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.
