A/N: I know I haven't updated in FOREVER! I already put my apology in my other story's A/N. Please excuse my lateness in chapters. I have spring break thi week though, so I should be updating a little more quickly! Yay!

Dislcaimer: I do not own the Teen Titans

TT2

Sunday September 20, 2019

It was nearly one A.M. Clara was still awake, reading one of her favorite books, curled up in her bed beneath a large blue fleece blanket. There was a single reading light above her head, attached to her headboard, shining upon the fairly new pages.

She turned a page, the only rustle in the silence.

Everyone else was asleep. Kimi had gone to bed early, a little worn from activities of the last few days. Sara and Danny went to bed relatively early, and Taku fell asleep on the couch. Clara had the decency to levitate him down to his room when she went up for a snack. The only one who she could really assume was up late was Kyle, who was doing research on his computer. But, he too had gone to bed about an hour prior.

Clara caught sight of the time, promptly yawned, and then marked her book. Gently she set it down on her nightstand and slouched down into her bed. With one last yawn she reached up and was about to turn off her reading light, before she heard rapping at her window. It could only be one person; Jake.

Clara threw the covers off herself and tip-toed to her window to let him in from the blustery breeze of the night. She pushed her window up with a great amount of force and he tumbled in, coughing slightly and laying on the ground for a second before rolling over and looking up at her.

But this look wasn't one of his normal "I'm-so-cool-you-gotta-love-me" looks. It was a look of pure distress. And Clara couldn't stand it. "I had nowhere to go," he whispered to her, sitting up and leaning over his knees, as Clara continued to watch him. "I had nowhere to go."

Clara slipped down to her knees and hugged him around the neck. He rested his head on her shoulder and did nothing but sit there and breath softly onto her neck. He didn't whine, he didn't mope, he just sat there. It was a while before his arms came around her waist and he hugged her close to him.

After a long ten or fifteen minutes Clara pulled back and looked him in the eye. "What's wrong?" she asked softly, slipping to the ground to sit cross-legged in front of him. "What happened?" She reached up and brushed hair out of his face. "You can trust me."

He smiled. "With my life." Clara smiled back. There was a small silence. "My mom and I got into a fight," he sighed. "She yelled at me because of the paper. She thinks I'm irresponsible, like I can't handle myself. She said I couldn't see you as long as I lived under her roof so I told her I was leaving."

"That wasn't smart, you know," Clara told him sternly.

"I know," he replied. "I just...I couldn't stand the thought of being banned from seeing you."

"As sweet as that is," she started. "You know you have to go back to your mom sometime."

"I know. But would you mind...could I stay with you tonight?" he asked anxiously. "Of course, I'd sleep on the floor, but I can't go back just yet. She probably called her boyfriend to make her feel better and...I just don't want to be there when he is. He makes me nervous."

Clara half-smiled. "Of course."

Clara stood and tore the down comforter off of her bed and laid it on the floor as a makeshift bed and threw down two pillows. "Let's get some sleep, we have to do research in the morning."

Jake nodded avidly, standing up and making his way towards his bed. "Thanks, Clare." He gave her a soft kiss before she climbed into her bed and he situated himself on the ground. "Sleep tight, babe."

"Right back at ya."

It was a few minutes as Clara listened to the incessant tossing and turning of her beau on the floor. Every time he made a move the down would rustle and awake her from her attempts at sleep. It was a while before she finally peered, amused, over the side of the bed. He was lying there with his eyes shut tight, but one green eye peeked open and he chuckled. "I can't sleep."

"I can tell."

He sighed and turned once more.

"That can't be too comfortable," Clara noted.

"It's just fine, don't worry."

"Are you sure? I wouldn't mind if you came up here to sleep. I mean, as long as you keep your hands to yourself." She smirked. "It's gotta be much better than the floor."

"Are you sure? I don't want to invade your privacy or anything," he stated.

"Sweet, but I won't get any sleep while you're down there, so get up here." Jake shrugged and scrambled up to the large and comfortable bed. Clara offered him a little bit of her other comforter and he gratefully slid in.

"Thanks," he whispered in her ear as they huddled close together in the center of the bed. Clara shivered, but it had nothing to do with the cold. "You really are amazing, you know that?"

Clara smiled. "Just go to sleep," she mumbled, kissing his forehead, before settling back into bed next to him.

TT2

Clara awoke the next morning with Jake still pressed up against her, snoring lightly, but not obtrusively. His hair was mussed and he had a genuinely peaceful look upon his youthful face. Clara smiled, brushing hair out of his face before slipping the covers off herself and stepping out of bed. She pulled on a pair of sweatpants over the shorts she had been wearing the previous night.

There was a knock at her door, a frantic knock. It was the impatient knock of her sister. "Hold on a second," Clara called.

"No, I'm coming in!" Sara yelled back.

"Sara! Wait! No!" Clara retorted, but it was too late. Sara had let the door slide open and she strode in, but stopped short when she saw her sister and then saw a body in her bed. Worse, Clara had pulled off her tee-shirt to put on a long-sleeved tee-shirt, and was in the middle of putting the shirt on.

This looked bad.

"Clara!" she gasped in an accusatory tone.

"No, no, no, no, no!" Clara started in her fast and I-am-about-to-sweet-talk-you voice. "It's not what it looks like!" Clara looked hesitantly back to the body in the bed and flitted past Sara grabbing her arm as she went. She pulled her counterpart into the hallway. "Look, that's the guy you saw me on the newspaper with, but I SWEAR nothing happened. He got kicked out of his house because he and his mother got into a fight, and he came to me because he had no where else to go when he came to me late last night. I let him stay here, but I swear nothing happened. C'mon, Sare, you know me better than that."

Sara sighed and looked up to her twin sister. "Am I the only one that knows?"

Clara nodded.

"Clara...I'm gonna have gray hairs by the time I'm twenty. If I'm the only ugly Titan I'm gonna blame you," she joked, and Clara laughed feebly. "Oh fine, I'll keep your secret. But if he's gonna stay here any longer, you gotta lie to the Titans and tell him that he's staying the day at the Tower or something. I don't want you sneaking him around."

"I will, I will," Clara agreed.

"Clara?" a soft and croaky voice called. "Clara?"

Clara took Sara's hand and led her back into her room to see Jake had his head popped up, his hair falling into his eyes, his left hand scratching the back of his head. "Hey sunshine."

And then he saw Sara. "Oh shit." He grabbed the covers and tried to cover up his bare chest, stumbling out of the bed and falling on the floor in the process. Clara chuckled.

"You are so cute when you're nervous," Clara told him.

"Ch'ya, love ya too, Clara," he grumbled, standing up and relinquishing the covers to stretch slightly. "I guess there's no cause for alarm that she sees me right now?"

"Nope," Sara stated, crossing her arms over her chest. "But you might wanna put on a shirt."

Jake blushed and bent over to grab his shirt from the ground. He had discarded it the previous night when he had started to overheat, something he constantly did. He slipped it on. The tight crimson shirt with his green plaid pajama pants (had he come there wearing that?) made him look like a Christmas tree.

Sara chuckled. "Cute boy you've found," she told Clara, but loud enough for him to hear.

"I resent the word cute when it is referring to me, thank you very much," he retorted, crossing his arms in front of him and taking a defensive stance. "I am, in NO way, cute, adorable, or child-like. I am sexy, brave, and manly." Jake put her arms on her waist.

"Yea, and the author just called you a woman," Sara muttered.

"What?" he asked, clueless.

Sara nodded her head to herself. "Nevermind."

"Ok, ok, now we've had an amazing little conversation, let Sara get out so we can talk," Clara told her counterpart, with a pointed glare. She then glared in Jake's direction so he could back her up. He was looking elsewhere, his arms again crossed in front of him, his weight on one leg. "Ahem," Clara coughed, again very pointedly.

"Oh...uh...yeah. C'mon, Sara, get out. We need to-er-talk," he affirmed.

Sara rolled her eyes. She made a whipping sound underneath her breath and Jake looked taken aback, but before he could retort she had jogged out of the room, calling Kimi's name.

"You better not tell her!" Clara hissed.

"Yeah, yeah," Sara replied airily, her back getting farther and farther away. Clara sighed in relief and let the door slide closed, pressing her back against it with her eyes closed. There was a soft rustling and when she reopened her eyes Jake was standing right in front of her, his arms going for her waist. At first, she thought he was going to hug her (which she wouldn't have minded at the moment), but instead his hands stopped in front of her stomach.

"You look a little tense," he told her, his smile forming into a small smirk.

And so began the tickle fight.

TT2

Sara wandered the halls aimlessly. It was a Saturday. Therefore, she had nothing to do. And she really didn't feel like going to work-out. She was sure Kyle would be in there, and she was still mad at him. Of course, as far as she knew, he had made no attempt to say sorry, so why should she forgive him now if he was going to be a jerk about it?

Sara entered the living room and hopped over the couch to sit next to Danny. "What's crackin?" she asked, watching as he desperately tried to beat Taku's score on Catch That Car XII. Taku was a speed demon when it came to video games.

"Nothing..." he trailed off, jerking his body to the left and shaking his head to clear the hair from his eyes.

"Ugh...you're no fun, just like everyone else in this house." Sara turned her head slightly to check the clock; it read six o' clock. Jared should be here any minute, for the 'date' she had set up with him. "I hate life," she began cynically.

"What did you do this time?" he asked.

"I made a fake-date with a guy who really likes me to make Kyle jealous because I want him to like me," she explained in one breath. "It's confusing. Let's just say I'm trying to make Kyle jealous."

"You do know he likes you, don't you?" Danny deadpanned blatantly. Some people would avoid the subject completely, but Danny was a blatant person.

"Huh?" Sara asked, staring at him as if he had three heads. "He what?"

"He loves you. Damn, that kid is borderline obsessed with you," he chuckled. "When we had that sleep-over all he could talk about was you, and then after that kiss all he could do was wonder if you liked him back."

Sara groaned, slapping her forehead with her palm. "AH! Life sucks!" She sunk into her seat, crossed her arms over her chest, and moped. The door behind her hissed open and there was a slight giggling before two forms jumped over the couch and landed haphazardly upon one another. Clara broke out into a fit of laughs upon Jake's lap, rolling over so she fell onto the ground.

"Um...hi?" Danny started, staring awkwardly at the boy in front of him. Then he realized who it was and his eyes widened. Upon seeing the look set in Danny's features, Clara stood to try and quiet him but he kept quiet all his own. He turned back to his game, huffed, and pouted, then shot Clara the dirtiest look he could muster. Freely prancing about with their enemy inside their fortress? Oh she was gonna get shit from him later.

"Hello," Jake started, panting slightly. Clara had just challenged him to a race up the living room, because they were going to watch a movie, but that plan was now shot.

"Anyways..." Sara trailed off. "Should I talk to him? Should I try to explain?" she asked Danny, biting her bottom lip. Boys were very, very confusing.

"I dunno," Danny replied, jerking his body to the right and pulling the controller with him. "I don't know what goes on inside that kid's mind."

"It would help if ya did," Sara huffed. "Whatever. I think I'm going to go talk to him."

"Kyle?" Clara asked, now settling in the seat next to Jake, inconspicuously playing with his fingers while she held his hand. Her counterpart nodded. "Good. Go patch things up with him. I'm sure he'll be ecstatic."

Sara smiled at her twin and confidently stood and began on a stride out the room. "You go girl!" Danny grunted the best he could without tearing any concentration away from his game. "Get your man!"

Sara chuckled lightheartedly and let the door come to a soft close behind her. She took a deep breath and started on her way to the gym, where he was sure to be training his heart out at the moment. She ruffled her hair with one hand and glanced down at her outfit. She was wearing a denim mini-skirt and a blue and white striped polo, to look nice for her date with Jared. They had planned to go to the movies. But what would she do now, if this did work out between her and Kyle?

Sara sighed, and instead began to work on she was going to say. It would be awkward if she just went up to him and said 'Hey, Danny just told me your in love with me, let's hook up, k?'

Oh, she needed a plan.

Sara began practicing a little speech she had just thought of, something that was too long to say here but consisted of, 'I'm sorry, I'm a stupid female activist, I never should've lost my temper at you, and yes I love you'.

Sara was screwed. There were about three million different ways for this to go wrong. This would be worse than battling Baron one-on-one. "It's ok, Sare," she told herself, taking a deep breath. "You trust Danny with your life, and according to him Kyle is in love with you. There's no doubt in my mind that he may have something slightly akin to like for me."

She sighed.

Screwed.

Sara took a left into the hallway the gym entrance was located in, still rehearsing her small speech for Kyle. She was now sweating, nervous, and slightly perturbed. She really couldn't believe it took her that long to realize that she couldn't live without talking to Kyle. She'd admit, it had been hard ignoring him.

"But now you won't have to anymore. That is the point of apologizing."

Sara had never been good at apologizing and often carried grudges for very, very long times. There had been a period of time in third grade when she absolutely refused to talk to her sister because she broke her favorite Barbie. If it took her that long to forgive her sister, think how long it would have taken her to forgive Kyle if she didn't have the ability to suck up her pride.

Sara sighed and stood before the gym door, still going over the speech in her head. It slid open before her and she cautiously stepped in. "Kyle? Kyle?" She walked in gently, looking about. It was then, that she looked dead ahead and felt her heart drop.

TT2