Notes: 1st, no, I do not own the rights to this.
2nd, when I did this I didn't know Will's mum's name, so I called her Karen (because her face reminded me of a Karen I know). Later, someone at forums4fans - sorry, can't remember who - told me she was Susan. Should have edited that..
Jake dreamt. It was darker than real life ever was, lightless as black velvet. She decided she was underground. It didn't occur to her to cry out; she knew she was alone. Fear built up in her, she tried to move, and realized something heavy was weighing her down. - this is a subway accident. Something's fallen on top of me - She woke kicking and flailing.
She woke Hamilton too. He was lying on his belly an inch away with his face smeared into the mattress. "Jake?" he mumbled.
"Sorry, sorry." Her eyes were still wild. "Bad dream."
"Wha'?" barely awake himself.
"I was pinned down." Abruptly, Jake raised her head. Hamilton had an arm and a leg thrown over her body. Her head dropped with a thump.
"Warmth" he said awkwardly, rolling away.
"Um. Yeah." Jake directed her gaze at the ceiling. "Are the guys awake?"
Hamilton twisted to check. "Dead to the world. Worried about your rep?" He kept his voice down so as not to wake the others, but it came out harsh. At the beginning of summer session, they had been so close but after the cotillion Hamilton had withdrawn. They still hung out but the entire days of one on one were over.
"Oh? What is my reputation?" Jake challenged. - he was the one who cooled off on me. He has no right to act injured -
Hamilton sighed resentfully. He hated being put on the spot. "You know."
Jake drawled "People don't know their own reputation. That's how it works."
Hamilton shifted, not meeting her eyes. "They say you're not interested in girls" he said.
"Really."
- shit, Jake. Stop playing games with me - "You weren't interested in Lena," accusingly.
"Oh. Wow, I must be gay."
He grimaced at Jake's sarcasm. "You asked me to the Cotillion."
"I said we could go stag together. Look, it's been two months. Are you still fixated on that?"
"No!"
- he's lying - "I'm just not a slave to my hormones like the rest of you guys." - Ham. Stop freaking round me -
"You're saying you're not into dating or kissing-"
Jake turned her head to look at him by the orange glow from the street. Their eyes locked and held. Jake felt as if there wasn't enough oxygen in the room.
"- I don't buy that" he concluded.
"You think too much about emotions." - there. That's a statement straight from the GuyManual. How convincing am I? - The thought depressed her. "If I'd met you in different circumstances.."
"What?"
- did I say that aloud? Shit - Jake glanced involuntarily at the exit.
"Surprise, it's still locked. Finish what you're saying."
Jake scrambled up and over to the window seat. It was draughty there. She huddled in a fetal ball to conserve heat. "Get some rest Hamilton."
"For another tiring day of being locked up?" He did sarcasm too.
"We should be planning an escape. Not wallowing in the country and western song that is my life."
"While we are stuck here, I can ask you without you running out on me."
"Ask me..? Oh, god. I told you. I'm in love. Back in New York."
He listened to Scout and Will for a minute. Deep, even breathing. He got up and went to the window to stand over Jake. "Girl or boy?"
"My sexuality is none of your freaking business."
"It is if you're into me."
Jake stared up at him, her mouth open. She couldn't read his face. "Would it help if I recited the list of ways Hamilton is so annoying I can't possibly find him hot. It gets me through bad days-" She shut her eyes in panic. - I didn't say that. I didn't say that out loud. No - "I'm straight" she said sullenly.
The seat creaked when Hamilton dropped onto the empty end. "Straight. But you keep watching this guy in class. I know that one. It's a screwed up situation."
Jake forced herself to look at him again. - everything's coming out soon. The police and our parents are onto everything by now. I should have the guts to tell him myself - "I'm a girl."
Hamilton's eyebrows drew together. He'd thought he was in denial but Jake.. "You're a girl born in a boy's body?" He tried for non judgemental but came up with dubious. - I need to react right. The thing I love about Jake is, I can tell him anything. I want him to be able to say anything to me. Okay. It's brave of him to be this honest. What does this mean. I still want him.. - All of this flashed through his mind before the worrying thought occurred - if he has a problem with his own male body how's he going to be with mine? And, oh god, how am I going to make him deal with this? -
"No!" - he thinks I'm crazy - "I'm-"
A loud yawn drowned her out. Will was surfacing. His eyes were scrunched shut while he stretched.
- we're not alone anymore - "Later" Jake said hurriedly.
Before Will could open his eyes Hamilton leaned in and kissed Jake hard on the mouth. They barely got away with it. "Been awake long?" Will asked, climbing to his feet and blinking.
Hamilton spent most of the day thinking about the implications of Jake's gender issues.
- So, what the fuck does that mean? I don't know anything about this kind of thing and it's not like I can start running keyword:transsexual through Ask Jeeves. I've barely got my head round the gay thing -
It didn't seem fair. He was supposed to be getting to the good bits now. He'd taken the most terrifying risk; he'd kissed Jake, and it had been, well, actually it had been hasty and inadequate. He wanted more, and more in line with his daydreams. - months, building to this - He thought how the kiss felt.
- I can deal. We can deal. I'm on track with this. It's going to work -
He looked around. He wanted to be away from people while he worked this through in his head, like on those summer nights by the lakeshore. The man in the moon didn't care what facial statement he wore, and, good, Will and Scout hadn't noticed him here and now.
- Does Jake want operations to change himself? - he thought incredulously. That was wrong. Not wrong-wrong, but wrong for Jake. Jake had such a strong sense of identity. - I don't want Jake any different. I never thought Jake wanted to Be different. How can I have misread something as major as this? Does he want to cross dress? - He tried - unsuccessfully - to picture Jake in skirts like a model in a photo shoot.
- If he could "pass" that would make it easier to go on public dates - He felt a wave of shame. - God. I'm such a sheep, such a conformist.. Except, I knew I was a coward when I spent the summer forcing myself to date girls who bored me and made me nervous. What would it be like, dating someone I want to talk to? I can't get enough of Jake's company, and touching as well. I know he wants me -
He caught Jake's eye.She was looking stressed on a level only he could see. She had been barely holding it together since Will woke up and interrupted them.
Will and Scout noticed nothing until Hamilton drifted over and nonchalantly massaged Jake's neck and shoulders. - silky soft skin over hard muscle. On the other side of layers of sweatshirts, unfortunately. God his tendons are unyielding. I may as well be massaging one of the statues around town - She jerked away from him.
"Stay. You're all wound up with tension. Let me help."
"I don't need help." She used her gruffest voice.
Having resolved to throw his reputation to the wind for love, Hamilton did not immediately realise that Jake was clinging to hers. Besides, his take on Jake's reputation easily embraced neck rubs. He'd been the aggressively rampant girl chaser, and, okay, sublimating, but here he was giving up that status and Jake could at least be grateful. Grateful? All right, impressed then. People were going to react to him creepily and talk weird behind his back, and he was doing it for Jake..
Jake was staring at him, scared and angry. He'd always been confident that he could totally read Jake, but that belief had sprung a leak and right now he felt like he was missing something important.
"Dudes, can you excuse us for a minute?" she asked Will and Scout, not taking her eyes off Hamilton.
"Uh, sure." "Yeah, sure." They traded confused looks and Jake and Hamilton withdrew to the toilet.
:
Steven Fleming had told Mrs Krudsky (who was a very good listener) about the media frenzy in the UK, but there were aspects of the case he didn't want to discuss by phone. Actually, he didn't want to discuss them at all.
His first morning in England, Steven strode into the police station, feeling confident that however uncomfortable his private feelings might be, he could at least deal with the officials smoothly. He knew the police in New Rawley.. and the fire department.. and the emergency plumbers. Some of his students could be quite annoying. It was a longstanding joke between him and Kate that, while he was deeply committed to the welfare of children in the abstract, actual specimens exasperated him. It didn't seem to be a joke they would be sharing again anytime soon.
Kate was unravelling badly. Some fool had covered a table in the lobby with the day's papers, and when he and Finn came down, Kate was flipping through the tabloids. Many had frontpage pictures of Kate at the airport, crying, in closeup. The Dean scanned some of the text and quickly wished he hadn't. They were boosting their circulation with pessimistic and gruesome speculations. Finn pressed a Guardian on her instead. It was taking the soothing, impersonal, foreign relations angle.
"There, Kate" the Dean said warily.
She looked daggers at him. "I can't face the detectives" she said.
"We have an appointment." He reminded himself forcibly that it was a healthy thing for Kate to be in touch with her emotional needs.
Finn laid a hand on Kate's arm. "I'll stay with her" he said.
Steven kept the appointment. Here were a team of skilled professionals bringing the weight of years of experience to bear on the situation. He was going to help as much as he damn well could, and he was not going to mess them about be being late or absent from a planned meeting, and this thing was going to be fucking dealt with.
He was such an anglophile. He'd spent years watching PBS. He could give Inspector Morse pointers on procedure. How hard could this be? He followed a junior constable through a maze of departments, unresponsive to the soothing remarks of the nice young man the Embassy had sent to handhold him through this.
When the constable got him to his destination, the room fell silent as he entered. "Mr Fleming?"
He put out his hand, but the policeman was still talking and didn't take it. Apparently they weren't going to be wasting time on the niceties here.
"-We've discovered irregularities in the Pratt passport. It's a fraud."
Taken by surprise yet again, Steven heard himself say numbly "You're supposed to be investigating the other guys."
A younger officer spoke. "How did Pratt get the passport?"
"Ahh." Steven wished he had a file of records to search. It would give him something to do with his hands. He wouldn't need the file for information. He had revised every bit of data about the run up to this disaster, over and over. There shouldn't be any more surprises, damnit. "The school applied on his behalf, as we did for Krudsky, Brent, and a few others" he said slowly. "A responsible professional can testify to someone's identity."
The junior officer achieved a magnificently scathing look.
Steven rallied. "In what way fraudulent?"
"Miss Pratt is a skilled computer hacker."
"His I.T. tutor always .. Miss Pratt?"
The chief inspector evidently felt enough fun had been had. "Mr Sopwith." To Steven, he explained "Monica Pratt has a daughter, not a son. Jacqueline."
- and I thought I knew it all. Memorised the inactive email address, the unresponsive voicemail. The child must've set those up. For the last couple of days Monica Pratt's agent has been fobbing me off like a crazy ..fan. He thinks I'm a fan. Of course, my message "it's about Jake" rang no bells. Wretched boy. Girl. No wonder whenever I encountered him he looked furtive. She. Damn - "How did-" Steven's gaze fell on a copy of Hello! magazine "- oh, no."
"Err."
"It's nice to know you use the most sophisticated research methods." Steven had climbed back to the high moral ground and he liked it up there.
"I got to claim this week's copy on expenses" said Sopwith, not noticeably crushed.
"We found out through other sources as well" said the senior man, who was embarrassed enough for both of them. "Ah, we've set up an appointment with Ms Pratt. Do you wish to be present? She may have questions you can answer."
"When this is over we're going to want to talk to Miss Pratt about the passport issue" said Mr Bradley from the embassy.
- you're going to have to wait in line. She's crapped all over my professional reputation for starters. Further, the police don't look happy with her - Steven thought, looking at the chief inspector. "She's a minor." He thought about that, then said "She is the age I think?"
"She only changed her sex" Sopwith confirmed. "Do you know why?" He hadn't much hope the Dean would know.
The Dean was pacing, ignoring him. "I don't see how this ties in with the kidnapping case."
"No." Sopwith agreed. "We think it's unrelated and just emerged fortuitously."
- fortuitously - The Dean winced. "Rawley is going to look so stupid" he muttered. More loudly, "What are the chances of-" He gestured significantly.
"Hushing it up?" the chief inspector interpreted. "Well, there's a lot of media attention."
The Dean winced some more. So far, the media had four photogenic (but un-named, thank Goodness, Steven thought) youngsters from a privileged/glamourous background, incarcerated in a country which valued its excellent foreign relations with the USA, but which was failing to resolve this case quickly enough to satisfy the American press. The Calhoun angle was making this a problem for politicians, and the journalists were amplifying that problem. Throw the Jake/Jacqueline thing in, and the newsprint might spontaneously combust. The Dean thanked God that they had withheld the identities of the three non-Calhoun children until all the parents had been contacted.
FROM:
TO:
HEY BELLA. THE BAY IS CRAWLING WITH REPORTERS BECAUSE OF THE CALHOUNS' SUMMER PLACE HERE. THEY'RE ALL TRYING TO GET LITTLE PERSONAL STORIES ABOUT SCOUT. GHOULS. THIS CIRCUS IS SO WEIRD FROM YOUR ANGLE I SUPPOSE. I'M SO SO SCARED FOR HIM. I'VE KNOWN HIM FOR AS LONG AS I'VE BEEN COMING HERE. NOBODY CAN TELL ME WHO THE OTHER 3 GUYS WITH HIM ARE. IS IT PEOPLE I'VE MET? PLEASE TELL ME IF YOU KNOW. IF I KNEW MORE, THIS WOULD FEEL MORE CONTROLLABLE.EMAIL ME BACK WHEN YOU GET A CHANCE. HOW IS SEAN?
LOVE, PAIGE.
"I don't have enough data to think constructively about this Pratt business" the Dean said logically. He had scarcely registered the chief inspector's departure.
"Our meeting with Ms Pratt is scheduled for 5pm this evening. Please unearth what you can by then" Sopwith suggested none too respectfully. He was annoyed by the looseness of Rawley supervision; in fact, he'd promised himself a therapeutic rant at Mr Finn. Being mean to Mr Fleming would be a substitute.
Steven nodded, abstracted. "Have any witnesses come forward, from the route indicated in Krudsky's diary?"
Sopwith shook his head. "You have to realise, it's a busy area, and the museums in question have a high footfall. The museum of London staff recall them as being on the doorstep at 10am, but our latest fix on them is at Sir John Soanes' ..it's small, voluntary, and, best of all, has a visitor's book to sign."
Steven nodded. "Then they went to the British Museum."
Sopwith said "That was the plan. The ransom demand was emailed from a 24hour internet cafe at 9.24 GMT. Not that anyone can help, there" he added distastefully. "Full of vagrants and petty criminals. And the email address was hotmail with a false address given."
"Senator Calhoun said they haven't said yet how it's to be delivered."
"Mmmm."
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