Nodding at Mika, Dean placed the gauze in his hand against the sides of the wound, pulling the open sides together as he approached with the needle.  He smiled brightly at her joke about her back, and nodded once again, pushing the needle into the first side of the wound, “Yeah.  Compared to how Bobby described your back, this should be nothing…aside from you being awake.  But hey! Battle scars and a story to tell. Right?”

He joked with her as best he could, trying to calm his own nerves as he tied off the first stitch and moved to the next.  He chuckled at his thoughts and tied off a second stitch, happy that at least the wound seemed to be coming together without much effort.

“You remember the time I had to have stitches across my nose, because a certain someone can’t hold their liquor….and pushed me off that deck in Muskogee?”, he asked her with a bright smile covering his nerves, “Dad was so mad.  I was out for like two weeks because of that…”

He laughed, finishing up the halfway point of her stitches.  He took a deep breath, and glanced up at her face, “How you doing?”