Prologue: A thistle in the heart

Meryth walked slowly, her feet dry and cracked. The path to the chappai was littered with small stones, hot sand and bordered by scrub brush. Meryth ignored it all, her goal singular and clear. She must make it to the circle of water, no one here was going to help her, that was abundantly clear. Another foot stepped in front of another, she was almost there now.

Behind her, she could feel the hot eyes of the people. They would permit her to leave, but they would not help her. Getting them to stop beating her had been a miracle of the Tok'ra, and for that she would be forever grateful. But there was no doubt that the people did not fully believe that Meryth had not been in control of her actions when she ruled them as a minor Goa'uld. Their resentful stares told her the truth of it. The people only agreed to the Tok'ra's request to free Meryth because it was suggested their off-world trade partners might 'forget' to make a stop at their small planet if they did not let Meryth leave.

Meryth had come home after years as host to the Goa'uld, Chloris. The Goa'uld had been removed by a sympathetic Tok'ra after Chloris had been tricked into a false trade agreement with whom she thought was another Goa'uld. Once at the neutral site for negotiations Chloris had been captured and subdued, and finally removed from Meryth. As per an agreement with the Nox, Chloris had been returned to the Goa'uld home planet and released into their original watery home. Meryth had been given transport back to her home, anticipating a reunion with her brothers and their families.

Meryth winced as her bare foot stepped on a thistle burr. She stumbled before forcing herself to balance carefully on her other leg while she brushed the burr away. She refused to meet any of the people's eyes, but she also refused to fall down again before them. Their betrayal cut like a blunt dagger to her gut, and her eyes prickled with unshed tears. She would make it to the chappai! She would make it to safety, somewhere! There is was now, only a few more paces.

Meryth stood before the control pedestal and hesitated for the first time. Where to go? If her own family had rejected her, who would take her in? A memory itched at the edges of her mind. Chloris's memories were hazy, like remembering childhood. Chloris had been to a trade planet once. She had swept in, selected a few bolts of expensive fabric, and promptly left the planet with it's waves of humanity undulating likes a field of grain. Too crowded, too base, for Chloris. But maybe a good place for Meryth? Perhaps she could go there and disappear into the throng.

The decision made, Meryth pressed the sequence of constellations necessary to reach the commerce planet. She looked up and watched the explosion of blue water that was never wet as it filled the air in front of the circle, then settled into a quiet ripple inside the chappai.

With a clear destination before her, Meryth began to walk forward again. Her skills beyond those learnt as a host were few, but she was desperate. She would find a way to survive. Just before stepping into the water Meryth stopped. Her mind desperately tried to force her feet to continue, but her heart made her turn, just one more time. She looked back at the mountains she had loved as a child, the soft cedar trees swaying gently in the afternoon breeze. What a beautiful mountain she had grown up on! Her heart clenched, knowing her home was no longer hers. Her brother's children did not recognise her when she had returned, but they had recognized Chloris. All of her nuclear family had already grown old and passed on, while the Goa'uld inside her had kept her aging at a minimum, using a sarcophagus if anything serious had befallen her. It had been 60 years since she had been home as herself, and it was with a measure of naquadah in her heart that she finally turned her back on it and stepped through the circle.

Chapter One: Meetings

"But Daniel, I just don't see why we can't just take a tiny little look!" Vala whined, wrapping herself around his arm, and giving him puppy-dog eyes.

Doctor Daniel Jackson sighed. It had been like this ever since they had arrived on Trevys. Vala had said nothing, absolutely nothing, about having lived on this commercial planet during their briefing that morning. She was their point of contact with the local merchants from her pirating days. Obviously she had been hoping to slip in a little side trip that she very well knew Landry would never approve. She had only brought it up after they had cleared the Stargate.

Mitchell looked at Daniel pointedly. Daniel got the message. Vala was his problem..err responsibility. Naturally.

"No, Vala," Daniel said firmly as her disentangled her from his arm. "We are here to negotiate a trade for control crystals. That's all!"

Vala pouted, again, before turning to Colonel Carter. "Samantha, it would only take a few minutes, honestly. And we might meet someone I know! Please?"

"Umm, honestly Vala, I'm with Daniel on this one. We have a job to do." Sam tried to smile sympathetically at Vala. "Maybe if you talk to General Landry when we get back you can work something out?"

"Fine, but don't ask me for a favour any time soon!" Vala harrumphed and walked ahead of the team. "Daniel!" Vala pierced him with her grey eyes, "Come on, we're got control crystals to purchase."

Sam smiled at Vala's bossy tone, and Mitchell smirked, glad it wasn't him. Teal'c simply waited for the team to follow her, serenely bringing up the rear. Daniel for his part took it all in stride. Another day with Vala Mal Doran. The city spread out before them and SG-1 followed Vala as she lead them into the crowds.

...

SG-1 followed their space pirate team member as she walked confidently through the city. Apart from a few stray looks, they didn't attract any special attention for which Cameron Mitchell was grateful. They were dressed in a common robes with their gear hidden beneath and Mitchell kept a hand on his weapon. In the days of AO, or 'After the Ori' as they had begun to call it, the Lucien Alliance had been increasing in strength, clashing with the Free Jaffa. As the Taur'i, and long time supporters of the Jaffa, they were targets for any disgruntled Lucien trader who was looking to solidify their position in the Alliance.

Mitchell walked beside Teal'c and kept an eye on Sam and Daniel as they followed Vala's lead. They were just now approaching a large merchants tent, and Vala said something to Daniel and Sam. Sam nodded and fell back to Cam and Teal'c. "Vala says this is the Dargaens establishment," she stated, nodding at the marquis.

"Okay, you, Daniel and Teal'c will go inside. Vala and I will keep watch out here," Cam took charge.

The team nodded, and Daniel stepped under the low awning, with Sam behind and Teal'c following. Cam and Vala sat down on a bench outside and tried to blend in, Cam pulling out a bread roll he carried for just such situations and handed it to Vala. She snatched it eagerly and began to eat. Cam rolled his eyes, always amazed at her appetite.

"So Vala, what's so important you need to see at your old house?" Cam asked.

Vala tilted her head and swallowed, "It's not exactly my old house, it's just my neighbourhood. It's been a really, really long time you know? After Qetesh, I just didn't feel like I would be welcome anywhere, but it's been so long now, I was kind of hoping no one would remember me. I just wanted to look around, see what's changed, what's the same."

Cam raised an eyebrow knowingly, "And...?"

"And what?" Vala countered neatly.

"And what else?"

"Oh honestly! I'm not trying to recover some stash I have hidden there, and I know that's what you and Daniel are thinking," Vala insisted. She took another bite of the roll and glared into the crowd. "In fact, I'm not sure any of my 'stashes' even exist anymore."

"I knew it!" Cam nodded. "You did have something here!"

Vala shook her head as she chewed. "I lived here when I was seven years old. The only treasures I collected back then were the findings I discovered in the streets and the woods outside of town." Her eyes looked far away, remembering, and she didn't notice Sam, Teal'c and Daniel join them. "There was this one tree I liked to climb. I used to get almost to the top and I could see the roofs all around. I Imagined I could fly high above all of them, over the trees by the river, all the way to the stars." Vala smiled softly, then her eyes snapped back attention when she noticed Daniel watching her. "Anyway, I just want to see if the tree is still there."

"Cam, we're done here," Sam interrupted. She looked down at Cam and Vala, and held out the canvas bag they had brought. "Vala was right, the Dargaens did have the right crystals."

"And this scroll of local folk tales," Daniel added, "for a very reasonable price."

"We were most successful," Teal'c nodded.

"Okay then, Sam, Teal'c, why don't you guys head back to the gate, while Jackson and Vala and I go see if we can find her tree?" Cam suggested.

"What?!" Daniel cried, and Vala whooped with glee.

"Come on, Daniel, it means a lot to her," Vala nodded vigorously as Cam continued, "and I not going with her alone," for which Vala proceeded to punch Cam in the arm.

"Ow!" Cam grunted. "See, you have to come to keep a eye, AND and hand on her!"

Daniel rolled his eyes, but he pulled Vala away from Cam. Teal'c gave them a small smile and Sam laughed before they turned and headed back the way the team had come. Vala tugged on Daniel's hand.

"This way, it's just a few streets down this hill!" and she smiled her blazing smile at them both.

...

Vala lead Daniel, with Cam trailing them, down two wide streets before turning down a narrow alley. Daniel hesitated. "Vala, are you sure this is safe?" he asked as the light was blocked by the crowded second stories above them.

"It's fine, all the residential streets are like this," Vala assured him.

The three continued down the shadowy walk, Vala chattering on about a game she used to play, until it brightened and opened up to a wide courtyard. It was square, perhaps 200 feet across both directions and filled with grass and children. In the center was a well and in each corner stood a tree. Vala stopped and stared.

Daniel turned to look at Vala who had ceased moving and talking. "Is everything okay?" he asked her.

Vala could only nod, and that was when Daniel saw tears forming at the corners of her large grey eyes.

"That was my tree," she pointed at the nearest one. Trance-like, Vala moved towards it, then squeaked when a child crashed into her. She had walked right into a game of sorts, the children kicking a tan leather ball around. The child mumbled something of an apology before running off again, but Vala's attention was no longer on the tree she had come to see.

Across the square an older woman had just dropped her water pitcher and was staring at Vala, as Vala stared right back at her. Then suddenly, the woman was hitching up her skirt and running towards them, as Vala shrank back into Daniel's chest. Cam stepped out in front of them both, but the women slowed, coming to a stop in front of Cam.

"Do you need something?" Cam asked her. Daniel sighed, feeling Cam was being rude, and moved from behind Vala, but kept his hand around hers.

"Hello, I'm Daniel, he is Cam, and this is-"

"Vala, I know," the woman spoke then.

"How do you know me?" Vala asked with apprehension. She had no memory of swindling this woman, nor seeing her here as a child.

"You were only three years old the last time I saw you, Vala," she smiled. "But you look so much like your mother...it had to be you."

Daniel glanced at Vala to see how she was taking this revelation. Other than her father, he had never met anyone who had known Vala before she became a host. Vala looked confused, but not scared. The woman before them seemed sincere and mostly harmless.

She reached out then and pulled Vala into a warm hug, and the bewildered former thief suddenly found herself feeling safe and loved, and she hugged her right back.

"You knew my mother?" She asked.

"Eilena was so special to me. She was my friend after ... when I was on my own, and I was there helping her the day you were born, child! I'm Meryth."

Then Vala felt a memory resurface. Her mother and her friend sharing tea while she danced barefoot through the kitchen waving dish towels in the air. It was only a fragment of a memory really, but it was there. She did know her!

But just as suddenly, another sense caught Vala off guard, and she took a swift step back, stepping on Daniel's toes in the process. Meryth seemed to have sensed something off as well because she was now peering at Vala suspiciously.

"Vala, what happ-" Meryth started

"Who are you, really?" Vala demanded.

Cam and Daniel stood by watching this change in mood warily. One minute they were watching a warm reunion, and suddenly the air was charged and thick with fear. Realization caught up with Daniel quickly, and he stepped between the two.

"Vala, Meryth, it's all right," he soothed.

"No Daniel, it's not alright. She was, or maybe still is, a Goa'uld." Vala stated with conviction.

"And you can sense this because you were one too," Meryth concluded sadly. "But you are free now, aren't you?"

Vala, eyes wide, nodded. Meryth closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, Vala more than half expected them to glow gold. But they did not. Warm hazel eyes implored her to understand as Meryth nodded at her.

"I was host to Chloris once. But she has been gone for many years."

And just like that, the tension was gone and Vala was reaching out and pulling Meryth into an embrace of her own.

...

"Daniel, she can't stay here." Vala pulled on Daniel's arm. "She is the only family I have, she has to come back to Earth. She has to come with me."

Daniel nodded, he could see that. Meryth's 'home' such as it was, was a tiny, cramped room. She had a rough hewn bed taking up one wall, a minuscule hearth and a low table. Beyond a single pot hanging over her fire she had nothing. She didn't even have a water pitcher, now that she had broken hers. Daniel could not understand how she managed to eat, much less have a bed. In the last hour, Cam had gone back to the gate to inform Landry of the situation, and Daniel and Vala had gone with Meryth to her home. Daniel had watched in awe as the two women had bonded, their shared history as hosts and their relationship to Vala's mother pulling them together.

Vala was adamant, and Daniel was inclined to agree. But bringing her back to the SGC was a big step, one they could not make without approval. Vala wasn't worried though. She had already informed Meryth that she was coming home with her and that was that. Currently the two were folding Meryth's few clothes and belongings into a roll, and Vala had already laid out coins to pay Meryth's final rent, to be left for her landlord.

It only took a few moments for the task to be done. Vala took Meryth's arm, handed her roll to Daniel, and together they walked away from the tiny room, across the square and into the alley, Daniel following close behind.

Daniel was worried. This was just like Vala, to act impulsively, no thought to the consequences. Well, this time she doing it to help an older women in need, not to help herself, so that was different. To be fair, Vala had been selflessly helpful on many occasions now. For some reason it still surprised him to see it. The big concern was what was going to happen when Vala 'informed' General Landry of her intention of bringing another alien to the SGC.

Daniel watched Vala with interest was she walked ahead of him arm in arm with the older woman. He guessed that Meryth was about 60 years, at least. There was no accounting for how long she had lived as a host though, so she could be far older than even that. Vala's sparkling laughter broke out and Daniel felt himself smiling at the sound, even while still concerned how this was going to play out. He had never seen her quite like this, and he honestly didn't know what to make of it. Meryth glanced over her shoulder and smiled back at Daniel for a moment before turning back to Vala. She whispered something to Vala that made her also turn a glance at Daniel with a shy, guarded look. Vala, shy? Daniel shook his head. Nope, not possible.