kore_logs | Sea monster attack!

Turns out that someone who Martha had pushed past is, in fact, a very distressed piemaker whose face should be familiar to her. He's been watching others heading out into the water with an ever-increasing degree of despair and fear. He ought to be one of them, he thinks. He can swim well enough - but what good would that do? Once he was out there, what help could he provide? Ned has a hard enough time defending himself on dry land. Logically, he knows he would be a liability out there. Which is why he stays on the beach, and hates himself a little for being so useless.

When he sees that Martha, too, is about to throw herself into the water and harm's way, he calls out to her, "Wait!" He dashes around her, between her and the water, holding both his hands up in a calming gesture. "You shouldn't do that."

Martha almost barrels him over in her haste to get into the water. "They need my help Ned. I can't just sit here and watch them!" She tries to go around him, tracking the Doctor's movements and the fiery hair that had belonged to that Donna woman she'd met on the comms her first day.

"Just stop and think for a moment!" Ned is actually desperate enough to halt her advance that he reaches out, puts his hand on his shoulder to keep her back. It's a light touch, not enough to really stop her if she were determined, but he hopes it will catch her attention, at least.

He speaks so quickly that he's only just understandable, "You're right, the people out there do need your help and I know it's hard to stay here when they're out there and they might be getting hurt, but Martha, they might be getting hurt. You're a doctor, right? You're one of the only doctors we've got here. What's going to happen if you swim out there to fight the giant, y'know, terrifying sea monster, and you don't come back? Or what if you're out there and someone comes back and they're hurt and there's no one to look after them but me?"

"And what if they die out there when I could have saved them?" Martha begins. As far as she was concerned, these people deserved to live far more than she did.

"Besides, Dr. Barrett is here. She'll take care of anyone who's willing to go to her. Ned, The Doctor's out there. I can't... I can't let him get hurt."

But even as she says it, Martha knows she's not in any condition to go swimming out there to save people. She's strong, but still not as well fed or as well rested as she should be. She won't be of any use.

Martha stops fighting him and steps back. She drops to the beach and spreads out her backpack so she can lay out her tools on it.

Ned understands all too well what Martha is going through. Perhaps not to the same extent, of course, but there are people he cares about deeply out there. He, too, has stayed on shore because he knows he wouldn't be fit to help, though in Martha's case, Ned doesn't think of her as unable to swim out and fight so much as more useful staying back, getting ready to treat any injured people who turn up on shore.

He looks between her, setting out her medical supplies, to the water, and back again. Martha is useful here; he is not. Not useful here, not useful in the water. Or is that just a lie he's telling himself to excuse his own cowardice? Ned feels sick with indecision and worry, mutters, "Shit, maybe I should-"

But how hypocritical would that be, if he yelled at her not to rush into danger and then turned around and did exactly that, himself.

"I can't fight." He doesn't know why he's justifying himself to Martha, other than the fact that she's here, that she was willing to fling herself into the water regardless of danger. She's so much more competent than he is, so much braver, so that it seems effortless. Ned wishes, with a sudden ferocity, that he were like that. But he isn't. "I know I'd just end up getting in the way. It's not b-because I'm scared. Although I am. Scared." He is, in fact (as the seconds and minutes creep by and he thinks more and more about the fact that his friends might be getting hurt) verging close on terror.

The feeling of helplessness, of a complete lack of control, is perhaps more detrimental to Ned than actual peril would be. There's a tightness in his chest that won't seem to go away, making it hard for him to breathe. But he tries to ignore it, because there are people out there trying to swim and fight at the same time, people who have been pulled under by the monster who might be drowning right now. His lungs burn as if in sympathy for them and he wonders if any of them have died, yet. Ned feels lightheaded and sits down on the sand, ready to spring up again in a moment if he sees anyone (or anything) coming out of the water.

Martha honestly ignores Ned's talking. Well, ignore is not quite the correct term. She hears it, but she's not here to make him feel better. He's healthy and dry and not in danger of getting eaten or drowned by a sea monster.

But then he sits down and it looks like he's having a panic attack.

"Ned... NED! Look at me. Focus here.

"See these blankets? I need you to lay them out. Get them ready for people when they get back on shore. Got that?"

Ned's response to her is just half a second delayed, but he does respond, nodding wordlessly and doing his best to keep his focus on her, not to let himself think about anything else. It's easier for him to compartmentalize his worry about the people who are out there if he has something to do, and it would seem that Martha knows that. Of course she does. She would probably know that if she were only a doctor, and she's not only a doctor. She's a doctor who has been through... a war. Things that he doesn't know about in any kind of detail, but he has a foggy sense that what she's lived through has been pretty bad for a pretty long time.

He gets to his feet again and starts laying out the blankets like Martha asked, doing his very best not to look at the water of listen for the sounds of anyone out there, not to look at the other stragglers around the beach. In his mind he starts going over what he knows about first aid. It's not a lot: he is a simple baker who (up until he was brought here) leads a simple life.

A little while passes - Ned isn't sure how long, his perception of time doesn't seem exactly accurate - and he sees someone coming out of the water, barely staying on her feet. It's easy to recognize Shiala, even from this distance. Ned can see that she's having difficulty so he rushes over and, setting aside any thoughts of discomfort, reaches out to help support her, if she needs it.

((OOC: Hope this is okay, I asked Jessie & it gives Martha a chance to do some doctoring. I figure posting order Ned->Shiala->Martha))

Shiala limps up onto the beach, clutching her stomach. She's bleeding, bright purple, and while it's not worryingly fast or deep, it's painful all the same. There are others who are injured worse, but she still could use patching up, and she knows it.

She's hardly aware, but when Ned appears at her side, she slings an arm around his shoulders. She's completely exhausted, more than anything.

"Please tell me," she gasps, "that you have medigel."

Martha looks up when Ned runs to someone. Though she's not sure what that someone is, Martha is after him only a moment later, slipping an arm around the woman's waist.

"We have supplies; I can patch you up."

She hopes. "To the blankets Ned. So she's not lying in sand."

Ned nods his understanding of Martha's instruction, carrying as much of Shiala's weight as she'll let him bear, but being very careful to put as little strain as possible on her stomach, from which she is bleeding. Bleeding purple. It would be interesting if he weren't so damn worried.

When they get to the makeshift first aid area, Ned helps Shiala to sit down, staying close to her even when he's not longer helping to hold her up. In his distraction and worry, he isn't thinking very logically, asks, "What's medigel?" realizing a moment after that it must be some kind of futuristic medical supply. He's worried about how much blood she's lost, thinking that it would be impossible for anyone here to give her a transfusion, even if it were too much.

"Martha can stop the bleeding," Ned says, shooting a quick glance at the woman before looking back at Shiala, worry written all over his face, "Do you know if human painkillers will work on you? That looks like it hurts but I wouldn't want to poison you with an aspirin..."

No medigel. Of course there's no medigel. She lets herself down onto the blankets, letting out a groan of pain through gritted teeth. She's had worse, but not in a backwards, primitive planet without anything so basic as medigel.

"I'll try it." She's not sure what aspirin is, other than that it's evidently some sort of painkiller, an ancient one likely enough, something since replaced by better options. "It's probably not poison. We're similar enough."

She's already had a dose of who-knows-what from the sea monster, after all.

"Not aspirin," Martha interrupts. "A blood thinner is going to be a hinderance. I'm sorry Miss..." Martha leaves the miss hanging as she doesn't know the other woman's name. "Right now, the best I can do is a very small dose of local anesthetic so we can stitch you up and then give you pain killers."

She realizes right away that Ned is clearly not helpful unless given specific instructions. Which she can do.

"Ned, hand me the brown bottle marked antiseptic and the gauze. We've to clean the wound first."

Martha turns her attention back to the woman on the ground.

"This will sting a bit."

It's a good thing Martha is here and not just Ned, because he'd forgotten aspirin was a blood thinner. He's more than happy to just be another pair of hands helping Martha out and letting her do the thinking. Clearly she keeps her head in a tight spot a hell of a lot better than Ned does, and she has the expertise to help Shiala properly.

He looks for the appropriate bottle, uncaps it and hands it to Martha, fishing around for gauze, next, trying his best not to think about how hard his hands are shaking.

It was going to sting . Great. To Shiala, that seems so wrong; she's used to medigel, smeared on to ease pain, speed healing, seal a wound. Medigel is a relief; this isn't going to be.

But this is what there is, and she'd rather not die of infection like a careless quarian.

"Shiala," she says. "My name is Shiala." She lowers her arm from her stomach; the shirt she's wearing -- just a tight-fitting t-shirt she's scavenged from somewhere, and she has to wonder if her commando leathers would have held up better -- is pretty sliced up, soaked dark purple with blood and sticking to her, but the wound itself isn't terribly deep, though it is ragged. Maybe the bleeding's slowing, but it does need to be cleaned up.

"Shiala," Martha repeats. "I'm Dr. Martha Jones. Right. We're going to clean the wound first."

She lifted Shiala's shirt enough to get access to the wound while protecting the other woman's privacy. Once clean, she was able to see almost exactly what she was dealing with.

"OK Ned. Now I need you to get me a syringe and the anesthetic." She gave him the name, trying to keep him busy. But his hands were shaking so hard. She was worried he would go into shock, and then he'd be of use to no one. If she could just keep him focused on something.

"Shiala. Do you know if the creature is poisoned or not?" The fact that Martha didn't have the technology to run a proper blood scan or anything that would be useful, especially on a creature she didn't know, was frustrating.

Ned does as Martha asks, quietly impressed by the composure of both of them - Martha, handling the situation so deftly and calmly, reassuring himself and Shiala at the same time. Shiala, in who knows how much pain, managing to give answers that are concise but polite. If it were him, he knows there would be stuttering and swearing and any amount of panic.

He hears commotion coming from off the water but tries not to pay any attention to it, to keep his mind focused on Shiala. It's no less viscerally upsetting, seeing blood that is purple rather than red. He wonders incongruously what makes it that way, if it would be rude for him to ask her at a later time. With the syringe and anesthetic in hand, he waits for Martha to tell him what else to do.

"I think it has... some sort of paralytic." She squeezes her eyes shut, grimacing against the pain. "I couldn't move, for a time. It's... it's wearing off."

Fortunately for her this is true. And fortunately for Dean, as well. She's so exhausted by this point she'd really just like to sleep, despite everything. She's just thankful her biotics were working for her today.

"Thank you Shiala. If you feel the need to sleep now, go ahead. We'll make sure you wake up as healthy as we can make you."

She reaches for the supplies she asked for from Ned and injected the anesthetic in the area around Shiala's wound.

"We'll wait for that to set in, should only take a few moments. OK Ned. Look for a curved suturing needle and thread in the side pocket. After that I'll need gauze and bandages."

At least he was aware enough to let her put him to work.

Ned does as Martha asks, wonders whether she wants him to thread the needle for her for a moment, but then realizes he wouldn't be able to even if he tried. He hands them over, searches instead for the gauze and bandages.

What Shiala said about the monster having some kind of paralytic... venom or slime or whatever it was, has him quietly terrified again. Being paralyzed and being in the water are not, he thinks, great combinations. He feels an onrush of gladness that he is not out there, and then, on its heels, a creeping guilt and self-loathing for ranking his own safety above that of others.

He pushes his bangs out of his face, accidentally leaves a tiny smear of purple blood across his forehead. He needs to pull himself together, because there are going to be others - not just Shiala. And Martha is going to keep needing his help if she is going to help them all. But that thought, of a task and a responsibility, finally begins to steady him.

"I'm going to go along the beach and see if anyone else needs help. If I find anyone, I'll bring them here."

With that, and with the supplies Martha will need in the near future laid out, Ned gets to his feet and starts rapidly pacing the length of the beach, looking for anyone else who might be so hurt they can't even make it over to Martha's makeshift first-aid area.

Sea monster attack!

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