Chapter VII
Leia Organa was a woman who was sure of herself. She also wasn't a terrible pilot, so that helped in landing the shuttle on the Endor moon.
But Leia Organa also wasn't the fondest of surprises. And the man standing with Artoo and Threepio was definitely a surprise.
When she exited the shuttle, Leia saw him visibly stiffen. She was just going to say something—
"Bantha fodder!" Shouted the man, throwing his hands around and looking to the sky. Then he seemed to be listening to something, as he looked over beside him (there was nothing there), and then, after a moment, the man let out a string of curse words (was that Huttese Leia heard?)
"Who are you?" She said.
The man turned to look at her, fixing her with his blue-eyed gaze. He looked nice enough, but the sudden pain and longing and sorrow and guilt in his eyes left Leia with no doubt that his next words were true.
"You don't want to know."
"Well, I need to call you something," she said. "Considering that you haven't tried to kill me, I assume you aren't here to do so."
"True enough," he replied, a small smile turning up the corners of his mouth. It didn't reach his eyes. "Call me Anakin."
That name, to Leia at least, was awfully familiar. Where from, she didn't know.
Anakin had already turned away, facing the droids. Well, mainly Artoo, as Threepio had finally realized who it was that walked down the ramp.
"Oh! Mistress Leia! How wonderful it is to see you," he babbled. "It seems like Artoo and I had been completely forgotten! Can you imagine?—"
"Yes, Threepio," Leia cut off. "Could you wait a minute? I promise I will listen to your story in a little while, as I am certain it is very interesting. Just, wait a minute."
"Why certainly, Princess."
Leia looked over at Anakin.
"Alright Artoo, where did you say the other ship was?"
She watched in wonder as the man attentively listened to the droid, seemingly understanding every beep.
"Yep, got it. Lead the way, Artoo."
"So, where are we going?" She asked. He turned to face her, his eyes wavering from hers, as if he was scared to meet them.
"Artoo," he cleared his throat, "has said that the Imps had neglected to notice one of the Rebel ships parked just a bit further than the others. That's where we're going."
He pursed his lips, as if wanting to say something more, but something in his expression suddenly changed, and Anakin turned away.
"Come on, Princess. The ship's that way."
Anakin didn't bother to give her a second glance as he began to walk behind Artoo. Leia followed, Threepio at her side.
The angle at which he walked at now was just enough to let Leia catch the unmistakable shape of a lightsaber hidden underneath the man's cloak. If she shifted just a tad to the left, Leia could see… No.
Luke's lightsaber was hanging from the man's belt.
She suddenly stopped walking, and sensing the change, Anakin turned around.
Threepio looked between the two, seemingly confused. "What is it, Master Skywalker?"
Leia could almost swear her heart stopped.
Anakin Skywalker. Luke's father.
She could see that he saw the gears turning, her mind coming to a conclusion.
"I am the son of Darth Vader. I saved him from himself and he returned to being the Jedi Anakin Skywalker. And then I killed him. I killed my own father. He didn't want to kill me, he didn't want to fight. I'm a worse monster than Vader ever was. And now, the Empire is mine."
"No…" She whispered. "No, no…"
"Leia, let me explain," he pleaded, his face defeated. "Please."
Leia ignored him. Her heart was racing, pounding in her ears.
Darth Vader stood in front of her.
"I should kill you," she stated.
"Yes, yes, you should," he nodded, and Leia was positive that it was only her imagination that saw the tears in his eyes. "But would that be the right thing to do? Would you deny this to Luke?"
That had struck a chord, and he knew it.
"You have no right to talk about Luke!" She said, her voice sharp. "You have no right! You are a murderer of millions, you stood by while my entire planet was wiped from existence! You tortured me, and not to mention, look what you've done to Luke! This is all your fault, all of it."
Anakin simply looked defeated, the light gone from his already tired eyes.
"I know."
He turned away, instead looking in front of him, shaking his head, as if looking at someone.
Leia took a step back…
"I can't do it, Obi-Wan," he whispered. "I can't."
Anakin met Obi-Wan's eyes. "I'm sorry."
Obi-Wan just shook his head.
"You can do it, Anakin. Now I say this not as the Jedi Council, but as your friend. You are strong, and you are wise, and I know that you can do this," he said, placing a ghostly hand on Anakin's shoulder. Of course Anakin didn't feel it, but he felt touched nonetheless.
"Go back to your daughter, Anakin," Obi-Wan continued gently. "She needs you, even though she doesn't know it yet. The ship that Artoo has sensed is a shuttle from the medical frigate. Do a DNA test. Leia, she's a lot like you. Difficult, stubborn. But she will come through."
Anakin ran a hand through his hair tiredly.
"Alright, old man," he said. "I'll try."
Obi-Wan smiled.
"That's the spirit."
Anakin shot his former master a wry grin and turned back to face Leia.
"Come along, Princess. You may not like it, but I'm the only one here."
Leia frowned.
"Fine," she relented.
Anakin sighed and looked down at Artoo.
"Lead the way, Artoo."
Luke was mad. No, he was furious.
How had they managed to let the Princess escape? Were they all such fools?
Leia Organa had escaped, and Luke was not pleased.
"Get me those security cam holos," he commanded into his comm.
"Yes, sir," was the brisk reply.
Luke ran a hand through his hair and paced his quarters. How did she get away? There were two Stormtroopers positioned at the doors. The cell was monitored round the clock. How did she escape?
Soon Luke sensed an officer standing behind his door. Luke waved a hand and the door opened, leaving the nervous officer with a hand raised as if to ring the room.
"What do you have for me, Officer?" Luke stated, fixing the officer with his gaze. The man shuffled nervously and cleared his throat.
"Sir, we have the security holos you requested, sir," said the officer, holding out a datapad. "They are on this datapad, milord."
Luke eyed the datapad and approached to take it. Once it was safely within his hands, Luke met the officer's eyes.
"You are dismissed."
The officer nodded and turned to leave the room, the door sliding shut soundlessly behind his retreating form.
Luke turned on the datapad and tapped to watch the recording. The blue holo popped up from the device's screen and began to play. It showed Leia getting up and walking to the door. Her face scrunched up in concentration, her hand held out in front of her.
Suddenly, the door of the cell opened, and recording Leia sprung to life. She grabbed one of the troopers' blasters, taking him down with a shot to the shoulder. Then, she twisted and shot down the other trooper just as he was reaching for his comm unit.
The recording ended there just as Leia dragged the troopers into the cell and shot out the cameras.
Luke put down the datapad. The tables had turned.
Leia Organa was Force-sensitive.
Anakin followed the droid quietly. He felt Leia behind him, and heard Threepio's unnecessary chatter. Artoo was silent as he lead the way, as if he sensed Anakin's feelings. Of course he didn't, but he might as well have, considering how long the little droid had known him.
"How much further, Artoo?" Anakin asked the small astromech. Artoo let out a short series of beeps and Anakin nodded. The shuttle from the frigate was coming up ahead.
"What do you know of your birth parents, Princess?" He asked nonchalantly.
The question caught her off guard. Her resolve hardened.
"Why do you care?"
"Just asking, Princess."
She stared after his back as he moved down the path behind Artoo. Concluding that he was just simply asking a question and not planning on exploiting the knowledge, Leia started to speak.
"My father, Bail Organa, told me of my birth mother," she began, and narrowed her eyes a little bit when she saw him falter in his step. "He told me she was a good friend of his, and very beautiful. But sad, in her final days, he had said. Her name was Padmé."
"And what of your father?" Asked Anakin, although she noted that his voice seemed a little forced.
"Bail didn't say much about him, only that he was a Jedi Knight, and that he was dead," Leia said. Her voice took a more suspicious edge. "Why?"
"Curiosity, I suppose," he replied quietly, stepping over a root. Leia frowned.
"You knew him, didn't you," she stated, her anger bristling, feeling a strong protective urge for her dead birth parents. "Probably killed him too, while you were at it. Everyone knows that you killed off all the Jedi. Did you even give him a fighting chance? Or did you just choke him?"
Anakin stopped.
"I did not kill your father, Princess," he said calmly, though even a fool could see that his words were even more forced, and his calmness was false.
Leia didn't believe a word he said. She felt him shutting down, saw his body tensing, his facial features hardening. But at the current moment, Leia didn't care.
"Sure," she said, her voice taking a sarcastic edge. "Sure you didn't. Just like you didn't kill my mother. Bail told me you murdered her, and he was right."
Anakin turned around slowly. His jaw was clenched, his hands in fists at his side. Only then did Leia realize that she had crossed a line.
"I have done many things, but killing Padmé was not one of them. Your existence proves that."
"And why would that be?" Leia asked, genuinely confused.
"Because, I did not kill your father. Because, I am your father."
Leia froze.
"No… That's not true."
Anakin looked into her eyes.
"Yes, it is. Can't you feel it?"
The thing that scared Leia most was that she could feel it. She could feel that Anakin's (Vader's) words were true. And it scared her.
"No…" she said again, her denial surging through her mind while the little fire of truth grew bigger and hotter and—
"No!" She yelled finally, backing away. "You! You are a monster! Look at all that you have done! You've murdered millions, billions of innocent people, destroyed an entire planet— my home! And look at you now… Acting like some Jedi! Don't you remember? You killed all the Jedi! You killed them, you killed them all— and you cut off your own son's hand, for Sith's sake!"
Leia was shaking now, unbidden tears forming in her eyes.
"Look at all that you've done…" she whispered quietly, truly now, meeting his gaze.
And in his eyes, she could see pain. Wave after wave of pain and longing and guilt— a never-ending torrent of guilt as the man with a thousand weights on his shoulders finally fell to the ground, sunk down to his knees, and Leia could see the tears in his eyes, the tear tracks on his youthful face, and all the light she had seen had dimmed down, as if it was slowly seeping out of him. He was on the ground now, breathing heavily, his head down.
"You're right, Leia. I am a monster, and nothing, nothing will ever change that."
Anakin shuddered as his shoulders shook, his twenty years in dark finally coming to light. He wept, wept for the past, wept for a future that he could have had, had he not been so utterly stupid and naive. Wept for a future in which he could have had two beautiful, amazing children and a wife. Wept for the people he had lost, for the years he had lost…
Anakin felt Obi-Wan before he saw him. The ghost stepped through Anakin's emotional hurricane, calm, the eye of the storm. And when he laid a hand on Anakin's shoulder, time stopped.
"Don't blame yourself for everything, Anakin."
You are strong and wise Anakin, and I am very proud of you…
Don't look back, don't look back…
"I'm sorry," Anakin whispered. He looked up, meeting Leia's eyes. The storm stilled.
"I was brought back for a reason, Leia," he said. "My entire life, I— I need to do this. I must help Luke, for I won't be able to carry on if he repeats my mistakes. I don't deserve it, but Luke does. I need to do this, for him."
Leia analyzed the man standing in front of her. Her father, although she would never say that aloud. He was worn, and beaten down, and she felt his pain. Finally, she nodded.
"Fine," Leia declared, her eyes boring into his.
"Thank you," he replied, his voice strained.
And as they turned to walk the rest of the way, Leia heard him whisper the end to his unfinished thanks.
"Daughter."
