Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans! And I don't think that I've mentioned this yet, but I also don't own the title, which is a beautiful song sung by Christina Perri.

Jar of Hearts

Chapter Six

I've always been good at running, specifically running away from something, not running towards something. When I first started running track back in junior high I used to imagine that I was running from something and not toward the finish line. It was easier, back then, to pretend.

Fact of Life: Sometimes you don't really need to go anywhere. Sometimes you just have to get away.

Of course once I started getting serious about it I knew that I was running to a destination, I knew that eventually I would stop. But the fact of the matter was I was still moving, still running, still going.

I always liked long distance the best- the farther the better- and I was always better at it than I was a short distances.

Between fight or flight I'd pick flight, always.

:-:

I was driving to the track, one of the few places that I was ever truly happy, because no one ever tried to talk to me there. At the track, and I went to the public high school's track and not my own, where I might actually meet people that knew me. (I went to a private school thanks to my mother's ability to smell a buck from a mile away. But Bob's still a downgrade, if you think about it. After all, my dad's still a king.)

But here, away from everything familiar, no one spoke to me. Occasionally one of the older women would smile at me if we were walking through the chain link fence at the same time, but it was a rare occurrence.

There was gravel and and dirt in the 'parking lot', if you could even call it that, and while I almost fell every time that I walked on it, otherwise the place was perfect.

Running was one of the few things that made me happy. My mom says that I ran before I walked and that Garth was always trying to catch up with me (that just shows how close we were once upon a time, how often we were together). But now I'm still a runner and no one ever bothers to try and catch me because they know that they can't.

I wouldn't let them.

When I was younger I ran on the school's cross country and track teams, and I was good. In ninth grade I had to only shave a few more seconds off of my time and I would have qualified for state. But then I slept with a teacher and the whole world found out, which made the coach have a

But here's the thing that I love most about running was: While I was doing it I forgot everything that I thought was important. I forgot to hate myself, forgot who I was, forgot what I had once been. The only thing that was important was the burning of my muscles, the track beneath my feet, the air rushing through my lungs.

And time, always the time.

I had to cut down on my smoking thanks to the fact that I started running again. When everything had first happened I cut myself off of anything that I used to love and started smoking and letting boy's hands up my shirt.

But I couldn't stop running and even though now I could run three miles a day, three times a week if I really pushed it (five miles if I felt like puking up blood). So I went, every Tuesday, Thursday, and the occasional Sunday if we didn't have anything better to do, which we mostly didn't. Ever since Brion started not coming to Sunday dinner...

The thought made me wince, since that was all my fault. Covered in sweat and breathing like a smoker that just kicked her own ass to get herself to run three miles at one time I started jogging a cool down mile and happened to notice a very nice car sitting in the parking lot, which was not a regular occurence, if you could believe that. This was The Hood after all.

But I ignored the feeling that this car was familiar and finished my cool down mile, and walked to the 'parking lot' only to find a Garth, of course, looking at me almost as though he was amazed or something. "Did you time yourself on that last mile?" he asked, turning toward me with his phone showing a stopwatch device. Creeper, he had been watching me on my last mile. If that's not sick I don't know what is.

"No," I lied, thanking God that these weren't my tight pants and so he couldn't see the outline of my stopwatch. "I didn't." There, three words. My mother had told me to start being polite to Garth, but this was hard for me. Three words automatically filled my quota as being more than one word and now I was free to leave his company.

Except, of course, I had told myself that I wouldn't run away from him anymore. I would stand my ground. And I really, really suck at making promises. "What are you doing here?"

Garth looked amused at the suspicion in my voice. "I have an on land workout too, you know. And we're not really members of the Country Club yet and the school track is getting revamped. This was the closest place to home that I could find. Don't worry, Tara, I wasn't stalking you or anything."

"Could've fooled me." A corner of his mouth picked up as I said this. Garth had never really grinned, not really, and nor did he smirk but this was probably the closest that he had ever gotten. Garth was too nice a guy to smirk, or something. His facial muscles just wouldn't move that way.

"A lot of things fool you," he told me as cool as a cucumber. How he could say this to me and be so calm had always been beyond me. I couldn't help but remember how long it always took to rile up Garth properly, but how when you did things were very, very bad.

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" I snarled, not really knowing why his words were effecting me so much. Rage boiled in my veins, dark and frothy. For a boy who hid his buttons very well he certainly knew how to push mine. I should have let him effect me at all, but he did. Maybe it was because I knew that he never, ever lied. Or he didn't, because after all, I didn't know him anymore. We had grown up, that much was clear.

"It means that you spend so much time trying to fool yourself that you let other people fool you as well." Ever the grammar Nazi he kept his words clipped and firm, his proper English sweeping towards me like a wave.

"You don't even know me. Stop pretending like you do."

"But I do know you. You're Terra Markov, daughter of the king of Markovia. You like to run and you can't stand reading a book or sitting still for five minutes. Your favorite food is grilled cheese and you can say the alphabet backwards. You haven't changed as much as you think you have."

"And what do you know about that?" I asked, my tone scathing. "You've been back for a week and all of a sudden you're the Tara encyclopedia? That's total bullshit. And it's Tara. T-a-r-a, Tara."

"I've heard some things around the school, and you forget how close our mothers are. All I have to do is ask and my mother will tell me."

I couldn't believe that we were having this conversation. I couldn't believe it. He hasn't seen me for nine years and the first time that he can corner me alone he chooses to ambush me? Un-fucking-believeable. "I'm surprised that you even asked. It was pretty clear that you stopped caring about me a long time ago."

And all of a sudden that emotion came back, the one that I saw at the football game, the same one that I had seen the first time that I had pushed him away. I still couldn't name it, but I could tell when he felt it now. "Tara-"

"I don't want to hear it," I cut him off and turned on my heel, my feet slipping on gravel. It was almost like slow motion but I could see everything blur and I heard my knee pop and I saw everything as I hit the ground. I heard something scream and then I realized that it was me.

"Tara?" Garth leaned down and his face was near mine, so close that I could have kissed him if I wanted to. But I didn't want to. I wanted to scream at him to go away, but then I realized that I didn't want that either. I just wanted this pain to go away, because I could not let myself cry in front of him even if I was in pain. "Are you okay?"

I managed to find my voice for this, but even I could tell that it was laced thickly with pain. "What do you think, jackass?" Not even cursing at him could make me feel better. Damn this hurt.

Garth smiled thinly. "At least I know that you're not going to die. What hurts?"

"My knee," I panted, and then I realized what that meant. It meant that I wouldn't be able to run for a long, long time. Of course Garth would make it so that I wouldn't be able to do something that made me happy. I chanced a look at my leg and then realized that that was the wrong thing thing that do. My left leg was already swelling and one of my kneecaps was twisted to the side; I had dislocated it.

Bile rose to my throat and I had to swallow hard so that I didn't barf on myself or Garth. "We need to take you to the hospital," Garth told me.

"And you have a bad haircut," I said, because apparently we were stating the obvious. I didn't know if he heard me properly, though, because I had to bite my lip so hard that I started bleeding shortly after I said that. Garth didn't reply but instead scooped me up as though I weighed almost nothing, and he avoided touch my hurt knee, which I was thankful for. If he had touched it I don't know what I would have done.

Pulling out of the parking lot of doom and dislocated knees Garth sped and he drove me to the nearest hospital. I hoped that he wasn't going to try and make me walk; this was all his fault and it would be proper pennence to make him have to carry me to the emergency room.

"C'mon," he said, "we need you to limp to the emergency room to make you look more pathetic." I couldn't argue with his logic. He put his arm behind me and I bit my lip so that I didn't start crying pathetically when I accidently put weight on my left leg.

He then put me into a chair in the waiting room and went to go find a nurse. On the right of me a kid was screaming because he had something in his eyebrow, and on the left there was a man huddled in on himself and on the other side of him there was a woman murmmering something to him, rubbing his back in small circles. I didn't even want to know what was going on with him, with either of them really,

Then Garth stood in front of me, a nurse with him. "Tara Markov?" the nurse asked, popping her gum as she did so. I couldn't help but notice that her dark roots were showing. As if you could get this color out of a bottle.

"Yes. That's me."

"I need you to come with me." Garth helped me out of the seat that he had so carefully placed me it, and we followed the nurse, who had thankfully decided to be a human being and slowed herself down so that she was going a speed that we could follow, which was about .3 miles per hour.

I really wished that I could tear myself away from Garth walk by myself, but I couldn't do it because the pain was too much. I didn't think that I could walk alone without collapsing. As soon as we got into a room that looked a lot like a doctor's office the nurse asked me for insurance.

Obviously, I didn't have any. "Garth," I said, "I need your phone. Preferably now." He handed me the phone without saying a word and I flipped it open, pressing the all of the numbers needed to call my mother's cell phone. I was surprised to find that she was already a contact of his.

"Hello," my mother said warmly. She must have really thought that this was Garth because when she normally answered the phone she tried to sound business like even though she had never had a nine to six job in her life.

"Hey mom, it's me. I'm at the hospital." My name should have been Ms. Nonchalant. Oh hi, I'm Tara, and I go to the hospital all the time. I'm such a total klutz and boys totally make me fall all over myself all of the time.

Not.

"What?"

I couldn't say that I was surprised at my mother's reaction. "I need the insurance information, can you give me that please."

I could hear her rummaging through her purse. She gave me the information and I relayed it to the nurse, who wrote it on her clipboard and then left. "Tara Markov," my mother said, almost sounding dangerous but not quite, "tell me what happened."

"I fell and I think that I dislocated my kneecap."

"Are you with Garth?"

No, I just jacked his phone and am now calling you from it. "Yes."

"Let me talk to him, please." Wordlessly I handed the boy his phone and I turned away from him. My own mother trusted him more than she trusted me, of course. It's not like I could blame her. After all, I'm a liar and Garth used to be the most honest boy that I knew.

With nothing to focus on I could feel the pain in my knee and I wanted to cry again. My leg looked disgusting, all swollen and big all over. If anyone touched it I would scream. I wanted to scream right now, but I gritted my teeth against the feeling. I was not that big of a baby, I had had worse injuries before. None came to mind, of course, but I'm sure that something hurt more than this.

I breathed in my nose and out my mouth over and over again until I heard Garth stop talking and shut his phone. He started at me and I stared back before saying, "This is all your fault, you know." I took a deep breath through my teeth and held my breath, counting to ten.

That amused look that I was used to seeing on his face came back. "Okay, Tara, whatever." He didn't seem inclined to argue, and that was just fine with me. It's probably because he knew that it was true, honestly there was no way to deny it. I was right and he was wrong.

Fact of Life: We'd all rather be right than wrong. Too bad we're wrong almost ninety nine percent of the time.

We sat in silence for a little while, me doing my breathing exercises and him texting someone on his phone, until the doctor came it. He was good looking but I saw a wedding band and decided not to take my chances, not with Garth right there. Wouldn't want him to think less of me, or something.

"Hello Tara," the doc said brightly, his blonde hair glinting in the florescent lighting. I could tell that he got his teeth perfessionally whitened. "I see what the problem is here," he stated, zeroing in on my leg. "How'd this happen?"

Leave it to a doctor to ask questions. Cops and doctors are always the worst, though, so it's not like I was surprised or anything.

"I fell," I answered. Thank God I was getting distracted, otherwise I would be screaming right now.

The doc, Doctor Matthews according to his clipboard, placed a cold hand on my knee. I bit the inside of my cheek hard enough to draw blood. The metallic liquid did not make anything hurt any less. "I see. Well, I'm going to have to put it back in place before I can do anything else. You might want your boyfriend to hold your hand for this."

Garth looked up at me but before he could move I said, "He's not my boyfriend. I dont' need to hold anyone's hand."

"Okay." Doctor Matthews raised his eyebrows. "I've got to warn you, though, this does hurt." When I nodded but didn't say anything he told me, "On the count of five, okay? One. Two. Three." And all of a sudden, when I wasn't expecting it, he grabbed my kneecap and straightened it out. I screamed and brought my hands to my face so that they couldn't see the tears that had leaked out against my will.

Damn doctor.

"Now I'm going to have to give you a prescription for some pain medication, and I want you to stay off leg for about two days, no running for about three weeks, and don't do anything too crazy, okay. I know how you kids are these days." He smiled at us indulgently, as if he was our grandpa or something. He tore off a piece of paper and handed it to me. "Best of luck," he told Garth, who seemed surprised but he didn't respond. "Bye Tara." I nodded in response as he walked out the door. Good riddance.

Now the pain was receding, which was a huge relief to me. I would be able to walk out of here by myself, and I should have been able to go to school without there being any sort of deal. "Do you want me to take you home?" Garth asked.

"Do I honestly have a choice?"

Garth smiled at that. "Not really."

A/N: The characters really surprised me in this one. This doesn't normally happen, but when it does I'm always happy. Garth ended up being more upset with how Tara's been treating him than I expected. But I hope you enjoyed anyway, it's a bit late, but better late than never, right?