She began to tend to Lord Yu more closely, slowly gaining his favor and making herself indispensable to his daily life. Oshu noticed, but did not comment, his loyalty seeing the benefit her attentiveness had on his master.
She had commandeered a room for herself to have meetings, a throne room of sorts, and one morning as she had tea and went over reports from Yu's fleets, Oshu entered to announce the arrival of one of Yu's underlords, a minor goa'uld of no real consequence, but who had requested an audience. As Lord Yu was having a particularly bad day, Oshu had brought him to her instead.
"Send him in, Oshu. You have done well."
He bowed before exiting and Nes was more than slightly surprised when he returned with Jacob Carter.
Selmak spoke. "My Lord Sekhmet, I am honored you have granted me an audience, but I had expected to meet with Lord Yu."
"I'm afraid my lord is busy attending to other more important matters. You understand." She directed her gaze to Oshu. "Leave us. See if your master requires your assistance."
After he left, Selmak bowed his head and Nes directed Jacob to a chair. He sat, but looked over her critically. "You've established yourself quite well."
She smiled, but it was Sekhmet's smile. Still, she returned to her human voice for his benefit. "Yes. I'm afraid Lord Yu's health is beginning to deteriorate. It has not been difficult to gain his trust."
"You're different than when I saw you last on Revanna."
"That was months ago." She shifted uncomfortably under his scrutiny.
"You've been using the sarcophagus."
"I don't see how that's any of your business."
He leaned forward, suddenly a fatherly figure. "Can you not see how you're being altered?"
"I am more effective in my role this way."
"You will no longer be playing a role soon."
She was disgusted by his concern and stood to escape some of his gaze. "What have you come for?"
"You, actually."
She turned to look at him again and he continued.
"Lantash asked me to help you escape once I had finished rounding up the remaining Tok'ra who had survived the bombardment at Revanna."
"I do not require help in escaping. I could go through the Stargate or take a ship at any time, now that I am well trusted by my lord."
"I think you require help more than you know, Nes."
No one had called her Nes in too long and it cracked through the shell just slightly.
"I can't leave. Lord Yu has become completely incapable of maintaining the fight against Anubis. His First Prime and I have been commanding the fleet in his name."
"Oshu will be able to continue without you, Nes. You need to come home with me."
She laughed at him. "Home? Earth is no more home to me than it had been to Sekhmet."
"Daniel is dead, Nes."
Her head jerked up in surprise, not just at his words, but at her reaction to them. "What?"
"He was exposed to a massive amount of radiation and died about a month ago."
"No. You're lying."
"I wish I were." He ran his hand over his face. "Please come back to Earth."
"There's nothing for me there."
"What about your friends? Sam, Jack, Teal'c...Lt Elliot. He and Lantash have been beside themselves since they returned."
She could feel memories beginning to surface, images Sekhmet had locked away with every trip into the sarcophagus. They came back muddled and she struggled to sort them all out while Jacob came over and put a hand on her arm.
"Come home, Nes. There are plenty of people who can help you remember who you are."
"What if this is who I am?" She was genuinely asking and she looked down to trace a finger over the lion on her hand. She had bounced around between personalities so frequently, adapting to whatever situation she was in, but it was getting harder to remember any beyond her current one. Any beyond Sekhmet.
"It's not." He sounded so confident. "Tell Oshu an urgent matter needs your personal attention. You can leave with me right now."
She stood frozen for a long time, trying to decipher what to do.
"If Earth isn't where you want to be, you can always come back, Nes."
She knew it was a trick of sorts, a way to make the decision seem less important, but the tiny bits of her old self latched onto it like life itself and she was finally propelled into motion.
"I'll ask my servant to prepare my things."
"You won't need much. Tell her to have everything ready within the hour. I'll prepare the ship."
"Send Oshu in. I'll speak with him."
When Oshu came back into the room, she was completely Sekhmet again, but the facade was suddenly more difficult to maintain. "I am afraid there is an urgent matter that I need to attend to."
"What is it?"
"My once loyal servant, A'yal, has been captured." She shifted into Sekhmet's smirk. "I wish to deal with him personally."
"Of course, Lord Sekhmet. When will you return?"
"It may be a few weeks, Oshu, but you must continue on while I am away."
"Lord Yu will miss your presence. He has come to depend on you throughout the day."
"Yes, I am aware. I will instruct my servant in the ways in which I cared for him."
"Thank you, Lord Sekhmet. We will anxiously await your return."
Guilt over leaving Oshu crept in, a tactic her Sekhmet side was using in an attempt to convince the sympathetic parts of her to remain, but she fought it down using its own skills against it.
Nes met Jacob at his tel'tak where her servant had already sent the items she had packed, and they began the journey back to Earth. By day seven of their nine day journey, withdrawal symptoms had begun to set in without a sarcophagus to fill her need. She became cruel in her words and Sekhmet's personality grew more and more dominant. Jacob had little patience for her and Selmak had even less. By the time they landed on Earth, the Tok'ra and host had locked her in the cargo hold with threats of sticking her in an escape pod.
It was a few weeks of the various stages of withdrawal, much of which Nes spent strapped to a bed screaming various obscenities at anyone within hearing distance. With her many languages to draw on, she at least could be creative and had very little repetition, though the English ones were worked in frequently simply due to their effectiveness. As it began to subside, Nes felt the Sekhmet parts of her retreat back from their more dominant positions, but she knew she would have to work hard to regain the space she had claimed prior to her time in Yu's service.
She was moved back to one of the rooms she'd lived in before, but she still spent most of her time in bed as a heavy depression sunk onto her. The sarcophagus blocked so many of the feelings she wanted to ignore and now they hovered over her like death. Guilt began to stream in as well, bringing to mind the various prisoners she'd tortured for information and then murdered. She'd told herself at the time that their pain and deaths were necessary not only for her facade, but also for the war against Anubis. Now the memories were too hazy for her to know for sure if her excuses were even slightly valid.
She was starting to have visitors now that she wasn't explaining to everyone who entered how she would go about killing them in graphic detail. Sam filled Nes in on everything that had happened since she'd last seen them on Revanna, but they mostly talked about Daniel and how he hadn't quite died, but ascended to a different state of being. Nes was sure it was all wonderful, shedding his physical form to become pure energy and learn the secrets of the universe, but the end result for all of them left behind was the same. He was still gone and Nes was sad to have lost a man who had been so kind to her.
"Sam?" She'd been wanting to ask a particular question since she'd been lucid again, but still waited patiently until the major looked up. "How was Lt Elliot when he came back?"
"Angry." She rubbed the back of her neck. "Really angry. He told the Tok'ra to find a new host for Lantash."
Nes took a deep breath. "Did they find one?"
"Not yet. Elliot agreed to go on a mission with Lantash while they looked." Sam shifted slightly. "Nes, I understand why you did what you did, but he was really upset."
Nes ran her fingers through her hair. "I really just figured he'd get over it."
"He's not that kind of a guy, Nes. He wasn't to begin with, but he certainly wasn't going to be after his Air Force training. We don't leave people behind."
"I don't know what else I could have done. Lantash knew it was the only way to save him."
"I know. And Lantash has tried again and again to convince Elliot of that, but leaving you behind went against everything that makes him who he is." Her mouth formed a small smile. "He reminds me of Colonel O'Neill in a lot of ways."
"When will they get back from their mission?"
"I don't know. My dad said he'd let them know you were back as soon as he could, though."
Nes put her face into her hand. "I just wanted him safe."
"I know...but he wanted the same for you." Sam rubbed Nes' back gently.
"He's going to hate me, isn't he?"
Sam chuckled. "I doubt it." She checked her watch and got up. "I have a video call with Antarctica in a few minutes."
"Antarctica? The research base? They find something?"
"Not sure yet. I'll let you know. Get some rest."
As Sam was leaving, Jonas Quinn almost bumped into her as he came to visit Nes. Jonas had replaced Dr. Jackson on SG-1 and Nes struggled with not being angry at him. It was his people whose unsafe testing on a new element called naquadria had led to the injuries that had forced Daniel to ascend. Jonas had decided to help Earth's Stargate program after the accident, though, and now he couldn't return home, considered a traitor by his people. Nes could at least relate to him in the loss of their old lives.
"Hey, Nes. Just thought you might want some company."
"Sure, Jonas."
He had several books and magazines in his hands.
"Reading anything interesting?"
"Well, I found this book on agricultural practices in ancient Greece and then they just got the latest issue of the American Journal for Evolutionary Science. And then I found some old issues of-"
"I get it. Lots of various interesting things to read." Nes rubbed her forehead a bit.
"You okay? Need Dr. Frasier?"
"No, I'm fine. Thanks." Jonas was sweet, but his energy and enthusiasm felt exhausting in her current state. "Ya know, I think maybe I'd better take a nap. You don't mind, do you?"
"No, of course not! Get some rest." Jonas left and Nes let the gloom settle into the room again. She was going to spend a few hours mentally tormenting herself with thoughts of how upset Elliot had been with her deceptions.
