A small smile touches his lips. "The way she looked, I figured she'd be done in three years. Cadets are supposed to take four years to graduate. That's what Pike had just told me." It still hurts, speaking of his mentor, but this is at least a somewhat good memory. The way he'd prefer to remember the old admiral, not the bloodied shell that lay on the floor of the Daystrom Conference Room.

And it doesn't seem that this is triggering a new flashback, at least at the moment. So that's something.

"I decided I wanted her," he continues. "I figured what the hell, it'd be an interesting challenge to do four years of education in three. Said as much when I got on the recruitment shuttle."