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

(snip)

Roman let her lead him, keeping his head bent down in case they passed anyone. They didn’t. They reached his quarters and Rand sat him on the bed and handed him more water. He felt tired and sad, but it helped the way Rand took care of him. He had one towel over the back of his neck and then he was leaning against her shoulder again and she put another one over his eyes. He lay against her quietly, his hand in hers, Pipkin on his lap.

~ Roman

Rand sat with him until he fell asleep. A couple of stories came to mind, about her and Randy or the time their parents had taken them to the national dinosaur park in North America. Those seemed poor choices. Instead she told him about the time she took the part in Brave as Merida. People kept calling her Miranda during rehearsal because the names were so similar. Then the director had taken them to study real bears. Rand so she would be able to act the part of being truly frightened of the creature and the other actors so they could mimic the behavior and movement of the bears. Especially the cubs. Rand of course had convinced the zoologist to let her help, within reason, take care of them. She was most surprised by how incredibly gentle they were.

Roman lay against her while she talked, telling him another story. All that emotion had tired him out, making him feel sleepy and numb. As he started to fall asleep, he lay back on the bed, keeping his hand in hers. Two main things helped cause nightmares for him: stress, and reminders of what happened. Nightmares, however, didn’t usually start until he’d been asleep longer, so this was probably the strain of the memory.

When Roman started twitching it was hard to tell if it was a nightmare or simply a physical reaction to the strain of the memory. His face lacked the normal pinched look he carried when it was a nightmare. She urged Pipkin to move under his hand. Roman had never squeezed hers when she held his hand when he had a nightmare, just flexed his fingers around hers. But she watched carefully just incase. Pipkin had a different idea and decided she would settle on his shoulder near his neck and that seemed to work just as well.

She didn’t want to leave but she had to finish the tasks she’d been working on. She left a note on his PaDD next to him, telling him where she had gone, that she left water to help with the headache and she would be back quickly. She placed a pillow in her place and quietly slipped out the door. She was gone almost 45 minutes. She finished her tasks, stopped and spoke to Randy very quickly, and grabbed some disks from her office. She slipped back in and next to him, working from her PaDD the rest of the day until her evening rounds.

Rand

Roman woke just as she came back, sitting up as the door opened. His sitting up upset Pipkin, still settled on his shoulder, and she ran around him and then settled back on his lap. Roman looked up at with a little yawn and asked, “How long did I sleep?”

~ Roman

Rand sat down next to him, taking his hand. “About 3 hours. How is your head?” She wanted to ask if he was better how he felt about everything, but hesitated because she didn’t want to upset him.

Rand