Author's note: Thanks for the kindness so far. If you have questions, issues to debate, feel free to post them. I'll respond to all of them and have fun with them. This story gets very philosophical and very intense at times.
A gasp escaped them both as their arms entwined around each other, pulling themselves into an embrace that had waited too long.
Leia gasped at the contact, at the surge of energy that she'd forgotten to miss in his absence, and at the sudden remembrance that she was still capable of feeling alive. Her arms hooked around his waist as her face buried itself in his tunic, relieved to find the coarse material against her skin.
Luke's gasp, however, was the agonized intake of breath of someone who hadn't meant to reveal their suffering.
"Luke," she repeated, voice a hoarse whisper. "What..."
"It's nothing," he insisted. "Rough night..."
But she had smelled something unnatural in the fibers of his tunic. Before he could protest any further, her fingers found the fastenings for the tunic and undid them quickly, pulling the fabric away.
"Don't..."
He stopped at the look on her face, which must have been comparable to the horrified stare that had accompanied the realization that he was the son of Vader. She certainly felt a wave of equal revulsion.
The burn patterns were irregular, as if maniacal rather than methodical torture. In places the skin had blistered; in others the blisters had ruptured. The worst were charred marks with bright red spots where the third-degree burns showed coagulated blood just below the surface.
"In the name of..." she breathed.
"'If you will not turn, you will be destroyed,'" he said quietly, pulling her hand away, but not letting go of it.
"He didn't succeed, though," she observed.
He nodded, face strangely blank. "This," he murmured, "is the price I paid to bring your brother back to you."
She wanted to do something, anything, to ease even the slightest amount of the pain that he had to be feeling, but since she had as much Force-power as a shorted-out control panel, she could only reach out with a trembling hand to touch his face, where she could be sure that he had not been burned. His cheek turned, leaning into her touch, indulging her that tactile comfort at least for the moment.
"Was it worth it?" she asked quietly.
"More than I can ever explain," he confirmed. "More than you will be able to understand."
"Help me," she requested, hand tracing downwards to rest against his heart.
He was obviously hesitant, didn't want to face the memories of last night, much less let her experience them as well, but at last he nodded. His hand reached up to cup her cheek and with that contact, half a dozen images flooded her mind.
Luke, writhing under a barrage of lightning that leapt from gnarled hands and a twisted soul as Vader watched impassively. Vader, just as impassively, seizing the Emperor and throwing him down the reactor shaft. Luke pulling him back from the edge of the shaft, collapsing under the weight to lay, breathless, in his father's embrace. Luke's hands, trembling with fearful gentleness as he disengaged the mask...
She shook her head, driving the possibility of any further explanation from her mind. Misunderstanding the gesture, he drew back, a distinctly injured look on his face.
"You have to unders..."
She shook her head again. "Sorry," she said sincerely. "I wasn't prepared to realize that you were right."
His eyes drifted closed and she seemed to hear the echo of a thought on the wind.
"Tell your sister you were right..."
"How?"
"There was enough good in him to do what was necessary," she explained. "For that, I am grateful."
He let out a shuddering breath, then let his mouth curve slightly in a smile.
We've just won the war. Why does it feel like we all have to learn happiness from scratch?
"Han's in debriefing," she said unnecessarily.
"Undoubtedly, trying to explain why you've been waiting for me to come back to Endor," he guessed.
"Something like that," she responded.
For a long moment, he was silent, his eyes focused on a point somewhere over her shoulder. Usually, this look tended to disconcert her, but there was something about the moment that gave her an unusual peace, as if calm had blanketed her mind.
"Do you trust me?" he queried.
"Always," she said instinctively.
Automatically, the cynical part of her that had awakened in the long hours of not knowing where he was or if he was still faithful to the reason he had left her reminded that she could hardly trust him if she had no answers to these questions.
He, however, had been the one to teach her how to trust again in the long months following Alderaan. He had not changed, even if she had.
Trust was not a matter of second-guessing this time around.
"Come with me," was his only request.
He did not dare to say a single word about the events of last night in the three hours that it took for them to reach the clearing.
It wasn't for lack of effort on her part. He asked many questions, drawing the sheepish story out of her memory with a series of heartfelt inquiries that were both teasing and concerned. She answered as best she could, endeavoring with ridiculous levity to draw a smile out of him. Usually, any mention of C-3PO in a battle setting would make him grin and shake his head, since he had at least twice as many stories as she about the fastidious protocol droid. At the very least, he would have rolled his eyes and started a new sentence with the words, "If you think that's bad..."
Instead, the entire trip was more of a one-sided conversation, verbally and emotionally. He took the account seriously, nodding at times, but on the whole treating it as a debriefing rather than an amiable story-telling.
As the sun climbed to its zenith, his hand snaked out to wrap around hers unexpectedly, the most affectionate thing he'd done since leaving the village. She shifted her hand, cradling his gently.
"How did you..." He hesitated, still not daring to look at her. "How did what I told you affect things?"
It changed everything and you left me with a crazy urge to chase after you or take a long jump off that bridge. If Han hadn't been willing to hold me without needing to know why, I might have.
"I tried not to let it," she said instead. "Han didn't know what was going on, only that I needed to be held."
"Like the second anniversary," Luke mused.
She stared, unsure of how he had found out about that, since he'd been on the other side of the Galaxy at that point. Undoubtedly, Han had told him something about the second anniversary of Alderaan's destruction, when she had expected to celebrate the memorial alone and instead, he had arrived with the necessary supplies and the urge to help.
Well, the desire to help. He had been unable to find the Alderaanian green on such short notice, but somehow, his contacts had a bottle of hrashi. Hrashi was a strongly fermented drink that had hallucinogenic effects if consumed more than a little at a time. They'd poured one glass and taken the smallest of sips, wincing sympathetically in the hopes that the small amount wouldn't make them think that nerfs were coming through the viewport.
She remembered little of what ensued, except that it had taken four hours to get through the thirty minutes of memorial prayers and that she had spent a great deal of the time sobbing rather pathetically in the arms of a man she had sworn was nothing but a callous mercenary.
They had been at odds, barely avoiding slugging matches for a year by then, but it was the first time in a while that she had been allowed to consider him as the friend she had made on a Death Star.
In hindsight, it might have been the first indication that she had that he considered her as more than a friend.
"Pretty much," she admitted, "minus the drunken hysteria."
"Pity," he deadpanned. "The mission might have gone better if you were too drunk to care about diplomacy."
Great to hear that sense of humor, now say it as if you still have a heart in there. You're scaring me. You don't have to tell me everything, just tell me what I'm supposed to do to help you right now. I don't feel as if I can even find you through all the darkness that's surrounding your mind.
"I wish," he murmured at last, "that I could have stayed with you."
"Me, too," she admitted. "It was hard enough to face the battle without knowing that you were about to be killed by the father I never knew I had."
"I had no idea if I'd ever see you again," he explained, voice still flat. "I couldn't leave without explaining things to you."
"If I don't make it back, you're the only hope for the Alliance." "Luke, don't talk that way!"
"I know," she assured him.
He rounded a tree, with her close behind, and they both stopped, breath freezing in their throats.
She could sense no malice from him, but she could feel nothing at all in the first place coming off of his mind, so she couldn't be sure that the Imperial shuttle in the clearing wasn't evidence of a betrayal.
Stop thinking this way. There's a perfectly good explanation for why he's afraid to talk about what happened to him on the Death Star. Are you sure he's not afraid of what he did on the Death Star? Maybe both.
"I thought you trusted me," he observed.
I've trusted you since the moment a vertically-challenged stormtrooper told me "I'm Luke Skywalker. I'm here to rescue you." Why should I stop now? Why have I stopped now?
"I trust you," she forced herself to say, forcing her mind to wrap around the idea and make it reality, "but you're not giving me any explanations."
Not about yesterday, not about where you were between the moment the Death Star evaporated and this morning, not about why you've brought me here.
"I had to steal one," Luke explained into the silence. "Even walkers of skies have problems with the atmosphere."
Her laugh surprised her, since she hadn't been able to muster that kind of positive emotional energy since the moment Luke had stated, "He is my father." It was something she almost thought she'd forgotten how to do.
And finally, when she looked over at his face, there was a smile there.
"Sorry," she said genuinely, "I think I'm just another victim of Imperial reality."
He did not speak, did not laugh with her, only sucked in a breath of remembrance and something like trepidation. She knew his sense of Imperial reality would have him clenching his right hand as he always had in the months since Bespin. It was the same reflexive motion that raised her hand to the diagonal slash of a scar beneath her cheek every time she spoke of her time on the Death Star.
The counselor that she had seen at Dodonna's request following Alderaan had talked about "trauma-wiring," the instinctive defenses that abuse and fear provided for the mind in order to cope with the extraordinary effects of what had been done to you. Certain responses to memory were pre-programmed to prevent further suffering.
Even before she had ever heard the name Anakin Skywalker, she had begun to turn instinctively to Luke in response to trauma. She surmised that half of her difficulties following Bespin had arisen from the fact that, on the long trip from Hoth, she had allowed Han to enter into her defensive programming. The bond to Luke had never quite been the same after that, but he had kept her just as prevalently as his first line of defense.
He knew all-too-well what she meant.
"I know," he said quietly.
Her hand traced a line across his cheekbone. "I was afraid you left your sense of humor on the Death Star."
He nodded. "I left a lot of things there."
"But not my brother," she countered. "You brought him back."
"Which is why you must trust me," he insisted.
You're starting to resemble my best friend again. I think that helps.
"Always," she promised.
Letting out a sigh, he released her hand and without another word, strode across the clearing to the shuttle. She followed with measure steps, forcing her breath to come steadily.
He waited at the top of the ramp, hand extended. "Your blaster?"
She stopped short. What do you think I'll need it for? What exactly do you have in there?
Her arms remained at her sides, neither reaching for her blaster nor offering it to him. "Imperial reality," she repeated quietly. "I trust you, but I need my own assurances."
His eyes closed and she could sense him summoning his strength not to argue the point. Finally, his eyes snapped open and he nodded curtly.
"Come with me," he requested.
Leia followed him silently to a cabin adjoining the cargo hold, which was a rarity on lambda-class shuttles. These were typically used for transport rather than comfort, so any quarters had to be a special modification.
Or perhaps this was the medical bay.
The door hissed open and her brain half-expected to see Lord Vader stalking towards her, hand outstretched to crush her throat.
Stop being ridiculous.
Instead, the room was dark, the only noise coming from the gentle hiss of an oxygen mask. Luke crossed the room in four strides, then murmured something she could not hear distinctly before returning to her side. Against her better judgment, she stepped into the room, allowing him to pass and bring the lights up to a dim glow.
Her eyes first sought out the mask, finding it covering thin, pale lips and a strong jawline. There was considerable scarring along the jaw and roping up across the cheekbones beneath the closed eyes. The skull was bare, but not shaven. Her eyes swept down a powerful torso and strong arms to where the right arm ended in a truncated mass of wires.
She did not, however, recognize the man until the eyes flickered open.
Even then, she only recognized them because they were the same eyes she saw every time she looked at Luke.
"He is my father." Father. Vader.
She stumbled back, hand scrabbling desperately for the blaster that was no longer there.
Ohsithohsithohsithohsith…
She whirled to find Luke casually placing it in his own holster.
For all his talk of trust, it had been a trap.
A shriek escaped her throat as she tackled him, hands beating at his shoulders and face as she screamed words that she couldn't understand or explain. He didn't respond, only pinned her and dragged her bodily from the cabin, letting the door slide shut behind them.
She pushed away, the force of her shove slamming her into the door, but it did not stop her from lunging again.
She didn't notice that her blaster had returned to his hand before his casual betrayal erupted in a blue flash and tormented unconsciousness.
Something was wrong. Luke had not denied it on the On the eve of battle, with her nerves jangling and his silence a torment to them both, she followed him out of the gathering hut where they had pled their case before the Ewoks in order to ask him again sometime. The noises of celebration faded into the mist that wound its way lazily through the trees, but she did not take time to notice, only drifted in the path of the mist until her unhesitating steps led her to her friend's side. On a night like this, with time to herself, she would be looking to the stars for comfort or answers, but Luke was pointedly avoiding the gaze of the durasteel watcher in the sky. He looked down into the abyss of the forest below, but not as if contemplating making an abrupt reunion with the ground. His expression suggested, instead, that he understood the darkness beyond. Perhaps he did, more than she could explain. The second Death Star terrified all of them, but there was something about the people on board that seemed to turn his mind into molten lava. This was no great surprise, since she had been at Bespin and knew how fervently Lord Vader had sought after young Skywalker. Against her better judgment, she had stayed at his side in the long night following their frantic rescue of him, listening to his whimpering questions. She couldn't ask what Ben Kenobi had failed to tell him that had tormented him in the night after facing down Lord Vader, but he had never mentioned it in his waking hours. And she could not bring herself to ask him to bring the demons from his dreams into his conscious reality. She could only offer silent support in those first days of fevered torment. Tonight, however, she could not let the silence endure. She had to draw the words from his mouth, let him give voice to his fears so that they would be left on this bridge and not be carried with him into battle. "Luke, what's wrong?" His head came up as he turned to face her, but it was a long moment before his eyes cleared and focused on her. "Leia." He was regarding her as if he'd never seen her before. No, not as if he'd never seen her before. It was as if she resembled someone that he had never before recognized. He opened his mouth, then seemed to hesitate, but her hand went to his arm and he let out a shuddering sigh of something like relief. "Do you remember your mother?" She remembered too well, remembered a thousand nights of laughter and empathy that had been cut short during her time in the Senate by a senseless attack. She remembered smiling eyes and shared confidences… "Your real mother?" he clarified. Her stream of consciousness stopped dead in its tracks. Long ago, she had confessed that she was a Princess by upbringing, but not by birth. It was not common knowledge on Alderaan, since Bail had legally claimed her as his heir in her naming ceremony, but at times, she knew too well that she was not his. The mother who had died before Leia could begin to remember her voice was rarely spoken of and Luke, after her admission, had never broached the subject again. Until tonight. "Just a little," she confessed. "She died when I was very young." "Tell me." The urgent pleading in his voice was unusual, especially for a man who had been competently raised by hard-working farmers. Just as she never spoke of her first mother, he rarely spoke of the fact that he was an orphan. Facing this challenge, however, seemed to be draining him of all the protective energies that he had been given. So, instead, she shared the protection of a smile she could barely remember and a love that was undeniable, even without proof. "She was…" He let out an almost inaudible sigh, slumping in a kind of relief at the meager offering. "Luke," she pressed gently, "tell me. What's troubling you?" His hand covered hers, but it was trembling and provided no warmth. Neither did the haunted eyes that met hers a moment later. "Vader's here," he explained, "now, on this moon." Her instinct was to shy away, as if his knowledge gave him a connection to the Dark Lord himself. As soon as she had quashed this impulse, a nervous panic set in. All was lost before they had even joined the battle. "How do you know?" she queried, forcing her voice to remain steady. "I can feel his presence." If it had been her, that would have been half of the explanation already. "He can feel when I'm near," he continued. "That's why I have to go. As long as I stay, I'm endangering the group and our mission." It was a rehearsed speech, not to her, but in order to convince himself that he wasn't completely insane for thinking this way. It did nothing to convince her, though. "I have to face him." "Why?" She hadn't meant to voice the question, but her incredulity could not restrain it. Once again, he was looking anywhere but at her. "Because he is my father." And just like that, with five words, the other half of the explanation fell into place. The six months of nightmares and daytime tremors, the reason why he had spent so much time attuning himself to the Force… All was stated in those five words, but they only brought more questions. She half-wanted to draw away, to keep herself illogically as far away from the son of Vader as she could get, but logic took over in time for her to refrain from committing that crime. He was the son of Skywalker and somehow, Skywalker had become Vader. That was the extent of his legacy, nothing more. "Your "There's more," he pressed on, stalwart in this madness. "It won't be easy for you to hear, but you must. If I don't come back, you're the only hope for the Alliance." This time, she did jerk away, pushing to her feet as her cheeks flamed with frustration. "Luke," she snapped, "don't talk that way." She was commanding him to be silent a mere five minutes after resolving to talk this out with him. "You have a power…" "…That I don't understand and could never have." He was rarely this audacious, but when he believed strongly enough in something, it would manifest itself. "You have that power, too." Her breath stopped altogether. "In time, you'll learn to use it as I have." "The Force is strong in my family," he said, almost in a whisper. "My father has it, I have it, and…" He locked gazes with her and the intensity would have terrified her, but there was something strangely comforting in the earnestness of that stare. "My sister has it." Her lips parted to respond a full second before she realized that she had no quick retort to that statement. The statement, the implication of her parentage, should have brought bile to the back of her throat instead of words, but instead, her mind forgot the fact that their father was her enemy and locked in on one thought. "Yes," he confirmed. "It's you, Leia." A dozen images of the involuntary comforts that they had offered each other by instinct rather than request, of the holo where Han had sworn they'd learned how to smile from each other, of the way that his voice had called her back to Bespin rose to her mind. It was the only logical explanation. "I know," she confessed. "Somehow, I've always known." He nodded. "Then, you know why I must confront him." "NO!" She stepped in, leaning against his arm with her hand. "Luke, run away," she pleaded. "Far away. If he can feel your presence, then leave this place." "I wish I could go with you."
"Very beautiful," she finished the thought. "Kind, but sad."
He was on his feet now as well. "You're wrong, Leia."
His gaze kept drifting, as if he could not bear to look at her. What is so troubling about the idea that I can share this sort of burden with you?
She came to, half-expecting to hear the thrum of the hyperdrive against her back, but the shuttle was still.
The arm cradling her against Luke's chest, however, was not. It trembled as if it were a great strain to bear her as a burden. Perhaps it was.
Her mind caught up quickly to why she was regaining consciousness in the first place and her back arched as her legs scrabbled for purchase on the deck. Luke set her down gently and she twisted on the spot to move away from him, hissing as she would at a predator.
"Easy," Luke requested. "You have nothing to fear from me."
She laughed shortly, but it was nothing like the burst of humor that she had finally let loose earlier.
"You shot me…"
"With a stun bolt…"
"After making me promise to trust you…"
"And you said you did…"
"With my own blaster!" she finished angrily.
He had no quick protest to answer that and she almost smirked.
"I didn't want to hurt you," he said and she was surprised to find that she believed him, "but I can't let you kill him."
"Why not?" she spat. "He was more than willing to kill me."
"Vader was," he agreed, "but your father…"
"My father died on Alderaan," she said flatly. "That monster, that thing is not him."
He blanched, the strongest demonstration of emotion that she'd seen on him since he had asked about her mother on a bridge among the Ewoks.
"You're wrong," he stated quietly.
"That's not for you to decide," she shot back.
Silently, he placed her blaster on the deck and slid it across to her, then stood. "I trust you," he admitted, "but if you attack him, I will have to defend him again."
Apparently, he'd lost his priorities on the Death Star and they were there with his mind.
So, instead of attacking, she set up her own defense, thumbing her commlink on and dialing it before he could stop her.
"Han," she said breathlessly, "you'd better not have turned this thing off or I'll have your head on a durasteel charger…"
"Charming as always," Han laughed. "To what do I owe the honor of this call?"
"I need a favor."
He sighed dramatically. "A go-blow-up-another-Death-Star favor or the extra pair of socks variety?"
A favor that I hoped I'd never have to ask you.
"Somewhere in between," she said shortly. "I need backup. I need to make an arrest and I can't…"
Trust.
"…Ask Luke to be my only support," she finished.
"How many?"
"You and three others," she requested. "Try to keep it to Wedge, Rieekan, and Chewie. I'm not sure who else I can trust this far."
"Fair enough," he grunted, sounding extremely curious, but trusting her enough to wait for an explanation. "We'll be there before you can start to miss us."
-
The morning seemed to have grown unnaturally cold in the short time she'd spent on the shuttle.
No, not short time. There was no telling how long the stun blast had kept her under and Luke could have kept her unconscious as long as necessary. He'd done it once when she'd been wounded on a mission and he certainly had more incentive to keep her subdued at the moment.
Why not keep me under sedation, in that case? What does he have to gain from this?
She tucked her hands into the long sleeves of her dress, arms pressed just below her ribcage, but did not dare to approach Luke as she left the shuttle. He didn't move, either, only stared at her with a horrified inability to recognize the woman she'd become.
"Why?"
She didn't answer directly, only lifted one hand to run pointedly along the scar on her cheek, then down the length of her nose. He would remember that both the gash that caused the scar and the broken nose had been inflicted by Vader in his less accommodating moments.
"Imperial reality," she echoed her earlier sentiments.
He approached, his gait about as threatening as an Ewok's waddle, but the gloved hand that he wrapped around hers was its own silent accusation.
"I have my own Imperial reality," he reminded, "but I'm not the one who wanted to commit patricide in there."
"I'd have committed patricide if he were my father," she retorted acerbically, the acid words fueled by the bile rising in her throat. "Unfortunately for your accusation, my father was killed with Alderaan."
Often, when she went on this sort of tirade, he would calm her by saying, "You know you don't mean that."
This time, she was absurdly grateful that he didn't try.
"He's turned," he offered lamely, desperately. "Why won't you let mercy take its course as I have?"
"'Forgiveness precedes justice only when there is sincere repentance,'" she quoted Bail. "I'll give him enough opportunities to be a penitent, but there must be justice."
Just not vigilante justice.
"What do you intend to do?" he asked, rather unnecessarily.
He knew exactly what she intended to do.
"There must be justice," she repeated quietly, pulling her hand out of his grip.
"You want justice, but you're willing to be his murderer?" he asked incredulously. "Where is the justice in that?"
"I was prepared to fire on an enemy, not a father," she snapped. "I didn't think…"
"I'm not talking about that," he shot back. "If you're demanding justice, you are demanding a trial."
"It's the least he deserves," she pronounced, forcing her voice to return to a normal timbre. "It's only what his victims deserve."
"It will only end in death," Luke responded in kind.
She nodded, but could not bring herself to refute his claim. He was probably repeating the words in his head, over and over again.
"It's the least he deserves."
"Why do you think," she inquired softly, "that I chose and restricted every person who will come to this place? I did not choose the vigilantes or the ones who deserved to hold the blaster barrel to his head. I chose those who I could trust to be more cool-headed than I am about this matter."
This, at the very least, seemed to appease him slightly, but the thought that, if they chose to be less than cool-headed, they were also the first she would trust to eliminate the enemy twisted her stomach into a knot of molten lead.
"I hate…"
Him.
"…This," she finished.
He didn't ask for an explanation of what 'this' was or why she hated it with such force that it made her eyes sting, only nodded.
"I hate what it's doing to us already," he added.
She looked away, letting her hands drop to her sides, leaving her defenseless and open. It was classic diplomatic body language that she rarely allowed herself to use. Luke had seen it often enough to know that it was her sign of a cease fire.
I hate that I feel I can't trust you right now. I hate that I am proud to be your sister, but afraid of what that might mean. I hate the kind of blindness that you are already asking of me in the name of our family.
"Someone call for a ride?"
Han's voice startled her, but she took it in stride, crossing to embrace him tightly before pressing a brief, grateful kiss to his lips.
"I thought you'd never come," she said honestly, leaving enough of a teasing tone in her voice to rob it of any accusatory effects.
His gaze took in Luke's rather uncharacteristic stance, the frustrated agitation on his face. He hadn't been able to see his friend since they had gathered in the Ewok village, but now was not a time for questions.
"Don't worry," he responded. "We'll do our best to make up for lost time."
"You seem to be in a bit of a hurry," Rieekan greeted her with a frown and a kiss on the forehead. "Is everything all right?"
Implied in the tone was the chastisement that the dawn of victory was no time to be having panic attacks, but as was typical with Rieekan, he didn't even let that show in his face, much less voice the opinion. Having grown up with this man a near-permanent resident of the Palace, however, she didn't need him to do so.
Luke had confused her, Han had inspired a sense of relief, but Rieekan simply made her homesick for all things familiar and just.
I want to go home, Carlist.
Han was watching her closely, knowing that she might well admit to Rieekan things that he would never hear from her own lips and hoping that the four words that he had used to conclude his thought would force her to give some explanations.
Those four words, however, were Rieekan's only reliable way of leaving the invitation to impart of her experience open. It would be easy to hastily claim that she was fine, but she rarely took the easy way out.
Luke was watching her as well, brow furrowed, eyes haunted already by the terror of what she had not yet done. His reasons for fearing her answer were both a galaxy apart and too closely related for comfort to Han's motivations.
Wedge and Chewie seemed to be taking things in stride, as expected. Wookiees were known for their violent tendencies, but Leia had come to recognize that the old excuse of "only when provoked" seemed to actually hold true for Han's personal upholstery. Wedge was simply experienced enough in dealing with Imperial surrenders and charged situations to be trusted with this sort of operation.
She had chosen those she could trust to do the right thing because she had no idea if her heart knew what the right thing to do was at this moment.
"No," was her simple response after an inordinate amount of hesitation.
You're upholding and sustaining both the law and the spirit of justice. Why are you even wondering if you're becoming your own enemy?
His hand squeezed her shoulder gently. "Should we go inside to change that?"
She shook her head rather sharply, arms still pressed to her abdomen. "You need some warning," she explained. "It's more than I got, but it's what needs to be said."
She caught Luke's half-guilty, half-apologetic expression, but could not summon the energy to return it, only acknowledged it with an inclination of the head.
"We have no time for our sorrows, Commander."
"Out with it," Han encouraged, moving to her side and sliding an arm around her waist.
Inexplicably, this gesture of affection inspired a bout of violent trembling instead of the relief that she had expected to experience. Han, in the past, might have withdrawn at this reaction, but recognized instead the need to be held.
"Take your time," Wedge counseled helpfully. "Maybe, if Luke can..."
"This is something she needs to say," Luke interrupted quietly. "I won't stop her."
"Good idea," Han laughed. "Most people who interrupt Her Eloquence don't live long enough to tell the tale."
"Vicious rumors," Leia responded with a smile that surprised herself.
"Ah," Han sighed. "Now I recognize you. What's going on?"
She stepped back, pivoting to face all of them, but the gesture put her immediately into the defense stance that she'd been taught as a girl.
No one's going to ambush you, except your own emotions.
She brought her leg forward, instead adopting the at-ease pose of a soldier giving a debriefing. Her arms remained folded across her chest, the only sign that she was on the defense.
"Carlist and Wedge," she began quietly, "you haven't heard any of this, so I'll beg the others' indulgence in repeating myself."
"Fair enough," Han interjected.
Please, just let me get through this without having time to think about what I have to say. It will be easier if I act on instinct.
"I am adopted," she stated. "Bail and Breha Organa had been unable for many years to have children, so when a friend of Bail's died in childbirth, he took it upon himself to raise her daughter as his own. In my Naming, the traditional ceremony that all Alderaanian children undergo at the age of one month, he made me his rightful heir. Everyone was used to this statement in Namings, but those few who knew recognized it as legalizing the adoption. It was never spoken of again."
There was respectful silence as always happened when she spoke about Alderaan. So far, so good.
"I never knew my mother's name," she continued. "I probably would not have known that I had ever been another mother's child, except I kept having dreams about a woman. One day, I was in my mother's room when I recognized the woman standing next to her in a few of the holos as the woman from my dreams. It was, however, too dangerous to know anything except that she had been my mother once upon a lifetime. They told me that this was because she had been a personal enemy of both Vader and the Emperor. That was enough explanation for me.
"They never mentioned, however," she said carefully, "that I was not her only child."
"Which is where Luke comes into the picture," Rieekan guessed grimly.
Leia nodded. "She was a personal enemy of the Empire at its highest levels, so her children would be in danger if they were discovered. Luke was left with his father's family on Tatooine and I was taken in by the Organas."
"Amazing," Wedge interjected, grin almost hesitant on his face. "Fairly lucky, then, that he was around to rescue you from the Death Star."
If you can call it luck.
She nodded.
"And when did you know of this connection?" Rieekan inquired.
"Just before the battle," Leia clarified quietly.
"Amazing," Wedge repeated.
"Exactly what I was thinking," Luke agreed.
She sighed almost inaudibly, restraining herself as best she could. "You haven't asked why our mother was a personal enemy of Vader."
This was, of course, new information to all except for Luke and she had no idea how to go about the particular wording.
"She was the wife of Anakin Skywalker, one of the Jedi Knights. Most of them died in the Purges at the Emperor's behest. He, instead, chose to join Palpatine and became Darth Vader."
There was a collective intake of breath, but the revulsion and horror that she had felt upon first recognizing the connection between Skywalker and Vader was not evident on any of their faces.
Rieekan's expression had not changed, but he nodded slightly. Wedge was eyeing the shuttle warily, but his mouth was turned down slightly in recognition of this new information. Chewbacca was unreadable.
Luke looked as though she'd just spit-roasted an Ewok.
Not surprisingly, Han was the first to speak. He had no qualms about opening his mouth before his brain kicked into gear.
"You've got Vader in there."
"Our father," Luke corrected. "He saved my life and has returned to his allegiance with the Jedi…"
"To what end?" Rieekan queried. "What does he have to gain from being here?"
"He wants to make amends…"
"And I want his arrest," Leia interrupted. "As a precautionary measure, I do not think it would be a wise idea for him to simply be wandering around unhindered."
"There would be a mutiny when it was discovered," Rieekan agreed. "What makes you think he'll submit to arrest?"
She glanced at Luke, then had to look away. "If he was willing to come here," she surmised, "he will be willing to make concessions on a few basic levels."
"You trust him that far?"
The question was directed to Luke.
"I trusted him enough for him to save me," he retorted. "I trusted him enough to bring him here. This is not the course I would choose by any stretch of the imagination, but its merits cannot be denied."
"Good," Leia said curtly, throwing him a grateful look at last. "I've asked you here because there are few that I can trust this far and this deeply to do the job as it is required. Besides which, having two Rogues will bring this back from the land of the impossible."
A slight ripple of amusement went through the group, dissipating the tension.
"If Carlist can handle the official arrest," Leia suggested, "the rest of you will be there for the purposes of keeping him in line. He's pretty weak, so hopefully Force-choking is not an option."
That was less amusing, but they followed her inside nonetheless.
It was good to be trusted.
Her feet beat the same harried rhythm as her pulse as they approached the cabin once more. She had been tempted to let Luke lead the way, since she wasn't sure that she could have found her own face with both hands at that point, but he hung back, automatically fitting into the role of wingman to Wedge.
She envied that habit, envied the fact that he could still find something familiar as an anchor when he had casually dismantled so many things that she had long considered constant. Of course, when he had been in the same transitional period, she had been virtually unable to cope in the same way that he was now. She had lost too much, suffered too much, and she had begun to forget how to hope.
And it was all at the hands of the man he expected her to call Father.
In the long, lonely hours following the battle, she had come to realize that his uncharacteristic melancholy had everything to do with what Vader must have said to him at Bespin. The debriefing he'd given on those events, spoken in a tremulous voice as his hands twisted around a handkerchief, mentioned that the had been offered an alliance with Vader. The fact that the Falcon had retrieved him at the bottom of a ventilation shaft was evidence enough that he had not accepted.
She had never forced herself to learn what exactly the terms of the alliance had been, because his torment was ample explanation.
Did he offer you my freedom if you became just as much a slave as he is? Did he threaten you? Did he torture your mind the way he did mine?
Judging from the amount of time that had passed between her screamed warning to him and the moment when they turned the Falcon on its heel for the return trip to Bespin, the conversation could not have lasted more than a few minutes. The devastation to his spirit was comparable, however, to what she had suffered in three weeks on the Death Star.
Either Vader had learned to aim more effectively or the weapons he used against Luke were much more powerful.
Before she allowed justice to claim him, she would ask this man who claimed to have given her life what precisely he had done to the one person she loved most.
"Charges?" Rieekan inquired quietly as he checked the power pack on his blaster.
"Keep it simple," she counseled. "He has committed crimes against civilization. If we went into specifics, he would die of old age before we got through the first five years of the war."
He smiled tightly, then raised one smudged hand to cup her cheek as he kissed her forehead. "Crimes against civilization it is."
Her eyes drifted closed against frustrated tears, blocking the sight of the wary procession from her mind. By the time her emotions had been restrained, she was the last to enter the room. Luke and Wedge automatically took up post on either side, not quite blocking her view, but keeping her out of the proverbial line of fire.
Darth Skywalker was more conscious this time, but there was neither condemnation nor contempt in those eyes. There was no hostility or aggression.
The only thing Anakin Vader seemed to be capable of was a heartfelt resignation.
Either he's a very good actor or he has his cooperative days.
"Are you Anakin Skywalker, alias Darth Vader, Dark Lord of the Sith?" Rieekan asked unnecessarily, for procedure's sake.
The voice was reedy, spoken as though struggling for each breath. "I am he."
"Anakin Skywalker," Rieekan began quietly.
Rieekan faltered, then straightened his shoulders and began once more with his customary steadiness of voice and clearness of mind. This sort of calm was the exact reason why she had asked him to come.
"Anakin Skywalkar, alias Darth Vader," he repeated, "by the graces of the Rebel Alliance of Free Peoples, I charge you with crimes against the sentient beings of this universe, including but not limited to murder, treason, sabotage, and war crimes to be determined at a future date."
He had more calm than she could muster and more eloquence than she could have summoned at such a time.
"Will you submit to our jurisdiction?"
"Yes," the voice coming from the husk of a man rasped.
Han moved forward, hands trembling so violently that they nearly released the binders that Luke had supplied. But in a moment, it was over and the monster who had kept him in carbonite for six months was shackled. Chewie moved forward, interposing himself between the two men in case Vader decided to abandon reason.
"This is getting stranger all the time," Han mumbled. "What's next, etiquette lessons with Palpatine?"
"I'll see if I can make those arrangements," Leia said with a slight smile. "In the meantime, we need to get Lord Vader some medical attention."
"I'll get us airborne," Wedge stammered helpfully, "and notify the Fleet that we've got some interesting cargo inbound."
"Thank you," Rieekan said quietly.
Leia caught Han's eye, then pointedly moved from the compartment. He followed without question, without needing to wonder if she'd explain this whole mess.
He probably had no idea if there was an explanation, but it didn't matter. If this was what she had been enduring for the last days, there was something far more potent than curiosity that he needed to offer her.
She turned and he held up a hand. "You are a Skywalker, not him," he said quietly.
For once in his life, he had seemed to say the right thing to her, since she was once more in his embrace, chest heaving with relieved breaths.
"I haven't been able to believe it until now," she admitted. "Thank you for that, at the very least."
He smiled, not quite knowing why. "Like I've always said, always room for a second opinion."