Easter story

[Voy_Girl]

Author: Voy_Girl [[email protected]]
Written: 17-18 April, 2003
Code/s: T, K
Serie: VOY
Part: 1/1
AN: This story can be treated as a sequel to the Christmas story ”Makeshift”. Read that to understand certain hints. Set in season 2. Otherwise, enjoy reading this story... with the
creative name,

”B’Elanna’s Easter”
______________________________


B’Elanna Torres entered the dapper mess hall with an overcome sigh. Not a good start, she knew it, but around a special season, Voyager and all aboard seemed to become changed.
This occasion was Easter, and two long tables, each with a yellow tablecloth, were placed in the middle.

She squirmed a little before she started walking towards her eagerly waving friend, Harry Kim.
He was already seated at the table. B’Elanna forced herself to remember how good the Christmas celebration had turned out a few months earlier, even though she’d been utterly doubtful about the whole thing at first. In the end of the night, however, she and helmsman Tom Paris had found a little comfort in the counterpart’s bruised soul.

”Couldn’t you have worn something a little more... yellow?” Harry complained when she stopped next to his chair. He eyed her questioningly.

”Yellow... I didn’t hear a dress code,” B’Elanna felt the need to defend herself, discreetly eyeing her plain, black pants that clung so comfortably to her hips.

”But Easter... Yellow... Never mind!” Harry was frustrated, frowned at his own fruitless attempt to explain, and flushed a little. He had a yellow tie together with a neat, white shirt.
He hung his head, realizing that he could have stayed in uniform.

B’Elanna confined to scrutinize her grey jumper, when she realized that with a ponytail and the right aerobics twitches, she could just as well be on her way to the running track. She nearly flushed to, but averted it by clearing her throat and finally plopping down in the empty chair
next to him. ”I just... have other things to do. I’ll probably just stick around through dinner.”

Harry fingered nervously on a daffodil in a vase in front of him. When she spoke, he looked up with an odd expression. A mixture between an accusing glare and a saint, sad smile. ”Don’t do, Maquis. You’ll see, that by the end of the dinner, you’ll be wrapped up in holiday spirit.”

All of a sudden, Neelix popped up in between the two neighbors at table. He handed Harry a light yellow egg, one that actually matched the young man’s tie.

”I’ve made special ones for the ones I know need them the most. I got the idea when you told me about your mother’s homemade eggs yesterday morning,” he explained, and pointed at something formless painted on the egg. ”I tried to paint a chicken, but now it looks more like
leole root which has been boiled too long.”

”It’s lovely, Neelix! Thank you! It’s the thought that counts.” Harry patted the unhappy Talaxian artist’s shoulder.

Neelix’s usual chirp self sprung forward quickly again, as he remembered the item in his other hand. ”This is for you, Lieutenant. See, the blue background is symbolizing the glow of the warp core, and this in the middle is supposed to be the core itself...”

B’Elanna tried to concentrate on his words, but drifted off in thought about other things which that special blue reminded her of. ”It’s very nice. You should’ve become a painter,” she heard herself say.

”It’s really a shame to crack these open,” Harry said, while studying his egg. ”But I’m afraid they’ll start to smell bad if we don’t.”

She chuckled, ” You don’t have to eat it right away. The night is still young.”

”I wonder what Janeway got,” he mused and looked at the Captain at the other end of the same table.

”Voyager herself, maybe.”

”I guess there’s no doubt what Tom would get.”

”A shuttle or a ship, you mean?”

”Yeah... It’s a real shame he had to work tonight.” Harry immediately looked a little down again, and his hand was getting all closer to the flower. Again.

B’Elanna didn’t answer, just rolled her blue egg slowly between her palm and the table. She wondered if anything would have been different if it hadn’t been Harry who worked at the Christmas party.

Almost a whole hour later, she had had more egg and must then she’d ever had before all together. Her special egg was still not touched, however. Nor Harry’s, she noticed. B’Elanna almost sang along with a few of the frisky songs about chickens, too. She felt her spirits rise
for each second, and gladly accepted a knowing glare from Harry every now and then.

When the crowd broke up in the mess hall, it was nearly midnight. B’Elanna had to admit to Harry that she’d had fun, she even pleaded with him to hand her his egg; so that she could take a picture of it with a holocamera, before it went to waste. He left it in her care, eager to reach
his quarters and go to sleep.

Everyone present saluted Neelix with a toast for his accomplishments, before leaving to their respective quarters.

*

Late the next morning, B’Elanna woke up with a bearable pounding head and a stale taste in her mouth. She’d been up to three, fixing an Easter gift for Harry, currently her best friend on board.

She’d taken his egg, but not to photograph it. Instead, she cut a piece of the shell open. With that gone, she could hollow out the soft-build nourishment inside. Then she’d cleaned it, and attached the loose part of the shell again, making the egg look whole again. As long as you did
not turn it over and noticed the repairing. She’d been careful not to damage Neelix’s chicken.

She had proof that the skilled hand of an engineer could have other uses than just with the engines. In fact, anything that could be describes as something one could fiddle with, wouldn’t take an engineer long to figure out how to fix.

Even later that morning, she lifted the egg shell, now light as a feather, and placed it into a newly replicated special Easter egg. It was big, yellow, made of paper and came in to halves. B’Elanna studied her accomplishment before she headed for the shower.

Her fingers itched to place the other half of the paper egg over the eggshell which rested on a little pile of billowing fabric in the bottom, yellow of course. Then, she would seal the bigger egg with a piece of string and hand it to harry at lunch. She could only hope that he would like
her version of an Easter gift as much as he’d clearly adored Neelix’s. Even if she’d actually only made Neelix’s gift better; this way he could keep it intact.

B’Elanna’s own blue egg rested at her night stand, barely noticeable in the fastidious light. She had still to cut her own open, and smiled herself as she ordered the sonic shower to start. She seemed to come to peace with the holidays she would be practically forced to participate in as a part of Voyager’s crew.

And think, the night before she’d doubted if she would be having that yellow drink she secretly dreamed about.
Did she have it? Well, the empty glass next to her blue egg has to give that evidence...

***

The end!!

***

[Lxe]

brilliant, great story girl!!! I love it.

[Thomas]

Yaaaaay!

[Voy_Girl]

Thank you... I'm still struggling with that Makeshift-sequel...

[-_-VoyagerFanatic-_-]

hey, kewl... a prequel would be nice

[Voy_Girl]

^
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