Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side - sim: Lost in the Dark

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

Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in side - sim: Lost in the Dark
Posted by… suppressed (29) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)
Roman looked at Randy and shrugged. The lemon thing was weird but maybe her tastes had just changed? At least she was asking for something to drink. “I will still be by for lunch,” he said, assuming he was working today. If she asked him to though, he would still stay with her.

~ Roman

Rand nodded, “Okay.” She wouldn’t ask him to stay. She was too despondent and self-reproachful to feel she deserved to ask.

Randy returned with her drink. He sat down and let her help some with the reports. Then he left. He had work to do.

Rand left the room knowing Randy would be very angry with her. Roman too if he saw her. She went to sickbay and saw Elbbirt. He walked her back telling her she could have paged him and he would have come to her. She made him promise not to talk to Randy or Roman about their conversation. Elbbirt agreed confused as to why, but if it made her feel better.

“Will you send me home?”

He misunderstood. Rand wasn’t afraid that he would and wanted reassurance, Ra d was asking him to send her home. She sounded so forlorn that Elbbirt had to reach over and pat her hand. “No dear. I won’t send you home. You are doing very well. I know this set back must seem horrible, but it happens.”

“But I can’t do my job. And Randy and Ro.. Cmdr Alden are having to do my work and theirs.”

Elbbirt gave her a very grandfatherly smile. “Rand we are on long term deep space missions. We don’t send officers home when they are injured and are recovering. And you have helped cover more shifts and rotations when others are sick than anyone on board. We don’t mind doing this for you.”

“But…I’m not getting better. I can’t do my duty.” Then she fell into a list of everything that was wrong, but she was speaking Gaelic and Elbbirt didn’t understand.

“Rand, dear, you will get better I promise. We won’t give up on you and send you away. Now, let me have a look at you.” He gave Rand a full physical and promised to check her first thing the next day to reassure her of her progress. Then he left, and the only thing for Rand to do was cry herself to sleep.

Rand

Roman’s morning was busy, like always. He was still behind and there were things that needed dealing with everywhere. He needed to remember, so he set an alarm for lunch. He was grouchy and unapproachable for most of the morning, not because of Rand but because of the time of year, alongside his worrying what to do about the med problem. When the alarm went off, he headed straight up to deck three and into their quarters to look for Rand. “Rand? It’s lunch time.”

~ Roman

Rand looked up where she was on the bed. She didn’t seem to ever be anywhere else lately, unless she was in the bathroom sick. She quickly closed the book she was looking at and shoved into the drawer on the bedside table. Roman could tell from the size and shape it was one of her scrapbooks. The breakfast Randy had brought was untouched except for her drink and maybe a couple pieces of fruit. He didn’t have to come get her. He needed to work for lots of reasons and she hated she was adding to his responsibilities. The least she could do was hurry. She didn’t need to take up a lot of his time. She stood, clasping her hands in front of her, they seemed to be shaking, but she wasn’t sure why and walked over to him. He didn’t have food with him, so maybe he was taking her to the mess?

Rand

Roman noticed the mostly untouched breakfast. “Still not hungry?” He asked, a note of concern in his voice. “Are you ready to go lunch?” He didn’t want to make her go if she didn’t feel up to it, but it seemed like time outside their quarters really helped her.

~ Roman

“Nnnot this mmmorning.” She was a little hungry now. She had been too upset to eat. What she did eat was because Randy had been sitting there and making her try to eat. She nodded, “Yes.” She would go with him, and she would try to eat so that he wouldn’t worry about her. So he didn’t feel like he had to come babysit her. She had made an effort, before she snuck out to sickbay, to brush and lightly braid her hair.

Roman smiled when she said yes and walked her to the mess. While they walked he kept an arm around her, occasionally playing with her hair as he noticed she had tried to brush it on her own.

When they got to the mess, she sat the table like he asked her to do. Gorshin had made a plate of random things. “Randy said her stomach is bothering her, so maybe this will entice her.” Gorshin set the plate on the tray along with a glass of Lemonade. Gorshin figured it must help since Randy came and asked for some that morning.

Rand

Roman nodded to Gorshin, thanked him, and then took the tray and sat down with Rand, setting her plate in front of her. “Chef is trying to find something you’ll eat, I think.” He started eating from his own plate. Like the last couple of meals, he ate like he might never see food again.

~ Roman

Rand nodded and smiled a little. Gorshin was sweet and cared about people. “I will try to eat it all.” This is what she ate off her plate: a couple bites of a pimento cheese sandwich, a whole cucumber sandwich (minus the bread she really liked), green and red peppers, lemon and lime slices, kiwifruit, grapefruit (that she had never had before), tomatoes, green peas, she tried the potatoes but they were too heavy, and a kale salad (which she had always complained as being to butter to eat). And she drank the lemonade like she was dying of thirst and it was water.

Rand

Roman gave her another weird look at her selections of foods. It was almost all fruit and veggies she didn’t usually like. Had her concussion made her tastes change or something? Maybe he’d ask Randy. At least it looked like more than she had eaten lately. When she finished the lemonade, he asked her if she wanted him to get her another one. He was finished eating, he hadn’t quite finished his plate but close.

~ Roman

Rand glanced quietly at the time, and then shook her head. She didn’t want him to be late back to his shift. “No, I..I’m okay. I’m done.” She’d eaten more than she had in days. And it made her stomach hurt, but more in a full kind of way than a sick way. They hadn’t really talked. Just sat silently and ate. That was okay though because if they did she’d ask a lot of questions and he’d be late. He was probably already taking extra time just to walk with her. “I…I can walk back…ssso you can get back ttto the lllab.”

Rand

Roman shook his head. “Let me walk you back.” She might get lost or stuck alone and Roman didn’t want that. He checked the time, he had enough time to walk her back if he was a little late, which was fine. He stood and cleared their trays and then came back and waited for her to be ready to go. Then he walked her back to their quarters. He was not taking ‘no’ for an answer.

~ Roman

Rand would have cleared her own tray of he had let her. She was standing waiting to go. She tried to hurry, but that made her feet feel like they were tripping over themselves so she slowed down. She but the inside of her cheek hard as they passed the lab. Poor Nibbles probably thought Rand had abandoned her again.

When Roman left their quarters, Randy was waiting for him. “How is she? Did she eat all?”

Rand

Roman didn’t expect to see Randy that quickly so he did a double take and then shrugged. “She ate some. Mostly more fruits and veggies, like a cucumber sandwich without the bread, another grapefruit, the tomatoes off another meal Gorshin made her.” He shrugged again, “At least it wasn’t nothing.”

~ Roman

Randy nodded slowly. The grape fruit was weird. Rand loved Gorshin’s bread so her not eating it was strange. Rand ate tomatoes but not alone. The. There was the lemons. “Don’t you think what she’s eating is kind of weird? And she keeps getting sick?” Randy really didn’t want to pry and this was SO awkward. But he was afraid to ask Rand and stress her out.

Rand

“I figured she was sick because of her head…” Clearly Randy did not think that. He’d mentioned her odd choices in food twice now… Roman’s face turned bright red and he ushered, nearly pushed, Randy into the Farquharson quarters. Once the door shut, in a quiet voice so Rand wouldn’t over hear, “You’re not implying she might be…?”

~ Roman

“Well, yeah most likely. At first, you remember, she was so dizzy all the time she stayed sick.” And then Roman marched him into his quarters and started whispering. Randy shrugged, “I don’t know!” he whispered hissed. “You’re the one who asked me about…ehm…exercise. I don’t live with her anymore, but a concussion wouldn’t change her food preferences.” One of the side effects of just not living with your twin sister but sharing a bed room, you learned the warning signs. And round about the same time very month, Rand would gorge on ice cream. “When was the last time she ate Gorshin out of all his ice cream?”

“Ice cream…? Before her concussion, I think.” Since then she hadn’t had much of an appetite for anything. Roman had sisters, he knew the way those things worked and he knew the general signs… He didn’t think he’d seen them in a while but he wasn’t sure.

“I mean Shrine keeps good records but if I go ask her if Rand has had her…cough…contraceptives she’ll treat me like a kid stealing candy and ear march me out of sickbay.”

Rand

“What if I ask? She knows we’re together.” Roman asked, anxiously.

Randy looked at him like he was nuts. “Sure you go ahead and do that. Go ask Shrine if Rand has had her…medication. Shrine won’t ask why, she’ll know why. Go ahead and ask and see what she does to you for putting Rand at risk with her concussion because you can’t stop snogging her. That will go over real well.”

Roman’s face turned red. “I didn’t think she’d get pregnant! She didn’t either!”

He put his hands on Randy’s shoulders, “She had better not be! You can’t have families on active Starfleet vessels. One of us would have to go home… Or we’d have to give up the child.”

~ Roman (NOT ready for parenthood and panicking)

Randy put his hands on Roman’s shoulders. “Don’t yell at me. I’m not the one who did this. And no, one of you wouldn’t go home. Rand would go home. She can’t serve while she’s pregnant, period. And then she wouldn’t come back. She wouldn’t give up a child, and she wouldn’t let you give up your career so she could come back.”

Randy

“I’m not letting her give up hers. And I don’t think she’ll like the third option.” By that, Roman meant termination. He shook his head. “We’re getting ahead of ourselves. Can’t you run a scan? Say you’re making sure she’s hydrated or something.”

~ Roman

“Of course we can, but not with a tricorder. She has to go to sickbay. Tricorders aren’t sensitive enough to pick up the readings of a fetus that young. We could run a blood test, but since we haven’t been doing that, suddenly asking her for one would really freak her out.”

Randy

“Asking her to go to sickbay will freak her out, especially if I ask her.” Roman replied. “We both hate it so much, she knows I keep her away from it if I can.” He looked at Randy, “What do we do?”

~ Roman

Randy shrugged, “And you think if I tell her ‘Hey Rand let’s go get you a pregnancy exam’ she’d go with me? She’d tell me to stay out of her business. Seriously, we’re probably closer than most twins, but there are some lines…I mean you could always ask Elbbirt about it. Then he could make her go…if we’re lucky.”

Randy

“No… I’ll ask her.” She’d probably be offended if he sent Elbbirt to tell her they thought she might be pregnant. “Hopefully she will want to know as badly as I do.” He wasn’t really sure how she’d react. They hadn’t had the ‘kids’ talk yet. And for Roman, it wasn’t an ‘in the near future’ kind of thing. Actually, he wasn’t really sure he ever wanted them, but he’d do it if Rand really did.

~ Roman

Randy nodded. “I’m sure she will.” He was also sure the idea would devastate her. It would change everything for Rand if she was. “I don’t know if there is much I can do, but if there is…” Randy had to get back to work, and so he left, not waiting to see how Roman decided to handle this.

Randy

Roman did not wait. He turned around and marched quietly into their quarters and looked at Rand, looking visibly nervous. “Miranda…? Are you awake?” He asked, moving to sit next to her.

~ Roman

Rand was laying on the bed, but wasn’t asleep. She was actually playing with Pipkin a little. When he entered she looked up at him and he was nervous. Then he used her full name. Something was wrong....she suddenly felt really sick. He sat next to her, and it was more apparent something was bothering him. Her arms and chest, even her legs ached she suddenly felt so sick. Whatever it was she did NOT want to hear it. She started to cry the sudden spike in her anxiety was so huge. But it wasn’t like she could say no, he was looking right at her. She couldn’t get her voice to work. She didn’t want to hear it....he…he didn’t have to say it…she would move herself out on her own. She couldn’t bear it if he said it.

Rand

Roman took one of her anxiously fidgeting hands and looked at her with what was probably the most serious expression he had ever used. He didn’t know why she started crying, he had no idea what she assumed he might ask or say, but they needed to sort this out ASAP. So he squeezed her hand and proceeded with his question: “Is there any way… You could… Possibly, at all… Be pregnant?”

~ Roman

The question was so unexpected, Rand was struck stupid. Pregnant? He thought she was pregnant? How could she be pregnant? Roman had barely looked at her like that since…since she got hurt. Not since before she woke up confused and useless. Not since she was confined to this room and he and Randy had to do her work and everything for her. Except…once, and then he’d looked so upset after…she knew he wished he hadn’t. How could he think she was pregnant? She shook her head no. But…well…they had…no. She could NOT be pregnant. That was a horrible idea! She could not, should not have a child. “Nnnno.” She didn’t feel pregnant. No, no she could not be. “Nnno I…I…I…I ccccan’t be.” Rand was totally freaked out.

Rand

Roman hugged her tight to him. “Whatever happens we’ll figure out what to do.” He pressed his head gently against hers. “Miranda I love you. I think we should get a test. Just to be absolutely positive.” And then make sure everybody was up on their contraceptives, he added silently. It had only been once since her concussion, because he knew it could make it worse. He hopes it wouldn’t be long before things went back to normal. Not just for that but so Rand could be happier too. She’d seemed so out of sorts lately.

~ Roman

Rand quickly came to the same conclusions that Roman and Randy had. Therr was no working it out. She had already decided. “I love you too.” Except there was a faint spark of hope Roman didn’t see because he was hugging her. If she was, Elbbirt wouldn’t have a choice, he would HAVE to send her home. But that thought was quickly chased by deep guilt. She couldn’t be a mother. She would be horrible at her. Getting sent home was a bad reason to have a baby. They should be wanted for themselves. And no child deserved to have her as a mother. Then Rand had an even more horrible thought. If she were pregnant, were the medications Randy had her on safe for a baby? She could be killing it or severely injuring Roman’s child before she even knew she was with child! No, no no no she was a very bad choice for being a mother. “Oh…okay, if…if you want.”

Rand

Roman had no idea what he’d do if Rand got sent home. Go home with her? And do what for the rest of his life? Besides raise the kid, of course. Stay here? He wasn’t sure he could function without her anymore. And as much as he was not thrilled about the idea of kids, he wouldn’t abandon one. He stood up with her. “I just think it’s better to know, I mean, Randy pointed out how sick you’ve been, how odd your food choices have been…” He looked down at her. “Better to know and be able to plan whatever the outcome isn’t it?”

~ Roman

Randy had mentioned it? Did that mean he’d already seen the results of a scan and knew? That solidified the idea for her, there was no other possible out come no matter how horrible the situation was. She followed Roman out numbly. This couldn’t be happening. Life was cruel, but surely it wouldn’t be so cruel as to condemn a child to have her for a mother. If she was herself she would have been able to list a dozen position Roman would do well in and even enjoy and want, outside of Star Fleet, even a few within Star Fleet that would allow him to have his family with him. But none of them would let him be a star ship captain. She wouldn’t let him give up his dream over this. She’d…she’d go home, Scotland. The family would help her. She might not be the best choice of a mother, but her family would make up for it. She’d do her best, but she doubted that would be enough. It takes a village to raise a child, right? That was the saying, she’d just have to…to do that.

Roman wouldn’t want to give up his dream, but if Rand were set on keeping a surprise pregnancy, Roman would have no choice. He would not send her home alone. He was unable to think of anything he would want or enjoy that wasn’t Starfleet or on a ship. To him, a child meant throwing away everything he enjoyed in the world besides Rand, for a child he wasn’t sure he wanted or would be good at raising. He would do it because Rand was worth more to him than his career. But it also felt like he was looking at the end of his world as he knew it, and not in a good way.

They made it to sickbay. Temple was surprised to see Rand again, but didn’t say anything. She led them to a smaller room, everyone knew Rand’s anxiety and she figured less people would make the visit easier. “Are you here for one of your check-ups, Rand?”

Rand

Roman seemed tense, not just because of why they were there but because of the worsening of his sickbay phobia. Being there, even as a visitor, was putting him on edge. He squeezed Rand’s hand and walked with her. At Temple’s question, he awkwardly shook his head. “Actually, there was another concern we had…” And then he trailed off, not wanting Rand to think he thought she needed someone to talk for her.

~ Roman

Rand was going to be sick. Roman didn’t really like being here, and she wasn’t sure what it would entail, and as much as she loved him and trusted him, she embarrassed about the exam. She was just too shy, despite the reason they were there. She gave Temple a pleading look at the woman stepped out of the room for a minute. Rand swallowed. “Roman…I…I know this concerns you too, and I love you, but…I…www wouldn’t mind…if…um....you wanted to wait outside? Just for the exam?” She would really rather him be there. She was terrified, but he hated sickbay and she didn’t know how long it would take and…she’d already taken him away from so much of his work. She had to figure out a way to tell him and convince him not to alter his life…she had to think. She wasn’t aware she was clinging to him like she did when she almost fell into the sinkhole, that he was literally her life line, or that she looked terrified.

Rand

A part of Roman wanted to take that excuse and leave. Rand would be able to feel how sweaty his palms were. But he couldn’t do that to her, just leave her here when she seemed just as stressed about this as he was. She was clinging to him like she’d die if she let go, and she looked about the same. He was squeezing her hands tight. “You… uhm, you look like you want me to stay… I would rather stay unless you really want me to go.” He wouldn’t force her to let him stay, he knew she was shy about these things, but she did not look like she really wanted him to leave.

~ Roman