YULAREN FAMILY VALUES
"One day, Alexsandr," Yularen promised, "You're going to have a child who is exactly like you."
The young man cocked his head. "What's wrong with that?" He asked with a smile.
"You'll see." Kallus wasn't usually difficult but today he was making an exception. Apparently "slow down and take a breath" wasn't in his son's vocabulary, and Yularen desperately wished it was.
"The sooner we make an arrest, the sooner we can find the rest of this ring," Kallus protested.
"And rushing an investigation leads to false information and improper arrests. Which in turn will drive the true criminals even deeper underground." He glanced at the chrono. "It's late. Go home, get some rest, and don't think about work. You'll benefit from fresh eyes in the morning."
Kallus wasn't keen on going, but neither was he keen on insubordination. "Yes, sir. Do you have any plans for the evening?"
"I'll be spending it with Estelle." Probably going through the latest dozen outfits she'd purchased for their grandson, who was due to arrive any day. He was going to be the best dressed child in the galaxy if Estelle had her way.
"Tell her I said hello."
"I certainly will. You should come over sometime, enjoy some company and home cooking. We'd love to have you."
"Maybe when the case is over?"
"But of course! Have a good night, Alexsandr. I'll see you in the morning."
He allowed himself a cleansing breath as Kallus took his leave. He'd talked to Graf over his lunch break, which meant there was one child left to check up on for the day.
He commed her after dinner that night. Dalla appeared at her kitchen counter, a sleeve of crackers in front of her and a condiment bottle in her hand.
Yularen raised an eyebrow. "What are you eating?"
"Hot sauce." Dalla shook the contents of the bottle onto a cracker and popped it into her mouth.
"Hot sauce?" Yularen repeated. "You complain that nabana peppers are too spicy. Why are you eating hot sauce?"
"Because I'm done." She gestured to her belly, which was almost comically large compared to her tiny frame. "I'm running two cells and a museum, I don't have time for someone to tap dance on my spine at 0300. This baby is getting an eviction notice."
"You realize you'll then be waking up to feed him?"
"Bernard volunteered to take the night shift." She prepped another cracker. "Actually, he's taking most of the shifts so I can do my job."
"So you decided on an arrangement? Good for you." Dalla and Bernard were still learning the ropes of being married in truth, and discussing how they would manage their impending arrival was a big step.
"It makes the most sense. Besides, I've always liked the idea of being a stay at home parent." Bernard appeared in the holofield with a jogan in hand. "Morning, Colonel."
"Mr. Wallace." Yularen bobbed a nod to his son-in-law. "How are you?"
"Better than some of us." Bernard cast a worried look toward Dalla. "Babe, your face is completely red. Do you want a glass of water?"
"No." Beads of sweat were visible as Dalla forced down her latest hot sauce cracker. "I don't want to reduce the spice."
"You look like you're in pain," Bernard said before Yularen could stop him.
"I've tried everything else!" Dalla wailed. "I did those stupid stretches, I walked on the curb, I even took that disgusting castor oil. I need to get him out of me and nothing's working!"
"Why don't we ask Yularen? He has a bio kid, maybe he can help." Bernard looked to the hologram hopefully, his eyes begging for help. Yularen didn't blame him. The day before she delivered Graf, Estelle had yelled at him for breathing too loud.
"I do have a biological child," Yularen admitted. "And in my experience, the process which got the baby in can also assist in getting him out."
Bernard blushed and Dalla's jaw dropped.
"Seriously?" She asked. "I've been torturing myself when I could have been having sex?"
Yularen wasn't going to argue with the heavily pregnant woman. "In so many words."
Bernard cleared his throat. "Thanks Colonel. We'll, uh, we'll take that into consideration."
"I'll leave you be." Yularen hung up.
Estelle was at his side in a flash. "Is our grandbaby here?"
"Dalla and Bernard are trying to hasten his arrival."
"And I want to know the second they succeed." She squealed. "I can't wait to be a grandma!"
"Our credit card statement surely attests to that," he joked and Estelle swatted him.
"I don't want him to be cold," she said matter of factly. "How was your day?"
"I spent it reigning in Alexsandr. That boy…"
"You love that boy. Come to bed, it's late."
Yularen didn't so much go to bed as collapse into it and conk out the moment his head hit the pillow, and he was awakened much too early by an unholy ringing.
Blast it, had he – no, that wasn't the alarm, that was his comm. Who was calling him at this hour?
He fumbled for the device. "Yularen."
"Colonel Yularen, this is Agent Laramie in cybersecurity and we just detected a login attempt from your office computer. Did you attempt this?"
"No, I don't know how –." A child's name popped into the forefront of Yularen's mind, and not the one he was used to chasing after.
"That little shit," he muttered.
"Sir?" Agent Laramie asked, clearly disturbed at hearing his superior swear.
"Thank you, Agent Laramie. I'll address the issue."
He dropped the comlink and kicked on his slippers, careful not to wake Estelle.
…
"Alexsandr Ivan Kallus!"
At Yularen's desk, Kallus let out a rather undignified shriek and whipped around.
Yularen was standing in the doorway still in his pajamas, his only concession to being out of bed a pair of house slippers.
"Colonel?"
Yularen wasn't playing games. "Alexsandr, what time is it?"
"It's three o'clock in the morning, sir."
"And where should we be at three o'clock in the morning?"
Kallus winced. "In bed?"
"Exactly. Now please, explain why we are not in our beds."
Kallus was a smart young man, which was how he knew that he had kriffed up severely. "I…I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you, I just wanted to keep working."
"Do you make a habit of working from my computer?" Yularen asked. "Not to mention hacking into my account?"
Kallus wilted. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
"My boy," Yularen growled. "This is exactly why we don't work at three in the morning."
"I'm –."
"I don't have the energy to argue with you at the moment, so I won't. Go home and go to bed before I physically drag you out."
He didn't have to tell Kallus twice. He practically launched out of his chair and bolted for the door.
"Don't you dare come back until at least ten!" Yularen shouted after him. Usually he went in at nine, but in light of this interruption he was taking an extra hour. Gideon could bite him; he wasn't raising three damn kids who wouldn't sit still.
Yularen drafted his "what the hell were you doing, Kallus" lecture on the way home and dropped into a living room chair to cool off before he went back to bed. Kallus had sent him an apology text, but it wouldn't do to deliver the lecture over text so Yularen didn't respond. He silenced his comm and kicked back in the chair.
Something had to be done about Kallus' workaholism before he burned himself out. Maybe a vacation was in order, somewhere with limited comm access. He sat there, thinking of where that would be and if he could bring Graf and Estelle.
"Aaaaah!"
Yularen's eyes popped open and he was immediately aware of the light pouring through the windows. What? He'd only closed his eyes for a second!
"Oh my gods!" Estelle shrieked, and Yularen's exhaustion disappeared.
"Estelle?!" He shouted and ran for their bedroom. "What is it? Are you hurt?"
He blasted through the door as Estelle exclaimed "He's perfect! I want to snuggle him to bits."
"Him?" Yularen repeated, and looked where Estelle was looking.
The holocomm was open on the bedside table, the image depicting Dalla in a hospital bed and Bernard standing by her side. She was … holding a baby.
Just in case he hadn't gotten the memo, Estelle jumped for joy. "This is the best day ever!"
Yularen crossed the room in a single step to get a better look at his daughter and grandchild.
"When?" He sputtered.
"About an hour ago," Dalla said. She was obviously exhausted, but beaming.
"Why didn't you call me?"
"I tried, but you didn't answer. So I called Estelle."
What a time to silence his comm.
"Sweet space," Yularen whispered as it sank in. "My baby had a baby."
"Yes Wullf, she did," Estelle said like Yularen was chopped liver and went back to mooning over her grandson.
"Are you okay?"
"We're both fine. Everything went as smoothly as possible." She smiled at her baby. "Colonel, he's perfect. He's the prettiest baby I've ever seen."
"On that we can agree." The baby was still coming into his identifying features but after one glimpse of wispy dark curls and a rosebud mouth, Yularen was hopelessly in love. "Have you decided on a name?"
"We have." Dalla held up the child so they could see him better. "His name is Sandor Wullf Wallace."
Estelle squealed.
"That's my name," Yularen sputtered, dumbfounded.
"We know." Now the new parents were grinning at him. "That's why we chose it."
"You named him after me?"
"He's named after his grandfathers," Bernard explained. "So, what do you think?"
"I…I…" He gulped and cried "I love him. I can't wait to hold him."
Estelle was right: this was the best day of their lives.
"Maybe next week?" Dalla suggested.
"We'll be there." That was a promise. Come Empire, high water, or crazy children, Yularen was going to show up for his grandson.
And he did.
A week and a day after his birth, Sandor Wullf Wallace was placed in his namesake's arms.
"Do you have him?" Dalla asked nervously, hovering her hands over Yularen's. "Maybe we should do this on the couch."
"I'll sit wherever you prefer," he said and beamed at the baby. "Hello, Sandor. I'm your grandfather."
Sandor looked at him with a skeptical, Dalla-like gaze. And then, apparently satisfied with his assessment, he reached up and closed his tiny hand around Yularen's finger.
Yularen knew it was a reflex. He also didn't care. "He's holding my hand!"
"He loves you," Estelle gushed and presented her finger in hopes of a grandbaby handshake. "And of course he's brilliant. He lives here surrounded by art, and has his parents talking around him all day. What sort of words do you know, Sandor?"
"Laundry," Bernard laughed. "Along with forgery, defector, and –."
Dalla swore loudly.
"What is it?" Bernard was by his wife's side in an instant. "Are you in pain? Is it the network?"
"No, it's Genna." Dalla scowled at her comm screen. "She accidentally told my freaking family that we had the baby."
"Ah, crap," Bernard sighed.
Satisfied that there was no emergency, Yularen settled back onto the couch with the baby. "This is a problem?"
"We kind of didn't tell them, and now they're pissed." Dalla's comm rang, but she tossed it on the caf table and let the call go to voicemail.
"Why didn't you tell them?" Not that he was complaining, but still he'd like to know.
"Because they would have come, and we wanted you to see him first."
Well how about that? Yularen beamed first at his daughter, and then at the baby in his arms. Sandor had fallen asleep, his hand still clasped around Yularen's finger.
"I certainly won't argue with that," he said, and juggled Sandor into one arm so he could hug them both.