Sarah vs. Kinsey (Teil II)
(A/N: I was writing this, and one line of the Announcement kept ringing in my ears, so I guess it's not really canon as far as Sarah/Vinnet's life goes. Not that it was going to be anyway... But at least it's good writing practice and an outlet for emotion, etc.)

The inverse of y=√(4-x²)! C’mon, I know you know how to do it! Just tell me! You are intelligent enough to figure it out on your own. I don’t think so…

Sarah heard the door crack open, so she sat alert on the couch. After a couple moments, her mother entered, depositing her belongings on the floor. She glanced to her daughter. "Are you okay?" she wondered, sitting next to Sarah with her arm around her shoulder.

"Yeah, fine," the Tok’ra replied, uncomfortably making eye contact. "Well, I don’t know. Mom, we need to talk."

Are you sure she won’t tell anyone at all? No, but Lauren’s right. She should know. Are you willing to compromise your ‘national security’? What do you want me to say, Vinnet? That your existence should be kept secret at the cost of my family? Maybe it should, but if you’re determined to explain it to her, keep the details to an absolute minimum. I will.

"Are you okay, Sarah?"

"Yeah, fine. What’d you say?"

Sarah’s mother shook her head. "I asked what you wanted to talk about."

"Oh." Sarah took a deep breath. "I need to tell you something about what happened back in February."

"Go on." Curiosity and concern played across the woman’s face.

This could work as long as the guidance councilor doesn’t call in the next few minutes. "They told me I couldn’t tell you any of this; it’s all classified top secret. I wouldn’t tell you if I didn’t think you needed to know. Because of what happened then, there’s now a sentient being in the back of my neck. I’ll try to prove it in a minute."

"Sarah, lying won't help you get un-grounded." She moved the far end of the couch, where she could face her daughter.

The Tok'ra rolled her eyes. "That's why I decided to tell you the truth. Now, she and I talk a lot, which is why I've apparently been hard to reach at times. She's also why Kinsey wanted to speak to me."

"I still don't know that 'she' is actually there."

"Fine." Sarah pulled her long hair off her neck, simultaneously spinning to have her back to her mother. "Do you recognize that? It's not supposed to be there. It's called an entry scar for fairly obvious reasons, and the creature in my neck abhors it."

Her mother's brows furrowed as she stared at the two-inch line on her daughter's neck. She could think of no instance where her daughter might have received a scar so large. "What's this bump?" she wondered aloud, noticing Sarah's neck had extra mass.

"That's her."

"Riiight." She carefully felt around the bump. "You should see a doctor."

Sarah rolled her eyes again. "No, Mom, I shouldn't." She turned back around. "She was right. I shouldn't 've told you. Now you're going to freak out on me, insisting I tell you the truth when I've already gone against what they said and told you."

"I'm just saying that you've probably got a tumor that's pressing on part of your brain. The sooner you see a doctor, the sooner you can get back to normal."

"That's the thing, though: Vinnet's not a tumor. If I were to go to a doctor and get checked out, there goes secrecy, and for reasons I couldn't tell you if I tried, I go and live elsewhere."

The mother shook her head. "That's it. Get in the car; we're going to the hospital." She got off the couch and picked up her car keys. "Now."

Sarah remained firmly seated. "Mom, just sit down adn listen. I'm not crazy, I'm not delusional, and I don't have any tumors."

"Sarah Elaine Anderson, get in the car!"

The Tok'ra sighed, begging her symbiote to take over. This is important to you? Read my mind, Einstein! Yes! Do you think this will work? Eye-flashing is difficult to imitate.

Suddenly, the host's eyes glowed with a golden light that quickly disappeared, and her voice took on an extraterrestrial quality. "Please, sit down." The mother stared in disbelief, but continued standing on the far side of the room. "Stay there then," Vinnet continued, no hint of indignance marking her voice. "As your daughter attempted to explain, I am the being sharing her body. Please understand that we have already explained too much and now wish to elaborate as little as possible."

"Sarah, but it out; we're leaving," the woman persisted, her voice having lost much of its command.

"She has little input on what I say, though I must add that we agree that no doctor should be alerted to my presence."

The woman replaced her keys in their alcove but continued standing where she was, silent.

Vinnet sighed, annoyed that Tau'ri were so closed-minded when it came to the existance of aliens, especially Tok'ra. "Your daughter loves and respects you a great deal to risk such a security breach. I hope it is worth it. If not, it may be as she suggested. We may have to depart sooner than planned." The symbiote then noticed her host urging her to leave the mother to think. "I suppose, though, that this may be difficult for you, so we will be upstairs if you need us." With a small smile and a nod of respect, Vinnet gathered the homework strewn about the room andwalked to Sarah's room.

* * *

Once she had gone (whoever she was), Sarah's mother sat on the couch, placing her head in her hands. "Alien or tumor?" she debated, suddenly feeling alone. She didn't watn to betray her child's trust. After all, the Air Force officers' presence when Sarah returned lent credence to the teenager's claim that she'd seen classified information, but the suggestion that some significant part of her child's life was so secret seemed outrageous. Yet how could anyone begin to explain the scar, the lump, the voice, the eyes? Sure, the lump could be a tumor, the voice simulated (somehow), but as far as she knew, flashing eyes could be done only with computer generated light or some elaborate special effects, neither of which could be done life and discreetly. Then there was the scar to ponder over. She knew every "major" injury her daughter had received, none of which were severe, but none had been anywhere near her neck. Unless something had occured while Sarah was with the Air Force.

With a single question weighing heavily on her mind, Sarah's mother trudged up the stairs and quietly peeked into her daughter's bedroom, where the teenager clung to her dog, crying into his black fur.

* * *

"You were right, Vinnet! I should've believed you," Sarah sobbed, taking comfort in the scruffy fur she had buried her face in. "Now she'll take me for an MRI or something, they'll find you, turn us over to some research facility. Jack and everyone'll hate me for not being able to mind the classification. The High Council will know I'm not any good at being undercover. And there goes any positive connections here or at the base. So if nobody locks me up for the rest of my life, they'll send us to some deserted planet to be the only cursed inhabitants!"

Calm down. You make it out to be worse than it is--

"Or because I went and blabbed my mouth, any residual bad buy floating around on Earth could be out to kill us!"

You're exaggerating. We're young and they know it. Besides, the Tok'ra will not disown us for events on this world. On undercover missions, we will have no connections so deep as that you share with family. We all know this, and so allowences can be made. As for the situation on Earth, consider whether it matters. We, as Tok'ra, can leave and never again have any contact with the Tau'ri. Or not. Either way, our situation is not as desperate as you make it out to be.

"Can't I just lie here and cry without your expert logic?"

No, the symbiote replied. You're making me sad.

"What would I do without you?"

Your own homework.

"That's not helping."

You're not crying as hard; it is.

"Sarah?" said a tentative voice from the foot of her bed. The furniture creaked as it accepted more weight. "Can we talk?"

The Tok'ra sat up, releasing her dog and wiping her eyes with her hands. She was somewhat aware that her face was stilll streaked with tears and her eyes were probably red. "Uh, sure, I guess." A realization dawned on her which led to panic. "Seth and Sokar! How much did you hear?"

She shook her head. "Not much after 'out to kill us'."

Sarah dropped her head into her hands. Told you! "I've said too much. Way too much. I shouldn't 've brought any of it up, but I thought if you understood some little part of where I'm coming from, everything'd be easier. But it's that that I take for granted as truth. It just can't be any other way in my mind, but somehow, it's hard for anyone else to understand."

"We'll talk about it later," the somewhat bewildered Tau'ri promised. Unable to bring herself to help, she watched her child fretting at the head of the bed. "What did the Air Force do to you?" she wondered softly.

Sarah shook her head, pulling it out of her hands. "It wasn't the Air Force, Mom, but I can't say more than that."

"Who did this to you then? And that scar on your neck, who did that?" she asked, her voice worked up again.

"I can't say anything more than what I've already told you. The Air Force didn't do anything to me. And that scar is from when Vinet, that sentient being I told you about, went into me. Mom, you have to believe me on this!"

She paused for a moment. "You'll understand if I want you to see a councilor if not a doctor."

"I understnad, yes, and I guess I could humor you as long as you don't tell them about Vinnet. You know, national security and all. "

"If you'd like to recommend a councilor?"

The Tok'ra thought a moment, but she coudn't recall any psychiatrists or councilors at the SGC or among the Tokra--unless Vinnet could count. "Don't know any."

The mother nodded, now considering that her child could be paranoid. "All right. You'll start tomorrow. New tell me why you think someone's out to kill you."

Sarah shook her head. Vinnet, what do I say? Those people have a grudge against me. She took a deep breath. "The people who want to kill us don't like Vinnet. Some of them think she killed some queen."

"We'll talk about that tomorrow," she promised, standing and leaving the room.

That vacation you were talking about? The educational trip to Colorado? Will not solve this. We will see how this turns out before abandoning hope. What if she she never believes us? We leave.

* * *