Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side-sim: The Reckoning

Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in side-sim: The Reckoning

Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side-sim: The Reckoning
Posted by… suppressed (9) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)
Roman was not at all known for blindly following anything. The way Elbbirt put it, it was obvious which side had more benefits. It was safer to take the experimental treatment than continue blood thinners for weeks until the clots were gone. It wasn’t overly likely for Roman to get hurt beyond maybe a paper cut, but with his job it was always a possibility, and the blood thinners made any potential injuries more dangerous. He thought about it a long moment, his elbows on his desk, his hands below his chin. Finally, he said, “Alright. Let’s try it.”

~ Roman

Elbbirt nodded, “I’ll go get with chemistry now. It will take a little over a day. I’ll let you know when it’s ready. Randy will not be by with the blood thinners. You should be okay for a day. Just let me know if you get any redness, swelling, or soreness that’s not where your leg was repaired.” Elbbirt left and headed straight to the chemistry lab to get them started on synthesizing the new compound.

Roman nodded. He hoped his staff wouldn’t know what it was for. Just that Elbbirt needed it for someone aboard, but they were smart scientists and they knew he’d been out lately… But it was a stupid worry, and he tried to put it out of his mind. He wasn’t worried about the clots, he hadn’t been on blood thinners before and nothing had happened.

Once of the reason Elbbirt liked working with Connelly, was the she understood that anything medical asked was covered by doctor/patient confidentiality. They couldn’t ask or divulge details of what they were working on. Jacobsen signed the appropriate forms as well and between the two of them they were able to get to work right away.

Once Elbbirt was gone, Rand put her reports down and turned to look at Roman, sitting next to her. “Good news right?”

Rand

Roman nodded. “It sounds safer, even if it is experimental.” He was still nervous about it, and he was only going to get more nervous with all the waiting. A day at least until it was ready and then a day or two of waiting for it to work and watching for complications. But if all went well, it was over. In two or three days. Then all he had to deal with was his leg and PT. “Hopefully come three days, it’ll be done with.”

~ Roman

Rand nodded, and since the office door was shut she hugged him. “Three days should go fairly fast. You still have a lot to do with your Kelmao samples, don’t you? I heard Franks in the mess hall yesterday going on about how he can’t wait to compare notes. I don’t think the security officers cared much, though Morgan was more interested than most, but probably because she was there.” She stood up and grabbed her things, “Come on, let’s get to work rather than think about it.”

Roman hugged her back. “I do, I’ve been working on them since I got back, but we collected a lot of good data.” She stood up and he nodded. “I need to finish my paperwork, might as well do it here.” And after his paperwork was done, that was exactly what he did, focus all his attention on finishing the Kelmao samples.

A day later, Elbbirt was coming out of the chemistry lab and saw Alden in the hallway a little after lunch. “Ah Cmdr,” he waved toward Alden’s office and once the door was closed, confidentiality and all that, “Your chemistry folks are really good. Their work is incredible. The medicine is ready and I’ve tested it. Does this evening at 2000 work, your quarters? I’ll need to scan with the tricorder just to confirm the locations as I give it, but that’s it.”

Elbbirt

Roman had returned from lunch and was headed back to the labs when Elbbirt came out of the chemistry lab. Elbbirt beckoned him to his own office and he went in, let Elbbirt in, and then closed the door. “Doctor. I assume there’s news about your little project?” Then Elbbirt said that it was ready and Roman nodded. “My officers do their job and do it well. I’m glad they’ve impressed you.” He paused for a moment, and then nodded again. “2000, my quarters. That’ll do.” That would give him time to make sure Rand was off shift and could be there with him.

~ Roman

Rand saw Elbbirt coming out of Roman’s office. She was curious and could feel the rush of anxiety, but if something was wrong, Elbbirt wouldn’t be walking out alone. She had just spent her lunch hour in the lab with Roman working with Nibbles and he had seemed fine. She didn’t have time to go down and ask though, she had work to do, and at the moment didn’t have any leeway in her tasks. When she finally had a break later to go ask, she couldn’t find him anywhere on deck 9. She didn’t have time to check the labs on 11 and 12. She ran into Morgan who asked her how she was doing with her foot. It had been a couple weeks, but Rand realized she hadn’t seen Morgan in more than passing. It did remind her that today was Roman’s scheduled day and time each week with the security chief, and that’s why she couldn’t find him.

Roman had his meeting with the security chief, and that took a few hours, and then he was back in the lab. As the day went on, he got more and more nervous about it. Why? It was low risk, and Elbbirt wasn’t even making him go to Sickbay. He threw himself into his work. Work with the samples, cleaning cages, checking work. He kept himself busy.

It wasn’t until she was taking Rogers her dinner, which was a predilate Rogers didn’t usually take, but today the captain looked like she needed a break and to decompress, so Rand made it happen, that Randy caught up with her. He told her what was going on and she decided that her rounds could start a little early and she could skip her own dinner and eat later.

At 1937, Rand was done and stepped across the hall from her office and knocked on Roman’s door.

Rand

Roman was off shift at 1730. Rand was usually off later than that anyway. He skipped dinner. He hadn’t had a chance to talk to Rand yet, so he assumed she didn’t know. He looked for her, but she must have been working because he wasn’t finding her. Instead he went to his quarters and put a heat pack on his leg. He ended up working on some research on his PaDD until there was a knock at the door. It was 1937, a little early to be the doctor, but not obscenely early. He got up and answered the door and was relieved to see Rand.

~ Roman

Rand walked in, the door sliding shut behind her. “Randy told me,” she said by way of explanation to the relief and surprise she saw on his face. “I tried to stop by earlier, but I wanted to make sure I was done and wouldn’t get called away.” Rand promised that she would be with him for whatever happened with his leg, that she wouldn’t make him do it alone. She meant every word of it. She hated sickbay, not quite as much as Roman did, and so she was glad Elbbirt was coming to his quarters. She liked Elbbirt he tried really hard to take care of his patients physically and mentally. Some of that was probably Randy’s influence. She also wasn’t surprised that Elbbirt had scheduled it for 2000 hours. Elbbirt was familiar enough with her schedule by now, and if needs be he could have asked Randy. She’d have to do something nice for the doctor, even though she tried to avoid being in sickbay as a patient. She recognized the look on Roman’s face; the one that said he was stressed and doing his best to avoid the situation, not think about it. The one that told her he’d probably have trouble sleeping if the whole ordeal wasn’t over with soon, and so she did the only thing she could think of that would help and she hugged him.

Rand

Roman nodded. So Randy got the message to her. He’d have to thank him, though he was sure he’d done it more for Rand. He liked Elbbirt as a doctor, but any doctor would make him nervous. He liked to think Elbbirt didn’t know about his fear of sickbay, that scheduling things the way he did was simply luck. She hugged him, so he hugged her back again. He hugged for a few minutes before letting her go, and then he sat back down on the bed. “Elbbirt should be here in a little under twenty minutes.” Then the problem would be on its way to going away. Finally. He tried to focus on that.

~ Roman

Elbbirt wasn’t really aware of Roman’s fear. His avoidance and difficulty was well known. But he had noticed that Rand had a way of making Alden more cooperative, so scheduling his appointment when the young yeoman could be around was all for his own benefit. Randy told Rand because he knew it was best for Roman. Despite their testosterone filled posturing at each other, Randy was a good therapist and nurse and would do what he could to help. Also Rand would tear him a new one if he didn’t tell her that Roman had an appt she should be attend.

Rand nodded and sat down on the bed with him. She hadn’t brought food and Pipkin was staring up at the table confused as to where her nightly treat was. “Have you eaten? I can get food afterwards if not. And I happen to know that several new films were uploaded to the ship’s computer this morning. They arrived with the last supply shipment but the data disks got overlooked. Quartermaster finally found them.” Rand thought it might be good to think about what would happen after the appointment rather than it looming before them.

Roman smiled. “Any good ones? I’ve always wondered how the computer didn’t have the classic Terminator movies.” He said about the movies, and then answered, “Not yet, we can get something afterwards.” He didn’t feel hungry, because of stress, but he figured he probably would after. Or if he didn’t Rand would want him to try anyway.

Rand was leaned up against him just a little.
It made her feel better the other day when he’d had her lean against him, and she was hoping it helped him some. It wouldn’t make the nerves completely go away, but it might ease things a little. “I’m not sure. I didn’t get a chance to look at the titles yet. I know requests were made for classics, comedies, science fiction, and mysteries. I can pull the list up and you can look.” She didn’t want to get up, so she reached across him and pressed the control button for the computer’s verbal interface. “Computer list all new titles uploaded to the audio-visual entertainment library.”

“PROCESSING” and then a moment later the computer began to list the various titles.

Rand leaned against him and Roman put his arm around her. It did help a little. He leaned out of her way so she could reach the button. Then out of the list he told her the ones he liked or thought sounded interesting and asked her which ones she liked.

20 minutes later, Elbbirt knocked on the door, hypo and tricorder, and PaDD in hand.

Rand

It felt like way less than twenty minutes when Elbbirt came knocking and Roman called for him to enter. The door was unlocked already. Roman eyed the hypo and tricorder, trying to keep himself relaxed. “Good evening, Doctor.”

~ Roman

Rand sat up so that she wasn’t leaning completely on Roman. Elbbirt hid a smirk, it was like two kids who just got caught by their parents. Elbbirt was old enough to find it heartwarming and gently amusing. He was also still young enough to know he would have won the pool if there had been one. They seemed good for each other. “Good evening, Cmdr, Ensign.” He grabbed the chair by the desk and pulled it over so he could sit infront of Alden. He chattered while he set things up. “Randy won’t be joining us. Something about dinner and that security officer…oh … Morgan, Tracey Morgan.”

So that’s why Morgan stopped to talk to her that morning, because of Randy. She probably wanted to know all the things only a sister would know about her brother. It wasn’t the first time one of Randy’s dates had wanted information out of her. She was glad Morgan never got the chance.

“So do you think you could help me, Rand? I just need you to hold this PaDD up for me so I can read it. And maybe the tricorder too, we’ll see.” This meant Rand had to let go of Roman’s hand, which she was disappointed about, but if it helped she was okay with that.

Roman seemed hesitant to let go of Rand’s hand, but he had to, so she could help. He shook his head at the idea of Randy and Morgan. Not that it didn’t seem like a good match, it just bothered him for some reason he couldn’t place.

It didn’t take long. Roman didn’t have to lay back either at first. Elbbirt used the wand on the tricorder along with his notes on the padd to find each one. They had moved a little but not too much. Then he checked the calculations for the dosage, which he’d done 4 times to make sure of, and administered the hypo. It didn’t feel any different than the tingling of any other medicine. The one on his chest seemed to give the sensation much deeper though, because it was going deeper closer to the heart.

First Elbbirt was double checking the clots’ positions with the tricorder and then checking his notes. Then he looked at his notes, checking his calculations, and then finally administered the meds. It had the same weird tingly feeling as any other med, though it did feel strange to feel it so deeply, when Elbbirt gave the one on his chest.

“Hmmm…Cmdr I’ll need you to lean back for this last one, it’s near the top of your hip and will be difficult to get with you sitting straight up.”

Roman leaned back when asked, letting Elbbirt reach the fourth spot.

It took less than a minute for the last one. “Thank you for your help Rand. That made it much quicker than me dropping everything while I tried to hold the PaDD and read it while making scans.” Then while Elbbirt packed up all his limited equipment he went over what to look for to make sure the clots had been passed and any side effects. “The research team has asked, but does not require, if participants will log the date and time they are passed. It will help to determine if dosage strength, location, or size of the clot makes a difference in how quickly the medication works. Any questions or concerns before I go?”

Roman listened closely as Elbbirt explained what to look for and the side effects again. He looked at Rand and nodded, and then shook his head. “No questions I can think of.”

After taking care of that, Elbbirt took his leave. In all it only took 15 minutes before Roman and Rand were alone again.

Rand
Elbbirt

It was only fifteen minutes overall. Even to Roman that seemed fast, and he was glad. And then they were alone again and Roman smiled at Rand, seeming more relaxed. He was still worried about the meds, but with that part done he felt much better. “Dinner and a movie, then?”

~ Roman

Rand smiled, squeezing his hand. “That sounds good. I’ll get food and you pick the movie.” Now normally Rand wouldn’t care who got the food. In fact it was less stressful to let Roman get it because then she didn’t wonder if people were wondering who she was eating with. Not that anyone, other than Scott, would ask. The truth was though she wanted the opportunity to spy on her brother. It was Randy after all, and he was her brother so it was okay to spy just a little.

But bad luck for Rand or maybe good luck for Randy, Randy and Tracey were already gone from the mess hall when Rand got there. And Rand was not so curious that she wanted to miss out on time with Roman. So in short order Rand was back with a tray, two plates (mostly finger foods), two drinks and a small covered container. She set it down, kissed Roman briefly and disappeared back out the door. A few minutes later she was back, with hot popcorn. “What did you choose?”

Rand

Roman was about to offer to go down with her but instead she said to pick the movie, so he turned his attention to the list of new movies. Rand showed up just a few minutes later with their food, they kissed, and then she was gone again. He set up the movie he’d chosen, and then made himself comfortable on the bed and readjusted the heat pack he was using for his leg, switching the settings to make it cold. Then he put his food on the side table within his reach. When she came back with the popcorn and asked, he said, “A well known one from the early 21st century: The Matrix.“

~ Roman