A Teen Titan Again (complete)

She's Baaack

Raven

Robin is just stupid. It was an accident. You were drowning. You had no control. I keep making up excuses, but can't believe any of them. I can't afford to cry my emotions away like I here Beast Boy doing. I can't meditate: the last half hour of that has been pointless. My eyes drift over to my dusty old CD player, and as a last resort, I get up and play whatever disc is left on, apparently some country song called 'Stand'. The music seeps into my head, and I let it carry me away.

On your knees you look up

Decide you've had enough

You get mad, you get strong

Wipe your hands, shake it off

Then you stand

I don't realize I'm sobbing until the track ends and the player goes mute. I sit still, letting the tears drip down.

"That's a nice song," a voice comments from my door that I apparently left unlocked. Not bothering to wipe my face, I cast my eyes over and see. . . Terra?

Before I know it, I'm on my feet, with my arms thrown around her neck in a hug. My eyes gush buckets, and I feel a few telltale drops on my shoulder. I smile a little and pull away. "What are you doing here?" She gives an explanation about sneaking in, but I interrupt her. "No no no, why did you come back?"

She scratches her head nervously. "Um, I heard a scream-"

"Beast Boy," I fill in.

"Right, so I came to make sure you guys were all okay?" I give her a disbelieving look. "Fine!" Terra throws her hands up in the air. "I lost control again and I have nowhere to go and I'm starving and freezing and I don't want to go back to the volcano to be alone but I couldn't take my room back because Cyborg hates me and I abandoned you guys at the diner and-"

"Terra," I cut her off again, "it's okay. You're in here now, why not use your room? And did you talk to Beast Boy yet?" She shakes her head.

"I stopped outside there before coming in. There's a bunch of machinery." I scowl. Cyborg did say something about repurposing an 'extra room'.

"Of course." I take in her outfit: red hoodie and bootcut jeans, and some headphones around her neck. A definite improvement from her school uniform. "Well, you can stay in here. I'll help you meditate, get your powers back under control?" Terra nods gratefully, but I can see a question in her eyes. "What is it?"

"What's up with you and Beast Boy? Obviously he's channeling it through sound, but what about you? The music is new, and obviously something's wrong, or there wouldn't still be tears in your eyes." Darn it, I forgot how tuned in she was to feelings, besides her own. That's not good, or she might cause an avalanche or something.

"Apparently, I immobilized the titans besides Beast Boy at the diner inadvertently, and now Robin has an attitude about it." I slump on my bed, head in my hands. I feel the mattress dip a little beside me, and flinch when I feel a hand on my back. Terra starts tracing shapes, and I relax a little. The peaceful moment is interrupted by another of Beast Boy's screams.

Terra produces two more headphones, one green and one blue. "They were on sale," she says, handing me the blue. Happy that she bothered to remember my favorite color, I slide them over my ears, and hear nothing. Terra grins at me from beneath an identical red set, and I return it. We sit quietly for a while in thought, then Terra gets then brilliant idea of turning my bed into a bunk bed with spare wood outside.

After a little bit of protesting, I cave in, and she sends me outside to collect some fallen wood. Working together, we create four posts and a flat rectangle, then place the whole caboodle atop my bed. All in all, it does look halfway decent. We share a quick high-five, then Terra climbs up to the top, promptly falling asleep on the pile of spare cloaks I put there. I laugh a little at how exhausted she must be, then head out and down the hall.

Beast Boy

Eventually, I (somewhat) came to terms with my emotions, and crawled through my avalanche of clothes to my bed, where I found my gaming system. I plugged in Mini Monkeys 5, and am currently winning awesomely. All of the dark thoughts vanished with the boss battle, and they didn't even linger at the back of my head once I started up a new game. Just as I saw a chance to dominate the secret stage boss, a loud thud on the door sounded, and the controller flew out of my hands.

Regaining my composure, I run a hand over my hair, wipe sweat from my face, and cross my disaster area to the door. I press the button to make it slide open, and find myself face to fang with Raven. Shocked, I slam the door shut. Crap, why did I just do that? I mentally slap myself, then reopen the door, instantly met with a scowl.

"Nice to see you too." I quickly step aside to give her a way through the door, but she shakes her head and points to her room.

"But that's your room. Nobody is supposed to go in your room. The last time I went in your room, I almost DIED in your room." Raven gives another trademark scowl, grabs my wrist, and tugs me down the corridor, while I struggle the whole way. I'm scared to know what she has planned for me.

You'd think I'd be smart enough to change into a flea or something. Well I thought about it, but Raven placed magic clamps on my wrists. I'm still gnawing on them at an attempt at freedom as we pull up to her door.

"But what's-" I start.

"Just shush," she states harshly. I look up at her amazing eyes, which are much softer than her voice. As she opens the door, I quickly poke my head between her arm and the doorframe. The sound comes first, telling me that Raven has a snoring hippo in her room. When she steps aside, I push further in to get a look at the snore source. . . A blond haired, blue eyed, red hooded teenage girl? I open my mouth to scream her name, but Raven claps her hand over it.

"Tmrfldn?" I gasp, voice muffled from the pale hand hovering over me. Raven shoves me further inside HER ROOM. I walk over beside the new bunk bed thing, and reach out my hand to poke Terra. Raven pulls me back with her magic again, shaking her head.

"She just got here, and I don't think anybody saw her, besides Starfire. I'm going to talk to her right now about it, but I brought you in here to guard the room. Obviously, no one in this tower besides you and Cyborg are dumb enough to break into my room," I look at the ground to avoid her pointed look, "but that does still leave one of you to come snooping around. I want you to stay here, keep Terra company if she wakes up, and basically just forbid anybody from coming in." I nod to show that I understand, and Raven returns it. Her face betrays no emotions of how she feels about Terra coming back, but I can tell from her eyes that she's not feeling a negative emotion about it, to say the least. Raven turns around and heads out the door, and I pray she won't run into Robin, while at the same time feeling extremely pleased that she didn't bring up my little. . . breakdown session. Quickly, I slip out behind her as a fly, and scope out the tower. Starfire is petting Silkie, Robin is playing music, and Cy is working on his baby. By the looks of it, he won't be done for hours, and the other two wouldn't come in here if they could help it.

I fly back to Raven's room, go under the door crack, and shift out of the flea while the door softly clicks shut. I shift into the cat with the face that Starfire can't resist (provided I'm not being a Clorbag Varblernelk), climb up to the top bunk, and curl up in a ball in the crook of Terra's elbow. I purr softly as her arm tightens around me, and quickly fall asleep like that.