“O’Neill!” the cheerful voice O’Neill had once thought lost to him cut off whatever it was he was saying and he spun around to see Skaara’s beaming face skip down the stairs towards him. Behind the once more happy Abydonian, two Tok’ra operatives took the jar containing Klorel out of the Tollan council room.
“Much better,” O’Neill said, trying not to let his happiness show through too much as the two embraced.
“We will have our medical team look him over and make sure there are no hold over issues from having the symbiote removed,” High Chancellor Travell said, with O’Neill nodding.
“We’ll have our own Doctors check him out too. Not that we don’t trust you, of course. Just a precaution. Second opinions and all that.”
“As you will,” she replied with that small dealing-with-humans smirk.
“What will happen to Klorel?” Daniel asked, waving at the door the Tok’ra had left through.
“Not our problem,” O’Neill said, rocking back on his feet. “We got Skaara back, Daniel! That’s all we care about.”
“Klorel will be sent back through the Stargate, as we promised,” Travell said, ignoring O’Neill. “Lord Zipacna has given us an address to send him to and we will uphold our end of the deal.”
“Should have just squished him when you had the chance,” O’Neill said with some accompanying foot gestures.
“You should know by now that we do not take sides, Colonel O’Neill. We must uphold our deals when they are made.”
“I know, I know, let a man dream, would ya?”
“Thank you for helping us in this matter,” Travell said, mostly to Daniel, again ignoring O’Neill.
“Of course,” Daniel replied. “Anytime you need our help, you know where to find us.” The Tollan woman smiled and nodded, and guided her guests out of the room and back towards the Stargate.
“I wonder if we’ll see Klorel again,” Daniel mused as SG-1 watched the Tok’ra send the jar through the gate to the world where Zipacna was waiting.
“Well, if we do, Danny, we’ll make sure to finish him off properly, like we’re supposed to,” O’Neill replied, eyeballing the Tok’ra. “Can’t trust any of those snakes.”
The two Tok’ra deactivated the Gate, acutely aware that the Tau’ri were watching them carefully, and dialled the address for their own departure. Without a single glance backward, they walked through the wormhole and immediately arrived on what looked to be a barren planet, a large desert stretching well into the distance in every direction.
One of the Tok’ra pushed a button on his wrist device and the two were immediately swallowed by the ring transporter which was buried right in front of the Gate.
“Welcome aboard,” Selmak said as the two operatives stepped out of the hold of his Tel’tak into the cockpit. “How did it go?”
“As expected,” the first operative said. “The Tollan were honourable, as usual, and the Tau’ri muddled their way to survive another day.”
“Good, good,” Selmak said, sending their ship to subspace. “And the rest?”
“The symbiote was easy enough to remove from the Abydonian, and the switch was not witnessed. Not even the Tollan know we switched Klorel for one of our own.”