"Raise the sails! Make ready for port!"

872 BCE. An eternity ago. Aziru could still feel the warm breeze and the spray of water as the bow of his galley clapped the water after passing over a wave. There, in the distance, stood the tall, indomitable walls of Tyre, a jewel off the coast of Phoenicia that served as a major trading post in the eastern Mediterranean. But it wasn't the city he admired.

There, on the docks, stood the love of his life and their son, awaiting his return. His heart filled with joy and excitement, Aziru urged his crew to hurry. Whilst they made every effort to row the ship carefully into range of the dock, the middle-aged merchant moved to the front of his ship and stood proudly at the bow. When his wife caught sight of him and held up her hand in what passed as a 'wave' those days, Aziru smiled and raised his slightly. Happy as he was, he didn't need to confuse his crew with a gesture meant to bring their ship to a stop.

After what felt like another eternity, they had finally made port, with one of Aziru's crew tying the ship to a post. But Aziru himself took the opportunity to step off on to the dock to greet his approaching wife and son with arms held open. Briefly, they embraced, before Aziru reluctantly pulled away, his hands still gently pressed against his wife's shoulders in a gesture meant to reassure her that he was real. Then he looked down at his ten-year-old son and released his wife long enough to crouch down to his eye level while reaching out to take the boy's hands into his. They were much smaller, yet bigger than the last time he held them.

"You've grown," Aziru exclaimed with as much pride as any father should've felt.

"You both have," Aziru's wife, the beautiful Arishat, noted with a compassionate look. "It's been nearly a year."

"I know," Aziru answered with an ache in his throat as he stood, one hand reached out to gently cusp hers. "I'm truly sorry. The life of a merchant is not an easy one..."

"So you've said," Arishat replied, matching Aziru's solemn tone and expression. "How much longer? When will you settle down and live with us like you promised?"

"Soon, my love. Soon." Aziru's answer did little to assuage Arishat, who merely crossed her arms and looked away. He could feel the terror and sadness in her eyes. She worried that one day, he would never return. "I just need to earn enough to start a new business. Then I can pay for others to take over in my stead."

Arishat closed her eyes and bowed her head slightly. "I pray you aren't lost before then."

"I don't intend to be." Aziru smiled that confident smirk he always had. "As long as you are here, I will always find my way home."

Suddenly, he felt himself torn away from that memory and thrust back into the present. When he opened his eyes, he felt the rough fingers of the Reol pull away from his head, where they had been during the whole recollection. Across from him sat the one he knew as Zanuf, a Tok'ra who would have blended with Adria had she not ascended two years ago.

"You didn't scream this time." Zanuf sounded impressed. "You are making progress."

Despite those words of encouragement, Aziru's face fell as quickly as his heart did. "I wish I could say the same."

"Give it some time." This time, it was Zanuf's host, Irvine, who spoke. Both he and the Goa'uld symbiont within him shared the host body. The first time Aziru encountered them after the extraction ceremony, he couldn't believe any sort of Goa'uld would truly respect the rights of the host. That all changed a few months ago, as they put him through the first steps to rehabilitation. "Nobody expects you to make a full recovery very quickly."

If this were like any of those other times Aziru had experienced the Reol mind-probe, an ability which the Reol were able to control with the aid of a memory recall device attached to the subject, he would've instantly went silent the moment it was over. But this time, the thought of his family moved him to speak, if only in a whisper.

"What happened to them?"

"Your family?" It didn't take long for Irvine to figure out who Aziru referred to. The question only made him look down at his hands, afraid to answer out of both pity and sympathy. If he were in Aziru's place, he would feel so empty. "I don't know."

Now Aziru grew silent, his head also bowed so he didn't have to look Irvine in the eye. After swallowing the lump that had been growing in his throat, he spoke in a hushed tone, "I keep thinking I'll wake up back home with my wife and son." His eyes closed tightly just as the tears began to form. "I keep... hoping... this is all a dream... that none of this happened."

"You can't afford to keep thinking like that." Irvine knew from experience how one's hope for something could sabotage everything else they'd accomplished. "The fact is, you're here now. And you have to adjust."

"Why?" Aziru opened his eyes, allowing several tears to run down his cheeks. But he didn't look Irvine in the eye still. He didn't want to be reminded of what he'd become. "Why not let me die in peace so I can be with them?"

"Aziru..." Irvine would try to reason with him, but it never seemed to do any good. The man had just lived too long, seen himself commit too many atrocities, to ever be the same. "What Ba'al did to you was wrong. He took your life away from you. But you deserve to get it back."

"I can't." Aziru's voice cracked as the sorrow began to set in. "Not without... them."

Irvine let out a defeated sigh as Aziru began to weep. He looked over to the window embedded in the crystaline walls of the Tok'ra cave where SG-1 and Sina watched.

The look on his face told them all they needed to know.

"Have you tried telling him what's at stake here?" Jackson asked Irvine after they had settled into a meeting room chamber with Sina also present. "I mean, he's the only one with the knowledge of what might've happened to the Shepherd's Journal."

"If he knows, it is buried deep within his subconscious." It was Zanuf who answered in that same stoic, dispassionate voice as had become natural for him over the centuries. "Since Ba'al's extraction, the host's own, original memories have begun to reassert themselves. Anything he has learned while under Ba'al's control cannot be accessed as memories."

"But this is important!" Jackson insisted, his voice sounding increasingly anxious as he argued his case. "Can't you restore his memories somehow?"

"That would not be wise," Sina interjected, just as stoic and unmoving as Zanuf. "Aziru has undergone significant trauma. If we were to force him to relive his memories as a host too quickly, he would collapse under the strain."

"Or his mind would attempt to cope by /becoming/ Ba'al." Irvine didn't sound too happy about that, but who could blame him? After well over a year of trying to capture the last of the System Lords, undoing all they accomplished in a matter of hours didn't appeal to him. "Either way, we can't go through with it."

Before Jackson could protest again, Cameron spoke next. "We understand. But is there another way?"

Irvine and Sina shared a disturbed look before the latter answered, "There is."

"But we would never consider it," Irvine finished. "It would require cloning Ba'al's symbiont with a DNA sample we took prior to the extraction... and letting it control Aziru again."

A stunned silence gripped the air among them, as the true horror of that thought left each of them speechless. When all was said and done, however, it was Teal'c who broke the silence.

"Perhaps I can speak with him."

"You?" Sina asked in disbelief. "What would you accomplish that we could not?"

"No," Zanuf chimed in with an intrigued look at Teal'c. "No, he's right. I've read the reports." When Sina turned her perturbed gaze at Irvine, he explained. "Teal'c has a son, and once a wife." Mentioning that caused Teal'c to briefly feel a pang of regret, but the Jaffa said nothing lest it consume him. "He's been through the Rite of M'al Sharran. He knows what it takes. There's no one better qualified."

Sina contemplated this for a time, but finally frowned deeply and looked up at Teal'c.

"Then you may speak to him."

Teal'c silently wandered into the room where Aziru sat, hands clasped behind him while Aziru's rested atop one another on his lap. The air felt thin. Teal'c couldn't look at Aziru without memories of his torture at the hands of Ba'al rushing through him. Those thoughts nearly sickened him, and for a brief moment, he understood how his fellow countrymen felt. This was the face of the man who made so many suffer. Why shouldn't they be allowed some measure of absolution... some peace of mind?

But Teal'c couldn't afford to feel that way. It would compromise every sense of honor he felt - no, that he /knew/ to be true. Ba'al had received his rightful punishment for those crimes he committed. Why, then, did it feel as if it wasn't enough?

Then he heard it. Quietly, Aziru wept... another casualty on a long list of those whose lives Ba'al managed to ruin-if not outright destroy. That caused Teal'c to steel himself against those thoughts of vengeance and acclimate himself to the truth. Nothing his fellow Jaffa said or did could make him condone this man, whose only 'crime' was outliving the ones he loved. No doubt, Teal'c thought as he approached slowly, Aziru blamed himself for that.

"I know your sorrow." Teal'c's words held a certain empathy to them that would otherwise not be possible if he'd been lying. "I, too, was married... a long time ago."

As Aziru's suppressed cries began to recede, Teal'c continued while standing beside the man.

"When she passed away, I felt I would never recover." Teal'c bowed his head and held his arms behind him, stepping away from where Aziru sat as the former Goa'uld listened in silence. "My own son blamed me for her death... I could only stand there as he lashed out against me. Had I not been patient, waited for the right opportunity, our relationship would've never recovered. But nothing I do will ever give her life again."

This time, Teal'c turned and braved his own misgivings to look Aziru in the eye. Ba'al's former host finally raised his head and matched Teal'c's look through tear-stained eyes. "In the end, I chose to honor her memory. When the people of this world were threatened by an Ancient weapon in Anubis' possession, my son and I assaulted the planet on which the weapon was located. He destroyed it. Billions of lives were saved."

Aziru lost the will to stay his eyes on Teal'c, and his gaze faltered. But Teal'c only had to take a step forward and continue to look sympathetically at the man to keep his attention. "There is now a potential threat to this galaxy, and we need to know more about it. You were once the host of a powerful Goa'uld." At that, Aziru visibly winced, and his head fell even further. "Ba'al knew of a book known as the Shepherd's Journal. We need to know its location."

At first, all Aziru could manage was a weak shake of his head, but Teal'c persisted. "You must try to remember! Countless lives may be at stake!" The rough treatment he received from Bra'tac during both his training and his Rite of M'al Sharran echoed in his voice. If that's what it took to help Aziru break free of his own fears, then that was what Teal'c would provide. Then he narrowed his eyes. "What would your wife and son think of you if you allowed billions to die when you could have prevented it?"

Memories. Pain. Drudged up from his subconscious, Aziru began to see... images. Faces. Glowing eyes. A book. Despite a sharp pain in his head, he focused on those images. Almost as soon as he did, the memory recall device attached to the side of his head became active. Teal'c looked back over his shoulder at the observation room, where Jacob had already set up the holographic projector. They were soon greeted with the same images Aziru now saw.

Daniel leaned forward against what passed as a desk in these unique caverns, carefully observing each image as it flickered by in an instant. When the images finally began to coalesce into a single memory, both he and the rest of SG-1 aside from Teal'c would witness Ba'al's hand on the front cover of the Shepherd's Journal before the Goa'uld ushered his host to look up. He was standing in a grandiose office behind a mahogany desk, with an older man in a suit bound to an armchair across from him. Two security guards in all black flanked the gentleman, but otherwise stood their ground until presumably Ba'al gave the word.

"Well, Mr. Widmore." Ba'al smirked, his demeanor smug as always. "It appears my sources were correct. You /are/ a descendant of Preston Whitmore, and heir to all his possessions. Tell me, what other secrets could you be hiding?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." Mr. Widmore looked defiant, but inside, he was terrified. This... /thing/... got through his security with some sort of zap gun. He'd never seen anything like it. "Whatever it is you're looking for, you won't find it."

"We'll just see about that, won't we?" Ba'al now grinned as he lowered himself into what would have been Mr. Widmore's seat. He regarded the Shepherd's Journal for a moment, but ultimately decided to fix his gaze on Widmore. "So, where is it?"

"Where is what?" Almost the moment Widmore spoke out, Ba'al nodded to one of the guards, who produced a Rod of Anguish from behind him. Wordlessly, he stabbed the end of it into Widmore, shocking the old man with energy so powerful it could be seen glowing out of the eyes and mouth of its victim. When it was over, Ba'al asked again.

"Where is the lost continent your ancestor mentioned in his journal?"

Widmore coughed and spat a bit of blood that had gathered in his mouth before glaring at Ba'al. "Go to hell."

Ba'al smirked and gestured for the torture to continue. Once Widmore had a chance to speak again, Ba'al had already stood back up and wandered away from the desk to look out a window near the back of the room. "Would you like to know how we found you?" After briefly considering what it might be like to own an estate as grand as this one, he slowly turned back and looked Mr. Widmore in the eye. "It's quite an interesting story."

As one of the guards returned to the office door at Ba'al's curt nod, Ba'al continued. "You see, my organization requires a certain... influence over human affairs. The only way to control the people on your world is through that influence. Suffice it to say, a newcomer in a millenia-old host could not exercise the sort of influence someone established already could." He leaned forward on the desk, smiled, and tilted his head. "Imagine my luck when I ran into one of your people. Using my own /unique/ brand of persuasion, I convinced her to help me lure you here. I'm certain you two would like to get... reacquianted."

Widmore simply sat there and gave Ba'al the most cold stare he could muster. But when Ba'al's eyes briefly glowed, Widmore's face betrayed the discomfort he actually felt. Suddenly, the doors behind where Widmore sat opened, and the sound of two pairs of footsteps could be heard behind him. While the guard stepped back over to the side, Widmore glanced over to see who it was following him. His heart stopped.

"P-Penelope?" He weakly stuttered, now so visibly shaking it gave Ba'al a certain sense of pride. Penelope only stood there, like a statue, refusing to avert her gaze from her new god. Furious, Charles Widmore looked back at Ba'al and spat, "What have you done to her?!"

"Nothing." There was that smug and self-assured smile of the Goa'uld again. "I merely made her a proposition. One which you were incapable of providing." A subtle look of confusion laid beneath Widmore's mask of anger. "I will help her find her missing beloved."

"Don't listen to him, Penelope." Charles was no longer interested in looking his daughter in the eye. Instead, he merely hoped to intimidate his captor and determine what he was after. Certainly the lost continent was one, but that could also mean... "Desmond is dead. He and his ship disappeared during a sailing race."

"One which you sponsored," Ba'al pointed out, causing Penny's expression to briefly falter.

"You never intended to let him marry me." Penelope continued to evade her father's judging gaze, tears beginning to spill from her eyes when she did finally face him. "You lied to me!"

"Penelope," Charles pleaded, clearly distraught as Ba'al looked on. "He would've hurt you."

"Like you hurt me?" With those words, Penelope shared a long and bitter look with Charles before looking back at Ba'al. "Where's Desmond?"

"That is one of the pieces of information I intend to get out of your father." As Ba'al looked back down at the Shepherd's Journal, gently closing the book, an idea crossed his mind. "Would you care to do the honors?" he said while studying Penelope's reaction.

"Penelope, no." Charles tried to reign her in with that same commanding tone. "He's insane."

"No more than you." Penelope, her mind no longer her own, took the pain stick out of one of the guard's hands without any hesitation and pointed it at her father. "I hope this hurts like hell, you bastard." She jabbed the pain stick into the man's chest, while Ba'al watched in amusement.

Suddenly, the memory ended. Cameron looked concerned. "Did anyone hear him mention /anything/ about where the journal or 'Atlantis' was?"

Aziru's voice whispered over the holographic emitter, even as the man himself sat with his head bowed and muttered the word over and over again where even Teal'c could hear:

"Altaria."

"Correct me if I'm wrong..." Cameron glanced back around the room until Daniel looked back at him. "But isn't Altaria P2X-887?"

Vala acknowledged it with a nod. "One of Anubis' planets." Cameron shot her an exasperated look. "Well, Ba'al's now... or /was/."

Daniel narrowed his eyes and looked back at the weak image of Mr. Widmore's torture on the holographic display. "One clue leads to another..."

Although they weren't particularly happy with it, SG-1 decided to split the search between them. Half the team had to journey through the gate to find out the current situation on Anubis' old stomping grounds, while the rest tried to locate Charles Widmore, who may have told Ba'al exactly what he wanted to know. None of them were professional investigators, but Daniel and Teal'c volunteered to travel to the planet and scout out the base first, with Vala's help. In the meantime, Carter and Mitchell decided to dig up anything they could on Widmore. Samantha had one particular connection she thought could help.

After having been forced to wait a few minutes in a waiting room at the Pentagon, Carter and Mitchell were finally escorted by a civilian guard to the office of one Malcolm Barrett.

"Sam!" He exclaimed with a wide smile on his face when he saw who it was. Standing from behind his desk, he wandered up to her, but stopped short of reaching out to hug her. Instead, he cleared his throat, chuckled nervously, and held his hand out to give hers a shake. "It's been a while. Last I heard, you were off-world on Atlantis, right?"

"That's right. I rejoined SG-1 soon after I got back," Carter acknowledged with a grin. She glanced back at Cameron. "You remember Colonel Mitchell."

"The business with the 'twins'," Cameron stated in a feigned, conspiratorial way as he reached out and shook Malcolm by the hand. "All twenty of them."

"Yes, of course." Malcolm forced a laugh, but he couldn't help but look back at Carter. It had been years since he tried, unsuccessfully, to start up a relationship with her, but he held on hope. He realized he was staring and quickly excused himself, stepping back around to his seat while offering the two a place to sit across from him. "So..." He glanced between them once they had all settled in. "What brings you both here?"

"There's a small problem we need your help on," Carter admitted with a nervous smile.

Although Malcolm was about to admit he thought as much, Cameron interrupted that thought by getting straight to the point. "We're looking for a man by the name of Charles Widmore."

"Widmore?" Now Malcolm looked concerned. "What's this about?"

"He may have been involved with the Trust." When Malcolm's eyes widened in surprise, Carter explained. "We found out Ba'al had been searching for something in Mr. Widmore's possession. We think it has to do with a book he had, the Shepherd's Journal."

"We did some research. He's the big boss of a multinational corporation the little ego-maniac named after himself." Cameron crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat. "Ba'al tortured him into giving up some information. We think he may know where to find Atlantis." Malcolm opened his mouth, but Mitchell interrupted, "Not /that/ Atlantis. A different one."

"I see." Malcolm sighed and reluctantly logged on to his computer. It was going to be a long day. Finally, he found some information. "Looks like Mr. Widmore's company was already investigated. Turns out he invested quite a bit of money in Ba'al's original start-up company. He left the Trust over a year before your Goa'uld took over."

"Where is he now?" Carter asked inquisitively.

Malcolm typed something in and looked stunned. Before either Carter or Mitchell could ask, he answered, "According to this, he disappeared a few years ago."

"Disappeared?" Cameron asked with mute surprise. "What does that mean?"

"It means he disappeared," Malcolm cryptically answered with a frown. He didn't know how else he could put it, so he just tried to search for more information. While Carter and Mitchell shared a look of concern, Malcolm found something. "It looks like he was last reported seen in Los Angeles. Seems he chartered an old submarine for a trip in the Pacific, but he never left any records of where he'd be going... at least, none that I can find."

After a brief moment of thought, which was all she needed, Carter asked, "What about his daughter?"

"Penelope?" Cameron acknowledged, hoping the name would help narrow Malcolm's search. Sure enough, it did.

"Got it. She lives in a small condo in a London suburb. I'll write you the address." With a few quick scratches of pen against a notecard, Malcolm finished marking down the number before handing it over to Samantha, despite Cameron initially reaching out to take it. As Carter took the card, Malcolm looked wistfully into her eyes and said, "Take care of yourself out there."

Carter smiled, briefly glanced down at the card, then focused on Malcolm. "You too."

Altaria, or P2X-887 as the imaginative blokes at SGC labeled it, didn't seem all that different at first glance. The only difference was that they weren't being attacked. That was always a welcome change. But apart from that, Daniel didn't like it. Something felt off.

"Teal'c, is it just me, or are you getting a bad fee-" As he turned to face Teal'c, he stopped mid-sentence. Teal'c stared at a familiar sight in the distance. A Ha'tak. "Nevermind."

"It may have been one of Ba'al's," Teal'c conjectured. "Or it may belong to an as-yet undefeated System Lord we have not encountered."

"What are the chances of that?" Daniel picked at his glasses before shielding his eyes from the sun as it peered through a cloud. "The rebellion of your people must have done away with their powerbase. I doubt there was a single Goa'uld unaffected by it."

"Maybe so," Teal'c agreed, but only conditionally. "We should investigate."

Before giving Daniel a chance to say anything else, Teal'c took off toward the tree line at a slight crouch. Exasperatedly, Daniel gave in and followed close behind.

Some time later, they were crouched behind a series of hedges overlooking the ground entrance to the ship, presumably part of some minor pyramidal tomb frequently used as landing pads by the Goa'uld's similarly pyramid-shaped spacecraft. To their surprise, there weren't any guards or Jaffa - only people camped out in tents around the base of the vessel. A few people wandered by wearing Jaffa armor and carrying staff weapons, but they neither had any mark on their forehead nor carried themselves the same way a Jaffa would. Many of the people exchanged friendly pleasantries with one another, even with the would-be soldiers. Overall, it appeared to be a well-off community.

"They appear to be human," Teal'c specified as he peered at them through binoculars. "Could they be with the Lucian Alliance?"

"I don't think so." Daniel finally lowered his own pair of binoculars and creased his brow as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing. "The Lucian Alliance rules by fear. Even most of the human societies we've come across with access to Goa'uld technology have done the same thing. But these people... they seem to be living in a more egalitarian society."

Teal'c frowned and looked at Daniel. "Egalitarian?"

"Equal status, equal opportunities for things like food, education..." Daniel took a deep breath and stood up, to the bewilderment of his Jaffa friend. "Let's see who they are."

As Daniel carefully made his way down the hillside, with Teal'c following some distance away, one of the villagers noticed him out the corner of her eye. It wasn't long before nearly all eyes were on Daniel as he approached the campsite holding his hands out to his sides in a non-threatening manner. Even the soldiers waited to open the business ends of their staff weapons until or unless he actually presented a threat.

"Hello," he started off rather awkwardly, echoing the earlier days when he would make first contact with a new group of humans off-world. "My name is Daniel Jackson."

One of the people, a young man whom Daniel loosely recognized, stepped out from among the crowd. Unlike the rest, he was dressed in priestly robes reminiscent of the Jaffa who carried infant Goa'uld larva to be used in ritual cannibalistic practices by the older Goa'uld. Just the thought of that made Jackson's stomach turn, but thankfully, there appeared to be no container of Goa'uld larva anywhere in sight.

"I am Cepheus." One end of his lips tipped upward into a subtle smile. "Have we met?"

After a moment, Daniel began to realize who it was. A sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach made him instinctively take a step back in the faint hope he could run if he needed to. Cepheus was the lo'taur, or right-hand servant, of Ba'al when Daniel undertook a Tok'ra mission to poison the entirety of the System Lords who gathered at a spacestation summit to vote on whether or not to let Anubis back into their ranks. His mind had been almost entirely preoccupied with breaking Osiris' control over his former girlfriend, Sarah, that he barely remembered many of the other faces who were there.

"Is something wrong?" Cepheus clearly hadn't caught on, but the way he began to look suspicious suggested he was beginning to put two and two together as well.

"Uh, nothing! Nothing's wrong." Daniel laughed nervously and lowered his hands as he continued to take a few steps backward. That's when Teal'c stepped up beside him, giving Daniel the opportunity to introduce him. "This is my friend, Teal'c."

"A Jaffa," Cepheus noted in awe. He hardly focused on Daniel at that point. "We have not seen one of your kind in years." Noticing the symbol on Teal'c's forehead, he added, "You were a servant of Lord Apophis?"

"Indeed," Teal'c answered rather grimly. "Who do you serve?"

Cepheus answered with a proud sort of visage, "Lord Ba'al is my master."

Daniel quietly bowed his head a little and held his tongue. Both he and Teal'c knew that to announce Ba'al's death - or that of any System Lord - would brand them as heretics. Egalitarian or not, these were clearly the phantoms of the Goa'uld's legacy: former slaves who continued to submit themselves long after the beings they had worshiped were gone. There were similar societies SG-1 encountered over the years, and even examples throughout Earth's history, but almost never one with an entire Goa'uld mothership under their control. How much control was a different matter.

"Come. Join us." Yet another invitation to a meal or festival, Daniel opined. However, this one wouldn't likely be interrupted by a visiting Goa'uld. On the contrary...

It could be ended by a single memory.

Author's Notes: Ba'al's lo'taur in season 5 wasn't necessarily killed. I can't confirm this, but it's possible Shallan was one of several (the "most trusted", though that could refer to former lo'taurs). It wouldn't be out of character for a Goa'uld to have several off-hand to choose from, particularly given the number of servants they keep around at nearly all times on-screen. That's the definition for lo'taur I'm opting for in this story: a handful of servants, each best suited to overseeing an outpost in their god's name, but otherwise not entirely trusted with every bit of information a System Lord has.

Cepheus and his people have been kept isolated on Anubis' P2X-887 for a reason. Ba'al needed to keep his servants from being discovered and converted by the Ori or threatened by the Lucian Alliance. You may argue a Prior would still travel to this world, but to what purpose? It's an uninhabited world only used once as Anubis' base. Ba'al could just as easily have kept their existence secret for the aforementioned reason. That said, there may still be some interesting backstory to work with for next chapter!

Don't worry if you're a stickler for continuity. I'll do my best to follow it as much as I can, and either explain or fix when I don't. Again, a big thank you to everyone who pointed out any plot holes for me! I want to make this story stay true to our favorite universe, so every bit helps. ^-^