophic consequences and destroy them both.' The weight room, filled with its various and numerous implements of physical training and exercise, would have been a wonderful place for Starfire to "work out" her feelings, if they were those of frustration and anger, rather than helplessness and fear, that is. `Even though I do not love Robin in the same way, that does not change the fact that I do not wish to hurt him. He deserves better than what I must give him, and thus I have already wronged him, and to do so even further by making our parting painful would be inexcusable.' In the bathroom, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, the deep lines of worry on her forehead, the maelstrom of distraught, confused emotion whirling in her expressive eyes, all of it. `I have not even the slightest conception of how to do so, meaning that there is only one possible solution. I must ask Raven for help in doing so.' She stood before the door to Raven's quarters once again. `But I fear that Raven will not react well to that, to the subject of Robin.' She moved down the halls. `I cannot be with Raven until I have broken with Robin, and yet I cannot break with Robin as long as I am not with Raven.' Inside her own room, Starfire stood over her bed.

"I . . . I do not know . . . what it is that I should do . . ." The alien girl whispered, her voice choked with emotion.

And then she collapsed into her bed and fell into a troubled sleep moments later, sleeping alone for the first night in weeks.

* * *

Starfire stood in the doorway to Raven's room, the dark magus standing at the foot of her bed, looking at the alien. The windows to the room were awash with sheets of freezing rain, as it poured down on the tower from the thick, black storm clouds that completely blotted out the sky. The pitch black state of the room was not just the product of the clouds, though, as the sun had fallen below the horizon an hour ago. Both looked nervous, a little upset, and a little ashamed, neither fully able to look at the other as they stood in relative silence, with only the constant sound of the rain striking the bay windows keeping the room from feeling deathly still. Finally, as thunder roared outside the window and cast the room in a stark light, Raven spoke.

"Starfire, what's wrong?" Star blinked, and looked to Raven.

"What do you mean, Raven?"

"You've been acting strange for almost a week, we haven't been doing as much together, haven't talked as much, and . . ." She hesitated, looking away slightly as her cheeks flushed a soft pink color. "It's been lonely, sleeping without you . . ." Starfire looked straight down to the floor.

"I do not know what- . . ."

"Please, Starfire." The strong interjection broke the alien girl's words, and she couldn't help but look back up at the dark magus. "I'm worried, please just talk to me." She pleaded, and gestured weakly to the bed beside her as she took a seat upon it.

Tentatively, after agonizing mentally over the proper thing to do, Starfire walked toward Raven. Step after step, she drew closer, until she was only a little over a foot away, and then lightning flashed. In that instant, the Tamaranian's step fell awry, and she slipped. As soon as the monochrome lighting of the strike faded, Starfire found herself lain atop Raven, their difference in height off-set by the distance from which she had fallen, so that her head lay against Raven's upper chest. At first, nothing at all happened, everything was frozen, as if the lightning strike had been a camera flash, and the whole scene was nothing but the unchanging snapshot it produced. Both looked sightlessly out, Raven at the top of Starfire's crimson-haired head, and Starfire down into Raven's black leotard.

Finally, as she acutely felt every last touch of Starfire's body against her own; the hand lain across her hip, the chin just barely pressing into the cleavage of her breasts, the hips and legs straddling her leg, even that of her own hand on the alien girl's back; Raven could take it no longer. Inside of her, that last thread of resistance, of restraint, snapped, and she softly leaned down to lay a kiss on the top of Starfire's head, catching the faintest scent of cinnamon as she did so. The dark magus' free hand; as her cast bound arm lay uselessly off to the side on the bed; moved to palm at Star's shoulder blade as all conscious thought in the alien's mind was lost in a raging twister of confusion, pleasure, and weakly battling sensibilities. And, even as Raven nudged Starfire's head up with her chin before placing a kiss on her forehead, that free hand slid down the side of Star's chest, tracing the lines of the girl's ribs beneath her skin until it came to play at the other girl's breast.

With the command center incapacitated by conflicting emotions and desires, Star's body was free to act of its own volition, and to Raven's unconscious joy and pleasure, she felt Starfire's hand slide up from its place on her hips and onto her stomach, tickling her even as the hand left trails of comforting warmth wherever it touched. In the heat of the moment, Raven managed to thrust impressively downward with her bound arm, back, and her left leg, physically flipping herself and Starfire over on the bed, placing herself on top of the other girl. In her newfound position, Raven's hand went at Star's breast more fully, cupping and massaging, though the action weakened a little as the alien girl's hand climbed higher upon Raven's torso, and as Starfire's other hand felt at her spine. But, as Raven's knee slid up to press between Starfire's legs and run at the crimson-haired girl's crotch, a single thought entered the Tamaranian's mind.

`I should not be doing this, I cannot yet give myself to Raven like this.' And so, with a heavy heart, she pulled her hands away from Raven's body, and quietly whispered.

"Raven, stop, please" For a moment, Raven disbelieved what she'd heard, but when she realized that Starfire was no longer touching her, she pulled away similarly.

Except that she went even further, completely removing herself from Starfire's person, and then seated herself back on the bed, distanced from the other girl as she awkwardly tried to suppress her desire.

"Wha-what's wrong, Starfire?" Raven said, through a dry, worried throat.

What little resolve that Starfire had was not enough to keep her thoughts straight, her emotions in check, as she watched Raven grow nervous and upset once again, and as her own body hungered to return to their previous intimacy. Everything blocked up in the Tamaranian's mind, jumbling terribly, and it all poured out in a mess.

"Rave . . . ask . . . do . . . love . . . I don't . . . Robin- . . ." The instant that Robin's name slipped from Starfire's lips, Raven felt as though she had been struck, and her expression showed it completely. "No, Raven!" Starfire cried, her face twisting in torment, but it was already too late, and as lighting crashed once again outside, the impenetrable darkness of the raven shadow rose up through the pure white brilliance of the flash, and Raven was gone.

* * *

Starfire had sat alone in Raven's room for quite some time after the dark magus' escape. She had hoped and she had prayed that things would not go as she had expected, as they had. But they did, and she felt betrayed, upset that Raven had actually had so little trust in her that she had fled at simply the mention of Robin's name. She wanted to go after Raven, but at the same time she feared that she could only make things worse, despite her wishes otherwise. And so, trapped between her wish to go after and her doubt in her ability to make things right again, Starfire simply wandered through the tower, "looking" for Raven, even though she knew the other girl was not there.

What she found while doing so, though, was Robin, just beginning to make a meal in the kitchen.

"Hey Starfire, where's Raven?" He called as he noticed the Tamaranian floating despondently in the entryway.

"She is . . . gone." Starfire replied, before slipping from the air and onto her feet, as if she had no more happiness left to fuel her flight.

"Where'd she go without you, I thought you were supposed to be taking care of her?" He asked curiously, putting the various food stuffs that he'd had out back in the fridge, realizing that something was off.

Starfire did not answer his question, instead asking,

"Where are Beast Boy and Cyborg?"

"They're having a night out on the town to celebrate our saving the city again." Robin answered as he moved out from behind the counter and walked over to Star. "What's wrong, Starfire, what happened?" He queried, immediately when he came to her, placing his hands gently on her shoulders.

"You would not understand . . ." She murmured as she weakly looked away from him.

Not to be so easily deterred, Robin moved so that he could look the alien girl in the eyes, and went at it directly.

"Is something going on between you and Raven?" He asked bluntly, and when Starfire's eyes went wide in surprise, his suspicions of the last few weeks were confirmed.

After another moment of disbelief and silence, Starfire slumped, her posture becoming even more dejected, and she nodded shamefully.

"Yes, there is." Robin nodded, accepting the information, and angled Starfire toward the seats at the kitchen counter.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Starfire looked back at Robin sadly.

"It is a long tale."

"I don't have anything better to do." He retorted easily, and with no will left to fight, Starfire allowed herself to be lead over to a seat at the counter. "Just start from the beginning, I can listen as long as it takes." The boy wonder said as he moved to the opposite side of the counter, expecting that Starfire would be unsure of how to begin, and therefore preempting her.

With a heavy sigh, the Tamaranian set her hands on the counter. She told him, quite literally, everything, from all the things Raven had told her of before her coma, to the details of it, including Anbu, after a struggle between her better judgment and her heart.

"It occurred because Raven's other half, an evil entity that calls itself `Anbu' was attempting to take over control of Raven's body. Raven told me that it was extremely powerful, something Raven was unable to defeat, and . . ."

"And?"

"And, the creature has sworn to Raven that it will kill me." Robin's face went stony at the words.

"I see." Knowing that it was her fault that Robin had the damning information that he did, Starfire did her best to protect Raven's place on the team.

"Please, it is not Raven's fault that she has this creature inside of her, please do not punish her for it."

"Starfire, it said it was going to kill you, and according to Raven, she can't stop it from carrying out that threat, and that makes her a danger to the team." Starfire shook her head in negation vehemently, making her hair fly and flash in the air behind her head, as she refused to believe what Robin was saying.

"Raven has proved many times that she had much more power than even she knows, and . . ." She looked away just a little. "I do not believe that she would allow me to be hurt, not as long as she was alive." Robin, against the press of the purely logical part of his brain, omitted saying that Raven would most likely be dead if Anbu attacked her.

"That doesn't change the fact that she's a time bomb just waiting to go off an- . . ." Robin didn't finish, as Starfire cut him off, face utterly serious.

"I will take full responsibility for Raven's behavior from now on, and I will make sure that Anbu does not become a problem for the team." Robin looked at Starfire severely, but when the alien girl met his gaze with one of limitless determination, he relented.

"Fine, she can stay on the team." After a moment of silence and uncharacteristic lack of enthusiasm on Starfire's part, he added. "Perhaps you should continue?"

Starfire also told of the time after the nightmare trap, of her agreement to date Raven to see if she could feel for Raven as she did for her, their time in the park, from energetic play to the wedding and the dance, and even of the man who had come to them with hatred, condemnation, and brimstone. Tentatively, she included the last week as well, her realization of her love for Raven and all. Robin looked hurt when she told him of that, but seemed rather unsurprised that it had gone that far, and so she pushed on to the end, to the real point of the whole conversation.

"Tonight, Raven brought me to her room after finally losing patience with my silence and gloom as we watched the rain from the window. She asked me what was wrong, but I could not tell her, and so she gestured for me to sit beside her on the bed, so we could work things out. I came toward her, and like a Cerainian Lacqdor Grutch, I was startled at a lightning flash and tripped over my own feet. I fell on Raven, and we both froze, due to the very compromising position into which we had fallen. I felt her kiss the top of my head, and her hand touched my back, before everything began to move once again, including my own body . . ." She blushed fiercely in embarrassment, and just a little bit in remembered pleasure. "I enjoyed it, what we did, but I also knew what it really was and I . . . I could not let it happen yet!" Her voice choked in her throat, knowing the mistake she had made and the pain it had caused Raven, all because of her foolish beliefs and wrong choices. "So . . . I stopped her . . . and tried . . . tried to tell her . . . to ask her . . . but- . . ." Robin spoke then for the first time in quite awhile, cutting Starfire off and finishing the thought for her.

"But she ran away at the mention of my name." The Tamaranian nodded weakly, tears falling from her eyes.

"Yes . . . she did." Carefully, Robin came around the counter, and with incredible gentility for someone who fought as fiercely as he did, wiped the tears from Starfire's eyes with a handkerchief.

"Don't blame her for that, she had an immense amount on her mind, not least of which being you finding out that homosexuality is a very hated thing on this planet, and your distancing yourself from her these last few days didn't help matters." He told her as he did so, speaking in a very soft, soothing tone. "And before you start coming down on yourself, you should realize that you made a mistake, and everyone is allowed to make them." He pulled the cloth away from her eyes and gestured to himself. "I made a mistake and became too obsessed with Slade and nearly lost you and everyone else because of it, but I didn't, you all forgave me, and I'm sure that she'll forgive you too." Starfire remained unsure, confused.

"But, what about you, Robin?" He smiled good-naturedly in response.

"I think I can survive being a surrogate brother to you, and besides, it's not as though you only love once." Without another word, Starfire hugged Robin, tightly, gratefully, and lovingly.

He returned it and let the world remain as that for a time, before speaking again.

"You should go and really look for her now, I think she probably needs you more now than ever before." The alien girl released him, and nodded, finally smiling again.

"Yes, I believe that she does." After one more momentary embrace, Starfire flew from the room, off in search of Raven, while Robin watched her go.

He was smiling, happy for the girl, but the few tears stains on the floor beneath him said otherwise.

"Why do I always have to be such a good guy?"

* * *

The half-rain, half-hail that was coming down in torrent over the canyons not far from the city hurt immensely. It ripped at Raven's skin, sending endless jabs of freezing agony throughout the whole of her body. Of course, the physical pain and suffering she was feeling then was nothing compared to the emotional or magical counterparts to it that she was also enduring. Inside of her body, her power surged and ebbed, like an endless series of waves coming at a wall, crashing against it over and over with ever greater force, building and building until they would eventually break it down and explode outward. The very fabric of her being was slowly coming apart at the seams, and the supernatural agony of such an occurrence was indescribable. All around her, objects exploded into nothing, into non-existence, a cruel parody of what would soon happen to her if things continued as they were.

But, by far, the worst pain was the emotional one, the feeling of her heart tearing itself to shreds in her chest, as she had been so sure that she had Starfire's love, and then had watched even the possibility of it slip away. And the taunting, victorious voice in her head did not help things either.

`You know, she did actually love you, she just couldn't reconcile her feelings for you until she'd broken up with Robin. Now that you've run away and proved your distrust of her, though, I don't think she feels quite the same for you.' The words sent another pang through Raven's chest, another dagger wound in addition to the hundreds of others she already felt.

Nearby her, a large boulder shattered from her residual power, though it's sheer size kept it from being completely annihilated, and so she instead found herself peppered with shards of stone. The pain caused her to stumble, and the rain and ice covered ground proved too slick for her to maintain her balance on, causing her to go crashing into it in a heap.

`Just give up already, you've lost everything and it's all your own fault.' A snicker echoing through the depths of Raven's mind only managed to cause her further pain. `I mean, really, I actually want to kill you now just to put you out of your misery.' Unsteadily, Raven climbed back to her feet by clinging to a nearby rock face, one which luckily didn't explode as she was doing so, and then stumbled further along the twisting path through the canyon. `You know, she's probably boning him right now, to get back at you for betraying her feelings.' The snide comment enveloped the whole of Raven's emotional turmoil in a conflagration of rage, and with a growl she spun about and instinctively struck out behind her, smashing her fist into a boulder and utterly obliterating it due to the out pouring of her emotion generated power.

She stumbled back, clutching her still balled fist against her chest as it sluggishly began to weep blood from the lacerations she'd ripped in its skin. `Tsk tsk, Raven dear, you know that I'm not running around out there yet. If you want to hit me, you're going to have to come in here and do it.' The dark magus shook her head, and continued onward aimlessly, not even really sure of where she was going to, or even where she wanted to go to, she just knew that she had to keep moving, even through all the pain she was feeling, forcing her legs to take each step without stopping. `Or perhaps you're too scared to fight me, now that you don't have your little Princess Charming to come save you from me.' Anbu laughed within Raven's mind, and the girl couldn't help but clutch at her head as the sound reverberated through it agonizingly, only adding to the already inhuman level of pain she was being forced to withstand.

And, without even realizing it, Raven backed right off of a cliff edge, simply slipping another step away and finding nothing but air beneath her foot. And, as she fell, she found an odd sort of peace in the knowledge that she was about to die. She knew, for one reason or another, that the fall was more than long enough to kill her, even without the jagged rocks littered about the base of the cliff. And so she let it all go, all of the pain in her body simply slipping away with the acceptance of her demise. And, with that, all that was left was the waiting, in which Raven's mind wandered. How would it feel, it wondered, when she finally hit those rocks below? How painful would it be when their tips ripped into her back, tore apart her spine, and then punched straight through her stomach or chest? Would it even hurt at all, or would her spine be destroyed before the pain signals could reach her brain? And, if it did hurt, would she even have the time to scream before she was dead?

Even as her thoughts grew so morbid, they rather suddenly shifted focus, as she wondered what it would be like to be held in Starfire's arms just one more time. She imagined herself being cradled against her love's warm, yielding chest once again, with the Tamaranian's silky soft hair falling all around her, tickling her cheek and intertwining with hers as they lay in each other's arms. And, her mind continued, what would it be like to kiss Starfire just one last time, to feel Star's velvety lips sliding over her own, pressing against hers as . . .

It was at that moment that Raven realized that she was not imagining those last feelings, that they were indeed what she was actually feeling, Starfire's comforting arms wrapped around her, and the Tamaranian's lips against hers in a kiss. She opened her eyes, and there was her love before her, beautiful even as her hair lay plastered against her head by the rain. Starfire pulled away and out of the kiss, and smiled warmly down at Raven.

"I love you, Raven." Audibly, the dark magus gasped, having been expecting to never hear those treasured words for as long as she would live.

Finally, after simply staring at Starfire in silence for a time, she smiled and responded in kind.

"I love you too, Starfire."She hugged the alien girl tightly, and she in turn embraced Raven just as tightly.

"I wanted to tell you sooner, but I could not, and I am sorry for the pain that you had to suffer through because of it." Raven shook her head, negating Starfire's apology.

"No, it's alright, Star, I understand." Pulling back just a little, so that she could again look Raven in the eyes, Starfire smiled widely.

"Yes, everything is all right now, Raven, because we can be together . . ."

"Evermore." Raven replied, in a breathless whisper.

And they kissed once again, a kiss so powerful, so loving, and so utterly moving, that the rains and winds themselves fell still in its honor, letting the rising sun finally shine upon the canyon, and the two girls floating in it, once again.