Posted May 12, 2022, 4:12 p.m. by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) (Lucas Foxley)
Posted by Ensign Rand Farquharson (Yeoman First Class) in Side sim: The Problem Family
Posted by Commander Roman Alden (First Officer & Chief Science Officer) in Side sim: The Problem Family
It had been two weeks since the proposal, long enough that the irritatingly invasive questions had slowed to a near stop. Life and work had mostly gone back to normal, save for the wedding discussions and the start of planning - where the wedding should be, when, and what kind of wedding. Roman still hadn’t said anything new about his family. Roman was his typical self.Then there was a letter for him, from Earth. Received with the rest of the mail, Roman read it with his PaDD at his desk in the lab.
Dear Roman,
I’m sorry we haven’t spoken often in these last few years. Jason’s passing has been hard on both of us. I hope you are doing well yourself. I am not sure if Eleanor and Franklin have contacted you regarding the recent events here on Earth, and so to be sure you were aware, I’ve decided to write to you myself.
Your older brother, David, was murdered at his home about a week and a half ago. The police have been investigating, but I don’t believe they have any leads on who the responsible party is. If I had more information, I would give it to you, but we haven’t spoken to your parents in many years, and we aren’t family, so what they’ll tell us is minimal. If I or Henry hear anything else, I’ll write to you again.
We’ve missed you,
Maryann and Henry CalianoRoman stared at the letter for a few minutes, rereading the short bit of text a couple of times. He couldn’t decide how he felt about the news. Or receiving the letter at all. Part of him wished they’d just left him in blissful ignorance to enjoy his happiness with Rand (not that anyone on Earth knew about that yet). He decided he wanted to forget about it. He hadn’t spoken to his brother in fourteen years. It had little to do with him, this many light years away from there. It wasn’t really his problem at all, was it? No. Brother or no, he’d abandoned Roman long ago, the lot of them had. He stuffed the data disk into his pocket, snatched a stack of reports from his desk, and got to work.
~ Roman
It had been two weeks, and Rand was contentedly happy. She hadn’t had one anxiety attack the whole time. Nothing could bother her right now, not even Cpt Rogers. Not even her family’s utter astonishment that she was engaged. They hadn’t known that Rand was even dating anyone seriously. She had mentioned Roman a few times in letters to her parents, but she was just really private and never shared much of her dating life with her parents. Rand felt horrible about that. It wasn’t that it was a secret, but when she thought about family and who she would tell things to, it was Randy and Randy did know. Her parents were very eager to meet him.
Not even Randy’s constant teasing and bombardment of wedding planning questions could set off her anxiety. And, secretly, one of the best parts was Scott still didn’t know. Rand entered the lab at lunch, like always for her second hour with Nibbles. The interactions had become very routine, which the mouse seemed to like, but Rand wondered if she should be doing something more with her. She assumed though, the lab personnel would tell her if she needed to. She set her PaDD down near her console and then stopped on the way to wash her hands before opening the enclosure. Roman was attacking his paperwork like it had defeated him in Jiu Jitsu. “Cousin of Mr Dummy?”
Rand
Roman looked up, smiled just a little, and shook his head. “I just don’t have time for all these reports. Three projects finished off at the same time, two reports of habitable planets, a request for my stellar cartography department to look over something, departmental supply requisition forms, leave requests, shift preference requests, new project reports,” he listed a few other things, both CSO and XO related. “I can do one person’s worth of paperwork, not three,” he complained. He wasn’t as busy as he had been when they’d been between COs, it certainly wasn’t the most paperwork ever (though it was a sizeable stack), he was just in a bad mood and didn’t want to put up with it without some English whining to go with it.
~ Roman
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