Luke sat uncomfortably as Breha raged. They'd been prepping for a family lunch with the Jedi since the late morning, and his adoptive mother had been anything but happy about it. Leia had confided that she suspected that Breha had kept her from the Master Jedi on purpose, and this confirmed it, Luke supposed.

"She's so superstitious," Leia had rolled her eyes as they sat on the shore of Padme's lake house. "She thinks they're child-snatchers."

Obviously, Breha hadn't cared if Luke got snatched; he was sure she was the one who had orchestrated the Jedi Master's early visitation.

Leia sat, kicking her feet as Padme calmly braided her long brown hair and Bail tried to pacify his wife. His own clothes were starched stiff; he was dressed up brand-new and fancy, like a doll kept on a shelf taken down for display.

Master Kenobi was a frequent visitor, so he wasn't exactly sure what all the hubbub was about. And deep down, he was a little annoyed at Leia and Master Kenobi both. If Leia hadn't been so stubborn, then he wouldn't even have called Master Kenobi. He could've just gone to see his Father, on his own accord, and then none of this would be happening at all.

"I don't even know why you're doing this, Padme," Breha wrung her hands anxiously. "Couldn't you just have declined this meeting?"

"Obviously that wouldn't have solved anything," Padme put another bright golden pin in Leia's hair, "The kids would have just gone to other, most unscrupulous sources. At least he called me."

"Breha, darling, it's not that serious," Bail put a hand on his wife's shoulder and gave her a warm smile. "The children are curious about their biological—"

"Luke is curious," Leia winced at a particularly tight wrench of her head, "I don't care. You're my dad."

"Shut up, Leia," Luke muttered, and stuck his tongue out at his sister when she glared at him.

"I don't know why you even had to force them to visit that man, Padme," Breha spat.

"'That man' is their father," Padme said cooly, putting the finishing touches on Leia's elaborate crown braid. The accessories matched the embroidery on the flouncy dress exactly. "He has as much right as I do see them. Though that doesn't matter much to you, does it?" The words were spat out between pursed lips and tight teeth, and Luke could feel the depth of emotion his Mother buried deep; a riptide of bitter anger and regret in the Force.

"It's perfect, Mother," Leia angled her head like a curious bird in the mirror. She spun on her heel and threw her arms around Padme's shoulders in a hug. Padme smiled warmly and clung to her daughter, but Luke could feel that she was still ill at ease.

"What do you mean?" Luke asked.

"Never you mind," Breha said sharply. "Now, put your shoes on and go to the dining room—"

"Leia, go with him," Padme interrupted. "We'll be there soon."

"But—"

"Go."

Leia pouted but obeyed. She knew that Padme knew that she was good at spying, at sitting quietly and unobtrusively so that adults forgot she was there and let things slip. Luke wanted to smack himself; if he hadn't said anything, they would've said more.

The lake house was much smaller than the palace, and in the quiet of the servants setting the table Luke could hear the sharp voices of Bail and Breha and Mother arguing. About what, he didn't know, but he could suspect.

Like most things involving the Jedi, it was all very anticlimactic.

Master Kenobi arrived exactly on time; in layered pale robes, grey eyes tired and distant, but his smile small and sincere. Bail and Breha greeted him in the hall and led him back to the dining room where Luke, Leia, and Padme waited. When the older man caught sight of Luke, he brightened; a small change, but perceivable nonetheless.

"Hello, young one," he said, hands tucked into the sleeves of his outer robe. "I hope you've been well." His posture was impeccable, his voice clipped and staccato even as he spoke kindly. Luke couldn't feel anything from the man's airy presence; he was like a ghost. Luke greeted him; Master Kenobi turned his attention to his twin.

"You must be Princess Leia," he bowed with a genteel smile. "It's a pleasure to finally meet you. I haven't seen you since you were born. You look just like your mother."

Leia, who had heard that piece a thousand times since she was four, smiled politely, but emptily. "Thank you, Master Kenobi."

The pleasantries went around the table, though Breha was stiff and unwelcoming, the opposite of the high society lady Luke knew his adoptive mother to be. Her fingers drummed a rhythm on the marble table, and her eyes darted shiftily between the staredown between Master Kenobi and Padme.

A staredown was really what it was. Luke knew Master Kenobi fairly well, and the man felt like an autumn breeze, all yellow and bright, but brisk— the opposite of warm, but not the chill.

Once, Luke might have struggled to put words to his perception of his sixth sense. Leia didn't have it, not in the same way, but during visitation his father had seen right through all his doubt, his hesitation, the pressure to brush off such whims and justify every instinct the Organas had drilled into him since he was young. They had talked, and talked, and every hour had flown by too quickly, but Anakin Skywalker understood without explanation that to Luke, the Force was a feeling, a physical sensation, not the whisper the Master Jedi had always told him to listen for.

He searched his feelings now, and felt—

The off-feeling before a stomachache—

A lingering dread, the anxiety he felt right before he leapt off a lakeshore cliff for the first time.

The pressure in his ears after deep diving.

A tense portent of imminent change.

The small talk Bail helplessly tried to make dried up faster than water in the midday summer sun.

"Enough of this farce," Padme sat regally, like the queen she had been in her youth. "I believe Luke and Leia have some explaining to do."

Luke's mouth was made of cotton, and when he glanced at Leia and saw her thin lips pursed obstinately, he knew he was on his own. She wouldn't say anything, even if they threatened to punish her. She was stubborn that way. As the oppressive quiet dragged on, Luke opened his mouth to hurriedly make up an excuse when Master Kenobi stopped him with a hand.

"No, Luke, you were not wrong," he smiled. "It is never wrong to seek out knowledge when looking for an answer to a question. Was there a more appropriate way to go about it? I think so. You do understand that attempting to meet with me behind your parents' back was inappropriate?"

"It wasn't Luke's idea," Leia leaned forward, her palms flat on the cold white stone. "It was mine. And it's only because Padme wouldn't tell the truth—"

"I told you to speak to your father—"

"He's not my father—"

"About it, because I don't know, and Obi-Wan doesn't know; no one knows what really happened. I already told you that you don't have to visit if you don't want to. I already told you that if Luke wanted to visit your father, you should respect that. Leia, you should know better."

"That's not the point!" Leia shouted. "What's wrong with you! What kind of sicko 'loves' their own murderer?!"

"That's besides the point—"

"If you really cared, then you wouldn't have given us up," Leia stood, cheeks red with anger. "You're the one that left and then you just changed your mind and decided that you wanted to be my mom even though I already have a mom, and you're trying to make your murderer my father, and I don't want it!"

Padme looked as if she had been slapped in the face. Luke closed his jaw when he realized it was hanging open.

Since the visitation had started, Leia had been snappish. She was normally very kind, but when she was angry or upset about something she was mean, and it didn't matter who had made her mad; everyone was going to suffer. Luke was too used to it to be bothered, and Leia was only nine so the older adults often brushed it off, but now every word she spat landed like a blaster bolt to the chest.

"That's quite enough, young lady," Bail ordered, but Leia yelled right over him.

"It's not! I don't know why everyone here is determined to act as if anything about this is normal! It's— it's— it's bantha poodoo, is what it is!"

"Such language," Obi-Wan raised his eyebrows, utterly serene. "I'd almost think it was Anakin himself speaking."

That shut Leia up, but only after an angry huff. Her nostril flared with every breath, her jaw puckered and tight with anger. "That's not fair," she grit out, "You don't have any right to say anything."

"Don't I? Anakin was my brother," the Jedi Master looked exhausted, "I do understand, Princess Leia. And you are not wrong, it's well within your rights to decide to rebuke certain attachments."

"See!" Breha said, eyes pleading with Padme, "This is ridiculous, Padme! Even the Jedi think so—"

"Obi-Wan Kenobi, you wouldn't know the meaning of that word if the Force itself defined it to you," Padme's voice was quiet, but Luke could feel it; the still waters of a deceptive riptide. He'd almost drowned in one, once, when he was very young. Something terrible—

"You don't get to say that now, after everything you've done," Padme's face pinked and her jaw tightened exactly the same way Leia's had. "After everything you've done to keep his family apart!"

"Padme, you almost died," Obi-Wan did not lose an ounce of his cool composure. "You wasted your last breaths defending a child-killer. And I'm sure that isn't the first time you've covered for Anakin."

"Don't try to confuse the issue," Padme shot out of her chair, her clenched fists knuckling down on the cold marble. "I was wrong, and I know it. I paid for it, with my Senate seat, and I testified against him, didn't I? I'm not making excuses for Anakin— and this isn't about him!"

Leia's outburst was entirely forgotten, and they met each other's eyes over the table as she quietly sat down again, eyes wide and hungry for truth.

"Isn't it?" Obi-Wan looked away from her, at Bail. "Why don't they know the truth, Padme?"

"He's their father!"

"So why haven't you given them his letters?" Obi-Wan asked. "Why? Because you already know it would be unjust to put children in the reach of a madman."

He's written letters? Luke was stunned, but Leia's glare was enough to still his tongue.

"You are a spiteful man, Obi-Wan Kenobi," and it was the first time Padme said his name, and it dripped with a horribly complex sensation that Luke at his calmest couldn't hope to parse through. "Anakin Skywalker has never been safe, but he's always been good, and he loved Luke and Leia from the moment he knew they existed. He was never even afraid, which is more than I could say. You know why I blocked correspondence. It wouldn't have helped my case."

"Padme, please," Bail was nervous, even as a glimmer of surprise leaked from behind the Master Jedi's immaculate walls. "You don't need to involve the children in this."

"Don't I?" Padme smiled utterly without humor. "I can't tell you what happened before your father went to jail. I won't, because I don't know and I won't lie to you. But I can tell you what happened after, and maybe finally that'll stop you from going to the Jedi," she spat the word as if it were the most obscene curse, "for answers, because all they do is lie, and manipulate, and 'negotiate.'"

"Leia must have learned her wisdom, untempered by childish temerity as it is, from the Organas. Would that I let you have her, she surely would have been ruined." As you ruined Anakin. He was making progress, and you and your politician friends led him astray and destroyed him.

Luke didn't want to look up. He knew he wasn't supposed to catch that last line of thought, but Obi-Wan was an agitated pressure tanker of air. Feelings, thoughts, emotions, all repressed to the point of indetection were leaking through his compromised mental barriers.

Breha interrupted, "Master Kenobi, that is out of line! Padme—"

She was not listening. "How dare you? And you!" she turned on the Organas, "You were my friends. I trusted you with everything I had, and you repaid me like this. Well, fine. If that's how it's going to be, go on, Master Kenobi, why don't you tell them your truth.'

Bail was sweating, though it wasn't hot in the room at all. "Padme—"

"Ask your questions, Leia," Padme dared her to protest, and Luke could see the resemblance the two shared vividly in that moment, both in the Force and physically.

"Why...why did you leave us? If you left us, why would you come back?" Leia asked.

"I didn't leave," Padme said, "When I was well enough, Master Kenobi, Bail, Breha did their best to make sure I would never have you again."

"Leia, Luke, Padme needs a minute to calm down and collect herself," Breha gripped Padme's shoulder, "She doesn't know what she's saying."

But Luke knew better. "She's not lying," he said, solely for Leia's ears.

"You had already set out to ruin Luke," Obi-Wan and Padme argued as if they were the only two people left in the room, "He was going to be a Jedi, like his father, become everything Anakin could have been—"

"Could have been if he didn't love me? If he could just stop being so damned attached? If he could just obey his master? You never knew him!"

"Maybe, maybe not—"

"He took you from me, split you up. And when I came for you," she looked at Luke, "he gave you to the Organas. Leia had been a closed adoption, and I didn't know where she was until I found you and he moved you, as if we were playing some sick game of keep-away!"

"You gave Luke away to the Jedi?" Leia turned on Bail, betrayal glistening in her eyes. Luke reached under the table and held her warm hand in his own. She gripped it like a lifeline.

All his life, Luke had whispered to Leia his secret fears, and Leia had always bene there to promise him, reassure him that they were unfounded, that he was loved, that he was wanted, that Bail and Breha were as much his mother and father as they were Leia's.

"It was better for him," Bail said, "not because we didn't love him."

But he couldn't meet Luke's eyes. He reached out with his sixth sense, with the Force, and the memory was faded, washed out like a black and white holo transmission

I'll take the girl. Breha always wanted a daughter.

"That's not true," he gasped out, but he had never had the composure Leia and Padme seemed to share; that Master Kenobi had had beaten into him by long years of practice. Tears welled up.

"Luke was force-sensitive," Breha explained, "the Jedi could care for him in a way that we couldn't."

"Except the entire philosophy of the Jedi was not caring," Padme bit out, "And I had the right to take him back."

"You were deemed unfit," the Master Jedi was carefully not looking at Luke.

"And who decided I was unfit!"

"You didn't help your case," Obi-Wan said, "and you're still not helping yourself. Why would you force Anakin on the children when you can' even face him yourself? They were taken care of, better than you ever could have, and more importantly, they were safer separated. Luke was happy with the Jedi. Leia was loved. And you were so selfish that you couldn't let them live in peace, your ego couldn't accept that you weren't the best for once. Did you think a disgraced politician on the outs with her own government could offer more than a Queen, or the Jedi?"

Luke's jaw was slack, and for once even Leia had been shocked into silence. In the heat of the moment, they were completely forgotten.

Like a rapid progression of the formation of a diamond, Padme shut down completely.

"Do you think I never asked myself that? I asked it every day I spent in court, every time I hired another investigator, every favor I called in from everyone in every sector I've ever known. I questioned my motivations every night I spent alone on Naboo and Polis Massa."

"Did you really?" Master Kenobi was unmoved.

"Every time, I think of the utterly desperate circumstances in which a mother would give up their child. And I said to myself, 'the only way my children will be without me is if I'm dead.' Anakin's mother let him go for the chance at greater happiness. And look how well that turned out for him. How well did the Jedi care for him, Obi-Wan? How many slaves did he get to free before he became a slave of the state? Or was he never free?"

"Don't." He stood, face red, fists clenching and unclenching, a whipping dustorm of cold anger bleeding like a gaping wound into the force. It made Luke whimper, and Leia tightened her hold on his hands.

"I did everything I could for him. I led him by example. I loved him and he still chose the Sith! He still chose power, like he didn't have enough of it, and he knew it. He knew for days. He facilitated the genocide of my people-people who raised him, loved him, took him in as one of their own. He chose power over me, over you, and by the Force Padme, I will not allow these children to care about him so he can forsake them as well. You know it. If you really believed there was good in him, as you say, you'd have written back to him 5 years ago when. You'd have given the children the letters of that madman."

For the first time since they had sat, Master Kenobi turned and addressed the two of them. Luke quailed beneath the force of his pale-eyed glare, which immediately softened. His presence closed, and Luke fiercely wished it hadn't, because his expression was unreadable.

"The truth of the matter Leia, is that your mother didn't leave you, that is true. She isn't foolish, or weak; she is one of the most infuriatingly indomitable people I know, and I knew the greatest of the great Jedi masters. This is a matter of the Force, and the Dark side. Anakin Skywalker was more than my best friend, but he fell to the Dark Side. He chose power over righteousness, and there's no returning from that. He committed innumerable atrocities, least among them strangling his pregnant wife into unconsciousness, and was caught in the act of doing more. He is as good as dead, and I'm sorry that Padme can't see that when your mother and your father understand that the person who calls himself Anakin is merely a monster wearing his face."

With that, he sharply nodded to Bail and Breha, and took his leave.

Started agonizing over whether this was good, then I remembered this was my in my feels fic and idgaf. Thank you so much everyone for your enthusiastic comments last chapter! I'm glad you all are enjoying reading this as much as I enjoy writing it. This is a looong chapter- somehow this series of snippets decided to make itself a proper ficlet, because of course I have time for *another* WIP lol.

Comments feed the beast,

YellowWomanontheBrink,

April 28, 2021

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