Imagine Christopher Judge's deep voice intoning:
"And now ... the conclusion."
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GOING HOME
Chapter7 -- Princess of the Flowing Water
Teal'c and Daniel tugged at something within the niche, and she could hear Daniel grunt once with effort before he moved aside.
In one smooth graceful motion, Teal'c turned, hefted the foot-high gold statue of Ishtar, and threw it straight at Jabaroth. The priest saw it coming and fired his zat wildly, striking the small statute, the big statue, and Teal'c. The small statue missed Jabaroth by only a hand-span and crashed against the wall.
With less grace than Teal'c, Asheron sprang for his knife, rolled once, and came up on one knee with the knife in his hand. He waited a second for Jabaroth to stop moving and threw.
The knife struck the priest in the thigh. He shrieked and staggered, trying to turn the zat on Asheron.
But Sam was also in motion, launching herself at him in a fury. She tackled him to the floor, grabbing his arm in both of her hands. She only had to slam his hand against the floor twice for him to release the zat. "Let go! Let. It. Go!"
It was with great restraint on her part, she felt, that she fired the zat only once. Jabaroth fell satisfactorily unconscious. "Is Teal'c okay?" she called across to Daniel.
"I am well, ColonelCarter," Teal'c answered for himself, sitting up. "It was merely a glancing hit."
Asheron came up beside her, staring down at the unconscious former priest. "I missed," he said, answering her question of whether he'd intended to kill or injure Jabaroth.
She squeezed his shoulder in silent sympathy, knowing that Jabaroth's taunts and torture must have reminded him brutally of the past. There was something lost in his gaze, as though part of him was trapped in nightmare memories.
"Asheron? Shall we do what we came for?" she prompted gently, to try to recall him to the present.
He nodded wearily and scrubbed his fingers through his hair, before moving over to the statue. The others gathered behind him to watch.
He knelt before the fish symbol and poked a finger into one of the fish's eyes. The eye sank inward, and then with his finger in the hole, he turned the symbol first left, pulled it out an inch, and turned it again. The symbol popped out and he reverently laid it on the floor beside him. This revealed a small chamber, and within what looked like a small white box.
"Oh, no," he whispered.
"What is it?" Sam asked.
"I can't hear it. The field is not active." He reached inside and pulled the box out gently, but with obvious dread in his expression.
It was really a box, Sam saw, about eighteen inches wide with sides of smooth, polished white stone and a lid with the same fish symbol carved in it. The whole thing looked untouched by time, as though Egeria had been the last to hold it.
Asheron turned it in his hands, inspecting it. "The seal is intact, and Malek senses her, so she still lives. But the stasis field has collapsed, probably from the zat'nik'tel fire. We have little time."
Grasping the cavorting fish of the lid, he lifted it slightly to peek inside and let out a soft gasp. "No. This cannot be."
Sam knelt beside him, a hand on his back. "What?"
"She is tiny. Not even a year old." He raised horror-struck eyes first to Teal'c in wild hope that was quickly dashed. "No, tretonin prevents you from having another primm'ta. She must take a host."
His eyes closed, and grief and pain moved across his face in a wave. Sam realized what was happening -- just as Kelmaa had done on Pangar, Malek was preparing to sacrifice himself so that the queen could live.
"No," she seized his arm. "Malek, no."
Asheron opened his eyes, sorrowful but resolute. "There is no other way. With the stasis field broken, we have no time to prepare a larva tank. She must take a host, since we have no Jaffa. And it must be me, since I can teach her about the Tok'ra."
Her gaze met his, and she did not relinquish his arm. She knew what she had to do. "No," she repeated. "Not you. Give her to me."
"Sam, are you sure?" Daniel asked, but she ignored him, keeping her attention on Asheron.
He tried to shrug off her hand. "Sam, I do not ask this of you."
"You're not asking, I'm offering." He was still resistant, so she added, "This isn't because of you and me. She needs Malek."
He shook his head, "Sam, no, you don't understand. A larva this young cannot possibly leave for a new host until she matures. In her case that is at least ten years away. I thank you for your offer, but --"
"Asheron, Malek, listen to me. I'll take her." She shifted her hands to take the box, and tugged against his grip. "I know what I'm doing. I think, somehow, I was always meant to be Tok'ra. I'm not afraid, and I know what I'm doing. Give her to me." She realized the other reason he didn't want her to do this, and she said softly, "I know that the blending could fail. We could both die. But we won't, Asheron, we won't."
He nodded jerkily, the look in his eyes anguished. "Sam --" But he let her take the stasis box from his fingers.
She leaned close to brush his lips with hers. "I love you," she whispered.
"And I you, Sam."
She smiled at him and basked in the warmth of his gaze. "Have faith." Then, while her courage level was still high, she set the lid aside and looked in. As Malek had said, the queen was very young, pale and slender and as long as her hand, with tiny little nubs for the fins. She was stirring, lifting her head toward the light.
Sam's stomach fluttered with instinctive revulsion against slimy, wormy things. The thought also occurred to her that she had no way to know if this larva was really Egeria's daughter or a Goa'uld.
But she reminded herself that a larva this young could not have full control of its host. If this was a mistake, she would be able to tell the two Tok'ra who could extract it.
She couldn't live with herself if she allowed the new Tok'ra queen to die, or let Malek die just because she was a little afraid.
Taking a deep breath, she reached down and gently lifted the larval queen out of the box. She wasn't slimy at all, but soft and smooth. She coiled on Sam's palm and seemed to wait patiently for Sam to bring her into position.
"She may be too young to do it gently," Asheron warned.
Sam nodded slightly, all her attention on the small creature resting on her hand. The tiny jaws opened and the head swayed back and forth slightly, reminding Sam of a baby bird.
With that thought, she smiled and then brought the larva up to her open mouth.
Perhaps proving that she was in fact Egeria's offspring, the little one had no difficulty in realizing what she was supposed to do. She surged into Sam's mouth and the back of her throat.
There was a brief sensation of gagging, that was swept away by pain. First the back of her throat, then her neck and head, and then her whole body seemed engulfed in fire.
Cool water spread out to douse the flames and coaxed Sam down into blissful dark.
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Asheron wrapped his arms around Sam as she screamed and her hands beat wildly against him, seeking any sort of escape from the pain.
Please don't let this be a mistake, he thought frantically, echoed by Malek. Don't let her die. He wished he had the healing device, but it was downstairs in his vest. So he just held her and prayed to any benevolent deities that might actually exist to spare Sam.
Just as abruptly as she had screamed, she fell limp and quiet, and he let out a relieved breath. This was a much better sign that the blending was proceeding properly.
He glanced up to see both Daniel and Teal'c kneeling on the other side of Sam's body, Daniel looking fearful and Teal'c very grave and a bit threatening. Asheron remembered the last time Teal'c had blamed him for losing someone he was close to, and the Tok'ra had no desire to repeat it.
"How is she?" Daniel asked.
"Quiet is favorable."
Daniel bent over Sam, anxious. "How long will this take?"
Shifting his grasp, so that her head was cradled in his lap and he could touch the side of her face with his hand, Asheron repeated what Malek told him, "Probably not long. She is healthy, so there is little physical damage for the symbiote to repair before blending. But her immaturity may require more time, since she has only instinct to guide her, not the knowledge of one fully mature. Malek isn't certain. Larval Goa'uld rarely take hosts, so there is little precedent."
Daniel settled into a cross-legged position. "So, we wait."
Asheron nodded. "We wait."
The wait was no more than five minutes. Sam stirred, her head moving restlessly against his legs.
"Sam? Sam, speak to me," he entreated. "Are you well? Is the little queen all right?"
She opened her eyes. It took her a moment to realize where she was and why his face was upside down, but then she smiled. "Her name is Turan."
Relief rushed through him, potent as a drug. He bent to kiss her forehead. "And you?"
"I'm okay. Throat's a little sore." She lifted a hand to rub her throat. "But it already feels better. I think she's fixing it." But a small frown crossed her forehead. "She said her name, but then she went away. I can feel her presence, but I can't reach her. She won't talk to me."
"Turan is essentially a baby, Sam," he explained. "She has the instincts, but few of the conscious memories or abilities of a symbiote. At this stage, she is more like a Jaffa primm'ta. Her presence will grant you the advantages of self-healing and reduced aging, but true conscious sharing will take time to develop."
At Malek's urging, he let the symbiote take over briefly. "More so than Selmak or I, Samantha, you will be the one who teaches Turan what she must know. In stasis for two thousand years, she will know nothing about the current Goa'uld, the Tau'ri, or the destruction of her kindred Tok'ra. You must help her understand and adapt."
"I will," she promised. Then she pushed herself up and found three pairs of hands eager to help her rise.
"Guys, I'm fine," she protested and fended off their hands with a chuckle. "Really, it's all very gallant of you, but I feel fine." Standing up on her own, she shifted her weight from foot to foot and then a grin spread across her face. "In fact, I feel great. Y'know all those little nagging aches? They're gone. I see now why Dad thought Selmak was so wonderful."
Daniel said in a quiet voice, "Not to put a damper on things, Sam, but you know Jack is not going to think this is wonderful."
Her excitement faded and she bit her lip. "No." She took a deep breath and let it out unsteadily. "He's not going to be happy, is he?"
Asheron kept his mouth shut, but he certainly agreed. O'Neill had never liked the Tok'ra, and his experience with Kanan had not helped matters. Finding out that one of his favored people had become one was not going to be pleasant.
She glanced over at him and straightened, a look of resolution on her face. "He'll just have to deal with it. There's nothing he can do or say that can change it anyway."
Asheron hoped that was true. And he hoped even more fervently that Sam would not come to regret her hasty decision. By the flicker of doubt he saw in her eyes, she was hoping the same thing.
She held out a hand to help him stand, which he took. Though Malek was handling the worst of the after-effects of the sha'nik prongs, he was still light-headed and the tremors had come back in his hands.
She could feel them too, and frowned in concern. "Asheron?"
"It will take only a little more time," he reassured her.
Sam found a small smile for him and squeezed his hand. "It's probably a good thing you didn't take Turan after all, isn't it?" she asked softly.
He nodded once. But his reasons had very little to do with a difficult blending in a nerve-damaged host, and much more to do with the loss of Malek. Some losses could be endured if necessary, but never overcome.
I will not leave you, Malek reassured him. His love and support helped soothe Asheron's jangled and raw emotions into something a little closer to normal.
After Daniel and Teal'c were also standing, Sam glanced at the still unconscious priest and then to Asheron. "Do you want your knife back? I can bandage him up."
He thought about it and shook his head once. "No. His goddess died on that blade -- it seems fitting that he keep it."
Turan was safely found and Sam was well. But still he looked around the shrine, and felt that his mission here was unfinished.
He sensed Malek's puzzlement. We have done what we came here to do. What more is there?
I feel... unclean, remembering all that happened here, he admitted. I just want to make it go away.
He picked up the zat'nik'tel.
Teal'c seemed to understand what he intended. He pulled Jabaroth out of the way by his ankles and gathered his two friends within the rings.
Malek was silent as his host stared at the statue of Ishtar. It was a good likeness, unnervingly lifelike though monochromatic. Asheron purposefully remembered everything she had done -- not the parts that haunted his nightmares of the burning of his city or the deaths of his wife and child, but what she had done to him, buried in the darkest recesses of his memory in places where even Malek didn't go.
But his symbiote knew anyway, because he had been there for much of it. And his presence was a steady support, as Asheron deliberately unlocked those memories and lifted them out into the light. He remembered dying, waking, and endless days of torment. He remembered her malicious laughter and purring voice. He remembered her bed and the feel of her nails on his skin.
Focusing on her face, he remembered one last image: the total surprise in her expression as he pulled the knife across her neck.
And he let them all go, firing smoothly and deliberately at the statue, again and again, until blue lightning skittered across the surface
The statue of Ishtar exploded, pieces shattering against the wall, hurled there by the unleashed force.
He let out a long breath and handed the zat back to Teal'c. "Thank you." Teal'c inclined his head.
Feeling better? Malek asked solicitously.
Actually, yes. He felt as though a great weight had lifted off him and for the first time since coming back to Inannar he could breathe freely again.
"Are you okay?" Sam took his hand as he joined her within the transport rings.
"Let's go home." He smiled at her and decided that something more was needed to alleviate the concern lingering in her eyes. "As your father would say, 'let's blow this pop stand.'"
As he'd hoped, it made her laugh.
The transport rings rose up to take them back to the main hall, where the Stargate waited to carry them to Earth.
With Sam and Turan at his side, it felt very much like he was finally going home.
fin.
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