Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in side - sim: Honoring the Ardent

Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side - sim: Honoring the Ardent

Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in side - sim: Honoring the Ardent
Posted by… suppressed (6) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)
Roman cried for quite a while, hugged against her, his head against her shoulder. He just couldn’t stop. He would be happy to have them another time, he was sure, but he just wasn’t ready. He didn’t even want to look at the PaDD or the data disks. He’d see the faces of his crewmates, of Jay. Instead he kept his head on her shoulder until eventually he calmed.

At some point Rand removed the data disk from his PaDD and slid the stack back into her pocket. She understood, though her own trauma wasn’t anything like his or his loss, she did understand. She would put them away, keep them, and if he ever decided he wanted them, he could have them. If not, that was okay too.

Roman knew she would keep them. They’d be there for him whenever he wanted them. His and Jay’s work… Somehow, she’d recovered it. Or gotten someone in the Engineering Corps to do it for her, anyway. There were both written and audio recordings in those files. There might’ve been video, if everything was recovered. The thought made him cry harder again for a few moments, and then he started to calm again. It was better than thinking they were lost forever. He turned his head into her as she pulled the disk out of his PaDD, his tears wetting her shirt.

Rand didn’t care, the shirt would dry. She held him tighter while the grief raged. It occured to her that Roman probably hadn’t grieved for Jay or the crew, not really. Not that he didn’t feel their loss or miss them terribly, but he had never really grieved. Probably an effect of his family if she had to guess, made worse by the circumstances. The long wait for help and the absolute desperate need to find a way to survive. She rested her head against his while he cried and held onto her.

He hadn’t really. The way his family raised him played a hand, and at the time there really hadn’t been time for that. It happened, and then they were adrift with dwindling supplies and barely functional ship systems, and then there was his recovery. He’d sort of just ignored his feelings about the whole thing, for months after the incident, telling himself there still wasn’t time for that. He had to return to Starfleet, and then he had to work. He always had to work. But the nightmares had started then, and he tried to ignore those, too.

He took a couple of shaky breaths before his breathing evened out some and then he relaxed against her, listening to her whispered Gaelic words. Roman understood some of them, probably more if he were listening more closely. He’d been learning from her for a few months now. But he didn’t assume the meaning was the important part. He sat against her, still hugging her, silently for a while, and then managed a “Thank you,” his voice cry-y and shaky.

~ Roman

At some point Pipkin, sensing something was wrong, got up from her spot on the bed and hopped over. She lifted onto her back feet and nosed at them both before settling between them. Mostly Rand was whispering terms of endearment, once or twice a lullaby, and more than any other telling him he wasn’t alone. When he finally spoke she kissed his cheek gently, “I love you, Roman. You don’t have to thank me.”

Rand

Roman felt a cold, wet nose against his elbow as Pipkin nosed him, and then Rand, and then her little paws as she settled in between them. Occasionally, she’d nose at him insistently, trying to get him to pet her. When she spoke, he hugged her a little tighter. It took another few moments after Rand kissed his cheek for him to lift his head off her shoulder. His face was tearstained, his nose stuffed. He felt like he looked like an upset child. Keeping one arm around Rand, he gave Pipkin a little pet. “Let me get cleaned up a little,” he said, gesturing towards the little restroom in his quarters.

~ Roman

Rand sat with him, however long it was, until he moved. She was reluctant to let him go, but she couldn’t help but smile to herself over Pipkin. She was quite the intuitive little fluff ball. Pipkin had a way of making you feel better, and she was immensely glad she had managed to get her. She had the best personality. The little rabbit leaned into the pets, raising up on hind feet to follow Roman’s hand when he would have stopped. Then she flopped over suddenly onto her side when Roman scratched behind her left ear.

Roman smiled a little as Pipkin flopped over. She was an incredibly friendly rabbit, and she seemed to have good intuitive sense when something was wrong. If he left her out at night, sometimes she’d lay against him if he was having a nightmare. That worried him a little, he didn’t want to roll over onto her. But he still thought it was kind of cool she’d do it.

Rand didn’t think he looked like a child at all, but a heart broken, ravaged man, who somehow survived the attack on the Ardent, found a way to keep going. She just wanted to hug him. But when he said he wanted to clean up, she hugged him tighter for a moment and then let him get up when he was ready. Once the door closed behind him, Rand was out the door with the offensive disks, put them in her quarters and was back before he was finished.

Rand

Roman hugged her for one more moment and then stood, making his way to the bathroom. He washed his face a couple of times, and then dried it. He looked a little better but his eyes were puffy and there were red splotches from the crying. Leaned over the sink, he nearly started crying all over again. The disks had brought it all back up, he couldn’t stop thinking about it, picturing them, his crewmates. He splashed himself with cold water, dried himself off one more time, and then went back out into his quarters.

Rand listened for him. She knew he needed to be alone for a moment, but if it got bad, she’d go in there. Or maybe she’d get Randy. While she waited, Rand couldn’t help but feel horrible, but she didn’t think she had done anything really wrong. Her actions had upset Roman greatly though.

He’d been in there for quite a while after Rand came back. When he finally did come out, he sat next to her and hugged her again. The food was cold by then, not that Roman really remembered it was there. Though he was no longer crying, he still looked really upset, like he might start again though he didn’t want to.

~ Roman

While she waited for Roman, Rand had set up a movie, and made him his tea the way he liked - just decaf. She had the small bowl of fruit and veggie scraps for Pipkin, but the little rabbit barely nibbled, her ears twitching with each sound. When he sat down and hugged her again, Rand hugged him back, she wasn’t worried about dinner, and neither was Pipkin. Pipkin was insistent that she get up on Roman’s chest and lay there. After a few minutes, Rand moved back against the headboard so Roman could lean against her if he wanted. She reached over and started the movie.

Roman hugged her until he felt Pipkin’s little front paws on his chest as she tried to lay on him. As soon as he lay back to let her lay where she wanted (right in the center of his chest, just like Rand taught her), she settled in on him. He hadn’t noticed it when he first returned from the bathroom, but there was a cup of his favourite tea on the little side table by his bed. He propped himself up just a little so he could drink it. When Rand moved back against the headboard, Roman leaned up against her. She started a movie, but he wasn’t paying much attention to it. He was trying, he wanted to be distracted, but his thoughts kept going back to the ship. He pet Pipkin with his free hand, his other arm around Rand.

It was one of the Librarian movies. A puzzle to follow but also light and not overly serious. They had watched it in sickbay. This way Roman could watch if he wanted to be distracted, or zone out for awhile, or even cry some more. She kept the volume low so if he wanted to talk he didn’t have to feel like he was competing over the movie. Rand wasn’t sure what he needed, except to feel comfortable enough to allow himself to grieve. She kissed his cheek again, “I love you,” and she held onto him. Trying to give him the space he needed to … do whatever would make him feel better, or help him through it.

Rand

Roman glanced up long enough to see it was one of the movies they’d watched while he was in sickbay. He thought about asking for Randy, briefly, but in the end decided he really didn’t want to talk about it. “I love you, too,” he said, his voice still wavering like he was trying not to cry again. He was looking at the screen, but not really watching. About a third the way through he started crying quietly again. He leaned further into her and pretended he was still watching the movie. If it wasn’t something he’d seen before he wouldn’t have any idea what was going on in it.

~ Roman

Rand rested her head on top of his; the arm hugging him slowly rubbing up and down his arm. The other was resting on his chest next to Pipkin. Every so often she would grab a piece of food out of the container and let the bunny nibble on it. Once or twice she put the food in Roman’s hand, to give him some purposeful interaction with the rabbit rather than distant numbness.

Each time she put one of the little scraps of veggies in his hand he’d look down, hold it out to Pipkin, and murmer, “There you go,” to Pipkin in his cutesy animal voice.

Rand knew the moment he started to cry again. She didn’t know what to do, so she stayed quiet, just hugging him. She wished Randy was there. He always knew what to do. She should have deleted the files. Why didn’t she tell him what it was before she gave it to him? When he didn’t ask, why didn’t she stop him before he turned on the PaDD? Why did she go looking for it to begin with? She didn’t know if she should ask. Roman didn’t want to talk about it, he never did. Maybe that was the problem. She just wasn’t sure she was the right person to ask. She couldn’t sound worried. This was about Roman, and she didn’t want him focused on her anxiety. Finally, quietly, so he could pretend he didn’t hear her if he wanted, “Do you want to tell me?”

Rand

Roman did not respond for several moments. Rand might’ve even thought he really didn’t hear her. He wanted to say no. He didn’t at all want to talk about it, he wanted it to go away, to be as muted and numb as it normally was, buried and far from the surface. Instead, the words on his mind came out his mouth. “It was so many of them, Miranda… So many of our officers.” He said quietly after a shaky breath, and then he turned his head into her again, trying not to openly sob.

~ Roman

The words were hard to get out, and it felt like the only way to survive was to keep quiet. She nodded, her hand making small circles on his chest. Kind of how he would rub her back. There had been so many lost. Rand couldn’t fathom it. She’d never experienced anything like that. She remembered reading the report attached to his personnel file when she was prepping them for Carmichael. She’d been stunned by the sheer number of people lost and fear at the savageness of the attack. Hidden behind her office door, she’d cried some for the loss and those left behind, but still she could not fathom it. When he turned his head into her, she lifted Pipkin up a bit and helped her settle where she’d be more stable, but the little rabbit had other ideas and ended up nuzzled as close to Roman as she could get. Rand didn’t protest as he held her tighter trying to keep the sobs in. “It’s okay to grieve for them Roman, to feel their loss and be sad about it. They meant something to you, you lived, breathed, and worked with them for a long time. It’s okay, in here with just us, to miss them.”

Rand

Klingons were always savage, and maybe it was wrong but Roman hated them. He hoped to never see another Klingon ship in his life. He dreaded the idea that someday he might run into them on the Sentinel. He felt Pipkin’s fur, the little bunny was settled in as close as she could be. He held on to Rand, crying into her shoulder, again. He didn’t want this, he’d rather ignore it like he always did, but that didn’t seem to be an option just then, because whatever he did he couldn’t stop. Finally he let go, his shoulders shaking with his sobs. It was a much needed release of emotions held in far too long, but Roman just felt awful and sad and he wished he could go back and unsee the disks.

~ Roman

Rand wished she could go back and change it. Not give him the disks, not have made the inquiry, that there wasn’t a letter from command attached. She knew he needed to let the grief have it’s way, for a bit. Hiding it was probably causing his sleep problems. As he let go she reached out and held onto his hand. “What can I do? What do you need?”

Rand