Disclaimer: This vignette is not meant in any way to infringe on the rights of Lucas Films or anyone else holding rights to Star Wars. It is merely a labor of love.
Authoress Note: This is another 'Heart of Darkness' AU with all due reverence implied for Cka3ka. His/Her work is wonderful and in order to understand this vignette, you must read HOD. In regard to HOD, this AU goes a bit out on a limb, assuming that Cka3ka intends for Leia and Pooja to return from the Meridian Sector and continue as Imperial Senators. If this assumption is in error, this fic can be fitted in to the timeframe before they left for the Meridian sector, but it works better after the fact. Special thanks to Vader's Fallen Angel for her assistance. I hope you all like it!
Confrontation
By Arianwen P.F. Everett
Leia Organa Naberrie Skywalker sat on the veranda of her cousin's apartment at 500 Republica and tried to do the paperwork Pooja had left her with. It was odd for Leia to be answering to someone other than Father or Jix. Still, her cousin had had a point. She should have done her homework earlier, instead of going down to the blaster range this afternoon, and since Pooja had all hers done for the evening, she should meet Mirax down at the docks, while Leia remained behind.
To make matters worse, the force auras left by her father and before him, Senator Palpatine, when each had resided here, were distracting Leia, and making her work take longer. However, leaving was not an option. She had promised Pooja a good, old-fashion, sleep over, as this was the final night before the yearly Senate recess, and she and her cousin would be parted for three months as she returned to Alderaan, and Pooja to Naboo. She'd miss Pooja and Viqi as well, but most of all, she'd miss the easy access to her father that this past few months had given her.
Leia rolled her eyes at her own sappiness, before attempting to return to her work. One more report to break down and she'd be done. However, before she could complete a single paragraph, she felt a presence and dropped her datapad.
The presence felt oddly familiar, even comforting, but she couldn't place it. When she briefly touched the force to enhance her slow memory, all she got was a pulsing squishy sound, a dark room, and someone indefinable, but even more comforting, moving against her… naked back. She had no conscious knowledge of ever having experienced anything like it, and began to wonder if she had once been kidnapped when she was young, before her father had taken her from Alderaan and taught her to protect the sanctity of her own mind with the dark side. If some Jedi had come to Alderaan and messed with her memories before that fateful day, even if it was to shield her from trauma, she was going to make Bail give her a name, then hunt down the bastard and make him pay, but right now, she had to find the source of the unseen presence. Placing her hands on her sabers, Leia crept off the veranda and back into Pooja's residence before calling out. "Come out, now!"
"Don't be afraid, Leia," a voice Leia never thought she'd hear addressing her personally said, and the young Lady Vader spun round to come face to face with her mother, or as she soon figured out, her mother's force ghost.
"What's going on? You weren't force sensitive. How can you be a ghost?" From studying her Sith holocrons, Leia had a pretty good suspicion, but her father had once told her that her mother's abilities, even without the force, had often astonished him, and Leia wasn't going to jump to any conclusions without hearing her mother's side of the story first.
"I had helped," Padme smiled gently, stepping towards her cautious daughter, who backed away.
"What kind of help? Dead Jedi help?" Leia worded her suspicions. She didn't trust the Jedi, even dead ones.
"Does it matter?" Padme asked, again attempting to bridge the gap between her and her child.
"Ah Mom, incase you haven't heard, I'm a Dark Sider now, so of course it matters!" Leia explained, again dodging her mother's ghostly form. She knew if a force ghost had significant power, he or she could do damage to the living. If the Jedi her father had slain were teaming up in the Netherworld of the Force, and funneling their power through her mother, Leia could be in serious danger. As much as she longed to be touched by her mother, if only just once in her life, she was still a Sith. She couldn't stand down without knowing whose side Padme Naberrie Amidala was really on.
"Leia, I carried you for nine months and gave birth to you. Do you honestly think I would harm you now?" Padme asked, hurt by her daughter's refusal to be touched, having heard the fears in her mind.
"Not intentionally, but those offering you help would. The Jedi used you before in order to get to someone you loved who had fallen to the Dark Side, why do you think death would make them squeamish about doing so again?" Leia asked, matter-of-factly, finally satisfied that her mother had stopped her advance.
"The Jedi have been very kind to me. I don't think…"
"And why shouldn't they be kind to you? You did your best to help them during the Clone Wars; and more than that, you were their friend. Are the Jedi so petty that they'd withdraw that friendship over the actions of your husband and daughter, two fully sentient beings capable of making their own decisions?" Leia insisted, refusing to be lulled by her mother's soothing presence. Her anger at the Jedi's past dismissal of her father's free will, as well as her own in stashing her with Bail Organa, invigorated and focused her.
Padme sighed sadly, taking a step back. "This is not how I wanted things to go. I love you, Leia. I want you to know that, and I'm sorry I wasn't there for you growing up. I know your life has been difficult, but…"
"Difficult? Are you kidding me? Compared to what I saw in the under city of Kuat and on Nar Shadaa, my life has been a bowl of muja sherbet," Leia responded, refusing to be pitied. She truly considered her life to have been stuffed with blessings so far, no matter what her father, and now her mother's ghost, thought.
"You shouldn't have had to witness that. No child should have to witness the suffering you've seen," Padme continued, not being deterred by her daughter's defensiveness.
"I must respectfully disagree. Witnessing 'that' has made me stronger and more powerful. Father has never attempted to shield me from the dark side in any manner, and I'm humbly grateful. My life so far has not been safe, but it has been very good. Let your compassion be for those who have had to endure what I've only witnessed. My own abilities, amplified by the Dark Side, have protected me well. You needn't worry about that," Leia assured her mother, the gentle conviction of her words evident in her tone. While Padme's words suggested she was still brainwashed by the Jedi, Leia hoped her mother could at least take a measure of comfort in her own positive opinion of her life.
"Leia, the Dark Side killed me," Padme replied, hating to hear this vitriol coming from her daughter's mouth. But Padme couldn't deny there was more to her frustration. The Dark Side had protected Leia. She had died, and been unable to do so. Padme hated that reality even more than the part of the force she believed had taken her life.
"What did you expect when you inserted yourself into the middle of a holy war, Mother? You may tell yourself that the Jedi were your allies, and the Sith your enemies, but the truth was you were always an outsider looking in. What astounds me is that you were an such accomplished and well trained diplomat first, and yet you still wound up taking sides in the middle of a religious conflict," Leia mused, slightly disappointed now that she could put words to long held feelings.
"A religious conflict, is that all you see?" Padme shot back, stunned that her intelligent daughter could view such weighty matters so simply.
"Grant it, the longest one in history, with the highest body count overall, but yes, in the end, that's all this whole Sith/Jedi drama is, a holy war, as fruitless as all the others have been throughout history," Leia continued, melancholy seeping into her voice.
Truth was, Leia wasn't always certain she wouldn't be torn apart by the conflict herself, just as her mother had been, but whenever this doubt reared its head, she thought of Luke and her countenance brightened. Together they would set things right. Sith and Jedi, brother and sister, they would rebalance the force and end thirty-some millennia of war. That was her father's destiny as the chosen one, not to obliterate the Sith or the Jedi, but to bring balance between both great powers, with his children at his side. "Father, Luke, and I, we'll change things. We'll end it."
"Your father, heck even I, could be quite arrogant when we were your age, but thinking you can end thousands of years of constant conflict through our family's will alone… Leia, that's beyond naïve," Padme rebutted. Her daughter didn't have to say a thing. Padme could hear her thoughts, and while she was comforted that Leia accepted Luke's nature as a creature of the light, her other thoughts would likely rip her daughter in two someday.
"I wish you had more faith in me, Mother, but if you don't, I can accept that. You're not having faith in Father hurts me far more. He still loves you. He still needs your faith. I can live without it… and without you. Just don't tell him I said so, else he'll throw me hard against the wall during our next sparring match for not showing you proper respect," Leia requested, hoping word never got back to her father on what she had just said to her mother's spirit. Even if her mother was being controlled by the Jedi, Father would demand the same reverent awe he felt in regards to his deceased wife from their children, and Leia knew she couldn't muster that feeling, no matter how hard she tried.
If her mother had come here by her own motivator, that would be different. Under those circumstances, she might very well allow herself to drown in the dewy affection of a child for its mother, but that wasn't the case. The Jedi could pull Padme's strings, but Leia would not dance for them as well.
"It's not a matter of faith, Leia…"
"Yes it is! It's a matter of your faith in the Jedi and everything they've fed you, both when you were alive and since you've been dead! It's a matter of the faith you will not show your husband! It's a matter of the faith he shows you every moment of every day, regardless of what that faith costs him, and how Jix, and I, and Pooja, and Nura, all have to watch the fallout in the man we've placed all our faith, not to mention the safeguarding of our lives, in! So don't tell me it's not a matter of faith!" Leia shouted in anger, running her hands through her hair to contain it, as three potted plants shook, fell off their ledge, and crashed onto the balcony spilling potting soil everywhere.
Leia rushed to the mess and surveyed the damage. "Great! Look what you made me do! Pooja's gonna kill me! She loved these, you know?!"
"They were mine once," Padme stated matter-of-factly, looking at the damaged plants and the broken pots.
"That's the difference between plants and people, Mother. After Mustafar, Father was just as shattered and broken as this poor dongotti plant, but with command of the Dark Side, he's gone on living. All sentient beings have motivations that push them to survive and fight to succeed. They can't blindly follow what some robed ascetic believes the will of the force is without compromising who they are, regardless of whether that ascetic calls themselves a Jedi Master or a Sith Lord. You understood that once, else you wouldn't have married Father. Look, I'm not an ideologue. I just understand that the only way Luke and I will ever have careers and families of our own is to end the conflict between the Sith and the Jedi. I won't accept skulking and hiding to keep my job or be with the person I eventually fall l in love with like you and father tried to do, and I doubt Luke will either. So, either we work together to take out Sideous, and do something to ensure we never have to make such compromises, or we die trying," Leia insisted with absolute certainty.
Padme was startled with the memories Leia's words evoked. As hard as it had been, waiting for her secret husband's return from the battlefront during the Clone Wars, she had never doubted it had been worth it. Even as she lay dying on Polis Massa, she had never questioned why she and her husband had had to keep their love a secret. Her daughter obviously had, and often. "You've given this a lot of thought, haven't you?"
"For as long as I've known him, Father has been in pain. I spent much of my childhood trying to understand what had caused that suffering and how I could work to alleviate it. Truth be told, it's still a major.. preoccupation.. of mine," Leia explained, shrugging at the simplicity of her answer.
"And you believe I caused his suffering?" Padme asked, worried that her daughter might blame her for what had happened to her father.
"No! I never said that! It's the schism in the force that has caused Father's suffering! You gave him happiness and hope, no matter how difficult things got for him. Then you were gone, and he believed Luke and me gone as well. You played no part in that, so I can't blame you for it. I love the woman you were in life, Mother, and I love the fact that you care for me still," Leia floundered, trying to articulate her feelings.
"Is it that you think I've stopped loving your father? Leia, I never could, never will," Padme reiterated, desperately wanting to know her daughter knew she meant it.
"But the Jedi won't let you tell him now, will they? They let you appear to me because they see me as 'redeemable', because I've never completely surrendered my will to the Dark Side. There is no benefit for THEM in letting you tell Father that you still love him. In fact, it might bring him some resolution, which would make him an even more effectual Sith Lord, so they'll never let you tell him!" Leia conjectured, her anger rising at the truth that was coming at her.
"Leia, I…"
"Mother, did you choose this, or are the dead Jedi preventing you from rejoining the force, regardless of what you want?" Leia hesitantly asked, now fearful that her mother wasn't merely working with old friends for a cause she believed in, but was, in fact, being held hostage by her husband and daughter's enemies.
"As I said before, they've been kind to me," Padme answered, not wanting her daughter to become angry again.
"A gilded cage is still a cage, Mother. That's not what I asked you. If the choice was your own, would you rejoin the force now, or would you remain in the Netherworld of the Force in order to help them take down the Sith?" Leia asked, not sure she wanted the answer. If her mother told her that this had been her decision, Leia would be hurt, despite her earlier words. It would effectively mean her own mother wanted her killed for her beliefs.
Even more worrisome was the fact that Leia knew she couldn't take on the dead Jedi, without being able to tap into her father's immense power within the dark side through Sith magic, and to get him to agree to that she'd have to tell him the whole story. There was a good chance that if he learned the truth of what had really happened to his Angel after her death, he'd go mad and start orbitally bombarding every habitable planet between here and Tatooine, and as much as she truly believed in the superiority of controlling the force through one's passions, her father's homicidal ranting could end the lives of hundreds of billions of innocent people, for no reason other than to vent his rage.
"I chose to be here with you," Padme offered, knowing that wouldn't begin to satisfy her daughter, but also knowing it was the most she could give.
"Mother, the Senate went into seasonal recess this afternoon. I'm supposed to be free of these word manipulations for the next twelve weeks. Come back after that and we can play this game to your hearts desire," Leia stated wearily.
Life in the Senate had been as bad as she'd always known it would be. If it weren't for her true work with the rebellion, Pooja, Viqi, and Father, Leia truly believed she would have suffocated. In her darker moments she wondered if the level of dark side energy Sideous produced had more to do with one too many committee reports during his 30 years in the Senate than all his Sith training. She didn't need her dead mother playing the same games every ambitious Senator and Coruscati insider felt obliged to play with her.
"Leia, whatever else I may be, I'm still your mother! I will not have you speak to me like that!" Padme snapped, and almost immediately her memory took her back in time to when she was 17 years old and she'd first heard the words that had just left her mouth. They had been arguing and her own mother had informed her that she would find that being a queen was a far simpler affair than just being a regular person. Freed from the necessity of diplomacy in the presence of her family, she had lashed out 'Nobody ever elected you Queen; how would you know?'. In a surreal sort of way, Padme realized that though she'd been dead for most of Leia's life, and she was still becoming her own mother. Perhaps this was an inevitable confrontation between a mother and her teenaged daughter.
However, unlike Jobal Thule Naberrie, Padme understood the frustrations of politics, what it's like to be pushed and pulled by other's whims and still be required to wear a cordial expression. Her own first year in office hadn't been easy, and Leia also had the added demands of her Sith training, albeit with a master who loved her more than the entire universe.
"You're right. That was pedantic, and I'm sorry. It's just that I owe it to father to ensure that you haven't been captured and enslaved by the Jedi he killed," Leia backtracked, emotionally detaching herself before her frustration sprung its coil again.
"I wasn't, and I want to help the Jedi, but not in the way you think. And certainly not at your or your father's expense," Padme explained, softening her tone to match her child's.
"You didn't want to help Palpatine destroy the Republic and build an Empire, but you did. One unfortunate commonality between the Sith and the Jedi is their total disregard of what non-force sensitive people want. The only thing that matters to either order is their own continuation and the absolute destruction of the other. The Jedi will say and do anything to get you to assist them in gaining an advantage over father and I, and then they will happily disperse you back to the force, while they work that angle in hopes of eradicating us and the beliefs we hold dear. What you want doesn't track with them. It never tracked with Sideous. With father it means more than anything," Leia explained, needing her mother to see the way the two most powerful force organizations worked.
"And where does it track with you?" Padme asked, needing to know the answer. She knew the Jedi were becoming impatient with her, but Qui Gon Jinn had kept them from pulling her back just yet. How long the others continued to indulge him she could not predict, but regardless she had to ask, and pray the force compelled them to let her finish this conversation with her daughter.
Leia trembled as her mind searched for an answer, each moment bringing her closer and closer to the most unpleasant truth she'd ever faced, and tears began to stream uncontrollably out of her brown eyes. She wanted to say it mattered to her; this was her mother after all, but at the end of the day, what truly mattered to Leia was that Father would follow anywhere his wife lead, and that she, as his daughter and apprentice, would follow him just as assuredly… even into a fatal trap set by those who were now giving her deceased mother a voice.
The dark side encouraged her to become enraged at her mother for so completely bewitching her father, or at her father, the supposedly powerful Dark Lord of the Sith, for being so weak in the face of his dead wife's every whim, but the dark side didn't control Leia and she knew that the only person she could be angry with was herself. She gave her father the same power he gave his wife. She was no stronger than him, and that exposed vulnerability terrified her to the point of violent sobs.
The sith code was clear on this point. Vulnerabilities would eventually be exploited by others seeking power, unless the individual found a way to achieve victory over them, breaking their chains. In this case her chain was her loyalty to her father, and considering how many times Anakin Skywalker had already been beaten down in life, her betrayal of him might finally breaking his spirit. Perhaps then it was a mercy for both of them that once she had freed herself, her final duty as his apprentice would be to end his life. She couldn't imagine loving anyone more than Father, and yet she also knew that she was a servant of the dark side, and she must one day choose herself, and Luke who seemed more a part of herself than a sibling, over him. Thankfully, that day was almost certainly years away, but no matter how much she wished she could deny it, that day of reckoning would eventually arrive.
"I am too weak, as yet, for your wishes not to matter to me. Someday I will be stronger. I must or Luke and I will perish," Leia finally spoke, a tiny sliver of her soul truly hating her mother for forcing these realizations upon her. And yet the dark side comforted her with the knowledge that in time she would look back on this meeting with appreciation.
Padme's felt a sensation she hadn't felt in seventeen years overtake her, the force pressing down on her throat, and she understood that while there wasn't any real pressure on a throat that had long since been turned to ash with her funeral pyre, this was the only way she had ever encountered the dark side directly. Leia was flush in it at the moment, and Padme realized that she had once again failed, just as she had that day on Mustafar. Then she had meant to walk her husband away from the dark side, but only succeeded in driving him deeper into its grasp. Now she had just done the same with her daughter.
As the Jedi too realized what had occurred and began pulling her back into the netherworld of the force, she felt her heart break again. But she had to get one more message to her daughter and she fought those that would prevent her from speaking her final words "I love you, Leia. No matter what, I will never stop loving you!"
"I love you too, Mom!" Leia shouted back, the darkness around her heart overwhelmed by the truth of her words, words she hadn't even known were true until this very moment. She had never truly mourned her mother, only the impact that loss had had on her father. Now, having met Padme Naberrie Amidala Skywalker, the pain of this loss ripped through her, driving her to her knees as she sobbed against the ornate stone balcony of 500 Republica, a balcony that could now boast having witnessed the birth of 3 Sith Lords in its day.