Author's notes: Thanks to my sister for the title and helping with Jack's dialogue. She's just like him…it's scary. Well, Jack's just like her. She's got a very good argument for that. Either that or she's warping my mind again. The teachers mentioned in here are based on teachers I had back in junior high and high school. I figured I could never match their inherent evilness. Smets is also from high school—the epitome of a dumb blonde. Who needs to invent characters when you already know real people who are better than anything you can imagine?
"So basically those rocks we found used to be a public library," Jack said as he toyed with Daniel's magnifying glass.
Daniel sighed and tried to refrain from hitting his head on his desk. He'd been deep into translating fragments of ruins SG-1 recently found on a planet that could be the key to finding the lost city of the Ancients when Jack had invited himself in. Having Jack in his office was the same as having a toddler running loose—neither could keep focused for more than thirty seconds at a time, and both loved playing with his archeological tools.
"There's a lot more to it than that," said Daniel. He wracked his brains for short, simple words Jack could understand, or rather, short, simple sentences that wouldn't allow his attention to drift away as it was prone to doing. "If I'm right, this building at one time housed a device similar to the one that downloaded all the Ancients' knowledge into your brain. The problem is that something or someone demolished the place so it's like trying to put together a giant jigsaw puzzle without the box."
"Ahh, the old 'mystery of life' problem," Jack said, making fish faces in the magnifying glass.
"No!" sighed Daniel. He snatched the magnifying glass out of Jack's hand. "You're not helping me!"
"You expected otherwise?" asked Jack.
"Out! Get out! Go bug someone else for a change!" Daniel grabbed Jack's arm and started dragging him towards the door. "I'm sure Sam would love to have you harass her while she does that 'Gate network overhaul."
"Actually, she threatened to kill me if I even came within twenty feet of her." Jack clung to the edge of Daniel's desk for dear life to keep from getting dragged out of the room. "You've been working out, haven't you?"
Daniel halted and relaxed his grip on Jack. "What are you talking about?"
"Well, normally you just give up and let me leave when I get bored. Now you're trying to drag me out." Jack took advantage of Daniel's inattention and yanked his arm out of the archeologist's grasp. "But yet again, you've failed!"
The ringing phone interrupted Daniel before he could retaliate. He answered it grudgingly, looked quizzical, and then held it out to Jack.
"Who is it?" asked Jack, who was trying to keep out of Daniel's reach.
"It's, uh, Mini-you," Daniel answered. "Your 16-year-old clone."
Jack raised his eyebrows, cocked his head to one side, and took the phone from Daniel. "So, my little minion," he said, "what mayhem have you been causing?"
"Well…" began the younger Jack, "I've run into a slight problem. My history teacher and I had a misunderstanding…Ok, the thing to remember here is that it wasn't my fault."
"Right, now where have I heard that before?"
"Technically since I said it and I'm you, that means you said it and I'm not responsible."
"Ok, that doesn't even make sense to me."
"Well, I know what I said, and since I'm you, you understand what I said. Anyway, that's not the point. My teacher thought she'd do a unit on recent history and thought that the Gulf War would be a good topic, but she gave this whole spiel that was total crap about US black ops in Kuwait and I couldn't just sit there while she lied, so I told her she was wrong. She didn't believe me and asked me where I heard all this stuff…"
"You didn't tell her that you fought in the Gulf did you?"
"How stupid do you think I am? Of course not! I told her that my father fought in the Gulf and told me all about his declassified missions into Iraq and stuff."
"So why are you calling me about this?"
"My teacher told me she wants a parent-teacher conference with my dad about me calling her a liar in the middle of class. So…"
"You want me to pretend to be your dad for this conference."
"Yeah, so are you free today at 4:30?"
Colonel O'Neill sighed and rolled his eyes. His clone was definitely too much like himself to be safe. Figured. Trouble followed him like a magnet; why shouldn't Jack Jr. be the same?
"All right," sighed the colonel. "But this is the only time I'm bailing you out."
"Yeah, I know better than to piss off myself," said young Jack before he hung up.
The colonel hung up the phone and paused a moment until Daniel took notice. "Whatever you do, never, ever get yourself cloned," Jack told Daniel matter-of-factly. "You'll hate yourself to no end. Might even consider killing yourself…him…it…both…" He trailed off as he wandered out of the room.
"Two Jack O'Neills should violate the laws of the universe," Daniel muttered to himself as he went back to work.
4:15 that afternoon, Colonel O'Neill stood outside the single story brick high school, wondering how in the heck he got into such a mess. He recalled General Hammond's poorly disguised grin when he explained to his CO why he needed the afternoon off. Stupid clone. Now the colonel had begun to understand why his friends got irritated with him. Why couldn't the Asgard clone someone else? This thought caused him to shudder at the thought of two Daniels questioning his every order and two Carters, one jabbering on in techno babble in each of his ears. No, it was definitely better he, Jack, was cloned. He could at least understand himself. Usually. Which is more than he could say about Carter and Daniel. Now, two Teal'cs wouldn't have been half bad.
A horrible suddenly struck the colonel. What if one of Cassandra's teachers recognized him? All of them knew he didn't have a son in the school system, and he didn't want to have to explain his sudden acquisition of one to them. Which brought up an interesting point: was the teacher he was supposed to meet one of Cassie's? Jack shrugged it off, figuring that his clone would remember which teachers knew the SGC personnel through Cassie or not. Hopefully his young clone had a better memory than his…
"Yo! Jack…Colonel…Dad…whoever you are!" called a familiar voice. Colonel O'Neill snapped out of his reverie and turned around to see his clone waving to him from the front entrance of the school. The colonel strode over to meet him as a group of girls passed Jack Jr., giggling.
"I see you've made an impression," muttered the colonel as Jack tried to catch the girls' attentions with a smile.
"Shut up, you're cramping my style," Jack hissed out of the corner of his mouth. "You're just here to meet with Mrs. Roy and then get back to the SGC."
"Y'know, parents are supposed to harass their kids and make them miserable."
"Don't get too carried away with this," Jack Jr. warned as he ushered Colonel O'Neill inside. "This is only for today. And if anyone asks why I just 'moved' here, tell them that you and 'Mom' are separated, and until recently she had sole custody, but you got custody after you got a stable command."
"Nice one," said the colonel as he followed Jack down the maze of corridors. "So I'm meeting with Mrs. Roy?"
"Yeah, don't worry, she doesn't know anybody from the SGC. Trust me, I'd remember the witch if you met her."
"That bad, huh?"
"Let's put it this way. Take Mrs. Cicciu from eighth grade English and multiply her by ten."
The colonel shuddered. "You owe me big time for this!"
Jack led Colonel O'Neill into a typical-looking social studies classroom with maps and charts covering the cinderblock walls. At the opposite end of the room from the door, a squat woman with overlarge glasses and heavily teased brown hair sat behind the teacher's desk. She scribbled red pen on some homework papers until both Jacks coughed to get her attention.
"Mrs. Roy, I presume?" said Colonel O'Neill.
"Yes, are you Mr. O'Neill?" asked Mrs. Roy in a horrible high-pitched, nasal voice. The colonel winced as he was reminded of the metaphorical nails on a chalkboard.
"It's Colonel O'Neill," both Jacks said in union.
"Ah, yes, I remember Jack saying you were in the army."
"Air force," corrected the colonel as he reached out and shook Mrs. Roy's hand.
"Yes, of course," said Mrs. Roy. She gestured to two chairs next to her desk. "Will you both please take a seat?"
Both Jacks complied and sat down, wearing identical pained expressions at the thought of listening to Mrs. Roy's grating voice for what was going to be a long lecture.
"Colonel O'Neill, I believe Jack told you the reason why I asked you to come here today," said Mrs. Roy as she folded her hands in front of her, "so let's get down to business. Your son seems to enjoy shouting offensive and derogatory remarks in the middle of class."
"I wasn't shouting, I was merely proving a point," retorted Jack as he tipped back in his chair.
"Sit in your chair like a normal human being, mister!" Mrs. Roy barked. Jack sighed, rolled his eyes, and tipped the chair back onto all four of its legs with a dull thud.
"Besides," continued Mrs. Roy, "I don't see how making fun of Miss Smets constitutes proving a point."
"I asked Smets what color the sky was and she said green!" Jack shouted. "That proves she's beyond a doubt dumber than a soap dish!"
Mrs. Roy's face turned a nasty plum, but Colonel O'Neill interrupted her before she could continue her tirade. "Jack, I told you I don't tolerate that kind of attitude with my troops, and I'm not going to tolerate it coming from you," he said sternly. "Mrs. Roy is your teacher. She deserves some respect from you. Now calm down so we can discuss you interfering with the class."
"Yes," agreed Mrs. Roy, her face going back to its original color. "Jack seems to think that he's an authority on the Gulf War."
"Compared to you, anyone is an expert!" shouted Jack. He turned to Colonel O'Neill. "Get this. She thinks we used mustard gas on the Iraqis!"
"Jack, not everyone is as big a war buff as you," said O'Neill. "But, yes, we used much nastier stuff than mustard gas in the Gulf."
"Which brings up another point," hissed Mrs. Roy. "Reportedly Jack likes to describe the effects of different nerve gases in gory detail, making Miss Smets physically ill."
"Hey, that was biology class!" Jack retorted. "Mr. Flanagan asked a question about the effects of VX poison gas and I was only too happy to oblige. It's not my fault Smets's got a weak stomach."
"That's not the point, Mr. O'Neill!" barked Mrs. Roy.
"No, but Jack's behavior in your class, not any other class, is the point, Ma'am," Colonel O'Neill interrupted. "Besides…correcting you…rather harshly, has Jack done anything to warrant me wasting my time refereeing you two?"
Mrs. Roy looked ready to explode; both Jacks could swear they saw steam curling out her ears. "Yes," she hissed. "I have considerable evidence that Jack has ADD."
"ADD?" exclaimed Jack. "How can you possibly diagnose ADD if you don't know anything about recent history?"
"Exactly what I was going to say!" added the colonel. "Do you have any sort of…credentials that would give you any sort of authority on the matter?"
"Well, no…" stuttered Mrs. Roy, who was running out of steam now that the Jacks had found a gigantic hole in her defense.
"Then you have no right to claim Jack has any sort of disorder!" Colonel O'Neill interrupted. "Just because your disciplinary methods don't work doesn't mean that he's ADD. Has he been passing this class?"
"Well…yes," grumbled Mrs. Roy. "He has the second highest grade in the class, if his behavior is excluded. I would think he was cheating, but everyone else he could've cheated off of was seated on the other side of the room."
"Ha!" yelled Jack, pointing an accusing finger at his teacher.
"Well, I'm impressed, Jack," said Colonel O'Neill with an amused grin. "History was never your strong suit."
"That…alternative learning…class came in handy," Jack replied. "Well, if that's all, Mrs. Roy, I believe my dad needs to get back to base. See, he's second in command. That's a very important job."
"Now, Jack, your education is my priority," said the colonel, adopting the same patronizing tone his clone used.
"We're through," growled Mrs. Roy. "It was nice meeting you, Mr. O'Neill."
"That's Colonel O'Neill," corrected Jack.
"Goodbye, Jack, I'll see you in class tomorrow," the teacher hissed through gritted teeth.
Mrs. Roy practically shoved both Jacks out of her classroom. However, Colonel O'Neill looked back at the teacher before she chased him over the threshold and said, "I'll be keeping close tabs on Jack's grades and classes in general. If I hear you're harassing him for no good reason, I've got connections in the school system that could make your life a whole lot more difficult."
Mrs. Roy merely made some sort of growling noise in reply.
Both Jacks remained silent, exchanging identical grins, until they reached the front entrance to the school and the parking lot. As soon as they strode out into the fading sunlight, they both whooped and slapped each other high-fives.
"Did we piss her off or what?" laughed Jack Jr. "That look on her face after you told her off for calling me ADD was priceless!"
"Somehow I felt like I got back at that witch Cicciu," said Colonel O'Neill with an amused grin as he walked over to the driver's side of his truck.
"Thanks for bailing me out," said Jack as he followed the colonel.
"Don't mention it," said Colonel O'Neill. "No, seriously, don't ever mention it again." He paused in front of his truck and asked quizzically, "ADD?"
"Would explain a lot, wouldn't it?"
Colonel O'Neill shrugged.
"Before you go, could you do me a little favor?" asked Jack.
Colonel O'Neill winced. "Another one? What kind of favor?"
"I've been dying for a beer for weeks! Could you--"
"Hell no! I'm not getting busted for giving a minor alcohol! Even if I'm technically giving it to myself. You can go drink in the woods like normal kids your age."
"Hmmm…I could probably outrun the cops now with this nice, spry, young body…"
"Shut up, Mini-Me."
"Could you at least give me a lift home? I missed the bus for that stupid meeting, and I can't legally drive yet. Sucks being fifteen."
The colonel rolled his eyes and waved Jack into the passenger seat in his truck. "At least Dr. Evil's Mini-Me couldn't talk," he grumbled as he jumped into the driver's seat and pulled out of the parking lot.
Continued…