Disclaimer: I don't own Static Shock. It belongs to Mister Dwayne McDuffie, Milestone, DC Comics and WB. But a girl can dream.

Warning: Will contain slash, drugs, violence and one sided relationships. This will be a bit riskier than my average fics. Knowing me it'll be okay but I only thought it fair to place a warning. I hope everyone enjoys the rendition of Shiv by a third author. I want to be original and hope this is.

A/N: Okay, this is really quite an anti-drug chapter. I hope its accurate. Also a bit of a sad chapter. Joe is getting ready to run away. I hope you like it though.

Also so sorry. It took so long.

Taken Lightly
Chapter 8: The Good Mother

Richie had found the address of Solada Chen in almost no time at all. She was living in an upper middle class neighborhood on the west side of Dakota. Virgil hadn't bothered to wear his Static costume as he was afraid he'd scare her off. The house had a fence, garden, and dog house with no dog. A skateboard sat up against the side of the flower bed. Richie looked around the yard. He found it, eery. It was so deserted in mood.

Virgil knocked on the door. Richie quickly removed himself from his examination and placed himself behind Virgil on the landing. "Remember, we're doing an article for school on missing children."

"Very sympathetic, Virgil."

"Best I could think of."

The door opened. Standing in the entrance was an Asian woman around her late forties with her hair tied back. She looked tired and oddly sad. She wore a long skirt and a white blouse. However, she certainly had a resemblance to Shiv. Her eyes curved the same way his did and her skin was the same pale bronze. However, she was built far portlier and shorter in height. She looked at the boys for a moment. She was just shorter than Richie and came up to Virgil's chin.

"Hi." Virgil said with a wave. "Are you Mrs. Chen?"

Her expression did not change. "Yes. What is it?"

"I'm Virgil Hawkins and this is Richie Foley. We're doing a report on missing children for the Community Center where my pops works. We were wondering if you wouldn't mind answering a few questions."

She sighed irriatiably. "Come in. My husband isn't home. He hasn't come home before ten p.m. since Jomei ran away. He used to come home all the time to help him study. You aren't the first one's to come and ask me about this. It has been a while though."

Virgil followed her down the hallway. He saw a door half open and looked inside. It was a teenager's room. It was dusty and needed desperately to be cleaned. Clothes were scattered across the floor, CDs sat on the dresser, a video game controller was sitting on the floor and the bed was unmade. It looked so lived in and so dead at the same time.

"That was Jomei's room." she said, walking back toward them. "I can't brought myself to clean it. I don't want to touch his things." she said and shut the door to the room. "We still hope he might turn up." She looked tired.

Virgil and Richie looked at one another as they continued into the living room. "What happened, Mrs. Chen?"

She sighed to herself. "So many things. I had a hard trouble having a child. We tried for years and it never worked out. We thought it wasn't meant to be, but Tadashi, that's my husband Tadashi, wouldn't give up on it. He told me it was only a matter of time. He never gave up on the idea and gave me hope." Solada smiled briefly, but it faded quickly. "I went to a doctor to ask about why it was taking so long for us to have our baby. I had some tests and there was a fertility defect. However, we decided to try one last time and Jomei was born." she paused for a moment. She was solemn but only superficially. "He was born three and a half weeks early. Some things weren't quite right with him. But we didn't mind it, he was our baby."

Virgil looked at her sympathetically. He hadn't expected this. He had expected her to be different, colder. "Did you have any problems with Joe?"

"I couldn't bond with him. I had wanted the baby for so long. It caused a lot of trouble but my husband understood and we worked through it." she stuttered for a moment and stood up. "Would you two like anything?"

Virgil and Richie looked at each other. Neither were very hungry after that declaration. It was something about it that create a knot in your stomach. "No, thank you." Richie said, holding his notepad. "What was wrong with Joe?"

Her expression did not change as she sat back down. "He was ADHD from this premature birth. He couldn't sit still well. Video games were only things that could keep him in one place."

"When did he run away?" Virgil said sympathetically.

"It was the night of the big bang. April 23rd."

"Could you tell us what you think lead up to him running away?" Richie said seriously.

She sighed. "Joe was never a bad kid. But he had trouble in school."

Joe sat the desk by the window in his Geometry class. He hated the class. Actually, he disliked a lot about his school. He was forced to wear a uniform: jacket and tie, listen to boring lectures, sit still, and worst of all, with no entertainment. He sat looking out the window. He wasn't really thinking about anything. He was just watching things go by when his afternoon activity was rudely interrupted. "Mister Chen!"

Joe snapped out of the trance. "Yeah."

The class giggled. The woman at the front of the class was a thin, elderly woman. Her hair was a mix of grey and black tied into a tight bun. She appeared annoyed. Though, when wasn't she? "Do you know the answer, Mister Chen?"

Joe smiled and leaned back with his hands behind his head. "And what was the question?"

The class giggled again. Joe relaxed further. This was his ideal environment: surrounded by laughter. The teacher was angry. She gave him a stern look and pointed at the board. "The area of an equilateral triangle inscribed inside a circle, Mister Chen."

"I have no idea." he said, smugly. He turned. A girl two seats away from him had her hand up and appeared as though she was about to jump out of her skin. "I think she knows, though."

The class ended within an hour. They had reframed from usual discipline with Joe. He was in the office so often it was getting ridiculous. However, despite his behavior problems, he was well liked by the school. The secretaries found his boyish charm and humor entertaining. Even the senile old janitor, who hated all of the students, enjoyed his company and would occasionally allow him to skateboard in the halls after hours.

He walked outside the school. He unlocked his skateboard from the bicycle rack and jumped on. He skated down a hill leading from the school and turned into a small alley. He jumped off and looked around. It was dank, dark and hidden out of sight. He had been told by a classmate that he could get drugs here. The location was perfect for drug dealing. It was far out of sight and close enough to a private school that no one would suspect. It was also far easier to coax naïve private school students than those in public school. Joe was unfortunately very naïve. His logic was that marijuana was used as medicine and that he was ill. He hated to think of it that way but he was. His medicine wasn't working. It made him sick half the time and if not then had no effect at all. He held his skateboard under his arm and looking around. He didn't see anyone. Joe sighed, it must have been a joke. He never did like Andrew. Joe dropped his skateboard and jumped on. "You, Joe?"

Joe stopped sharply and turned. It was a very deep voice and commanding. "Yeah.. I'm Joe. Joe Chen."

A man in his early twenties walked out from the back of the alley. He was African American with very dark skin and cornrows lined his head. He was wearing a vest, loose pants and a tight shirt. It was the toughest person Joe had ever seen outside of one of his video games.

"You're Ivan Evans." Joe said surprised. He was staring, in between feelings aw and absolute curiosity. He had expected some named Ivan to be well... Russian and white and smaller.

"Yeah. So you're Joe Chan. So... Chan."

"Chen."

"Chun, whatever."

"Chen."

"So Chang, you got some type of problem." Ivan said, removing the contents of his pockets and vest. It was a variety of powders, pills and plants inside small plastic bags. "If you need painkillers, I got over the counter, script pill and morphine."

Joe squinted a little trying to act seriously. "I don't need those and its Chen."

"Right. Chung. I got red devils if you can't sleep, crank, if you sleep too much, pot if you care about too much, acid if you just want to go on a trip..."

Ivan lagged on but it was lost to Joe. He looked over the drugs trying to pick up any information he could. He was never good at paying attention. "Its Chen. I just need something to mellow me out."

Ivan quickly put most of the small bags away into his pockets. "Okay, Lee. You want this then. How much did you bring?"

Joe pulled off his backpack and pulled out a small wallet. Ivan snatched it and took whatever was inside and handed Joe a plastic bag of a bright green plant. Ivan stood there counting the money as he put back Joe's wallet. Joe didn't know exactly what to make of the transaction. He didn't know what to do at all really. He stood for a moment.

"You want somethin' else?"

Joe jumped a little. He was surprised by the reaction. "No. Nothing."

"Then get out, Chun."

Joe dropped his skateboard and pushed himself out of the alley. "Its Jomei "Joe" Chen!"

"Joe-May Joe Chung...Chan... whatever." Ivan muttered to himself as Joe sped away.

Joe spent the next few days experimenting with the new drug, buying more from Ivan, and acting like a sloth. He was far mellower than before. He got up in the morning and ate breakfast without jumping on things and getting distracted. Tadashi smiled from his newspaper as Joe picked up his skateboard and books and walked out the door.

Solada was washing dishes as Tadashi began to gather his briefcase. "You don't think its odd?"

Tadashi stopped for a moment. "What do you mean? With Jomei?"

"Yes. He doesn't seem himself. He's tired."

"He's calm." Tadashi said with a grin. "We're just not used to it."

"That's not it. He's too quiet and he does... He just isn't right."

Tadashi turned to his wife for a moment. He broke away from his grin and into a comforting look. "He's fine, Solada. I haven't heard those video games in days. He's upstairs doing his homework half the time. He's getting better, Solada. Getting a handle on this. Its a good thing, Solada." He said, kissed Solada goodbye and walked out the door.

She returned to the dishes. "Then, why are his eyes so red now?"

Joe sat in his desk at school. He was silent without even a smile. A few had asked why his eyes were so red. He said it was allergies, an allergenic reaction, it was infected, pink eye and that it was a parasitic worm. He didn't think anyone believed any of the excuses but were far too taken aback to ask anything else about the subject. He sat silently staring straight ahead. He wasn't thinking about anything or looking at anything. He was just staring. He could remember if he had done his homework or even breakfast. It was a weird feeling, not knowing things that you really should.

The teacher was walking up and down the rows of small desks handing something out. He couldn't remember what class this was. It was either Study Hall or History or something. The teacher placed several pieces of paper on his desk. They were tests from the last four weeks. Joe groaned it'd be a C to D+. It always was. He failed anything. He looked down at the oldest. It was a 78, a C+. He looked at the next it was a D, then a D-, then an E. Joe stared in confusion. This can't be right. He was calm. He better this had to be wrong.

Joe was sitting with his head in his hands. His classmates filed out as he sat. It was almost shock. He was failing. He didn't fail. He was the obnoxious, cocky class crown who always squeaked by with a C-. The teacher walked looked up from his desk. He saw Joe sitting there, head in hands. He got up and walked down the aisle by the window and sat down in the chair in front of him. Joe didn't notice. The man was in his late fifties with glasses and a beard. He had been teaching at the school for almost thirty years. "Is there any reason you're tests turned out like this?"

Joe looked up. "I guess I didn't study."

"Are you sure you don't know any other reasons?"

"Yeah." he said and got up leaving the classroom.

He skated home and walked in through the gate. Spike barked happily. "Shut up, Spike." Joe said irritably and walked inside the house.

Joe left his tests on a small end table in the living room and went into the backyard to smoke. Solada was standing on the floor above and looked outside. She felt the pit of her stomach give out. She knew it all along. It was obvious really. She knew she should get down there and yell her lungs out at him. She knew that she should get rid of that horrible stuff but she couldn't. She couldn't stand to be that close to him. It would mean being near him and she couldn't. It was too much for her.

Tadashi arrived home shortly. Joe was sitting on the couch. Tadashi picked up the tests and shot Joe an angry look. The yelling began instantly. Tadashi's flurry of anger and disappointment continued for almost two hours. Joe sat without flinching. He was in complete apathy. He didn't care, and if he did, he wasn't showing it. Solada should a fair distance. She was silent as she always was. She looked at her son. He sat tired and careless. She hadn't seem his in him before. He was so still and it scared her.

After the lecture, he lay on his bed in his room curled in on himself, trying to sleep off some of the more negative effects. He hadn't expected the sore throats, tiredness, and worst of all general apathy. He had stopped caring about beating his growing number of games, trying in school, and even skateboarding seemed pointless. He pulled the heavy blanket over his head and coughed slightly. His father now suspected something and excuses were harder and harder to make up. He couldn't think straight anymore. He pushed his face into his mattress.

Spike stood in the doorway to Joe's bedroom. He stood and pushed the door open with his nose. He peered into the small darkened room. He hated seeing Joe like this. He didn't know what made him act this way but it wasn't natural. It was altered and strange. He didn't jump or yell anymore. He didn't run to greet him after school or play with him. Spike walked across the room and crawled onto Joe's bed.

Joe turned, seeing the old dog crawling onto the elevated mattress. Spike groaned as he began to lick Joe's face. He scratched behind Spike's ears. "Sorry, boy. I've been awful to you." he said, rubbing his eyes. "You didn't do this." He felt horrible. Worse than ever now. His fathers outburst still stung and his mother who just stood there. Even though, he was insulted, disgraced and mentally dismantled by his father. He felt it burn in the pit of his stomach. He grabbed Spike around the neck and fell asleep tightly wrapped in his heavy blanket. Spike lay beside him trying his best to help him with merely with his existence. He knew he could do so little but he could only hope this would help his master. The boy did not deserve more complexity in his life. So, he simply lay on the bed as a loyal friend.

Outside the door, Solada looked in at her son crawled up into his dog fast asleep. She knew was in pain and exactly what was going on. She wished she could go into the room and make things so much easier. She wished that she could tell Tadashi that he was trying and that not all people are perfect. However, she could not. She felt disgusted by his very existence and feared so greatly that she may hurt him. She wished that she could only love the young man in that dark room. But that wasn't the reality and she could only apologize. "I'm sorry, Joe. I know this isn't nearly enough for all I have done. Standing out in a hall apologizing but I am so sorry."

Sad chapter. Please Review.