Third Time Around

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My Muse has become addicted to coffee. Or something. I'm trying like heck to get the next chapter of "Gone Wylde" finished (currently standing at 8500 words, and about half-done) but she INSISTED that I write this first. I try to tell her that plot bunnies don't NEED Viagra, but does she listen? Noooo.

Anyway, this is my first foray into RaeRed territory, and I would appreciate some feedback.

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* * Dusk * *

The sharp ring of an axe hitting hardwood echoed out across a small cleared space. Sinking into the surrounding forest, the sound bounded through the bare branches of oak and ash, caressing the spruce's fine needles, finally to founder in the deep snow where it lost the will to live. The report repeated itself in a more or less regular fashion, as it had been all afternoon, pausing every minute or two so that the results of all that activity could be piled neatly on one of the series of ricks that stood beside the cabin.

That small structure nestled comfortably up against a steep rise of rock that made up one wall of the long hollow in which the builder had decided to take up residence. North and south stretched this gap in the land for over three kilometers, yet it spanned no more than two hundred meters wide at any point. The sun would make its first appearance in late morning, certainly after 10:30, and would touch the opposite mountain peak between one and two in the afternoon. Consequently, the small but lively stream that rushed down its center held ice along its banks throughout the winter season. The brook would eventually leave this micro-valley, meandering southward until it met up with the Missouri River.

Swinging the axe with such methodical purpose was a fine figure of a man, stripped to the waist despite the gathering cold. Tall, broad of shoulder and thick of thew, he would have been described in times past as 'well set-up'; nowadays, depending upon whom you asked, the term might be 'ripped' or 'buff' or 'sculpted' … or just plain 'hot'.

Each of those terms tumbled through Raven's mind as she covertly watched him, ensconced in a cleft of the rock above the cabin. She avidly followed his every motion, noting the light bronzing of his skin, the rippling muscles of his back and sides and chest bunching and turning with each blow of the axe or when he bent to pick up a piece of firewood, the way his now-long auburn hair flirted with his shoulders. And though she couldn't see them from her lofty vantage point, she could well enough remember how those dark gray eyes would snap with quick intelligence whenever something would catch his interest.

Even now, she couldn't quite make herself believe she had thrown it all away.

At length he tucked the big axe up under a lean-to against the cabin wall that also served to offer some protection to what she guessed was a propane tank, grabbed his shirt and sweater from where he'd tossed them over a crude sawhorse, and went inside. Clearly, Raven could hear the click of the latch through the still, cold air, deducing from that sound that he wouldn't be venturing out anymore this evening. A good plan, she thought, as the temperature is supposed to drop well into the negatives later. She stood and brushed off her parka, then slipped between the shadows, to emerge from a pool of inky darkness down in the yard.

This was the first point at which her plan might evaporate, and the one she most dreaded. Taking the few hesitant steps to his door, she reached out a hand …

Really, there was no reason that the door should be that intimidating. It was just a door.

… reached out a hand, aimed her knuckles at the rough wood …

A quick flash of their last meeting ricocheted through her mind, bringing with it a shudder.

… aimed … her knuckles … at the …

Come on, Raven, you can do this. You've certainly thought about it often enough.

Drawing a long breath of the icy air, she squared her shoulders and knocked firmly, four quick raps, then pulled the parka's hood away to lie in a furry pile against her shoulders.

She knew where he was in the cabin. Even if it had been a hundred times as large, she would have had no trouble picking out his psychic signature. This close, his aura nearly glowed in her mind.

The knocking startled him, more than she had thought it might, and he moved quickly across the room, pausing at one wall before making his way to the door. A light snap signaled the latch opening, and the door swung away, exposing several centimeters of yellowy light and his face.

She had to look up at him, fighting the urge to take a step backward. Her lungs seemed unwilling to do their job. His eyes … his glorious, stormy, beautiful, violent, perfect eyes regarded her in suppressed shock for a moment.

"… Raven?"

"Hello."

"… How did you find me?"

"By looking really hard for a very long time."

"What … what are you doing here?"

"I wanted to talk."

Finally overcoming his surprise, he blinked a few times, silent, thoughtful. "I … don't know what else there could be for us to talk about."

"Please?"

His eyes widened fractionally. " Please?" She never said that word.

"Yes. Please."

Several eternities crawled by while they stood in silent contemplation of each other. She truly did not know what she was going to do if he wasn't willing to talk, but considering the location, death by hypothermia was one option. Because she definitely wasn't leaving.

"Why?"

Thank the goddess! "Because many things have changed."

"… I doubt that things could have changed enough."

Neither her shoulders nor her voice shook when she said, "You might be surprised." She didn't know where her chutzpah was coming from but she wasn't about to question it. "But you'll never know if you don't let me in."

"Let you in?" His mouth twisted in a wry smirk. "Since when has the great Raven needed an invitation to go anywhere? Or a door, for that matter?"

Her sudden … deflation at his words surprised him. "I … um …"

"… Yes?"

"I would really, really like to talk with you. That's all I'm asking for." But not all I'm hoping for! "It won't … that is, it shouldn't take long."

Again they stood, each quietly sizing up the other, for several dozen rapid flutters of her racing heart. He cleared his throat. "How long have you been looking for me?"

"… I told you … a long …"

"Quantify it for me."

Her eyes faltered, searching the frozen ground for answers. Though he was no empath, she suspected he would be able to tell if she was less than truthful. And really, there was nothing to gain by calumny. "… Eleven months."

His breath caught. "You've searched for me for eleven months?"

"… That's what I just said, isn't it?" Where is all this sudden courage coming from?

"But it was only fifteen months ago that you …"

"I know." She searched his face. "That's why I … why we need to talk."

He hadn't yet moved from his guarded position, nor had he opened the door any farther, but she could tell when he made his decision. His lips thinning, he stepped back. "I guess I can spare a quarter of an hour for the woman who was responsible for my death."

She had the grace to blush slightly at that comment. "Thank you." Moving inside, she doffed her parka and hung it on a convenient peg behind the door. A quick look around told her a lot: there was a low portal leading back to what she assumed to be his sleeping quarters, but it was in this room where he did most of his living. A compact propane-powered kitchen occupied the right wall, with an over-and-under clothes-washer/dryer tucked into the far corner. The various lights in use were all diffuse LED-style lamps, pulling hardly any electricity. The windows were small, but she could tell they were very much up to date. Tapping one, she asked, "Triple pane?"

He shrugged. "It's that or freeze. I don't like freezing."

At that point she noticed the semi-auto Glock in his hand. He noticed her noticing, shrugged again, and placed it back in the drawer he'd retrieved it from. "You never know."

She nodded, then indicated a lamp. "And the electric lights?"

"There's a small barrel-generator in the brook. It doesn't make much power, but then I don't need much."

Running a hand over the nearest wall, she said, "Nice paneling."

"It's laminate over ten centimeters of polyurethane foam. Heat stays in, cold stays out."

"Very cozy."

Pulling a chair away from the table, he swung it around and straddled it. "Raven, you didn't come here to make architectural observations. Kindly say what you want to say and let me get back to being dead."

A sigh made its way past her lips. "Very well. I'd …" She realized she was standing at parade rest and chided herself. "May I sit down?"

"By all means." He made no move to offer her a chair.

She walked over to the table, scooted the other chair out, and perched on its front edge. "You have two chairs. Expecting visitors?"

"I couldn't find a set that only had one chair."

"Convenient."

"Would you please just …"

"Sorry." She cleared her throat. "I'd like to apologize, and to offer an explanation."

"For killing me or for breaking my heart or for ruining what I had laughingly been referring to as my so-called life?"

How the hell do I even answer that? "… They are all connected … are they not?"

He heaved a long breath. "Yeah. I guess."

"Then it's a blanket apology. I was thoughtless and brusque and unnecessarily … um …"

"Evil?"

"… Perhaps that's a bit strong."

"Cruel, then?"

"… Ah … well, I suppose that's not far off the mark."

"Yes, we may suppose that, since it's true. You treated me like I was something unpleasant you'd stepped in. No, not even that well. You acted like I … like I didn't even matter. At all."

Color crept up her face. She couldn't meet his eyes.

"So, what kind of apology are you offering, Raven?"

"… What do you mean?"

"Well, let's just say that waltzing in with a 'My bad, but that's just how I roll' ain't gonna cut it. Even demons ought to have better manners than that."

"… I know."

He crossed his arms and leaned on the back of the chair. "Why did you come here, Raven? Why did you spend eleven months hunting for me? How did you find the spare time in your busy schedule as a Titan?"

"I'm not a Titan anymore."

That made him sit up. "Seriously?"

She nodded.

"Did something happen?"

"Probably not in the sense you mean."

"… What, you just … you just quit?"

Another nod.

"Why?"

"Nightwing wouldn't allow me enough time to do my research. He believed you dead. I knew otherwise. I couldn't balance my patrol time with my quest for …"

"Whoa! Hang on. How did you know I wasn't dead?"

"Because you're better than that. All the forensic evidence to the contrary, I simply could not bring myself to believe that a group of only three assassins could have taken you down that easily."

"Easily! The apartment was totally trashed!"

"Which should have clued us in that you staged it. You wouldn't have fought them in your rooms. You would have teleported away to a place where you had the advantage of space."

His hand made its way to his chin. "Hmm. And all the blood?"

"That's what convinced Nightwing. He said there was too much there, that you would have bled out."

"Exactly. So how did you …"

"It was the aura."

"… Beg pardon?"

"Blood carries the aura of the victim with it for a time, especially if the blood loss was the result of violence."

"… No shit."

"Your blood – and we knew it was your blood from an examination of the DNA – was almost totally devoid of your aura. Yet the time of the supposed attack was only three hours earlier than when we got there. That meant, to me, that it had been out of your body for quite some time."

He leaned back, studying her face carefully, and finally said, very softly, "Well, damn."

"I didn't tell Nightwing, though."

That surprised him again. "Okay. I appreciate that."

"I assumed you had your reasons for wanting to disappear … and I, ah, also assumed that, ah … that, um …"

"That you were the main reason?"

"… Well … one of them anyway."

"All of them, Raven," he corrected softly. "All of them."

The pattern of the wood grain in his table was suddenly very interesting. "I don't see how that can …"

"Oh, please." He stood and came over to her. "You were in my head. I know you were. I felt you. You felt me. You knew what I was feeling, knew how much I … loved you."

She had some words, she just knew she did. But they couldn't fight their way past her throat.

"Even after that first time, after you left me and hooked up with Beast Bum, I couldn't stop loving you. Though God knows I tried."

Staring still at the table, she whispered, "It was the team. My … commitment to being a hero … my … efforts to deny my father's … influence. And you … you …"

"And I was just a scummy little thief. At least that's what you all thought. Even after I hunted down that evidence that cleared Star. Even after saving Nightwing's stupid life, for God's sake! You couldn't get past the rep, none of you." He showed her his back, running both hands through his hair. "And we've been over this ground before. If I can remember it, I know damn well you can."

"… I know. I remember." As if there was any chance of ever forgetting.

"Then you wanted another go. That thing with BB didn't work out, and he really was too immature for you, and he really did get on your nerves past all reason, and he really was pretty much a dud in bed, especially after what we had. Everything falling apart just the way I thought it would."

Her face flamed at that remark. Glad, she was, that he wasn't looking at her just then.

"I knew you Raven. Knew you better than anyone. I paid attention. You're not as much a closed book as you'd like to think."

"Um …"

"And I was rash and stupid and horny and stuffed just brim-full of attitude and testosterone, and even though my brain kept screaming at me to run-run-run, I gave in. I let you back into my life. Because what sane man would turn down such an offer from the most beautiful girl on the whole damn planet, right? Even if she had ripped his heart out with a dull fork."

"Jason, I'm …"

"Don't call me that."

"… What?"

"Just … just don't."

"But …"

"No." Whirling back around, he fixed her with his gaze. "Even if I weren't dead, my name is not yours to use anymore. You gave up that privilege when you dropped me for Jinx." He vented a bitter laugh. "You know, even considering all the other shit that was flying around at the time, knowing you were leaving me for her didn't hurt as bad as when you left me for Beast Boy."

"… Excuse me?"

Her quizzical expression prompted him to add, "It's different. If you leave a guy for another guy, then he's obviously come up short somewhere, and doesn't measure up to the other guy. But if you leave a guy for a girl, well, then, see … it's not like he could've done anything about it. You finally figured out that you're just not into guys, right?" His eyes drilled through her for a moment. "Except that wasn't exactly how it was with you, was it?"

This conversation wasn't panning out at all the way she'd hoped. He was being altogether too cogent, too … confrontational. Well, Raven, what did you really expect? He's no idiot.

Nor was she. "Not exactly, no. As it turns out, I have a rather … egalitarian view of sexuality."

"Egalitarian. That's rich."

"I'm being serious."

"So am I. Look, if you wanted to experiment with Jinx, I'd have no problem with that."

She just stared at him.

"What, you think I'm some kinda bigot? Think I don't know anything about 'the gay'? Is that it?"

"What are you talking about?"

"You ran me off, Raven. No chances, no recourse. You treated it like an either-or, some kind of zero-sum game, like if you were with me you couldn't be with her, too."

"… I … I didn't …"

"No, you didn't, did you? You just scraped me off your shoe like old gum and moved in with Lucky, even though Dimwing was pitching a fit. Oh, yeah, don't think I didn't know about that. Your eyes give you away, Raven. You should avoid poker."

"He didn't … didn't understand about …"

"… about much of anything. For a leader, and Batman's apprentice, he could be awfully dense. But he just looked at it like you were leaving one crook for another, and it drove him up the wall."

She hung her head. "Not my shining moment. I'll admit that."

"And that really was the last straw. I couldn't stay there in the same city, not with you being with Jinx. So I decided to die."

"… It was a very effective ploy."

"Yeah. Nobody looks for dead people, even if there isn't a corpus delicti."

Not knowing what else to say, she used a hand to take in the cabin. "This is a … a well-established setup. It must have taken a while to build."

He noted the abrupt conversational course change, but decided to ignore it. "Not so much. It's mostly prefab."

"Expensive, though."

"Didn't matter. I have lots of money."

"I always suspected you did."

"Hey, you had your secrets, I had mine. The fact that I was rich wasn't really an issue in our relationship, was it?"

"… No, I suppose not."

He walked over to the sink and poured himself a glass of water, taking a sip. "You got to the 'cruel' part."

That made her blink. "What?"

"In your apology. I sort of cut you off, but you said you were thoughtless and cruel, or something like that."

"Oh. Yes."

"Was there any more?"

"Um … rather a lot, actually." She repositioned herself and held his gaze, trying to keep her fingers from fidgeting. "Yes, I drove you away, and I'm sorry for that. I … did it on purpose. I know it sounds completely crazy, but I … I didn't want to …" She had to drop her eyes at this point. "… didn't want to hurt you."

"… THE HELL?"

Looking anywhere but at the man she loved, she continued, "I know it doesn't make sense now. It doesn't make sense to me either, but … I wasn't quite … together … at the time. And the dreams … the nightmares … were getting so intense."

"You told me those were just flashbacks. You said they meant nothing."

Biting her lip, fighting back tears, she drew a long breath. "I was afraid. I feared that Trigon's influence was coming to … dominate my thinking."

He gave a snort. "Well you got that part right."

"I'm sorry! I screwed up! I misinterpreted everything, and I made bad decisions and I … I hurt … you."

"Killed me, Raven. I'm dead, remember? It went somewhat past 'hurt'. Let's at least be precise."

She muffled the first sob to the best of her ability and took an iron grip on her emotions. Practice, after all, makes perfect, even in the storm currently tossing her around. "You can have no idea of the mountain of guilt that I dealt with, once I understood what I'd done."

"Understood? Just exactly what do you understand?"

"That I threw away the best thing that ever happened to me. That I treated you like dirt for no reason. That I was so wrong about … about everything. That it wasn't my emotions that were the enemy, it was my view of the world, of myself. I was just so … stupid."

He regarded her coldly for a few seconds. "Many things you may be, Raven, but 'stupid' is certainly not one of them. And in any case, stupidity is no excuse for the amount of damage you did to me."

His tone froze her more effectively than the sub-Artic wind ever could. She sought his eyes again, trembling at what she saw there. "I was … very good at lying to myself. I convinced myself that …"

"Save it."

She sniffed once, her hands knotting together in fists, but didn't say anything else.

"I think it's time for you to go now."

Still silent, she rose and walked slowly to the door.

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Chapter End Note: Something of a cliffhanger, I know, but I'm flat OUT of time right now, and I wanted to get this posted before we leave town. I'll get the next (and last) chapter up next weekend. Cheers!