A/N:

Main POVs: Jake, Marisol, KC, and Connor

TW for underage drug use and mentions of death and sexual assault.

On a rainy Saturday morning, Jake sat numbly on his bed dressed in all black. Today was his mother's funeral. She had died last week in the hospital when his father took her off life support.

He was still in shock. It just didn't register in his mind that his mother was dead. He would never get to see her smile again. He would never get to eat her famous fried chicken again. He would never get to go rollerblading with her again. She was gone because of an argument with his dad. He didn't blame his dad for his mom dying in that accident but he was angry about the circumstances leading up to it. His parents couldn't go one day without arguing and it cost him his mother's life.

There was a knock on the door before it opened. He turned to see Marisol entering his room with two plates of food. She was wearing a black dress and her hair was pulled into a bun.

"I didn't see you get any food downstairs so I brought it to you," she said in a soft, caring voice as she sat down next to him on the bed.

"Thanks," he replied in gratitude, taking the plate of food. He forgot it was the repast. There was a ham and cheese sandwich, chicken salad, and deviled eggs on the plate.

"I'm sorry," she said in sympathy. "I can't imagine what you're going through but I'll try my best to be here."

"I don't know what you can do, honestly," he replied. Nothing was going to change the fact that his mom was six feet under at the age of forty.

"Will a hug help at least a little?" She offered with a soft smile.

"I guess," he accepted.

She wrapped one arm around his body and leaned her head on his shoulders. They then silently ate together.

Connor stood around at the door, waiting for K.C. to arrive. His friend was going to eat dinner with him and his god family tonight.

"Connor, you don't have to keep standing there," his godmother told him with an amused smile as she stepped into the living room for a moment, "Can you help me and Emma set the table, honey?"

"Of course," he accepted as he went to help her. Emma handed him the utensils while she put the plates on the table. Her friend Manny, who had been living with them since the beginning of the school year, was helping Spike cook dinner in the kitchen. Dinner tonight was a nice pot roast with garlic mashed potatoes and greens.

"Do you think K.C. will enjoy himself?" He asked his godsister.

"I'm sure Connor," she replied. Her mind seemed to be in another place. Emma Nelson was an interesting person to be around. His god sister always seemed to have something going on with her like she was the main character of a teen drama.

"We're playing board games tonight, right?" He asked again.

"Yup! We're playing Candyland and monopoly," she answered just as the doorbell rang. He immediately went to answer it.

K.C. was on the other side dressed in a blue denim jacket, a shirt, and jeans. He seemed to forgo his beanie for tonight. He was awkwardly standing around with his hands in his pockets.

"Greetings friend, come in," Connor greeted as warmly as he could, stepping aside to let his best friend come inside. Emma and Manny walked in the living room to take a closer look at K.C., who looked around the place in wonder.

"Nice house you guys got here," he complimented.

"Thank you, K.C.," he replied. His friend nodded in response.

"Why does he remind me of Sean?" He heard Manny whisper to Emma.

Jake had wandered off after the repast was over and Marisol had immediately followed, wondering where the hell was he going.

"Jakey, where are we heading?" She asked as they walked the streets of Toronto. They stopped at a bus stop.

"Anywhere that isn't my house right now," he simply answered as the bus arrived. They got on together. She tried to hold his hand, but he rebuffed her to her confusion. They sat at the back of the bus, and it was a rather uncomfortable silence to whatever they were going.

When they got off by Degrassi, her confusion grew but Jake didn't explain as he walked. He seemed to be in a trance of source and he didn't care to answer any of her questions.

They entered the Ravine, and Marisol immediately stiffened. She never wanted to come here again after what happened to her last year.

"Jakey, this place is the worst," she tried to tell him, but he kept walking. The familiar sight of teens drinking, drugging, and hooking up turned her stomach. The smell of weed and cigarettes penetrated her nose violently. She might get sick tonight.

He finally stopped walking when he got to an area with tree stumps and an abandoned fire. He sat down on one of the stumps and stared into the distance. She sat down next to him and attempted to grab his hand. He rejected her again.

"What is your problem?" She demanded.

"I don't feel like holding hands with you right now, Mare. I'm sorry," he apologized just as two guys approached them.

"Aren't you kids a little young to be hanging out here?" One of them questioned with a smirk. Marisol didn't like the look of him. He looked grimey, dirty.

"I don't see why not. You guys don't own the Ravine," Jake replied flatly. She braced herself for a fight.

The guys looked at each other and shrugged as they sat down in the abandoned chairs by the campfire. One of them pulled out a bag of something that suspiciously looked like weed to her. Her suspicions were confirmed when he pulled out a light and some rolling paper.

Marisol watched uncomfortably as the guys smoked weed in front of them, laughing and giggling together when the high kicked in. She wasn't disgusted by marijuana, as so many of her family members smoked it, but she didn't like being around these total strangers.

"You kids want a puff?" One of the guys asked as he held out the blunt to them. "This is some pretty good stuff."

"Uh no," she turned down swiftly while looking at her boyfriend.

He stared at the blunt in interest.

"So K.C., what are you in the gifted program for?" Spike asked him politely while passing around a bowl of mashed potatoes. Dinner was now being served and it looked far better than anything he ate at the group home.

"Uh science. I want to be a physicist," K.C. answered as he put a piece of pot roast into his mouth. It was fresh, tender, and juicy. Yup, definitely better than the group home grub.

"Ooh interesting! You must be really smart then, eh?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

The rest of the dinner went nicely, if a bit awkward since everyone kept asking him about his home life and interests. He tried to make everything sound as good as possible to not make them worry. Nobody liked listening to an obvious charity case and nobody needed to know that he used to like hotwiring cars to steal from them as a hobby.

The way the Nelson-Simpsons acted around each other, all warm and friendly, was a peculiar sight for someone who grew up around drug addicts and alcoholics such as himself. Mr. Simpson wasn't a drug dealer like his father who abandoned his pregnant mother only to come back and get her hooked on crack. Spike may have looked a little too young to have a child as old as Emma but she didn't seem like the type of mother to lock her child in a closet while she did crack with strange men. Emma seemed to actually enjoy being around her parents even if she wasn't eating her mother's dinner. Manny didn't seem to be an outsider, her and Connor fit right into the family. Baby Jack was happily eating his dinner, instead of wondering when the next meal was going to come and whether it would be McDonald's again.

When dinner was done, he wiped his chin with the napkin as properly as he could like the caretaker at the group home instructed. He got ready to get up when Spike stopped him.

"You want some pie, K.C.?" She offered while holding up some sweet potato pie. It was a rich brown color with some crispy looking crust. Despite the large amount of food he just ate, his stomach rumbled again.

After all, he rarely ate dessert at the group home.

Jake felt on air.

"Jake? Jakey?" Marisol's voice called out to him as he took a walk around the Ravine. Her voice was deeper and more distorted than usual.

"Mare, float with me," he said as he turned around to face her. His girlfriend was nearly unrecognizable in front of him. Her skin was no longer a chestnut brown but pink, purple, orange, yellow, green, and blue. Her nails were no longer short but long like talons. Her eyes were turquoise and her hair was done up in tall spikes. She looked scary but...hot at the same time.

"What is wrong with you? You should have never smoked that blunt!" She scolded him.

"Why? I feel goooood," he replied, waving his arms around for emphasis. They were long and rubbery.

"I'm taking you home right now!" She declared while grabbing his arm.

Jake looked up towards the pale yellow moon and let out a howl in the night.

After K.C. left, Connor helped his mother clean up the kitchen. Snake went upstairs to put Jack to bed and Emma and Manny took turns showering.

He was wiping the counter tops when his godmother had a look of confusion while looking at her forks.

"I'm missing a fork…," she said.

"How?" He questioned.

"I don't know. I usually have twenty of these but there's only nineteen. Can you go upstairs and check your room for any silverware, Connor?" She requested.

"Sure," he accepted as he went upstairs. When he couldn't find any in his room, he went back downstairs and told his godmother.

"Huh? Odd," she replied with furrowed eyebrows before going back to wash the dishes.

A thought came into Connor's mind but he pushed it away. There's no logical reason why K.C. would do that.

On Monday, Marisol walked up to Katie as her friend opened up her locker. When Katie saw her, she stopped what she was doing and smiled at her.

"Hey Mare," she greeted, "How's Jake?"

"Bad, Katiekins. He barely ate anything at the funeral yesterday," she answered. Then her face tightened in discomfort. "And he got high at the Ravine…."

"What?" Katie asked in surprise and disgust.

"Yeah, he was completely tripping out. It was weird," she answered as she thought back unpleasantly at the memory. Jake kept walking around like he was floating and kept touching her like she was an alien or something.

"Is he really taking his mom's death that bad?" Her friend questioned in concern.

"Yeah, and I don't know how to fix it," she replied with a frown. It seemed like their whole relationship was clouded by his mother, and she felt less like a girlfriend and more like his tissue box. She wanted to support him, but she didn't know how much of this she could take.

"It's not up to you to fix it, Mare. This is Jake's trauma to bear," Katie said.

"But I don't want him to go through it alone," Marisol argued just as her boyfriend approached them.

"Mare, can we talk?" He requested, and the tone in his voice demanded that she do so. She looked at Katie before nodding at him. He led her away into a cleaning supply closet and closed the door behind them.

"We have to break up," he told her bluntly. Her mouth dropped in shock.

"What? Why?" She demanded.

"Because this isn't working out," he answered, "I'm sorry but I can't be a good boyfriend to you right now. I got too much on my mind because of my mom, and I can't focus on you. You deserve better," he explained.

"But I really like you, Jake," Marisol replied, as she struggled not to cry. Even though she was just complaining about him minutes ago with Katie, she wasn't ready to break up with him. At the same time though, was them being together the best for Jake right now?

"I know, and I really like you too, Mare but a relationship isn't the best for me right now," he insisted. Her lip quivered as she began to cry. Jake pulled her into his arms for a hug, and she cried into his chest for a few minutes. Then it was time to leave the closet. She looked at him sadly one last time before leaving. He didn't follow her.

She accidentally bumped into Eli, who had his headphones. "Sorry," she replied in a cracked voice.

"It's alright," he assured her before looking at her with concern. "Are you okay?"

"No," she replied swiftly before walking away with hurt in her heart.

He knew he was the biggest asshole for what he did last night but he couldn't stop himself.

K.C. looked at the fork in his hands as he stood by his locker. It was the same fork he used last night for dinner, and he took it home before anyone in the family could notice. He figured that as much as the family had, nobody would notice one measly fork missing. He really needed it anyway as he was tired of sharing the same crusty ones with the kids at the group home.

When he heard someone approaching, he quickly shoved the fork into his bag and turned around. To his relief it was Clare, who shockingly had her hair down for once. She looked really pretty.

"Hey K.C.," she greeted.

"Hey," he greeted back, hoping she didn't sense the guilt pouring off of him. She seemed to always be so perceptive of whatever he was feeling at the time.

"Connor told me about last night, I'm glad you guys had a nice time," she said.

"Thanks," he replied. She nodded before beginning to walk past him. He nearly sighed in relief. He was safe.

Then she turned around.

"He also told me about the fork. K.C., please return that to him," she ordered before continuing to walk. His shoulders slumped. He wanted to argue that she didn't know what she was talking about. That just because he was poor didn't mean he was a thief.

But Clare Edwards seemed to always know what was going on with him.

Jake decided that he wasn't going to go to lunch today. Instead, he went to the Ravine. Even during the day, the place was trashy as hell and filled with school burnouts but he didn't exactly come here for a five star experience.

He found the person he was looking for laughing with guys about something. He had wavy hair and mischievous blue eyes. After he took a hit of that blunt on Saturday, he asked those shady looking guys where they got the marijuana from and they described the guy in front of him.

"Hey," Jake greeted. The older guy and his friends looked at him in amusement.

"Hello?" He asked. "You need something kid?"

"Yeah, the weed you're selling," he answered and frowned as the guy and his friends laughed.

"Shouldn't you be drinking on your little juice box at Degrassi instead?" The older guy asked him. Jake pulled out ten dollars from his pocket.

"No, just give me as much as I can buy with this," he answered as he handed the money out to him. It was half his allowance money.

The older guy looked at his friends before shrugging and taking the money. He then gave him a bag of weed with a devious twinkle in his eye.

"I think we're going to have a beautiful partnership on our hands, kiddo," he said with a smirk.

Jake just smiled back.