Seven udajeets swoop down over us. Death gliders, as these off-worlders call them. An appropriate name, judging from the number of bodies left in the wake of the flyer's first pass.

The off-worlders are as brave as they are desperate. The ineffectiveness of their primitive projectile weapons against the armored flyers doesn't deter them as they flank the refugee's retreat toward the Chaapa'ai. Their sense of responsibility to this people not their own is noble, but I have witnessed similar scenes before, too many times. The outcome is always the same. Their only hope lies beyond the open Chaapa'ai.

I have to get out. We have to get out. I made him a promise. Please, let me keep it!

She's over there. He wants to be with her, so that together they may make it to safety. His emotions are so strong that I let him go, despite the risk. They love each other so very, very deeply, how can I refuse. If we don't make it out alive, then don't they at least deserve even these last mad seconds together?

Concussive bursts of energy shake the ground, making running difficult. She is coming toward us.

But I know her, she would rather die here than be safe without him.

The place is a chaotic litter of dead people and their possessions left behind in the frantic exodus from massacre. The ground explodes between us, cutting us off from each other's sight. I search frantically for her through the smoke and dust even as we run headlong through it. She is still standing, and I feel an indescribable elation.

Almost there! We just might make it! I'll be able to keep my promise.

Suddenly a wall appears before us. A tangled construct of sticks topped by a crazily spinning wheel. An oxcart, thrown down as by the giant hand of some angry god. We're coming up on it too fast, I can't veer away from it. I prepare a vain attempt to jump over it, even though it is as high as I am and I couldn't hope to clear it. But then a blast, directly behind us gives the lift we need and we sail over it. For a few seconds we're flying then we're landing, rolling over and over, sky, ground, sky, ground, until blackness claims me.

I awake with a start, reaching out to break a fall. Was I not just falling? I must have landed. I'm on my side on the ground now.

Are you alright, Gabrian, my friend? I check on him. He is not good. Very bad, as a matter of fact. Something has embedded itself in one of his lungs and his heart is on the verge of failure.

I become aware of her with us. She kneels beside the man she loves and strokes his face. He's dying, the look on her face says that she, too, knows it. Our eyes lock as I gaze up at her a moment.

I am responsible for this catastrophe. If I had not come here to hide, the enemy would not have come in search, and this world would have continued to know peace. I promised that no harm would come to Gabrian’s people. That he had fooled the enemy into thinking I was dead. The enemy’s presence here made my words a lie, my promises, empty.

I reach out, letting him touch her and she strokes his arm tenderly, whispering comfort and love to him, afraid to raise her voice lest the enemy hear her above the hellish din. My eyes close and I concentrate on her voice. I must, because he can't hear her any more. He is gone and in my self-loathing I want to die too.

A memory flashes before my mind; the same memory that saved me the last time I was about to die. It is of the one I love. He is holding his arms out to me, urging me not to give up, to hold on, to believe. I want to believe! I want to live! I want to keep my promise to return to him, somehow, even if it's a promise I can't keep entirely.

But where can I go? She has not offered herself to me, she doesn't even know I exist.

A few months ago Gabrian had tried to save my host from an attack. I do not know what happened to the Ashrack, but when I regained consciousness the assassin was nowhere to be seen and my Rosha, my dear, wonderful friend Rosha, lay dying. She begged me to save myself. She made me promise to return to him that loved us. I promised.

I blended with the badly injured man, as much to save myself as to save him. We lay there for hours until he had finally accepted our blending, but he had made me swear not to show myself to his wife. I promised, both that I would remain silent and that I would leave him as quickly as possible.

So many broken promises. I would make no more. I would die here.

She stays. I close my eyes. Dimly, I hear all around me the thudding of feet as her people flee. Missile blasts. Screams. The roar of the Udajeets as they pass. The "rat-a-tat" of primitive weapons fire. Voices. The oddly accented shout of one of the off-worlders.

"This mans' alive!"

My host's limp body is suddenly pulled onto his back. The pain is excruciating for me, awakening me from my grief-induced torpor and I wriggle desperately to detach myself from his brainstem. Before my connection to his occipital lobe is severed, I see through his eyes a miraculous sight. Eyes, wide and dark are within an inch of my host's face. An off-worlder, a woman. She looks familiar, somehow; beautiful, eyes intense; an image of my dear Rosha, and I wonder if I am perhaps in shock and hallucinating. She tilts my host's head back, widening his trachea, and, opening his mouth, she places hers upon his.

She knows!? She's offering me a way out? Salvation!

Quickly I extricate myself from my host and burrow through to his throat, anxious to take her up on her offer, but, when I get there, she has pulled away. I panic as I look up through his gaping mouth to the embattled sky. My whole body tenses as death becomes imminent. Was she just an illusion? As though in answer, her mouth returns, hovering, open, just above me, re-assuring, inviting me. Reflexively I use the muscles in poor Gabrian's arm to grasp her and pull her forcefully toward me.

I leap.

My former host goes limp and she springs away from him, shocked and surprised. I know, I soothe. It hurts. It will pass quickly. Now we must get up; we must leave this place.

She's not moving. At least, not on the outside. On the inside, in her mind, that is another matter. She attacks me with the ferocity of a wild cat. I am too shocked to understand. Did she not offer herself to me as host? I am weak. The blast that killed my host has injured me as well, and blending is in itself, exhausting, not to mention the grief I feel for the friend I have just betrayed by letting him die.

I try to show her all this in the precious seconds stolen from our escape, but she is not having any of it. Her mind is inarticulate with rage and panic, and it takes all my concentration to dominate her.

Then it hits me, the horror she feels is not just from the usual shock all hosts feel with the blending process. She thinks I am Goa'uld! The enemy is within her, now, and I cannot convince her otherwise. She has had experience with the Goa'uld. I see an image in her mind: A friend, a fellow soldier, infested, appearing to be fine one moment, lashing out and killing the next. I see how he nearly killed her and the manner in which he had died.

A hand grasps my shoulder. I turn abruptly and look into the concerned face of a man, another off-worlder.

This one is important to my host, and I feel her claw viciously at me as she tries to get her own words into her mouth, to warn him. The shock and surprise he sees in his friend's eyes are mine, for now I have ruthlessly quashed my host's.

What have I done!? I have violated her!

I have a lot of explaining to do, but not here, not now. He helps me to my feet and again, I am running for the Gate, as this host calls it, trying to get used to new legs; legs that are unwilling to co-operate. I have to fight to keep her from pulling out of his grasp. She wants to stay here. She would rather let the udajeets shoot her dead than allow me safe passage to her world.

Too much is going on right now; I am fighting shock myself, the shock of the attack, the shock of physical injury, of losing my friend, of having violated another. I cannot reason with her, so I crush her, violently. We will sort it out later, but first, I have to make sure we *have* a "later." Another hand grasps my other shoulder and I am practically lifted off the ground from the combined efforts of the two men. I become dimly aware of the presence of a symbiote and look with apprehension at my new companion. The Jaffa! My host is screaming in my thoughts. She is screaming for this one, Teal'c, to understand the danger I pose. Teal'c is oblivious to her suppressed cry, rushing us headlong through the Chaapa'ai. All sense of time and space and thought is lost for a moment, and then we pull up short on an angled metal ramp, my host's world.

I look out on a chaos of people, some milling about the small, crowded room, others lying on the floor. Talia is here, crying. I want to go to her, to comfort her, but I don't dare.

There is a great slicing sound behind me and I turn to see an iris-like shield close over the wormhole, followed immediately by the unmistakable thuds of bodies being broken against it as the pursuing Jaffa fail to get through.

I am safe. My host fears me at present, but I will show her that I am a friend. We will leave her world at the earliest opportunity. I will take this woman to my people, and when we find them, I will inopportune her no longer. I will leave her and return her to her people. It will be extremely dangerous for me to attempt another blending so quickly, but I must. I am tired of breaking promises. This one I must keep, no matter what price I have to pay.

"Carter?"

Instinctively I turn to the sound of the voice, realizing as I turn that this is but one of my host's many names and titles.

The man looks at me in concern. Apparently he is unused to seeing this woman in shock. "You okay?"

"Yeah," I tell him truthfully, imitating her voice.

"I'm fine. Thanks"

© April 22, 2001 The characters mentioned in this story are the property of Showtime and Gekko Film Corp. The Stargate, SG-I, the Goa'uld and all other characters who have appeared in the series STARGATE SG-1 together with the names, titles and backstory are the sole copyright property of MGM-UA Worldwide Television, Gekko Film Corp, Glassner/Wright Double Secret Productions and Stargate SG-I Prod. Ltd. Partnership. This fanfic is not intended as an infringement upon those rights and solely meant for entertainment. All other characters, the story idea and the story itself are the sole property of the author.

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