Disclaimer: I do not own Static Shock. I am not making profit from this story so no one sue me, please. Any characters whom are not from Static Shock are rightfully owned by me.
Summary: Virgil and Richie haven't been friends for nearly 20 years. They have gone their separate ways and lived their successful live through work. However, how have their personal lives suffered since their failed friendship?
Chloé, Chelsea, and Rachael were sitting on the front porch of the unseasonably warm Monday evening—it was around six—playing with the huge box Barbie's Chelsea owned. Virgil, Sharon, and Adam had told the children they wanted some time for themselves to have adult conversations. In other words, they wanted to talk about boring stuff that the girls wouldn't have found interesting, anyway. And since it wasn't too cold outside, the girls figured they could enjoy playing just by wearing long-sleeved shirts and thick sweaters.
Currently, each of the girls were picking out dolls from the box and setting up careers for their dolls to work in.
"Chelsea," Rachael said as she looked through the box, "do you have a boy doll with red hair?"
Chelsea glanced in the box briefly, but she didn't really need to look to know she didn't have one. She shook her head. "I'm sorry, Rachael; I don't have one like that." She paused momentarily and looked through the box again, moving a bunch of dolls to either side until she found a Ken doll with bleach blond hair. She handed the doll to Rachael and said, "You can use a marker and color this doll's hair red, if you want," she offered.
"It's okay," Rachael said, accepting the doll with a smile. "I'll just pretend he has red hair. Besides, my Daddy's hair has some blond, too."
"His hair is blond and red?" Chelsea echoed with a raised eyebrow. She was having trouble imagining that combination of colors being someone's hair and actually looking good, and she had a lot of hair combinations at school. "Does it look good?"
"I don't know," Rachael said with a shrug, and furrowed her eyebrows only briefly. She grinned as she said, "He's my Daddy; how am I supposed to know if it looks good?"
Chloé and Chelsea laughed at Rachael's comment. Chloé nudged Rachael with her elbow and when she fell over, the three of them burst into side-splitting laughter that caused them all to end up on their backs. They laughed for the better part of ten minutes.
A sudden sensation jolted Chloé into alertness causing her to sit up and blink slowly, setting down the Ken doll she had been pretending was a lawyer like her father and the Barbie she had been pretending worked in a café, like her mother. Carefully, she began to looking around the area amongst her, as if she were carefully looking for something. Standing just as slowly as she blinked, Chloé finally made her way down the steps to the sidewalk below and continued to look intently through the area around here. She had her eyes closed before Rachael or Chelsea thought to ask her what she was doing.
"I don't know who it is," Chloé said as she turned briefly to look at her friend and cousin, "but I sense someone…"
Rachael raised an eyebrow as she looked up and down the street momentarily. "There's no one around here, though, Chloé."
Chloé sighed and examined the area a little more intently. Rachael was right; there was no one there. The street was as abandoned as a desert. With a shrug, Chloé made her way back up the steps, but stopped mid-step when the feeling hit her again; there was definitely someone there, someone that Chloé was meant to know about it. The tingling feelings were too strong to just ignore it, so she casually turned around and went back down the steps; hawkeyed of the streets as she waited intently for the person she knew was there to show his or herself.
"Chloé," Chelsea broke in, scooting from the porch to the first step so she could look up and down the street more clearly. "Rachael is right; there really is no one there."
"No, there is someone here," Chloé protested positively. She turned back toward the porch to make eye contact with Chelsea. "I can sense it," she said and turned away again, intent on figuring out who it was she was sensing and why she was sensing the person at all.
"Well, do you know who it is?" Rachael asked curiously.
Chloé shrugged. She spoke without turning back this time. The sense that someone was there was getting stronger and she refused to miss a second of what was going on in the streets. "I don't know who it is, but it's obviously someone I know or I've seen before," Chloé pointed out, "or I wouldn't be doing this right now. It's got to be someone really important. I've never had this type of sense bef—"
Chloé cut herself off as she noticed a figure in the distances growing bigger as it walked toward her. "I see someone." She became noticeably more alert and even regressed to the porch, in case the figure wanted to hurt her somehow. Chloé, Chelsea and Rachael were ready to run inside if they needed to.
"Who is it?" Rachael asked as she stood beside Chloé who was shortly after joined by Chelsea. "Is it someone bad?"
"I don't know," Chloé replied plainly.
Chloé watched intently as the figure grew bigger and bigger, becoming clearer and clearer. It didn't take long, though, before Chloé realized she knew who it was.
With a yip of excitement, Chloé flew from the porch and ran up to the man who was now only several inches from her. When she earned a look of confusion, Chloé spoke. "Hi, my name is Chloé," she began. She mentally stammered for a minute as she debated what to say next. "Is your name Richie?" she finally asked, maintaining eye contact.
Startled, Richie took several steps away from the girl that had cut him off. Shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat, he gave Chloé a confused look and said, "Um… Yes. My name is Richie. Who are you?" he asked rather stupidly, as the little girl had just told him her name. He decided to pose another question before Chloé had a chance to respond. "I mean, why do you want to know? How do you know who I am?" he asked warily, eyeing Chloé.
Practically jumping up and down, Chloé said, "I'll show you. Come with me." She took Richie's hand and led him up the stairs to the porch and through the front door of Sharon's home.
If Richie had been in his right mind, he would have questioned the motives of the little girl leading him into a stranger's house, but he was so confused that the questions never came to mind. It had to be one of the few times Richie was actually reduced to incoherent thoughts and being dumbfounded without use of his sleeping pills.
Curiously wanting to find out what was going on, Chelsea and Rachael followed not too far behind the strange blond man, making sure to keep their distance. Chloé guided the group to the dining room where they found Virgil, Sharon and Adam sitting around the table, talking.
"Daddy, look who I found for you," Chloé said excitedly as she stepped into the room. The suddenness of his daughter's voice caused Virgil to painfully jerk his head toward her.
He would have grimaced at the pain jerking his neck caused, but Virgil's eyes immediately went wide and his mouth agape at the sight of the man standing beside his daughter; the sight of the man who had squawked out his name once he turned around, and he forgot why his neck hurt in the first place. The sound of the glass Virgil had been holding hitting the ground and shattering echoed throughout the room, but neither Richie nor Virgil blinked. Instead, Virgil stared, his heart in his throat and stomach all the same time. Virgil didn't move, save for his eyes which were rapidly looking over Richie; he was too stricken with a paralyzing amount of emotions to move any other part of his body. It was Richie. The man he had not seen for two decades. His best friend was now standing in Sharon's dining room and Virgil was staring at him; he was tangible, he was real. He was alive.
However, it didn't take Virgil long to realize Richie was obviously still pissed, still absolutely livid, at him, which suddenly made him aware of where his heart had fallen. The way Richie's blue eyes had fallen as black as his close with venom made Virgil gulp and he suddenly felt aware of every inch of his body. Virgil felt hot tears threatening to fall down his cheeks, unsure if the tears were happiness in knowing Richie was alive, or anguish from knowing that just by seeing Virgil for a mere seven seconds was enough to cause looks of venomous hatred in his eyes. Unfortunately, the tears were probably an extremely maddening combination of both reasons.
When Sharon noticed the venomous looks Richie was displaying, she promptly ushered Adam and the kids upstairs, deciding that if things got violent, she did not want the kids to see it. She especially did not want Chloé to see it if her father got violent, or if someone got that way with him. All the way up the stairs, Sharon assured a worried Chloé everything was going to be alright and that she had done nothing wrong.
During the all-to-short period they were both stricken paralyzed, staring at one another (although Richie was scowling more so than staring), Virgil watched Richie's emotions dance between irrefutable aberration, and melancholy heartbreak, similar to the night in their in their headquarters; the night that was currently reeling through Virgil's memory. Just as Virgil was preparing himself to say something, Richie found his ability to move and darted from the house.
Just as Richie began running, Virgil also found the ability to move his legs and ran after him. "Richie, please wait! Come back!" he choked out, unable to push back the tears; but it was too late, because Richie was already down the street, and Virgil had collapsed into a heap of tears on the porch, no longer able to move. He wanted to keep running; wanted to catch up with Richie, but instead watched him dart down the street, quickly greatening the distances between them.
Virgil slinked into the corner of the porch, pulled his legs to his chest, buried his face in his knees, and shamelessly began to cry. He began to cry more than he had in twenty years, perhaps more than he had in his life. He cried because he finally got to see his best friend again, but his best friend certainly did not want to see him. It was obvious that Richie had been banking on never seeing Virgil again, judging by the way he bolted it out the house. It killed Virgil to know that he had fucked up that badly. Virgil cried because instead of just assuming he had completely screwed up his only worthwhile friendship, he now knew for a fact that he did. That realization only caused him to sob more violently and, for a moment, Virgil swore he could hear the sound of his own sobs echoing back to him, mocking him; making fun of him.
Mostly, though, he cried for the love he felt for Richie. He cried because it took him twenty years to realize; just how badly he had hurt Richie, and what he had lost by marrying Angelica. He always knew that he had lost a friend, a best friend, but now he realized he lost the only person he'd ever truly loved in a passionate way. He cried because it was perfectly clear he was never going to get a chance to prove that love; the love he should have realized he felt twenty years ago instead of trying to suppress. It took knowing how much he hurt Richie for Virgil to finally come to terms with something he had been trying to ignore for two decades; something he had been trying to believe was untrue.
With violently shaking hands, Virgil reached into the pouch of his hoodie for a cigarette and his lighter (he had forgotten to leave them at home earlier that morning, but now was glad he had it), and he cried as he smoked because, for the first time in five years, nicotine wasn't helping. The drug he went to whenever he was miserable was not bringing him relief from this pain. A little harsher than necessary, Virgil put out the cigarette on the concrete next to him—he figured that if it didn't help, there was no point in smoking it—and continued to cry. It was the only thing he was capable of doing. It was the only thing he wanted to do.
As far as Virgil was concerned, it was the only thing he should be allowed to do because, all of a sudden, he fully understood the emotional pain that he had put Richie through; the pain that Richie still went through, judging by the expressions on his face that haunted Virgil's disheveled thoughts.
Letting out a distressed groan through the tears, Virgil wrapped his arms around his neck and pulled, what should have been painfully, at his dreads, but it didn't hurt. Nothing hurt; Virgil was completely numb after fifteen consecutive minutes of crying. He reached into his sweater for another cigarette. Of course, this cigarette didn't help either, but it was better than literally pulling clumps of hair from his scalp.
It wasn't until about an hour later Virgil ceased crying, save for the occasional tears that dripped down his cheeks. He had gone completely numb; he had cried all the tears he could. He was so emotionally numb that, by the time Sharon stepped outside, Virgil was on his third cigarette. Sharon stood and watched her little brother smoke, watched the tears occasionally streaming down his face, and felt tears threaten her own eyes. Her heart broke at the sight of Virgil's colorless and expression less face, and she knelt down and pulled her brother into a shaky hug. When Virgil didn't respond and continued to smoke, Sharon felt the tears previously tugging at the corner of her eyes begin falling down her cheeks. In a gentle voice, she soothed, "I promise it will be okay, Virgil."
Apprehensively, the girls hung out in Chelsea's bedroom as they wait for any sign that they could finally come downstairs. It had been a little over an hour since Sharon had escorted the girls upstairs, and they were becoming restless. Besides hearing Virgil yell at Richie to stop and wait, and then the front door closing loudly, they had no idea what was going on. Sharon and Adam had stayed in Chelsea's room with them until they heard the front door slam. At that point, Sharon went downstairs to look out the window peering to the front porch, watching Virgil cry in the corner of the porch, and Adam went to the kitchen as per Sharon's request to find the ingredients to make pizza for dinner.
When the front door finally opened again, Chloé whined loudly when she heard the soft, pained mewls of her father. "This is my fault." She leaned against the wall in Chelsea's bedroom. Tears were stinging Chloé eyes, and she slid down the wall, burying her face into her knees. "My Daddy is crying and it's my fault," she hiccupped.
With a frown, Chelsea walked over to Chloé and knelt down in front of her. She hugged her cousin tightly as she said quietly, "It's not your fault, Chloé."
"Yes it is!" Chloé cried as she struggled free from Chelsea's hold on her. "Don't you understand, Chelsea? If I hadn't brought Richie here, my Daddy wouldn't be sad." She buried her face back into her knees and said through tears that were beginning to flow: "So, it's my fault.
"He told me he wasn't ready to see Richie, and I brought him inside, anyway. I didn't know that was going to happen. My Daddy probably hates me."
"Uncle Virgil doesn't hate you, Chloé. You're his daughter; he loves you," Chelsea reminded her as she sat cross-legged on the floor in front of Chloé. She drew in a deep breath and said, "I'm sure he'll be okay, Chloé. Just give him some time."
"He even said he was worried that Richie didn't like him anymore," Chloé said quietly making Rachael and Chelsea almost strain in order to hear her. "I should have just ignored my sense, but I didn't, and now my Daddy is sad."
"Chloé," Rachael said gently from Chelsea's bed, "you did what you thought was right." She paused momentarily to move from the bed to a cross-legged position next to Chelsea. "No matter what your Daddy said, you couldn't have possibly known how Richie would react. You're clairvoyant, not a mind reader, Chloé."
Chloé drew in a deep breath and sighed with a groan. There was a long silence among the girls in which Chloé spent the majority with her face against her knees. Chelsea and Rachael looked at one another intermittently but never said anything. Eventually, they lied back and decided it was easier to succumb to the silence than find it awkward. It wasn't until Sharon appeared in their doorway that anyone spoke.
"Rachael," Sharon said, "would you be okay staying here overnight? You and Chloé can sleep in here with Chelsea."
Rachael sat up off the floor, and looked up at Sharon as she spoke. "Of course I wouldn't mind stay the night, Mrs. Evans. I was going to stay the night at Chloé's apartment, anyway, but I can stay here, too," she said politely.
Sharon smiled. "Alright then, good," she said and nodded briefly, "I'll find some extra blankets for the three of you later, and I'll be making dinner shortly."
Sharon was about to leave when she was halted by the faint sound of Chloé's voice. When she turned back around, she saw her niece standing in the doorway with a look almost as painful as the one her brother had had when she went outside.
"Is my Daddy going to be okay, Aunt Sharon?" she asked, looking toward the ground. "I never meant to make him sad. I just thought…" she trailed off, not really knowing what else to say.
A sympathetic smile crossed Sharon's features as she walked closer to Chloé and knelt down in front of her. She drew the little girl into a tight hug, which Chloé clung to, and said, "Virgil will be okay, honey. He just needs some sleep. He'll be fine in the morning." Sharon kissed the top of Chloé's head before standing up. "This isn't your fault, Chloé. I think maybe he needed this."
Chloé knitted her eyebrows in confusion and her gaze narrowed. "My Daddy needed to be sad? Why?"
Sharon let out an airy laugh. "No, honey, your Daddy needed to see Richie again," she said. "I'm not sure why they quit being friends, but I do know that whatever happened, your Daddy needed to see Richie in order to come to terms with it." Sharon paused momentarily. "You did a good thing for your Daddy, Chloé; trust me, you'll see."
Chloé nodded reluctantly and forced herself to smile. "Okay, Aunt Sharon," she said gave Sharon another hug. They hugged for a couple moments before Sharon patted Chloé's back and broke the hug. Chloé took a few steps and let her aunt go.
Sharon was about to go back downstairs when Chloé realized she had another question. "Aunt Sharon?"
"Yes, Chloé?" Sharon questioned, turning around on the steps.
"Is my mom still coming here for Christmas Eve?"
Angelica was invited to Sharon's house every year for Christmas Eve, because Angelica wanted to see her daughter for part of the holiday—the agreement was that Virgil got her for Christmas, so Virgil, and Sharon reluctantly so for the sake of her niece, agreed that Angelica could see Chloé on Christmas Eve by coming to Sharon's house for the family get-together.
Sharon tried to keep her eyes from going icy at the mention of Angelica. When her attempt failed, she turned away from Chloé and said, "Probably," as evenly as she could, as she continued her decent down the stairs.
A/N: Can I just say... there were at least five different occasions in which I burst into tears while writing this chapter. Virgil not being a very emotional person sort means that, when you do make him emotional, it tugs at your heartstrings. listened to a ton of sad songs and thought of a lot of sad things in order to get the emotions correct, so I really hope it turned out well.
I just want to give you fair warning that there will be a lot more angst before there's fluff, but there will be fluff. Just hold tight. I promise you it will come.
Sorry this chapter is so long. The actual story is like 3,395 words or something like that. With all the other shit, it's 3,876 words in all. I just felt it appropriate to make the most angst-filled chapter of the story the longest one as well.
Also, in case you were even the slightest bit curious, I got tired of trying to come up with cute names for the chapters, so I just went through and changed it all to Roman Numerals. That's clever, right? XD It's better than the Hindu-Arabic numeral system in that it's slightly more original (even though I'm pretty sure that people on this site have done it before and I am so far from original at all). Whatever; I just didn't want to come up with cute names anymore.
Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed the chapter! Please review! I have hot chocolate, cookies, tissues, and hugs for everyone that reviews!