Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in Side sim: Valentine’s Day with Roman and Rand

Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in Side sim: Valentine’s Day with Roman and Rand

Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in Side sim: Valentine’s Day with Roman and Rand
Posted by… suppressed (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)
Roman spent the time she was fixing the problem getting a drink. And then making polite conversation with some of the other officers. He didn’t really mind, but there was somewhere else he’d rather be: with Rand. He spotted her, surrounded by a group of junior officers. He spotted Scott, too, bombarding her with questions he couldn’t hear from this distance. Rand did not look happy, or comfortable. He moved towards her, but for the size of the ship, the crowd was difficult to make it through. He bumped into a couple of officers and had to stop to apologize to them.

A hand on her arm startled her into pausing. “Hi Rand. That was amazing. I didn’t know you could dance.” Rand blinked against the roaring in her ears and the dark dots on the edges of her vision. “En. Valos. Uh…thank you.” She started to move away. The noise was too loud. She had to leave. She didn’t feel well. “Ethan.” She looked at him funny. “Ethan. My name is Ethan. Would you dance with me?” He reached for her hand and she placed both hers behind her back. “No..no thank you.” He smiled looking disappointed but determined. “Look it was really nice of Cmdr Alden to dance with you but he was just being polite. Fraternization and all that. It makes sense. I certainly can’t dance like that, but I’m sure we’ll have fun. Just one dance.” No…oh no…was that why he kept trying to talk to her all the time? She backed up again and felt like her knees might give out. And then there were more people all talking to her. (Really they weren’t, it was a flashback). She swallowed hard. She didn’t feel good…

Rand

When he made his way through the crowd, Valos was talking to her. She looked really uncomfortable, more than before. Roman made it over to her and put his arm around her, pulling her in close with a meaningful look to Valos. “There are plenty of available dance partners. I believe I heard Rand say ‘no, thank you’. That should be enough, should it not?” The look he was giving was the sort that meant he wasn’t going to be tolerating excuses. Then he moved away with Rand without awaiting a response, trying to get her away from the crowd.

~ Roman

Rather than feeling belligerent, something about the way Alden pulled Rand in made him think he’d done something really wrong. He nodded but couldn’t figure out why asking her to dance would make Alden act like he had been inappropriate. But the look on Rand’s face said maybe he had. Then Franks arm was around his shoulder and he was shaking his head. “I told you to leave her be.” Valos looked at Franks…”But Alden? He doesn’t..” Franks laughed and pulled him away for a drink.

Randy spotted Rand a moment before Roman got to her. Morgan unsure what was wrong followed Randy when he said something was wrong with his sister. He caught Roman’s eye, and assured that Rand was in good hands, he did what he did best…create a distraction and draw attention off of Rand.

Randy’s distraction kept people’s attention away as Roman led Rand away. He hoped that meant fewer people would see where he was taking her to. There was no reason for anyone to follow them, but Roman wanted to be as sure as he could be that they’d be left alone.

Roman’s arm went around her and pulled her in. She turned into him, almost folding into him. His hug was familiar and pulled her out of the memories and back to the present. Randy was right to have been worried. She shook in his arms and she was breathing funny. She wanted to tell him she couldn’t breathe but she couldn’t get enough air. She went with him as he led her away, and it was a good thing he was leading because her vision had narrowed to a pin prick and she was lightheaded.

Rand

Roman led her into the locker room and sat her down on one of the benches in there. No one else was in there, everyone was either out in the gym at the dance, or in the empty JO quarters Rand had set up as overflow rooms. It was quieter, too, the music wasn’t meant to reach in there. He sat down next to her and hugged her tight. “Just breathe, okay?” He said quietly, not letting her go. He couldn’t remember exactly what Randy had said to do. Help her focus on breathing, right? But what else had he said…?

~ Roman

It took all Rand’s focus to move air through her lungs and put one foot in front of the other. Especially since she felt like she would fall and she was in heels. She sank onto the bench in a whispered rustle of skirts. Her fingers felt over the smooth silky satin over and over again, almost as if searching for something. She leaned against him, eyes closed, and nodded her head. She was trying to breath. Her shoulders shuddered as they rose and fell with each breath.

Randy had said to help her focus on breathing. Count her inhalations and exhalations for her, or even squeezing her hand, as a physical reminder. Get her away from crowds as all the noise and people seemed to make them worse. He’d mentioned walking as well, as long as Rand wasn’t so unsteady that she might fall. Reciting lines or details about any topic that she liked. It was simple distraction. Randy also warned him that after an attack she was likely to be extremely exhausted.

That’s right, Roman had even had a bit of an ‘aha’ moment, recalling the way Rand squeezed his hand in Sickbay: rhythmically, in time with her breathing. He wasn’t going to make her walk now that they were away from the crowds, heels and unsteady feet seemed a poor mix. And of course he knew just hugging her seemed to help too.

Rand forced her breaths but felt like it wasn’t helping, she was never going to catch her breath. It hurt to breath deep, her chest hurt and it felt like her heart was pumping air rather than blood. It was never ending, but in truth it had been less than a minute since Roman made her sit on the bench.

Rand

With one arm still around her he took her hand, squeezing on his inhales and relaxing his grip on the exhales, making sure they were calm and slow breaths. He’d only been sitting with her a minute or two, but it felt longer. He hated seeing her like this, all stressed and scared. He knew it would take a while but she’d start calming down, hopefully.

~ Roman

For Rand it seemed that her breathing eased and regulated as soon as Roman took her hand. The rhythmic squeezing of his hand a firm reminder of what she should be doing. In actuality it was a minute or so before her breathing actually began to ease. Her hands and arms were tingling and slightly numb like from the adrenaline rush and so it took her mind a moment to process the sensation. The squeeze of her hand combined with the rise and fall of his chest, where she was leaned against him, kept her mostly focused once she became aware of it. When the air seemed to flow easier and her heart didn’t pound so hard her mind began to wander, and of course it wandered to what had happened. That didn’t help her, and made her breath shorten and shallow painfully. Her hand squeezed his tightly, desperately. She should apologize. She was supposed to apologize. She’d ruined the evening, probably made him worry, and Randy too. Where was Randy? He usually found her by now. She didn’t say anything though, Roman never understood why she was apologizing, and the thought of having to explain it to him made her shudder where he held her, the idea was so awful to her.

Her breaths began to calm, but then it didn’t take long before they returned to the shorter, shallow breaths and she squeezed his hand. She wasn’t saying anything, so he didn’t know what was wrong or what she needed. He thought he knew what happened - Valos harassing her again. Maybe it was time he just outright tell the poor guy they were dating.

The truth was Valos hadn’t helped the situation, but it was Scott with her too personal questions. Like a tabloid paparazzi looking for ways to humiliate her and entertain themselves. She could have managed the conversation with Valos, perhaps increasing her anxiety, but managed if she hadn’t already been spiraling into a full blown panic attack. Scott’s questions would have bothered her no matter what. Rand didn’t talk about those things, not even with Randy. It was worse though because Scott knew her secret, knew about her acting. Scott always seemed to bring it up whenever she could, in private. Compliments, but it still bothered Rand. However, Rand was unable to focus on the why’s and how’s yet.

Randy had warned Roman about that too. “If you ask her what happened, she may or may not answer you. Thinking about it may be too stressful. And if she does, it probably won’t make sense. It never does to me. She’ll apologize. Accept the apology. She didn’t do anything wrong but she feels like she has. Again it doesn’t make sense, but brushing it off will only make her feel like her effort was waisted. No matter what we say she will still feel she did something wrong. Later you can tell her not to apologize, but in the moment she’s not likely to believe it.”

Her breath was still labored but steadily slow, matching his, her hand beginning to to squeeze and release his, in rhythm he’d set.

Rand

Randy had warned him asking her would be stressful, so he didn’t. She hadn’t tried apologizing, Roman wasn’t sure whether that was a good thing or not. He just kept doing what he was doing, holding her and squeezing her hand, breathing with her. Her breathing started to match his, and she began to squeeze his hand, too. That made him happy, it must’ve been working. He was going to wait for her to say something.

~ Roman

She finally turned her face away from his chest, taking in the cool air, her head still leaned against him. She opened her eyes to look around but then quickly closed them again. She recognized where they were, but was more relieved they were alone.

The door quietly inched open and Randy looked in. He’d seen them head this way but wasn’t sure they had come in here. He closed the door behind him and walked over, kneeling down in front of her. He placed his hand on hers feeling her pulse. It was still pulsing strongly in her wrist and her breathing wasn’t quite normal. He glanced up at Alden, “Is she any better?” He didn’t know how bad it was because he hadn’t been close enough to tell.

“A little. Her breathing seems a little better,” Roman replied.

Then his gaze turned…hard and one could imagine that Randy tearing across a field with a claymore. “Rand?” She turned her head and looked at him a moment before closing her eyes again. “Did Valos do something to you? Did he hurt you? Do something inappropriate?” She shook her head ‘no’ against Roman’s chest. Randy waited and Rand tried to tell him, but it only made her upset again. “Do you want me to get you a hypo?” Rand shook her head hard, “N…no.” He wasn’t going to get the cause out of Rand right now, she was still too upset. As long as Valos hadn’t done anything to her, he didn’t have to hurt someone. He stood and looked at Alden. “Everyone thinks she twisted her ankle on those heels, ‘I told her not to wear,’ and you took her to medical to make sure you and Rogers wouldn’t be out a yeoman for another week. Everyone believes it because Rand has those random moments of clumsiness. So whenever you are both ready you can come back to the party or leave. No one will think twice. They might ask if her foot is okay.” Randy doubted Rand or Roman would want to come back, but sometimes Rand decided to prove something to herself. He didn’t think this would be one of those nights. Randy snuck out the door.

Roman shook his head at the mention of Valos. “He’s oblivious as any but I don’t think he’d do anything purposefully harmful.” He said. She refused a hypo and Roman almost wished she’d take it. He said nothing, because if it were him, he wouldn’t. Finally Randy stood and Roman nodded, still holding Rand.

Several slow deep breaths later the adrenaline spike dropped, and she began to shiver, goose bumps appearing on her skin. “I’m cold.” She sounded exhausted and dazed.

Rand

Finally she was breathing more deeply and slowly and she began to shiver, so carefully he pulled his blazer off and put it around her. “Do you want to go up to my quarters? Or your own?”

Roman shifted her slightly, not totally letting go and then he placed the blazer around her. The satin lining was warm from his body heat and along with his arm around her it chased most of the chill away. It was more a reaction to the fight or flight response than the temperature of the room. She didn’t answer him and the silence stretched. There were too many factors to the decision. Or that’s what the panic was telling her. In truth it was simply, everything else could be taken care of later. In the end she was exhausted, she wanted to sleep, and not be alone. “Yours?” It wasn’t really a question, it just came out that way.

Rand