I hereby challenge annaK for the formal title of Queen of Angst. For, what did I do? I took "Urgo"...yes, "Urgo", and wrote a full out angst fic. Had the idea long ago, just hadn't gotten it written until now. Yep. I watched "Urgo", and I saw rampant angst. (And, yes, I scare myself.) DISCLAIMER: Yeah, the SG-1 guys are all property of MGM, World Gekko Corp, and Double Secret productions. This is all in fun, no infringement on copyrights or trademarks was intended. All other characters, ideas, etc., herein are copyrighted to the author. TITLE: COMFORT IN SOUND AUTHOR: Rowan Darkstar EMAIL: rowan_d1@yahoo.com WEBSITE: http://rowan_d.tripod.com RATING: Teen ARCHIVE: All archives fine as long as you let me know. CATEGORIES: Angst, Sam/Janet Friendship (can be seen as borderline UST) SPOILERS: Through "Urgo" SUMMARY: "She can't stop the shivers that have little to do with the cold." AUTHOR'S NOTES: Okay, I intended to write a little Short based on the idea I'd had for sometime for a longer fic, then write the longer fic later...but once I got going, I ended up just writing the longer fic. So, I hesitate to even call this a GateShip short. Let's just say it was "Inspired By" the GateShip Wednesday Shorts "Urgo" challenge.:) Major thanks to annaK for the speed beta! COMFORT IN SOUND by Rowan Darkstar (rowan_d1@yahoo.com) Copyright (c) 2005 "Comfort in sound It's all around Ease back the strain Come heal your pain Comfort in sound It's all around you now" --"Comfort In Sound" by Feeder She can smell the water, feel its presence on her skin with her eyes closed. The lake is so beautiful. Janet is beyond lucky to have inherited this place from her father. Though Sam has caught the sense that the cabin is little consolation for all else Janet's father lacked. The damp wind brushes Sam's cheek and slips its fingers beneath the tank top of her pajamas. The air's a little cold on her bare arms; she should have brought a robe out with her. But she feels more alive with the sensation. And right now she wants to be hyper-aware of what it is to be alone in her skin. Janet and Cassie have been asleep for hours. Janet is such the early bird, always in bed in time to be unnaturally perky by 5am. Sam thinks Cassie is more of a night owl by nature, but Janet has conditioned her to the best of her formidable abilities. Out here, with only trees and birds and sky and water, Janet's internal clock seems to make more sense. It's getting up to dark and cold and fluorescent glare that Sam cannot abide. Rising with the sun feels more right. Sam tried to sleep for a couple of hours. Even after the welcome fun of the drive up with her friends, and the beautiful evening spent with a bucket of chicken on the hearth rug and girly chit-chat sorely lacking at the SGC, she cannot slow her mind when the distractions fade. She can't stop the shivers that have little to do with the cold. Sam hugs her knees to her chest, hip bones pressing into the wicker of the deck chair. She combs her fingers through her hair and tries to just...be in the moment. It's over, everything's okay, she can move on. Moving on is never so easy. The swish of the glass doors startles her, and she turns to see Janet, hair down and mussed, clothed in flannel jammies much too large for her petite frame. "Hey..." Janet says, voice fuzzy with sleep. "Hey," Sam replies, offering a genuinely affectionate smile that almost pushes the sadness from her eyes. Janet pads toward her in thick socks, arms folded over her chest. She clumsily scoots the matching chair up flush against Sam's and settles in. "It's after 2am. You all right?" Sam nods and is completely dumb-founded when she feels the potential for tears behind her eyes, prompted by nothing more than the gentleness in her friend's tone. "I'm fine," she says, voice acceptably solid as she gazes out over the water. "Just couldn't sleep." "Is your stomach bothering you, again?" Sam whips her gaze back to Janet, frowning and deeply unnerved. "How did you know my stomach's been bothering me?" Janet is unphased. She smiles. "I'm your doctor and your friend, Sam. I notice." Sam is a little thrown, but she lets it go. For now. "No, my stomach's better," she says, gaze tracing the planks of the deck's floor. "Good. Then, what is it?" Sam lifts her face into the wind, stares at the moon, the stars, the dark water and the shadows beyond. She promises herself there's no one there. She starts to speak, but finds the threat of tears is back and she doesn't want to allow that. Janet surprises her by pushing to her feet and vanishing into the house. Sam is still wondering what she missed, when her friend reappears, resumes her previous seat, and wraps a thick afghan around Sam's shoulders. For a moment, Janet's arms remain around Sam with the blanket, warming her, and the contact leaves Sam painfully raw. "Thank you," she whispers, and there are tears in her eyes, and she's remembering being wrapped in another warm blanket, when she thought her best friend had burned to death in front of her, and the kind eyes and soft voice that kept her breathing those first few hours. "He's not here anymore," Janet whispers now. "I promise." "I know," she says. But she's really fighting not to cry, and Janet's arm is around her again. It's so dark, she almost doesn't have to hide. Almost. "Tell me, honey. It's okay." Sam hugs her knees closer and wants to disappear inside the blanket. Instead, she says softly, "I know it's nothing like it, really, but... He was inside my head. Nothing was mine or sacred or... and it just felt too much like..." "Like Jolinar," Janet finishes. Sam doesn't speak, doesn't nod. But she's shaking. She sniffs and brushes her nose against her knee. They sit together. "God, I'm sorry," Sam says, pulling up a bit as self- consciousness settles into her stomach like a bitter lump. "This is stupid." "How's that?" Janet is infuriatingly patient. Her open hand draws slow circles on Sam's back. "It was a piece of alien technology. It annoyed us, breeched out security; we fixed it. Hazard of the job." "Sam, it's okay if it bothers you." She shakes her head sharply, nursing the anger that has served her well since she was fourteen years old. "It shouldn't. You see any of the guys freaking out? It happened to them, too, you know." Janet smirks. "Well, first off, you don't know *what* bothers them at two o'clock in the morning, because they wouldn't tell *you* any more than you would tell *them*...." Sam acquiesces a bit on that, but the anger still burns. Janet continues, "...and none of them..." her hand moves to fleetingly cup the back of Sam's neck. She's warm and the feeling trickles down Sam's back. "...none of them has had a symbiote attached to their spinal cord in recent history." She closes her eyes and listens to the wind. "Sam, I think it's only natural you should have some violation issues." *Violation issues.* Janet has a lilt to her voice that can make even words like these sound elegant. Sam sniffs hard again, swipes at her cheeks, and something splashes on the distant water. She shifts to face Janet. "Cassie looks taller to me." Janet can't hide a smile, her motherly pride winning over her determination to stick to the topic. She clearly knows she's being manipulated, but she is letting Sam get away with it. "She's grown a lot this semester. She's going to be taller than I am by the time she starts high school." "Yeah, I bet." They talk about Cass for a while. Then, Janet's yawning and her eyelids are drooping. Sam smiles affectionately and says, "Go to bed." Janet nods, half-asleep already. "Okay. What about you?" Her fingers toy feather-light with Sam's hair. "I'll be in in a minute." "An 'I'll-be-finished-with-this-cake-in-a-minute' minute or an 'I'll-be-done-disassembling-this-glowing-alien-gizmo-in-a-minute' minute?" Sam grins. Really grins. "The cake one. But I'm amazed you were able to say that at 2am." "It's 3, and how do you think I got through med school?" She smiles and watches her friend go. Janet pauses at the door. She doesn't say anything. But they hold eye contact for such a long time, and Sam swallows hard and for a moment she feels there's someone playing in her head again. But her stomach doesn't push the sensation away. "Good night," Janet whispers. "'Night." Sam watches the water. No more than ten minutes pass before she heads inside. She takes the afghan with her, and as she nestles into the softness of the guest bed, she feels the ghost of the arms that encircled her with the blanket. She doesn't want to think. She feels. She sleeps. ***** rowan_d1@yahoo.com