There had been a time, however brief it was, when Rae had struggled with the idea of having taken someone else's life. In fact, in the brief moments that she'd managed to catch an hour or two of sleep, she had nightmares about the woman haunting her, and explaining how she'd been a mother in pre-apocalypse times, how Rae, of all people, should be horrified at separating a mother from her child. She'd dreamed of the possibility that the child was still there. Or worse still, that the woman had been carrying a child. Maybe it wasn't true. She didn't know.
She didn't regret it, not in the slightest. There was no way she was going to lose him. But the nightmares, and the fact that she didn't know if the woman was truly as bad as the rest of the group... that would haunt her. "I'd do it again, if it meant keeping you alive," she told him with a little smile. "I'd do it a thousand times over if I had to," she added. And deal with all the repercussions.
With a hard blink to push away some of the tears, she gave him a genuine, though weak, smile. "I'm glad to hear that," she said. "I can't help it," she told him honestly when he told her to stop. Over the past few days, her mind had been swimming and sinking with worry. That the morning before they'd left would be the last time that she got to see his eyes open. That he'd never smile at her again. That he'd have died, without knowing that she loved him. The reassurance was hollow, only because it wasn't really true. It was possible that much less could take him from her. But he'd survived. Right now, she decided to focus on that. "Don't ever leave me. Please," she spoke, a quiet, desperate command, which probably sounded far less commanding with the tone she spoke it in. "I know you already told me, you already promised, but..." she trailed off. Maybe the request was heavy, taking into consideration the short amount of time that they'd been together. But she couldn't imagine living without him. She'd already had to imagine it, these past few days, and she didn't like what she'd seen.
Nodding her head, she gave him a little shrug. "I'm not either," she told him with a little smile. "But I read it. Maybe I can bring you the book? It was from the library," she offered. Somehow, she had a sneaking suspicion that her next few days would be filled with a lot of running back and forth. Especially once—if, her mind taunted—April woke up. "Not immediately, but soon." Because she wasn't leaving right now.
As much as she wanted to argue that she was better equipped to fend off a wound like than than he was, now wasn't the time. She just sighed and shook her head. "I healed from having a pen stabbed through my hand. So being shot should be okay. Right?" So a gunshot should have been nothing. "But it doesn't matter. We can't go back and change things, so..." she sighed. So he was stuck in this bed for the time being. When he smiled, Rae felt one side of her mouth curling into a matching smile against her volition. "I said anything, didn't I? As long as it's not to pull the plug, or something drastic like that..." she responded with a humorless laugh.
Rae was surprised when he hugged her tighter, but she sank into it and closed her eyes. Embarrassingly enough, she found herself leaning into his touch, too. Through the tears, she smiled, bittersweet though it was. She knew, deep down, that there had been more than just the promise keeping him alive, but she'd take the reassurance for what it was. "I believe you," she spoke softly, a few more tears that she'd forced herself to keep back leaking out. "You've never lied to me before. I've got no reason not to believe you," she added.
The callouses of his fingers were a comfort to her, and she shook her head. "I'm not mad." She didn't think she'd ever be able to be mad at him again. At least not for a long time. She brought her hand up to touch his hand on her cheek, and then turned her head to kiss his palm. "Maybe if you hadn't come back, I'd be mad," Not entirely true, but he knew the truth either way. "But you did."