Jack could not deny it... he was nervous. He wasn't entirely sure why, but his heart was racing and his palms felt clammy. After he'd informed Garshaw that he and Aetom both agreed to the transfer things had moved quickly. Jack and his team were led into a room with two ingrown crystalline chairs facing one another in the center and they were left there to wait, at which point Jack was finally able to tell his companions that Aetom was going to be moving into a new host.
While they waited, not five minutes after their being ushered into the small room, a young man in Tok'ra clothes entered. He introduced himself to the group, but mostly to Jack. He was Isho, Sanee's husband. Jack had expected someone middle-aged, someone from a backward culture that permitted the marriage of children to old men. Instead it was a young man barely older than Sanee, and the girl's love for her husband was not as questionable as it had been before. It helped that Isho was so happy he would have Sanee by his side, his companion for the long lifespan a Tok'ra could attain. It took on a Romeo and Juliet quality to see two so young proclaiming to be so deeply in love. He hoped it was real, because they were going to be stuck with each other for a long time if Sanee did this.
They did not have much longer to wait before Sanee was brought in by Garshaw, dressed now in Tok'ra clothes. Jack sighed to see that the tighter garments showed hips and a bust, a womanly outline that added much-needed years to her face. She went at once to Isho, who took the young woman in his arms and kissed her chastely on the forehead while their hands clung to one another.
"Colonel O'Neill," Garshaw motioned toward Jack. Swallowing, Jack stepped forward. "If you would take a seat here; Sanee, sit opposite him."
Both did as they were asked, sat down on the perches facing one another. If Sanee was nervous she hid it well, giving him only a confident smile when he met her eyes.
Garshaw stood to their sides and proceeded to speak calmly, "When Aetom has transferred hosts you will both experience a time of disorientation. This is normal and do not let it alarm you. Are you ready, Colonel O'Neill?"
Jack nodded.
"Sanee?" Garshaw questioned the woman.
Sanee nodded then cast a quick look and smile at Isho.
Garshaw nodded, "Then you may make the exchange. Colonel, if you would, kiss Sanee whenever you're ready."
Jack swallowed with some effort, a sudden tight fist seemingly closing around his chest. He could feel Aetom moving within him, preparing to jump from body to body. Jack could not stop the almost frantic, unplanned call in his mind that screamed, 'Aetom?!'
Aetom stopped his departure preparations to effuse Jack with his presence, to 'hug' him as he had once before, and his voice brushed through every corner of Jack's mind like a soothing tide, –It has been an honor to have been blended with you, Colonel O'Neill. You are an exceptional Tau'ri.–
'It's been... well, not so bad. You're unforgettable, Aetom.'
–Thank you, Jack, and goodbye.– The pointed silence that followed was Jack's not-so-subtle cue.
Jack shifted forward on the seat uncomfortably, halted at Sanee's young face a moment, then hesitantly reached up to cup his hands around her jaw. He glanced fleetingly at Isho, who was standing so close by, and offered a lop-sided smirk, "Sorry about this," then leaned in to the girl, opening his mouth to capture hers.
Sanee leaned in as well, meeting his lips with parted readiness.
Jack felt a sudden, ripping loss strafing through his mind, chaos and violent uprooting erupting in every safe corner of his thoughts. There was a wake of emptiness, utter silence, and a sharp uncoiling deep in his neck, an unleashing of his spinal cord. Silence screamed as Aetom pulled away from him, abandoned him, and then a sharp pain at the back of his throat. The sensation of a body, a creature, on the back of his tongue. The reflex to gag kicked in just as a flitting, darting slither rushed past his lips and then he was choking on empty air. Emptiness was engulfing him, unnatural silence a plague to his mind, his body, and his hands fell weakly away from Sanee just as she jerked back at the painful sensation of Aetom burrowing into her soft palate.
Jack was spinning in the cavernous, hollow space, screaming for help that did not come.
They were his last conscious thoughts as his body sagged. Hands, Daniel's and Teal'c's, came to support him as he slipped into the consuming blackness.
He was lost. It was a forest at night, a concrete cell in the dark, and it made no difference how long he walked or in what direction. It was endlessly empty, a place he once knew and now could not recognize, an amnesiac to himself. He groped for a companion, called out for guidance within himself, but there was only an echoing hollowness. He was a stranger in his own mind, looking for a light to lead him, tether him.
"Colonel?" a soft voice reaching toward him from the blackness, pulling at him gently and yet with hands utterly numb, fingers that should have felt more real upon his psyche.
"Colonel, can you hear me?"
Jack had to get out of the darkness, the black hole in the midst of his thoughts that was burning through him, and he struggled toward the voice for all he was worth.
A fluttering image of Carter standing over him, watching him with a gentle expression she spared him only when she thought no one would dare question her concern. She was touching him, this time with real hands that still felt too fake.
"I think he's waking up," Sam said, looking away momentarily only to turn her eyes back down to him moments later.
A second head joined the first, blocking the background of Tok'ra crystal blue with its interposing shape, as Janet peered closely at him. Her hands were suddenly on him, too, not as gentle as Sam's, but they were an anchor to the outside world and he needed them all desperately.
"Colonel. Don't try to move yet."
'Move?! Are you serious? I haven't even decided on breathing yet,' he thought and waited for a reaction... and waited... and waited. There was only the hollow pit where someone used to be, a consciousness he could no longer turn to, a voice silenced. Slowly, bit by sluggish bit, Jack could feel the rest of his body. He was lying on his back, on a hard surface... probably those horrible slabs the Tok'ra called beds. His muscles felt frail and useless to support him, everything in the world reached him as though muted. His ears felt clogged, sounds muffled, colors less vibrant and edges not as sharp. The intricate smells of the Tok'ra that use to annoy him were vanquished, as if he had a cold that blunted his sense of smell and taste with cruel efficiency.
"The transference was a success, sir," Janet reported, and Jack blinked, struggling to remember.
Janet continued, "Aetom and his new host are recovering well, in fact, better than you are, but then they have an advantage over you now," Janet smiled.
Jack pulled the memory from his mangled brain. Aetom. Tok'ra symbiote. Transfer. Aetom had been implanted in a new host. It was rushing back to him in mutilated shapes, bent and twisted as they rattled around out of control.
Jack could taste the coppery hint of blood on his tongue.
"Sir?" Sam leaned closer, worry written on her face, "can you hear us?"
Jack tried to answer but all he could feel in his mouth was blood and the tactile memory of slithering.
Sam looked up at Janet, "Is he supposed to be this out of it?"
Janet shook her head, "I don't know, I haven't been witness to too many Tok'ra symbiote transfers. I think maybe we should.."
"..o..kay.." Jack croaked.
"Sir?" both women looked down at him.
"I'm... okay," he repeated weakly, eyes rolling around the room but he only saw blue crystal. "How long?"
Janet was touching him again, medical touch professional but comforting, "About two hours, sir. Sanee came to about forty minutes ago."
'Aetom?' Nothing.
"Colonel?" Janet sought his wandering attention.
Jack nodded feebly, "Help me up."
Sam and Janet looked at one another dubiously, "I think you should rest a while longer, sir," Sam said carefully.
'Probably right,' Jack thought, 'but if I don't move now I'll go nuts.'
"Help me, Carter," he said again, more bitingly than he meant to.
Sam spared only a short glance at Janet before doing as she was ordered. Clasping Jack around the shoulders she pulled at his unwieldy body, levering him awkwardly up into a sitting position. She stayed close, half of his unsteady weight propped against her, and for her consideration Jack gave a grateful nod. He looked around the room, recognizing one of the personal quarters of the Tok'ra.
Janet's voice was somewhere behind his shoulder, "Your body's undergone quite a physical shock, Colonel, it will probably take a while for you to get your feet under you again."
"Aetom?"
Janet and Sam looked at each other. Jack wasn't even aware he'd said the name aloud.
"He's doing fine, sir, settling into his new host. Would you like us to go get him?"
Jack wanted to not care, wanted to give no answer, but somehow that translated into him nodding his head.
Janet touched his back once, offering, "I'll go," then her figure disappeared into the hall.
Sam took the chance to move closer, press more completely against him, and whisper, "Are you all right, sir?"
Jack didn't honestly know. He knew something was wrong, hollow and empty and wrong, but he couldn't describe that unclear sentiment.
Sam touched the back of his neck suddenly with one hand, jolting him more wholly into reality. "I know," she offered gently, and Jack closed his eyes and let his head droop because Sam did know. He was grateful they'd left him with the one person he trusted that knew exactly what it was like to lose an uninvited guest to one's own mind.
"It gets better," she promised, and Jack clung to that. "It's weird for a while, but you remember how to be alone again."
Jack's eyes rose to the open doorway of the private quarters when he caught sight of movement from the corner of his eye. Janet entered first, checking on him a moment with her evaluative glance before looking to the people following in her wake. Jack did not take his eyes off Sanee as she moved, albeit a little shakily, into the room, Isho at her side, hands never far from reaching out to steady her if she needed the support. To Jack it didn't look like that would be necessary. There was nothing childish or naive about the bearing of Sanee now, her mannerisms aged, her deliberateness wise. The maturity it gave the girl's body and face was astounding, and reassuring. It was as though the old adage had been turned on its head, and with experience came age. Sanee's green eyes went at once to Jack, met his gaze, and she smiled softly.
Jack knew it wasn't Sanee, because though he'd never seen it he recognized Aetom's smile.
The young woman's voice was modulated, altered to the Tok'ra rumble, when she took measured steps closer, "Colonel O'Neill... I am pleased to see you have regained consciousness." The girl came to stand directly in front of him, Jack's eyes tracking and following the new host. Something inside him was twisted, crying that Aetom was too far away, impossibly cut off from him by the sparse foot of space separating them, an ocean of mere inches away.
Sam backed off fractionally.
Aetom, now nestled in a female form, looked closely at Jack, as though intrigued to see him from an outsider's perspective, to watch the man's body move and shift without it being a reflection.
"Doctor Fraiser told me you were a little confused when you woke up; it's to be expected, I'm afraid. The longer a host and symbiote have been bonded the more jarring the separation is. I too was weakened by the disconnection. We will both recover, in time."
Jack was thinking, grasping, wondering why Aetom wasn't answering to his unspoken questions like he always did.
Aetom gave a sagacious, private smile, seeming to know Jack's mind even after leaving it, "You will have to speak your thoughts to me now, Colonel."
The notion was so terribly, horribly strange.
"Aetom?"
"Yes?"
"You... all right?" he finally asked in broken syllables.
Aetom nodded, "Yes, Jack, I am. As will you be. My eternal gratitude to you once again for all you have done for me. However brief, you were a commendable host..." Aetom smiled, "though not a candidate I would ever suggest again to the Tok'ra council."
Jack managed a smile, and with that shared joke some of his sapped strength came back to him. He had presence of mind enough to straighten from the almost sickly, hunched position he'd adopted when Sam hauled him prematurely upright. "See that you don't."
Aetom chuckled then looked toward Isho. The young man was watching hopefully, hovering near to the body of his mate with tender concern.
"I must go," Aetom said more softly to Jack.
Jack didn't say the thought that ran through his mind, holding it back on the tip of his tongue and merely nodding.
"If you require assistance to the stargate I will help you." After a month with Aetom Jack had stopped feeling discomfort to have the Tok'ra's helping presence so close, ready to step in and heal, soothe, reassure. With Aetom it had stopped feeling like he was being weak to accept aid, and there was something natural in the idea of accepting his help now.
Jack glanced over at Sam standing only a pace away from him, attention riveted on him even when she was looking at Aetom or Isho, and he sensed Janet moving closer to where he sat in the ensuing silence like a protective fog rolling in. He knew Daniel and Teal'c weren't far, could be at his side in a moment's notice if need be.
Jack gave Aetom a parting smile, "That's okay... my friends will take care of everything."
Aetom gave a heavy, understanding nod. He locked eyes with Jack once more before saying, "I hope to see you again, Colonel O'Neill. You once said if I were in another host we might be friends... I would like to see if that is truly possible."
"Yeah... guess we'll see."
Without another word Aetom nodded farewell to everyone in the room, cast Jack a final smile, then left at Isho's side.
"Colonel..." Janet moved closer, her hand on his arm as though to ground him before she spoke, "the Tok'ra have invited us to stay for the night if you'd like some time to recover before we.."
"No," he said softly, shaking his head and looking toward Janet. "Let's get out of here."
Janet didn't argue that he wasn't strong enough, didn't point out the Tok'ra would be best suited to address any unforeseeable complications that might arise after the symbiote's departure, merely nodded, "All right, sir."
Jack registered events like peering through a murky pond at a broken shard of mirror half-buried in the sandy bottom. He had flashes of Daniel at his side, sliding under Jack's arm and taking most of the colonel's weight with a gentle smile. Teal'c was not far, ready to jump in if Jack fell or Daniel called for help, but otherwise preserved Jack's pride. Daniel would have come to Jack's aide whether he wanted it or not, and for that reason there was no shame in relenting to an unremitting force like Daniel's compassion... acquiescence was the only course of action, making Jack's true need for help in merely walking almost seem like more of a concession to Daniel's desire to help than Jack's need for it. Janet led the way, a spearhead that no one would dare cross to disturb her patient. Sam was floating in and out, alternately close and a distance away, bound to Jack by friendship but also by duty, made to take command of the team while Jack was unquestionably unfit. Still, his second in command would occasionally sidle close, reach out a hand for fleeting physical contact, a constantly reemerging comfort the entire trip to the stargate.
Before Jack realized they'd traveled so far they were home, clamping on to the metal ramp of the embarkation room, meeting the welcoming face of General Hammond.
"Welcome back, SG-1. Colonel, you look..." he faltered before he could lie.
Jack managed a smile, feeling stronger, maybe even enough to pass for fine, but he was still grateful for Daniel's tenacious vigil next to him, the young man's arm around his body holding the world steady. "Like shit, sir?"
Hammond smirked, "I wasn't going to be rude."
Janet jumped in, "It will probably take a couple of days for Colonel O'Neill to be back to normal. Until then I'd like him to stay on the base."
Hammond nodded agreement and for once Jack didn't offer up a single word of protest.
"General.." Daniel's voice, plaintive, "can I take him to his temporary quarters?"
Janet opened her mouth to insist Jack stay in the infirmary but before she made a sound stopped herself, torn, at last giving an assenting if somewhat reluctant nod to the general. She knew Jack's preference was always temp quarters over the infirmary and since what he needed was time and rest, not strict medical care, she relented to Jack recuperating in a private room.
"Very well, son."
"Come on, Jack.." Daniel tugged at him and Jack followed on reflex, still half-slung over the younger man's shoulders. He was increasingly carrying his own weight, slowly reclaiming uncontested ownership of his own body, but hadn't built up enough confidence to pull away from the friend at his side until they'd already reached the temp quarters.