Character: Trafalgar Law, Heart Pirates

XXVI

It was a full thirty-six hours before Trafalgar Law gave in to the protests of his bodily needs, or so he would be later informed. At the moment, however, the pirate doctor was still fighting on in a soon-to-be-lost war against shaking hands, drooping eyelids and heavy limbs. He had laid down his hand saw and planted both hands at the edge of his operating table in an effort to keep himself steady. An unearthly wailing cried out from his midsection.

Law scowled, trying to ignore it. He had successfully done so for many hours, but the unpleasant pangs of pain that his stomach, back, feet and eyelids signaled to his brain had been more bearable then; they came and went and the Surgeon of Death carried on dissecting the latest batch of cadavers the Heart Pirates had acquired.

This one, however, was more persistent than its predecessors. Coupled with the exhaustion that made his body feel twice as heavy, his hunger was no longer something he could resist. A few minutes into the last wave of hunger pangs, Law shook his head and admitted defeat in a mutter.

He activated his devil fruit ability to encompass the operating tables, most of them laden with cut-up bodies, of his submarine's operating room. With a single hand gesture, he returned the cadavers into the body bags they had been carried in, before closing the short distance between himself and the door. There, he shrugged off his lab coat and hung it on the coat rack, a red and brown speckled contrast to the pristine whiteness of the others already there. No matter; one crewmate or another would pick it up for washing sooner or later: a clean one would await him in his return. With that task now finished, he went straight to the galley.

"Mornin' cap'n," the cook chirped as he entered.

"Good morning," Law echoed, seating himself.

So it was morning then. From the sounds of clattering dishes from the adjacent room, he guessed it must have been some time after breakfast. The crewmate standing at the kitchen door with a plate and a dish rag in his hands only served to confirm the thought. It was evening, roughly past seven, when he retreated into the medical bay.

"It's been twelve hours then? I didn't notice," Law mused out loud.

Shachi, the cook's help that morning it seemed, didn't reply at once, and instead looked at him with a confused expression. But his furrowed brows relaxed soon enough, and after nodding to himself a few times, he answered his captain's query.

"You've been in the lab for a day and a half, sir," he said. "Thirty-six, thirty-seven hours?"

Law's brows shot up. Underestimated by twenty-four hours – he should have considered the possibility: neither his body clock nor his digestive system would have bothered him as much if it had been a shorter period of time. His brain was definitely not working at its best from all the starvation and sleep deprivation, so it would probably do him good to eat up and rest his head.

As the doctor mentally berated himself, the cook and his help laid out his meal before him. Law eyed the food without taking in any details. Despite how logic compelled him to act, he didn't want to sleep the day, or at least the morning, away because then he would surely invert his body clock (not that it was the first time he would do so that month, but it was such a hassle to get it back to normal). Surely there was another way to overcome his present dilemma, a way to keep awake not just through sheer willpower –

The thought trailed off for a study he had read about the body's circadian rhythm was coaxing itself to be remembered. Fragments of the concept floated around in his mind, waiting to be put together. Dropping sheer willpower out of his list of options, the pirate doctor dug around his memories for the article, and bit by bit, a smug smirk stretched across face. Ah, the perks of his occupation; his knowledge always came through in times like these.

Much like how diurnal animals shifted to nocturnal hunting during famine, human beings could induce the same shift by making their bodies believe they were experiencing food scarcity – and that nourishment was more available in a time period usually allotted for sleep. A person could fast for at least sixteen hours, then eat a good meal, and the body would be more active afterwards. Because by the study's reasoning, the 'starving' individual would need the heightened awareness to 'hunt for food'.

And Trafalgar Law had long since breached that sixteen-hour threshold.

"Coffee, captain?"

"Yes, please," Law replied, thinking of all the tests he planned to perform on the many specimens of Grand Line-specific races in his lab for the rest of the day.

A/N: This chapter was going to be about something else entirely. That is, until I found out about the little bit of info about the body and food clocks while I was researching on the more specific details of the fic. The later part then became illogical and I had to take it out. Hopefully, I could still salvage the original idea for another chapter.

EDIT: [5-31-13] Version 2 finished.

REVIEWS REPLIES:

To Shiningheart of ThunderClan:
I personally think it's one of the nicest things about reading Law fanfics. A lot of authors incorporate medical knowledge one way or another. 3

To 10th Squad 3rd Seat & Mistress Wiggle:
Glad to know you enjoyed it. :)

To CherishCherries:
I agree that Law would be a stubborn man. In fact, it's probably part of that 'bad attitude' Kid mentioned about him. The large discrepancy is my fault for the most part; I didn't think this chapter all the way through, to be honest. ^^; But with Law's stamina (having to fight for his life on a regular basis) curiosity and learned ability to ignore his bodily needs, I feel like he might be able to pull off something like this.