OMFG I'M ALIVE!!! WHOA!!

Heh. If you want my thoughts, reflections, and excuses on this chapter as well as the rest of the story, go HERE:

h t t p : / / a m u s e d 4 e v e r . d e v i a n t a r t . c o m / j o u r n a l / 2 1 7 9 1 9 5 5 / --just take out the spaces. :)

Also: I'm looking for a betareader for my next TT fanfic (won't be up for a while, though), and I had a really good salad for lunch today.

Otherwise...

As of 12/3/2008, 12:23:18AM GMT Eastern:

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...Thanks so much for the ride, guys. :D

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in the Teen Titans show or comics.
"Alright, load 'er up!"

The crane groaned and creaked as it swung with the weight of the twisted, half-snapped steel beam it carried. A group of bulky, orange-vested and varying degrees of beer-bellied men stood around, waving their arms or shielding their eyes from the afternoon sun.

"And that's it, then."

The gruff voice distracted Robin's gaze from the workmen cleaning up the last of the debris, and caused him to turn in order to meet scraggily-bearded, squinty-eyed, sweating face of the construction commissioner. His hard hat was pushed up on his brow, to keep it from slipping down on his face, his shirt sleeves rolled up as he flipped through contract papers and details secured to an age-old, beaten clipboard.

Robin turned back to surveying the clean-up crew as they steadily loaded the beam into the huge crate that would shortly be lifted by two helicopters and flown to the city dump. Robin could hear the choppers blades whirring faintly in the distance as their shining figures grew closer to the Titan Tower from across the bay—the Tower that was no longer half in shambles, as it had been a little over a week ago.

"The reconnaissance team should be here after lunch, around three or four, to help your big friend there with any last-minute touch-ups inside."

Robin's "big friend" was Cyborg, who was standing a little ways off, laughing raucously along with some of the workers. Robin nodded absently. "Good. Thank you, and your men, for coming out here on short notice."

The contractor shook his head. "S'not any trouble, Mr. Robin—it's our job, and anytime for you guys, with you protectin' the city and all. You know?"

Robin's eyes crinkled a little under his mask as he gave a small smile. "Yes. Still, thank you."

"Yo! Robin, man!" Cyborg's booming voice drew both the contractor's and Robin's attention as he sauntered forward from the group of men he had been talking with—they were now heading over to one side of the crate. The helicopters would be here soon, and not long after their ride back across the bay and to lunch.

"Reconnaissance team will be here at three or four, Cyborg," Robin said as Cyborg stopped next to him. Cyborg smiled and nodded at the contractor.

"Well, then, have a nice day, boys," the contractor said in farewell, and went to join his men.

"So, this didn't take as long as I thought it would," Cyborg said cheerfully, waving goodbye. "I'm glad City Hall decided to help us out, made things a lot easier."

"Yeah," Robin agreed. "Though, they couldn't have us out of commission for too long, with Slade still at large..."

Cyborg studied Robin from the corner of his eyes for a moment, before looking back in front of him. "Thinking about that, still, are you?"

Robin didn't say anything, but sighed.

"There wasn't anything we could've done, Robin," Cyborg said firmly, though not unkindly. "He was gone before we knew it, and if we had gone after him, we wouldn't have gotten to Raven and Beast Boy in time."

"In time?" Robin smiled. "Yeah, I guess you could say that."

Cyborg looked at Robin oddly, and was about to ask what he was talking about—before a whir of dust kicked up and Kid Flash was suddenly standing next to them.

"Hey. They done?"

"Kid? You're still here?" Cyborg gave Kid Flash, who was dressed in street clothes, a surprised glance. "I thought you said you were leaving this morning!"

"Awww, you want rid of me that bad? And it's Kid Flash, not just Kid..."

Robin turned away from the workers as the helicopters finally arrived and started to lower. He motioned for Cyborg and Kid Flash to follow him up to the Tower's entrance. "You don't have anything on you—does that mean you're about to go?"

Kid Flash nodded. "Yeah—I just got the last of my stuff moved into Wally's place. Just dropping by one last time before taking off for good."

"Glad you did," Robin said, reaching into one of his pockets. "I have something for you."

"A present? You shouldn't have! Starfire'll be jealous." He smirked as Cyborg snorted.

Robin rolled his eyes, and plopped a Titan communicator into Kid Flash's outstretched hands—an obviously brand-new, decently shiny and unused Titan communicator.

Kid Flash's eyes widened, and looked from Robin to Cyborg, and back to Robin. "Does this mean...?"

"We want you on call, you know," Cyborg chuckled.

"We did instate you as an honorary member, on-call when we need you—you can't shrug that off just because you're getting tutored," Robin added.

Kid Flash grinned. "Tutoring? Yeah right! More like signing up for death by working my ass off! Wally can be a beast when he wants too." Kid Flash tucked the communicator into his pocket. "I'll hold onto this in case it gets too bad..."

"Friends!"

The shout came from up above, and all three young men looked up to see Starfire straight for them—by the looks of the flying nosedive she was in, she had been on the roof. Right before she reached them, she gracefully flipped over and landed next to Robin, beaming.

"Hello friends!" she repeated. "Especially Friend Kid Flash—are you preparing for the splitting out?"

Kid Flash laughed. "Yeah, Starfire, I'm heading out—Wally's expecting me..." he checked his watch, and grimaced. "Crap. He was expecting me five minutes ago."

"Ooooooh," Cyborg sympathized. "Better get going, you're probably already due for an ass-whooping."

"Hardy-har," Kid Flash grated out, just before he was trapped in one of Starfire's bear hugs.

"Oh, goodbye Kid Flash! Please, guard your ass carefully so you do not have to partake in too much whooping!"

Cyborg cracked up as she released Kid Flash, and clapped him on the back. "HA! Hoooo! Yeah, exactly what she said, man. Later!"

"Thanks," Kid Flash growled. He turned towards the Titans' leader.

Robin snickered, and then held out his hand. Kid Flash took it enthusiastically. "Seriously, though, watch out for yourself," Robin said as authoritatively as ever, but in good heart. "And thanks...for everything. You really helped us out."

Kid Flash winked. "That's the duty of a superhero, right? Well...later guys! For now, at least!"

All three Titans waved as he took of in...a flash.

They continued waving a second after he disappeared. The chop-chop of the helicopters grew into a thundering noise as they arrived, blowing everyone's hair every which way.

"So," Robin shouted over the noise. "Three o'clock. We have some time until then."

"Yeah," Cyborg shouted back.

"Where's Raven?"

Starfire shouted an answer this time. "You know very well where she is, dear Robin!"

All three of the Titans grinned.

"Let's go join her!" Robin yelled.

There weren't any objections.

With a thud the box landed atop another as dust particles flew into the air from the disturbance, creating a flurrying of gold streams in the afternoon sun shining through the open window. It was a sunny, slightly breezy summer day, with a clear bright blue sky and the city below alive with churning crowds and blowing, screeching traffic. Someone was blasting a stereo somewhere on the street, and the pounding bass seemed to faintly shake the air outside. The air in the nearly empty apartment room, however, was almost completely still—the stacks of boxes muffled the sounds from the city, and the air as well. The room felt stifling to its single occupant.

Straightening himself from bending over the box he had just moved, Garfield Logan swiped the back of his hand across his brow, brushing the beginning beads of sweat away. He had been packing since eleven this morning, and had managed get most everything hastily crammed into boxes. Still, the sheen of sweat on his bare chest and arms—he had long ago abandoned his shirt in the summer heat, especially with the stuffy room—was obvious, and the short gasps of breath he was taking now proved it had taken effort. Of course, Gar wasn't about to let packing take up too much time of his day. Sauntering over to the open window, Gar gazed at the view of the Titan Tower, now fully repaired from its previous damages—a view he had gotten rather used to over the past couple of months. A view that he would be leaving behind.

Gar paused in his thoughts. He smiled.

A fang glinted in the sunlight.

Leaning against the windowsill, Gar closed his eyes and allowed himself a quick breather before he started moving the other boxes out of his closet. Reaching into his pocket, Gar fingered the worn Titan communicator, green smudges and all—it wouldn't be too long of a breather.

"Taking a break?"

Gar would've jumped at the sudden voice, but didn't...his body wasn't ready to budge from its spot against the window. Instead he cracked open an eyelid, to be greeted with the sight of Raven's stoic face nearly nose-to-nose with his; though, maybe not so stoic. Her deep, violet eyes were crinkling slightly at the edges. Gar smiled again.

"Yeah," he mumbled, closing his forest-green eye again. "When did you get here?"

Raven frowned. She watched the muscles along Gar's shoulders tense as he shifted against the wall a little, and then relax as he let himself fall back again. The bright sun fell across half his figure, shining softly off his deep green hair and shimmering on his emerald-green arms and chest. Various mottles and smudges of darkness decorated his bared skin, a particularly harsh, scattered scab glaring on the nape of his neck and wrapping around to the front. Without thinking, Raven reached towards it, brushing the tip of her fingers against the healing wound. Feeling her touch, Gar opened both his eyes and looked first at her outstretched arm, and then her face. She ignored him.

"I hope this doesn't scar," she muttered faintly, more to herself than anything. She knew it would only be a reminder. A terrible reminder.

"Just a battle scar. Makes me look more manlier!" Gar grinned devilishly.

Raven glowered at Gar and his laughter trailed off. Sheesh, she hadn't even corrected his grammar.

Gar moved his gaze to the floor. "It's all that's left of her."

"What?"

Gar could feel Raven's eyes on him. "You heard me—it's...all that's left of her. These scars—they're her only true mark on this world now. A testimony to her pain and anguish, her love, her rage...everything else she left behind were lies."

"Gar." Raven's voice was hard, but not harsh. "One week ago, you and I flew to Chicago to spread her ashes over a grave was only hers in name. Instead of dying the day that headstone said she had died, she killed a clone of herself so she could take her insane self here to Jump City and focus on killing you. You gave her more closure than she ever deserved. She needs no 'true' mark left behind on this earth."

Gar's smile was sad this time. He still didn't meet her eyes. "Maybe not, but...it's cruel, Raven. What happened to her—all because she gave her heart to someone, and he betrayed her. Probably without even knowing it, but he betrayed her."

With some researching, it had been easy to find out Melina Ragonu's past with Mark Logan. Reading the few, scattered and personal logs found in her lair and piecing that together with what she had said to Gar when she had captured him made it easy to figure out some of her feelings on the matter.

Raven's violet orbs probed Gar's face as he watched the ground by her feet intently. "Maybe so, but...in the end, she twisted herself. She twisted her love into something disgusting, into a fierce, unjustified hatred towards you. She was weak, and drove herself crazy. Nobody but she was to blame for that."

Gar didn't say anything for a second. Then softly, barely audible, "If the same thing happened to me, I'd be a liar to say I could be stronger."

Suddenly Gar felt Raven's fingers firmly but delicately grab Gar's jaw as she gently turned his face so he was finally looking at her. Her eyes bored into his. "You've already forgiven her," Raven said slowly, precariously. She dropped her hand back down to the scabbing on his neck, gingerly pressed against it. "You're already stronger than she ever was. Than most will ever be."

Than I may ever be.

The two stayed absolutely still, gazing at each other. Gar smiled. They both had changed so much—and for the better, hopefully.

Silence. A comfortable silence.

A car horn blared in the distance.

"About two seconds ago." Raven broke the silence suddenly.

"...Huh?"

"About two seconds ago, that's when I got here," Raven said all matter-of-fact, finally answering Gar's first question. She stepped closer to an incredulous Gar, and brought her hand down to his shoulder, trailing down his arm until she reached his hand, and then intertwined her fingers with his. She met his gaze, and couldn't help but laugh quietly inside her head when she saw his cheeks flushed and he dropped his eyes, abashed. He was biting the corner of his lip, hiding a stupid-looking, pleased grin. "I teleported up through the floor. As usual."

Gar chuckled. He swung their linked hands back and forth. "...Wanted to see me that bad, huh?"

Raven raised an eyebrow. "As usual, I said. And more like I dropped by to make sure you weren't pushing yourself. Which," she glanced around the packed room, "I see was a waste of my time."

"What can I say?" Gar laughed. "I'm just as anxious to get back to you guys as you are to have me back."

For once, Raven didn't hand a biting retort right back to him. Instead, she gestured towards a two packages sitting on top a stack of moving boxes. One was wrapped in yellow wrapping paper, the other just duct-taped closed. "What're those?"

Peering over, Gar grinned. "Heh—care packages! Can you believe it? The yellow one is from Kassie and Michael, and the rest of their posse—has waaaay too many tootsie rolls in there, along with a book on puffins, a gift card to some comic book joint, a homemade CD-Rom of the latest Bad Boiz songs, and a custom-made Bad Boiz shirt! And the other one's from Steve. He's already back out traveling, so he wanted to give it to me before I moved out..."

"Are they all doing alright?"

Gar paused, and then nodded. "Yeah—Steve's making me call him every week. Kassie made me swear to at least email her every once and a while, and Michael said to let him in on any freebies the Titans could get..." Gar half-heartedly, then faltered.

Raven sighed. "Robin's not angry with you anymore, you know—wasn't really all that mad to begin with. But this is the way it has to be."

Gar looked back out the window, seeing the Tower out of the corner of his eye. About two weeks ago, Robin had found out that Kassie and Michael had discovered who Gar really was...and ordered Raven to wipe their memories. The argument between Gar and Robin that had followed had been a long and tense one, which pissed Raven off because Gar had still been bedridden most of the time—he didn't need the stress, in her opinion. So, in the end, the Titans had given the two civilians a choice: have their memories wiped by Raven so they wouldn't be in any future danger for knowing a Titan's secret identity, or live with the knowledge and the risk of either future danger or being held responsible for any intelligence slips regarding that Titan's identity.

Both chose the latter, of course.

For everyone else who had known Garfield Logan in Jump, however, he had been in an accident and was moving back to Maine to recuperate and be with the rest of his foster family.

"Everyone'll miss you, I'm sure," Raven added. "Especially that blonde girl..."

"Hey!" Gar's face snapped back around, looking at her, flustered. "I already told you, that was against my will—!"

He cut himself off when he saw a faint smirk on Raven's face.

"Wait. Was that...a joke?" Gar sputtered out. Raven didn't respond, just continued smirking, and Gar felt a grin play out on his face. "You..."

Suddenly Raven moved even closer to Gar, breaking apart there hands and hooking her hands around the back of his neck. "C'mon," she said lightly, "Let's take a break somewhere better than here. It's musty."

Before Gar could answer, he was enveloped in darkness...and then, blinding sun broke through as both he and Raven emerged onto the rooftop of the apartment complex, the Titan Tower sparkling on the bay, in view through the buildings and skyscrapers of downtown Jump City.

Raven broke away from Gar when they were done teleporting, wandering over closer to the edge. Gar followed slowly, taking in the view. Sun glinting off of glass and water, the city was aglow as well as hot. Good old Jump, Gar thought. Aloud, he contently breathed, "It's beautiful."

Although she nodded, Raven's attention was focused on something—or rather, someone—else. She focused on how he seemed just as aglow as the city, how his green hair ruffled in the slight breeze, how his face looked so gentle and happy...how bruises and scabs still lingered on his body, how new scars had joined the old ones...

How close she had come to losing him.

As Gar had collapsed that night, Raven's heart had nearly stopped. His name had been torn from her lips in a scream when he hit the ground, and she could only look on in horror as he was rushed off to S.T.A.R. labs soon after. For an agonizing four hours, his health steadily deteriorated as the doctors did all they could to help him—but to no avail. The Sakutia had progressed to its final, fatal stages; no one could do anything but watch. The doctors said it was only a matter of days, if he continued fighting for his life like he was now. That night had been the hardest night for the Teen Titans since the team's beginning, as they all looked on, distressed, distraught, sobbing, and terrified as one of their own slowly sank towards death, try as he might to resist.

Then, as suddenly as miracle seem to happen, Ragonu's hideout had been found under the city—and with it, all her blueprints, plans, and calculations for the project she had worked on with a certain Dr. Mark Logan; a project she had finished herself while he finished it in Africa. Within that project laid the "cure" to Sakutia.

After that, it had been a race against time as Cyborg, Robin, and a team of top-notch scientists and doctors worked to finish the contraption that could save Gar's life. Even Batman dropped by at one point, giving his time and resources to help with the construction, dragging along the Martian Man Hunter from the Justice League.

The blueprints were exact and detailed, the best the team could have wished for—without them, even if it had been discovered how to save Gar, it might have taken weeks to come up with and build the radiation emitting machine. But in the end, it only took two days of round-the-clock working. With bated breath, everyone had waited to see if now it would work.

It did.

Funny how the woman who held so much contempt for him, who wanted him to suffer so much, who wanted him so dead, had in the end been the one to save him.

Starfire started bawling with happiness as soon as Gar's skin started turning green. Cyborg had choked up, and Robin had literally collapsed to his knees. The doctors had nodded approvingly and the scientists had cheered. Steve had started sobbing. Raven nearly cried, but refrained herself from doing so since she knew she would probably blow up the ward if she did. Even the ever-stoic Batman had found himself relieved.

From then on it had been smooth sailing as Gar remained in bed as the worst of his injuries healed. When he woke up, he had woken up in a bed at the Titan Tower's medical bay.

With Raven smiling at him.

Throughout the entire ordeal, only two people had stayed with him continuously at the lab hospital, never leaving Gar's side even when being threatened by the doctors: Steve had been one of them. The other had stayed with him the whole time he was at S.T.A.R., as well throughout all the ambulance rides, all the gurney rides between rooms, and the whole time he was in the medical bay at the Tower.

Raven had understood Gar's last words before he passed out that night.

She had been there to return them when he opened his forest green eyes again.

Now she stood, watching him as he watched the city, and an indescribable, overwhelming feeling welled up in her chest—she had trouble keeping it in check.

"I love you."

Surprised, Gar glanced inquisitively over at Raven. Her cloak whipped around in a sudden gusty breeze, her hair tickling delicately across her face as she stared straight ahead, at the city below them. Gar's face softened. He closed the distance between them, enveloped her in his arms, made her look at him with a soft brush of fingers against her cheek. Hesitantly, he leaned forward, resting his forehead against hers. Her chakra dug into his skin, cool to the touch. She waited, her face still and expressionless.

He kissed her.

She met him more than half way.

"And I love you," he whispered when they finally broke apart.

Raven smiled at him, and Gar's heart burst.

A sudden roar and screech echoed through the streets beneath them, and after gazing at each other for a moment longer, they peered over the edge of the roof to see the T-car quickly, and loudly, approaching the building the couple was standing atop and followed closely by Robin's bike, two passengers riding. Gar grinned as he caught a glimpse of Cyborg's enormous grin through the windshield, and saw Starfire's body shaking with laughter as she clung tightly to Robin.

"As if they don't draw enough attention by themselves," Raven drawled. "Come on, I'll help you get your stuff so they don't have to waltz up here and cause more trouble."

"Yeah, we all know I'm the real rabble rouser." Gar wiggled his eyebrows and winked.

Raven stared boredly at him; he didn't miss the slight twinkle in her eyes, though. "Sure—but that does remind me..."

Gar watched her curiously as she reached back into her cloak. Pulling out a rolled up newspaper, she gave a small, impish smile as she handed it to him. "Thought you might like that."

Wondering what she was getting at, Gar carefully unrolled the newspaper. Upon seeing the first story on the front page, Gar grinned and laughed out loud. There were two pictures: one of him and the rest of the Titans three days ago, when they had gone to their favorite pizza place for dinner, and the other a close-up of him transformed into a green hawk, darting away from an enraged, ketchup-covered Cyborg jumping up from his seat with outstretched hands. The words above the pictures were big and bold, as if daring anyone to debate their authenticity:

'GREEN TEEN HERO SPOTTED: BEAST BOY BACK IN ACTION!'

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The End