Warnings: None
That evening, Jack followed the yellow line to the commissary on legs like jelly. The strain of piloting with Hanson was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. He gathered a heaping tray and paused briefly to scan for an available seat. He spotted Hanson almost immediately, and instantly regretted it. While Hanson's back was to Jack, Kowalsky sat across from Jonas, and caught sight of him quickly. He nodded towards Jack, giving him only seconds to find an alternative place to sit before he'd be roped into sitting with the one man he didn't want to spend any more time with today.
"O'Neill!" A shout called out over the crowd. Jack looked for his savior, and found Daniel Jackson and Teal'c waving him over. Jack didn't hesitate.
"Thanks for the save," he said, sliding into the open seat across from them.
Daniel looked at him in confusion. "You're... welcome? I guess?"
"I was just telling Daniel about the match today," Teal'c told him.
"Yeah, sounds like it got a little intense," Daniel agreed.
"That's one way to put it…"
"Ah, hey Sam!" Daniel interrupted, his gaze catching on a figure over Jack's shoulder. Jack turned, and grinned at Dr. Carter. "Care to join us?"
Carter slowed to a stop when she reached their little group, and scanned the three of them. Her eyes caught slightly on Jack before moving on to survey the close quarters of the others around them. The people eating nearest to them watched her right back. "Not tonight," she decided finally. The watchers returned to their meals. "Thanks, though." She offered Daniel a plaintive smile. "Maybe next time."
"We'll hold you to that," Teal'c assured her. "Take it easy."
Dr. Carter nodded and moved on, ultimately finding a secluded seat towards the far end of the row, nearest the trash bins. When she settled into a seat, Jack felt the tension lift around him. After a moment, Jack turned back to Daniel and Teal'c. "Okay, what was that about?"
"What, Sam? She's cool," Teal'c assured him.
"I agree," Jack responded. "But why did I get the impression that not everyone does?"
Daniel and Teal'c paused, exchanging a worried glance. "Maybe we're not the best ones to tell you…" Daniel hedged.
"Well, no one else is going to. Hanson was a jerk to her the day I got here, but I figured that was just him being… well, him." Jack lowered his voice. "But now I'm getting the feeling that Jonas isn't the exception."
"He isn't," Teal'c confirmed. "Unfortunately, a lot of people share his antagonism."
Jack set down his fork. "Why?"
"May Day," came the simple response.
Just like it had in the elevator, the reference sent a chill down Jack's spine. This time, the shudder was amplified by what he'd learned the past several days- Banshee wasn't combat ready. If they were sent out to meet a Kaiju, they'd be shredded. Their reaction time was tortoise-like, and the drag… the effort it took to move Banshee at all left no room for anything else. Jack didn't even want to know what it would be like trying to activate weapons while trying to take a step.
Jack forced his thoughts back to his companions. May Day had been a devastating blow to the PPDC, but in the end, the culprit had been Athos, plain and simple. "If they're saying Carter's responsible for the Breach, I swear to god…" Jack's wry, half-joking response- they couldn't really think that, did they?- was met with unamused looks from both his tablemates. He bit back a sigh. Great. More details Hanson hadn't deigned to share with him. "What am I missing?"
"Belladonna Banshee was on downtime for repairs," Teal'c told him bluntly. Jack nodded. When he finally received his datapad, he had done more research on Banshee's history, and the date of May Day had coincided with a stretch of scheduled downtime. It was why Hiroshi's Saber had been deployed with Whiskey Blue instead of a more seasoned Jaeger team for such a critical event. "What the reports don't mention is that the repairs were completed ahead of time. Mostly because Carter assisted. Banshee was ready to deploy."
Jack froze, fork halfway to his mouth. He returned his bite of spaghetti to his tray, turning all his focus to Teal'c. "Why wouldn't they have mentioned that in the reports?"
"Because Banshee never made it out of the gate," Daniel chipped in, his voice suddenly dark with resentment. "The pilots couldn't complete the neural handshake. Banshee was dead in the water." He pushed his food around his tray forcefully. "A lot of people think that having Banshee in the fight would have been a game changer."
"More than that," Teal'c elaborated, "San Diego was on the way to being the place to be for Jaeger pilots. We had Whiskey Blue, Hiroshi's Sabre, and Belladonna Banshee, with Manhattan Bombshell weeks away from transferring in. Top of the line Jaegers with pilots to match. Now, we're down to two Jaegers, with one being the oldest active machine in the fleet and the other inoperable due to lack of compatible pilots. We're a graveyard walking."
Jack shook his head incredulously. "And they blame Carter?" Both of them looked at him like he'd grown two heads. "How the hell could they blame a lack of neural bridge on an engineer?"
The two men exchanged a curious glance. "She wasn't chief engineer at the time, man," Teal'c told him slowly. "Who did they say you were replacing?"
Jack paused, suddenly feeling the pieces clicking into place. Carter's fondness for Banshee, her athleticism when climbing out of the crawlspace the night before. Hanson's blatant antagonism towards her being an engineer. His snide remarks hadn't been for the profession, but for her no longer being a pilot. "Carter piloted Banshee," he surmised, more to himself than the benefit of his audience. He scrubbed a hand over his face. "Hell," he cursed.
"Hanson made it very clear who was responsible for the lack of neural bridge," Daniel spat venomously.
"And unfortunately the connpod readouts confirmed it," Teal'c reported. "Hanson calibrated easily. Carter choked."
"They say she choked," Daniel countered, pointing his fork towards his friend. "You don't believe it any more than I do." He turned back to Jack. "The officially unofficial diagnosis was exhaustion, due to her pulling double-duty on Banshee's repairs. Rumor has it that they extended her an opportunity to continue piloting. Same rumor says she declined, and requested a permanent transfer to engineering."
"Once she transferred, the rumors were truth," Teal'c explained. "In the minds of a lot of people here, she choked and helped kill four good pilots, then jumped ship to engineering."
"She's been a pariah ever since," Daniel muttered, shooting conspicuous glares towards the personnel carousing at a nearby table. "Guess it's easier to shun someone than to consider that what happened to Sam could have happened to any one of them."
Jack regarded both of them curiously. "You two don't seem to be joining in on the blame game."
"Sam's my friend," Daniel replied sharply. "She's the only pilot to ever take my work seriously, and is still the kindest person I've ever met. I don't care what happened on May Day- no one deserves to be treated the way this base treats her."
Jack's gaze slid to Teal'c. "And you? You look like you've got a different reason." As a former pilot, he likely had an insight Daniel wouldn't share. If he did, Jack desperately wanted to hear it.
For a long moment, Teal'c didn't look like he was going to oblige. Finally, the large man pushed his tray aside and leaned forward intently. "No one knows what happened in that connpod except for Banshee's pilots. Telemetry confirms who calibrated first, but drifting is a two-way street, and there's a lot about it that can't be captured on a read-out. And I find it more than a little strange that Hanson hasn't been able to drift with anyone since."
Daniel barked a mirthless laugh. "But don't worry, they blame that on Sam too," he drawled. "She has Jaeger in her blood, so Hanson apparently got used to a higher class of pilot, and no one's been able to measure up enough to drift with him."
After that, they refused to say anything else, and Jack was more than okay with that. What he had so far threatened to send his brain into the stratosphere. He processed the information while he ate, and the more he thought about it, the more he didn't like it. The villain Jonas apparently painted her as didn't match the Carter who'd spoken with him the night before, who had stopped what she was doing to answer his questions and ultimately assuage his insecurities. It stank like a sack of kaiju dung.
If what Jonas claimed about Carter held even the slightest merit, why hadn't Jack heard about it? It seemed impossible that news like that hadn't made it outside the walls of the Shatterdome. No matter what Hanson claimed about the relationship between Carter and Pentecost, not even the Marshal could have saved her if the Corps deemed Carter was in any way responsible for May Day.
When he walked down to Bay 3 that night, Jack steamed. The frustration of the drop, his exhaustion from fighting the immense resistance when trying to pilot, Hanson's incessant shouting in his head and now this all boiled and coalesced into anger and resentment on Carter's behalf, and his own. Once there, he asked the first person he saw and was directed to the same panel he'd found her under the night before. This time, however, she was still climbing into her coveralls, saving him the need to shout himself hoarse to get her attention.
When her eyes caught on him, the tight smile she gave him lacked all warmth. "Back for more cliff notes?" she quipped humorlessly.
"No," he said. Suddenly uncomfortable, Jack shoved his hands in his pockets. "I, ah… I've gotten some new information."
Carter nodded stiffly. "Figured you would have by now," she replied. "Doesn't usually take long." She slipped her arms into the sleeves of her jumpsuit and zipped up the front, securing herself within. "Don't worry about it, O'Neill. Talking to me isn't good for your rep; you had a good showing in the kwoon, you should keep it up."
She hefted the strap of her tool bag over her shoulder, and turned to leave. Jack grabbed her wrist to keep her from leaving. "Wait!" Carter froze, whipping to face him. Her eyes flickered to his hold on her wrist, and Jack dropped it immediately. "Sorry, I'm sorry. Just- that's not why I'm here."
Carter lifted her released hand to rake her fingers through her short hair. "Then what do you want?"
"To tell you that I don't believe them." Jack studied her face, which darkened as she let her gaze skitter away guiltily. "What?"
"They're not wrong," she said quietly.
"You're saying they're right?"
"No. But they're not wrong." Carter shifted uncomfortably on her feet, but declined to say anything further.
"I… I don't even know what that means," Jack confessed.
Carter shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I meant what I said, O'Neill. Spending time with me is toxic, and piloting Banshee will be easier if Hanson doesn't resent you for taking sides. You should keep your distance."
Jack stepped forward. "I don't care. Hanson tried to kill me this morning! Nothing I do is ever going to be good enough for him, and what the hell is the point? Everyone on base treats him like royalty! He acts like he's God's gift to the Jaeger program and stomps on everyone else to do it, including you!"
Dr. Carter's cheeks flushed. Her eyes hardened and Jack knew he'd made a mistake. Any softness he'd witnessed the night before dissolved into a steely gaze, her spine ramrod straight and shoulders stiff with discomfort. He's screwed up. Big time. Jesus. Why had he even come here? Instead of giving her a vote of confidence he'd stomped on her too. Why'd he have to open his big mouth?
"You done?"
Jack swallowed. "Yeah."
"Good." Without another word, Carter moved to the open panel and slipped inside, leaving Jack standing alone on the catwalk.
Jack sighed bitterly, giving himself a mental kick to the pants. "Way to go, O'Neill."