I don't own Teen Titans
**Air date of the episode 'Terra': January 24th, 2004.
Chapter 2 – The Clock
7:00 am
"Tara! The eggs are burning!" yelled Charlotte from the other side of the counter.
"Hmm?" Tara woke up, looking at the almost black eggs in the pan she was holding "Oh, no! Sorry, Charlotte, I'm gonna make others"
"It's okay, I'll take them to Mr. Kyle, he won't mind" answered the red haired waitress, stretching her arm to the plate Tara was serving "But be careful with the next ones, you know Mrs. White likes them with soft yolk. Don't forget about the waffles I asked, and we need more orange juice"
"Fine…" mumbled Tara, breaking another two eggs in the pan. She hated working in the kitchen, she would rather serve the clients, but it was the cook's day off, and she needed more money. And that particularly Sunday, she was not focus. She had spent all morning thinking about the report she watched about the Control Freak and his time machine.
The poor guy was beyond crazy. But his final line left a strong impression on her… Especially after a breakdown like that. Seeing how Beast Boy made Raven happy… She regretted leaving the Titans so many times, but seeing them so happy opened a wound she thought was healed for a long time. Just to remember that the changeling offered her all that and she stepped at the offer like it was trash…
She served the eggs, opened two more orange juice carts, poured the liquid in a glass jug and put it on the counter, where the waitresses could reach easily. She started to work on the waffles. She remembered the waffles Cyborg made to celebrate her entry in the team. Tears came to her blue eyes. How she wished to live that moment again, this time not being a Slade's spy. How she wished to fix all she did wrong. How she wished to… go back in time…
She took the waffles to the counter. The same reporter she saw on the TV earlier that morning could be seen at the diner's TV.
"The artifact which was target of steal last night will go back to its shelf at the Jump City Museum" she informed, now inside of the Museum, near some employees organizing the place "The Museum's owner does not believe there will be new attempts of robbery, since there is not a big amount of money involved and the assault at this dawn was made by a lunatic. The Control Freak already is at the town's sanatorium and he doesn't seem to offer a bigger danger to the society."
Tara didn't pay attention anymore. All she apprehended of the information was that the clock would be at the Museum again, without any special protection.
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1:00 pm
Was she thinking straight? She couldn't believe, but her heart wished to put her hands on the Museum's clock more than anything. What a stupidity, what would she do with the clock? She didn't even know how it worked. She supported her head on her hands. She was sitting at a table at the square, the very same square she spotted Beast Boy and Raven the day before. It was her lunch time again. The usual cigarette was put down at the concrete bench, forgotten.
Tara lifted her head and thought she saw Beast Boy once again with his wife and daughters, but this time, she was the wife. Tara never really dreamed about getting married and having kids, but her life was so bad, and the other people seemed so happy, she thought maybe this way she would have some happiness again. Anything would be better than staying alone at that little dark room, suffering from insomnia or having nightmares about Slade.
"Oh, God. I'm going to steal that clock."
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8:00 pm
Tara said goodbye to her friends. They invited her to a party again, and she refused as always. She was tired of parties; she had spent all her youth in them, getting drunk and spending nights with men she would never see again. Besides, she had plans for tonight.
Everything closed earlier on Sundays. The diner, the bakery where she used to buy a cake every Monday to have a sweeter week, the bar where she used to buy her cigarettes, the newsstand, the clothing store… and the Museum.
The Museum wasn't far from her house. She decided to walk there, so she could think on the way and maybe give up on this insane idea. She was carrying some food from the diner, which she took for dinner. She found a homeless man sleeping on an alley and left the bag next to him. And she kept on walking.
What the hell did she intend to do, anyway? She hadn't used her powers in years. After she woke up at the cave, they seemed to have cooled down; it was easier to control them. And she decided not to use them ever again. Could she still use them…?
Tara stopped and looked around. She was at a desert street. She bit the bottom lip and concentrated on a little rock, about 15 feet ahead of her. She didn't need to struggle. The rock rose from the ground and floated to her hand. Tara stared at it, it was gray reddish and it stained her hand with earth. The earth she loved so much when she was a teenager. Now her hands had yellow grayish stains from her cigarettes. She closed her hand around the rock in a fist and felt like crying. She was Terra once again.
She walked the rest of the way in a trance. She went so slowly it took her nearly an hour to get to the Museum. It felt like minutes to her.
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10:00 pm
The Jump City's Museum was an imposing building. Its facade was richly ornated with delicate notches of angels and waves. Its entrance was surrounded by tall white columns, and the door was so big it looked like a palace's entrance. It was one of the oldest buildings in town.
Terra was walking around it for half an hour. She stopped once in a while to watch the guards. They were alert due last night's invasion. She sighed. She would have to enter by the roof. She was at the building's side, where there were no guards. All around the museum was a well cared lawn.
"At least some luck" thought Terra "It's quieter to take a piece of the ground when there's no concrete on top of it"
She looked to the rock on her hand then closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she floating on a piece of earth. She jumped on the museum's roof and lowered the piece of earth slowly, until it fits in the lawn like two puzzle pieces.
Terra looked around. There wasn't anything that could take her inside. She walked to the center of the building and found a sunroof. She knew that the sound of breaking glass wouldn't reach the front guard, but she also knew that it was likely to have guards inside as well. And she wasn't wrong.
The blonde woman kneed at the edge of the sunroof and looked down. She saw a guard passing by a hallway and some minutes later, another one, going in the opposite direction. She sat and buried her face on her hands. She couldn't do it. Through her tears, under the moon's light, she saw a golden glow at a shelf far away. She rubbed her eyes. There was the clock!
It was pretty far from the sunroof, she would have to jump and run to catch it, and then ripped out a piece of earth of the museum itself to escape. It would call a lot of attention, and the titans would know it was her. She bit her lip. On the other side, if she managed to go back in time, she wouldn't have to worry about that, because any of this would be happening.
But what if she couldn't?
Terra held locks of her hair. She couldn't think about anything but how badly her heart wanted the clock. How stupid she had been, coming here without a defined plan. Of course nothing would work out. When she looked down again, however, she got astonished.
The clock was floating.
Great, now she was raving. When she tried to control it, however, just like she was able to control the little rock on her hand, it worked. It was coming to her. Terra couldn't understand, but when the clock came close enough, she did.
It wasn't a clock. It was an hourglass. An hourglass filled with sand. One of the glass bulbs had all the sand concentrated at the top, pushing the whole piece up, moved by Terra's powers.
Tears came to her blue eyes. That was sign, a sign that it would be okay, she could make this.
Without thinking about anything else, she stepped in a glass square, breaking it, and the hourglass came to her hands, moved by the sand inside it. She grabbed it and ran. When she jumped, the lawn cushioned her fall. She heard the guard's yells and ran just like when she was younger.
Terra ran as much as her lungs could bear it. They reminded her that she still was Tara, the smoker, then, when she heard the sound of sirens, the earth opened up, and the blonde woman got inside the gap the rocks offered her. When the surface closed again, deepening her in dark, she sat and hugged the clock, squeezing her eyes.
She had no idea how to make the clock work, but she was sure it was very powerful. She could feel, when she touched its cold and smooth surface. The hourglass was inside a glass box, carved with lines she could feel with her fingers, but she didn't know what drawing they formed. And the sand sliding through the glass hourglass was an antique sand, with mystical secrets overflowing from each grain.
The whole artifact emited earth's power, and Terra felt linked to it. She squeezed her eyes and wished to go back in time with all her heart, go back to the night when she lost everything. Her wish was so strong and so honest, it awake something long asleep inside the clock. The soul inside it woke up to grant that earth's daughter's wish when their powers merged, because they were one and the same.
The hourglass's sand, until that moment following faithfully the gravity's purposes, started to go back to the bulb it came from.
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January 25th, 2004, Jump City's borders, 9:04 pm.
Terra was running as fast as she could. She couldn't believe Beast Boy told Robin her secret. Even after he promised her! She had trusted him. The lack of control of her powers was her most shameful secret. Tears slid through her face.
Maybe Beast Boy didn't tell it… Maybe Robin realized by himself. What happened at Slade's fight weren't something particularly discrete. She stopped running and wiped her tears.
That didn't matter. What matter was that everyone knew she couldn't control her powers. That made her feel ashamed. In the end, they would send her away, just like everyone else. It was best not to bond, so she wouldn't suffer again.
Terra turned around. She had a weird feeling. Like she was being watched. And she wasn't wrong.
"Terra" a familiar voice called her. Terra gasped.
"Who's there?"
"I am, Terra, Tara…" answered the voice, in a nostalgic tone.
"I don't understand…"
"Terra, I came to tell you something important" said the voice, serious "Go back to the titans. They are good. They won't turn their back to you"
"But I…"
"I know, dear. But if you don't go back, you'll have a terrible fate. Trust them, just this time. Trust me."
"…"
"And never ever listen to Slade. He's going to be your damnation. You must protect yourself from him"
"Who are you?"
"I am the future you don't want. Believe me, and change me"
The voice was gone. Terra believed.
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