notes: Sorry I'm a few days late getting this out. My beta was unexpectedly busy this weekend, and wasn't able to get it back to me until late last night. I was too tired then to upload it then, and crashed instead... So here we are now.

As always, huge thanks to princes-sansa-of-ithilien and absynthe-minded for all their help. And remember, you can always hit me up at my tumblr, weary-hearted-queen.

I hope you enjoy!

CHAPTER 9

Leia opened her eyes and found herself standing at the top of a sand dune. Sunset spread out before her in a glorious conflagration of orange and gold and crimson. The heaven's first sun was only a sliver of light above the horizon, while its twin rested a few minutes above the fire-kissed sand.

"Isn't it beautiful?"

Leia turned to see Shmi sitting on the dune, her legs folded gracefully beneath her. Her eyes were dark pools of shadow against the darkening sky behind her, her hair painted black against the first stars peering forth.

Leia nodded. "It is," she said, then crossed to sit down opposite Shmi, tucking her legs beneath her in a mirror to the older woman. "Why am I here?" Leia asked.

A frown darkened Shmi's kind face. "Do you not remember?"

"Remember what?" Leia asked.

"What happened before you awoke here."

Leia shook her head.

"Let me help you," Shmi said, and reached out to brush her fingers against Leia's cheek. "Close your eyes," she instructed. "Now think back…"

Leia obediently closed her eyes. For a long moment there was only darkness pierced by the sound of her heartbeat and the feel of the warm sand beneath her. Then—a flash of thought. A fraction of an image. A glimpse of a sight she knew she had seen, tinged with terror.

Sixth Sister stared down at her, face curled into a sneer, scarlet blood flecking her chin. Her fingers were coiled into a fist, arm upraised and ready to strike.

Then, pain.

Leia cried out, jerking away from Shmi's touch and lifting a hand to deflect a blow that never fell. Phantom pain spirited through her, lurking for a moment in her jaw, her chest, her wrist before fading away like the light from the sky overhead.

She opened her eyes, gasping against the pain now gone, against the fear bleeding away like water washing away a stain. "What—" she began, only to fail at finding the words to describe what she had just felt.

"Do you remember why you were beaten?" Shmi asked. "Think, Leia," she added, tone grim and expression somber. "This is important."

Leia thought.

"I said my name was Leia," she said slowly. "And then I wouldn't go train."

Shmi nodded. "Good," she said. "I'm proud of you, Leia."

Leia frowned. "Why?" she asked.

"It takes bravery to stand up for what you believe in."

"What do you mean?"

"You wanted to fight the Emperor, didn't you?" Shmi asked.

Leia nodded. "For Papá. Because he can't do it anymore."

Shmi smiled, though her eyes remained dark. "And you were punished for that."

Leia shuddered, remembering again Sixth Sister's sneer, her upraised arm, the pain in her body.

"Was it worth it?" Shmi asked her.

"Was what worth it?"

"Fighting against the Emperor and against Sixth Sister, who beat you for not obeying."

Leia looked down at the sand beneath her knees. "I don't know," she said slowly. "I...I don't want to be hurt. But I don't want the Emperor to win." She looked up at Shmi, eyes wide and pleading. "What should I do?"

"I won't tell you that," Shmi said. "But I will say this: If the Emperor wins—if you stop fighting him, even for a second—you will turn into a force of Darkness the likes of which the galaxy has rarely seen. You will hurt people, and you will kill people, and you will wreak destruction."

"Then..." Leia said, trailing off and sounding very small. "Then I have to keep fighting. I...I don't want to become that."

Shmi reached out and gripped Leia's shoulder. "Then fight him," she said. "Fight him, and don't stop fighting him—not even for a second. It will hurt. You will be scared, and terrible things will happen. But don't stop fighting."

Leia took a deep breath. "For Papá," she said. Then, smaller, she added, "For me."

Shmi smiled. "I'm proud of you, Leia. I never, ever want you to forget that." Leaning forward, she pressed a gentle kiss to Leia's forehead.

Leia sighed, and woke.

~oOo~

Leia blinked her eyes open to a while ceiling. It was a very familiar sight.

Why am I back in the Medical Wing? she wondered, looking around her. The same white walls and gleaming floor that she had grown to know over the last two weeks stared back. Was it all just a dream? A nightmare?

She moved to sit up, expecting to feel the tug of binders on her left wrist. Instead, unexpected pain arced through her body, starting in her chest and radiating outward. Leia fell back with a gasp, aching and hurting with a deep, echoing pain. Her jaw throbbed as it moved.

"Easy there, 851," came a familiar voice.

Leia looked up and saw Dr. Ammit standing in the door. He looked worried, a crease pressed between his eyebrows, his lips pressed into a thin, narrow frown. He was holding a datapad, which he tucked into a pocket of his lab coat as he stepped into the room.

"What happened?" Leia asked, afraid.

Dr. Ammit's frown deepened, darkening his eyes. "Do you not remember?"

"I remember Sixth Sister," Leia said slowly. "She was trying to get me to say that my name was 851. And then...and then…" Leia closed her eyes, memory washing over her. She sniffled, tears unexpectedly coming to her eyes.

Dr. Ammit sat down on the edge of the bed and reached out to wipe away the tears trickling down Leia's cheeks. "Here now, 851," he said softly, "what's this?"

"Why did she hurt me?" Leia asked through her growing sobs. "I didn't do anything wrong."

"You defied the Emperor," Dr. Ammit pointed out. "It's his wish that you be trained, and you refused."

"But why did she hurt me?"

"The Emperor is not a kind man, 851," Dr. Ammit said. "Frankly, I'm a little surprised your trainers held off on corporal punishment for as long as they did."

"It hurts," Leia said, now sobbing openly.

"I know," Dr. Ammit said. "You really should have had another six hours in the bacta tank, and I've been ordered not to give you any pain-killers."

"But why?"

Dr. Ammit shook his head. "The Emperor is angry that you've defied him. He hopes that this will have taught you better. It has taught you better, hasn't it?"

Leia looked up at him, eyes wide and wet. "I don't know," she admitted.

She remembered Shmi sitting on the sand, her dark eyes intense. She remembered the stars as they flickered into sight in the night sky behind her. She remembered the twin suns couched in conflagration. She remembered Shmi's final words, warning her what she would become if she gave in to Palpatine.

Slowly, Leia shook her head. Her tears were dry, but for the stickiness they had left on her cheeks. "No," she said quietly. "No, I do know."

"And?" Dr. Ammit pressed when Leia didn't elaborate.

Leia shook her head again. "No," she said. "I can't—I can't do it. I can't let him win."

"He's going to win, 851," Dr. Ammit said, kind voice belying his words. "It's just a matter of when and how much you suffer first."

"I don't care," Leia said, though she did. She shuddered, remembering the crunch of breaking bone as Sixth Sister kicked her in the jaw.

"You can't win, 851."

"Yes," Leia said stubbornly. "I can. He'll...he'll give up, once he realizes he won't be able to win."

"No. He won't."

"He'll have to," Leia said.

"No," Dr. Ammit said again, firmer. "He doesn't. He will break you, 851."

"Why won't you use my name?" Leia cried, frustrated.

"I am," Dr. Ammit replied calmly.

"No," Leia said. "My name is Leia. Not 851."

Dr. Ammit shook his head sadly. "851, you're mistaken. You don't have a name. Only a designation."

"But..." Leia said, pleading. "But no. It's Leia. My name is Leia. Mamá and Papá named me Leia."

"That was your name," Dr. Ammit said. "But not anymore. Now your designation is 851."

For the first time since Sixth Sister had told her she was 851, Leia questioned whether it was true. "But," she said again, voice very small. "But why don't I have a name anymore?"

"Oh 851," Dr. Ammit sighed. "It's complicated."

"I'm smart," Leia said.

Dr. Ammit smiled. "That you are." He hesitated, then said, "Okay.

"Right now, you are at the beginning of your training. You need to learn to run, and jump, and fight with your fists and feet. You need to learn the basics of lightsaber use. Until you learn those things, you are nothing. You are less than nothing. You are worthless to the Emperor. And so you are no one. You haven't earned the right to have a name, because you aren't a person."

Leia began to cry again. "But I...aren't I a person?" she asked. "I'm alive. So I'm a person."

"You're a sentient, yes. But you aren't a person. Not anymore; not yet."

"When will I be?"

"When the Emperor decides you are. That's another reason you should obey and train—once you do, the Emperor will decide that you're worthy of a name again."

Leia sniffed. "It will hurt. You will be scared, and terrible things will happen." That was what Shmi had said.

She was right, Leia thought. It does hurt.

"851?"

Leia looked up at Dr. Ammit, wiping away the tears still streaming down her cheeks.

"What are you going to do?"

"You will hurt people," Shmi had said. "You will turn into a force of Darkness the likes of which the galaxy has rarely seen."

I don't want to become that, Leia thought. But is it worth it? She had thought so.

But did she still?

"For Papá," she had said. "For me."

Did she still want that?

She closed her eyes against the tears, and saw Twelfth Brother's eyes, his lightsaber, the bodies of the men and women she had known since birth sprawled across the floor of her bedroom. She saw her father standing on the windowseat, a knife buried to the hilt in his chest. She saw the window shattering, saw her father falling, falling, falling. She saw blood on the flowers.

I'll do it for Papá, Leia thought. Maybe not for me...but for Papá. And maybe for the people I'd hurt if I gave in.

"851?" Dr. Ammit said again.

Leia opened her eyes and looked at him, somber and grim. She shook her head.

"I can't do it," she said. "I have to fight. I can't stop fighting. If I do, bad things will happen."

"Bad things will happen if you keep fighting," Dr. Ammit reminded her. There was a strange note in the corners of his words. If Leia had not known better, she would have thought it was desperation.

Maybe it was desperation.

She shook her head again. "It'll be worse if I don't."

Dr. Ammit sighed. "I hope you change your mind," he said, and patted her knee beneath the blanket spread over Leia's lap. "But I know when I'm beaten." He did not smile at her, but there was something in his eyes that said he wanted to. "I will see you later, 851."

Then he stood, and left the room. Leia watched him go, feeling cold and empty and scared, uncertain if she had made the right choice. The door closed—then opened again, admitting a Stormtrooper, who took up a position by it.

Leia sighed and laid back against the flat pillow, closing her eyes again. She conjured to mind the desert, with the twin suns and the stars, and Shmi kneeling in the sand. She was safe there—safe and warm and certain. She wanted to be those things again.

She needed to be those things again, if she was going to fight. And she was going to fight.

~oOo~

Two days later, Leia was escorted from the Medical Wing and back to her room in the building that felt like death. They left her there, without food and without water, for what felt like a week, but was probably only a day or two.

Leia spent the time pacing up and down the small room, and by laying in bed and memorizing the lines and swirls of the stucco on the ceiling. She also slept, fitful and filled with nebulous, uncomfortable dreams that left her tired and aching when she woke.

By the time Sixth Sister came for her, Leia was more than ready to accompany her to the practice court, if only for a change of scenery. At least, Leia thought more than once, it was better than white walls and floor and ceiling.

"Go to Cora," Sixth Sister instructed when she and Leia entered the practice court. Cora was the closest of her trainers, standing with her arms crossed and a frown stamped onto her face.

Leia sat.

Sixth Sister turned when she saw that Leia wasn't obeying. "Get up," she ordered. "Go to Cora."

"No," Leia said, trying to sound certain—trying to hide the fear she felt.

"I told you to get up and go to Cora," Sixth Sister said again.

"No."

Sixth Sister crossed to her and, leaning down, slapped her across the face, splitting Leia's lip. Blood dripped down her chin and stained her teeth scarlet.

"Don't make me beat you again," Sixth Sister warned.

Leia glared and crossed her arms. "I'm not getting up."

Sixth Sister slapped her again. Leia cried out, falling to the side and barely catching herself before she went sprawling. She picked herself back up, cheek stinging and already beginning to purple, and fixed Sixth Sister with a hard stare that was as much challenge as glare.

The beating Sixth Sister delivered was severe, but this time Leia remained conscious through the end of it. When it was done, Leia picked herself up from where she had been knocked to the ground, face bloody and bruised, cradling her broken right arm to her chest.

"Get up," Sixth Sister ordered.

"No," Leia said stubbornly, voice thick with pain. Blood leaked from the corner of her mouth, running in a curved rivulet to drip from her chin.

Sixth Sister bent and grabbed Leia by the hair. "You will go to Cora, if I have to drag you there myself."

Leia screamed in pain as it felt like her hair was ripped from her scalp. She kicked her feet against the ground as Sixth Sister dragged her across the floor, trying to find purchase enough to stand to ease the pain.

Sixth Sister tossed her the last few paces to land at Cora's feet. "Here," she said, looking at Cora. "I've brought you 851."

"Finally," Cora said, and knelt down to meet Leia's eyes. "851, it's time to begin your training."

"No," Leia said. "I won't."

"And why not?" Cora asked, voice as cold as her silver eyes. Her long, blonde hair was gathered into a savage ponytail, and her lips were painted a bright red, accenting the paleness of her skin.

"Because I won't let the Emperor win," Leia said through a mouthful of blood. "I have to fight him."

"Why is that?"

"Because," Leia began, only for a silent warning that rose in her throat to steal her words away. Don't tell them, a silent voice whispered to her. It sounded like the sand and suns and sky of the desert she had dreamed of. If they know, they will destroy you.

"Because I have to," was all she said in the end. "I just have to."

They dragged her by her broken arm to the mats. Leia screamed, and cried when they let her go.

"Stand up," Danyil said, coming to stand over her.

Leia laid on the ground and sobbed, from pain and desperation and fear.

Danyil bent and seized Leia beneath the arms. He hoisted her up, placed her on her feet. Leia let her legs go weak and she flopped back down to the ground. Danyil kicked her, and tried again. Again Leia sank to the ground, still crying.

"If you get up and stretch with us," Cora said, standing on Leia's other side, "we'll take you to the Medical Wing to get patched up. If you don't, we'll leave you hurt and bleeding."

Leia remained on the ground.

An hour later, Sixth Sister appeared again in the doorway to the practice court. Only then did Leia realize she had gone.

"Come," she ordered Leia. When Leia didn't obey, she crossed to the mat and, seizing Leia by the hand of her broken arm, dragged her to her feet.

Running to keep up to protect her arm, Leia followed Sixth Sister out of the practice court and back to her room. The door slid open and Sixth Sister pushed her through.

"Think about your decision to fight against the Emperor," she ordered, standing in the doorway. "Think about your decision to rebel. I'll be back for you tomorrow." Then the door closed, sealing Leia in the room with her fear and pain.

Leia did think about her choice to rebel. She lay on her bed, broken arm propped up on her chest, and stared at the ceiling and thought. She thought of Shmi, and of the desert. She thought of Sixth Sister, and Cora, and Danyil. She thought of Ninth Brother and Thirteenth Sister, who had stood off to the side and watched. She thought of the pain throbbing through her body.

I can't give in, she decided again. And I'm going to keep deciding that.

And then a horrible thought crossed her mind: Is Shmi even real? Or is she just a dream?

Leia closed her eyes against her doubt. She's real, she tried to tell herself. I know she's real. She's not just a dream.

But is she?

Leia squeezed her eyes tight. It feels so real when I'm there, she tells herself. Too real to just be a dream.

And, behind her closed eyes, the desert began to form. Sand dunes erupted from the darkness. Twin suns beam down from above. Heat rippled through the air above the ground. And Shmi—Shmi appeared in a valley made by the dunes, her homespun clothes rippling in an unseen wind that shifted and eddied the sand around her feet.

"You are already growing stronger," Shmi said, though her lips did not move. Her voice sounded like sand and suns and blue, blue sky.

Leia remembered the eyes of the boy she dreamed of.

"Be careful, Leia," Shmi added. "Your strength will be used against you. You must hide it. Never tell them about me, or about the desert in you."

~oOo~

As she had promised, Sixth Sister came the next morning. The windows in the exercise rooms to either side of the hall, Leia saw as she trailed behind Sixth Sister, showed only the black shade of predawn night. The lights in the practice court were blazing, however, dispelling the darkness and throwing the world into bright day.

"Are you going to cooperate today?" Sixth Sister asked, turning to look at Leia once they were through the door.

"No," Leia said, and sat.

Sixth Sister sighed, and broke Leia's other arm.

Leia spent that night wide awake, the pain in her arms and in her chest—Sixth Sister had later broken two of her ribs, and Leia could feel the ends of the bone grate together whenever she moved—keeping sleep far from her. Instead she closed her eyes and imagined the desert—imagined the fading warmth of the sand, the brightness of the stars shining out of the velvet sky, the cold night wind. Shmi, however, did not appear.

The next day dawned even earlier. Sixth Sister collected her, and brought her to the practice court. Leia sat as usual, but instead of trying to force her to train, Sixth Sister sat down opposite her and asked bluntly, "What is your designation?"

Leia opened her mouth to reply with her name—only to fall abruptly silent. She remembered her conversation with Dr. Ammit, remembered how he had told her that she was nothing, that she was less than nothing. That she was useless to the Emperor.

She wanted to be useless to the Emperor. Didn't she? So why didn't she accept that she was nothing? Dr. Ammit had been right, hadn't he? She was nothing. Her father was dead. No one was coming to save her. She was here, under the thumb of the Inquisitors and the Imperial officers, to train and be trained. She was no one—had become no one the moment Aunt Mon and Master Carlist and everyone else had abandoned her to the Emperor.

She was no one.

She was just a number.

"I'm 851," she said softly, both arms resting in her lap.

"Say that again," Sixth Sister said, "louder."

"I'm 851," Leia said again, obediently louder.

Sixth Sister smiled. "Good girl," she said. And, standing, she led Leia out of the practice court and out of the building, across the courtyard, and to the Medical Wing.

Dr. Ammit was waiting. He smiled when he saw Leia, though his eyes remained cold, and he brought her to a small room where he helped her change into a loose, white shift. Sitting her down, he stretched her arms out straight and, with a kind word and a steadying hand, set both of the bones. Then he brought her to a large room with a bacta tank standing at the center, fitted a breathing mask over her head, and helped her climb in.

For a moment all Leia saw was bubbles through the thick, gel-like liquid. Then the sedative in the bacta began to set in, seeping through her skin and into her bloodstream. She blinked once, twice—and then slept.

~oOo~

Leia opened her eyes to a golden beach and waves upon waves of crystal blue water. She turned, feet in the shallows, and looked up to see a magnificent house sitting over the water. Green, domed roofs rose up over verandas and walls filled with arched windows. Steps led from the beach up to a walled garden, which in turn led onto a balcony.

"It's been a long time."

Leia whirled, startled by the voice, and found herself staring into blue, blue eyes and a smiling, open face. "It's you," she gasped.

The boy smiled. "It's you," he echoed. Slowly, tentatively, he reached a hand out toward her, palm up, fingers outstretched. It was the same movement as the last time Leia had dreamed of him.

Without hesitating, Leia reached out and took his hand. It felt like rain on a spring day, like shade in summer, like fire in winter. It felt perfect.

"It's been a long time," the boy said again.

Leia nodded. "I'd almost forgotten you," she admitted softly, shamefully. "It's been years since I thought of you—years since I dreamed of you. Until the other night."

"I almost forgot you too," the boy said, and squeezed her hand. "But I'm glad I didn't."

"I'm glad too," Leia said. She looked into his blue, blue eyes, and quickly brushed his sandy hair off of his forehead. "You should cut your hair," she told him abruptly.

The boy laughed. "Aunt Beru keeps saying she needs to," he said. He reached up a hand and ruffled it through his shaggy tresses, which were trying to curl at the ends. "I kinda like it."

"It makes you look like a nerfherder," Leia said.

"A what?"

"A nerfherder. You know, nerfs—big, woolly animals with horns? They live in the mountains, and eat grass…"

The boy shook his head. "There isn't any grass in the mountains here. Just rock and sand."

Leia pulled a face. "Those don't sound like very good mountains, then," she said.

The boy shrugged. "It's what we've got."

Tugging on her hand, the boy pulled Leia around, and began to walk. Leia quickly caught up with him, then fell in step beside him. For a long moment they simply walked, hand-in-hand, ankles kissed by the gently lapping waves, content in each other's presence and the silence between them.

Finally, Leia admitted softly, "I missed you."

"I missed you too," the boy said.

They had played together here when they were little kids, in the water and in the garden and through the dizzying number of rooms in the house. He had bandaged her knee when she'd scraped it on a stone plinth in the garden, and she had washed his hand when he cut it on a counter in the kitchen. They had been knights and Jedi and Prince and Princess, and they had ruled their little world with benevolence and joy.

Somehow, though, everything felt different now to Leia, as if their old world of happiness and make-believe was gone, replaced with something darker and older. There were shadows where she didn't remember shade, and cracks where there had once been smooth sandstone.

"Does it feel different to you?" she asked the boy suddenly.

"Hm?" he asked. "What do you mean?"

"This place," Leia said. "Does it feel different?"

The boy was quiet for a minute. Then he nodded. "I think," he said, "that may be because we're older."

"Maybe," Leia said, not entirely convinced.

They were nearing the place where the house swept down to join the lake, and Leia came to a halt. The boy turned to look at her, a question in his face.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

Leia looked at him—and shook her head.

Don't trust them, Shmi had told her. She had never said not to trust him. And Leia found that she trusted this sandy-haired, blue-eyed boy completely.

"What's wrong?"

"Everything," Leia blurted out.

The boy frowned.

"They took my name, and are telling me to do things I don't want to do, and he's scary and trying to make me into something I don't want to be, and Papá…" Leia choked on the words, and fell silent. To her frustration, tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.

"It's going to be okay," the boy said, lifting his free hand and gripping her shoulder.

Leia shook her head. "But it's not," she said, and two silent tears slipped out and down her cheeks.

The boy pulled her to him and wrapped his arms around her. "I'll be here," he offered.

"Promise?"

"I promise," the boy said.

Leia buried her face in his shoulder and nodded. "Okay," she said, voice very small.

"I have to go now," the boy said. "Uncle Owen is waking me up."

Leia nodded.

"Let's meet again soon though."

Leia nodded again.

The boy smiled. "See you," he said, and was gone.

~oOo~

"The Emperor is ready to speak with you."

Sixth Sister looked up at the Emperor's secretary, Katalina, resplendent in blue and gold, her hair piled atop her head in pinned and coiled ringlets. Sixth Sister fought to contain the sneer that threatened to crawl up her lips; she hated gaudy displays of beauty and luxury—two things that Katalina manifested tenfold.

Rising, Sixth Sister pushed past Katalina toward the door to the Emperor's office. For a moment, she felt Katalina's eyes on her back—hard and hateful and disapproving. It was vindicating, Sixth Sister thought, that Katalina hated her as much as she hated Katalina.

The door to the Emperor's office opened at Sixth Sister's approach. She strode through, confident and secure, her lightsaber—the symbol of her office and position within the Empire—hitting her thigh with every step.

It was an intoxicating feeling, approaching her Emperor and Master with the weight of her lightsaber on her hip.

"Welcome, Sixth Sister," her Master said. His face was, as usual, hidden by a cowl, which cast his features into shadow as dark as the room's decor. He sat behind his desk, elbows resting on the armrests of his high-backed chair, fingers steepled before him. "Tell me how my new Hand is doing."

Sixth Sister bowed, then took a seat in one of the chairs facing her Master's desk. "She still resists," she admitted. The taste of her defeat was ash on her tongue. "But today she said that her designation was 851 with little prompting."

"Good," her Master said, nodding. "Yet still, you say she resists?"

"Yes, Master," Sixth Sister said. "The corporal punishment was not as effective as we hoped."

"Hmm," her Master hummed, the sound cracked and broken.

"What would you like me to do now?" Sixth Sister asked.

"Continue with the beatings," her Master said. "She can only endure so much before she breaks."

"Yes, Master."

"And I will speak with Amareus this afternoon," her Master added. "She trusts him. He will continue to talk with her about her resistance."

Sixth Sister bowed her head. "As you say, my Master."

Her Master flapped one of his hands. "Go on now. Report back to me once she returns from the Medical Wing."

Sixth Sister stood and bowed again. "As you say, my Master," she said again, and left.

end notes: So the next chapter's not done yet. I'm afraid I've run into some good ol' writer's block. I'm hoping that getting some good feedback from you guys will be enough to jumpstart my creativity - so if you want to help me out, please leave a review? I'll try to have the chapter done by Sunday at the latest...but I can make no promises.