THIS OLD TEMPLE: FATHER'S DAUGHTER
by ardavenport
The tap of her shoes sounded in the immense hall of the Jedi Temple, the sound echoing faintly in the vast space around and above her.
Leia Organa, Senator for The Persons Displaced by the Empire, the sole representative of the vast numbers of people forcibly removed from their homeworlds or driven out when their homes and whole planets were made uninhabitable, looked about at the broken heritage of the Jedi. Large blaster scorches still blackened and cracked pillars and parts of the floors. But the bodies had been removed. They had been collected and counted, identified and ceremonially cremated. There had been so many of the dead, the desiccated and decayed, neglected and sealed in for over two decades by the evil Sith Lord who had killed them and ruled the galaxy in the Jedi's absence. Now they were ashes scattered to the recyclers.
She stood small and alone in the immense hall, the only living being there.
Luke Skywalker, the lone inheritor of this Jedi mausoleum, was gone to the outer Core to settle a dispute for the New Republic where the name and reputation of the Jedi who had brought about the downfall of Emperor Palpatine would mean something. Leia Organa did not want her brother's company for this visit.
Walking again, her eyes scanned the ruined, deserted hall, illuminated only by the huge open doorway. Did it look familiar? she wondered about the long shadows and dark corners. Leia had none of the certainty her brother had in the Force, at least as far as her ability to use it went. Luke said she could, but she had her doubts. Not about having the ability; she knew she did. But she did not trust what it would do.
Finally reaching the end of the entry hall, she found a row of burned out lifts, some of their doors jammed open, others with no doors at all. Luke had only restored power in a couple of the spires of the Temple with some portable power units. The rest would have to wait until he organized more help than his own two droids. The droids and lifters and crews that the Senate had loaned for the removal of the bodies of the dead Jedi were gone to other jobs.
On either side, Leia saw vast halls, a few temporary glow panels attached to the walls barely lit the huge space, the inactive machinery and the small repairs that Luke had made. She had not brought her own illuminator, so this was a far as she could go unless she wanted to risk getting lost in the dark corridors.
'The Force will guide you,' Luke had told her after urging to let him teach her more than simple meditations. She sadly smiled, shaking her head.
It just wasn't that simple.
Turning around, back the way she had come, Leia started with an audible gasp, the sudden familiarity of the hall, the light coming in from the entryway catching her by surprise.
Squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, she looked again. She felt as if she was looking at a puzzle-picture with a hidden figure in a maze of dots. Now that she had seen the figure, she could not get rid of it.
But she had never been in the Jedi Temple. It had been shut up since she was a baby.
The image of familiarity was not memory. It was the Force. Like her childhood memories of her mother, sad and beautiful, that she could not have had, since she now knew that her mother had died minutes after she and Luke were born.
Now she saw the great entry hall of the Jedi Temple as if she had walked it many, many times. The lighting and the shadows were all wrong. The Temple wasn't supposed to be colorless and dead.
A long heavy breath, loud and oppressive, filled the black space on her left.
Leia froze, sudden terror rushed into her. She slowly turned her head to look.
The figure stood there, transparent and shadowy like a hologram, just as Luke had described. The long breath finished with a very faint click and the inhale cycle started again. This was no memory. Leia instantly felt the difference between the images she had of her mother and the very real presence with her now, like the difference between past and present.
She wanted to run. And she wondered when she had ever been so afraid of Vader. Even when he interrogated her under a mind probe on the Death Star, or when he tortured her on Bespin, she could not recall being so rigid with fear as she was now.
The long breath clicked to an end. Another started.
//You. . . .// the sonorous voice began. Inside her head. She clinched her teeth over a high-pitched sound in her throat.
// . . . . will always see me this way.//
Leia swallowed, her heart pounding.
"Yes," she answered, managing to keep her voice strong.
The Vader-presence drew another breath. The black helmet tilted, the empty eyes cast downward.
Leia saw a flicker of another image over the armored, cybernetic horror in black cape and breast-plate. A tall Jedi Knight, lightsaber hanging from his belt, a dark cloak over his broad shoulders, plain clothes in a style that Luke now very roughly imitated.
She gasped.
And ran.
Her feet pounded hard on the floor as she ran back toward the entry, too far away. She thought that running had to be the most pointless thing she could do. How could she run away from a presence in the Force that could find her anywhere? But she ran anyway.
Finally she reached the daylight spilling in from the blue sky above, a large oblong patch of safety on the floor. The presence was gone, receded into the shadows.
Leia ran outside, only stopping at a huge outside pillar at the entrance. Bracing herself on the durastone, she panted, sobbing. Before, she hadn't known why her memories of her mother were sad, a mildly distressing abstraction seen through the eyes of a youngling.
Now she did.
She had seen it in that one expression of sorrow from Vader. And even though Luke saw him as Anakin Skywalker, the Jedi Knight who had fallen to the Sith. And their father. Leia still saw Vader.
Their mother, Padme, had seen Vader in the end, too.
Everything else had crumbled around her. The Republic, her life's work in the Senate crushed under the weight of the Clone Wars. Her homeworld wounded by the strife. And finally her secret love for her Jedi Knight taken, replaced by a monster who would choke her, his hatred squeezing the life and hope from her. Her whole existence had shrunk down into one goal, to stay alive just long enough to deliver her children.
Leia cried aloud, hands clinched on the hard surface of the pillar. Her own tragedy compounded the memory echo of her mother in the Force. Her homeworld, Alderaan, gone, in one colossal blast from the Death Star. Her adoptive father, her real father, Bail Organa, gone in the terrifying fireball along with everyone else on that world. How horrible must it have been to see, with no warning, the world suddenly explode around you before being incinerated?
Vader had been part of that.
"Hey!"
Face streaked with tears, Leia looked up.
Han Solo, his expression surprised, walked around the pillar and stopped.
Leia made the situation easy for him. She grabbed him in a tight hug, pressing her face to his chest. He was large and his arms easily fit around her as she wept. He did not say anything as he held her. When situations turned serious, Han Solo always managed to find some reservoir of sense and sensitivity that too often went unused. He held her, his hands stroking her hair, her back, as she cried out her grief, and her mother's, into his shirt.
Finally, after making a large soggy spot in his clothes, she wiped her nose on her white sleeve and stood back. He still didn't speak, but he walked her away from the entrance to the Temple. Coming out of the shadow of the pillar they went toward the stairs that led up toward the grand entrance of the Temple. Leia saw another speeder next to her own, but she kept going forward, leading him this time, until they reached the top of the stairs between tour large statues, two on either side, of ancient Jedi Knights. Letting go of her grip on him, she sat down. Han sat next to her.
"Well," Han finally started after a long silence. "I never thought this place would get to you. Good thing I didn't come with Chewie. He already thinks this place is full of ghosts."
Leia wiped her eyes on her arm and sniffed.
"Yeah," she huffed. "Just a few."
"Ghosts?" he asked skeptically.
Her shoulders slumped. Had Luke told Han Solo about the presences of Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and their father in the Force? She didn't know. But even if he had, Han would not have believed it. At best, Han discounted Jedi mysticism as something unimportant to him. And she did not want to explain it. She didn't understand it at all.
"More like bad memories," she answered with something that he would understand. And it was mostly true.
"Hmm," he grunted. He did not ask for more. His hand rubbed her back and she gratefully leaned into him. His arm slid around her shoulders. "I know what that feels like," he said. She smiled and did not ask him about it. He had done enough living before they met to have plenty of his own bad memories.
They sat for awhile. The sun felt good, warm and temperate. But he felt better, sitting close to her.
"So," he finally commented, "I'm guessing this is why you've been avoiding this place."
"Yeah," she agreed. She had not really known why she always let other things on her schedule push going to the Jedi Temple to some later, undetermined date. But Han was right. She had been avoiding it.
"I can't blame you," he agreed, squeezing her small shoulders.
"It was time to get it over with." She sat up, no longer leaning on him.
"So, um. . . ." Han glanced back at the immense building behind them. ". . . you want to get something to eat?"
She smiled at such a pedestrian suggestion. Han Solo was nearly as bad at delving into emotional crisis as she was. But she shook her head.
"Not yet."
She stood and turned around. Looking up at the high spires above and the gray walls towering over them, she marched forward. Han followed.
They passed together between the great pillars at the entrance. Leia stopped at the doorway and looked into the shadowed interior. It no longer looked familiar. At least from this angle. She closed her eyes, recalling the image, the presence of Vader. But it did not return. She thought of her mother, but the memories remained pale and ordinary. Her moment of insight in the Force seemed to have slipped away.
Solo put a protective arm over her shoulders and she opened her eyes again.
"Had enough?" Han asked.
Leia grinned. She put her arm around his waist and hugged him. She supposed that to him, it looked like she was just challenging a big empty building. But he had to know that there was more than that. He understood enough to not need to ask her about it. Making him the perfect person to talk about it later. They might as well not understand it together.
"Yeah." Then she lowered her eyes, feeling a trace of Vader's presence, in the shadows around her. But the shock of it had bled away; her own reservoir of grief had been drained. For now. She turned away from the Temple's door, dragging Solo with her.
"Let's go eat."
*** END ***
This story first posted on tf.n: 30-Mar-2009
Disclaimer: All characters and situations belong to George and Lucasfilm; I'm just playing in their sandbox.