From Cake's "When You Sleep."
Her hands are quiet when she sleeps. Sam isn't sure why she noticed, or even why she cares, but there it is: Janet Fraiser's hands are quiet when she's sleeping.
She thinks maybe she noticed because when she's awake, those hands are always so busy. They take temperatures, they give injections, they jot down notes, they type. They drum absently, they cook a mean soufflé. They hold a pen, they slice with a scalpel. They do anything, those hands.
But not when she's asleep. When she's asleep, they're curled neatly, innocently. They lie still, they don't twitch, not even when her face does. They just lie there, and they fascinate Sam.
She wants to touch one. She wants to reach out with a finger of her own and touch those amazing hands. She imagines they'd be soft and delicate, like they look, even if she knows that that pale olive skin is well worn with calluses and healed blisters.
And yet, she doesn't. She lies awake, and she watches. She waits, half-hoping, for them to move, to twitch, to do something like a normal persons' hands do. And yet, they don't. They're still. And yet, she waits.
She wonders if maybe the reason she's so captivated is because the ratio of the lengths from knuckle to knuckle is closer than usual to the golden ratio. She wonders what frequencies of light that skin reflects to give it such a pleasant colour. She wonders if it's really healthy to be thinking these sorts of things at two in the morning, when she has to get up again in three hours to save life and limb.
She wonders if Janet would wake up if she touched her hand.
A hypothesis needs an experiment to validate or disprove it. So she reaches out with a finger, just one, and touches Janet's hand. She traces the edge of her palm, down from the heel to the littlest finger and then up, over the swell of their curl, and all the way to the nail.
There, she pauses, looks briefly at Janet's face. She's still asleep. Sam skims over the other fingers, following the index down to the thumb and up, then back down into the palm. She pauses again and draws a small circle.
Janet's eyelids flutter and Sam withdraws her hand, regretting the loss. The sleeping hand had been surprisingly soft beneath her finger. It had been warm, and dry, and safe.
She wants to touch it again, and this time, she doesn't think she'll care if Janet wakes up.
So, boldly, she reaches out the few inches and slips her fingers beneath the relaxed thumb, holding on gently. For a moment, there's no reaction. Then Janet smiles, sighs quietly, and snuggles a little further into her sleeping bag, scooting closer to Sam. Just for a second, her hand squeezes Sam's.
It's enough to throw her mind for a loop. Those perfectly motionless hands have suddenly moved. She doesn't understand. It just doesn't seem right, somehow. It shouldn't be possible.
Sam likes the impossible.
She wants it to happen again.
She turns her eyes from Janet's hand to Janet's face. Her face is quiet, too, when she sleeps. It's peaceful, like her hands. So vivid in the day, now so calm. There's an errant piece of hair, though. Janet wouldn't want that, Sam thinks – nothing about Janet Fraiser is ever supposed to be errant. She uses her free hand to brush the hair back.
This time, Janet's eyes open. They register the face less than a foot away, and the hand touching her forehead.
"Sam?" she questions, her voice hoarse from sleep.
"Hi," says Sam, not quite ready to retract her hand. She tucks the errant hair behind one ear.
"What…" Janet blinks slowly a few times. "What're you doing?"
"I'm fixing you," Sam replies, and through the two-in-the-morning haze in her mind, it makes perfect sense. She thinks it does for Janet, too.
"Oh," says Janet, her eyes closing again. One of those hands of hers lifts itself up and catches Sam's, bringing it to her mouth. "Sh," she whispers to the connected hands, then sets them back down to the ground between them.
A long minute passes, and Sam thinks Janet's fallen asleep again. But then, one of the magical thumbs brushes back and forth over Sam's own hand. "Are you watching me?" her voice asks sleepily.
"I'm watching your hands," Sam tells her. "They're quiet."
"And I'm not," Janet breathes, obviously still half asleep.
"Not as quiet as your hands," Sam confirms. Janet yawns and Sam finds herself mimicking it. Tiredness washes over her, not for the first time. "I love your hands," she whispers.
Janet's lips quirk slightly. "Thanks," she says.
Sam watches her for a moment through half-closed eyes. Her hands are still in Janet's. "I love you," she murmurs distantly.
Janet's eyes open for a moment and then close again. Her half-smile spreads. "I know," she says aloud.
Her hand squeezes Sam's and says, better than two-in-the-morning words ever could, that she loves her too.