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[Salig Danza]

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Shots echoed out across the nearly abandoned alleys of Coruscant as Salig dashed down the sidewalk. He shoved men and women out of his way as 3 gangsters chased him in a rapid pursuit. "HEY STOP THAT FETHIN' PIECE OF CHIT!" One yelled at one as he blindly shot at Salig's silhouette.​

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"Acch, CHIT!" He cursed, diving into a small apartment building. He stumbled up the small stairwell, blood pouring down the steps. "Not good, not good, ah that hurts." Salig's old coat was now colored a deep red, only to be taken off as he tried to find his communicator. He had come in contact with a small-time medic in search of credits, who didn't have any qualms getting dirty. Thank god she was in the area, or he would be dead within the next 24 hours.​

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"C'mon, pick up, pick up..." Salig muttered, as repeatedly dialed his possible savior.​

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[member="Mica Chanda"]​

 

[Mica Chanda]

[member="Salig Danza"]

"Miss, you have a call," The droid assigned to this med-bay said. Mica resolutely ignored it. She was having the worst night. Three drunks, two broken bones, and some idiot who managed to light his entire arm on fire and not put it out. Coruscant was out in full force tonight and she was incredibly tired of it already. But, she still had hours and hours left to go on her shift. The creds were decent because of the graveyard shift, but she was getting frustrated with the inebriated idiots who strolled through. She'd even had to get a few shots into a Wookie. A frakking Wookie!

Mica sat back in her rolling chair and propped her feet up on the desk where all of the datapads of patients and machine equipment were scattered around. She idly kicked a few of them to the side to nestle back in the comfortable leather. At least this place had good digs, better than her measly workshop on the space port not too far out into space from here. An old friend had offered her these shifts to get some money to her name and she didn't mind staying up all night. She got to make fun of the drunks and set some bones and pass out bacta. Except for the Wookie. That part had terrified her.

"Miss, again, you have a call."

The droid were frelling annoying though, protocol and no personality. She hated when the working droids weren't allowed a personality chip here and there. She'd even programmed one to give sass to the chief of medicine on the space station outside Hapan once. That had been fun. This little droid rolled up to her, a datapad with a blinking commlink outstretched for her. Poor thing, it was just trying to do its job.

"Miss..."

"Ok, what already!" She snapped and took the comm channel from the droid, which beep happily and rolled away to straighten the bacta pacs by one of the beds. The link was from the contact number she usually gave out in some seedy areas, fight clubs, bars with penchants for gang trouble, or even to some of the people too spooked to go to a real med bay. Mica tapped in her passcode and opened the comm line.

"Look, it's been a long night and I've got too long to go here, if you're drunk, find a bathroom to yak it up in and you'll be fine," Chanda said over the open comm link, twirling it in her hands.

 

[Salig Danza]

'Well, at least she's friendly.' Salig thought to himself. He faintly heard the sounds of shouting outside the building, but it grew distant as the gangsters sprinted down the block. The water must have washed away the trail of blood he assumed. His first day out of prison in over a year, went off with a bang. Late in the night, as he collected his meager items from the front desk of some Republican bureaucrat, Salig managed to make down about 5 feet before getting stopped by a rather large group of goons, much to the ignorance of the under-staffed police. Since being in jail for a year couldn't expand his portfolio much, he was unable to pay off the debts he owed, which led him to bleeding out in some random room, in some random tenement he couldn't name.

"Look, - phrikin' A, this hurts - you're a doctor, righ'? Chanda somethin'? I'm going to be straight with you: I took a shot in the shoulder 'bout 10 minutes ago, and I'm bleedin' out here. Ya' better have location services or some chit, because I ain't doin' hot here. Ah, phrik this hurts.Tell me what to do or I'm done for. " Salig wheezed, hyperventilating as he tried to take a look at the wound. He pounded his fist on the wet carped in anguish, as he gritted his teeth.

He needed help, and he needed it fast.

[member="Mica Chanda"]

 

[Mica Chanda]

[member="Salig Danza"]

Hearing the wheezes of tell-tale pain Mica sighed, running a hand over her face. I've got to stop giving my line out to people like this. She ignored the thought as she scooped up a few datapads and grabbed her doctor's bag. The thing was old and beat up, but she was loyal to it, no matter how many new toys she swiped to use. The guy must have been desperate to reach out to a two-bit doctor in the city, one he barely knew the name of. By the sound of things, he didn't have much choice though nd now neither did she. Mica quickly made her decision and swung herself out of her chair, grabbing her oversized medic's coat as she did.

"Chanda, yes, and you're not going to be doing hot for a while, you frelling idiot," She snapped. "I've got a locator program I'll run."

The droid eagerly beeped and wheeled it's way towards her, already beginning to ask what it could do. Mica waved it away and activated the medical hologram that could handle instructing the medical droids at the med stations on what to do for basic treatments. As she stuffed an extra handful of bacta into her bag, she slipped the commlink device into her ear so she could walk him through at least stemming the blood.

"You need to grab a big bunch of fabric, preferably clean, brace yourself against something, and press it to the wound as hard as you can. And I mean I want to hear you scream hard," She said. "I'm not kidding either. You hold it there and if the bleeding doesn't feel like it's slowing down, you stay upright."

With those instructions, but keeping the commlink open, she glanced down at the locator on the pad in front of her. It wasn't incredibly far, but she wasn't going to wait around for a shuttle. The med-bay had speeders for these types of emergencies, though those usually involved babies or dire emergencies. She could write this one off as an emergency though, the guy had been shot.

"I'm five minutes out, you know what room you're in or am I going to have to go door to door asking for the blaster-shot victim?"

 

[Salig Danza]

Salig shook in violent tremors as he watched his shoulder become bathed in blood as he shimmied his way up the wall. "Who's the one shot here you two-bit phrik!?" He cursed as he collapsed on the floor with a grunt. Every single movement, every single twitched, screamed in his brain with absolute pain. He had been shot before, but nothing in his 26 years in the violent slums and streets of Coruscant had ever compared to the sharp anguish that took a hold of him now.

"Uh, third floor, second room on the right. The trail of blood should be a good sign to where I'm holed up though." His voice quivered, as he began frantically ripping off the curtains off the windows. Salig tightly wound the dusty fabric into a tight ball around his fist, and slammed into his gaping wound. His vision went red and everything seemed to shake around him, as he dropped to his knees. Salig only barely noticed the fact that he was screaming his head off, being too focused on banging his against the dirty walls to take his mind off the pain.

"HURR' THA' FETH UP!" He slurred, a small pool of blood entering his mouth as Salig bit on the inside of his cheek. Blood was now smeared and ingrained into the already filthy carpet, and cracks had appeared in the windows from him pounding his fist into the fragile glass. To Salig, out of all his years, he couldn't think of a worse feeling than what was bothering him now.

[member="Mica Chanda"]

 

[Mica Chanda]

"You are, I'm not the one bleeding out 'cause I got shot," She snapped at him over the line. The speeder whizzed into a higher speed as she gunned it towards the tenement he had stumbled into. It wasn't far. Mica nearly ripped the comm link out of her ear when the man on the other end screamed his bloody lungs out. In all honesty, they may actually be bloody. Well, at least he could follow directions. "Hold it there until I get there!" She ordered.

She practically jumped off the speeder, leaving it in the alley behind the building before entering and heading for the stairs rather than wait for the lift. The trail of blood was telling, he was right about that. Mica jumped up the stairs two at a time, trying to keep her shoulders back and keep her breath.

"Don't yell at me until it's me that's causing the pain," She snapped, wrenching the door to the third floor open and skidding around the corner to find the room he must have commandeered . The place was mainly abandoned, from the little noise now that the yelling had stopped. She started running the procedure in her head. She hadn't soloed on a gunshot in a very long time. Blaster shots helped that there weren't projectiles but it was going to be a pain to clean and stitch up.

When practically tore the door off its hinges when she found the one he must have chosen to bleed out in. Correct, there was her guy, bleeding heavily, and what looked like curtains shoved against his wound. At least they were thick, she supposed. Mica stepped in, hands raised. "It's me, Chanda. I'm gonna figure out how bad things are, please don't hit me while I do," She said, her tone not allowing an argument, despite the way she phrased it. Screaming led to flailing which led to her getting a black eye. Not something she wanted tonight. The guy didn't look that old, but it was hard to tell with sweat and blood in the way. She threw her hands through her hair to pile it on top of her head and knelt down next to him. Slinging her bag off her shoulder and taking out a pair of gloves, she mentally talked herself through what needed doing.

The wound was still bleeding as far as she could tell. She touched his upper arm first to make him aware of her hands before probing it to find the large vein she could apply indirect pressure to stem the blood flow until she could see what she was dealing with.

"You can drop the curtain now, I brought bandages," Mica instructed him, scrounging with her free hand for the packs of white cloth and offering them to him. "Now you can tell me what in Force's name happened. Talking will make it hurt less." It wouldn't, but it would take his mind off the pain she was probably going to cause before she could numb him and start stitching.

[member="Salig Danza"]

 

[Salig Danza]

Blood pumped through Salig's head as he groaned in pain, only to be interrupted by what appeared to be the door being torn in half. He screamed in terror, only to yell out in anger as Chanda announced her identity. "Well, ya could've given be a heads up instead just burstin' in, you two-bit feth!" He jeered. The bleeding man began to look her over, but couldn't see much thanks to his tearing eyes and his already hazy vision. All he could tell was that she was young, she seemed somewhat good-looking, and that she was an absolute pain in the neck.

As soon as she got close, Salig began flailing his bloody and tired limbs around, socking her in the eye. While he was in pain, this was more for him getting payback on this small-time fraud. "That's wha' ya' deserve." He muttered. " Wha' took you so long eh?" He sputtered, blood dripping down his chin. He pounded his head against the wall and gritted his teeth, as he let go of the curtains stemming the blood flow from his still-gaping wound. Salig howled once more, as he forcefully yanked the small cloth Chanda offered and began hurriedly wiping up the blood off his drenched shoulder.

"Can I frankly avoid tha' talkin'? All you need to know is that I got shot, now fix i - GAHAHHH! Fine, I'll talk, Jedi help me." He groaned, pounding his fist against the floor. "I got one helluva warm welcome today. Been in lock-up for bout' a year or so, and right as I get out these - AHHH, that hurts, that hurts - these fethin' goons jump me over some ancient chit from years back. I get shot, I duck in here, and those numbskulls never found me. We clear?" Salig panted. He wasn't really fond of sharing his personal details with others, especially a complete stranger who was sticking her hand in his gunshot wound.


[member="Mica Chanda"]

 

[Mica Chanda]

"I could have been anywhere on the planet, and you expect me to be here at the press of a button?" She snorted and went back to prepping her materials. Bacta would help, and she had something to clean the wound as well. Mica had a flash-sterilizer somewhere in her bag, she could use that once they stopped some of the bleeding.

She turned her head in time to only take the blow from his wildly moving arms to the side of her head which made her ears ring, but her eyesight stayed focused. She gritted her teeth, propped herself back up and stared angrily down at him. "If you take out one of my eyes, I'm going to cut your frelling arm off, cauterize it, and shove it somewhere you won't like." Mica had enough rough-housing from patients on far worse worlds than this. She was practically seething, clenched teeth and her grip became just a hair tighter as she waited for some of the bleeding to stop now that proper bandaged and pressure was being applied.

"I asked you nicely," She spat out at him while she reached for her flash-sterilizer, a little hand-held tool. "Now I'm going to take the bandages off, and Force do I wish this hurt more for the bruise you just gave me. If you had taken my eye sight I might not have been able to stitch you up." Mica really hoped this burned more than it did on the smaller cuts. With a couple of activations, she had cleaned the outside of the wound and worked on the inner bloody bits. She pushed his chest back against the wall to brace herself and him. Mica reached over to grab a few bacta pacs and ripped them open, squeezing the cooling gel that could stimulate the healing process before she started stitching.

"When I start sticking a needle in you to stitch this up, are you going to hit me again?" She asked. "You can be angry at me all you want, but if you mess this up I'm done and out and you can fix yourself." She hated patients like this. Give her the criers any day, the ones that held her hand and pleaded. Those were pathetic but at least they didn't make her job harder than it was.

[member="Salig Danza"]

 

[Salig Danza]

For the love of the Sith, SHUT UP! Salig thought, barely containing his frustration at his snippy doctor. "Just get it over with already, gettin' real tired of this here." He muttered through his clenched teeth, putting all his energy in ignoring the pain and resisting the urge to slam Chanda right in the mouth.

Salig let out a gasp of relief as she applied the healing gel on his wounds, silently thanking Mica as at this point, he would never say that to her face. He grabbed a hold of the now bloody fabric lying next to him that had once been rather nice curtains, as he braced himself for the stitches. All Salig could do now was pray that the copious amounts of anaesthetic that she applied would kick in real quick, or it would be one bad ride for the both of them.

"Wait, 'fore ya' start shoving needles n' all that stuff in me, put some more stuff that numbs me right up, don't really wanna feel anything for a while as this happens." Salig gasped, gritting his teeth and prepping himself as Mica seemed ever closer to begin stitching up his cleaned but still open wound.

[member="Mica Chanda"]

 

[Mica Chanda]

She hated patients like this. Honestly and truly did. The tough guys who talked big game but she heard the relief flood him, the twinge of trepidation when he finally talked as she prepped her materials to stitch up his wound. Getting real tired of this, she had to urge to jab him right back in the wound and if it wouldn't cause more bleeding, she might have thought harder about it. Besides, she could also shove a laser scalpel in his neck to shut him up.

"You big baby, it's numbing ointment for a reason," She grumbled and angrily blew hair from her face, escaped when he landed the blow. Moving her head too quickly made her vision spin for a moment but she took a grounding breath and let it out, trying to make sure her hands were not too tense. She could be snippy but she laid beautiful stitches. Came from having to mend her own clothes and equipment by hand.

"You'll feel it tugging," She snapped before starting the work pulling the ragged wound closed, forming a straighter line across his shoulder. The wound wasn't incredibly deep, it would take a good amount of stitches, but nothing too drastic. She'd made sure to use the flexible carbon thread that would hold up. He seemed the type to pull his stitches and she wasn't sure she'd answer a call from this line for a while now. "I was having a quiet night, other than the Wookie. But oh no, I get a call on a gunshot wound and using up my own supplies on some piece of drenn who hits me in the head, because that's what you do to the person trying to save your life. Why do I do this job? Out of my kind heart, and what do I get? A piece of drenn hitting me in the face." Mainly, she was talking because she knew it was annoying him. Also, Mica was pretty sure if she didn't, she'd land a punch on him as well.

As soon as the stitches were done she swiped the wound with a touch more bacta and layered a bandage over it, tying it firmyl around his shoulder. She also grabbed a sterilizing wipe and began clearing the area around his bandages to keep them as clean as she could.

[member="Salig Danza"]

 

[Salig Danza]

Salig rolled his shoulder around in the socket a bit, testing the stitches out. While she had gotten on his nerves too many times to count, he had to admit that she did a pretty good job fixing him up. "Not bad, not bad. Pretty good fix." He muttered, wanting to show his thanks but not exactly willing to let her have the satisfaction. He struggled to walk across the room, already weak from his huge blood loss, and shrugged his drenched jacket upon his shoulders.

"Look, uh, do ya' want payment or somethin'?" He awkwardly stated, scratching at the back of his neck. Salig felt intensely uncomfortable, as he was alone with a rather pissed doctor with a bunch of rather sharp medical tools, and to be honest, he only had a few credits on him. He began slowly inching towards the damaged door, hoping that she wouldn't notice his strange behavior.

[member="Mica Chanda"]

 

[Mica Chanda]

Mica glanced up at him and was tempted to throw something at him as he immediately began walking across the room to a blood drenched jacket and the door. The brunette glowered and went to packing her tools and cleaning them off before gingerly placing them in her bag. The guy was a piece of drenn, for risking his stitches, fainting, and now trying to run off. The brunette doctor ripped her gloves off and tossed them on the ruined and dingy carpet. This whole ordeal was just making her rethink giving her contact out to these frelling strangers.

As he skittered towards the door, asking about paying her, she finally pushed herself up off the floor. She tugged her head down from its sloppy bun and ran her fingers, tugging at the tangles. She lifted her bag into her shoulder and ignored him for a moment as she pulled one of the data pads from the outside pocket that were cheaply made and really the only thing worth taking on mobile gigs anyway. She entered one of the accounts she used and as it came up she marched over to him.

"Write this number down, send me creds the next time you get paid," Mica snorted. She was trying to be understanding, but it was really grating on her. "Which might not be soon if you keep walking around like you are. Sit the hell down, drink something other than synthol, eat a frelling orange." She ran a hand over her face, feeling the tiredness start seeping in under her skin.

"I'm not going to stab you, I don't go around hurting the people who hit me while I'm working on them," the implied because I'm better than that childish behavior was laced into her tone. "Sit down let me make sure you don't go into shock in the middle of the early morning. I'll share my snacks." She had a few candies and some chewy fruit bars in the bottom of her bag for blood loss. "I don't like letting patients die after I just spent time keeping 'em alive."

[member="Salig Danza"]

 

[Salig Danza]

Salig blankly gazed at Chanda as grabbed a scrap of paper nearby and began jotting down the number she had given him. While he frankly didn't exactly enjoy her presence, she had done one helluva job with him, and despite the fact that she seemed to dislike him with an intense passion, he figured that she couldn't exactly turn down jobs, even from the likes of people like him. He sat down upon the now dark red bed next to him, as he intensely stared at the wall. Salig pondered what he could after this, what his next course of action would be. The 3 men that chased him earlier would be hunting him down, along with a list of various enemies he's racked up over the years that wouldn't exactly be glad to be seeing him out of jail.

Salig stood up from the bed, and began pacing around the room, occasionally glancing at the slightly cracked window, blinds torn apart. "You enjoy your job?" He inquired randomly, spinning around to face her.

[member="Mica Chanda"]

 

[Mica Chanda]

Mica relaxed slightly as he sat. She really did not have to deal with a passed-out patient who had just suffered serious blood loss. The brunette took a seat on a dilapidated couch, bits of stuffing sticking out of it. Her legs had cramped from being crouched over him, her back was killing her, and her fingers were stiff. Gingerly, she began to massage her hand, popping her joints and stretching her fingers to ease to ache that had started to settle in there. This is the kind of place her father would have hated to see her in. He was all for helping those who needed it but he would have probably tightened the stitches for the elbow to her temple.

Mica probed at her temple, wincing as she felt the skin there already tender and swelling. It'd be a nasty bruise that might even reach her cheekbones. The headache that would accompany it would be ugly as well. She dug into her bag to find a quick ice pack that she snapped over her knee to get the little gel beads to cool and leaned the left side of her face against it.

She ignored him as he started to pace and ignore her orders. He'd get dizzy, feel cold, and might even go into shock if he wasn't careful, but she was honestly done with patients not following her orders for tonight. He'd either learn or pass out. Either way, she'd be leaving as soon as there was a little more color in his cheeks.

His question startled her, not expecting that particular line. "Usually," She said snippily. "When I'm not being hit and battered around for trying to do it." She shifted the ice pack slightly to look up at him.

"Why the sudden interest after cursing at me to shut my trap?"

[member="Salig Danza"]

 

[Salig Danza]

"No particular reason, jus' askin'." He replied quickly, almost stumbling over his words. Salig leaned against the wall, finding himself out of breath only after a brief walk around the room. Figures that losing that much blood would do that to you, and with that much blood, its a miracle that he managed to stay alive. He had been shot before, lots of times actually, but nothing that had ever blasted him before did that much to mess him up. Whoever was chasing him down must have used something they got on the black market, as nothing that was sold legitimately could hurt that bad unless it was military grade.

He turned back to face Chanda, and looked at the bruise on her face with an absentminded stare. Looked bad, and a little guilt rose up within Salig, as he scratched at the back of the neck. "Sorry 'bout that. Looks real bad." He meekly observed, feeling the color rise in his cheeks. "Look, I, uh...I'm gonna head outta here, moonlightin' and all that." He told her, looking away at the now red walls. He shrugged his shoulders and began to move towards the door.

"Uh, thanks for the fix up. I think I got a few credits on me," He paused, scrounging up a measly 10 credits and slapping them on the table. Salig sheepishly nodded at her and went through the doorway, following the trail of blood that led out the building. "Thank god I'm not dealin' with that spoiled chit anymore." He muttered under his breath, cursing out the doctor he thanked.

He walked off into the night, not wanting to be around the building anymore.

[member="Mica Chanda"]