"Clifford Telegenic is a Monster."

Happy Birthday. Make a Wish

The neonatal ward was quiet and the hall lights were dimmed to fit the pre-dawn hours outside. Vessa was in an exhausted, medicated sleep while her husband, Adlar, stood with his forehead gently pressing on the window separating him from his newborn daughter. Inside that sterile room, among a half dozen other infants, lay the single most important thing that had happened to him.

Footsteps echoed up the hall. Adlar turned, half-expecting another new father, but instead saw a woman in a black woolen coat and green scarf. He almost shouted when the scarf was pulled off and he saw her face, rushing over to give his mother a hug.

“Mom! What are you doing here, it’s a good… three hours to Coronet City from your house. Why are you awake? he asked, giving her an extra squeeze.

"Your call woke me, Addie. Besides, I haven’t been sleeping too well lately. Traffic was light this time of night.”

Adlar pulled back. “Not the war dreams again? You haven’t seen Dr. Buen in months, your medication might not be–”

Zerina hushed him. “It’s not that, I promise. We’ll talk about it later,” she insisted with maternal authority, before her face brightened into joy. “So? Which one is she?” she asked, shamelessly planting her own forehead and hands against the window and looking over the newborns.

“Second from the right,” Adlar said. “The one with the hair. Did you get my message about that after the last ultrasound? Vessa said that since the hair seems to run in my side of the family, we should pick a name from further up the family tree. You think you can dig out the old family books and things?”

“Yeah, I heard. Even brought one with me. Everything healthy, I hope?“

"Looks like. Doctors are all happy. Won’t listen to me when I point things out, though.”

Zerina laughed. “That’s because, while you’re a pediatrician, you’re busy being a dad right now and can’t think straight. Relax. They’ll take care of her until you’re off that birth high.”

Adlar slumped. “I know what you mean about not thinking straight. You think that you’ve seen it all before, can see it coming, all that, and then when it happens you’re drowning in thoughts.”

Zerina slowly sank down to a cross-legged sitting position on the floor beside the windows, then patted the ground next to her. “Unfortunately, I’m here to add to all of that confusion,” she admitted. “There’s some details about your own rearing that I need to tell you, as they may apply to your daughter’s upbringing, too.”

Adlar obediently sat. “Such as? Was there a reaction to a vaccination? Goodness, Mom, you actually GAVE me all my shots, right?”

“Adlar Avinn.” Out came the scolding middle name. “I am not some spicehead or cult member. You received all your inoculations. Just… maybe not all your tests.”

“Tests.”

“Because of who your father was.”

“What? Because of– why? How does a Republic Navy hyperlane dragger preclude proper testing?!” Adlar asked, incredulously, nearly yelling.

Zerina shushed him. “Because your father was not in the Republic Navy.”

“Um, yes he was. Avinn Krelz was an astrogator in the Judicial Forces, helping expand trade routes and root out pirate nests.”

“I… lied, honey.”

“You lied?! Who was my dad, then? ‘Oh, he wasn’t in the navy, he was one of the pirates the navy was rooting out, but he was just so charming–”

The slap came out of nowhere. Adlar froze mid-sentence, staring in incredulity at his mother while his mind raced back to discipline as a child, while her steely look at him gave no ground. “You tell me, Adlar, who your father was. What kind of person could be gone for years at a time and leave a legacy that might appear on childhood tests.”

Adlar stormed to his feet and started wandering up the hall. “What do the kriffing tests have to do with anything?! Wah, I’m a baby,” he mimed, before counting the list of tests on his fingers. “Virals. Bacterial. Fungals. Immunodeficiencies. Nervous system plaques. Midi–”

Zerina’s stare was still firm. Adlar paused, then dropped his arms to his sides. “I am thirty-two years old,” he said at last, quietly, “and you’ve chosen to take until now to tell me that my father was a Jedi.”

“By the time I could safely tell you, the time never seemed right,” his mother replied quietly.

“'Safely tell me?‘”

“We wanted to see if you would develop natural talent beyond some luck. So far it seems to have turned out to be a talent at soothing and calming children,” she continued, barely above a whisper.

“Why not test me? Why not just ask me when I was a child?”

“Because you would have gone, and I didn’t have it in me to tell them not to take you,” Zerina replied softly.

“Take?! The Jedi are the champions of the galaxy, the guardians of peace. I could have been one of them, I could be out there, battling pirates, solving diplomatic crises, defeating Trade Federations! And you prevented all that! Now I’m just a kriffing doctor.”

An orderly peeked around the corner up the hall at the commotion, then carried on with her mopping.

“How many children have you healed?“ Zerina asked. "How many problem youths have opened up to you? How many families have you kept whole, how many world and galactic leaders will grow up now? How many teachers don’t have brain damage from severe fevers? How many limps have been solved, neurological disorders cured? I couldn’t prevent you from saving the galaxy if I tried, Adlar. It runs in our blood. Here.”

Zerina held out the book she’d brought along. Around the Basic Aurebesh title was a phrase in Olys Corellisi. “Here the whole time on all of those damned books in Old Corellian,  Adlar. Phrezn won Galaksz Nyiadkh. ‘There when the galaxy needs.’”

Adlar had walked back over, but turned away. He was staring through the window again at the sterile plastic crib within. “So you’re telling me this because now I have to make that decision. Because you want me to decide now whether or not fate gets to steal my daughter from me in a few years?”

“I told you so that you could have the opportunity I had,” Zerina answered. “You could decide if your daughter could grow up in a family instead of a temple on Coruscant. You can’t stop her from being a hero. But you can decide if she gets to be a person with a rich, full life… instead of the kind that only gets to see his son when he can sneak away from keeping nobles on Kuat from murdering each other.”

Adlar pressed his forehead against the window again and shut his eyes on the tears.

“The galaxy has been at peace for centuries, Adlar,” his mother said after a moment. “The world needs love and home and families more than it needs soldiers and swordsmen. I made my decision, and that’s exactly what you turned out to be suited to. I don’t regret it for a moment. Thirty years from now, the galaxy might not need Jedi. It might need loving people more, or a proper Corellian.”

"Or a sister,” Adlar said. “Vessa’s already saying she wants a boy to complete the set.” He slowly leaned over and grabbed the book from his mother, who stood up beside him. Flipping the pages open, he jabbed a finger at random at the embossed green tree on the inside cover. Well, that’s a man’s name, he thought. But if we feminize it…

“Kera Zerina Tolan,” he tested aloud. “What am I going to do with you?“

His mother, shocked, turned toward him. "What?”