Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Titans.

Twenty Twenty

Chapter Ten: Lian's Day with Dinah

It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining. The birds were singing. The children were playing.

So why was Lian inside a clothing store putting on different dresses every two minutes, having a blonde woman coo and squeal about how adorable she looked in each particular dress.

"So cute!" Dinah crooned and looked at her companion who was busy trying not to lose his sanity. "Isn't she cute, Oliver?" The man murmured something unintelligible and the woman ignored him, going back to staring at Lian. "Oh…" There was a sense of longing in Dinah's gaze that the little girl did not pick up on and no one expected her to. Whether she wanted to face it or not, Dinah was not as young as she used to be and her days were numbered… She wanted a daughter so badly. If she were to bring the topic up with Oliver he would stammer and shout and blush and inevitably say no.

She was practically a Grandma now, with Lian running around. But she never had a kid of her own.

A wistful sigh escaped Dinah's lips as she grabbed Lian's hand and led her back into the dressing room. "How about we try the blue one now?"

"Blue?" Lian asked. Hadn't she already tried on three blue ones?

"Mm-hmm." Dinah smiled as she helped Lian out of the old dress and into the new one. Lian didn't understand why Dinah was making her put these things on. She'd much rather be outside in the grass or in the sandbox right now. This place, while it was cool and ventilated, was indoors. Lian was missing out on her vitamin D.

"I really like that one." Dinah commented to herself, absently biting her knuckle. "Do you like it?" She asked the toddler who in turn gave the woman a bored stare.

"I think it suits you." Dinah smiled. Was she trying to convince Lian of something? Lian shrugged and looked at herself in the mirror. "If I buy it, will you model it for your daddy?" Of course she would model it for Roy. As soon as she saw the man again Dinah would squeal, take the girl behind closed doors and dress her in this same dress just for her daddy to see.

So yes. She would model it for her daddy.

"I'll buy it for you." Dinah helped the girl out of her clothes and the pair walked out of the dressing room. She looked around and a confused look crossed her face. "Where'd Oliver go?" At that moment her phone buzzed. "Oh." Flipping it open she stared at the screen silently as Lian watched the strange device in her hand. Her daddy had let her see one just like it once while they were in the car and Lian was throwing an exceptionally loud tantrum.

"That little..." It was a text message sent from Oliver stating that he had some things he remembered he had to take care of and caught the bus. This was his way of saying, Woman, you bore me, I'm going home to watch TV and tinker with my arrows. Dinah ground her teeth, then smiled when she realized that she didn't have Oliver holding her back anymore. "No matter." She grinned at no one in particular as she grabbed a few other things and went up front to pay for them.

Lian hoped they were almost finished when they got to the cashier's counter, but then that woman had to coo about how adorable Lian was, too.

"She's adorable! Is she yours?" The woman asked, her brown hair frizzy and fascinating to Lian. Her thick glasses were also something Lian wasn't accustomed to seeing and they also kept her attention.

"My granddaughter." Dinah stated proudly. Another woman behind Dinah made a comment.

"She's adorable! Hello, little girl, what's your name?" Lian was surprised to see a woman with so many... folds on her face. Like her skin didn't fit her. Her hair was white and her teeth were stained. Lian recognized the scent on her breath as the same stuff her daddy drank in the mornings.

"Tell her your name." Dinah mentioned lightly and Lian was forced to speak to this complete stranger.

"Lian." She said, mild discomfort washed over her and she wished she was up higher. All these tall people surrounding her were making her want to hide.

"What a cute name!"

"She has an angel's voice!"

"Doesn't she?" The three women continued to stare at Lian as though she were some interesting specimen under a microscope. Her eyes stung and she desperately wished Roy were here. He woudn't have tolerated these women staring like this. By now he would have told them that they had places to be and people to see in a tone that would get Roy a dirty look or two and they would be on their merry way. Lian tugged Dinah's pant leg and the woman seemed to finally get the picture. She cleared her throat, "How much did you say this was?"

"Oh! That'll be sixty-five ninety." Dinah whipped out a card and ran it through the machine, punched in a few numbers and they were on their way. They made it to the car and as she went to strap Lian in she gave the girl a hug. "I'm sorry if that made you uncomfortable. I really am." Dinah pulled away and looked at Lian, "Do you forgive me?"

Lian nodded and Dinah smiled while she finished buckling her into her car seat. "Let's see, where do you want to go? The park?"

"Yeah!" Lian sounded genuinly excited about the park and Dinah was surprised.

"You always go to the park. Are you sure that's where you want to go?" Lian nodded at her in the rearview mirror and Dinah shrugged. Pop music drifted out the window as they drove to the oh-so wonderful park. Lian practically drug Dinah until the playground was in sight and she let go, running as fast as her little legs would carry her to the slide. She was right, there were a lot of other children outside playing today, and some of them even ran up to meet Lian. A girl named Mira and another girl named Jennifer were regulars that Lian had befriended on one of the other days Rachel had accompanyed her onto the playground. A boy named Chris came up and tagged Lian's arm.

"You're it!" he shouted while surrying away from her, the other children followed his example and they engaged in a game of tag. Dinah smiled as she watched.

A woman came up next to her, "Are you Lian's mother?"

"Uh, grandmother, you could say." She turned and shook the woman's hand and the pair smiled at each other.

"I'm Donna." She had long dark hair pulled back into a high ponytail, blue eyes and star earrings.

"Dinah." The two shook hands.

"I'm Jennifer's mother." She stated as she pointed out the young girl. Dinah nodded and the two began conversing about different things, varrying from how cute one's haircut was to who liked who's shoes. They continued to talk until their respective children came up complaining about being tired. It was sunset and Lian was hungry.

"It was so nice meeting you." The two women went their seperate ways and Dinah asked how Lian's day was. The girl told her about how Jennifer had taught her about a game called freeze tag which was like tag only you froze when you got tagged. It was a lot of fun, then they played hide and seek and Lian was really good at that game because no one ever found her until the game was over. Before Dinah knew it, Lian was a snoring heap on her shoulder. She wondered if it was a good idea to let her sleep without eating and decided to make dinner at her house that way she could eat if she woke up.

On the drive home Dinah thought about what kinds of choice words she would give her man when she saw him.

Author's Note: Thus concludes Lian's Day with Dinah. I thought about making this a one-shot, but then I didn't know if that was such a good idea since neither Lian nor Dinah were in the Teen Titans cartoon. So I decided to put it in here instead. And while this isn't such an important part of the story, it was pretty nice to write all the same. (Although the conversation between Donna and Dinah was very much lacking.)

I feel like the actual story has gotten… excessively slow. So I did this to prep myself for the real chapter I'm working on. Hopefully it will be more action-y than the past few chapters which have basically been focusing on Rachel and Roy's relationship.

Thank you so much for reading.