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Monica Grimes was a redhead, and she wore horn-rimmed glasses and tweed suits. Her friends thought she was too severe to be pretty, but Janet knew better. She could see beyond the professional façade to the beauty underneath. When she ran into Professor Grimes at a 'special' bar a few miles outside of town, her beliefs were confirmed. The pristine white blouse buttoned all the way to the collar was gone, replaced by a skintight black T-shirt. The skirt that went past the knee was exchanged for artfully ripped blue jeans. Rules prohibited them from dating, but it didn't prohibit quick, heated moments in the hallway that led to the alley.
A semester later, Janet signed up for Professor Grimes' ancient history. She made sure, on the first day, to introduce herself. They had never met before, and they would know each other only through the class. But that didn't mean Janet couldn't fantasize. Besides, ancient history was like her literature class. It gave her mind a chance to relax and be entertained in a way that pre-med couldn't.
It was in Professor Grimes' class that Janet first heard of the Fairest Daughter hoax. A tomb in the Valley of the Kings had been discovered, its contents catalogued. When the artifacts were shipped to be verified, a journal was found among the verified items. The age was right, and everything down to the ink was accurate, but the entries were written in a sort of pidgin dialect of what would have been spoken in the area at the time. Forensic archaeologists translated enough of the writings to determine whoever had written the journal was using a base form of modern English.
The mystery of how such an elaborate forgery could have been created, and how it could have been slipped into the tomb without being noticed, meant that it was a popular subject in history classes. No one had ever admitted to creating the forgery, and it languished in a museum locker for years before it was finally dug up again. Considered a relic in its own right, it was displayed in a separate part of the museum as a historic mystery. It was called the "Fairest Daughter Journal" because it purported to have been written by a pale-skinned, blue-eyed blonde woman who lived in ancient Egypt.
An extra credit assignment in Professor Grimes' class was to translate sections of the journal into modern English. Janet liked translating; it was like working a crossword puzzle or cracking a code. When she couldn't sleep, she would take out the photocopied sheets of the journal's entries and use her dictionary to translate. Over time, she found herself intrigued by the Fairest Daughter. Even if she was fictional, she seemed like a very real person. She didn't hide her frustrations, and she had a great sense of humor.
She apparently lived with two men, also white, and they had to cover their faces when they were in public. But only the Fairest Daughter had to also cover her hair. In the sweltering heat, it couldn't have been very comfortable to be always covered up. Even if she wrapped up her entire head, her eyes would have given her away as peculiar. Fairest Daughter often spoke of long periods of depression, isolation, and feelings of uselessness. Janet's heart broke for her, even though she knew it was only fiction.
After she moved on to medical school and basic training, she occasionally went back to the Fairest Daughter journal. There were pages and pages of the small writing to translate, and sometimes she jumped around to random spots to see what was happening at other points in the fictional mystery woman's life.
It was inevitable, of course, that the Fairest Daughter would eventually intrude on Janet's dreams. She was a beauty, her face hidden by a hood that also kept the blowing sand out of her face. Janet ran across the dunes to her, taking her hand to show her someplace safe. They would hunker down in a shelter that blocked them from the wind and hold each other until the storm passed. Sometimes that was as far as it went. Other times, Janet peeled the clothing off the mystery woman to reveal skin burnt and blistered by the desert sun. She applied salve and met the woman's impossible blue eyes. Janet would take off her own clothes so Fairest Daughter would feel less alone, and they would make love as the desert whipped dervishes around their shelter.
Janet met Sam, her own blue-eyed and blonde-haired beauty, a few years later. The Fairest Daughter soon took on Sam's features, which shouldn't have been surprising. Janet always woke slightly ashamed at what her subconscious had done, but no one was getting hurt by the mingling of two fantasies. And, to her surprise, she quickly discovered that Sam harbored feelings for her as well.
Sam discovered the Fairest Daughter obsession a few months into their relationship. It was a rare sleepover, and Sam looked up from her laptop to see Janet slowly progressing through a translation. She explained about the hoax, and the intriguing tale of the woman the anonymous author had created. "It's a heartbreaking story. She and her friends were apparently stranded in Egypt and they could never go home."
"Never? Why not?"
"The journal doesn't say. She details day to day activities, and she talks about her feelings. Really... really deep feelings of loss." She toyed with the edge of her notebook page. "I feel like if I go through her journal and I read these things, she won't be so alone. I mean, it's so silly. She doesn't even exist."
"I don't think it's silly." Sam leaned over and kissed Janet's shoulder. "I think it's sweet. I think it's a very you thing to do."
Janet turned and lifted Sam's head to kiss her lips. Their kiss became more passionate as Janet put down her notebook and Sam pushed her laptop away. Sam brought her hand up and undid the top button on Janet's pajama top. "Of course, there's a blonde right here who does exist, who really is starting to feel a little alone herself."
"Oh, no." She pushed Sam's hand into her top and kissed her harder. "I'll have to see what I can do about that."
Sam accepted the Fairest Daughter obsession. Janet would often sit up with her reading glasses on, a cheat-sheet of Egyptian phrases borrowed from Daniel tucked under her thigh, and a notebook open with print-outs of the journal lying across the top. Some nights, Sam would dress up and they would play the Fairest Daughter Meets the Egyptologist, and Janet was able to live out some of her collegiate fantasies.
Sam once discovered someone had translated the entire journal back in 1954, but copies of the published version were out of print. She didn't tell Janet about it; it was like the textbooks with the answer at the back. Peeking would ease frustration, but it would permanently destroy the fun of figuring it out for herself.
A few nights after their seventh anniversary, Janet woke to find Sam sitting in the armchair by the closet. She startled at first, but then sat up and drew the blanket to her chest. "Sam. What the hell are you doing sitting in the dark? Come to bed."
"I was thinking."
"About what? The trip to General O'Neill's cabin?"
Sam shook her head. She leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees. Janet sat up as well, letting the blanket pool in her lap. "Sam, you're worrying me. Are you okay?"
"Yeah. I'm okay, I'm fine. I was just thinking about what I would do if I wasn't."
"Sam... come to bed, baby. Please."
"Daniel got Catherine Langford's entire collection of artifacts, odds and ends, everything."
Janet furrowed her brow. "Is this about... Sam, I know she meant a lot to you..."
"Janet, please." Sam's voice was rough. She was staring at her hands. "There was a video camera. It had been recovered on a dig near Giza. Apparently she never watched it, she just put it aside for the right moment. We were able to recover the recording. It was us."
"I don't know what that means."
Sam leaned back in her seat. "It was us. SG-1. We used the puddle jumper's time component to go back in time to ancient Egypt to get a ZPM. We... they... were trapped when some of Ra's Jaffa got their hands on the puddle jumper. But w-th... the team that went back was able to steal the ZPM and hid it away. It was found in the artifacts as well, which means we don't have to go back in time to steal it, so we won't get stranded."
"Doesn't that create a paradox?"
"Daniel says no." Sam laughed and shook her head. "I've been sitting here watching you sleep and wondering about what I would do. And I kept coming up with the same answer." She met Janet's eyes in the darkness. "The Fairest Daughter journal."
Janet covered her mouth.
"A blonde, blue-eyed woman, stranded in the past with her two pale-skinned friends. Their fourth friend looked enough like the locals that he could pass." Sam's hands were shaking. "I wrote that journal, Janet. I went back in time, and I got stuck, and... the loneliness and sadness you were reading about? That was being separated from you."
Janet held out her hand, and Sam finally rose from the chair. She crossed the room and climbed into bed, the blankets wadded up between their bodies as they kissed. Janet put her arms around Sam and pulled her down. "You're the Fairest Daughter. God, I should have known. I should have always known."
"Thank you." Sam ran her hand over Janet's face. "You read those words even though you didn't know they were meant for you. You made her... my work worthwhile. She still went back in another timeline, and she went back knowing you would eventually read her words. And I'm sure... I'm sure that it... made all the difference to her. Thank you for reading."
Janet smiled and kissed Sam. They eventually made it under the blankets, and Janet stripped off Sam's clothes to properly make love to her.
It was another year before Janet learned just how drastically the timeline had been changed. The version of Sam who had been lost in ancient Egypt once mentioned a 'devastating loss.' She read between the lines and realized that somehow, that Sam's version of Janet had been killed. The realization made her nauseated, and she had to take a bath to calm her nerves. She didn't get out until Sam came home to carry her to bed.
They made love like it was the first time, Janet taking the time to notice her lover's fair skin and the pink buds of her nipples. She used her fingers to part Sam's folds and breath in her scent before using her tongue to make her come. Afterward Sam returned the favor, making Janet cry with pleasure.
Janet held Sam as she drifted off to sleep, one eye on the journal and notebook sitting on the desk under the window. One version of Sam had lived out her final decades in the desert, and another version of Janet had died. Whatever had happened and whatever the truth was, it didn't matter. The timeline they were in was the only one of any consequence. Another Sam and Janet had both paid the ultimate sacrifice and made this moment possible.
She would keep translating the journal until it was done, no matter how long it took. She owed the other Sam that much. She kissed the top of Sam's head, cuddled closer against her, and closed her eyes. She had a feeling she would dream of the desert, of a soldier lost in time, and she tightened her grip around Sam's waist so she wouldn't disappear in the night.