Author: sKiTzO sHy VioLeT
Rating: R for language
Summary: Songfic for the Cher song. Gee, I wonder who it's about ;)
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, nor do I own the song. The characters belong to Paramount and the song belongs to Cher.
~*~
I sat there on my bed thinking about my baby. My baby who'd be a Klingon/human hybrid just like me. Not human, not Klingon, but some odd mixture of the two. A freak of nature. Just like her mother.
That's what I felt like sometimes. A freak of nature. When I was a kid the thought was constantly nagging at me. Every time a kid laughed at me. Every time my cousin pulled stunts like putting a worm on my sandwich. Every time.... All the time...
But not so much anymore. It didn't nag at me like when I was a kid and it was always lurking in the corner of my mind waiting to spring the moment a tear fell onto my cheek.
No, not since Tom.
He amazes me sometimes. The way he treats me, I mean. He acts like her finds my mixed heritage absolutely beautiful. Like Klingon/human hybrids are the most beautiful creatures alive. Like you're not attractive unless you're a freak of nature.
He kisses my ridges sometimes. Sometimes he does it when he thinks I'm asleep. As if they were fucking perfection for chrissake. I don't understand. I've spent my whole goddamn life hating the damn things and suddenly he comes along and sees them as positively gorgeous.
I calmed myself down. Who knows, maybe he does think they're beautiful. But how could he? He acts like he understands what I'm going through, but he can't.
No human can.
In fact we'd gotten into a fight the night before about that. He had claimed it wasn't fair to assume that and I shouted back that it was true. It wasn't the worst fight we'd gotten into, but it was still pretty heated.
I glanced up at the chronometer and gasped. I was late to meet him. Throwing on my clothes as if my life depended on it I hurried around our quarters. Soon I was ready, sort of, and I practically ran to Holodeck Two. He had made a big deal about this, and I was already fifteen minutes late. I assumed he wanted to apologize and tell me I was right, but when I got there I didn't see him.
It was beautiful though.
I found myself standing in the middle of an elegant restaurant from around the twentieth century. One of those places that serves champagne and wine and dishes with names so fancy you'd never guess they were edible.
Oh and it was full of humans.
I suddenly felt a surge of anger. We'd just fought over all this and he goes and makes a holodeck program with nothing but humans. I can't believe him sometimes.
A very snobbish looking waiter walked over to me and nodded his head. "Your table is ready, madam." He said it as if his nose was stuffed but he was trying to hide it. Very nasally. His nose was turned up so much I was afraid he'd drown when it was raining. If he was real that is. His hair was jet black and he had so much damn gel in it you'd think it'd be rock hard even after he'd been dead for a trillion years. Rats and worms and decay would get all of his body except his damn hair. It'd stay there for ever and many centuries into the future scientists would dig him up and claim his hair was a fossil. I swear.
He took me over to the table and told me my date would be joining me shortly. I wondered where he was and wished he would hurry the hell up.
That's when I noticed the stage. I don't know why I hadn't before, but suddenly I noticed it. A woman was standing behind the microphone. She had black hair and was quite beautiful. She was wearing an extremely odd outfit that could only be characterized as Native American with an outside influence. She was quite lovely and had a body I would kill for. Don't get me wrong, I love my body, but hers was perfect.
Background music began to play that went perfectly with her outfit. Native American with an outside influence. She began to sing, and her voice was beautiful, but that's not what made me stop. I swear I stopped. I just stared at her with my mouth open and my eyes wide. I think even my goddamn internal organs stopped.
"My father married a pure Cherokee
My mother's people were ashamed of me
The Indians said I was white by law
The White Man always called me 'Indian Squaw'".
The words made me stop and think about myself. It sounded exactly like me. Well, the Cherokee and White part wasn't, but you understand. She was like me. A hybrid. A freak of nature.
But she was human.
"Half-breed, that's all I ever heard
Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word
Half-breed, she's no good they warned
Both sides were against me since the day I was born
We never settled, went from town to town
When you're not welcome you don't hang around
The other children always laughed at me
'Give her a feather, she's a Cherokee'"
I gasped loudly. It was too much like me. I hadn't moved around, but Jesus fucking Christ all the other stuff was right. I swear to Kahless it freaked me out. Both sides *were* against me. I was too human for the klingons and too klingon for the humans. She understood. It had happened to her.
But she was human.
"Half-breed, that's all I ever heard
Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word
Half-breed, she's no good they warned
Both sides were against me since the day I was born
We weren't accepted and I felt ashamed
Nineteen I left them, tell me who's to blame
My life since then has been from man to man
But I can't run away from what I am
The last line echoed in my mind and I tuned out as she repeated the chorus one final time.
But I can't run away from what I am.
I can't run away from who I am, but I try. I want to be just human, but I can't. She was singing everything I felt. Everything I knew. Everything that had happened to me. She understood!
But she was human!
"Did you like the song?"
I suddenly heard Tom's voice float through my thoughts. I looked up to see him standing in front of me, smiling with that knowing, sympathetic smile he uses.
"But she was human." I muttered without realizing it. His smile broadened and he sat down next to me. He kissed my brow ridges like he has a million times and looked into my eyes. Holding my hands he tried to find words.
"The woman you just saw..." He began. "She was a twentieth century singer. Her name is Cher. She's half caucasian and half native american. She went through the same thing you did. There were no different humanoid species, so they picked on people who were different nationalities."
"She was... human..." It was really getting to me. I didn't totally understand why, but knowing humans went through what I have was.... I don't know... Settling. It made me feel more human in away.
I wasn't a freak of nature.
I was a half-breed.