Forever Lost

12

Robin

I paced around my bedroom as I waited for BeastBoy to wake up. My fists clenched and unclenched by my side as I tried to contain my anger. A familiar laugh caught my attention and I ran out my door to find BeastBoy and Raven walking down the hall and towards the living room. I didn't hesitate before I ran as fast as I could towards his back. Our bodies collided and I pinned him down underneath me on the hard floor. His face was full of pure shock and he didn't have time to react before I landed a hard punch to his jaw. His head flew to the side and I raised my hand to strike again but Raven pulled me off of him before I could. She used her powers and held me against the wall so that I was only able to move my head.
"Let me down!"
She ignored me as she helped BeastBoy stand. I couldn't help the small amount of pleasure that flooded through me when I saw a bruise already starting to form on his jaw. He rubbed it and looked at me with a look that I can only describe as hurt and confusion.
"Robin what the Hell is wrong with you?"
Raven was in my face and I closed my eyes as her warm breath hit my cold skin.
"What the Hell is wrong with me? Me! Nothing is wrong with me! That's not the case with you two though is it?"
She looked at me with a face of innocence but I knew she knew what I was talking about.
"Yeah, I know what you two did. How could you do that when Starfire is God knows where and two deadly criminals are on the loose?"
BeastBoy stared at me and they exchanged a look of pity before focusing back on me.
"Bro, we knew it was wrong but we were both hurting and I think we just took it out on each other. We never meant to disrespect Starfire or you."
My breathing slowed as I tried to calm myself down. Raven placed her pale hand over mine and forced me to look at her.
"Robin, we are all hurting and I can't imagine how you're feeling right now; but you can't take your anger out on us. Right now we need to be a team so that we can get our best friend back."
She was right.
I was taking my anger out on them, and although what they did was wrong, it didn't make it right for me to punch BeastBoy.
"You're right. I'm sorry BeastBoy."
"Hey it's all good man."
Yeah.
All good.

Cyborg

It was a weird feeling that I had throughout this last week. I've never really imagined what it would be like to lose one of us, let alone Starfire. We've always been close and she's always been like the little sister I never had. She taught me how to embrace life and how to truly be happy.
You can act happy all you want but it's a whole other thing to be truly happy on the inside.
I have never understood how Starfire kept her head up after everything she's been through. I'll always remember the night she told me about her past. She said that she had never told anyone on the team about it because she didn't want them to treat her like a victim, because she wasn't. She was a survivor.

One year ago.

I was sitting on the couch with my head in my hands as I reminisced in the awful events that happened on this day so many years ago.
Today was the twelfth anniversary since my father had turned me into this... thing. Everyone else was asleep, no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't fall asleep even though I just wanted to escape into that comforting abyss. I jumped when a hand landed on my shoulder. My eyes met Starfires bright green ones.
"Oh hey Star, what's got you up so late?"
She shrugged and took a seat next to me.
"I can ask you the same question friend Cyborg. Please tell me, what is on your mind?"
I looked at her to find her face full of concern and sorrow?
"Oh, it's no big deal. Today is just the twelfth anniversary since I became this thing." As I finished my sentence I lightly tapped my leg to emphasize the fact that I was talking about my abnormality in terms of being a human. She nodded her head understandingly and gently placed her hand on my thigh.
"Oh Cyborg, on this planet you may be considered different, but you will never be considered a thing, at least not while I am around."
A smile managed to creep its way to my lips and I nodded my head.
"Yeah I guess."
"Listen Cyborg, you are not just an item or a piece of metal. You are a regular human being with a few um, extra abilities. Trust me, I understand your feelings of being different, I mean, I am an alien that is living as a human where as I am no where close to one."
She let out a small giggle and I couldn't help but join in her contagious sound.
"My point is, you cannot let these feelings control your life. Let me tell you a story."
She paused for a moment to collect herself as I allowed myself to relax into the couch.
"When my sister was born, she was born without the ability to harness solar energy like I can. This made it so I became princess instead of her. She became extremely jealous and attempted to kill me when we were training one day. As a policy I was forced to exile her from our planet. Well, she ended up telling the Citadel, who is Tameran's largest enemy, about our security plans and they easily took over the planet. I was captured and enslaved by my sister for two years and eventually she planned to have me executed."
The whole time she told me this story, her eyes never left the ground. I constantly looked for any sign of sadness or anger, but I found none.
"We ended up get captured by another group, the Psions and I broke free and attempted to help my sister out as well. She was not grateful and once again planned for me to be executed. And you know my story from there. I broke free and escaped to earth where I found all of you. And I could never be happier, earth has given me an opportunity I never had on Tameran, a chance to make my own decisions and to truly have freedom. I guess my point is that no matter how different I am and no matter how many odd looks I get from people, I have found it easy to ignore that because I embrace in the fact that I am so much happier now that I ever was years ago."
My jaw was practically on the floor as I took all of this in. She had never told us about all of that, she had only mentioned random things about the Citadel and her planet, and we even had to find out on our own that she was once the princess of Tameran.
"Wow Star, I can't imagine what that was like. Thank you for telling me all of that. It really helped."
She smiled and gave me a long hug.
"Any time friend Cyborg, the only thing I ask of you is to keep this between us. I do not want to be treated any differently only due to what I have gone through because at the end of the day, I am still just regular old Starfire."

Present.

I was shocked when I felt a tear hit my arm.
Once my eyes landed on the small patch of wetness standing out against my silver limb, that's when I lost it. That's when I truly allowed myself to accept the fact that my best friend and sister was somewhere in pain, and I couldn't do anything about it. She is probably scared out of her mind and who knows if she is even alive anymore?
Once that thought crossed my mind, I went into hysterics as I imagined what life would be like without her, and that's a life I wouldn't want to live.