Warnings: None

The Marshal called Jack to be his first victim. His heart pounded as he walked the gray mile, his tumultuous thoughts split between the fate awaiting him at the end of the hall and Sam's flight from LOCCENT. The look in her eyes sobered him. What he saw- his reaction, his need to grind Hanson's bones to dust had made it about him. However righteous his anger, it hadn't helped Sam. That was his regret. Not his attempts to kill Hanson, or his discharge figured was waiting for him in the Marshal's office.

He shook out his hands as he neared the Marshal's office; it wouldn't do him any favors to walk in with his fingers clenched into fists. Whatever he could salvage of his career, he would fight for it. Even if he could stay on as janitorial, Jack would do it. He didn't fear returning to the real world, where food was scarce and the kaiju posed an even greater threat than they did here in the Shatterdome. This time, he feared being alone- and that Carter would be left to fend for herself in the Shatterdome. The PPDC could live without him, but the same couldn't be said for Sam. Even if she wanted to leave, he wondered if they'd let her. She'd contributed too much, had too much potential to be set loose. She would be stuck here. His heart clenched painfully as he came to a stop in front of the Marshal's door. She'd be alone, as she had been for the past two years. All because he'd failed to keep a lid on his temper.

The echoes of Sam's memory ached and twinged as Jack walked, a phantom reminder of the short drop into her past. Even now it played on a vivid loop in his head, over and over, every detail as sharp as though it had happened yesterday. Carter had carried that with her for the past two years. It wasn't even his memory, and yet he still had the smell of Hanson's cologne cloying at his nostrils. How the hell had Carter lived with it?

Jack knocked on the Marshal's door, suppressing a cringe at Pentecost's cutting call from within. "Enter!"

"Ranger O'Neill, reporting as ordered!" Jack recited, presenting a parade ground salute. Pentecost let him stand there a good thirty seconds before lifting his attention from the file on his desk.

"Ranger, do I need to tell you how many protocols you violated today?" He asked finally.

Jack dropped his arm, but remained stiff at attention. "No, Sir."

"As it is, I have grounds to discipline you on all of them, between video footage and eyewitness accounts. You attacked Hanson unprovoked-"

"Unprovoked?!" Jack scoffed, unable to contain his contempt.

"UNPROVOKED!" Pentecost boomed. "You sought Hanson out and attacked him without provocation! His misconduct in LOCCENT is not reason enough to assault a fellow Ranger!" He paused, rising from his desk to look Jack in the eye. "Unless, there is something you feel you need to share that will help your case?"

Jack opened his mouth, ready to illustrate exactly what happened. The knowledge might save his career- the Marshal certainly held no love for Hanson. That moment when Jonas dug at Pentecost's personal involvement with Sam was the closes Jack had ever seen a commanding officer come to committing cold blooded murder. More than that, the Marshal should know what had happened to the best officer under his command, who had been forced to live on the same base as her attacker for two years while Hanson tore her reputation to shreds, all while Jonas was allowed to continue his life as usual instead of rotting behind bars.

The words caught in his throat before he could voice them. The Marshal cared about Sam. He'd gathered that much from the night in the infirmary when he reassigned Carter to Banshee. Jonas wouldn't be on base if the Marshal knew. Sam never told him.

In that moment, the decision was no longer his. Jack may have experienced Sam's rape as if it were his own, but it was not his. The drift had pulled him into her past, violated her privacy without either of their permissions. Jack couldn't help that it had happened. He wasn't her avenger- his job was to support her, and protect her however he could, for as long as he could. That started with respecting her privacy now. Jack's mouth shut with an audible click.

"Well, Ranger?" Pentecost insisted. "Anything to add?"

"No, sir." Jack stared straight ahead.

"Are you sure about that?" The Marshal pressed, leaning closer.

"Jack lifted his chin stubbornly. "Yes, sir."

"And yet you are unrepentant." The neutral observation drained the color from Jack's cheek. In the Academy, such an observation would be followed by an exercise in humility, and if Pentecost got it in his head to make him apologize to Hanson… The thought sent ice down his spine. Could he do it? Even if it meant saving his career as a pilot, meant he'd be able to stay with Carter, could he stand there and stare Hanson straight in his smirking face and apologize, both of them knowing what Hanson had done?

"You're dismissed."

Pentecost's verdict sliced through Jack's silent dilemma. "Sir, yes, s-" Jack froze, uncertain that he'd heard correctly. "Sir?"

"You heard me, Ranger." Pentecost growled. Still, Jack hesitated. Would he be receiving his punishment later, or…? "You have received your verbal reprimand, and are hereby warned that any further antics will result in your immediate transfer from this Shatterdome. You are now dismissed, unless you make me repeat myself one more time."

Jack didn't need any further prompting. "Yes, sir!" He got as far as the hatch before pausing. "Sir?"

"Tempting fate today, are you Ranger? Came the menacing response. Jack turned to face him.

"Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"I believe you had that opportunity already," Pentecost pointed out, but did not refuse outright. After a reluctant pause, he relented. "Proceed, Ranger, but watch the very thin ice you're standing on."

"Yes, sir," Jack affirmed. "Ranger Carter said that I was selected to test with Hanson because of my test scores in the simulator. But you had to have known that wasn't enough, not even with Banshee's mods. You still needed some compatibility, to give the mods a chance to work." He swallowed, steadying himself. "Why did you choose me, sir? What did you see in me or my file that suggested I would be even remotely compatible with him? There are plenty of warm bodies you could have chosen from if that's what you needed. So why me? "

"One of the few joys of my job," Pentecost delivered slowly, "is that I do not have to explain my decisions to a mere Ranger."

"Yes, sir, but why waste the time, or the resources bringing me in when I was so obviously mismatched?"

Pentecost folded his hands atop his desk, leveling a very hard look at O'Neill. "Is that what you consider your time here to be? A waste?" His chin lowered, intensifying his gaze ten-fold. "I suggest you think very hard before you answer."

Jack's gut flopped in his belly. But when he looked past the Marshal's stern glare, he saw not a warning to watch what he said next, but to think. His thoughts churned, trying to find the obvious fact that the Marshal suggested was there. When it clicked, it sparkled like lightning.

The Marshal never once mentioned Hanson by name at the academy. In fact, the first Jack heard who was to be his copilot was from Hanson himself. The Marshal's relative disinterest in the kwoon match had made some logical sense after what Carter had confided about Banshee's lowered drift quotient, but made even more sense in another light altogether.

"You weren't recruiting for Hanson at all, were you?"

The Marshal picked up his pen. "Dismissed, Ranger."

Jack bit back a grin. "Yes, sir."

He exited the Marshal's office with his secret tucked close to his heart. As he walked away, his light steps tempoed his thoughts as he retraced every word that had brought him here, and each moment spread a warmth through his chest. Pentecost had phased Carter in after the mess hall brawl without batting an eye. The transition had been almost seamless. Almost as if he'd expected it all along.