Jack wasn't sure at first if he was awake or asleep. Even as he opened his eyes to find himself lying on his side, face pressed to the gravel-ridden ground, he had doubts. Half memories whirled in his mind, disorienting him as he fought for clarity. He didn't remember ending up where he now lay, he didn't remember the dark of night shrouding him.

Jack blinked once and began to frown. Pain... he did remember pain, pain and terror.

Moving slowly, fearing the sharp reproach of wounds, Jack shifted only to find a numbness had settled over his body. It felt like he'd just been to the dentist, groggy and doped up from the novacaine gas. Movement felt sluggish and labored as he lifted his hand to his chest. He carefully touched the exposed skin. He could feel the tackiness of dried blood and the rough contours of ugly scarring but there was no biting pain under his fingers.

Jack slowly rolled on to his back and found himself staring up at alien stars. The hours he'd been unconscious had allowed time for the wind to clear the stagnant smell of death and combat, the night air almost sweet with the aroma of extraterrestrial flora. Jack took a deep breath. The chill air rushed into his lungs, invigorating after the suffocating stifle of smoke-laden air and a heavy chest wound.

'How long have I been lying here if I had time to heal?' he wondered. He tapped experimentally at his chest again, still failing to elicit any burning sensation of pain.

The first licks of panic started to lap at his consciousness and in a flood of recollection he remembered the sickening truth, the reason he'd blacked out.

'Oh god... NO,' he scrambled to his feet. Rocks and dried grass crunched underfoot, the only sound in the alien night. Jack felt his breaths start to gasp as his body flew into a horrified fight or flight response, bypassing cognitive input completely.

–I am here, Colonel O'Neill, I have been healing you. Please, do not panic again, it causes you to injure yourself further and weakens my ability to repair you.–

Staggering backward to no avail, Jack reflexively rubbed his hands against his head as one would if they were trying to knock free a bug entangled in their hair.

'Get out of me! Fucking snake! Get the HELL out of my head!' Jack heard his own thoughts rebut to the alien presence. His autonomic responses were racing again, heart and lungs seizing in terror, nervous system recoiling and demanding the thing in his body be purged, that the intruder be vanquished from his physical form. He felt himself feeling sick to his stomach again, the rising necessity to puke crawling up his esophagus.

The presence in his mind shifted, attention changed, and then a sensation like drinking warm chicken broth suffused his roiling stomach, and as it did it soothed and settled the impulse to vomit before it had climaxed into more dry heaves.

Spared that discomfort, some of the hammering fear drummed out by Jack's flailing heart eased. He had presence of mind enough to note that, while he was taken by a Goa'uld, he had control of his limbs, that his actions were at his behest.

–I am not a Goa'uld,– the presence in his mind chided almost sourly. –I am a Tok'ra.–

Jack shuddered in disgust all the same. He coughed in one more bodily ridding attempt and examined his surroundings. He was no longer in the battlefield, instead on a road between two patches of forest that bent into blackness to either side. He couldn't imagine who might have carried him here... the last look around he had turned up only dead bodies.

–I brought us here,– the Tok'ra in his mind answered his silent musings.

'Bull shit! You're a ten-inch snake, you telling me your scaly ass dragged me?'

Perturbation washed over him, caused O'Neill to rub in an irritated fashion at his eye socket with the heel of one hand, then the symbiote replied, –Very well, then, I had you bring us here.–

'You used my body, you god damned snake! Goa'uld bastard!'

Jack was suddenly on his knees, paralyzed, cringing at the venomous anger directed at him from the ever-present being circulating in his thoughts. –I am not a Goa'uld, Colonel O'Neill. As you have noted yourself you are still in control of your body, your thoughts. Were I a Goa'uld you would be as a prisoner within your own body.–

Gently, as one might release a butterfly from cupped hands, Jack felt the restraint on his limbs lift and control calmly returned to him. Jack jumped to his feet once again, just to be certain he was able. 'Fine, then, a damned Tok'ra, but pardon my obtuseness for not seeing a hell of a lot of difference.'

A probing silence ensued, eventually broken by, –I understand that you consider us very similar, but we are not.–

"I thought one of your golden rules was not to take an unwilling host," Jack spat.

–Don't speak aloud,– the Tok'ra admonished, –Montu's Jaffa may be nearby. And no, we don't take unwilling hosts.–

Jack reminded himself consciously not to verbalize his part of the conversation, 'Yeah, well, I can assure you that I wouldn't have agreed to this!'

A sadness not his own, a desperation of a different flavor, flashed unbidden in Jack's thoughts, then a soft reply, –This is so, Colonel O'Neill, and for my actions I can only ask forgiveness, but there was no other choice. My host was dying... I could not heal him... and you were near death, but your injuries, with effort, I knew I could repair. I have saved your life to save mine, so you see, for now, we owe each other.–

Jack grasped at his hair, unable to shake the sensation of crawling beneath his skull, and his thinking fell into a cacophony of disjointed thoughts, 'God, it's crawling, slithering in my brain... slimy, repulsive... get it out, I can't take this, rather die than be a snake... better off dead than this...'

His racing thoughts that seemed to be sending him spiraling toward madness were quite suddenly muffled, a deafening heaviness blanketing and buffering the ricocheting thoughts, and in its wake a hollow kind of peace engulfed him.

'Was that you?'

–Yes. Your erratic thinking was distressing to me.–

Jack took in a deep breath, startled at the sense of collection and control he could still maintain even having a snake in his brain. The sounds of the night were suddenly quite vivid in his ears, his eyesight sharper than he remembered his night-vision being.

–They are a symbiote's gifts to the host,– the Tok'ra responded to his sudden interest in his newly heightened senses.

'What happened to my people? Do you know?'

The Tok'ra backed away from his thoughts, in doing so allowed a few of the racing notions he'd restrained to freely bounce again, but they were unable to completely distract Jack from the one answer he really cared to hear.

–Your people and mine abandoned the fight... Montu's forces surprised even me, I did not know he had so many Jaffa hidden away here. I am to blame for that, the disaster that befell both our peoples here today is my fault. Your people left through the Chappa'ai. They believed all those left behind were dead... they did not abandon you.–

Jack flared at the last, return remark indignant, 'You don't have to tell me something I know perfectly well, pal. Unlike you Tok'ra, we don't leave our people behind.'

The Tok'ra was quiet a time, perhaps chastised or maybe pensive, Jack wasn't sure which, before the voice surfaced again, –I apologize. I assumed you would need to be reassured you were not left behind, for when I blended with you you were quite near death, but you know your people better than I. Of course, the Tau'ri never leave their own behind.–

Jack felt inane comfort in having that fact acknowledged. 'Did you see my team? Sam, Daniel, Teal'c... do you know if they made it out all right?'

There was a strange pause, like an appraising silence, then the Tok'ra's response, –I did not see if they fled under their own power or had to be carried, but their faces are not among those that lay upon the battleground. In any case, they are not here, perhaps they live.–

'Damn well better live,' Jack thought to himself, not prepared to imagine his team dying on him. Still, he was put at some measure of ease to think his friends were safe and on Earth. It was top on his list of priorities, so if they were home then he could risk handling his own problems without worrying about the rest of his team, and did he ever have a problem to sort through.

'So, what now? I hope you didn't make any permanent plans to stay in my head, because my insurance policy doesn't cover this.'

The Tok'ra apparently made an effort to comprehend that flippant remark before giving up and replying, –Now there is a task we must complete, you and I.–

Canting his head, Jack dug into his ear with one finger like he was trying to dislodge trapped water. 'Yeah, and what would that be?'

–To destroy the Goa'uld Montu.–