Duuudes and duuudettes! Glad you still follow the story! This one is a rather cheesy one parted in two pieces (but they are both in this chapter) and even gets a little kinky... Enjoy and SMILE!

Chapter 6: Insecurity

His

Raven took a deep breath and turned one last time towards her mother. "And you are sure it will work?"

"I am. Trust me," Arella said and hugged her daughter goodbye, "Greet your boyfriend from me and bring him with you the next time."

"Thank you. For everything."

The younger woman turned and breathed deeply again before she summoned the portal that would lead her to her home on earth. She had been gone for less than two weeks, but it seemed like a minor eternity; as much as she had enjoyed her stay at Azarath, she was glad to return to Jump City.

Raven remembered how she had left from the Titans' common room.

"Do you really have to go?" her boyfriend of six months had asked sadly as she had hugged him goodbye.

"I'll be back in a few days. It's just a health check, nothing to worry about, Gar. There is no doctor on earth who knows half-demons anatomy as half as good as the azarathian monks."

"But you are fine, aren't you?" he had questioned with concern for the hundredth time this day.

Nightwing had interrupted: "Maybe you should have taken the vaccination?" But he had been shut down by the angry glare of the changeling.

"I am fine. Don't. Worry. I just have some questions and this health check to get through. I'll tell you the rest when I'll be back."

"Okay. I'll miss you, Rae."

She had looked in his eyes: "Let's get it over, the sooner I'll go the sooner I'll be back." He had kissed her one last time before he had released her and she had stepped into the portal, leaving him behind with the look of a beaten puppy in his eyes. If only he had known why she really had left in the first place… But now she was on her way back, she wouldn't have to miss him this terribly anymore, at least not for a while.

Raven stepped out the black vortex right into the middle of the common room.

"Yo, Rae! Welcome back!" Victor greeted from the couch.

"Hello Victor. How are you?"

"Smooth as always! How about you?" He had a certain expression in his human eye she couldn't place right, but maybe she was just tired from the journey.

"I am fine. Officially. Where are the others?"

At her words Karen just came out of the kitchen. "Rae, good to see you, girl! I'm… glad you're finally back," she said hugging her. She wore the same expression of… what was it?

"Hello Karen. It's good to be home." Concern. They looked at her in concern. What had happened during her absence?

"I'll call the others," Vic said as he switched on the communicator built into his arm. Before he could do so Garfield stormed in through the main door.

"Did I hear right?" he panted out of air. His sight mildly shocked Raven. He was pale, unshaved, wore dark circles under his eyes and – had he become thinner? As soon as he spotted her his features lightened up and he grinned widely.

"RAVEN!" he hoarsely shouted in utter joy, jumped at her, crushed her in a tight hug and kissed her passionately. He really must have missed her she thought.

Apparently Richard and Kori had heard him, they entered the room in the same moment she and Gar broke their kiss.

"Oh joyous! Welcome home, friend Raven! We so missed you!" Kori exclaimed approaching to hug Raven as well. But Gar held on Raven possessively and growled menacingly at the alien woman as she came to close. Kori yelped and hid behind Dick who lifted an eyebrow and crossed his arms.

"Welcome back," he said, but it seemed like he said it more to the green man than to Raven.

As Garfield still glared growling at Dick and Kori, Raven cupped his face in her hands, forced him to look at her and said: "Gar, can you bring my luggage up into my room? I'll join you later."

He still held on to her. "How much later?" Something definitely was off here. And Raven was determined to find out.

"Give me ten minutes."

"Okay. See you in ten minutes!" he said, looking at her a few seconds longer as if he doubted that she was really there. Then he released her and took her luggage to her room like she had requested. When he was gone she turned to her four remaining friends and asked with crossed arms: "Alright, what is going on here?"

She saw how they exchanged glances but didn't answer directly.

"Can anyone tell me what had happened to Garfield while I was gone?"

"Friend Garfield missed you very much…" Kori stated carefully.

"I already assumed this, yeah. So what?" she huffed. What made her friends so hesitant?

Finally Cyborg gave in: "Remember the tofu you two had bought the day before you left? It's rotting in the fridge. He didn't eat a crumb, not only from tofu but he ate nothing at all. I even cooked him some once… No respond."

"And I doubt his pillow has seen him since you were gone either," Karen added, "But the door to your room may have an imprint from him sitting there all the time. He only left his spot to go to the bathroom and take a shower for hours."

"I always wondered how he managed to have warm water for so long; the water heater has not such a big capacity…" Vic mused.

Cold showers. Raven remembered how Garfield had one extremely hot summer kept her asking if he could encircle him in her powers because it felt like a cold shower. Her heart clenched.

"You need to talk to him Raven. He didn't respond to any of us, no matter how hard we tried. This growl was actually the first sound I heard from him since your departure. Sometimes I sat there with him for hours when he didn't move at all, because I feared that… it seemed like he didn't even breathe…" Richard said slightly shuddering at the memory.

Kori flew over to her and took both of her hands in hers as she begged with tears in her eyes: "When you were gone, it was as if friend Garfield was gone too. Please, friend Raven, can you bring him back?"

Raven had become paler at the narration of her friends. She had missed her boyfriend too, but not to the extent that she ceased living. Though she hadn't been the one left behind.

"I'll go talk to him."

As she entered her room he was already waiting impatiently, sitting on the floor and leaning at her bed, almost piercing the door with his gaze. He grinned at her sight and got up, opening his arms to hug her again. She felt a twinge in her heart as she held up a hand to stop him wordless, causing him to lower his arms and wipe off the smile from his face. She had to get it over so she could have him in her arms as soon as possible.

"Gar, why did you do that to yourself?"

He pressed his lips together and lowered his head, shrugging his shoulders and mumbling: "Don't know what you mean…"

She frowned as she said: "Garfield, we swore to be honest, remember? You spent your whole time at the door to my room, you didn't sleep or eat and you took cold showers for hours. You scared the others half to death."

He glared at her through the bangs of his hair he hadn't taken care of lately. "Do you think it was funny for me? Do you think I liked acting like a lovesick loser? Do you think I enjoyed being so helpless without you? Look at me, Rae! It's disgusting how I am without you but I can't help it!" he spat at her. She could feel how hurt and ashamed he was but she also could feel something else – he was afraid.

She approached him and softly touched his cheek. "Gar, why can't you help it?"

His eyes grew and he started to stutter."I-I-I… I just… Urgh." He closed his eyes and blurted out: "I was afraid you wouldn't come back. I feared you'd leave me behind like everyone else. I mean, Azarath is your home after all, you have your mother and the monks there they're your family, right? You always told me you felt safe and secure there, you have everything that matters there… I could not blame you ever if you would stay there, but it would kill me. I hate the fact that I am so addicted to you, but screw it, I am. Happy now?"

"Silly!" With tears in her eyes she pulled him into a hug and held him so hard her arms hurt, but she didn't care. She felt how he leaned in her embrace and how his emotions slowed down. But he still held his fear in.

"Listen to me, and listen careful, Gar! I won't repeat this often!" she murmured softly, "My home is the Titans' tower, my family is our team, I feel the most secure and safe in your arms and YOU Garfield Marc Logan known as Changeling are all that matters to me! As long as you want me to I'll always come back to you! I missed you too and I love you."

He whispered in her hair: "I love you too. So much that it hurts."

And for a long time they just stood there and felt consoled through the embrace of the other.

As Garfield finally loosened his grip on her and leaned back to look into her eyes he said smiling: "So, why did you leave in the first place? And don't go on with this bullshit about health check, because I'm not buying it!"

She slightly blushed and answered: "It really concerned my health, Gar. I had to ask about birth control, because most earthly contraception methods probably wouldn't work on me, and I was right."

"Oh… o-okay, and… were you… uhm… successful… in your research?" he stuttered, blushing as well.

"Very," she smiled as she started to pull down the zip of his uniform and kissed him with passion.

Hers

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarghhhh!" screeched Karen at the top of her lungs. Vic stormed into the common room where she stood on the table of the kitchen area.

"Make it go away! MAKE IT GO AWAY!" she pointed on the floor. Karen wasn't afraid of much things, sometimes she even claimed to be afraid of nothing, but there was surely one thing she was afraid of: cockroaches.

"Don't worry, Honeybee, I'm on it!" He turned his right arm into a sonic canon and aimed at the dark brown insect. He shot three blasts after it before he hit it., still one more shot was necessary to make it cease moving as well.

"Damn resistant beasts! It's all right, Bee, you can come down!"

"That's it! This was the third one this week! Either we clean up the whole tower and make sure there isn't a nest somewhere or I'll call a vermin exterminator!" she huffed determinate.

"Okay, Bee. I'll break the news to Dick, he should decide in this case."

"He better hurries with his decision, or I'll make him!"

"Dude, do you know how messy my room is? It'll take an eternity to clean it up!" Garfield protested.

But their leader didn't back down on this subject: "That's why especially your room needs cleaning up! If there is a nest of cockroaches in the tower it's probably in your room."

"Don't you think I'd know if there would be other animals in my territory?" he replied with crossed arms.

"Just clean it up."

" No fair! You're not my father, are you?"

But before their argument could heat up more, Raven put a hand on her boyfriends shoulder to calm him down and told him: "I'll help you as soon as I'll be finished with mine, okay?"

"Okay…" he huffed, "But you believe me that I don't have cockroaches in my room, don't you?"

"Of course Gar. Come on, let's get it over."

After an hour Raven had completely cleaned up her room as well as disinfected and fumigated it like Vic had insisted on. Like she had promised she headed now to her boyfriends room to help him with the cleaning. She shuddered at the thought of the amount of dirty clothes and trash he kept in his room. It would take them several hours if not days to clean it up. Vic had suggested Gar should ease his job by burning the whole thing out, but the younger had declined pouting.

As she arrived at his door she saw a note stuck onto it that said in a familiar writing: "Gone for a snack, will be right back…"

Raven read it and burnt it up in black energy. Of course he would already need a break; he probably hadn't even started… Slightly vexed she phased through his door to look at the mess, although she had to admit it wasn't as bad as she had remembered. There were no more dirty clothes lying around, and the only pile in the room could or could not be trash and lay right beside the bed. On top of it lay something that drew her attention: a scrapbook with a picture of Gar and Terra on the front.

Raven knew she shouldn't do it, but she picked it up and began to flick through the pages. Apparently he had found it as he had started cleaning. As she looked at all the pictures and the comments and all the sickening sweetness it felt like someone ripped her heart into pieces, bit by bit. Maybe he still loved the blonde; maybe he would never love her like he loved the geomancer. She knew she wasn't as pretty or funny or open as Terra had been, she never was and never would be.

Tears started to fill her eyes and though it hurt, she couldn't stop looking at the damn scrapbook. That was until suddenly someone hugged her from behind: "You're already here, Rae? I hoped I could do more until you'd come!"

Startled she dropped the book and tried to hide her tears from her boyfriend. He turned her around, looked from the book to her face and back several times until he lifted her chin to look in her eyes.

"Rae, what's wrong?"

She tried to shy away but he didn't let her, but no answer came over her lips.

He frowned: "No more hidden feelings, we promised. So, what makes you cry? My room isn't THAT messy." At his lame joke she finally looked him in his eyes.

"Do you still love her?" she asked with a trembling voice that didn't seem to fit her.

He chuckled. "Rae, that's silly! I love YOU, remember?"

"But you loved her first!"

"Okay, listen, that's not entirely true! I mean… It's complicated…" he stated in loss of words.

She looked to the ground. Was he going to lie to her this cheaply?

He lifted her head again: "Okay remember the time she came around? I really fell hard for her, but as you know it didn't work that well. Even as I thought I could start over again with her as she was somehow revived and she didn't want to remember me at all, I still loved her. But it was a different kind of love. It was like… like a toddler loves his kindergarten teacher or something… like that sticky pink strawberry soda I loved to drink for a few months with fourteen until I got sick as I drank too much of it, you know?" The memory caused the slightest smile on her lips. She remembered that of course. He hadn't drank anything else for five months, but suddenly stopped the consummation after a movie night where he had drank fifteen cans and thrown up all of it afterwards.

"See? Terra was like that soda; I loved it but in the end the pain wasn't worth it. But with you it always was different…"

"How so?" she coaxed with a hopeful tint in her voice.

"Right from the start it felt like… you belonged to me, no matter what. For a really long time I couldn't place the feeling right, but it always scared me when it seemed I would lose you. I hated it how you were close to Richard or Vic, I hated that Malchior-bloke and your father and don't let me even start with Adonis. But more than anyone I hated those goth-guys you dated, I envied them for their luck to get your full attention and appreciation, I envied them for every second you spent on them. My relationships with those stupid blonde babes felt shallow and I realized: all I wanted was you. "

Her smile brightened a few notches and he continued.

"The love I feel for you is… persistent. Sometimes it scares me how eternal it feels, but it feels right. Now that I think about it, it's like with tofu! It's no fancy-shmancy stuff everyone is after for a short period, it's the favorite food you want from the first time you eat it until you die."

She lifted an eyebrow as she asked: "So I am on the same step as tofu?"

He grinned widely. "You're above tofu! Above everything in fact…" and she pulled him in for a deep kiss.

As they parted he asked with a lifted eyebrow: "So, care to share why you got through my trash pile?"

"Your… your trash pile?" she inquired startled.

"Well, duh! I was going to throw that stuff away. I mean, look at it: pizza boxes, rotten food, ripped cloths… Nothing you usually love to have around."

"But… the scrapbook… the memories…"

"That's old and rather stupid. I got better ones with memories worth to remember. Wanna see?"

He dragged her over to one of his cupboards and opened it. It was filled from the top to the bottom with scrapbooks. Where did he take the time to make all of them?

"See, on the three lower racks there are those about all the Titans, friends and family," he explained picking one and opening it for her, showing a big group photo. She remembered how they had taken it after the defeat of the Brotherhood of evil together all those who had helped. Maybe she should go through those scrapbooks another day. She handed him the book over and he put it back, reaching for one on the top racks.

"And the two top racks are set aside for my special ones…" He delicately presented her one that looked rather old as if he already possessed it for a while and like he had been very young when he had made it. The front was adorned of a picture of Gar and – herself. She opened it with awe and saw it was full with photographs and newspaper articles of them or her.

She gazed at him questioning: "Two racks?" He smiled sheepishly and scratched the back of his head.

"Hehehe, you know I'm a photo-maniac!" If she had ever had any doubt that he would leave her for another or love her less than Terra, they all were gone. He couldn't have given her greater proof how sincere his feelings were.

Carefully she put the scrapbook back on the top rack, closed the cupboards door and pushed him against it, inching closer.

"Sometimes, you're overdoing it, Gar…" she smirked as she pulled down the zip of his uniform, leaning in for a kiss.

After a while they were almost done with the cleaning of Garfield's room, he was arranging some paper on his desk.

"Looks important. What are those about?" she inquired.

"Just some stuff for the company," he said with a shrug, "They asked me to help with a research about the resilience of cockroaches to nuclear contamination…" They usually didn't speak about his business matters, he didn't want to bore her with it.

"Cockroaches, Gar?"

"Yeah, they sent me some with the mail to interview them, you see, and I sent them back afterwards. You can ask Vic, he stored the container in the basement until it was picked up."

She slapped herself plain in the face. "Gar, is there any possibility that there escaped some of your interview-partners?"

"Well, not as long as they were in my room!" he said with crossed arms.

Suddenly they could hear Karen screaming in horror again. She had been helping Victor to clean the basement.

"See? No cockroaches in my room!" he stated with a smug grin.