Title: The Thunder Rolls

Author: Majandra

Email: flavorlesschocolate@hotmail.com

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Brooke and Sam, duh! That's, like, all I can write at the moment, and I'm not even doing that well!

Disclaimer: Not mine, blah blah woof woof.

The thunder crashed all around her. It was more than a little unnerving, being almost alone in the house when a thunderstorm was raging. It made her feel like she was six years old again, wanting to run into her daddy's room and crawl under the covers with him, knowing that Daddy would scare the bad ol' storm away.

Brooke wasn't scared, per se, she was just a little edgy. Something inside of her had never really grown out of being afraid of thunderstorms, and since Jane and Mike were on a business trip she couldn't go running to Mike, as she still did. Part of her badly wanted to ring Mike, but the phones were out. And another part of her, one she was trying desperately to ignore, wanted to run into Sam's room and wait out the storm.

Sam was in the process of, circumstances what they were, trying to go to sleep. Ordinarily, she wouldn't have a problem, but this particular storm was giving her the heebie-jeebies. It was almost as if Mother Nature had decided the Palace had been a very, very bad Palace, and needed to be punished or something. Whatever. The winds were whipping around the house and trees were creaking. Every now and then a clap of thunder sounded, and in spite of herself she jumped. Eventually she was forced to admit that she was scared of the storm without her mother to scare it away.

Gathering her quilt around her she sat up, trying to think herself out of the mindset that was making her scared. <Just a storm, I'm 17 now, more than big enough not to be scared of a storm.> But it wasn't working. Another clap of thunder sounded, and it was the final straw. Just as she was preparing to run to Brooke's room, the door crashed open, and in the doorway with the hall lights as a backdrop, stood Brooke, wrapped in her quilt, her hair all disheveled and slightly out of breath from her dash down the hall.

"Jesus, Brooke, you scared the shit out of me," Sam chastised, placing her hand over her heart in an attempt to slow it down. "Can I help you with something?"

"The truth?" Brooke asked. "I, uh, I... dammit, Sam I'm afraid of the storm. Yes, I know it's baby thing to be afraid of, and I know I should grow up and go back to bed, but I can't. Laugh at me all you want, but can I please sleep with you?" Brooke got just a tad defensive, but Sam held out her arms in a sign of peace.

"Calm down, Princess. I was about to go running to you, only you beat me to it," she admitted. "I'm scared too, and of course you can sleep here. I'm not going to laugh at you, but only if you promise not to laugh at me."

"I'll set up camp on the floor then, shall I?"

Sam stopped her with a wave of her hand and a pleading look in her eyes. "Look, Brooke, this is where you're going to have to try not to laugh at me. Usually when the storm is this bad, I go and sleep with my mom. Obviously, I haven't had to here, cos this is the first really bad storm since we moved in, but the point is, I can't sleep in a storm unless there's someone beside me. So can you come sleep in here, with me?"

"Okay, it beats the floor," Brooke agreed reluctantly. She dumped her quilt beside the bed and crawled in beside Sam. "Comfy?" she asked. Sam nodded.

"That's much better," she murmured, feeling closer to sleep already. "Wanna talk or something?"

"Yeah, I'm used to talking to my dad during storms like these," Brooke admitted. "What do you feel like talking about?"

Sam rolled over to face the blonde. "Us," she stated softly, but firmly. Brooke pricked up her ears visibly, but remained silent, letting Sam speak first.

"Brooke, I know you didn't want me to move in here, and to be honest, I didn't want to move in here either. But I've been thinking about it lately, and I wondered. I never hated you as much as I pretended to. Did you hate me as much as you seemed to?"

"Oh, Sammy, I never hated you. I just pretended to, because it always seemed like you hated me so much. Besides, Nicole was never a fan of yours, so it was easy to just go along with her, to fit in. To be honest, I kind of always wanted you for a friend. You always seemed so cool, like you knew what you wanted, and you were well on your way to getting it, or something."

Sam laughed. "I knew what I wanted, all right, but I was never even close to getting it. I never will."

"That was cryptic," Brooke giggled. "Care to explain yourself?"

Sam sighed. "It would involve trusting you with something not even my mother knows, so you'll have to promise to keep it a secret. Can you do that?"

"Sure," Brooke promised, sincerely. "I promise."

"Brooke, I'm... I'm gay," Sam blurted. "I only realized about three months ago, and I've kept it to myself ever since. You're the only person in the world who knows."

"Whoa," Brooke breathed. "Heavy. But I'm honored you would share it with me anyway."

"You're not grossed out or anything?"

"Why the hell would I be?" Brooke scoffed. She moved closer and hugged Sam, ending with a kiss on the end of the nose. "You're my best friend, Sam, hard as you may find that to believe. I would never be grossed out by something as trivial as that."

"That really means a lot to me," Sam said, relieved. "But, uh, there's kind of more. And it involves you. And much as I think it's a bad idea to be telling you while you feel compelled to share a bed with me (storm, I mean) I feel I need to get this off my chest."

"Sammy, I want you to feel like you can tell me anything. Just say it, I won't get angry or offended, and I'm certainly not leaving. I couldn't deal, being on my own on a night like tonight."

"Brooke," Sam began, taking a deep breath. "When I said I knew what I wanted, I wasn't lying. I knew what I wanted, still know what I want. Brooke, I want you. I love you."

Immediately Sam finished her sentence, thunder crashed all around them and they jumped. Then the single lamp they had going flickered out, alerting them to the face that the power was out.

In the sudden pitch blackness, the last thing Sam expected to feel was a pair of lips against hers, but that's what she could feel. Half of her was all for screaming "What the hell are you doing, Brooke?" but the rest was too busy kissing Brooke back.

By the time the lights came back on about five minutes later, Sam was all but delirious with happiness brought on by Brooke kissage. While the lights had been off great progress had been made in the fields of clothes removal, and while Brooke was clad in pajama pants and a Snoopy singlet, she had been busy and had undressed Sam down to a single garment. Her panties. And Brooke's hands were all over Sam's newly exposed breasts.

But with the lights came the doubts, and Sam pulled away. "What did you do that for?" the asked softly. Brooke squirmed slightly before answering.

"I love you," she breathed. "And I was always too scared of Nicole to do anything, say anything. The last thing I expected was for you to admit it during a thunderstorm. So when the lights went off, I took the opportunity... I'm sorry-"

"Don't." Sam cut her off. "Don't ever be sorry for what you just did, because I love you so much. So I'm going to turn this light off, now, and we'll just see what happens." In the semi light following Sam's mini speech, she could see a couple of tears flowing over Brooke's cheeks. Happy of not, she couldn't tell, but she was about to MAKE them happy tears!

The light went off and Brooke leaned in and kissed Sam again, but was surprised to feel Sam's tongue enter her mouth almost straight away. Brooke's pajamas all but flew to the floor, and, as they made love, both of them decided never to spend another thunderstorm with their parentals again.

It felt way too good spending them together.