What's Forever For Chapter 2, a teen titans fanfic

Sorry, I still don't own anything relating to the Teen Titans. Nor do I own the rights to the song, What's Forever For.

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Maybe it's me that's gone crazy,

But I can't understand why.

All these lovers keep hurting each other

When good love is so hard to come by.

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"Well, first I need to explain something about Gar and Raven"

"Garfield Logan, Beast Boy's real name. Gar for short."

He paused. "No, I don't think it really matters anymore if someone finds out his real name. Not that it ever really did. I mean, the man's green; how many green people do you know?"

"Very funny. OK, excluding martians. The point is he could never really hide his identity. And he had no living relatives. His parents died in a boating accident when he was only about six."

"Yeah, you wouldn't think it would you? No, he saw his parents die, had an abusive guardian, was eventually adopted by the Doom Patrol, practically a suicide squad for heroes. Not exactly a childhood where he received a great deal of loving support, something he always seemed to need. Even his first love interest turned on him." The tall man fell silent, lost in the past.

"Hmmm, oh, sorry. Just remembering things." He let out a sigh. "Anyway, Gar always had a great need for attention and affection, probably as a result of the situations he had always been in. I suspect that at least part of his love for Raven was due to his desire for love from the unattainable. Someone who, to all appearance, did not seem capable of love."

"Raven did not appear capable of love. She grew up being told to suppress all her emotions. So SHE was shown no love or affection either. In fact, it was deliberately kept from her."

"Because her powers are emotion-based. If she let them get out of control, well, then her father's influence came out."

"Her father, Trigon the Terrible, an interdimensional demon."

"No, we obviously didn't advertise that Raven was half-demon. She had enough problems without having priests come by every day to conduct exorcisms."

"Now there's the real question. Could she love? Being her friend was, at times, difficult. But we knew her devotion to us. Her devotion to helping others. She tried to hide it, but she loved children."

"No, not baked or fried." The tall man let out a chuckle. "Actually, that was a pretty good one. If the occasion comes up, I'll have to remember it. Anyway, it always seemed as if she was testing the boundaries of her humanity, looking to see if she could love the way she read about or saw others doing. So, there we have it. She saw the love that Starfire showed Robin and, for a while, that Robin showed Starfire. Being an empath, she felt the love that Gar had for her."

"I think she tried to reciprocate the love as best she could. In her own way, she really did love all of us and, especially, Beast Boy."

"The problem? The problem was that neither really knew what love was all about. What it truly was to show and receive love."

"Well, all she had were her books to go by and what little she saw during her time on Earth. He only had movies, TV and other media as a guide. NOT something that was really an accurate depiction of love."

"From what little I knew them, the relationships in the Doom Patrol were subordinate. Everyone took orders from Mento, who was focused on the team's mission. Even Rita, Elastic-girl, his WIFE, took orders from him during battle. To the point of self-sacrifice."

"Right, that means Gar only had examples of sacrifice as proof of love. That you put up with any suffering and pain to show your love. His parents died for him; no, I won't go into that, and the Patrol would sacrifice each other without any overt signs of affection. Small wonder he had no idea of what to do."

"Ah, now there we get into the whole nature versus nurture thing. It becomes a battle, Raven's underlying nature, half-demon, versus her nurture, withdrawn, cold, emotionless. Not the recipe for a good relationship."

"I guess the best example would be that final day. Actually, it was really that final day that I think we all realized that we were kids that had no idea what we were doing."

"No, I don't mean in terms of fighting crime. I mean in terms of our relationships with one another. Like I said, we were stupid kids, like all kids are stupid."

The tall man let out an exasperated breath. "NO, that's not what I meant and you know it! Kids are not, necessarily, intellectually stupid. Nor are they all emotionally stupid. I just mean that given their lack of experience, they tend to BE stupid. Stupid in that they don't have the necessary experience to know the situations they are getting themselves into. It's only something that people realize later. Sometimes much later. Sometimes never."

"Right, so we finally come down to the last day."

The white robed man let out another sigh. He continued to be silent for a while.

"I know. I know I said I would tell you. It's difficult."

"You can't."

He let out a small chuckle. "That's very considerate of you, but you have been patient. AND you're the only one to track me down to find out. You deserve some reward. Therefore, I'll tell you about the last day." He paused again. "But please be patient with me. Other than my wife, no one other than the Titans knows what happened."

"I suppose it started in the morning with Dr. Light. Probably where he got the idea he defeated us. As if."

"Naw, we beat him in short order. After the normal battle, Raven did her usual soul-self spell. He practically wet himself and surrendered. We turned him over to the police and went home."

"Well, at the time, I thought everything was normal. In fact, everyone went along their normal routines. Robin went to his workroom, as usual, to update his files. Starfire went off, somewhere, after trying to cuddle up to Robin. And Beast Boy and Raven went off to her room."

"I'm pretty sure nothing like that happened. Think of it more along the lines that Raven went to her room and Beast Boy trailed after her. Generally, after a battle, Raven would need to retire to her room to meditate."

"Like I said, her powers were emotion based. Therefore, after exercising them, she needed to get them back under control. Kind of like trying to get your small kids under control after they'd been running around all afternoon."

"Yeah, not easy. Add to that the fact that we were in public and Raven, being an empath, was exposed to other people's emotions. Generally fear and panic given that we were in a battle situation."

"I don't think we really understood the handicaps that Raven was living under. Come to think of it, I KNOW we didn't understand. That's why right after a battle, we had one of two routines, if it was particularly tough, we tended to collect together to talk and be with one another, essentially reaffirming that we were still alive. That wasn't easy for Raven. On days like the battle with Light, it was pretty easy, so we went about our normal business."

"I was down in the garage, working on my car. That's how I relaxed."

"I don't actually KNOW what they did. I suspect based on previous experience. It was about three, maybe four hours later that Robin came down to the garage to talk to me."

"No, he generally wasn't that sociable. Maybe I should say he came down to ask me for a favor."

"He needed to get into Starfire's room."

"Well, from what he told me, the door had been locked and he had left one of the files he needed in there."

"Yeah, real romantic, wasn't he. I swear, I've never seen anybody so dedicated to his work. That was a large part of the problem between Robin and Star."

"So, anyway, apparently the door to Starfire's room was locked."

"He did have the password to open the door. You see, as part of the Titan's security measures, the locks would reset every three days. Obviously, it was the fourth day. Starfire had reset the lock and hadn't told Robin the new password yet."

"No, you couldn't use the same password. Nor could you just add a number to the end of the password. It had to be a completely new word. That way we avoided any security problems. And only the occupant of the room could set the password."

"No, there was no administrative override. The only one who could override it was me. And only after a bit of work."

"My very question to Robin. Couldn't it wait until Star gave him the new password? God, I swear that guy was THE MOST annoying person I've ever met. He insisted he needed the file RIGHT NOW before he forgot any details. As if he EVER forgot any details." The tall man let out an exasperated breath. "Well, that was Robin. Anyway, he and I went up to Starfire's door and I took off the control panel and began to access the override."

"Oh, it would take about ten minutes for my cybernetic systems to integrate into the room security system and then go through the code algorithm to determine the new password. It was quicker than having someone hack into the system and try to break it. That would take hours."

"We had already had plenty of problems with security. Slade, the Hive 5, Control Freak, Brother Blood. When you live in a giant T in the middle of the bay, it's not like no one can find you. So we instituted some additional measures to protect everyone's personal space. Anyway, while I was working I asked Robin where Starfire was. Do you know what he said?"

"Exactly."

"'How should I know?' This was his girlfriend and teammate and he had no clue. Apparently, she had wanted him to go shopping with her, you know, spend some time with her and, as usual, he brushed her off because of work. I SWEAR, that guy was way too focused."

"No, he didn't seem the least bit embarrassed by his behavior. So, there we were outside of Starfire's door, me working on the security code, Robin watching, when Raven comes by."

"Yeah, she had been looking for me as well."

He let out a chuckle. "Yep, that's me, Mr. Popularity. I swear, if I wasn't the only one who could fix anything in the tower, the whole place would have come crashing down."

"Well, she told me she had a hole in her wall that needed to be repaired."

"Yes, a hole."

"A Beast Boy sized hole."

"Yeah, she had gotten angry at him again and threw him through the wall."

"Often enough."

"You really think it's funny?"

"Oh, I can't really blame you. At the time, we thought it was funny too. But remember, we were stupid kids. Now, just imagine two adults doing it."

"OK, now imagine a married couple, ordinary people, where the wife throws the husband into a wall."

"Or better yet, where a husband throws his wife into a wall."

"Right, we call that spousal abuse. Assault and battery. If it were two regular people and we saw that, we would have stopped it. But somehow, because it was Raven and Beast Boy, we didn't."

"According to Raven, it was HIS fault for pestering her to go to lunch with hime; he MADE her do it."

"Yep, the age-old classic excuse that every abuser gives. Wasn't THEIR fault, the other one MADE them do it."

The tall man remained silent for a few moments. "Over the years, I thought a lot about it and I've come to the conclusion it was her demonic side. Even though she WANTED to show love and affection, she really didn't know how. Demons are not much for love. That's why they're demons. Since she didn't know how, she essentially defaulted to her demonic nature."

"Oh, she felt guilty. After the fact. Sometimes well after the fact. Like this last day. When I asked her how long ago it happened and was Beast Boy all right. She said he had left several hours ago. When I asked why it took so long for her to find us, she said she had been so upset that she had to mediate for another few hours to get her emotions under control."

"I'm not really sure that she was sorry about what she did. She was sorry she hurt him, but I'm not sure she understood that it was her actions that caused it."

"What happened? Well, at about that time I got the door opened."

"It had everything to do with it. When I opened the door, the three of us were standing in the doorway. Looking inside, which we instinctively did, we saw purple clothes thrown everywhere."

"It was odd because Starfire was usually a very tidy person. She took good care of her things. But it wasn't just her clothes we saw. When we looked closer, we saw two people fast asleep, apparently naked in each other's arms."

"That's right, Starfire and Beast Boy."

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My thanks to my two reviewers, The Force is Strong with This One (an old friend that I've sadly neglected) and HotDog285. Hopefully, this second chapter will continue to peak your interest.

Until next time my friends.