Title: The Price
Author: Hah
Genre: Romance/Angst
Warnings: None
Season/Spoilers: None.
Summary: Melia left everything for the young Tok'ra. The cost may have been higher than she expected.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters. I'm just borrowing them for a bit.
AN: Just in case y'all haven't figured, this isn't canon, nor do I believe that it has any support from any mythological standpoint. It's just where the bunnies led. Enjoy with reality fully suspended!

Chapter 4

The next two weeks seemed an eternity to Melia. Everything she saw reminded her of Pedroche. He had made an indelible mark on her life, and now he was gone. She tried to stay optimistic, but deep down she knew that the same qualities that made her fall in love with him were the same qualities that would not allow him to leave the Tok'ra.

At last the time came for her to travel to Kheb. As she feared, Pedroche was not there to meet her. She waited for two days, sitting in view of the gate until she fell asleep, hoping that just maybe he had only been delayed.

Her good friend, Oma Desala, brought food out and stayed with her for hours, listening as the younger woman poured out her heart and holding her as she wept.

"Come back to the temple with me, Melia. The secret burden you carry will soon give you a joy you never knew was possible."

Through her tears, Melia had to smile. Even among the Ascended, Oma was known to have a way with words. She wiped her eyes and sniffed. "Thank you, Oma," she sighed, leaning her head on her friend's shoulder. "You would think that after having the wisdom of the Ascended I would be able to handle this with a bit more dignity. It seems lately that my emotions are beyond my control."

"It's only natural for someone in your condition."

"I was not aware that being heartbroken and weak-minded was a condition," she responded wryly.

"Listen with your heart, Melia. You will hear deep within you an echo of the love that was."

Melia sat up and turned to look at Oma, head tilted slightly to the side in deep thought. She knew there was something important behind Oma's comment, but at the moment she was too emotionally drained to spend a lot of energy contemplating much of anything. Suddenly, a life of observation and contemplation without the burden of interaction sounded quite appealing. She shook her head as if to clear it and the pair stood and walked back to the temple, where Melia fell into a deep sleep back in her temporary abode, for now unaware of the life growing inside her.

Pedroche had seen better days. The planet to which he had traveled had been seized by one of the system lords, and he was immediately captured. Once the jaffa realized he was Tok'ra, he was taken to their master for interrogation. It was the memory of her face and their time together that he held onto when the torture became unbearable, and her name on his lips in his tortured dreams. After a couple of weeks, he found that his symbiote was taking more control with each trip to the sarcophagus. His fragile human psyche hadn't had time to properly recover from his previous overexposure. The symbiote, too, was losing its grip on the essence of what it meant to be Tok'ra. Host and symbiote struggled together to fight the effects, but it was a losing battle. Finally, the voice of Pedroche was completely drowned out, as the corrupted symbiote's eyes flashed in response to the evil of its captor.

"Ah, finally you have come to my way of thinking," the phlanged voice gloated. "Now, let's hear more about this Kheb…"

---

"I really just want to go home," a tearful Melia confided in her friend as they sat on her bed in the guest quarters. As predicted, the "secret burden" of which Oma spoke hadn't stayed a secret for long. Melia's thin waistline, temporarily made more so by her distracted state, began to fill out and her emotions became even more erratic. "There is just no way I can do this alone."

"You know you will never be alone as long as you are here," Oma turned Melia away from her and began brushing her hair "Have you attempted to contact Pedroche as you said you would?"

Melia rubbed her hand over her face, symbolic of the fatigue of body & spirit she was experiencing. "No, I just cannot stand the idea of him coming back just for his baby."

"Melia, he loves you, you know that. Besides, the child is his as well."

"I know." She turned back towards Oma. "Oma, he walked away from me out of a sense of duty for his people. They need him," she shrugged hopelessly. "I fell in love with him because of that sense of duty, of loyalty. I would effectively be asking him to give all that up, to leave his people and…" she turned away again, tears apparent in her eyes. Her voice got very quiet as she continued. "Besides, if he decided not to come, I think I would die from the rejection. I will not blackmail him like that."

Oma stood and stepped in front of her, making direct eye contact. "You have this all figured out, don't you? You have put him in a position where he cannot win, without even giving him a chance to defend himself." Oma lifted the eyes that Melia turned to the floor. "Give him that opportunity. Let him make the decision for himself. Maybe there is an option you had not considered."

"You are right," Melia responded with a heavy sigh. "Just because I do not see a way out of this it does not mean that one does not exist." She squared her shoulders and the determined look returned to her face for the first time in weeks. "Oma, would you mind passing word to the Tok'ra that I need to speak to Pedroche? I would not even know where to start looking now."

"Of course," Oma smiled, relieved to see that the tide of her friend's outlook was finally changing. "I believe I can arrange something."

"Thank you. Just let him know that I would like to speak with him. This is not exactly the kind of news you wish to receive by messenger."

"Consider it done." Oma turned to leave then paused. "In the mean time, there is someone else who may be interested in hearing from you."

Melia thought for a moment, and then shook her head sadly. "I cannot contact my father. I made my decision. I cannot just run to him as soon as times become difficult."

"A lone ember dies quickly." And with that, Oma left a very pensive, but somewhat more hopeful Melia to her thoughts.

---

Word of Pedroche's capture reached the Tok'ra as he joined forces with Anubis. With the tidbits of knowledge Pedroche had gained from Melia – stories of planets she had visited and people she had observed – the two Goa'uld had been slowly and quietly building an army. It was this information that Oma gleaned and returned to Melia.

"The Tok'ra have lost a great warrior and gained a powerful foe." Melia sat shocked as Oma broke the news. "The man you loved no longer exists. The symbiote within him has been corrupted and has shed everything to do with his former life, including his name."

The bad report crushed the last of Melia's resolve and she broke down in Oma's arms. As her tears subsided, she knew what she had to do. She wiped her eyes and straightened her shoulders. "I am ready to go home. If there is any chance that he can find out about our child, that child needs to be protected. This is your sanctuary. You have been more than kind to allow me to stay here, and I do not want to put all of this in any danger."

Oma gently placed a hand on the side of Melia's face.

Almost as an afterthought, Melia stopped Oma with a hand on her arm. "I have one more question."

"Yes?"

"You said Pedroche has changed his name. What name has he taken?" At Oma's hesitation, Melia continued, "I know, it really does not matter in the grand scheme, but I need to know."

"Ba'al. His new name is Ba'al."