Pledging Allegiance

 

Email: neil_j_miser@yahoo.com

Rating: PG13

Pairings: Sam/Janet

Category: Missing Scene

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.

Spoilers: "Allegiance," "Threshold," "Meridian," "In The Line of Duty"

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

Notes: Not a sequel, but it could be a companion piece to "Thawed"...

Thanks To: Hl for the banner.

Summary: Sam and Janet talk while off-world.


The Stargate and the cluster of buildings surrounding it stood in the middle of a pit, the walls of ground rising towards the sky before spreading out to form the rest of the planet. Trees, as seemed to be the motif of the universe, were everywhere and gave the inhabitants of the quarry a bit of privacy from... well, from nothing. The world was known as the Alpha Site. It was where the best and brightest of Earth would go if the worst happened and the Goa'uld wiped the planet out. It wasn't as likely to happen anymore, not after the Asgard Protected Planet Treaty had been signed, but they had initiated evacuation to the Alpha Site on more than one occasion.

For almost five years, the Alpha Site had been a refuge. Janet Fraiser had been there on more than one occasion awaiting word on the status of Earth. On those occasions, it was almost always up to SG-1 to pave the way back to safety for Earth. Two men, a Jaffa and a woman, holding the fate of the planet in their hands. Of course, now it was one man, one Kalownan, one Jaffa and one woman... Janet Fraiser and her daughter Cassandra had been evacuated to the site before, yes. But she had never been forced to spend a night there.

Due to peculiar circumstances, the site was teeming with both Jaffa and Tok'ra refugees. People seemed to be dropping like flies and there was no ready explanation for what they were dealing with. So, Colonel O'Neill had declared Stargate travel off-limits and everyone who happened to be on-site at the time was trapped. Luckily, though, Janet had brought a surplus of supplies with her. Hammond had told her it might be a long mission, but she would never have dreamed she would be getting ready for her second night's sleep in the uncomfortable cot in the women's area.

A light rain had started to fall just after sundown. As the rain pattered loudly against the metal roof of her temporary bedroom, Janet climbed out of her cot and pulled her backpack out from underneath the canvas. She shivered in the cold of the room, dressed only in a pair of gray boxers and a gray tank top. She looked around, seeing that the other women assigned to this room were nowhere to be found.

She heaved the bag onto the cot and sat next to it, pulling the opening wider and searching for something inside. After a few minutes of hastily rearranging clothes and digging through side pockets, she tossed the bag towards the pillow. She pursed her lips, trying to think of another solution. Her eyes brightened and she knelt down next to the cot beside hers, pulling the bag out from underneath it. "C'mon," she whispered.

As she searched, a shadow passed by the window, a fleeting image that was gone by the time Janet realized she saw it.

She turned her attention back to the mission at hand. She pulled out a handful of Sam's trousers - all olive green - and set them aside, not wanting to get them wrinkled or unfolded. Samantha Carter, so often a slob in the rest of her life, was insanely meticulous about laundry. She sighed and pushed aside some boxers that matched her own and searched for something, anything, that she could make due with. A toothbrush was resting in a small pocket, but nothing occupied the space next to it.

Something slammed against the outside wall and Janet straightened. The shadow could have been ignored, but now... She heard a dragging sound, as if someone were trying to make their way to the door by using the wall as a guide. They were almost to the door now. Janet spun and searched her supplies, finally finding the zat'nik'atel Sam had given her for protection. She turned and swallowed as the lock on the door shook. 'I'm in my underpants and the bad guy is trying to get in... isn't this reserved for crappy horror movies?'

The door opened and Janet gasped, swinging the zat gun up. Sam Carter stepped inside and immediately raised both hands. "Don't shoot!" Sam said in a fake British accent. "I bring news from the colonies."

Janet exhaled and lowered the gun. "Sam. You scared me."

Sam walked to the bed, eyeing her unpacked stuff. "Sorry about that. What, uh..."

"I was looking for some batteries," Janet said, going back to her bed. She picked up her Walkman and shook it. "Damn things died on me when I was trying to read. Do you have any double-A?"

"Yeah," Sam nodded, pulling the bag to her side and sitting down. "I'll just pull the batteries out of my vibrator."

Janet's face turned beet red and she stared open-mouthed at Sam for a full minute before she realized the blonde was joking. She exhaled sharply and said, "You're so bad."

Sam winked at the doctor, pulling some batteries out of the butt of a small flashlight. "You think I'd really bring one of those things on a mission?"

Taking the batteries, Janet said, "I didn't even know you *owned* one of those things."

"I'm saving a secret or two until we move in together." Sam grinned. "Besides... who needs a joystick when I've got you?" She leaned forward, pursing her lips like a cartoon character anticipating a kiss. She stayed like that for a moment, then opened one eye to see Janet was inserting the batteries into her CD player. "Um, Janet," Sam said, speaking around her pursed lips.

"Uh-huh?"

"You planning on kissing me?"

Janet looked up, saw Sam's lips, and snapped the battery cover back into place. "Yeah," she said finally, leaning over and kissing Sam soundly. She wrapped her lips around Sam's, wiggling the tip of her tongue into the small opening of the blonde's mouth and digging her hands into her short hair. When they separated, Janet said, "That do?"

Sam leaned back and made a sound that somewhat resembled, "A-yuh-huh."

"Nice to know I've still got it," Janet said, slipping her headphones on.

"Janet," Sam interrupted, leaving the doctor's finger hovering over the play button. "Do you wanna talk for a while before I go to sleep?"

She pulled the headphones off, straightening her hair and rolling onto her side. "Okay. What do you wanna talk about?"

Sam stood, unbuttoning her pants. "I don't know. I just... thought we should talk after the stuff that's been happening here." The green pants fell and Sam stepped out of them, picking them up and tossing them onto the cot. Janet tried not to stare at the other woman's legs. She failed miserably.

"It's awful out there," Janet admitted, rolling onto her back to avoid the tempation of Sam's bare flesh.

"Have you ever had to do that kind of thing before? The, uh..."

"Triage?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, hell yes." She sighed. "I do it in the Gate Room all the time. All those times you guys bring refugees home, whenever there's a big group coming through the Gate after a battle... you guys keep me busy."

Sam sat on Janet's cot, wearing only a pair of cotton panties and her regulation bra. "How do you do it?" she asked quietly.

Janet reached up, resting her hand on Sam's back just above her bra strap. "How do I do what? Know who to treat?"

"No," Sam was looking at her hands, which were folded in her lap. "I understand that; you're a brilliant doctor. You can tell if I'm hungry just by looking at me."

"That's not so much medical training as it is me knowing you inside and out."

The blonde smiled and continued. "What I mean is... once you know that someone is beyond help and you know that you have to move on... how do you move on? I mean, someone is dying right next to you and... how the hell are you supposed to move on to the next person?"

Janet sat up, propping herself up on a pillow. "It's hard. It's near impossible. I'm a doctor... it almost hurts physically to walk away from someone who's hurting. But... I guess working at the SGC has helped me a little bit. That time when Bra'tac removed Teal'c's symbiote for that rite? I could barely stand still I was so pissed."

"I remember," Sam said softly. She had been Janet's punching bag that night; a release of all the frustration and anger and helplessness the doctor had felt while one of her friends lay dying in her infirmary. Then, Janet had kissed the bruises she had inflicted and they had made love all night. "And Daniel..." She took Janet's hand. The doctor hadn't even wanted absolution after that one; she had traveled to their cabin and cried for three days straight. When Sam finally joined her, the tears were nearly dry and they had managed to enjoy one beautiful weekend together.

Janet shrugged. "Sometimes a doctor has to just... know when their best isn't good enough. It hurts, but... it's life."

The door opened and Sam released Janet's hand. The brunette pulled her hand from Sam's back. Just two girls, chit-chatting in their skivvies. Nothing to see here, folks. One of the female Tok'ra entered, eyeing them suspiciously before going to her own cot. "Evening," Sam said.

The Tok'ra looked up, looking from Sam to Janet. Finally, she straightened and said, "Good evening." Her voice bore the hollow and resonant timber of a Goa'uld. She picked up a small pouch from her bedside and carried it back to the door, not even bothering with a backwards glance before she stepped back out into the storm.

"She's charming," Janet said.

"She's always been like that. I remember once, at a celebration, she was--" She stopped and closed her eyes. "Damn it." She smiled and shook her head. "Just when I think Jolinar is a memory..."

Janet rubbed Sam's shoulder. "More or less?" It was a sort of short-hand for them; she was asking if the snippets of memory were more or less frequent than they had been just after Sam's blending.

"Less. Much, much less. But... I got one the other day when Colonel O'Neill was talking about Kanan. Jolinar knew him and she really didn't like him very much." She sighed. "I hate having someone else's memories in my head. I hate... sharing my brain, even if it is just remnants. I don't know how I would deal with being permanently joined." She shuddered at the very idea.

Janet rubbed Sam's shoulder. "How are you dealing with the idea of another ashrack running around?"

She shrugged. "I'm okay, I suppose."

"You're still having nightmares," Janet quietly reminded her.

The blonde's shoulders lifted once more, this time remaining locked as her hands clasped between her knees. "I'm... I'm okay. I mean, the guy put a thing to my head and tried to scorch my brain. The only reason I'm alive is because of Jolinar... I had headaches for almost a year afterward. But I'm as close to being over it as I'll ever be. The ashrack that tried to kill me is dead; Teal'c shot him in the Gate Room and that was that." She sighed.

Janet sat up and kissed Sam's throat, her lips skimming up the slender column until she found the lobe of her ear. "I should stop tasting your skin," she muttered. "It's doing things to me..."

Sam shivered again, but for an entirely different reason. "What kind of things, doctor? And please, go into detail..."

The brunette pressed her lips against Sam's earlobe and proceeded to list off all of the things her body was doing at the moment. When she finished, Sam was gasping for breath. "A-all that, huh?"

"And more," Janet promised. "Too bad we're in the middle of a public area."

Sam laughed, "Ooooh, you sadistic bitch! I'll get you back for that one!"

"I can't wait." Janet glanced at the door and pulled Sam down for a quick kiss. "Night, sweetheart."

"Good-night."

Sam stood and walked to her bedside. Janet watched as the blonde changed into an oversized black t-shirt and climbed under her blanket. Above every bed was an individual light. Sam and Janet snapped theirs off at the same time, sending their small section of the room into darkness. Sam pulled her blankets up around her shoulders and rolled onto her left side as Janet rolled onto her right. They looked at each other across the distance between their beds and Sam extended her hand.

Janet touched the blonde's fingers and whispered, "I love you."

"I love you, too," Sam said. "Sweet dreams."

"I'm going to dream about you."

Sam grinned. "Good-night."

"Sleep tight," Janet breathed.

"Don't let the bedbugs bite."

"And if they do, bite 'em back."

Sam laughed out loud at the new tack and released Janet's hand. "Y'know, if we keep this up, we'll never get to sleep."

Janet shrugged. "So?"

"Just an observation."

Janet snuggled against her cot, trying in vain to get comfortable. "This reminds me of being at home when I was a little girl."

"You shared a room on an alien world with your lesbian lover when you were a little girl?"

Janet stuck her tongue out. "Nooo. But I did have sleepovers. And we used to talk after lights out. Just like this. And we were certain that every creak on the floor outside was Momma or Daddy coming to bust us. I used to love those sleepovers."

"Do you still love them?"

"Oh, yeah," Janet promised. "We have to go to sleep now, though. Big day tomorrow."

Sam nodded. "Yeah, okay." She yawned and stretched her arms, then rolled onto her back. "Good-night, Janet."

"Good-night, Sam."

"Good-night, John-Boy. Good-night, Sue Ellen. Good-night, Gran--"

"Sam?"

"Hum?"

"Stop it."

"Yes, Mom."

"Sam?"

"A-yup?"

"Night."

"Night."


~END~


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