Summary: An AU fic exploring what might have happened if the final moments of Return of the Jedi had gone just a little bit differently.
Of course, I don't own Star Wars. All credit for everything related to Star Wars goes to the brilliant George Lucas.
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Leia Organa licked her lips, her face a mask of shifting emotions. The white bulkhead door loomed large before her, so strong and so final. One delicate hand reached for the button that would open the thing, pausing elegantly to retract for a fraction of a second before being pressed forward again. With an easy hiss, the door yielded open, and Leia Organa stepped inside.
The small bunk space within was untouched, tidy but not pristine. It was as though it had just been left unattended for a moment, as though the occupant might return at any moment to greet her. With a sigh, Leia walked further in and closed the door behind her. The room was small and plain, a drab gray-white like the rest of the Alliance Cruiser Sanctuary. The cabin had a low-set bunk, a low ceiling, a closet, and a short desk all packed into a few feet of floor space. Nothing remarkable, nothing too personal. A jacket was slung over the back of the chair near the desk. Leia moved to it and slid the material through her fingers absently, looking down with blank eyes at the Alliance insignias on it, the rankings, the awards. Her hand tightened to a fist around the material. Her eyes crushed closed as pain distorted her pretty features and she sank silently to the floor, pulling the jacket with her.
She clung to the cloth as though it were sanity, clutching it to her chest with a quiet desperation, as though she somehow hoped that if she only held it tightly enough, the owner of the jacket would return through the door to claim it. Minutes passed, and her hope was proven false. No, he would not be returning any time soon. She had allowed him to slip away from her, to slip away from them, without a fight. A lone tear escaped her eye. It was her fault that he had been captured. She should have stopped him. She should have made him stay and wait!
But in her heart she knew she could have done no such thing. Luke had been so sure of what he would do, and what Vader would do. And now he was lost, perhaps forever. She remembered the way his hand had slid from her grip on the forest moon, the way he'd melted into the twilight without another word. And now? The best guess regarding her brother's whereabouts came from Leia's intuition. He was alive, she knew that, and under terrible torture. Not pain – at least, not yet, she thought – but psychological pain.
He'd been gone 10 days already. She knew her brother was trying to shield her from his ordeal, but their connection was strong enough (or the pain was bad enough) that she would still see flashes of what he was seeing. Not enough to tell her how to help him; just enough to know that he was in the clutches of the Empire, aboard a Star Destroyer, and in terrible danger of losing his life, his sanity, or his soul.
She knew everything from the Alliance side: how they'd lowered the shields, how they'd blown up the power generator, how everything had gone according to plan. But it had been too slow; this time the Empire had designed the reactor to contain itself, destroying the station in pieces to allow time for ships to clear away and important people to evacuate. She'd felt Luke be forced onto a transport with the Emperor and Vader, and she'd felt his disappointment as they cleared the event horizon unscathed when the Death Star blew. Leia had wanted to attack the shuttle and get him back, but the Alliance fleet needed to flee before the remaining Imperial ships could track them. The fleet had leapt into hyperspace as soon as the remaining troops were safely off the forest moon, leaving Leia gazing out the window of the cruiser at the shuttle that was taking her brother to Vader, and quite possibly to his doom.
She squeezed her eyes more tightly shut and felt rage burn through her veins. Vader. The man was supposed to be Luke's father! Her eyes opened to stare without focus at the bed before her. The man was supposed to be her father too. How could she and Luke, two people so devoted to the Rebel Alliance, come from such a cruel and heartless machine? With a cry of anger and anguish, she flung the jacket at the bed.
The cloth didn't make a satisfying noise as it hit the storage compartment at the base of the bed, but it did cause one of the little spaces to pop open, and a strange cylindrical object rolled out and across the floor, finally resting near Leia's knees. The princess picked it up cautiously, uncertain of what it might be. But then her eyes widened in shock and recognition. It was clearly a lightsaber, worn in places and scored with marks of use. But why would a lightsaber be here in Luke's chambers? He'd had his only one with him on the Forest Moon and taken it to the Death Star.
Leia turned the unignited weapon over in her hands absently. Where could it have come from? Did Luke even own it, or was it somehow left by another Jedi from times past, before they were all wiped out? She continued to ponder, but soon realized her musing was pointless. She could never guess, but perhaps she could know. She was hardly a trained Jedi, but her instincts had always served her well in the past, and she followed what her body guessed now. She closed her eyes, relaxed as best she could, and reached with her mind to probe the saber in her hands.
The moment she touched it, she felt a surge of Luke's presence. He had used it, that much was certain. It echoed his pain, his loss, his determination. But then, below that, Leia felt another presence. This presence was laced with darkness, a strange brand of hate and fear mixed with a bittersweet love. But despite the presence of love, Leia knew without a doubt that the saber had also belonged to Darth Vader when he had been Anakin Skywalker.
The princess opened her eyes, considering the weapon again. How Luke had recovered it at Bespin was anyone's guess, but he'd clearly kept it even when he'd made a new one. She turned the time-worn barrel in her hands. Just before he left Luke had told her that she was the only hope for the Alliance if he didn't make it back. Of course, she'd thought the idea was ludicrous. But then he'd revealed her parentage and their relationship, and suddenly it seemed a lot more possible. She twirled the still unignited weapon in her hands. Could she do it? How could she learn with no Master to teach her? It couldn't be done. Even before Yoda, Luke had been taught the basics by Ben Kenobi. She knew nothing. She made to put the weapon down.
But what would happen to the Alliance? Who would defeat Vader and the Emperor? Luke was held prisoner, tormented every day. The Empire was already rebuilding. Trainer or not, she owed it to the Alliance – to her brother – to try. She pulled the weapon back toward her chest, and her face changed from pensive sadness to grim determination. She closed her eyes and tightened her grip around the lightsaber. She heard the buzz of the weapon springing to life, and a flicker of blue light slipped through her closed eyelids. And then she opened her mind and let the Force flow into her.
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Far across the galaxy, three pairs of Force-sensitive eyes flew wide open. In his palace on Coruscant, Emperor Palpatine's face contorted into an angry snarl. Pacing on the bridge of the star destroyer Victory, Darth Vader simply blinked and sighed, barely hesitating for a step. On a hard metal bunk in the prison block of the Victory, Luke Skywalker dared to risk a smile. He felt Leia's presence explode into the Force, and he knew that she had decided to try. For the first time in 10 days, Luke dared to hope.