If the situation were not so dire, this too, would be funny. I am brandishing a goa'uld symbiote as if it were a weapon and using it to menace SG-1. The picture I present must be an odd one indeed.

" We ask you once more, which one of you shall be host to our new friend?"

O'Neill looks at Samantha and says, "He has her eyes."

He truly does laugh in the face of impending death. I wish that I shared his brash unconcern. I have only a gloomy sense of certainty. Sooner or later, I will die. Still, his comment is quite funny.

" Silence!" Hathor orders him. She does not like it when I enjoy things.

I walk to Daniel and my free hand strokes his face. "Shall it be our beloved? We could spend an eternity together. Do you not remember the joys that we once shared in one another's arms?"

" I really try not to," he replies disgustedly.

Poor Daniel. I sympathize with him. Forced to endure unwillingly at the hands of one person what he truly desires to have from his spouse. I would give a great deal to be returned to my husband's bed.

I now stand before Samantha. "Shall it be the female then? She who would challenge us?"

Again, I silently congratulate Samantha. She did brilliantly when she defeated Hathor over one of her years ago. I have noticed the change in her, though, as has Hathor. My heart aches for her, that she should have suffered as I do now. Yet she is somehow free of it. Is there yet hope for me?

Likely not.

" You have since been possessed by a goa'uld, we sense. Perhaps once more?"

" I'm not afraid," Samantha informs Hathor, coldly.

Yes, remember that, my hated enemy. My body you possess, yet my mind is still my own. You can not defeat that.

" You should be, my dear, for the pain a symbiote can inflict in its host is unimaginable," Hathor informs her. I believe she speaks to me, however, because yet another surge of white-hot pain ripples over my body.

The goa'uld in my hand screams and lunges for O'Neill. No! No, it should not be him! Choose another!

" It seems that our friend has chosen," Hathor informs everyone. That particular tone of triumph is reserved for those rare instances when she could not influence a decision that turned out poorly for me despite her inaction.

O'Neill looks at the serpent in my hands. "What? The gray doesn't bother you?" Still, he jokes? I doubt he will do that ever again. "All right, fine, let's do it. Just please, I beg of you, not in the back of the neck, I've got some problems—"

He snatches out for the goa'uld in my hands. Yes! I scream, even as Hathor begins to force me to move. Yes! Crush the vile beast!

The shot of a zat'ni'katel shocks me. O'Neill falls to the ground, but the symbiote is not entirely missed. My head is snapped around.

" Fool!" Hathor hisses at Rau'lee. Bless that wonderful tok'ra! I hope she's done some sort of irreparable harm.

" He would have harmed the symbiote," Rau'lee protests.

Then again, perhaps this is not as good as I'd hoped. Rau'lee is not a very apt spy, it seems.

" Which you have done in his place! Return it to the safety of the jaffa! Take him…" Hathor looks down at O'Neill, who lays by my feet. "…somewhere where he can be properly restrained."

It does not take long. The goa'uld is returned to the jaffa, O'Neill is carried and weapons are leveled at Samantha and Daniel. The walk to the cryogenics room in which he awakened is a short one, but O'Neill awakens on the way there. He is settled into a cryogenic tank and strapped in.

" We are not pleased," Hathor informs him.

I seem to have been mistaken. Hathor's ability to state the obvious far exceeds that of the tau'ri.

" Neither are we," O'Neill returns. Even from a prone position, tied down, he manages have more of a presence than I do. I am truly sorry to see him meet this fate.

My hand reaches down and savagely removes the memory device from O'Neill's temple. He winces in pain. I sympathize. That must've truly hurt.

" Once host to a goa'uld you will take the lives of your friends," Hathor informs him.

The full force of my mind is suddenly focused in anger on her. I can not remember my name, or my husband's, or those of my family or friends, but the day that I killed my best friend will always stay with me. I remember everything of that day, right down to the color dress I wore, and the fact that Hathor had recently broken the nail of the small finger on my right hand. I had thought that I hated Hathor before then, but I was quite mistaken.

" We don't think so." Sad vanity, I fear, O'Neill.

" You will have no say in the matter. You will witness their deaths through your own eyes…helplessly."

This is true. I could not do anything, though I tried. I tried so hard. I fought with all my mind to regain control just for a few seconds. Just enough to give her time to flee. She had the audacity to publicly suggest that one of Hathor's decisions was less than perfect and for that, Hathor killed her personally.

My hands reach out and tear open his shirt. "It may take some time for the goa'uld to take control. But we will greatly enjoy experiencing your eventual defeat," Hathor informs him.

I bitterly fume at Hathor as my hands scoop out the goa'uld from the stomach of the jaffa and place it on O'Neill's chest.

" Oh, god, no," O'Neill protests. I watch as the goa'uld goes for his neck.

" And when you awaken from the joining, you will kneel and pledge your loyalty to us," Hathor informs him. I wish it were not so, but I know this to be true. I had hoped that O'Neill would not be the one.

" No," he says again, but now it is too late. The symbiote is in.

His eyes do not glow, though. That is the signal that the goa'uld has taken full possession and usually happens the moment the symbiote is inside. Only exceptionally strong-willed individuals may prevent this from occurring right away. I was, sadly, not among the blessed. Hathor was in control from the moment she entered me.

Weapons' fire rang out from somewhere in the compound. Staff weapons and the projectile affairs of which the tau'ri are fond. There may yet be hope for O'Neill after all.

" Jaffa! Kree'mel!" Hathor has me order. Daniel and Samantha are immediately taken away to a secure location. I turn to Rau'lee and Hathor says, "Jaffa, lok shak kel'mak a kree!"

Then, secure in the knowledge that her orders will be obeyed, Hathor turns me and I sweep away, surrounded by the jaffa. I have to wonder what game Hathor is playing. She knows that Rau'lee is a tok'ra and yet she leaves her alone with O'Neill.

I am sorry, O'Neill. You shall be missed.