Title: What Remains
Author: Rude's Mom
Hailey stood alone in the crowd for a moment after General Davis had abruptly ended their conversation. She wondered what had set him off. A misplaced Tok'ra was hardly his concern. Heaven only knew that there was plenty of security on this portion of the base, it was unlikely that Garshaw had gotten very far. Maybe it was the mention of the old man with crutches. Could that have been Dr. Jackson? She shrugged the idea off. It wasn't likely. Sutterfield had lost contact with him decades ago and by now, considering the injuries he had sustained, he was probably long dead.
She turned her mind to the male Tok'ra, JD or Ja'dee. She tried to remember when she might have met him. He called her Major Haley so it was at least eighteen years ago but not more than twenty-five.
The market on P2C-943, that had to be it. Her team had escaped from the local Goa'uld and had been trying to lose their pursuers in the marketplace. She had become separated from her team and was about to be recaptured when a tall boy with startling blue eyes dragged her into a small shop. They exited from the back of the building just as the jaffa were entering. He led her through the back alleys until they reached a small shack on the outskirts of town. There he introduced himself and set about finding some local clothing for her to wear. After sundown, he led her to the local stargate where her teammates were waiting. Later that day, when she was in the women's locker room at the SGC, a piece of parchment fell out of her borrowed clothing. The parchment contained a detailed map of the prison that they had just escaped from as well as details on planetary troop deployment and the location of a trinium mine.
A month later, the SGC and the rebel jaffa defeated the planet's System Lord. She had tried to locate the boy afterwards, but the natives said that he and his mother had disappeared weeks earlier. Just two more victims of the Goa'uld or so she had thought.
Was JD that boy? And since when did the Tok'ra use children? Did the Tok'ra recruit children as operatives and future hosts? Her opinion of the Tok'ra was only slightly better than her opinion of the Goa'uld but if they were recruiting children, they'd sink right down there with the rest of the snakes.
---
Silence filled the small room as Daniel tried to take it all in. The last four decades of their lives had been based on a lie, on a bed of lies to be more precise. Sam had been abandoned by the one man Daniel had once trusted above all others. He wondered if he ever really knew the man he once called friend. Deciding to stick with a safer topic for the moment, he queried her about their last mission.
"What happened on that planet? My memory is a bit fuzzy about the details. I remember seeing you and Teal'c die but not much about what was on the planet."
"That's probably because there wasn't much on the planet. The ruins had been stripped long before we ever got there. The bits and pieces that we did find were planted by Ba'al. He made sure the Tok'ra found out about them. Since our, their, numbers were dwindling, he was hoping that SG-1 would be sent to investigate."
"Why SG-1?"
"He had a few scores to settle. Somehow, he knew what was going on in the mountain. General O'Neill was already out of reach since he rarely went off-world. He knew I was going to be transferred out of the SGC and that you and Teal'c were also going to be reassigned. This was his last chance. "
"A leak in the SGC?"
"I think so and I'm guessing as large a leak as any the Tok'ra ever had."
"Wait, you said that I going to be reassigned?"
"You and Teal'c. The word Ba'al had received didn't indicate why but he convinced that his intel was accurate. This was going to be his last shot at the old team." Sam hugged herself. "He wanted you and Teal'c dead. You opened the gate allowing the Tau'ri to challenge the System Lords. Teal'c was a figurehead for the Jaffa rebellion. He planned on making me a host, eventually. He just wanted to do a little experiment first. He wanted to know if the child of a host and a former host would be harceisis. He was planning to have me implanted after I gave birth."
"But you were rescued."
"By Garshaw and Anise."
Okay, he really hadn't expected Anise to be part of a rescue party. "You're joking about Anise, right?"
Garshaw decided it was time to enter the conversation.
"She took a little convincing but she came to realize the importance of the mission. It was our fault that Ba'al had captured Sam."
"Garshaw, don't take this wrong way but the Tok'ra never cared in the past. You rarely if ever sent out rescue parties for your own people let alone the Tau'ri."
"And it had cost us dearly over the centuries. There was only the war with the System Lords. We were too single minded, too ready to sacrifice anything and anybody for that goal. There were some exceptions," Garshaw paused a moment as she remembered Lantesh and Jolinar, "but we had become emotionally detached. The Tok'ra lost many our brethren because it had become easy for us to let them die. Your people never really trusted us for that reason. Jacob and the Tau'ri showed us a different way but we are an old race, slow to change. Even now, with the System Lords defeated, there are those among our ranks who believe that the old ways are still the best."
"But why try to rescue Sam? She wasn't Tok'ra."
"It was our information that caused her capture. With the loss of Selmac and Jacob, SG-1 was our only link to the Tau'ri. The loss of SG-1 severed that link. Your people were vital to defeating the System Lords. We had hoped to mend the rift between our people by rescuing its only survivor."
"Then why not send her back?"
"Because she did not want to return. As Jacob's daughter, she was offered a place among the Tok'ra, not as a host but as a scientist and soldier. Her child would be safe. It was more than your world offered her."
"But she did become a host," Daniel stated.
A blond head dipped in response as Sam took over from Garshaw.
"It was several years later Daniel, and it was my choice. Garshaw and Yosuuf had become close friends. When Yosuuf was fatally injured, I volunteered."
"What about your son?"
"He was born among the Tok'ra. I was spent much of my time in their laboratories with Anise and Garshaw. They were already helping me raise him. Becoming Garshaw's host changed nothing except that Aunt Yosuuf was gone."
"And Aunt Garshaw looked like mommy," Daniel concluded. A previously unthinkable thought crossed his mind. "Auntie Anise?"
His old friend chuckled. "That was rather surprising but she and Freya actually like children."