Transient Reality -- Part II

Only a few steps separated Jake from the safety and security of the outside hallway as opposed to the stifling disapproval from within the detention room. He held his breath as he bled into the flow of detention students freed from the afternoon's session, although deep down inside he had a sneaking suspicion that he would not escape that easily.

His fears were realized when those six dreaded words rang out behind him before he could cross that threshold of safety.

"Jake, could you stay a moment?"

Swearing inwardly, Jake winced, took a deep breath and turned to face his teacher. "Sure, Mr. Wilson, what's up?"

Good old teenage nonchalance, Jake could fake it with the best of them.

If Jake's flippant answer fazed the older man, Mr. Wilson did not show it. He simply waved towards an empty desk at the front of the classroom, "Have a seat please."

Jake did not need even half the intelligence of a donut to figure out that this was not a good thing. In fact, Jake was pretty damn sure that any conversation that any teacher started with the preference of "Have a seat, please" or "Please sit down," did not bode well for the student on the receiving end of the lecture. He said lecture because that was what it would turn out to be, no matter how hard the adult in question might try and make it seem like it was a conversation or dialogue. That was the way of the world; he simply continued to have a terrible time getting used to the fact that he was in the role of the student.

Even worse if the teacher in question was your favorite teacher, something of a mentor and considered you to be something of his protégé. Or at the very least considered you the best thing to walk into his chemistry classroom since he started teaching. Not that Mr. Wilson had been teaching long enough to grow jaded about the whole process, Jake figured that he was four years out of college, and that was being generous with his age given his rather boyish looks. But Mr. Wilson was one of the few teachers, one of the very few adults actually, who didn't treat Jake like he was only a high school student. He saw there was more to Jake than met the eye, and usually, aside from when in the classroom or when put into the position where he had to present himself as the older, wiser mentor, treated Jake more like an equal than just a smart kid.

It was something that had been totally unexpected ... and welcomer than Jake would ever have admitted to aloud. After meeting and falling in with River and Katie, whom he felt a strong kinship with if only because despite the fact that they were teenagers, they were far more mature and settled for their ages than any other teenagers that Jake had met, they introduced him to Mr. Wilson. The physics teacher saw something in the two strays that no one else had, and he was something of surrogate father it seemed; or at the very least he was a teacher who actually cared and got involved. It helped too that Jake himself was also a "stray," an emancipated minor who's parents were killed in a tragic plane crash two years earlier who relocated to Colorado Springs to be close to his only remaining family, his mother's brother, his estranged Uncle Jack O' Neill.

Naturally, Jake held some skepticism and distrust towards Mr. Wilson at first. In his experience it didn't make sense for a grown man to want to spend the after school hours in his classroom talking sports and movies with teenage kids. And it certainly didn't make sense that a normal, non-threatening teacher would want to help kids work through their adolescent angst and problems; but Mr. Wilson was genuine and in no way a pervert or pederast. Jake attributed that naïve innocence and optimism to Mr. Wilson's youth and lack of experience; in about twenty more years he'd probably be as jaded as Jake and as uninvolved as a majority of the other teachers around Mountain Springs High School.

"Look, Mr. Wilson, I know I screwed up today," Jake began in earnest, hoping to cut the man off at the pass, "but you have to believe me when I say that it wasn't my fault. I didn't start it. Well, not really, I only suggested --"

"I believe you, Jake." The words were soft, the precise and clipped British accent somehow soft and understanding. Mr. Wilson slipped into a vacant student desk and indicated the one next to him with his hand, "Now, sit down."

Jake obeyed the order before he even thought about it. He blinked the moment he realized that he was in the seat and shook his head. It was the one thing about Mr. Wilson; somehow he always managed to say just the right words in just the right tone to get the students to listen to him. More than likely that was the reason that the high school students hadn't eaten him alive yet. "So, if you believe me --"

"You're correct. You screwed up," Mr. Wilson paused and held up a hand to forestall any objection or outburst that Jake might make, "All I want to know is what's going on with you?"

Different things brought forth different senses of déjà vu for Jake, mostly when he least expected it. For instance the way Mr. Wilson looked at him at that moment reminded him of the look Carter often gave him, well not really him but Jack O'Neill, when she just went into a rambling explanation and expected Jack to understand it and all Jack could do was stare back blankly or make a quip about speaking in English using small words. Jake felt that particular blankness right at that moment.

"I don't know what you're talking about." It wasn't a teenage excuse or a lie. Jake could honestly say he was completely confused.

Mr. Wilson removed his glasses and leaned forward, blue eyes holding Jake's gaze and daring him to look away. It was eerie because Jake had the fleeting thought that Mr. Wilson was not looking at him, but rather was looking through him. "When the school year first started, you were doing amazingly well. You stayed out of trouble and out harm's way. You, wisely, avoided the jocks. You even stood down in physical education classes when they tried to call you out.

"Now, suddenly it's as though you're a different person. In less than three weeks, you've been a party to five different alterations, each of them escalating into a bit more physical brutality each time. Is there some reason you're trying to get expelled?"

"Expelled? What? No!" Jake jerked upright, the words tumbling out in a mad sputtering. He wondered if he sounded as stupid as he thought he did and then realized that at least it probably meant he sounded like a typical seventeen year old. Although he wasn't particularly certain if that was a good or bad thing in this instance. "Is that you what think? That I'm trying to get kicked out of school? It's my senior year, where else would I go?"

"Then what?"

"I don't know. Maybe the jocks have gotten smarter. It could happen."

"Jake --"

"It could."

"Jake --"

"Wrong place, wrong time. I don't know, Mr. Wilson, what do you want me to say? I can sure as hell tell you that I am unequivocally not trying to get expelled." Jake paused, realized what he said, and belated added, more out of habit than anything else, "Sir."

"Unequivocally." Mr. Wilson repeated. He stared at Jake for a moment, then the corners of his mouth slowly turned up. "You've just proven the point that I was going to try and make, so thank you."

Again, Jake felt that familiar sense of 'what the hell did I miss' déjà vu. Unfortunately, the only thing that came out of his mouth this time was, "Huh?"

"Have you ever considered applying for early graduation, Jake?"

"Sir?" Jake said it and kicked himself mentally. He was starting to sound like a fifty year old colonel and not a seventeen-year-old high school senior.

"You are one of the top students in the school. Your grades are all top notch, with the exception of history and that could be taken care of with a little tutoring. You could easily test out of all your required subjects. You would be free to stop coming to school everyday and you wouldn't have to risk expulsion."

"Yeah, but then I'd be bored. And hey, graduation and prom, those are the highlights of high school. I wouldn't want to miss those."

"I'm sure we could get you special dispensation."

"I'm really not that smart, Mr. Wilson. I just have good study partners. Katie's a math whiz you know? And River? The boy absorbs English and history like a sponge." Jake wondered, for not the first time, if maybe Loki, the Asgard version of Dr. Moreau, hadn't scrambled his brain when he cloned him from Jack O'Neill. After all, why else was he putting up such an argument about this? Mr. Wilson was handing him a 'get out of high school free card' and he wanted to put it back in the deck and shuffle again.

No way could he be getting attached to all the trappings of high school and adolescence. His friends maybe, but the rest of it, Jake was absolutely positive he could do without. Who needed more than one prom and graduation anyway?

Then why was he suddenly breaking into a cold sweat and wishing he were staring down a Goa'uld instead of sitting in the classroom having this conversation with a high school physics teacher?

"You used the word unequivocally in a conversation," Mr. Wilson pointed out. "Not too many 'not that smart,' seventeen-year-olds would do that."

Jake took a deep breath and blew it out. "Is it really that bad?"

"It could be, if you're not careful. Considering how many times we've talked about more non-violent approaches to these -- encounters -- you don't seem to be taking my advice to heart, Jake. It's just a matter of time before there won't be an eyewitness to state that you unequivocally did not start the altercation. And there is only so much I can do as an advocate for you. Eventually, this is going to escalate beyond a detention. Then, what will you do?"

For once, even flippancy failed him.

End of Part 2