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 Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side - sim: Honoring the Ardent
Posted by… suppressed (9) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)
He took the PaDD and read over both letters, frowning. There were no concrete timelines. Just as time permits. He could put it off for a while. That made him feel a little better. But this was a project he did not want. Seeing the name on one of the reports had worsened his nightmares. Having to go through the projects of multiple of his officers? He felt like he wouldn’t sleep for the next month. He couldn’t ignore it forever. He sighed and handed her the PaDD back. An order was an order. He’d have to do it. Sooner rather than later, he was known for timeliness and he liked to keep it that way. What he’d do about sleeping he didn’t know. There wasn’t anything he could do. “Bring the files to my lab in the morning. I… I’ll get through as many of them as I can.” There was no anger left in his tone. He sounded more resigned.

~ Roman

She waited while he read, reminding herself she had a part to play, and she needed to do it. This was why she never should have gotten involved. It was too late for that now though. She couldn’t change it, and she wouldn’t even if she could. She forcibly made her hands stop shaking. Rand took the PaDD, turning it off with a whispered and probably not heard, “Yes, Sir.” She set it down and then, “I’ll make drinks…” But she didn’t move. He had been upset with her, maybe she shouldn’t come back? She felt like she should stay, but she didn’t know what to do if she did. It seemed no matter how much she tried to help she made things worse. Maybe she should get Randy. “Should…should I tell Randy?” He hated Randy or at least what Randy did. She wished it wasn’t that way. “Or…coffee?” Coffee? Coffee was not going to make this better.

Rand

Roman didn’t want drinks, or coffee, or Randy. He probably needed Randy, but he wasn’t going to ask for him. He wanted Rand, how she normally was, not the way she was now. He knew she couldn’t help it. She seemed upset, she’d been sort of off since she’d shown him the disks in the first place. He didn’t know why… Then he remembered what she’d said that morning. She thought this was her fault somehow. She blamed herself for his being upset, for his distraction causing the incident in the lab. It didn’t make any sense to him, but it did explain what was so off about her lately.

He took her hand gently in his own, his left, and shook his head. “You can’t keep blaming yourself for my emotions, you couldn’t have known how hard seeing those again would be for me. I always thought I’d be happy to have them back… until I saw them.” His look changed, he was angry, but not with her, with himself. Why did it have to be this way? Why was it so difficult? It was done, gone, in the past. If he could just get over it already, he wouldn’t have gotten upset and Rand wouldn’t be blamed herself for it. His parents had always said, you carry on and do what you need to do. Didn’t matter how you felt about it. That was an excuse. So why couldn’t he? “It’s my problem. I’m the one who can’t move past it. They are my reports and my orders and if I can’t just get it done then I shouldn’t be here.” His frustration with himself was obvious in his voice.

~ Roman

She curled her fingers around his when he took her hand. Actions had consequences, even if they were just emotional ones. Those were the worst types of consequences. She understood what he was saying to her, she did, and she couldn’t argue with it. She felt the same. If she couldn’t do her work because of her anxiety her fear, or her heart, she didn’t deserve to be there.
But that didn’t absolve her of her responsibility to her actions. “But I did know! Well I didn’t…not when I first went looking for them. I just knew you said you had lost them and would probably never get them back. It’s been over a year, I didn’t think they were going to get them. I would have told you what I did, but I honestly forgot about it.” She wasn’t quite looking him in the eye, that was hard for her, but she was trying. “Yes that’s part of serving, you do the work they give you, but that doesn’t mean what happened doesn’t matter. You keep going, but you can’t act like those people don’t matter. That’s not fair to them or to you. But it is my problem too. Those files wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t gone looking for them. Even if my actions hadn’t brought them here, it’s still ‘my problem too.’ I love you, that means that whatever effects you, effects me too. My actions hurt you.” She laid her free hand over his heart, which moved her closer to him, “I never want to do that. You do have to get it done, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt and doesn’t matter.” She was rambling and she really needed to stop.

Rand

Roman shook his head. “Then you didn’t, not when you made the request.” He’d have forgotten about it, too. “I didn’t mean they didn’t matter, of course they mattered. That’s thirty-two people, gone.” He had the numbers memorised. Along with all thirty-two names. “And for what? We weren’t a warship, we were a science vessel. There wasn’t any reason for it!” He was getting worked up and emotional, he hadn’t spoken about it in that much detail, not even to Randy. He took a deep breath as she put her hand on his chest. “Intent matters. You were trying to help. I could never be angry with you for that.” Then he put his arm around her. “I just wish it didn’t hurt so much.”

~ Roman

Rand had to stop talking. She was rambling and not making sense, trying to explain something and she didn’t know how. Then he felt compelled to make her feel better. She didn’t care about how she felt, she just wanted to help him. Nothing he said would make the guilt go away. If she lived during the Victorian Era she would be accused of suffering from the vapours. Treated as delicate and fragile despite her intelligence and determination. Sometimes she still felt she was treated that way. But she wasn’t getting her point across, or maybe she was. She knew they mattered to him, and she understood not wanting to show how much to everyone else, but it seemed to Rand that even to himself Roman couldn’t allow himself his grief. She squeezed his left hand an looked up at him as his arm went around her. “I know. I wish I could tell you it stops, but I don’t know. I do know it wouldn’t hurt so much if he wasn’t so important to you. I would never get over loosing Randy.” More from what Roman didn’t say, she had this gut feeling that Jay was the only person that had ever loved Roman. Only as a brother, but Rand knew how strong that connection could be. She paused searching his face and for words. “Would it not help to honor their memory this way. Your work means everything to you, and it did to them. Let their work make a contribution rather than be lost, so it wasn’t all for naught?” It wouldn’t make it hurt less, but maybe it would help him get through it. Then Rand did something totally unexpected. She kissed him, simply because she didn’t think a hug was enough.

Rand

She didn’t say his name but Roman knew who she was talking about, of course, and it was enough to make him turn away. He willed the lump in his throat away, he refused to start crying. He and Jay were inseparable. People had always assumed they were actually siblings or fraternal twins. He looked back at her as she started talking again. It did help, sort of, but it didn’t feel like it did. His expression would show that. Then, unexpectedly, she leaned up and kissed him. She could probably feel some of the tenseness caused by the stress leave him. He pulled her into more of a hug.

~ Roman

Rand hugged him for a long time. She wanted to make it better, but she was going to have to accept that she couldn’t. That the only thing that she could do was simply stay there with him. Rand sat with him, talked to him, told stories. This one, she made sure was all about her, no mention of Randy or her family. Just herself and her childhood antics. She had noticed Roman always seemed to smile when her accent came out and so she let it, along with smatterings of Gaelic. Hoping the sound was so different from his own memories it would be soothing. Eventually he fell asleep, Rand did not. She stayed up all night, working quietly on her PaDD while he slept, and setting it aside when he didn’t.

The hug lasted long after the kiss ended. Eventually Roman lay down and Rand sat with him, telling him stories in her Scottish accent. Occasionally she’d switch to Gaelic. It was near the end of her story that his eyes grew too heavy to keep them open and at last he fell asleep, her words sounding jumbled like nonsense before fading away entirely, her tone still soothing. His sleep was troubled, he woke up several times throughout the night. His nightmares were the same as always: the tossing and turning, the crying out, the cold sweat when at last he woke from it, accompanied by the intense fear that followed him from within the nightmare. She was awake each time he was, he thought he was waking her up.

32 officers lost, but not all of them were from science, though a large portion were because the labs were so devistatingly destroyed. Some had their own personal projects and those assigned by Roman. Rand did the research. Those assigned to stellar-cartography, astrophysics and astronavigation had all been completed by other ships now, that had flown through those sectors. Recommendations to give credit for initial findings were drafted and set aside. Other projects had been had had their theories proved wrong or superceeded by newer proofs. But it seemed the initial work done on the Ardent had influenced the newer work. Recommendations for publishing, under the original research, post mortem, were written. That still left 8 projects, including Roman’s own, that Rand didn’t have the background or experience to do anything with.

Roman had not yet realised he’d have to look at his own project. He was planning to go through the other officers’ work. Like the Sentinel, the Ardent’s sickbay neighboured the damaged labs. A large proportion of the lost officers were science, the next largest majority were medical officers, including the ship’s chief medical officer. The smallest number of casualties went to engineering and then security.

When Roman woke the last time, 0445, she covered a yawn. She didn’t want him to know she’d been up all night. They had been talking about it for awhile, starting running again, and she needed to wake up. “Do you want to go run this morning?” If not she’d stay with him until she had to leave at 0600.

Rand

The last time Roman woke up, he checked the time as soon as he’d calmed himself. 0445. “You’re already awake?” He asked when he saw her up. It was finally late enough he could just get up and give up on trying to sleep. He and Rand had been talking about running again, so when she offered he didn’t hesitate to take her up on it with a tired nod. It would be a good distraction from what he planned to spend that day doing. He got up and pulled his running clothes out of the closet, going into the bathroom to get ready. It was only a few minutes before he was back out and ready to go.

~ Roman

“0430 alarm,” she said by way of explanation. Rand usually slept better than Roman, but he had been doing better than he had in months - until now. Rand had been struggling to sleep since the dance. Once she fell asleep she was okay, but memories and anxiety and anxiety over the memories had made it hard to fall asleep. She was going to have to try for a nap after the first half of her shift, before the evening reports. When Roman got up she took her PaDD, making sure she didn’t leave anything behind, and dropped it in her office before going to change. She returned with two bottles of water and then they headed to deck 6 for their run. It had been a long time so Rand made sure to stretch and start slow.

Rand

Once Rand was back they headed to deck 6 to run. Roman had never been much of a runner. He’d originally said yes to going with Rand because he liked her. Then it became something they did regularly together, up until the issue with his leg. He followed Rand’s example and stretched and then kept pace with her. He didn’t need to be in the lab until 0700, but he’d probably just go at 0600 when Rand started her shift. Then he could get this research project business done with and forget about it.

~ Roman

For Rand it was amazing to run again, though she could tell she was out of practice. When she had broken her foot her routine had been put on hold off and on since, for different reasons. She was tired and at first she really had to push herself to get started. She had remembered to wrap her ankle just in case and was glad she had.

She was always enjoyed running with Roman. At first she had asked him as a way to help him burn off that excess energy that was keeping him from sleeping. But also because she had liked him. Then she had discovered he was an excellent running partner. It wasn’t his activity of choice, but he didn’t bluster or try to show off. And he never filled the time with chatter. They matched pace and moved at a steady pace around the deck. Rand made a handful of breaks to walk as much for her foot as his leg. After half an hour she slowed again, a grin on her face. “I missed this.” She was more awake, but in need of her morning shower. They boarded the lift back to deck 3. “Do you want breakfast after?”

Rand

Roman followed her pace whenever she stopped to walk. His leg caused no problems until near the end of the run, and even then it did not really hurt, but he could tell it was tired. When she slowed he saw she was smiling and he smiled too. “So did I.” He was not hungry, but he wasn’t going to turn down a little more time with her, so he nodded. “Let me get a quick shower out of the way first, then we’ll go”

~ Roman

Rand nodded and disappeared I to her quarters. Rand appeared in the corridor in a fresh crisp gold uniform, polished black knee high boots, communicator on her belt, key rods in her pocket, and a perfectly twisted and pinned bun. Sharp quick steps carried her across to her office where she collected her PaDD. Today would not be easy, but now that she was more awake she was sure they would get through it, somehow.

Roman came out of his own quarters, still tugging one of his sleeves down a little. His damp hair was perfectly combed, his blue uniform spotless as always. His own uniformed boots, a practical men’s ankle boot, were shiny and spotless as well. He stood with perfect posture, and to most, whatever he was feeling would be impossible to tell from his face. Rand had learned how to read his expressions.

Roman in his uniform never failed to strike her. He was crisp and neatly put together no matter what was going on. Rand tried for the same; for her it was like donning armor against life. Breakfast offerings in the galley was a full selection. And as much as she hated being around people, the extra time with Roman made her smile.

Rand

Roman took her hand as they headed down to the galley, only letting go when it came time to take a tray and fill it with breakfast foods. He picked a few small things, and then chose a seat with her. They still had nearly an hour before Rand would have to go to start her shift, plenty of time for their breakfast.

~ Roman