Three months later Jack was strolling toward the commissary for breakfast. He'd just arrived on base no more than ten minutes ago, invigorated by the short exposure to the outdoor weather. It was a crisp Colorado winter morning, the sun still not yet peeking over the horizon, leaving only the fading stars to glint blue-white light off the inch of snow covering the ground. Frost drew intricate crystal patterns onto car and house windows, breaths delegated to a white fog escaping wind-kissed lips.
Jack was in good spirits, looking forward to meeting up with his team, exchanging banter and jokes and nestling into the pseudo-family feel that tied SG-1 together. Life was back to normal, even inside his own head. Carter was right... it got easier, each day the silence a little less crippling, until an errant thought here and there would jump to mind that he wanted to keep to himself, didn't want to share, and with a smile realized he didn't have to worry... any thoughts he had were all his own.
There were times he missed Aetom, especially last month when he came down with the flu that the SGC personnel had been passing around, but it became a fading absence. The Tok'ra started to feel less like part of Jack that had been cut way and instead like a colleague reassigned overseas.
Jack reached the commissary and walked inside to find Sam already there, sitting at the team's usual table with a bowl of cereal before her. She wasn't half-engrossed in something else, which was a little unusual for the multi-tasking major.
"Morning, Carter," Jack greeted as he reached her position.
When she looked up at him he froze, knowing at once something was wrong.
"General Hammond wanted to see you as soon as you got in, sir," Sam said evenly, trying to sound neutral.
"What about?"
Sam shook her head, "I... think you should hear it from him."
Jack's mind started to reel, at once taking note of the fact Daniel and Teal'c weren't there. Daniel was never in earlier than eight (unless he'd burned the midnight oil and stayed the entire night, displaying the pesky habit he had of forgetting about important things like food and sleep when a pretty rock came to his attention) and Teal'c usually skipped breakfast so there was nothing abnormal about their absence, but Sam's tense expression spun the worst scenarios into his mind. Fear was already beginning to lick at his consciousness to think either of them were hurt... or worse.
Jack sat down resolutely across from Sam. He looked directly at her and made his request an order, "Tell me what's wrong."
Sam swallowed but finally said, "We heard from the Tok'ra last night, a message... sir, Aetom's dead."
Jack wasn't prepared for the feeling of being socked in the gut, winded as he stared at her, dread rising in his veins. "Come again?"
Sam obviously didn't want to be the one to tell Jack but the colonel wasn't about to budge until he'd heard the whole story, "He was on a mission when his tel'tac hyperdrive malfunctioned and dropped him into normal space within Goa'uld controlled territory. He tried to repair the damage in time to escape but... but he was discovered before he could and his tel'tac was shot. He died, sir."
Jack was speechless, motionless, part of him unable to accept Aetom might be dead while a very pragmatic, realistic side of him was already grieving the loss, leaps ahead in the belief and acceptance department.
"How's Isho doing?" Jack barely asked.
Sam seemed surprised that, of all the reactions, that one was Jack's first to the news.
"He's... upset. He's actually the one who contacted us about the incident. He said Aetom and Sanee talked about you sometimes, with apparent fondness, and he thought you would want to know... 'deserved to be told', is what he said exactly."
Jack nodded absently, slowly, as he looked at the half-eaten bowl of corn flakes before Sam and realized he was anything but hungry, despite vague memories of a ravenous appetite as little as half an hour ago.
"Colonel..?"
"I'm fine, Carter."
Sam looked a little askance at him, as though doubting he was telling the truth.
Jack stood from the table and pushed the chair in that he'd just been using, "I'll let Hammond know you already broke the news. See you later."
Sam watched him walk out of the commissary, for a moment debating whether or not she should go after him but in the end settling back to her bland breakfast, waiting for Daniel to show up so she could tell him if only for the purpose of alerting him to some possible emotional reactivity from the colonel for a couple of days. Although, from the way Jack had reacted to finding out, he might not need the kind of sympathy and commiseration Sam first believed.