Sarah kissed Church’s neck a few more times playfully, before moving up to his lips and giving him another deep kiss. She stayed cuddled close to him. “I never got a chance to thank you for being so welcoming when we first met.” It was hard to believe that was only a handful of hours ago, after all she had been through. “I was afraid that everyone was going to hate me since I’m loyalty-flagged. They didn’t make me very hopeful at the PES prison...” Sarah was not allowed to talk about her experiences there in any detail, but she shuddered against him. There was the torture, and the obvious tricks to see if she would take an opportunity to escape or help a dissident. There were the humiliating exams and searches where those intruding hands always seemed to linger longer than they should, especially if it was man examining her. Alternating periods of grueling interviews and intense isolation that each lasted for days at a time.<br/><br/>He was right that she did finally feel really alive again, but she also felt incredible loss at everything now denied to her—a career where she could heal people without also having to kill, friends who shared interests she could no longer talk about, the chance to marry and maybe someday have a family. Her sterilization at the hands of the prison hospital had not been optional, and all she had wanted to do as she was lead to the OR was scream at the doctors, make them feel shame for betraying their profession and their Hippocratic Oath in such a monstrous fashion. But in PES, if you could not prove you were loyal you had better at least be able to prove that you knew how to shut the fuck up.<br/><br/>She sighed. “I suppose we shouldn’t stay too much longer. You both could come under suspicion of disloyalty if you spend too much time around me. But I hope we can do this again sometime.” She smiled at Church, though there was the hint of her inner turmoil in those soulful brown eyes.