Welcome Back

"Is he here yet?"

"No"

"Is he here yet?"

"No"

"Is he here yet?"

"No!"

"Is he here yet?"

"If you say that one more time I'll hurl you so far it'll take forever just to get back to your senses!" Cyborg glared at Beastboy who immediately shrank back and quieted down.

"Friend Beastboy does have a point though. We do not know when Robin will arrive."

They were standing in the arrival lobby of the airport. Robin had been called away for the weekend by his mentor, Batman, and had told them that he would be back today, Monday, at 11:00. It was now 1:30 and he still wasn't back. Raven had been staring at the flight screen for almost the entire duration that they had been waiting except for one instance when a group of girls had spotted them and rushed over enthusiastically yelling, "Oh my gosh! We love you Teen Titans!" waving pieces of papers in the air for them to sign.

Of course, they had quickly backed away when Raven had stared daggers at them, her hands glowing threateningly. No one had bothered them after that, but they did receive stares and flashes from cameras.

"Flight 34 from Gotham City is now landing" a voice from a speaker somewhere overhead announced.

"It's Robin's flight!" Beastboy exclaimed, jumping up and down.

Raven squinted at the top of the flight screen where the word next to Flight 34 was flashing: landing, and said, "It better be. We've been standing here for almost three hours more than we should have been."

"Three and a half hours actually" Cyborg corrected, referring to the watch in his robotic arm.

Raven ignored him.

"Flight 34? Did he not tell us it was the number of 22?" Starfire tilted her head a little in thought.

"No, he said it was 49; number 22 already landed" Beastboy chided.

"Are you sure? I thought it was 22..."

"No it's definitely 49"

"But--"

"I'll settle this! You're both wrong! It's 18!" Cyborg interrupted.

"18's not coming for another hour!"

Sensing an argument coming, Starfire backed away slightly and said, "Maybe…Maybe we should just wait for our friend Robin to come back…"

"It's 18 and you know it! 49 already came!"

"Just because it landed doesn't mean that Robin didn't say he was going to be on it! He might have gotten on a different plane!"

"You told Starfire," Star sweat dropped at the mention of her name, "that 22 already landed."

"So?"

"How's that any different from 49?"

Beastboy paused, as if suddenly lost in thought, and then said, "Wait a minute, are you saying you think it's 22? You said 18 first! You're trying to confuse me!"

Raven rolled her eyes and continued to watch the screens. Starfire watched as Cyborg and Beastboy fought and felt a little guilty as if she herself was taking part of it. Twenty feet away from them, Robin was standing in the arrival gate, shaking his head. Things hadn't changed, but of course he had expected that. He had only been gone for three days after all.

BAM!!

A sudden force hit him full from the front, knocking him down to the ground and causing him to hit his head on the floor. Starfire had pounced on him in a hug.

"Robin! You have returned!"

She let go of him and let him sit up.

"Are you alright? Have I hurt you?" she asked, seeing him rub the back of his head.

He had no time to answer, as Beastboy was now yelling in his face, "Dude! You're back! Now tell Cyborg that you said you were going to be on number 49!"

"Actually, I need to say something first--"

"Tell Beastboy it was--"

"Both of you shut up!"

Everyone turned to see Raven, staring madly at them. Behind her were suitcases, bags, and other various items floating in purple-black bubbles and people jumping up and down, trying to retrieve their luggage and shouting.

"I have been waiting here since 10:00, listening to you two have the most ridiculous arguments! You've argued about almost everything from who had the better breakfast to what plane Robin was supposed to on!"

No one else said anything. No one was trying to get back their luggage. Everyone was either staring at Raven or hiding from her.

"I just want to go back to the tower, meditate, and have some peace and quiet!"

The bubbles behind her disappeared and the contents all dropped to the floor as Raven turned in her angry state toward the exit. The rest of the Titans quickly and quietly followed her. Robin picked up his single piece of luggage and thought about all of the strange things that had been happening lately. For one, Raven was now always in a bad mood, going beyond being just sarcastic and retreating under her hood and would yell loudly at random and blow things up for no apparent reason.

Robin could have sworn that before he left for Gotham City, he had heard her crying in her room, followed with a very big bang. He confronted her about it, but she refused to admit that she wasn't acting like herself.

At least nothing exploded this time Robin thought.

Another weird chain of events was that every single member of the team had been called away for some reason or another and had left, only to return saying that nobody remembered ever calling them. Raven had first received a letter, unsigned, telling her to go to the far side of town alone at midnight to retrieve some stolen information about Slade. She came back the next morning saying that no one had shown up. Then Starfire got a letter, saying that she was needed back on Tamaran for a few days.

She came back two days later, reporting that her family didn't recall writing any letter of the sort to her, but had insisted she stay the night anyway. Both Beastboy and Cyborg had experienced similar events as well, both ending the same way.

"Robin!" Beastboy whispered to him, "What plane did you say you were supposed to get on?"

"Huh?" Robin was snapped out of his thoughts, "Oh, I said I was going to be on number 22 but I missed it and had to--"

"YES!!! I WAS RIG…oh…wait…"

"I said shut up!"

§ § §

"You mean your letter was a dud also?"

"Yes and in fact that's why Batman kept me for as long as he did. He suspected that all of the letters we got weren't just coincidents and he tried to trace the letter back to it's origin"

"Was this Man of Bats successful?"

Robin shook his head, "I think we need to have a closer look at all the letters"

"Didn't you just say that Batman already tried looking at your letter?" Cyborg asked, keeping his eyes on the road as he drove the T-Car.

"Yes, but he didn't have all of our letters together"

§ § §

"Check this out Robin! I built a new security system while you were gone! You have to know the correct nine-letter key code in order to get in!" Cyborg pointed to the right of the door, where a number pad featured the numbers one through nine.

"I came up with the key code! You'll never guess it!" Beastboy boasted, challenging him.

"Oh I think I can guess it"

Robin reached out towards the number pad and punched in order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and then 9. There was a beeping sound and the door opened, leaving Beastboy's mouth wide open.

"How did you know?!"

Robin sighed, "You'll need to change that" as he stepped inside.

It was his turn for his mouth to drop and his eyes to open in shock.

"What did you do while I was gone?!!"

The whole place was a mess. There were empty soda cans all over the floor and half empty food containers scattered around the main room. A pizza box lay on top of the TV, three and a half pizzas still inside. An open jar of peanut butter sat on top of the table, a butter knife protruding out of it. The Gamestation controllers were all tangled up and the games were all over the place.

Various socks of all sizes and a tennis shoe or two could be seen in obvious places, like on the sofa and on the floor, and some were in not-so-obvious places, such as inside one of the seat cushions, the shoelaces peeking out of the stuffing. One was even stuck to the ceiling. He didn't even want to know what was holding it up there. Slightly not wanting to see what was inside, Robin opened up the fridge to see is any of the food remained. Like he suspected, all of it was gone, but somehow, the fuzz that had been growing on some of the food had grown on the inside surface of the refrigerator, only it was now--

"Pink?! How did you manage to turn the fuzz in the fridge pink?!"

"There is a good side to this mess you know" Cyborg said quickly, avoiding Robin's question.

"And that is?!" Robin continued to gawk at his horrendous surrounding.

"I found the remote!" he remarked, smiling and holding it up.

Robin sighed and said, "I think we need to take a trip to the supermarket"