The Past Is Behind Us, Isn't It? | A Star Trek: Voyager fanfiction

Chapter 6-Lauren Paris-2360

"Calm down. You'll ruin the dress." snapped Lauren, to her twenty three year old sister, Elsa, who was getting married to James, much to the Parises chagrin.

"Right, sorry." said Elsa, she stopped pacing.

In her bridal crew was Lauren, heads bridesmaid, her cousin Eliza as a bridesmaid and sister Elizabeth, B'Elanna was invited to join but she declined.

Lauren knew why, she didn't want to be near James, Elsa didn't understand it. She couldn't see what was wrong with James.

Lauren knew James had been cheating on her sister or maybe James had been cheating on his girlfriend with Elsa, it was hard to tell. She didn't even know how many people James had on the side but Lauren knew Elsa was the only person he proposed to.

"Are you happy for me?" Elsa asked, snapping Lauren out of her own thoughts.

"I am. I'm not happy you're marrying James but if you're happy. I'm happy." Laure was lying of course, but Elsa didn't know her siblings as well as she thought she did because she believed Lauren.

Lauren left her sister in the capable hands of their mother and sat down beside Tom on his right, beside him on his left was B'Elanna, she was in the aisle seat, beside Lauren would sit her mother, then her father, then Elizabeth, behind B'Elanna was her father and beside her father was her sister Tsarlala, Miral opted not to come.

Lauren noticed how Tom looked annoyed, it seemed he and B'Elanna had been debating again and he lost, which Tom didn't like. He preferred to win, but Lauren knew her brother very well, normally when he lost he got angry and ranted about it for two weeks and yet this was the fifth debate he lost to B'Elanna and had said nothing about it.

'He couldn't, could he?' Lauren found herself wondering, wondering if her brother was in love with the half Klingon, wondering if he just gave up fighting with her, her wondering was cut off when the bridal march began playing.

Everyone stood up, Lauren then looked to her left, there was her mother standing there, Lauren had been so caught up in her own thoughts she didn't notice her mother show up, Elsa looked nervous but relaxed when she saw James standing there.

The wedding was finally over and then it was back to the Parises house for the reception, John had taken ten year old and fourteen year old B'Elanna home before they got too bored, Tom and Elizabeth were debating over something that Lauren didn't care to know.

Once everyone wished Elsa and James their good lucks people finally departed.

Lauren flopped onto the couch, face first, taking up the whole thing somehow, except the foot rests.

"Budge up, Laura." said Tom shoving her legs off the couch.

"I hate you." Lauren said, her face still in the cushion of the couch.

"Sit up, Lauren so we can all sit down." huffed Esmeralda.

Lauren sat up and was handed a bowl of choc chip cookies. Which they always had on movie nights, that's just how the Parises worked.

"Where's Dad?" Elizabeth asked.

He always joined movie nights.

"He's got some work." replied Esmeralda.

Tom and Lauren looked at each other, Esmeralda was lying, they knew she was, Owen was missing his eldest daughter but wasn't going to admit that to his family.

Her father wasn't one for emotions and she understood him for that and it terrified Lauren, her brother already kept a "mask" over his features, hiding his emotions behind the façade of nothing can bother him and he was seventeen but Lauren had started doing that same façade when she was thirteen.

Tom and Lauren understood their father more than they cared to admit, they understood him more than their own mother and sisters did and Lauren would be lying if she wasn't scared of turning out like him, she was terrified of being someone like him.

Terrified of being the kind of mother to force her kids into Starfleet like her father did to her and Tom.

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That was Lauren's chapter, Yay.