Unspoken Rule

Title: Unspoken Rule

Author: Geonn

Rating: NC17

Pairings: Sam/Janet, Janet/other (past relationship)

Category: Angst, PWP

Disclaimer: These folks don't belong to me. I stole them from MGM's toybox without asking their mommies for permission. I promise to return them more or less unscathed.

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

Spoilers: "Hathor"

Summary: Sam breaks the rules. Janet breaks her silence.

That morning, Janet woke first and was in the bathroom. She had managed to change into her uniform skirt, but all she wore above the waist was her bra. She ran a comb through her hair, switching sides every few seconds to make sure she got all the wet strands straightened and untangled. As she coiffed, Sam stepped into the bathroom, leaning against the door frame and watching her lover. "Do you think I should cut my hair?" Janet asked, seeing Sam in the reflection. "General Hammond lets me keep it like this, but sometimes I think it'd be easier to just cut it all off and be done with it."

"You look cute," Sam said. "And it gives me something to play with in bed."

Janet blushed and peeked over her shoulder at her lover before going back to her brushing.

"You have a spot on your shoulder," Sam pointed out.

"I do?" Janet asked, turning her shoulder to look in the mirror's reflection. "Where?"

"I got it," Sam said. She stepped forward, moving against Janet's body, and pressed her lips to Janet's skin. The brunette giggled and Sam wrapped her arms around Janet's waist, pulling her close. "Mm," Sam said, finally moving her lips. "Tastes like Janet."

Janet laughed and squirmed away, slapping behind herself at Sam. "I have to get ready for work. All of your plans involve less clothes when I need to get dressed."

"I don't care," Sam said. "I think it's sexy watching you get dressed, too."

"You think it's sexy watching me read."

Sam's eyes widened. "You lick... your thumb."

Janet rolled her eyes and returned to brushing her hair. Sam started for the bedroom and Janet said, "Oh, could you hand me my blouse, please? It's hanging in the closet in a dry-clean bag."

Sam searched and found the blouse, pulling it out and examining the tag the cleaners had attached to it. "Did you take that purple blouse of mine to the cleaners?" she asked.

"No, hon, I just did uniforms this time. Yours included."

"Oh, thanks," Sam said, taking the blouse to the bathroom and hanging it on the back of the door. She paused, looking up and down Janet's body, then pursed her lips. "Janet?"

"Mm," Janet said, picking at something in the corner of her eye before she started to apply make-up.

Sam thought about the phrasing, then asked, "Why did you divorce your husband?"

Janet twisted around at the waist, leaving the lower half of her body facing forward. "What?"

'No going back now,' Sam thought. "It's something I've wondered for a while. You mentioned your husband once, and that was the end of it. Does anyone else at the base even know about him?"

"General Hammond knows," Janet said softly, applying her make-up slowly.

"How long were you married?"

Janet put her hands on the sink and turned around. "What dress did you wear to your mother's funeral?"

Sam jerked, as if Janet had physically struck her. "I..."

"Don't want to talk about it?" Janet said sharply. She turned back to the mirror and returned to her make-up. Sam turned and left the bathroom, going downstairs. Alone, Janet hung her head and whispered a disparaging remark about herself. She shook her head and finished her preparations for the day.

---

Sam and Janet avoided each other at work, as they usually did when they'd had an argument. That night, they played nice in front of Cassandra and went to bed together, but neither seemed particularly eager to cross the No Man's Land at the center of the mattress. Janet dressed in her full pajamas - shirt and pants - which she only did during fights. Sam slept in a t-shirt and panties, as normal. In the darkness of 11:30, Janet rolled onto her side and looked at Sam's back, watched her lover's shoulders rise with each intake of breath, and said, "I met him when I was nineteen."

Sam rolled onto her back and looked at Janet in the darkness. "You don't have to," Sam said.

"I know," Janet whispered. "But I want to tell you. You deserve to know."

"Okay," Sam said softly.

Janet sat up in bed, her light blue pajama shirt wrinkling around her breasts. She clasped her hands over her stomach, looking down at the painted nails. "I met him when I was nineteen," she repeated. "Joel Nelson. He did everything right when we were dating, did everything perfectly. I asked him to marry me, I think because he was the one who took my virginity and I felt that was what I should do. Sex is for marriage, that's what my parents always taught me."

Sam put a hand on Janet's and squeezed. Janet sighed and looked at Sam for strength.

"For the first few months, I had fun. It was liberating, freeing. I was in love with the idea of being his wife. I think he was more enamored with the idea of having someone who couldn't say no to his sexual advances. If he wanted sex, I was obligated to give it to him."

"Janet--" Sam said.

"Nineteen. I was nineteen, so that's what I thought...." She sighed. "Okay, let's play a little game. Tell me something you've always dreamed about."

Sam frowned. "Well, uh... since I was little, I wanted to join NASA and--"

"That's stupid," Janet snapped. "You think they'd let women go to the freakin' moon when you can barely figure out the stove?"

Sam jerked her hand away. "Look," she said softly. "I understand your marriage is a sore point for you. But you do not have to gut-punch me to make your points, okay? I've had enough. Stop it."

Janet looked ashamed and turned away. "I'm sorry. But that's just it!" She turned. "What you just said, standing up for yourself, would've earned you a knuckle to the forehead from Joel. He was the boss, I was the peon. He was the king, I was the peasant. The sex slave he would've kept locked in the bedroom if society wouldn't have frowned on it."

Sam reached up and began to rub Janet's shoulders. "Go on," she said. "Why did you finally divorce him?"

Janet brushed her fingertips over her knuckles, skipping the third finger on her left hand. "I didn't."

"What?"

"He died in a car accident just before our fourth anniversary. The car went off the road, flipped, and he wasn't wearing his seat belt." She swallowed sharply and added, "I was driving."

Sam's eyes widened.

"Don't ask," Janet said. "Because I don't know myself. The police say there was nothing I could've done. They completely exonerated me, no reason not to. I was horrified. I was lost, despondent. I was the perfect picture of grief, so the cops didn't think twice about me driving." She swallowed. "I hate to think I would've done that. Killed him. But I can't help but wonder if I saw his seat belt undone, if I'd put two-and-two together... maybe I didn't lose control of the car."

"You could never kill anyone," Sam argued.

"You didn't know him."

"I knew Jonas Hansen," Sam said. "The man who, at our engagement party, told his drunk, asshole friends that if they wanted a piece of me they better do it then before we got married. The man who raped me on nights I said I was too tired or not in the mood." She hung her head, tears wet on her cheeks.

Janet embraced Sam and they sank to the mattress, holding each other.

After a long time, Janet said, "You don't...."

"What?" Sam whispered, breath warm against Janet's neck.

"Nothing. Do you think... that we're together because we have jackasses in our lives?"

Sam frowned.

"Do you think we're sleeping together - two women - because of the asshole men in our lives?"

Sam smiled. "Kind of cliche, don't you think?"

Janet shrugged.

Sam sat up and crossed her legs in front of her. She pulled Janet up into her lap and stroked her lover's hair. "I think I love you because... you're beautiful. Talented. Funny. You make me laugh. You hold my hand. You let me take down my guard. I feel safe with you. The fact that you and I both have a terrible track record with men isn't why we turned to another woman. But maybe... maybe it's what opened our eyes to other possibilities."

Janet looked up at Sam. "I love you."

Sam leaned down and touched her lips to Janet's. Her tongue flicked out and Janet caught it, sucking it into her mouth. Sam moaned and moved across Janet's. Pajamas were rearranged and Sam laid Janet out. She hovered over the petite woman, their faces close, but not touching. Nothing of Sam's touched anything of Janet's. Their breath mingled in the air between their bodies. Sam reached down and eased Janet's pajama pants down. Janet worked her feet, moving the material lower and getting it off her feet. She spread her knees and planted her feet on the mattress.

Sam slipped between the inviting legs and pressed one warm thigh against Janet's bare lips. Janet moaned and immediately began a familiar ride. She moved from Sam's knee to just below her hip, her own thigh brushing Sam's panties on the uppermost pass. They looked at each other as Janet rubbed against her, Janet biting her lip and making fantastic little "Mm. Mm. Mm," sounds as she masturbated against Sam's flesh.

Kissing Janet's knuckles, Sam directed the other woman's slender hand down and put two of Janet's fingers on her own clit. Janet whimpered as Sam manipulated her fingers, a puppeteer making Janet play with herself. Sam kissed Janet's cheek and said, "I love watching you so close... do you know what you look like?"

Janet managed to shake her head negatively.

"Goddess. People used to write epic poems about the look that's in your eyes right now." Janet moaned and Sam leaned forward, adding pressure to Janet's sex. Janet's eyelids fluttered, but didn't close. "People went to war for women who looked half as beautiful as you do right now, Janet." She leaned down - which added more pressure to Janet, and kissed her lover softly. Neither woman closed her eyes during the kiss.

Finally, Janet lifted her head from the pillow and whispered, "Sam... Samantha..."

The warmth against Sam's thigh deepened and became wet and she shuddered, growing still over Janet's sweaty body. She adjusted their bedclothes, then kissed Janet hard. Janet was crying and Sam held her, pulling the blankets around them, and kissing Janet's face occasionally. When her tears dried, she looked up at Sam and said, "I..."

"Mm?" Sam whispered.

"I..."

Sam touched Janet's breast and said, "I know."

Janet rested her head on Sam's shoulder and closed her eyes. "I never thought I'd find love."

"Hmm?"

"My husband. I married him because it was close enough. I felt something. I didn't know it wasn't love until I met you."

Sam blinked the tears from her eyes. "That may be the most beautiful thing anyone's ever said to me."

"It's stupid," Janet said, shaking her head.

Sam tilted Janet's head up and gently kissed her lips. "Never call something my wife says stupid."

"Wife," Janet repeated.

"I would if I could," Sam said, her voice hoarse. "You have to know that."

Janet's heart was racing and she closed her eyes. "Bullshit."

"What?" Sam asked, shocked by the word from her lover. "I mean it!"

"I know, I know," Janet quickly said. "I wasn't talking about... God, Sam, I would marry you in a heartbeat. What's bullshit is that we can't. Sure, I can be legally bound to the rat bastard and you can be legally bound to the man who raped you." She shook her head and pounded the mattress with her hand. "It's bullshit!" she hissed.

Sam slipped out of bed, kissing Janet softly before she padded out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. When she returned, she had her hands clasped in front of her. She knelt next to the bed, in her t-shirt with a tear in the collar and her faded blue panties, holding out her hands and parting them in front of Janet. In her hand was a small ring with a dog tag chain looped through it. Sam's dog tags. Janet picked it up and looked at it. "I can't wear your dog tags," Janet said quietly, eyes sparkling at the sentiment.

"I know," Sam said. "But I want you to wear it tonight. With the ring. So just for tonight we can pretend." She took the chain from Janet and slipped it over the other woman's brunette head. "Do you, Janet, take me?"

"I do," Janet said, unable to take her eyes from the ring resting between her breasts. She took off her own dog tags. She took off a small, nondescript ring from her pinky and slipped it onto the chain. Hooping it over Sam's head, she said, "Do you, Sam, take me?"

"I do, I do, I do," Sam said, climbing onto the bed, hovering over Janet's body. Janet's dog tags and ring dangled between them, resting on the tags that Janet wore. Sam kissed Janet softly and this time both women closed their eyes, getting lost in the kiss. Janet's hands came up, skimming the soft flesh of Sam's back thighs, slipping under the other woman's panties, and pulling her forward until the taller woman was seated on the smaller woman's stomach. Janet looked up into Sam's eyes as her fingers skirted the edge of Sam's panties, moving under the material between Sam's legs.

Sam bit her bottom lip and closed her eyes. "I remember the first time you touched me here. Between my legs. The first time I felt your touch on my... m-my..."

Janet slipped a finger inside and Sam slumped forward. "You almost came when I put my hand on your clit," Janet recalled.

Sam bit Janet's ear and lapped at the bite marks with her tongue. Janet moaned and added a finger. "I'd let you do anything to me," Janet panted. "Anything you wanted. I trust you so much, so much, Samantha. Anything you asked, I'd do it. What do you want? Tell me, please, Sam, tell me."

Sam lifted her head and, her lips inches from Janet's, she said, "Love me forever."

Janet's eyes were wet with tears. She stroked Sam's face and said, "I'm sorry, Sam... I can't stop at forever."

They kissed passionately then, Janet working Sam to climax before pulling the blankets back up over their bodies. As Sam drifted off the sleep, Janet looked up at the corner of the bedroom. "You want to know if I'm in love with you?" Joel's voice echoed at her over the years. "This isn't love. It's comfort. That's the best you can hope for in real life. Stop living in a fairy tale, Janet." She clung to Sam and kissed the other woman's chin.

She'd known he was wrong the moment he said the words. It was just nice to have the proof laying next to her in bed.