Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in side - sim: A Secret is a Prison

Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side - sim: A Secret is a Prison
It had taken Randy a week to get Rand to come out of her quarters without having a mild panic attack. She refused to go by her office, choosing to go the long way around. It had taken another 3 days before Randy convinced her that she had to be able to at least walk past her office. What if there was an emergency, what if the other way down the corridor was blocked for maintenance? Randy argued that Rand couldn’t avoid her duties because of her memories. It had taken both Randy and Roman both to get her to go. Morgan had even come with them. She convinced Randy to let her go with them stating that she was there with Rand and could answer questions about what had happened better than he or Cmdr Alden could. It had taken every bit of self-discipline and acting training for Rand to go and not show how horrible it was for her. Afterwards, it would have been better if she could have slept, but delaying the panic attack hadn’t made it better once she was safely back in her quarters.

She couldn’t work from her office, she couldn’t even bring herself to get anything from the room. Roman did it for her, or she went without. She worked from their quarters, avoiding her office completely.

Rand had been back on duty, finally, for a couple of weeks. Light duty. That meant half day shifts, limited screen time, no lifting at all, and lots of breaks to sit. That meant no running. She missed her morning runs, but Elbbirt would not clear her to start running again. At first it annoyed Rand, then as she realized how tired she was after just morning rounds, she stopped complaining. Her day was split into three hours in the morning and two in the evening. She barely was able to get evening reports done for her hour long meeting with Rogers, but Randy helped with that. Running errands like uniforms or stocking the conference room or the yeoman pantry or butler’s pantry in Rogers’ quarters meant she now had help. Gorshin or Chief Helpful always made sure someone was around to carry things for her. Rand tried to explain the restriction was for lifting not carrying things. And only because she got dizzy standing up from bending down still.

Every evening after her meeting with Rogers, she and Roman would eat so she could sit for a bit, and then he would take her to see Nibbles. She wasn’t able to come during the day. Rand hated to admit she needed a break in the middle of the day, but she did. And Roman couldn’t stay with her and watch her 100% of the time while he was on duty. Nibbles was still steadfastly attempting to climb, and Rand wasn’t sure how to discourage her. Rand didn’t really have the heart to make her stop, but knew she needed to. She ended up having to cup the mouse in both her hands to keep Nibbles in one place. The distraught squeaking and chittering had stopped now that Rand had been around for a few weeks.

Rand

There had been several more episodes of Roman needing his hypo and his inability to take it easy on himself slowed his healing. But he was still getting better. Slowly just doing his job alone stopped making him need it, and now it was only if he really overdid something. Soon, very soon, his restrictions would be lifted. If he would ever go to sickbay, that is.

But his nightmares were worsening as time passed, bringing them further and further through the month of September. It was like it was last year, he was barely sleeping. He was trying to hide it from Rand, he didn’t want her to worry, or stay up with him, he wanted her to heal, especially after they tried to make her go in her office. Randy had to convince him to help with that, he hadn’t wanted to make her.

And the heart and the burns had made his fear of sickbay worse. He would go in there if he had to, as XO, spend as little time there as he could get away with, and then leave. He’d barely look at it if he had to pass the door in the hall. That was something he hadn’t told Rand or Randy about, though Randy did know how his nightmares were. The effect the lack of sleep had on him was hard to miss, and the nightmares and sleep deprivation were bad for his heart.

The nightmares were causing him to skip meals again, too, though whenever he ate with Rand, he tried to eat at least a little, so she wouldn’t worry. That wasn’t particularly good for him and his heart either, and the idea of fainting again loomed over him, but even that couldn’t motivate him not to skip food.

He was still wearing a shirt to bed and changing in the bathroom. The longer he went without telling Rand about the burns, the worse he felt. But now it had been so long he didn’t even know how to bring it up, so he hadn’t. He’d have to tell her eventually. He’d been talking to Randy about that, too.

Roman looked forward to taking Rand to see the animals every day after his shift. It made both of them happy, and it reminded him how they met. He would sit with her and watch her interact with them for as long as she wanted, then they would go up to their quarters and he would ask her all about her day, glad she was able to go back to work even if it was restricted work.

~ Roman

Randy encouraged Roman to tell Rand. She was well enough to handle it now that she was back at work. The longer he kept the secret the worse it would get when it was discovered. He knew the nightmares were getting worse without Roman saying. He was surprised Rand hadn’t noticed herself. That nagged at Randy some, but he didn’t say anything to Rand because that would violate Roman’s privacy. He also pushed Roman to say something about them to Rand. She’d helped him through things last year, and there was no good reason to hide that from her. She knew about them. Randy also stressed to Roman he didn’t have to deal with them alone. He wouldn’t want Rand to hide it from him. But in the end Randy couldn’t make Roman say anything.

Life was returning to normal, to an extent. Rand was getting up early, even though she didn’t go for a run. She took her time getting ready and moving through her morning. She preferred that to sleeping later and then rushing. On her days off, thought if asked she felt she’d had enough days off, she went for long walks, she couldn’t run, but she could stretch and move. She didn’t join Roman for breakfast anymore, instead they ate something small before she left. She’d tried the first few days, but she’d gotten behind, rushed, and made her self dizzy and confused. For a very few loooong minutes she’d thought she was lost. She hadn’t told Roman or Randy about that, not wanting them to worry.

Some days they had lunch together. Now that she wasn’t confined to their quarters Roman didn’t come up to eat with her as often. It bothered her at first, until she reminded herself that Roman was behind in his work too. The truth, that Roman was avoiding eating because of his nightmares hadn’t registered with her yet. She was also dozing still in these early weeks from returning to work, so she missed lunch as well. The evenings were the best part of her day. Getting to talk with Roman about their days, their work, the animals, or now they could even watch movies again.

Something was bothering her though, in the reports. Roman’s seemed…off some how. They didn’t seem the same. At first she just thought it was from not working so long and it taking longer to do the work. But it kept nagging at her. It was frustrating and made her feel something was wrong. She couldn’t put her finger on it. She became angry at herself because details didn’t come so easy anymore, like they did before. They were little errors in the reports, and she’d seen them before she just couldn’t pin point where or why. It wasn’t anything major but it seemed important. Randy and Elbbirt had told her that her memory was getting better and she’d need time. She was impatient. When was her next appointment?

That’s when she saw it. She had one at the end of the week, but Roman was supposed to have his final assessment for his heart a week ago. He never went. Or if he did he didn’t tell her or ask her to go with him. It was an easy enough thing to search the records to see if he went - he did not. Rand knew he hated it, but he needed to do this. It was also a simple search to see that he had no major experiments or tests or meetings scheduled for the end of the week. She talked to Randy and they set it up.

At the end of the week, when they got up, Rand broached the subject. “I have another assessment today. Can you go with me?”

Rand