Author: Geonn

Email: neil_j_miser@yahoo.com

Category: Romance, Angst, Hurt/Comfort

Rating: PG13

Disclaimer: Stargate and characters are the property of MGM, Gekko, etc. Mainly you need to know no one with the name of Geonn owns the deed to these people.

Archive: Yes.

Dedicated to: purple_shoes and teryl_brat42 teryl_brat42, who convinced me to post it. The banner is still my favorite part ;-D

Spoilers: None. The mission mentioned doesn’t refer to any particular episode (or any episode at all, for that matter).

Summary: On the last leg of their journey, Sam has to confront a terrible experience…

Sam cracked one eye, lifting her head from the make-shift pillow of jackets that she’d been laying her head on. According to the dashboard clock, it was just past six in the morning. She sat up, grabbing the hand control and bringing the seat up with her. She rubbed her eyes gently, groaning as her body told her to never sleep in a car again.

Stifling a yawn, she looked through the driver’s side window and spotted Janet standing a few yards away. They were parked at a rest stop, all the other slots standing empty. Janet had her back to the car, looking out over a lake as the sun painted the sky yellow and red. She was wearing a pair of cargo pants and a red hooded sweatshirt that Sam had never seen before, meaning she’d had time to change since stopping.

As Sam reached for the door handle, Janet clasped her hands behind her back and arched her spine, twisting first to the right, then to the left. She brought her hands up and lowered her upper body, lifting both arms up and away. Sam imagined she could hear the bones popping even at this distance.

Janet straightened, putting a hand on her hip and twisting in that direction. She repeated going the other way. She arched her back, lifting first her right arm and then her left as high over her head as she could. As she rolled her head in slow circles, Sam opened the car door and stepped out, immediately realizing why Janet was going through the motions.

The sound of the car door drew Janet’s attention and she turned, smiling at the sight of her disheveled lover. Sam went through a few rudimentary stretches of her own and held up a finger to Janet so she’d wait. Hopping a little, Sam moved towards the ladies’ bathroom and disappeared inside.

It was nowhere near as bad as she had expected from a highway rest stop bathroom. The floors were clean, there was no graffiti, and she could hardly smell anything other than bleach. Someone had taken their ‘adopt a highway’ pledge to heart…

She did her business, an effect of seven hours on the road and three diet sodas before leaving Mark’s house. When she finished, she stepped out of the stall to find one of her bags had been placed on the floor under a sink. She smirked and walked over to it, unzipping it and withdrawing some clothes. “Thank you, Janet,” she whispered.

Stripping out of the outfit she’d changed into at the last rest stop, she stood in her underwear for a moment and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Several pink lines ran from the bottom of her rib cage, stopping just shy of the waistband of her panties. In a few more days, the pink lines would vanish and it would be as if the entire mission had never happened.

Sure. Right. Never happened.

She sighed and pulled on her jeans, finding a blouse that would be cool enough for their drive through New Mexico. Another five hours on the road. It seemed insurmountable, but the company couldn’t be beat.

After the mission, Daniel had almost immediately taken an offer to assist with a small dig in a South American nation. She’d never heard which one, exactly. Teal’c had requested a few days with Bra’tac, which had of course been granted. Colonel O’Neill, although he claimed the mission hadn’t affected him, had gratefully accepted General Hammond’s suggestion that he take a week off to go fishing.

Sam, on the other hand, had been itching to spend some time with Mark and his kids. She could still see the look on Janet’s face when she’d been invited. The infirmary had been vacant and they’d met for a quick lunch in Janet’s office. Sam ‘popped the question,’ so to speak, over dessert.

“You know SG-1 has some downtime, because of… well, the…”

Janet nodded. “Yeah, I know,” she said softly. Everyone on the base knew what had happened. “I figured you’d probably hole yourself up in that lab again.” From the way she said it, Sam knew that Janet wasn’t a fan of this option.

“Actually, I was thinking of doing something different this time.” Janet had looked up from her pudding. “I was going to go visit Mark and the kids. Fly out and then maybe drive back.”

“Drive?”

Sam shrugged. “I love the scenery.”

“You love flying more.”

“Well, if I drive, it’ll give us a chance to talk.”

Janet frowned. “Us who?” she asked with a twinge of jealousy.

“Me and you,” Sam said, swirling her Jell-O with her spoon. “I want you to come with me.”

Janet looked down. “We’ve, uh…”

“I know,” Sam said. “You don’t want to meet my family as ‘Good Friend Janet.’ And I understand that, I do.” She gave the moment a few seconds, and then said, “That’s why I’m going to introduce you as what you are. I’m going to tell Mark that you’re my lover.”

Janet’s eyes widened and she forced her mouthful of pudding down.

“I’ve spent too long hiding from the people I love,” Sam said. “After what happened off-world, I’m not going to lie to them for the rest of my life. I want them to know how special you are to me. How important you are to my life.”

“You’re going to tell your father?” Janet asked.

Sam rolled her eyes. “Geez, my Dad knows. He’s known since high school, he just chooses not to admit it.” She reached across the desk and took Janet’s hand. “He’ll have to admit it when he sees how much I love you.”

That had been eight days ago. They’d spent the week with Mark, his wife, and his two kids. The ‘coming-out’ had been the elephant in the room, of course, all through the first three days. Sam had broken the news as soon as they arrived, deciding to get everything out in the open instead of drawing it out.

Mark had initially been, understandably, put off by the whole idea. He couldn’t seem to grasp the idea of his little sister being… that way. Eventually, he’d come around and had actually hugged Janet. He played the big brother role flawlessly, telling Janet that she’d better “watch her step” and “not break his sister’s heart.” They’d all had a good laugh about it and the tension seemed to melt away.

Sam stepped out of the restroom and found Janet sitting on a bench. She walked over, the sun a little higher in the sky and a station wagon had pulled in several slots down. The family within was taking advantage of the other restroom station, so the ladies still had a bit of privacy.

Janet looked up as Sam sat next to her, immediately shifting her weight and leaning into Sam’s embrace. They kissed good morning and Sam ruffled Janet’s hair. “You were supposed to wake me.”

“I know,” Janet said.

“So…”

“I like driving. Besides, I stopped the car to wake you about three hours in, like we planned. I stopped by the side of the road and turned in the seat and,” she sighed, “you were so gorgeous.”

Sam winced. “I wasn’t sucking my thumb or drooling or anything like that, was I?”

“No, of course not,” Janet smiled, nestling deeper against Sam’s chest. “You were just… asleep. I touched your cheek and stroked your hair for about fifteen minutes. I gave you a kiss on the lips.”

Sam smiled and kissed the part in Janet’s hair. “I think I dreamed something like that.”

“After that, I didn’t have the heart to wake you. So I pulled back onto the road and kept on driving.”

Sam snickered. “You’re such a sap.”

Janet shrugged and looked away, embarrassed, but Sam reached up and turned her head back. They kissed softly, a deeper-than-just-good-morning kiss. When Sam pulled back, she licked her lips and smiled at Janet. “So, you about ready to get back on the road?”

“Yeah,” Janet nodded, gathering her purse and standing.

“How far are we from Colorado Springs?”

“About another six hours.”

“I’ll drive, you sleep,” Sam said, her tone saying there was no room for negotiation.

They got into the car, switching seats for the rest of the voyage. Janet gathered the blanket around herself, getting two handfuls and bringing it to her face to smell Sam’s perfume. “Mm, the blanket smells like you,” she smiled.

“Wonder what kind of dreams that’ll cause,” Sam mused.

Janet chuckled.

After about thirty minutes, Janet softly said, “Sam?”

Sam interrupted singing along with the radio in the middle of a classic Stones song. “Hey, you’re supposed to be asleep.” She reached over and stroked Janet’s hair. “What’s wrong?”

“Are we ever going to talk about what happened off-world?”

Sam stiffened, the hand that was still on the wheel tightening. She pressed her lips together in an unconvincing smile and glanced at Janet. “What do you mean?”

“Nightmares,” Janet said.

‘So that’s why my shins hurt,’ Sam mused. ‘I was kicking the glove box.’ She sighed. “It’s not something I really want to talk about. At least… not with someone who wasn’t there.”

Janet nodded. She’d heard that more than once from soldiers. “Okay.”

Sam stroked Janet’s hair a little more, looking down to make sure her lover was asleep before removing her hand. There were parts of the mission even she didn’t remember. She wasn’t sure if she’d blocked them out or if it simply wasn’t there to be retrieved. The things she could remember were bad enough…

Torrential rain, the freezing drops hurling down from the sky and stabbing at her eyes like tiny little icicles, the muddy hill where they’d almost lost Teal’c, the explosions all around her, losing sight of the Stargate and hoping against hope that the DHD had survived unscathed. The people screaming, the ground giving way beneath her feet, the prayers she hadn’t said since she was thirteen…

She lightly touched her abdomen through her blouse, wincing as if the wounds were still fresh. She felt a tear slide down her cheek and reached down, turning off the radio. After a few seconds, she touched Janet’s shoulder. “Sweetheart?”

“Mm,” Janet murmured, lifting herself up on one elbow and looking out the windshield with one eye closed. “I just fell asleep.”

“I’m sorry, babe. I… there’s just…”

Janet reached out and touched the scruff of Sam’s neck, massaging lightly at the hairline. Sam’s shoulders went up, her back arching and her tongue involuntarily wetting her lips. After a moment of the mini-massage, Janet whispered, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I don’t,” Sam said softly. Then, a moment later, “The mission should have gone as planned. There was no indication that it was going to go bad…”

As Sam spoke, Janet listened. Occasionally, she’d whisper ‘its okay’ or ‘oh, my God,’ but for the most part, she just listened. She’d touch Sam now and then to let her know that she was still there, still with her. She brushed her thumb across Sam’s cheek once or twice to erase tears Sam didn’t know she’d let out.

When she finished, she pulled the car over and rested her head on the steering wheel. Janet moved as close as she could, wrapped her arms around her lover and rested her head on the other woman’s back. When her tears had stopped, Sam sat up and faced Janet with a red, tear-streaked face. Janet cupped her lover’s chin and leaned in, kissing her.

“I love you,” Sam whispered hoarsely, running her fingers through Janet’s hair.

“I love you, too,” Janet said.

“Thank you for being here for me.”

“Any time,” Janet whispered. “You should know that by now.”

Sam nodded. “I do, believe me.” She kissed Janet and said, “Are we ready to head home now?”

Janet, knowing what Sam had been through off-world, knew that home had a different meaning for Sam now. “Yeah,” she nodded.

Sam brushed her face one last time, checking her mirrors before she pulled off the side of the road and continued them on the journey back to Colorado Springs, back to the life they’d left behind… back to the mission that Sam now felt she could continue.

It had taken seventeen minutes of Hell to shake Samantha Carter to her very soul. It had taken fifteen hours alone with Janet Fraiser to restore her. Reaching out and draping an arm across Janet’s shoulders, Sam decided she liked those figures.