A/N: Lucas owns the world Scarlett and I just tweak it to fit our version of reality.

Chapter 10

It was a library of course. My father never felt comfortable anywhere else.

He always seemed his most relaxed surrounded by book-tapes and the more ancient turn-page styled books that lined the shelves on the walls.

The carpeting was a deep imperial red. Wing-backed chairs angled towards one another but faced a fireplace in the grate of which a cheery fire crackled. The lamps were lit and the room was filled with warmth and comfort- just like his study at our old home had been.

He was standing beside a large desk at the far side of the room having no doubt just risen from the chair behind it and from his expression I could tell that he was regarding me much as I was regarding him.

He looked good but, then again, my father had always been attractive. That fact hadn't changed. Rejuvenation treatments no doubt. A nip here, a tuck there, a few pills at another time.

I was surprised however to discover with a start that my paramour was somewhat right to have been concerned over our relative ages.

Facing irrevocable proof, it was a bit disconcerting to realize that the lines of concern and life had etched themselves into my father's face with the almost precise same depths as Luke's.

But it was just the results of my loosing twenty years and my father's having carefully kept those years from outwardly affecting his appearance.

He even dyed his hair no doubt as only a slight amount of gray at his temples had been allowed to reside in his chestnut locks. His emerald gaze was filled with wonder as he watched me, drinking in every difference from the last time we had seen one another the morning before I escaped just as I was studying him- noting every nuance, every change.

After a few moments of this, I finally decided to break the heavy silence by stepping forward.

"I lost twenty years to cryogenic freeze," I told him.

"I know," He nodded. "I heard."

I nodded back into the heavy silence.

"I'm a Jedi now," I said.

He nodded again his eyes never leaving my face as he studied it.

"I heard that too," He provided.

"I also," He added haltingly after a moment. "Heard something about a blown up Star Destroyer at Dantooine?" He asked his lips quirking slightly as he obviously didn't believe the rumor.

"It didn't blow up," I shook my head. "It crashed."

"Ah," He accepted my declaration for a moment in silence as he regarded me carefully.

"There was," He stated at long last. "Something about a bet in one of our more primitive systems… A near war?" He asked.

I felt my lips quirk a bit at that and shrugged.

"Long, confused and complicated story," I admitted.

He took this in for a moment with another nod.

Then, he waited for a moment, his eyes traveling over my face, my clothing, my hands, my eyes, my hair- everything, his brow furrowing.

I stood and waited while he did so before finally, he stepped forward.

"Dally?" He breathed.

The universe blurred into soft tones at this as I found myself swallowing past the lump in my throat and nodded not trusting my voice.

Through unshed tears of his own he laughed crossing the room quickly and within a moment he was picking me up in an embrace so tight that I swear I couldn't breathe and, it felt wonderful I noticed as I laughed too and hugged him just as tightly back.

And then, he was sighing.

We babbled all of those things that people often find themselves babbling whenever they are reunited after years. The comments springing from us both completely unnoticed by the other in the rush of memories as they all come flooding in. "I thought you were dead." "Where have you been?" "You look great!" "All these years I-" All of these and more sprang from us as we hugged reunited at long last.

As the tide began to subside he called the captain in and ordered a bottle of his best greblian cider for celebration.

Then we were sitting down in the chairs facing one another and, it was time to tell him.

"Daddy, I need your help," I told him.

"I suppose so," He observed with a slight wry smile. "I doubt you'd come all this way into Imperium space if you didn't, trooper."

That easy, off-handed comment hit the room with all of the lightness of a neutron star hitting the event horizon of a black hole.

Blinking in shock I looked up to meet his gaze startled and not entirely certain.

"Dad?" I said carefully. "What's going on?" I asked. "How did you-"

My father sighed.

"I've always known you hated the Empire, Dally," He admitted. "So, I know that you took your chance while you could to get away from it. Ellaya was exactly the same way in case you don't remember," He sighed further as he sadly shook his head.

"She hated me for what I became, hated the Empire for making me do the things I had to do, hated Lord Vader for his involvement in our lives, and most of all, I think she hated herself for getting trapped in it," He assessed grimly.

"But what else could I do Dally?" He asked me softly with the weight of years between his words. "I only wanted to give the two of you everything.

"I would have given you the galaxy if I could, little trooper. I would have given you both the entire galaxy if I could have."

I pondered this for a moment as I took a deep breath.

The thing that pulled at my chest the most was that he was sincere. He always had been. But then…

"Why daddy?" I heard myself ask softly the tears filling my eyes at the thought of what had been done to me. "Why did you let that monster reeducate me?"

Father blinked.

"What?" He breathed.

Blinking back the tears I met his startled gaze.

"Nemesie."

At the sound of that name he straightened looking over at me.

"Then," He stated shaking his head rising nervously from his chair coming around the back of it towards me. "Then you-"

"No father," I shook my head again standing too now. "What did you do?" I demanded. "What did you let him do to me? Why, father? Why did you-"

"-Dally wait, please," He begged. "You-you don't understand-"

"-'Understand?'" I repeated stepping up to him. "What's to understand?" I asked again. "You let that monster put a false personality into the depths of my mind!"

"No!" He shook his head. "Dally no-"

"-Oh don't you dare deny it father," I told him. "I found the message! I was in his lair and the recording told me everything!"

"No, I don't think it did," He told me back.

"What did you do father?" I asked weariness taking over all else. "Just hand me over at my birth?-"

"-No-"

But I wasn't listening.

"-What did you get for my soul, father?-"

"-No-"

"-Why did you let him make me into something I'm not-"

"-Damnit Nem, will you just listen to me?" He finally snapped.

At the use of that name- that horrible name I froze but he was the one continuing now.

He was the one who was angry as the truth came from him filled with fury.

"Do you honestly think for even a single nano that we would have done it if we had a choice?" He demanded. "Oh, and by the way Nem, that is not the false personality in the back of your mind," He told me. "This one is. Dally was someone I came up with to save your life!"

My universe spun threatening to go black as I found myself all-but collapsing against the back of the chair reeling with horror.

"What?" I barely managed to get out.

But he was already crossing the room to his desk and reaching into a drawer talking all the while.

"Yes, we named you Dallayna, your mother and I when you were born," He explained. "But his lordship didn't think it suited you any longer," He informed me.

"We all had to change our names," He continued as he began to shuffle though plastipulp and things therein. "What do you think 'Vokan' means in Basic, Nem?" He asked.

"'Summoned,'" He informed me re-crossing the room and handing me a single piece of that plastipulp. "And we were, Nem. You were," He told me as I looked down with ever-mounting horror at the copy of my birthing certification, complete with legal name-change.

"Remember Nana?" He asked his voice softening. "She was your nanny, Nem but," And here he sighed. "She was one of them," He told me. "Worse, she was making plans to steal you from us."

"'Them?'"

"You're grand and good Jedi," He sneered the word. "She was prepared to run off with you out into the middle of the night because we weren't 'Light enough' to deserve you.

"Oh and speaking of your Jedi's precious 'Light?' You have no idea what you were like back then, Nem," He informed me grimly. "You-You hated everyone- everything except her. In fact, she was the only person you wouldn't attack- literally attack on sight from the very day we got you home from the medcenter.

"The things that creature did to you- to your very mind. And there- there is your truth, Nem: that Jedi drove you insane," His voice hissed out embittered and filled with horror and hatred through the tears before he straightened.

"But, that was how Lord Vader discovered you," He told me with a deep breath. "How he found us all. It was from what she did to you- from what that Jedi had warped your mind into being."

Unnoticed by either of us the plastipulp slipped through my fingers numbly as I heard this but he was continuing, telling me the whole horrid story- the entire tale in its all of its horror.

"But, he didn't kill you- he didn't even have you thrown into a mental ward- which was where your mother and I were only just realizing that we had to send you," He shook his head. "And it was all because of what that-that Jedi did to you," He declared.

Silence. I could only stand in stunned silence as I heard these words even as my father continued.

"But, instead, instead, his lordship- he told us that he could help you, Nemy. That he could undo what she had done and- and give you a real life.

"So, he took you on and we kept you hidden from the Emperor, for years, we kept you hidden from him, and you know what? Lord Vader did precisely what he said he could do.

"You- the difference, Nem, the difference between that feral and insane child we had and the sweet, loving girl he made you was- it was astounding," He explained his voice softening further. "But when you were about nine, the Emperor began to suspect your gift," He continued sincerely believing- honestly believing every lie, every deceit, every betrayal even still, even in that moment, even decades later.

"So, late one night his lordship and myself came upon an idea," He told me sadly. "He knew he had to let you go, separate himself from you as much as he could," My father stated softly. "But, you were only nine, so, I had to hide the memories in your mind.

"I disguised them as dreams, bad dreams so you wouldn't talk about them to anyone least they suspect what they really were," He confessed. "It took me a year but, I managed to do it.

"Unfortunately though," He admitted sadly. "There's only so much we can do without harming the neurological processes- only so many ways to hide memories of that magnitude without causing irreparable brain damage," He told me. "So, I took the least painful Nem- a false personality so far removed from the real one that the two seemed like completely different people.

"Only," He chuckled bitterly. "It worked too well, didn't it? You ran off and joined the Rebellion trying to be one of those Jedi."

I took this in with silent horror.

It couldn't be, I thought to myself over and over. It just couldn't be.

But it was.

"Oh father," I heard myself breathe from a galaxy away as the tears began to fall.

"Oh father," I breathed again looking up to meet his gaze in ever mounting horror.

"It was a confidence trick," I nearly whispered as I ran a hand through my hair and the pieces fell into place for me.

I understood it now. I knew precisely how the entire thing had gone down- how it had happened- what was going on and, as the holopic formed in my mind I found myself standing in absolute horrified wonder at the sheer level of it.

"Daddy, you-you got played."

And he had too. Beautifully, masterfully, and with a delicate subtlety that simply astounded.

My father blinked his brow furrowing as the first crack of suspicion at long last- so many decades later began to show.

"What?" He shook his head. "No. No, Nem, no."

It was ingenious really, I couldn't help but asses.

"Great Golden One…It- it was brilliant," I confessed in wonder looking at it all now before my eyes rose and I found myself regarding the shocked expression of the key player in the entire matter. "He- he didn't even need to lie about or change the facts- he only had to lie about their cause," I observed.

"Yes, dear girl, why don't you tell the poor man how neatly the Darth did you in," A familiar voice announced from the doorway drawing our attention.

How long he had been standing there I honestly didn't know but even as I was recognizing the figure, it was closing the door- entering the conversation easily as if we were talking about nothing in particular.

"Chevalo."

"Not going to tell him?" He asked me arching a brow as my father looked from him to me and back again in ever mounting horror as I watched the truth slowly develop behind his eyes.

"Tell me what?"

"Well, as your daughter just observed, you were very neatly played my dear man," Chevalo informed him levelly. "Played quite well throughout dear little Dally's lifetime- or should I call you Nem now?" He asked me.

I didn't answer.

"The Jedi- this Nana was right, you know, Vokan," He explained to my father continuing as if I had. "Dally here has the same Talent I do by the way and, the only way to calm a child with it is to keep them away from corruption. We can smell it you see and so, children who are too young to know any better tend to attack it on sight.

"In many ways I think they understand things with a clarity that we forget as adults- not the least of which is that in the Dark it is either: kill or be killed- dominate or be dominated.

"Oh, it can quite frequently be mistaken for insanity but the reality is that attempts to escape that cycle are a perfectly normal and natural reaction for Fighters- I dare say that this 'Nana' was probably hoping to take our dear girl off to some place where she could learn how to find some semblance of peace and contentment far away from bloodshed and violence," He continued.

"But, of course, in so doing, she just wound up alerting the Darth I bet, and so he found himself the greatest weapon imaginable. Of course he couldn't resist putting it into play!

"After all, our dear Lord Vader didn't have to teach little Dally how to overcome that viciousness, he just had to train her in how to hone it and then just set her free out into the galaxy to let nature take its course.

"I imagine that, if he hadn't thought it more useful- not to mention safer, to have her in the midst of the enemy when she finally came to her senses and so, had you reeducate her," He commented. "You'd have found an entirely new knowledge of just how painful and prolonged she could have made your death."

"What?" My father breathed in response to those declarations.

"It's a part of our Talent I'm afraid," Chevalo merely shrugged. "We call it the Bloodlust.

"In fact, it happens just at the onset of puberty for those of us on the Dark Side. All of those hormones dancing around our systems just makes us want to kill everything in sight. Slowly. At least for a while."

But my father was a believer. He still refused to accept it. Even though I could see the fear and horror of realization slowly creep into his eyes, he still refused to believe.

"No," He denied it shaking his head.

"Oh, I'm afraid so," Chevalo informed him smiling. "Personally, I chalk it up to the fact that he probably knew a great deal about Fighters but not a great deal on how to handle our more… instinctive drives," He commented.

"He was probably hoping that she'd be surrounded by Jedi when the memories returned or, at the very least, surrounded by rebels so that she could take that murderous streak out on them.

"In fact, I imagine that was the entire purpose about that bit with my grandfather's diary," He observed easily. "My bet is that it was to arrange for her to locate the diary and a Jedi master to train her.

"Otherwise, she probably would have been killed on sight by the first Jedi she came across," He assessed. "Oh, I have no doubts it was nothing more than a brilliant method of getting her safely into a trusted position among them."

"How did you find me?" I asked instead of playing into his little game.

"Oh well, luckily for us, your father contacted me and told me everything a few months ago," He told me. "So, I've been staying with him waiting for you of course," He shrugged. "I knew what they had really been up to so, I knew that all that tranquility and peace would see those memories resurfacing soon enough.

"Tell me dearest, have the nightmares begun to increase in frequency yet? Because you really do look like you haven't had a good night's sleep in ages."

But my father- ever quick on the uptake was already coming to grips with the deceit and deciding what he was going to do.

"You stay away from her," He declared stepping between us.

"No," He declared again shaking his head. "You aren't going to have her, Chevalo.

"If this is who she chooses to be- who she needs to be, then, by the Maker, that is who my daughter is going to become," He informed him his voice cold.

"It's going to be alright, Ne- Dally, I swear," He vowed over his shoulder. "I'll fix it."

Chevalo just smiled a bit as he looked over at my father with honest sympathy.

"You are truly touching my lord," He stated. "But, you're not going to have the time.

"You see, Dally- Nem or whatever it is she wants to call herself by the time it's all out in the open, knows that I have absolutely no compunctions in killing you, or even destroying this entire empire to get to her," He admitted holding up his hands in surrender.

"So," Chevalo stated straightening. "She'll be coming with me," He announced. "We all know that."

Silence filled the room heavy and grim as I looked over at Chevalo waiting patiently to meet his eyes.

Finally, at long last, he looked back.

"Ten minutes," I told him.

Corlyon Chevalo smiled and bowed his head.

"Anything else," He declared. "Would be rude," He agreed before straightening again, he crossed the room and left it, shutting the door softly behind him.

My father didn't move for several long moments and neither did I.

Personally, I just didn't know what to say.

The fact was that while I couldn't deny he did what he had out of his love for me, neither could I deny what it meant for my future.

Slowly, eventually, he turned and the tears were apparent.

He was crying openly as his head fell, unable to meet my gaze.

"I'm sorry Dally, I'm so sorry," He told me his voice so soft that even with Fore-Enhanced hearing I could only just hear him. "I didn't know- I- I swear, I didn't know."

"I know father," I told him stepping forward and laying a hand on his arm. "I know."

And then he was pulling me into his arms, trembling with guilt, his entire life lying in ruins and I held him while he cried but I couldn't join in his tears.

I had to save myself and I had no time for them.

I waited until he had calmed before I began speaking to him in a soft voice I knew wouldn't carry farther than the two of us even for someone like the self-proclaimed Sithian just beyond the door.

"Father, you have to listen to me very carefully," I told him softly. "There is still a chance," I continued. "You have got to send word to Coruscant and to Master Luke Skywalker that I am Chevalo's prisoner and he's taking me to Rekla."

"'Rekla?'" He asked surprised as he whispered back. "How do you know?"

"It doesn't matter and we don't have the time," I shook my head as I held him for all the galaxy looking like we were only sharing in a tearful goodbye filled with regret.

I knew why Rekla. My already quiet tremor would be easily overwhelmed surrounded by Darkness. It would make me impossible to find without a clue to narrow it down.

"Will Skywalker help you?" My father asked.

"He's the only one who can," I admitted. "And yes, he will."

It was time, I realized even as my father hugged me closer to him for a moment.

"I'll do it," He declared before pulling back he met my gaze. "Dally," He used my name meaningfully.

"Dale," I corrected him unable to prevent a small smile at that.

He mirrored it.

"'Dale,'" He repeated before laying a kiss on my forehead. "You can do anything in this galaxy you set your mind to little trooper, you do know that, don't you?" He asked through the tears in his eyes. "You can do anything in this galaxy you choose to and, if that's what you want, you will get it."

No matter how old we may become or how strange the galaxy can get, fathers and daughters will always be fathers and daughters, I realized as I looked up at him, hugged him tightly, smiled at a second kiss upon my forehead and, straightening, crossed the room to the door.

At it, I paused for a moment and cast a look back.

"I do love you daddy," I told him the tears filling my eyes despite my control.

He nodded at this, the tears in his own still glittering.

"I love you too, little trooper and, I always will," He swore. "I always will."

And then, I was through the door and stepping out of my father's study for the last time, preparing to meet my destiny.

The Dorska's prophecy was about to come true.

I just didn't know if I had the strength to face it alone.