Starwars is NOT MINE!!!
The Most Dangerous Place
'For you, Baba, just this once, we'll break in the safest place in the Galaxy,' Leia finished.
Bail wanted to say 'Lelia, No.'
Her request was simple. In fact, coming from Leia (Princess Organa, Senator for Alderaan) it was more like a courtesy. She was letting him know her plans so that he would not worry. Usually her time 'off' was spent on war torn or plague ravaged worlds, and among refugees, championing the plights of millions.
Bail had always worried for her safety, but he'd never felt the urge to refuse her until now.
This time she was going to spend the Senate Break on the cultured, civilized, peaceful mid-rim world of Naboo. A friend and colleague had invited Leia to her home. Naboo was the home-world of the Emperor, and the current administration was appropriately outwardly loyal to Palpatine.
Bail knew that logically he should be relieved at her choice. He wasn't.
In reality Leia (Amidala Skywalker) was going to the home-world of her dead birth-mother at the invitation of the first cousin she knew only as a friend, to meet the extended family who thought her dead. The Naboo system was also closest to the home-world of her fallen biological father, and worse, her hidden twin. Bail worried that her untrained force sense and sublimated memories would be awakened on her mother's world with her brother less than a parsec away.
Lelia was going to the most dangerous place in the galaxy.
And there was no plausible excuse he could give that would get her to stay away. Anything he said would precipitate exactly what he feared from the visit. The 'right' people would ask the 'wrong' questions (or was that the other way around?) and her life-long cover would be blown. Unwilling to risk extra curiosity on her part, he nodded, smiled tightly and told her to be careful but have fun.
Leia assumed he was worried about the crucial Alliance mission she would undertake when her trip was over.
Bail was grateful but bemused at her willingness to be deceived in this matter, when she would not tolerate it otherwise. He refused to dwell on what that meant. His Lelia had come of age. As yet unknown to her, her time of protection by deception was scheduled to end within weeks. He would concede her one last holiday.
Ruwee had been a teacher all his life. In the Naberrie family the women traditionally held the more prestigious positions. His mother, daughter and granddaughter were fine examples of that rare breed… political representatives who genuinely served their people.
His grand-daughter Pooja was bringing home a friend for senate break. Princess Leia Organa, the Senator for Alderaan. Naboo and Alderaan had been allied for years, and their senators often worked together. Viceroy Bail Organa had been mentor and friend to Ruwee's daughter Padme and eventually to Pooja as well. Now Pooja was working with the Princess.
Their guest was tiny, and graceful, but not always regal. She was not Alderaanian by birth, resembling the Mountain Region Naboo instead. In fact she looked like Padme. Her hair colour was just a shade lighter and the curl slightly straighter than his daughters' with subtle golden highlights. Her eyes were the same shade of brown…..
Ruwee was far from being a snob, but had to wonder about the girl's origins. She was supposedly a war orphan who had been adopted into the Royal House of Alderaan partly because Queen Breha Antilles-Organa was barren, and her marriage to Bail Organa was obligated to produce an heir. Had the Viceroy led someone (perhaps one of Padme's handmaidens?) into an adulterous affair and then kept the young one? It was not unheard of for a man in his position to take that approach, but the girl looked nothing like the Viceroy. Her stance, manner, the shape of her face, the intensity in her eyes as she analyzed whatever caught her interest reminded him of someone else entirely…..
No. It could not be. Not here, in his drawing room, brought there by his other granddaughter, no less……
Ridiculous, he told himself. He was as senile as his wife had become in her latter years… submitting to blissful hallucinations and pretending their daughter and her child had survived.
Within moments of the initial introductions Leia sensed the family's deep sorrow at Padme Amidala's death and so resisted asking questions about her hero. Instead she decided to learn as much as she could by visiting Amidala's memorial and the Records Room at Theed Palace on her own. And she gratefully absorbed what little the Naberries were willing to share in passing conversation.
When they sat for meals Ruwee saw something else. Leia had an eerie habit of scanning, scanning, scanning everything and everyone in her environment, which was barely concealed by all the fancy etiquette and political training. It could be a result of her security training he reasoned. Some of Padme's handmaidens had been that way, but again Leia reminded him incongruously of that Jedi padawan who had accompanied Padme home so long ago. He conceded the idea was beyond description in its folly. Such a child would never survive in as close proximity to the Sith as she was on Alderaan. Still…….
'Join me in the garden?' he said to her after dinner, just as he had done to gain privacy with the Padawan years before.
They spent their evenings thus, slowly wandering among the bushes and beds, sometimes bantering on topical matters, sometimes in simple silence. When the family went up to the Lake Retreat Leia and Ruwee strolled on the balcony that overlooked Lake Varykino instead. Having never had a Grandfather, Leia joked with Pooja that she was 'borrowing' hers. Ruwee absorbed the comment with a small, sad smile until the final evening, after Pooja had left them watching the sunset.
'Princess, I must ask. Was your birth-mother a Naboo?' (Was your birth-father a Jedi was, after all, still a dangerously politically incorrect question, even from an apparently senile old man.)
She seemed shocked at the idea, and slipped momentarily into her true self. 'What? No! I'm a war orphan!'
'As are all children of Jedi since the Purge….' was the rejoinder that Ruwee gave in his mind. Aloud he said 'Excuse an old man. You remind me of someone who once stayed at our home. But his child died when the Republic fell. You could not be her.'