CHANGES

Part one

By Annie

EMAIL: Annie

Jack watched his bare feet swing back and forth inches above the locker room floor. Okay, that was pretty cool, in a completely weird sorta way. The last time he’d been in this room, he’d’ve had to scrunch his knees up somewhere around his ears to do that. He guessed that meant he was a *lot* shorter than he’d been before.

He hopped down off the bench and laid down flat on his back then reached an arm straight up till his fingers touched the seat. How long were his arms now? He couldn’t remember how long his arms had been before he got downsized to a seven year old, he realized, but he remembered they’d come down to his hips somewhere and he’d been six feet tall then so that meant… Sighing, he gave up, flopping his arm back down to rest across his belly. He hadn’t been that great at math when he was an adult. Apparently being downgraded to junior size hadn’t improved that any.

"Jack? What are you doing?"

He looked up into Daniel’s upside down face. "Nothing," he replied. He rolled over and stood up. "Daniel, how big am I?"

Daniel shrugged. "I’m not exactly sure. I guess Janet measured you when we came back but-"

"Doesn’t matter," Jack said dismissively.

He felt his shoulder grasped gently and then he was pulled against Daniel’s side. "I’m 6 feet tall," Daniel said," and you come up to my chest or near enough, so I guess you’d be about four feet tall." His hand squeezed Jack’s shoulder. "Is that what you meant?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah, thanks, Daniel."

"No problem."

Jack sat back down on the bench and watched Daniel pull out his civilian clothes and start to dress. "Daniel, what are you doing?" he asked, trying to keep the grin out of his voice.

"I’m getting dressed, Jack," Daniel said as he pulled his boxers up over his legs.

"Under your towel?" Jack asked. "Daniel, we’ve gotten dressed and undressed in front of each other a hundred times-"

"That was different," Daniel replied. He dropped the towel and pulled on his jeans. "You were-"

"Yeah, okay, I get it," Jack said. "I was one of the guys then. Now I’m a kid." He bit down on his lip to stop the burning in his eyes overflowing into tears.

"Jack, it’s gonna be okay," Daniel said softly, sitting down next to him. A strong arm looped around his shoulders and pulled him into a sideways hug. "Janet will figure this out, I’m sure of it."

"I know," Jack said, his voice more sure than he felt inside. "Hey, if she could work out all that stuff about us all turning into cavemen, she can work this out. I know that." He looked up steadily into Daniel’s sympathetic eyes. "It’ll be fine, Danny. It’s actually kinda cool, in a totally weird way."

Daniel nodded as he stood up. "We’ve got the debrief next. You up for that?"

"Sure. Let’s go." Jack stood up as well, hitched his "smallest-size available" scrub pants up around his waist and held onto them firmly under the top that fell almost to his knees, then followed Daniel from the room.