Author's Note: This is my first Dresden Files fic. Like most of the stories I've written over the past year or so, it is based on a prompt from the CommentFic community on LiveJournal. The prompt was: "The Dresden Files, Karrin Murphy+/Harry Dresden(+Thomas Raith), We can't let the bad guys win." It's a short one shot. Hope you enjoy. Reviews are always welcome.

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Karrin grits her teeth and presses down to keep the pressure on Harry's wound. The deep gash in his abdomen continues to gush blood between her fingers, but the flow is slowing, and she takes it as a good sign, because she doesn't allow herself a chance to think of the alternative.

Harry groans and she knows between his gifts and the mantel he bears, his wound should begin healing itself soon. For the interim, she'll just have to take in on faith. She almost scoffs at the place her life has reached that faith in this moment means both God and fairy queens.

Instead, Karrin glances at the smoking ruins around them, the result of yet another fight with forces evil, et al, which they, representing forces good, et al, managed to win by the skin of their teeth.

The coast looks clear and she knows Thomas is out somewhere in the settling dust ensuring there are no stragglers.

Karrin looks back down at Harry to see him staring at her clothes, which are currently covered in blood and she knows he is aware that not all of the blood is his.

"You really need to stop doing this," he says, and Karrin decides to ignore the message and instead focus on the fact that his voice sounds noticeably stronger than it did a few moments before.

"I mean it," Harry said. "This isn't your fight. Why do you keep following me into this insanity?"

Fortunately for Harry, Karrin knows him well enough to not be offended. He always gets morose and self-pitying whenever he or someone else nearly gets disemboweled by a creature looking like it came out of a Raymond Frederick film.

So instead of yelling at the bleeding man beneath her, she simply leans down and gently kisses him on the forehead.

"I'm here because we can't let the bad guys win," she says.

Karrin can't help the smile that grows on her face when she sees Harry looking up her with such tenderness, an expression he doesn't let many people see. She really does love this man, she once again observes.

It doesn't stop her, however, from punching him in the shoulder.