Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side - sim: In Memory of Jay

Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in side - sim: In Memory of Jay

Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side - sim: In Memory of Jay
Posted by… suppressed (7) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)
Roman noticed her a little after she entered and smiled. “Rand, you could’ve gotten my attention when you came in.” It was unusual to see her in the lab out of uniform, but he didn’t really seem surprised. She was off duty, after all. “What would you think of an arboretum in the empty storage areas?”

~ Roman

Rand shrugged while rolling the little ball around for Nibbles. “You were working, and I never mind extra time with Nibbles.” A couple of the techs grinned. Rand’s preference and attitude toward the little mouse was well known by everyone. Rand didn’t look up at him when he asked the question, her attention on the mouse. Rand had figured out that Nibbles would take advantage of any inattention. It she gave the question her typical thorough consideration. “Hmmm. That would move some of the experiments out of the labs, open up more space. The crew would probably like it. Helpful and I get no end of requests for the recreational room. The cargo and storage areas are built for a lot weight and capacity. Lt Cleolet will know if that storage area can handle it. Honestly I’m surprised there isn’t one. Most of the deep space vessels have at least a small one.”

Rand

Roman nodded. “We can talk to her about it… After we finish what we’re currently working on.” He knew she’d know what he meant. “It’ll give the lab and the crew a new recreational space. I can’t think of a better thing to do for the ship. And with more botanical space, perhaps I could bring aboard some Aldarian plantlife…” He was clearly already planning the use of the space.

~ Roman

“The animals would probably appreciate a fresh set of plants themselves. Most of them forage on what’s in the cages and the plants are getting a bit bare and wilted.” She palmed a couple of the plants in Nibble’s cage that had only short chewed on stubs left of leaves. Nibbles followed her hand and suddenly reached up and grabbed it, front paws holding on to one of her fingers pulling it down and then began to lick and scrape her teeth across the pad of her finger and then the nail. “What are you doing? No no, stop that.” Rand leaned over to get a better view of the mouse. She did not need to ingest a fingernail. She gently pushed Nibbles away from her hand with her other. Nibbles seemed to not care which hand it was and turned her attention to Rand’s other hand, holding onto her finger and rubbing her nose and face against it. “That’s enough, you don’t need to clean my hands.” Rand picked her up and turned her around and removed her hands. She locked the cage and then washed her hands. Nibbles hadn’t broken skin or even scraped it. Luckily Rand kept her nails short and clean so there was nothing for the mouse to get ahold of.

Rand

Roman glanced into the enclosures and nodded. Rand was right. “I’ll put in a request to Starfleet. They’d have to send a vessel to the planet, so it might be a while.” He watched Nibbles rub up on Rand’s hand. It was clear to Roman she meant no harm… Rather the opposite, the mouse was grooming her fingers. He wore a smile not dissimilar to the one from the videos when he was holding the hopping frog. “She loves you. They do that to their babies.” Roman commented as Rand locked the cage.

~ Roman

Rand dried her hands, moving back over to the cage to write down her observations. His statement made her laugh, which got several glances, Rand was always so quiet and serious. “Oh wonderful. I thought it was the other way around. She was the baby and I was the adult.” She finished writing and then bent down whispering something at the mouse and then stood up. “I’m done.” Roman seemed more relaxed and more himself than he had been in awhile, so she hated to go back to the other project, but avoiding wouldn’t get it done.

Rand

Roman nodded with a small inaudible sigh. He didn’t want to go back either. “Let’s go, then,” he said, and then they headed back to deck 3. The next disk was going to be footage from the planet surface. Roman was not looking forward to it.

~ Roman

Pipkin was ecstatic to be let out of her cage again. Rand had thought to leave her in there so she wouldn’t beg for treats, but figured she’d end up banging on the cage is distract her and make her lose her place. Plus they always let her out whenever they were there. The next video was long and took up most of the disk. Rand had thought it might actually be easy because she had the dictated notes and just needed to find the time stamps but no.

Roman knew which video it was. They’d wanted the ability to go back and see the environment, after they’d left, so they’d created a longer video of that. It would be Roman and Jay pointing out different things on the planet surface, whatever they thought was important.

The note file had apparently been corrupted and pieces were missing. Rand didn’t say anything about it though. She just worked on correcting it as best she could and resigned herself to having to rewatch the video to fix the notes. She didn’t mind, but it was a delay. She could stay up later to fix it. Unless she got lucky and the pieces they needed were all still intact.

Rand

Roman didn’t know it was corrupted, he hadn’t looked through them. He started the video. Chearia was exactly what it was described to be in the notes: A lush rainforest, with a lot of plant growth and life. In the background were a diverse set of plants. Roman and Jay would point to one, describe it and its characteristics and then move on to the next one. Whenever they saw an animal they’d zoom in on it and talk about it. At the end of the video, they sat in front of the camera and talked in general about the state of the project and their future plans. It was similar to the other videos in the way that Roman and Jay interacted with each other.

Roman still felt cried out, and yet somehow his eyes managed to squeeze out more tears. He wondered when he was ever going to stop crying within the first two minutes of the videos. And there were still so many more to go through.

~ Roman

It was a long video but fascinating. The rain forest was amazing and sometimes Rand would get a hint of something scurrying through the foliage but the camera wasn’t close enough to get a good picture. But as beautiful as it was she that Kelmao was much more so with it’s vibrant pastel and neon colors in everything. She couldn’t help watching how Roman and Jay interacted, though she was able to be less distracted by it. The video was mentally exhausting work wise trying to make the transcribed notes match up with the video. She was able to grab all the time stamps she needed. That would make it easier to fix the transcription notes later.

When it was over she ejected the disk, having already reviewed the text files on it, and slipped another disk in. She handed him a cloth and hugged him for a long moment. The longer she got to watch Jay the more she felt how much she’d missed out on getting to meet him. Not that she would ever be able to mourn him or truly understand Roman’s loss, but the more she was able to see what he had lost and how much it had changed Roman. Her heart ached for him. She knew he had cried, but not as hard. This was probably the first time he had actually looked at or heard recordings of Jay since the Ardent was attacked. These seemed like happy reminders though, even though the grief of his loss was so raw. She hoped. She didn’t know what Roman and Randy had talked about, only that Randy didn’t want Roman to work alone.

They were happy reminders in a way, but it was too painful for him, reminding him of everything he’d lost. It had been hard enough when it happened, to not just give up. It had almost taken Starfleet from him, the only thing he ever wanted, because everything he did was so closely tied to Jay. But he didn’t resign, because there hadn’t been anything else he’d want to do with himself. So he’d kept on in Starfleet, focusing on only the work, his science, trying to keep moving.

She stood and stretched her back, rolled her shoulders, and then reached up to rub at her neck, stiff from sitting at the computer for so many days without much of a break. She refilled his tea, but opted for icy cold water for herself. She set the tea in front of him and sat, her back and neck protesting, ready to keep going.

Rand

Rand refilled his tea and then sat back down. Roman would rather keep working but he didn’t miss her rolling her shoulders and her neck. “Do you need a break? Or would it help if we worked from a PaDD instead?” He asked her.

~ Roman

Rand reached over and squeezed his hand. “No we can keep working. It’s easier to look straight at the screen rather than down at a PaDD. I’ll take a hot shower later and see if it helps.” It was all the looking back and forth, or really up and down, from the computer and the PaDD, the tension she was holding, and then holding the PaDD in her lap. The desk wasn’t made for two. The only space that had multiple work stations was the conference room. Rand was not going to suggest working on this there.

Roman nodded without saying anything. He felt numb and sad and he was just quiet. He tried to move over to make more space for her. After all, she was the one doing the writing and note taking.

The next disk was equally long, but the text files seemed to be intact. The result after the next few hours was the same. Rand was stiff and sore and she blinked her eyes several times. She absolutely refused to groan as she stood and stretched stiff muscles after that last session.

Rand

The next disk was another long one. Roman was quiet throughout the whole thing, mostly because he was cried out and tired rather than feeling any better. The videos seemed to go quickly to him this time and then Rand stood and stretched. Roman didn’t move, he stayed sitting, staring blankly at the screen, which wasn’t playing anything just then.

~ Roman