Future's Folly

Chapter 10: Enter: Cora's Mom and Company!

When Robin finished up that last part, the room was filled with silence. Then it was suddenly interrupted with loud questions from the four other titans.

"So wait, Terra is Cora's mom, right?"

"She is back? Where did she go?"

"Hmm...so, she went away? Or was she captured and somehow managed to escape?"

"Wait wait wait," Beast boy said, "If Cora's mom, is, like, back, and Terra is her mom, then that means..."

Epiphany!

"You knew she was Terra's daughter this whole time!" he shouted. The gazes of Starfire, Cyborg, and Raven focused on Robin. Intensely. He coughed.

"I may have...forgotten...to mention that..." he said, avoiding his friends' gazes.

"How much stuff are you going to 'forget' to mention?" Raven asked. She sounded a tad annoyed.

"Depends on what I remember and when I remember it," the boy wonder replied.

"But...where was Terra?" Beast boy asked.

"Somewhere. I'm still a bit foggy on that. Something about a base out of town..."

"Oh."

Insert short silence here...

"...So anyways..."

Okay, recap.

"Cora. Cora...your mom is back."

It was awkwardly quiet. The truck—some sort of vehicle, that much I'm sure—fell out of Cora's now limp hand and landed on the ground with a thud, one of the wheels falling off. Everyone stared at Zak like he was crazy.

"That's not as important as muffins?" Cora demanded, her voice shrill. Mary shrugged.

"Muffins are awesome. Done deal." Cora looked like she wanted to choke the girl right then.

"This is Mary we're talking about," Lou said, standing up. "I think she's a bit messed up in the head or something..." He made a crazy sign.

Mary glared, pursing her lips. She growled a bit. "Nu-uh! I'm not messed up! Dad says I'm unique!"

"Uniquely messed up..." Lou grumbled.

"Guys, Cora's mom is back," Ty said, coming between the two. "I think this is a bit more important than one of your guys' argument."

"It's not an argument! It's just a very loud and vocal disagreement!" Mary said.

"Same thing!"

"Guys! My mom?" Cora said, looking very, very, impatient.

"Who is your mom?" I asked.

"Terra." Just about everyone in the room responded this. Almost at the same time. Like it was instinct.

("That's when I found out," Robin said. His statement was met with several nods from his friends.

"Okay."

"Anyways...")

Shocked and given no time to respond, I, and practically everyone—even the half asleep Z—was dragged out of the room. The few children there decided to sneak around and watch from the sidelines.

Running to the lobby-like room that reminded me of a waiting room at a pharmacy, I saw Nightwing talking to an obviously older looking Terra. Suzan and Duncan were there too. Once they saw us coming they relaxed a bit.

But Suzan then hissed, "Took you long enough!"

"I had muffins to pass out!" Mary said loudly. She was shushed rather loudly too.

"Who cares about muffins? They're not as important as people," Suzan said.

"We've already gone through this, it hasn't been of much use to her psyche," Lou said. Mary blinked.

"Psyche? Like if I'm psyched out or something?" she asked. Lou facepalmed.

"Yeah, well, Cora, your mom is over there," Duncan said, pointing to Terra. Cora looked at her, then smiled.

"Mom," she said. She looked like she was about to cry. Which I think is expected. I know I'd cry if I saw my mom again...

(No one commented on this. They wanted to see their moms too. A lot. So they understood where he was coming from. Plus, they were getting really absorbed in the story, so to not mess with the flow they kept their yaps shut.)

Terra caught sight of her daughter and smiled as well. "Cora!"

Cora ran over and hugged her. "I missed you so much!" she exclaimed.

"So did I, Cora," her mother replied. "How have you been? You okay?"

"Yeah, Mom." She sniffled, then wiped her face. "I've been good..."

So it went like that for a while. It sort of reminded me of those reunions in those movies.

It was quite awkward over here, though. No one really knew what to do except watch. And by the looks on their faces, they were having very different reactions from each other.

Duncan looked relaxed. Suzan mumbled something, looking down. Z snoozed softly. Ty pursed his lips, looking around, a half smile on his face. Lou lowered his eyes. Mary pat him on the back. Zak smiled.

"Don't you always love this kind of stuff?" the green teen asked. I nodded slowly.

"Yeah..."

Cora still hadn't let go of Terra. So the elder blonde had just went with ruffling her hair while talking to Nightwing. I strained to hear what they were talking about.

"So, I see a new face over there. Did you clone yourself while I was gone or something?" Terra asked jokingly.

"No. That's...actually me. From twenty-ten," was Nightwing's response.

"Whoa, really?" Terra sounded surprised.

"Yeah. You know how Duncan had the Time Travel Disk?"

"Yeah, for the mission we were talking about before I...y'know..."

"Well, Duncan went through with the mission and accidentally brought my past self back."

"Really? Must be awkward..."

"It is."

"So anyways, I still have my group back at the edge of town. You gonna send someone to go get 'em?" Terra asked. Nightwing thought this over.

"How many of them came from the base with you?"

"'Bout eleven. No, twelve," she corrected.

"Hm. So, along with getting someone to go get them and lead them back here, we're going to have to get some more food..."

"Ah. Yeah. We do have some food with us," Terra said, "But its only a little. Yeah, we're probably going to have to get more."

"Alright. I'll get the kids ready." Nightwing turned around, coming towards us. Most of them straightened their postures. "Big day today," he began. "Looks like we're going to need food for twelve more, as well as sleeping arrangements made. Since Suzan, Duncan, and Mary have already gone out for food, you guys can stay here and help move the housing arrangements around and such."

"Okay," Duncan and Suzan said, nodding. Mary pursed her lips, looking like she was thinking.

"Zak, Ty, I'd like you two to go and pick up the rest of Terra's friends who came with her from their base. You can go ask her for their position on the map," he continued. "And you can go put Z down before you go out, Ty."

Ty nodded, looking relieved. Zak smiled arrogantly. "Right!" he declared. "We can totally do that!"

"Cora's probably going to want to stay here, so she can. She can help Terra settle in. And Lou, go out and try and find some more food, please." He nodded curtly, signaling he was finished.

Lou nodded as well. Mary, though, jumped up, waving her hand in the air frantically as she shouted.

"OOH! OOH! I WANNA GO WITH LOUIE!" she shouted, bobbing up and down impatiently. Nightwing looked at her strangely.

"You just went out. I thought you'd want to relax a bit..." he stated. She shook her head, her smile threatening to come alive and run off her face.

"Nah! Its fun to go out and sneak around like SPIES!" she said happily.

"Uh...okay then. You can go with Lou," my older self declared.

"Oh joy..." Lou grumbled as Mary latched herself onto him, laughing happily. She then grabbed my hand and raised it up.

"Can Robbie come too?" she asked. It felt awkward, asking for permission for anything from an older me. He looked at me, his gaze asking if I was okay with this.

"It's alright. I can go," I said. Nightwing mulled this over.

"Fine, he can go too," he said. Mary cheered.

"Yes! We'll have so much fun together! It'll be like that old show about the spies and the secret agents and stuff!" she said happily, her arms wrapped around my and Lou's necks. A little too tightly. She failed to notice this, though, and continued talking. "And then Lou can do his impression of a man-eating-walrus and we can sing songs and have so much fun and blah blah blah blah..."

I gave her a strange look as she continued listing different activities. At least she eased up a bit, eventually, and I could breathe again. The others went around and began preparing for their assigned jobs, while Nightwing went off somewhere else.

"Good luck with that," Ty said, waving as he walked past us. I smiled awkwardly and waved back in recognition.

Lou then gave me a look of sympathy.

"Yeah, she's like this," he said, sighing. "It's gonna be a bit...loud for the next while..."

"Uhhh..." I tried to escape her grasp. It wasn't doing any good, though. She'd make a very good wrestler...

("Sounds like it," Cyborg muttered.)

"...And then we'll go and swing from building to building like spiderman and have oodles of laughs from watching people smash into walls! It'll be great!" she said, apparently done with her speech. I coughed.

"Can you let go now...?" I asked. Her arms quickly snapped to her side. I rubbed the back of my neck, as did Lou. Mary smiled brightly at me.

"I'll go get the map!" she declared, skipping away from us. Lou groaned. Suzan and Duncan walked by, looking back at Mary as she skipped.

"I feel sorry for you, Robin," Suzan then said, patting me on the back. "Hopefully she won't turn your brain to mush before you get back. See ya!" With that she flashed me a quick smile, then walked off.

"Bye, Robin!" Duncan said, waved, then walked off as well.

I waved back. Once I turned back to Lou, I saw his eyebrows raised, his expression one of shock and confusion. I raised a brow.

"What?"

"She said she felt sorry for you..." he murmured.

("Well duh, are you deaf or something?" Raven smacked Beast boy.)

"Um...yeah?" What, was there something wrong with being sorry for me?

"She doesn't feel sorry for anyone. At least, she doesn't say so out loud..." he rephrased, shuffling his hands around. "That's part of the reason why Zak is...Zak around her. Trying to get her to admit that she cares about him and stuff. That, and he's by far to touchy and flirty...and determined to do whatever he's got on his mind...the dude should just ease up. Then, maybe, she'd like him a bit more."

"Really?" I asked. Right then, I felt something inside me that told me to be angry with Zak. I didn't know why, though, and it was like a buzzing feeling in the back of my head...

"Yeah. But I think she likes him too. It's the only explanation she'd actually blush that much when he tries his stupid pick up lines and junk," he said, then shrugged. "But that's just my opinion. She could just be embarrassed easily..."

"Huh." I tapped my chin while thinking. I hadn't been around here that long, and so I didn't know these guys all too much. But all these guys sounded like normal people, just living in a weird situation. They might even manage to fit into the present time back home if they were to go there...

"Yo Louie, Robster! Got the map!" Mary said happily, interrupting my thoughts. But...what the heck, Robster?

("Sounds like someone wanted a lobster," Cyborg commented, laughing slightly.)

"'Robster'?" I asked. Even Lou looked confused about the sudden nickname change. "Whatever happened to Robbie?"

"Dunno," she said nonchalantly. "Sometimes I just...go with the flow of what I say. So it may be Mr. Robin, or Robbie, or Robster...or maybe even Robinheimer!"

(Beast boy and Cyborg cracked up. "Robinheimer?" Cyborg managed to say though laughs. "Man, that girl's a genius!"

"Totally!" Beast boy agreed.

"Moving on..." Robin said, trying to keep his anger under control.)

"Don't call me that last one," I said. She blinked a few times, confused.

"What? Robinheimer?"

(They laughed again.)

"Yes, that," I said. Lou smirked, probably trying to hold back a laugh.

"Why? It's just Robinheimer..." she said, pouting. I sighed.

"It just...sounds weird. Like wisenheimer," I said. She blinked. Then she smiled.

"Weird? Okay, Robbie! No more Robinheimer out of me!" She quickly smacked a hand on her mouth, though, realizing she had just said it. "No more R-word!"

"Okay." I nodded. She smiled. Lou rolled his eyes, smirking again.

"Okay, R-word," he said, making it sound like I was some sort of gangster.

(The two boys cracked up even harder then last time.)

"Let's get a move on," he continued. "We're losing daylight."

"Losing daylight?" Mary shrieked, actually looking scared. "I don't wanna lose daylight! It's so pretty and light-ey..."

"It's an expression, nitwit," Lou said, rolling his eyes. Mary paused, stopping her whining. Then she blinked.

"Oh."

"Yeah."

"Huh..."

"Yes..."

"Ah..."

"Be quiet already."

This was going to be a long day.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the show Teen Titans, I do not own you, I do not own the stars in the sky or the planets in the universe, I do not own this and I do not own that (except for the this and that that I do own) and yadda yadda yadda...you get the point. I do own this laptop I'm using to type this, though. But my parents got it for me, so...bleh.

And we're moving along...With ten chapters of this story now completed! Yes! I can't believe theres actually ten, I am extremely happy! :) Celebration time! *Dances around like a wacko on sugarhigh* Yaaaaay! Hehe...So, in celebration...*Smothers you all in hugs* :3 SPREAD THE LOVE! Hm...almost fifty review too...halfway to a hundred...! :)

Oh! And did you notice how Mary said "Dad says I'm unique!" instead of "My dad says I'm unique!"? Hm? :3 Little hint, and I didn't even do that on purpose...:D Pluuus! More Lou and Mary next chap! The funny duo of the group! Yeah! Really fun for me to write, Haha :D

I'm going to try and update again before the weekend, 'cause I start school on tuesday, so I'm going to be busy with school related things and an overnight stay at school on friday and saturday, while sunday and monday are gonna be my make-sure-everything's-ready-and-I'm-fully-rested-and-junk days. Hopefully school won't interfere with updates.

And so...since I am now out of stuff to talk about...

PLEASE REVIEW! :D (Thanks for reviewing last time, btw, your reviews are greatly appreciated. Plz do so again!)

CMK