Fan Fiction
TITLE: Bittersweet
AUTHOR: Briana L. Wright
RATING: G
CODES: T
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Written in B'Elanna's POV. Included are lyrics from "Just Like a Pill" by Pink.
SUMMARY: B'Elanna has a dream about her father.
I'm lyin' here on the floor,
Where you left me.
I think I took too much.
I�m crying here �-
What have you done?
I remember lying on the floor of my room, nursing bitter tears. I realized you weren�t coming back. But I didn�t want to believe it.
I took the few things I had left to remind me of you�a picture, the plush Targ you had given me, and a few of your belongings�and made them my most prized possessions. The picture I kept under my pillow. I named the Targ Toby and slept with him every night. In my innocence, I wanted nothing more than to believe that at any moment, you would walk back through the door you had walked out of. Every night from then on, I dreamed of you.
But that moment never came. You never came home after that. So I got rid of everything�abandoned everything just like you did me. The dreams stopped. It made dealing with your absence more tangible. And tolerable.
I can't stay on your life support,
There's a shortage in the switch.
I found myself confronted with your ghost years later, in the form of a message. "I�d like to see you again," you�d said. The sight and sound was conflicting. One part of me still resented you, while another was that little girl crying, wishing her daddy would come home. I couldn�t forgive you, but I wanted�I needed�to remember what it was like to love you.
I haven't moved
From the spot where you left me.
This must be a bad trip.
In my fear, I decided I couldn�t go through with the reunion. So I escaped to the holodeck--call it a dependency. I found our home again, to the exact date of when you had left. I ran to my room, to find all of my belongings exactly where I'd kept them. The tears came twice as bitter, then.
I think I'll get outta here.
I didn�t stay to find comfort for myself that time. I ran out of the house in a blind fury, quickly as I had come. I didn�t know where I was running to, but as long as I was running, it didn�t matter. The sweat and the tears would make me forget your cruelty. The pain in my legs would erase the pain in my heart. You don't know how badly I wanted to believe that you were a changed man, that you weren�t the one who left me.
Where I can run,
Just as fast as I can,
To the middle of nowhere,
To the middle of my frustrated fears...
Of course, like everything else, I could only run for so long. You found me, eventually. I was such a mess. We didn�t even speak at all. My cries had turned to sobs. You took me into your arms, and held me close. That was when I found the moment that had been stolen from me as a child. You were simply my father: the father who comforted me in my time of fear�the father who loved me unconditionally. It was like you never left.
It was such a beautiful dream.
