MEET ROME
Full Name → Derek "Rome" Roman Rutherford
Age → 29
Birthday → August 5th, 1994
Order & Type → third, solo
Gender & Pronouns → cis man, he/him
Sexuality → bisexual
Occupation → firefighter EMT at Bearcreek Fire Department
THEIR STORY
(tw: death) For the first five years of his life he didn't speak a word and his parents had been worried about sending him to kindergarten but after determining that there was nothing physically or medically stopping him from speaking, they sent him and twenty minutes into his first day he spoke. When he got home and his parents asked him why he decided to speak that day, he answered simply that he didn't want his parents to worry. As a child Rome remained quiet and kind but restless. Always looking for a way to move and to use his hands, full of curiosity and determination, he took quickly to sports and science.
As he grew, the youngest Rutherford found himself making friends easily and while his strongest subject was science he managed to excel in all of his subjects and was impossible to beat at tag because he was just too fast. Everything about his childhood was damn near perfect. A loving close knit family lead by two supportive unconditionally loving parents who were open and encourage their children kind, empathetic and strong. So when career day rolled around his junior year it shouldn't have been too surprising that this scientific minded, athletic, bleeding heart of a guy found his calling in nursing.
For the rest of his high school career everything he did was to get himself into the nursing program at the University of Pennsylvania, one of the best nursing programs in the world. It paid off because he got in and with a scholarship to boot. Moving away from home had been scary, but with the love and support of his family the transition to college life had been as smooth as it could be. It was a new challenge that Rome took on with enthusiasm.
Toward the end of his first semester, he met Sasha and she was the most beautiful person he had ever seen, Sasha was smart, out-going and brave and a fellow nursing student. Despite his quiet and reserved demeanor he just had to say hi to her. It took until the end of their freshman year for him to build the courage and confidence to ask her out, but hen he finally did, she agreed. Once they got back from summer break they were inseparable and nauseatingly sweet.
Over the next two years, Rome and Sasha both found themselves wanting to enlist and be combat medics. So a month before they graduated, they got married and a month after graduation they both enlisted in the Marines. It as tough, but they never gave up and they were always there to keep each other ground and by the end of boot camp and their training they were being deployed to war zones. By the time they were twenty-two they welcomes a beautiful baby girl into the world, Iris Calista Rutherford, but like her dad she was pretty quickly referred to by a nickname derived from her middle name, Cali (pronounced khal-EE). Up until this point, Rome was living a life he couldn't have dreamed up if he tried. A beautiful wife and child and a job that was trying and exhausting but rewarding. Then tragedy struck. A little over a year after their daughter was born, Sasha was on, what was meant to be, her last deployment, when the chopper she was in was shot down. She didn't make it. After that, Rome was inconsolable, even unwilling to believe it. It wasn't until her funeral that it processed. He was a widower, at twenty-four.
For the next year, Rome was a shell of the man he use to be, he took his full bereavement leave and a little extra. While he could have gotten out of his contract, he only had one more year and for some reason, he hadn't been ready to let the military go just yet. So he finished out his contract and moved him and his daughter back home to Bearcreek, so he could be closer to his family so he could do what he needed to do to try and heal from his daughter and for himself.
Over the years Rome had become a more social person, nothing crazy but he would start conversations and put himself out there. Since his late wife's passing he had barely spoken a word to anyone other than his daughter. So, he got himself into therapy, and after a couple of months he decided he wanted to go back to saving lives and so he went to the fire academy and did his probationary year and became a Firefighter EMT for the Bearcreek Fire department. Five years after the loss of his wife and finally, Rome was feeling capable of maybe putting himself out there again. Make some friends, be more present with his family, maybe even date. While he still struggles to socialize, therapy has really helped him process and in turn has helped him return to the man he once was, not the same but maybe even better.
