13.

"How long has she been like this?" Trip asked, staring down at the figure on the floor. He had never seen Sara this drunk before; in fact, he had never seen her drunk at all. When Phlox had called him to Sickbay, Trip had been sure he was joking. But when he'd entered Sickbay, there was Sara, sitting by the bat's cage with Fuzzy on her shoulder, feeding her from a container and laughing hysterically to herself.

"A couple hours now," Phlox said, shaking his head. "I keep telling her that she doesn't need to come feed Fuzzy because she's still on leave, but she still comes. This is the first time she's shown up intoxicated, though."

Trip sighed. "I'll get her back to her quarters. Come on, Sara, time to go to bed." He bent down and helped the drunken woman to her feet, then slung one of her arms around his neck to help her walk. He led her out of the infirmary and towards her quarters, Sara giggling the entire way.

"You were right, Trip," she slurred, grinning stupidly. "Bourbon is FUN."

"Yes, yes it is," Trip said, trying to ignore the kissy noises Sara was making in his ear. "Just not when you drink that much by yourself."

"It wasn't that much," Sara said stubbornly. "Just a little."

When they reached Sara's room, however, it became apparent that the opposite was true, if the number of empty bottles that Trip had to move off the bed before he deposited Sara on it were any indication.

"Sara, I think you've got a problem here."

"Yeah, the problem is I'm out of bourbon."

"No, seriously. There are 5 empty bottles here. You've been on medical leave for five days. This is not a good thing."

"Stops my leg hurting better than the painkillers," Sara said, waving her hands in the air. "Makes the pain go POOF! away." She sat up and giggled again.

Trip sighed again. "No more bourbon," he said, sitting down next to her on the bed. "You're gonna get yourself killed drinking a bottle a day. Even I don't drink that much on leave."

"I feel fine though!"

"Yeah, for now. In a couple hours, you're gonna be vomiting and swearing and feeling like you're going to die."

"Yeah, but I feel fine right now," Sara insisted. She wrapped her arms around Trip's shoulders and leaned in close. "I feel VERY fine. Very very very fine."

"Oh for the love of god," Trip said, trying to move Sara's arms. "You're REALLY drunk."

"Please?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because you're drunk."

"I see no problem with that."

"You don't, but I do," Trip said, finally disengaging Sara's arms. He held her wrists firmly in his so she couldn't move them again and looked her straight in the eyes. "If this was going to happen, I'd much rather it happened when BOTH of us were sober. This isn't you, Sara, and I don't want us to do this when you're not yourself."

"Then what do you want?"

"Talk to me," Trip said gently. "Tell me what's going on. Tell me why you've been drinking all this bourbon. Tell me something hilarious, tell me something disgusting or wrong, it doesn't matter. Just talk to me."

Sara's eyes filled with tears, and Trip quietly thanked every deity he could think of that he'd managed to get her to her room and closed the door before he made her cry. But what came out of her mouth next was completely unexpected. "I saw them," she whispered. "My husband. My grandmother. Elizabeth. Before you woke me up, I saw them."

"You saw Lizzie?"

Sara nodded. "They were waiting for me. They were going to take me with them. I was so close…I could hear Elizabeth's voice. It had been so long, I'd forgotten what she sounded like. She was calling to me. So was Andrew. So was my grandmother. I could hear all three of them. And then I woke up, and they were gone. But I can still hear them, in my head sometimes. In my dreams. When I was in Sickbay, I could still hear them. I begged Phlox to give me sedatives so I wouldn't dream about them anymore, but he said they'd go away. When I got out, they didn't. The bourbon made them stop." She started sobbing. "I just wanted them to stop."

Trip pulled Sara close and put his arms around her, letting her cry on his shoulder. "Phlox was right. They'll stop eventually. This isn't the way to do it, though."

"I don't know what else to do," Sara said, her voice muffled by Trip's uniform. "I'd talk to my kids or my parents, but they're not here, and I couldn't write to John because he's off on another assignment and negotiations apparently aren't going well."

"And what am I, chopped liver?"

"You've got your own set of problems to worry about," Sara pointed out. "With the damage the engines have been taking since the war started and a host of other things on this ship. I didn't want to dump my problems on you too."

"Well, I appreciate your consideration, but it's a little late for that now. You need anything, you get me, or you have someone find me, you got it?"

Sara nodded. "I got it."

"I'm gonna look out for you as best I can while we're out here together. I promised your momma as much when I wrote to her to let her know we'd rescued you, and I intend to keep that promise. You get some rest now, try and sleep off that bourbon, OK?"

Sara sat up and wiped her eyes on her own sleeve, then started looking around the room muttering to herself. "What now?" Trip asked, worrying that she was looking for more bourbon.

"Trash can," Sara muttered. "Just in case." In short order, the trash can was found and placed next to Sara's bed. By the time Trip left the room to attend to a disturbance in the engine room, Sara was fast asleep.

Hours later, Sara sat up and looked around. She felt her head, and it was clammy, a clear sign that she had been sick at some point; a quick inspection of the garbage can next to her bed confirmed it. She wrinkled her nose and disposed of the bag quickly, along with the empty bourbon bottles. She stripped off her clothes and climbed into the shower, letting the hot water flow over her for god knows how long before washing her hair and cleaning the scent of bourbon from her body.

She walked back into her room and changed into a new pair of standard issues, then wrapped herself in a fluffy burgundy bathrobe that she'd packed in her bag before leaving Earth. She hadn't been thinking of bringing it, but her mother had said that there would probably be some night when she'd need it, so she popped it into her duffle and used it to safely transport family pictures. She sat on the bed and leaned back, just taking a moment to relax and try and remember what the last thing she had done was. She turned the same color as her bathrobe when she had a vague remembrance of hitting on Trip.

A knock on her door interrupted her thoughts. "Come in," she said. The door opened, and Sara groaned and buried her face in her hands as Trip walked in. "Yeah, I'm not gonna lie, not all that happy to see you. I'm starting to remember the bourbon haze and I'm embarrassed as hell."

"Then I guess you don't want the food I brought."

Sara peeked out from between her fingers and noticed the trays of food. "…you can stay…" she said cautiously. "Just please, for the love of all things sacred, do not judge me for drunkenly hitting on you."

"If that's the only stupid thing you do while you're drunk, you're a pretty lightweight drunk."

"Lightweight?" Sara said, sounding a little offended. "I drank an entire bottle of bourbon and didn't die!"

Trip snorted. "Did you get sick?"

"I don't remember, but the garbage can's contents before I got rid of them said I did, and fairly violently."

"Then yeah, lightweight."

"Oddly enough, I'm hungry as hell," Sara said, digging into the food. She chewed it thoughtfully. "Hey, Chef didn't burn anything today!"

"I know, it's a miracle," Trip said, halfway through his food already. "I don't usually eat anything Chef's made this fast."

Dinner was mercifully uneventful, and after they were finished eating and Sara had brushed her teeth, insisting that she didn't want to subject anyone to roast beef breath, they sat around talking for a while about random things, when Sara remembered something that had been bothering her since she woke up.

"Hey, when I was drunk…there's something that you said that I've been trying to figure out."

"And what's that?"

"When I was hitting on you, you said that you didn't want us to do anything when I wasn't myself."

"Yeah, I remember that."

Sara paused, unable to look Trip in the eye as she asked the next question. "Um…I was just wondering…I have to ask…did that mean you'd considered…with me…doing something…um…yeah, you know what? Just forget I even brought it up."

"That's not a question you can easily forget, you know."

"Yeah, but I think it would do both of us a world of good if you just forget I even tried to ask it."

"Well…"

"Well what?"

"Don't you want to know what my answer is?"

Sara's head was back in her hands from embarrassment once more. It was almost as if she were still drunk and doing something even worse to make an ass of herself. "I'm not sure I should."

"It's yes, by the way."

Sara looked up with a look on her face that could only be described as "Deer in the Headlights." "…what…"

It was Trip's turn to look embarrassed. "Well, yes…" he muttered.

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

"Um, wow," Sara said, unsure of how to react. "This is new."

"This is very new."

"Since when?"

"The last month or so."

"It is very new then."

"What about you?"

"Me?"

"Besides in a bourbon-induced haze, have you ever thought…"

"Um, a few times. When I was a teenager mostly."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. I kinda had a crush on you back then. Elizabeth teased me about it a lot until college."

"She would. How long'd this crush go for? Even when you were married?"

Sara stuck her tongue out at Trip. "By the time I was married, I was over you."

"So if I were to kiss you right now, you wouldn't feel anything?"

Sara blinked. "I haven't had sex since before my daughter was born. Of course I'd feel something."

"Three years? It's been that long?"

"I had other things to worry about."

"Not even…"

"Yeah, difficult to do that with kids knocking on your door all the time."

"So three years with nothing."

"Yup. So if you were to kiss me right now, you'd definitely get a reaction."

"Challenge accepted." And before Sara could ask what he meant, Trip leaned over and kissed her.

It had been a long time since Sara had kissed someone who wasn't her husband; hell, it had been three years since Sara had kissed anybody. Kissing someone she'd known for years, someone she considered a friend, hadn't been part of Sara's plans, but for some reason, it felt right. More than that, it felt comforting; more comforting than the bourbon or her bathrobe, which she instinctively took off and flung to the floor.

"A little much for one kiss, isn't it?" Trip said when they'd broken apart.

"I told you that you'd get a reaction," Sara said. Her heart was racing; there was definitely a reaction.

"We do this, it changes everything."

"I know."

"Before we do, what do you want?"

"Comfort," Sara said. "I just want to feel anything other than how I've been feeling. You?"

"I'd be lying if I said I was all right after watching you nearly get murdered. So we're agreed. Comfort."

"Yeah, comfort."

"Good to know."

"Trip?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up," Sara said, pulling Trip into another kiss and praying that nobody would try and pay a visit until after he was gone. There was a flurry of zippers and blues going in every direction, and then they were lying in Sara's bed, as physically close as two people could get.

It was different; different than it had been with Andrew. The movements were slower, more deliberate, and oddly enough, more tender in a way. Every move made Sara's skin feel like it was on fire, every kiss felt new and exciting. In her most secret dreams, Sara had never imagined that it could be like this with anyone, much less Trip. Somehow, he knew exactly what she wanted, and when, and how, and it was extremely difficult to keep her moans of pleasure quiet so that nobody knew what was going on.

When they finally finished together, exhausted and covered in sweat, Sara rolled over and faced the door to her bathroom, trying to catch her breath. She smiled as she felt Trip's arm go around her waist and pull her close, resting his head on her shoulder and then gently kissing her neck. Her heart was still racing, faster than her mind, and neither was telling her that this had been a good idea.

The thing that she found extremely odd? Neither her heart nor her head was telling her it had been a bad idea either.