Disclaimer: George Lucas owns all that is Star Wars. I'm just taking the characters out for a spin.
Notes: This story was posted to LJ in July of 2005 with artwork by my mangaka friend, Ren.
Spoiled
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Bail Organa lay in his bed listening to the wind as it brushed through the long curtains. The soft sounds of insects and the occasional bleat of a Thranta drifted up and into the room from the open balcony. Normally the light from one of Alderaan's three moons would leave the bedroom twilight-bright at this late hour but the room was dark and the air was heavy with unshed rain.
Rolling onto his side toward the edge of the bed, Bail carefully pulled back the sheets and tried not to wake his wife.
He failed.
"Bail?"
"It's all right. Go back to sleep, Breha."
The words were ignored. "Where are you going?"
Bail slipped his legs over the side of the bed. "I'm going to check on Leia."
"Bail." Breha's voice went from soft and sleepy to fully awake. She sighed heavily. "We agreed that you weren't going to keep..."
"I am not going to let her be alone and frightened."
Breha sat up. "Even your mother says we need to let her cry it out so she can sleep through the night."
Bail turned to face her, one leg still on the floor and the other tucked up on the bed. His face held a stern expression and though his voice was still low, he was clearly exasperated. "And if she cries for attention I could understand that, but she never cries for attention. She cries when she's scared."
"You wake her up."
"No, I don't."
A flash of lightening lit up the room.
"You see!" Bail shot up and off the bed. His attention turned toward the small door that separated Leia's nursery from their bedroom. A loud crack of thunder and a gust of wind that blew the curtains in toward the room was quickly followed by a sharp and piercing wail.
"How do you do that?" Breha said softly as her husband hurried toward the door.
Long strides ate up the distance as the next flash of light and boom of thunder shook the room. Little Leia shrieked and cried, the tiny fists and legs flying under the baby blanket. Bail scooped her up into his arms, cooing. "It's all right, my Princess. Just a storm." He petted Leia, his large hand nearly encompassing her head as he rocked her. "Shhh. All is well."
Another flash and boom. Leia twisted her hands into the top of Bail's nightshirt. Her face was red from exertion and wet with tears.
"Shhh. Nothing to be afraid of, my darling." Bail moved toward the balcony where fat drops of rain had begun to splatter the portion not covered by the overhang. "You see? Water from the sky. No different than your tears. I'm here with you. Mother is here. Nothing to fear."
Breha shook her head and frowned before she lay back down and pulled up the sheets. "Spoiling her," she muttered.
"No, no I'm not." Bail said to Leia in a sing-song voice. Tilting his head upward, he lifted her in both hands and rubbed his nose affectionately against her face. "Preposterous that I could spoil my little girl."
Bail opened his eyes and was unsurprised to see another pair peering at him over the top of the mattress. Leia hadn't made a sound, but her eyes were huge and shining with unshed tears. A flash of light was followed by the low rumble of distant thunder. Bail could see his daughter's body tremble in the dark.
Putting a finger to his lips to indicate silence, Bail nodded toward the balcony doors. Leia tottered backward, her hands clenched in the fabric of her long white nightgown as her father slipped his legs over the edge of the mattress and fished with his feet for his slippers. Breha shifted, rolling on her side, and both Leia and Bail froze. They stared at each other, waiting for long moments, to be sure that Breha hadn't woken. Both of them knew that Breha wouldn't approve, that she didn't like the little night-visits between father and daughter and often muttered things about spoiling the child. So they both waited until Bail was satisfied that his wife was not disturbed before he carefully slipped off the bed and padded the few steps to where Leia stood, biting her lower lip in fear.
At a not-quite-four, Leia was much larger than she was in the days when Bail would wake even before her fearful cries began and rush to the side of her crib. He wasn't quite sure how he did it, but he always knew when Leia was afraid. It was strange, really. He wondered as he went to pick her up and carry her out onto the Balcony if Leia used the Force to call to him in some way. There were so many things about the Force that Bail didn't understand -- that he couldn't understand -- but he knew from his years of close contact with Jedi that they often could call to one another or could sense emotion. Bail never actually felt fear, never sensed anything in the way of an emotion, but he would wake and know that something was wrong and that he had to check on his daughter. Now that she was older, Leia no longer cried to bring her father to her. Instead, she left her bed and came to him, waiting silently until he woke.
She never waited long.
Leia threw her tiny arms around Bail's neck and burrowed into his chest as they exited the bedroom and went out on the balcony. The rain had begun and the wind was picking up. Bail moved to a low chaise that rested, protected, under the overhang and sat; Leia still cuddled in his embrace.
"It's all right, Leia." Bail said the words softly as he stroked Leia's hair. "Storms are important and you should know why they happen but they are nothing to be afraid of. We have shelter here from the wind and the rain. Even if the lightening were to come close, it wouldn't harm us. We are safe and we can watch the storm and learn from it."
Bail's words seemed to bring Leia little comfort. She clutched at Bail's nightshirt and rubbed her head into his shoulder so she wouldn't have to look. For some reason Bail didn't understand, Leia was simply afraid of storms. He was determined, however, to find a way to help her past the fear. They'd had several evenings now where Bail had begun to explain the science behind the winds, rain, lightening, and thunder but Leia didn't seem to listen. Bail wasn't the sort to give up though. If he had been, he certainly wouldn't have managed to stay a Senator as long as he had.
"Darling, please." Bail shifted and tried to pull Leia away from him just a bit. "You must trust me. I would never do anything that would bring danger to you. Do you believe me?"
Leia's little head bobbed up and down against Bail's chest. He was the only father she had ever known and she loved and trusted him unconditionally as all children do their parents.
"Good." Bail soothed and petted Leia though each flash of light and loud thunder crack. He loved his little girl so much. "My Princess is very brave. I know that she can turn and look."
Shivering, Leia finally turned her head. She pressed one side of her face to Bail's chest, and continued to cling to his shirt, but she looked through slit eyes out into the night at the storm. The rain was coming hard now and the lightening, when it flashed, lit up the dark undersides of roiling clouds.
"This storm is made of a line of updrafts and downdrafts in the atmosphere." Bail kept his voice steady as the rain pelted the balcony. He was thrilled. Leia looking out at the storm was a good first step. She might a bit young to understand all of the science he told her, but she was willing to face her fear now and the first step made all the difference. "That's why people that study storms call it a multicell line. It will probably last the rest of the night. Most of the time a strong updraft of wind will rub up against a downdraft and it makes the wind rush around. If one is cold and the other is hot one bit sinks and the other rises. When hot air is full of moisture and it rises and cools, it falls back as rain or hail."
Bail knew his explanation wasn't complete. He was drawing from his lessons years ago and some minor reading he'd been doing in his off time as research for just this occasion. He made a mental note to have his aide contact someone that specialized in global weather for some private lessons so he could be sure he wasn't giving Leia incorrect information.
The center of the storm drew closer and a bolt of lightening struck nearby. The thunderclap that followed was so loud that the chaise shuddered. Leia cringed and whimpered but didn't turn away. Bail was so proud. "We're safe here, Leia, but lightening can be dangerous. It is an electric discharge and it creates the thunder you hear. Sound waves travel slower than light waves so you hear it after you see it."
Bail kept his arms wrapped tight around his daughter. She still shivered but Bail thought it might be because of the temperature drop and not necessarily due to fear. The rain was drifting under the overhang now and Bail could feel stray drops of water on his skin. Time to take Leia in before she got wet and caught a cold. "Would you like to come inside now and sleep with mother and me?"
Leia nodded vigorously.
"All right, Princess." Bail stood up, shifting Leia in his arms. She was getting so big and heavy. Soon it would be harder to hold her for long periods of time but he didn't want to think about that. It seemed like only yesterday when he had brought Leia home and placed her in Breha's arms. He slipped back into the bedroom, kissing Leia as he laid her on the bed. "Daddy loves you more than anything," he whispered in her ear.
Bail slipped into bed and curled himself around his daughter. In no time, Leia's breathing slowed to that of sleep. He was just about to drop off himself when Breha ran her fingers through his hair. "You spoil her so."
"No I don't," he protested in a whisper.
Breha smiled in the dark at her husband. She chided, but it was not with malice. "Yes," she said, "Yes, you do."
It rained the day they put Breha to rest.
The morning of the state funeral dawned gray and overcast. Bail thought it fitting for he felt as colorless and dreary as the weather without his beloved wife. He went through the motions -- doing what was required of him -- but he only wanted to hide in the room he had shared with Breha and never come out. Only he couldn't hide. He had duties and responsibilities.
He also had a daughter.
Leia stood, her small hand in Bail's large one, as the doors to the Merian family crypt closed. Bail had interred her here instead of with the members of House Organa because Breha had so loved the mountain vineyard. He had proposed to her not far from here.
"Won't mother be lonely without us?"
Bail turned and got on one knee in front of his daughter. "That's why I brought her here. We can't be with her now, but she is with the rest of her family. They will take good care of her until we can see her again."
"When will that be, daddy?"
"I don't know, darling," Bail replied sadly, straightening Leia's cloak. "I don't know."
The rain began to fall as they few back to the Palace in Aldera. Bail sat in the cockpit with Leia on his lap as high winds buffeted the transport. Lightening flashed during the descent to the landing platform and Leia turned, throwing her arms around Bail's neck, crying, and clinging for dear life as she had when she was small. Bail wrapped his arms around his daughter and clung right back, tears of loss leaking from his eyes. When the ship landed, he instantly left his chair, cradling Leia in his arms, and fled.
Storms came and went all evening long. Bail and Leia stayed cloistered on the balcony chaise. The pair huddled together, still in their formal clothes, under Bail's fur lined coat as the rain fell and fell and fell. Bail drifted in and out of sleep, emotionally exhausted from the loss of his wife and the need to be strong for his child. Leia slept too, confusion about why her mother was not longer with them and fear from the events on the transport overwhelming the five year old.
"Daddy?" Leia shifted under the coat.
"Yes, Princess?"
"I miss mother."
Bail had to wait a moment before answering. He was unsure of his voice. "I know, sweetheart," he said softly as he stroked her hair. "I miss her too."
When the wind picked up again, Bail thought about going inside but couldn't bring himself to do it. He had yet to be able to sleep in the bed he shared for so long with Breha now that she was no longer there. The thought of it brought fresh tears. He held on to Leia, almost afraid to let go of her in his need for comfort. Leia squirmed in his too-tight grasp, wriggling until she was nose to nose with her father. She put her small hands on his wet cheeks, her eyes wide. She had never seen her father cry before.
"Don't cry, Daddy. You don't have to be afraid. I'll take care of you."
"Oh, Leia." Bail kissed his daughter on the forehead and resisted the urge to hug her again. He felt so grateful to have Leia in his life at that moment and he wondered if old Yoda had somehow foreseen this day when a little girl would give strength and comfort to a man that wanted nothing more than to give up.
Leia slipped off the chaise, pulling her at her father's hand. "You can sleep in my room with me. When the storm is over it will be better. You'll see."
Bail used his other hand to wipe the tears from his eyes. Leia was right. It would not be easy but tomorrow the sun would rise and another day would dawn. This storm too would pass. He left the coat on the chaise and gave Leia a little smile as he let her pull him toward her room. "You're my big brave girl, aren't you?"
Leia nodded. "I'm your big brave girl."
"You spoil her."
Bail heard the words over and over as the years went by. They came from his mother and his sisters. They came from the nannies he employed until he dismissed them. They came periodically from tutors and teachers.
They never came from Giles Durane, the weapons master that helped to design the play-time games that trained Leia for her future.
Other men might have worried or second-guessed themselves when so many people said the same thing over and over. Not so Bail. Pittens and thrantas were nothing. The Organa stables could always use another pitten to help chase away rodents and the thrantas would come and go as they always had regardless of Leia's wishes to ride them or give them names. The dresses and jewels Bail showered on his daughter were never a matter of satisfying the desires of his little girl. Leia didn't really like them. She preferred playing in the dirt or tinkering with droids, covering herself in oil and grime, to sitting still while someone did her hair and dressed her like a doll for a state function. Bail was willing to concede that he did indulge his daughter's flights of fancy -- that he encouraged her imagination and artistic sensibilities -- but what he did was hardly spoiling. A spoiled child threw fits and was inconsiderate or rude. While Leia, like all children, had gone through a short phase of anger and tantrums Bail had never tolerated such behavior. Leia was given strict rules and limits. She always knew what was considered acceptable and proper and rarely had she ever tried to push the boundaries.
Leia was also a loving and empathetic child. Spoiled children, Bail argued to anyone that asserted that Leia might be one, were self-centered. Leia often gave away her things to other children that wanted them. She was kind and gentle with her pets and showered them with affection. When she found wounded creatures, she brought them home to be mended and gave them special places of honor for their recuperation before sending them back, hale and hearty, to their homes. She was never spiteful or hateful. As she aged, she seemed particularly upset when she saw something she considered to be unjust or unfair. Bail couldn't begin to count the number of times Leia had come to him in tears because she heard a tale of prejudice or bias that caused hurt to others. A spoiled child, Bail rightfully reasoned, would never be so compassionate.
Instead, Leia patiently suffered her father's doting ways. By the time she was eight, she was no longer scared by storms. Tutors far more knowledgeable than Bail had taught Leia all about convection, inversion, evaporation, sound waves, friction, electrical discharge, tornados, dust devils, super cells, hurricanes, depressions, cold fronts, and other such details of the weather. She knew all the different kinds of clouds and would lie on her back in the garden with her father staring at the sky and naming the types of clouds as they passed lazy afternoons. Still, Bail continued to look in on her whenever a storm front moved in. Leia would always be awake, no matter how late it was, and the pair would curl up together and watch the rain fall until they fell asleep in each others arms.
No, Bail knew the truth. His daughter could never be spoiled. She spoiled him. She indulged him in his whims and set no limits on her love. She tolerated his eccentricities and his almost neurotic need to check up on her. When he went to Coruscant he made a holoconnection every morning to wake her up and made another in the evening to talk to her about her day and tell her a story before she went to bed. He knew it was selfish to use his love for his daughter as a crutch after Breha died -- as a way to shelter himself from the loss and comfort himself after long trying days of lying to keep his involvement with the Alliance to Restore the Republic a secret. Sometimes, the only way he could sleep at night was to slip from his own room to Leia's and curl up next to her, watching her chest rise and fall, until the rhythm of it lulled him to his rest.
As Leia aged and transformed from child to young woman Bail watched with anxious eyes. She had no idea of her true parentage, of her birthright, and Bail made the decision never to tell her. To Bail, Leia was his. She was an Organa and he refused to give up even the tiniest part of her to destiny before he absolutely had to. It was selfish, just as refusing to remarry and having Leia take the responsibilities of hostess of the house was selfish, but Bail couldn't help himself. Ever since the moment he had first held Leia in his arms, he had been smitten. He truly meant it when he told her every day, "Daddy loves you more than anything, Princess."
Yes, Leia Organa spoiled her father with her love and affection but Bail didn't mind. Let the galaxy think it was the other way around. It was Leia that was strong, that he leaned on to keep going, and one day the galaxy would know the truth.
"Leia, I think it's high time you came with me to Coruscant. If you intend to take over my seat in the Senate next year I should introduce you to my colleagues and we should begin integrating you into political life."
"Oh, Father! Really? You said that you didn't want me to..."
"I know what I said. A man has a right to change his mind, doesn't he? Besides, when have I ever been able to refuse my Princess anything?"