A/N: So, this too. Formerly this story was known as Hallelujah, and it's been changed some since then. This was written awhile ago. I'm sure it was on here at some point, so technically, probably, this is a re-upload. I hope you still enjoy. I feel like it's worth preserving.
"You look just like her," he reminds her softly. Every time he appears he reminds her.
She ignores him with expertise that speaks of many days practice.
She is familiar with presence. More so than she would like to be. It seems he's always here with her now. Always there when she's alone; when she is away from everyone, even Luke. Always saying things she doesn't care to hear, and always asking for the one thing she cannot give him. She will not give him it. Not yet anyway.
Work for it, Anakin. Wait for it. She thinks to herself ruefully.
"You ignore me just like her too." He baits her. Somehow he understands her more than she will ever be comfortable with. It sets her teeth on edge.
She finally looks up from her work. Senator Leia Organa Solo, elected official of New Alderaan, knows that these important papers will never get done unless she acknowledges him in some sort of way. He is a persistent bantha fly just like Luke, only worse. And, unlike Luke, the ghost of Anakin Skywalker is not exactly welcome in her world.
She composes herself for a moment before sighing, "I wouldn't know." Her response is clipped and distant. She avoids looking at the specter. A part of her is still a bit intimidated by him, but mostly she just hates looking at his eyes. They are too much like her sweet brother's. Too intense, too all-seeing. They make her uncomfortable. Instead she gazes pointedly down to the desk she is sitting at.
He is silent for a moment, probably lost in his own thoughts. Then she feels (how does she feel it?) rather than actually sees the ghostly vision smile. She isn't looking, but she knows it is almost a boyish smile. Had it been gracing anyone else's face then the upturn of his lips might have been charming. In his current state the dead man haunting her appeared no older than twenty-three at the most. Younger than her own galaxy weary body by four years.
"You would have loved her, Leia." He speaks so wistfully anytime he mentions Padmé Amidala to her.
Mother, Leia thinks oddly. She is still unaccustomed to anyone other than Breha Organa, the woman who died long before the destruction of old Alderaan, holding that distinction. Leia knew it would be unfair to not acknowledge her birth mother, however. After all, the former senator of Naboo had done nothing ill to her - other than leaving her, but those feelings were best left for another day.
"I would have," she nods slowly, biting her bottom lip in contemplation. She hates to admit he is right on anything, but on this one subject the two of them can agree. If Amidala was anything like the history books taught her than she would have adored her birth mother beyond comprehension. Leia wished to be more like her, more like the memory of the dead woman. Yet it seemed fate had left all of her biological mother's grace and light to Luke and had left Leia with...
Things could have been different. So different. I would have loved her so much! But you didn't let me, did you? Leia cannot help herself from thinking. She is still gazing down at the desk, but her gaze grows harsher with each passing moment. She doesn't immediately realize she is projecting loudly.
I would have loved her and she would have loved me, but you killed her. You stole her from me. She thinks to herself fiercely, for a moment letting the angry flames of injustice fill her tired body.
Anakin hears her, and as if falling into perfect sync with her she feels his own temper rise as a fire within him begins to grow.
"And Organa stole you from me." He says aloud, never one to hold back his feelings, not even in death. Still he is as fiery as a lava planet. He points his finger accusingly at her, as if daring her to challenge what he sees as irrefutable fact.
She finally stares at him, her eyes aggressive, like burning brimstone. She is made from the same fire rock as him, deep down she knows this.
Anakin Skywalker will never truly understand, no matter how long he lingers. Just like with so many other things, this time he is so wrong as well. She wasn't stolen, she was saved.
He stands there, his own fierce flame radiating through the Force like a stifling inferno, and hers much the same, just as bright and passionate and furious.
I am too much like you. Something in the Force ripples.
You are too much like me. Something answers back.
She seethes at him (the scars of the death of her father, Bail, still fresh on her ever hurting heart) and silently she attempts she fights the torrid of her anger that he is so readily fanning. I won't be consumed with hatred like you. I'm not like you. She repeats to herself, hoping if she thinks it enough it will make the words true and then she will have nothing to fear.
She speaks quickly before he can intrude in on her thoughts again, "My father, Bail Organa," she says clearly, proudly, in a way she hopes cuts the long-dead man a little. She relishes almost cruelly in seeing him flinch ever-so slightly. She no longer wants to holds back her true nature. With her hostility fully untethered she finds the courage to raise her head high (like a Princess) as she looks at him and she announces yet again the fact that he can never ever change, (and that scars your shriveled soul, doesn't it, Anakin?) "He loved me. He loved me more than you ever could. More than you were ever capable of."
She sees something that looks like true and honest hurt flash in his stormy blue eyes. Like Luke's. Not like Luke's. She focuses on the difference, that way she can feel accomplished.
Adding for extra measure, "And he protected me from monsters like you and your precious Emperor."
He clenches his hands into white knuckled fists. Had this been once upon a time, and had he actually been alive Leia would have felt as much fear as she currently did rage.
But times change, and evil dies, and little girls grow up.
"I am your father." The anger is there, most definitely there is anger still lurking within him. The same anger that was there when she was but a child standing in for her father on behalf of Alderaan in the senate as she openly opposed and lobbied for any and everything Vader and the Empire supported. That kind of distinct anger is present, but so is something else. Something like desperation. Something like remorse. Something like I love you and I will always love you even if you don't believe it, but by gods you drive me insane!
And lastly there is a silent plea written on his face; Forgive me.
No. Her signature replies back firmly. She cannot. Not today.
And suddenly, she wants him to leave. She knows how to get him to go. "You may be Luke's, but you will never be my father." And maybe if she were more like her brother she would have cried or at least let out a small sob at the utter look of hopelessness and despair that crossed the handsome ghost's face.
But she is not Luke, and of this she is fine with. It makes snarling with venom at this broken, pathetic man easier. Yet every moment he lingers the more her resolve wavers and she begins to feel an awful lot like her tender hearted brother.
She needs him gone. Now. Before any weakness shows. Leia hates weakness. "I hate you." And a part of her, a large part of her even, means it to her very core. Because Leia Organa Solo knows hate. She knows it so very well.
The projection from the force slowly pulls himself together. The rage, the sadness, everything drains from him as he seems to find his center once more. She hates him more still. She wants his anger, she wants to goad him and make him feel all the rage she is feeling. But he is a Jedi and she is just an angry, lost, twice over orphan girl from a long gone planet. Suddenly, she feels small again.
Anakin nods, stiffly. Then, defiantly, with an air of confidence that only Leia herself could match on one of her best days, Anakin Skywalker declares as he bows to take his leave, "I will wait forever if need be." He then dissolves back to where he came from leaving in his wake only the echos of his final stubborn words; "Forever, Leia."
This is one promise he will actually try to keep, she knows.
She is alone again. For this she is both glad and miserable as she slouches in her chair, attempting to lessen the stress and let the tension ebb from her aching body.
Cradling her head in her hands, "You will be waiting forever then," she tells thin air with a disquiet heart, not knowing if he will hear her wherever he is.
By herself once more she stares blankly at her work papers but finds herself unable to pick up the pen before her. Instead her mind races with many thoughts and many more emotions. For the millionth time she curses him for passing on such unstable and erratic genetics.
She knows tomorrow he will be back and the circle will continue until the day she tells him what he seems to need to hear.
She hates him, and maybe she always will. Though he wanted her love, he wasn't directly asking for it. He merely wanted her forgiveness. Forgiveness for every wrong he had ever done to her and to her people and to her loved ones.
Luke could give him his forgiveness, so why couldn't she?
One day, I might. She admits silently as she distractedly begins to get back to her task at hand. One day, but not soon.
Pathetically she feels a her eyes begin to water slightly, and she wonders why.
She knows why.
Leia smiles bitterly through the blurry vision of her brown eyes.
Amidala's brown eyes.
She almost wants to laugh hysterically at the absurdities of her ever changing emotions. Another lovely Skywalker hand-me-down, Luke called it.
Anakin's mental instability.
Though more than a few tears flow from her eyes she doesn't completely break. She holds back the river of emotions that want so desperately to overtake her. To swallow her whole and drag her down to the depths where there is no light. She is stronger than that, she tells herself, all the while sniffling.
She is stronger than he ever was. A part of her feels something that almost hurts like a sharp pang of pity for him. Anakin Skywalker was a weak man who was manipulated to make bad decisions and do horrible things. Still he was far from innocent. Even in the afterlife his hands were stained red and could never be washed clean.
Leia knows deep down in her heart one day she will forgive him, but it won't be today and it won't be tomorrow or the day after tomorrow or the day after that. It will be on her own sweet time.
I will wait forever if need be. His words replay over in her brain on a constant loop.
And Leia knows he will. He will wait for however long it takes. He's stubborn just like Luke in that way. Just like herself.
Wait then. We both have nothing but time to heal. Time to attempt to fix what you so expertly destroyed.
I'll need a lot of time, Anakin.
And though Bail Organa will always be her father, maybe one day far from now when battle wounds are a bit scabbed and hearts aren't so raw, Anakin Skywalker can be, too.
In time, maybe.