You know the disclaimer drill. I don't own it.
This story is to be worked on at a slow pace, while I'm climbing through a
confusing, purplish-prose non-SW novel (from which the title of this fanfic
was plucked; you can find said excerpt at strangepursuit.net/files/patchwork.txt).
If I hit a particularly difficult spot in classes or in the novel, I may ask
for help on this thread, but for now I want to work on it alone.
Credit for this plot bunny goes to JediGaladriel, whose sandbox I'm starting out
in, too. (Read the "Father's Heart" series NOW. Specifically, "Imperial
Entanglements," which you can find at http://fan.starwars.com/vadersmask/files/imp.html .)
Thank you so much -- for the plot bunny, for the sandbox, and mostly for your blessing
to go ahead.
In "The Penitent," Leia says -- and I'm paraphrasing -- "That's all it would have
taken." Close enough. Perhaps hindsight isn't 20/20 after all.
First paragraph belongs to JG.
-------------------------------------------------------------
"The Patchwork Order of Things,"
by Vee
-------------------------------------------------------------
Leia found that her feet remembered the way home better than her mind did.
Without thinking about it -- she wasn't sure she could have thought anyway;
the conversation was swimming in her mind, that strange, gentle gesture --
she followed the narrow staircases and the walkways Vader had led her along
earlier, and much sooner than she had anticipated, she saw the top of the
Senate's vast dome. She wondered if she was finally becoming accustomed to
Coruscant.
The lights were still bright in her quarters. A tiny pool of ruby bliel had dried
into the bottom of the simple goblet. The Coruscant sky glowed a brilliant dying
orange, turning her windows into art framed on the walls.
She began to clear away the table. It still teased at the back of her brain, the
name of the musician. His reaction when Vader had shown up was priceless, as was
the vase -- an anonymous gift from a Rebel senator -- that he shattered while
scrambling to leave, she noted.
She called Artoo to take care of that. No good slicing her hand open.
She supposed she would hear about it soon enough in the holonews. The musician seemed the
type whose popularity was fueled not by talent but by how many people he could claim
to have encountered. She just hoped she hadn't broken bread with someone who was going to say
anything to tear her down. She'd had enough of that since it became public
knowledge that she and the dread Sith lord Darth Vader were friends.
Odd how the word "friends" sounded inside her own head, followed easily by a --
Wry? Incredulous? -- laugh. Probably the best term, she conceded. Better than
any of the titles associated with the vulgar conclusions the underground media
had applied to the strained yet oddly easygoing relationship during her run for Senate.
Gigantic chessboard. The landing platform had felt that way, when he knelt before her
and told her he could protect her no longer if she chose the Rebellion. She could have
a glorious career in the Empire, he said.
She felt gripped by the hand of something she did not want to understand, bound
by. Who was he? When was the Vader sworn -- by all these other people whom she
trusted and loved -- to be ruthless and evil and inhumane going to match up with
the Vader who, time and time again, confused her by caring so much?
_Padmé Naberrie. She would know._
That was a bratty-child thought, Leia chided herself as she placed the last of the
clutter into the cleaning unit. When she was in that timeless age, before years
are marked with duty and obligation -- she was probably four -- and she didn't want
to do something -- she couldn't remember what -- and she had told Saché Organa that
she didn't want to and she didn't have to and she wasn't her mother ...
That was the only time she'd ever been slapped by either of her parents.
So what did she think she could do? Hold a séance? Summon up the spirit of her
mother and have a nice, friendly chat? Sulk and be sullen and act seventeen, for once?
_Perfect solutions, all, madam Senator._
She needed to sleep. She needed to quit thinking about this and sleep and move on.
"Threepio?" she called through the quarters. It took a moment -- the droid activated
itself, and entered into the room.
"Yes, Mistress Leia?"
She smiled at the golden droid. Always a constant. "I'm going into hibernation.
Unless anyone should *absolutely* need me, I'm not here, okay?"
She was already in another room before she faintly heard the droid say, "Hibernation?
Oh, my."
She curled into her bed, pulling a heavy blanket. She spent a few wide-awake moments
staring at the colorless wall and drifted into dreamless sleep just as monochromatic.
After what felt like the space of a blink, her eyes flashed wide to see Saché
Organa's smiling face. The room was brightly lit; a quick, blurry examination
showed it to be morning. Half a standard day asleep. She groaned and rolled over,
catching a glimpse of her mother's face falling as if struck. "It's-not-personal,"
she mumbled into the bedding, and smacked the side she was currently facing as
cordial invitation. "I'm just not getting up."
She felt her mother slide under the blanket behind her.
"Goblets in the washing unit?" She said it in the tone of a joke Leia didn't know,
and sighed deep into her hair, wrapping an arm around her waist and squeezing tightly.
"You grow up so fast."
"Mother." Rolled eyes, the realization it was a useless gesture. "It wasn't like
that at all. Just dinner, and a few minutes in I was determined it was just a
favor to Zeria."
"Zeria?"
"It was some musician she'd wanted a thumbprinted holo of, and of course his
publicist suggested a date as a reciprocal favor."
Saché was silent. When it was about her, Leia hated the sound of her mother
thinking.
"Maybe not with this boy, but it's not a bad idea for you to go out again, to be
around people your own age."
This was an old argument, one that Leia couldn't be sure she was simply imagining.
Saché didn't know about the previous day and refused to acknowledge the storm
of questions in her daughter's mind.
The Alderaanian senator swung her feet out and firmly planted them on the floor
with a sigh.
"Okay, Mother, I'm up."
She put her hands up in defeat to be met with a smile.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The involved rebels, too, had returned to Coruscant. This, Kaelan Piett had gathered
the moment he heard that Governor Tarkin ordered Lord Vader's return to the Imperial capital.
He had regarded the news with a frown and continued his watch.
The Dark Lord's involvement in the situation now ensured that probe droids had
already been ordered out in surveillance of his friend, the Alderaani princess.
Stormtroopers, both lurking in plainclothes and parading about in the ominous armor,
had already been sent out. She was rumored to be working with the rebellion. The rebels
would see her as a diversion for the Imperial presence on La'azum. Nothing new. It
was all procedure.
Procedure routinely followed without a single consideration that, apparently, many
members of the Senate were still functioning amid the surveillance.
In his quarters, as he sifted through the holonews, he allowed himself to think
that the command structure was being foolish. They would see this as prowling, not as
a scouting mission before an attack. If the alleged guilty were absent, then none
present were guilty, no-one was staked out in the hills waiting to descend. Things would
naturally relax until the surveillance was fruitful. The factory would go on producing
prototype fighters.
What he had not foreseen was the sudden removal from his post.
Lord Vader had regarded the governor's order with a wrathful silence, a pacing about the
factory. Piett got the distinct impression that he, too, realized that Governor Tarkin was
underestimating the desperation of the rebels, and that was why the lieutenant took a distinct
pleasure in Vader's prolonging of his visit. Doing so would both step on Tarkin's arrogant face
and give the impression that investigation of Rebel activity was not his only reason
for being on La'azum, a projection of Imperial strength sorely needed to deter whatever
was being put into motion.
As he usually did when he visited, Vader overlooked with apparent interest the
various projects Kel Rejuo had put into motion. While he did not share the technical
interest in production or the personal stake in its success, Piett also held the Ampinuan
woman in high regard; he knew probably better than any how honestly she had arrived at her
position, and wished he was not the one idling her progress. She was becoming tough-skinned,
constantly battling rumor and poor policy. He missed, not out of any attraction or other
unprofessional emotion, the delicate wings and the traditional long hair she'd shorn off
to model herself as much like a human male as possible. He pitied how the post was
twisting her. He gave her as much reign as his superiors allowed. It was his hope that,
the more Imperials that showed support for her, the less people would talk.
Eventually, everyone must heed the call of authority.
It was when Lord Vader was about to board the shuttle for the Inferno, and the highest-ranked
of the supervisors were assembled on the platform, that his rank and family name was called
out in that intimidating voice. He stepped forward instantly, in one nervous motion.
_You quivering fool ... _
It took all he had to find his own. "My Lord?"
The helmet tilted slightly. It was a less confrontational angle, almost as if he were
considering the young lieutenant. Piett allowed himself to breathe, and willed himself to
listen. _This is not a confrontation. Be calm._
"I am turning control over to Kel Rejuo for the time being. You will return with me to
Coruscant where you will be reassigned."
A perfunctory reply of understanding -- "Yes, my Lord," -- and then Vader was up the ramp,
cape billowing behind. Piett found himself looking, bewildered, at Rejuo; she nodded sharply,
with a trace of warmth.
"Kyrys Tashin," she muttered. A Nubian name. Her voice was in good humor. It would take
some time before the new officer would arrive.
Kaelan saw a long, glorious future of officer reassignments at the hand of Lord Vader.
This was good news for her, and he wished her well, despite his fear that this move would
backfire on her. There was no time for sentiment, however; there wasn't even time for
packing.
The distinct stillness of the platform brought him into the present and out of the vacuum
he had been operating in. He returned the nod respectfully, smiled slightly, then turned
on his heel and climbed the ramp.
His things arrived in his quarters on Coruscant a week after he did. He would not notice.
-------------------------------------------------------------
It would have been impossible for Saché to not realize that something was troubling
her daughter. It had crept up on her, shadowy and powerful, familiar; it showed itself
in the slowness with which she moved. It seemed that a full spoon in her hand
could take forever to be empty. She was restless and listened with half an ear when
spoken to. Saché couldn't decide whether Leia was acting more like Anakin before his
fall or Padmé after it.
It was three days into her stay on Coruscant, during a late-night holodrama, that she
finally learned exactly what the trouble was. It was the only explanation, really.
Leia was on the edge of sleep, her head rested against Saché's shoulder. Saché had
reached over to smooth her hair back off her face and something in the contact jolted
the girl awake and away from her, into constricting sobs.
"It'll be okay," she whispered, a mantra. Leia shook her head and cried harder.
Vader, she explained when she was coherent. He had taken her above probe-droid range
and begged her to choose the Empire. Saché did not doubt his affection, nor did she
think Leia ever had, but a clear show of it -- something so trademarkedly Anakin that, when
she tried to imagine the scene, she did not see his daughter with him on the platform
but instead thought of his wife, twenty-four years old, staring dejectedly at the floor
in the Jedi Temple and otherwise inconsolable -- was, for lack of a better term,
unnerving.
She tried not to think about it more than she had to by merit of knowing it had happened.
Leia did not use the term "begged" in reference to the kneeling and the question, but Saché
saw things clearly for what they were. She had perspective. Vader didn't act out of
character; he acted out of desperation, as always. This time, kindness was the means
to his end.
Saché shuddered. There was always the potential for this current lingering confusion to
twist and manifest itself as an impatient, burning frustration, leading Leia to seek
solutions which would go against the principles for which she'd fought.
Jaet Bishapi, not the most ruined victim of Vader's but most certainly the most capable of
fighting back, was on-planet. She knew there was a real chance to set the Empire
far enough back that they would soon be on level ground. She knew her daughter needed to
clear her head and realize that she would probably be called upon to assist in some manner.
"I just don't understand," Leia finally said, her eyes distant and thoughtful. "I get the
impression that there's something *else* there, something hiding."
_Something, indeed._ The new standard day began with a soft chime. She rubbed her eyes
and started a yawn.
Leia made a fist and pressed against her open hand. "What happened between them?"
Any drowsiness Saché felt descending upon herself lifted and vanished with those words.
Her heart pounded in her ribcage, sending the blood hot and loud through her ears.
"Between whom?"
Leia narrowed her eyes tiredly and rolled her shoulders back. Her posture owned the
universe, that pose of almost-meditation. "Vader and my mother." Saché bit her lip. Leia
noticed. "Padmé."
For the briefest of moments, she considered telling her the truth in its entirety.
Another second passed and she was willing to tell some extrapolation, mention
that they were friends, if not the very best and closest thereof. A third, and her
mind righted itself. She could not tell Leia the truth; she was too compassionate,
too full of justice. If she even thought for one minute that there was a spark of
good in him -- and the very fact that he was her father, and she was not evil, would
be enough to convince her of that -- she would abandon the Rebellion.
It would make things considerably more difficult for Luke.
Saché stroked back the hair on top of Leia's head. "I'm not ready to go into it," she
sighed, truly weary. "It's painful. When you're older."
With that, Leia leapt up and headed toward her room. "You mean," she said, and each
word was its own slow death, "when he's dead and it does me no good to understand."
Saché swallowed the truth grimly. That was what she'd been hoping for.
After an hour of staring into the Coruscant traffic lanes, she found herself exhausted
enough to sleep. It was fitful and brought no dreams.
-------------------------------------------------------------
It was early. The sky was still more blue than black; the traffic, though still heavy
by any other standard than local, was at its lightest of the day.
Saché slept in the guest's room, shifting around outside of wakefulness. Leia moved about
her quarters quietly. It didn't require much effort. She did not arrive at decisions easily.
She spent five minutes staring at two different dresses before throwing both of them aside
for another one entirely.
It was when held her hair high on her head with one hand, searching through the drawers of
a delicate box for the proper pin, when she found it.
The pendant she was forbidden to wear.
She set it aside until the wide-toothed clip surfaced and she could fit it into her hair.
Confident it would not tumble from its position, she picked up the pendant. The strange
symbols were no more decipherable than they had been a year ago. She eyed it squarely.
With no thought whatsoever other than the quiet fury at her mother's secrecy, she tied it
around her neck and pulled her high collar over it.
Today, she decided as she closed up the box, was a day for hidden strength.
-------------------------------------------------------------
A short sigh. The sort of uncontrolled reaction he didn't encounter much anymore.
"Lord Vader?" After a week at his side, Piett's voice was no longer nervous, only frustrated
with the situation. He'd been carefully monitoring all reports, fielding all questions before
they could reach him. A vital asset, just as he'd originally thought. "They've lost her in
public transportation. We've got operatives at all stops. It's really a matter of waiting."
Enough time passed in wait for the voice to which Vader gave no quarter to rise up and
demand that he not go through with this. He regarded it sourly and flicked it away. This was
not about the princess; this was about something simple that could be done to prevent further
uprising. He had warned her that things could come to this, and now they had.
He had to do what was right, as well.
Disgusting. He pushed the whole episode out of his mind -- the inexcusable display of weakness
on the platform, that brief moment when he was sure that she was looking directly through
the plasteel of his mask and at *him*, and the voice rose up and laughed at him for thinking
that Darkness would be so simple -- and it was gone. All that was left was a task.
He was still certain that, had the task been her elimination, he would not do it. This
was a conviction mostly reinforced because the order would never be made; given her high
public profile, if she emerged with so much as an injured finger the underground media
would rally behind their new martyr. Injury to her feelings, however, was not a
consideration. It would be
_(a certainty)_
a side affect. Bishapi and the inevitable others had earned this, and she was the
quickest way to them.
Piett turned quickly from a terminal. "Vicerene Organa is with her." A flash of sorrow
across the officer's face; he recognized her as Nubian. It was the connection that had
led him to respect Rejuo, the same connection that got Tashin his new assignment. Their
memories were not so short concerning females and nonhumans. Among the remaining Naboo,
SHE had become a demigoddess.
Finally.
It was no time for sentimentality; he'd used a decade's worth in the past month. He signaled
the stormtroopers to him.
"She is not to be harmed," he informed Piett as they were leaving the room. The lieutenant
held his blaster at eye-level and set it to stun. Behind them, he heard the muffled fumbling
of the stormtroopers as they did the same.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Her feet ached. This was the pulsating thought in Leia's head, only slightly compounded
by the programmed heat of the the day. The marketplace was bright and heat glared off
the street. Saché sped through the crowd and the racks of merchandise like a flitterbug,
the folds of her dress managing to flow out despite the absence of wind. Her hand had
clutched Leia's wrist for most of the hour, pulling her along, until she released herself
from the grip. The skin beneath no longer bore an exact imprint, but was pink and warm.
Saché had sworn the day would contain important work, but the only thing it had contained
was impulse purchases and useless whispered chatter.
Leia slowed her pace and set her eyes. She acutely felt the roll from her heel through her
arch. Saché stood ahead of her, her arms folded near her waist and a maternal disapproval
in her eyes.
"You need to be patient," Leia snapped, passing her mother at her new pace. "If you are
going to drag me around Coruscant without a particular *aim*" -- her eyes were tight and
hateful, a pointed unspoken complaint -- "you should expect me to eventually become tired."
Saché's face melted, almost relieved. Pity trickled in. "I know, I know," she sighed,
wrapping an arm squarely around Leia's shoulder. She shrugged it off coldly. Saché continued
to follow, her arms firmly at her own sides. "But there's so much to do. You don't know
the half of it."
"That's the problem."
They continued until they reached the garment district. Saché stopped Leia to drape an
itchy, iridescent blue fabric over her shoulder, the stiff weave of the material
irritating where it had touched her jaw. She waited for her cold look of disapproval to
make Saché replace the fabric in its bin for the chance to quickly scratch at the offended
skin.
Her mother turned around with a manufactured, placid smile, and turned her head up to the
traffic lanes. "How I wish there were real birds!"
Birds. Shuttles. Obvious code. Leia ran a thumbnail along the beads of a cheap, ugly
metal bracelet. It was smooth, oddly cold to the touch. Saché guided her hand away.
"There are in other places, you know. A whole flock of them, in fact." Her tone was warm,
excited. She sounded like Zeria with gossip or a new object of affection. Leia almost
forgot herself; she almost forgot that this was a teaser, an isolated moment of information
about the fleet. She steeled herself. She would not allow herself to be only marginally
allied to the cause. "When I was growing up on Naboo, there were birds everywhere, and I
loved to see them."
Useless information, Leia decided, for a person to simply hear. "I've seen *holos* of
ducks," she replied disinterestedly. "Never the real thing."
If Coruscant's sun had blotted out, Saché's smile could have kept the planet lit. "Your
father loved ducks." Her eyebrows raised slightly. Leia's heart skipped a beat. It was
not about Bail Organa or the aquatic birds. "Especially new ones. Bright yellow, elegant,
swift, compact -- he would have flown with them forever, if he could."
A handmaiden and a pilot. Youthful, patriotic occupations. A gentle, quiet romance filled
her head.
Saché was far beyond Leia's daydream, and far ahead, approaching a fruit stand. "You should
see them fly, though -- really very skillful!"
The fruit peddler flagged their attentions. "Ruby jerises! Makons from Sullust! Pallies!"
She held two in her hands, and looked at Saché pointedly. "Try a pallie, Ma'am?"
"My very favorite. Two, please."
Baited. Nothing was straightforward anymore. "I don't want one," Leia protested as her
mother withdrew the credits to pay.
"Well, maybe I want two."
They meandered slowly away, Saché inspecting the fruits' skins. The first bite was quick;
Leia figured it was to remove whatever message they'd intercepted. The other bites were
slow, burning time. She had expected to go back to her quarters, but she wasn't all too
surprised upon stopping a battered-looking door, and the concept of surprise seemed to not
belong to her when Jaet Bishapi opened the door, smiling wide.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The apartment held too large a number of people for as small as it was, and that alone spoke
volumes. There were probably only ten people inside. Leia's eyes slid to the
Senators Mati and Tral as she took them in. Of the other people assembled, three were vaguely
familiar (one she thought might be a senator as well, and other two bore unexplainable
familiarity); the rest were new. Leia found herself crowded onto a couch between her mother
and one of the people she didn't know. He made no move to acquaint himself with her.
Halfway through Bishapi's debriefing, Leia drowned out her mother's words. Saché was divulging
everything -- well, what *she* would consider everything, given the little bit she herself
knew, she thought bitterly -- and the subject had quickly turned to an Imperial factory on
La'azum, which Leia recognized as Mati's homeworld (and a neighboring world of Ampinua).
Suddenly the way her wrist relaxed was fascinating.
She dropped it several times, and her fingers fell into midair in many ways, before Bishapi
swung Saché around the room as best he could. "We can set them back ten years in a single
night," he said, his voice almost trembling with excitement. Leia couldn't see his eyes;
she thought that might be what would determine his sanity. Tral and Mati remarked among
themselves about how much damage setting the Empire back ten years would do. She found
herself somewhere between them. Tral was overtly pessimistic; Mati, eager to have a Rebel
foothold on her homeworld, rolled her eyes, insisting that the fleet was viable. She had seen
it.
Whether out of jealousy or disbelief, the urge to roll her own eyes floated up. Leia fought
it successfully.
"That brings us to you."
She froze in response.
Bishapi took Saché's seat next to her and wrapped his hands around hers. Another passionate
gesture on his behalf in a matter of moments. He was close enough for Leia to be able to
determine by sense of smell alone that he was drunk. "We're having some trouble getting into
the factory. We'll need you to go in."
She felt herself staring dumbly again, and tried to think of something to say. She hadn't
even paid enough attention to know how to respond; she hadn't honestly thought that she
would be asked to do anything yet.
Saché rescued her from Bishapi's pressing gaze. "I don't think that's our best option."
"Nonsense!" He was smiling wider, and he brushed a finger at the air over Leia's eyes. Her
eyelids blinked furiously. "Now, if we can get her to do *that* in the right company--"
"No." Her mother's response was solid. "I refuse to allow it."
"I do believe," and this was the moment Leia realized that a madman's grip was tightening
around her fingers, "that Leia will be of the age of majority when this plan comes into action,
and your approval will be unnecessary." He turned to her. "How many months is it, now,
until your eighteenth?"
Saché's voice was a clipped snarl. "Enough for me to get her away from you."
Bishapi stood with a start, not letting go of Leia's hands. She stood with him. He stared
at Saché as he spoke. "You do realize your importance in this, don't you, your Highness? You
have Vader's trust like no other."
It was a long time before she managed to speak. "I can't," she said finally, not offering
further explanation.
Her fingers. They were her only thought.
"Because of your mother, or because of him?"
Saché flinched.
Leia's heel came down hard on Bishapi's natural foot, and she took that opportunity to bring
her hands down out of his grip as well. "Both," she replied coolly. She moved to stand next
to her mother, who had been, she now noticed, gradually moving herself toward the door.
She did not see Bishapi's hand form a fist, nor did she see it begin to swing toward the back
of her head. It was instantly dark. She fought to keep it from sweeping her away.
_(be still and strong ...)_
She didn't know where that came from. She only heard an incoherent, sudden scream from her
mother, and the sound of the others working to subdue Bishapi in the corner. A hard, round
smack rang through the room. Her mother's hand meeting Bishapi's face, she knew.
And then the horrible sounds. A blaster shot, and the door was open. There were more feet
hitting the floor. The trademark soft, regulated breathing of Darth Vader.
Before she could feel angry or betrayed, an ancient panic, to whom it belonged she was not
certain, flooded the abyss she found herself in, and she quit holding on. The currents
swept her to a place where she would be
(hidden)
safe.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The apartments in this area of Coruscant were in perpetual disrepair, as evidenced by the
leaky roofs and the vandalized doors and the general thinness of the outer walls, which allowed
the Vicerene's outraged scream -- the only comprehendable part of which was "DAUGHTER!" -- to
escape.
At this, Vader ordered his troops inside.
The door came down instantly, and the room, while sounding very much the scene of a fight,
appeared to be empty save for the collapsed figure of Leia Organa. If Saché's previous scream
hadn't been enough of an indication, it was even more evident that this was not at the hands of
the Empire. She had fallen face-down toward the door, arms tight at her side, her hands relaxed
fists. Her eyes, blinking slowly and staring blankly at first, slipped shut. A white rage
fueled Vader, replacing the artificial indifference with which he entered into the task.
Jaet Bishapi.
A quick scan past the smoke and he saw a small band of people letting go their hold on Bishapi,
who instantly ran at him with a crazed laugh. The others -- senators, former Imperial officers,
notorious operatives; all known, all more than he'd imagined he'd find in one
seemingly-insignificant raid -- tried to make their escapes through a back door and were cut
down quickly with stun bolts. They would be imprisoned and questioned. They would wish the
shots that hit them had been lethal.
And they would be considerably less obstinate than man who was daring to make a run directly
at him. Suicide. Being a physician, he was probably hoping to damage Vader's respirator and
would have the expertise to do it. He caught Bishapi by the throat and held him at a distance.
"I knew it," Bishapi rasped. He did not try to dig his fingers underneath Vader's glove, as
most did. Instead, he grinned hatefully. "She defended you." Of course, there was no
question as to who *she* was. Vader reached into Bishapi's mind, searching for her ...
_(I refuse to allow it.)_
_Saché's bold voice. Leia's expressionless face as his grip tightened._
_You have Vader's trust like no other._
_(I can't.)_
_Because of your mother, or because of him?_
_The girl's searching. Saché's fear. His frustration. And she was free._
_(Both.)_
_His clenched fist, and she fell so quickly._
Before the man could even register that Vader's grip was no longer around his neck, he hit the
wall with a satisfying thud.
The room's silence resounded, filled only with his own mechanical breathing and a quiet
murmuring. The stormtroopers had cleared out the stunned rebels, and in the corner, Piett
helped a distraught, cowering Saché to a standing position and led her silently from the
apartment.
Leia had not stirred.
It did not even cross his mind that she would be dead; her Force presence was clear and vital
as ever. Less restrained. She practically broadcasted the abyss she found herself in. He
stooped down to pick her up; she was yielding as a leaf in the wind. He made certain her neck
would not bob too violently --
_A cool, fresh breeze with bright colors gave way to nothing and comfort._
Vader blinked despite himself. SHE was everywhere.
_A world rose from its safe-place and (oh, no, not in there) in the flurry of activity she
was still and strong, open-eyed against the black._
_(He'll see her. He can't miss his own --)_
_(Obi-Wan told you that she can --)_
_(He may not recognize her alone, but he'll know if she's with me.)_
He looked down at the young woman in his arms with disbelief. And there it was, sliding up her
neck and over the collar, a small, hand-carved pendant made by a young boy -- who is dead, he
reminded himself -- for HER, who lied to him so efficiently, who had leaned into him with a
real ache and expressed mourning for a lost son.
_(He can't miss his own daughter.)_
Leia's eyes were open, searching frantically. "I can't see," she managed, frightened. She
knew, and she hadn't before. He understood that much.
"A temporary symptom of head injury." For the first time since picking her up, he began to
move toward the door. "You will be taken to a medcenter and your sight should return when the
swelling goes down."
Her eyes closed with small relief. "Okay." Her voice was a tiny, shaky whisper. She was in
shock.
They both were. Nothing was said.
The anger did not flood in until later that day, when he was aboard the Star Destroyer
*Inferno*. The maintenance crews were not allowed to repair the damaged panels in his quarters.
-------------------------------------------------------------
More soft whispering.
"Saché, I don't think anything --"
"The pendant, Bail. Do you honestly think he's not so observant?"
A heavy sigh. "The name on the charts is Organa."
"That means nothing."
"It means he isn't going to move quickly -- IF he even knows -- and we're still a step ahead."
"Then what about *him*?"
A shushing. "You were in hysterics. Someone needed to watch out --"
"I think he's overqualified for the position. Do you realize he was the highest-ranked
Imperial at the factory on La'azum?"
A pause. "Did you realize that this was bound to happen someday?"
A truncated sob. "I knew." Muffled, nearly inaudible speech. "We promised Amidala."
Still and strong, she lets them think she is not awake.
------------------------------------------------------------
The rumors were maddening.
The notoriously filthy underground reports were claiming that Leia had been working for Vader
since Ampinua, that they had struck a bargain there: her life for any service requested,
ranging from subterfuge in the Rebellion to the typical unthinkable acts. The Rebellion had
an operative outside the meeting; the most easily obtainable image related to the raid was
from above, with Leia in his arms, and it accompanied nearly every bit of news.
The voice had given a snicker at the irony of him cradling his daughter as he carried her to
safety, and that was when he'd ripped the first panel down. The rest of the embarrassing --
but cathartic, but fear-inducing -- tantrum was sparked by the reappearance of a holotoon from
Leia's run for Senate that gave her a lightsaber and an appearance mocking his own.
After that first day, Vader quit seeking the reports out. They only served to raise up futile
anger, anger that could not be acted upon, anger that would need to be controlled to
inactivity. To change them would be to confirm them, and, with the news of HER betrayal,
they were no longer simply unwelcome and grossly untrue speculation, they were accusations
that stabbed him through and gutted him. He would not -- *could* not, but he no longer allowed
himself to dwell on that -- subject *anyone* to such acts, much less a young girl not even of
the age of majority. Especially not his own daughter.
The word filled his head like nonsense. He knew it was the proper term, but it didn't yet fit.
Even the Imperial reports enraged Vader. They painted a broad-sweeping portrait of a princess
betrayed by the cause she foolishly supported, rescued by the Emperor's right-hand man. And
this was not true. She was attacked by a madman whom she clearly did not trust, and Vader had
chosen this moment of weakness to raid a meeting that she had led them to. If indeed the
public was to know about the incident, he thought they should know about it more honestly.
To do otherwise -- to try to project this uncharacteristically heroic image on him -- would
lead them to distrust the Empire even more.
And the galaxy did not know what he knew, and would think even less of him if they did, not
to mention that Leia's career would be ruined ... no. Many things were cloudy, uncertain, but
he would not allow that to happen.
Pacing amid the destruction that was his quarters aboard the *Inferno*, he allowed himself to
think about HER. He thought he should be angry, that the previous tantrum should be easily
surpassed, but Vader found that he felt a heavy ache that wore at him. Thus far, everyone --
with few exceptions -- had betrayed him some way or another, but he had never expected
Amidala to lie to him. It was a horrible lie, one that could have had disastrous consequences
as Leia progressed through the Rebellion. She could have been among the rebels stunned and
imprisoned and tortured.
He willed that thought out of his head. That, too, would not be allowed to happen.
So Amidala had called the game, placing their child on the opposite side. The voice fought
against this, objecting to quarrels with the dead. Vader agreed.
Leia had living guardians.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The air was heavy and sweet when Leia forcibly removed herself from behavior resembling sleep.
The time had passed like twilight, uncertain and unnameable, marked only by bits of speech
and the occasional cool touch.
The first words were awkward and rough. "Flowers?" she grumbled, opening her eyes carefully.
They were sensitive and blurry, picking up shapes of greyed shades. The patch of sky she
could see through the windows was black and lit with the strings of traffic. The Organas --
she found she hated the word "parents" -- were gone, probably catching moments of sleep.
Colors of well-wishing from many worlds filled the room, buzzing against the throbbing in her
skull. It felt as if she'd grown a new heart next to her brain.
"And this is only the second day, your Highness." A young male voice echoed slightly across
the room. "I imagine you will be met with many more bouquets upon your return home."
Leia pulled herself up to a sitting position and blinked furiously, trying to gauge her
surroundings. Her knowledge was piecemeal: she was in a medcenter, she had suffered some
sort of head trauma, the pendant was gone -- but Saché knew she'd worn it so it was probably in
her care. She had an Imperial guard, apparently the man talking so cheerfully to her.
A baby-sitter, she thought grimly. A guard would not even stoop so far as to talk to a
prisoner. So this is how it would go now.
_(He can't --)_
She moved that to the back of her mind.
"Who are these from?"
The officer grinned. "Starting from the very first, Früvous. 'Had a lovely time.' Quite the
narcissist. Included a holo of himself." Zeria's musician. Leia smiled despite herself and
planned on giving the flowers to her after they'd dried. The holo, she thought, could make
good target practice.
Some of the flowers were from senators who made no secret of their extreme loyalty to the
Empire; they had sent extravagant arrangements, with exotic fauna and vases that were nearly
art. Each name froze her blood as it coursed through her veins, and a slight worry about
what had been made public gnawed at her.
But the name on the charts was still Organa, however little comfort that was. She wondered
what other name it could have been. Vader? Naberrie? Something else?
Only one bouquet was from a known rebel, and that was Fasiel Nadiv, whom she had run against
for Senate. This was a blatant political move, and it disappointed her.
"And we come to the last gift, which has proved quite a mystery." It was a lone flower, in a
shallow, clear vase, filled high with water. "I haven't seen one of these since I was a small
child growing up on Naboo, when my parents took me to visit Otoh Gunga."
The petals were thick and creamy white, with a blush tinge.
Leia squinted to observe it closer. "What sort of flower is it?"
"It's a lotus." The officer furrowed his brow, reaching back through his mind. "It had
religious significance millennia ago; I suppose now it would be symbolic encouragement.
The legend had it that the padme rose through the mud pure --"
"The what?"
"Padme. Its ancient name."
Leia's head and heart pounded in chorus. "Who is this from?"
"That is the mystery. Well, besides how much this flower must have cost -- a fortune,
I'm sure -- and how hard it must have been to get. Naboo was all but destroyed." He handed
the flimsy card to her.
She sighed in frustration. "I can't read it."
He frowned. "You're not missing much. It just says, 'Ani'."
On a terrible impulse, she crumpled the card.
------------------------------------------------------------
The morning came quickly for the Organas, but not quite soon enough. Bail had received the
communication from Madine three hours prior, telling of Mati's and Tral's executions. The
news was grim. Governor Tarkin himself had conducted the questioning, and had immediately
ordered Vader to a remote world where the best of the Rebel fleet was being kept. He found
himself nursing a shot of Corellian whiskey in his morning cup of câf, watching the sun rise.
He tried not to be too shocked that he'd found the whiskey in Leia's apartment.
Saché woke somberly, approaching him wordlessly and burying her face in his sleep tunic.
"Are you going to say good-bye?" he asked, and she responded in turn by shaking her head. He
kissed her forehead. "She loves you. I want you to know that."
"I know."
He held her chin gently. She tried to look away, and tears brimmed around her eyelids. "I
mean *know* it, like you know the Onibac flows north. Like you know that I love you."
She gave a short laugh and took the câf from his hand, sipping carelessly, watching the
chronometer on the wall. "That is our countdown," she remarked moments later, her eyes
still fixed on the blue-glowing digits. "Someday, it will cycle down to zero and he will
kill us."
"It is a countdown we started, and an honorable one at that."
"How honorable will it be, Bail, when she stands behind him while he does it?" She shoved the
câf back at him. "The honorable thing to do would be to remember why Amidala left her with
us in the first place and send her to Obi-Wan."
He did not watch her as she walked away, nor did he bother with a glance at the door after
she'd stepped through it. He refilled the câf twice, and when the traffic lanes were full
he gathered the courage to dress for leaving the apartment to head for the medcenter. It took
him a standard hour to arrive there, and only upon seeing the now-familiar face of the
lieutenant did he realize that they'd spoken openly without checking for surveillance
equipment. He did not allow the fear to grip him; he allowed reason to overtake it. Vader
had plenty of opportunities to confirm Leia's identity over the course of nearly eighteen
years, and if he was going to learn of his daughter through one vague, angry statement, then
so be it.
The lieutenant left the room quietly.
A tray of cold food sat on a table next to Leia's bed. She was scrolling intently through
a datapad.
"I wouldn't do that," Bail sighed.
Leia dropped the datapad squarely on her lap. "Lieutenant Piett suggested I wait for you to
tell me, anyway. These reports are ridiculous." She reached for a fork and brought a piece
of white fruit to her mouth. "I'm starting to believe that I'm an Imperial spy, myself."
"So long as you don't believe the rest." Bail pulled a chair next to her bed and began
on a slice of yar-melon. "There was no good side this time."
"Really?" Her tone was cutting, deceptively pleasant. "No heroic Sith lords? No deceived
princesses?"
"Bishapi raised a fist to you in an irrational fit of anger. Vader threw him into a wall
when you were no longer in danger. I am not glad Jaet is dead, but I find some comfort in
knowing that he can't jeopardize others with his madness." Her eyes were stone, but not
angry or hateful. They were unmoving. "There are more humane ways of killing a man than
choking him and, just as he's about to slip away, breaking the back of his skull open."
"I imagine."
So Saché was right. It was a subtle shadow on her, but it was there, clearly distinguishable
from before. Leia would have had the same reaction at first, but not now. While she was
not quick to forget, she did not dwell on the unchangeable things.
"Your mother left for Alderaan this morning. Mati and Tral are dead."
This intrigued her. The blank expression was replaced with a diffuse, perplexed interest.
"None of the reports mentioned any deaths other than Bishapi's."
Bail deactivated the datapad and put it out of her reach. He caught a brief flash of
annoyance on her face. "They were executed after being questioned, and it is not being made
public. I am not very sure why."
"So the other prisoners don't find out and cease revealing information."
"No." He took her hand, and she looked at his as if it were an odd bauble. "I have a feeling
that it is because you were not questioned. Because you are not imprisoned."
She laughed. It was neither pleasant nor unnerving. "You think the Empire is protecting my
public image?" She stopped when the full realization of the statement hit her. "The guard."
"I have my questions about the guard. Your mother was in a miserable state when I arrived,
in no condition to make sure your needs were met, but you also weren't a demanding patient. I
have come to think that this is an image of punishment they are trying to project."
She eyed the blanket thoughtfully. "I can see that." She did not seem beaten or angry, both
the only reactions Bail had imagined. Perhaps Saché was wrong on that part. For the time
being, at least, Obi-Wan needed only concern himself with one Skywalker.
------------------------------------------------------------
Two days after the raid and her injury, the senator from Alderaan was released from the
medcenter. Saché had, as anticipated, fled the planet after he'd had the lotus sent.
Leia did not allow herself a sabbatical, instead delving quickly into the usual
picking at Tarkin's weaknesses in the Senate chambers with a new, heated fury. It was
difficult to pinpoint exactly what was driving it; she took no new positions, and found no
new adversaries. Most suspected it was because there was already talk on Alderaan of the next
election. The loyalists were infuriated that she would have associated with known rebels, and
the rest of her constituents grew restless at the idea that she might have betrayed the
Rebellion.
Darth Vader had his own suspicions.
His return to Coruscant a week after the raid worked to hinder others' further speculation,
instead turning the Senate's focus on the business on Sullust. One Corellian news
service had been quick to remark that he wasn't *usually* one to return so quickly to the
Imperial capital after the completion of a mission, but had chosen to stay with the more
inflammatory reports of the destruction of a large portion of the rebel fleet. Comparisons
were made to the Motibi situation nearly three years prior, and a well-placed insult directed
at Tarkin by the senator from Malastare sent the chamber into a wave of cacophony. Others
hurled threats from platform to platform. It was a familiar arrangement, and while this time
a vote of no confidence was out of the question, the clear division among the galaxy's
purported leaders could prove dangerous. Tarkin gave a thin-lipped, victorious smile and ended
the session for the year. Within the space of a week, most senators had returned to their
respective homeworlds, with the exception of his daughter.
She lingered on-planet, as did Viceroy Organa, and this seemed to be the reason he had not
heard from her. Piett's reports were thorough, but they hadn't turned up any specific
information. (Vader thought, briefly, that it was probably because Piett did not know what
to watch for, but decided that could not be helped.) HER pendant was gone -- Leia had made
a point to ask after it when Bail and Saché were not around -- and she had received from a
rather mysterious person a rather expensive gift which had upset the Organas considerably,
although neither they nor Leia had cared to explain why.
It was an unfortunate way to learn the truth. He didn't wish it for her. Unlike for countless
other situations, he had not yet thought of an alternate course of events, other than learning
about it sooner (which, he reasoned, was usually his reaction to situations which displeased
him). It crossed his mind that Amidala would never have admitted that there was a living
daughter and never a son; to wish she had would be foolish. He preferred to seethe over
changes he should have made, and in the privacy of his chamber, with HER trunk open and after a
considerable amount of meditation on its newfound significance, he allowed himself to
think that he might have reached into the Force and sensed the toddler hidden inside, swept
her up, and taken her to Coruscant, away from the lies and the traitors on Alderaan. If
Amidala had so wished, she could have accompanied them. Even now, knowing that she meant to
hide their daughter from him forever, he would have been glad of it.
Vader was not all that surprised to find Leia at his doorstep the day before she was supposed
to leave for Alderaan. She dressed simply, in a deep-blue tunic and trousers instead of her
usual senatorial whites. A small square of flimsy was clutched in her hand.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet. "I thought I should thank you."
"That is unnecessary." She darted her eyes around the frame of the door, biting her lip
fiercely as her eyes slid along the walls. "Perhaps you should come inside."
------------------------------------------------------------
Leia thought her heart should be pounding, but it was strangely still within her ribcage.
Though it seemed she could hardly catch a full breath without shaking, she managed to step
inside the door, each footstep echoing firmly against the high ceilings.
It was still there, next to the door. The trunk that she'd seen before, standing on her toes
to see through the window in the door on the opposite side of the entry hall, made every
absurd, confused affirmation very real. Her truemother's sad, smiling face rose up unbidden
and she countered it with the lotus, beautiful and serene in its clear glass bowl.
To make matters worse, her eyes would not stop darting around the dark figure that waited
quietly ahead of her. She finally fixed them upon her own shoes. Her hand tightened around
the card.
"I don't know where to start." The words came more easily than she'd thought they would. She
fought no sudden tears, no sudden constrictions of her vocal chords. The emotionlessness
sounded wry. "That morning, my -- *Saché* told me that my father was a pilot. After Ampinua,
she told me that you hurt my mother. The night before she told me you were a pilot, I
asked her how you hurt her and she refused to tell me--"
"Then she has not yet lied to you?"
"I don't know. Has she?"
Vader's thumb ran along her jawline. This time, she did not even think that there was
something strange about the tenderness. She did not wonder at it. It calmed her.
"I suppose, technically, no. I am certain we can agree it would have been preferable for her
to have told you outright."
A flash of heat seared through her brain in agreement. "Preferable" was not strong enough a
word; while she held no particular hatred for her past -- and she certainly despaired at the
thought of who she might have been, raised by the man before her -- she felt like there was
an entire series of choices stolen from her. She wanted to know everything, and then ...
Then she could decide for *herself* what was preferable.
"Who were you?"
"I am not yet certain that is for your ears."
The card suddenly had a use. "Then why this?" she asked, holding the piece of flimsy up for
inspection.
Vader hesitated. "That was intended as a message for your" -- the pause was brief, but Leia
caught it -- "adoptive parents."
She was not meant to have seen it. Leia did not have to guess what sort of message that might
be.
"Well, they didn't see it." She turned on her heel, walking toward the main door. "I hid the
card, though I am sure Saché made her guesses."
Vader's hand sat heavily on her shoulder, and she thought she might shrug it off. She didn't
want to. She was simply used to doing so, shoving Bail's and Saché's affections away until
she'd made peace with herself. "This is a dangerous situation, Leia."
The full weight of her grief sank into her heart and made it beat wildly. "I know."
"Your position in the Senate has threatened the Emperor's power. If he were to learn the
truth, he would have you killed or, at the least, would expose you as my daughter, which
could bring the same or worse from others."
The idea of being murdered for existing was frightening enough, but
_(Influence?)_
the public's reaction to this news was more than she thought she could bear.
It was not the first time she'd considered it.
"That first day, I thought of spiting them by changing my legal records and guardianship, but
I know it wouldn't work so smoothly. I would lose my credibility in the Senate." _And in the
Rebellion_, though she did not say *that* aloud. "Plus I'm not too sure that they're the ones
I should be angry with."
"I am the only one who has the right to be angry with your mother. She told me we had lost
a son."
She turned to him. "And instead you gained a daughter. How unfortunate."
Vader pressed on. His pause spoke his argument to the contrary. "You are strong in the Force.
With training there would be few who could fairly challenge you."
"Perhaps." She could feel Saché's face twist into a frown, even at this distance from her.
"But I need to know who Padmé Naberrie was married to, in that other lifetime." It was
simply a statement. She did not expect an answer, and was met with simply the sound of his
breathing.
It was when she'd finally lowered her head in the midst of the silence and stood before the
door, ready to leave, that he spoke.
"A Jedi knight named Anakin Skywalker."
It was a familiar name, which made sense enough, but she could not place the feeling entirely.
It drew around her, safe and powerful.
She didn't answer Bail's guessing at her smile as she packed her things. He'd finally decided
that she'd met with Früvous over câf somewhere swanky. She didn't think that anyone -- the
arrogant little musician, especially -- would mind that.
This story is to be worked on at a slow pace, while I'm climbing through a
confusing, purplish-prose non-SW novel (from which the title of this fanfic
was plucked; you can find said excerpt at strangepursuit.net/files/patchwork.txt).
If I hit a particularly difficult spot in classes or in the novel, I may ask
for help on this thread, but for now I want to work on it alone.
Credit for this plot bunny goes to JediGaladriel, whose sandbox I'm starting out
in, too. (Read the "Father's Heart" series NOW. Specifically, "Imperial
Entanglements," which you can find at http://fan.starwars.com/vadersmask/files/imp.html .)
Thank you so much -- for the plot bunny, for the sandbox, and mostly for your blessing
to go ahead.
In "The Penitent," Leia says -- and I'm paraphrasing -- "That's all it would have
taken." Close enough. Perhaps hindsight isn't 20/20 after all.
First paragraph belongs to JG.
-------------------------------------------------------------
"The Patchwork Order of Things,"
by Vee
-------------------------------------------------------------
Leia found that her feet remembered the way home better than her mind did.
Without thinking about it -- she wasn't sure she could have thought anyway;
the conversation was swimming in her mind, that strange, gentle gesture --
she followed the narrow staircases and the walkways Vader had led her along
earlier, and much sooner than she had anticipated, she saw the top of the
Senate's vast dome. She wondered if she was finally becoming accustomed to
Coruscant.
The lights were still bright in her quarters. A tiny pool of ruby bliel had dried
into the bottom of the simple goblet. The Coruscant sky glowed a brilliant dying
orange, turning her windows into art framed on the walls.
She began to clear away the table. It still teased at the back of her brain, the
name of the musician. His reaction when Vader had shown up was priceless, as was
the vase -- an anonymous gift from a Rebel senator -- that he shattered while
scrambling to leave, she noted.
She called Artoo to take care of that. No good slicing her hand open.
She supposed she would hear about it soon enough in the holonews. The musician seemed the
type whose popularity was fueled not by talent but by how many people he could claim
to have encountered. She just hoped she hadn't broken bread with someone who was going to say
anything to tear her down. She'd had enough of that since it became public
knowledge that she and the dread Sith lord Darth Vader were friends.
Odd how the word "friends" sounded inside her own head, followed easily by a --
Wry? Incredulous? -- laugh. Probably the best term, she conceded. Better than
any of the titles associated with the vulgar conclusions the underground media
had applied to the strained yet oddly easygoing relationship during her run for Senate.
Gigantic chessboard. The landing platform had felt that way, when he knelt before her
and told her he could protect her no longer if she chose the Rebellion. She could have
a glorious career in the Empire, he said.
She felt gripped by the hand of something she did not want to understand, bound
by. Who was he? When was the Vader sworn -- by all these other people whom she
trusted and loved -- to be ruthless and evil and inhumane going to match up with
the Vader who, time and time again, confused her by caring so much?
_Padmé Naberrie. She would know._
That was a bratty-child thought, Leia chided herself as she placed the last of the
clutter into the cleaning unit. When she was in that timeless age, before years
are marked with duty and obligation -- she was probably four -- and she didn't want
to do something -- she couldn't remember what -- and she had told Saché Organa that
she didn't want to and she didn't have to and she wasn't her mother ...
That was the only time she'd ever been slapped by either of her parents.
So what did she think she could do? Hold a séance? Summon up the spirit of her
mother and have a nice, friendly chat? Sulk and be sullen and act seventeen, for once?
_Perfect solutions, all, madam Senator._
She needed to sleep. She needed to quit thinking about this and sleep and move on.
"Threepio?" she called through the quarters. It took a moment -- the droid activated
itself, and entered into the room.
"Yes, Mistress Leia?"
She smiled at the golden droid. Always a constant. "I'm going into hibernation.
Unless anyone should *absolutely* need me, I'm not here, okay?"
She was already in another room before she faintly heard the droid say, "Hibernation?
Oh, my."
She curled into her bed, pulling a heavy blanket. She spent a few wide-awake moments
staring at the colorless wall and drifted into dreamless sleep just as monochromatic.
After what felt like the space of a blink, her eyes flashed wide to see Saché
Organa's smiling face. The room was brightly lit; a quick, blurry examination
showed it to be morning. Half a standard day asleep. She groaned and rolled over,
catching a glimpse of her mother's face falling as if struck. "It's-not-personal,"
she mumbled into the bedding, and smacked the side she was currently facing as
cordial invitation. "I'm just not getting up."
She felt her mother slide under the blanket behind her.
"Goblets in the washing unit?" She said it in the tone of a joke Leia didn't know,
and sighed deep into her hair, wrapping an arm around her waist and squeezing tightly.
"You grow up so fast."
"Mother." Rolled eyes, the realization it was a useless gesture. "It wasn't like
that at all. Just dinner, and a few minutes in I was determined it was just a
favor to Zeria."
"Zeria?"
"It was some musician she'd wanted a thumbprinted holo of, and of course his
publicist suggested a date as a reciprocal favor."
Saché was silent. When it was about her, Leia hated the sound of her mother
thinking.
"Maybe not with this boy, but it's not a bad idea for you to go out again, to be
around people your own age."
This was an old argument, one that Leia couldn't be sure she was simply imagining.
Saché didn't know about the previous day and refused to acknowledge the storm
of questions in her daughter's mind.
The Alderaanian senator swung her feet out and firmly planted them on the floor
with a sigh.
"Okay, Mother, I'm up."
She put her hands up in defeat to be met with a smile.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The involved rebels, too, had returned to Coruscant. This, Kaelan Piett had gathered
the moment he heard that Governor Tarkin ordered Lord Vader's return to the Imperial capital.
He had regarded the news with a frown and continued his watch.
The Dark Lord's involvement in the situation now ensured that probe droids had
already been ordered out in surveillance of his friend, the Alderaani princess.
Stormtroopers, both lurking in plainclothes and parading about in the ominous armor,
had already been sent out. She was rumored to be working with the rebellion. The rebels
would see her as a diversion for the Imperial presence on La'azum. Nothing new. It
was all procedure.
Procedure routinely followed without a single consideration that, apparently, many
members of the Senate were still functioning amid the surveillance.
In his quarters, as he sifted through the holonews, he allowed himself to think
that the command structure was being foolish. They would see this as prowling, not as
a scouting mission before an attack. If the alleged guilty were absent, then none
present were guilty, no-one was staked out in the hills waiting to descend. Things would
naturally relax until the surveillance was fruitful. The factory would go on producing
prototype fighters.
What he had not foreseen was the sudden removal from his post.
Lord Vader had regarded the governor's order with a wrathful silence, a pacing about the
factory. Piett got the distinct impression that he, too, realized that Governor Tarkin was
underestimating the desperation of the rebels, and that was why the lieutenant took a distinct
pleasure in Vader's prolonging of his visit. Doing so would both step on Tarkin's arrogant face
and give the impression that investigation of Rebel activity was not his only reason
for being on La'azum, a projection of Imperial strength sorely needed to deter whatever
was being put into motion.
As he usually did when he visited, Vader overlooked with apparent interest the
various projects Kel Rejuo had put into motion. While he did not share the technical
interest in production or the personal stake in its success, Piett also held the Ampinuan
woman in high regard; he knew probably better than any how honestly she had arrived at her
position, and wished he was not the one idling her progress. She was becoming tough-skinned,
constantly battling rumor and poor policy. He missed, not out of any attraction or other
unprofessional emotion, the delicate wings and the traditional long hair she'd shorn off
to model herself as much like a human male as possible. He pitied how the post was
twisting her. He gave her as much reign as his superiors allowed. It was his hope that,
the more Imperials that showed support for her, the less people would talk.
Eventually, everyone must heed the call of authority.
It was when Lord Vader was about to board the shuttle for the Inferno, and the highest-ranked
of the supervisors were assembled on the platform, that his rank and family name was called
out in that intimidating voice. He stepped forward instantly, in one nervous motion.
_You quivering fool ... _
It took all he had to find his own. "My Lord?"
The helmet tilted slightly. It was a less confrontational angle, almost as if he were
considering the young lieutenant. Piett allowed himself to breathe, and willed himself to
listen. _This is not a confrontation. Be calm._
"I am turning control over to Kel Rejuo for the time being. You will return with me to
Coruscant where you will be reassigned."
A perfunctory reply of understanding -- "Yes, my Lord," -- and then Vader was up the ramp,
cape billowing behind. Piett found himself looking, bewildered, at Rejuo; she nodded sharply,
with a trace of warmth.
"Kyrys Tashin," she muttered. A Nubian name. Her voice was in good humor. It would take
some time before the new officer would arrive.
Kaelan saw a long, glorious future of officer reassignments at the hand of Lord Vader.
This was good news for her, and he wished her well, despite his fear that this move would
backfire on her. There was no time for sentiment, however; there wasn't even time for
packing.
The distinct stillness of the platform brought him into the present and out of the vacuum
he had been operating in. He returned the nod respectfully, smiled slightly, then turned
on his heel and climbed the ramp.
His things arrived in his quarters on Coruscant a week after he did. He would not notice.
-------------------------------------------------------------
It would have been impossible for Saché to not realize that something was troubling
her daughter. It had crept up on her, shadowy and powerful, familiar; it showed itself
in the slowness with which she moved. It seemed that a full spoon in her hand
could take forever to be empty. She was restless and listened with half an ear when
spoken to. Saché couldn't decide whether Leia was acting more like Anakin before his
fall or Padmé after it.
It was three days into her stay on Coruscant, during a late-night holodrama, that she
finally learned exactly what the trouble was. It was the only explanation, really.
Leia was on the edge of sleep, her head rested against Saché's shoulder. Saché had
reached over to smooth her hair back off her face and something in the contact jolted
the girl awake and away from her, into constricting sobs.
"It'll be okay," she whispered, a mantra. Leia shook her head and cried harder.
Vader, she explained when she was coherent. He had taken her above probe-droid range
and begged her to choose the Empire. Saché did not doubt his affection, nor did she
think Leia ever had, but a clear show of it -- something so trademarkedly Anakin that, when
she tried to imagine the scene, she did not see his daughter with him on the platform
but instead thought of his wife, twenty-four years old, staring dejectedly at the floor
in the Jedi Temple and otherwise inconsolable -- was, for lack of a better term,
unnerving.
She tried not to think about it more than she had to by merit of knowing it had happened.
Leia did not use the term "begged" in reference to the kneeling and the question, but Saché
saw things clearly for what they were. She had perspective. Vader didn't act out of
character; he acted out of desperation, as always. This time, kindness was the means
to his end.
Saché shuddered. There was always the potential for this current lingering confusion to
twist and manifest itself as an impatient, burning frustration, leading Leia to seek
solutions which would go against the principles for which she'd fought.
Jaet Bishapi, not the most ruined victim of Vader's but most certainly the most capable of
fighting back, was on-planet. She knew there was a real chance to set the Empire
far enough back that they would soon be on level ground. She knew her daughter needed to
clear her head and realize that she would probably be called upon to assist in some manner.
"I just don't understand," Leia finally said, her eyes distant and thoughtful. "I get the
impression that there's something *else* there, something hiding."
_Something, indeed._ The new standard day began with a soft chime. She rubbed her eyes
and started a yawn.
Leia made a fist and pressed against her open hand. "What happened between them?"
Any drowsiness Saché felt descending upon herself lifted and vanished with those words.
Her heart pounded in her ribcage, sending the blood hot and loud through her ears.
"Between whom?"
Leia narrowed her eyes tiredly and rolled her shoulders back. Her posture owned the
universe, that pose of almost-meditation. "Vader and my mother." Saché bit her lip. Leia
noticed. "Padmé."
For the briefest of moments, she considered telling her the truth in its entirety.
Another second passed and she was willing to tell some extrapolation, mention
that they were friends, if not the very best and closest thereof. A third, and her
mind righted itself. She could not tell Leia the truth; she was too compassionate,
too full of justice. If she even thought for one minute that there was a spark of
good in him -- and the very fact that he was her father, and she was not evil, would
be enough to convince her of that -- she would abandon the Rebellion.
It would make things considerably more difficult for Luke.
Saché stroked back the hair on top of Leia's head. "I'm not ready to go into it," she
sighed, truly weary. "It's painful. When you're older."
With that, Leia leapt up and headed toward her room. "You mean," she said, and each
word was its own slow death, "when he's dead and it does me no good to understand."
Saché swallowed the truth grimly. That was what she'd been hoping for.
After an hour of staring into the Coruscant traffic lanes, she found herself exhausted
enough to sleep. It was fitful and brought no dreams.
-------------------------------------------------------------
It was early. The sky was still more blue than black; the traffic, though still heavy
by any other standard than local, was at its lightest of the day.
Saché slept in the guest's room, shifting around outside of wakefulness. Leia moved about
her quarters quietly. It didn't require much effort. She did not arrive at decisions easily.
She spent five minutes staring at two different dresses before throwing both of them aside
for another one entirely.
It was when held her hair high on her head with one hand, searching through the drawers of
a delicate box for the proper pin, when she found it.
The pendant she was forbidden to wear.
She set it aside until the wide-toothed clip surfaced and she could fit it into her hair.
Confident it would not tumble from its position, she picked up the pendant. The strange
symbols were no more decipherable than they had been a year ago. She eyed it squarely.
With no thought whatsoever other than the quiet fury at her mother's secrecy, she tied it
around her neck and pulled her high collar over it.
Today, she decided as she closed up the box, was a day for hidden strength.
-------------------------------------------------------------
A short sigh. The sort of uncontrolled reaction he didn't encounter much anymore.
"Lord Vader?" After a week at his side, Piett's voice was no longer nervous, only frustrated
with the situation. He'd been carefully monitoring all reports, fielding all questions before
they could reach him. A vital asset, just as he'd originally thought. "They've lost her in
public transportation. We've got operatives at all stops. It's really a matter of waiting."
Enough time passed in wait for the voice to which Vader gave no quarter to rise up and
demand that he not go through with this. He regarded it sourly and flicked it away. This was
not about the princess; this was about something simple that could be done to prevent further
uprising. He had warned her that things could come to this, and now they had.
He had to do what was right, as well.
Disgusting. He pushed the whole episode out of his mind -- the inexcusable display of weakness
on the platform, that brief moment when he was sure that she was looking directly through
the plasteel of his mask and at *him*, and the voice rose up and laughed at him for thinking
that Darkness would be so simple -- and it was gone. All that was left was a task.
He was still certain that, had the task been her elimination, he would not do it. This
was a conviction mostly reinforced because the order would never be made; given her high
public profile, if she emerged with so much as an injured finger the underground media
would rally behind their new martyr. Injury to her feelings, however, was not a
consideration. It would be
_(a certainty)_
a side affect. Bishapi and the inevitable others had earned this, and she was the
quickest way to them.
Piett turned quickly from a terminal. "Vicerene Organa is with her." A flash of sorrow
across the officer's face; he recognized her as Nubian. It was the connection that had
led him to respect Rejuo, the same connection that got Tashin his new assignment. Their
memories were not so short concerning females and nonhumans. Among the remaining Naboo,
SHE had become a demigoddess.
Finally.
It was no time for sentimentality; he'd used a decade's worth in the past month. He signaled
the stormtroopers to him.
"She is not to be harmed," he informed Piett as they were leaving the room. The lieutenant
held his blaster at eye-level and set it to stun. Behind them, he heard the muffled fumbling
of the stormtroopers as they did the same.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Her feet ached. This was the pulsating thought in Leia's head, only slightly compounded
by the programmed heat of the the day. The marketplace was bright and heat glared off
the street. Saché sped through the crowd and the racks of merchandise like a flitterbug,
the folds of her dress managing to flow out despite the absence of wind. Her hand had
clutched Leia's wrist for most of the hour, pulling her along, until she released herself
from the grip. The skin beneath no longer bore an exact imprint, but was pink and warm.
Saché had sworn the day would contain important work, but the only thing it had contained
was impulse purchases and useless whispered chatter.
Leia slowed her pace and set her eyes. She acutely felt the roll from her heel through her
arch. Saché stood ahead of her, her arms folded near her waist and a maternal disapproval
in her eyes.
"You need to be patient," Leia snapped, passing her mother at her new pace. "If you are
going to drag me around Coruscant without a particular *aim*" -- her eyes were tight and
hateful, a pointed unspoken complaint -- "you should expect me to eventually become tired."
Saché's face melted, almost relieved. Pity trickled in. "I know, I know," she sighed,
wrapping an arm squarely around Leia's shoulder. She shrugged it off coldly. Saché continued
to follow, her arms firmly at her own sides. "But there's so much to do. You don't know
the half of it."
"That's the problem."
They continued until they reached the garment district. Saché stopped Leia to drape an
itchy, iridescent blue fabric over her shoulder, the stiff weave of the material
irritating where it had touched her jaw. She waited for her cold look of disapproval to
make Saché replace the fabric in its bin for the chance to quickly scratch at the offended
skin.
Her mother turned around with a manufactured, placid smile, and turned her head up to the
traffic lanes. "How I wish there were real birds!"
Birds. Shuttles. Obvious code. Leia ran a thumbnail along the beads of a cheap, ugly
metal bracelet. It was smooth, oddly cold to the touch. Saché guided her hand away.
"There are in other places, you know. A whole flock of them, in fact." Her tone was warm,
excited. She sounded like Zeria with gossip or a new object of affection. Leia almost
forgot herself; she almost forgot that this was a teaser, an isolated moment of information
about the fleet. She steeled herself. She would not allow herself to be only marginally
allied to the cause. "When I was growing up on Naboo, there were birds everywhere, and I
loved to see them."
Useless information, Leia decided, for a person to simply hear. "I've seen *holos* of
ducks," she replied disinterestedly. "Never the real thing."
If Coruscant's sun had blotted out, Saché's smile could have kept the planet lit. "Your
father loved ducks." Her eyebrows raised slightly. Leia's heart skipped a beat. It was
not about Bail Organa or the aquatic birds. "Especially new ones. Bright yellow, elegant,
swift, compact -- he would have flown with them forever, if he could."
A handmaiden and a pilot. Youthful, patriotic occupations. A gentle, quiet romance filled
her head.
Saché was far beyond Leia's daydream, and far ahead, approaching a fruit stand. "You should
see them fly, though -- really very skillful!"
The fruit peddler flagged their attentions. "Ruby jerises! Makons from Sullust! Pallies!"
She held two in her hands, and looked at Saché pointedly. "Try a pallie, Ma'am?"
"My very favorite. Two, please."
Baited. Nothing was straightforward anymore. "I don't want one," Leia protested as her
mother withdrew the credits to pay.
"Well, maybe I want two."
They meandered slowly away, Saché inspecting the fruits' skins. The first bite was quick;
Leia figured it was to remove whatever message they'd intercepted. The other bites were
slow, burning time. She had expected to go back to her quarters, but she wasn't all too
surprised upon stopping a battered-looking door, and the concept of surprise seemed to not
belong to her when Jaet Bishapi opened the door, smiling wide.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The apartment held too large a number of people for as small as it was, and that alone spoke
volumes. There were probably only ten people inside. Leia's eyes slid to the
Senators Mati and Tral as she took them in. Of the other people assembled, three were vaguely
familiar (one she thought might be a senator as well, and other two bore unexplainable
familiarity); the rest were new. Leia found herself crowded onto a couch between her mother
and one of the people she didn't know. He made no move to acquaint himself with her.
Halfway through Bishapi's debriefing, Leia drowned out her mother's words. Saché was divulging
everything -- well, what *she* would consider everything, given the little bit she herself
knew, she thought bitterly -- and the subject had quickly turned to an Imperial factory on
La'azum, which Leia recognized as Mati's homeworld (and a neighboring world of Ampinua).
Suddenly the way her wrist relaxed was fascinating.
She dropped it several times, and her fingers fell into midair in many ways, before Bishapi
swung Saché around the room as best he could. "We can set them back ten years in a single
night," he said, his voice almost trembling with excitement. Leia couldn't see his eyes;
she thought that might be what would determine his sanity. Tral and Mati remarked among
themselves about how much damage setting the Empire back ten years would do. She found
herself somewhere between them. Tral was overtly pessimistic; Mati, eager to have a Rebel
foothold on her homeworld, rolled her eyes, insisting that the fleet was viable. She had seen
it.
Whether out of jealousy or disbelief, the urge to roll her own eyes floated up. Leia fought
it successfully.
"That brings us to you."
She froze in response.
Bishapi took Saché's seat next to her and wrapped his hands around hers. Another passionate
gesture on his behalf in a matter of moments. He was close enough for Leia to be able to
determine by sense of smell alone that he was drunk. "We're having some trouble getting into
the factory. We'll need you to go in."
She felt herself staring dumbly again, and tried to think of something to say. She hadn't
even paid enough attention to know how to respond; she hadn't honestly thought that she
would be asked to do anything yet.
Saché rescued her from Bishapi's pressing gaze. "I don't think that's our best option."
"Nonsense!" He was smiling wider, and he brushed a finger at the air over Leia's eyes. Her
eyelids blinked furiously. "Now, if we can get her to do *that* in the right company--"
"No." Her mother's response was solid. "I refuse to allow it."
"I do believe," and this was the moment Leia realized that a madman's grip was tightening
around her fingers, "that Leia will be of the age of majority when this plan comes into action,
and your approval will be unnecessary." He turned to her. "How many months is it, now,
until your eighteenth?"
Saché's voice was a clipped snarl. "Enough for me to get her away from you."
Bishapi stood with a start, not letting go of Leia's hands. She stood with him. He stared
at Saché as he spoke. "You do realize your importance in this, don't you, your Highness? You
have Vader's trust like no other."
It was a long time before she managed to speak. "I can't," she said finally, not offering
further explanation.
Her fingers. They were her only thought.
"Because of your mother, or because of him?"
Saché flinched.
Leia's heel came down hard on Bishapi's natural foot, and she took that opportunity to bring
her hands down out of his grip as well. "Both," she replied coolly. She moved to stand next
to her mother, who had been, she now noticed, gradually moving herself toward the door.
She did not see Bishapi's hand form a fist, nor did she see it begin to swing toward the back
of her head. It was instantly dark. She fought to keep it from sweeping her away.
_(be still and strong ...)_
She didn't know where that came from. She only heard an incoherent, sudden scream from her
mother, and the sound of the others working to subdue Bishapi in the corner. A hard, round
smack rang through the room. Her mother's hand meeting Bishapi's face, she knew.
And then the horrible sounds. A blaster shot, and the door was open. There were more feet
hitting the floor. The trademark soft, regulated breathing of Darth Vader.
Before she could feel angry or betrayed, an ancient panic, to whom it belonged she was not
certain, flooded the abyss she found herself in, and she quit holding on. The currents
swept her to a place where she would be
(hidden)
safe.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The apartments in this area of Coruscant were in perpetual disrepair, as evidenced by the
leaky roofs and the vandalized doors and the general thinness of the outer walls, which allowed
the Vicerene's outraged scream -- the only comprehendable part of which was "DAUGHTER!" -- to
escape.
At this, Vader ordered his troops inside.
The door came down instantly, and the room, while sounding very much the scene of a fight,
appeared to be empty save for the collapsed figure of Leia Organa. If Saché's previous scream
hadn't been enough of an indication, it was even more evident that this was not at the hands of
the Empire. She had fallen face-down toward the door, arms tight at her side, her hands relaxed
fists. Her eyes, blinking slowly and staring blankly at first, slipped shut. A white rage
fueled Vader, replacing the artificial indifference with which he entered into the task.
Jaet Bishapi.
A quick scan past the smoke and he saw a small band of people letting go their hold on Bishapi,
who instantly ran at him with a crazed laugh. The others -- senators, former Imperial officers,
notorious operatives; all known, all more than he'd imagined he'd find in one
seemingly-insignificant raid -- tried to make their escapes through a back door and were cut
down quickly with stun bolts. They would be imprisoned and questioned. They would wish the
shots that hit them had been lethal.
And they would be considerably less obstinate than man who was daring to make a run directly
at him. Suicide. Being a physician, he was probably hoping to damage Vader's respirator and
would have the expertise to do it. He caught Bishapi by the throat and held him at a distance.
"I knew it," Bishapi rasped. He did not try to dig his fingers underneath Vader's glove, as
most did. Instead, he grinned hatefully. "She defended you." Of course, there was no
question as to who *she* was. Vader reached into Bishapi's mind, searching for her ...
_(I refuse to allow it.)_
_Saché's bold voice. Leia's expressionless face as his grip tightened._
_You have Vader's trust like no other._
_(I can't.)_
_Because of your mother, or because of him?_
_The girl's searching. Saché's fear. His frustration. And she was free._
_(Both.)_
_His clenched fist, and she fell so quickly._
Before the man could even register that Vader's grip was no longer around his neck, he hit the
wall with a satisfying thud.
The room's silence resounded, filled only with his own mechanical breathing and a quiet
murmuring. The stormtroopers had cleared out the stunned rebels, and in the corner, Piett
helped a distraught, cowering Saché to a standing position and led her silently from the
apartment.
Leia had not stirred.
It did not even cross his mind that she would be dead; her Force presence was clear and vital
as ever. Less restrained. She practically broadcasted the abyss she found herself in. He
stooped down to pick her up; she was yielding as a leaf in the wind. He made certain her neck
would not bob too violently --
_A cool, fresh breeze with bright colors gave way to nothing and comfort._
Vader blinked despite himself. SHE was everywhere.
_A world rose from its safe-place and (oh, no, not in there) in the flurry of activity she
was still and strong, open-eyed against the black._
_(He'll see her. He can't miss his own --)_
_(Obi-Wan told you that she can --)_
_(He may not recognize her alone, but he'll know if she's with me.)_
He looked down at the young woman in his arms with disbelief. And there it was, sliding up her
neck and over the collar, a small, hand-carved pendant made by a young boy -- who is dead, he
reminded himself -- for HER, who lied to him so efficiently, who had leaned into him with a
real ache and expressed mourning for a lost son.
_(He can't miss his own daughter.)_
Leia's eyes were open, searching frantically. "I can't see," she managed, frightened. She
knew, and she hadn't before. He understood that much.
"A temporary symptom of head injury." For the first time since picking her up, he began to
move toward the door. "You will be taken to a medcenter and your sight should return when the
swelling goes down."
Her eyes closed with small relief. "Okay." Her voice was a tiny, shaky whisper. She was in
shock.
They both were. Nothing was said.
The anger did not flood in until later that day, when he was aboard the Star Destroyer
*Inferno*. The maintenance crews were not allowed to repair the damaged panels in his quarters.
-------------------------------------------------------------
More soft whispering.
"Saché, I don't think anything --"
"The pendant, Bail. Do you honestly think he's not so observant?"
A heavy sigh. "The name on the charts is Organa."
"That means nothing."
"It means he isn't going to move quickly -- IF he even knows -- and we're still a step ahead."
"Then what about *him*?"
A shushing. "You were in hysterics. Someone needed to watch out --"
"I think he's overqualified for the position. Do you realize he was the highest-ranked
Imperial at the factory on La'azum?"
A pause. "Did you realize that this was bound to happen someday?"
A truncated sob. "I knew." Muffled, nearly inaudible speech. "We promised Amidala."
Still and strong, she lets them think she is not awake.
------------------------------------------------------------
The rumors were maddening.
The notoriously filthy underground reports were claiming that Leia had been working for Vader
since Ampinua, that they had struck a bargain there: her life for any service requested,
ranging from subterfuge in the Rebellion to the typical unthinkable acts. The Rebellion had
an operative outside the meeting; the most easily obtainable image related to the raid was
from above, with Leia in his arms, and it accompanied nearly every bit of news.
The voice had given a snicker at the irony of him cradling his daughter as he carried her to
safety, and that was when he'd ripped the first panel down. The rest of the embarrassing --
but cathartic, but fear-inducing -- tantrum was sparked by the reappearance of a holotoon from
Leia's run for Senate that gave her a lightsaber and an appearance mocking his own.
After that first day, Vader quit seeking the reports out. They only served to raise up futile
anger, anger that could not be acted upon, anger that would need to be controlled to
inactivity. To change them would be to confirm them, and, with the news of HER betrayal,
they were no longer simply unwelcome and grossly untrue speculation, they were accusations
that stabbed him through and gutted him. He would not -- *could* not, but he no longer allowed
himself to dwell on that -- subject *anyone* to such acts, much less a young girl not even of
the age of majority. Especially not his own daughter.
The word filled his head like nonsense. He knew it was the proper term, but it didn't yet fit.
Even the Imperial reports enraged Vader. They painted a broad-sweeping portrait of a princess
betrayed by the cause she foolishly supported, rescued by the Emperor's right-hand man. And
this was not true. She was attacked by a madman whom she clearly did not trust, and Vader had
chosen this moment of weakness to raid a meeting that she had led them to. If indeed the
public was to know about the incident, he thought they should know about it more honestly.
To do otherwise -- to try to project this uncharacteristically heroic image on him -- would
lead them to distrust the Empire even more.
And the galaxy did not know what he knew, and would think even less of him if they did, not
to mention that Leia's career would be ruined ... no. Many things were cloudy, uncertain, but
he would not allow that to happen.
Pacing amid the destruction that was his quarters aboard the *Inferno*, he allowed himself to
think about HER. He thought he should be angry, that the previous tantrum should be easily
surpassed, but Vader found that he felt a heavy ache that wore at him. Thus far, everyone --
with few exceptions -- had betrayed him some way or another, but he had never expected
Amidala to lie to him. It was a horrible lie, one that could have had disastrous consequences
as Leia progressed through the Rebellion. She could have been among the rebels stunned and
imprisoned and tortured.
He willed that thought out of his head. That, too, would not be allowed to happen.
So Amidala had called the game, placing their child on the opposite side. The voice fought
against this, objecting to quarrels with the dead. Vader agreed.
Leia had living guardians.
-------------------------------------------------------------
The air was heavy and sweet when Leia forcibly removed herself from behavior resembling sleep.
The time had passed like twilight, uncertain and unnameable, marked only by bits of speech
and the occasional cool touch.
The first words were awkward and rough. "Flowers?" she grumbled, opening her eyes carefully.
They were sensitive and blurry, picking up shapes of greyed shades. The patch of sky she
could see through the windows was black and lit with the strings of traffic. The Organas --
she found she hated the word "parents" -- were gone, probably catching moments of sleep.
Colors of well-wishing from many worlds filled the room, buzzing against the throbbing in her
skull. It felt as if she'd grown a new heart next to her brain.
"And this is only the second day, your Highness." A young male voice echoed slightly across
the room. "I imagine you will be met with many more bouquets upon your return home."
Leia pulled herself up to a sitting position and blinked furiously, trying to gauge her
surroundings. Her knowledge was piecemeal: she was in a medcenter, she had suffered some
sort of head trauma, the pendant was gone -- but Saché knew she'd worn it so it was probably in
her care. She had an Imperial guard, apparently the man talking so cheerfully to her.
A baby-sitter, she thought grimly. A guard would not even stoop so far as to talk to a
prisoner. So this is how it would go now.
_(He can't --)_
She moved that to the back of her mind.
"Who are these from?"
The officer grinned. "Starting from the very first, Früvous. 'Had a lovely time.' Quite the
narcissist. Included a holo of himself." Zeria's musician. Leia smiled despite herself and
planned on giving the flowers to her after they'd dried. The holo, she thought, could make
good target practice.
Some of the flowers were from senators who made no secret of their extreme loyalty to the
Empire; they had sent extravagant arrangements, with exotic fauna and vases that were nearly
art. Each name froze her blood as it coursed through her veins, and a slight worry about
what had been made public gnawed at her.
But the name on the charts was still Organa, however little comfort that was. She wondered
what other name it could have been. Vader? Naberrie? Something else?
Only one bouquet was from a known rebel, and that was Fasiel Nadiv, whom she had run against
for Senate. This was a blatant political move, and it disappointed her.
"And we come to the last gift, which has proved quite a mystery." It was a lone flower, in a
shallow, clear vase, filled high with water. "I haven't seen one of these since I was a small
child growing up on Naboo, when my parents took me to visit Otoh Gunga."
The petals were thick and creamy white, with a blush tinge.
Leia squinted to observe it closer. "What sort of flower is it?"
"It's a lotus." The officer furrowed his brow, reaching back through his mind. "It had
religious significance millennia ago; I suppose now it would be symbolic encouragement.
The legend had it that the padme rose through the mud pure --"
"The what?"
"Padme. Its ancient name."
Leia's head and heart pounded in chorus. "Who is this from?"
"That is the mystery. Well, besides how much this flower must have cost -- a fortune,
I'm sure -- and how hard it must have been to get. Naboo was all but destroyed." He handed
the flimsy card to her.
She sighed in frustration. "I can't read it."
He frowned. "You're not missing much. It just says, 'Ani'."
On a terrible impulse, she crumpled the card.
------------------------------------------------------------
The morning came quickly for the Organas, but not quite soon enough. Bail had received the
communication from Madine three hours prior, telling of Mati's and Tral's executions. The
news was grim. Governor Tarkin himself had conducted the questioning, and had immediately
ordered Vader to a remote world where the best of the Rebel fleet was being kept. He found
himself nursing a shot of Corellian whiskey in his morning cup of câf, watching the sun rise.
He tried not to be too shocked that he'd found the whiskey in Leia's apartment.
Saché woke somberly, approaching him wordlessly and burying her face in his sleep tunic.
"Are you going to say good-bye?" he asked, and she responded in turn by shaking her head. He
kissed her forehead. "She loves you. I want you to know that."
"I know."
He held her chin gently. She tried to look away, and tears brimmed around her eyelids. "I
mean *know* it, like you know the Onibac flows north. Like you know that I love you."
She gave a short laugh and took the câf from his hand, sipping carelessly, watching the
chronometer on the wall. "That is our countdown," she remarked moments later, her eyes
still fixed on the blue-glowing digits. "Someday, it will cycle down to zero and he will
kill us."
"It is a countdown we started, and an honorable one at that."
"How honorable will it be, Bail, when she stands behind him while he does it?" She shoved the
câf back at him. "The honorable thing to do would be to remember why Amidala left her with
us in the first place and send her to Obi-Wan."
He did not watch her as she walked away, nor did he bother with a glance at the door after
she'd stepped through it. He refilled the câf twice, and when the traffic lanes were full
he gathered the courage to dress for leaving the apartment to head for the medcenter. It took
him a standard hour to arrive there, and only upon seeing the now-familiar face of the
lieutenant did he realize that they'd spoken openly without checking for surveillance
equipment. He did not allow the fear to grip him; he allowed reason to overtake it. Vader
had plenty of opportunities to confirm Leia's identity over the course of nearly eighteen
years, and if he was going to learn of his daughter through one vague, angry statement, then
so be it.
The lieutenant left the room quietly.
A tray of cold food sat on a table next to Leia's bed. She was scrolling intently through
a datapad.
"I wouldn't do that," Bail sighed.
Leia dropped the datapad squarely on her lap. "Lieutenant Piett suggested I wait for you to
tell me, anyway. These reports are ridiculous." She reached for a fork and brought a piece
of white fruit to her mouth. "I'm starting to believe that I'm an Imperial spy, myself."
"So long as you don't believe the rest." Bail pulled a chair next to her bed and began
on a slice of yar-melon. "There was no good side this time."
"Really?" Her tone was cutting, deceptively pleasant. "No heroic Sith lords? No deceived
princesses?"
"Bishapi raised a fist to you in an irrational fit of anger. Vader threw him into a wall
when you were no longer in danger. I am not glad Jaet is dead, but I find some comfort in
knowing that he can't jeopardize others with his madness." Her eyes were stone, but not
angry or hateful. They were unmoving. "There are more humane ways of killing a man than
choking him and, just as he's about to slip away, breaking the back of his skull open."
"I imagine."
So Saché was right. It was a subtle shadow on her, but it was there, clearly distinguishable
from before. Leia would have had the same reaction at first, but not now. While she was
not quick to forget, she did not dwell on the unchangeable things.
"Your mother left for Alderaan this morning. Mati and Tral are dead."
This intrigued her. The blank expression was replaced with a diffuse, perplexed interest.
"None of the reports mentioned any deaths other than Bishapi's."
Bail deactivated the datapad and put it out of her reach. He caught a brief flash of
annoyance on her face. "They were executed after being questioned, and it is not being made
public. I am not very sure why."
"So the other prisoners don't find out and cease revealing information."
"No." He took her hand, and she looked at his as if it were an odd bauble. "I have a feeling
that it is because you were not questioned. Because you are not imprisoned."
She laughed. It was neither pleasant nor unnerving. "You think the Empire is protecting my
public image?" She stopped when the full realization of the statement hit her. "The guard."
"I have my questions about the guard. Your mother was in a miserable state when I arrived,
in no condition to make sure your needs were met, but you also weren't a demanding patient. I
have come to think that this is an image of punishment they are trying to project."
She eyed the blanket thoughtfully. "I can see that." She did not seem beaten or angry, both
the only reactions Bail had imagined. Perhaps Saché was wrong on that part. For the time
being, at least, Obi-Wan needed only concern himself with one Skywalker.
------------------------------------------------------------
Two days after the raid and her injury, the senator from Alderaan was released from the
medcenter. Saché had, as anticipated, fled the planet after he'd had the lotus sent.
Leia did not allow herself a sabbatical, instead delving quickly into the usual
picking at Tarkin's weaknesses in the Senate chambers with a new, heated fury. It was
difficult to pinpoint exactly what was driving it; she took no new positions, and found no
new adversaries. Most suspected it was because there was already talk on Alderaan of the next
election. The loyalists were infuriated that she would have associated with known rebels, and
the rest of her constituents grew restless at the idea that she might have betrayed the
Rebellion.
Darth Vader had his own suspicions.
His return to Coruscant a week after the raid worked to hinder others' further speculation,
instead turning the Senate's focus on the business on Sullust. One Corellian news
service had been quick to remark that he wasn't *usually* one to return so quickly to the
Imperial capital after the completion of a mission, but had chosen to stay with the more
inflammatory reports of the destruction of a large portion of the rebel fleet. Comparisons
were made to the Motibi situation nearly three years prior, and a well-placed insult directed
at Tarkin by the senator from Malastare sent the chamber into a wave of cacophony. Others
hurled threats from platform to platform. It was a familiar arrangement, and while this time
a vote of no confidence was out of the question, the clear division among the galaxy's
purported leaders could prove dangerous. Tarkin gave a thin-lipped, victorious smile and ended
the session for the year. Within the space of a week, most senators had returned to their
respective homeworlds, with the exception of his daughter.
She lingered on-planet, as did Viceroy Organa, and this seemed to be the reason he had not
heard from her. Piett's reports were thorough, but they hadn't turned up any specific
information. (Vader thought, briefly, that it was probably because Piett did not know what
to watch for, but decided that could not be helped.) HER pendant was gone -- Leia had made
a point to ask after it when Bail and Saché were not around -- and she had received from a
rather mysterious person a rather expensive gift which had upset the Organas considerably,
although neither they nor Leia had cared to explain why.
It was an unfortunate way to learn the truth. He didn't wish it for her. Unlike for countless
other situations, he had not yet thought of an alternate course of events, other than learning
about it sooner (which, he reasoned, was usually his reaction to situations which displeased
him). It crossed his mind that Amidala would never have admitted that there was a living
daughter and never a son; to wish she had would be foolish. He preferred to seethe over
changes he should have made, and in the privacy of his chamber, with HER trunk open and after a
considerable amount of meditation on its newfound significance, he allowed himself to
think that he might have reached into the Force and sensed the toddler hidden inside, swept
her up, and taken her to Coruscant, away from the lies and the traitors on Alderaan. If
Amidala had so wished, she could have accompanied them. Even now, knowing that she meant to
hide their daughter from him forever, he would have been glad of it.
Vader was not all that surprised to find Leia at his doorstep the day before she was supposed
to leave for Alderaan. She dressed simply, in a deep-blue tunic and trousers instead of her
usual senatorial whites. A small square of flimsy was clutched in her hand.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quiet. "I thought I should thank you."
"That is unnecessary." She darted her eyes around the frame of the door, biting her lip
fiercely as her eyes slid along the walls. "Perhaps you should come inside."
------------------------------------------------------------
Leia thought her heart should be pounding, but it was strangely still within her ribcage.
Though it seemed she could hardly catch a full breath without shaking, she managed to step
inside the door, each footstep echoing firmly against the high ceilings.
It was still there, next to the door. The trunk that she'd seen before, standing on her toes
to see through the window in the door on the opposite side of the entry hall, made every
absurd, confused affirmation very real. Her truemother's sad, smiling face rose up unbidden
and she countered it with the lotus, beautiful and serene in its clear glass bowl.
To make matters worse, her eyes would not stop darting around the dark figure that waited
quietly ahead of her. She finally fixed them upon her own shoes. Her hand tightened around
the card.
"I don't know where to start." The words came more easily than she'd thought they would. She
fought no sudden tears, no sudden constrictions of her vocal chords. The emotionlessness
sounded wry. "That morning, my -- *Saché* told me that my father was a pilot. After Ampinua,
she told me that you hurt my mother. The night before she told me you were a pilot, I
asked her how you hurt her and she refused to tell me--"
"Then she has not yet lied to you?"
"I don't know. Has she?"
Vader's thumb ran along her jawline. This time, she did not even think that there was
something strange about the tenderness. She did not wonder at it. It calmed her.
"I suppose, technically, no. I am certain we can agree it would have been preferable for her
to have told you outright."
A flash of heat seared through her brain in agreement. "Preferable" was not strong enough a
word; while she held no particular hatred for her past -- and she certainly despaired at the
thought of who she might have been, raised by the man before her -- she felt like there was
an entire series of choices stolen from her. She wanted to know everything, and then ...
Then she could decide for *herself* what was preferable.
"Who were you?"
"I am not yet certain that is for your ears."
The card suddenly had a use. "Then why this?" she asked, holding the piece of flimsy up for
inspection.
Vader hesitated. "That was intended as a message for your" -- the pause was brief, but Leia
caught it -- "adoptive parents."
She was not meant to have seen it. Leia did not have to guess what sort of message that might
be.
"Well, they didn't see it." She turned on her heel, walking toward the main door. "I hid the
card, though I am sure Saché made her guesses."
Vader's hand sat heavily on her shoulder, and she thought she might shrug it off. She didn't
want to. She was simply used to doing so, shoving Bail's and Saché's affections away until
she'd made peace with herself. "This is a dangerous situation, Leia."
The full weight of her grief sank into her heart and made it beat wildly. "I know."
"Your position in the Senate has threatened the Emperor's power. If he were to learn the
truth, he would have you killed or, at the least, would expose you as my daughter, which
could bring the same or worse from others."
The idea of being murdered for existing was frightening enough, but
_(Influence?)_
the public's reaction to this news was more than she thought she could bear.
It was not the first time she'd considered it.
"That first day, I thought of spiting them by changing my legal records and guardianship, but
I know it wouldn't work so smoothly. I would lose my credibility in the Senate." _And in the
Rebellion_, though she did not say *that* aloud. "Plus I'm not too sure that they're the ones
I should be angry with."
"I am the only one who has the right to be angry with your mother. She told me we had lost
a son."
She turned to him. "And instead you gained a daughter. How unfortunate."
Vader pressed on. His pause spoke his argument to the contrary. "You are strong in the Force.
With training there would be few who could fairly challenge you."
"Perhaps." She could feel Saché's face twist into a frown, even at this distance from her.
"But I need to know who Padmé Naberrie was married to, in that other lifetime." It was
simply a statement. She did not expect an answer, and was met with simply the sound of his
breathing.
It was when she'd finally lowered her head in the midst of the silence and stood before the
door, ready to leave, that he spoke.
"A Jedi knight named Anakin Skywalker."
It was a familiar name, which made sense enough, but she could not place the feeling entirely.
It drew around her, safe and powerful.
She didn't answer Bail's guessing at her smile as she packed her things. He'd finally decided
that she'd met with Früvous over câf somewhere swanky. She didn't think that anyone -- the
arrogant little musician, especially -- would mind that.