Roman had spent most of the last month preparing for the ship’s Valentine’s dance. He was confident in his skills and he felt less rusty than he had before. And the little practice session with Rand had gone well. Roman wasn’t at all worried for the dance. But he also knew that a social dance wasn’t going to be Rand’s idea of an ideal holiday.

And so, Roman had been secretly preparing something else for Rand, for Valentines day. The dance started at 1900. That left an hour before the dance, and Roman didn’t expect to spend more than an hour or an hour and a half at the dance, so that left the night after the dance. He had to work, but he finished everything that had to be done that day and set the rest in his stack for tomorrow. Then he left the lab early at 1500, wanting the time to prepare. He’d begged a big favour from the chef (how did Rand do that so easily?) and scored the ingredients for two servings of shepherd’s pie. It was both of their favourite food. He made the dish himself, the way it was made for him when he was young.

Roman had dressed up, too. Not in his full tux he was going to wear to the dance, but one of his nicest light blue button-ups, a pair of grey slacks, and a nice pair of loafers. He’d redone his hair, neatly combed like always and styled with gel.

Roman set up his quarters, he’d borrowed a foldable table and two chairs, and a dark red tablecloth. He set them up in his quarters like he usually did for their dates. Then he put the tablecloth over the table. He set cushions onto the chairs. It was the best he could do to make them a little fancier. To make it even cheesier, he could only find heart shaped cushions. Hopefully that wouldn’t ruin it.

The hardest to procure were the candles. Technically, he wasn’t supposed to have them due to the risk of fire. But if he only burnt them for a while, while he was directly watching them, it would be fine. There were two. He set them on the table on either side of a small vase of (fake) flowers. It was… very traditionally valentine’s Day. He was nervous, afraid she’d think it was too much, or too cheesy.

He set a small, wrapped box in the drawer of his desk where his computer console was. That had taken some doing to get done, especially without Rand finding out. And he owed a big favour to one of the Engineering ensigns (really, Rand was way better at that than he was) to make it possible. He hoped she’d like it.

It was 1730 when he was ready for her to show up. He’d asked if she could make it by 1800, but if she was late, that was okay. Her work frequently kept her long. The dinner and gift would be a total surprise (hopefully, anyway, that girl knew EVERYTHING going on the ship, even more so than Ensign Scott), and he awaited her arrival nervously, his chosen dinner in insulated trays to keep it warm until she showed up.

~ Roman