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 (2) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)
Rand’s breathing had become soft and longer; she might have been dozing. Her eyes popped open when she felt him move and then sigh. She turned her head to look and then put her head back down on his shoulder. “It’s fine. I have a few minutes still. As long as I am up by 0600.” She wasn’t ready to get up. She wanted that moment to last, to pause time and stay there. If she has to rush a bit that was okay. It would make up for her morning run, and help wake her up. But she knew Roman wouldn’t like it if she was really late. Finally, with a deep resigned sigh, Rand hugged him closer and kissed him before she sat up. She had to go to her quarters to change, or she could have stayed just a little longer.

When she sat up, Pipkin appeared and took her place. Rand searched her behind the ears. She thought Roman should take the day off but didn’t figure he would. “I’ll see you in the lab?” Then she kissed him again and left. Returning to her quarters, Randy was getting ready for his shift. Rand told him Roman agreed he needed to talk to Randy. Randy nodded and took a good long look at her. “Girl! Those dark circles are not attractive. You can’t help him if you don’t get some sleep. And eat something!” Rand kissed his cheek on her way out. She jogged to the nearest ladder and made the climb. She needed to move and wake up.

Roman hugged her as she hugged him and then let her go so she could get up. Pipkin quickly took her place, but the little bunny was no replacement for Rand and Roman found himself feeling cold, so he sat up, gave Pipkin some pet, and then started getting ready for the day.

Randy left and walked down the corridor to talk to Alden. Before he got started for the day was better, he’d avoid otherwise. When Alden answered the door Randy entered and sat down. As usual he didn’t say anything, just waited for Alden to say what was going on. Or at least the part he was willing to talk about.

Rand

It took Roman a moment to answer the door so he could finish getting dressed. He half expected it to be Rand, saying she’d forgotten something. Instead, Randy was standing there. Roman stepped aside and let him in. He hadn’t expected Randy so soon. He sat on the edge of the bed. Randy took a seat on the computer chair, Rand’s old spot. And then the two of them sat in silence for several minutes, Randy waiting for Roman to speak up and Roman eyeing Randy and then the floor, deciding which parts he felt like talking about. He looked awful, he hadn’t slept well in a week and he was averaging half an hour to an hour per night, except the night before when he’d gotten six hours. He hadn’t been eating well, usually only half or less of the light foods Rand brought him.

From a physical health stand point, Alden looked horrible. It was obvious he wasn’t sleeping, nor was he eating, and it looked like he had the early signs of dehydration as well. Randy could sass him into frustration and make him eat. He couldn’t make him sleep though, not unless he gave him a sedative. Randy could but it wouldn’t help. The body wouldn’t get better until the mind started healing.

Finally he started with the disks and the projects and the orders from Science Command. Then he explained how he couldn’t sleep and how his nightmares had been worse, and what they were about, including the one from the previous night. Lastly he spoke of his fears of something happening to Rand, that the thought was incessant and always there. By the time he was done, he felt like he’d talked more than he had in the last month combined, like he might lose his voice, almost. Then he looked at Randy, watching his face.

~ Roman

Randy listened, pulling on some inner stillness that didn’t give anything away. Randy did feel bad for Alden. His heart went out to him, but Alden would not appreciate anything he considered pity. And it wasn’t pity, just sympathy. It was totally normal for the appearance of the disks to upset Alden’s mental equilibrium. He also understood why Alden had chosen to go ahead and get it all done. To face it head on, deal with it, and move on. Except the deal with it, wasn’t dealing. He did the work, but he wasn’t dealing with the issue. And because he wasn’t dealing with it, his subconscious was making him, through his nightmares. As for worrying about loosing Rand, Randy didn’t know how to address that. Since they’d turned 18 that was all he’d worried about, making sure he didn’t lose his sister, his twin. They had talked about what had happened at the dance and that had circled around to their time on Kelmao and Rand trapped in the middle of a forming sink hole. But it wasn’t till now that Alden had been able to connect his fear of losing Rand with the devastating loss of Jay.

So to start at the beginning. According to his math, Alden had finished all the projects but one. And Randy knew without asking it was Alden and Jay’s project still waiting. “You’ve finished reviewing and making recommendations on the projects. Do you think your officers would be pleased to know how their work will move forward?”

Randy

The question seemed to confuse Roman. Its relevance was lost to him. “Does it matter? Most of their work moved on without them, their proofs already outdated. Would that make them happy? Probably, but they’ll never know. As for the ones whose research has been abandoned these last three years? They’d be angry no one bothered with their life’s work for so long.” The words sounded angrier than he intended them to. He realized he’d crunched part of the blanket into his fist and he made himself let it go.

Roman had always assumed he’d want his project back, after all there were audio recordings, videos, notes, he and Jay had made together. But the disks had been so surprisingly upsetting he hadn’t even tried to look at his own project nor did he plan to anytime soon. The rest he’d managed to push his way through and now he could be done with it, not think about them anymore, at least until he was ready to. He couldn’t do that with this one. Not to his and Jay’s work.

~ Roman

The anger didn’t phase Randy. It was part of the process, and one that until now, Alden hadn’t shown. Randy didn’t miss the use of ‘life’s work’ rather than ‘project’ or ‘orders’. “Maybe it doesn’t matter. I guess that depends on if you believe there is life after death. The universe is too big and too much we don’t understand to know. We do know that energy and matter is neither created nor destroyed, just changed. So, perhaps it does matter to them.” Randy paused, he didn’t want to focus too much on metaphysical ideas or theology, just to let it absorb and Alden could think about that later. “But if it doesn’t matter to them, do you think it matters to their families? That someone is taking the time to honor their loved one’s life’s work? That after they are gone or the mind goes, these officers will be remembered for the work, the impact they made? That they weren’t lost and forgotten?” What Randy was building up to was to get Alden to see that death wasn’t the end, not for those left behind anyway. And from there to get him to see that doing something, like reviewing the projects and getting them reassigned, was good for everyone left behind. And that doing something similar for Jay was also good. Randy knew it would help, even if Alden wasn’t ready to admit that. Sometimes the grief had to get bad and in your face before you could move past it.

Randy

Roman shook his head in a particularly agitated fashion. “I am a scientist. I do not entertain unprovable hypotheses like afterlives.” He spoke it with a certain scoff or scorn, not that he thought less of those who did believe in an afterlife but he certainly did not. To Randy’s next question Roman gave an irrate shrug, “It depends on the person, really. I’d assume some would want their work to ‘mean’ something, others wouldn’t care. But the truth is, scientific discoveries usually aren’t remembered at all unless they’re massive, notable discoveries.” Roman, in his own department always made sure his officers got recognition for their contributions but at the same time, in the whole of history, people remembered Newton, for discovering gravity, Marie Curie for her work with radio isotopes, Cochrane for building the first warp engine. The inventor of the radio might come up if one bothered to look it up. But those who improved the radio? Discovered new ways to use it? Rarely were their names remembered. Roman had always settled for enjoying what he did, whether that earned him a place in scientific history or not. To Roman, death was the end, because when you were gone, well, that was that. Legacies, despite his family’s affinity for them, meant little to Roman.

~ Roman

Randy nodded, noticing how irritated and jerk like Alden’s responses were becoming. Again it didn’t phase Randy. And what Alden said wasn’t wrong, nor was it ‘right.’ It was individual opinions. As for making contributions that were remembered, well it was true everyone knew the massive big deal discoveries, but those that studied a topic learned about the contributions of others. Randy wasn’t thinking legacies, just a person’s desire to contribute to society as a whole. There was one thing that stood out to Randy, but he was hesitant to say it. Alden would either stop in his tracks and consider or become even more irate and end the session. And it wouldn’t do to react like a jerk to Alden just because he was upset. This was a safe space, he could react however he needed to, where anywhere else he would not. So time to change tactics.

“Does it help you to know you’ve given some finalization to their work?”

Randy