Disclaimer: Not mine. Boo.

A/N: One of those fics where all I had was a first line and it kind of spiralled from there. It's been ages since I wrote Terra/Beast Boy (or anything for Teen Titans that isn't Speedy/Bumblebee). I hope I'm not too out of practise.

All Out of Love

© Scribbler, December 2007

I wish I could carry your smile in my heart

For times when my life feels so low.

It would make me believe what tomorrow could bring

When today doesn't really know.

-- From All Out of Love by Air Supply

It takes years for Beast Boy to fall out of love with Terra.

It takes even longer for him to admit that she was probably never in love with him the same way he was in love with her. For him, she was laughter and light, someone who got his jokes and accepted every part of him, no matter how goofy or childish or peculiar. For her, he represented escape. He was her salvation in ways he couldn't live up to even if he'd known about them.

He goes to her high school and college graduations, sneaking in back to watch her smile and hold her diplomas. He commits to memory the sweep of her hair under the cap, the way her eyes shine as she waves to her friends. She has parents now, who shine just as bright and proud. She doesn't have a boyfriend, though. Nobody runs and kisses her when she descends the steps.

Beast Boy's heart is past breaking when he hears about her engagement, but it does twitch a little, like a fish gasping for air at the feet of a small child with a fishing pole. He tells himself he won't go to the wedding and goes anyway, still sneaking into the back row and sneaking away again before she can spot him. Her hair still sweeps the way it did when they rode the rollercoaster together, and her eyes still shine bright like precious stones uncovered by a rockslide of tumbling emotions.

When he's older he watches a little girl with hair the colour of honey on her first day of kindergarten, sees her clutching her mom's hand and wants to tell her life isn't so scary when you have someone like that to come home to. He drops by every so often, to make sure everything's going okay – not too much because it makes him feel like a stalker. Even so, the day the kindergarten is caught in the crossfire he damn near kills himself to protect it.

When he's lying on the floor, Raven healing the giant gash in his side and his vision swimming in and out, he catches sight of the little girl wailing for her mom, who has her hands over her mouth as she watches the Titans swarm around him. He catches Terra's eye and sees recognition there, but not the kind he wants. She remembers him chasing her around school, throwing mud in her face and pleading with her to be someone else. He raises his hand in a weak wave before passing out.

Terra comes to the Tower a week later, except that she's Tara now and wears a two-piece suit with matching shoes. Her hands tangle together as she stutters her thanks and refuses to meet his eye. Beast Boy knows the other Titans are lurking nearby. He takes her out for lunch to get some privacy and accepts her gratitude. Alone after years apart, he watches her push hair from her face and notices wrinkles she didn't have when she was fifteen. She's lived a life in between moments and he has too.

Eventually they part, awkwardly, because they're like strangers with nothing to say that doesn't sound weird and artificial. Where once their personalities slotted together like Lego bricks, now their edges don't match and trying to force it makes them uncomfortable.

Beast Boy watches her totter down the street towards the district she lives in, watches the sweep of her hair and realises he never really fell out of love with her at all, he just fell into a different kind of love, as one might fall in love with a nice dream or make-believe character in a movie. This Terra, the wife and mother with a mortgage and bills to pay, is not the Terra who betrayed him to Slade. She isn't the Terra who shared the greatest pie in the history of pie. She doesn't see him as her salvation.

He still watches out for the little girl with honey-hair, but when he looks at her he doesn't see his Terra anymore, he sees Tara, her mom, and the life she has stretching before her.

And a little bit of him is glad for that.

Fin.