DISCLAIMER: I only borrowed them for a while. MGM and whoever can have them back whenever they want.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Inspired by a subtle cocktail of Rocketchick's "Frost" and Velvet Underground "Venus in Furs" http://www.rocketfic.com/wallpapers/wallpapers1.php. Katie - thanks for the inspiration, and to my own love as always.
SPOILERS: set during "New Order pt 1" (Season 8)
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author

Venus in Furs
By Celievamp

The white room. She remembered the white room. There was nothing else. White pain unending, refining her, defining her. The only darkness was him, his eyes, full of hate. For her. She had betrayed him. One of many betrayals. She remembered his words.

"My brothers and sisters will devour entire civilisations in order to replicate. But they will know nothing of cruelty. Or betrayal. Or revenge. Not like us."

She had been an excellent teacher: Fifth an apt pupil.

Then it was dark, warm. The world turned inside out. The sensation of fur against her skin, every pore alive with it, heady, sensual, decadent. Even though it was dark, she could see perfectly well. She wrapped herself in sable the contrast making her creamy skin appear almost luminous; luxuriating in it she forgot everything else, everything but this.

"Samantha."

An angel. Silk so pristine pure white it made her ache, nestling in ermine swathing her tiny body like down. Innocence, purity. But there was nothing innocent or pure about the look in the dark eyes watching her, predatory, vindictive.

"I haven't forgiven you either."

"No." She hid her face in the furs. This could not be. Not her. Another of his tricks. She was gone, gone and with her all her hopes, all her love. It had to be false because if it were true then it meant that she had failed her too. That Janet believed she had betrayed her, left her to die.

The soft warm dark fur was gone. She was naked in the harsh darkbright light, no protection, nowhere to hide. Everything was bleak and bright and unforgiving. Fractured reflections from every surface told her how ugly she was, how pitiful, how alone.

"I'm sorry, there wasn't anything I could have done. It all happened so quickly. The Colonel was down and."

"You saved him, but not me."

"It wasn't like that."

"What was it like, Samantha?" Janet flung up her hand and suddenly she was holding a whip. "Were you just following orders again, being the good little soldier, or was it more than that? You saved O'Neill but not me. Why is that, Samantha?"

The pain was somehow cleansing, the hard leather strips scoring across her back and shoulders with every question she had no answer for. Sam fell to her knees. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

The whip descended again and again. Janet seemed tireless, her expression set with righteous fury, pale with venom, eyes wide, glittering. She could feel her flesh part, blood begin to flow across her skin.

"Sorry won't hack it this time, Samantha." The voice bit into her worse than the whip. Janet had never sounded like that. Even when she was righteously pissed with her, her lover had never sounded so cold, so hateful.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I wish I could tell her that for real. My Janet. Because you're not her. You're not her!" She gasped as the whip bit into her back again.

Not real. This was not real. She was still in the white room with him. He was still making her see things, feel things. "This isn't real! I know. I know it's not real!"

Janet threw down the whip, grabbed her by her hair, pulling her head back, staring into her face. "You betrayed me, Samantha."

"Yes," Sam admitted. "Yes, I betrayed you. I betrayed you, Fifth."

He morphed, taking on his own form again. "I wish I could believe that you truly felt remorse for your actions, Samantha. "

"I do, but it won't change anything, you have to know that. You can't change what happened. Is this making you feel better? I never intended to abandon you. You know that. But it's gone too far now. My people, the Asgard - you are our enemy. They will destroy you. It doesn't matter what you do to me. That won't change. It doesn't matter."

"Do you wish to suffer?"

"You believe I deserve it."

"Yes, but so do you. Why? It is more than your betrayal of me."

"Janet Fraiser was the most important thing in my life and I didn't realise it until I lost her. Until I killed her."

"I saw the incident in your memories. A Jaffa killed her. You were not present at the time."

"But I should have been goddammit!" Sam shouted. "I should have been! I should never have let her out of my sight." Her fury exhausted her, in her weakened state all she could do was close her eyes and slump to the cold tiled floor. She was going to die here, she knew that now. She almost welcomed it. Instead, her exhausted mind tipped into sleep.

Silence. Stretching down into eternity. Beyond. Softness around her, under her. She realised that her fingers were slowly brushing through fur again, her face nuzzling into it. She could hear something, someone softly humming a song that she half recognised.

"I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me
Different colors made of tears"

She struggled to open her eyes. "Janet?"

Swathed in pristine white fur, Janet Fraiser, her very own Venus, smiled down at her lover. "Hey sleepyhead. About time you opened your eyes."

"Hey. I was. somewhere else." She sat up, pulled sable fur around her and regarded this new place. The light all around them was golden, warm. The details of the place itself were somewhat inconclusive, shifting, dreamlike. Sam realised that she felt safe here, that this was different and appearances not withstanding, not another illusion. This was someplace else.

"Well you're here now. For as long as you need to be. No one can hurt you here," Janet said. Sam remembered, opened her mouth to say the words but Janet forestalled her, laying a gentle finger on her lips. "There was nothing you could have done, Sam. It was my time. But that's all in the past. We're together now." Her fingers brushed Sam's cheek, Sam turning her head into her touch, brushing her lips across Janet's palm. "I missed you, Sam."

Sam felt something inside her break, but it was a good thing. "I missed you too, Janet. So much. so very much."

On a blanket of ermine under a cover of sable two bodies entwined. In some cultures it would be seen as a song of creation, in others as the end of the world. All they were doing was welcoming each other home in an act so familiar and at the same time completely new. Lips closed around a nipple, suckling gently, fingers stroked across skin, explored moist depths, satin skin rasped in gentle friction, breath sighed across names, declarations of love, of longing. Neither wanted it to end. And in this place of limitless potential, it was possible that it never would.

And in another place entirely Fifth stared down at the crouched woman, her crystal blue eyes open wide but unseeing, her face in slack repose. She had escaped him, left him behind again. Gone where he could not follow, her landscape of dreams turned in on itself. Against all the odds she had won.

The End

VENUS IN FURS LYRICS (Velvet Underground)

Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather
Whiplash girlchild in the dark
Clubs and bells, your servant, don't forsake him
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

Downy sins of streetlight fancies
Chase the costumes she shall wear
Ermine furs adorn the imperious
Severin, severin awaits you there

I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me
Different colors made of tears

Kiss the boot of shiny, shiny leather
Shiny leather in the dark
Tongue of thongs, the belt that does await you
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

Severin, severin, speak so slightly
Severin, down on your bended knee
Taste the whip, in love not given lightly
Taste the whip, now plead for me

I am tired, I am weary
I could sleep for a thousand years
A thousand dreams that would awake me
Different colors made of tears

Shiny, shiny, shiny boots of leather
Whiplash girlchild in the dark
Severin, your servant comes in bells, please don't forsake him
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart

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