Luke was already at home when she returned to the apartment that evening. She peered into his room to check on him: he was asleep, his back against the head of the bed, his knees brought up to cradle the datapad lying inert in his lap. His head lolled to the side, and she could sense the bone deep tiredness radiating from him.
Apparently, staring at datapads all day had exhausted him more than even a day of sparring with her could.
She left him to snooze, seating herself in the living room to flick through the files he'd given her on Padmé Amidala instead. Joined politics at age eight due to an urge to help people, tried and failed to improve the situation on Tatooine, frequently been a respected anti-war partisan during the Clone Wars—the more she read about her, the more she was sure about one thing:
Amidala was Padmé Amidala.
The morals matched up in general—though admittedly, going from a staunch pacifist with a blaster to an active terrorist was a bit of a leap—and so did the timeline. Amidala had been active for as long as Leia had been alive, almost—not always explicitly so, it had been years before they stopped parading Senator Amidala as a martyr and started parading her as an advocate for their cause, but their intelligence suggested she'd been involved for much longer than most of the galaxy gave her credit for.
If she'd faked her death so she could pursue her rebellion in peace. . .
Briefly, she wondered if the baby she'd been carrying had survived—if it could be used as bait against her. But she dismissed the thought quickly, and pulled up a video of her. The file had it flagged as sensitive information, but with this mission she had the codes to get into anything. She was past the security in a moment.
The blue holo materialised in the air before her. It took her a moment to register where the time, date and setting was, but the moment she did she leaned forward with great interest.
It was the moment the Empire had been founded.
"The Republic," echoed Palpatine's voice, outside of view of the holocam, "will be reorganised into the first Galactic Empire!"
Cheering and clapping. Senator Amidala, wearing purple robes and a headpiece that somehow reminded Leia of the Rebel starbird symbol, sat stone-faced. It was the Naboo delegation's senate pod, but Organa, nearly twenty years younger, sat beside her. They exchanged a look.
"For a safe, and secure, society."
More cheering and clapping—practically thunderous, Leia thought. It just went to show how much better the Empire was than the Republic, if even the hotbed of power-hungry, corrupt senators had rejoiced upon seeing it rise to strip away their bureaucratic powers.
Neither Organa nor Amidala seemed to share her opinion. Amidala shook her head, and there was something tragic in her young face. It hit Leia then: this woman, in this moment, was only ten years older than she was now.
"So this is how liberty dies," she said. "With thunderous applause."
The holo winked out.
Leia stared at the space it had once been, mind whirring. The document's legal jargon on why it had been flagged, stored and had access restricted to it explained that the words triggered some comm monitor, meant to record and contain any anti-war comments or slander. It had been active during the Clone Wars, then doubled, then tripled under the Empire. The Law of Defamation and Slander had made it illegal to even criticise the Imperial regime itself.
As for why it access had been restricted. . .
Well, Amidala had been extremely popular. If this recording got out. . . they already had enough of a loyalty problem with Naboo as it was. Fear kept the inhabitants in line—and only fear.
They felt no affection for their Emperor.
Leia couldn't blame them, but it made things complicated.
There was a light touch on her mind. She glanced up to see Luke stagger out of his bedroom, hair ruffled. "Hey, sleepyhead."
"You still doing research on Amidala?" he asked her, dragging a hand across his face. He perched on the arm of the chair opposite to her and something in his demeanour sharpened, shaking off the dull edge of sleep. The boy fled; the Imperial agent returned.
Both were her brother.
She opened the recording back up and played it, watching Luke's eyebrows climb higher and higher on his head.
"Bold words."
"Censorship wasn't as bad back then."
"I figured," he said, then added, "although she did die shortly after, didn't she?"
Leia closed down the file and sat back, crossing one leg over the other. "Yeah, I have a theory about that." Her gaze flicked up to meet his eye. "And if I remember correctly, you did too."
"You know me so well," Luke drawled, then he processed what she'd actually said and froze.
She could see his mind ticking, wondering what her theory could be. . . and then she saw his eyes widen as it hit him.
He said, "You think she's still alive."
Leia dipped her head. "I do. The character and traits match up with our beloved terrorist leader." She watched her brother for a moment, then said, "You think she's our mother."
He gave something that was half-grin, half-grimace. "We're staying in her apartment, she was with child before she died, and have you seen her picture? You two look more alike than we do."
"If she's our mother, then who was Father?" Leia scoffed. "The only man the file records her being particularly close with was Bail Organa. She was supposedly a friend of the Jedi, but—" She broke herself off, the point she didn't want to make turning her skin milk-white.
Luke picked up the dropped thread, and sewed it carefully into: "If she's our mother, and she's alive, then we are the children of a terrorist." He winced, like the words tasted as horrendous as they sounded. "No wonder Father hates the Rebellion so much. If she betrayed him—"
"No," Leia said, shaking her head, insistent, "it can't be." I don't want it to be, was closer to the truth, but a flaw in most sentient beings is that they often believe what they tell themselves. Leia was no different. "One of us has to be wrong." I will not be the daughter of a terrorist, a traitor, a—
"But which one?" He wasn't arguing with her, just trying to make her denial more solid. He was trying to make himself believe it as well. "Was she our mother? Or is she Amidala?"
Leia said something in the tone she and her brother used whenever they knew something was a profoundly stupid idea, but wanted to go ahead with it anyway. "We could ask Father."
Luke stared at her like she was insane.
She pushed on, "We could do it tonight, before I leave."
"Sure, leave me with the apoplectic Sith Lord, why don't you."
"You know you're the best at calming him down. He likes your hero worship."
"I don't—"
"I'm sure you'll do fine, Luke." She shot him the sweetest smile she had.
He rolled his eyes. "Fine. We'll ask him."
There were several dozen ways that asking him could have gone better, Luke thought, but also that it could have gone worse.
When he arrived home, Luke was lounging on one of the sofas with his feet propped up on the table, the datapad he'd fallen asleep reading earlier cradled in his lap again. He felt Vader approach like a black sun on the edge of his consciousness; when he heard the ding of the lift arriving in the apartment he automatically shifted his feet onto the floor, but didn't lift his eyes from the screen.
When Vader strolled in, he barely needed to glance at Luke before he rumbled, not without amusement, "You had your feet on the table, didn't you?"
"You can't prove it." But he was grinning, and he could just feel his father rolling his eyes behind the mask.
Vader went to walk on, no doubt to his hyperbaric chamber to get the closest approximation of sleep he could—he felt exhausted through the Force—but Leia said, "Wait." She shot Luke a meaningful look. "Father, we have something to ask you."
Luke grimaced, and switched off the datapad.
Vader had frozen, tilting his head from son to daughter, mask impassive. Luke admired that about it, for all that he knew his father hated being trapped behind it—it was so much easier to keep one's thoughts a secret by wearing a mask than by controlling one's face.
There was silence for a moment.
"Ask away," Vader drawled.
Leia looked pointedly at Luke. You're the one who's best at calming him down! You ask him!
You're the one who wanted to ask him in the first place!
Leia swallowed, and said, "Palpatine assigned me to track down Amidala." Vader froze, but before he could react she barrelled on— "I've done some research on her namesake, the late Senator of Naboo, but I was hoping you might know something we couldn't find." We—Leia was really throwing him under the speeder alongside her. "Apparently this used to be her apartment, so I—"
Leia stopped talking, and automatically reached for her neck. Not because their father was strangling her, he would never do that to them; Luke could feel it too, a sudden biting cold that permeated the apartment, freezing and crystallising the air around them, even the air inside their throats. It was hard to speak through—it was hard to breathe through.
After a moment, Luke felt shock spasm through the Force. The room rapidly warmed again as Vader got control of himself. Luke took a deep breath, feeling the spikes of ice forming on his tongue melt away.
Vader hadn't moved. He stood silent, staring towards Leia, but not at her. He seemed a thousand parsecs away.
The twins exchanged a glance.
Luke said, carefully, "Father. . .?"
"You will not speak about Senator Amidala again."
He flinched back at the sharp words, delivered in such flat, uncompromising tones. His father was almost never this harsh or cold with them; it was always the Emperor who behaved as such. . .
"But," Leia shook her head, "Father—"
"Palpatine has informed me of your mission to hunt down the terrorist leader who stole her name. I do not approve, I do not like it, and I suspect he knows of our plans and is trying to keep us apart by any means necessary. Nevertheless," he growled the word, "I want you to do well. I want you to succeed. So I will tell you this: Padmé Amidala Naberrie is dead. She betrayed me and my Empire shortly before you were born, and I killed her for it. All the Naboo who cling to her memory are clinging to ashes and dust. There is nothing to be found but pain by looking into her, so I suggest you stay away, my daughter."
He paused, then added, almost gently, "I don't want you to get hurt."
Luke wondered why he got the overwhelming impression that those words meant I don't want to accidentally hurt you.
"Padmé Amidala is dead. Rebel terrorist Amidala is a different threat entirely, and you would do well you focus your efforts on them. Is that clear?"
A muscle twitched in Leia's jaw, but she nodded. "Yes, Father."
He stepped forward and touched her cheek lightly. "Good. I am proud of you, you know?"
Leia couldn't quite hide her smile as she ducked her head. "I know."
"And Luke?" Vader turned, his hand dropping back to his side. "I want to talk about what happened in the throne room yesterday."
Luke didn't want to talk about what had happened. He wanted to punch a wall, or the Velts, or himself. He wanted to sink into the sofa and live as a hermit for the rest of his life. He wanted to let go of all this tension inside him in one fell swoop, shattering every glass item on Coruscant with the force of his fury.
He wanted to go to bed. Hide under the covers like a child, and pretend that the world stopped existing when he closed his eyes.
He'd already spent eight hours in the Archives brooding over his failure. He didn't need his father rubbing it in.
But Vader's tone was soft, his Force sense far from angry, so he swallowed. He wanted his father's approval. The idea that he might have failed him, or disappointed him, was tearing him to shreds.
His hands clenched around the datapad; he stared down at it as Vader crouched in front of him. He couldn't see his father's gaze through the mask, but he could feel it roving over his face.
He flinched as a gloved hand came up to wipe something wet off his face. He hadn't realised he was crying.
As if sensing just how ready he was to die from embarrassment and self-loathing, Leia left the room. She knew when to tease, and when to give him space.
"Luke," Vader whispered, "I am not ashamed of you."
His head snapped up. "You—" he choked on the words. "You're not?"
"I'm not." Vader reached for his hand, and gently prised it off the datapad, placing it aside. Then he squeezed it, and didn't let go. "I'm incredibly, incredibly proud of you. You and your sister are greater people than I could have ever dreamed you'd be, and I wouldn't change anything about you for the galaxy. You are my son."
Luke's vision was blurring. He blinked and fresh, hot tears spilled down his cheeks. "But I failed."
"You hesitated. They are not the same thing. And I don't know why you hesitated, but I'm sure it is because you are, at your heart, a deeply compassionate person. Your mother was the same."
Luke jerked his head up at that, aware his longing was splayed plainly across his face for anyone, even his father, to read. Vader gave the smallest shake of his head.
Another time, he promised, with something that sounded like heartache.
Luke deflated. He wanted to know anything, anything, about his mother—especially now you think she might be Padmé Amidala—but he knew that the worst thing to do would be to push.
"You are a deeply empathetic person, and that is why you're so good at what you do. You don't need to read someone's mind to understand them—you read their hearts, and make their own emotions work against them." He squeezed his hand again. "But you must make sure your emotions don't work against you."
Luke bowed his head.
"You control them, use them to access the dark side. They cannot control you."
Luke knew that was an ongoing battle for Vader, whose incandescent rage had crushed many an officer's ambitions—and trachea. But as a father, he'd fought hard to beat them under control whenever he was around Luke and Leia, swearing on every star in the sky that he would not hurt them. Never.
That fight just made him love his father more.
"The Velt twins," he admitted, "they—"
"They are not you and Leia." Vader picked up on his thoughts immediately. "They were Rebels, traitors, and they risked their own lives and each other when they chose that path. You and Leia will never find yourselves in that situation, because you are not traitors."
"But— your plans—"
Luke could feel Vader's grimace as keenly as if it had been his own. "To whom do you owe your loyalty? Whom have you sworn it to? Palpatine—or the Empire, and the galaxy it protects?"
Luke lowered his eyes. "The galaxy."
"Then you are no traitor." Vader brushed another tear away, then cupped his cheek in one massive hand. "Palpatine has to go. You are no traitor for recognising that—you are a patriot, and a protector. You are no traitor."
His glove fell from Luke's cheek.
"And I know you never will be."