Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in Side sim: The Report Dilemma

Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in Side sim: The Report Dilemma

Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in Side sim: The Report Dilemma
Posted by… suppressed (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)
“Your hospital room? What happened?” Roman asked. He had an internal chuckle at the idea of Randy hitting someone. Despite how well they got along, Roman did not see Randy as the violent type. He nodded to her description. His family wasn’t often in the media, at least not when he’d known them, but it did happen. Now… well, he was glad no one on the ship seemed to have seen his sisters and made the connection to his name. It probably helped that they’d changed their names in marriage, but he was sure their original names were known by everyone who bothered to follow them.

~ Roman

Oh she hadn’t meant to say that, but it was so easy to talk to Roman. He was really very sweet and calm. Where she was always running in overdrive. She kind of picked at a pleat in her skirt and where she’d been looking in his direction now she was looking at her hands. She sighed, a slight smile actually crossing her face, “We opened in London, 4 days. I had taken parts with the group before, but this time it was really official. I turned 18 that week and I was going to sign on with them. See my parents or Randy always went with me to the after parties and they made sure to buffer me from the worst of it. Most of the time I would stay in costume and pretend to still be that character.”

She suddenly stopped picking at her skirt and smoothed it like she had just realized what she was doing. “The third night they didn’t come. It was a smaller turn out and we all thought it would be good practice for me, to be on my own, since I would be traveling. The…the director thought my parents coddled me too much, so he..he arranged for the press to be there. They were everywhere and it just didn’t stop, the questions and jostling the recorders in my face and the questions weren’t just about the performance or my acting but personal and invasive.” She was breathing too hard, and her eyes had started to contract a little, the memories extremely vivid.

Roman took her hand, like she normally did for him, trying to help her calm down. Her story evoked anger in him, both at the director who thought he knew better and the press, shoving their damn microphones and cameras everywhere, but this story was years old, and it wasn’t like there was anything he could do, and his anger passed quickly. Instead he just felt bad for her, and he listened to the rest of her story intently.

“I told the director I didn’t feel well. I wanted to stop, I needed to stop, that I needed him to call my parents. He…he didn’t listen. They....at first they thought I had a heart attack. They had to cancel the last performance. I was diagnosed with stress cardiomyopath, brought on by severe stress from the party. The doctors called it broken heart syndrome.” The name alone she felt was pathetic enough.

Yeoman Rand

It was no wonder she had to quit with that information. Roman was no doctor and he didn’t know the specifics, but he did know the basics of heart function, and he knew the basics of what ‘broken heart syndrome’ was. Too much stress too quickly and wham, essentially a heart attack without the arterial blockage. Roman didn’t have anything to say, besides perhaps a few choice obscenities for that director that he didn’t speak aloud, right away, instead he kept hold of her hand. “That’s awful,” he said after a moment’s silence. Roman didn’t think it was pathetic at all, it was a known and well-researched phenomenon, and given her history with anxiety he felt the director should’ve known something like that could happen. “I am sorry that’s how your acting career ended,” he said, and he meant it, that was an awful outcome for the set of events.

~ Roman

“It was,” was all she said, but her fingers curled around his hand that was holding hers. She hoped she hadn’t started crying, that would be horrible and she would never get over the embarrassment. After a few shakey but slow breaths she’d managed to ease the need to run, to quiet the memory. “You don’t need to be sorry, Roman. It’s no one’s fault but my own. I’m the one who gave up.” She attempted a shrug and then picked up her drink again, sipping slowly. “But that’s when I met Lt Gaulette, the Yeoman. And after the doctors cleared me I went to San Francisco and joined Star Fleet to become a yeoman. I like what I do, it suits me.”

Rand

“It’s no one’s fault, certainly not your own,” said Roman and he pulled her into a hug. He remembered Scott the gossip telling the lab staff she’d seen a video of Rand, published by the group Rand had mentioned. He’d told her to stop spreading other people’s business around the ship. Now he was glad he was so hard on that sort of gossip, it clearly wasn’t something Rand liked telling everyone about. “And we all know you keep this ship running as our yeoman.” He said it with a little smile, he meant she was really good at her job.

~ Roman

He tugged her hand, pulling her into a hug. It surprised her, but it didn’t upset her. She was unsure what to do at first, and simply leaned against him letting him hug for moments. Then cautiously, or maybe just because she was stunned, she hugged him in return. What was most significant to her was she didn’t feel the need to ask him to keep her secret, she knew Roman would. Some how she knew that he might ask Randy about it, but not because of gossip but only if he had to because it was necessary. She smiled at the compliment. She appreciated it and she also knew he wouldn’t compliment her if he didn’t think she deserved it. Roman had high expectations of the crew but he was never flattering or cruel in his criticisms and compliments. She wasn’t quite sure how to explain why, but she felt extremely grateful to him at that moment. “Thank you,” came out muffled against him.

Yeoman Rand

She leaned into him, and then she returned his hug, and Roman hugged her for several moments before loosening his grip, so if she wanted to she could let go. But he certainly wouldn’t mind if she stayed right where she was. “I’m happy you felt you could tell me about it,” he said, “and no one will hear about it from me.” He figured she probably knew that, but he felt the need to say it anyway.

~ Roman

Rand didn’t move, not right away. She wasn’t sure what had encouraged her to tell him, except that she simply wanted to be honest with Roman in their conversation. She meant to tell him she believed him, that he wouldn’t talk about it to anyone else, but instead, again with her softly muffled voice, she said, “I trust you.” Because she both trusted him to be able to tell him and for him to keep her confidence.

After several long moments she did let go. Not because she wanted to, but leaned over in the seat against him, she was perched precariously on the edge of her chair, and was beginning to feel like she might fall. And she’d done enough of that in front of him. She sat up carefully, gently, reluctantly, but found his hand again as she did. She didn’t want to end the evening just yet though, so she searched for some question or topic. “What is your favorite piece to play?”

Rand

Roman took her hand when she found his. Her statement of trust made him really happy. He thought about her question for a moment and said, “I like to play the classics. Some old pop songs have good melody to them. And sometimes I just improvise.” He used to like the classics more, but these days, he preferred making his own music.

~ Roman

Classics were difficult and complex and required great skill, keeping adherence to rules and technique. That’s why they were classics and survived over the years. But improve was something totally different. It required letting go of the rules, bending techniques, telling the ‘masters’ you know better, moving away from tradition and being rebellious. So Roman, the strict adherer to protocol, following precisely the scientific method, regulation perfect uniforms every day, had a rebellious streak. That made her grin. Of course she had no idea about his family and how accurate that was. “I bet your own pieces are wonderful.” She would love to hear him play eventually, but she didn’t ask because she knew how personal such things were, and sometimes they were just for yourself.

Rand

Roman shrugged. “They’re alright.” He wouldn’t claim to be great at it, but he thought his work sounded pretty good. “I haven’t played for anyone since secondary school,” he said. He liked to play for himself, usually here, in his quarters. But perhaps sometime, he’d show her. He’d played since he was very young, back in his days of school he’d done music as an extracurricular for school. But after he went to college, he never did performances. It just wasn’t what he wanted to focus on in life. A hobby, nothing more.

~ Roman

“That’s okay. Even if others are around you should only play for yourself. If you play for others, for what they like, then you never get to play what you like. And you loose your passion for it that way.” She turned her gaze to look up at him briefly and turned a little pink. “Sometimes, when I’m alone, I still read new scripts and run lines from them, in my quarters.” She enjoyed it, acting out the parts and the monologues. Just for fun. She had thought maybe one day she could try voice acting again, bit not anytime soon. Maybe when people forgot her name.

Rand