"Michonne! What happened?" Rick suddenly asked, grabbing her arm.

"What?" she asked, startled, trying to see what he was looking at.

Sure enough, her shirt was torn and there was fresh blood on her shoulder. It was her blood.

"Did you-" Rick cut himself off before he finished that question. No way she got bit. She would say something. Right?

"Relax! It's nothing," Michonne said, noting the panic in Rick's eyes, "I scraped my arm against a fence back there. Didn't realize it was cut."

Rick felt his heart start beating again. He dropped his hand.

"You're sure you're okay?" he was still worried.

"It's just a scrape. I'm okay, really," she assured him, carefully looking at her shoulder.

Michonne changed the topic, "You're still the patient here, remember?"

"Alright," Rick reluctantly agreed and sat on the side of the bed.

Michonne put the EMT bag next to him and started unpacking things, setting them out on the bedside table. There were gloves, masks, gauze of all shapes and sizes, sterile wipes, IV bags, and an assortment of medicines, sharp scissors, tape, disinfectant, and bandages.

"Okay," Michonne said, "First step, assess the injuries."

At this point Rick wasn't sure if she was talking to him or to herself, so he didn't say anything.

Michonne leaned in close, her face frowning in concentration. Rick held perfectly still. Her fingers gently brushed across his forehead, under his eye, taking in the cuts and bruises that marked his skin, pushed a stray piece of hair back behind his ear.

"I think the swelling is less today," she said, pulling back, "How's your side?"

"Pretty sore," he admitted.

"I already bound it up," he added, lifting up his shirt to show the makeshift bandage that he'd torn from a spare sheet. His side was still red and badly bruised from where he'd been tackled by the Governor.

Michonne nodded approvingly, "It'll probably be sore for a couple days but I don't think anything's broken, or you wouldn't be walking around the way you are."

She watched as he tugged his shirt back down over the bandage. He was not looking forward to what was coming next. The throbbing pain in his leg wasn't as bad when he didn't look at it, or think about it, or touch it.

"And your leg..." Michonne said, right on cue.

Gritting his teeth, Rick managed to carefully untie the bandana that he'd used to stop the bleeding where the bullet had grazed his leg, hoping that would be good enough.

"Gotta take 'em off," she said with a sympathetic grimace.

Rick stood up and awkwardly began to undo his belt. Belatedly realizing how uncomfortable the situation was about to become, Michonne turned her back, pretending to look for something on the table. She waited a little while before peeking back to see Rick, now down to his T-shirt and boxers, drop his gun belt and his torn jeans at the end of the bed and sit back down.

There was a lot of dried blood around the shallow gash in his thigh. Michonne examined the wound with a worried expression, hesitant to touch it just yet. He probably needed stitches, but that was quite outside her realm of experience.

"I think all I can do is clean it up and give you a new bandage," she told him.

Rick took a deep breath, "Okay." This was going to hurt, but he knew that with a proper bandage he would heal much more quickly.

"Alright, now it's time for the next step of first aid," Michonne narrated, looking through the medicines lined up on the night stand and picking the one she wanted.

"And what is that?" Rick asked slowly.

"Step two..." Michonne held up a small dark colored bottle, a glint in her eye, "Morphine!"

Rick cracked a smile at that news, "Alright, doc, get to work."

Michonne unscrewed the cap and began to pour the clear liquid into a tiny plastic cup, saying, "I don't have any idea how much is too much, so we'll start with a little bit and see how that feels, okay?"

"Okay," he agreed. That's probably best. I don't want to be totally passed out in case there's trouble and we need to run again.

Rick took the proffered cup and downed the bitter medicine in one shot. Michonne put the canvas bag on the ground and instructed Rick to lie down. She cleaned off the dried blood as gently as she could.

Fingers laced behind his head, Rick stared up at the ceiling, focused on keeping his breath even.

"How are you feeling?"

Truthfully, he felt rather dazed. The morphine seemed to be kicking in, softening the pounding in his head and the dull ache through the rest of his body that he'd lived with the last two days. Still, the pressure on his injured leg was creating a sharper pain.

"I think I'll have a little more, doc," he sat up unhurriedly, trying to distract himself by teasing Michonne a little bit.

She poured him a little more medicine this time and let that sink in for a few minutes before moving to wrap his leg tightly in a clean white bandage. Her job for the most part done, Michonne cleaned her hands and then tossed the trash into an empty hamper.

Rick's eyes were growing very heavy. He could hardly feel the pain in his leg, or his side, or any of it for that matter. He felt light but also slow, like he was lying on the softest bed in the world and couldn't imagine wanting to move.

"Mi...Michonne..." his voice came out sluggishly, indistinctly.

"Hmm?" she sat down beside him, balanced on the edge of the bed.

"Thank you, Michonne," Rick said slowly.

"No problem," she replied.

"No, thank you, for being here," he said, his voice quiet but clear.

She opened her mouth to respond, where else does he think I would be? but he reached out and closed his hand over hers and she stayed quiet.

"Thank you for being here," Rick continued, his blue eyes thoughtful, "for being who you are. Ya know, Michonne, I think you always show up right when I need you most. I never realized it before, but I think that's how it is. Every single time."

He was quiet for a moment and she almost thought he'd fallen asleep but his voice came softly, "You saved me."

Michonne tried to swallow the lump in her throat. She laced her fingers through his and held his hand tightly. She looked away, staring out the bedroom window, rain streaming against the glass.

Her voice barely above a whisper, she said, "Rick, you saved me too."

She turned her head back to look at Rick. Now he was definitely asleep.