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?

"Mom, it's getting late," Chloé whined, her arms full of bags from an all-day shopping spree at the mall. "When are we going back to Daddy's apartment?"

"I just thought you would like to spend Christmas with me for a change," Angelica countered. Glancing down at Chloé, she noticed her daughter struggling with her bags, so she grabbed a couple to lighten Chloé's load. "Aren't you have fun with me, sweetie?"

"Of course I'm having fun with you, Mom," Chloé said as she rearranged the remainder of the bags, pushing several of them up her shoulder. "I just don't get to see Daddy a lot," she pointed out with a shrug, knowing full her mother didn't much care if she ever saw her father; Chloé heard a lot when her mother thought she wasn't listening. After a beat, she added: "Besides, Daddy's making his fried chicken for dinner like he always does."

Angelica halted in her tracks. When Chloé realized her mother had stopped, she halted and turned around. Chloé was only about eight inches shorter than her mother, so Chloé was practically face to face as she stood in front of her mother. "Mom, are you okay?"

"I… I'm fine…" Angelica muttered, already lost in memories. She tightly furrowed her eyebrows as the vivid memory flooded her thoughts.

"Virgil," Angelica howled, running across the apartment in search of her husband.

Standing toward the only shut door in the only hallway of the small apartment, Angelica whimpered through her tears: "Virgil! Virgil, where… where are you?"

From the master bedroom came Virgil, concern riddling his features, tightening his facial muscles. As soon as Virgil completely presented himself, Angelica flung herself into her husband's arms, sobbing loudly and uncontrollably.

"Angelica, honey, what's wrong?" Virgil asked softly, stroking his wife's long, black, and silky hair. "Why are you crying?"

"I-it—it's m-m-my—it's my Daddy!" Angelica sobbed against Virgil's shirt, dampening it with her tears.

Virgil's eyebrows furrowed as he tightened the protective hold he had on Angelica. "What about Steve, honey?" he questioned as the pitch of his voice growing higher from concern. "What happened to him?"

There were several minutes where the only sound was Angelica's loud sobbing. Virgil held her, patiently stroking her hair in an effort to be soothing. For a time, he even hummed gently.

When nothing was said after about ten minutes, Virgil spoke again. "Angelica, honey, what happened? Please tell me what's wrong?"

Angelica's breathing swallowed and her sobs calmed. After a couple minutes of opening and closing her mouth similarly to a fish, she finally mustered up the ability to speak. The few words she managed to say were barely audible. "He was in a car crash," she said before breaking into a fit of violent sobbing once more.

Three months after the death of Angelica's father was the first Christmas she would spend without her parents around.

The smell of crisp, buttery, freshly deep fried batter permeated throughout the newly purchased, box riddled, Hawkins' household. Drawn to the aroma, Angelica found herself absently meandering to the kitchen where she stumbled upon Virgil standing in front of the counter, presumably cooking.

"What are you making?" Angelica asked, slowly approaching Virgil.

Without a word, Virgil grabbed a freshly fried chicken leg off a plate covered in paper towels. He turned only long enough to hand the chicken leg to Angelica.

Angelica's eyebrows shot up with curiosity as she warily eyed the offering pinched firmly between her pointer finger and thumb. Ready to ask questions, she opened her mouth only to be interrupted by the loud rumbling of her stomach. Rolling her eyes internally, she cleared her throat and took a bite of the warm fried chicken.

Then, all of a sudden, she wasn't able to chew fast enough, so Angelica swallowed the bite whole and winced as it went down. "Virgil!" she exclaimed excitedly. "This is… this is… How did you…? Where did you…?"

Laughing gently, Virgil turned toward Angelica. He leaned against the counter, wiping his hands on a towel he had wrapped around his belt. "I got the recipe from your uncle," Virgil said. "I said I wanted to make it for you sense this was going to be your first Christmas without your parents."

"Oh, Virgil," Angelica cried with glee, jumping up and wrapping her hands around Virgil's neck and her legs around his waist. As Virgil wrapped his arms under Angelica's thighs, she said, "Thank you so much," and tightened the hug.

His smile beaming, Virgil said, "Of course, honey," warmly. Gently, he kissed Angelica, deepening it only when Angelica did first.

"Mom, are you sure you're okay?" Chloé said, attempting for the fifth time to break her mother of her trance. "You look like you're about to cry," she pointed out.

"Wha-what?" Angelica muttered, confused. Shaking her head of her thoughts, she blinked a couple of times, making a surveillance of her surroundings, until she realized again where she was.

"Oh," Angelica said softly as she glanced down at Chloé. Smiling, she assured Chloé she was fine while patting her head. Clearing her throat, she added, "I was just thinking about some stuff."

"What were you thinking about?" Chloé asked as her and her mother began walking again.

"Just… thinking about your father," Angelica said; her tone was soft and indistinguishable of any particular emotion. After a beat, Angelica said, "Come on; let's get you back to your dad's apartment."

Chloé's eyes growing wide and her mouth agape from a gasp, she cried, "Yay! Thanks, Mommy!" with excitement, as she ran toward the same doors they had used several hours prior. Angelica followed not too far behind.

Virgil muttered as he walked into what was supposed to be Richie's dining room. Taken aback, he halted in his tracks as he looked around the room. Mounted on the walls with push pins and scattered all over several tables were a mixture of personal pictures and blue prints. Ambling, Virgil examined the room around him, taking in the exorbitant amount of pictures, most of which were of Richie and some man with brown hair and brown eyes. The rest were of Richie and his parents, and occasionally of Aria at various stages of her life.

"Who is this?" Virgil asked, gently laying his pointer finger on one of the pictures of Richie and the unknown man. He turned slightly and watched as Richie entered the room behind him.

"Whom?" Richie asked, narrowing the gap between him and Virgil. Glancing down, Richie caught a glimpse of the person Virgil was referring to. "Oh," he muttered. "That's Mike, my ex-boyfriend."

"Oh," Virgil said softly, nodding gently.

There was a moment of awkward silence before Virgil stumbled out the words: "What… um… what was he like?"

"Well, he was a really great guy before he cheated on me," Richie replied coldly. Virgil noticeably flinched at the way the words were spoken, but Richie ignored it. They were both aware Virgil had cheated; there was no reason to comment about it further.

Richie sighed, picking up the picture Virgil had been pointing to. "He was funny," he began. "He always knew how to make me laugh. He said I worked too much; spent too much time thinking, and not enough time just relaxing." Sighing, Richie set down the photo and turned his attention to Virgil. "I wish I could have," he said with a shrug. "I wish I could have just stopped thinking; I wish I could just stop thinking." Snorting, Richie rolled his eyes as he said, "My brain really is on fire," which made Virgil laugh softly, too.

Meandering to a nearby desk, Richie picked up another photo of himself and Mike. Holding it between his pointer finger and middle finger, he showed it to Virgil. "This is when we went to Disney for our tenth anniversary," he informed. Chuckling dryly, Richie said, "I spent the entire trip working." Shrugging with a soft smile, Richie set down the photo and said, "It seriously pissed him off."

Virgil laughed. "That sounds like you," he jabbed. Crossing his arms, Virgil then asked, "What sort of things were you working on?"

"Inventions, mostly," Richie said and laughed lightly. "There's a pile of them over there," he said, gesturing toward a table.

Nodding, Virgil moseyed across the dining room to a table covered with nothing but blueprints. He looked through the blueprints until one particularly caught his eye. Picking it up, he turned toward Richie. "What was this?"

Turning around and perching his glasses further up his nose, Richie took the blueprint from Virgil and examined it. Clicking his tongue as his glasses fell down his nose again, he looked up at Virgil and said, "I was trying to make a satellite that could harbor television stations from everywhere in the world."

Virgil furrowed his eyebrows and, biting his lip gently, looked behind his back to the living room. Easing his features, he looked back at Richie and pointed out: "You don't have a TV."

"I know. That's why I quit working on it," Richie said. "The one I had belonged to Mike. I haven't gotten around to buying another one. I only moved here at the beginning of the school year, so teaching is sort of taking up my time."

Virgil nodded. He made his way down the table of blueprints when a huge, red machine caught his attention. Looking to Richie, he asked, "Why do you have a generator?"

"Um…" Richie said and puffed his cheeks. Popping his lips, he scratched the side of his head and said, "Um… because in the months I've been here, I've blown out my electricity fifty-seven times."

"You blew out your electricity fifty-seven times?" Virgil exclaimed, his eyes practically bugging. "What were you doing, you mad scientist?"

Richie's expression lit up as he laughed, his lips curling into a warm smile and his nose scrunching. He covered his face with his hand as he said, "I was trying to make sure my inventions worked," he said sheepishly. "I'd plug them in and it'd blow out my electricity. I mean, back in high school, anything I made required technopathy from Backpack or… I got my electricity from… you. Unfortunately, the house short-circuits a lot faster than you," Rihie joked.

Letting out a long, soft sigh, Virgil glanced down at the ground, playing with a small bolt of electricity he formed between his thumb and finger. Biting his lip, he cut off the electricity and looked back up at Richie who had begun organizing the blueprints. Virgil sighed again.

Meandering to a table with nothing but scattered pictures, Virgil gently sifted through them, examining each picture, and noting that most of them were of Richie and Mike. Virgil sighed, not sure if he should feel jealous or not.

Then a picture of Richie's mother caught Virgil's eye. He knitted his eyebrows as he picked it up to get a better look. Virgil knew the picture had been taken in Richie's house because he recognized the staircase in the background. She looked so much different than Virgil remembered. She was about the same age, but she looked so much older at the same time. In the picture, Maggie was in the living room, sitting in a reclined recliner. Her face was pale and her hair was gone. The color in her eyes had seemingly melted away, leaving nothing but ashen, lifeless ones behind. The smile on her face was noticeably forced for the camera, and perhaps for the feelings of the photographer.

Then it Virgil him what was going on in the picture.

Virgil glanced down at the ground and became faintly aware of footsteps approaching him, stopping in front of him. Biting his lip, he looked up at Richie who seemed emotionless. Drawing in a deep breath, Virgil closed the gap between Richie and himself and wrapped Richie in a tight, protective hug, which Richie promptly returned with the same intensity. He laid his chin on Virgil's shoulder, sigh contentedly when Virgil did the same to him.

Without being asked, Richie began explaining what he assumed Virgil wanted to know. "She's been dead for seventeen years," he said softly, mumbled against Virgil's shoulder. "She died of—" Richie cut off, becoming instantly choked up by what he was attempting to explain. In response, Virgil began making soft circles on Richie's back which, after a couple minutes of comfortable silence, prompted Richie to continue. "She died of Leukemia… two days before my graduation…"

Gasping softly, Virgil pulled Richie into his arms tighter. "I didn't… I didn't know she had…"

"Two days before I got my Ph.D.," Richie interrupted. Gently, he added, "You wouldn't have known…"

"I'm so sorry, Richie," Virgil murmured. Gently, Virgil pushed Richie far enough way to see his face and said, "I understand."

"I know," Richie replied with a hiccup of emotion. Taking in a deep, calming breath, Richie finally stepped away from Virgil, creating a measurable distance between them. "Thanks, Virgil," he said and turned away toward the slew of scattered pictures, intending on organizing them.

As Richie did that, Virgil began looking through the dining room more closely; taking in every picture and blueprint he came across. Just when he thought he had seen everything the dining room had to offer, Virgil's attention was caught by a simple brown, wooden, five inch by eight inch picture frame that harbored a picture that made Virgil grin.

Picking up the picture frame, he stared at it for a couple moments before looking around the room for another picture frame. Knitting his eyebrows, he looked back at the picture and smiled wider, having not seen another picture frame in the entire room.

The picture was of Virgil when he was eighteen years old. He was wearing a pair of long, black slacks and a light and dark purple and white vertical stripped, silk shirt. He was standing with his shoulders against a white wall, and his right foot pressed against the wall. His left hand was in the pocket of his slacks and his right hand was intertwined with his dreads while he looked down at the ground, smiling.

Virgil laughed airily. He was beaming as he reached his hand to his face to wipe a tear from his eye. Turning around, he found Richie still organizing the pictures. "You kept this?"

Turning his head abruptly, Richie's blank expression turned into a smile as he walked to Virgil again. Richie took the picture from Virgil and stared at it. Setting it back down on the table, Richie turned to Virgil and said, "Well, of course I kept it."

"Why, though? Why, after all of these years, would you keep that?"

Richie shrugged. "The same reason you still have the picture of us in your bedroom," he said, pausing to look at the picture once more. "I still love you."

Virgil drew in a deep, sharp breath and cleared his throat. Reaching out for Richie's wrists, he wrapped his hands around them as Richie looked up at Virgil. There shared a couple moments of silence, both smiling at one another like bashful schoolgirls. Finally, Richie's face became too red and he looked down at the ground, leaving Virgil staring at the top of Richie's head.

"Richie," Virgil said, lifting Richie's head with his pointer, "please, will you be my boyfriend? You said you wanted to be with me, so... please?"

Richie sighed, taking in the desperation in Virgil's eyes. Smiling sympathetically, he pulled his wrists out of Virgil's grasp and said, "I do want to, Virgil; I really do want to be your boyfriend," he said, "but not yet. I… I need you to apologize to Angelica first, Virgil."

Virgil blinked, his eyebrows furrowing from obvious confusion. "Why?"

"Remember what I said to you this morning? All that stuff you wanted to know about what Angelica was saying about you?" Richie asked and waited for a response from Virgil. "That's why you need to apologize," he said, "Does that make sense, Virgil?" Richie asked gently.

Virgil nodded, inhaling and exhaling quickly. He lulled his head forward slightly as his mind reeled. Knitting his eyebrows, Virgil considered what he might say to Angelica, and what she might say in return. Remembering the "conversation" they had had on Christmas Eve, the thought of talking to Angelica about anything at all instantly became stressful.

Groaning, Virgil lifted his head again and asked, "Do you have a patio?"

Richie nodded and gestured his head toward the living room. Once Virgil left the dining room, Richie sighed. When he heard the patio door close, Richie clicked his tongue and waggled his eyebrows briefly.

I'm going to need him to stop doing that, too. He thought, falling into a seat, and pulled Aria, who had been sleeping under the table, into his lap.

Richie continued working on a voice-activated stereo system as he waited for Virgil to come back into the house. Sure, voice-activated stereos were already a real thing, but Richie refused to purchase what he could easily make, and in the last twenty years, he had made a lot of household items. Making things for combat seemed a little pointless, he figured, considering he hadn't been a superhero for twenty years.

As he worked, a thought crossed his mind.

I really do want to go out with you, Virgil. There's just so much that needs to be worked out first; so much that needs to be made right before I can say yes, but I do want to say yes. It hurts and scares me just how badly I want to say yes; just how much I still need you and love you, even after all you did; even after all these years.

Richie sighed and leaned back into his seat, no longer interested in the blueprint, but in his thoughts.

A/N: This chapter was a lot of background information. Also, if you can figure out why Angelica is taking Chloé back to Virgil's after that flashback, props to you. If you can't, don't worry, I'll explain it later. It will be known. XD

Did you like this chapter? Was it too jumpy? (I fear it may have been a little jumpy, but I promise it will tie in together.) Please review and let me know what you thought! Thank you for reading!

Also, just for the record, I'm not trying to pull the whole "black people like fried chicken" thing. I was literally eating fried chicken while I wrote this. So... yeah... *sniffs*