A/N: Post ep for 'Doppelganger.' Contains a little bit of wishful thinking.

Disclaimer: Not mine, all belongs to the wonderful Hank.

The Factor

He meant every word he said. He didn't need Martin going off the rails, he hadn't wanted Rick antagonised and Martin had taken the wrong opportunity but there was something else. Her. Samantha. She'd been at the back of his mind all day. Even more so than usual.

Sometimes he could push thoughts of her to the back of his mind, usually when he sent her out with Danny or Vivian, or when he was out of the office himself and even sometimes when she was sitting at the table opposite him. Jack thought he was getting better at it. But not today. Today with the trip to Greg and Julie's apartment, today watching her through the glass of the interview room, today with the speech to Rick about what he loved about women ... what he loved about her. He couldn't help but have her at the back of his mind, playing in his subconscious while he concentrated on unravelling the case before him.

It was therefore no surprise that she affected him later. When he was talking, or rather yelling at Martin. He had seen them together, or rather the way Martin looked at her. At the start he had just thought Martin had a crush but now he had started to see something deeper, something that scared him much more than he should have been willing to admit ... Samantha seemed to be returning Martin's attentions. She was smiling at him more. Talking to him more. Leaning closer to him. Jack had tried to not let it impair his judgement, try to not let it affect the way he treated Martin, but it did. Like it did today.

He was angry at him, he had made a mistake, but Jack had seem him looking at the pictures of the women before, the women Rick had killed, knowing what was going on behind his eyes, knowing that it was a risk sending Martin in there with him. Or maybe he hadn't been thinking and had just sent him in there anyway, thinking he could just do his job and not bring his emotional state into it. Not that anyone else had much success at that sometimes ...

In the end things were not going well by the time he got back to Martin, Greg wasn't budging and Rick looked as cool and collected as ever, and Martin had made a mistake, and so Jack had yelled. It had started to be just about Rick and all the words that had come out of his mouth had been about Rick and about Martin taking, 'the wrong opportunity,' but she was there at the back of his mind, something he couldn't shake off today, and something he couldn't have at all.

Jack didn't know if he had yelled louder because of it, or if he was angrier because of it and the fact that Martin might get to touch her in the way he couldn't ... but she was there, below the surface the entire time and she was there later pleading with him to do something, to stop Rick from walking away free, thinking that he could make a difference.

Later Jack may have tried to pretend Sam wasn't a factor, that he'd just been yelling at Martin about his mistake, and he had, but was it all about the mistake with Rick, or about another mistake in pursuing something dear to Jack's heart?