Disclaimer: I own neither the Highlander universe nor the Stargate universe. Nor am I Percy Bysshe Shelley, mores the pity, who wrote the poem quoted herein.

A/N: Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed and my apologies yet again for taking so long to update.

A/N2: Thanks to auberus for beta reading this chapter, any problems remain my own silly fault.

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A Square Peg in a Round Hole:
Junior Year of High School, Revised, A Clone's Tale

By marbleglove

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Chapter 10
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"I'm busy." Matthews attempted to wave off the linguist encroaching on the physics lab's space.

It was a considerable understatement and it didn't even work, Jake noticed with some asperity. Honestly, he had thought his position as Matthews' escort would be a sinecure. Instead it was proving to be as intense, if not more so, than officer's academy had been. The man had a schedule that included teaching strategy and tactics, assisting the linguists, and learning from the astrophysicists. In his breaks, he went to the gym to practice parkour, that being the one sport he didn't already know, and had decided for reasons of his own to teach one of the marines how to fight with a sword. His late night reading, Jake had discovered when he had hoped to get some company in watching a hockey game one night, was a mixture of physics textbooks and SG mission reports.

In Jake's opinion, that just made the man somewhat masochistic. What was worse was that Jake himself had somehow been drafted into being his study buddy. Thus, Jake found himself tired, frustrated, and increasingly irritated with the SGC personnel who wouldn't leave them alone long enough to allow them to focus on one subject at a time.

"But it's important! It could be vital! We know Ptah is gathering his forces for invasion, and this is what SG8 just brought back from one of the his older strongholds." The linguist waved some photographs of some text written on what seemed to be a palace wall. "If we can find clues as to where he went next, we could prepare better."

Jake decided it was a toss up between beating the linguist's head against the wall, or his own. They were all worried about Ptah and knew he was planning to attack soon. It was a valid interruption, but goddamn it, he felt like his brains were going to explode.

"Give them here." Matthews took the sheaf of photos and started flipping through them.

Jake sat back and tried to let his poor brain relax. Matthews had been stuffing it with information for more than a month and really, Jake had been happier playing Jack the dumb military grunt. Then, whenever he had had a brilliant idea, it came as a surprise and everybody was impressed. Now he was struggling, and every time his ideas weren't brilliant he felt like he had failed. At least Matthews hadn't summoned him to peer at the photos with him this time and have various glyphs pointed out and explained. Matthews was probably just as irritated at the interruption as he was.

"Well?" The linguist attempted to drag Matthews to the door. "Come on."

But Matthews moved in the opposite direction to grab a pen, then circled a few sections on two of the pages, reordered them a bit, and handed them back. "I'm busy. Start there. There's nothing that you can't translate in a couple of hours."

"But we might need the information now!"

"There's nothing there but some back story." And Matthews turned back to the physicists who had moved off to continue their own discussion.

The linguist, Richardson, was left with his mouth hanging open. Jake felt much the same.

After all these months of Matthews' presence, of his assistance in the language labs, working with all the linguists to piece together the ancient languages, glyph by glyph, it had never occurred to Jake that Matthews was only teaching them something that he already read with ease.

He should have realized sooner, of course. After all, it was only the science that Matthews studied after hours.

"Come on," Jake escorted Richardson out and took the opportunity to get some distance himself. Matthews had been intentionally holding back on his abilities, forcing the SGC personnel to expend unnecessary time and effort on tasks that he could have done in moments.

It was clear, now that he actually thought about it, that Matthews was forcing Jake to learn completely unnecessary skills for no particular reason. If Matthews wanted to learn everything in the world then more power to him, but it was practically sabotage when it came to squandering the time of military personnel under constant threat of attack.

There were times that he really, really hated Matthews. And he knew that he was not alone in this. Even without everyone discovering that the man had been holding back, people were starting to get aggravated. The man was too brilliant and too educated and just too -- everything. Anything Jake could do, Matthews could do better.

Jake was used to having brilliant friends. Daniel knew more about language and culture; Sam knew more about science and the ways of the universe; Teal'c was better at hand-to-hand combat. But into that team, Jack had fit as the leader, as the guy who had the plan and the motivation for their ultimate victory.

Matthews was better than he was at everything and even seemed to have a plan of his own that he wasn't sharing, while Jake struggled to keep up with the academics and was placed on the sidelines of the fight. He had to content himself with watching the fight rather than being completely shut out.

He was sick and tired of struggling to no purpose.

"I hate him," Richardson spoke for the first time on their trek through the hallway. "I really and truly hate him."

Jake closed his eyes for a second and took a deep breath, willing away his own feelings. He knew perfectly well that the hatred he felt was for something more general than just Matthews. "Yeah. But you shouldn't. He is a good guy."

"I don't care." And they were at Richardson's office. The linguist, still clutching his photos, vanished inside and very quietly, very gently closed the door.

Jake wondered if this was how all those other academics had felt when Daniel had stood up and gave that last lecture of his. When he had stood up there and told them all that they weren't smart enough to see the obvious. Daniel had shown them all up as idiots and they had done their best to return the favor. For the first time, Jake felt some empathy for them.

Academia may be about finding the truth regardless of how palatable that truth was, much like the military was about protecting the home nation, regardless of what it took, but human nature still had to be taken into account. There was pride and jealousy and all other sorts of messy feelings to consider, not just in other people, but in himself as well.

It was time for a vacation, Jake decided. Just one day. He didn't have to be with Matthews all the time so there was no real reason not to, and a less structured day might help. It sure couldn't hurt.

Instead of returning to the physics labs, he wandered around, catching up on who was working where and generally being ignored by everyone. It was somewhat depressing to realize that Matthews remained his passport to being acknowledged at all in this grown-ups' world where he no longer quite belonged.

As annoying as it had been to be in high school again, in some ways it had been really cool. He had been really cool. Most of what they were taught, he'd only had to remember rather than really learn. He had learned much more easily than the first time through. Also, a lot of what they were asking of the other students for the first time, he'd had a lifetime of experience in. He'd had decades of experience in memorizing facts and being able to recite them back; decades of experience at writing reports. Simple life experience meant a lot at that age, just as knowing how to interact with people did.

He knew how to schedule his time, how to budget his money, and how to flirt with a librarian to get some extra help. It had occasionally annoyed him that the other students hadn't been up to his level. He had helped some of them, tutoring them when they asked. It had never really occurred to him that it was unfair to them to be in a class with him.

He had thrown the curve and he had been a poor example to them of how to study because he hadn't really had to. Instead he'd gone out to the mall or stayed home and watched movies.

As he meandered down the hallways, Jake realized that he couldn't go back to the Air Force Academy. He cared too much about the Air Force and the students of that academy to give them unfair competition. What sort of cadet had to compete against an experienced Colonel?

And what sort of people could measure up to a man a hundred times their own age?

The girls in high school had gotten crushes on him as one of the few teenagers who actually seemed to have his act together and honestly didn't care about his teachers' or his peers' opinions.

Jake's current lifestyle left a lot to improve but at least he was no longer an adult in a teenagers' world. In many ways, though, Matthews had done the opposite: moving from a place where he was a recognized authority figure to a place where suddenly the people around him expected to be on his level. And they weren't. Matthews was still fighting far below his proper weight class.

The newest Goa'uld threat was becoming increasingly worrisome, but Jake had the impression that Matthews was almost looking forward to the expected invasion. At least that would be an enemy in his weight class. Or at least it would be an enemy that no one would worry about if it were outclassed Jake recalled wishing for NID kidnappers at his high school.

His stomach growled so he broke off his general meanderings and headed to the cafeteria.

Matthews was already there and Jake almost turned around and left again.

But Matthews was sitting alone at one of the cafeteria tables. He looked completely careless of the fact that no one was sitting near him. To all appearances he didn't notice the nasty looks shot his way, either.

And Jake discovered he wasn't quite so mad at Matthews anymore. He was unhappy with their general situation, as two misfits in a military compound, but it wasn't really Matthews' fault. Or it was, but his fault the way he was a catalyst, his fault for being who and what he was, rather than for anything he had particularly done. He'd had a choice to hold back and try to fit in, or let everyone know how much he already knew and be that much more of an outsider. Jake himself had been given that choice when he realized that he was a mere clone. And he had made the same decision as Matthews had, trying to fit in with the people around him.

Jake filled a tray at the cafeteria line and then plopped it down next to Matthews and began to eat. He didn't want to talk.

"I create people." Matthews spoke abruptly into the silence. His tone of voice was the first sign of any distress. It was clipped, cool, and disinterested.

"Every five, ten, twenty years, I'm a whole new person. I create them and I live them and now you're asking me to be everyone I've ever been all at once. I can be each of them, but I can't, I'm not all of them. So now maybe I'm many of them, a hell of a lot of strengths, and as few weaknesses as I can possibly manage, and now they're asking me what I've accomplished."

Jake winced. Apparently he wasn't the only one who was feeling like he didn't have enough purpose in life. He still didn't speak.

"What has this amalgamation of myself accomplished? Survival. My own. That's what I created. I've survived. And maybe that hasn't changed the world, but what could I possibly accomplish that would live up to their expectations of what I should have done? What accomplishment would satisfy the masses as being appropriate for the really fucking old guy?"

"You can die."

"What?"

"I didn't mean as an accomplishment. Sorry, I'm changing the subject. I meant it is possible for someone to kill you." Jake watched the complete lack of expression settle on Matthews' face. "You create new lives every few years. You're too suspicious and too knowledgeable. You know both people and academics backwards and forwards. And you aren't picking up astrophysics instantly. A hell of a lot faster than I am, certainly, but not instantly and not effortlessly. You wouldn't push yourself this hard unless there were a reason."

"Elementary, my dear Watson." The smile that Matthews gave was more similar to a grimace than the cheerful smirk that was his usual expression. "Everything dies eventually."

Jake wondered if this conversation constituted an apology and if so, who was apologizing to whom. And for what.

Before he could think of what to say next, someone else intruded on their little island of isolation in the large cafeteria.

"If you're so fucking brilliant, then what's your real name? Where's your place in history? What did you ever accomplish? We're making history here and you're just sitting back and doing nothing!"

The whole cafeteria fell silent to hear the response.

"You want to know where my place is in the history books?" There was a sneer in Matthews voice that made it cold and hard and infinitely dangerous.

"A blatant lie," Jake interrupted, cutting Matthews off. "He's been working sixteen hour days." Matthews' voice had raised goosebumps on his arms and he really didn't like the pale taught expression on Matthews' face. Jake wondered how many times that question had been posed to Matthews in the few hours that had passed since that morning. It would take a lot to push Matthews to the edge. He used his own voice to warn the man off from pressing further.

"Maybe he's not doing nothing," the response was grudging, "but he's not doing enough either."

"There is no enough," Mathews' voice was still hard and cold but it had at least lost some of its dangerous edge. "You're making history because you will die before your actions are forgotten, before your achievements are destroyed. History will remember you long after you've left your mortal coil after all. Nothing I do, nothing I create will outlive me. You want to know my name? My name is Ozymandias."

He got up and left, not running really, but slipping through the people and tables very quickly and disappearing through the doorway before anyone else could respond.

Jake let him go and hoped he was retiring to the physics labs again. That seemed to be the one place where Matthews was still appreciated. He was just now learning the higher levels of physics they knew over there. As quickly as he was learning it, he still wasn't a particular threat to any of their positions. On the other hand, he was smart enough and had an interesting enough perspective that many of them liked explaining things to him to see what questions he would ask. He makes a good sounding board.

Jake leaned back and wondered which would come to a head first: the anger against Matthews amongst the general population of the base, or Ptah's invasion, which they were all expecting on a daily basis.

The silence in the cafeteria was finally broken when Daniel Jackson spoke up from the doorway where Jake hadn't even noticed him.

"'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

A military cafeteria filled with silent people was really unnerving. Usually it meant that some mission had gone horribly wrong. Jake didn't like the fact that it was happening now.

Daniel had made his way to Jake's table and politely told the man who had confronted Matthews: "I'll talk with you later about this." The man turned pale, jerked a nod, and scampered off. Jake took a moment to appreciate how threatening Daniel could make a simple comment.

"How are you doing, Jake?"

It was a whole lot easier to enjoy the threat that Daniel could apply to other people than to notice the sympathy directed at himself.

"You know that Matthews has been holding back in his translations. He could have been doing them a hell of a lot quicker than he has been." As head of the linguists department, Daniel would have already heard.

Daniel sighed. "Of course. What I hadn't realized was that no one else already knew."

And now it was Jake's turn to gape at his friend. "You already knew?"

"Of course."

"Then why didn't you call him on it? He was wasting your time and the time of all of your people."

"Jake, he wasn't wasting their time, he was teaching them. When the SGC started, I was pretty much irreplaceable. I knew how to speak languages no one else here did. I knew how to relate to cultures that no one else on base had ever been in contact with."

"You still do."

"No, I don't. When I was given the whole linguistics department to organize, one of the first things I did was to make sure that no one was irreplaceable, not even myself. There are too many things that could happen. I've made sure that every language we use has at least two translators on staff."

"I thought that was so they could check each others' work. Guard against mistranslations."

"Mistranslations either accidental or intentional, yes. That too. But mostly so that no one person has too great a burden. When I realized that Matthews was fluent in so many languages the rest of us didn't know, I thought I was going to have to ask him to teach the rest of us. Instead he started working with the others all on his own."

"But they didn't know that's what he was doing."

Daniel frowned in some displeasure. "From the reactions today, no, they didn't. I'll have some talks with my staff about using their common sense and noticing things like that. Really, it was pretty obvious. He wasn't hiding it, and I knew perfectly well. In fact, didn't I tell everyone that he was fluent in most Earth-based languages? I feel sure I did at some point or another."

"Ah," Jake tried to pull up any memory of that and actually came up with a meeting when they were first talking about hiring Matthews. "Maybe. I don't really recall, but if you did, apparently no one really believed you."

"Hmph. Why does everyone consistently blow me off until they discover it for themselves? That gets old, fast. Even saying 'I told you so' gets old eventually."

Jake grinned at his old friend. "I guess we each have our cross to bear."

He felt lighter, less worried and tense. If Daniel didn't think Matthews had done anything wrong, then maybe he hadn't. Daniel had a pretty good moral compass when it came to things like this. He was pretty intuitive on a lot of things, actually. "What did you think of Matthews' outburst earlier? Just letting off steam or is he seriously that depressed?"

"I'd say he's under as much stress as the rest of us are, but he's still getting used to being in the saving-the-world business. But you would know him better than I do."

"I spend more time with him. But you have probably met more people in various stages of going crazy, one way or another, than most psychologists have."

Daniel snorted a brief laugh. Then he looked pensive as he spoke. "He's not going crazy. I think he's actually remarkably stable. Unlikely to act irrationally. Unlikely to change from who he is, because who he is has already gone through so much stress over his lifetime. He's found a stable point. I think it would take a lot to push him off of it."

"So, sane."

"But not necessarily sane in the way you or I think of sanity."

"Huh."

Daniel continued rather contemplatively. "A bit like you, actually."

"What!"

"You're neither sixteen nor fifty-one, really. You're part of two very different generations. With Adam, it's just a lot more extreme. Think about that." It was the end of the conversation, clearly and Jake got up to go.

"Oh, and Jake, I'm not a psychologist, and I really don't know anything for sure, but Matthews still doesn't tell stories of his life older than three thousand years. And you interrupted him before he could say anything about 'his place in the history books.' At a guess, I'd say he has a place in history and it's not pretty."

Jake almost sat back down, but Daniel had turned away. It was clear that Daniel had some guesses, but it was equally clear that he didn't want to discuss them quite yet.

After a moment of indecision, Jake wandered back out into the hallways of the SGC. He didn't complete his full tour of the SGC floors until after the dinner hour had come and gone. He grabbed some snacks he'd had stashed in his living quarters but avoided the cafeteria this time.

He found himself in one of the lesser-used recreation rooms on base. Channel flipping got boring fast and the only movie showing was "Peter Pan."

Jake left before he could be suckered into watching it again.

He could remember watching "Peter Pan" on HBO before, not that many years ago. He had been Jack at the time but he had already joined the SGC and Charlie had been dead long enough that the occasional day went by when he didn't mourn him anymore. But watching that movie, Jack had gotten horribly drunk and cried for Charlie just as he had in the early years.

Now he remembered realizing how easy it would be to become Captain Hook. How easy it was to hate that smiling little boy who was so perfect at everything, could fly, and never ever had to grow up.

But even at the end, the movie had acknowledged that Pan had his own tragedy. As happy as the boy was, as blessed and as carefree, he didn't have a mother and never would. Even the one he had found for himself had left him behind, taking with her all of his lost boys.

It was a tragedy, it was angst-ridden, it was a horrible tear-jerker that Matthews could so easily have played on to make everyone sympathize. Perhaps what made Pan and Matthews both so irritating was that they refused to even acknowledge their own tragedies. Matthews understood what he was missing but he refused to dwell on it. He would live his life as he thought best and he would enjoy it.

How many others would have sunk into self-pity? And wasn't that what Jake himself was on the verge of doing?

Jake found himself eventually standing in front of the closed door to Matthews' quarters.

He opened the door without knocking, but Matthews merely looked up inquiringly from where he was sitting on the floor. He looked completely certain of himself, complacent and carefree.

It would be so very easy to become Captain Hook.

"I'd rather be a lost boy."

Jake was rewarded immediately by the bemused expression on Matthews' face. "Er… if you say so."

He had actually caught the other man off guard for once. Jake walked in, flopped down on the floor next to Matthews and grinned. After a moment, the serenity fell away from Matthews like the mask it was, and personality swept back into that angular face along with a tentative smile. Everything was right with the world.

Everything was right with the world even as the loudspeaker announced "Unscheduled Off World Activation"

Then it announced "Unauthorized Off World Activation. The iris is not responding. Code Red. I repeat, Code Red."

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… to be continued …