"Love, B'Elanna"
by Cheile


Dearest Tom,

      This is a letter you will most likely never get, yet I am writing 
it anyway.  It is the only way I can describe how I feel.
      If only I could tell you....
      But I can't.  I'm....afraid.
      Isn't that a laugh?  Me, *me*, afraid.  Klingons aren't supposed 
to be afraid.
      But I am afraid.
      Afraid that you won't believe me.  Afraid that maybe I'm wrong, 
that you don't feel about me the way I do about you.  Afraid that I 
could be wrong about my own feelings, afraid that you'll laugh at me.  I 
don't dare tell you.
      But I want to.  I long to.
      I've come a long way from the hostile misfit I used to be.  I 
pretended that nothing scared me, that I, brave, fearless B'Elanna 
Torres, couldn't be swayed.  Nothing bothered me, nothing scared me.  I 
wasn't afraid of anything.
      But I have known fear.
      I was afraid when we were first brought here, when they held me in 
the hospital.  I thought for sure I would never again see the light of 
day.
      I was afraid when the Vidiians took me, split me in two.  I had 
thought then that it was over.
      I was terrified when the incident with Vorik happened.  I thought 
that this time, my days were numbered.
      But when I thought it over, I remembered something.
      You came with Neelix and Kes to rescue me on the Ocampa homeworld.  
You were the one who comforted my human half in the Vidiian mines.  You 
were my chosen mate.
      Whenever I have been afraid, you were there to comfort me, to help 
me.  You have always been with me.
      The first time I saw you, I knew that you had come to save me.  
You didn't have to.
      But you did.
      My human half fell in love that day in the mines.  And this one 
time, my Klingon half was swayed.
      There could be a thousand ways to tell you how I feel.  But it can 
only be said in one way.
      I love you, Thomas Eugene Paris.

Love,
B'Elanna


Legal mush.  Yeah, yeah, yeah, Tom and B'Elanna belong to TPTB, but I 
have every right to borrow them, as long as I give them back.  But the 
story is MINE!!  (insert Amy-type laugh here)  Mine, mine, MINE!  
Copyright August 15, 1997, by Cheile.