Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side-sim: New Normal
Rand was sneaky when she needed to be, and right now she needed to be sneaky. It was Roman’s birthday, and they had almost missed it. The crew all tended to gather in the galley or rec hall when one of the crew had a birthday or other important day. Roman however was not the kind to do such things. Chef always made a cake and it was Rand’s job to tell him when someone was having a birthday.

So how to get chef to not announce it? Simple, don’t tell him. Instead Rand asked if she could make something. Normally Chef would never let anyone else in the kitchen, but Rand was sweet and did so much for everyone, if she wanted to make her grandma’s special secret meringue recipie, Chef was going to let her. She was only making a small one, just enough for one or two people, so he had enough to give her.

And it was just enough for two. Small enough to fit under a dish dome. It was done baking just in time for her to meet Roman for his PT appointment and then go back to do the layers of a Knickerbocker Glory. Having a covered plate on a tray wasn’t all that strange, it kept the food warm or cold and helped prevent people from bumping into it.

She had thought about going back to the observation deck, but she wasn’t sure he would want to celebrate with other people around. They could always go to the observation deck later. Apparently they were passing some kind of nebula that was supposed to be really amazing. The stellar cartographers were all excited about it in the mess hall earlier and hoping they slowed down enough to take pictures with the sensors and telescope.

She took the tray to her quarters, so she could change. Pipkin was supposed to be his birthday present, but she had arrived early. So it was just the desert and the two of them. Well three if you counted Pipkin. She was wearing a pale green, a-line dress, a sweetheart neckline, and cap sleeves. She liked the way the skirt moved when she walked in it. Then, making sure no one was in the corridor she carried the tray down to Roman’s quarters. She knocked but there was no answer, so she let herself in. She thought Roman would be back by now. His PT was after his shift and had ended an hour before. She set the tray down and went to let Pipkin out of her cage.

Rand

Roman had been off bed rest for about two days and he was still getting back into his normal routines. His leg pain was way down, had been since the morning after his last session with the dermal regenerator, but he still limped quite heavily and used at least one of his crutches most of the time. During his shift, he’d had more paperwork than usual. The nebula had his stellar cartographers excited and they’d put in all sorts of requests and reports. More to come when they got the pictures of it, he was sure.

Roman’s birthday wasn’t normally something he celebrated. His parents would get him a cake, at least, but he never had ‘friend’ parties, with people over. Those were for poor kids, who had little other joy in their lives, and needed the distraction. So Roman had never been a big celebrater of birthdays. Jay always made a point of doing something for it, a cake or a small gift. But he was gone now, so Roman hadn’t really done anything for it since Jay was gone. Roman used to do something in return for Jay’s birthday, and Jay’s birthday tended to be another hard time for Roman (and that was coming up in March). Between the injury and PT and catching up with his work, Roman had forgotten what day it was at all.

Normally, he showered in the morning. But he’d gotten unused to getting up at his normal time during his lengthy (far too lengthy, if you asked him) medical leave, and he hadn’t had time. Plus, PT was sort of, kinda like exercise and he always liked to shower after that. PT tended to make his leg sorer now and better later, so he had used a chair in the shower.

Roman did not hear the knock on the door, not from the bathroom. He stepped out of the shower, shook out his hair, and grabbed his towel off the rack and wrapped it around his waist.

As he stepped out the bathroom, the door to his quarters was opening and Rand stepped in, causing Roman to stop cold at the open door to the bathroom. His time on bed rest had not been long enough for him to lose the definition to his muscles. He looked just as fit as he had the last time Rand had seen him shirtless, a bit of (wet) hair on his chest. There was a scar on the right side of his chest just below the shoulder, an oddly shaped burn mark the size of an apple caused by flying debris. His arms, usually covered by the long sleeved uniform shirts they wore, were as defined as his chest and abs. He was by no means a body builder but he had certainly put work into the way he looked, athletic and defined, not huge and overly muscular.

The towel was long enough that wrapped around his waist about where pants would normally hang, it covered everything it needed to, but short enough Rand would be able to see part of the scar on his leg. 100% reconstructed, it didn’t look too different from how it used to, except that because the muscle was new, the leg looked quite a bit less muscular than the other one. That would change as he worked it. His legs were generally as muscular as the rest of his body. He worked out normally, and his martial arts made for a great full body work out. The incision for the surgery had been made a few inches to the right of the original scar, something about scar tissue not healing as well. Currently, it was still very visible, but it looked like it would fade into a less noticeable mark than the original injury.

He stood, dripping wet, wearing just the towel, looking at her, as if waiting to see what she was going to do. He didn’t really look embarrassed, in fact, after he got over the surprise that she was standing in his quarters unexpectedly, he was grinning a mischievous grin. That look Rand would recognize: his “Robin Hood look”.

~ Roman