"No, Luke!"
Leia said it with finality as if it was the last word, as if he had no argument. But Luke had known her too long to give up just because she said so. "What are you going to do, Leia? Hide it? What good does that do? Especially if people find out for themselves?"
She stopped looking through the packing crates scattered everywhere. She had reopened the Alderaan Embassy on Coruscant just as other worlds were reopening theirs. She, Luke, and Han had been sorting through everything in what was her old office, seeing what was left and amazed that anything was left. The fact that the building itself was still standing was remarkable. In a bizarre sense of luck, Palpatine's bureaucracy had moved into her old embassy or Leia would have nothing to reopen. Now she went through the crates the last Alderaani had hidden before dashing to safety somewhere in the galaxy.
But the tiring, dirty process meant everyone was on raw nerves, especially as this task was one of hundreds fitted into an already overscheduled day. Han gave Luke a warning shake of his head; now wasn't a good time to push Leia. Not on this topic.
But while his sister was known for her stubbornness, Luke had his fair share too. And no time was ever going to be a good one to settle this argument. They had touched on it a few times before, ever since Endor when Luke meditated on this decision, but Leia always changed the subject. So when she stomped across the floor towards him, he planted himself firmly both in her path and in his decision.
"So what would you prefer?" she contended. "That I call a press conference and announce to the heavens that our father was Darth Vader? Tell me what good that does!"
Luke was a pro at dealing with Leia's hardheaded spells. In the old days when Han had prided himself at setting her off, Luke was the only one who could ever reach her. For that reason, even when he'd love to throw his own spell, he realized how futile that approach was. "First, I said we tell them our father was Anakin Skywalker. He didn't become Darth Vader until later, and he returned to being our father in the end."
"That will make no difference to the galaxy."
"It will if we show them the difference. That's what good it does. It's the truth. People should know it. I think Anakin Skywalker dying to save my life deserves my telling people about it. Second, hide it and people will only be more upset when it comes out. And it's going to come out someday."
She scrubbed her dirty hands on a rag, pointedly looking at the crates instead of him. "I'm not so sure about that."
"C'mon, Leia--"
"Luke, you're making a big assumption. How are people going to find out for themselves? Obviously Vader did a through job of eradicating his past, or people would have been giving you trouble long ago instead of praising you for being Anakin Skywalker's son. If people who were around at the time it all happened -- like Mon Mothma -- don't know, what makes you think anyone is going to find out about it at all?"
His mouth thinned into a tight line. "Okay, maybe I'm wrong on that. I think it could happen, but maybe it's not a big risk. But that makes everything else I said even more important. We have good reasons to tell people instead of being afraid not to do it."
She threw the rag down and went back to the crates. Her shoulders were stiff. "You may have good reasons…"
Luke silently asked himself. Did he really need to do this? Go public with who his father was? Once more, he took a steady breath and peeked into the ever-changing future, as he had too many times to count already. Once more, he found that no matter how the future shifted, the decision to go forward with who his family was, was the correct thing to do.
He pressed on. "You know I thought about this a lot, that I was always toying with it ever since Endor."
"Toying with it? Like it's a game? Endor was only a month ago, Luke! That's not enough time to make up your mind up on something like this! You act like everyone must know – that it's necessary to absolve Vader's guilt. That will never happen."
She wasn't listening! He snapped, "Maybe the only reason I'm doing this is so people know that Vader did one good deed in his life, and that he wasn't such the monster they believe he is."
"But he was a monster!"
He scowled. "Leia, I know this is the right thing to do! And I think saving my life is worth me being up front with people about him."
It was a dirty trick and he knew it. Leia wasn't going to argue about his life, not even to point out the obvious loophole that they could say Vader saved him without announcing Vader was Anakin Skywalker.
But it didn't mean he had won her over. He'd feel guiltier if he didn't know the real reason why she held out against him.
He tried again. "Leia, we haven't even told Chewie yet..." He glanced to Han who shook his head; he hadn't told the Wookiee. "Or Lando. Don't even our friends get to know? Besides Han, or is he the only one we trust?"
Leia looked to Solo; he winked at her and it made her smile. "Yes, of course Lando and Chewie should know."
"And Wedge? I owe him my life a few times over. If I can trust him with my life, I can trust him with this."
She sighed explosively. "What are we going to do, go through the galaxy person by person?"
"If that's what it takes."
"Oh please!" She threw her hands up in the air. "You want to make ridiculous statements, fine. Here's one. Let's announce that not only did Darth Vader start out and end as a hero, but that Palpatine made toys for needy children and should be forgiven."
He folded his arms over his chest. "Fine, no ridiculous statements."
"Good." She turned away. "Then this conversation is finally over."
He darted around her, blocking her way. "No, only the ridiculous part is. What I said is still true."
Han spoke up with obvious reluctance. "Listen, I am not a diplomat, but what if the kid is right? Maybe Vader got rid of everything, but did Palpatine? I mean, do you know that for sure? What if someone like Mon Mothma does put it all together before you ever tell her? She's going to think it's a really big deal."
"It is a really big deal!" Leia said.
"And it gets worse if you hide it," Han said.
"You're telling me not to hide things?"
Solo opened his mouth and then shut it tight before strangling out, "Okay, you got me. But we're different. You're a princess and in the spotlight. People get crazy when they find out you don't tell them somethin'. I'm a nobody."
"Well, you were," Luke said vaguely, still looking at Leia and thinking of what she had said to Han. She was right; Solo hid a lot of things, but it still sounded harsh. She was wound too tight if she didn't realize what she was saying. "Not anymore."
It was Leia's widening eyes that made him hear what he just said. Too late. He did precisely what he was silently blaming her for.
Han grabbed up the rag Leia had thrown down and stalked to the other side of the room.
"Hey, Han--" Luke called.
"Just do what you want," Han said over his shoulder. "Tell everybody or don't. You got to live with the consequences."
Luke turned back to his glaring sister and shrugged apologetically. In the last few days, Solo was increasingly sensitive to the media hunting down his every move when he was with her.
Media attention had been turned on many of the victorious Rebellion and with Leia already so prominent, it wasn't long before someone noticed her relationship with Han. Solo first loved the attention and having his ego stroked by it. He told war stories with the best of them and thrilled in showing off his beloved Falcon while expanding on his exploits. But as the galaxy became more eager for personal interest stories, the war romance of princess and pilot ran like wildfire. Han found holocams snapped more when he was with his princess than at what he did as his part of rebuilding Republic forces. Questions ran more towards "Do you think you two can make it?" and "Do you plan to get married?" instead of "How are you organizing your forces in case of Imperial retaliation?" He was becoming Han Solo, Royal Consort, and not Han Solo, pilot and General.
Even now, with the Falcon docked conspicuously on the embassy's roof landing pad, gossip reporters waited to see where he spent the night.
And in a few words, the whole briar's nest was now entangled with Luke's efforts to sway Leia. He jammed his hand into his hair and left it there, as the tension grew heavier.
He watched his sister and a sudden, sad suspicion creeped into his mind. "Leia, you believe me, don't you?" Seeing her back stiffen made the suspicion worse. "I heard what you said -- about the galaxy having a hard time listening to what I'll say about our father, but you believe me, right?"
Her eyes were so wide and dark, not really telling him anything except she was measuring him. For what? How to break the bad news? How to tell him she thought he lied or was delusional? If Leia said that to him…
"Princess Organa?"
Three heads swiveled sharply to the new arrival. Lynette Channah, head of the embassy household, stood patiently in the doorway, Threepio at her shoulder. If it was amazing that any estate property was saved from the Empire, it was miraculous that Channah was alive. An Alderaani herself, she was Head of Staff for the Organas in the last decade when Bail Organa held the Senator's title, and she was the last to flee the embassy. She had saved a group of the staff, hiding them on Coruscant with her in plain sight where Palpatine never thought to look for them.
Channah probably heard some of their arguing when she approached the room, but she had trained at Alderaan's royal palace itself. She knew anything she heard from her princess and Leia's inner circle was not to be commented on or repeated. Even though Luke wanted to hear Leia's answer, he could have hugged Channah for bringing some normalcy back into the room.
"Princess Leia," she said. Her voice, for all its strength, was as gentle as Mon Mothma's. "I thought you might like to see this. Three more worlds have contacted us, volunteering items from their museum displays of Alderaan."
Leia pounced on the list, at once sweeping through it and picking out each detail to savor. Luke saw the spark back in her eyes and felt her happiness. Like all worlds, Alderaan had sent items to other planets for exhibition, just as they had with botanical centers and animal parks. It was coming in handy as the Alderaani looked to Leia to spearhead their rebuilding.
"This is fantastic," Leia said, almost caressing the list in her hands.
"See-Threepio deserves the credit," Channah said immediately. Nearly as small as her princess in height, she was more rounded with added weight and a bigger build. She appeared stately in her gown, the long light brown hair braided away from her face and then lying in long waves down her back. "He's been contacting planets for days."
Luke was startled. Threepio was a constant attachment to Leia nowadays as she helped sort out things in the Republic. When had the droid found time for this too?
"It has been my pleasure, Your Highness!" Threepio reported. "And it certainly has been good for my circuits as well. I am much better suited for such duties with my primary function being protocol. Although some planetary systems have been insufferable in their bureaucratic inefficiencies! I am still waiting--"
Leia put a hand on the bronze shoulder in a silent thank you and left it there as she absorbed her list. Even Han gave him a friendly knock on the back as a compliment for a good job.
"The portraits," Leia said, stopping at one item on the list.
"Yes, Your Highness, it'd be good to have them here. But we do have those already downstairs," Channah added.
"You do like the downstairs, don't you, Mistress Leia?" Threepio asked.
"It's beautiful. I can't believe you did such an excellent job of setting up the main atrium so quickly." Channah nodded demurely while Threepio was more vocal about receiving Leia's praise. She finally made quick notes and handed the list back to the older woman. "If we can get those items, it'll help a great deal. I don't want to deplete the museums, but I need the furniture, even the replicas of the antiques will be good. If you see anything you need for the staff's quarters, requisition it."
"We in the staff have all we need, Your Highness. You returned to us." The faded azure eyes regarded her princess with a great deal of unspoken warmth. "As you've mentioned quarters, Your Highness, I also came to tell you your rooms are finished, excluding the personal touches you will want to make. And if you will give us the time, we will finish your office here."
Leia looked around the crates again, this time with a twinkle. "Meaning I'm in the way."
"Not at all, Your Highness."
"You're a skillful liar, Channah."
"On the contrary, Princess. I am diplomatic." The woman bowed, and then left the room with quiet dignity.
Leia chuckled. "I really should just turn the government over to her. We'd be running efficiently in a week." She grabbed a packing crate, pushing a couple of others with a booted toe. "Threepio, will you see that these get up to my room? And stay here to make sure the office gets set up right?"
Luke plucked up the other two boxes and waited patiently. Leia could see he was still determined to finish his talk with her, and she hurriedly looked for a distraction. "Han? Could you--"
The commlink on Solo's belt chirped, followed by Chewie's aggravated howls echoing in the room. Han cursed and switched it off. "I got to get up to the roof, sweetheart. I'll talk to you later."
That left her alone with her very resolute twin. She marched out of the office, making her way to her quarters on one of the upper floors. "Luke, don't."
"I didn't say anything."
"But you're thinking it. I know you are. You've got some good arguments-- I know it's a real risk to keep silent. If the galaxy finds out, the backlash will be horrible. And I want to tell people we're family just as much as you do. And I hope we can find out something about our mother which might be easier if we tell people we're looking for her."
Some of the staff, on seeing their princess lugging boxes in the hallway, started to rush over. She waved them back. "We certainly should tell people like Lando, but Luke, it's not good news. Do you really think I can stand up in front of the universe and happily say my father was Darth Vader? What does that make me?"
She bit her tongue. There it was: the argument Luke hadn't made, but knew was the big problem.
Her brother quietly crossed into her sitting room and lowered the crates he carried to the floor. He came back to her at the door and leaned over to kiss her on the forehead. "I didn't say anything," he told her calmly and left her be.
Exasperated with herself, Leia dropped her own crate on a chair and stalked to look out over the city. Without saying a word, Luke had gotten the worst of it to rise to the surface where she couldn't ignore it. Her thoughts swam in her head as swiftly as the vehicles in the twilight sky outside. One after the other, they darted through her mind:
She wanted to tell everyone she had a twin brother, but she wanted to bury forever who their father was.
Bail Organa was her father! She needed no other.
His wife had been her mother. But… she would like to know more about the woman who gave birth to her, the woman she could just about remember.
That did not mean she wanted to know anything about Darth Vader. She knew all she needed to about him.
She did like finding this new bond, both in blood and in mental link, with Luke. But she wished he'd stop talking about what he had inherited from his father.
Luke had told her she had the ability to use the Force as he did. With training, what could she be?
What could she be when she got that ability from Vader?
She turned away from the window. Another inventory list, this one for the contents of the room, lay on the delicate antique desk next to her. She held her hand out towards it and just thought about it coming to her. It stayed put. She exhaled in relief. The other day in a meeting with Mon Mothma, she had stretched for a cup high on a shelf, wishing darkly under her breath that it were closer to her straining fingertips. In the next second, it had leapt to her hand, terrifying her. Fortunately, Mothma's back was turned, but Leia had almost dropped the fragile cup as she realized her frustration had tied into the Force to bring it to her hand.
Just a fluke, nothing more, she whispered, nothing to get worried about. She calmed down a bit, smiled almost in embarrassment at the inventory list, and flicked her fingers at it dismissively.
It vibrated on the desk, straining to reach her, but held back like a pet chained to a post. She stared at it, sickened, suddenly snatching it up, and all but crushed it under her foot.
She panted in reaction, first aghast and then embarrassed. Desperate to think about anything else, she opened the crate she had dropped, and checked to see if everything was okay. Fortunately, the chair was well cushioned, and just as fortunate that Channah and the others smuggled these things to safety, things from when these were her rooms before. No Imperial bureaucrat ever got to use them or destroy them out of pettiness.
She stopped abruptly and pulled out a piece of framed calligraphy. She dusted it off with her sleeve. She had kept this same quotation next to her bed at home since she was very young, and had it copied to bring with her here when she first was named Senator.
The framed piece was a gift from Bail Organa, and now the words took on a whole new meaning.
"Whatever comes," she said, "cannot alter one thing.
If I am a princess in rags and tatters,
I can be a princess inside.
It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold,
but it is a great deal more triumph to be one all the time
even when no one knows it."
A Little Princess
Frances Hdgson Burnett
She clutched the quote between her hands and sat heavily on a nearby couch. Bail had given her this piece to always remind her of his own inner goal: to be a prince of his people because of his deeds, his sense of integrity and principle, and his dedication to being just.
"The title means nothing, Leia, if all you put to its use is the wealth and the trappings that comes with it."
She always felt the lesson meant more to her than him. He was born an Organa; she was made one by his faith in her. How had he ever believed in Vader's daughter enough to make her his daughter?
Taking on Anakin Skywalker, all he was and became, what did it make her?
She thought of Luke, before and after he knew who his father was. It certainly made changes in him, but wasn't he still at his core Luke? And hadn't he risen above his father being Vader?
Her mouth pulled down. Not that Luke thinks of it that way.
Down in the greeting area was a portrait of her with the other Organas, her arm along her father's shoulders, the hand just brushing her mother. Her father and mother.
What are you doing, Leia?
She had no idea.
She pictured doing what Luke wanted, and clearly conceived of all she had built, all Luke had built, being destroyed when the galaxy that so justifiably hated Vader was given a target for their anger.
Then she pictured not doing what Luke wanted and wondered what it would do to them.
Could she pick and choose whom she wanted to accept in her family? Could she take Luke and their mother, that nebulous figure in her memory that she wanted so much to know better – could she take them and leave Vader out? Or to have those she wanted, did she have to accept her father?
And what happened if another cup jumped to her hand in front of Mon Mothma this time? Or someone else like the reporters? How long before they started digging and figured it out for themselves?
An hour dragged by, as she stayed there quiet, the thoughts battling in her mind. The sky outside was dark when she rose and went to the bedroom. She placed the framed quote on her nightstand, lightly stroking it, smiled, and left.
She had no answers to everything bothering her, but she knew a few things. Sitting around hiding from a decision never did her any good. And family meant everything; her brother was more important than a career, and more important than hating Vader.
Perhaps Luke was right; maybe this was something they had to do.
May the Force help them and save them from all the hate Vader linked to his name.
She found Luke on the Falcon, his head and shoulders buried deep in an access panel, shouts floating out from both he and Han as they worked on the Koensayr TLB power converter. She touched him lightly on the back and spoke without preamble. "All right, Luke. We'll announce it."
He and Solo popped out of the panels in surprise, and she continued speaking so they couldn't. "We tell Mon Mothma first, right after Lando and Chewie. She's the Chancellor, and she's been good to both of us. She deserves to know before the explosion hits. And it will be an explosion, Luke." She stopped him from interrupting. "In the morning, I'll ask Mon to see us when she has time."
"Leia," Luke said softly. He took her hand. "It's not going to be that bad. People will be shocked, but it'll smooth over."
"You think so?" My so hopeful brother. I don't want them to hurt you. Or me. "Then let's tell Lando and Chewie now. They're on board?" she asked Han who nodded solemnly. "We'll do it together, Luke. But remember," she couldn't help adding, "these are our friends. Strangers will react a hundred times worse."
