This was written in June 2015, as part of the Star Trek Online Forums Unofficial Literary Challenge #12. Menrow’s comments on being mind-dispalced is a reference to events from ULC 4: Second Life.

Unofficial Literary Challenge #12: Prompt #1: In the past, be it distant or recent, your character was in a relationship with another. Then their lover died, either in battle, through assassination, or they gave up their life to save your character’s.

However, after they died, your character discovers their lover left them one final gift: a child. The way this gift is left can vary, from your character discovering that they’re pregnant with the child (females only, and most likely with a male lover), the child has already been born, albeit only a week earlier at the most (male characters with female lovers), or they somehow foresaw their death and left behind a sample of genetic material that could be used to create the child (any character with any lover).

Write a short story about the discovery of this final gift, the child’s birth, or about some future point in the child’s life.r03;