Before the Abyss

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* TITLE: Before the Abyss
* AUTHOR: Redbyrd
* EMAIL: redbyrd (at) mindspring (dot) com
* RATING: PG
* CATEGORY: drama, action
* SUMMARY: The Tok'ra Kanan needed a new host, but he never expected he would have anything to learn from a Tau'ri, let alone the lesson that Jack would teach him.
* SPOILERS: The movie, COTG, Cold Lazarus,Thor's Chariot, Fire and Water, Serpent's Lair, A Matter of Time, Divide and Conquer, The First Ones, The Light, Meridian, Frozen, Abyss
* AUTHOR'S NOTE: I couldn't help but think when I saw Abyss that O'Neill had to have been something of a shock for a poor hapless Tok'ra just minding his own business. It would have been amusing if he had survived and retained his attitude adjustment. Possibly an AU plot bunny for another time. (Feel free to steal it if it appeals to you.)
* DISCLAIMER: 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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//"Come with me!" Kanan said urgently.

"I cannot." Shallon shook her head. "They will see that I am gone. They will know and catch you. Go."

He backed away, unable to tear his eyes away from her. He couldn't bear to think of his gentle lover in the service of Ba'al. She was terrified of him, but had survived years as his lotar where other humans had been executed by his caprice in mere hours. That she had defied him to help Kanan escape filled him with awe and pride. That she would not come with him was a stabbing agony of fear. //

His host, Parin, had dreamed of that scene over and over. It was often necessary to do regrettable things in their fight against the Goa'uld, but Shallon's loss had been more disturbing than most. They had seduced her to gain her assistance in collecting information on Ba'al's fortress, but had developed a genuine affection for her in the months he had posed as a lesser Goa'uld in Ba'al's court. Enough to ask her to come with them when they left. Enough to regret that she had been too fearful to agree. It was unlikely that she would long survive in Ba'al's service. The Goa'uld were always cruel and capricious, but Ba'al enjoyed the pain and suffering of others far more than most.

Kanan banished the memories that haunted him and circled the small tank restlessly. He hadn't experienced an environment like this since he was a larva. He had forgotten how small and vulnerable it made him feel. When would they find him a host? He had information that must be heard, information he could not communicate in this state. Kanan was about ready to burst from frustration when the gentle hands scooped him from his tank. He grieved for the loss of his host, but Parin had been as committed to the cause as he had. Now he must gather his resources and try to get through the new blending as quickly as possible, before the intelligence he carried was out of date.

Kanan had also nearly forgotten how little symbiotes could see in their natural state. From the blurred image that was all he could see with his natural eyes, he gathered they were in a healing room. The man he was to blend with was lying down, unconscious. Kanan's heart sank. The only host they could find had been ill. He was conscious of sound waves battering his body. Hearing through the senses of the symbiote only was odd, distorted. He didn't recognize the person holding him and didn't know if it was because his vision was so changed or because he didn't know them. He gradually made out what she was saying. "-Kanan, this can only be a temporary blending, until we can find you a permanent host. Do you understand?"

He tried to wiggle his wormlike form in affirmation. An ill host, who had no doubt agreed to the temporary blending only to save his own life. What else could go wrong? The blending didn't always work even with a willing and healthy host. He had been amazed and grateful to find that he had survived the attack that had killed Parin. He might have felt relieved too soon. Hands were lifting the mask away from the face of the temporary host. An older man with silvered hair but a lean, fit body. Kanan felt a vague sense of familiarity he couldn't place. The prospective host was sweating and flushed with fever. A second person held his mouth open while the first brought Kanan closer. Kanan slid into his body.

The man was in even worse shape than he appeared. The fever had burned through his energy reserves and major organs were on the verge of failure. He was deeply unconscious, but even so Kanan could sense that only an immense reserve of iron willpower was keeping him stubbornly clinging to life. Kanan started making the physical connections of blending and insinuated himself into the circulatory system, using his own innate abilities bolster the failing immune system. He paused to consider the man's mental state. To made real inroads on the healing, he needed to connect himself to the man's mind. It would be easier if he were conscious. He made the link that would let him talk to the host first. //Wake up.// It took several tries before the host started slowly surfacing. Kanan realized with some irritation that he didn't even know who the man was. //What's your name?//.

The man was responding groggily, confused. //Jack. Wha-?"//

Kanan tried to communicate reassurance. //I am Kanan. You have been very ill. I need to complete the blending..//

The wave of horror and revulsion that flooded the man's mind nearly swamped Kanan in its intensity. Kanan floundered for a moment and then seized control, sending the host back to sleep. If he had not, the man might have started vomiting in his semiconscious state and he wasn't nearly strong enough for that. He quivered with shame. This was not a willing host. What were the healers thinking? What could have possessed them? After taking a few minutes to calm himself, he decided to try and probe the man's memories directly. Perhaps he had agreed but only reluctantly, as Kanan had first surmised, to save his own life. He kept the host, Jack, he reminded himself, firmly unconscious while trying to elict his recent memories. It was a difficult and delicate task to do while only half-blended and with Jack in such poor condition, but soon a fuzzy image swam up before him. A blond woman was leaning over him trying to rouse him.

//Sir, I don't know if you can hear me. The Tok'ra have offered you a deal. There's a symbiote that needs a host. They think it could cure you. Now it may be your only chance." Jack could hear her far away, as if through a fog. Carter, what was she saying? She continued, "It would only be temporary. It would come out of you as soon as they found another host. ... Sir, are you getting any of this?"

She must be insane. He struggled to speak through the fog that enshrouded his brain and the mask that covered his mouth. "Carter.."

"Yeah, I'm right here."

He thought he was talking loudly, but his voice emerged thready and weak though. "Over.. my.. dead.. body," Jack ground out. Not even to save his own life would he allow them to put a snake in him.//

Kanan was if anything more appalled. They had managed to ask his permission despite his condition and the man had refused. Why had they gone ahead and done it anyway? But the memory was continuing.

//"Sir, the symbiote's host died while they were on a mission. The Tok'ra have strong reason to believe that the symbiote has vital information to reveal and this would give him that chance. Now they promised that if no other host was found within a reasonable amount of time, the symbiote would sacrifice itself rather than stay in an unwilling host."

Jack struggled to parse what she was saying. Carter thought this was a good idea, that this was important? She wanted him to..?

"...Sir, please." The tone was serious, but the blue eyes were filled with pleading. She didn't want him to die. His team still needed him. And as much as the Tok'ra repelled him, Jack hated the Goa'uld more. He swallowed, unable to force out the words, summoning the will to take the harder path just one more time, for his team, for Earth. Slowly he nodded, and the room slipped away again.//

Kanan was conscious of a surprised respect. Jack had been truly terrified and yet had consented not to save himself, but out of a sense of duty and commitment to the fight against the Goa'uld. Here was a man that he could respect, perhaps even like. He felt an odd sort of disappointment that Jack felt such revulsion for the blending. And now that he had time to think about the memory, he realized he knew who this man was. The blond woman was Samantha Carter, daughter to Selmak's host Jacob and herself once unwilling host to Jolinar. Jack must be Colonel Jack O'Neill, leader of SG-1. O'Neill had always been perfectly candid about his own feelings on blending. It was one of the things that had made the Tok'ra so reluctant to ally with the Tau'ri. Yet he had himself brought Jacob back to be host to Selmak and had stood beside the Tok'ra as an ally on many occasions.

Kanan decided to try to speak to the man again. He released the controls and let Jack's mind swim back out of the blackness. //Jack, please. You consented to this....// The surge of horror and panic swamped him out of control and Kanan floundered while the host body went into a series of convulsions.

Kanan was conscious of gentle hands keeping him from falling off the bed while the host shivered and twitched. Kanan regained his equilibrium and sought to damp down the neurotransmitter and adrenaline reactions. Jack was too weak to stand much more of this, but Kanan didn't see how to make the mental contacts he needed with the man in this condition. 'In this condition,' he thought. That was the key. Normally, the symbiote integrated with the brain and used the host's own control mechanisms to heal the body. But he had some direct control of the autonomic systems, even like this. It would be slower and harder, but if he could cleanse the man's system of the infection that ravaged it, than he could try to complete the blending when Jack was in better condition. The problem was, until the blending was completed, he did not have control of the voluntary muscles. Unless he could persuade Jack to allow the blending, he would be unable to communicate the vital data that he had collected. Belatedly, Kanan realized that he could simply override Jack's will and take control by force. But that thought filled him with nearly as much revulsion as the blending did Jack. Kanan was no Jolinar. He would do this the right way. Besides, in Jack's condition it was entirely possible he could resist strenuously enough to kill them both.

Days passed, and Jack slowly regained his strength. Kanan could sense the puzzlement of the healers that he remained unconscious but had no way to explain it to them. They administered nutrients daily and left Kanan to heal him. Kanan meanwhile had a lot of time to think and try to analyze Jack's reactions. Granted his mind was muddled with illness, but his violent distaste for the Tok'ra was so deeply rooted that Kanan wasn't at all sure that he'd be able to accomplish the blending even if Jack cooperated. He needed Jack's acceptance on both the conscious and subconscious levels. Kanan remembered a technique he'd once heard of used by poorly matched symbiote/host pairs. Memory matching involved the host and the symbiote finding and comparing similar experiences. Of course it was normally done with both the symbiote and the host conscious, whereas the problem Kanan had was that whenever Jack regained consciousness, he went nuts. Kanan paused. 'Nuts? Where did that come from?' Then he realized. On a very deep level, he and Jack were already connected. Something of Jack was bleeding across the link and starting to be integrated with Kanan's own memory. That was encouraging. He'd never heard of this happening before, but then he'd never heard of a joining where the symbiote stayed unblended for such a long time. Perhaps the memory matching exercise would help strengthen the unconscious link to the point where he could complete the blending without Jack panicking.

Of course sorting through Jack's memories was going to be hard without his cooperation. Kanan thought of his former host Parin and wished he could talk to his friend once again. He would have given Kanan good advice on what to do next. Kanan decided to start with loss, something anyone engaged in the fight against the Goa'uld was bound to have had a lot of experience with. He thought of his friend Parin, his other and he sometimes thought better half. Courageous in battle, gentle and affectionate by nature. He had loved Shallon as well, the two of them feeling as they lived, as one. He mourned the loss of his friend deeply. He sifted slowly through Jack's memory, looking for the paired bonds of friendship and loss.

//Tell Jacob to stop-// Even unconscious, Jack didn't want to face that memory and Kanan let it slip away to be replaced by another.

//Kawalsky rose as he entered the holding cell. "Colonel O'Neill, sir!"

"I'm retired, Kawalsky. Lose the salute."

The man grinned and they shook hands. "Me and Ferretti didn't tell them anything."//

Kanan watched with increasing horror as Kawalsky's fate played out. Implanted by a Goa'uld, his death at the hands of the Jaffa Teal'c by Jack's own order. He began to understand why O'Neill had such a horror of being snaked. The memories of Kawalsky whirled away.

//They were standing in the control room. On the monitor was the face of a friend. Dying, not yet dead, yet impossible to save. Jack turned to the man beside him, filled with anger and resentment but he forced his voice to calm and said, "One minute."

Frank Cromwell said, "Maybe the last one. We used to be friends, Jack."

"Yep." Jack so did not want to have this conversation, but Frank wasn't going to let him avoid it. Not this time.

"I was sick to my stomach when I found out you were still alive. I wanted to go back for you." His voice was pleading for understanding, his remorse clear on his face.

"Why don't we just do this and get the hell out of here, alright?" If Jack could have screwed his eyes closed and put his fingers in his ears, he would have.

Cromwell persisted, "Someone dropped a dime on the incursion. You got hit, you went down. I made a judgment call to save the rest of the team."

Jack finally turned on him, "And I saw you take off. And then I saw four months of my life disappear in some stinking Iraqi prison."

Cromwell said, "I thought you were dead!"

Jack retorted, "You thought wrong! What do you want? You want me to forgive you, is that it?" What he wanted to say was, 'You left me behind, you bastard. Some things are unforgivable.'

And yet with the face of the unfortunate Henry Boyd still frozen in fear on the monitor above them, Jack had finally found a measure of forgiveness for Cromwell. And his friend had died saving the earth before Jack could tell him.//

Loss and more loss.. once tapped the memories continued to flood out.

//Jack embraced his wife, looking forward to the game. Charlie *would* prefer baseball to hockey, but doing anything with his son was a pleasure. The gunshot rang out, shattering his world...//

Kanan flinched under the onslought. Hosts did not usually have children after they were blended. Only one of his many hosts had had children, and they had died of old age, after long and happy lives. Jack had experienced as much pain and loss in his short life as any Tok'ra- and they lived a lot longer. And he felt things so intensely. How had he coped with the loss of a child? No sooner had he thought the question when the memory storm whirled him away.

//They waited out the sandstorm that had fortuitously blown up to hide them from Ra. Jack sat in the cave and smoked, wondering why he had thought it was a good idea to try and die in the line of duty where he could take others with him.

He looked up at the shaggy-haired young scholar who had followed him into the room. Jack wasn't in any mood to talk. Didn't the kid have any sense of self-preservation at all? Then he remembered Jackson plunging in front of the staff weapon. Throwing away all that youth and energy and boundless enthusiasm to save a worn-out old soldier who was only waiting for the end anyway. No, obviously he didn't have any sense of self-preservation.

The archeologist asked without preamble. "You had accepted the fact that no matter what happened, you would not be going home? Don't you have people who care about you? Don't you have a family?" Daniel Jackson looked at him with the same concentration and desire to understand he had turned on the ancient walls of Nagada.

Jack wasn't going to answer that. He had no intention of talking to anyone, about anything. It was with some surprise that he heard himself say, "I had a family. No one should ever have to outlive their own child."

He waited for sympathy, platitudes. He got neither. "I don't want to die. Your men don't want to die and these people here don't want to die. It's a shame you're in such a hurry to."

Jack looked after the departing archeologist, a man he'd labeled a dweeb and yet who had saved his life and somehow convinced the natives to rescue him and what was left of his team. He felt like he'd been slapped smartly alongside the head. He looked across the cavern at the group of young Abydonians, at the boy Skarra coming toward him with a bowl of food. He took a deep breath and told himself what he should have said months ago, what he would have said to a friend in the same situation. 'Lose the self-pity, O'Neill, and get on with the job.' There was a way to get his team safely home, and he was going to find it.//

Kanan knew the Tau'ri had claimed to have taken out Ra, but there had always been a certain skepticism among the Tok'ra as to how much they had actually had to do with his demise. He was stunned at the simplicity of it. They ringed a bomb up to the ship, that was all. Luck had put them in the right place with a weapon capable of destroying a mothership, but only courage and incredible tenacity had kept them alive to make it happen. And then Jackson had stayed behind on Abydos.. surely that was wrong? Hadn't Jackson been a member of SG-1? He floundered in the flood of memories. He had to stop thinking questions when he was tapping Jack's memories like this, he thought. This one was sucking him dangerously close to things Jack really didn't want to remember.

//Bubbles. Flames. "Help, Jack!" Jackson was screaming, dying in fire, O'Neill helpless to save him.

Samantha Carter looked him in horror. "My god, Colonel, we left him behind!"//

//Jackson sitting slumped against the wall, his P90 pointed down the corridor and half his chest burned away by staff weapon fire. "Daniel..damnit!" Jack looked down the corridor, counted only bodies. Daniel had guarded their backs, all right. He tried to lift his friend.

" I'm dead anyway. Just get outta here!" Daniel said.

"I am not leaving you here, Daniel." Jack said with determination

Daniel wasn't having any of it "Get outta here! " His voice was strained with pain and fear. " You're just gonna blow up with the other ship anyway! What difference does it make? Go! Just go! I'll stay and watch your back."

O'Neill paused, weighing the balance beween the billions of absent lives and the dying man in front of him. He couldn't leave him here. But Daniel was as annoyingly right as ever. With the fate of the earth hanging in the balance, he didn't have time or the right to put his friend first. Fortunately, he told himself, he was going would be dead himself soon, all regrets gone forever. A part of his mind screamed in protest, but he made the agonizing decision that duty demanded. He touched Daniel's cheek gently and turned back to the peltak, his throat too tight to say goodbye.//

//Jack felt angry, dangerously close to losing control as he watched the medical staff transfer Daniel to a stretcher. It was all the effect of that damned light, he knew it. He followed the medical team as they wheeled Daniel to the gateroom. As they arrived, the monitor's steady beep when flat. "He's crashing!"

Janet Frasier said "There's nothing we can do for him here. Get him through the gate!"

And Jack elbowed them aside to gather up Daniel's lifeless body, knees protesting and spine creaking with the strain. Only the wave of pure adrenaline could have made it possible for him to run through the event horizon carrying his friend's dead weight.//

//Rothman stumbled out of the event horizon, panting too hard to talk, gasping out that Daniel had been taken.//

//He followed Daniel down the hallway, trying to understand how things had gone so suddenly, terribly wrong. Daniel was holding his hands curled and saying "Don't touch me!"

Carter said, "He may still be radioactive."

Frasier met them outside of the door to theinfirmary. "Let's get him scrubbed down." Daniel went past her. She continued, "Do we know what kind and how much?"

Carter looked at the doctor, " It was a device. Housing an unstable radioactive variation of Naqahdah. We think his right hand was exposed to the equivalent of over eight to nine grays of neutron radiation resulting from direct contact. Full body exposure of over seven.

Janet's voice rang with shock, "Oh my god."

O'Neill just looked at Carter, needing to know the implications of what she had just said. She looked back, wide blue eyes only a heartbeat from tears. "It's a lethal dose, sir."//

The images were flowing too strongly to be denied now, though Kanan could sense Jack badly wanted to avoid them.

//He and Daniel stood in the strangely deserted and eerily silent gateroom. Daniel wasn't wearing his glasses, and looked more like himself than he had in days, despite the faint glow that seemed to illuminate him from within. Jack had been having a lot of trouble even thinking of the rotting body in the infirmary as 'Daniel'.

"Tell Jacob to stop." Daniel said. //

Kanan finally stemmed the flood and disengaged the link to Jack's memory before he allowed himself to think of anything else. He wasn't sure he would even have been able to stop it, if Jack hadn't wanted so badly not to remember. Kanan wondered what had actually happened to Jackson. He vaguely remembered hearing that he had died, though Jack's vision, dream, hallucination or whatever it was hinted at something more mysterious. But the feelings of pain and loss that accompanied the memory were as excruciating as his own loss of his host. Kanan would have doubted the word of anyone who told him that was even possible, but the intimacy of sharing Jack's memories left no room for doubt. These Tau'ri teams were bonded more tightly than family, more closely than lovers. They had been through pain and terror, hope and joy together and it connected them in a way that he would never have guessed was possible for unblended humans. Kanan was impressed and even a little awed.

He tested the strength of the subconscious link. With his sharing of Jack's memories, it had become stronger, as he had hoped. Now he needed to give something back, let Jack experience some of his memories to make the bond reciprocal. He wondered if he could let Jack surface within the memory, try to share the experience while circumventing the Tau'ri's horror of blending.

//Shallon pulled him into an alcove, and the squadron of Jaffa marched past. "This way." She took him by the hand.//

Kanan could sense Jack with him, absorbing the memory. It was working, the blending was strengthening.

//They took one of Ba'al's own secret escape tunnels, one known only to his lotar and his First Prime. It let out at the edge of the forest, near the stargate. Only a few Jaffa guarded it. Kanan hefted his weapon. With the advantage of surprise, he could take them. But Shallon was unarmed. "Wait here until they are dead." He instructed.

She took a step back, fear on her face. "I can't go with you."

"Why not?" Kanan asked.

"If I leave with you, he will know." She trembled at the thought.

Kanan pleaded, "But I can save you."//

He heard a faint echo. Jack. 'I can save these people. Help me.' Finally, Kanan was becoming more confident. They were connecting, the bonds beginning to form as they should, similar experiences creating a part of their minds that was shared in common.

//Shallon took another step back. "I cannot. You do not know Ba'al as I do. He would kill me." She turned and vanished back into the tunnel the way they had come.

Kanan looked from tunnel mouth back to the stargate. Any minute now, they would find that he had escaped and the guard on the stargate would be increased. His host, Parin, protested. //We can't leave Shallon here.//

Kanan had replied. //But we must get this intelligence out while we can.// He felt the pull of their love for Shallon, and gratitude for the risk she had taken to help them, but he could not allow it to sway him. Decision made, they started for the stargate...//

//You left her behind!// Jack's wave of horror and revulsion had nothing to do with the blending.

Kanan faltered, surprised that Jack was addressing him directly. //I had no choice. The mission..//

//Nobody gets left behind!// Jack was effectively shouting and Kanan could not control the rush of images that rolled over him. A woman behind a force screen meeting his eyes. "Because I would have rather died myself than leave Carter behind." His team coming back for him on Argos. Them going back for Daniel in the Land of Light. Standing in a cave, looking at Teal'c beside the dead Unas. "We're not leaving you behind." Bubbles, flames, Daniel screaming and Carter saying. "We left him behind."

Scarely knowing what he meant, Kanan said. //We have to go back.// The statement was accompanied by the agonizing pain that Nem's memory machine had implanted in his brain, but Jack was agreeing vehemently. //Nobody gets left behind.// The storm was subsiding and Kanan finally regained control of the link.

//Now what do we do?// he wondered.

//We find her.// Jack replied.

Kanan flashed on a memory of standing beside Daniel in front of the stargate.

//"So what do we do?" the archeologist asked him .

"We find them." Kanan said, patting his shoulder comfortingly.//

//We have to go back for Shallon.// Kanan said. He sensed faint approval from his host. The Tok'ra was conscious that something had shifted in his psyche. Jack had taught him something, something important. But there was no time to think about that now. He took inventory of their body.

He had no idea what they had just done, but it had worked, the blending was advanced enough for Kanan to access Jack's voluntary muscles. He opened his eyes, knowing that they were flashing white and signaling the healer that they were finally one. "Please summon Councilor Thoran," Kanan asked. "I have important information."

He waited patiently for the councilor to arrive. He knew now that Jack would never lose the fear and loathing that gripped him at the thought of blending. Even now, he sensed, the Tau'ri was curled in a corner of his own mind, head down and hands over his ears, refusing to think about Kanan. Kanan wasn't even sure how conscious Jack was of what had just happened. He was a bit concerned about Jack's withdrawal but he had no intention of trying to deepen the blending any further. It was enough that Jack was controlling the waves of horror and revulsion that had nearly killed them both. If denial was the way Jack wanted to deal with this, Kanan would respect his wishes until he could be transferred to a permanent host.

But first things first. He had to tell Thoran what he had learned. Then he and Jack would rescue Shallon. He knew that Jack would support him at least in that. Nobody gets left behind.

*end

Go on to sequel: Beyond the Abyss

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