After the incident with Minako's arm, Ami was making it a point to be very thorough in any assessment she had to do of any single injury, no matter how small. After determining that Rei wasn't in any form of a critical condition, she turned her attention instead to Makoto and her injured hand. The gash across the back was a clean cut, thankfully, but still rather long. She had lost more blood than Ami would have liked, but not enough to require a blood transfer.

"How long has it been since this happened?"

"Uh…"

"Roughly."

"Maybe thirty minutes. Maybe a little longer? I'm not sure how long we fought at the port." Makoto tilted her head as she watched Ami work. Nothing to her was cuter than a really focused Ami.

"Can you move your fingers?"

"Mm." Makoto did as instructed, though the movement was limited.

"What about feeling?"

"It feels mostly numb. I can feel my fingers move, but not the normal way."

Ami frowned at that and pulled one of the new medical boxes to her, opening it and grinning a little at all the new supplies. It was going to make this task that much easier to handle. First was cleaning up all the blood so she could see exactly what she was doing. While she would have preferred to wear gloves, she needed to save the few that came in a kit for serious emergencies and knew that everyone, outside of Minako, didn't carry anything pathogenic in their bloodstream.

As she reached for a paper towel, she hissed a little.

"What's wrong?" Immediately Makoto had her hand held, looking at it.

"Just a splinter. I caught it pulling the board up onto the ship. I can get it out with the tweezers here." Pulling her hand away, she did just that before resuming her previous task. "This might hurt some if you can still feel."

Gently, she took to washing the back of Makoto's hand. While Makoto didn't make any noises of protest, her face did contort in some pain, which Ami took as a good sign. It meant she hadn't severed any nerves from the looks of it, just exposed them to the air, making them extremely tender. After setting all the cleaning supplies to the side, she picked up a syringe and a bottle.

"…Ami, what's that for?"

"I'm going to have to numb your hand to do the stitches."

"You didn't numb Rei the other day!"

"I didn't have anything to numb her with. Trust me, it'll hurt a lot less this way."

Makoto pouted instantly. While Ami being a doctor could be cute, she was a lot more brash and straight forward, not caring what the person she treated liked or disliked. "Ami…"

Ami finally looked up after she got the right amount of fluid into the syringe to be met with what she called Makoto's 'puppy dog eyes.'

"You're not even afraid of needles, Makoto."

"That doesn't mean it doesn't hurt though."

Ami sighed for a small moment and brought her fingers up to rest on her nose between her eyes, closing them. There were just some times she had to come up with ways to make things work in her favor. This was a time she wished she didn't have to given the seriousness of the situation. Makoto had already lost a lot of blood and her hand had been exposed to the air and held the risk of something getting to it and creating a host of complications and diseases. And yet, she wanted to play this game now of all times.

"Look. If you behave while I do this and don't whine or complain, I'll give you a kiss in return." A simple gesture, but one that hopefully would work.

"Just a kiss?"

"Makoto." Ami growled out the warning that she didn't really have the patience for this at the current time. And if there was one thing Makoto knew, it was not to piss Ami off.

"Kiss it is." With that, she held her hand out.

Ami eyed it for a moment before injecting the liquid into five different areas of her hand and putting the cap back onto the syringe to keep it from poking someone else until she could dispose of it whenever they landed again. Then she moved to get the items out to stitch her hand back up. Once each item was pulled out and laid out, she leaned up and grabbed Makoto by the front of her shirt firmly.

"Just so we're clear, Makoto…I'm not really fond of these games when I'm having to stitch you back up. Clear?"

Makoto had to swallow at the tone Ami gave the threat in for two reasons. One was that it was absolutely terrifying and the second was that it was incredibly hot. "Clear."

"Good. Next time I won't be so kind and next time you'll be sleeping in the library." Without allowing room for a retort, she leaned forward and firmly pressed her lips to Makoto's for a few moments before pulling away.

With Makoto appeased, she picked up her needle and thread and set to work on the task of putting Makoto's hand back together. Unfortunately, it was likely going to have a scar that would be fairly visible and there would have to be physical therapy work to get her hand back to maximum function, but in the back of her mind, Ami knew that wouldn't an issue. There were always extracurricular activities to help with that part.

After a silent fifteen minutes, Makoto's hand was put back together and Ami worked on wrapping it up next.

"Your hand is going to swell in a few hours and it's probably going to become incredibly painful after the shot wears off. You need to tell me so I can redo the wrapping on it so it's not cutting your circulation off and causing any further damages."

"Yes ma'am."

Pleased with her work, she pulled a small box towards her that was her own and fiddled with the content inside for a bit. "You should get some rest, Makoto." Her voice was softer now that she knew the injury had been taken care of and she felt guilt nipping at her for the tone she had taken earlier in their conversation over the needle.

"Here?"

"For now. That way I can make sure nothing happens while I go look over Rei. I can wake you up when I leave if you want."

"Mm.." Makoto made a noise of agreement before shifting to lay down, watching Ami sit down on the bed next to her.

"Sorry."

"For what?"

"…." Ami was quiet for a moment as she looked down at her hands. "Being so harsh."

Makoto smiled and reached up to put her good hand on Ami's arm. "You were just trying to do your job, Ami. It's okay."

Still, that didn't stop the guilt gnawing at her. After bringing her hand up to her mouth for a short moment, she compensated by leaning down and kissing Makoto again, this time swiping her tongue across her lips so she could gain access. Once that was permitted, she slipped a pill into Makoto's mouth and continued to kiss her, forcing her to swallow it before pulling away.

"That was mean…"

"Getting you to take a pill is harder than getting you to accept a needle. You got a kiss out of it though."

"Still cheating."

Smiling a little, Ami leaned forward and kissed her again. "I'll make it up to your properly later, promise. But I'm afraid Rei still needs to get some attention before she wakes back up."

"Deal. But no complaints on whatever I do later."

Well that sounded a bit concerning for sure. Makoto was very good at surprising Ami with new things or wanted to try something new. Whether it was a new combat technique, a new word she had learned, or something new to try in bed.

"We'll see."

"Aww come on Ami. I've had a long day."

"All the more reason to rest, Mako. No complaints, deal."

Grinning, Makoto stretched a little and rolled onto her side to get some rest. Ami smiled and covered her up with a blanket, softly humming and running her fingers through Makoto's hair after removing the ponytail until the girl fell asleep a few minutes later.

Now it was time to see how her Captain was doing.


Sorry for this super delay! I'm balancing a ton of exams at once in my classes.

This was solely a MakoAmi chapter, but things start to get really interesting REALLY soon I promise you that. Starting with the next chapter, I hope. I think it's going to be a split character chapter.

Thank you so much for all the encouragement to keep this going! I promise it's not dead, not by a long shot. I can't wait for all my little tricks I've put into each chapter to come through. Everything is relevant. :D