The next three months were hell for both boys. James was buried under school work, evenings on the IT desk and constant training. Once it had been pointed out to the new doctor what they knew of the change James was going through she had helpfully suggested that before he started to grow the wing that could be extremely painful for a while and before he left the immediate area for university he should complete his physical training. His weekends were therefore spent sparring, on the range, running and hiking to his limits and taking part in various training exercises. Some times Jon came too others he was aloud to.
That was the worst part, they were a boring three months. The only time he got to spend with his best friend were at school when he had flashes and Jon had to come running. The flashes were getting so common that all his teachers now had Jon's beeper on speed dial one on the class room phone and his classes were starting to notice before the teachers. Jon would run down the corridor to find a class patiently waiting for him in the hall while Daniel sobbed, yelled, smashed things or cried in the classroom. It was hard but those three months were finally over and Jack and Daniel had something up their selves for that night they were sure.
Jon knew the James was not popular. He disturbed classes and on occasion threatened class mates. The hockey team actually despised him with a vengeance. The Captain had returned but only after a month on the side lines and then had to spend a couple of weeks on the bench as he recovered and with James never around any more the hatred was shared around to Jon. He was worried what would happen the next week when James was coming to the game. They had stayed on base for the last three months when Jack or Daniel weren't about but they had served their time and when the two sudo parents were away the next week they would be staying at James'.
They both headed for the mountain after school that day together in Jon's Jeep for their last evenings of work. On arrival they changed as ever into BDUs they were still required to wear despite being civilians. In the locker room the two teenagers were not as miserable as normal bantering about the day at school before both headed to their work stations. James down in the service levels in the ICT office adjacent to the supercomputer and server rooms. A hot and cold environment due to the large amount of heat generated by the two systems and the massive amounts of air conditioning used to stop it over heating. Jon headed for the kitchens. He was becoming a fairly good cook at this point.
On arrival Jon checked the listing and started preparation. The afternoon passed as normal James had six call outs since they'd replaced the desktops in the marines barracks he was constantly being called out to fix problems. He enjoyed his work in many ways, fiddling with computers all the time and some times getting to have a part in the updates to the base systems. He was working on a set of power leads replacing fuses when the call came through that the projector in the briefing room needed a new lamp in time of a briefing in the next half hour. He quickly checked the specks and went down to stores to procure the correct lamp.
Jon had placed his third tray into the oven when the head cook shouted for him.
"Jon, they need food taken up to the briefing room. Some meeting over ran and they want food taken to them."
"I'll put together a trolley for them." Jon said heading off to make up a series of platters of food to take up to them. Mostly left over lunch but there was also some of the already cooked dinner in the trolley for them. Jon unfortunately couldn't make excuses to go through the control room with the trolley. He would have to take the elevator.
James having found the bulb used it as an excuse to walk through the control room and see if anything was happening. The place was quiet though as he took the stairs up to the briefing room. As he emerged he saw the room was full of people and James wondered how he would get to the projector. He stepped forward with the bulb only to have it taken from his hand as Daniel leaned next to him. "Don't worry about that, the bulb was replaced last week. Enjoy yourself, you've worked hard the last few months." He handed him a bottle of coke and pushed him into the fray of people praising him and laughing at jokes of calls from his time working under the mountain. Jon arrived not long after and was ambushed by Jack just as James had been by Daniel. They celebrated the end of their punishment because truly the two boys had taken it in fine manner. They had both maintained high grades at school and neither had complained about the punishment. All reports said they had been great team members and done their best. In among all this Jon had been finding time for extra tutorials with Carter and James had been doing combat training and exercise. The Summer was pretty much round the corner and while Jon would be using it to continue his studies James needed to make plans.
"Friends!" Jack called to the room. "We're here to congratulate two great young men who have worked hard these past months listening to us whining about lost files and the lack of blue Jello. But we have a second reason for tonight as well. Unbeknown to Jon and James they're activities on base have not gone with out credit. We have spoken to teachers and colleges and it has been decided that given they're grades and abilities they have been grated the credits and will be receiving in a few weeks time they're high school diplomas." A cheer went up and those close to the boys shook they're hand. Jack held up hiss hand for peace. "They will still have to wait till next fall before college but to fill that time it has been decided that these two young men will be assigned positions on base for the interim..." Both boys groaned at the idea of a year at the help desk and in the kitchen. "on Gate teams."
"WHAT!?" James shouted accompanied by a roaring "YES!" from Jon.
"Just the science team on safe planets mind but you will be going through full training. You'll be needing to use your spare time to go look at colleges."
"Yeah, fine whatever. We get to go off world again!" Jon called.
The party continued an hour or so after until just SG1 and the boys were left.
"I congratulate you again on your academic success young warriors." Teal'c said before leaving with a nod.
"Well done you two." Sam ruffled James hair before following Teal'c`
"How?" Jon asked his older self.
"Well we only have the best here and due to the nature of some of the research and doctorates received by the staff we have plenty who can sign off credits for college courses. Sam was happy enough with your progress to proclaim you as having completed enough physics, science and other work to cover the rest of your course, and the engineers signed against James memory distribution plan to finish up his diploma."
"Can you do that?"
"We can when the president decided that he wants the two of you in action ASAP. It was also decided that after events it would be better to pull James from school as soon as possible and give us more time to establish a support at what ever school you choose for next year."
"So this was actually a large amount of string pulling." James said a little annoyed.
"Don't worry James, the two of you will learn enough in the next year to justify your early leave. You will be joining the science department where Jon will be learning more about alien science while you will be learning how to build, manipulate, work and interface with every kind of alien computer with have. You'll be wishing you were in school soon with the added training, exercises and the fact that we will be expecting you to keep to military levels of fitness and weapons practice."
Graduation came and went for the boys and then Jack and Daniel were proved right as the hard work came. They had barely a moment to breath over the summer as they planet hopped on some practising survival, combat and procedure on others investigating technology. All the time James condition worsened.
They had finished they're post mission medical and were planning to head to Daniels place for the night when James stopped.
"Whats up?" Jon asked as James stood with his mouth agape barely breathing. "James! Come on I'm not in the mood. James! Stay with me James!" Jon yelled at him holding him by the head.
"I'm... I'm still here." He gasped.
"Good. Good." Jon said and then James screamed his knees buckling beneath him. Jon looked around panicked to the airman that emerged at the end of the corridor. "Get a med team here now!" He shouted over the on going screams holding James off the floor as he screamed gripping his best friends cloths in anguish. By the time the med team arrived he had passed out from the pain.
"What's wrong with him doc?" Jon pleaded to no response.
"Tell us doc." Jack agreed knowing that all four people in the room would know eventually. Jon and Daniel were too curious to be left out the loop.
"Well... the X-rays I had done as part of his post mission came back and I noticed an abnormally to his previous set so I had a second lot done." She took some X=rays and placed them on a light board. "This is James Original X-ray. As you can see no gould which is the main reason we do these but there is if we compare it to his previous X-ray a change to the structure of the vertebrae."
"So he's hurt his back." Daniel asked.
"Wait for it." The doctor prompted, "Having noticed this I had an X-ray done of his entire spine. This was the result." She replaced the old X-rays with a new set. The problem was clear. "As you can see there is an abnormal bone growth here on the spine has caused the entire spine to change in structure. The reason James was in so much pain was because this new growth was pressing on his spinal cord. Imagine a pinched nerve and times by a hundred."
"What is that though?"
"My guess... James is now eighteen, those are his wings."
"Wings?" Jack asked.
"Well, we knew they were coming." Daniel pointed out.
"Yeah, but I don't know I never seriously considered it." Jack said.
"So what does this mean for James?" Jon asked.
"Well," the doctor started. "for now I'm going to have to pull him out of the field, an episode like this could be dangerous off-world. He will need to be close by and if it hasn't ended by next autumn we'll have to think carefully about if you two can leave."
"Well you should pull me off the gate team as well. I'll keep an eye on James."
"No," Jack said, "James can stay on base and the both of you will carry on with as much of your duties as possible, including you going on missions."
"Jack, come on."
"No Jon, you need the experience and you'll do James no good hovering over him all the time."
"Daniel?" Jon appealed to the scientist.
"He's right Jon, you should carry on with your duties."
"On that note, we have a debrief." Jack said giving Jon a pointed look to say that the subject was closed.
James wing took a long time to grow but they soon found that his moments of excruciating pain were few and far between only every few months. James was quickly back to full duties though he did have to take pain meds. The wings hurt all the time even if it was mostly just a dull ache. Jon was still concerned about him all the time but James assured him that he was fine. Until they got caught in a cave in trapping the two of them in a room with an alien computer. They weren't due to check in with the other half of their team for a couple of hours. Even then it would take them a long time to get back to the stargate for help. Their packs had been left on the otherside of the cave in.
"Well, the powers gone and I don't think there's anthing else I can do." James said stepping away from the consol after trying to get it working for a while. Jon was sat by the wall of rock and dirt trying to get a response on the radio.
"It's a day's walk to the gate and then a days walk back and that won't even count the few hours they'll spend here and waiting for support to come through."
"So we've got a couple of days here, a few power bars and MRE's and a bottle of water to live off."
"At least we have that." They sat in silence for a while until James watch beeped. He pawed through his vest and pockets before sitting back and looking at Jon.
"We've got a problem."
"What?" Jon asked.
"I've left my meds in my pack." James very rarely missed his meds but the couple of times it had happened in the past it had resulted in bringing on a fit of pain close to his growth spurts.
"I'm sure it'll be fine." Jon lied, in a couple of hours James would scream himself into sleep. They sat and tried to relax sharing a power bar. Suddenly James dropped his power bar. Jon very much awake and aware grabbed him in a hug and holding a hand over his mouth. If James screamed he could bring the cave down on them. Jon held him close as he shook with pain hand clasped firmly but gently to muffle his screams. He ran a hand through his hair dropping a comforting kiss on his head. Eventually James fell asleep and Jon still holding on followed him into dream. Waking to see James' face before him wrapped in the other boys warmth he realised something he had been keeping even from himself for a while. He wanted this, wanted to hold James close as often as possible. Wanted to wake beside him everyday. It was one of the most wonderful and disturbing revelations of his life. He had always been straight as an arrow as a clone and before. It terrified him that he now seemed to be at least bi if not gay. He tried thinking about a girl but it just didn't attract. No he now appeared to be gay. It was in many ways wonderful though, he realised that this was all he would ever need to be satisfied, something he had never expected to find again since he lost Sarah. He felt like he had hope for a relationship that wasn't impossible because of keeping lies or against the rules. After all he wasn't Military.
Then he had another realisation. James was straight, he wouldn't even look at Jon, never had. Jon having finally found love was doomed too watch as some day James found a girl and settled down with her. He was sure in that moment that it would happen, he was so focused on that despair that it was a moment before he noticed that James eyes were open. He quickly rolled away from him trying to pretend he had also only just woken and not been staring at James for ten minutes. They sat together all day sharing out meagre rations. They talked a lot discussing James memories.
"Well last night was quite nice. I fell in love."
"Really?" Jon said.
"Yeah, I was met him when I was around 22. He was a widow, his kids are great, though they have no idea about us. They just think I'm working with they're dad and lodging in the spare room, though I'm not certain the youngest girl hasn't worked it out."
"Wow, so your gay?"
"I was in that life, in fact, I think the whole memory thing has left me bi in most lives. I mean I can remember being with men and women and everything, I have been greek after all. It doesn't make you uncomfortable does it?"
"No!" Jon said maybe a little too quickly as hope flared in his heart again. "But don't you wish you could have an open relationship?"
"Well a lot of older cultures don't have such an issue with men sleeping together, it's mostly that a man is expected to get married and have kids. Having said that no one has issues with men finding enjoyment in one another as long as they're discrete about it."
"So, you can bump uglies with your land lord as much as you like?"
"No, that's not casual sex is it. If his kids knew it would be shameful and I know that some of them would hate him for it. He did love their mother though which was unusual for then."
"I think I see."
"You sure your okay with this, I mean you were military before?"
"I'm not Jack." Jon said firmly, "I've never been sure how I felt about homosexuality, until this morning." When Jon finished James sat confused what had happened this morning? Jon could see his confusion. "When I woke up with you." James looked down and blushed. Jon reached over and touched his chin lifting his chin gently and turned him to look in his eyes.
"Jon," James wished he could take that word back as soon as it left his mouth. Jon dropped his hand and moved away thinking James was about to reject him. James followed him placing his palm against his cheek to try to get him to look at him, "Jack." He said firmly and the boy looked at him. "Lets take this slow, okay?" He leaned in and touched his lips to the physicist's. The kiss was simple and gentle.
"Okay. I can do slow." Jon said with a grin. "How are your wings feeling?"
"They hurt a lot but it's bearable."
"Anything I can do?"
"No, but you can distract me if you want." Jon smiled even wider.
"Always."