New Beginnings [Chou Chou Challenge]

[Kurosaki]

Sunshine streamed in through the blinds into one of the rooms of the quite inn. As luck would have it the light directly hit Dr. Robin Downing's eyes. She stirred beneath of it and then rolled over in an attempt to escape the obnoxious stream. However, in her sleepy state she misjudged the distance remaining on the bed between where she was and the edge. The result?

THUD!

Robin Downing popped up a bit in a daze and rubbed her head. Grumbling she stood up and staggered, her arms dragging low, over to her bag that was sitting on a nearby chair. After rummaging into it she had laid out a stunning green dress and then some bandages. After feeling her head for a moment she deduced that she was fine and quickly put them back into her medical kit.

It wasn't much later that the Doctor made her way out into the hallway and began to skip down the stairs. She paused, however, when some key words reached her ears and turned. Upstairs she heard two men talking about another person that was apparently bleeding and needed a real doctor. A small sweet smile crossed her lips.

Walking back up the stairs lightly, Robin smiled, waved, and then put her hands behind her back and leaned a bit to the side.

"I'm a Doctor!" she said sweetly. She seemed, for all intense purposes, the perfect sweet Doctor that any patient would want to treat them. However, Robin actually had already begun to observe the two people in front of her. The one in tattered clothes interested her the most. From the looks of him she could tell that he had just been in a fight of sorts and, most likely, so had the injured man that they were talking about.

[falken]

"Well," Cove started, "I'm not really sure where I can find a doctor on such short notice."

A voice piped up behind them. Kamui turn to look at the female and raised an eyebrow. For one, he didn't realise there was anyone behind him. Either it was too early for him to have his normal senses working or the girl wasn’t exactly who she said she was. However, it didn’t really matter right now. He wasn’t the one being treated, and there wasn’t a reason for her to lie either.

Kamui glanced back at Cove, “Or maybe you can. Doctor-Lady here seems like a willing participant.”

The man seemed confused at the sudden appearance, but nodded his head anyways. “Right. The Sea Gods must favour you and your friend for such an individual to arrive so timely,” Cove said, “If you’ll both just follow me…”

Then again, Kamui back tracked on his thoughts as he considered what the father said. It was fairly odd that a doctor should appear when there was one missing. While it didn’t seem like there was a problem to normal people, doctors or any other medical professionals weren’t large in numbers. The fact only tickled Kamui’s sadistic imagination of how a perfectly ordinary situation could go wrong.

“Great,” the robed agreed and motioned to the stairs. It'd at least be in his best interest to keep a watch out from behind, “Ladies first.”

Cove nodded again as he hurried down the stairs. He probably didn't feel all that safe leaving his only daughter alone with a stranger. They went down the familiar street and towards the residential area. The man kindly ushered them into the house and room.

"Ah," Kamui greeted the man on the bed, "Good to see you didn't die overnight."

[Renegade]

As the sound of the door opens, Gaul turns and looks to see Kamui walk through with Cove behind him and some woman he'd never met. Turning to look at Maple, who was trying to get his attention again due to the distraction, he pats her gently on the head. "Sorry little one, but looks like we'll have to stop our game for now. I promise if we have time I'll play more later," he says to her, smiling kindly to reassure her. Behaving typically for her age, she sticks her tongue out at him and jumps up and darts to her father.

"Daddy, Daddy, I'm hungry!" she tell him excitedly, pulling on his arm roughly.

"Alright dear, let's go," Cove says to her, grinning, before turning downstairs. Looking over his shoulder at them he says, "You three take your time, and if you need anything don't hesitate to come find me and ask."

As the two leave, Gaul looks over at Kamui and releases a sigh. "Yeah it would seem so. It looks as if you don't get to keep the money for yourself," he says to him, following his words up with a laugh. Looking behind him at the girl he smiles warmly. "Hello ma'am. I assume you're the doctor who's going to fix me up," he tells her with a laugh, pointing to the poor job Maple had done in wrapping him up in the bandages.

[Kurosaki]

It seemed that the tattered clothed one was a bit puzzled by her sudden appearance while the older man seemed to believe that they were blessed. Dr. Downing smiled kindly all the while thinking that, if anything, gods hadn't been the ones to send her. When they seemed to agree that she should come and treat the patient she nodded happily and then hurriedly made her way to her room. She came back soon having retrieved her bag with all of her stuff inside, including her medical kit.

The older man told them to follow him and so Robin did. When they reached the stairs again the one with tattered clothes told her to go first. It sounded partially out of chivalry though she detected an underlying reason behind it. Nodding her head, she descended first, stopped at the bottom of the steps, and waited patiently for them to catch up before falling into step with the other two.

The trio made their way out of the inn and then into the residential road. It didn't take them long to reach one house in particular that they stopped at. The older man showed them inside and then led them to a particular room. Two people were inside. One was a little girl that immediately rushed over to the older man and shouted that she was hungry. The other was clearly the patient.

Robin waved sweetly as the old man and girl left the room and then listened as the two that had clearly been in the fight spoke to one another. From the way that their conversation went she assumed that they had been in a fight that involved a reward at the end. Clearly they had done whatever had been neccessary since they had won the money even if one had come out more injured than the other.

Even if he currently looked like a mummy.

"Haha, yeah, I'm a Doctor so you can relax now," she said kindly after the patient addressed her and gestured to the patch job that the little girl had done. Plopping her bag on the ground, she then retrieved her medical kit before going over to the patients bed side. Leaning over him, she grabbed his pillow and...

Gently fluffed it.

"You can lean against that if it'll make you feel better," she said sweetly. "I'm going to take these off and that might sting for a moment, okay?" She then began to peel away the bandages from the wounds, checking as she went that she wasn't pulling on any large ones that would result in a lot of pain. Finally all the bandages were removed.

"There. Now we can patch you up the right way," she stated with a smile. After applying ointment, to keep the wounds from getting infected, she patched him up with fresh bandaging. She applied expert pressure to them so that they weren't too lose, so that they wouldn't fall off if he was rough acting, and not too tight, so that they wouldn't cut his circulation off.

"All done." Dr. Downing stood up and looked at her patient approvingly.

[falken]

While the young woman took over the state of affairs and the well being of the green haired man, Kamui headed back out into the town. With the help of Cove, who looked much more relieved at the female doctor’s presence that accompanied his daughter, they set off for the mayor’s house. The man was helpful without the stammer that he had before.

It wasn’t long before he left the building with two bags of beri in his hands. As they retraced their steps back to the home, Kamui placed his share within a pocket inside his robes. It seemed that news travelled fast as he was greeted by several residents of the island for his work. The reluctant man avoided shaking hands if he had to. One, the pirates were probably still out there somewhere. And two, his self wrapped bandages strained his movement.

His arrival back to Cove’s residence was timely as the doctor seemed to have finished ‘wrapping up’ her job. Without a word, Kamui threw the other half of the payment to Gaul. “Your share. Seven fifty flat. Not a beri more. Not a beri less.”

“Alright,” Kamui motioned for the door, “I don’t know about you guys, but I’m getting on the next ferry out of here. Which is about…”

“30 minutes,” Cove supplied.

“Right. 30 minutes.”

[Renegade]

As the doctor performed her procedures, Gaul grunted a few times in pain. He really hated getting his bandages changed. When Robin finally finishes, Gaul sits up in the bed with his legs over the side. His body burned from the cuts, but he just ignored the pain. Standing up tiredly he smiles at Kamui, who seemed pretty anxious to leave the town. Gaul couldn't blame him though, he imagined that they'd receive an annoying amount of attention for rescuing the dog.

After the announcement that they had 30 minutes until the next ferry left, Gaul frowns in thought. That really wasn't all that long, especially when you consider that he had to go and buy some food for the trip to the next island, and a few other things. Slipping into his clothes, and wincing at the movements, Gaul turns around and returns his attention to Kamui. "So partner, what are you planning to do now? I know I have no idea where to go next, and frankly I'm not getting any closer to what I'm trying to find at this rate," he says, his eyes drifting to the ground as he begins to sadden at the thought. Every moment he wasted in this town was a moment that his sister got further and further away.

[Kurosaki]

Dr. Downing began to repack all of her supplies once she was finished. As she did so she couldn't help but overhear the conversation that the two men were having about leaving the island. She herself was scheduled to leave on the very ferry that they, at least the one that wasn't as badly injured, were planning on embarketing on.

"Well, normally I don't work for free but if you two are both going on the ferry I guess I could say that the company was nice enough to let you slide on the bill," Robin said with a laugh as she stood up, slinging her black bag across her shoulder. "I'm not stalking you I just happen to be going on the same ferry. Besides, you really should be resting with all of those wounds. You lost a lot of blood doing... Whatever it was you were doing."

Robin eyed her patient and then the tattered clothes one. Shouldn't his friend be instructing him to not be running around after all he had gone through?

"So, if you two happen to be going the same way I can keep an eye on you and make sure that you don't cause more damage to yourself," Robin said cheerfully before skipping over to the door to the room and opening it wide. "So, shall we go?" She turned back to them and smile cutely.