Teen Titans Fan Fiction ❯ The Little Cherub III by Beautifulpurpleflame ❯ Cough Cough ( Chapter 4 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

AN: It is with regret that I inform you that I do not, nor have I ever, own Teen Titans.

Chapter 4

Starfire sat on the couch, quite bored. She was only one month away from her due date and her stomach was quite large. The child within her was a horrible kicker and poor Starfire had almost two ribs broken by it. Yes, it was definitely Robin's child.

Raven was at the park with Alex and Arielle and the men were out taking care of a robbery. So this left Starfire all alone for a while. She hated being all alone, but she really couldn't do much.

The door opened and Starfire heard a child run in, followed by an adult. “Hurray! Raven has returned,” thought Starfire. And sure enough soon Alex entered with Raven right behind him and Arielle in her arms.

“Oh Raven!” exclaimed Starfire. “I am so happy you are home. It was quite lonely.” She attempted to stand up, but she found it very difficult. She had noticed that her strength had diminished greatly as her pregnancy was coming to an end. But she summed up all the strength left in her and rose to her feet. “Do you suppose we could do the hanging out?”

“Sure Star,” said Raven with a smile. She remembered how lonely she had been when she was pregnant and the others were gone. “Let me go put Arielle down first.”

“Glorious!” said Starfire. “And I shall go use the bathroom so I will not have to go while we “hang out”.” And with that she slowly flew towards the bathroom.

Raven giggled to herself and went to put Arielle down for her nap. She was nearly a year and a half now and Raven couldn't believe how fast time seemed to fly. She could still remember when she found out she was pregnant with her. Now she was half way to being two and Alex was going to be five in four months. He was going to start school in the fall. How was that going to work out? Would they be able to send him to public school or would he have to go to a special “Children of Superheroes” school? Raven decided not to think about it.

Raven sat down on the couch and Starfire soon followed. Alex was lying on the floor in front of them coloring in his dinosaur coloring book. He was quietly humming to himself as his mother and Starfire talked.

“Oh Raven, I am so nervous,” said Starfire.

“About what?” asked Raven.

“About having my baby,” said Starfire. “It is only one month until I am due to give birth. I do not know if I am ready.”

“Don't worry,” said Raven with a kind smile. “You'll be ready. I remember when I was going to have Alex. I was so nervous that I wasn't going to be ready. But then when he was born everything just came together.”

“Do you think everything will come together for me?” asked Starfire.

“Of course,” said Raven. “At this point you just have to sit back and let everyone take care of you.”

“Really?” asked Starfire with a smile.

“Oh yeah,” said Raven chuckling. “But if I could make a suggestion, let Robin take a rest once in a while. You want him to be strong and alert when the baby comes. That way you can make him get up in the middle of the night when your baby starts crying.”

The two giggled and right on cue the men came home. They looked a little beat up and gritty, not to mention tired. Alex saw them come in and jumped to his feat.

“Did you get the bad guys?” he asked running over to Beast Boy.

“We sure did,” said Beast Boy picking him up and giving him a kiss. “They didn't stand a chance.”

“You're the best superhero ever!” exclaimed Alex.

“Hey, what about us?” asked Cyborg.

“You're great too!” said Alex with a smile. “But my daddy's the best!” he added wrapping his arms around his father again.

“Can't argue with that,” said Beast Boy with a proud smile. He kissed Alex again and then put him down. He ran back over to his coloring book and continued working. Cyborg and Robin just rolled their eyes, even though they were secretly very jealous. Robin couldn't wait until his kid was old enough to call him the best superhero ever. Cyborg knew he had to get a move on as well.

Robin kissed Starfire and then went to take a shower. Beast Boy went to kiss Raven but she stopped him as she began to cough.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said once she caught her breath. “I just felt like something was stuck in my throat.”

“Oh, okay,” he said and then kissed her. “I'm going to change.” And with a smile he left.

As soon as he was out of the room Raven began to choke again. The truth was that she had been coughing for the best two days now and it was getting more frequent. Starfire was quite alarmed by her sudden outburst and nearly jumped out of her seat, had she not been waited down by her child.

“Raven, are you alright?” asked Starfire.

“Yes, I'm fine,” she said patting her chest and wiping the tears out of her eyes that had been brought out from her heaves. “I just have a cough.”

“You are not getting ill, are you?” asked Starfire fearfully.

“I don't know,” said Raven. “I'll just have to double up on my herbal tea intake.”

“Here, mumma,” said Alex holding his finished picture up for her.

“Thank you sweetheart,” said Raven with a smile. She took it and looked at it. He had colored in the picture of a stegosaurus with orange, green, and blue. And he was mostly in the lines. “Oh, this is definitely fridge worthy,” said Raven standing up and heading for the refrigerator. She found a few magnets and hung the picture so that everyone would see it every time they went to get a drink.

She decided to take her own advice and put some tea on. She grabbed her teakettle and began to fill it with water. As she did she felt her throat catch again and she began to cough. She placed the kettle down in the sink and waited for her coughing to stop.

Once she was done she went to pick her kettle back up, but noticed that her nose was running. `Oh no,' she thought. `I'm getting a cold!' She quickly blew her nose and got her kettle on the stove as fast as possible. While she waited for the water to boil she went to the bathroom to grab some cold medicine. Maybe if she started taking some pills now it wouldn't last that long.

She checked in on Arielle and saw that she was still asleep, her pacifier hanging half way out of her mouth. One of her little hands was up near her head, where she had been twirling her short, strawberry blond hair. She had another hour or so until she would wake up, so Raven left so she could sleep.

As Raven headed back to the common room to take care of her tea her door opened and Beast Boy emerged. He smiled at her and she gave him a kind smile back. Then she felt another round of coughs coming.

“Hey, I was thinking about going out to dinner tonight,” he said as they started to walk down the hall. “Where do you think we should go?”

Raven wanted to answer, but she knew that if she opened her mouth her coughs would escape. She really didn't want Beast Boy to know she was getting sick. So she kept them in for as long as she could, until she reached the bathroom and quickly dodged into it.

“Raven, are you okay?” asked Beast Boy, quite shocked at her sudden leap into the bathroom and slamming the door. He pressed his ear up to the door and heard her coughing. “Are you choking?”

She found her breath and quickly responded. “No, I'm fine. I just… uh… I swallowed and my spit went down the wrong pipe.”

“Oh,” said Beast Boy, not sure if she was telling the truth or not. His sensitive ears suddenly picked up the sound of whistling. “Uh, are you making tea?”

The door opened and Raven quickly exited. “Oh, I almost forgot!” Of course she didn't, but it was better than calmly walking next to Beast Boy, who most likely didn't accept her “spit went down the wrong throat” answer.

That night, as they lay asleep, Beast Boy was suddenly awoken by coughing. He looked over to Raven and saw that she was choking in her sleep. Not just a simple cough or two to clear her throat. These were dry heaves that sounded like they hurt. He shook her and said, “Raven, wake up.”

She snorted in mid cough and woke up. “What? What is it?”

“You don't have asthma, do you?” he asked.

She really had no idea what he was talking about, since she had just been pulled out of her dreams. “No,” she said and rolled back over to go to sleep.

“Well you sound like you do,” said Beast Boy. “You've been coughing in your sleep.”

“It's… just dry in here,” Raven offered. “Good night.”

“Do you need something to drink?” he asked.

“No, just go back to sleep,” said Raven, even though she was even more awake now.

“I'm getting you something to drink,” he said and crawled out of the bed.

“Beast Boy…” started Raven sitting up, but he was already out of the room. She groaned and lay back down onto her pillow. “Oh, I better tell him before he gets me an inhaler.”

He came back with a glass of water and gave it to her. “There you go,” he said and then crawled back into the bed.

“Thanks,” said Raven, her voice being a little more hoarse than normal. She noticed that her throat did feel a little raw. She took a sip and then placed it on her nightstand. “But you didn't have to.”

“Jesus! You're voice sounds so raspy,” said Beast Boy. Raven just stared at him. “I mean, more than usual. Are you sure you're alright?”

She sighed and said, “Actually, the truth is that I've got a cold coming on. But I'm taking medicine and drinking more tea, so I don't want you to get how you get.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” he asked.

“I know that you'll get all weird and protective of me if I'm sick, so don't,” she said in a serious tone.

“I can't take care of you if you're sick?” he asked. “I thought that was what being a good boyfriend, excuse me, fiancé was all about.”

“Just don't worry about me, okay?” she asked and then turned over so she could go back to sleep.

“Okay,” said Beast Boy and lay down. About five minutes later she began to cough again. Beast Boy looked over at her and sighed.