Noventa - A Star Wars Story

Yara watches the boy leave, then rubs her temple, wincing. [i]Was I ever that bad? Probably worse, for a while in any case.[/i]

Then a thought strikes and she checks her wrist chrono--blast, late for the next patient, of course. Straightening up, she scoops up her datapad and heads across the hall to deal with... what was it? Bith children with head colds. Well, that ought to be a picnic by comparison...

/scene?

He released the cred stick and picked up the supplements and looks around the room. Scooting past the doctor he opened the door and made to leave. "I don't think I'll be around to ask."

With that he left.

She looks at the credit stick uncertainly, as if it's an unusual and maybe dubious new species of insect. "Well. If you need anything else, later..."

Somberness was written across his face as he reached down to pull a credit stick from his boot. Handing the required credits to the doctor, he still didn't look her in the eye. "I'm sure a lot of people appreciate what you all did."

It was left implied that he had few positive feelings on the subject.

"We couldn't be everywhere! Force knows we tried--" Yara realizes she sounds more stung than she expected and makes a conscious effort to pull back.

"Aghh, no, I mean--" she rubs a hand over her face tiredly "--it's been a bad time, it's still bad in a lot of places. Fixing it all... it'll take a lifetime, more than one, I suppose. That doesn't mean no one [i]cares[/i]. Just..." she bites her lip, waves a hand uncertainly. "The good guys, they get tired too. There's a reason I can recognize symptoms of exhaustion from half a klick away." She sighs.

"The republic never did anything for me," he said bitterly. "My master just kept moving deeper and deeper into Imperial space and the Republic never came. I waited, and waited, hoping....but the rebellion was just a fairy tale to us."

"Oh, hell," Yara mutters. Then, more audibly, "You know the New Republic senate's reinstated the old ban on slavery for member worlds, right? Enforcement... that's still a problem. But there are a great many places where the law will be on your side."

"It doesn't matter," he muttered with a sense of defeat. "My master."

He turned his eyes to the wall, "I was a slave."

"I--hm. I'm sorry," Yara says softly, slouching a little as she leans her hip against the counter. "You've been doing this for a while, huh? Bounty hunters." She sighs. "That's a tricky one. Who did you get on the wrong side of? Circumstances change... sometimes. People lose interest, regimes fall." She shakes her head. "I know it isn't my business. You can tell me to scud off. It just seems an awful waste."

He couldn't look her in the eye, his gaze firmly on his feet. "I.....have to go. It's not safe for people to be around me, and I can't stop running. I want Noventa to be my home. Make a little farm out in the plains and raise nerfs"

His voice sounded almost wistful thinking about it.

"...but I can't. I have to keep moving, probably until I'm dead, either thanks to bounty hunters or, hopefully, old age." Defeat ate at his words. "That's my life."

"It's fine. If you're working yourself to the point of collapse, you need the twenty credits more than we do." She shrugs awkwardly, setting the bottle on the corner of the exam table. "Barely a rounding error in the supplies budget, really." [i]Of course, the rounding errors add up...[/i] But she is who she is, and Temra is who [i]he[/i] is, and yet somehow the place stays in the black anyway, so they must still be charging enough to the patients who can afford it.

"I don't know if it's any good saying this, but... I've run before. It was a bloody mess, and I waited too long to do it. Just awful. I'd never felt so alone. But... I picked somewhere to run [i]to[/i], and then there were people who wanted to help me and I wasn't alone, even though I still had really nothing to my name and a price on my head." Self-conscious and even more awkward-feeling, she runs a hand through her hair, disarranging a few wavy red strands. "I mean, I doubt it's the same. I don't know what's behind you or in front of you. But I..." Opening her hands, she shrugs again helplessly. "If I hadn't taken help, I expect I wouldn't be here. I certainly don't regret it."

"I don't need charity," the young twi'lek said perhaps a bit more defensively than he'd meant. A mixture of regret at his outburst but still irritation flashed across his downcast features. "I can pay."

"I don't take from good people."

The doctor sighs, rubs the bridge of her nose with thumb and forefinger. [size=85]"And this is why we [i]still[/i] haven't got a new centrifuge," [/size] she mutters, clearly more to herself than to Hin.

Then she jerks open a drawer and her fingertips dance over the lids of a row of bottles. Finding the right one, she plucks it up and holds it out toward Hin. "Consider it a free sample." Sighing again, she adds, "And consider that you don't have to go it completely alone, all right?"

"I-" he was about to make some kind of protest, but words failed him. A sullen look passed his face, defeated, and once again with no good options. If he worked less he could't afford to leave Noventa, if he worked more he might just kill himself anyway. It was a dilemma all too common in the galaxy for the invisible, working masses of every planet. He rubbed his head again, and his eyes began to shimmer with wetness. He looked at the floor and bit his lip, pushing back the emotions that wanted to well up.

[size=85]"How much for the supplements?"[/size] he said in a small, miserable voice.

Yara peers at the monitor, checking the numbers. "Somewhat, yes," she says briskly. "Particularly since it looks like you're slightly nutrient-deficient right now. Balanced supplementation may help you feel better more quickly." She looks up from the device to Hin. "And if you're having difficulty sleeping, we can try some medicine to help with that too. But simply getting [i]enough[/i] rest and food is important as well. I realize cost of living in Providencetown can be... tricky, but it's clear you can't push yourself this way indefinitely. If you've a choice between working like this until you collapse, and cutting back even a little to a schedule your body can sustain, I know which I would recommend."

About to start transferring the data on Hin's vitals to her datapad, she pauses. Perhaps it's just the patient's obvious anxiety rubbing off on her, but she finds herself unusually concerned about his state of [i]mind[/i], not just body. [i]And I am not at all trained for that.[/i] Clearing her throat softly, she adds, "Whatever it is you're running from, or toward--it's no good running yourself into the ground."

His pulse was weak, his breathing elevated, and his neuro-conduction clearly impaired. Still, all within "standard" paramaters. Low, yes, but not dangerously so.

"I....can I still do my shifts? I...," he thought about his words and simply shook his head leaving the question as what it was. "Can these nutritional supplements really help?"

"It may be as simple as getting better rest and some nutritional supplements. That's quite a bit cheaper than stimulants," Yara says a little absently as she touches the scanner's contacts to Hin's arm to measure his basic vitals--temperature, respiratory rate, and so on.

That wasn't exactly what Hin wanted to hear, so he let out his own sigh as he offered his arm. "I don't have much money. I can't afford anything fancy."

Yara swallows most of her sigh before it escapes. "I'm sorry. That sounds quite difficult." She produces a compact little medical monitor from a drawer. "I'm going to take your vitals, and we'll see what I can do for you. But I'll tell you now that there's no [i]sustainable[/i] treatment that will let someone from your species--or mine, or most people's--work many hours a day with inadequate rest and nutrition." Her tone is briskly professional, but at least [i]attempts[/i] gentleness. "Stimulants may give you more energy when you use them, but you're only burning your own reserves. It's rather like spending borrowed credits. If you spend more than you can repay, when the debt comes due it's uncomfortable at best."

She summons a reassuring (she hopes) smile. "We'll find a way for you to feel better. It may be more complicated than an auto-injector, that's all. Would you hold out your arm, please?"

--
Behold the bedside manner of the physician with Presence 2...

Silence followed for a moment either out of contemplation or a general sense of being overwhelmed. In truth he didn't know how to answer the question in either respect and it shown on his face. "Uhhh," he managed to eek you.

"I-I don't think so. I'm just tired, but I really need the credits." He sighed, "And I guess it would be something like....I dunno, 16hrs total, maybe a little more or less depending on the day. As soon as the bar opens in the afternoon till it closes. I'm there the whole time. It was fine starting, but it's been getting worse and worse."