Log Date:
	4/30/99

Log Cast:
	Talaitha, Sheila Parker (NPC), Tance, Neva

Log Intro:
	Tance has managed to do it again, getting himself so seriously
injured in the Ranges that he's signed himself up for another extensive
stay in the company of the medical personnel of the Heptite Guild. This time's
been particularly bloody, though, as the Singer's almost managed to kill
himself, and has required extensive surgery to put his torso back together
as well as the shattered bone in his left leg. These injuries, along with a
concussion, have assured that he's going to be out for the count for a while,
with one of the Infirmary's orderlies stationed to keep watch on him and
bring in a medic if his condition worsens. It is thus that the first of his
visitors find him, in the Short Term Care ward...

----------
Talaitha walks into Short Term Care looking for medical assistance.
Talaitha has arrived.

All is quiet on the western front, or some such. At any rate, it's peaceful in 
  Short Term Care, with a single curly-haired young orderly whose name badge 
  proclaims her to be 'Parker' on duty in the ward. One patient is in view in 
  Bed 2, his prone form covered up by a blanket, an IV drip feeding plasma 
  into his arm. At the arrival of someone at the door, however, the orderly 
  looks up and pipes politely, "Can I help you, ma'am?"

Talaitha looks at you for a moment.
Talaitha pauses just inside the doorway before squaring her shoulders and 
  continuing to Tance's bedside. She gestures toward the prone singer, 
  smoothly stating, "He's a friend of mine. Looks like hell too, he does. What 
  happened?"

Parker considers this, and confesses, "Truth be told, we don't really know. 
  When he was brought in, he needed extensive surgery on both his abdomen and 
  his leg, and this isn't even counting the crack he took to his noggin and 
  all the bumps and bruises. He hasn't regained consciousness enough to give 
  us a report." Parker delivers this in a chipper sort of babble, the words 
  indicating she knows her business even if her voice suggests she's a sweet 
  young thing who ought to be chewing bubble gum. "He lost an _awful_ lot of 
  blood!"

Tance, in the meantime, stirs faintly. His head shifts along his pillow in the 
  direction of the soft voices, his Singer senses reporting that somewhere out 
  beyond the veil of fog that's suffused his brain, someone is... talking. 
  Yes. Talking. But who...?

Talaitha lets out a long low whistle. Swinging a chair around, she straddles 
  it, resting her chin on her hands on its back. "He's going to live though, 
  right? I still owe him a set of clothes, though heaven knows I'd give him a 
  lot more 'n that if he'd take it."

"Oh, he'll be all right in a few weeks." Parker smiles warmly, big dewy brown 
  eyes full of sympathy. Then she giggles. "Though from what Medic Espra was 
  saying, he'll be a handful to keep in here. Though I guess you know that, if 
  you know him?" She tilts her curly dark head, curiously.

Talaitha doesn't, but she's not about to say so. "Looks like he's too groggy 
  to flee a kitten, much less you." She catches the slight movement of Tance's 
  head, and glances his way, though she continues smoothly. "I doubt you'll 
  have /that/ much trouble from him for a while."

Slowly, Tance bobbles up from the depths of unconsciousness, growing gradually 
  aware of a dull, weighty ache that seems to cover his entire body. It... 
  hurts. What, he's not sure... everything. Dismayed by this, he tries to 
  figure out where he is... his sled? Did he activate the emergency beacon? 
  He'd better check, shouldn't he? With this thought nagging at the back of 
  his mind, the Singer lifts up a groggy hand, fumbling for a control panel 
  that isn't there, and groaning faintly when his fingers find nothing but air.

This alerts Parker, however, and the orderly bustles over to the wounded man's 
  side, popping a small hand-held scanner out of her pocket and running it 
  over him. "Mmm! Looks like he might be joining us."

Talaitha simply nods, her eyes on Vokrim and a touch of concern in her 
  expression. "He doesn't look particularly with it, right now. What's the 
  scanner say?" she asks, nodding toward the unit.

Before Parker can reply, Tance's eyes come open, showing twin glazed points of 
  brown beneath his heavy lids. Wait a minute. This doesn't look like his 
  sled. Doesn't feel like his sled either... the floor's not soft. And faces, 
  over him? Who...?

"I think his blood pressure's stable enough that I can take him off the 
  plasma," muses Parker by way of reply. Then she leans slightly over the 
  prone Singer and greets him gently, "Hello there, Singer. Can you hear me?"

Talaitha gives the orderly a dubious look- it's /just/ an orderly, after all. 
  Who is she to be making decisions like that? Instead of voicing that 
  complaint, however, she merely watches and listens, not wanting to frighten 
  Tance into any sudden moves just yet.

If you listen hard, you can hear crystal resonance coursing gently through 
  your body.

Tance frowns vaguely as his vision blurs in and out, and then in again, giving 
  him a more or less clear impression of the young lady with the curly black 
  hair leaning over him. "Yeah," he murmurs, his voice a bare strengthless 
  whisper, sounding as though it's coming from miles away. "Who... who're 
  you...?"

Parker might be only an orderly, but Medic Espra left very explicit 
  instructions, and this particular orderly is confident she knows how to 
  follow them. Satisfied with her scanner's reading, she pockets the device 
  again, but doesn't quite yet move off to fetch the supplies she needs to 
  change over the Singer's IV. "My name is Sheila Parker, Singer, and I'm 
  going to be taking care of you for a bit." She gives him an even warmer 
  smile than she'd given Talaitha, and adds, "How're you feeling? You've got a 
  friend here to see you too..." And she turns her gaze on Talaitha, pausing 
  when she realizes the new arrival hadn't identified herself. "I'm sorry, I 
  didn't catch your name....?"

Talaitha answers both, looking more than a little relieved that Tance 
  /doesn't/ seem to recognize her. "Tal. Just... Tal."

"My head feels all big," Tance plaintively rasps. "How come my head feels all 
  big...?" He trails off, though, at Parker's latter words as well as 
  Talaitha's introduction. Eyes opening a little more, he stares groggily up 
  at her. "I... know you....?"

Talaitha nods with a warm smile. "Yes, Tance. We shared some drinks after you 
  cut that black last time."

Sheila Parker in the meantime seems to be well aware that the Singer's lament 
  is largely rhetorical, though she does assure him soothingly, "Your head 
  feels... big because of that nasty knock you took on it, sir. Now you just 
  lie still and chat with your friend, and I'll be right back!" She pats him 
  on the shoulder, while mouthing 'Keep an eye on him!' at Talaitha; then, she 
  darts off across the room to fetch a nutrient bag from the supply cabinet, a 
  sterilized needle for the IV, and fresh gauze.

Tance tries to turn his head to follow Parker's motions, but the effort is a 
  little much. His eyelids sag down for a moment before he manages to look up 
  again, frowning uneasily up at the remaining woman at his bedside. "Black," 
  he repeats. "I cut... black....?"

Talaitha nods in response to the orderly's... order? And she looks back at 
  Tance. "Yes, several months ago, Tance. And you and I and... somebody else, 
  can't remember the name... we all shared some brandy and you passed out 
  drunk."

As Parker comes brisking back over, supplies in hand, Tance considers this new 
  information. It seems to take him a while. Finally, something seems to get 
  through, while the orderly pulls the blanket and sheet over him down a bit, 
  revealing a little more of his robe-clad shoulders. Someone must have 
  prepped that blue terrycloth robe for encounters with an IV drip, for 
  there's a large hole in the loose left sleeve, enough to accommodate the 
  feed going into his upper arm. Oblivious to Parker's deft changeover of the 
  plasma IV to the nutrient drip she's brought over, Tance stares more or less 
  up at Talaitha, and a slight crooked smile curls his mouth. "Black," comes 
  his hoarse reply. "Yeah... remember... I cut black..."

To this, the orderly looks rather impressed, glancing from Talaitha down to 
  the patient again. Sheila Parker's dark eyes take on a perhaps suspicious 
  little glimmer of admiration, though she shows no other sign of 
  unprofessional interest in her patient.

Talaitha mhmmms. Her eyes are on Tance, however, and she doesn't notice the 
  look Sheila gives Tance. "You even seemed happy about it."

You feel crystal caressing you softly along your nerves.

"I had scotch," murmurs Tance in apparent satisfaction. And he manages to turn 
  his head a little, towards Parker, of whom he inquires mournfully, "Can I 
  have some scotch?"

Parker has to work to suppress a giggle, but she manages to do so, more or 
  less. She also achieves a suitably soothing tone as she assures the Singer, 
  "After you get well, sir." With that, she changes the old needle over to the 
  new one, dabs at Vokrim's bared bicep with a sterile towelette, and then 
  settles the new needle into place.

Talaitha chuckles quietly. "I'll buy you the best scotch available on Bally, 
  Tance. If you're good and do what the nice orderly tells you to do."

It is perhaps a measure of exactly how badly injured Tance Vokrim is that he 
  does not take issue with the idea that he is going to be sans scotch for the 
  foreseeable future. "Okay," he murmurs indistinctly. Willing for now to take 
  Tal at her word -- he does remember cutting the black, and drinking the 
  scotch; the rest is a blur, but it does not occur to him that this is a 
  problem -- he appends, "Nice of ya to come see me, girlie..."

Talaitha chuckles. "It was the least I could do. After all, you're the one who 
  bought the drinks last time," she winks.

Parker finishes up, neatly disposing of the old IV needle and the now empty 
  packets from which she had fetched the new needle and the towelettes, 
  putting it all into the recyc unit. Then she comes back over, giggling 
  softly and telling Tance as she checks over the new IV to make sure all is 
  well, "And here Medic Espra said you were going to be feisty. You're going 
  to be good for me, aren't you?"

".......Okay," murmurs the Singer. In Tance's hearing, some of Parker's words 
  seem to make no sense as his dazed brain fails to parse them. But she sounds 
  fairly nice, and it's very easy to just go along with whatever those 
  soothing tones are telling him. To Talaitha, he says guilelessly, "I 
  don't... cut black much... celebrate. Hadda celebrate...." But _his_ voice 
  starts losing what feeble strength it has, the last few syllables slurring 
  as he utters them, eyes threatening to drop closed again.

Talaitha glances toward the orderly. "I think maybe we've tired him out."

Parker nibbles at her lower lip consideringly, a gesture that accentuates her 
  obvious youth. "It sure does look that way, but poor man, considering what 
  he's been through I'm surprised he even woke up--"

"I fell down the falls," puts in Tance. His eyes do in fact drop shut, and his 
  voice has the cadences of a man three quarters unconscious, but despite that 
  his pronouncement is oddly clear.

Talaitha glances back at Tance, blinking. "Must've been awfully painful for 
  him to remember it that clearly."

Parker considers this, reaching for Tance's chart at the foot of the bed, and 
  pulling out a pen from her pocket to scribble some quick notes; Medic Espra, 
  she surmises, will want to know the state of the Singer's cognitive 
  processes. "Medic Espra says he usually has memory problems, yes," she pipes 
  as she writes. "Due to his age."

"Ow," murmurs Tance.

Talaitha mhmmms, her expression softening as she glances back at Tance. "Yeah, 
  he does. Can't you, like, give him a painkiller or something?"

You feel the mild caress of crystal resonance softly along your nerves.

"Well..." Parker pauses, uncertain. "Well... maybe a mild one. He's about out 
  as it is, and I'm supposed to wake him up every thirty minutes just to make 
  sure he _can_ wake up... we need to make sure his symbiont is fixing his 
  head, you see..." Even as she delivers this running monologue more or less 
  in Talaitha's direction, she leans over Tance again and asks him tenderly, 
  "Do you hurt, Singer?"

"Ow," repeats Tance, his mouth tightening up into a stoic little line.

Talaitha nods uneasily. She's not good in the presence of pain. "He's got a 
  concussion, then? You named off so many things earlier it was hard to keep 
  track of 'em all."

"Oh, yes, he's definitely got a concussion. The bump on the back of his head 
  was this big!" Parker holds up a dainty hand and curls it into a fist, by 
  way of visual aid. "Between that and the blood loss, he's going to be fairly 
  out of it for days, even with the symbiont working on fixing him up. And 
  between his leg and his middle, he's probably not even going to be able to 
  sit up." With that, the orderly sighs, her eyes turning positively limpid 
  with compassion. "I guess I can give him a _little_ painkiller, though!"

Talaitha's eyes widen as they turn back to Tance. "Good grief..."

Parker with that returns to the supply cabinet, fetching out a small quantity 
  of a mild painkiller and filling up a hypo with it, even as she chatters 
  absently, "Though I guess it could be worse, I checked his records and the 
  last time he was beaten up this badly he mentally regressed clear back to 
  his recruit days! Now _that_ was a knock on the head!"

Talaitha yows softly. "How often does this happen to him? I've only known him 
  a year or so," she adds sheepishly.

Tance hovers on the very edge of awareness, blinking owlishly up at Parker as 
  she comes back to his side and assures him, "Now I'm just going to give you 
  a little something to take the edge off, okay, Singer? Hold still..." And 
  she moves the cloth of his robe out of the way, baring the hollow of his 
  throat and a bit of his chest and shoulder. The hypo hisses softly as it 
  delivers its contents, and Parker pats her patient approvingly as he shows 
  no signs of protesting. Then she goes on to Talaitha, "Well, he's got a 
  record five miles long; he's two centuries old, you know! Seems like he gets 
  himself into shape like this every five years or so, and the rest of the 
  time he's always just breaking limbs or banging himself on the head or 
  lopping off a finger or two every four or five weeks."

Parker concludes, sighing, "I'm surprised the poor man manages to remember his 
  name."

Talaitha shakes her head. "I'm not even sure he remembers that much sometimes."

The orderly hmms, and then impulsively muses, "I suppose we should check." She 
  pockets the hypo, and then looks down at the Singer on the bed. "Are you 
  still with us, sir?"

Oh, this is very good. A soft sigh escapes Tance, as the painkiller hits his 
  system; the throb of pain all up and down his body softens to nothing more 
  than a heavy, weighty feeling that coaxes him to do nothing except just lie 
  still and... drift. "Mm-hrmm," he murmurs vaguely, though he's not entirely 
  sure what the orderly just asked him.

And Parker smiles a bit. "Can you tell us your name, Singer?"

"M'name's... Tance," the man in the bed reports dutifully, after giving the 
  matter much pondering.

If you listen hard, you can hear crystal resonance rushing dimly between your 
  ears.

Talaitha beams. "Ah, he's not doing too badly then." He remembers everything 
  she wants him to, and forgets everything she wants him to- how could she not 
  be happy?

Parker, finding Talaitha's pleasure infectious -- or perhaps just delighted on 
  her own -- beams back at the other young woman. But just to be sure: "That's 
  right, sir! But Tance what? Do you remember the rest....?"

The voice is soft and cajoling, and although Tance really does just want to 
  lie still and drift... everything seems to be rippling around him, as if 
  he's floating on top of a pool of water casting reflected shimmers onto the 
  ceiling... he's willing to respond to the coaxing. At least a little. "V... 
  Vokrim," he replies with an effort, his voice creeping up from baritone 
  towards tenor, the voice of a man speaking aloud while dreaming. "Tance 
  Vokrim. My name's Tance Vokrim."

Talaitha beams, if anything, even more. "He's acting normal," she murmurs to 
  the orderly.

In so much as a man with a concussion and a painkiller in his system and half 
  the entire supply of Infirmary staples holding his flesh together can be 
  acting 'normal', Parker takes this as good news. She flashes a wide smile at 
  Talaitha, and tries a couple more questions, scribbling down the results on 
  the Singer's chart. "Can you tell me the name of your sled?"

"Meggie... Meggie Radmynn. Like Meggie. Named 'er after Meggie."

"How about what level you live on, hmm, Tance?"

This one gives him a little more trouble, if the furrowing of his weathered 
  brow is any indication. "Brown," he replies foggily, then corrects himself. 
  "Ocher..."

Talaitha sits back a bit, lifting her chin from the back of the chair, and 
  just quietly listens.

Not too much to listen to; Parker runs out of questions, but seems definitely 
  satisfied with her results. "That's what Medic Espra told me to ask him," 
  she murmurs to the visitor. "But it looks like he's got hold of at least his 
  basic memory! That's very good."

Talaitha nods blithe agreement- heck, she doesn't have a clue, but it sounded 
  good. "I must say I'm certainly relieved."

Parker puts Tance's chart back and smiles widely. Tance himself, at any rate, 
  closes his eyes, his head lolling slightly sideways. "It's _definitely_ a 
  good sign," the orderly says happily, "and I'll report it asap. But I think 
  he's going to be leaving us again... ah, yes, there he goes!"

Talaitha nods slightly, drawing herself to her feet with a stretch. "And I'll 
  get out of your hair then," she grins.

"It really was good of you to come by," the orderly says amiably. "I think a 
  friendly face helped perk him up a bit!"

Talaitha coughs, blushing a little, though the grin remains in place. "Well, 
  let's hope so. If it's true, well, then you oughta hang out in here more 
  often."

"Oh, well, heck, it's my job." Parker tosses her curly head, casually. "I'll 
  probably be watching recruits drop next week... but he's a quiet patient, at 
  any rate!"

Talaitha chuckles very softly. "For now."

Parker gives another one of those bubbling giggles. "I think Medic Espra was 
  pulling my leg. He's a big teddy bear, so far." And she slides a glance over 
  at the sleeping Singer, eyes bright.

Talaitha grins, sidling toward the door. "Just don't take that robe off him 
  and he should be just fine."

"I'm the one that put it _on_ him," Parker says playfully, and she winks as 
  the other young woman takes her leave.

Talaitha's laugh trails back. "Wish I could've seen that..."
Talaitha leaves the busy emergency room.
Talaitha has left.

[And not too long a time later...]

Ta-da! It's Neva! Incredible, hmm? Even more incredible that she /doesn't/ 
  seem to be in the greatest mood of all time. Still, she's here, and carrying 
  something, it seems. She pauses, just inside. "'Lo?"

The only person in the Short Term Care ward at the moment is Sheila Parker, 
  pert and perky and possessed of a head of curly black hair, and managing to 
  look alert even in the progressively wee-er hours of the night. Well, okay, 
  so she's the only _conscious_ person in the ward. Glancing up from her duty 
  station, she inquires affably, "Can I help you?"

You feel crystal caressing you softly along your nerves.

"He wasn't in his quarters, and somebody said they'd hauled him in--" Already 
  un-incredible facial expression deepens into a scowl. "/Would/ do this, hmm? 
  I go to all the trouble to--" A pause, before actually /noticing/ Parker, it 
  seems, for the first time. "What'd he do, anyway?"

The orderly blinks her big brown eyes a few times, and rises to come over and 
  greet this new visitor a bit more properly. "Ah, another friend of our 
  latest?" she asks. "Well... as far as we know so far, he apparently fell 
  down a waterfall. That's what he said the last time he was awake, at any 
  rate. I'm Sheila Parker; I'm keeping an eye on him this shift." And she 
  smiles, by way of hello.

"Oh." There are no introductions. Neva is, after all, a Crystal 
  Singer--apparently, manners were forgotten somewhere between Rules and Regs, 
  and the sorting tables. "Waterfall, huh? I did that, once. 'Course, I ended 
  up sleeping on the floor most of the time..."

Parker, however, seems unperturbed. She might be a babe fresh out of the 
  cradle on the scale of ages of members of the Heptite Guild -- particularly 
  when compared with the grizzled and weatherbeaten man lying unconscious in 
  the nearby bed -- but she's already developed the sort of peaceful demeanor 
  many medics of the Guild don't get till after decades of service. "Medic 
  Espra reports he was lying on the floor of his sled, anyway, when they 
  brought him in."

"Still better than a few weeks on a mat in El--" Wait. Discretion--right. Neva 
  pauses, then glances over to the man. "Can imagine. Amazing he got back 
  there at all, really. Think he'll wake up anytime soon?"

Parker checks her chronometer, considers, and hrmms. "Well, I'm five minutes 
  early, but I'm supposed to be waking him up anyway, just to make sure he 
  doesn't lapse into a coma during the night. Let's see now..." And she 
  bustles over to Vokrim's bedside, while chattering amiably to the younger 
  Singer, "I've been able to wake him up each time, but he hasn't been exactly 
  all here, you know? He's taken a lot of damage and he's got painkillers in 
  him." With that, though, she very gently shakes Tance's shoulder. "Singer? 
  Singer Vokrim? Wake up, now, I need you to wake up."

"Painkillers?" There is skepticism, in that. "What does he need /them/ for? I 
  didn't get any bloody painkillers. Isn't he buzzing enough?" Neva glances 
  down, with a slight frown, at Tance, though she quiets when Parker attempts 
  to wake him.

"He _did_ say he was hurting," Parker murmurs mildly. And when Tance fails to 
  rouse, she shakes him a little harder.

This does the trick. Or at least starts to. Tance's mouth twitches on one end, 
  and his head rolls slightly towards the orderly, though his eyes don't yet 
  open. "Wanna sleep," he murmurs groggily.

Too bad. Neva's here. He's not /allowed/ to sleep. She moves over, hunkering 
  down next to him. "Wake /up/, already. There's no tub handy to dump you in, 
  so if you don't, I'm going to have to haul you all the way to the rec area.."

Parker's dark eyebrows fly up. Well, _this_ visitor is certainly rather more 
  brusque than the last one was! But before she can utter a protest, Tance's 
  head shifts back towards Neva, the slightest of turns there on his pillow. 
  His eyelids open... well, one of them does, giving him a lopsided, surprised 
  look. After a moment the other one comes up, too, revealing an unfocused 
  brown stare. He studies the younger Singer foggily, and then murmurs, "Neva."

A smirk at that, and the something is pulled up, pressed down upon the bed 
  next to him. "Brought you something. Had to get it shipped from halfway 
  across the sector... I read it first, of course." At least Neva will admit 
  this. "Good one, though. Not the same author, but similar."

Bemused, Parker straightens up. Sensing she's not exactly welcome in this 
  conversation, the orderly frowns just a little, looking briefly like a puppy 
  who's been told it can't have a favorite toy. But she's still pretty 
  peaceful all the same, and she's content to do her job. Out comes her 
  scanner, and she dutifully checks over Tance's vital signs again.

Tance lifts his right hand, but apparently he has only just enough motor 
  control for that slow and sluggish motion, just enough to get his hand out 
  of the way as Neva puts that something beside him. But he does manage to 
  reach it. As his clumsy fingers slip across its cover, a large wavery smile 
  blossoms out across his face. "Book," he murmurs in dreaming, slurred tones. 
  "You brought me a book, Neva."

"Of course I brought you a book. What else would I bring you--a fish?" The 
  much younger Singer grins, pulling her hand back as he fumbles for the book. 
  "Didn't know you were going to go and get yourself massacred. Maybe you can 
  read it while you're recuperating."

If you listen hard, you can hear crystal resonance rushing dimly between your 
  ears.

Read. He likes to read. This thought trickles its way through Tance's drugged 
  consciousness, and he tries to draw the book up closer to him, his head 
  coming up for a fraction of an instant as he struggles as well to focus his 
  gaze. But the moment he does, Parker very gently presses him back down onto 
  the pillow, ordering him soothingly, "You're not even remotely ready to come 
  up from horizontal yet, Singer, so just lie still."

Tance doesn't protest or even wriggle under the orderly's hands. "Fell," he 
  confides to Neva dolefully. "Fell offa waterfall. Ow. I'm... I'm so tired."

"I've done it before," reassures Neva, with a faint grin. "Just be thankful 
  that you're here, in the infirmary, not back at that waterfall. Rest is 
  good, too." Glancing at the book for a minute, she then looks over at the 
  orderly. "Maybe you could read it aloud, if you're the one staying here."

Parker can't help but smile. "Likes books, does he? I don't think he'd notice 
  if I tap-danced tonight, but I'll see what happens in a day or two, if I'm 
  not on recruit watch by then."

"I like books," affirms Tance foggily. He curls his arm along his side, 
  pinning the book beneath it. And he looks up at Neva once more, that smile 
  returning, turning limpid and melting -- no doubt about it, the man's got 
  painkillers in him. "Thank you for the book, Neva."

Nodding, Neva pulls herself up a little bit. "Sure, Tance. I hope you like 
  it." She makes a little gesture with one hand about the room. "Take your 
  mind of all this, maybe."

Perhaps it's that big soft smile Tance is suddenly displaying that makes 
  Parker stop for a moment, stare at him, and then catch herself. "We'll keep 
  it right by your bedside for when you're ready," she puts in, reaching over 
  to slide the book out from under Tance's arm.

Tance doesn't even seem to notice, his attention more or less pointed at Neva. 
  "Mm-hmm," he agrees vaguely. "Mind off... drifting...?"

You sense crystal sliding softly along your nerves.

A smile. "Well, keep you from paying attention to any pain, anyway," offers 
  Neva. "I suppose you're too anesthetized right now to notice, though." She 
  chuckles, at this. "Ought to be more careful, you know."

Tance's brow crinkles, just a little, as he tries to figure out the sense of 
  his visitor's words. He finally comprehends "pain", and on the end of that 
  comes a vague thought that he should assure the girlie -- Neva! a little 
  carol of triumph reports, in a corner of his memory -- that he is all right. 
  "I feel nice," he breathes dreamily. "Drifty. All drifty..."

"I think the anesthetic hasn't worn off yet," puts in Parker wryly. "We had to 
  pump him full of a fair bit."

This causes the smile to broaden a touch. "Had some good dreams, hmm?" she 
  asks, before glancing over at Parker. "What's with the mind-numbers, anyway? 
  An all-or-nothing deal? None at all or you end up like...?" She cocks her 
  head towards Tance.

Sensing disapproval here, Parker lifts her eyebrows. "The man darned near 
  died, Singer," she replies quietly. "He's got half our supply of medical 
  staples holding his guts together right now, and several more holding the 
  bones in his leg together. You'd prefer we let him lie there in pain?"

"Resonance helps most of it. Hell, get buzzing enough, could take an 
  amputation without feeling it..." Neva snorts. "Anyway, there's got to be 
  some middle ground between agony and... this."

Parker crosses her arms, holding her ground. "His resonance level was beteen 2 
  and 2.5 when he was brought in," she points out steadily, "and accordingly, 
  there's not enough crystal in him to block out awareness of the fact that 
  he's damned near killed himself and left seven-eights of his blood supply on 
  the floor of his sled." Her dainty nose crinkles, but her otherwise bubbly 
  voice continues its expert delivery of information. "Furthermore, according 
  to the behaviors demonstrated by CS Vokrim on each and every single one of 
  his recent extended visits down here, he has insisted upon leaving the 
  moment he regained his full senses, and _always_ before it was safe for him 
  to leave his bed. Under no circumstances is this man going to be mobile for 
  two weeks, if not three. I don't think Medic Espra plans to _keep_ him 
  sedated, but if she has to do so to make sure he doesn't lose all the plasma 
  we've put into him along with the anesthetic, then by gods, I'm not going to 
  argue with her! And, might I conclude," she finishes, now visibly bristling, 
  "He _asked_ for the sedative. Which, given what else I've learned from CS 
  Vokrim's medical profile, is an occurrence that just does not occur unless 
  he's at death's door, I wasn't about to deny him. Now, do you want to argue 
  this out how to do our job with my superior, or would you like to take it up 
  with CS Vokrim himself?"

All of this seems to utterly fail in any effect upon Neva; she merely makes a 
  dismissive gesture. Finally, she looks back to Tance. "Well, Tance--I need 
  to head back, get some rest in so I can head out again tomorrow. You rest 
  up, huh?"

When you stop to relax you can feel a pleasant humming in your body.

Frowning vaguely at this outburst from the orderly, Tance frowns up at the two 
  women, dismay trickling across his dark dazed eyes. "Don' fight," he murmurs 
  unhappily. "Don' fight..."

Parker just stares at the visiting Singer for a moment or two, and then as 
  soon as Tance speaks, she turns to him, her anger melting visibly out of her 
  expression. "Your friend has at least one good idea," she murmurs to him. 
  "Rest now, sir."

"I'm certainly not going to fight with any /orderly/," replies Neva with mock 
  indignation and a quick smile--for Tance, not Parker. "You get better. Next 
  time, juice up a bit before you go and get yourself mauled." She nods to 
  him, smiles once more, and then heads out.
Neva leaves the busy emergency room.
Neva has left.

[End log.]