Sharing Him, Sharing Her

Author: Gillian Slater

E-mail: [email protected]

Rating: PG

Teaser: Jack and Sam are badly injured during an ambush on a Tok'ra planet. Those 'friendly snakes' have a solution for everything.

Disclaimer: Nope, I didn't invent the show or the characters, I'm just taking them out for a spin. Don't sue me.

Part One

"AAAaaaaaaarrrrrgggghhhh!" Screams, screams all around. Goa'uld, Tok'ra, human. Out of the trees, bright blasts of energy ripped through the group, killing the first two guards immediately. With a swiftness born of years in hiding, the efficiency of a race driven to endless guerrilla-warfare, the Tok'ra column dropped to the moss carpet of the forest, zats streaking bolts of blue into the foliage.

The humans followed suit, all three on their bellies in a split-second and firing their crude projectile weapons with less precision, perhaps, but certainly a broader kill-pattern. The Jaffa did not drop. With characteristically sour-faced determination he waded into the trees, disappearing into a confusion of noise and fire.

"Colonel!" The Major's voice, right beside him, was barely audible above the gunfire.

"Kinda busy, Major." He responded dryly.

"Where's Teal'c?" In the midst of grave danger herself, she was worried for her absent friend.

O'Neill directed his fire more to the left as a steel-clad Jaffa approached, staff raised, and promptly fell, riddled with bullets.

"Think he went into the trees to kick some-- UH!"

"SIR!!" Sam wriggled desperately towards her CO as his face landed in the moss, a charred and smoking patch on his upper back. Instinctively she rolled to find the source of the attack, and was hit full in the chest by the staff-blast.

* * * * *

"God dammit, Jack, hang in there!" Daniel's face was set like flint, he wouldn't cry. He might smash something, might bang his head against the reinforced-glass, but he wouldn't cry. Pacing with frustrated energy, he ignored the pain from the charred section of his right arm which was now tightly bandaged.

A subtle hiss turned Daniel's head as a still battle-bloody Jacob stepped into the room, his brow furrowed with anguish, his eyes desolate.

"Sam?" Daniel asked, hurriedly, but with a sensitivity that acknowledged Jacob's feelings.

Jacob took a deep breath, staring at the floor. "Yanock is working on it." His exhausted eyes met Daniel's. "It doesn't look good."

Teal'c appeared at Daniel's side. "Major Carter is strong, Jacob Carter, as is the symbiote. I feel certain they will prevail." Jacob nodded his thanks.

"What about Jack?" Urgency again in Daniel's usually mild voice.

"He's blended with Kal'ai..." Jacob's expression became fraught once again. "She's very young. Too young, really, but there was no other."

Daniel stepped to the plane of glass and looked into the adjacent chamber, where Jack and Sam lay on biers side by side, inert. He pressed a hand to the glass. "Hang in there." He whispered. Teal'c joined him, staring into the quarantine section with a resolutely grim expression.

* * * * *

Aaahhh, sighed the voice in Sam's head, exhaustion in its tone. I think we are out of danger at last.

"Who--" She tried to open her eyes, but couldn't muster the strength. "Who's there?" She enquired, the words nothing more than a slurred mumble.

Shhh. Later. For now it is enough that we live.

* * * * *

Come on, PLEASE... I know you can do it, now breathe...

Hey, get off my back, I'm breathing already. Jeez. Jack's hazy mind paused, back-tracked. Err... is that... are you God?

The otherness in him chuckled weakly. At the moment, yes. Now, let's do some miracles, huh?

* * * * *

His eyelids felt like lead, but somehow he forced them open to stare up at the uninteresting grey ceiling. They should decorate that.

I agree. Not an inspiring view to wake up to.

Jack jumped. He knew that voice. Well, not a voice exactly... he couldn't quite put his finger on it, but it was definitely there. "That you, Carter?" he called, or attempted to call, but the aridity of his throat resulted in more of an emphatic whisper.

I think Major Carter is still quite damaged. I hope she makes it, I really do. I sense your love.

Jack was too thrown by the statement to wonder who said it. He launched into a rapid-fire round of gloss-overs and vague denials of that very private truth.

Go easy, you don't have to explain yourself to me, you know. Jeez.

He was sure that last bit was a direct imitation of him-- wait a damn minute! Who the hell am I talking to? He shuddered as suspicion became realisation, a nauseating certainty... Oh, oh, nooo, no way!

If I may say, you're quite slow on the uptake, Jack. I've told you before who I am.

No, I was dreaming. I'm still dreaming - a nightmare, just a nightm-

I am Kal'ai, a Tok'ra, honored to be blended at last, and to someone so admired among the resistance...

"Shut up!" He cried, screwing his eyes up tight, "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

"Jack!" The measure of relief in Daniel's voice was tempered by the imperative, "Jack, it's Daniel. Talk to me."

The Colonel's eyes snapped open. He took hold of Daniel's hands on his shoulders, clinging to them as though he might fall off a precipice. "There's a snake in my head! Get it out!"

Daniel, trying to think through the searing pain coming from his wounded arm, extricated his wrists from Jack's vice-like grip. "Jack, JACK! It's okay, it's not a Goa'uld, she's Tok'ra."

"Same difference!" Jack spat.

Hey! That was NOT called for! Kal'ai's tone was decidedly hurt and indignant. We aren't parasites - we only take willing hosts... usually.

"I- was- NOT- willing!" Jack said through clenched teeth. He could sense Kal'ai's angry response forming, but with a sigh she let the argument go.

Please, Jack... you're alive. I did that. Don't hate me, please!

Jack could feel her genuine, imploring need to be accepted alongside his own revulsion at the very thought of blending. Not usually given to ambivalence, overwhelmed by such powerfully conflicting emotions, he clapped his hands to his ears and looked desperately at his friend. "Do something?" He asked, anguished.

Daniel floundered hopelessly, looking around him and finally spotting a phial of the Tok'ra's blue anaesthetic formula. He pressed the phial to Jack's arm and the liquid passed immediately into him. With a look of thanks, Jack's vision blurred and dimmed.

Good idea, Jack. Let's sleep on it.

* * * * *

Sam groaned. She couldn't be sure how much time had passed since she was shot-- Shot?! I was... shot in the chest by a staff-weapon! I'm dead!

I certainly hope not. This is not how I pictured the hereafter.

Jolinar! You're back! How--? Something felt different. No, you're not...

My name is Yanock, though I understand the confusion. I feel Jolinar too. How strange for a host to have borne two different Tok'ra!

A hand on her shoulder gently prompted her to open her eyes a little. "Yanock? Can you hear me?" The unmistakably deep, resonant tone of a Tok'ra voice echoed through her father's lips.

"Selmack." The response was not hers, she knew, but her symbiote's. Still, she was surprised to hear the same deep voice come from her own mouth.

"Were you successful?"

"We are fine. Tired, but well."

Jacob closed his eyes and bowed his head briefly. The next moment Sam saw the familiar sparkle of her father's eyes, glistening with unshed tears. "Sam, it's me, dad. Are you okay?"

Sam nodded. "I'll live." Then, on second thought, she added silently, we, I meant we, and felt a glow of appreciation from Yanock. Suddenly, a flash memory of the ambush shattered her mellow mood. With shocking clarity she recalled the way Colonel O' Neill fell limply to the ground, obviously dead. "Oh, God, Colonel!" She cried, "Dad! Is Jack dead?"

From her opposite side, a hand touched hers, held it. "I'm right here, Carter." Turning, she looked into his chocolate eyes, his tired smile bringing a flood of relief. She studied his face. There was something... different, a sense of...

Well done child. Yanock remarked quietly within Sam's mind. Definitely not the easiest of beginnings.

He's... got one too? Sam asked her symbiote with the easy telepathy she had discovered during her brief time with Jolinar. A silent affirmative. Sam added her own internal thanks to the Tok'ra who had saved him - blended or not, she couldn't survive without Colonel O'Neill.

End of Part One