A/N: Thanks to Zyra, Solo Smirk and Lady Peter for their suggestions, corrections and guidance!


It is Your Destiny…

Coruscant

The scaling city towers of Coruscant looked different to Leia. The air smelled odd and she felt like a stranger in what had once been her hometown. In her heart she knew that it was she that had changed and not her beloved city. She was returning heavy-hearted and perhaps a bit jaded and the 'rightness' that she had hoped to find here, she now realized, would not be so easily regained.

The universe, in all of its deviance and ugliness, had left her feeling misguided and powerless. The Force, her greatest ally, had not proven invincible or immune as she had so often been taught. It was as if the core foundations upon which she was raised had been at the very least…shaken. As she gazed upon the duracrete streets of the Galactic Capital with its great high rises that tickled the sky with their enormity, she wondered if Coruscant itself – and the Republic for which it stood – was similarly built upon such weakened foundations. Was the threat of its topple just as real or imminent? All that she had been taught, the very principles that she had guided her life by, now held new meaning for her; teasing and eating at her instead of bolstering and strengthening her.

Luke, as he stood next to her, seemed rejuvenated by recent events, and seemed to be in a rush to see everyone, to gather together and strategize. She felt his belief and commitment thrumming stronger than ever through the Force in stark contrast to her own. As he scuttled along, her feet found it hard to hurry toward yet another strategy and the possibility of another mission. The seeds of doubt plagued her and tempered her resolve. Seeing everyone also meant telling everyone and recounting a tale that she had been doing her damnedest to stop from replaying in her mind. She wondered also what Luke intended to do with the new information she had shared with him. It wasn't the wisest of things to do, she knew, entering the Jedi Temple harboring doubts and secrets.

"What will you tell everyone?" Leia asked as the twins climbed aboard a hover taxi on their way to the Jedi Temple.

Luke studied the busy streets streaming by outside of his window. It was a habit he had developed ever since Byss – the habit of looking toward anything but at her. "I'll tell them everything I know about what happened on Byss," he said.

"And the other?" She asked referring, as he knew that he knew, to her secret, a secret that seemed so much bigger and more important – serious - now that she had shared it with him.

Luke shook his head. "Nothing," he replied and by the strained set of his jaw that she could make out in his profile, he looked pained by the admission.

Leia accepted his answer in silence with a slight nod of her head. She then turned toward the window herself, finding the strange faces amongst the crowds pleasantly distracting.

"What will you do?" She heard Luke ask. "About him?"

Leia shook her head, her eyes never leaving the parade of faces streaming passed her window. This was something she had already decided yet the prospect of admitting it out loud gave it a reality that she was hesitant to bring forth. She let her mind go numb while the parade of faces outside her window blurred into nothing more than a collage of colors that could not be made into anything in particular and then she whispered, "Nothing."


A young, scrawny looking Padawan met the pair at the gates and escorted them through the entry gardens. This was where she and Luke had trained in all manners of the Force and she looked upon the grounds fondly. The training pavilions, where she had sparred many times over, were mostly empty, their light stone foundations sprinkled with only a few practicing Padawans – the clash of their training blades cutting through the silence of the meditation grounds like a cough in a library.

As they walked further toward the Temple, all eyes easily found Luke and Leia and just as easily looked away. She wondered just how much everyone knew. After spending so much time away from other Jedi the potent rhythm and thrum of Force awareness that was the normal atmosphere of the Jedi Temple felt oppressive and over-bearing. Leia raised the hood on her cloak and tightened up her formation beside her brother. She had never felt so vulnerable and exposed while walking on these grounds and her pace finally quickened to match her brothers as they neared the Temple steps.

It was then; at the moment the rising stone steps of the Jedi Temple came into view, that she caught sight of her. It was a clear, sunny day and Winter's white hair seemed to catch and reflect every ray of sunlight within parsecs of where she stood. Leia's feet stopped moving. Suddenly all awareness of the probing Force-sensitives surrounding her dropped away as if she had stepped inside of a bubble. For a time she didn't even breathe, it felt as if her heart had completely stopped beating as well.

It had taken a moment for her brother and their escort to realize that she had fallen behind. "Leia?" Luke called from a few paces in front of her. "What's wrong?" He began to look around, searching for danger.

Leia shook her head. "I can't do this," she whispered.

The Jedi Council, the Chief of State, the gods-damned Senate hall, she could face all of them, but not her. She spun around quickly, wobbly legs stumbling back toward the gate but she was immediately met by a solid wall of flesh as she collided with someone walking swiftly towards her.

"Come with me," the voice said, a strong arm wrapping around her and guiding her not toward the exit, but toward one of the meditation trails. It was the voice of her father and it had never sounded so sweet.

Leia allowed him to steer her onto a deserted path not even turning around to see how her brother or any of the others were reacting to her hasty retreat. Guilt quickly replaced the panic that had blossomed inside of her. How could she avoid her best friend in what was surely her most desperate time of need?

"I should go back," she said, stopping and twisting out of her father's embrace.

He had said nothing and up until then, she hadn't even seen his face. Looking upon him was like seeing Coruscant again. He looked somehow different, no longer a father so distant in experience and age but now just a man with his own life experiences, his own tragic story to carry around just as she had now. At that moment he was her kin in spirit as well as blood. And almost immediately, the tears came.

Her father wordlessly pulled her back into his arms and whispered soothing words that caressed her very soul, tending to those wounds that were at the deepest parts of her. Her friend would understand and share her loss. It was not her fault. He was there for her. They all were there for her. She must be strong.

Anakin kissed the top of her head at those last words and somewhere within his speech and his embrace, Leia found that strength. It had crawled down deep inside of her belly, wound around itself like a saber cat and settled there. Luke had not been able to coax it out of her, so dormant it had been since her failure on Byss. But with each syllable of her father's words the latent potency inside of her awoke, stretching its legs, turning about a few times in lazy circles and finally arching its back and coming to life.

"That's my girl," her father said, as if sensing her reawakening and recommitment through the Force.

"I failed, Father. I failed," Leia whispered, wiping her eyes and stepping out of his embrace. She had failed at protecting Bail Organa; she had failed at playing politics with the enemy. Ben Kenobi's death during her rescue was just as much at her hand than anyone's. And she had failed at the harmless game she thought she had been playing with her future and Han Solo. It was all a failure and she admitted to it now realizing that her father could not possibly comprehend all that she was speaking of. But that somehow didn't matter. It was the first time she had admitted the fact (the fear!) out loud.

Her father chuckled, a response she found incongruous to the situation and how desperate she felt at that moment. He swiped a tear from her cheek with the knuckle of his forefinger and said with a sympathetic smile, "Leia, to stumble, to fail, to weep, there is no shame in any of that. They are all badges of honor, for those who have never failed are those who have never aspired to do anything of consequence whatsoever."

She found herself returning his faint grin. And whether it was his words or the very act of setting the fears inside of her free by finally giving them a voice, she felt better and she let out a small chuckle as she looked back on the entire exchange. Just as he had always been there to comfort her through every scraped knee or sore throat when she was little, her father still retained that uncanny ability to make everything better with a few words and a hug. "I will never outgrow this, will I?" she asked, her voice hopeful as she swiped her nose and looked up to him.

Anakin Skywalker smiled, seeming to instinctively know what she was talking about, and said, "By the Force, I sincerely hope not."

They pair hugged again and then headed toward the Temple to return to the others. As they walked closer, she lowered the hood of her cape and let the sun shine warm her face. She was ready to face Winter, the Council and whatever the future might have in store feeling (finally!) as if a part of her world had, in fact, been righted.