This chapter has been a long time in coming, I admit it, but I hope it will satisfy for the time being.

Just a quick warning: after this chapter, the story is going to pick up a lot, which (for me) means more time between updates. Apologies in advance.

Warmth...the rightness...surrounded...encircled by my mother's arms...another is there too...the other me...together a whole...mother turns me to her...one glimpse of her...sadness...she's so sad...but she loves me...clinging to me is keeping her clinging to life...then I'm ripped away...cold...so cold...notwhole...I reach for the other me...straining for him...but we're slowly separated...notwhole...a shadow falls over me...a horrible figure looming above me... "And now, Princess, we will discuss the location of the Rebel base..." ...Alderran...oh, Alderran... "Dantooine...They're on Dantooine..." I whisper, broken...the emerald light...Alderran shattering like a piece of fine china...shadows encircling me...a garish orange glowing beneath me...he is slowly descending...his eyes never leave mine...a rush of steam...it almost glows...My eyes slowly fluttered open. Sunlight streamed over my face through white-curtained windows. Squinting, I looked around. I was in a strange room, lying on a strange bed. Slowly, I turned my head to the left. A stranger sat in an armchair, quietly reading. I opened my mouth to ask where I was, but nothing came out. I strained to sit up, but fell back with a groan. The stranger looked up. When our eyes met, surprise burst forth from him into the Force. I opened my mouth to ask where I was, but again, nothing came out. He grabbed something out of my sight; it was a cup with a straw coming from it. He brought the straw to my lips, and I drank with relief. After my thirst had been quenched, I was able to stammer out, "Whuh...Whe...Where am I? Wh-who are you?"

The doctor, for that was who I was sure he was, replied quietly, "You're in the medbay. My name is Doctor Zeller." He was young – he couldn't have been more than thirty – but I could see a few gray hairs already coming out in his dark blond hair.

"H-h-how long have I been out?" I asked, a little scared to hear the answer.

He paused. I repeated the question again, this time with more force. He sighed, giving in. "You have been out for a little more than five weeks – thirty-seven days to be exact."

I stared up at the ceiling, stunned. Five weeks? I quickly did the math. If it had been Day 63 when I...blacked out, that would make today...Day 100. I swore under my breath, then turned back to Doctor Zeller. "What happened to me?"

He responded quietly, "What do you remember?"

I thought back. "I remember Vader standing over me and demanding something, but...but I'm not sure whether it was a hallucination or not. I'm not sure if I was just reliving...reliving a...a memory or if it actually happened. What happened to me?"

Doctor Zeller sat back. He took his time, taking off his glasses, cleaning them on his shirt, and inspecting them before he answered me. "It happens, sometimes, that when a person has undergone physical or psychological trauma, something will happen - a trigger or such will appear - and suddenly, they're back, reliving that trauma. Their mind is so overcome by this memory that it just shuts everything down. Total blackout. I am thinking that is what happened to you. Am I right?" I nodded, tears rolling down my face. I was powerless to stop them, as powerless as I had been that day...that terrible day. "Do you know what the trigger was? If we know, we can try to prevent this from happening again," he said. I could sense through the Force that he truly wanted to help me.

"Vader," I whispered, my voice hoarse from disuse. "It was Vader."

He looked at me quietly and sadly. "Do you want to talk about it?"

I thought about it, then said softly, "Not yet. Not for a while."

He nodded, a kind half-smile on his lips. "Do you think you can see Lord Vader? He has been very worried." I cast my mind out. Almost immediately, I touched on his presence. He stood, waiting, outside the door. When he felt the brush of my mind on his, such a rush of joy and relief filled him that touching him felt like touching a supernova. He reached for me, but I pulled back before he could touch me. I looked at the doctor and slowly shook my head. "Not today, I murmured. "Not today."

The doctors kept me in the medbay for the next week. Most days, I couldn't bring myself to do anything but lie on my back, trying to keep myself from going back to those memories. I had kept them locked away so carefully for so long it hurt that much more when I did relive them. I had done a good job avoiding all those things that could recall them - triggers the doctor had called them. Needles had always been big ones. But somehow in these nine - no, fourteen - weeks, I hadn't stopped to consider him. I felt myself beginning to tremble just at the thought of him. Whatever had happened that day had called forth my utter fear of him. Hatred, I realized now, had always been my way of concealing the fear. Now my hatred was shattered and my fear blown out of proportion.

The doctors were all incredibly kind to me, providing tender care but not letting their pity show. But whenever I cast my mind out, he was there, prowling on the outskirts. He never forced his mind at me - he just waited. Whenever he sensed me, his presence in the Force almost...lit up. He would always silently invite me in, but I always pulled back. I refused to look back every time I pushed him away. Acceptance and another, stranger, emotion formed the cloud around him. I looked back once and saw what that stranger emotion was. Sorrow. I shut him out even more firmly after that. I had no desire to connect with him in any way even though I knew I would have to eventually, being his apprentice and all.

On the eighth day after I woke up (Day 108), I was released from the medbay (after a great deal of begging and some devious concealing of certain facts on my part, I might add). I kept my pride and walked to my room without assistance (despite the fact that I had to stop and rest every fifty yards). After a long and hard slog, I was back in my rooms. Slowly, I turned the armchair in my bedroom so that it faced out the window, then collapsed into it and began contemplating my next move. How was I going to face Vader after...after what happened? Immediately, I scoffed at myself. It wasn't a question of how I was to face Vader – it was a question of how Vader was to face me. A new thought suddenly occurred to me: I could use this to my advantage. If I played my cards right, I could learn what I needed regarding Anakin Skywalker. I looked at my bedside chrono. 2:00. It would be another hour before Vader came for our Force lesson. (Jix had visited me in the medbay the day before and had told me that I wouldn't start physical training again until I was fully recovered; my lessons in the Force would continue as usual). I spent my hour resting and attempting to quiet my troubled heart.

Promptly at 2:00, my Master let himself in. I walked out of my bedroom to him slowly, so as to control and conceal my weakness. When he saw me, he stopped short. That cloud of emotions surrounding him built up into a thunderhead. He pulled himself out of his trance when he saw me lean against the door frame for support. Wordlessly, he helped me to my seat, lowering me gently into the cushioned seat. As I recovered, he lowered his huge, armor-clad frame into the much more austere wooden chair that I usually inhabited. Once my breathing had returned to normal, he straightened and made a sound that could only be the clearing of his throat, made abnormal by his vocoder.

"Leia..." he said rather hesitantly. He stopped, seeming to collect himself, then went on: "What is your full name?"

I hadn't realized how tense I had become until I began relaxing. "My full name is Leia Amidala Organa," I said, a note of pride sneaking into my voice.

"Amidala?"

"Yes, Amidala," I answered stiffly.

"And I suppose Organa told you stories about her?"

"Yes, they were good friends."

At this, Vader got up and began to pace. "Do you know what your name means?" he asked.

"Which one?"

"Your first name - Leia."

I paused, then asked, "Why? Do you know?"

"Yes, I do."

"Well, what does it mean?" I said, somewhat belligerently.

"In Huttese, it means Fire-Child." I filed away this little tidbit with all my other spare parts of information: Darth Vader knew Huttese. "A...friend of mine told me that it also means Little Angel." He looked at me, some unknown emotion leaking from him to me. "What have you heard?"

I counted to ten before speaking, trying to keep myself under control. "In Alderranian, it means 'homeless'," I said.

Vader stopped short. My Force senses had grown sharp enough for me to be able to detect the horror leaking from him especially considering how badly out of practice I was. "It also means..."

He waited quietly, then nudged me through the Force, even though I knew he was loathe to know. What does it mean? he asked me gently.

"'Fatherless.'"

He was silent for some time, standing like a block of ebony marble. Then he said as softly as it seemed possible for him to do, "Some cultures believe that the name you are given affects your destiny." I had heard this before, but my curiosity as to why he would know was piqued. "Your parents did not know those other meanings. They would have died rather than wish such terrible afflictions upon you."

The Force whispered softly in my ear, showing me something I would not have believed possible. Darth Vader was talking about my real parents. "How do you know my parents?" I burst out.

He did not deign me with a response. Instead he just stood there, watching me. Every time I had come into contact with him over the past few days, he had seemed almost...afraid - afraid to let go of me through the Force. Now he stood there, unresponsive.

"What is it?" I demanded, feeling anger at such scrutiny welling up within me. "Why do you just stand there? Say something - anything! Respond to me! How did you know my real parents?"

Suddenly his gaze, if it was possible, intensified. "Say that again," he said, moving slowly toward me.

"Respond to me?" I said, utterly bemused.

"No, no, what you said after that," he responded.

I waited as long as I could, drawing out the silence, but soon I could no longer resist. "How did you know my real parents?" I said softly.

"Louder."

I lifted my chin, not about to lose my pride, and said clearly, "How did you know my real parents?"

He took a step back as if struck. I could hear the whirr of his thoughts through the Force, but I wasn't strong enough to sense what they contained. After an infinity of strained silence, he said slowly, "I knew your parents long ago. Long before...this." He waved his hand vaguely, but I somehow knew he meant the Empire, the Rebellion, everything. "Your mother was...your mother was beautiful. You look like her," he said, with a hint of a strange emotion lacing his voice. Was it hope? Fear? Pride? All three? He resumed his pacing. "Why did you not tell me you were adopted?" he demanded. "Why were you hidden from me?"

"Hidden? I was not hidden!" I exclaimed, now confused. "All those years, I was in plain sight." He stopped his pacing and locked gazes with me. I knew we were both thinking about all those times we encountered each other - in the corridors of the palace on Alderran when I was a child, then as I grew older, arguments (which were more like fights that we let no one else hear) over what "good policies" should be. He knew just as well as I did that never in all our nineteen years of acquaintanceship had I been hidden from him. For some reason, this knowledge had let loose a furious deluge of anger from him. He resumed his pacing.

After some time, he spat his first question out again, "Why did you not tell me you were adopted when I took you on as my apprentice?"

I responded calmly and clearly, though in truth I was seeing red, "I did not know myself until eight days before the destruction of...the destruction of the Death Star." My change in phrase did not escape him. I shifted keys, trying to keep myself under control. "I did not tell you because for one, I did not know who my real parents were. I saw no benefits that would come from sharing the information with you, so I kept my silence."

"Politicians..." he snarled, true anger coming from him now. "Always with their own benefit in mind..."

Something within me snapped. "I was in the grips of a man who had shown himself capable of searching out and destroying everything that I held dear, a man who had no qualms about torturing me both in body and mind. Of course I was looking out for myself!"

"I could never have killed you," he said softly, that same strange emotion shining through the darkness surrounding him.

"But you certainly tried," I responded viciously, not about to feel pity for this monster. "Am I the only one here who remembers what you did to me in that holding cell on the Death Star? You want to see the scars? Refresh your memory?" I taunted, no longer in control of my own tongue.

"It was not my fault that you choose to assist the Rebel cause, Princess," he replied darkly. "I did what I had to."

"Oh yeah?" I replied, deciding to give as good as I got. I didn't remember standing up, but now I was, braced against his lies and fists clenched at my sides. "So, Torture a Kid was on your To-Do list, was it? Then right below it, Destroy A World?"

"I WAS DOING MY DUTY!" he roared.

"AND I WAS DOING MINE!"

"IT WAS NOT MY CHOICE TO DESTROY ALDERRAN!"

"YOU COULD HAVE STOPPED TARKIN FROM DOING IT!"

"HIS ORDERS CAME FROM THE EMPEROR!"

"OH, SO THAT CHANGES IT, DOES IT? FOLLOW THAT DECREPIT MAN AS HE DESTROYS THE GALAXY, WORLD BY WORLD?"

"I BROUGHT PEACE TO THE GALAXY!"

"HOW? BY DESTROYING ANYONE WHO DARED TO VOICE AN OPINION CONTRARY TO YOUR OWN?"

"WHY, YOU..."

I felt the Force surge around him. Before I knew what was happening, I was flying back toward the wall as if thrown. Quickly, I tried to use the Force to slow myself down. When I hit the wall, my vision went gray. I don't know how long I lay there, curled up against the pain, before a black-robed figure was bending over me. Strangely, I could feel concern emanating from him, concern and horror at what he had done. I sensed that he was saying something, but I couldn't make out anything, my hearing as blurred as my eyesight. A black something was being extended to me, gesturing with some foreign emotion. But when that black something touched my shoulder, attempting to lift me, my body reacted of its own accord. My body spasmed, following some unknown instruction laid down years before to not let him touch me. My hand rose in the air. I think I gave some vague gesture, but my message through the Force was much clearer: Get away! He jerked back as if branded. He slowly rose, hurt (hurt?) emanating from him. Little by little, I pushed myself up. Slowly I rose up from the ground, but my vision went gray again, and I started falling. Leather-bound hands caught me, but I jerked myself away, responding to that subconscious warning. I caught myself on the chair and made my way, step by step, to my room. That black...figure hovered nearby, but didn't touch me again. I collapsed on my bed, and the last things I remembered were that dark figure standing protectively over me and a comforting voice echoing through my mind, saying, "You truly are your father's daughter."

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