"It's like he's some imaginary hero," Leia blurted out, "and I'm not even there. Like I don't even exist." She ran a hand through her hair and exhaled, gritting her teeth and clenching her fists to avoid the tears pricking at the sides of her eyes. She should be over this by now. This was her life. She'd accepted it long ago. How could she be so weak about it still, even after all these years.
She heaved another breath and willed herself to continue, forcing her voice to steel itself the disguise the slight tremor that had started to pass through her body, "He's been dead all this time, and I've been here, but she doesn't care about me. She wants him. She never wanted me. Maybe if she hated me it would be better, but she doesn't even know I exist!" Leia threw her hands into the air and began to pace the room angrily, trying to work off years of bottled-up anger over this whole unfair situation.
"He's her hero! He's perfect! I don't even exist!" She couldn't look at Han, she couldn't, she couldn't bear to see any hint of pity in his eyes, any compassion, any understanding. She needs to live in this anger, to clutch it tight to her chest; it was all she had, it was all she could cling to in order to survive or else she'd lose herself, she'd fall into despair, become the nothingness her mother already thought she was.
"She's not there," Leia muttered to herself, clenching and unclenching her fists, turning her back to Han. She didn't know if he'd heard her or not, but she could tell from his Force signature, no matter how hard she was trying to block him out, what he was feeling.
Pity. Compassion. Love. Understanding. All the things Leia had never been allowed to experience for, either never being offered it or being actively told to push those things away.
But it was like a drug, and she didn't want to let it go. It was the most wonderful feeling in the whole world, the only thing she had to live for, the only thing nurturing her, keeping her alive, soothing her troubled soul…
But it wasn't enough. There was still this horrible pain inside her, this horrific agony from years of being ignored, from being neglected, and it was still happening. She wanted to fix it, she wanted to get rid of it forever, it hurt so bad. She would give up feeling all together if she could just get rid of the pain.
And the worst part of it all was that with the Force she could feel her mother's suffering. She could feel her pain every day as she ached for her son, for Leia's brother, for Luke. She could feel Padmé's indifference toward her, her anger towards her father, the sudden rush of joy whenever "Luke" showed up.
"I hate it here," Leia snarled, a sudden red mist descending over her eyes.
"I wish I could leave," she burst out desperately, angrily, suddenly whipping around to take out her anger on something, someone.
But all she saw were Han's kind blue eyes, so loving, so understanding, so concerned.
And for a moment her anger melted, subsiding to a dull ache in her chest that was overwhelmed by the positive, giddy, soft feeling sweeping through her, making her flutter internally, making her soar.
She wanted to devour it, this feeling. She wanted this euphoria to stay forever, to fill her, to feed her. She wanted to live off it, she wanted it to last forever.
But it wouldn't. Of course it wouldn't. The feeling was gone as quickly as it came, only leaving a slight warmth lingering deep within her core. It wasn't enough. Even love couldn't overwhelm this horrible pain. What could?"
The sudden change in Han's expression made her frown. He was looking up, staring warily above her head. Leia whipped around. She'd been so caught up in her own feeling that she hadn't noticed the familiar presence of her mother, standing in the door, looking gently but distantly at her.
She didn't say anything. She didn't seem to be able to. Leia felt that familiar sense of anger bubbling in her chest and began to move forward, and the words tumbled out of her mouth before she could even give them a second thought. "What are you gonna tell me?" She sneered, staring up at her mother.
Padmé said nothing, avoiding her daughter's eyes, seemingly out of some sense of shame. This was enough to make Leia explode. "You don't love me!" She shrieked. "You've never loved me! It's all about him! Him, him, him, him, him!"
To her horror, tears started pouring down her cheeks, hot and quick. But she didn't even bother to wipe them away, she couldn't find the willpower within her to do so. She gripped her fists tightly, digging her fingernails painfully into her palms. "Guess what, Mother?" she snarled cruelly, stepping forward so that she was right in Padmé's face. Padmé flinched unconsciously, eyes fluttering shut briefly, instinctively taking a step back.
Leia didn't care. "HE'S NOT HERE!" she screamed. "I AM HERE!"
The room was shaking with the weight of Leia's anger, her pain, her agony. Years of neglect had built to this moment, to this breaking point, and her pain showed in the sudden shaking of her furniture. Leia scarcely noticed. She had retreated into herself, into her rage, into her pain.
Padmé finally spoke up here, desperately trying to calm her daughter. "You know that's not true, Leia," she said, finally looking directly down into Leia's brown eyes, fighting through her fear of her daughter's rage that reminded her so much of her husband's.
She pushed forward. "We love you, Leia," she stated firmly. There was a glimmer of uncertainty now in those brown eyes that so resembled her own, and Padmé wanted to seize it, to nurture it, to make it grow, but that familiar dullness, that aching grief for her son held her back.
Whenever she looked at her daughter, she was reminded of Leia's twin, of the child she'd lost, Leia living the life by herself that both of them should have had. Not that she wanted Leia to be living this life-but at least she was alive. But Luke was dead. Luke was dead, and Leia surviving wouldn't change that she'd lost her child. Her son. Her little Anakin.
She fought through the sudden wave of overwhelming grief that threatened to consume, reeling slightly, closing her eyes and inhaling to steady herself. She forced herself to smile, to look into those desperate, uncertain, lonely eyes, making herself continue, "You know I love you," she said weakly.
"I love you as much as I can."
There was silence for a moment as Leia's eyes widened. She staggered slightly on her feet, and tears began pouring out of her eyes quicker than ever before.
Padmé was shocked with herself, at the words that had slipped through her traitorous lips. Horror made her mind go blank as she realized, truly, deeply, for the first time, that she meant it. She meant every word. This was the truth. This was the horrible, sickening truth.
And then pure terror coursed through as Leia's beautiful brown eyes suddenly transformed to a sickly yellow. And then a moment later, when Padmé was gasping for breath, clutching, horrified, at her throat, flashing back to that horrible moment, years ago, when her husband had the same look in his eyes, that she knew the danger she was in.
There was a flash suddenly, a crying out, "Leia!" Han was crying out, reaching out to shake Leia out of it, and in an instant Padmé felt the pressure on her throat go lax, and she collapsed to the ground, Leia falling to the floor as well. They lay panting there together for a moment, shock on Padmé's face as she gulped in air. She steeled herself, looking fearfully up into her daughter's eyes to see if they were still yellow...Thankfully, they were brown, gleaming with shock and wonder and agony and something else indecipherable Padmé couldn't quite decipher, but which sent a thrill of fear through her heart.
But as quickly as that look had come, it was gone, and Leia's face crumpled in pure pain as Padmé began to crawl pathetically away out of the room, the door slamming shut behind her.
And it was here that Leia began to wail, to sob, to give in to her grief, and Han moved in to wrap her tightly in his arms, pulling her to his chest, enveloping her with his warmth. Leia was gasping through sobs, rambling, screaming incoherent thoughts born of pure instinct. "She doesn't...she doesn't care, she doesn't care, she wants him, she doesn't want me...she...she…"
Leia hiccoughed and sobbed into Han's shoulder, snot dribbling down her nose and onto Han's jacket. If he minded, he didn't show it.
But even through the haze she couldn't deny the little thrill she'd felt for that one moment, when all of her pain had been unleashed onto her mother, when it had been oh so briefly expelled from her and replaced with a grim, sadistic satisfaction as her mother had suffered in that moment, finally knowing just exactly how Leia was feeling.
In spite of her teachings, Leia had always had difficulty accessing the Dark Side. She'd been able to make do without it thankfully, and her father had never seemed to mind what tactics she used. Or at least, she thought he didn't. She'd never really been able to get a good read on the man, but most of the time they did spend together was through training, and she thought at least there she knew him pretty well. And he had certainly tried to get her to tap into her rage, but only once had he ever pushed the matter and he'd seen where that got him and had quickly stopped trying.
Leia flexed her mechanical hand as the memory flickered in her mind, pushing it down quickly, not wanting to add to the pain and fear and agony already coursing through her veins.
But whatever mental block she had had with the Dark Side she'd now seemed to overcome...and it felt wonderful and horrible all at once in a way that made her stomach squirm with a sickly beautiful combination of guilt and euphoria.
The fact that she'd liked it, that she'd liked choking anyone, especially her own mother, in turn led to more pain and shame and guilt and only made her sob all the harder into Han's jacket.
She howled loudly and buried her face into Han's chest because the pain was too real, too raw, and she just wanted it all to go away.
"She's not there," she sobbed to herself. Han reached out a hand and started smoothing down her hair and rubbing her back in an effort to calm her down.
"She's not there," Leia finally repeated dully.
She looked up at Han now, and finally the tears had stopped coming from her eyes, but the lingering ones still made their way down her cheeks.
And now her gaze hardened, hardened into some horrible combination of pain and anger and guilt and euphoria into something stony, something emotionless.
"She's not there."
Padmé wrung her hands nervously together as she sat in the waiting room, the sound of her husband's respirator doing absolutely nothing to soothe her nerves.
"Are you...are you alright?" Vader was obviously trying to sound concerned, but the deep boom of his vocoder made that nearly impossible. It was only because Padmé knew him so well that she could hear any emotion at all.
She didn't like the softening in his tone though, it reminded her too much of Anakin, of how things had been, so she snapped at him, "When have I ever been alright?"
He was quiet for a moment. Then, he spoke as softly as his vocoder allowed him to, "Twenty years ago. Twenty years ago, you didn't care...Didn't care when I killed the Sand People. You loved me anyways. We were happy then."
Padmé flinched at the reminder. That really should have been her first warning sign, shouldn't it have? She spoke quietly, "I wish everyday that I had never married you. That I had recognized back then...And that's no one's fault but my own. I covered up a genocide for you. I should have known...I should have known back then…" The sudden burst of energy she'd received was gone now, and she looked away dully, shaking her head. "Our poor children."
He growled suddenly, reaching out to grip her shoulder harshly. "It's not my fault he's dead, Padmé, you know that."
Before Padmé could respond, she turned to see...She gaped. Ahsoka. But no. It couldn't be. Could it? A flash of panic rushed through her as she turned to look at her husband and saw that he too, had stiffened, but hadn't immediately leapt up with his lightsaber, which was odd, so…
"Lady Vader?" the togruta spoke, and Padmé's heart sank. This wasn't Ahsoka. This was just another togruta she'd never met before. The female did look remarkably like an older version of Ahsoka, and she was just around the right age as she would be too. But she wasn't her.
It was going to be incredibly hard to attend her sessions with this living reminder of her husband's padawan...and in a way, Padmé and Anakin's first child...They'd done a much better job with her than their biological children at any rate. She often wondered about the togruta's fate, hoping against all hopes that she'd escaped Order 66 and was alive somewhere, happy. Or as happy as she could be.
Padmé stood and followed the togruta medic into her office, memories of the young Ahsoka flashing through her mind all the while.
The door shut quickly behind them and the togruta sat down in a white, cushy seat, then beckoned Padmé to sit across from her.
She smiled gently at her. "Welcome, Lady Vader. I'm name is Dr. Initium, and I'll be your mind healer."
Padmé smiled faintly at her, trying all the while not to think of Ahsoka, but memories of her husband's former padawan kept surging and bringing up bittersweet feelings along with them.
"I know you don't want any medication, and usually mind healing works best with it, but it's alright, we can try it out on its own."
Padmé nodded, not really paying attention, and suddenly the togruta in the chair had transformed into Ahsoka, who was laughing and smiling at her and looking at her with such warmth in her eyes that it made Padmé's heart ache.
"Lady Vader?" Padmé blinked and the Dr. Initium reappeared in the chair, staring at her with a look of concern. "Are you all right?"
Padmé averted her gaze. "Call me Padmé, please," she said quietly.
Dr. Initium nodded, relaxing a bit but still watching her shrewdly.
She took out her holopad and looked back up at Padmé. "So. Where shall we begin?"
"Um…" Padmé sputtered, looking down at her hands in her lap and biting her lip hesitantly. The togruta didn't look bothered, only smiled gently at her.
"How about your history?"
Padmé cocked her head curiously. "What exactly do you know about me?"
Initium's typically unreadable eyes held a sudden glimmer of curiosity. "I know that you were once known as Padmé Amidala," she remarked, holding Padmé's gaze.
Padmé said nothing, watching her curiously.
Dr. Initium took that as her cue to continue. "Child queen of Naboo, later a Senator. And now married to Darth Vader, with a daughter, Leia Vader. Correct?"
This was more bare-bones than she'd expected. Padmé couldn't help but feel as though Initium knew more than she was saying. But she obviously wasn't going to get anything more from the mind healer, at least right now, so she nodded.
Dr. Initium scrolled almost idly through her file. Padmé felt a sudden inexplicable desire to flip through it herself but knew she'd never be allowed to, so instead she focused on Initium's reaction.
"Would you like to talk about your marriage at all?"
"No," Padmé responded sharply.
"Not yet," Initium nodded. Not ever, Padmé thought privately to herself, but didn't voice the thought.
Initium continued scrolling. "And your daughter?"
Unconsciously, Padmé brought her hands to her throat. "No," she said finally, honestly. Whenever she did think of Leia, it only brought her pain, even more so now after her realization and subsequent chokehold.
She paused finally and said in a mild tone of voice, "It says here you had a son?"
Padmé froze, frowning to herself at the emphasis on had. Son...had a son now. A beautiful boy, his name was Luke, secretly a member of the Rebellion, everything Anakin should be, his spitting image, her hero, he was going to free her-
"My son?" Padmé echoed faintly, finally, when she could speak again.
Initium finally looked up from the holopad and stared at her, folding her hands in her lap. "Yes, your son."
A sudden presence drove Padmé out of her reverie. Luke was standing between her and Dr. Initium, smiling down at her, all warmth and gentleness and light.
Initium's voice attempted to break through to her. "Tell me about him," she insisted.
"Why is he still around? Who is he?" And finally, the ultimate, horrible, wonderful, confusing question:
"What is he?"