Warnings: Mild Language

The next day, Jack's attempts to drift with Jonas didn't go any better. The memory of Carter's stiff reaction the night before distracted him to the point where even Hanson took notice. If his copilot could tell it was Carter on Jack's mind, Jack didn't know, but considering his head stayed on his shoulders when they finished for the day, he didn't think Hanson made the connection. On legs trembling from fatigue, Jack went to the commissary, but couldn't eat. His stomach churned. Last night's visit to Carter replayed in his mind. The echo of her chilled distance soured his appetite, and after staring at his tray for five minutes he got up and dumped its contents into the garbage on his way out of the mess hall.

Going to Carter the night before, he'd meant to assure her that he didn't care what had happened on May Day. This Shatterdome might be his home for the foreseeable future, and while he could honor their losses as if they were his own, he wasn't about to adopt the misgivings spawned by the rumors Jonas spread. But he hadn't actually said any of that, had he? Had he really made it all about him and his own beef with Jonas? Yeah, Carter, I totally get what it's like to be a pariah. Three days has made me an expert. Jack grunted. He'd wanted to offer his friendship, not more woe.

Determined to give Carter her space, Jack left the commissary with the intention of sleeping it off in his barracks. But when he roused from his self-pitying thoughts he realized his feet had carried him right back to the familiar walls of Bay 3. A warm flush spread across his chest when he caught sight of Carter, curled up in an empty overlook along the catwalk facing Banshee. A laptop sat open on the grate in front of her, propped up on the toe of one boot as she typed, her knee tight against her chest with the other leg tucked underneath her. She glanced up at his approach, arched a single eyebrow in greeting, then turned back to her work. She didn't object when he settled onto the catwalk next to her. He sat in silence for a while, but eventually the urge to speak won out, again.

"Did you watch today?" he asked.

Blue eyes darted towards him then danced away, a small grimace confirming what he already knew. "Yes," she confirmed.

"Didn't go so well."

"Better than the other candidates," Carter pointed out. "Combined."

Jack snorted, picking at a rough edge of his fingernail. "That doesn't say much, does it." Carter didn't respond, her fingers continuing to tap against the keyboard. "It's not natural," he said finally.

"It's not."

They sat in awkward silence for several long moments. "I'm sorry about last night." He looked at her from the corner of his eye, and saw her shrug, returning her chin to the top of her knee. "I didn't mean to unload on you like that. I just…"

His stomach fluttered nervously. What the hell was he even trying to say? Carter beat him to the punch. "Don't worry about it," she said, shifting topics seamlessly. "Do you think you can describe what it felt like?"

Jack inhaled, wincing. "Yeah. Like wading through wet cement. That's chest deep." He rolled his sore shoulders at the memory of that suffocating drag.

Carter processed the information, then jutted her chin towards the rapidly shifting screen. "I've been reviewing the data from your two drops so far. Here," she pulled up a graph of shifting values, vertical bars falling and rising steeply and abruptly in a dance of colors. "See that?" She pointed at the screen, where the bars dropped to almost nonexistent then surged back towards middling height. "That's a graphical representation of the neural bridge. It continues to fluctuate throughout the run. That's why it feels so unnatural." She pulled up another graph for comparison. "That's Manhattan from their last combat drop. See the difference?"

Jack peered at the graph. He hadn't spoken to Kowalsky or Ferretti much since meeting them, but somehow the steady bars on the screen reminded Jack of them. Solid, implacable… a far cry from any word he'd use to describe the wildly fluctuating graph of his bridge with Hanson. Jack's heart plummeted, staring wistfully at Manhattan's read out. Their bars shifted some, but never lower than Banshee's highest point. "Well. That's just great," he grumbled, grinding the heel of his palm against his brow, desperately trying to keep the sudden damp in his eyes hidden. Looking at the two graphs, it was hard to see how his and Jonas' could ever hope to resemble Manhattan's.

"It's not the best," Carter conceded. "But I think I can make further adjustments to make it more stable."

"But it won't look like that," Jack ground out, gesturing to Manhattan's smooth, undulating movement.

Carter sat back, and looked him in the eye. "No. Not by any means I can facilitate. It's possible one of you could experience a significant personality shift that could-" she trailed off at Jack's disdainful glare. "I didn't say it was likely," she defended herself quickly. "Just that it was possible."

"So then why bother? If it's not going- if we're not ever going to…" Damn it. His voice shriveled in his throat, hoarse at the prospect of constantly facing that crushing weight every time he stepped into Banshee's connpod. He shouldn't have come here, he realized suddenly. He was exhausted, frustrated, and missing the Academy. He hadn't been challenged like this in a long time, and less than a week of piloting with Jonas left him feeling like a failure- a feeling he was not accustomed to. He felt raw, and vulnerable, and the last thing Carter needed was his feelings of inadequacies.

"Hey," she said quietly, nudging his shoulder gently. "These readings may not be the best, but they're more than we've gotten from anyone else Hanson has partnered with. This is just our baseline. With this information, I can update my matrices and reduce the drag some. It won't be perfect, but it can get better." She paused. "Maybe you could help."

Jack cleared his throat, wiping surreptitiously at his eyes. "Help?" Curiosity niggled at him. "Help how?" He had the basic science training all recruits received, but his specialty was weapons, not drive interface tech. He'd be useless with what she was working on.

"During the run, if you can pinpoint the times where the going is especially tough, we can touch base afterwards to see what the numbers look like at each of the events. If I can see exactly what's happening, it would help me know where to focus on."

Jack blinked. "Really?" He looked at Dr. Carter fully, twisting to face her. "You really think it'll help?"

"I do," she returned. Her eyes were warm. "There's only room for improvement."

"Okay," Jack agreed. "Yeah, absolutely." He faced front again, suddenly breathless. A load lifted off his shoulders. "Thanks."

"You're welcome." He heard a smile in her voice and looked over to find a smirk curling her lips. "Hanson won't like it if he finds out," she warned.

Jack's lips spread in a mirror of her grin. "What a shame."