Transient Reality: Part 3
"So, what did Mr. Wilson want?"
"Nothing." Jake tugged his locker open and stared inside, not really seeing the contents. Instead, his mind kept going back over the conversation with Mr. Wilson. He hadn't agreed to apply for an early graduation, but he had promised the older man that he would give it some serious thought.
"It's your future, Jake," Mr. Wilson said before finally dismissing Jake from their impromptu meeting.
Jake was sorely tempted to respond, "No thanks, I've already got one," but even as he thought it, he realized that he didn't know how true that was anymore. Certainly, if he did get expelled, he would have no trouble finding a space reserved for him at the Air Force Academy; the Air Force in all their wisdom and planning fully expected him to pursue that particular road. However, Jake had spent the past year working hard to become Jacob Bartidge and not simply Jack O'Neill: The Early Years and Jacob Bartidge wasn't one hundred percent certain that following the familiar road was the best way to go.
That was the reason that he decided to consider his love of astronomy and math and apply himself more towards physical sciences this time around. Plus, he hoped that someday he might actually finally figure out half of what it was that Carter had ever tried to explain to him. Jake wasn't stupid; never had been, but he just wasn't focused on science because scientists unnerved him. Then he met Daniel and Carter and suddenly scientists weren't really that unnerving. Annoying, yes, but that could have just been Daniel and Carter.
Not that Jake didn't imagine that he wouldn't someday end up in the Air Force, or at least employed by the SGC again. He had a taste of what was out there, of visiting other worlds, and he couldn't imagine never stepping through the stargate again. But wouldn't it be a riot if he came at it from the civilian direction this time around?
"Man, we've been waiting on you for half an hour and you're going to tell me 'nothing'? That's a whole lot of nothing, Jake."
Jake peered around the corner of his locker door at the young man standing there. No, not standing, slouching, because slouching was what River did best. In all the time that Jake knew him, he couldn't recall a time that River actually pulled himself up to his full height of six feet even. He did his level best, whenever possible, to lean and slouch, so much so that Jake was inclined to believe Katie's description that River had perfected that slouch to an art.
"Look, man, when the slowest kid on the basketball team had more skill on the court than I do, the last thing you want people doing is noticing how tall you are. Especially if you're black." That had been the explanation Jake received when he asked River if he was just lazy or found it morally objectionable to have a straight spine.
Of course, it was two weeks later in a game of one on one that Jake learned that River didn't necessarily lack skill on the basketball court, he just lacked the kind of skill a high school coach would expect a six foot tall sixteen year old to possess. Jake soon discovered that River's parents, aside from "giving me a name that would have earned all kinds of ass-kicking's if I hadn't always been one of the biggest kids in class," also hadn't stressed a physical competitiveness in their son. They wanted to River to excel - academically - and that meant that they didn't have time to sign him up for midget football, but chess club and martial arts, which stressed mental discipline, had been all the rage while River was growing up.
The one thing that Jake had not learned from River yet, even after a year of friendship, was where the hell his parents got the name River from.
Now, the same young man lacking extraordinary basketball skills and with a name of unknown origins was staring at Jake with a look that clearly said, "Don't try to pull that 'nothing' bullshit on me."
Or maybe the look only clearly said that because those were the next words out of his friend's mouth.
Jake shrugged and turned his attention back to rooting around inside of his locker. "He expressed some concern that I might be paving the road to an easy expulsion."
River snorted. "Wow, Mr. Wilson is slipping. I didn't think he'd started giving out lectures on the obvious."
"Oh, so what? Now you think I've been working my ass off, getting good grades so that I can get thrown out on my ass too?" Jake bristled, his head snapping up again as he shoved a book into his backpack. He glared at River, even though that meant that he had to tilt his head up despite the patented slouch. "I thought that, you know, being my friend, you might be on my side."
"This ain't about taking sides, man," River pulled himself to his full height, a sure sign that Jake had managed to needle him. As was the fact that he'd slipped into what River's parents called 'street speak' and frequently chastised him for. "This is about you keepin' your head so that Skinner don't get no ideas about throwin' you out. I mean, what would your uncle say?"
Probably the same thing that Mr. Wilson said, but that wasn't the point. "Are you saying that I should have just walked away and let Cameron paw at Katie like that?"
There was a lull before River answered, a lull in which Jake gave a triumphant, silent cheer for himself. A cheer that he quickly retracted when River finally spoke, his voice low and calm. "Katie thinks so."
"Oh for crying out loud! You got to be kidding me!" Jake slammed his locker, the reverberating clang of metal against metal roaring for loudness in the practically deserted hallway. "Did I miss a memo? Did she lose a couple of brain cells last night? Or, I don't know, maybe her whole brain?"
If Jake's outburst startled him, River gave no outward reaction. He shrugged, the slouch returning. "She just said that she could take care of herself and you shouldn't be getting in trouble because of her. She's actually pretty pissed at you for playing 'macho man.' "
"What?!" Jake nearly swallowed his tongue. This was one of those moments when he was truly glad that he was only seventeen years old; he didn't have to worry about his blood pressure suddenly going through the roof and having a stroke on the spot. Or rather, he hoped that he was still too young to have to worry about that sort of thing.
"She could be right, though. You know, Katie can take care of herself."
"So I was just supposed to stand by and let Cameron maul her, was that it? Maybe she thinks she can handle herself, and maybe standing in a hallway surrounded by students, she could. But you know how guys like Cameron are, River! You heard them talking, you've got to know how they are in action. It wouldn't have stopped with a grope in the hallway and you know it."
"I don't know it and you don't know it either, man. Look, I love Katie like a sister, all right? But I've known her a lot longer than you have. The girl's got balls sometimes. Big nasty brass ones."
Jake slung his backpack over his shoulder, knowing when it was time to stop arguing with River. A year later and there were times when that wall of solidarity came up between River and Katie and Jake knew there was nothing he could do to make it come down. Despite their maturity and intelligence, sometimes Jake was painfully reminded that River and Katie were just kids. They didn't have fifty years of experience behind him and they could often only see using tunnel vision.
"Where is she?" Jake demanded. If he couldn't talk sense to River, then maybe, just maybe he could make Katie see reason. Failing that, he could at least make her understand that his actions had nothing to do with 'playing macho man.'
River stopped short and frowned. "What?"
"Katie. Where is she?"
"I don't know." River shrugged. "She said she was going over to her Aunt Lilly's, you know if her old man was at home. But you know Katie, she doesn't always make it to Aunt Lilly's." There was more left unsaid than what was actually said.
It wasn't a secret that Katie frequently visited her eighty-one year old great aunt, taking care of household chores and errands for the elderly woman. It also wasn't a secret that even more frequently Katie used Aunt Lilly as an excuse to apparently drop off the face of the earth for hours or sometimes days at a stretch. It was another one of those 'friends since grade school' solidarity things between Katie and River; no matter how much Jake nudged and dug, River insisted that he didn't have a clue of where Katie liked to hide when she wasn't at Aunt Lilly's.
Unfortunately, River was a terrible liar. A terrible liar, but a loyal friend because Jake still hadn't sniffed out a hint of where in all of Colorado Springs, or even all of Colorado, Katie could manage to hide.
"You think that maybe Katie will show up for school tomorrow?" Jake asked.
River pulled off another disinterested shrug. "If she feels like it. You know Katie."
"And why is it that I'm the one that Mr. Wilson thinks should apply for early graduation before I get expelled? Is it my imagination or doesn't the school have some rules for unexcused absences?"
"Whoa, man, hold up. Early graduation? No shitting?"
"Did you even hear my other question?"
"You gonna do it?"
"I don't know. I haven't had that long to think about it."
"You have to think about it? What the fuck is wrong with you, Jake? I'm taking college courses and I can't even get out of this place early. You got a teacher rooting for you, and you have to think about it?"
"It's a big decision."
"Nothing big about it," River pushed open the doors to the outside, and they both momentarily stopped and blinked in the bright sunlight. Slipping a hand into his jacket pocket, River pulled out a pair of sunglasses and slide them into place. "Opportunity is a-knocking. Half the kids around here would give their left nut to jump ship and not put up with Skinner's shit and half the other political crap that goes on around here."
Jake followed suit, sunglasses slipping home to shield his eyes from the bright day. "So you'd do it? Just like that?"
"Yes, I would. Besides, even if I thought about not doing it, you know my folks would rip me a new one and apply in my name anyway." River peered at Jake over the top of his glasses, dark brows rising to his hairline. "Or is this actually about not knowing whether or not you want to cross into the blue?"
"Do you mind trying not to sound like an Air Force commercial?"
River smirked and smoothly changed the subject, "So, we going to shoot some hoops tonight?"
"Yeah, I kind of feel like I need to wipe the court clean with you."
"Jako, you can just keep --" River came to a sudden halt, his face tightening as he gazed off across the student parking lot.
"River, what --" It took Jake a few seconds longer to find the source of River's distraction, mainly because he lacked River's height. Those few seconds were probably a good thing because it meant his head didn't explode immediately. "No, no, no!"
Jake broke into a run across the parking lot, stopping dead in his tracks in front of his truck. The one that he could have sworn when he left it in the student lot that morning had unbroken taillights and headlights, and did not have the word FAGGOT painted across the hood and doors in huge black spray paint.
Fifty years of experience and memories, memories of black ops training and fighting aliens and all Jake could do was stare at his car, his jaw working silently.
"Say again why this early graduation would be a bad thing?"
"River. Shut. Up."
End of Part 3