The Great Odyssey

by Kontheria

Pan awakes on an alien world with a headache. Where is she? How did she get there? She decides to put her trust into a group of people in green uniforms. But between shadows of her own past catching up and her headaches growing stronger, what is going to happen next?

4. Head of the Snake

Head of the Snake

Winding my way between people, I made it back to my tent in the camp, or rather to where my tent had been. Someone had already packed it up, together with my other things and there was no point in going through every single pack I could see lying around in the camp until I found my clothes. So I tried not to stand in anyone's way, rubbing my arms in the cool breeze and wishing for some sleeves. Someone cleared their throat behind my shoulder and I jumped.

'Oh, sorry,' I said and looked up. 'I hadn't realised I...' I froze. The person standing behind me was Daniel. I wasn't sure whether to turn and run, give him an apologetic smile or just wait for him to do something, but all of the above seemed like a bad idea. In his eyes I saw the pain again, a similar pain I had noticed in his office, and I hated myself.

'Look,' I said before he could get a word out and tried to stop my jaw from chattering. The sudden hotness had been replaced with liquid ice pouring through me and making me shiver in the breeze. 'I'm sorry about what I said. I didn't mean to... I mean, I know that... I'm sorry,' I finished lamely and looked at my feet. What was I supposed to say? I had known about him, about his grief, and I still had been selfish enough to get angry. Part of me was convinced that putting distance between us was the right thing to do, but it had always been easier for me to hurt myself rather than others. And this seemed to hurt him more than it hurt me, even if I found it hard to believe, so somehow I needed to stop this before it was too late.

'Are you cold?,' he responded to my stammering after a short pause.

I shook my head without looking up, still rubbing my arms. Out of the corners of my eyes I watched him take his jacket off with a sigh and offer it to me.

'Come on, I can see you're shaking.'

I didn't move, not sure whether to take it or walk away. It was true, I was shivering in the long shadows of the broken walls, but there was a principle at stake here. I had told him to keep his distance, although not in so many words, so if I took the jacket now, I was the one crossing the line, not him.

'Just take it,' he said in a quiet voice. 'It's alright. I'm not mad.'

Every single finger on my hand trembled when I reached for the jacket and pulled it over my shoulders.

'Thank you,' I whispered and pushed my arms through the sleeves, only to fold them across my chest again. 'I'll need to find mine when we get back.'

'No rush,' he said and I heard in his voice that he was smiling. I still couldn't find the courage to look into his face. 'You keep it as long as you need it.'

We stood in silence for a while, watching the bustle around us. The sun was sinking faster and faster, the light had turned orange and the shadows lengthened rapidly. Soon it would be dusk and we would be invisible in the dark.

'Once you two love birds are finished over there,' I heard someone smirk from the shadows, 'maybe you could find the time to help.'

My head whipped around to see who had said that, while I could feel my face start glowing red hot. Out of the shadows stepped Colonel O'Neill, and there was a slight smile around the corners of his mouth.

'It's time to go, campers,' he added, turned around and walked away between the fallen walls. Without another word I turned to follow him, but stopped half-way and turned back. For the first time since we started talking I looked into Daniel's face. Since I had told Sam my story, I saw less of a resemblance between Daniel and him. But it was still there, in my mind, and his blue eyes made it hard for me to think straight, especially after reliving the events from five years ago.

'I'm really sorry,' I wanted to say. 'I don't want to hurt anyone. But that's why I need to do this. I hope you can forgive me, if not now, maybe someday in the future.' But I couldn't bring myself to articulate any of this, and suddenly I realised that I was angry. Angry with this place, angry with whoever brought me here and put me into this situation, angry with Daniel for making it so much harder than it needed to be, but most of all with myself, for being so weak, so apologetic, and not having the courage and hardness of heart to actually get myself out of all of this.

'Figlio di puttana!,' I said to the universe at large, not quite under my breath. And only after I realised that I had spoken these words with an angry face in the general direction of the only person here who could understand them. After darting a glance at Daniel's face and seeing that he had indeed taken that last part personally, I quickly turned back around and walked away as fast as my long skirt would allow.

Behind a few corners someone got hold of my arm. I spun around and saw Sam's face.

'There you are,' she said. 'I wasn't sure where you got to. Jack said he saw you talking with Daniel, so I didn't want to...' She looked into my face and stopped. 'It didn't go well then,' she remarked. I sighed. By now I probably had GUILTY written across my forehead in illuminated letters.

'I'm really good at making things worse,' I mumbled. 'Maybe I should just stop talking to people in general.'

'Maybe you should try a simple apology,' said Sam and her face became hard again. 'Three words shouldn't be too hard even for you.'

'I tried,' I whispered. 'But I couldn't get a word out. Not the way he was looking at me.'

'And then what happened?'

People were streaming around us, packing things, carrying packs. My eyes scanned them, daring anyone to try and listen to our conversation. But nobody seemed to notice.

'I got angry. Mainly with myself, but you can't tell that very well.'

'You shouted at him?'

'No, of course not,' I almost growled. 'I swore aloud. In Italian. Unfortunately in his direction.'

After a moment of breathless silence, Sam gave a short laugh, looked down and shook her head.

'Man, you like to complicate things, don't you.'

'I don't,' I returned and picked up a random backpack. Someone would have to carry it after all. 'Things just get complicated by themselves, and then I'm there to make them even worse.'

With the pack on my back I made my way to the gate in the barrier. Colonel O'Neill was already there, giving instructions to a few airmen who then swarmed out to coordinate the others. When he saw me approach he gave me a nod and then jerked his head toward the doorway.

'So we don't get zapped or anything when we try to get out of here, right?'

'No, nobody gets zapped,' I replied with a sigh. 'But we won't be able to get back in either. I had to destroy the opening mechanism when we came back to try and keep the jaffa out.'

The tone of my voice made him raise his eyebrows.

'You alright?,' he asked and waived a few airmen away who had returned from their assignments and wanted to get some new ones. 'You seem different from this morning.'

I grimaced and gave a shrug. Too many things had happened, none of which were any of his business. 'I think I'm just exhausted from those devices,' I said. It wasn't a lie. But it wasn't the whole truth either. 'I won't hold anyone up,' I reassured him when he raised his eyebrows again. 'I just don't quite feel myself, that's all.'

He studied me for a few moments before he finally shrugged and turned away.

'Right,' he bellowed. 'Everyone get in line. We have one chance to shake them and make it back home, so let's make this one count.'

I found myself pretty much in the centre of the line, together with Daniel and some of the younger airmen. The plan seemed simple, first the most experienced went out to draw anyone who was there out into the open. Then the most defenseless would follow and try to make it to the gate, and then some more experienced men brought up the rear to ensure everyone made it there safely. I tried not to look at the others, especially Daniel, and shifted from one foot to the other, eager to get out of here.

'Let's move it,' I heard the colonel shout from the front and the first group went through the gate and immediately took cover. But nothing happened. The forest remained as quiet as a grave, and in the greyness between the trees nothing moved. After a few breathless moments, I saw the colonel waive his hand for us to follow and as quietly as possible, with so many army boots on loose leaves and dry branches, the rest of us came through the doorway.

I couldn't help but look back for just a moment. The ruins glowed red in the light of the gas giant, and I suddenly felt sad, as if some part of me was losing home forever. Then we stepped through the doorway and the ruins disappeared. Now there was just dark forest around us and no sound except for our own heavy breathing, the careful steps of the soldiers and every now and again a metallic clink when their weapons connected with a buckle on their uniform or their pack. I tried to hold my breath as we walked between the trees, and I couldn't quite understand why. Everything was peaceful, but somewhere at the back of my mind there were alarms ringing. Something was wrong. Something was ... missing.

We only managed to take a few more steps down the pathway, then all hell broke loose. Streaks of fiery light shot past my face and I heard shots fired from guns and MGs all around me. A young airman right next to me got hit in the chest by one of the fire balls, and it left a burning hole. He went down without a sound and lay still with his eyes still open. My breath was suddenly very loud in my ears, and so was my heart beat. It was like LA all over again. Everything around me seemed to slow down, the shouts, the shots and the blasts shooting past us. Someone grabbed my arm and I wrestled, trying to break free until I looked up and into Daniel's face.

'Get out of here now,' he shouted over the thundering guns. 'Run!'

I nodded, my eyes wide, and he let go, turned away and started firing his gun again. For a few steps I walked backwards, not taking my eyes off him. After four more shots he dropped the magazine, took a new one from his belt without looking down and started firing again. His eyes moved my way, and now there was almost something like anger in his face when he saw I was still there.

'Go!'

I turned and ran, weaving through the fighting soldiers. Some of the jaffa had come in close, and I tried my best to avoid them. My backpack got caught and I slipped out of the straps without giving it another thought. I got pulled back by my skirt when someone grabbed it, but I turned and kicked blindly into the gloom, felt my foot connect and heard someone grunt. A sharp pain exploded in my ankle and I gave a short scream, but my skirt came free and I limped onwards as fast as I could, away from the fight and into the dark woods. I tried to listen for any steps following me, but over the shouts and gun shots I couldn't hear much else. There were a few bullets whistling through the air and I bent over, only now realising how stupid it was to run away from a gun fight like this. In the end it might be my own side who shot me.

The further I got, the more certain I was that there were heavy steps following me through the woods. I didn't have my shoes on and I stepped on a few branches, wincing every time I had to put weight on my injured foot. In the dark I tried to outrun my pursuers, while circling back around to the gate and meet the others there, if any of them would make it.

Steps were right behind me, and I could feel someone's breath down my neck. I ducked down and sidestepped to the right. The heavy hand missed my neck and instead closed around the sleeve of the jacket. Without giving it another thought I twisted out of it and continued through the dark woods, leaving my pursuer behind with an empty piece of clothing. But I knew they wouldn't give up this easily. I heard them get closer again, and only now did I figure out the main problem: I was in a white dress in a dark forest. I would always stand out like a ghost among the trees, no matter how far I managed to run. In the dusky grey I looked like a will o'wisp leading travellers astray.

However, I felt an electric tingling on my skin and I gave the night a grim smile. Suddenly my hopes returned. I stopped my shuffling run and faced my pursuers for the first time. They stopped as well, pointing their staff weapons at me, but not advancing any further. One of them disengaged and put his weapon back up. The front folded up with a clicking noise and he approached me. He was the first to get struck by the lightning. Whirring and sparking the guardians came out from between the tree tops and unleashed their blue defense mechanisms. The other jaffa turned around to face the spheres and fired their weapons at them, but they didn't have a chance. One by one they went down, twitching, struck by the blue sparks.

I turned again and moved as fast as I could through the trees. The fight was far behind and I could hardly hear the noise over my own breathing. The spheres followed me in some distance, still sparking and purring away. Then sudden brightness filled the forest. A giant fireball, much larger than the ones produced by the staff weapons, collided with one of the spheres and caused a brief explosion. It went down, a crater in its metal skin and little blue sparks came out of the hole. The other spheres turned and headed off in the direction of the blast.

'No, wait!,' I shouted after them. 'Come back! It's not safe!'

But they kept going. I saw another blast connect with a sphere and it too went to the ground. A third blast missed a sphere by an inch and split a tree behind me, but it sent the sphere spinning. It cannoned into the fourth sphere and they both collided with a tree, fell to the ground and stopped moving. I stood in the dark, stunned at losing my last allies in this battle, but then I turned and ran – straight into the chest of another jaffa warrior. They had me surrounded, their staff weapons aimed at my chest. Some of them were holding smaller guns in their hands, shaped like snakes, and I didn't know what to expect of them, but I did recognise a weapon when I saw one.

I spun round and round, trying to find a way out, but there were no gaps. There was nowhere left to run

'Pan!,' I heard a shout in the distance, but I couldn't tell who it was. One of the jaffa moved, or at least his finger did. The last thing I saw was an explosion of blue and white light in the darkness between the trees. It covered my skin and I screamed as it burned and stung. Then I went to the ground and fell into a dark pit.

When my eyes opened again, I was staring at a high ceiling. The walls stretched away from me and I thought I could see a window or a white light far above. Someone walked past it, not over it or on the inside, but they walked past along one of the walls, and because of the way I was lying, they were upside down as well. My eyes crossed and I shook my head and sat up. I had to blink a few times before I was sure that I could see properly again. When I looked up, the person had gone, but I was sure it was a jaffa, and I was sure that he had seen me looking at him. How could he walk along walls?

I heard voices approach and quickly got to my feet. I was in a very small cell, and there was only a bed and on a wall a strange clock with one hand. It was pointing down. Up above me the voices got louder and when I looked up, I saw several jaffa standing in front of the light, once again on one of the walls. I turned so they were standing the right way up and watched as one of them pushed a button. The room tilted, while staying exactly the same. Very slowly I fell forward, slid over a floor that was starting to become a wall, and I saw the hand of the clock move with the changing gravity. It was now pointing sideways to the wall in front of me, and in exactly that moment I collided with what was now the ground.

I only fell a few feet, not far enough to injure me, but I hadn't expected it, and the collision knocked all air out of me. When the jaffa guards reached me, I was still lying on my face, trying to breathe. They grabbed my unresisting arms, pulled me to my feet and dragged me along what had been a wall and into a corridor. I had tears in my eyes, and my surroundings were blurred, but I felt that we went down a corridor, through a set of doors, down another hall, and by then I had at least managed to get to my feet. The guards wouldn't let me walk by myself or give me back control over my arms. I tried to blink the blurriness out of my eyes, but it took me a few tries before I could see clearly again.

The brightness of the white light had been replaced by horizontal bars of orange light and some similar light sources in the ceiling, but the whole place seemed to be dark and uninviting. I was taken through more triangular doorways and into a great room full of more guards, a raised platform with a chair and a wall that looked like a spider web. They pushed me towards it and as I got closer I could feel the drag of gravity coming from it. I spun around and suddenly found myself completely immobilised when my back hit the surface. I tried to move my arms, struggle against the pull, but I couldn't move a muscle. And so I lay there, on my back against a wall and watched the room.

The guards that had brought me in were already on their way out, and now I saw that there were eight other guards in the room. Two at each doorway and four grouped around the chair in the centre of the room. As soon as the door had shut behind them, the other door opened and a man walked in. I could tell from his manner that he was different from the jaffa. He walked taller, he was dressed in flowing robes and his pale face was outlined by a finely cut beard. Objectively I had to admit that he was quite attractive. But there was something in his eyes and in the smirk around the corners of his mouth that made me loathe him instantly.

He walked through the room without a glance at anyone, especially not the guards, and then he ascended the steps, flourished his blue and gold robes and sat down with a theatrical twirl.

Only then did he lay his eyes on me. I thought for a moment I saw a light move across his eyeballs, but it was gone in an instant. He rested his chin in one hand while he lounged in his chair and studied me with a cruel smile. I realised that the skirts of my dress had slipped up and exposed my right leg almost all the way to the hip. His eyes took that in and moved further up my body, slowly, as if taking measure. When he got to my face his smile had widened somewhat, and I felt like he had undressed me with just a look. Shame made my cheeks burn, but I didn't avoid his gaze. One thing I had decided for myself was that I would never run away from my fears, I would always face them and stare them down. And that was what he was at this moment, one of my greatest fears. Or rather it was this entire situation, being powerless and at the mercy of someone like him. Whoever and whatever he was.

'Where are my manners,' he finally said and rose from his seat. His voice didn't sound unpleasant, but its tone made me feel even more uneasy. 'After all you are our guest. I suppose I should offer you any comfort available.' He half turned his back and approached a table next to his chair. I couldn't see what was on it, but I had the suspicion that it wasn't anything pleasant. As if he had heard my thoughts he picked up a dagger and played with it while looking back at me. 'But I'm afraid there aren't all that many comforts here for you.'

'Who are you?'

Something about how he froze made me think that asking this question, or speaking at all, was a very stupid thing to do. But this was me, and that's what I did, so I went ahead nevertheless.

'Since you invited me in so graciously, I think it is rather rude not to do introductions before we get down to business,' I continued, staring death in the face.

'But of course,' the man replied, turned back towards me with the dagger still in his hands. Something about his smile made me think of a shark, or a snake. But it was too late to turn back now. 'Please do forgive me. Ba'al, at your service.'

He hinted a bow without taking his eyes off me. I swallowed. I had heard the name before. And it took me a few moments to draw the connections. Mesopotamian mythology. The adversary of SG1. What had they called him again? A Goa'uld.

'And you must be Pandora, legacy of the Ancients, and bearer of their secrets,' he continued and sat down in his chair again, watching me without blinking.

'I'm not too sure about that,' I said and tried again to move my arms, but the gravitational pull was too strong for me. For the first time in my life I wished I had done more workouts. 'I mean, you got the name right, but I don't know any Ancients. Until a few weeks ago I didn't even know they existed.'

'You can not fool me,' Ba'al said with the same smile. 'I know about your visions, the headaches, the voices in your head.'

I glared at him. How did he know all these things? He seemed to know even more than I did, or perhaps he had heard certain things like about the headaches, and had made some assumptions based on knowledge that I didn't have. Maybe he really did know more than me. But then I didn't need to tell him any more.

'And you are going to share all those little thoughts with me,' he declared, got up once more and came closer to me. It felt strange looking up at him coming closer, while lying on my back and watching a room where gravity worked in a different direction. It made my eyes water, but I didn't even have enough strength to wipe my eyes and stop the room from swirling around me.

'You are right to be afraid,' Ba'al said, mistaking my watering eyes for genuine tears. 'Whether you share your knowledge willingly or not, you will suffer greatly until I am done with you.'

'There is no knowledge to share,' I said. 'If you heard anything at all, you should know that.'

'Oh, but it is there,' he said, twirling the dagger again. 'You just need to try and remember.'

'The last time I did that, I fainted from the pain and was almost killed from my heightened brain activity,' I returned. 'If you really think you would get anything useful from me, you will be bitterly disappointed.'

'You will obey!,' Ba'al shouted, and his voice changed. Before it had been human, almost pleasant, but now there was a dark undertone, as if the beast inside him was speaking through him. SG1 had explained to me what a Goa'uld was, and I knew that the beast had been speaking this entire time, but now was the first time I could actually tell the difference between a normal human and whatever this man had become.

I pressed my lips together and shook my head. Whatever he wanted from me, he would have to take it by force. And nothing he could do to me would be as painful as trying to access those buried memories in my brain. He stopped twirling the dagger, came a few steps closer and held it only by the very end of the hilt. When he extended his arm, the tip of the blade rose until it pointed straight at me, at my left arm. I knew enough about physics to know that the increased gravitation that was holding me down would also accelerate the dagger. What he was about to do would be extremely painful, but there were two things that made me feel that I would be strong enough. For one it was the same arm that had been shot back on my first day. And secondly it wouldn't even be close to what Daniel's drawing had done to my head.

I looked into Ba'al's eyes and gave him a cold smile.

'Never.'

The dagger shot towards me and I felt its cold steel go right through my arm like a spear made of ice. I knew the pain would come, and when it did I screamed and screamed. My arm was on fire, my blood was boiling and the raging flames flowed through my arm, all the way up into my shoulder, my neck and my chest. By the time I could see again, Ba'al had returned to his table and picked up another dagger. I was trying hard to control my breathing, but all I could do was sob through my gritted teeth. The pain was bad, but not as bad as what he wanted me to do.

'I don't want to do this, you know,' he told me in a level voice.

Monster, I thought to myself.

'There are far nicer things I could think of doing with you,' he continued and faced me with the second dagger. It too rose from his hand until the tip pointed at my right arm. 'But I need you to cooperate. Unless you tell me exactly what you know and remember, there is nothing else I can do.'

'You don't understand,' I managed between gulping breaths. 'I can't. There is no way. It hurts too much.'

'So does this,' he said with his serpentine smile and let go. The second dagger pierced my right arm and I could hear the bone splinter and the blade hit the metal wall behind me. My scream this time was longer but less loud. The pain from the first wound was still there, and somehow that had made the second hit far more bearable. And this was still better than the headaches.

'Never as much,' I told him and blinked the tears out of my eyes. 'You can kill me with a hundred daggers, and I would rather feel the blades in my body than what those so-called memories do with my head. It's far more bearable.'

Ba'al raised an eyebrow. He went to pick up another dagger. But I meant what I had said. My body was on fire, I could feel the cold steel in my flesh, but I would gladly take the next dagger, and another, and another, if I could forego the headaches. My face was stone when the next dagger pointed at me, right at the point between my eyes. I looked right into Ba'al's eyes, and he into mine. Was there something like admiration in his look? He let go of the dagger and I didn't even have time to blink before it bounced off the metal next to my ear and clattered against the metal web. He had missed on purpose to see my reaction. I hadn't flinched. I didn't even have time to breathe.

'I see,' he said and continued to stare at me. We remained immobile for a few moments, waiting for each other to do the next move. My arms trembled with the pain of the blades and my breathing was irregular. But nothing would ever make me change my mind. Suddenly he turned his back on me. He walked off his little dais and as he left the room, he gave the guards a wave with his hand. They approached my wall, one pushed a button and the pull backwards stopped without warning. I fell on my feet and sank to my knees, too weak to support myself and deal with the pain at the same time. The third dagger clattered to the ground next to me. The jaffa dragged me to my feet, grabbing my arms above the daggers and then took me with them through the door Ba'al had used.

Once more I was paraded through corridors with strange light until we reached a room with something resembling a slab in the centre. They maneuvered me onto it and shackled me in place with conveniently placed metal rings. I didn't even try to break free, it was all I could do to stop my teeth from chattering. My entire body trembled with pain and exhaustion, and I dreaded to think what he had planned with me now. It had to be worse. Much worse.

The jaffa took up position around me. From where I was lying I could see four, two on either side of me, but I could hear footsteps in the room, so I was sure there would be more somewhere close by. A face appeared upside down in my field of vision, and it was Ba'al. From this angle, his smile almost seemed sincere. He was holding what looked like a pet snake, except I had never seen a more terrifying long piece of muscle. From what SG1 had told me, I could guess what it was, but I was too weak to move.

'I'm sorry,' Ba'al said and stroked the snake gently. 'But I'm afraid this will be rather painful.'

'Thanks for the warning,' I managed to launch my sarcasm. 'You should have told me that before the daggers.'

His smile widened and he lowered the snake onto the plate next to my head.

'Who said I was talking to you?'

I should have guessed as much, I thought and gritted my teeth. Even through the pain raging in my body I could feel the long body slither closer to my head, over my hair and under my neck. Somewhere at this point I lost consciousness.

When my senses finally returned I was standing in a large but dimly lit room in front of a mirror, examining myself. I tried to blink and look around, but nothing happened. When I tried again without any result, I started to panic. Was I petrified? Turned into a living statue? But then my hand moved and pushed the hair out of my face, which looked cold and slightly annoyed. I saw a white flash move across my eyes and I knew. I was lost.

'Do you like your new body, my dearest?,' I heard Ba'al from behind me. He appeared in the mirror and put his hands on my shoulders.

'You shouldn't have damaged it so much,' I saw my face reply in the mirror. I could see my mouth forming the words, I could feel my lips and my tongue move, but I wasn't the one who had spoken. The voice I heard in my ears wasn't mine, it had a dark and beastly undertone. I was a prisoner in my own body, which was now host to a Goa'uld. I could feel the other mind next to mine, pulling the strings and blocking me out. 'I spent nearly a whole day in the sarcophagus.'

'Forgive me,' Ba'al smiled and moved away again. 'But I needed to know that your help was necessary. After all, even a measly human may have been able to access those memories.'

'You think too highly of them,' my reflection smirked and traced my collar bones with my fingers. 'After all, they are only fit to be slaves. I will get you what you seek.'

'I know you will,' he said, while I watched him pick up several items from a table behind me.

I saw my reflection sigh and turn my head this way and that.

'Good cheekbones,' my mouth said. 'But this hair. It's terrible.'

'I thought you'd rather like it,' Ba'al returned. 'It is your colour.'

'Yes, but far too long. I'll need to cut it.'

'Don't you dare!,' I screamed, but no word came over my lips. The sudden burst of rage made me more aware of my body and mind. One was unresponsive to whatever I tried. But the other was more flexible. I could feel the alien presence, like a light scarf around my neck, a thin cap over my head, but all it could do was lock me out of my body. My mind was still my own. When I had screamed, I felt the presence was satisfied, and I realised that it knew my mind as well, my memories and my feelings. And it more than likely would choose to do things that annoyed me in an effort to break me. It was abuse and rape, that's what it was, but I knew that at this time there was nothing I could do about it except sit back and bide my time. Something about this situation reminded me of the incident with Eve's apple back in Oxford. And if this familiarity wasn't wishful thinking, I could be able to find a way to break the control this creature had over me.

'Why don't you take in the full picture first,' Ba'al suggested. My face made a crooked smile and I saw my eyes flash again. The Goa'uld inside me unfastened the leather band around my waist and undid the clasps on my shoulders. I was unable to look away when the dress slid to the ground and the creature in my head examined my naked body. It undid my hair and the auburn waves flowed over my back and my bare breasts, covering my bottom and almost reaching all the way down to my knee pit. Turning around and around both the Goa'ulds seemed to judge every square inch of skin. I felt my head being pushed back and felt the tips of my hair tickle the top of my calves.

Then my head snapped up again and I saw my annoyed face in the mirror.

'No, the hair has to go,' my mouth declared.

'As you wish, Astarte,' Ba'al purred and handed my body an ornate dagger. I saw the cruel joy in my own eyes as my hand raised the dagger, taking a handful of hair and cutting it in a single movement. Astarte, as Ba'al had called the unwelcome guest in my body, then continued to cut all my hair to just below the shoulder blades. I watched as half the length of my hair fell to the ground, discarded like old clothes. I wasn't angry. I forced myself to control my emotions, not quite for the first time in my life, but it was always hard. One of the traits I had from my nonna, I had my heart on my tongue, especially when I was angry. But for the moment all I could do was sit back and watch, while silently fuming. Although that wasn't the entire truth. Astarte had taken over my body. So for the first time in a while I finally had time to explore my mind.

I could feel the Goa'uld like an oily film clinging to the outside of my mind, only a few tendrils reached inside, just enough to take over. But I could also feel a part of my mind still dark and untouched by either of us. So far a barrier of pain had stopped me from venturing into there, but now the pain wouldn't be mine any longer. And I was quite curious to see how good the Goa'uld would be at dealing with the headaches. I hadn't paid attention to my surroundings for a while, but now my mind snapped back when I could feel hands on my body. Hands in very intimate places. I tried to make sense of the blurred vision through my half-closed eyes. Someone was kissing me passionately, and my body was returning the affection. My hands were undoing fasteners on someone else's clothes and I could feel a man's hands stimulate my breasts, trace the round of by hips, down my legs and back to the front.

By the time I had put two and two together, I was utterly disgusted and regretted not having a body to throw up with. How dare they! With my body! And me still here having to watch it! In my mind I tried to shut out my body. Whatever they were doing to me, I would have to wait and deal with it later. As terrifying as it was, it was out of my control for now, and somehow that thought helped me to calm down and shut out the rape that was happening to me. If Astarte wanted to hurt me - if she was even aware that I was still here and if her actual intent was directed at my discomfort and not her own pleasure - then I would be quite prepared and happy to hurt her back.

Had I had my face, I would have given a grim smile as I headed for the darkness in my own mind.

I blinked in the sudden brightness. I shielded my eyes with one hand and looked around. It was the temple ruins again. And once more the sky was white. The brightness didn't come from the sun, but from the absence of anything except the ruined walls and the grass under my feet. I was wearing the white dress again, as if nothing had happened. Around me the air was so still, my own breathing sounded unnaturally loud in my ears. When I took a step forward, the blades of glass crunched as if I had stepped on a packet of crisps. For a moment I thought someone had called my name, but the endless brightness around me didn't betray the direction, and because there was no echo I wasn't sure if anyone had called at all.

Because I had nothing better to do, I started pacing the ruins. The crumbled walls and toppled pillars appeared out of the whiteness, as if they had only just been created as I approached them. When I looked back, the way behind me had once more disappeared into the light. I wandered on until I found myself in front of the hidden door, the carving that had caused my headaches. Someone stood there waiting for me. She smiled when I approached, and I recognised the woman from my dreams. It was the same dress, the same hair, and again as if she had borrowed my face and made it ageless, she looked at me with my own eyes. But unlike the Goa'uld, I knew that it wasn't my actual face, just a very close resemblance.

'Who are you?,' I started, eager not to lose any time. 'Last time you couldn't tell me.'

'Indeed,' she said with a bright smile and beckoned me closer. I stepped in front of the carving, now face to face with the mysterious woman. 'But for now it seems you have some time to stay.'

I looked down at my feet, unsure what to say. Technically that was true. But for rather uncomfortable reasons.

'Fear not, child,' the woman said, placed a hand under my chin and pushed my face back up. 'All will be well.'

'There are so many questions,' I said. 'And so many problems I got into. I'm possessed by a Goa'uld!'

'That is unfortunate,' the woman said and her face became worried for the fraction of a moment. But then her smile returned. 'But don't be afraid. It will not be forever.'

'No, only until I die or the Goa'uld doesn't need me anymore,' I sighed and pushed her hand away. The only people allowed to touch my face were my nonna and my mum. 'But that's for later. Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my head?' I paused. 'That's where we are, right?'

'Of course,' she smiled again. 'Forgive me. I did not mean to be rude. I am Circe, or at least that is one of the many names given to me.'

'Circe?' I was wrecking my brain. I had heard that name before. Of course! 'You mean you are Circe who trapped Odysseus and his men on her island and turned them into pigs?'

'Well, that is one version,' she laughed. 'But those are fairy stories created by humans to try and make sense of events beyond their understanding. Back then they thought I was a sorceress or a goddess. Your friends would call me an Ancient.'

I stood perfectly still while I was trying to process these information. The person in front of me claimed to be one of the main characters of Greek mythology and also an alien. And I was supposed to believe that?

'So you're telling me you turned Odysseus' men into pigs and people thought you were a sorceress, but you were actually a highly advanced alien?'

'That is a fairly close summary,' she said with a nod. 'Apart from the pigs.'

'Then what about Odysseus? Was he real, too? And why would you try and stop him from achieving his goals? Do you always interfere with humans?'

'Those are many questions, child,' she laughed again. 'And I am unsure if my answers would satisfy your curiosity. But let me tell you this much: Ulysses, or Odysseus as you call him, was not a human. In fact he was an Ancient like me. But unlike the rest of us he chose not to ascend but to aid and support humanity in their growth. In this he went too far.'

'The battle of Troy?'

Circe gave a grave nod. 'Indeed. He interfered with a matter that didn't concern him, and through his skill and knowledge turned the fate of humanity onto a different path. For that we decided to punish him, and I was sent to slow his journey home and if possible force his return to us.'

'But in my dream you said I should remember him. Why was that?,' I interrupted. It was something that had been bothering me, and somewhere not too far away I could feel the Goa'uld trying to probe my mind, trying to locate me behind the wall of pain. I was running out of time.

'It is a rather lengthy explanation,' the woman began. 'There is a reason for everything, why we brought you to this place and why Ulysses' journey will have a strong impact on your own.'

She seemed to think about her own words for a while, then she waved a hand and I could feel the nagging feeling of the Goa'uld at the back of my mind vanish.

'What did you do?,' I whispered.

'I locked your unwelcome visitor out until our conversation is finished,' she smiled. 'Or rather, that is the easiest way of explaining it.'

I narrowed my eyes. Somehow I had the feeling that that wasn't the entire truth. But I didn't think I needed to know apart from satisfying my own curiosity, so I shrugged.

'Alright then,' I said. 'Start from the beginning.'

After only a few minutes of the woman's speech my head was spinning. I knew from the colonel that certain people had Ancient DNA mixed into their own, which enabled them to use Ancient technology. But Circe said that my case went beyond that. The jewellery and the dagger we had found in the temple ruins had been worn by the priestess of the temple, herself and her female ancestors. The items were linked to a very specific DNA sequence, not just Ancient in general, but more precisely a single bloodline.

'Your father and mother both come from that bloodline, thousands of years back, and we needed their daughter to complete the mission.'

I nodded slowly and massaged my forehead with one hand. For people who punished interfering members of their species, this seemed a very bold move.

'You are probably wondering why we would help a group of people like those explorers by moving a single person across from a parallel universe and not help others in the same manner,' she read my expression and smiled. That knowing omniscient smile started to get on my nerves.

'Well, yes,' I replied. 'But the answer is simple. You wouldn't do it unless it was in your own interest. There is something you want or need out of this, something only I can do and only with the help of SG1. Or am I wrong?'

Circe's smile widened, but she didn't answer.

'Which means you are the only ones who can send me home,' I continued. 'And that you will only do so after I have finished whatever it is you want from me here.'

'You are correct, child,' Circe said, and suddenly her smile was gone. 'But I will not lie to you. The path ahead of you is dangerous, and even though we will do as much as we can, we can not promise that you will survive.'

I thought about this for a while. 'Do I have a choice?,' I asked after a while with a grim smile. 'I mean, you already brought me here against my will, so I don't think you take it into consideration where I actually want to be.'

'Once your mission is complete, we can send you home, or wherever else you would like to go,' Circe replied.

'How about the USS Enterprise D, so I can talk to 'Mon Capitain',' I laughed and got a puzzled face in return. 'Nevermind,' I said, before the Ancient would ask for an explanation. 'You say it is dangerous and I could die. You have invaded my brain, so I think you have seen my memories, my past. Every day when I get out the door I could die. It may not be scary and stressful compared to my battle against the angels or whatever is expecting me now, but it is true. A lot of the things that happened to me since I got here were unpleasant, to say the least. I mean, I got shot and now I have a snake in my brain, but death is the one thing I am certain about. I will die someday. That fact doesn't scare me.'

'Then what does?,' asked Circe. I started to understand. Herself being an immortal being, she clearly feared death above everything else.

Most people thought of themselves as immortal, and that made them scared of death and they tried to find ways to prolong their life in any possible way. There were things that I feared, but I had long ago accepted my own mortality and moved on. Being faced with death as often as I had, had helped me accept that fact. But there was a different fear. A fear of losing control, like I had in the botanical garden, back when Lucy had played with me like a doll, and all I could do was watch. This had happened again today, and I was fuming just thinking about it. But while it had frightened the living daylights out of me last time and left me shaking for weeks, the second time round I seemed to be able to cope with it much better, thinking of a solution instead of being paralysed, mentally and physically. Besides, I thought and shifted my weight and heard the grass crackle loudly under my feet, right now there was a place where I was myself, just as I had been.

'Pandora?,' Circe asked again, and I remembered her question.

'Seeing those I care about getting hurt,' I replied. It was an easy one. Surprisingly this hadn't happened yet, but I had the feeling that where I was, it was about to. 'And you don't need to say it,' I continued. 'I know that that will happen on this path as well. But since you asked, yes, that is my greatest fear. Watching others suffer because of me or my actions.'

We stood in silence for a while, in the eerie light between the ruin walls.

'So,' I said after a while. 'What is it I need to do? Where do you want me to go?'

I reemerged into consciousness like a diver coming up from the deep. I could feel the release of a pressure I hadn't been aware of and suddenly there was all this noise around me. After the silence of the ruins inside my mind, the voices and humming of machinery in the background droned around my head and it took me a few moments before I heard the words that were spoken and they stopped being mere noise.

The first thing I heard was my own shrill voice shouting in a language I had never heard before. The first thing I felt was my arms throwing a chair into a wall. Those were clear signs that someone was having a tantrum, and somehow I was glad that I wasn't personally involved in this childish behaviour. The chair hit the wall and a leg broke off. My eyes rested on the splinter for a few moments before my head whipped around and looked for something else to break.

'Astarte,' I heard a voice behind me and recognised it as Ba'al's. 'I understand your anger, but please don't take it out on my ship.'

'This is all your fault,' the Goa'uld snarled with my voice. 'You put me here, in this body.'

'Yes, and for a very good reason,' Ba'al continued from outside my field of vision. 'We need her and her memories. Are you sure you can't get to them?'

I could feel the Goa'uld shift in my mind, try and reach the dark part, try to break through the pain. I knew what Astarte was feeling in this moment, and I was surprised to notice that I didn't. Not the slightest bit of the pulsing headache came through to me. Had I had my facial expressions to myself, I would have smiled. And for just a moment as I thought that, I thought I could feel my mouth twitch.

Astarte howled in pain and clutched her head - my head - in her hands.

'No!,' she shouted and grabbed something else to throw against a wall. 'It's no use.'

A hand caught her arm and Ba'al wrestled the goblet from her fingers.

'And you are sure that she can access those memories?,' he continued and put the goblet back on a table.

'Yes,' Astarte growled.

'But still you can't see them yourself, even though she seems to have gained some of them back?'

'Why don't you explain it to me,' Astarte hissed. 'Since you seem to know so much about it. Maybe we should trade hosts and you can give it a go.'

Ba'al laughed quietly and walked over to the other side of the room. 'But we both know that people's minds are your specialty. And if she won't give up the knowledge of her own free will, maybe we need to find a way to convince her.'

Suddenly the presence of the Goa'uld in my mind seemed to grow. And I could feel it coming for me. How did you escape something inside your own mind? I panicked. Whatever the snake was planning, it wasn't good, but there was nothing I could do. I felt like my brain was being exposed to a vacuum cleaner, all my thoughts and memories were sucked up and examined by someone who definitely had no business inside my mind. I screamed inside my mind, tried to fight, twist away, flee to the dark part of my memories, but it was too late. I could hear my own voice in my ears. Over and over.

'Seeing those I care about getting hurt.'

Yes, I had said that to Circe. And if Astarte could find that memory, what else could she - and by now I was fairly certain she was a she - find in my head. As she dug deeper, I could feel her presence change. She seemed to slow down, be more careful, while her face screwed up in pain. So even though I had made those memories mine, it was still painful for her to read them. Too painful? Gasping for air she retreated from my mind, resumed just being a layer over the top of it, in control but mostly oblivious to what was going on below. And even though I felt that I had won a battle, I knew I had taken heavy losses.

'Seeing those I care about getting hurt.'

What would she do with those words, spoken by me only moments ago? And as I wondered, I could feel her mouth curl into a cruel smile. She picked up a dagger from one of the tables and played with it between her fingers. The inlaid gems shone and the blade looked as if I was holding a shard of whatever it was that produced the orange light in the room. Without another word she walked over to the standing mirror in a corner and held up the knife to my face. Only now did I notice that I was no longer naked. Astarte had dressed herself after her intimate moment with Ba'al, although with the amount of skin I could see, I wasn't entirely sure those items should be called clothing. There were bracelets on my wrists and upper arms, a metal necklace seemed to hold up some kind of metal bikini top, a piece of white cloth was draped across my hips and completely failed to cover both my upper body and my legs, and there was something like a crown resting across my forehead. The tip of the dagger touched the metal and dragged me back into reality, to the knife pointed at my face. I held my breath, but after only a moment she lowered the knife again and gave my reflection a knowing smile.

'Why would I cut my own body,' she said, possibly to herself, but part of me knew that she was addressing those words to me. 'After all, we both know it would hurt me more than you. But I wasn't quite finished with the hair.'

She gathered the strands around my face, held them up speculatively and then cut them just above my upper lip. When she looked at the mirror again and pushed the remaining hair out of my face, the fringe she had created was just too short to stay behind the ears, but she somehow managed to smooth it down on either side. When I looked back at myself in the mirror it looked like I had curtains in front of my face. If I had my own body, I thought, I would probably be annoyed every time the fringe fell over my eyes. Some part of the expression on my face in the mirror told me that that was partly what the Goa'uld had in mind. But if she wanted to play mind games with me, I could do the same thing. So I relaxed and leaned back in an imaginary armchair. After all, it wouldn't be me who would have to push the hair back out of my face, it would be her.

'Once you are done with your adjustments,' Ba'al said from the other end of the room. 'Maybe you can let me know how you want to gain access to those memories.'

'I have a plan,' my mouth replied, but the voice sounded strange again, as if echoing back from a deep hole. 'But I will need some resources.'

'Of course,' Ba'al replied, and I could see his face in the reflection break into a smile.

'I will need some men,' Astarte continued, turned around and sat in a chair. She crossed her legs with a touch too much drama and let her hands caress the carved lion heads on the arm rests. 'And you know my expectations.'

Ba'al bowed, and I thought I could see a hint of sarcasm in his movements. 'And I assume you will use those men to acquire a certain target?'

As he spoke, I suddenly saw a flash of images across my eyes. Faces, memories, but they weren't my own and I was certain they weren't anything to do with the Ancients either. For the first time I realised that while the Goa'uld had been probing my mind, I had just as much access to her memories and thoughts as she had to mine. The stream of images slowed and returned to two faces more specifically. One was a blonde woman with curly hair I had never seen before. But something about her face told me that she was a Goa'uld as well. The other face was a familiar one, a round face with black curls, large eyes. The last time I had seen that face was in a photo frame on Daniel's desk. I knew his wife had been taken as a host by a Goa'uld, but I didn't understand what the other woman had to do with it.

'Quite so,' Astarte replied and smiled again. 'I will need some of your famous information agents. I will need to find the next location of SG1. And I will need to isolate and capture a certain Daniel Jackson.'

My blood froze. Somehow I had known this would happen, but part of me had hoped that the Goa'uld would focus her energy on me and leave anyone else out of this. I wasn't quite sure what made Daniel her preferred target out of SG1. I would have been just as determined to help if it had been any of the others. But the fact that Astarte had thought about two specific Goa'uld hosts, one of which was Daniel's wife, made me think that it wasn't just me but also Daniel she wanted to make suffer. But why? Why would she go to the trouble?

As I felt my thoughts running around in circles, the doors opened and a group of jaffa warriors marched in, carrying something that looked more like a random collection of metal pieces and large pipe than anything I could put a name to. There were six of them, and they stomped to a halt in front of me, fell to one knee and bowed their heads in respect. Their bald heads and silver armour reflected the orange light from the walls. Astarte sat more upright, chin up and eyed them in a dismissive way, but from behind her eyes I could feel her excitement.

'Show me,' she said in a quiet voice. That was all.

The leader of the jaffa got back to his feet, lifted the mess of metal pieces over his head so it rested on his shoulders like a very heavy scarf. There was an imperceptible movement and the metal apparatus snapped and expanded, the sides grew upwards and finally the largest part flipped forward to cover his head. Where the jaffa had stood now was a creature that looked like a metal robot with a lion's head.. I hadn't known that the jaffa's full armour could be so beautiful and yet so fearsome to look at. The lion's eyes glowed red, its mouth was drawn into a snarl and its ornate metal mane glowed in the orange light as if it was covered in blood.

Astarte grinned, then chuckled, and then burst into laughter. I stared out of my own eyes at the small army she would send to take my friends and force me to give up my mind for good. There had to be something I could do, something to break her control and get my body back. I was running out of time. In my mind I turned and ran, straight back into the blackness that would lead me back to the temple ruins. Circe had said there was a way. She had to tell me now. This would be my only chance.

I returned to find myself standing in a dim room of whatever this place was. By the orange light and triangular architecture I knew that it was still the same building, or structure, or ship, or whatever. I was standing in a circle on the floor and the lion-headed jaffa around me. In front of me and outside the circle stood Ba'al. He still wore his slight smile and I felt by the tension of my face that I too was smiling.

'I should have expected it,' Ba'al said, 'but these tau'ri are indeed troublesome.'

'How did they know where you were?,' Astarte asked through my mouth. 'Not that it matters, they make my plan so much easier. It would have been quite an effort to get them out of their base. And here they are looking for me.' She laughed.

'Beware, they are not as stupid and harmless as you think,' Ba'al said, his face suddenly serious. 'They have defeated quite a number of the system lords already. Don't underestimate their determination.'

'Determined to do what?,' Astarte smirked. 'Their friend they came to rescue is already gone.'

'Am I really?,' I responded, hoping that at least she would be able to hear me. 'Then why are you going through all this trouble, if I'm already gone?'

The Goa'uld ignored my remark, if she heard it at all, but I thought I could sense her annoyance. She wanted my memories and the Ancient knowledge sealed inside my brain, and the fact that she couldn't just have them seemed to unsettle her. She raised one of my hands and touched a metal wristband that half covered my hand. The rings, which I had thought to be just a design on the floor, came to life and quite a number of them rose out of the floor and surrounded me and the jaffa. There was a sudden bright light and the whole group was standing on a forest clearing in a valley with steep slopes on two sides. Astarte strode forward and approached a tent, which I assumed a scouting party must have put up for her. Inside the tent were many furs and expensive furniture, a central seat which looked more like a throne and I could see standing mirrors in at least two places. The Goa'uld headed straight for the seat and lounged on it, legs crossed, one elbow resting on an arm rest and her chin in her hand. Two of the jaffa took position behind me and Astarte's glance moved to one of the mirrors, which had been perfectly placed so she could see herself wherever in the tent she was.

In addition to the revealing clothes, I could see she had applied make-up. My face looked golden rather than the usual olive complexion, there were heavy black lines around my eyes that made me look like an Egyptian painting rather than my usual self. Whatever Astarte thought of as beautiful, our tastes clearly lay a few worlds and millennia apart. Outside I heard the remaining 4 jaffa stomp off to wherever Astarte had sent them, and then it was just quiet in the tent. After a while, Astarte waived a hand and out of the shadows appeared a young woman, her head bowed and handed her a goblet. She never raised her face or even her eyes, so all I could say for certain was that she was female, but the rest of her disappeared back into the shadows until her mistress required her services again.

We waited for what felt like half an eternity, sitting in my own mind and waiting for the ineffable that I had to somehow stop, while stuck in a body I had no control over. If I had my legs, I would have paced up and down. But like this I was forced to sit still and watch and feel Astarte drink something truly revolting. Whatever it was, my tastebuds were screaming in disgust, but she didn't seem to care. Every now and again she would look at herself in the mirror and adjust a crease of her skirt or a strand of hair she felt was out of place. I wasn't surprised at the narcissist tendencies of my parasite, what did surprise me was the extent of it, the trouble she went to, bringing a bunch of mirrors to a tent in the middle of nowhere where she planned to kidnap and torture one of my friends. But still she seemed to need the mirrors even for that.

After a little while longer I heard footsteps approach, something drag along the ground and muffled voices. Astarte held out the goblet to the shadows and a pair of hands took it carefully and disappeared. Then she rested her head in her hand again, still her legs crossed and the eyes fixed on the entrance of the tent. The flap was pushed back and three jaffa entered, one led the way and two of them carried a person between them who had been bound with rope and a dark sack over his head. I didn't even have to guess who was under the sack, I could see JACKSON written on the jacket from here. They made him kneel on the floor and held him there. Astarte gave a nod to the leading jaffa and he pulled the cover off Daniel's head.

His glasses fell to the ground and I saw that they had gagged him with a strip of cloth. He looked around the tent wild eyed, narrowing them to see his surroundings better, until he looked straight at me. I could see realisation dawn on him as he tried to make out my face without his glasses. Astarte unfolded her legs, rose from the chair and crouched in front of Daniel so that our faces were only centimetres apart.

'Can you see me now?,' she said in my voice and I could feel my mouth twist into a cruel smile.

Daniel just stared and said nothing. There was the pain in his eyes again, I was sure of it. Astarte laughed and gently removed the gag from Daniel's mouth.

'How is it,' she said in a low voice, 'that always the women you care about most end up as Goa'uld hosts? Have you ever thought that it might be something to do with you?'

'What are you doing?,' I shouted at her. 'Stop it!'

'I am sure Amunet and Osiris would agree with me,' Astarte laughed. 'After all, you are the reason they both received exceptionally pretty hosts. And now me, so that makes three.'

I could see the two women in Astarte's memories again. One was Daniel's dead wife, and that meant the other one had to be someone he was close to as well. I could feel my rage building. Of course I knew the cruel nature of the Goa'uld, but this was going too far. She wanted to hurt me, not him. And yet this caused me more pain than I wanted to admit.

'Maybe it is your own cursed existence, your interest in things that don't concern you, that caused your life to fall apart,' Astarte continued. Daniel looked straight into her - my - eyes and gave a weak smile.

'Don't worry, Pan,' he said. 'We will get you out of there, I promise.'

'Worry about yourself, stupid,' I answered, unheard, but his concern touched me. Even in this situation he thought that I was in greater danger than him.

Astarte slapped him across the face and his head was flung to the side.

'How dare you speak to her in my presence,' she screamed, and her voice changed. The dark undertone of the Goa'uld came back out, and that made it easier for me. Now I could be sure that Daniel wouldn't think that I was the one talking.

Astarte got back to her feet and walked over to one of the tables in the tent. I saw what looked to me like a random collection of metal and strangely organic looking gems. She picked up one of the gems and the connected metal chains and rings. After slipping her hand into it I realised it was more like a glove. The gem lay across the inside of my hand, a wristband of metal held it in place and the chains connected to thimble size pieces of metal that Astarte slipped over my fingertips. The result was a fearsome apparatus attached to my hand, and though I knew I would inevitably, I didn't want to find out what it was going to do.

After looking at Daniel from the corners of her eyes, she turned back round to face him, the gloved hand extended an the gem pointing straight at his face.

'You will tell me what I want to know,' she said quietly. Daniel gave her a confused look. 'Otherwise I will burn his brain until there is nothing left.'

'Forget it,' I shouted. 'Even if I knew how, I know he would rather die than me give you that much power.'

From the bottom of my heart I knew that this was true. But both Astarte and I knew that I would never let that happen, even if it was against his own wishes. She raised her hand and I could feel a strange power surge through the glove, focus in the gem and shoot out, straight at Daniel's face. His face twisted in pain and I saw him bite down hard on his lip, trying not to make a sound. Astarte lowered her hand and I felt the power decrease. Daniel sagged slightly and his breathing was going faster.

'I won't stop until you give up,' she said quietly.

'Monster!,' I shouted back and she raised my hand and directed the glove at Daniel's face once more. I didn't know what it was doing to him, but I could see the pain, and I knew that I had to do something, anything, to make her stop. Circe had told me that there was a way to silence the Goa'uld permanently, but she warned me that I would need medical facilities to do it, and I would need to be in a safe place. Until then she said I should try and bide my time or find a way to break her control with my own will. Considering the urgency of the situation, her advice had been terribly vague and unhelpful.

In my mind I faced the dark part once more, but before I could even more towards it I could feel something pulling me back, something stopping me from getting closer to it.

'Oh no you won't,' I heard my own voice say through gritted teeth. 'You will tell me here and now!'

Somehow Astarte was stopping me from moving about freely in my mind. That was something that hadn't happened before. I struggled against her hold on me, but I couldn't get any closer to the Ancient memories. She had me completely trapped, body and mind. And somehow the familiarity of the feeling returned, something about it reminded me of the past, and there was something else, a little difference, like a tiny crack in her control that hadn't been there before.

'If you don't,' Astarte continued and I felt the power flowing through the glove increase, 'he will die.'

Daniel cowered in front of me, no strength left but the power of the glove held his head upright. His eyes started to flutter.

'No!,' I shouted and pushed as hard as I could at the little crack. All the rage that had been building up, all the anger at her humiliation and abuse of me and my body, I let it all go and it burned behind my determination like a rocket launcher. Suddenly I felt my body again, not like I was on the other side of a thin wall, and when I wanted to lower my hand, it happened. I could hear my cry still echo in my head and realised, that I had shouted at the top of my voice, while the Goa'uld was raging and thrashing at the back of my mind. Too many things were going on at once and I was trying to stay in control over mind and body while not giving away the change in persona, otherwise the jaffa would be another problem I had to deal with.

'Leave us!,' I said in a hoarse voice without taking my eyes off Daniel, who had slumped and cowered on the floor without moving.

The jaffa in the tent walked out without question. I looked into the shadows of the tent.

'That goes for you, too,' I spoke in the general direction where I suspected the slave girl to be, and she darted out of the tent as well. I took another careful look around to make sure we were alone, then I fell to my knees, the weight of my own body far too much after so long trapped inside my head. With shaking fingers I picked Daniel's glasses off the ground, lifted his chin with my other hand and carefully placed them back on his nose. He blinked at me and watched in silence while I tried to undo the knots in the ropes around his wrists with my trembling hands. I felt Astarte thrash around inside my head and gritted my teeth, trying to block her out for as long as I could.

'Pan?,' Daniel whispered when the knots finally gave way.

'Don't talk,' I pressed through my teeth. 'We don't have much time. I don't know how long I can keep her out.'

Through pure willpower I pushed myself back to my feet and helped him up as well. Then we headed through the tent to the other end, where I knew nobody would be watching. After some searching I found a loose piece of the canvas and pushed Daniel outside, following right behind. We climbed the steep slope of the valley, always looking behind if the jaffa in front of the tent had spotted our escape, but by some miracle we made it to the top and into the forest without anyone raising the alarm. Once we were out of sight, I had to stop and hold my head while the Goa'uld screamed and thrashed inside my head. I had to keep her out for as long as I could. Daniel was still a bit dazed and I couldn't afford to lose control yet.

'Are you alright?,' he asked when I stopped. I shook my head. What a stupid question.

'Where are the others?,' was all I could manage. Daniel pointed and I followed his lead. The walk through the forest helped me focus on the Goa'uld. I didn't know how, but I had broken her control, and she was fighting with all she had to get it back. Did it have something to do with the Ancient memories in my mind? Or was it that I had been in a similar situation before and my experience helped me break free? Or had she overstretched her abilities, trying to shut me out of my mind as well as my body, and that had made her weak enough for me to break her control? All those possibilities raced through my head and I didn't have the time to decide on one, so I just left it at that.

After a short walk we reached a clump of low bushes and when Daniel called out, the other three members of SG appeared from between them. They saw him and saw me follow, dressed as I was and with the strange glove still on my hand. Colonel O'Neill raised his weapon and pointed it straight at me.

'Get away from her,' he said. 'It's a trap.'

'Hey, don't do that,' Daniel called out and tried to step in front of me. 'She's herself now.'

I pushed him aside and looked straight at the colonel.

'He's wrong,' I said in a hoarse voice. 'Keep that gun on me, I don't know how much longer I have.'

'What happened?,' Sam said. 'Where have you been? Someone said those jaffa had been sent by Ba'al and we thought…'

I held up a hand, too tired to reply.

'You need to tie me up,' I told them. 'And make sure those knots are good and tight. Once I let go, I don't know if I'll be back.'

Without another word Colonel O'Neill handed his gun to Sam and went through the contents of his pack. He pulled out a coiled rope and approached me slowly. I removed the glove from my hand, turned my back on him and extended my wrists backwards.

'It's probably best if I don't see you do it,' I said and coughed. My throat was dry and tight, and it felt as though something was trying to push its way up through my windpipe. 'Whatever happens, don't trust me an inch. And be as quick as you can, please.'

'It's definitely her,' the colonel said over his shoulder to the others. 'I never heard a Goa'uld say please before.'

I grinned at that and felt the rope tighten around my wrists and arms. The colonel tied the rope around my body, pressing my tied arms firmly against my back and then made to tie my knees together as well. I could feel something slip in my mind, my control loosen, like my hand around a heavy object I had been holding for too long.

'Cazzo!,' I cursed under my breath and heard Daniel shout a warning to Colonel O'Neill before I slipped back into my mind and once more felt a wall separate me from my senses and control over my body. For a moment my knees sagged before Astarte started screaming and kicking, twisting my body as much as she could, but the colonel held on to my legs and Teal'c, who had stood silently in the background, moved forward to hold down my shoulders.

The colonel threw the rope around my knees and tightened the knot. Astarte was still screaming at the top of my voice, words that I didn't understand, but in Teal'c's face I thought I saw some small recognition. I made a mental note to apologise later for whatever the Goa'uld was throwing at his head. Once the knots were tied, Colonel O'Neill gave a sign and they both let go of me. Astarte rolled around on the ground, unable to break free, shouting strange words and nearly frothing at the mouth. I saw the colonel pull one of the snake-shaped weapons from his belt and point it at me. When he pulled the trigger I saw an explosion of white light, my skin burned and under Astarte's screams everything went black.

I blinked into a bright white light and for a moment wondered if I was dead and this is what came after. But I had always believed in reincarnation, and I could still remember everything. Also I felt my body heavy lying on a bed, and I was sure that that wasn't supposed to happen in the afterlife either. Suddenly the light was eclipsed by a face with a facemask. I blinked again, trying to make out details, but as fast as it had appeared, the face was gone again. When I tried to push myself onto my elbows, I found that I couldn't move my arms. They were tied to the side of the bed. So were my feet and another strap went around my body and one around my neck. I choked when I tried to lift my head and look around, so I just gave up and stared at the bright light above me, until someone turned it off. A mechanical whirring started and the world rose up around me. When the back of my bed was on a more comfortable angle, I could finally see around me.

On my right was Dr Fraiser, looking at scans with some nurses and glancing in my direction ever now and again. Once more I saw cables connecting me to several machines that took readings and beeped away in the background. There was quite some bustle of nurses and military personnel in the room, but apart from the doctor I didn't spot a familiar face among them. It took me a while to notice that I was the one doing the moving and the thinking. Where was my unwelcome guest? Was she gone? I could feel her at the back of my mind, but it seemed that she was asleep, or at least unwilling to come out for the moment, and I was free to do as I pleased. But I knew I was weak, and should Astarte so much as twitch, I would have no choice but to go under once more.

'Doctor,' I whispered, and I saw one of the nurses nudge her and point at me.

'Who am I speaking to?,' Dr Fraiser said, her face hard.

'The original,' I said and managed a weak smile. 'Whatever the colonel shot me with, she seems to take it harder than I do.'

'Or it might be the sedative,' Dr Fraiser said and examined one of the liquids flowing into my body through a thin tube. 'I have been experimenting and trying to find something that works on Goa'uld but leaves the human conscious.'

'That would be very helpful,' I agreed and coughed. The choking feeling was still there, but I had another few minutes before the Goa'uld would be stronger than me. 'I'm sorry, I don't have much time. I need your help.'

'How do I know that you really are you?,' Dr Fraiser said and narrowed her eyes.

'You can't,' I replied, more than aware that the Goa'uld had access to all my memories and would easily be able to fool people if she wanted to. 'That's why I told the colonel not to trust me. But while I was shut away inside my mind, I was able to access those Ancient memories.'

'What about the headaches?,' Dr Fraiser interrupted.

'Well, that was the nice part. I didn't have a head to hurt at that point. But the Goa'uld doesn't seem to be able to get into them, which is why she was trying to force me to open them up to her.'

Dr Fraiser nodded and seemed to think about this for a little while. Then she walked over to one of the walls and a little box on it. She spoke into it for a few moments, then suddenly a screen lifted high up on the wall. Behind it was an observation room with high glass walls, and the people in there were all looking down at me. I saw the colonel, Teal'c and Sam, the general and a few other military looking people, who were looking down at me and talking with Dr Fraiser through a microphone in the room. There seemed to be a short conversation between the general and the colonel, then he and Sam left the room and reappeared through the entrance of the infirmary I was in. They seemed to be reluctant to get closer to me, but Dr Fraiser just gave them a nod and hurried back to me.

'Janet said you have something to tell us,' Sam said and gave me a sad smile. I could see it on their faces that they thought I was lost forever. I looked at Dr Fraiser.

'I ran all the scans and tests I had,' she said. 'But the Goa'uld is already fused with your body. I'm sorry, this is beyond my abilities now.'

I nodded, careful not to strangle myself again and looked back at Sam.

'There is a way,' I told her. 'But the downside is that I might die, or lose control forever. It's a risk I have to take.'

They didn't reply.

'Remember I told you about my dream in the ruins?,' I continued. 'The one with the woman? I spoke with her again. I think she must have put part of herself into the Ancient memories in my brain. She told me quite a few important things, why I am here and how to get home. But she also told me why there were never any Ancients taken as hosts by the Goa'uld.'

I swallowed, trying to push back the pressure in my throat. Astarte seemed to come back to her senses, and I knew I had to hurry up.

'The Ancients had a defense mechanism that made them immune to most diseases,' I continued. I got a nod from Sam and the doctor, so they had known about that part already. 'Their bodies treated the Goa'uld like any disease, and their immune system was able to take them out. I'm not an Ancient, I don't have their exact physiology, but I have the power to weaken her considerably. The Goa'uld fused with me and has to rely on my metabolism to stay alive. If I die and manage to weaken the Goa'uld before my heart stops, there is a large chance she will die as well.

'I know you can bring me back,' I said directly to Dr Fraiser. 'Even if my heart stops, I know you can get it beating again. But if you do use the defibrillator, you need to use it at the lowest setting. The Goa'uld needs an electric current to stay alive, and if the current is too high, there is a chance she will come back as well.'

I felt Astarte rise up, ready to rage, but I gritted my teeth and held her back. Just a little longer.

'There are so many risks,' I continued through my teeth. 'I might die, the Goa'uld might try to kill me first, or I might just disappear and she will have the body uncontested. But I have to try.'

Dr Fraiser, who had looked at me in silence, gave a slow nod. 'I think it might work,' she said in a quiet voice. 'If you're sure.'

I gave her a quick smile, then looked over at the colonel and Sam.

'I need you to promise me something,' I said in a hoarse voice. In my ears it sounded more like the Goa'uld then me, but I was still holding on. She would be stronger than me in a few moments. 'If I lose, if she comes back and I don't, I want you to kill me.'

Sam gave me a horrified look. 'I can't,' she whispered and took my hand. 'There will be another way, we will find…'

'No,' I interrupted her. 'This is the one chance I have. And I'm glad it is here and with my friends.' I smiled at her. 'But please, I need you to promise. I don't want to live if she is the one coming back. She hurt Daniel, trying to get to me. I won't let her do that to anyone else.'

'I'll do it,' someone said from behind Sam and Colonel O'Neill stepped into my view. I hadn't noticed that he had stayed behind. 'If you don't come back,I'll be the one,' he continued.

I smiled and felt tears rise to my eyes. 'Thank you,' I whispered. 'I'm sorry,' I added, 'I can't hold…'

Astarte rose up from the depths and pushed me away. She started to fight the straps that tied her to the bed and was raging and shouting at the top of her voice. I was glad she sounded like a Goa'uld again this time, not using my voice for her childish tantrums.

'I'm sorry, Doc,' I whispered into nowhere. 'But I'm afraid your sedative didn't work after all.'

I retreated a bit further and tried to gather my strength. I would need it all to win against the monster in my head. And once that was over, maybe I would finally have a moment to myself again. But there was something else I needed to do. I watched as Astarte raged for a while, but growing quiet in the end and I felt her retreat once more. I found it strange, I didn't take her to be the type who gave up so easily, but when I blinked once more and looked around myself, I saw Dr Fraiser next to my bed with a triumphant smile.

'I tried a different drug,' she told me. 'Did it work?'

'For now,' I replied. 'But she seems to adjust within a few minutes.'

'Well, that gives you a few minutes then,' she smiled and I nodded.

'Would it be possible to speak with Daniel?,' I asked and felt slightly silly. 'The others probably told him already, but there is something I need to tell him myself.'

Dr Fraiser nodded and walked out of the room. I stared at the ceiling for a while, waiting for Astarte to raise her head once more, but it stayed quiet in my head. So I took the opportunity to gather my thoughts. So many things Daniel needed to know, so many things I wanted to say. And I knew that as soon as I saw him, my heart would race again and all those thoughts I had lined up would fly out the window.

With the bustle going on in the infirmary, I only noticed Daniel when he stood right next to my bed. His face was pale and he looked worried, but he managed a smile when I looked at him.

'I told you we'd get you out,' he said and pulled a chair next to the bed.

'I thought I was the one who got you out,' I returned and smiled back. I coughed again and felt the pressure in my throat increase. Astarte would be back soon.

'I know it's probably not the best time,' I continued. 'But I'm not sure I'll get another chance, so... If you have a minute, there's a few things I want to tell you.'

'Don't say that,' he said. 'You'll be fine.'

'I don't know that,' I pointed out. 'And I'd rather get this off my chest while I can.' I cleared my throat. 'I'm not sure how long the sedative will work on her. So I don't have much time left.'

He nodded and leaned a little closer.

'There's a few things about me I haven't really told anyone,' I started. 'Sam knows, but I think you should know as well, and after this I don't think it matters if the others know or not, so you can tell them as well. It mainly concerns certain events in my world five years ago. That's when I first met Jeff and Lucy, who you know about, and the other Daniel. I'll try not to be too confusing,' I added, but I saw Daniel only smile in response. I had expected him to raise his eyebrows or give me one of his confused looks, but this reaction put me off my beat.

'You don't have to tell me,' he said. 'I already know.'

I opened and closed my mouth a few times, trying to find the right answer to that revelation.

'O-okay,' I finally managed. 'I asked Sam not to tell anyone.'

'She didn't,' he said and looked down at his feet, then back up at me. 'I'm sorry, I heard the whole thing when you told Sam. I was on the other side of the wall. I heard everything.'

I just lay in my bed and looked at him without saying a word for a few moments. I remembered that I heard someone on the other side of the wall, but I didn't know how long he had been there.

'I shouldn't have,' Daniel continued. 'I was hoping you'd tell me eventually. Actually, I was looking for you after you stormed off and heard your voice, but I didn't want to interrupt. Sorry, I should have told you sooner.'

'No, it's alright,' I interrupted him. 'I'm the one who should apologise. But every time I tried so far I didn't really do a good job.' I gave a sarcastic laugh and coughed again, trying to dislodge the clump in my throat. 'Well, that saves me some time at least, if I don't have to tell you that long story. Right, where was I?'

I looked at the ceiling, trying to remember what else there was to tell him. Someone cleared their throat and I looked up. Three people had joined Daniel by my bed, and all of them were known to me.

'Oh look,' I said and grinned. 'It's the farewell committee.'

'Don't say that,' Sam said and gave a sad smile. 'You'll be alright.'

'Of course,' I said without conviction. Then I snapped my fingers. 'Ah, yes. Circe. That's what I wanted to tell you.'

'Circe?' They all looked at me.

'First Odysseus and now Circe?,' Daniel asked.

'Yes,' I replied. 'She's the woman from my dream. She's the Ancient who messed with my head in the first place, and I'm pretty sure she's also the one who sent me here.' I took a deep breath. 'Long story short, the Ancients need me, and you four, to do something. Circe wouldn't tell me much, but it's to do with the Odyssey. Odysseus was one of them, and she was one who tried to stop them. Homer's Odyssey is apparently something like a metaphor for the events back then. Oh, I wish I remembered her exact words,' I bit my lip, trying to remember what she had told me.

'I think I'm getting it,' Daniel said slowly. 'Odysseus was one of the Ancients, and they probably tried to catch him for something he did.'

'Yeah,' I said. 'I think he interfered with human history somewhere. But it's much bigger than that. His Odyssey, it wasn't in the Mediterranean. It went across the galaxy. And the names of the islands he visits…'

'... are actually planets inhabited by the Ancients,' Sam and Daniel said together. I saw the colonel raise his eyebrows at Teal'c.

'Did you get any of that?,' he asked out of the corner of his mouth. Teal'c just pulled the corners of his mouth down and closed his eyes.

'How did you know?,' I asked the other two quietly. They looked at each other.

'Well, when you said you dreamt about someone mentioning Ulysses, I started making some research,' Daniel began. 'And one of the inscriptions in the ruins actually mentioned Aeaea. That's the island where Circe detains Odysseus for a while.'

'So then he came to me and we had a look,' Sam continued. 'If you take the origin of his journey, which in the myth was Troy and in his case probably Earth, and take some maps and star charts and compare the distance between the islands and the planets…'

'In other words,' I interrupted the scientific explanation, 'you managed to find the other planets the Odyssey refers to?'

'We did,' Sam smiled. 'We even have the gate addresses to most of them.'

I took a deep breath. The clump in my throat became larger and I could feel Astarte stir at the back of my mind.

'Wow,' was all I managed. Daniel and Sam grinned, while the colonel and Teal'c just looked on impassively.

'Okay guys, time is up,' I said and tried to find a more comfortable position without moving more than I was able to. 'I think it's best if you leave,' I said and looked at them. 'I don't want you to see this.'

'We're not going anywhere,' Sam said, and the other three definitely shared her determination. I smiled at them.

'Thanks. Just please don't take anything she will say personally.' I turned my head and tried to spot Dr Fraiser. She appeared at my other side and looked at me expectantly.

'It's time then?,' she asked and I nodded.

'Is there anything else you need to know?,' I asked and tried to swallow the clump in my throat away. 'The basic idea is I will stop my heart and hopefully kill the Goa'uld before you bring me back.'

She nodded with a serious face. 'We have the equipment standing by, and some adrenaline should we need it.'

'No,' I said. 'No adrenaline. And no high voltage. Don't try too hard to bring me back, otherwise she'll come back, too.'

I could tell that those instructions made Dr Fraiser uneasy. It greatly diminished the chances of her being able to revive me, I knew that, but I had to be sure. Circe had been very specific, and while I was more than aware that I might not make it, I was still determined to try everything in my power to come back. Nobody would stop me now.

I took another deep breath. This felt like preparing for a deep dive, all the way to the bottom of a black hole.

'Alright everyone,' I said. 'This is it. If I don't come back, please burn my drawings.'

'You know nobody would do that,' Dr Fraiser said and smiled. 'I'm ready when you are.'

I looked back at SG1 and managed a smile, while something in my throat seemed to stop me from breathing.

'I'll be back,' I rasped and - more for effect than anything - closed my eyes while I stopped my struggle to stay in control. Astarte surfaced and once more started to fight the straps.

'I will kill you all!,' she shouted at the top of her voice. 'You will regret imprisoning a goddess!'

'You can always tell which one it is,' I heard the colonel remark to the others, as they took a few steps back. 'Those Goa'uld just have no manners.'

The bustle around me increased and I saw several nurses and medical staff take positions around my bed, ready to jump into action should anything happen. In the silence of my mind I gathered my thoughts, then I slowly reached out towards the blackness of the Ancient memories and let my mind go blank. I could feel the tingle of the memories go through my head and down my spine. And after a few moments I could hear the screams of Astarte change.

'No, what are you doing?,' she screeched, tossing around as if that would do anything. 'Stop it at once!'

After that she didn't bother with words. Under animalic screams she tossed and fought the straps, but to no avail, the ancient memories I shrouded myself and my mind with kept her away. I focussed on the blackness, let it course through my mind and as much of my body as I could still feel. Astarte's rage seemed to slow more and more, the screams became more quiet after a little while longer she was just struggling against the bonds while growling through clenched teeth. She seemed to be cursing under her breath in her strange language, but I could feel that she had grown weaker, and I knew that this was the chance I had waited for.

The word outside my eyes had gone blurry. I had hoped I'd catch one last clear glimpse of my friends, but I had said my goodbyes, so I just had to go for it.

'Alright, Astarte,' I said quietly to the inside of my head. 'Now we will see who is stronger.' I took a deep breath - metaphorically, after all I didn't have any lungs to breathe with - and focussed all my attention on my heart. And then I made it stop. The world in front of my eyes disappeared, and so did everything else.

Darkness was everything I knew. Everything around me. I was floating. There was a loud ringing noise in my ears, and then everything shook for a second, like I had been struck with a hammer.

'Go again, quickly!'

Garbled voices like from an old, broken record came through to me, but I couldn't make sense of them. Even simple language was beyond my capabilities.

'Clear!'

My black world shook again. Still there was the constant ringing noise, like an electric note. If you strung a computer cable so tight you could use it as a musical string and then played on it with a bow, that would be the kind of noise you got.

'No, no adrenaline. We have to keep with her instructions.'

It was quite warm where I was. And the darkness was comforting, not frightening at all. If only the noise would stop, then I could finally go to sleep.

'But doctor, it's not working.'

Something about the words made sense to me, but it seemed to far and abstract for me to grasp.

'Pan.'

There was a warm voice that filled my world, and suddenly I didn't feel tired. I couldn't understand what was said, but some part of me did and tried to nudge me. This one syllable had an important meaning, even if I couldn't figure out what it was. Deep inside me I heard a single drum beat. There was silence for an eternity, and then there was another.

'I think it's working.'

The drum started to beat, slowly and quietly at first, but every beat seemed to be louder and a little sooner than the last one. Every time the drum sounded I felt myself stir, as if it went straight into my soul and shook my very being. And every beat seemed to pull be down.

'Pan, you have to come back.'

Everything felt so heavy. But something moved in the darkness, and it took me a moment to realise that it was a finger. My finger. That's right, I had fingers. I saw a soft white glow in front of me, and the more aware I became of the voices, my finger, then my hand and the rest of my body, the brighter and larger the light became. I blinked and felt my face move. My eyelids weighed as much as a truck, but I fought to keep them open. Something appeared in the light. I saw a pair of blue eyes.

It's the angel again, I thought. And then: Wait, what angel?

I blinked again and now there were more eyes. The eyes grew into faces and after a few heart beats, and yes, I was sure they were heart beats, I could see them clearly. Three men and two women. They all looked expectant, and one with grey short hair was glowering at me.

'Which one are you this time,' he growled.

I blinked. The weight of my eyelids made the down part easy, but it felt like a hundred years before I had them open again.

'The one which won,' I slurred and tried to stick my tongue out at him. Somehow I felt like I was drunk. I had felt like this before, I was sure about it. Some dark night somewhere in Oxford. 'Would you mind speaking a little more quietly, please? My head hurts.'

I saw them look at each other and the grey-haired man shrugged.

'Not sure,' he declared. 'Could be the snake trying to trick us.'

I half-closed my eyes again and thought of the things I couldn't remember. Names was one of them. Also, what had I won? Was there a prize? My head felt fuzzy, and my heartbeat droned in my ears, as if I hadn't heard it in a long time and only now started to notice it again. One of the women, she had brown hair in a ponytail and a fringe, looked down at some papers and back at me with a frown.

'I ran every scan I could,' she said in a hushed voice. 'I can't find any trace of a second brain pattern. The body of the Goa'uld is still in place, but as far as we know, if it really is dead your body will absorb it over the next few days.'

'What's a Goa'uld?,' I heard myself ask and paused. Why was I asking that? I was one, wasn't I? Or wasn't I one, and that was the whole idea of it? It was so hard to remember. I wanted to rub across my forehead, but I couldn't even lift my hand. When I tried to look down to see why it was so heavy, I wasn't able to lift my head either. Something choked me and my head dropped back on the pillow. The man with the blue eyes - why did I keep thinking that he was an angel? - smiled and reached out to my hand, but the grey-haired man grabbed his wrist and shook his head.

'Why are you here?,' I asked the blue eyes. 'Why didn't you go with the others when we set the angels free? I'm sure you did.'

The five faces above me looked at each other.

'There was a chance of slight amnesia, I'm afraid,' the woman with brown hair said. 'But it should only be temporary.'

I shook my head and tried again to lift my hand to my face, only to be held back by the strap.

'No, wait,' I said. 'That was the other one, wasn't it? I'm sorry. I'm trying to get it all together, but … I don't think I'm getting it in the right order. Someone threw daggers at me, in a room that wasn't the right way round.'

They looked at each other again and the other woman frowned. The grey-haired man said: 'Actually, that sounds familiar.'

'No,' I said. 'I don't think you were there. And there were spheres with lightning that hovered through the air. And I think I lost Daniel's jacket when I was attacked.'

'We found the jacket,' the blonde woman said and gave me a smile. 'And we saw the guardians as well, so you're going in the right direction.'

'As… Aster… no. I can't remember,' I closed my eyes and moved my tongue around my mouth a few times, trying to get my consonants lined up. 'Astarte. That was her name. I tried to kill her. I think … I think she's dead.'

I could feel tears rise to my eyes. Why did that make me sad? Astarte, now that I remembered the name, I hated her. I had wanted her to die. She hurt my friends. She hurt me. But somehow it made me sad to think she wouldn't be back. As if it was a part of myself that I had lost, for better or for worse.

'She needs rest,' I heard the woman with brown hair - Dr Fraiser, that's right - say over my bed. 'Once she had some sleep, she should be back to our old Pan.'

'Are you sure,' the colonel asked and gave me another mistrusting look.

'Yes,' the doctor said in a firm voice. 'And the sooner you start trusting her, the easier the way back for her will be.'

With those words she started to undo the buckles of the straps holding me down. Daniel and Sam, I finally remembered them, helped and after a few moments I was free to move. In theory at least. When I tried to get up, I just slumped back down. Hands took my arms and helped me off the bed and then supported me as I made my way to the door on unsteady feet. On either side of me I noticed Daniel and Sam holding me upright, and I could hear footsteps behind me, so I knew the others were following as well. I remembered the way to my room, so I wasn't sure whether they were leading me or if I was the one giving directions. But we arrived at the door nevertheless. The guard opened it with a key card and stepped aside. They carefully sat me down on the edge of the bed and then all five stood around me in an awkward semicircle.

'Well, thank you for that honour guard,' I managed a grin. 'But if it's all the same, I think I need some time alone. Get my brain sorted out, decide what is me and what is left over from her.'

Sam nodded. She seemed to understand what I was saying, but the others gave me worried looks.

'Are you sure you're going to be alright by yourself?' Daniel crouched down in front of me. For a moment I thought he was about to take my hand, but then he changed his mind and just gave me a piercing look.

I smiled and nodded, not sure how convincing I was in my condition. 'I'll be fine,' I said. Sam took his arm and maneuvered him towards the door. She motioned to the others to follow and - reluctantly in the colonel's case - they did.

'Take your time,' Sam said as the pulled the door shut and gave me another one of her smiles. 'We'll be here when you need us.'

I smiled back and heard the door fall shut. Then someone locked it from the outside. I didn't blame them. It was probably for the best. At the moment I didn't even trust myself. I pushed myself back to my feet and somehow made it to the desk. There were still some blank pages I didn't use yet. While I twirled the pencil around between my fingers, my eyes moved across the room and stopped on the little mirror on the wardrobe. The door was slightly ajar and I could see myself in it. As I watched, I thought I saw a white flash move across my eyes. I blinked and it was gone. For a moment I searched in my mind, searched for the slightest sign of the other one, but apart from me there was only silence.

So I shrugged and, quietly humming to myself, I started to sketch my worries away.