Ba'al was not, in any conventional sense, "a man of his word", but he did occasionally like to reaffirm his promises or double down on his decisions when it would gain him respect. Having placed Nike in charge of the planet in front of so many witnesses, it would be difficult to back out of the arrangement while she yet lived. So, he had refused Hecate's request, while taking her aside and giving her a subtle nod that Nike would be dead shortly, and then Hecate could have her place.

This had seemed to pacify both parties, and the negotiations were finally over.

He strode purposefully back toward the holding chamber, his coattails waving behind him. He had left some unfinished business here. If that upstart Goa'uld in a woman's body had not died of her injuries by now, he would make sure she did, and then he would send her to the sarcophagus. She had been babbling some sort of nonsense… he stopped himself. No, it wasn't nonsense.

He was intelligent enough not to disregard things his enemies had told him, even when they sounded ridiculous. "Love", she said. It had to mean something. Well, he would find out what.

He held up a hand to the Jaffa at his flanks as he approached the chamber door, and the two of them stopped short.

The two Jaffa whom he had left to guard the chamber were gone.

Either they had abandoned their posts, or something was even more deeply wrong.

"Go raise the alert," he said to the Jaffa on his left, "And signal the ground troops." That Jaffa nodded and jogged off down the hall.

Moments later, there was the sound of two zats. Ba'al turned around, drawing his knife. He no longer had to guess at the fate of the guards. His single remaining Jaffa raised his staff—and took two zats in the back.

There were two of the intruders. A woman, who had just struck down his last Jaffa, crouching in the middle of the hallway, and a man, who had just emerged from around the corner the way he had come from.

The woman pointed the zatnikatel at him, but did not shoot. He knew her. That was Hecate's lotar.

Ah. His plans had hit a snag, but it was nothing he couldn't deal with.

"I assume," he began, "That your mistress Hecate is around here somewhere? About to make me an offer I can't refuse?"

"Not exactly," said Circe. The woman was a Goa'uld? Impossible. He would have sensed it. "If I were you, I'd be more worried about him." She jabbed a finger back over his shoulder.

He did not even recognize this man. He had cropped, short hair and was wearing the garb of a high-status slave of Ashtoreth's planet. It was hard to imagine worrying about him, since there was something rather plain, open and unremarkable about his features.

Were they Tok'ra? Were they both Tok'ra? Now that would be something to worry about.

"Pleasure to make your acquaintance," said Ba'al, and held out a hand as if to shake. "I don't believe I know you, but whoever you are, I'm sure we can work something out."

The man's open expression turned to open contempt so quickly it was almost shocking.

That was when Ba'al noticed there was something cold behind his eyes, something that was so well hidden he hadn't noticed it before. Anger.

"You know," said Jonas, "I really don't think so."

He picked up the staff weapon of the dead Jaffa near him and leveled it directly at Ba'al's head.

"Wait," said Ba'al, in a sudden and desperate bid. "I am more valuable to you ali—"

He never got the opportunity to finish his sentence.

Kianna pushed open the door of the cargo room and stood, unsteadily but stronger than before, in the hallway, looking over Ba'al's dead body.

"Kianna!" The relief on his face was immediate.

She looked up. "Jonas! You're okay."

He ran to her, but noticed her flinching away and stopped short of hugging her before he could inflict any more damage on her arm.

"He hurt you." His eyes were hard and angry.

She nodded, wide-eyed. he didn't know what to say, and Ophrenet was still too exhausted to speak.

"Come on. We stopped them from raising the alarm, but we've got to get out of here." Then he actually picked her up, bridal carry style, conscious of her broken arm, which was difficult, but manageable because she was so small. She bit her tongue at the pain and started to cry quietly, but he kissed her forehead. She felt so much pain, but so much love too.

After that she closed her eyes tightly until they reached the bridge.

That was when Netty started to come back around. They had been laid down gently on top of something flat.

"No," gasped Ophrenet.

Jonas turned around quickly from where he'd been looking over the dashboard with Circe. "Netty?"

"No! Not the sarcophagus." Her fingers tightened with pain and she shuddered.

"But Netty! We have to heal you."

"I can heal us by myself. I do not need it."

"Are you sure?" He leaned over her in concern.

"I'm sure. Please."

"All right, then."

Before he could move away again she reached up to him with her left hand.

"Jonas… have you… have you ever killed anyone before this?"

A brief, troubled look passed across his face. "I guess I might have hit a Jaffa by shooting in the bush. But I don't know."

"Oh… oh no. Jonas, I didn't mean for this to happen. I didn't want to do this to you."

"To do what to me?"

"I don't want to change you," she supplied, brokenly.

"Netty, please," said Jonas softly, taking the hand she had reached out to him. "I know how you feel about me. And I appreciate it. I really do. And I know where you're coming from, but you don't have to be so afraid. I've already seen my planet ripped apart by nuclear war. We were nearly destroyed twice. I've watched people die. I've even been captured by Anubis. I was his tool against my will in his conquest of the galaxy, and it almost destroyed Langara again. There were huge breaches of Tau'ri security because of me. You think I didn't feel terrible because of that? You think I don't still feel terrible because of that? I do. Please don't worry that I'm so fragile one bad experience would break my spirit."

Ophrenet lay there, stunned. How had he known all of this? Was she so readable?

"I'm not going to stop smiling," said Jonas, with a tiny smile. "I promise."

"I've got the ship online now," said Circe. "We're ready to exit into hyperspace." The Tok'ra had taken a moment's break to search the ship for a Goa'uld hand device, and Ophrenet had been sitting up, attempting some basic healing on herself for several minutes. She'd gotten the swelling down around the break and was feeling a bit better. But there were a few pieces of bone in there, and it would need a splint.

"Wait," said Netty.

"Oh?"

"What about the symbiotes?"

"What about them?" Circe asked, turning around in the command chair.

"You know why I came here, right?"

"Yes, he told me. We can't take them with us."

"And why not?" demanded Netty.

"Well, for one," said the Tok'ra, and somehow despite their lack of voice changes Netty knew this was Katarina, "We don't have hosts."

Circe added, "This is why you are arrogant. The Tok'ra have been dealing with the problem of our existence for much longer than you have. We have been attempting to balance the consent of humans with our own needs for hosts for centuries. Yet you rejected our wisdom, refused to consult us, and now you think you can solve this problem by yourself overnight?"

Netty was stung. "Well, you're not so innocent yourself! I've got problems with you people. What about Pangur?"

"Pangur?"

"The Tok'ra High Council saw no objection to massacring thousands of symbiotes without even Goa'uld ancestral memories to condemn them. And why? Merely because they thought these were the children of a Goa'uld queen, before they knew that same queen was their own mother. Not that it makes any difference, because the symbiotes were blank slates, but they were your own brothers and sisters! And you made no effort to save them because it would have been politically inconvenient for the Tau'ri!"

"I beg your pardon," Circe retorted. "It's not that simple. When we found out they were our siblings, we were greatly conflicted, but we realized we had no hosts for them! They would not have survived anyways, and if we had claimed them, thousands of humans would have died in the time it took for us to learn how to synthesize Tretonin in the lab."

"But when they were Goa'uld it was acceptable to breed them for slaughter? Are a blank slate Goa'uld and a blank-slate Tok'ra not functionally identical?"

Circe had a look on her face as though she was trying to consider this, but finally she said, bleakly, "It makes no difference, as there is no way for them to successfully mature."

"That's where you're wrong," said Netty. "You don't know because you've never tried! And you've never tried because you don't care."

It was Circe's turn to look stung.

Netty continued, her emotions worked up. "Their existence is inconvenient to you, and the task of finding hosts, along with the possibility of not succeeding, is too much of a burden. It's much easier for you to pretend that they're not people, not in the same way that you are. But they are. And you don't even try. Even your queen Egeria was willing to breed them for death because she thought they weren't people. Because they had no genetic memory. Well, you know what else is born without genetic memory?"

There was a long and awkward silence on the bridge.

"Humans," said Katarina quietly.

"Precisely," said Kianna.

Circe finally backed down slightly. "You must understand. The idea of having resources at our disposal is new to us. But if you can prove that you have a means of raising these symbiotes to maturity… I will speak to the council about the possibility of taking them on."

"I can prove it," said Netty confidently. "I'll need help, but I'm sure it can be done."

"All right then," said Katarina, standing up. "We need to hurry. This planet is still under Ba'al's control, and we have a limited amount of time."

"Still under Ba'al's control?" repeated Kianna. "Isn't he dead? Didn't you just topple his entire empire?" she hesitated. "I did think you were against creating power vacuums."

"Are you telling me you don't know about the Ba'al clones?"

"The what?"

"13 Ba'al clones? That sounds like a logistical nightmare," said Kianna as they rolled the things from Ashtoreth's lab to the middle of the ring platform.

The lab still hadn't been discovered yet by the Jaffa on the surface, though by the sound of the chatter on the comms they'd missed a check-in with Ba'al and had discovered the ring platform wasn't working. Things were a bit of a mess above the ground.

"You'd better believe it," said Katarina.

"But don't they compete for dominance? Try to pick each other off?" Netty carefully disconnected more of the canisters from the wall with her left hand. Her arm wouldn't let her do the heavy lifting, and she was lazy, but needed to comment. The subject was too bizarre.

"You'd think," said Katarina, "but they mostly stay out of each other's way. Believe it or not, they actually get some benefit from each other. It lets him be present in person on many of the planets he rules at the same time, reducing risk of rebellions and granting stability to his empire. Besides that, they can gain from the reputation accrued by the others. There's only one empire of Ba'al, as long most people, including Jaffa, don't realize there's more than one of him."

"And how does he manage that?"

"There's not really a lot of coordination in Ba'al's empire right now and they obfuscate their presence by moving around a lot, so most worlds haven't really picked up on it. Anyway, the point is, just because Ba'al is dead, doesn't mean Ba'al is dead. So we do have to move."

"So where are we taking this ship?" asked Kianna once the contents of Ashtoreth's lab were all ringed up to the commandeered mothership, and their shields were engaged. The three of them, herself, Circe, and Jonas, all sat on the bridge.

"There is a safe world a few days from here," said Circe, "where I might be able to get in contact with the Tok'ra High Council. From there, you can consult them about the viability of your little… project." She didn't look up from the dashboard. "Jumping to hyperspace in three… two… one…"

The ship lurched into transit.

"Now," said Circe, "It is time to see about splinting your arm."

Kianna nodded, though hesitantly.

It is severe, Netty told her, but it is nothing I cannot heal.

Thank you, said Kianna. And thank you for repressing my consciousness, by the way.

It is I who should be thanking you. There was evil inside of me, and the only reason that I didn't see it was because it was natural to me. Without you I would have succumbed to it. You didn't have to choose to be my host… but you did. And for that I can never thank you enough.

Well. Kianna smiled. That was a little sappy. Honestly, don't really know how to respond.

She reached over and placed her hand on Jonas's. But we're all together now. And we have the kids in the backseat. We'll figure something out.

Thank you for reading, everyone. If there is a follow-up to this fic, it will be called "Son of the Tok'ra" and based around a new OC, the son of Martouf and Rosha, born with all the knowledge of the Tok'ra. Follow my account to see if it's ever posted and follow me on tumblr (evelynmlewis) for my original fiction. Edits to this fic may eventually be made.

It's going to be a little bit difficult to adjust back to writing normally after this. Kianna/Ophrenet is one of the most interesting and unique POV's I've ever undertaken, mainly because she's two people. In most Tok'ra centric fics, they're written either from the POV of the host observing the symbiote, or from the POV of the symbiote observing the host. This fic is neither and both, in an attempt to be authentic to the way canon describes the Tok'ra experience. I think we all have some form of multiplicity in us, we get divided, we fight with ourselves, we encourage ourselves, we have conflicting desires and influences. So even though it is fantasy, it can be relatable to humans.

Finally, please leave a review.