*Hello, and welcome to the end of this fanfic! I want to thank you all for staying with it till the end, no matter how long it took to complete, and for reading so far! I'm extremely grateful for all your good words and favs/follows and I hope to see you again.

Now, as I mentioned before, there is going to be a timeskip, where…stuff has taken place. I don't want to get involved with the stuff now, I just want to write this final chapter with the last of CyRae's ordeal and endgame. I miiiiiiight come again with a short fic on the events of the timeskip, but I will think about it very carefully, as I need to have the proper inspiration and make a fic that I know I'm going to finish and not abandon half-way because I have no clue what else to write. Please, do me a favor, and by the end of this, leave me a small comment on whether you'd want to read such a fic, honestly. I need to know. Thanks in advance!*

CHAPTER TWELVE

Just a bit more than four years later…

Raven yawned, floating over the seemingly-endless corridors. She thought being officially in the Justice League would involve more action but…this just had to come. All of her comrades were out there, fighting crime and she was, as always for those last five months, on monitoring duty at the satellite. Yes, she was fighting crime in a way too, just not… really fighting.

She reached the main coordinating room and took a seat at the large armchair in front of the monitors. She toyed with some of her black magic; black like the sky out of the large windows of the Tower. She sighed and turned her look at the stars, trying to identify constellations, much like she had done every night. She didn't know why she kept doing it, it wasn't like they were going to change any time soon.

Near 'Perseus', she found 'Andromeda'. Andromeda, she remembered, was a princess, that her father decided to sacrifice to Poseidon's 'Kitos' to stop it from rampaging their homeland. Perseus, to her luck, happened to pass by, killed the beast and saved her. Then he married her and they had not one, not two, but six children. Was it really to her luck that Perseus saved her, though? Giving birth and raising six children might have been a worse fate than being eaten by the ''Kitos' and ending the story there, to Raven's opinion.

She just couldn't understand it. She didn't judge people who wanted to have big, big families. It just… wasn't for her. The concept of having to be dedicated to one or a bunch of pretty mindless creatures, incapable of doing anything to help themselves just wasn't appealing. Or maybe it just wasn't appealing now, she thought. Someday she might even desire such a thing; hormones and things like that are weird, and completely incomprehensible, even more than people with dreams of big families.

She sighed loudly. Whether she liked it or not now, however, she was going to have a mindless creature incapable of everything in her arms in just four months or so. Mindlessly, she placed her hand on her tummy. It wasn't big. You could barely tell there was something going on. She knew she was going to gradually grow bigger in some weeks.

She still cringed at the day she found out, and the panic that followed. Who knew that Cyborg would have actually been the calm one when it came to it? And the calm thing to do, she figured, was face things as they were; keep the baby, as they were in a very sturdy relationship and 'it would only be a blessing, Rae!' as Cyborg said. Blessing was the last thing that Raven would describe it, but she loved Cyborg very much, and she was prepared to love the thing that came out of their…'union'.

Her gaze shifted to her golden ring, and the sloppy, silver one that Cyborg had bought symbolically. She rolled her eyes at the memories of her 'wedding'. It was a long story from over a year ago, and one she'd rather not delve into now. She was growing too sleepy for such a mental trip.

She drifted into such an easy sleep, it came so naturally. She usually had no dreams, and so her naps were always quiet and energizing. This nap, though, was different, as she was about to have a dream, and a seriously upsetting one.

The setting was an eerie meadow, with old, leafless trees. It was dark, and a faint purple light made it look even creepier. In the middle of it was a little girl lying on her side, with her limbs tucked. She had messy, long black hair and dark skin with a peculiar outlandish glow that she recognized from her own mirror reflection. Her dream-self tried to approach her, but she just stayed where she was before, unable to move. The girl stood up and looked straight at her; she was beautiful. Raven saw her smile widely and recognized the smile instantly.

"Good evening, precious!" The girl said approaching, and Raven wondered why such a small child spoke like that. The witch couldn't reply, so she just heard the girl talk.

"I am sorry to meet you now." She went on with her peculiarly coarse voice. "I just want you to know that I love you and I know that you love me too." Who is she, Raven wondered.

"I have a heart and I can hear you! I am happy. Do not blame yourself, please!" She put her hands together and looked at her longingly. Her eyes were big, round and brown, though Raven was sure she could see some purple lines in there. "Do not be sad about me, please! Live on, my treasure! Be happy too!"

The girl took a step back, turned around and sat back down in the middle. "They told me it doesn't hurt that much… Going away…" She whispered and placed her head between her knees. A wild wind blew around, shaking the trees and making the child shiver. Raven wanted to run and shield her, but she woke up, panting and sweating heavily.

She jumped up, looking furiously around. "What!?" She asked herself, trying to piece her thoughts together. "What in the ever-growing hell was that?!" She ran her fingers through her hair and tried to calm down. One look at the monitors assured her that everything was okay around the Tower and she took three deep and slow breaths in an attempt to ease her heartbeats.

A warp-like sound made her spin on her heels and turn around. A portal had been opened right inside the Tower, bypassing their security. Some weird, large creatures popped out, dressed with what appeared to be armor. Some of them had four arms, other two, other five and Raven didn't know what to do first.

She shoved the armchair away, making way to the red button. She banged it, and loud sirens echoed around the satellite. As expected, the intruders targeted her, but she managed to dodge their hits with a shield. She needed time to assess how to fight something with five different arm movements. With the shake of her hand, all of those standing in front of her were pushed away and thrown to the ground. She thought it would be safer if she left the room for now, and headed somewhere with more heroes ready to fend the creatures away. She started flying, but one of them grabbed her from her ankle. She fired a magic ray at it, but it was reflected off its armor. The creature dragged her down and gave her a strong push on her chest. Raven was sent flying to the wall. She tried to get up, but her thorax was hurting too much. She gathered her courage and dragged herself up, ready to counterattack, when one of them ran to her more quickly than she could launch a sphere. It held both of her hands up with two of its hands, and stabbed her in her torso with a dagger, like wanting to spill her intestines out. Raven shrieked in agony, feeling her demon side trying to take over. The creature was sent away, though, by a gush of wind coming from one of the Leaguers that had arrived. She fell to the ground, and hugged herself, feeling that she was slipping between consciousness and unconsciousness. Her eyesight became hazy and as her head hit the ground, she saw her hands soaked in blood, and the floor getting redder and redder.

OOO-OOO-OOO-OOO

Raven stared at the opposite wall of the hospital ward's room, not even blinking. With her finger, she could trace each and every stitch on her belly. She had, by now, counted them all five times and knew exactly where each one was. She had numerous cables hanging around her head, administering several fluids into her system. From what she knew, when they found her on the ground, they took her to the operating room straight away and readied a blood transfusion, as she had lost way too much blood. The cut had pierced some of her bowel, but the damage to her organs wasn't too extended, because the intruder didn't have time to run the dagger deeper, as it was pushed away.

It was deep enough to destroy her, though, she thought. J'onn had informed her that she was going to be bleeding down below for some days, as her body needed to discard the remainder of the embryonic tissues. They had removed much of the massacred fetus during the surgery, but she needed to heal and 'clear up'.

That was what had become of her child. Tissues in need of disposal from her body.

She guessed her tears had run dry, as she wasn't crying anymore. She was just feeling void and numb, like a being that doesn't belong anywhere, and has no meaning whatsoever.

The room's door slid and Cyborg emerged. He ran to her immediately, cradling her in his arms, careful not to squeeze her bruised body or dismantle any of the tubes. He ran his nose and mouth over her head, kissing the crown of it and inhaling her scent once again.

"I'm so glad…" He murmured.

"What for?" Raven asked, hearing her voice crack.

"That you're okay, of course. That you survived."

"Cy-"

"Hush." Cyborg said, planting a kiss on her forehead and holding her hand. "You're all that matters."

"She's dead!" Raven cried out loud, realizing that she was flooding in tears once more. "Didn't she matter?!"

"Hush…" He repeated again, wiping away some of her tears and touching her forehead with his. Raven saw that his eye was red too, a river running down his cheek too and he was biting his lip not to sob. Of course she mattered. That baby mattered too much.

She lowered her head and cupped her face in her hands, trying to silence the sounds of her crying. Cyborg cradled her once again and spoke lowly.

"I shouldn't have left you here. I shouldn't have gone on that mission on that goddamn planet. I'm so sorry, Rae… I'm so sorry."

In between sobs, Raven tried to reply. "It was all my fault."

"No-"

"I didn't protect myself enough, I didn't protect her!"

"There was nothin' more you could have done, baby. You didn't even know what those things were!"

"Does it even matter…"

"You bet it does! They killed her. Not somethin' you did, not anythin'." Raven muttered something that Cyborg couldn't get through all the crying. "Don't worry, baby. They all got burned to ashes. Each and every one of those freaks."

Cyborg thought this would have made Raven feel just a little bit better, but she burst into a whole new wave of ugly crying. He was feeling horrible himself, too, but he never thought it would cost Raven this much.

He wanted that baby. They definitely hadn't planned it, but he was a person that believed that everything happened for a reason. They were still very young, but if the universe or God or whatever wanted that baby to happen, then so did he. He had just started imagining how he was going to build the nursery room and researching baby formulas and how to make them. He had a feeling that Raven wouldn't be a… 'natural' at baby care, but that's why there are two parents. He would take care of that little devil like no dad had ever done. They had even started throwing name suggestions around. 'Rowan' or 'Hera' didn't sound too bad. They were all in vain, in the end, though.

He remembered clearly how Raven had panicked when they had found out. He had never seen her so uncoordinated and pale before. For one moment, she even considered abortion. For Cyborg, that would be completely out of question. However, he knew that it wasn't entirely his decision to be made and let Raven think about it after they first discussed it. She took her time pondering over the matter, but made her decision eventually. They were keeping it and doing their best to raise it to be a decent human being. Or quarter-demon being anyhow. Raven wasn't overly enthusiastic of the prospect of her becoming a mother, but she would try her best. Cyborg knew that the baby would grow on her in the end.

"Maybe," he said, "the universe is givin' us a second chance."

Raven raised her head a bit and looked at him questioningly with her bloodshot eyes. "What?"

He shrugged a bit. "Maybe it's tellin' us that we should better try a bit later again. It wasn't like you were, I don't know, ecstatic about the whole thing now, right?" He smiled awkwardly.

Her eyes widened a shock and Cyborg tensed up. What had he said that was so bad? "How dare you!" Raven shouted loudly enough for Cyborg to step off the bed. "I just lost a child and you're saying I wasn't 'ecstatic' enough about it?"

"Raven, no, I-"

"You think I didn't want her? Are you trying to make me feel relieved now? Burden-free?!"

"No!" Cyborg shouted back, amazed at Raven's sudden accusations. "What's gotten into you?"

"A dagger, for starters! And took the baby's life and you're here implying I should almost be grateful about it!"

Cyborg's eyebrows shot up. "When did I-"

"Just stop, okay?" She folded her arms and turned her head on the side. "Leave, please."

Cyborg drew two angry, ragged breaths and bit his tongue to refrain from speaking. He didn't want to upset her anymore, no matter how much she had wronged him now, or make her unstable. She was, after all, just recovering from the surgery. He took two heavy steps towards the door. Just before leaving, he said "You didn't lose a child. We did."

OOO-OOO-OOO-OOO

A couple of days went by without them speaking much. Raven had many visitors come and check on her and she knew that Cyborg stayed in her room during the night, just in case any of the machines beeped or something happened. Yet they went on mourning silently on their own.

But it didn't feel right for Raven. She had been feeling guilty about her demeanor. She could understand why she had spoken like that, but that wouldn't really justify it. She needed Cyborg to be with her wholly, not with grudges and hard feelings.

She focused her mind, trying to find him through her psychic abilites. She hadn't evolved telepathy, but she found that if she concentrated hard enough, she was able to 'touch' the mind of someone she was connected to. She couldn't 'speak', but, from what Cyborg had told her, it felt more like a 'mental pat in the back'. Predictably enough, in a few moments, he had arrived.

"You…called?"

She nodded and patted the spot next to her by the bed. "Come."

He scanned her with his eyes, cautiously taking the seat she indicated. She didn't seem angry anymore so he was curious about what she had to say.

"I...need to apologize." She said and Cyborg sighed.

"You don't have to, Rae. I…get why you said all those things."

"No, it was unfair to you and I am sorry. I guess I needed to burst on someone…"

"Nah… I shouldn't have pressed all the wrong buttons. I just didn't mean to insult you like you took it."

"I know. I mean, you were right, I wasn't ecstatic about the pregnancy, but I did…love that thing, you know."

"I do. And I know that this is much harder for you. You're experiencin' it mentally and physically way worse than me, I suppose."

"That's a bit subjective."

"No, it's not. You had to have a surgery, for cryin' out loud. You're still in need of medical care and if you're feelin' just as miserable as I do, or even more, about losin' her, then I don't know how you manage to cope. I seriously don't."

"I don't too."

"I should have been here, Rae." His voice was colored with regret and a sadness Raven wished she'd never see in his face ever again.

"How could you have known? Staying in the satellite was the safest option."

"Not really, it seems."

Raven turned her eyes on her lap. "We didn't deserve this…"

"No, we didn't..."

She felt her eyes become watery again. "I don't know how to do it, Vic… Grief. I've never lost someone like this."

"Neither do I, but we'll pull through. We'll go to therapy, we'll speak to specialists, we'll fight through this. Together. Okay?"

Raven nodded. "I just can't seem to sake this feeling off…"

"What feeling, baby?"

"That I am responsible. That I'm guilty of-"

Cyborg wiped a small tear off the corner of her eye, before it had a chance to roll down. "No. Stop. Don't do this to yourself."

"That's how it is, though."

"No. You didn't do this. It was not your fault, not any more than it was mine."

"It wasn't yours."

"See? It wasn't out fault, Raven. But we have every right to mourn."

Raven nodded. "It will take time."

"We got all the time in the world. We'll take it slow. Come here."

Cyborg opened his arms and Raven tilted her body to the front, hugging him. Her movements were still restricted from the stitches and all the tubes.

"You know..." she said, "I saw her."

"What d'you mean?" He asked, caressing her shoulders.

"Shortly before it…happened, I was sleeping and I had a dream. Though it wasn't really a dream. She came to me."

"What?"

"She was such a pretty girl. She didn't say her name; I guess she didn't have one, we hadn't decided yet. But she looked just like you. Same smile, same intense eyes, same hair."

"Um, Rae, are you sure this isn't just a creepy nightmare you had or somethin'?"

"No. It couldn't have been. She said 'she was sorry to meet me now'. She said she loved me and she knew I loved her too. She kept calling me 'precious' and 'treasure'. What's more precious to a fetus than its mother?"

"Go on…"

"She said she had a heart and she could hear me. How peculiar it all sounded back then…"

"Raven, this-"

"No, wait, there's more. Victor. She knew."

"She knew what?"

"That she was g-going to...to die."

Cyborg pulled a bit back and looked at her. She was serious. "How do you know?"

"She told me not to blame myself and that she was told –by whom I have no clue- that 'going away' doesn't hurt that much…"

Cyborg's eyebrow shot up. "That's…scary."

"She wanted to say goodbye. Poor thing."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"No, I think it was rather good. She told me she was happy. What's better than that? I got to see her. See how she could have been…"

"Now, you need to respect her wish, right?"

"Concerning what?"

"Not blamin' yourself."

"Oh, that…"

"Yeah, that."

"I'll do my best."

Cyborg nodded and smiled timidly. "She sure sounded lovely, though."

"She was. I bet she was quite powerful too."

"Um, what?"

"She had demon blood, which means power. How else could she project an image of herself into my mind and speak to me?"

"Since you say so…Oh, by the way…"

"What is it?"

"I almost forgot." Cyborg pressed a button of his suit and a small crypt on his arm opened up. "It ain't really the right time, but I just want you to have this." He opened up his palm to reveal the object he had taken out.

It was a delicate ring, crafted out of materials Raven couldn't recognize. Its main frame was from a shiny black metal. It had a dark purple gemstone on top-or maybe not… Raven took it in her arms and examined it carefully. The gemstone was hardly a gemstone. It was a small sphere, containing something like…Milky Way?

"The planet I was sent to was nothin' special, but they had this really weird technology. They could create tiny artificial galaxies with the press of a button! Life-free, of course, but pretty. And they're real galaxies! If you look closely, you'll see it moving and every now and then it'll have tiny explosions and stuff!"

"It's…beautiful." Raven said. Cyborg took it from her hand.

"You see, I've been savin' up to buy you a decent ring. You can't have that crappy silver one as our engagement ring."

"It's alright, Vic. I didn't have a problem with it."

"Well, I did. I wanted somethin' to match you and your beauty."

"You shouldn't have…"

"I won't hear it. Now, if you don't mind…"

He took her right hand in his left palm. "Other than a ring, we need a proper wedding too."

"No, we don't."

"Yeah we do! Shush! So, Raven Roth, do you want to marry me again?"

Raven half-smiled. "How can I refuse?"

Cyborg smiled back and, after removing the old, silver ring, placed the new one on Raven's finger.

"Let this be" he said, "the first step into makin' everythin' right again."

Epilogue…

Several years later…

Raven kept biting her nails. She could feel the sweat gathering at the back of her neck.

"Will you stop that? It's bad." Cyborg scolded her from the other side of the bed.

"I do it unconsciously. I'm nervous, you know."

"Don't be. It won't be that awful. Relax!"

"Victor!" She exclaimed. "Four? This is a nightmare."

"The more the merrier, baby!"

"You'll get to do eighty percent of the work, I'm warning you!"

"And what have I been doin' over the last eight years?"

"…Idiot."

Cyborg snorted. "Calm down already. We'll get another Azar nanny. Big deal."

"Azars aren't nannies you numnut! They're keepers of peace and magic!"

"Oh, yeah? And why have two of them been watchin' over our brats?"

"Because they need to be sure the demonic powers don't get out of hand."

"We've been handlin' them alright, I think."

"Yes, we have, but still."

"Oh, come on! They just love being with the kids. Don't deny it! You see it yourself."

"You're… kind of right, but that's not the point!"

"Then what is the point?"

"Condoms. From the moment these two are out and till the end of our time."

"We're goin' to be active that long?" Raven rolled his eyes at him and he laughed. "Alright, missy. We stop at four."

Raven sighed and turned her eyes to the window. It was dark outside, way past midnight. Her daughter and her son were both fast asleep and she was mentally preparing herself for another nine months of monitor duty. She wondered who had 'cursed' her with twins this time. She hadn't asked for them. She hadn't asked for anything! Just a carefree vacation with her husband and… Boom! One more, with another one bonus! Luckily, she had all the help she needed. Cyborg did most of the chores and Azars turned out to be wonderful keepers. They had to give some credit to themselves, too, though. Their children were growing up very nicely. They would help with the newcomers as well.

She observed the stars. It might have been just her, but the constellation of Andromeda seemed to be shining a little too much that night.

*So, this was it, lovely readers! Life isn't always rosy, but with a little help, everything can be fine!

I really hope you enjoyed this fic. Please leave me a review on how you found it, I'd love to hear from any of you! I also hope to be seeing you in another CyRae fic, but that remains to be seen. Thanks for following this fic till the end! Take care!*