Disclaimer: The characters and situations herein belong to Lucasfilm Ltd.
Author's Note: Whoa, a Star Wars fic! Revenge of the Sith must have knocked something loose in my head because I haven't written one of these since 1997! I hope it is interesting, and that it makes sense.
Princess Leia Organa entered her suite with a wide smile and flushed cheeks. As the door slid shut behind her, she slumped back against it and let out a small giggle that turned into contented sigh. That had been a good date.
Nudging the controls next to the door, Leia illuminated the previously dark room. She started to walk towards the 'fresher when she suddenly realized someone was sitting in her living room waiting for her. "Senator Mothma!" she exclaimed as the older woman stood up to greet her. "What are you doing here?" she asked, her initial shock quickly turning into curiosity.
Mon Mothma's face gave away nothing as she looked Leia up and down. Leia felt her cheeks flush even more as she realized that her low cut, backless, sleeveless dress revealed much more of her than the normal Senatorial robes she usually wore around Mon Mothma. "I just returned from a dinner engagement with Eth – uh – Senator Grammon," Leia explained.
"I know," Mon Mothma replied her tone even, giving away nothing about her reasons for being here. The silence stretched out between them, and Leia began to feel extremely uncomfortable. Finally, in order to break the silence as well as to get away from the woman's hard stare, Leia said, "Give a minute to get out of these formal clothes and I'll be with you shortly." Mon Mothma nodded, seating herself back on Leia's dark leather sofa.
Walking down the hall to her bedroom, a side door slid open and Winter, Leia's personal aide and childhood friend, poked her head out. "Leia," the white haired woman whispered, "What did Mon Mothma want?"
"I don't know," Leia answered, but now she knew how Mon Mothma got into her apartment. Apparently Winter had let her in. "She was just sitting there in the dark when I got home."
"I tried to stay with her, but she told me that I didn't need to entertain her and that I should go to bed." The two young women gave each other confused looks, each wondering what in the galaxy the older senator wanted.
"It can't be about the Senate," Leia muttered. "She wouldn't come to my home at night to talk about work."
"And it can't be about our friends," Winter said, using their code name for the Rebel Alliance. "You two could never talk about them in person. At least, not here." The suite Leia was staying in had been provided by the Imperial government and was owned by the Emperor himself. Although Winter and Leia had done a thorough scan of the rooms when they first arrived and had found no surveillance equipment, the two were still careful with what they said in the suite.
"Maybe it has to do with Father?" Leia speculated, but that seemed highly unlikely. Although Bail Organa and Mon Mothma had long since put aside their own minor political differences in order to create the Rebel Alliance, the two had never exactly been friends.
"Maybe you should just go out and ask her what she wants," Winter suggested mildly.
Leia smirked at her friend, and then turned to continue down the hallway, but Winter's voice stopped her before she could reach her room. "By the way, did you have a good time?" Leia could detect a slight twinkle in her friends' icy blue eyes.
In a decidedly un-princesslike moment Leia stuck out her tongue. Winter giggled quietly and Leia smiled. "I went out with a handsome senator from Carida with no royal escorts to keep an eye on us. What kind of time do you think I had?"
"Promise to tell me all about it tomorrow?"
"I promise."
"I won't forget that," Winter teased, wagging a finger at Leia. Winter was holo and audiographic meaning she could remember everything she had ever seen or heard. It made her an invaluable Senator's aide, and made it impossible for Leia to break any promise to her.
"I know." Leia giggled again and Winter joined her as both girls turned into their separate bedrooms.
Upon entering her room, however, Leia began to sober up. After all, here she was acting like some love struck teenager, not a member of the Imperial Senate. "But I am a love struck teenager," Leia reminded herself out loud. She sighed. Being just barely eighteen, Leia was still trying to figure out how she could be a normal young girl while maintaining her integrity as a diplomat in the Senate. Snorting, Leia realized how ridiculous that sounded. Working within the system as a Senator while simultaneously working against the system as a part of the Rebel Alliance had left very little time for normalcy in Leia's life. In fact, at this rate, Leia was beginning to realize that her life would never be normal.
Breaking out of her own thoughts, Leia realized that she had managed to change out of her formal dress into a simple gray tunic and dark pants. Having already kept Mon Mothma waiting far too long, Leia marched herself back to the living room, ready to confront her fellow Senator.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," Leia said smiling brightly and drawing on her years of diplomatic training as a Princess of Alderaan. "Can I get you something to drink?" she asked, gesturing to the kitchen unit behind her.
"No."
Leia nodded, sitting down in a chair across from the Senator. Leia was beginning to wonder if Mon Mothma was ever going to get to the point or if she would need to take Winter's advice and ask the woman flat out. Then Mon Mothma finally spoke.
"Tell me about your evening with Senator Grammon."
Leia tried to keep her cheeks from turning pink as she thought about their quiet, intimate dinner, followed by a walk through the Imperial Gardens and ending with a long kiss outside her door. "It was pleasant," Leia finally responded.
"He is not to be trusted," Mon Mothma said after searching Leia's face for a moment.
"What?" Leia felt her temperature rise a bit. Leia had reveled in the freedom of her evening with Ethan. No one had to screen Ethan before they went out, no one had to do a background check, and no guards had to follow them around all night. Leia had been able to choose this relationship on her terms. But now someone was coming to interfere.
"You cannot trust Ethan Grammon. He will take advantage of your naivety."
"What is that supposed to mean?" Leia asked, her eyes narrowing in her growing anger.
"Leia," the older woman's eyes grew narrow as well and her voice grew impossibly cold, "I wonder if you are certain where your loyalties lie."
That was the last straw. "Of course I know where my loyalties lie!" Leia yelled, not believing the audacity of this woman. No wonder her father had hated the Senator for years. "I serve one interest and one interest only," Leia said dropping her voice to a quiet growl.
"Sometimes we don't know what interest we are really serving," Mon Mothma replied, as calmly as if she was discussing the weather.
"Ethan is not likely to betray us," Leia said, realizing she was dangerously close to saying far too much than was prudent. "I know he is a good man."
"I have no doubt of that. Ethan is charming and well liked by all of the Senate. But no one is above being manipulated."
"Are you saying Ethan is being manipulated?" Leia asked, wondering if the two of them should even continue this conversation here.
"We're all manipulated by something. I'm manipulated by the special interests groups of Chandrila; Ethan is manipulated by the pressure he receives from the military base on Carida; you are manipulated by your own emotions."
"My emotions?" Leia cried indignantly. Before she could explode further at the insinuations, Mon Mothma continued talking.
"If you seek to manipulate Ethan as well, I suggest you reconsider. Considering his background, he is not likely to be changed."
Leia's fury was about to boil over. "I had no intentions of manipulating anyone. I'm just interested in Ethan as a person."
"So, inevitably you serve two interests: the one you claim loyalty to, and your interest in him," Senator Mothma said, raising an eyebrow.
"I see no conflict," Leia replied, stubbornly crossing her arms. Instantly she felt like a petulant child and dropped her arms. But her jaw remained set. She would not back down.
Mon Mothma hardly missed a beat as she abruptly changed subjects. "Leia, I know you are young, but are you aware that there was another Senator that was younger than you are when she began her tenure in office?"
Leia blinked. The subject change threw her off-balance and her previous anger was pushed aside by confusion. "Uh, no. I didn't know that."
"She was not much younger than you, but a seat in the Galactic Senate," Leia perked up at the old name for the governing body; clearly this took place before the Empire, "was not her first political position. When little more than a child, she was elected ruler of her homeworld, Naboo." Mon Mothma paused in her story and picked up a datapad that was sitting on the seat next to her. She passed it over to Leia saying, "Her birth name was Padme Naberrie but when she entered public service her name changed to Amidala."
Leia took the datapad and looked down to see a woman of striking beauty. She had long brown hair and soft dark eyes set in a round cream face. The woman's expression was tired and wistful. Almost sad. Her features were oddly familiar to Leia, although she did not know why.
"I knew her when she was a Senator. She reminds me of you," Mon Mothma said, a wistful smile appearing on her usually stoic face.
"Why are you telling me this?" Leia asked, feeling a strange emotion welling up in her. The image on the datapad left Leia feeling shaken and she had the distinct feeling she did not want to hear the rest of this woman's story.
"Leia, as leaders, we have immense power available to us. But, as I said, we are all manipulated. And love can be the greatest manipulator of all."
"What happened to her?" Leia murmured before she could stop herself.
"Did you know that Emperor Palpatine came from Naboo?"
Leia wasn't sure how this would connected with the woman but decided not to ask questions. Mon Mothma would get there eventually. "No, I've never even heard of Naboo."
"Few people have now. The Emperor distanced himself from it not long after dissolving the Republic. The Nubians he left alone, for the most part, but the Gungans, an amphibious race that lived on the planet, were soon enalved by the Sedition Acts. The economy began to quickly deteriorate after the Gungans were removed and it is now a world of little political power or significance. But during Amidala's time it was a political powerhouse of the Republic.
"Even before I held a Senate seat, Palpatine had used that political power to elevate his position from Senator to Supreme Chancellor of the Senate. Much later in life, Amidala confessed to me that she was partially responsible for his elevation."
"How so?"
Mon Mothma paused for a moment and Leia suddenly remembered that the two women had to be careful of what they said. "Remember what I said before. Palpatine is very persuasive. That is what makes him such an excellent politician."
Leia nodded, understanding Mon Mothma's meaning. Padme had been manipulated by the disfigured Sith Lord. "I still don't understand what this has to do with me," Leia replied. She did not need a history lesson to tell her that Emperor Palpatine was dangerous.
"Near the onset of the Clone Wars, I was elected to a Senate position," Mon Mothma continued as though Leia had not even spoken. "There was a Separatist movement forming within the Republic and some wished to openly rush into war. Others, like Amidala, wished to settle the problems through negotiations. Although Amidala was actually a bit younger than me, I looked up to her as a seasoned politician from whom I could take my cues. She became a mentor to me, even though her politics were not quite as radical as were mine. But," Mon Mothma paused and Leia realized that these memories were painful for the older woman to tell. "There was a death threat on her life and Amidala left Coruscant and returned to the safety of Naboo. When she came back, she had changed." Mon Mothma's face was expressionless, but Leia could detect a note of sadness in her voice.
"What do you mean?"
"Although she never told me outright, I believe it was during this time that she fell in love."
"Doesn't love change everyone?" Leia asked.
"Yes. And not always for the better. She became very secretive and completely changed her position on the impeding war, even fighting in the first battle of the Clone War. That war effectively ended the Republic by giving Palpatine the ultimate power of Emperor."
"But surely she," Leia indicated the holo on the datapad, "wasn't responsible for the entire Clone War."
"No, of course not. But her focus was not where it needed to be. During the Clone War, she was not the Senator that I formerly knew. She was distracted. Her secret romance began to consume her life."
"Who was he?"
Mon Mothma hesitated for a moment. "If I gave you a name, it would be mere speculation. No one knew who the father was."
"The father?"
"Amidala ended up in a very compromising position for a Senator, unwed and pregnant. She tried to hide it, but near the end that became impossible. It was quite the scandal and rumors flew across the Senate. By that point, Amidala had effectively lost all political power. She really should have resigned as Senator before anyone knew about the child and hidden herself in Naboo until it was born. It would have saved more than just her reputation."
"Why? What happened to her and her child?"
Mon Mothma sighed. "Directly after the Emperor dissolved the Republic, the Separatist leaders were wiped out by his new apprentice, Darth Vader. The official report is that Amidala was found to be one of them and died at the hand of Darth Vader."
Leia felt ill. "The official report?"
"Amidala was never a Separatist. She actually supported the war against them, for a time. There were many other rumors surrounding her death. Some believed that her child was the product of a tryst with a Jedi and that she was killed as part of the Jedi purges. Some believed that she had not really died but had gone into hiding in the Outer Rim. Some believed she died in childbirth and that the baby was secreted away by the royal house of Naboo. Some believe she was Palpatine's consort and he killed her to prevent his child from one day attempting to usurp his power."
"What do you think happened?" Leia asked feeling appalled at the last rumor.
"I think that it doesn't matter. Whatever the reason, Amidala ended up dead. I already told you that you remind me of her, from her younger days when I first knew her. You have the same fire and drive that she did. Do not waste that by naively falling in with some like Ethan Grammon," Mon Mothma said, holding her gaze steady on Leia
Leia wanted to protest that she was not going to do anything as drastic as immediately fall into bed with Ethan or even worse, allow him to influence her politically. But perhaps Mon Mothma was right. In uncertain times, discretion probably was best. Besides, Ethan was interesting and charming, but she certainly was not in love with him. He was little more than a teenage infatuation. And that was something a woman in Leia's position, no matter what her age, could not afford. Leia nodded, looking down at her hands. "I understand."
"Leia, you are a brilliant young woman. I am pleased to be working beside you," Mon Mothma said, causing Leia to lift her head up in surprise. For a woman who was normally cold and distant the compliment had been warm and generous. "Now, it is late and I am sure you need to be going to bed." Mon Mothma got up and began to move towards the door.
"Thank you for your visit," Leia said as she followed her guest to the door. "And for the advice," she added softly.
Mon Mothma merely nodded as she walked out the door.
Looking down at the datapad in her hands, Leia felt tears well up in her eyes as she thought about the fate of this young woman. The story hit her harder than she thought it would; Leia could almost feel the pain and sorrow the woman had felt. Brushing at her eyes, Leia quickly deleted the memory file on the datapad. She wanted to forget that pain and that face.
Tossing the datapad on a side table, Leia headed straight for bed, realizing along the way that Winter would get a shockingly different account of the night than Leia had intended to give her.
4 years later
"Leia, do you remember your mother? Your real mother?"
Leia furrowed her brow. Luke had been acting weird even since he met up with them at the rendezvous point. She wondered what her mother had to do with his mood. "Not really, she died when I was very young." Leia had always known she was adopted, but the Organas had told her very little about her birth mother except that she died when Leia was still an infant.
"What do you remember?"
"Just images really, feelings." Leia was not even sure the things she felt counted as memories. When she thought about her birth mother, a vague feeling welled up within her; a feeling of love and pain, joy and sorrow. She did not know what it meant. However, at that moment as she thought about the mother she had never really known, Leia remembered the face of a beautiful woman with dark hair and sad brown eyes. She knew she had seen the face before, but she had no recollection of where or how. Despite the fact that the Organas had never given her a holo of her mother, Leia suddenly realized that this face was her mother. "She was beautiful and kind," Leia heard herself tell Luke. "But sad somehow. Why do you ask?"
"I have no memory of my mother. I never knew her."
The End