October. Garfield's greatest gamble p.2

A mere moment after Raven said goodbye to Kori, her doorbell rang. Thinking Kori had forgotten something, she went back to open the door. Instead of her friend, she found a middle-aged blonde woman in a brightly-colored pantsuit, with three children in tow.

"Hi, I'm just dropping off the children," she said, and swung the baby in her arms towards Raven with complete confidence of Raven catching it.

But Raven receded, succeeding in dodging the child, put up a hand on the doorframe as if to forbid entry and armed herself with the hard-learned collectedness of having lived in Azarath for so many years. "Ma'am, you can't do that. I don't know what you've been told, but children under sixteen can't be dropped off by themselves. They have to be accompanied by an adult willing to compromise to the rules of the Church, and the trial time to start living here full-time is thirteen days."

With that, Raven managed to give the woman pause. But she shook her head and started again, "Young lady, I'm just trying to leave my kids to be babysat. Ask Stacy and she'll tell you. Tell her Mrs. Tanner's here."

"Oh," said Raven, forced to reconsider. "Then, I'm sorry to tell you this, but Stacy left us last week."

Raven realized a moment later that she'd kind of made it sound like Stacy was dead, when she'd simply tired of the Azarath lifestyle and gone back to Reno and back to her ex-boyfriend. But the woman didn't seem to be in a state to notice her wording.

"Yes, last time they also told me Stacy wasn't here," said the woman impatiently, with a calm Raven judged as too beneath a woman who'd just heard her unnecessarily spew the entire spiel of the Church. "And guess what? Stacy was eventually find in the house. You made me miss a meeting, all because you people don't even know who lives here."

While that was entirely plausible, Raven took full offense this was being said to her of all people. "I know who lives here," she said darkly.

"I am late as it is." With this, the woman swung the baby forward with a resolve that made Raven panic she was really going to drop it, so on instinct, Raven caught it.

Then Mrs. Tanner was walking away saying, "Tell Stacy I'll be back at ten. Kids, be nice to Stacy."

The two older kids –a boy about six years old and a girl about ten-, who had been oddly quiet during the whole interaction, walked into the house the same blasé attitude they'd shown thus far, and marched towards Azarath's decoy living room. If nothing else, thought Raven, it was true that they had been here before. The baby in her arms gurgled and caught her hair with impressive power, and Raven was forced to close the door and follow them.


Gar was waist-deep in fabrics, desperately trying to thread a needle, when his phone went off. He was surprised to see it was Raven writing in the group chat. That might've been the first time she ever started a conversation. His heart dropped when he read, I need help. But then came, in quick succession,

Raven (18:44pm): There are three small children in my house.

Raven (18:44pm): This woman just dropped them with me. They're under my care.

Raven (18:44pm): Everyone in my house is ignoring me

Raven (18:45pm): One is a baby

Raven (18:45pm): What do I do?

First, Gar took the time to laugh.

Gar (18:45om): Raven how did you get into this mess?

Raven (18:46pm): A woman who lived here used to babysit them

Raven (18:46pm): I told the mother she was gone but she didn't listen

Raven (18:46pm): Now the middle kid is crying

Raven (18:46pm): Seriously what do I do?

Gar (18:46pm): Just play with them

Gar (18:47pm): Kids are easy

Gar (18:47pm): How old are they?

On the other side of town, Raven's eye twitched at Gar's unhelpful responses. The little redheaded boy had started scream-crying as soon as she'd started texting, and Raven already had a headache. The baby fought and won to get down from Raven's arms; he slid off the couch and waddled to the tea table, where apparently the shiny metal lining had pulled his attention. He sat on the ground and grabbed at it with complete focus. Raven didn't take her eyes off him; she was afraid to.

The girl, who had introduced herself as Melvin, jumped to sit next to her on the couch. "Where did Stacy go?" she asked curiously, as if the racket her brother was making didn't bother her.

"She was from Reno. She went back home," Raven replied. She wondered if one was supposed talk in any special way to children. Raven was just talking to her as she would to a peer. "Why is he crying?" she asked, nodding to the little boy. His face was getting nearly as red as his hair.

"Timmy wants to use your phone."

Raven looked at Melvin like she was crazy. "Who's he gonna call?"

The girl gave her a supremely disappointed look. "For games," she explained, and Raven felt the sting of being humbled by a ten-year-old.

"I don't have any games on my phone," Raven said. She thought that was true.

"Then can we watch TV?" Melvin asked.

"There's no TV's here." Raven put her phone in her pocket, and like magic, Timmy stopped wailing, though he kept pouting at her.

"Stacy let us watch TV," said Melvin.

"She had one, but I don't." There were no electronics in communal areas, and Raven and Arella had no TV in their apartments. If she could only drop them with someone else… but no one passing through gave her so much as a glance or stopped when she called them. "If I give him pen and paper, will he draw?"

"Sure," said Melvin.

So she picked pencils and paper from the bookcase and dropped them on the coffee table. Timmy thankfully got the message and started drawing.

"Why don't you have a TV?" asked Melvin.

Raven didn't answer, because the baby had stood up on the couch and was wobbling his way near the edge. Raven picked him up and let him down on the ground, where he couldn't fall much. The baby stood stunned at the displacement for a moment, then promptly dropped himself on his butt and started crying.

Raven looked at Melvin in askance.

"He doesn't like to be on the ground. He likes to be high and see things," Melvin supplied.

So Raven picked him up herself and stood, and he stopped crying.

She was putting out fires. Tiny, screaming, sticky little fires.


The next time Gar picked up his phone, he had no new messages.

He was confused as to why no one else was replying to Raven. Then he remembered Dick had talked about muting his phone while he studied for Friday's exams—maybe they had all done that.

Gar felt a pang when he realized it. Maybe Raven was just too distracted with the kids—or maybe Gar was never the one she intended to answer her in the first place, so she'd just left the conversation.

Realizing this, he wrote her all the advice on kids he could think of, hoping something helped her.

And he waited. He went back to his Halloween costume, and checked his phone regularly, thinking he might have missed the buzz, but his texts weren't even on read.

It was a small miracle that Raven contacted him –well, she hadn't, she'd contacted everyone, and Gar had just happened to respond- and he'd probably ruined it. There went another shot at getting things back to normal with her.

That was all he was aiming at these days—normal. As much as he hated to admit it, nothing was quite the same after the camping trip last year. Raven was different with him since that ill-fated kiss.

Gar cringed at the memory like he did every single time he was reminded of it.

He wished he'd never done it. He wished he didn't remember how surprisingly soft her lips had been. How her hands had come naturally to rest lightly on his chest, and how they had left everything they touched tingly for hours after…

Ugh, stop it, he chided himself. Bad Gar, cut it out.

Gar had never told anyone about it—not even Vic. It just didn't feel right. It was too private—it felt sacred in that it was inexplicable. The way she was so closed off, so rigorous in what she showed and said, and then sometimes she turned around and did something unexpected and sweet, and it opened her up, and it shook him to the core. Because she'd been trying to cheer him up when it happened, she was possibly opening up to him—and he'd gone and ruined it. Telling anyone would feel like another betrayal.

And he wouldn't know how to begin to explain it to someone else. He'd feel like he was making it up. He certainly couldn't prove it had happened.

She had smiled at him after they'd kissed; he really didn't think he was making that memory up. But then she'd completely pulled back. Now it was all Raven snarking at him from the other side of the room, Raven glowering at him from under her hood, Raven looking down on him and silently judging him. Like she was trying to make him painfully aware of the line she was drawing. She didn't trust him with her sweet, unexpected moments anymore. She'd never told him another joke. He wished he could tell her she didn't have to worry—that the kiss had been a weird fluke—that he wouldn't dream of doing it again… without such a conversation ending up being inevitably counterproductive.

He checked his phone again. His texts were still unread.


Timmy was drawing aggressively wide circles; the fact that some of them ended up on the paper was entirely a statistical coincidence. Most of the pencil drawing went on the wooden table. But Raven thought, Whatever. Fuck that table.

"Who are all these people walking around?" Melvin asked.

"We live next to a charity. This area is communal," Raven said, repeating the spiel easily.

"Stacy said there was a cult here."

Stacy you're an idiot. Raven found herself wondering for the umpteenth time how the hell Azarath had managed to stay a secret for centuries. To Melvin she maintained an unchanging expression, and returned, "Did she? That's weird."

Her phone was safely tucked away in her back pocket. She'd picked it up earlier, when it vibrated, and Timmy had started screaming all over again. Melvin had informed her he'd do that every time if she didn't give it to him. So now she kept it out of sight.

She had already yelled at him once—he'd screamed seemingly for no reason and she'd gotten too fed up. She only realized a moment later that there was a reason: the pencil he was using had a cracked point. Yelling had worked, as the boy had looked stunned and then continued drawing with another pencil, but Raven was cut up about it. She didn't like losing her temper—which was why she didn't like children. To be fair, when she'd tried her meditation to ground herself, she'd only closed her eyes for five seconds and opened them to find all three of them out of her sight. So it's not like she had many options.

Close to eight, Melvin said, "My brothers and I have a snack around now."

So Raven herded them towards one of the communal kitchens.

She made two glasses of chocolate milk and put out some bread she thankfully found in the pantry. She left it on the table as Melvin and Timmy were still engaged in a game of tag around the room. Then she dove into the giant baby bag to scavenge for a baby bottle and formula implements. As she was figuring out the formula to water ratio, Timmy burst into tears.

"What is it!?" she shouted at him, only loud enough to be heard over his voice.

In his stammers, she just about made out that he wanted chocolate milk.

"That is chocolate milk," she replied, and sped up her formula-making process, as the baby had started crying anxiously at the sight of the bottle.

"Noo-iit's-noooot!" cried Timmy.

Raven had finished assembling the bottle and grabbed the baby before she took a look at his mug, and thought she realized the problem. She reached out and stirred the milk with the hand she wasn't using to hold the baby and the bottle. The milk went from pale to chocolatey-looking again. "There. See? It just separated because you took too long to drink it."

Timmy quieted, but looked at the glass with suspicion. He took a resigned sip. Then another, more convinced one. "I have to drink it fast," he announced.

"Yes," Raven agreed.

When she turned to Melvin next, she was eating the bread with her hands tucked under her legs, in slow toothless bites. Raven asked herself if she really wanted to get into it. Eventually curiosity got the best of her. "Um… what are you doing there?"

The girl looked up at her and meowed.

"Okay," Raven replied, definitely dropping it.

Timmy pulled on her sleeve to get her attention. "Where did the chocolate go before?" he asked.

"To the bottom of the cup."

"Why?"

"…Because chocolate's heavier than milk."

He looked at her through narrowed eyes. He was suspicious of, or mad about, or otherwise unsatisfied with the explanation, but Raven couldn't think of what else to tell him. She had never felt so inadequate in her entire life.

After their snack, Timmy threw a few more tantrums—Raven lost count. Melvin asked more questions. The baby had to be directed away from Azarath heirlooms. Raven acquainted herself with the process of changing a diaper.

Eventually, towards the end of the night, things got quiet. The baby was asleep in her arms. Timmy was passed out with his head on the coffee table, drooling on his artwork, and Melvin was nodding off at the other end of the couch. They all reeked of sweat and were sticky with food, but Raven still felt a deep-seated satisfaction born of extreme exhaustion. She herself would be nodding off if she didn't have the baby to be mindful of.

This was the first time she ever held a baby, she realized all of a sudden. She'd always found the concept daunting before. She'd assumed she would drop a baby, if one was put in her arms. Now she was actually holding one, the idea of dropping him seemed impossible; she knew she had him perfectly secure.

At ten, the doorbell rang, and one of the priests –who now miraculously could see and hear Raven again- told her it was the same woman from before. Raven deposited the baby in his mother's arms and received dollar bills back. She was so out of it she didn't know what she was being paid for for a moment. She closed the door in the woman's face without another word.

When she picked up her phone, she saw Gar had sent her a series of advice.

Gar (19:12pm): Rae, bribe them with candy if they don't listen

Gar (19:19pm): Play one of those rainy sound videos on Youtube to make them sleep

Gar (19:28pm): Cover all electricity sockets

Gar (19:41pm): You ok?

Gar (20:04pm): The internet tells me that when in doubt change a diaper

Then he'd finished with, Sorry I'm not keeping up with you a lot.

Raven replied, It's okay. I know everyone's studying. At least YOU aren't ignoring me.

And she flagged that message –one of the fineries of Vic's instant messaging system- so the others would have to see it when they unmuted the chat.

By the time she made it to her room, she didn't even try to study. She was covered in sweat and nursing a headache. She took a shower, meditated, and just went to bed.


Her friends joined her the next morning in their usual table behind the bleachers, as she was cramming last-minute history.

"I thought those kids killed you last night when you didn't reply for a while," Gar said, sitting next to her.

Dick was laughing. "So, I woke up to a really interesting story in our chat."

"Oh, Raven, I too only saw it this morning," said Kori.

"So how's babysitting suit you?" grinned Vic.

Raven glared at her three friends standing in front of her. "None of you are allowed to laugh about this. Only Gar helped me, which means I was practically on my own."

Gar pouted.

The other three finally looked appropriately sheepish as they saw Raven wasn't backing down. Dick said, "Sorry we didn't reply, but if I didn't cram all afternoon yesterday, I was gonna fail this exam."

"Yeah, well, if I hadn't studied before yesterday, I'd be on my way to fail too," Raven replied. She waited until the three had apologized, and only then she answered their questions. "It was the single most tiring experience of my life, and I hope to never have to do it again. But I have some spending money now."

Her friends laughed.

In truth, it when she looked back on the previous night, she felt good about it. When the three kids were asleep and quiet, she'd felt… warm. Then when they mom came to pick them up, the two older ones had hugged her, unprompted. That had also felt good. Which was weird. But she wrote it all up to the fact the night had been so hard, she felt glad and relieved when it was over.


This chapter was about Rae's adventures in babysitting, with an undercurrent of Gar freaking out cringing about the past, being paranoid about his friendship with Raven, and bending over backwards to act normal around her and failing. If you're wondering why Raven's so blasé about Gar's weirdness—she's blocking it all. More on that as the year goes on.

Next week we finally see Halloween night, and the party Gar found for the team!

PSA: I might start updating early-ish on Mondays rather than late-ish on Sundays. (Someone told me it's already Monday when they get the chapters so for some people it's gonna be the exact same.)

audriih: Exactly! I think originally I read on a random forum about 'Raven's Hindu identity in the 80's comics and how they whitewashed her' and I was like ? and when I got around to reading the original comics I saw what they meant! I think I've seen an uptick of awareness of Raven's original coding? Majo-yyy's fanart on tumblr is one of the most shining examples of that if you wanna look them up. Of course, Raven has been assumed white or white-passing for decades and this is comics, you'll find a TON of different versions of a character you can equally draw from, and imo there's nothing wrong with writing her the way you're comfortable writing her. Or taking them in a different direction, like the Muslim Raven content I've also seen!

Miss Evergreen: De nuevo, muchas gracias por tus palabras! Cierto que escalar a una ventana es algo inherentemente romántico? Jajaja creo que me obsesiona la idea de que esos dos pueden ser tan obvios haciendo cosas de pareja, pero son tan diferentes que nadie lo pensaría, por lo menos no hasta que las revelaciones les peguen en la cara… pero para eso falta :)

Ya te digo, me interesa más mostrar cómo los titanes se las arreglan para combatir el crimen sin poderes. Hay suficientes historias donde tienen poderes, descubren sus poderes, revelan sus poderes, etc. Igualmente, las cosas alrededor de Raven sí se ponen cada vez más sobrenaturales :D (Y son lo de la cuenta, obviamente no hay drama en cómo me escribas, lo único que me preocupa es si alguien no sabe que no le puedo responder si está como guest y piensa que lo estoy ignorando!)