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Current music:	Top Gun soundtrack

Snowy Kessik Mornings [P/T, PG, one-shot]
not sure what to say....other than oh my God, this story is OLD. ten years old to be precise. file has it dated November 25, 1997. :boggle:

the department of backstory for anyone who cares:
before JK ever thought of Harry Potter. before Jerry Bruckheimer ever thought of Cold Case. before i ever considered touching a soap opera. and not long before i got into LJS fandom....this is part of my beginnings. behold the makings of Che, the rabid Paris/Torres fangirl, and the musings of a muse that kept me up many a night.



Title: Snowy Kessik Mornings
Rating: PG
Pairings: Paris/Torres, implied Janeway/Chakotay (one whole line, heh)
Warnings: mild B'Elanna angst...that's about it.
References/spoilers: Michael Jan Friedman's "Day of Honor" novel
Legal B.S.: Star Trek Voyager is owned by Paramount. Tori Amos owns her song. None of it's mine....except for my muse's sometimes batshit ideas.

author notes below the cut.



Author’s note: When I first heard the Tori Amos song "Winter", I
immediately got a mental picture of B’Elanna walking in the snow. I got the
nickname and some references from Michael Jan Friedman’s "DOH" episode
novelization. So thanks, Michael, for your writing, and thanks, Tori,
for the song. And extra hugs to Ronda S., whose encouragement and
support sometimes keep me from giving up.

Snowy Kessik Mornings
(Winter)
by Cheile


*******************

I get a little warm in my heart
when I think of winter.
I put my hand in my father’s glove."
-- Tori Amos, "Winter"

*******************


The scene was a picture in winter white. A five-inch layer of
powder covered the ground. The trees were draped in winter dress. And
large, fuzzy snowflakes drifted from the gray sky.

B’Elanna slowly walked through the snow, wrapped snugly in warm
clothes, including a heavy jacket, red gloves and red ear muffs. Her
pace was quick enough so that she didn’t get covered, but slow enough
that several snowflakes caught in her raven hair, where they partially
melted and under light, would have made her glitter like the silver
ornaments Megan Delaney had replicated.

Harry had created the winter holodeck program soon after someone
realized that according to planet dates, it was December. Neelix had no
idea what snow was and was delighted the first time Harry had activated
the program and a bunch of them had gone in. Neelix had been everywhere
at once--eating the snow, shaking it off branches, jumping into mounds
of it. Then Chakotay threw a snowball at the captain, she flung one
back and a huge snowball fight started. By the time it was over,
everyone was covered in snow and no one was sure who had won.

But the program also brought back other memories, painful ones.

Daddy, why did you leave me?

When she had been a very small girl, she had loved the Kessik
winters. Though her mother hated the cold and stayed shut up in the
house with the heater on full blast, B’Elanna would bundle up and drag
her father outside with her. And then she would let his hand go and run
toward the forest behind their house---run and encourage him to chase
her.

"I’ll get you, Little Bee!" he’d call.

"You’ll never catch me, Daddy!" she’d cry back.

At that challenge, he would go tearing after her, and
eventually, her short legs couldn’t keep a big enough distance between
them and he would catch her, tossing her high in the air as she squealed
gleefully. Then he would carry her back to their yard.

By this time, Dougie Naismith, her best friend, would be waiting
for her and usually the two of them would gang up on her father in a
snowball fight. Sometimes he won, sometimes they did.

Not long after the snowball fight, Dougie would head back home,
leaving all of B’Elanna’s attention to her father. Around this time, he
would usually comment about the scarf she had wrapped around her
forehead. "Why the scarf, Little Bee?"

"It keeps me warm," she’d tell him.

And at that time, it was the truth.

But not after he left.

*******************

"I hear a voice, ‘You must learn to stand up
for yourself, ‘cause I can’t always be around.’"

*******************

After he left, she would cry herself to sleep every night, and
sometimes to Dougie, who would tell her that everything would be OK in
the end.

And then Dougie had to leave, too. When his father got
reassigned, the Naismiths left Kessik. Now B’Elanna didn’t have her
best friend anymore, either.

And after her father had left, winter was no longer cheerful to
her. It was bleak and cold.

Sometimes, she would run towards the forest behind their house,
imagining that she could hear her father calling out to her. But when
silence and the cold whistling of the wind was her only answer, she
would end up stumbling to her knees and crying, her tears freezing on
her lashes and cheeks. She had no one to be there for her, no one to
hold her. She was all alone.

*******************

When you gonna make up your mind?
When you gonna love you as much as I do---
when you gonna make up you mind,
‘cause things are gonna change so farst.
All the white horses are still in bed.
I tell you that I’ll always want you near.

*******************

As the years went on, she began to doubt the words of comfort
her father had given her the day before he’d left.

"You’ll get over it, Little Bee. You’ll be happy again."

The night after she had left the Academy, her first thought was
*How can I be happy when no one loves me?*

Time passed. She wandered here and there, until she met
Chakotay. Then she joined the Maquis. But it was never truly her
fight. She hated the Cardassians, true. But she wasn’t fighting as if
they had killed her family, like Chakotay was. She wasn’t fighting to
free Kessik. She was fighting because she had nowhere else to go.

Then came Voyager.

But even with her friends, she was still alone. She felt an
ache in her heart whenever she saw Neelix and Kes together. They
possessed the happiness she had been so long denied.

She had learned not to cry years ago, or else she would have
been tempted one night, when almost everyone was either on duty or
paired off, leaving her alone in Sandrine’s. Still feeling lonely and a
bit cross, she racked the balls and was determined to play pool by
herself, but the ever-persistent Sandrine drove her crazy by trying to
prod what was wrong out of her and she’d left.

She’d never felt so alone in all her life.

And what was worse--she had been so blind to the one person who
was determined not to let her be alone.

It had taken her almost dying to make her realize that.

The first time she had come into the program, Tom came with her.
They had walked together, silently, her hand in his.

But then she had seen the broad forest beyond. The years fell
away and suddenly, she was a little girl again. Releasing Tom’s hand,
she ran and ran, yearning for the sound of her father’s voice. But she
never heard it and finally she stumbled over a hidden tree root and fell
to her knees, sobbing. She was still alone.

But then Tom was beside her, lifting her into his arms, holding
her close, letting her vent her frustration at him. But she didn’t yell
for long before she was overtaken by her crying. He only held her,
gently smoothing her hair. When her tears were spent, she raised her
face to his. He had kissed her tenderly, then taking her hand, they
rose and walked back toward the front of the holodeck.

Near the bigger piles of snow, she and Tom constructed a
snowman, though they argued over who it looked more like--Harry or him.
Finally, when she cheerfully demolished their creation, he pretended she
had killed him and dramatically collapsed in the snow pile behind him.
She couldn’t help but laugh.

She realized that her father had finally been right, she thought
later that night, as she lay curled in the warmth of Tom’s arms. She
was happy now, for she was no longer alone.



Legal B.S. Paramount’s characters, Tori’s song, my story, yatta, yatta.
I put this here to prove that I’m only borrowing. Copyright November
25, 1997, by Cheile. (that's the original disclaimer, LOL. how far i've come....)