Author: Geonn

Email: neil_j_miser@yahoo.com

Pairing: Sam/Janet

Category: Romance

Rating: R

Series: Fourth and Final Story in The Midnight Series

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 ladies.

Archive: Yes, just let me know where it's gonna be.

Summary: A nearly sleepless sleepover.

The shower ran in the other room, the door open a crack. Letting out steam? Maybe. An invitation? Also a possibility. Janet didn't take it, however. She'd never been a believer in shower sex and she had never seen the appeal. She had a hard enough time keeping herself upright without a slip-proof rubber suction pad in the tub. She sat in bed with her legs tucked up against her chest, hugging them tightly as she waited. When the shower stopped and Sam exited, already wearing her pajamas, Janet smiled and motioned her over. The blonde took a seat on the bed, resting her chin on Janet's knees, their faces inches apart. Janet reached out, snagging three wet clumps of Sam's hair between her fingers and twisting gently. Sam smiled. Janet kissed Sam's cheek, smoothed the blanket and leaned back, still making eyes at the blonde. "I'm glad you're here."

Sam stood and walked around to the other side of the bed. "You're glad termites are eating my house alive?"

"No, of course not. I'm just... I'm glad it happened now. I'm glad we're sharing a bed knowing... what we know."

Sam climbed under the blankets, laying down next to Janet. "You still would've invited me to stay here?"

"Of course!" Janet smiled.

"I don't know if I'd have been able to handle that," Sam admitted. She brushed Janet's hand, laying back against the pillows and looking at the ceiling. Her pajamas were light blue with darker piping on the sleeves and collar. She'd forgone the pants of the ensemble, simply buying a size or two larger than she needed and letting it skirt her panties. Janet was in a pink tank top with thin straps, no bra, and a pair of red-and-white striped boxer shorts with short legs. She tucked them under the blanket, pulling it up and laying back next to Sam.

Sam glanced at her watch, then asked, "Cassie thinks this is just a regular sleepover, right?"

"Yeah," Janet nodded. "No guest room, plus we're best friends... it's totally logical. Didn't you ever have sleepovers with your friends in high school?"

Sam's smile wavered. "No. I didn't... have many friends in high school."

"Just admirers, huh?" Janet smiled.

"No," Sam said, looking down at the blanket. "I had books."

Janet's smile faded as well. "Oh, Sam."

"Don't feel bad for me, really," Sam said, her smile returning. "I did alright. Time marches on. And it led me to the SGC, to SG-1... to you." She found Janet's hand and held it. "I would trade a thousand friends in high school for one day with you."

Janet smiled.

"Were you popular?"

Janet's smile broadened to involve her teeth. "Not to brag, but... yeah. I was in almost every group you could think of. FFA, Drama, Dance... I hardly had time for all my friends, but I did have a lot."

"Okay, so... what's the etiquette of sleepovers? I've never been on one."

"Never?"

Sam shook her head.

Janet threw the blankets back. "I'll be right back." She climbed out of bed, grabbing her robe and donning it as she left the bedroom. Sam was left on her own in Janet's bedroom, the elegant sleeping quarters she had snuck into so many nights. Smoothing the blankets around her legs, she scanned the night table. Pictures of Cassandra dominated, followed by a few of Sam alone. The blonde's heart soared at the sight of herself in such a treasured place and she got out of bed to examine the pictures on the wall.

Janet standing knee-deep in a lake, dressed in blue jeans and thigh-high rubber boots, black hair whipped into her eyes by the wind.

A man with his arms around Janet's waist, holding her tight to his body... and she was upside down. Her arms and hair dangled as the man laughed, leaning back to keep her face in the shot. Janet looked so young there! The man was likely her father. He wore a beard, his graying hair cut short and his muscular arms obviously - even in the photo - not in danger of losing their grip on Janet. She was precious cargo.

A dog licking Janet's face as the brunette tried to keep her lips out of reach.

Cassandra mid-air, legs and arms tucked in, during her first trip to the beach.

And, by the closet, the one shot Sam had never noticed.

It was next to the mirror, partially hidden from view by the mirror. Janet stood within the black wooden frame, holding a bouqet of flowers, her hair hidden behind a magnificent white veil. Her dress looked massively expensive. Her hands were gloved, resting on the hands of the man in the photo. He had sparkling blue eyes, his head shaved almost bald. He was wearing a tux, smiling into the camera and leaning towards Janet. They were seated on a wooden bench, a flower-adorned arch towering over their heads. Sam looked last at Janet's face.

It wasn't Janet. At least, not the Janet Sam knew. Her brown eyes were lackluster, even granting the photograph. Her smile was painted onto her deep red lips and didn't come close to touching anything on her face. It was the smile of a robot, a Stepford Wife, someone who had settled.

"He was a man."

Sam jumped, turning quickly as if she had been caught going through Janet's underwear drawer. In truth, she'd been going through something much more personal. Janet was holding a small bowl of pudding, two cans of diet soda and a bag of strawberries. She carefully sat them on the bed, sitting down near the pillow and doffing her robe. Sam walked back to the bed and took a seat. Janet opened the bag, pulling out a strawberry and twirling it through the pudding. "He was a man," she repeated. "Someone Mom and Daddy could accept as being my lover."

"Did you love him?"

"I liked him," Janet shrugged. "And he liked having sex with me."

"But you..."

Janet pursed her lips and said, "What if I told you I would never have been with a man by choice? If it hadn't been for my sham marriage or... other circumstances, what would you say if I've known since I was twelve that I liked women?"

Sam blinked. "Wow."

"You're bisexual, right?"

Sam blushed. She'd never said the words out loud. She'd never admitted it. She looked into Janet's eyes, so much more alive here than in the photo, and said, "Yeah, I'm bisexual."

"I've never felt the need to be with a man. Not to say I hate men or..."

"I understand."

Janet nodded, looking at her feet. Sam reached out and touched Janet's toes, pulling one foot to her lap and kneading it gently. Janet laid back and looked at the ceiling. "I married Alex because... I..." She shrugged. "It was expected. Find a man, fall in love with him, get married, have a lot of babies. So I found a guy who I thought was nice-looking and he took my virginity in his grungy little apartment with the TV on. I was twenty when I married him. He didn't know that I was just playing house. He knew I wasn't into the sex, though. Got a colorful nickname or two from him."

"Did he ever--"

"Hit me? No, nothing like that. But a married man expects things from his wife, regardless of whether she's willing."

Sam closed her eyes.

"Don't stop," Janet admonished.

Sam realized her fingers had slowed and she resumed Janet's foot massage.

"Thank you." She raised her arms, resting her hands behind her head. "I slept with two women during my marriage. Both were one-night-stands and both were confessed immediately. The second almost cost me the hearing in my right ear."

"You just said that he never..."

"It was my reflex answer... I'm sorry," Janet said. "Could you pull the toes? Yeah, like that. Mm. I'm sorry I lied about it, Sam. He only hit me when I deserved it and, before you say anything, yes that was sarcasm. So one day, he wrecked the truck and I hit him back. He 'deserved' it. The only problem was that I didn't stop." She groaned. "You're good at that."

"I can get oils," Sam suggested.

"No," Janet sighed. "Just keep doing this."

"Is that when you left him?"

Janet chuckled mirthlessly. "He left me. For weeks after he walked out, he sent male escorts to the house where I was staying, put up flyers advertising me as an escort, wrote SLUT down the side of my car... by the time he finished, most of the town figured it was all true."

"I can't believe I never knew any of this."

"No one does, Sam. Not Cassie, likely not General Hammond. They know the broad strokes and that's all they need to know. I was in a failed marriage. Husband is out of the picture entirely. No need for expansion on that thread. Oh. Oooh, Sam."

"Better?"

"Mmmm."

"Who was the first woman you made love to?" Sam asked, kneading the arch of Janet's foot.

Janet snickered, eyes closed. "I'll never give in to torture."

"Ve half vays uff making ju tock," Sam said.

Janet laughed as the massage turned into tickling and opened her eyes, looking down at Sam. "The first woman I made love to was older. Twenty years my senior, married, as frustrated as I would one day be. I was young, Sam. So young. Too young. But she opened my world, she showed me everything I could be and everything I needed to be and wanted to be."

"Then I owe her my thanks."

Janet closed her eyes. "Don't stop," she groaned.

"What?"

"Sh," Janet said.

Sam continued rubbing Janet's foot, adding pressure as Janet's breath caught in her throat. Sam's eyes brightened and she looked at Janet's boxers, then ashamedly turned away. "Did you just..."

"I..." Janet blushed.

Sam picked up the pudding Janet had brought for the strawberries. "Chocolate-covered toes?"

"Sam," Janet whispered. "I have another confession."

"A foot fetish?"

Janet moaned in double harmony - "Ah, ah-huuua" - as Sam slowly dipped her toes in chocolate.

---

Sam's lips pursed around the bulb of the strawberry, saliva wetting the red bud as she nipped off the end of it. Janet withdrew the strawberry and deposited the green top in the trash baggie. Both women were dressed again, both had started breathing like human beings again. Janet was tucked against Sam's side and Sam was drawing shapes on Janet's bare upper arm. They'd finished off the pudding in new and inventive ways and the last strawberry had just met it's demise on Sam's lips. Janet looked at the clock and said, "It's almost one."

"Yeah."

"My nights have been fantastically strange since we got together."

"Mine too," Sam grinned.

"What will the next midnight bring?"

Sam kissed Janet softly, slanting her lips and tasting pudding and strawberry in Janet's mouth. Janet gasped as the kiss broke. "If I were to make a guess... and if I were to make the assumption that you and I will be spending the majority of the following midnights together--"

"Make that assumption, yes."

"--Then I'd say the coming midnights will be filled with lots of things. Happiness. Fulfillment. Love. Wonder."

"Sam?"

"Mm."

"I don't want to spend any more midnights alone."

Sam kissed Janet's cheek and held her tight. "Me neither. God, I don't know how I made it through so many before you."

They kissed a few more times, finally settling into the comfort zone of the bed, and tugged the blankets into place. Janet moved the remains of their snack to the night table and clicked off the lamp before laying her head on Sam's chest. She could hear her friend and lover's heart beating steadily within her chest. She fell asleep to the gentle music, soothed to slumber by the simple nearness of another.

Sam stayed up for a few minutes more, cradling Janet lovingly. When she finally fell asleep, she was crying at the thought of being with Janet. The simple act of sleeping in the same bed, magnified by the love they admittedly shared for each other, was something she'd thought impossible to achieve.

Sometime before dawn, Sam's dreams whispered to her she'd found everything she wanted, everything she needed, and that this was what she - and everyone else on the world - had been striving for.

Peace.

Happiness.

Love.

The fact that she'd found it with a woman, that she was in love with someone of the same gender, supposedly nullified that. She'd been looking with men, accepting the status quo, knowing that she'd find the "right" right person eventually. All she knew in that hazy time before dawn was that she was holding a beautiful woman whom she loved more than her own life, all she knew was that same woman was holding her tightly, all she knew was what she felt. And nothing, nothing, nothing could ever convince her that this was the wrong kind of right.

THE END