An instant, that's all he gets — one short moment where General Pitchiner seems to come back together, and then the distant look is back in his eyes, thinking too far ahead. Jack would trust him with anything even now, but he still feels compelled to do all he can to bring the General back from this edge, to have him at his best for the man's own sake more than anything else. This must look so out of line to everyone else on the deck, an ensign standing here with his fingers clamped around a general's wrist, and even Jack feels presumptuous, thinking about what to say to a man whose family is under such terrible threat. Somebody else should be doing this, someone who has any experience at all with command, anybody other than Jackson Overland, a dumb kid who knows fuck-all about anything.
Nobody else is stepping up to the plate, though. There's nothing he can say that will serve to comfort General Pitchiner, no reassurances he can offer or advice to give that comes to mind. But the General has talked Jack down before, from stupid efforts to prove himself to some unknown arbiter, or from trying to save a soldier when it would be suicide to go after them — and the least Jack can do to repay that, he decides, is talk. Until the Star Captains' sweep returns results to them, he can just be annoying and present if it will keep Pitchiner's focus here, instead of letting both of them stand here in silence, imagining worst case scenarios and inventing worse ones.
With that in mind, he nudges his side against the General's to get attention, and he starts talking about the first thing he can think of.
"I almost lost my little sister to fearlings." His tone is softer than it was when he first interrupted the panic, quiet and gentled by remorse. He keeps his eyes forward, expression carefully neutral. "Before I joined the military. It's kind of a blur, but I just remember that as soon as she was in trouble, I ran straight for her. There were probably a million things I could've done that would have been smarter, and I didn't even think about it. Maybe we both could've died. But, I mean, nothing else mattered because Emma had to be okay."
On some days, that's still enough to make Jack feel utterly content and at ease. It doesn't matter that his life had fallen apart after that and he'd joined the military, trying to convince himself that it was to fight against the monsters that had nearly taken his sister away and not at all about running away from his problems; whatever else there is doesn't matter because somewhere out there, his sister is okay, and even if he never sees her again it will be enough just to know that.
His expression scrunches up into an awkward cringe a moment later, because he feels like a complete idiot now that he's said it — nice story, Overland, I'm sure the general whose wife and daughter are in danger really wanted to hear about how nothing bad happened to you. He quickly lets go of General Pitchiner's arm and runs his hand through his hair, not wanting to look up and see what kind of look he's getting for all of this. Is there a punishment for a sailor overstepping their bounds this badly and making a total ass out of themselves, or will regular corporal punishment be good enough?
"Uh, that didn't have a point when I started saying it," he flounders, and doesn't want to admit that I was just killing time because you're freaking out, "but I guess the point is that... I'm an idiot, and you're not, sir, you're— you're gonna be able to keep them safe."
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Nobody else is stepping up to the plate, though. There's nothing he can say that will serve to comfort General Pitchiner, no reassurances he can offer or advice to give that comes to mind. But the General has talked Jack down before, from stupid efforts to prove himself to some unknown arbiter, or from trying to save a soldier when it would be suicide to go after them — and the least Jack can do to repay that, he decides, is talk. Until the Star Captains' sweep returns results to them, he can just be annoying and present if it will keep Pitchiner's focus here, instead of letting both of them stand here in silence, imagining worst case scenarios and inventing worse ones.
With that in mind, he nudges his side against the General's to get attention, and he starts talking about the first thing he can think of.
"I almost lost my little sister to fearlings." His tone is softer than it was when he first interrupted the panic, quiet and gentled by remorse. He keeps his eyes forward, expression carefully neutral. "Before I joined the military. It's kind of a blur, but I just remember that as soon as she was in trouble, I ran straight for her. There were probably a million things I could've done that would have been smarter, and I didn't even think about it. Maybe we both could've died. But, I mean, nothing else mattered because Emma had to be okay."
On some days, that's still enough to make Jack feel utterly content and at ease. It doesn't matter that his life had fallen apart after that and he'd joined the military, trying to convince himself that it was to fight against the monsters that had nearly taken his sister away and not at all about running away from his problems; whatever else there is doesn't matter because somewhere out there, his sister is okay, and even if he never sees her again it will be enough just to know that.
His expression scrunches up into an awkward cringe a moment later, because he feels like a complete idiot now that he's said it — nice story, Overland, I'm sure the general whose wife and daughter are in danger really wanted to hear about how nothing bad happened to you. He quickly lets go of General Pitchiner's arm and runs his hand through his hair, not wanting to look up and see what kind of look he's getting for all of this. Is there a punishment for a sailor overstepping their bounds this badly and making a total ass out of themselves, or will regular corporal punishment be good enough?
"Uh, that didn't have a point when I started saying it," he flounders, and doesn't want to admit that I was just killing time because you're freaking out, "but I guess the point is that... I'm an idiot, and you're not, sir, you're— you're gonna be able to keep them safe."