Title: In Love and War

Author: CosmicalMadison

Rating: T

Summary: When Clone Wars medic Mel Nova finds unexpected love with a patient, she thinks she has found happiness in life. But Order Sixty-Six changes that.

Setting: During Revenge of the Sith

Disclaimer: Of course I don't own Star Wars; it belongs to that genius George Lucas. However, I do own my original characters (which is pretty much everyone). I also want to make it clear right now that I know next to nothing about hospitals or medical procedures and the like, Star Wars or otherwise. I have read the first two or three chapters of Medstar One: Battle Surgeons and can see that this story probably doesn't really jive with how medical bases in the Star Wars universe really are, but I have done my best. Please just enjoy the story!

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Chapter One - Talking With Mark

For as long as she could remember, Melalaiya Nova had wanted to be a nurse. One of her earliest memories was of standing in front of a mirror clad in her mother's medic uniform and holding her stuffed nerf, saying, "Are you ready for your checkup, Nerfie?"

That, and once when she was eight wanting to have everyone call her "Nursie Mel-Mel," even her friends at school - oh, how she'd been embarrassed by that when reminded of it years later!

But little did she know how serious this childhood ambition would become.

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Now, thirteen years later, she was a junior medic doing such things as setting broken bones, taking care of the sick, and checking up on long-term patients. It was the time of the great Clone Wars and she was stationed on the backwater planet of Kakashna taking care of the ones who were wounded in battle. It was clone troopers mostly, but there was also the occasional Jedi and often a civilian or two.

Presently, she had five people on her schedule: three troopers, a female Jedi, and a civilian boy who, unfortunately, happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was early afternoon on a slow day - there hadn't been many new ones today - and she was about to see her third patient, a clone trooper.

Now, one thing she did that others didn't was give her long-term clone patients names. Of course, before the clones came to her they did not have names, only number designations - the one she was about to see was called 672-A9 or something like that, she wasn't sure. She liked to have another name to call them by, because the numbers to her just seemed strange, not to mention cold and unfriendly. In a way, she was violating her orders as a nurse: to give names to patients who had none was to become attached to them. But, then again, that had always been one of her faults as a nurse. She just couldn't remain distant. She loved people, loved making friends, loved talking about anything and everything with anyone she could make contact with. Of course, she didn't tell anyone about this, except of course the patients, because she would certainly be cut from the team, demoted to equipment manager or something awful like that.

Well, on a lighter note, this one she called Mark. If anyone had known, they might have asked her, "Why Mark?" And she would have answered that back when she was young her father had always told her stories about a young medic named Colra Mar that once lived on their home planet of Corellia. Mel didn't know if the tales were true or not, but they lacked nothing. There was always action, drama, comedy, and a sub-plot love story, of course. The tale in the saga had gone that Colra had been in love with a boy named Mark and that one day he had been thrown from his speeder in a terrible accident, paralyzed from the neck down. Through an unfortunate twist of fate, Colra had been assigned as Mark's caretaker. One dark night when she came to say goodbye to him at the end of her shift, he told her how much he loved her and said that he would rather die than live this way. Then he asked at unthinkable. He told Colra to kill him, to give him a shot of something that would take away this horrible excuse for a life he was living. Tearfully, she agreed and went through with the plan. The next day when Mark's body was found and Colra confessed to what she had done, she was stripped of her rank as medic and sent to a prison where she would spent the rest of her days for her "crime." Mel had named this brave trooper in honor of Colra's lost love.

Now, there was nothing seriously wrong with him, only that he had been shoved off of a high balcony during a skirmish, incredibly landing on his feet. His only injuries were two broken ankles and a slight concussion from when the rest of his body hit the ground. He had been in the makeshift hospital for two days now, and after another twenty-four to forty-eight hours or so, after the swelling went down, she would set his ankles and put them in casts. Then he would be moved to the small building separate from the main hospital that was reserved for extended-stay patients. He would stay there for about a week while he healed, then probably go back to the war. Mel didn't know what would happen to him, and in a way she didn't want to. She couldn't bear the thought of him being restationed on another planet, injured again or maybe even killed when she couldn't see him or even communicate with him in any way. He was her favorite patient and they were even on a first-name basis. She told herself that she didn't have feelings for him, but had anyone known about it they would have told her she was fooling herself.

As Mel strode briskly across the room towards the bed of her favorite patient, her medic's tunic swirling around her legs, she glanced at the clipboard she held in her arms. Yes, it would be either today or tomorrow that Mark's ankles were to be set, depending on his progress when she checked him in a few minutes. She reached his bedside with a huge smile on her face and dumped the clipboard into the slot at the foot of the bed. "How are you doing today, Mark?" she said brightly, though the name a bit more softly to be sure that no one heard.

He sat up a little and smiled back at her. "Fine, thank you, Mel." He sighed. "Although more than a tad anxious to get out of this stinking bed."

"You'll be out soon enough," Mel replied. "Now, let me check you out." She went to the end of the bed, flipped up the sheet, and removed the protective covering that covered his feet. "You know, Mark, you're due to be set in a day or two." She noted that the swelling had gone down considerably, though the ankles still bulged purple.

"Yeah." Mark winced at the thought of his ankles being set. He had heard tales from the other soldiers in his troop of having bones set without being put out first. This backwater hospital rarely received shipments of supplies, so they often ran out of the drug used to push patients into unconsciousness. "Mel, are you sure you won't be receiving any of that drug before then?"

The young nurse smiled sadly. "I'm afraid not, Mark. We just got a shipment a couple of weeks ago and the next one's not due for more than a month yet." She picked the clipboard back up and marked her patient's progress, noting that he would be ready for the procedure tomorrow.

Mark sighed again and frowned heavily. "Isn't there a way you can get some of it from one of the local village hospitals?"

Mel flipped the blankets at the foot of the bed back into place, put the clipboard into its slot again, and moved to Mark's side. "You forget that the people of Kakashna are not as advanced in their medicine as are other worlds." She shook her head sadly. "They don't have any. Well, maybe some in very limited quantities in some of the larger cities, but they're so far away and we dare not take it form them."

"Why?" he tilted his head to one side quizzically.

Mel smiled. "Oh, Mark, you ask too many questions. Remember, you have to rest up so you're ready for the procedure tomorrow."

"It's going to be tomorrow already?" A worried look stole over his face and there was an uncharacteristic tremor in his voice.

"Don't worry, Mark," she tried to comfort him. "It will only take a few minutes. I wish I could tell you that it won't hurt, but that would be a lie. But you're a strong guy; I know that you can get through it. Then you can go back out there and fight again, maybe end this blasted war a little bit sooner for all of us."

A beautiful smile took over the scared look in his eyes. "Thanks, Mel. I'm so glad that you believe in me."

"Of course I do." She echoed his smile, then glanced across the room at another bed, another patient, and sighed. She wished she could stay with Mark just a little longer, but she knew she had a responsibility to her other patients. "Sorry, Mark, but I have to see Master Lukais now. Just be sure you get some rest tonight, and don't worry about the procedure, okay? I'll be here for you. And once your ankles are set, it's just a week in Recovery and you can get out of here."

"Yeah," he said dreamily, and she could see his eyes light up with happiness at the thought of escaping the hospital, just like so many others. "I can't wait."

"I'll bet." She glanced at the other patient again, then back to Mark, duty still pulling her one way, personal feelings another. "I'm sorry, Mark, but I've got to go. See you tomorrow, bright and early, okay?"

"Okay. I'll - " but he cut himself off. She knew what he'd been about to say: I'll look forward to it. Just like he did everyday when she said goodbye, said she'd see him again tomorrow. He corrected himself, saying: "I'll look forward to seeing to you, not to the setting."

She grinned. "Yeah. Well, see you."

"Goodbye," he said.

The nurse once more retrieved her clipboard and turned toward the Jedi Master's bed, mind already clicking over the facts about her ailment.

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So, there's the first chapter, what do you think? I hope you liked it.

Please review me, but if you do I have a few suggestions. Instead of just "Your story was great, please write more," (though that's certainly acceptable), I would appreciate it even more if you would say exactly what was so good about it. For example: was it how I handled dialogue, characterization, description, or what ever. In the case that you (sniff) don't like it, what was bad? Not enough description, not enough dialogue, whatever you think. Thanks a lot; I look forward to hearing from you!