Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in Temp Quarters- Assessing the Situation

Posted by Lieutenant Junior Grade Leah Hart (Nurse Practitioner/Counseling) in Temp Quarters- Assessing the Situation

Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in Temp Quarters- Assessing the Situation
Posted by… suppressed (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻

(snip)

Hart quirked a brow and gazed evenly at him. “I don’t care about other people’s motives. I care about yours. I’m not going to put words in your mouth, Commander. This is not something you get to delegate to someone else,” she said gently.

Roman shrugged awkwardly, refusing to meet her gaze. In fact, he seemed really good at finding anything else to look at.

“You said you wrote the letter a day or so after we spoke. Had you thought about writing a letter before, and if so, when did that occur?”

~Leah Hart, NP

He nodded hesitantly, but offered no more information without prompt. That gaze of his found the floor and stayed there.

~ Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

Leah did not believe in forcing eye contact. Not only was it easier for some people to talk about difficult things by averting their gaze, but for some people their brains actually had a hard time with it. She wasn’t out to cause him extra pain. He had enough of his own. “Tell me more. When was it and what happened right before that made it feel like the right thing to do?”

~Leah Hart, NP

There was a lengthy silence. Finally, his voice quiet and soft, “All the time. I only considered writing a letter first after Rand and I became more serious together.”

~ Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

“Tell me about the specific thoughts that come your mind in those moments,” Leah said as softly as her gaze.

~Leah Hart, NP

Roman shook his head. “I can’t.” It was all about the same thing, the thing he didn’t want to talk about, the thing that made him cry just to think about it. “I… I just can’t.”

~ Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

She nodded. “Okay, we’ll come back to that another time then.” She wasn’t letting him entirely off the hook, but there were times to push and this was not one of them.

“Have you ever acted upon these thoughts in any way before this letter?”

~Leah Hart, NP

Roman shook his head and answered definitively, “No, never.”

~ Cmdr Alden, XO/CSO

“What stopped you from acting on them then?” Hart asked.

~Leah Hart, NP