DISCLAIMER: I do not own Teen Titans or its characters, TV show or otherwise. This story is for entertainment purposes only. This is my second fanfic, and also my second yuri fanfic. It will take place within the universe of the TV series, and be after the end of said series as well as the movie Trouble in Tokyo. It will be a Raven x Jinx pairing, along with the Robin x Starfire pairing established by the series and movie. If you don't like yuri, don't read any further. Same thing if you don't like the Raven x Jinx pairing. If you don't like Teen Titans, then I have no idea how you found this story in the first place. Rated M for later chapters.

Summary: We all know that it was thanks to Kid Flash that Jinx switched sides and fought with all of the various Titans. The premise is that the relationship hinted at between the two towards the end of the series was merely a misunderstanding by the other Titans. Much to Raven's relief. As stated above, this story will take place in the universe of the TV series; however, it will more specifically be taking place within the universe I established with my first fanfic, "Raven's Story". I plan to show the ups and downs of a relationship between Raven and Jinx, as they deal with the various issues that arise between the half-demon and the ex-criminal; issues that will alternate between strengthening their relationship and attempting to bring it down. There will be angst, romance, humor, and . . . . well, pretty much everything that is part and parcel to any relationship. Including betrayal.

Nothing Is Harder Than Love

Prologue - This Beginning Could Be The End

Raven could see the hatred and pain in her eyes. She couldn't tell which one was greater, the hatred or the pain; although, honestly, it wasn't really important. The gothic-seeming Teen Titan searched her adversary's eyes for any hint of forgiveness, or anything else for that matter, but found nothing. Even though she had expected that, Raven was still hurt. Although my pain is nothing compared to hers, she thought, feeling tears gather in her eyes. But . . . do I even deserve to be forgiven? What I did was unforgivable. Raven knew she could win, knew that her abilities gave her an edge over the other young woman, but she found that she didn't want to win. After all, what would be the point?

"Hello, Jinx," she said, barely managing to keep looking at the ex-Titan. Neither her nor Jinx noticed the fighting between their respective teammates.

"Raven," the pink-haired girl said, her voice full of such loathing and hatred that depressed Raven even further. The two just continued to stare at each other, both needing to say something but unable to find the words to express their feelings.

"Nothing I can say," the Titan said to her fomer teammate - and ex-girlfriend, "would ever make right what I've done to you. Nothing I can do would ever bridge the abyss now between us." Raven reached up and undid the clasp holding her cloak on. She now stood only wearing the dark, almost black 3/4-length shirt and similar-colored pants that had become her new 'uniform' over the past couple of years. Her shoes were the same kind they had always been, though one size larger now. She'd let her hair grow out a little, so it now ended just below her shoulders. A few minutes passed, but still nothing further was said. Raven sighed, then felt a single tear begin its lonely trek down her left cheek. "My whole life, I tried to fight the evil destiny I was prophesied to have," she said softly. "I failed, but I was able to fix that thanks to my friends. It was as though it had never happened." Looking Jinx in the eyes, still seeing the same emotions of hate and pain there, she added, "But I guess I did fulfill that prophecy in a way; when I hurt you, I became more evil than even my father ever dreamed of being."

"Do you want forgiveness?" Jinx snarled venomously, but her ex-girlfriend shook her head.

"Even a murderer can be given forgiveness," was the soft-spoken, forlorn reply. "But an eternity could pass and I would still not be worthy of such a gift."

"Then let's get started, and see if you're right!" the hex-powered girl yelled, and charged at Raven, who didn't move. The leader of the new H.I.V.E. Five expected the Titan to dodge or block her spin kick, and so was actually shocked when the heel of her foot connected with the side of Raven's head, sending the super hero twisting through the air to hit the ground and skid several feet. Coughing and shaking her head, Raven groaned in pain and wobbily stood up - to receive a haymaker on the opposite side of her face. Knocked to the ground again, she tried to stand up but only made it as far as her hands and knees before getting kicked by Jinx like a punter trying for a 70-yard field goal. Once again, she was acquainted with unpowered flight before getting introduced to a cinderblock wall, leaving it cracked. Hitting the ground again, Raven coughed, hard, and felt some blood come up this time. It trickled from one corner of her mouth, though she wiped that away as she slowly and painfully stood up. Looking back at Jinx, she noted that the other young woman seemed a little surprised - something different from the hatred and pain she'd displayed before.

"What are you doing?" Jinx snapped at her.

"Nothing," Raven replied.

"You're not fighting!" she yelled.

"That is true."

"Why not?"

"Because I do not want to."

That took Jinx aback; she hadn't been expecting an answer like that. She ranted, "But you can win! You can beat me like you always did before! Why aren't you doing it now?"

"I have hurt you too much already," Raven told her, another lonely tear falling down her face. "I do not want to hurt you anymore." Looking her former love in the eyes, she added, "Even if it means my death, I will not fight back against you." Spreading her arms out some, she told Jinx, "Hit me all you want to, use all of your power if you choose. No pain you can inflict on me would ever equal the pain I inflicted on you."

That admission stunned Jinx more than a little; her mouth gaped open in spite of her efforts to hide her reaction. She had come to this fight intending to physically hurt Raven as much as she could, to make her suffer in body as Jinx had suffered in spirit. She expected, hoped, that Raven would stop her - as the Teen Titans had done so often before in the past. But here was her dark-haired siren, her salvation and damnation, not just refusing to fight but having never intended to fight back in the first place.

"Why?" Jinx whispered softly, almost unaware that she had spoken.

"You will not believe me, Jinx," Raven told her, "but it is because I love you."

As she had expected, the admission set Jinx off again. Screaming "Liar!", she charged the Titan and sank a fist into her gut. The force of the punch drove all of the air from Raven's lungs, and caused her to cough up more blood. But it didn't stop there. Jinx continued punching her, hitting her face, ribs, stomach, chest; everywhere she could reach. The entire time she was screaming, calling Raven a liar. Even though Cyborg, Robin (now going by Nightwing), Starfire, and Beast Boy (now going by Changling) had taken out the other members of the new H.I.V.E. Five, not one of them moved to Raven's aid; she'd demanded that they not do so, no matter what. She'd made them promise, and though all four of them were dead set against it they had, in the end, made that promise.

After a few minutes, Jinx's punches came slower and with less force, until she was just hitting Raven's shoulder with one hand while holding onto her other shoulder with the other hand. She was crying now, the tears falling down her pale-skinned face like a river over a steep cliff. She was no longer screaming 'liar' at Raven; just saying it softly as though trying to convince herself of something she didn't really believe but felt she desperately needed to simply to avoid facing the truth. Jinx didn't know it, but right now she was the only thing keeping the now badly-injured Raven standing. Focusing on her opponent's face after long minutes of seeing nothing but the blinding rage of self-denial, she saw that one of Raven's eyes had swelled up completely, she was bleeding from several cuts on her face and head - and blood and was running from both corners of her mouth. Releasing her grip in shock at the sight, she felt a deep, wrenching pain as Raven collapsed to the ground like a puppet without strings. She looked down at her hands, at the bruised and split knuckles covered with blood - almost all of it Raven's.

"No," she whispered in denial. "No." She looked at Raven's barely conscious form laying there on the cold, unfeeling ground and fell to her knees without realizing it. "It can't be true," she whispered. "It can't be true."

Coughing, Raven managed to open her semi-swollen left eye and tried to focus on Jinx. "Why . . . . . . . not?" she croaked out before coughing again. She was hurt, very bad. She knew that several of her ribs were broken; she doubted she had more than one rib that wasn't broken, fractured, or damaged in some way. She could tell, even without using her powers, that she had multiple internal injuries of varying severity; though nothing that could be considered 'light'. Her friends had argued against this, saying that she should fight, that she could explain everything to her. Raven knew better; she had known Jinx far better, far more intimately, than they ever would. She knew the pain the other girl would be in, knew that no amount of words could ever make up for what she'd done (as she had told Jinx just a few minutes ago). She knew that Jinx would fight far more viciously, with far more power, than ever before. She suspected Jinx would try to inflict pain, that winning their fight wouldn't be important to the young woman. Raven didn't believe she deserved to fight back, didn't deserve to avoid the pain Jinx would want to cause. So she had vowed, when they crossed paths again, not to avoid it at all.

She was glad her friends had kept their promises.

Then she felt a gentle caress on her check. Blinking her one semi-good eye, Raven just barely managed to focus on Jinx's face. She was more than a bit surprised at this; after all, she didn't believe she deserved to be loved by anyone anymore. But she was happy Jinx was there, and tried to smile at her. But her pain and injuries wouldn't let it happen. Something must have shown through, though, for she saw a smile on the other girl's face. At least, with her limited vision, it looked like a smile.

"Why, Rae?" Jinx said softly, using Raven's nickname. "Why did you let me do this to you?"

"Because . . . . I . . . . deserved it," she managed to say before coughing painfully again. Jinx violently shook her head.

"You didn't deserve this," the other girl said, the tears falling harder now. "Not from me; especially from me."

"After what . . . I did to . . . you," Raven replied, trying a little harder now to breath, "I know . . . deserve . . . worse. This was . . . all I could think . . . of."

"You did hurt me," Jinx admitted. "You hurt me worse than I had ever been hurt before. I was so hurt I don't remember much of the first months after it all." Looking back down at Raven's head, cradled more gently in her lap than a newborn being held by its mother, she hazarded a smile (though it was closer to a grimace). "And then the pain of it all nearly overwhelmed me. Or maybe it did; I don't know anymore. Then came the anger, and all I wanted to do was hurt you like you'd hurt me. But I didn't know how."

Raven began coughing again, bringing back to Jinx's awareness just what she'd done to the young woman she still loved. Drawing in a ragged breath, Raven said, "I do not . . . . blame you . . . for that. You did not deserve . . . . . . what I did to you."

"And you didn't deserve this!" she said fiercely. Raven tried to disagree, but Jinx didn't give her the chance. "I'm worse than whatever you had done! I wanted to hurt you to make my own pain go away! To forget the hole in my soul that you had caused!" She was still crying, and she didn't think she could stop crying. And she knew that she didn't want to stop. "But all I did was make it worse!" she went on. "I did what you were always afraid of doing! I lost control of anger, of myself, and . . . and . . ."

"You had a reason . . . to," Raven told her.

"No!" Jinx said, raising her voice. "No! I didn't! What you did may have been the worse thing to ever happen to me in my entire life, but it was no reason for me to do this to you!"

The other Titans just stood by, watching, but for a different reason than their promise to Raven. They had had no idea of just how much Jinx had been hurt; she'd vanished shortly after the incident. And they had had no idea of how much pain - and guilt - Raven had been feeling. And now, they were seeing it in a most brutal way. Nightwing started to take a step, but was stopped by Starfire.

"No, love Nightwing," she said softly. "This is not for us to do the interfering with."

"But Raven needs to get to a hospital," he insisted quietly. "She could be dying, and we should be doing something."

"This was her choice," he was reminded. "It would not have been right of us to stop her."

"But look what happened, Star," he argued.

"I know," she agreed. "It hurt me, too, to watch her not defend herself. But it was her choice."

"She's right, dude," Cyborg said. "We may've hated standing aside, not helping her out, but helping her was out of the question."

"We can help her now, though!" he snapped. But his friend only shook his head. "It's between them two now."

"I wish . . . . . I could take away your . . . . . pain," Raven gasped out before coughing some more.

"I wish I could take back what I've done to you," Jinx said, caressing Raven's face again.

"I . . . . . . . still love you . . . . . . you know," she told her, to which Jinx nodded.

"I know," she replied. She reached up a trembling hand to try to caress her face and would've failed had Jinx not grasped her hand and brought to her own face. "I can't forgive you-"

"It . . . is okay."

"You didn't let me finish," Jinx admonished with a small, fragile smile. Drawing in a deep breath and letting it out, she went on. "I can't forgive you, Raven, because I now realize that because of how much I still love you that there is nothing to forgive."

Hearing that made Raven's eyes try to widen, though one couldn't and one was barely able to. She tried to speak, but couldn't find any words. And then it didn't matter; the darkness she'd tried to hold at bay, so she could speak to the one person who truly mattered to her, overcame her.

"Raven?" Jinx whispered apprehensively. She felt as though her heart was being crushed to nothing as she watched Raven's one semi-open eye slowly close. "Raven?" she said louder. And as realization stole over her, she clutched the woman she loved tighter to her and screamed out, "RAVEN!"

To Be Continued . . . . . . . . .

Author's Note: Well, there it is. The first chapter of my second fanfic. Which also happens to be the first chapter of my first multi-chapter fanfic. As I said before, this story takes place within the universe I established with "Raven's Story". If you've made it to where you're reading this message, then I hope you enjoyed it. I will wait to work on the next chapter until I see how this one was received.