Characters: Chopper, Doctorine
(First Times) A Painful Lesson
He spends a week at the girl's side, mixing medecine to ease her pain and checking her temperature every few hours. The first three days she has moments of half-delirious, feverish consciousness, and at these times she hugs and cuddles him like he's her favourite plushie, and it hurts to know that if she was healthy she would treat him as a monster like everyone else.
It hurts more to face the parents afterwards, because in their eyes the question 'are you sure you did everything you could to save her?' shines bright as daylight, and it's addressed to Doctorine when he is the one who treated her. Or tried to.
He knows nothing could have been done. He knew the moment he saw the shivering, huddled form that she would never see her seventh birthday, and the best anyone could do was allow her to go painlessly. But Doctorine's silence as they walk back feels accusatory, makes him second-guess himself and want to be somewhere else, anywhere were he won't have to feel the weight of his failure.
Then they reach the castle, and finally she looks at him, shakes her head, sighs. Reaches for a bottle the content of which is definitely not for healing purposes and tags a swig of it before handing it to him. It's something she's never done before, and he thinks maybe it is for healing, in a way, but he doesn't think it would work for him.
"It doesn't get any easier," she says, patting him on the head. "and it's always a losing battle in the end. But it doesn't mean we don't have to fight it."