disclaimer: not mine, the characters are property of Warner Bros and a fizzy drink

Hamilton scrambled up from his desk at the end of the first class of the day feeling relieved. He knew his schoolwork all right, or when he didn't, it was the same kind of not-knowing as the other guys. Dad would be pleased that he could keep up.

"Hamilton? Does your head hurt?" Finn stopped him on his way out. He was only doing his job, but -

"No." Hamilton wanted people to stop fussing.

"You were frowning."

"I'm cool." Ham glanced at the door.

Finn nodded, smiling slightly. "All right. I'll let you go. You'll tell me if you have problems."

"Yeah." Ham bolted.

In the corridor he ran into two of his classmates. One of them was Krudsky. He talked a lot in class and the assignment he'd handed Finn had been a much thicker printout than anyone else's. The other was Calhoun. Dad had pointed him out. He was a Senator's son.

"Hi."

Krudsky nodded to him in passing. He was on his way back in to Finn. Hamilton was left with Calhoun.

Calhoun was a little guy, no taller than himself. He seemed relaxed and friendly. "How's it going?"

"It's kind of weird." Hamilton felt friendly, but not relaxed. He knew he was what his Dad called gauche, and he so didn't want to screw things up. When he was sixteen, he'd felt like his seventeenth birthday would be the turning point. He'd wake up, and like magic, he'd know the right things to say. He wouldn't talk crap out of nerves, he'd -

Calhoun was craning to see the scalp wound. Maybe even Senator's sons weren't so smooth. And Calhoun was seventeen too. Real seventeen, not sixteen trapped in a seventeen yearold body. "You're on crew, right?" Hamilton asked.

"Yeah." Scout looked at his face again, sympathetic. "Still putting it together, huh?"

Hamilton nodded.

"Where's Jake?"

"How should I know?" Calhoun didn't seem too bright, he noted.

"Well, you're usually, heh, inseparable. I just thought.. never mind."

"You just thought, what?" Ham was getting a weird vibe here.

"You and Jake have been together 24/7 all year." Calhoun turned and trudged toward the next class. "I just thought, he could be, like, your spare memory."

Ham followed him. "Jake's not a talker."

Scout gave him an odd look, and commented "He tutored Will in electronics last winter. He's a cool guy, but, y'know, hard to get to know. But you know him."

"Knew. Past tense." Ham abruptly turned a corner and ran full face into Pratt.

It was kind of weird, but Ham felt like he should go and explain his fresh start plan to Jake. Every single person he met in Rawley had this compulsion to tell him how close he and Pratt were. He found Pratt's dorm later that day. Somehow he had scammed a single room. Ham made his speech. "I'm sorry, I've worked it out. I'm starting fresh with everyone. I know I know you, but, I don't know you. Any of you. Get it?" His prepared speech faltered in the face of Jake. Jake was perfectly polite, and he was perfectly unresponsive. Ham looked round the room a little wildly. "Looks.. tidy."

"Half packed." Jake shrugged. "I may leave."

"Don't do that" Hamilton was taken aback to hear himself blurt.

Jake's back was against the light of the window, his face in shadow. "Starting fresh. You don't know me" he quoted coolly. In other words, Ham understood, he meant, none of your business.

"It's just-" Ham was uncomfortable. "You're all set up here. On crew, and, the guys like you, and you got lucky with the single room-" He envied Jake. Jake fit in here. He'd always meant to do that, and he wasn't sure he could.

"Lucky!" Jake snorted. "That was skill. Nothing to do with luck."

Ham looked questioning. Jake, lounging on the window frame, was silhouetted but facing him, Ham was blinded.

"I hacked into the database."

"What?" Hamilton yelled, shocked.

"You planning to narc on me to your Dad?"

"No - I mean-" Hamilton wanted time to think. "What did you change?" If Jake had hit grades or exams then it was time to explain long term thinking and the Big Plan to him. How there was no point in having a diploma marked Aplus and no understanding of the work.

"Made sure I got a single room" Jake grumbled. He hung his head. He looked taken aback that Ham was all disapproving.

"That's all?" Ham looked at the other boy piercingly. If Pratt was lying to him he might be able to tell. If he watched closely, and used his instincts.

There was a barely discernable flush on Jake's cheekbones and he was looking straight ahead of him at a point in midspace like a soldier on parade.

"Did you mess with the academic info?" Ham couldn't leave it in the air.

Jake stared at him blankly a moment before getting it. When he got what Ham meant, no question but that he was angry. "I'm competitive." (Ham already got that, from class and yesterday's soccer game.) "I'm not a cheat."

"Dad-"

"Since when did you get to be the Dean's echo?"

Great. He was going to sound like a dork. He hated this. "Look, he doesn't enforce the rules just to be an ass. There's one hundred and eighty seven boys-"

"You know the numbers?" Pratt looked surprised. He was acting like Hamilton's whole attitude was a new thing. Hadn't he been backing Dad up, before?

"Hello? Dad, Dean. Mom, head of Art Department. This is stuff I've been hearing about all my life."

"Oh." Jake could barely be heard. He looked small, and hurt.

Ham wanted - he didn't know what he wanted. He wanted Jake not to feel bad. "It's a cool room" he offered.

Jake raised his eyes to meet Hamiltons. "It'll be better when I unpack again."

Hamilton could feel his mouth stretch in a stupid grin. He went and dropped onto Jake's bed, bouncing. Contentedly, he watched his friend move around, getting things back out of semi filled cases. Was that a motorcycle helmet? Hamilton caught himself just in time and didn't ask.

Right this minute, he didn't want to know about rule breaking. Jake was acting all betrayed that he was on his own Dad's side. "Last year, Dad and me.. we didn't-" He wasn't sure what the question was to ask what he needed to know.

"You barely spoke to each other." Jake studied him curiously.

Ham thought about that. "He's been great, since, you know."

"I'm glad. Really." Jake sounded strained, but he clearly meant it.

Hamilton wondered about Jake's family. Mom used to joke that all the Rawley kids had parent issues. "What about your Dad?"

"I don't have a Dad" Jake said.

Everybody had a dad. Anything else would be partha- what was the word - parthogenesis. "Is he dead?" Ham asked cautiously.

Jake shook his head. "I was an accident. By the time Mom knew about me, she couldn't remember, or she'd lost contact, or something."

"Oh. I'm sorry." Ham felt way out of his depth.

"It was a long time ago, dude. I'm cool."

Hamilton wondered. It seemed to him like Jake hurt a lot, over a lot of things. Having a dad would've helped.

"It's just me and my mom these days. When she bothers to show."

"Has she ever been here?"

"Uh, yeah. Last summer, at the regatta. You met her, actually."

"I did?"

"Yeah, you gave her the Tour. It was you, my mom, my mom's cell phone, and me. You were a big hit."

Ham smirked. "Moms love me." His parents had taught him thoroughly how to impress parents. Guys his own age, not so easy.