Understanding

by ihadanepiphany

Leia comes to terms with who her father is. Remember the time when Anakin visits her on Bakura? She gets another visitor that night. Note: Basically a follow on from Clearing Up The Facts, might help if you read it, but not necessary.

Disclaimer: I am NOT George Lucas and I do NOT own Star Wars or anything to do with Star Wars whatsoever! Except for posters, books, videos, DVDs, action figures, scripts…. *cough* suing me would be a waste of time.

I've been wanting to do this for a long time, but between one thing and another it languished in a cupboard in the back of my head for longer than it was meant to, but hey.

It's meant to be kind of a second part to Clearing Up The Facts, but it's also a stand-alone fic. In other words you don't HAVE to read Clearing Up The Facts, it will probably have no bearing whatsoever on your enjoyment (hopefully) of this, but just thought I'd let people know about it.

Basically, Leia gets a visitor who helps her come to terms with who her biological father is, okay? Its set on Bakura during the night that Anakin appears to Leia, lets just pretend that there were a few hours in which this /could/ have happened.

But you DO have to review and remember that flames will be put into the stove and used to keep me warm. J

Oh, / / are used for emphasis, *  * are thoughts and *~* are used to show Leias vision thing, k?

Try and enjoy?

 'Before you ask, you haven't gone anywhere.'

Leia opened her eyes and looked around. She was /supposed/ to be in Bakura in the room she had closed her eyes in, not standing in a vast empty space of emptiness.

 'Yes, you are asleep,' she heard a voice say. She turned to see a young human female. 'No, this is not a dream and no, you will not be held against your will.'

 'Who are you and why have you brought me here?' Leia asked, struggling to keep calm. She was in, a blank was the only way she could think to describe it, because that's all it was. Pure blank white that stretched further than the eye could perceive, all around, above and below.

Except for a table, set out with cups and a teapot, two chairs and the young woman who had spoken who was watching her closely.

The woman raised an eyebrow and smiled faintly.

 'Straight to the point,' she murmured. 'I should have expected nothing else. But please, sit,' she said, motioning to the old-fashioned armchair across from her that was the exact double of the one she was herself sitting in. Leia stood for a moment longer, before realizing that the other woman wouldn't say anything more until she did so. 'I'm nothing that can harm you,' the woman went on when Leia sat. 'All I wish to do is help you, in certain ways.'

 'How certain are these ways?' Leia asked, accepting the cup of tea offered to her. She was back on familiar ground now, after a lifetime of diplomacy and entertaining guests, she was quite at home with double-edged conversations over tea. The woman smiled, properly this time.

 'Very certain unfortunately,' she replied. She sipped at her own cup. 'I heard you had a, visitor today.'

 'Is that what this is about? I might've known,' she muttered sourly.

 'Peace Leia,' the woman said soothingly.  'I'm taking no side in this.'

 'Then why did you drag me here?' Leia snapped. The woman raised an eyebrow.

 'I didn't /drag/ you anywhere, you're in exactly the same place as you were when you fell asleep.'

 'So this is a dream.'

 'Yes, and no.' The woman looked at Leia over the top of her cup. 'Do you want to hear what I have to say, or are you going to sulk?'

 'I do not sulk!' Leia gasped.

 'Glad to hear it,' the woman said quietly but with no less force in it than if she'd shouted. In the silence that followed, the woman set her cup on the table and steepled her fingers, regarding Leia calmly over the top of them, clearly waiting.

 'Give me one reason why I should listen to you.' Leia said stubbornly.

 'I'll give you two,' the woman said. 'One, because its important that you understand everything, whether it influences you is not but you have to at least know all the facts. And two you're curious and if you left now you'd be wondering about it for the rest of your life.' Leia said nothing to the last, knowing it to be true, but instead:

 'Influence me in regards to what?'

 'With regards to your father, Anakin Skywalker.' In that instant, Leia was on her feet.

 'How dare you?' she hissed. 'Vader is /not/ my father.'

 'I never said he was,' the woman replied calmly. 'I said that Anakin Skywalker was your father, I never mentioned Vader.'

 'What's the difference?'

 'Vast.' There was silence in which Leia felt her anger diminish and doubt take root in her mind. 'The same difference between night and day, between the Old Republic and the Empire, between love and hate.' The woman sighed at Leias sceptical look. 'The Jedi walk a thin and slippery line, they always have,' she explained, staring solemnly into Leias eyes. 'And the more powerful the Jedi, the more difficult it is to keep to it. Your brother has learned this many times already. Do you really think?' she said, raising a finger to forestall Leias interruption. 'That Anakin was the first to fall? If that's the case then who pulled the ground out from under him? And who tempted Palpatine? And so on and so on.' The woman smiled sadly. 'Even in my day there were Sith Lords. The Dark Side is not a new phenomenon.'

*Even in my day* Leia thought.

 'Who are you?' she repeated bluntly.

 'Nobody you'll find in a history book,' the woman replied. 'Anakin and Vader were both the same and yet not,' she said as if Leia hadn't spoken. 'Vader, happened because.' The woman sighed and thought for a moment, trying to find an analogy to fit. 'This,' she said at last. 'Is a harmony disk.' A thin circular disk appeared between them as the table and things disappeared. It was about the size of Leias two hands put together, it was separated into two curved and equal halves, one white and one black with one small black spot in the white and one small white spot in the black. 'It's a representative of two opposing forces, the Light and the Dark. They balance each other out and together make up the whole disk.'  (A/N Think of a large yin-yan disk)

 'Why are the dots there?' Leia asked, interested despite herself.

 'Because there is always some Dark in the Light and always some Light in the Dark.' The woman looked up. 'That is both a Jedi's danger and a Sith's chance for salvation.' Leia avoided the other woman's gaze, suddenly uncomfortable.

 'This,' the woman said after a moment. 'Is what a Jedi's disk should be.' She gestured and the Dark faded almost completely away, leaving the disk pure white, with that single spot of Dark now so thick it looked like the maw of a black hole. 'You see the danger?' Leia nodded mutely. The stranger gestured again and the Dark flooded the disk, leaving it like a window into nothingness.

 'And this is the disk of a Sith,' Leia guessed, sinking back into the chair.

 'Yes, you see?' The woman pointed to the tiny scrap of Light that survived, but it was a grubby parody, barely two shades brighter than the darkness surrounding it. 'This was Palpatine's disk.'

Leia tried and failed to resist the temptation.

 'And Vader's?'

Silently the woman gestured yet again. It wasn't what Leia was expecting. True, darkness flooded the disk, but there were traceries of white, pure white throughout. They laced across the entire disk, and after a moment Leia realised that they were cutting the dark into tiny chunks. In a flash of insight, she saw that the Light was acting as a restraint against the Dark.

 'You see?' The woman said softly. 'Anakin was there all along.' She traced out a few lines of Light. 'You think if he wasn't, Vader would have been content as a second-in-command? He was a thousand times more powerful that Palpatine, hundreds of times more powerful than Luke. If your father was truly dead you think the Rebel Alliance could have even begun?' She waved aside the beginnings of Leias heated speech about sentients rising up against oppression. 'Child, as it was Vader could kill from the other side of the galaxy, but he /preferred/ not to. Or rather,' the woman smiled slightly and nodded towards the disk hovering in mid-air, 'Anakin convinced him not to. Vader considered himself a warrior, he preferred to set himself against foes who had at least a fighting chance.' She paused significantly. 'Because of Anakin. He had honour, a twisted sense of it, but honour none-the-less, because of Anakin.' She raised an eyebrow at Leia. 'You think if anyone /but/ Vader was in charge you /wouldn't/ have been thrown into the trooper barracks on the Death Star?' Leia glared at her. She knew exactly how it could have gone, /would/ have gone if it wasn't for Vader. She still woke up crying when her sub-conscious decided to remind her of it. The woman reached into the empty air to her right and plucked out a mug of hot tea.

 'Look at this,' she murmured and flicked her free hand upwards. The disk floated up and swelled to become a sphere about the size of a Krayt Dragon egg. The sphere was still darker than the thickest night, but the white traceries were even more evident. Looking closely, Leia saw that there were many layers of the lacing, effectively entrapping and controlling the darkness. 'Have you any idea as to what he would have been capable of? What he would have done if Anakin had been truly destroyed? Vader didn't /know/ he was being restrained, for Anakin was cunning indeed. Had he known, Anakin would have been banished for real and Vader would have been without /any/ restraint.' The woman's gaze seemed to turn inwards, as if watching a memory inside her head. 'Even with all things you've seen, you still can't imagine what a Sith Lord can do,' she murmured.

 'Who are you?' Leia whispered. The woman looked at her with a shuttered gaze.

 'Someone who knows what they're talking about,' she said at last. 'Luke asked me that as well, though he was far less persistent than you.'

 'You visited Luke? When?'

 'After he discovered that Vader was Anakin who is your father.'

 'So its because of you that he nearly killed himself trying to be a hero,' Leia gasped, then narrowed her eyes.

 'Being a Jedi, actually.' The woman raised an eyebrow. 'You don't really think that all the Jedi did was sip tea and discuss the weather in more languages and on more planets than you can throw a hydrospanner at?' She sipped at the still steaming liquid. 'You've already been in more danger than since the death of Palpatine than most sane sentients in the galaxy and all you're dealing with is the diplomacy side.' She smiled suddenly. 'There's more to being a Jedi than wearing robes and carrying lightsabres you know.'

 'Like?' Leia snapped.

 'Like fixing problems when you find them, like destroying the Dark Side where possible, like serving the Force with all your mind, all your body and all your soul. Instinctively Luke knew this, and he also knew that he wasn't ready to battle Vader to the death, maybe he never would have been.' The woman shrugged. 'Maybe all he needed was time.' She met Leias eyes significantly. 'And he didn't even have that. The only possible way to succeed at what he had to do was to appeal to his father, Anakin Skywalker who he /knew/ still lived inside of Vader.'

 'Luke,' Leia ground out. 'Nearly died at the hands of the Emperor and thanks to him was nearly invalid all the way from Endor to Bakura. He /still/ hasn't recovered properly.'

 'And he /would/ have died months before at the hands of Vader along with you and everyone else in the Rebellion as well as all of the population of whatever planets you were found on,' the woman said bluntly. 'Except for the fact that Anakin managed to convince the two Sith Lords that he was worth more to them alive. Vader never took his skills seriously, which made it easier for Anakin to grow and eventually wrestle control back from him. Hence,' she finished. 'The slaying of Palpatine, the destruction of Vader, and, indirectly, the death of Anakin.'

 'I repeat.' Leia said stubbornly after a few moments of thoughts she didn't want to have. 'What am I doing here? What has any of this got to do with me?'

 'Today you had a thought,' the woman said in reply. 'And that thought was…'

 'What was Vader like before he was Vader?' Leia whispered. The woman nodded.

 'Anakin Skyalker was who Vader was before he was Vader,' she said. 'Anakin was always strong in the Force, long before Qui Gon Jinn and Obi Wan Kenobi arrived on Tatooine in the Queen of Naboos ship. And he was a kindly child,' she paused, 'but you have to understand that nothing is ever solely one side or the other. Anakin had so much Light even the Force-blind could see it and respond to it. But under that,' she murmured, her expression changing from remembered joy to sombre horror. 'Was Darkness like found nowhere else.' Leia felt a chill run down her spine at the look on the woman's face as she said the words. 'He held himself from the Pit as long as he was able, and were it not for events no doubt he would still be succeeding and be a most senior member of the Jedi Order.'

The woman's arm and hand moved in a grand sweeping gesture and crossed across Leias vision in an arc.

*~*

Leia saw great towers and elegant buildings, felt peace and harmony to an extent she only remembered in dreams. The vanished Jedi Temple was in front of her, its pyramid structure standing as a testament to the memories and grandeur of another age. The Force swirled around her and she felt hundreds, thousands of other minds brush across hers, leaving messages of peace and warm feelings of security and companionship and the knowledge that with the Force she was never alone. The Force was all around her and she was connected to every living thing throughout the entire galaxy. She felt whole and basked in the glow of the galaxy, completely content and at peace and that glorious moment stretched to a thousand generations and yet passed in the blink of eye. 

*~*

The woman's hand reached the apex of the arc and began to fall across Leias unseeing eyes.

*~*

Leia saw those great slender towers topple and the Temple fall, gutted by laserfire and battle and the serenity and peace became great fits of terror and rage as those minds, the same minds who moments before had comforted her, cry out in pain and vanish, snuffed out, no trace to found anywhere. She searched for them, tried to help them, tried to join with them against what was destroying them, but to no avail. With every death-cry she became more fearful for the next, more angry for the last, and more determined that no more should meet the same fate. But her own strength wasn't enough and she was exhausted, unable to do more than hear them die before she reached them. In her mind she felt a presence stirring, eager for the fray, to destroy the destroyers, to save those who had helped her. She pushed it back and went on. The voices were less now, far away, yet in no less danger for that. She couldn't reach them. In desperation she dredged up her last reserves and reached out, but they seemed even further away for it. She heard one cry out in agony, a terrible sound that ripped through her, that spoke of horrific tortures endured, that sounded like…

 '/Han!/' she screamed and in that moment threw away all caution and embraced the presence.

The Dark Side leapt from its hiding place and gave her strength, let her fly towards the voices and helped her fight off the attackers in a storm of righteous anger and bitter determination. It warned her of attack before it happened, blows before they landed; let her strike faster than she could think. Then they were gone, the attackers were gone, the voices were safe. She relaxed and tried to emerge from the Dark Side. It kept a firm hold about her. She pushed it away, back into its place; it didn't budge, settling like a great heavy cloak around her. She turned to the voices, tried to ask them to help, but they would not go near her, hanging back, sensing the Dark Side. She moved to them, they moved back. Why were they doing this? She had saved them. Risked her life for them and they moved away from her like an enemy. Why? She tried to ask again, but they turned away and would not listen. They would not listen! They would not help her! She had done this for them and they wouldn't even look at her! How dare they! How could they do this to her? She had saved them and they would not help her! Leia leapt forward and struck down the nearest voice. It fell with a cry and the others turned then, fearful. She realized that it felt good. It was /their/ fault for not helping her, it was /their/ fault she was like this. Almost without realizing it she struck down another, then another and another, till she was dancing Deaths dance through them, destroying all she touched and the air was again filled with death cries, but /this/ time, she relished it… 

*~*

The woman finished the arc and gestured again, grasping the air in front of Leia and pulling back. She did this three times before the other woman's eyes fluttered and opened.

Leia stared at her in a mix of horror and shame, tears spilling down her cheeks.

 'I, I,' she whispered. The woman nodded, not unkindly.

 'You have tasted the Dark Side, not as sweet as it promises, huh?' Leia nodded mutely, staring at her hands.

 'Who were they?' she asked. 'The voices?'

 'Memories,' was the reply. 'Nothing more. You see now,' she went on as Leia dried her eyes and got herself back under control. 'How seductive the Dark Side is? How easy it is to take up, how much more difficult to put down?' Leia shuddered and nodded. The woman wisely fell silent and conjured up the table and tea again. Leia accepted a cup and sipped absently, mind still reeling from the experience.

 'I thought you said you weren't going to influence me,' she said after a while. The woman raised an eyebrow.

 'I haven't,' she replied slightly surprised. 'Nor do I intend to. You are a diplomat, you most of all should know that knowing about a situation and actually living it are all too often two different things.'

 'What events?' Leia asked after a moment. 'You said that if it wasn't for events my fa-,' she paused and took a deep breath, '/Anakin/ would still be a Jedi.'

 'Why, the Clone Wars of course,' she was told. 'Didn't you know?'

 'Know what?' The woman growled a bit under her breath, looking annoyed for the first time.

 'Leave me to do everything again,' she grumbled to herself. 'Your father was Obi Wans Apprentice, yes? He was still a Padawan Learner, Jedi Apprentice, when the Clone Wars started. I'm sure you don't need telling about how war affects people.' Leia nodded. 'Well, for Anakin, there were other matters as well, he had lost his mother not the day before and blamed himself for it, had touched the Dark Side, was frustrated by Obi Wans teaching, was chafing under the restraints of being a Padawan, was already being manipulated by Palpatine, was disillusioned by the Senate.' The woman threw up her hands. 'And a thousand other things besides. He was almost doomed from the start and your mother was certainly no help.'

 'My mother?' Leia repeated, affronted.

 'Fear leads to anger,' the woman explained. 'Anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. Part of love is fearing for the safety of those you love.' Leia was struck by sudden understanding. 'You see now why you fell so fast just now? You heard your love in pain and risked /everything/ to save him, and in so doing /lost/ everything.' Leia nodded, then sighed.

 'And Anakin feared for my mother and so became Vader.'

 'Yes. Understand?'

 'Yes,' Leia whispered. 'I think I do.'

The woman nodded and smiled.

 'Then may the Force be with you, Leia Organa,' she said, as the blankness suddenly grew brighter, dazzling Leias eyes.

 'Wait,' she cried. 'I don't know your name.'

 'There are more important things in the galaxy,' she heard a voice say in her ear before she had to squeeze her eyes shut against the light. 'Now sleep and dream.'

Leia woke slowly to the sound of someone knocking. She got up and wandered over to the door. It was Luke, who didn't look like he should be even standing up, never mind walking to her rooms.

 'Are you alright?' he asked before she could start on his condition. 'I felt a disturbance in the Force.'

 'Yes,' Leia said. 'I'm,' then she paused remembering the dream she'd had. It had been so real and she recalled every detail, unlike most dreams that slipped away through your fingers once you opened your eyes. It was about…

 'Leia,' Luke prompted, as her eyes went vacant.

 'Hmm?' she blinked.

 'You were just telling me that you were fine,' he reminded her, a bit worriedly.

 'I know, it's just that, I've a lot to think about.'

 'Anything I can help you with?' She looked at him, then shook her head.

 'No, I'll sort this one out on my own.' She smiled at his sceptical expression. 'Really.'

 'You sure?

 'Yes,' she laughed. 'Now get back to bed, if Too-One-bee saw you he'd blow a fuse.'

 'Okay,' he agreed reluctantly. 'If you need anything though.'

 'You'll be the first one I look for, now get going.' With an eye-roll and exaggerated sigh, he did so, trying not to lean against the wall too much.

Leia closed the door and leaned against it, still laughing softly. She glanced to where Anakin had appeared the day before and sighed.

*Maybe one day* she thought. *Not yet, but one day I'll forgive you, father.*

Then she went to 'fresher to prepare for the day, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted.

Anakin Skywalker looked at the woman and smiled.

 'Thank you,' he said, grasping her hands warmly. 'Thank you for all that you've done.'

 'No,' she smiled back. 'I did nothing but show them all that they needed to know. Your children did the rest.'

 'My children,' he repeated wistfully then sighed and turned away, his image disappearing into the Force.

The woman looked after him, then closed the image showing Leia and walked in the opposite direction, her essence diffusing and spreading throughout the Force until she disappeared.