A/N: Well I must have been away for longer than I thought, because I have to admit that things have slowed down a little. Okay. Fine. So maybe I'm whining a little about lack of reviews... But I send my thanks out to everyone who did (and they were awesome reviews, thanks guys!). So um, the rest of you pansies, follow their example! Other than that, I hope you're enjoying the story as much as I am (however plotless and pointless in may seem...).

Session #2

It hadn't been a good night.

She had gone to bed hungry and emotionally drained, and now with morning upon her, kindly shining itself into her squinting eyes, Raven realized that neither of those issues had resolved themselves. She was still hungry and still dreading any social contact with the outside world. It was a terrible combination of feelings mainly because the fridge was located in the kitchen and so that meant she had to leave her room and deal with whatever the hell lived outside it.

Which she was not prepared to do.

But damn it all, she was hungry.

She rolled off her stomach and onto her back, feeling the emptiness in her gut become even more pronounced. The amount of light streaming into her room told her it was fairly well into morning and, well, now that she thought about it, Raven swore she smelled bacon. But then again, maybe it was the hunger. Crinkling her nose, Raven rolled back over again, burying her face in the folds of the sheets and inhaling the smell of clean laundry.

Perhaps she would turn this into a week long retreat from the world. That was tempting too. Almost more tempting than bacon. And they wouldn't miss her much anyways. She thought about it for a bit, while her body hovered in the dazed state between sleep and awareness.

The first thing she had done after they had handed her a communicator, a plaque with her name on it and an empty room, was to take full advantage of that new room by locking herself in it for a week. She remembered how they had come first individually knocking at her brand new door, asking her to come out and eat or talk or do whatever the hell she pleased just so long as she came out. And she always responded with the lonely syllable of 'no'.

Then they came in groups- loud banging groups- telling her that it had been days! days! and there must be something wrong, something they can do to make it better! And Raven had given them the same answer. By the end of the week after all the shouting and pleading and death threats had been exhausted, they had just given up and suddenly 'locking herself up for no particular reason for as long as she pleases' was graciously added to the list of things that Raven does. They didn't even flinch when she came strolling into the common room 8 days later.

She had trained them well. Numbed them up real good so they didn't care what she did or what she said, just so long as they could chalk it up to another Raven thing.

She sighed into her sheets. Maybe she was becoming too predictable. She could give Garfield a good verbal lashing and no one would so much as blink an eye at the entire display, but give Gar a compliment… that would throw them for a loop.

She heard the sounds of someone approaching, and found herself listening very carefully to their movements as they came down the hall. The person was walking, not quickly but at a relaxed pace. Long strides, heavy footsteps. Raven found herself tense for no apparent reason as the person neared her door. Neared it… and passed with the sounds echoing further and further away from her ears.

Something in her empty stomach dropped like a stone and she gripped the sheets tightly in her hands. They hadn't knocked. They hadn't even paused for a second outside her door. Did they even look at her name engraved on the metal as they walked by? Or did they just pass her door like it was nothing but another panel of cold titanium?

Raven lay there wondering and hating herself for caring at all. Because maybe secretly deep down inside she wanted to become nothing but a ghost, another part of the Titan Tower scenery. After all, she had worked so hard to make it that way- to turn herself into Raven, the thing that acted as it pleased, the thing everybody knew so well because it did the same thing the same way everyday.

She was a person damnit!

Not a machine with a personality hardwired into her brain. Her emotions and feelings swayed and changed, so what gave them the right to treat her like a constant in their lives? Frustrated and hungry, Raven wretched herself from bed, threw on a sweater over her tank top, and marched herself out the door, down the hallway and into the common room of Titan's Tower.

They were all there, chatting, eating, and generally having a good time without her, as usual. Starfire glanced up from the table, smiled and returned to her leftovers. There were a few muttered good mornings, all done half-assed without any real thought behind them, and maybe that's what got the ball rolling because the next moment Raven's finger was up and her mouth was open ready to tell them all exactly what she was thinking and feeling. The words came boiling out of the depths of her gut, rushed up her throat, then ended up in a train wreck of syllables in her mouth as she was caught by surprise.

"Good morning Rae!" She choked, her mouth full of unspoken words all tangled up in themselves with nowhere to go.

"Garfield?!" She managed to sputter, turning to face the person at her shoulder.

"Raven!" He shouted throwing up his hands and giving her a ridiculous grin fit for a cheerleader.

"Garfield!"

"Rae!"

"Gar!"

"You called?" He asked her with a sly smile. She reddened, drowning in the heat of her anger and her embarrassment and feeling generally upset with the way her morning was going.

"Insensitive bastard!" She seethed. His expression faltered, slowly sliding into one of confusion. The poor boy. How was he to know about the important moment he had so ungraciously interrupted? From her standpoint she watched as Gar seemed to slump a little, erasing some of their height difference. It was only a few seconds later that she realized his stooping posture had been merely a way of leaning closer to her. Raven's skin prickled in warning.

"You're upset about something." He told her seriously, staring into her face not with the impish eyes she was so familiar with, but with eyes that were piercing and demanding. She flinched instinctively and tried to hide it by turning her head away. He sighed softly.

"Whatever. You don't have to tell me about it." And with that his presence disappeared. The pocket of heat were his body once stood became cold and empty again, and when she looked to see where it had gone, Raven saw him back at the counter munching on his daily helping of Lucky Charms. She strolled over, purposely ignoring him and the curious stares aimed at her back. Their short spat hadn't gone unnoticed.

Opening the fridge, Raven's sour mood lifted slightly at the sight of food. She paused, then grabbed the milk. A few moment later she joined Gar at the counter with her own bowl of cereal. The milk in his bowl had gone a grey-pink color, and he seemed to be more interested in swirling the pieces around then actually eating it.

"I'm not upset." She admitted to him all of a sudden, then quickly stuffed her mouth with a spoon loaded with cornflakes. Gar didn't say anything. Instead he reached forward and grabbed the glass of orange juice, his arm brushing hers as he did so. All of a sudden the food wouldn't go down quite right. It stuck there like a ball of wet cardboard in her throat. She choked it down painfully.

"Don't eat so fast." He advised noticing how she winced.

"Don't tell me what to do." She muttered, and just to spite him shoved another large spoonful into her mouth. And he just sat there swirling those little pieces around in the ruined milk, and staring into that bowl like he was waiting for it to say something.

Raven was still mad at him, and he probably knew that which explained his respectful silence. But the absence words between them, more specifically, the absence of his words, was making her edgy and uncomfortable.

The problem with living with somebody and spending most of your time around them was that there really wasn't too much to talk about. Sure, you could greet them, ask how they're, doing but that's where conversation would often sputter and die. Of course, not everybody in their happy family had that problem. Garfield could ramble for hours, talking about anything and everything and nothing all at the same time.

So it bothered her now that he had chosen to remain silent instead of poking and prodding her for answers. She crammed down a few more bites of cereal in quick succession, watching him out of the corner of her eye, and getting more and more irritated by his silence.

Gar was still in his pajamas she noted, looking comfortable in his sweatpants and an old tee. The scene would've looked completely normal if he hadn't been green. Of course if he wasn't green he probably wouldn't be sitting here eating breakfast with a demon hybrid in a large building shaped like a letter of the alphabet.

Raven let her spoon fall and hit the bowl with a loud clang signaling she was finished. The second she leaned back from it, Gar was up, grabbing his bowl and hers before taking them over to the sink. She didn't say thanks, knowing perfectly well that's what he was aiming for. Leaning on her elbow, head in hand, she watched him rinse out the bowls, intrigued by the way his body bent this and that way as he reached for the soap or the towel. Green heels poked out of the bottom of his pantlegs every time he stretched to grab something. Green muscles expanded and grew taunt in his arms when he went to place the clean bowls up high on their respective shelves.

He turned so fast that her eyes did not have the time to look away, and instead he caught them in his gaze with his head turned to look over his shoulder. There was a curious sensation spreading its way throughout her body, working its way from her very center up to the muscles in her face.

It hurt the way any suppressed action hurts. The way tears hurt when you hold them in. The way laughter hurts when you bottle it up. She felt the pressure, something unbearable and foreign, and automatically fought it. But then Gar smiled- smiled big and open at her with that fang sticking out and the words just came without bidding.

"Thank you." Gar gave a very small laugh, as if chuckling over a private joke only he knew. He turned back around to close the cabinet.

"No problem. I owe it to you."

---

He wasn't always so understanding though. And that's usually when Raven realized she had been taking his patience for granted. After all, he wasn't a machine either. His emotions weren't always set at happy or content. She'd seen him angry before, but time always seemed to erase her memory of it, so that the next time he lashed out it was like seeing that fury for the first time all over again.

Gar, she had decided long ago, was a naturally jovial person, content to spend his days laughing with friends and finding the bright side to any situation. So when he became upset enough to actually display his anger it always caused a spike of concern in Raven. She also noticed that his rare outbursts of anger were often sudden, and set off by the smallest things, almost as if he had been bottling up his frustrations for long periods of time only to have them finally explode.

Then, once the fire and flood had relented, he would be back to his old self, if not even more prone to his usual joking and laughing. But Gar's rage wasn't something you could just shake off especially when you were the one at the receiving end. He was never violent, never used threats and never gave any impression that he intended to physically harm you. But the raw power and fury was there in his voice and in his eyes.

It happened a few days after their encounter in the kitchen, right in the middle of dinner. Everything seemed to happen in the middle of dinner, as if the subtle messages they were sending each other across the table were more powerful than their face to face confrontations.

"Robin tells me the fair is in town." Piped Star. There was a groan from a few of the listeners.

"Aw, that's just for kiddies Star. I think we might be getting a little too old for…"

"Absurdity! People of all sizes go to the fair. Besides we have always enjoyed ourselves before." She insisted, and to emphasize her point she brought the bottom of her fork down on the table. The dishes clattered and her face reddened in surprise and embarrassment. Victor was sucking thoughtfully on a chicken wing, and Robin seemed to share a little of Star's embarrassment. He was very intent on separating his rice from his peas.

"You know, chicks dig that sort of thing. The big stuffed animals, the ferris wheels… I've got a few girls in mind that might come along." Mused Victor, entertaining the idea as a good opportunity for a date. Raven had a hunch that was Robin's plan all along.

Star seemed to visibly brighten upon hearing his words. Now she looked pointedly toward Garfield, who seemed uncharacteristically moody today. His appetite was off and he was slouching particularly badly.

"Fine. I'm in." Grumbled Gar, giving a lazy wave with his fork. He glanced up at Raven, who had decided to stay quiet about the whole matter. She'd been to fairs before. They were loud, busy affairs full of smelly people and even worse smelling food. As if knowing her thoughts, Gar called her out.

"Gonna stay at home Raven?" He asked. His eyes were down and his voice held a mocking tone, "Or do you actually want to spend some time with us?" The atmosphere of the table seemed to chill and become something solid and brittle. Everybody but Gar seemed to be very interested in their food.

"I don't like fairs. Too many people. Too dirty." Her voice was a straight line. Straighter than the pulse reading on a dead man. In reality her body was buzzing, because she could feel something strange about Garfield. She could sense that intimidating, alien-ness leaking out of his every pore.

"Well you know what? I don't like a lot of things actually." He began, setting his fork down very calmly.

"I don't like going to hamburger stands with Victor. I don't like helping Robin with his research. I don't like Starfire's cooking."

He seemed to grow a little bigger with each passing word. The room was completely silent except for a small hiccup from Starfire on her right. Raven refused to lift her eyes from the plate, because she knew that if she looked at him now she might be paralyzed by that glare, and that's what she hated most about him- his ability to leave her speechless.

"But you know what?" he hissed and the question seemed to suck the air from the very room.

"I go to lunch with Victor 'cause it makes him happy. I help Robin with his research 'cause it makes him happy. Hell, I even eat Star's cooking 'cause it make her happy."

There was a pause that lasted a heartbeat. Nobody's fork was moving anymore.

"So Raven, what the fuck have you ever done to make any of us happy?"

It would have been better if he had screamed it at her she thought. Because if he had yelled it at her then at least some of the impact might have been lost in the volume of his words. But he had asked her in a voice that was calm and quiet so that every word of that scathing question was directed right at her.

The chair screeched noisily on the tile floor as she pushed it back. Two steps and it seemed she was at the door, two more and she was halfway down the hallway. Then something seemed to catch up with her because her body stopped, muscles clenching with something akin to pain so that she was forced to lean against the cold wall.

It wasn't over though. A few seconds later the door slid open again and she was shaken by how fast he seemed to reach her. It was like a blur, like her brain was still working to figure out what had happened and why the hell it had happened. Her breathing was coming much too fast.

"You're not escaping this one. You're going to tell me just what the fuck your problem is." He demanded. He was so tall leaning over like that, and she (stupid!) had dared to look him right in the eye. He held her gaze there with a steel trap, pouring his anger and wrath and frustrations right into her already spinning mind.

It was like drowning.

"I don't..." She choked and lost herself again. A loud bang reverberated in her ears as his hands planted themselves firmly on either side of her head.

"Tell me!" He hissed leaning closer. And all the while Raven's mind was screaming wrong wrong wrong, and she was dying now, she knew that this was what dying felt like because her chest and head where about to rip open with the pressure inside.

She gulped in air, staring mesmerized at those green eyes with the angry flecks of gold swirling around in them, wanting nothing more than for this thing with it's raw emotion and demanding questions to just disappear and leave her alone to break and rebuild.

"Tell me Raven!" And this time he did yell. "Why!"

Loud and angry and hot and too close too close…

"I don't know!" She cried. Her body was trembling so hard and the pressure just kept building. She could hear her insides working with each pump of her heart and gasp of air.

"Please…" She whimpered, "Please I don't know." And his eyes searched hers, prodding so deep she felt like he was reaching right inside to grab her heart and feel it beat in his own hands.

And all she could say was 'please'. It was in her words and in her face.

'Please stop. Please stop. Please stop.'

And after a few seconds he did. His head bowed. She heard the hands with their rough calluses sliding down the titanium wall to rest at his sides. Raven realized she was panting and, looking at him, now she saw Gar's own chest rising and falling in rapid succession. They both stood silently in the aftermath, not thinking or feeling, just slowly going numb.

"I don't- I don't mean it you know." Gar muttered. The green bangs hid his eyes as he spoke.

"It's just hard sometimes…" He gritted his teeth, as if trying to grind out the thoughts and emotions he had just displayed to her, only now attempting to put them in words.

"It's hard when some people try so hard… for so long, and then- then nothing." He explained. Raven could only stand there and listen to him, trying to make sense of his outburst, and what had been the source of that angry hurricane.

His hand came up to rub at his eyes, and she watched his fingers press and release until the hand dropped and his head came up again. The intensity was no longer there. She could look at him without feeling as if her insides were being brought to a boil. He gazed at her, and instead she saw a resigned sadness buried deep in there.

"Oh Raven..." He sighed wearily. His hand came up again. The same one that had drawn lazy circles on her back, the same one that had fisted and pounded the wall, the same one he had wiped across his tired expression. It came up and paused a few inches away from her, then reached to cup the side of her face. She went rigid under his touch.

"I would never want to hurt you. You know that right?" He asked, his eyes almost pleading with her own. Raven couldn't respond. At the moment she forgot she even had a voice at all. Everything was still unclear to her, outlined with edges that were fuzzy and grey. Everything except his hand that is.

"Please tell me you know that." His palm was warm and foreign on her skin, the contact making her more aware of him than ever before. And all the while this was happening, an old part of herself was creeping back, reminding her of how wrong the touch felt, whispering to her stunned brain that he should not be standing so close. He should not be caring so much, should not be trying so hard, should not be treating her as anyone other than Raven.

Raven. The girl who did whatever she damn well pleased knowing nobody would tell her otherwise. Nobody but this boy with his hand resting firmly on her cheek.

And something seemed to shudder and come alive in her then, like a part of her was being reawakened. Suddenly all systems were go. Everything was up and running, pumping proper thought and feeling back into her scrambled brain so that she remembered how to speak and how to react.

"I need some time alone." She muttered and turned her head away so that his fingers and his palm skated along the skin before he withdrew them.

"I see." He said, lacking the conviction. Then without another word he moved aside so she could brush past him. Raven felt him watching her even after she had sealed herself away behind the cold, cold door of her room.

A/N-Well I apologize for the typos (I know they're in there... lurking, but hopefully they were not too distracting). Once again, reviews are ALWAYS appreciated and would definitely encourage the author to continue this fic with as much gusto as she began it with. It doesn't have to be a drawn out anaysis of my writing skills, but a few words of your opinion would mean the world.

Thanks for reading!