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

(snip)

The test Roman was running would take forty eight hours to complete. He needed something else to do in the meantime. It did not take long for “something else” to find him. When she came back, Roman was out of the labs. It took him until nearly halfway through their lunch to get back. He sat at his desk, looking as though he were in a bad mood, seeming to not notice that Rand was in the lab as he sat down to start on his afternoon paperwork.

The records would show the last time Roman spent a substantial amount of time with Mushu was when he was still restricted to light duty. He tried for at least a few minutes a day, but sometimes, he did not manage that. Especially lately as some of his research reached its final stages with the other animals.

~ Roman

Rand wasn’t allowed to interact with the animals on her own, not anymore. So she sat and watched, she was allowed to feed Nibbles and Mushu through the feeding doors. Mushu ate several flying insects, watching and tracking them before he did. Rand made note of it. Nibbles only sniffed at the food so Rand didn’t give her much, but she did investigate the little ball. Nosing it about for a few minutes and sniffing it.

Roman returned while she was watching Nibbles and reading over the old notes for Mushu. Even before Roman was on light duty it seemed that Mushu had been acting off. Reading back further she noticed that the amount of time and the types of interaction had changed after Carmichael left. When Roman had taken over as aCO for a while and he was swamped. Things had not returned to ‘normal.’ She looked up when he entered, to tell him what she saw, or thought she saw. Any topic was better than talking about her admission of guilt. He’d want to say something, wouldn’t he? He didn’t speak or look at her, in fact he looked mad. Was he mad at her? He had a right to be, she wouldn’t want to talk to herself either. She remained quiet, finishing her hour out, and when the lab tech returned, Rand left.

Rand

He wasn’t mad at her. There had been a headache in another lab because someone wasn’t doing their job correctly. And it was something Roman had addressed previously. There was no swifter way to ruin his day. Then came the excuses. Rand would know how much Roman disliked hearing those. It was irrelevant. The fact was, something that needed to happen, didn’t. There were few reasons that couldn’t have been planned for. That was why Roman saw what happened to his hand at least, to be his fault. It wasn’t relevant why he was distracted, the fact was he had been, and his lack of attention was to blame for it. He looked up just in time to see Rand leave, and realising she’d been there all along, wondered why she’d just let him think she wasn’t there. Then he chastised himself for being so caught up in his work he didn’t notice her there.

~ Roman

Rand told herself not to be silly. There were lots of reasons Roman might be upset. She was not the center of the universe nor the most important thing in the course of the day. She had the rest of her day to herself. She felt strange doing so, but she stopped and let Pipkin out for a bit. She sat at the desk and worked from her PaDD. Rand was not a scientist, but she did know how to do effective research. Part of her skill set. The majority of the files from the Ardent had been returned to the officer working on them, but for those that didn’t survive they had been returned to the department heads (or closest ranking). Science command wanted to know if the projects were still viable and should be passed on to others to complete? Rand could do that, she could find out if the work was still viable. And she hoped it all was, so their effort wasn’t wasted.

She ended up loosing track of time, lost in reading the lab notes, trying to find out what they were doing and why and then searching the library for references to the subjects, and then reading more.

Rand