Noventa - A Star Wars Story

/scene!

"I'll try," she said, returning the smile with a wave as she departed the exam room.

/scene?

The doctor smiles. "Just try not to undo all my hard work too quickly, Quinn. If you've thrown in with Cal, there's no point telling you to stay out of trouble entirely."

Assuming Quinn's clothing is all returned to normal, she taps the button to open the exam room door.

"Nothing I can think of right now, thanks. Thanks doc, you're a lifesaver."

"Relative to a settled businessman like Cal, at least," Yara temporizes. "Nearly a pillar of the community, really." She taps the command to save the patient file. "In any case, you're all set--unless you've any other concerns?"

"I'm not a stray," she said, frowning a little at the term. "I think."

"Ah, all right." The doctor's lips quirk as she makes a note. "I know Cal. I'd no idea he was taking in strays, though."

"Oh, right. Well, you can call Cal Arcton at the 12 parsecs, if that ever becomes relevant."

Yara lets the silence stretch a little longer than is probably comfortable for either of them. When it's clear Quinn isn't going to answer, she sighs slightly. "I ask because I need to enter an emergency contact for my patient file. And I'd like to know that you have someone to look after you before I discharge you. In case of complications."

Quinn just shrugged her shoulders. She really didn't want to talk about them. That'd just open up a can of worms.

"And your family...?" Yara does the best casual-gentle sort of voice she can manage.

In the teaching hospital on Hosnian I, a minor dropping in unaccompanied with injuries like Quinn's would have obligated the physician who treated her to file a mandatory report and parental notification form. Yara had gotten the vague impression things had been a bit more lax on Coruscant, at least for non-wealthy patients, but by then she'd moved over into research and wasn't spending much time with patients anyway.

"I'm from Esseles," she said.

That was one of the original founders of the old republic, the capital world of the Esseles Empire before it collapsed after the clone wars, and known for its stunning architecture.

"But I haven't been back there in a while."

"Grange, originally," Yara says, naming a backwater agricultural planet in the Mid-Rim. "I went to university on Hosnian Prime and had my residency and postdoc on Coruscant, though." Still tapping at the datapad screen, she adds, "Yours isn't a local accent either, I notice."

"I guess," she hopped off her chair. "Where are you from, doc?"

"It was there for anyone who looked closely enough." The set of the doctor's face tightens as she reaches over to retrieve her datapad from the counter and begin updating Quinn's chart. "It was very easy not to look, for Humans at least, but not hard to see once you had to look. In my experience, in any event." The brittle consonants of her Core accent are particularly clear just now.

"Lot of people in the core thought the empire was pretty good though. They didn't see the bad sides the way people have on the rim."

"Hmm." Yara pats the edges of the last synthskin patch, making sure they're firmly adhered. "Listen to your ethical sense, is the most I can suggest. Don't confuse it for self-interest. That's advice from experience." She sighs as she pushes her chair back from the examining table. "I know... harder than it sounds. If things are less clear-cut for your generation than mine, that's a good thing, really. It would mean we've taken the really awful options off the table."

"I guess so," she said, trying out a bit of stretching when the moment presented itself... to see if things were feeling any better. "What do you do if you don't know what the sides even are, though?"

"Well, that's life, I'm afraid."

"Sounds complicated."