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

(snip)

Roman spent the day doing any work he could find. He was unlucky - the lab was not busy that day. The animals’ cages were clean, the ship was travelling to a non-scientific destination, so science wasn’t doing anything for the ship, and he had no backlog of samples to process or other work to do. In his own project, he was awaiting the results of a test with Mr Wyvern’s venom, Rand handled the majority of the work with Nibbles, and the goo lizard was in some sort of dry state - it just wasn’t as, well, gooey as normal. It seemed to be a natural and healthy state for the lizard, and it didn’t take long for Roman to observe and make notes about it.

He spent the second half of the morning working with the chinzilla and her babies. He was starting to notice infighting between the litter mates - it was time to find the space to house the babies separately. He had a requisition request in already for additional enclosures, not that he knew where he’d put them. Roman must have been more distracted than he thought though, because when he reached into the enclosure to handle one of the babies, the not so little anymore alien rodent managed to sink its teeth into his hand and rabbit-kick his palm. Chinzillas were rather tough little creatures, attempting to forcibly remove the baby would’ve taken his flesh with it. They had jaws of steel, metaphorically speaking. And knives for claws.

He had to wait for it to choose to let him go, and that was no easy task when a small, feral creature was tearing you to bits. Notably, the attacking baby was a male, the males seemed more aggressive than the females. He was supposed to be using more caution than usual - even the pregnant mother hadn’t been as aggressive as the adolescent males. When the chinzilla apparently decided he was no longer a threat and let him go, he pulled his hand out and swiftly shut the enclosure.

The long scratches on his hand - the right one, his dominant, no less - were better than they looked. They ran the length of his palm and looked pretty bloody, but they were not deep. The angle had been wrong for the chinzilla’s talon-like claws to do real damage. The punctures from the rodent’s fangs were deeper wounds, but it was nothing Roman was overly concerned over as he made his way to the lab’s sink to wash up.

~ Roman

The lab was empty except for Roman, and she was looking forward to spending her lunch hour with him. Rand walked into the lab about the time Roman slammed the cage. The force of the sound surprised her. She stood still wondering if Roman was that angry. She considered turning around, letting him have his space. Then what she saw finally processed in her brain when the water turned on and began to wash the blood away. Her breath caught in her throat and then, “Oh My God!” She moved across the room swiftly, barely catching herself from calling him Roman but could not bring herself to call him Cmdr. “What happened?” Remembering the protocol (which was also posted by the sink), she grabbed the disinfectant from the shelf, popping the lid off, grabbed his hand, and doused his hand with it, turning it over to get all the wounds.

Rand

Roman looked at her when he heard her voice and he seemed to relax a little. “One of the male chinzilla-” She was quickly by his side and then she snatched up the disinfectant and popped the lid and that was what made Roman stop. “Rand! Rand! Wait! Slow-” But he was too late. She grabbed his hand and doused it with the stuff. She might as well have doused it in salty lemon juice and hand sanitizer. Maybe a little acid. The wounds burned and stung. He grunted and growled with pain. They were still bleeding so he held his hand over the sink and pointed with his left, “Get the first aid kit, please. I don’t think it’s going to stop on its own.” If it were, he wouldn’t bother with bandages. But even after the wash and douse, the bleeding hadn’t slowed yet.

~ Roman

Roman told her to wait, to slow down. She shook her head, “No.” She jerked her head at the sign, “Liberally douse wounds with disinfectant.” In the back of her mind she knew Roman had probably worded it that way because he didn’t trust others to be as meticulous as he was; she didn’t care.

That was exactly the reason he worded it that way. It hurt less if you used less, but it had to be applied more carefully if you used less. The liquid foamed as it came in contact with blood, turning a bloody pinkish red. As it foamed more of the stinging turned to a feeling of burning and Roman fought the urge to wash it off early.

She watched as the disinfectant bubbled and foamed a sickly bloody pink. She had done this…it was her fault. She knew he’d been alternatingly distracted and focused. She never thought that the chinzilla had simply been that fast or could normally catch Roman that off guard. This was her fault…she’d given him the disks, she’d caused this.

The disinfectant foaming slowed and then stopped and with it the burning sensation faded, replaced by the stinging of the scratches. The punctures were in the space in between his thumb and forefinger back far enough to be behind the thumb’s first knuckle. His palm was torn up with dozens of more shallow scratches, not unlike small cat scratches, running diagonally across his palm from the space between his thumb and forefinger to just above his wrist. It was two and a half, nearly three fingers wide of a space because of the number of scratches. Some were longer or shorter, some were deeper than others. The punctures on both the palm and back of his hand from the teeth were small and definitely deeper than any of the scratches. Once the foaming fully stopped, he started to rinse it off.

She got the first aid kit like he asked, and once the foaming stopped she helped rinse him rinse it off. It wasn’t stopping, and the punctures on his finger looked fairly deep. Rand was in a strange kind of autopilot. She helped bandage and wrap his hand, but that wasn’t enough. “This has to be repo…” her voice dropped to a whisper, “rted.” To medical…he had to go to Sickbay....because of what she had done.

As they dried it, the wounds continued bleeding. Rand help him wrap and bandage his hand. The pressure of the bandages helped the stinging a little. That was enough for him. Chinzillas weren’t venomous or poisonous, they just had sharp claws and teeth. So when Rand suggested this be reported to Medical, Roman shook his head. “It’ll stop on its own, there’s no need to waste a doctor’s time with my lack of attention.”

That wasn’t protocol and he knew it. It may or may not seem strange to Roman that Rand said nothing. Chinzilla we’re vicious but other than their claws and teeth weren’t a threat. Until you considered the same of cats and that their scratches and bites could cause ‘cat scratch fever’ because of the dirt and bacteria that collected around their claws and teeth. There was still risk of infection, and with an alien animal you couldn’t be too careful. That’s what Roman told her when he made her go to medical because of Nibbles. The mouse hadn’t broken skin when she scratched her that time Rand had to cut her sleeve off.

Slowly she repacked and put the first aid kit away. She couldn’t do it, she couldn’t make him go, not this time. He had too, but she couldn’t. She’d done enough damage. She hadn’t done what she was ‘supposed’ to, or, more accurately, she had done something she ‘wasn’t supposed to.’ She hadn’t understood the cues, and she’d assumed incorrectly that he wanted those files back. She’d done this…to Roman. And now she was the reason he had to go to a place that was his own living purgatory. It felt like a vice was slowly and inevitably squeezing her heart till there was nothing but pieces left. She had to fix this, but first she had to find someone to take care of this, who could do what she couldn’t. Maybe Franks was in the mess?

Rand

Roman had wanted those files. What scientist wouldn’t want their lost research notes? But he hadn’t expected them to be so upsetting. He’d been in a daze most of the day, just autopiloting from one task to the next. That was why his attention wasn’t where it should’ve been when he was handling the animals. Franks would be the best choice for someone to make him go, and like Roman, Franks didn’t always spend his entire lunch in the mess, he might already be on his way back.

~ Roman

Rand turned and left the lab heading toward the mess. She spotted Franks, arm in arm with Miller. She walked toward them, “Lt?” They were talking and smiling, heads tilted toward each other and Rand felt a sharp painful stab run up her arms. Franks stopped and looked up at Rand. He thought he’d seen her come out of the lab, but she looked upset, which was strange. “Rand, is something wrong with Nibbles?” Everyone knew how much she loved that mouse.

Rand shook her head, “No…there was an accident in the lab. Cmdr Alden said one of the male chinzilla did it.”

“Did you call medical yet?” He didn’t think so since he didn’t see any movement from that direction and the shake of Rand’s hand confirmed it. Miller was a medical lab tech, she knew first aid, but this was outside her skill. She left trotting down to Sickbay where a doctor/nurse pair appeared and entered the lab behind Franks.

“Cmdr, Rand said there had been an accident?” Franks said as he entered glancing first to make sure the cage was closed and then noted the bandage. He thought Rand was behind him, but the yeoman was nowhere to be seen.

Rand