The girl – the young woman – comes to Mon Mothma in the middle of the night. She's not surprised. She's been expecting this visit for some time.
So now she knows, she thinks, a small comfort when looking into those dark, expressive eyes.
'I need to know. What she was like.'
The tone, the hard edge to the girl's voice. That is her father. The thought makes Mon shiver, knowing what she does. What they all now know.
'She was… a fierce political figure. She… had a world of responsibility for one so young.' She speaks haltingly, not sure what to say now that the time has come for this talk.
'I've already learned all of that on my own.' More Anakin Skywalker. More Vader. She finds this almost completely unsettling.
But then there is a longing, a sadness in the girl's gaze that nearly takes her breath away with its familiarity.
Leia has been crying for her dead mother, she decides as she studies her face.
'She was very generous. And beautiful. The kindest, bravest, strongest woman I have ever known,' she finally answers. It's a comfort, but a truth nonetheless.
'Did you… Did she tell you she was pregnant?' Leia appears to be perilously close to crying again, her eyes small, her expression wounded in some unspeakable way.
'She did confess it to me, yes.' The memory of Padmé sobbing into her neck, so helpless and scared and alone in that moment drifts to the front of her mind.
'Did she… not want us? Because of him?' And now the tears start, the girl breaking down.
Mon draws Leia into her arms, trying to soothe her the way she'd soothed Padmé so many years before. The young woman cries out the entirety of a lifetime without her mother.
'She wanted you more than anything,' Mon begins once more when Leia has calmed.
'But she wouldn't stay alive for us.' Leia straightens her back, wiping at her swollen eyes. This calm stoicism, it comes from neither of her biological parents. Not really. This is Bail Organa. This is the face Leia had presented while attending her first debates on Alderaan and when she'd begun her career as the youngest Imperial Senator ever elected. This is face Leia had presented as a leader in the Rebel Alliance.
Mon looks at Leia Organa's now-determined expression and feels a calm relief settle over her.
'Your father broke her heart when he turned to the Dark Side, Leia. She would have followed him to the very end of the galaxy and back had she lived. Because she still believed that there was good in him. But a part of her knew he might never turn back in her lifetime, and she knew that your father and the Emperor would have surely taken you and Luke away. And that, she never could have lived with.'
'So she died to save us.' Leia looks down at the hands clasped in her lap, her voice oddly flat.
'That is my belief, yes.'
'She loved us after all.' Leia's eyes meet her own again, and they are filled once more with that pained longing she'd seen in them earlier.
Mon reaches out hesitantly and tucks a loose strand of hair behind Leia's ear.
'Thank you,' the girl says.