Author's Note: This is the sequel to my previous story, Heir of Vader. You don't necessarily have to read that one to understand this story, but it would give you some important context. Another thing to note is that the events of this story take place three decades after the end of Heir of Vader (which ends around the time ANH ended, not ROTJ). As a consequence, all of the characters are a bit younger than they are in the canonical sequel trilogy. Luke and Leia are just shy of fifty years old, Padmé nearly eighty, and Ben is only twenty-four (for reasons I will explain later on in the story). Furthermore, that means that Rey (who is a part of this story) is only fourteen years old. Therefore there will not be any Reylo in this fic. I apologize if that's your thing, but I'm not going to be shipping them here. They will have a relationship, just not a romantic one.

With that bit of logistics out of the way, I hope you enjoy the story!

Chapter 1 – Ania

"We must act decisively and we must act now! While the insurgency is still in its nascent stage, we must crush the terrorists while we have the chance lest Imperial sympathizers begin to flock to their cause!"

"What you're talking about is war."

"I'm talking about security! How is this new republic going to survive if we allow these blatant anti-government renegades to roam freely in the Outer Rim?"

"The fleet isn't capable of conducting such a large scale operation."

"Then we must expand it!"

"I'd love to see a budget for that."

"I'll show you a budget!"

"Silence!"

An abrupt hush fell over the hall at this authoritative command. The squabbling senators ceased their debating and looked up almost reverently at the man seated at the head of the table, his chair slightly elevated behind a cream-colored podium. Leaning forward, the highly esteemed yet remarkably young senator peered down at his colleagues with a discontented scowl.

"These deliberations could go on for hours to no avail," he said, giving Senator Zorq a pointed look. The zabrak senator from Iridonia was the leader of the war hawks who were advocating for the New Republic to crush the extremist group of Imperial origins which was operating in the remote reaches of the Outer Rim. "Senator Zorq, I feel it necessary to remind you of my grandmother's warning to this assembly: we must not resort to costly and chauvinistic proposals such as the one you have been espousing. This Republic is founded on the basis of peace, not war. Or do you think she was wrong to promulgate a pacific agenda?"

Zorq bit his tongue and glanced behind him at his supporters who were congregated on the left half of the hall. "Forgive me, Senator. I did not mean to impugn the great Chancellor's legacy," he said, backtracking hastily before his superior's glower. "But circumstances have changed since Chancellor Amidala left office. Decisive action is required if this Republic is to survive."

"I can assure you my grandmother would not concur with your sentiments, Senator," he said coolly. "And therefore neither will I," he added for good measure.

"Are you really that simple-minded, Senator Solo?"

The hall fell deathly silent as every senator collectively inhaled. Face taut, jaw clenched, and eyes stormy, the young man turned to see who it was who had dared to say something so impudent.

"Is that how you got to sit in that chair? By being a mindless sycophant who renounced his father's name so as to capitalize on his heritage?"

The right half of the hall erupted in outrage on his behalf, the clamor echoing cacophonously in the high-domed hallway. For his part, young Ben Skywalker was too stunned to register indignation as he stared back at his insolent, yet no doubt exceptionally bold foe.

Much to his surprise, she was quite young. Quite a bit younger than himself, in fact – no older than eighteen or nineteen, he reckoned. Ben's attention was immediately drawn to the woman's eyes which were fixated on him intently, the dark brown irises deeply familiar to him for some reason. The young woman had sleek, black hair which was cut short at her shoulders. Her face was especially angular and distinctive, characterized by high cheekbones and a prominent, sharp-pointed nose. Her thin, colorless lips were pressed together firmly, a not-so-subtle smirk evident on the dimpled left corner of her mouth.

In spite of these unsavory features, however, Ben found that he couldn't stop looking at her. There was something incredibly enticing and intrinsically familiar about her, but he couldn't explain why…

"Master Skywalker, you need to impose order," an urgent voice said in his ear.

Shaking himself out of his paralysis, Ben turned and nodded appreciatively to his droid aide. Standing up out of his chair, Ben loomed over his colleagues with a vexed expression for a few moments. Senators could be so petty and childish. Such a juvenile display was thoroughly unbecoming to a committee as crucial as this one. The Council for Internal Harmony – or CIH as it was known in political jargon – had been founded by his grandmother in the aftermath of the destruction of the vile Empire over twenty years ago. When he had been asked to chair this committee, he had never thought that his responsibilities would be more akin to babysitting than to administration.

"Senators!" he bellowed finally, projecting his sonorous voice throughout the hallway with ease. "Silence!"

The hall complied with his demand at once, the high-pitched discord coming to an abrupt end as several dozen sets of eyes all turned to him. Refusing to reinitiate eye-contact with the mysterious female senator in the far left corner, Ben looked straight down the middle of the hall at no one in particular with an irritable glower.

"It is clear that this committee has ceased debating anything of substance and has dissolved into hurling baseless recriminations," he said, doing his best to keep his tone impassive and his countenance stolid. "For that reason, this session is to be adjourned until further notice."

With that, Ben sat down onto his chair, signaling a definitive end to the meeting. For a moment, nobody moved as they continued to stare back at him. Giving his colleagues an unambiguous look of dissatisfaction, the senators finally conceded to his authority and began to file toward the exits. Mollified, Ben exhaled loudly and glanced surreptitiously toward the raven-haired woman in the left corner of the hall…

She was still staring directly at him, intense brown eyes boring into his own when he met her gaze. Unable to stop himself, Ben gulped nervously and looked away quickly toward his aide who was diligently standing by his side.

"Who is that woman?" he asked in a whisper.

"I believe that is the junior senator from the Arkanis sector," the platinum-plated protocol droid informed him in a monotone voice.

"Arkanis?" Ben repeated incredulously. "Are you sure?"

Tatooine – which was the major planet in the Arkanis sector – was a subject of great interest to Ben on account to it being the home world of his uncle and grandfather. The latter of whom he admittedly did not know much about, but that didn't serve to stymie his interest in the planet. On the contrary, it only heightened his fascination. His grandfather was a subject of great importance to him, after all…

"Yes, sir," his assistant told him. "Her predecessor had to resign recently. Corruption, I believe."

Ben nodded absently at this. It was no surprise that the senator from Arkanis had been outed for corruption. What was far more confounding, however, was that he – and he most certainly had been a he – had been replaced by such a young woman. Tatooine was an infamously patriarchal planet. How had this enigmatic woman managed to get herself appointed senator from that district?

"Forgive me, sir, but I feel as if I must express my opinion," the droid said suddenly, stirring him from his thoughts.

Ben's mouth twitched, ever-amused by the droid's apologetic disposition. "A5, you know you can provide me with your opinion whenever you want," he said.

"I disagree, Senator," A5 said at once. "It would not be my place to bombard a sentient such as yourself with my calculations –"

"A5," Ben interrupted sternly. "Tell me your opinion."

A5 hesitated for a moment as he gave a furtive glance behind Ben's head to look at something in the distance. "Perhaps I should confer with you on this subject later," he said.

"But –"

"It would be most impolitic for me to express my opinion in her presence."

Bemused, Ben tilted his head at his flustered protocol droid. "What are you talking –"

"Senator Solo, a word?"

Ben froze, realizing the cause for A5's sudden reticence. Nodding subtly to his droid aide, Ben turned his head slowly to see the junior senator standing at the foot of his podium, her arms crossed in front of her chest as she looked up at him defiantly.

"I will be in the hallway, Senator Skywalker," he heard A5 say before waddling away with uncharacteristic speed. It seemed he too was intimidated by this mysterious woman.

Ben watched his cowardly droid companion depart for a few moments before reluctantly returning his attention to the junior senator. Feeling uncomfortable with the imperious nature of his seat, Ben stood up and descended the brief flight of stairs so that he could be on an equitable footing with his irascible colleague.

"I'm afraid we have not been acquainted," Ben said with a strained smile as he extended his hand to the diminutive woman. Now that they were closer to each other, Ben could fully appreciate how tiny she really was. If he had to guess, he would say she was no taller than five feet – and considering the fact that he was well over six, her Lilliputian stature was all the more pronounced to him. Despite this, however, she seemed to be quite sturdy as demonstrated by the firmness of her handshake and the breadth of her shoulders. The latter of which were accentuated by the scarred leather padding of her sun-bleached vest which fit tightly on her well-built torso.

Releasing her hand, Ben blushed and looked away awkwardly when he realized that he was staring. What was wrong with him? He was far too politically experienced to be committing such rudimentary social gaffes like this. He had been thoroughly rattled by this woman, no doubt. Everything about her thus far had been as engrossing as it had been unexpected.

"Indeed, we have not," she said, her eyes narrowed as she placed her arms behind her back stiffly as if in military formation. "I am Ania, the new senator from the Arkanis sector."

Ben arched an eyebrow, perplexed by the lack of a surname. "Just Ania?" he asked.

"Just Ania," she affirmed with a thin smile, having no doubt answered this question many times before. "I was a slave on Tatooine until I gained my freedom. I have no people. Not unlike your father, if I understand correctly."

At the mention of his father, Ben stiffened once more. Everyone knew better than to mention Han Solo to him, but perhaps she was too new to the Senate to know any better. Oblivious to his tension, Ania continued on. "Forgive me for the acrimonious nature of our first encounter, Senator," she said smoothly. "I needed to gain your attention, however. Judging by your reaction, I'd say I succeeded."

"Indeed, you did," Ben confirmed with a frown. She certainly had earned his interest, yet not for the reasons he suspected she had hoped.

"I'd very much like to discuss something with you, if you would be willing," she said. "I suspect what I have to say will be especially salient to you."

"And why might that be?" Ben asked, intrigued yet nevertheless irked by her presumptuousness. Who was she to know what would and would not be of interest to him?

"Because it pertains to your mother," Ania said, her eyes glinting triumphantly when she saw Ben's façade of impassivity falter – eyebrows rising and jaw slackening slightly at this unexpected revelation. His mother? What could she possibly have to tell him about her?

Needless to say, she had gotten his attention, alright.

"A5, I need you to clear my schedule for the day," Ben said upon striding into his office later that afternoon. "No meetings, no visitors, no nothing."

Aghast, A5's yellow eyes somehow managed to convey incredulity at this request. "But, sir –" he tried to say, but Ben cut him off.

"Just do it, ok?" he said curtly as he walked around his desk toward his chair.

"Forgive me, sir, but what about your grandmother?" A5 asked cautiously. "You are scheduled to meet with her in fifteen minutes."

How could he have forgotten? She had just returned from an extended stay on Naboo. Under normal circumstances, he would have been delighted to see her, but now the timing was truly terrible.

Sitting down on the plush purple chair behind his desk, Ben frowned as he scratched his temple pensively. "I suppose it's okay," he mused. "But I need to make sure she leaves fairly quickly. Clear everything else from my schedule, though," he added to A5.

Ben busied himself with cleaning his messy desk for a few minutes while A5 watched him from the corner. Disquieted by the droid's intent stare, Ben finally looked up to meet his aide's glowing eyes. "What is it?" he asked.

"Are you sure it is truly wise for me to clear your schedule, sir?" he asked cautiously.

Ben hesitated, suddenly understanding the reason for the droid's odd behavior. A5 was a highly sophisticated droid on account to the numerous tweaks and alterations Ben had made to his processing chip. No doubt, A5 had managed to deduce that Ben was planning to meet with Ania.

"You don't have to worry, A5," he reassured the antsy droid. "I know you don't like her – and if I'm being frank, I don't think I do either – but it can't hurt to hear what she has to say."

"On the contrary, sir, I think she could be quite dangerous," A5 warned ominously. "I advise you to be cautious in your interactions with that woman."

Ben arched an eyebrow, bemused by his droid's atypically strong opinion on this subject. "Why are you so nervous?" he asked. "She hasn't done anything wrong!"

"Other than call you a mindless sycophant?" A5 commented dryly.

"Okay, I'll give you that," Ben conceded. "But other than that –"

Ben was interrupted by a ringing sound emanating from down the hallway. "That must be Madame Chancellor," A5 said, sounding quite pleased as he made to answer the door. Panicking slightly, Ben grabbed a stack of miscellaneous papers from off his desk and stuffed them in an already overflowing drawer. He had only just managed to force the recalcitrant drawer shut when A5 returned with his grandmother in tow.

Brushing his hair out of his face, Ben stood up quickly to see his grandmother walking toward him with a radiant smile. "Benny!" she exclaimed upon seeing him.

Despite having always hated that nickname, Ben found it impossible not to reciprocate his grandmother's infectious smile. While her public persona was that of the dignified and refined Chancellor Amidala, Ben had always known her as his affectionate and vivacious grandmother Padmé. As a consequence, his love for her ran just as deep as his respect did; he was well-aware that his grandmother was a truly remarkable woman. He truly considered it a blessing to be her grandson, and given the fact that she had practically raised him since he was six years old, he attributed his political success to her.

A5 stepped aside as Ben walked around his desk to give his grandmother a hug, having to bend low to wrap his arms around her. She had never been a tall woman, and in her old age she had shrunken even more so. Diminished stature notwithstanding, however, Padmé did not show her age. Her face – while lined somewhat – was still alight with a youthful vigor and her eyes still sparkled with an unrelenting passion which Ben had only seen in scarcely few others. While her political rivals had attempted to dismiss her as being a senescent relic of a previous era, the reality was anything but. Padmé Amidala was more alive and vital than even the most effervescent of politicians.

"How was your trip?" Ben asked upon releasing her and standing back upright.

"Oh, it was fine," Padmé said with a sigh as she walked over toward his desk. Taking one big step, Ben passed her so that he could pull out the visitor's chair for her. Padmé gave him a sweet smile as she sat down. "I'm afraid there aren't many people left alive for me to visit, however," she lamented. "Ever since Sola died, the only people worth seeing are my nieces, and we were never that close anyway."

Ben nodded sympathetically as he sat back down at his seat across from her. "It's good to get away from here though, isn't it?"

"I suppose," she said with a shrug. "Retirement can be so boring, though." Ben smiled, ever impressed by his grandmother's unrelenting work ethic. She had been practically forced into retirement after the conclusion of her second term as Chancellor, and ever since she had been desperate to find something else to devote her passions. "How's your mother?" she asked suddenly. "I haven't seen her yet."

Ben licked his lips and glanced toward A5 who had stowed himself away in the corner of the room. "She's, er… she's fine," he said haltingly. "I haven't seen her in a while, actually."

"Oh no?" Padmé asked innocently. "Why not?"

"You know why," Ben said perhaps too tartly.

Disheartened by this response, Padmé pursed her lips and bowed her head. "I see," she said with a hint of melancholy. "What about your uncle? Has Luke been to the capital recently?"

"Not for a while," Ben said. "He's too busy with his students," he added, unable to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

"I see," Padmé said. "Perhaps we should invite him back. Get the family back together."

"Yeah, maybe we should," Ben said, wishing that this particular conversation would end.

Padmé gave him a doleful look for a few moments before sighing heavily once again. "She cares about you, you know," she said. "She's very proud of you."

"She does a great job of showing that, doesn't she?" Ben snapped, wincing at once when his grandmother flinched at this trenchant retort. "I'm sorry," he said hastily. "I didn't mean –"

"It's quite alright, Ben," Padmé said. "I understand why you're bitter. You have to understand that she's trying, though."

"Well she's clearly not trying hard enough," he said.

An awkward silence ensued as Ben looked down to inspect his cuticles with an angry glower. The entire galaxy extolled his mother for being the great General Leia Skywalker whom they revered as the vanquisher of the Empire and the flame of the Rebellion. It was she who brought the Rebellion back from the brink of destruction to defeat the Emperor's overwhelmingly superior forces. Her name was legendary; her fame superseding even that of her mother's, the universally beloved Chancellor Amidala.

Yet what the galaxy didn't know was that Leia Skywalker was a deeply troubled woman and a thoroughly mediocre parent. Ben didn't know what to attribute her failings to – whether it be PTSD from the war or depression from when her husband abandoned her nearly two decades ago – but what he did know was that her scars ran deep. In public she projected the persona of a strong-willed and determined general who would do anything to defend the Republic from Imperial sympathizers who continued to linger in the Outer Rim. Because of this, Zorq and his war hawks often times sought to recruit her to their cause, but she had never been interested in involving herself in politics, electing instead to remain neutral as the commander-in-chief of the Republic's armed forces.

At home, however, Leia was nothing like the impassive war hero whom the galaxy thought her to be. Ben knew his mother as a traumatized woman who would shut herself off from him for long stretches of time. The only person who could ever reach her during these episodes was his uncle Luke, but since he was busy training the next generation of Jedi, his mother would oftentimes go weeks without so much as speaking to him.

Ever since his father left when Ben was only six years old, these episodes had become increasingly frequent and severe. He had long since come to the realization that there was nothing he could do to help her, and he had instead sought out his grandmother as a source of maternal compassion. In that sense, he considered Padmé to be his parent more so than he did Leia. She had always been there for him, even during the midst of her chancellorship when she had been working more or less nonstop.

That being said, Ben didn't despise his mother like he did his father. In between her episodes, he could see her in the same light Padmé or Luke did. He knew Leia Skywalker was an incredible woman, it's just he didn't get to see that woman very often.

"How did the CIH meeting go?" Padmé asked after a long silence, her voice startling him back to the present. "I heard about it on the holonet during my trip back."

"You don't want to hear about that," he said with a wave of his hand.

"Please tell me, Ben," she supplicated with a hint of desperation in her voice. "I've had no one to talk politics with for over a month. I think I might go crazy."

Ben laughed and shook his head. He couldn't imagine why his grandmother was so eager to talk about something as dull as a CIH meeting, but perhaps that was why she was well suited to power. She derived satisfaction from bureaucracy and administration, rather than from glory or war. It was this fascination with the mundane which enabled her to be the greatest Chancellor this Republic had ever and would ever know.

"It's more of the same, really," Ben told her. "Zorq and his hawks are being as troublesome as always. They want to divert all of the budget to the military."

"What an idiot," Padmé said with a huff. "The war is over. Why is that so hard for some people to wrap their heads around?"

Ben's eyes glazed over as his grandmother began to unleash a diatribe, speaking vehemently against the hawks whom she abhorred above all else. As she spoke, Ben found his mind drifting back to Ania. What type of information did she have on his mother? It could be any number of things. After all, Ben knew hardly anything about his mother's past since neither she nor Padmé had ever been willing to tell him about it. All he knew was that she had been raised by her father and she didn't meet her mother until she was eighteen years old. Why that might be, Ben had no idea. Perhaps Ania could shed some light on that somehow…

"Ben? Ben are you listening to me?"

Ben blinked a few times as he returned back to the present. Padmé was looking at him with an expectant look, clearly having asked him something.

"Huh?" he said dumbly.

Padmé gave him a knowing smile as she pushed her chair out. "I can tell you have other things on your mind," she said. Without allowing him to insist the contrary, she continued on. "It was lovely seeing you again, Ben. I'm going to go see your mother now. I want the three of us to get together at some point for dinner."

Ben cringed, realizing that there was no way out of this. "Very well," he said therefore, standing up out of his chair. "Perhaps sometime later this week."

"Or this afternoon," Padmé suggested as she too stood up. Walking around the table to assist her, Ben smiled thinly as he offered her his arm.

"That sounds lovely," he forced himself to say. "I'm sure my mother will be delighted to see you."

"She better be," Padmé said as she grabbed his arm and allowed him to lead her toward the exit. "I am her mother after all."

Ben hummed in agreement, but internally he couldn't help but take umbrage with this assessment. In his experience, just being someone's mother didn't inherently warrant respect nor love.

Author's Note: Hope you found the first chapter interesting. Just a quick side note for all those curious about pronunciation, Ania is pronounced the same as the name Anya, I just preferred the former spelling and felt it fit the SW universe better. Next chapter we'll get to meet the general herself, the highly esteemed yet deeply scarred Leia Skywalker, so do stay tuned!