Marshall Mann 'In Plain Sight' – No, it isn't after the kind of ordeal you went through, happy is wrong, this is how you're supposed to feel, your brains all jumbled up trying to sort things out, try to roll with it, let it do what it needs to do, just let it flow like a river.
- B'Elanna/Miral Mother/Daughter - future -
B'Elanna looked up from the schematics she was studying on a console when the front door slammed, followed shortly by quick and heavy footsteps pounding up the stairs.
'Miral, honey, is that you?'
A door slammed on the second floor of their San Francisco townhouse, and the engineer knew it was her eldest daughter home, and that something had happened at the Academy that week. Miral was a senior at Starfleet Academy, and therefore was allowed off campus on weekends. Her younger brothers, Owen and James, were still plebes, and therefore weren't allowed off campus until semester break.
B'Elanna Torres sighed heavily, leaving her work on the office desk to chase after her daughter, her only daughter, knowing if someone didn't talk to her, the depression she was likely sinking in to would last longer than what is healthy or necessary.
'Miral, honey,' she tapped on her daughter's bedroom door, poking her head into the darkened room. 'Are you oaky?'
'Go away!' Miral shouted into her pillow. 'I don't want to talk about it.'
The engineer knew a cry for help when she heard one, and entered the bedroom. She carefully sat on the bed next to Miral's head, leaning against the wall, placing a hand on her daughter's shoulder.
She sat there, listening to her daughter sob into her pillow, showing her silent support the only way she knew how, or would be accepted by the troubled young woman.
Miral wasn't really that young anymore; being a senior at the Academy meant she would be celebrating her twenty-fourth birthday during her first year of service after graduation.
But her age didn't stop her from being B'Elanna's little girl.
'Oh Mom,' Miral sobbed, moving her face to her mother's lap. 'Boys are so stupid.'
'I know honey,' she smiled. 'I used to think the same thing about your father.'
Both women laughed; after so many years together, Tom and B'Elanna still fought like they did on Voyager, and it was still as amusing as ever when he acted younger than the twins.
'He broke up with me because I wouldn't sleep with him,' Miral spoke softly, burrowing closer into her mother. 'Mom, when I said no, he called me a frigid bitch unworthy of my Klingon heritage.'
'Oh, baby,' B'Elanna ran a hand through Miral's hair. 'A boy liked that is one not worthy of your time or your affections.'
'Then why does it hurt so much?' she started crying again. 'Why do I hate him and love him at the same time?'
'Baby, boys do that to a girl, unfortunately,' B'Elanna smiled. 'It sucks, I know, but they worm their way into our hearts, our lives, make themselves important to us. When they leave or we banish them from our company, they wreak havoc on our emotional wellbeing, and our brains jumble everything together trying to figure everything out.
'But, until that happens, you can cry on me.'
And cry Miral did.
