Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters and places are the property of MGM, World Gekko Corp and Double Secret Productions. This piece of fan fiction was created for entertainment, not monetary purposes and no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended. Previously unrecognized characters and places, and this story, are copyrighted to the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Author: Pagan Twylight 3/7/2007

Story Summary: As the story progresses through time, Lantash and Martouf narrowly escape death at the Tok'Ra - Tau'ri SGC Summit, and face massive changes in their lives. While Lantash heals, Martouf struggles in his new life, learning more about the Tau'ri as time passes and striving to develop relationships where he would not have thought to look. A mission gone wrong means that Sam is no longer only "Sam", and as she learns to adapt, she opens her life, her heart, - and her body - to new bonds with Malek and Daniel. As they travel a path not usually taken by the Tok'Ra or the Tau'ri, they find love and joy at the path's end. What was once before will be once more, but in a different way, as Sam and Martouf/Lantash realize that their hearts and destinies are entwined. -

Tentative pairings: Sam/Malek - Martouf/Janet - Sam/Daniel - Malek/Janet... minor pairings: Daniel/Anise or Other possible. Jacob/Selmak/other, - Ultimate story pairings: - Sam/Martouf/Lantash. Malek/Janet Daniel/?, Jack/?. Some of the minor pairings will not be followed closely.

Story Rating: The original story will be NC-17; However, it will be edited for content to allow posting here...if enough people want it continued.

Characters: - Sam, Martouf, Lantash, Daniel, Jacob/Selmak, Malek, Janet, General Hammond, Jack, Teal'c, Others. Many of the Tok'Ra and Tau'ri characters you know, plus original Tok'Ra and Tau'ri characters.

Prologue Summary: Martouf and Lantash barely survived the Za'tarc programming but, thanks to Sam, they did not blow themselves up. They are not doing well, though. Martouf is in stasis and, as they remove him from it to work on his injuries, as well as when they return him to it, he has very vivid dreams. After two months of being unconscious, he finally awakens, and Jacob and Anise explain what has happened to him and Lantash.

Characters: Jacob, Anise, Martouf, Jolinar/Rosha (in a dream), Cordesh, Sam, (in dreams) OCs.

"Italics" – Symbiote – Host communication and /or Inner Thoughts

A Path Not Taken

Prologue

Fractured Memories

Rosha. There she is at last. She and Jolinar are walking toward us. Toward the ocean, so that we can spend this last night together before she leaves on her mission. We do not want her to take it. It is too dangerous. However, Jolinar likes the danger. Rosha too, enjoys outwitting the Goa'uld. That does not matter now, tonight.

Her skin is soft. Her eyes so blue, like the oceans of Marloon, hair the color of the sands of Abydos, and her smile is as infectious as laughter. Her skin is pale against the darkness of her gown. I will always remember them like this. Their blue eyes shining with their love and their lips parted in a small smile. Their Abydos gold hair blending in with the sand. The darkness of their dress against their skin. Their soft, smooth, skin.

"Why are those voices intruding on our night together? They should not even be out here. They must go away and leave us to our night alone."

"Anise, we are losing him, we must stop."

"One more minute, please, Latara."

"Yes, one more and I will have this wound completely healed and it will trouble us no more as well."

"Your minutes are up. He is dying. Stop, now."

"Clear."

"Clear."

"Thank goodness they are gone again. Rosha? Jolinar? Lantash? I am so tired. Perhaps I will sleep now."

There are four people walking on the surface of the world where our base is. We do not know who they are, but they are getting too close to the rings. They have some form of weapons, but none that we have ever seen before. When we have them surrounded, we jump from our hiding places. They do not seem overly concerned. I frown. They seem neither distraught at being surrounded, nor worried about the weapons pointed at them. They have a Jaffa with them.

"This one is a Jaffa. Apophis sect," I tell Cordesh.

"I am no longer in the service of Apophis." He has answered me boldly.

"Who, then, are you in service to?" I ask him.

"I am allied with these, the Tau'ri, in battle against Apophis."

"And all other Goa'uld." The young man in the middle answers this time.

"Be careful, Daniel." A beautiful blond woman cautions him.

"Why?"

"Because they are Goa'uld." She can sense us. I am surprised.

"Do not call us that." Cordesh should not have said anything, but he did. "We are not Goa'uld."

The blond woman calls me by name, but I do not know her. "Martouf."

"How do you know me?" I have to ask her, to know how she knows me, when I do not know her.

"I don't, but I knew someone who did. His name was Jolinar of Malk'shur."

Cordesh asks that which I want to know. "Where is Jolinar?"

Her answer cleaves my heart in two. "He died saving my life."

One of the men beside her, the young one I think, speaks up, "That's why we are here, to seek out the Tok'Ra."

They continue to talk, but I do not hear all of it. Finally, I have had enough. I wish to know of Jolinar, so I speak up. "I believe this one speaks the truth. Perhaps, we should just listen to what they have to say." I want to speak to the blond woman. I want to ask her of Jolinar.

"Who are these people again? How do they enter into my world and yet not enter into it? Where are they? I cannot see them. Why will they not go away? I must find out about Jolinar from the blond woman, but where did she go?"

"Anise are you almost finished? We need to get him back into stasis soon. He is doing better, but is still not well enough to be out more than a few minutes. Hurry."

"I am almost finished. I can do the remainder after he is back in. How much more did you get healed before he started to fail this time?"

"One more rib back in place and started to heal. Two more holes in his chest. All completely sealed as opposed to partly sealed as they were last time. If we can continue to heal him in increments and the stasis continues to hold him stable, we should win in the end. It is just going to take a couple of months rather than the days that it should."

"All right. That is enough for today."

"I agree."

"Good they were going. He was alone again. And sleepy. Why did he always get sleepy as they left? And where was the blond woman?"

I am walking with the blond woman, Samantha, on the surface of our world. We are talking of Jolinar and blendings. I have noticed that her coloring is very similar to Rosha's. She tells me that she feels differently about me than the other Tok'Ra, and I admit that it is because Jolinar was my mate. I am overcome with emotion, and Lantash tells her of our love for Jolinar.

"Jolinar and I were together for almost one hundred of your years. She was my mate."

She looks surprised, "Oh. How does that work? She was whose mate? Martouf's or Lantash's?"

"Both." Lantash does not explain, so I take control again to do so.

"Ours is a truly symbiotic relationship. So what I feel, Lantash feels. And what Lantash feels, I feel."

"So when one of you is in love, you both feel it."

"Yes, we love as one. And, and we mourn as one."

"The voices are back. Why do they come when I am talking to this woman? Why do they seem only to appear when I am learning about Samantha?"

"He is doing better this time. If this keeps up, we will be able to keep him out and completely heal him very soon."

"After two months of this worry, I am more than ready for him to be healed. Do you think we should begin trying tomorrow?"

"Yes, I think that he could stand to be out of stasis for several hours, maybe more because we will be healing as we go. As long as the stasis chamber can keep him stable, which it seems better able to do at this point, without him having to be in complete stasis, then we can try it."

"I agree. We should make sure that everyone will be available."

"I will do that this afternoon."

"All right."

"Who are they talking about? Why do they always interfere with me when they talk about this person? Sometimes they are with me when I am with only them. I have felt myself leaving them at times, but I always come back. They pull me back. Here comes the feeling. I am very tired. Sleepy.

I am on Netu. It is very hot, and I feel as if I cannot breath. I cannot find Samantha. Daniel is nowhere to be found either. O'Neill should also be here, but I cannot find him. I wander aimlessly for a while, but suddenly we are all in the pit together, even Jacob.

Samantha and I have just come back from Apophis's session with the Blood of Sokar. I watch her and am finding myself drawn to her, not because she hosted Jolinar, but because of who and what she is. Lantash agrees with me. We wish we could spend time with her, and get to know her better.

She knows something of how Jolinar escaped from Netu, but she will not tell me. I can see it in her eyes when I question her. It is to her credit that she is trying to protect me, but it is not necessary. I have a very good idea of what they had to do to escape from here. I suppose I do not really need it verified.

I wish that we were not here, but somewhere cool and private, where we were clean and alone. I would enjoy that I think. Somewhere that we could be together, get to know one another and become friends. I think it would be important to become friends with her and let the other feelings grow naturally. And, both Lantash and I suspect that the other feelings would grow. She is an amazing woman.

"But the voices are back, and now she is gone again. Why is it that every time I begin to see, or talk, to Samantha, they come back? I know that I will be sleepy in a few minutes, and then Samantha will be gone, and I will go back to sleep."

"I think that is enough for now. The healers are all tired, and I think he needs to go back into full stasis for a while anyway."

"Yes, I think I have to agree. However, he did very well for the first day. I think within a few more days, we should have him well enough that he will wake up and know us."

"We hope he will."

"You did all that you could, Anise. Whatever happens, you will know that you did your best to save him."

"My best would have been to stop it from happening."

"He had already been programmed. He would be in stasis either way. He just would not be wounded. Come, we must get some rest for tomorrow. Might-have-beens will do no good."

"You are right."

"That was Anise? Was the other Latara? It did sound like her. Am I in healing quarters then? I must have been hurt, but I do not remember it. So why am I getting sleepy? Are they keeping me asleep? Stasis? I am in stasis! That is why I grow sleepy as I am now! I wonder if I will remember this when I wake up again?"

Martouf frowned within his mind without opening his eyes. He hurt. He hurt in places he did not know he had places. Lantash? Lantash, why are we in so much pain? Lantash, where are you? He received no response at all. Nothing. It was as if Lantash no longer existed.

Then he heard the voices. Again. But this time he had not been with Samantha first. He kept his eyes closed, and his breathing even. He recognized the voices, this time, though, so he remained quiet, listening. He had to find out where he was, and what had happened because he remembered nothing. Nothing at all.

"He could be regaining consciousness at any time, Jacob, and he will be very confused and in pain. There is no doubt that he probably had some very disjointed dreams as we took him in and out of stasis. If he remembers them, he will be even more confused. He may have heard us as well. If he remembers that, he may or may not know part of what happened to him. Stasis is an odd state and we do not understand how the mind works during it. Some sleep naturally, some do not. Martouf did not appear to dream while he was in complete stasis, but he did during the stages as he came out of and was put into it, so he could be extremely disoriented unless he recognizes those as dreams."

"He may or may not remember what happened at the SGC. We have still not been able to completely heal all of his injuries. He was hurt very badly, as you know. It is a miracle that we were able to save him at all. His body was riddled with the Tau'ri's projectiles and the zat'ni'ktel almost killed him as well. In actuality, with all of his other injuries it should have killed him. Why it did not, we are still trying to figure out."

"Well, Anise, we also know that if you hadn't insisted on examining his brain and figuring out how the zatarc programming was done, he wouldn't have come so close to dying so many times either, don't we? Go sing your song somewhere else because this congregation has already heard it, and they aren't buying it. You should have waited until he was more stable before attempting it. His body should have been taken into more consideration first."

"I realize that you disagreed with my methods, Jacob. You made that quite clear. I have tried to explain to you that if I had waited, the area we needed to study could have been destroyed, and we might not have known how the implanting of the false memories was done. Then, had he died, it truly would have been in vain, and I do not believe that Martouf would have wished that to happen. Yes, it was a risk with his life. I fully admit I took a very great risk, and I would have felt the pain of his loss forever had it happened and he died."

"Furthermore, if you believe that I do not understand completely that the entire episode was my fault from beginning to end, you are under a misapprehension. I am very much aware and cognizant of my culpability. I can never make it up to either Martouf or Lantash, except in this one way. Never again will one of our operatives become a zatarc and kill against their will, as he would have done had he not been stopped. I gave my word to Major Carter that his life would not have been given in vain, if he died, and I meant every word. He did not die, and within a very short time, we will have his physical body back in comparatively good condition."

"You will also be sharing the entirety of your information with the SGC."

"I am unsure of whether or not we will be able to do that, Jacob. That is highly classified information, and the council is still debating the consequences of giving that type of information to …"

"The council will share its information with the SGC. If I almost gave my life, for you to obtain it, the least we can do is share it with our allies." The voice from the bed was weak and raspy but firm. "I insist." He cleared his throat. "Could I, perhaps, have some water, please?"

"Martouf. Hey, it's wonderful to see you awake at last. Here, take a sip of this." After giving him a drink, Jacob motioned to Anise to bring an extra head rest over and they managed to get Martouf into a more comfortable position.

"Jacob. What is wrong with Lantash? I cannot feel or hear him."

"Um, yeah, about that. I'm sorry, but Lantash had to be removed, Martouf, and he isn't recovering very quickly. He's in a tank in the next room, if you want to see him, and as soon as he is well enough, you and he will be re-blended, if you want it. If you want to have him here by you where you can see him, we can bring him over."

Martouf looked at him in disbelief. "What do you mean, if I want it? Of course, I want it. Could he not continue to heal within me? Is he that badly hurt that he would not heal while still inside my body? Bring him to me at once. I wish to see him, to assure myself that he is still alive. Are you keeping information from me?" The alarm was causing Martouf to pale and break out in a sweat. He was trying to sit up farther, and the exertion was increasing the amount of pain he was in, bringing blackness to the edges of his vision.

He moaned as Jacob pushed his shoulders down and held him firmly. "You are not going to do yourself, or Lantash, any good at all, if you continue the way you are doing right now. Settle down, Martouf, before you undo some of the progress that's been made on healing the holes that were made in your body. Trust me, there were a whole bunch of 'em. Calm down, or we'll put you back to sleep."

Martouf collapsed abruptly, too weak to do more than nod his head. It was obvious to him that he could do little more than agree with them. While he did not necessarily trust Anise not to lie to him, he did trust Jacob. He drew a shaky breath. "You are correct. I apologize. I would like to have Lantash near me, please."

"We could always introduce a new symbiote, Martouf, if you would like to be healed more quickly. That is the main reason we have not attempted to re-introduce Lantash. He would immediately begin to attempt to heal you, and we do not wish him to exert himself. He needs to be concentrating on healing himself and recovering his strength, not on healing his host."

"All right, I can accept that as a valid reason, both for removing him and, for keeping him from re-blending with me. And no, of course, I do not wish for any other symbiote to take his place. I will heal more slowly, rather than do that. Is the healing device unsuccessful on my type of injuries?"

"Not at all, it is just that your injuries were quite extensive, and the process has been slow. It was a pain-staking and laborious process to access the information we needed, and the healing process has been very slow as well. The healers are very tired, as they just finished another session with you, and we cannot allow them to completely exhaust themselves, in case something should happen, and their abilities would be needed."

"At first, of course, not only their abilities, but many of the rest of us, as well, used the healing devices to do as much as we could to keep you alive. The stasis chamber kept your body functioning, and it also kept you from going into shock. We removed and cared for Lantash at once as well, so we did not have to try to sustain both of you in your body."

"We prepared the stasis chamber in such a way that I would be able to gain access to you without actually taking you out of stasis very often, so I could study the zatarc programming. It took quite some time to discover, study, learn how to overcome as well as protect our people from it, and then to remove it without damaging you. While I was working on figuring out the zatarc programming, several of the healers, began trying to heal some of the areas where the projectiles both entered and exited your body. Several places had broken bones, where projectiles hit them, so they began working on those things, before I was finished."

"Then, when we were ready to begin to work on the remainder of your physical body, we had to take you completely out of stasis. It was a massive undertaking. I said that the first thing we did was put you into stasis, but that was not completely true. We made sure your bodies functions were taken on by the stasis chamber, while we worked on getting the bleeding stopped. Once that was finished, we put you completely into stasis. When I was finished, we waited until your body had rested quite some time, and then we started all over again, by taking you out of stasis."

"Then we did preliminary work, removing the projectiles that were left and stopping the bleeding in all the areas that they caused to bleed again, as we took them out. We repaired any and all internal injuries. And then, we began to use the healing device on you to heal you, not just to try to keep you alive, which is what many of us were doing, while the others repaired injuries. All of the healers, and any others of us that were able to use the healing devices, were here, and as one person's energy gave out, they would pass their device to the next person. When we were to a point that there were not enough people to continue to sustain all of the necessary points, then you were returned to stasis."

"That continued for three days. On the fourth you were deemed healed enough to go without stasis. That was the day before yesterday. The healing sessions have been much shorter the last two days. So there is still healing to do, but the most difficult, and the most life threatening have been taken care of. We will continue using the healing device on you, until you are completely healed, which should be in a few more days."

"Many people worked very hard to save you, Martouf, please do not think that we did not. All of us wanted you to survive, and there will be much relief when I announce that you are awake and aware of who you are, and who we are. You see, we were afraid that the zatarc programming, and my entrance to remove it might have damaged something. I am glad to see that it does not appear to have done so."

"I will go and get Lantash now. If you will excuse me." Anise bowed her head to the two men and quietly left the room.

Jacob ran a hand down his face and sighed, before looking down at Martouf. "She's right. They did do everything they could to save you, and get the information they needed to stop this zatarc thing from causing more problems. She worked harder than any of them, because she felt guilty, for not testing you and Lantash. And she's been spending any spare time she has working on trying to help Lantash. But, time is probably the only thing that will help him, and from what I understand, it could take months. I'm sorry, Martouf. I know this isn't news you wanted to hear."

"You are correct, Jacob and it is not; however, it is much preferable to the alternative. From the way it sounds, we could both be dead, instead."

Jacob looked at him and a slight smile turned up the corners of his lips, "Yeah, there is that."

"How long has it been Jacob?"

"Well, you know, Anise kind of played it down a little. I mean there were actually several times they had to put you back into stasis and let your body stabilize."

"How long, Jacob?"

"You've been unconscious for a little over two months, Martouf. One of the reasons she went to get Lantash is because he's been frantic part of the time. Especially since you were in stasis, and he couldn't see you. They finally fixed it so that he could see the monitors and tell by them that you were still with us. Sometimes, he would spend days at a time in here. He usually got better when he was with you, so they tended to leave him here a lot."

"At one point he tried to get out of the tank and get to you on his own. He was very vocal when they made him go back." Jacob grinned a little thinking of the incident. "It wasn't funny at the time, but looking back at it now, it's a little amusing. He tried to bite Selmak. Needless to say, Selmak gave him a very strong lecture about him dying, and leaving you alone when you survived, and he didn't. He also reminded him that they were friends, and friends did not bite friends. Lantash laid on the bottom of the tank and pouted for about three days. That's when they finally came up with the idea of setting up a monitoring screen so that he could actually see that you were alive and stable. He calmed down a lot after that, but he's still been very worried."

"I would like for him to be moved in with me, or for me to be moved into wherever he is, Jacob. There is no reason for us to be parted now, and we will both be more comfortable, if we are able to see and hear the other, at least until I am completely healed and able to be up and around. That will set his mind at rest, I am sure."

"That won't be a problem, Martouf. Anise is probably going to bring the entire tank and all of his monitoring equipment in here. There is plenty of room. He will be very happy that you are finally awake."

"I would appreciate knowing exactly what happened. I have only vague recollections of being at the SGC. From what Anise said, I believe I was about to shoot someone. Tell me, Jacob, why was I going to shoot someone, and why did the Tau'ri shoot me?"

His eyes opened wider and he reached forward, grabbing Jacob's arm. "Samantha. I remember seeing Samantha walking toward me and desperately wanting her to do something. She shot me with a zat'nik'tel, and I was relieved when I collapsed."

He drew a shaking breath and closed his eyes. "The last thing I remember is hearing her voice as she held me. She was crying, I think, and telling me that she...What in the universe happened, Jacob? Because unless I am very much mistaken, Samantha believes that I am dead—by her hand."

TBC