I know. I better have the best sob story in the world for leaving this untouched for so long. I don't have the best sob story, but I at least have a decent one. I put off writing this for long enough that my computer crashing became an inevitability and of course I lost that detailed outline and rough drafts that I'd spent so many hours on. That was depressing enough (along with all the destruction of all the other crap I wrote). Then along came senior year and bam. Here we are. On the plus side, I finally got the 23 reviews that I was holding out for (now you know the magic number), and some cranky advice to update, which I decided to take.

Not going to lie, I hate some of this chapter. Which I know is a beautiful introduction to it. It's plot-heavy, so please prepare yourselves. The pacing is pretty quick and I apologize in advance for some of the inevitable lameness. And to be fair, there are parts that I'm very pleased with. I was trying a new style which I realize is a terrible idea in the middle of a story. But if I can't experiment on where else can I?

Also, be prepared for a small author's rant at the end. It's easily skippable (not a real word) if you want to get straight to reviewing, but there you go.

Warning: Dear god, you should know by now. But in case you don't-

Not for the sensitive or easily offended. Reading this material will most likely you offend you somehow. If you're going to send me a review about the offensiveness you could also drop a quick line about the quality, e.g. 'ur sotry sux and your use of punctuation was deplorable.'

Not mine.

Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

They left Raven in a coma for two weeks while they discussed the possibilities. Part of the draining properties of the restraining device required less than average sustenance, so she gained a little weight. Not a lot, but she was no longer the horrifying skeleton that she once was.

It was always easier to pity something beautiful.

Bruce wanted her locked away in a constant state of sleep. It wasn’t a death sentence; it was a life sentence, she’d teeter on the brink of endlessness for years until she’d finally slip quietly into the darkness. Diana refused.

The bodies of Starfire, Beast Boy, and Cyborg had been in an extreme state of decomposition, but there were bones left. Beast Boy’s neck was clearly cracked with unsoiled expertise and Starfire’s breastbone was cut as cleanly as her heart must have been beneath it, dark blood losing its warmth. Bruce claimed the damage could be from the handiwork of maggots and the moving of the bodies, but Diana disagreed. The bodies had been hidden from sight using magic. How much damage could they have sustained from their metaphysical journey?

Zantanna spent increasing amounts of time around Raven, constantly reading and reevaluating her mind. The girl’s mind was shrouded, broken, shattered and pieced back together with no order. It didn’t make sense to her.

“There are memories of such love,” she said to both Diana and Bruce. “She loved her friends dearly even if she didn’t know how to show it. There’s just no reason why she would have killed them.”

“She’s insane,” Bruce said bluntly. “The girl stopped eating, she was babbling, she played with their dead bodies using magic.”

“She was being tortured, Bruce,” Diana said sharply. “She’s been tortured for a long time to sustain the kind of damage that was on her body and in her mind.”

“People who were tortured can murder and murder easily. Who is it you think we fight, Diana?” he snapped fiercely.

“I want to see her conscious,” Zantanna insisted suddenly.

“You’ve read her mind,” Bruce said, turning away to hide how angry he’d allowed himself to become.

“And now I want to hear her speak. The two are not the same.”

“Zantanna,” Diana said hesitantly. “She is very damaged from the pain she’s suffered through. She barely speaks and doesn’t identify as herself anymore.”

Zantanna was adamant. “I want to hear her speak.”

Everything was weighted, she was so heavy and slow that she could barely move. Once she became aware that she was breathing it became her biggest focus and she struggled for an eternity to inhale and exhale. When had breathing become so hard? She managed to blink, the light burning her eyes and she shut them quickly against further pain. Oh it was painful to live.

Why didn’t she just die? Disappear into nothingness where she wouldn’t have to breathe, see, or feel. To not exist, leaving no trace of a body or soul-

Easy.

“Turn down the light, she hasn’t seen any in weeks.”

The voice would have made her jump if she had any reflexes left. There was a sudden pressure on her wrists, somebody adjusting locks and buttons. She tried to lift an arm but it was too difficult. Somebody noticed her struggles though and they lifted her arms and placed them on her stomach. Her arms were cold, numb, and weighted down by the thick machinery encircling her wrists.

Easier than this.

She licked her lips which were so dry and numb and attempted to speak. “Wasss g-nnnng on?”

A voice answered, vibrations she didn’t recognize. “Try again, I didn’t understand you.”

She swallowed and the pain of it would have made her cry if it didn’t promise further agony. “What…going on…?” she managed.

“You’re at the hospital, Raven,” a more familiar voice said. “Somewhere not on earth.”

Raven. That was her name. “Azerath?” she asked, thickly.

“No. You’re at the Watchtower.”

Raven slowly managed to open her eyes and in the dim light she saw a woman she had yet to meet, as well as Diana. She blinked a couple of times, focusing took practice. “Where are my friends?” she asked tiredly.

Diana and Zantanna both watched her carefully. If she were lucid enough she could have figured it out.

But she wasn’t.

“What do you remember happening?” Diana asked.

“We-we…” Raven paused. “We…did something. I don’t know…Why, don’t…?”

Zantanna moved forward and interlaced her fingers in Raven’s hair and Raven froze suddenly, breathing inwards and holding it. “Hurts,” Raven managed.

“It hurts?” Diana repeated and grabbed Zantanna’s arm, breaking their link. “Don’t hurt her!”

“It shouldn’t have hurt. There’s something missing. In her mind. All that pain, it’s missing from her mind.”

“Where are my friends?” Raven asked weakly, her eyes barely open.

“Raven…Beast Boy, Starfire, and Cyborg are dead. They were killed,” Diana said softly.

Welcome back.

Raven’s eyes opened wide and she stared at Diana, her gaze wavering until she blinked and then the tears overflowed onto her cheeks to disappear into her hair. “Dead?” she whispered and a ghost of pain haunted her expression. “Dead?”

Diana reached to stroke her hair back from her face. “Someone killed them and we don’t know who.”

“Robin’s…alive?” Raven asked.

“Yes,” Diana said, her eyes never leaving Raven’s face.

“Where is…” Raven faded off and her arms twisted uncomfortably in their shackles.

Zantanna moved closer and they both watched Raven’s face, open in her exhaustion. “Do you want him here?”

Raven opened her eyes again and nodded. “He’s okay?”

Diana’s tone hardened slightly, the bitterness of her tone pervading her senses. “He’s the only one who is.”

“Now, you’re saying you don’t think she’s the one who did it?” Bruce said, staring at Zantanna.

“She’s a victim, Bruce, ” Diana snapped, almost angrily, at the man. “You’ve spent so much time saving them from scum, how can you not recognize it? Why kill her friends in order to be tortured for months?”

Zantanna shook her head. “She’s not lying or performing Bruce. She doesn’t remember what happened. She’s asking for Robin.”

Diana shifted uncomfortably under Bruce’s sudden gaze. Bruce spoke, “She wants his comfort, then? She’s not afraid of him?”

“She doesn’t appear to be,” Zantanna said. “She’s extremely distressed to find out that her friends are dead, we put her back under sedation.”

“Robin didn’t do anything to her,” Bruce said bluntly.

Diana fired back, “She didn’t kill them.”

There was silence in the room for a long time, neither of them wanted to be the one to ask for the concession. So Zantanna did it for them.

“It sounds like both of them lost a lot from all of this. Why not let them heal awhile under our supervision?”

Raven was put under Zantanna’s direct supervision. The Justice League would never purposefully starve someone, but it wasn’t above taking advantage of Raven’s physical weakness. They wanted her weak until she had gained a higher level of mental control, and they wanted assurances of her purposes, like a child who’s only harmless until it grows up.

Though they kept her in better shape than before.

“Robin’s here to see you,” Zantanna said, “After your lesson,” she watched as the girl smiled in light pleasure.

Raven’s control moved with her mood. Some days the deaths of her friends hurt more than others, cyclical agony, reliving each time. After they first took her out of the medically-induced coma she spent the week crying and sleeping. Even Bruce’s harsh opinion of the girl melted very slightly when he saw the weight of her grief.

After that she spent another week in near-constant meditation. Zantanna would sit with her occasionally and read her mind to see Raven trying to deal with the anguish overwhelming her emotions. It was fascinating to see the girl’s mind at work, Zantanna had never come across someone whose mind could remain so stratified and yet function.

And Raven was proving that she could function.

There were obvious setbacks. She didn’t eat. Food made her ill and it frustrated her because she didn’t know why. But she couldn’t hold anything she tried to eat and after a few days of this constant rejection they simply put her back on a feeding tube.

The best and worst aspect of this recovery was that she simply didn’t remember being tortured. When she asked how she got into such shape they simply told her that whoever had killed her friends had injured her as well.

“But how did that make me like this?” Raven asked in confusion, staring at the boniness of her hands.

They didn’t let her see mirrors.

“This is just the way we found you,” Diana said truthfully. “Whoever it was must have had unique abilities.”

When they first let her see Robin, after two weeks of recovery, she managed to walk unsteadily across the room and hug him tightly. He was startled, clearly, but then embraced her as well. When she begged him to tell her what happened, he simply said that he didn’t remember. That he wasn’t allowed to tell her. It was part truth, the adults involved decided not to tell her the specifics. Surely her sins were all atoned for.

But she woke up that night with terrible nightmares that left her screaming and scratching the doors for release. It took sedation to get her back under control. But once the sedatives wore off, the same thing happened and she ripped the feeding tube out and clawed at her own hands, blood dripping to stain her flesh, trying to get her powers under control enough to work. When it happened a third time Zantanna had her heavily sedated and decided to ease her memories.

She began with the intent to only lessen this growing resurgence of what had happened, but then as she started sifting through Raven’s memories she was overwhelmed by the horror of Raven’s childhood, the terror of having died, the pain of absolute helplessness.

When she surfaced again, she went immediately to Diana and asked what harm it would do if she erased the worst of it.

And God forgive her, she erased it all. She left any bit of happiness; her mother playing with her as a child, the beauty of re-existence, the security of holding onto Robin’s neck as he carried her out of Hell. But the reemerging terror of being tortured, rising from the tangled darkness that allowed no access, she destroyed it completely.

When Raven woke, she was dazed. And she wandered around unsteadily for a few days, simply staring, mute and seemingly deaf. Diana was horrified, thinking that without the pain to hold her mind together they had lobotomized her. But Zantanna knew her craft too well and she was certain that Raven just needed time.

And on the fourth day when Zantanna entered the room, Raven smiled and said, “Should we begin lessons?”

Robin was startled by this new Raven and he was pleased. It was the Raven that he had always wanted, one who smiled at him and liked to be near him and who randomly touched his arm or leg while she spoke.

“Where am I going to live?” Raven asked, yanking Zantanna back to the present.

“What?” she asked, slightly disoriented.

Raven quirked an eyebrow. “When I’m finished…training and…getting better,” she said seriously. “Where am I going to live? Is-Is Robin going back to Gotham?”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” Zantanna said. “Neither should you. There’s a lot of work here.”

“It keeps me up at night,” Raven said, “wondering where I’m going from here. Am I going to be let out?”

“Of course! We just-”

“Why is my room locked?” she asked.

“Just as…a safety precaution.”

Raven looked at her seriously, contemplating her face. “Am I crazy?” she finally asked.

Zantanna was silent a moment too long and Raven’s face twisted before looking away. “Raven…” Zantanna began and paused. “You’ve been ill for a long time. Much longer than we’ve said. You’ve…been in and out of consciousness, saying things that you don’t mean, and not functioning well. Now,” she paused again, choosing her words carefully. “Now we’re just making sure you’re better,” she said.

“How long have my friends been dead?” she asked suddenly.

“About a year now.”

Raven’s eyes widened and she turned to stare at Zantanna. “How long have I been here?” she demanded.

“You’ve been here a long time, Raven,” Zantanna choosing to include the now-forgotten torture, “You’ve been here since their deaths.”

“I’m seventeen?” Raven said incredulously.

“Yes,” Zantanna said a bit helplessly.

“I want out.”

“You can’t leave yet.”

“I want out.”

“That’s not an option right now.”

Raven stared at her, pressing her lips tightly to stop the trembling. “Why? Why am I being held here?”

Zantanna wished that Diana were here instead. Zantanna didn’t know how to comfort children afraid of the robbers outside their windows, murderers haunting the street, the reality of a dark world. She needed someone else to deal with all of this. “The League decided that you could use additional training.”

“Did I hurt someone?” Hideous fear crossed Raven’s face. “Did…did I kill them?”

“No,” another voice said and it nearly made Zantanna jump out of her skin. Turning, she saw Robin entering the room and crossing over to Raven without a glance towards Zantanna. “Everyone just was afraid that when you found out the news of their deaths that you would react badly, understandably, but badly and they didn’t want to put anyone in danger.”

Raven stared at him, pleading hope in her eyes, begging him to make it true.

There’s no monster in the closet?

“I didn’t hurt anyone?”

Robin gave a soft laugh. “Look at you. How could you have hurt anyone in your condition?”

Raven blushed. “Why are they still keeping me here?”

“Training sounds like a good idea. You wanted a trainer in the past,” Robin said easily.

It was amazing how smoothly he lied.

Just before it was time for Robin to leave and Raven to be locked in again for another night, she looked at him, hesitating, and then leaned forward and kissed him, her lips forgetting their previous experience, as their warmth merged with his. Robin grasped her face in his hands and her lips fit to his and it was such breathless ecstasy that he wanted to have her right then, because she was kissing him.

Zantanna spoke to Bruce that night. “Bruce, what are you planning on doing with Robin and Raven?”

Bruce held the telecom in hand, his suit was already on and he clearly didn’t want to waste more time on this topic.

“Robin’s made the plans. He’s heading back to Jump City, with some other Titans. Raven’s going to go with them when she’s well enough.”

“Are you…sure that’s wise?” Zantanna asked slowly.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with it,” Bruce said tersely. “So long as you can assure everyone that Raven will be able to control her emotions.”

“I just…” Zantanna sighed. “I wish you’d let me read Robin’s mind.”

Even through the mask, Bruce’s eyes burned. “You yourself have told me that Raven needs Robin. That she’s dependent on him. Always has been dependent on him.”

Zantanna raised her hand to massage her temples, eyes shut. “She is.”

It was one of the problems. It would be better if she wasn’t.

He almost recognized it as a chance to start again. He could make her love him, she had told him as much before. They could go out, make love, get married, and have beautiful children together. She would adore him, want him, tease him, love him. It was all that he wanted.

But he didn’t recognize it because that place was gone. All he recognized the sin and the hatred rotting him away so that even his love was tainted black. He didn’t want to love her anymore, he wanted to hate her. He wanted to destroy her, ruin her.

He loved her. He’d save her. This was the only way. He always knew what was best for her, she’d always listened before, she’d listen now.

He wanted to hurt everything, he hated this black abyss that was everything, this dark world that couldn’t keep itself out of trouble, the bad guys that were willing to kill children. He was its child, its offspring.

God, he hated himself.

No.

No, he didn’t.

He didn’t.

But he wanted to be that child again. That innocent boy that actually thought the world was worth saving. He blankly echoed Raven’s thoughts

We can go back. Just like it was before.

He’d told her it was better now.

...

Since I lost ALL of the documents from my old computer (including the original actually, all that exists is what is on the internet), the story is going to progress in a slightly different route (it's been years, and I've forgotten...). For those of you that want Rae to get raped and whatnot, it'll be in probably the next chapter or so.

I know there are problems. I promise the next chapter will be better. (With a quicker update).

Probably worth mentioning: We shan't repeat the past in its entirety.

Rant: [moved to profile page where it may be more appropriate]

-Liz.

Review please.