Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within. – James A. Baldwin

Father's eyes

This is the time of year when Luke tends to withdraw into himself and become quiet…reflective. It took me a few years to associate his uncharacteristic moodiness with the anniversary of the Battle of Endor. The anniversary of his father's death.

I have offered to go with him to Endor or Mos Espa or even Bespin, but he usually declines, preferring to go for walks or meditate. More than once, I've caught him polishing my lightsaber with a far away look of longing. He does not say why and I do not push for an answer.

The brief relationship he shared with his father was private…intimate. I only knew of it cursorily until the night, not too long after Ben was born, when he told me everything: the despair he'd felt when his father had taken him to the Emperor, the conflict he'd felt raging beneath Vader's dark façade, the pained betrayal at having thoughts of his sister torn from his mind and the rage he'd felt when she was threatened.

Luke had touched the dark side, then. He'd felt the surge of power, addictive as any drug, that had sucked Anakin Skywalker into its void and into the prison of hate.

And he'd done it for love of his sister. We've talked about that many times since; how they are entangled threads, love and hate. More intertwined than opposites and easily as much of a snare as a bond.

That night, holding our newborn son in his arms, Luke whispered the end of the story to him, the tale of a man who had given his life to save his son. It was the night he told me that Ben has his grandfather's eyes.

He has never been one to brood about his father or even get particularly defensive when people make random comments about Darth Vader. He does not make excuses for his father's years in darkness and rarely even attempts to explain what happened between them on the Death Star to anyone outside of our family.

He doesn't expect us to understand, though we try. Especially Leia. Lately, she seems to need to be around Luke on this particular anniversary.

She came to visit this afternoon and we sat in the dining area of our new home on Ossus, sipping hot chocolate. The drink was her idea. It must be genetic.

There are times, like today, when you can see a small crack form in the wall that is Leia, the wife, mother and…daughter. She still struggles with her heritage and her relationship with her father, or her lack thereof I should say, but now it is for different reasons. I sense her longing through the Force sometimes when Luke talks about the moments he had with Anakin Skywalker, as she had only ever known Darth Vader.

We sat together and watched Ben "helping" Luke assemble a toddler-sized landspeeder in the garden. They're a handsome sight, my husband and son. In spite of my fair skin, Ben inherited his father's tan complexion. It seems to be a natural trait of Skywalker men, as the holos we have of Anakin Skywalker from the Clone Wars attest.

Leia was quiet, fingering her cup distractedly. "Does Luke still see him?" she asked suddenly.

"Who?" I asked, even though I knew the answer.

"Our father," she glanced up. "Does Luke still see him?"

"Sometimes," I answered carefully. "Not very often. Why?"

Leia turned her gaze back to the garden. "I told him to leave me alone. When he appeared to me on Bakura, right after Endor, and I haven't seen him since. But I do wonder sometimes if he's watching like he said he would. If he knows…."

I waited for her to continue, knowing that this was a much for her benefit as mine. She never finished the sentence.

"I should have gone with him," she said softly. I felt an unfamiliar sorrow rising in her. An old pain, long ignored. "I should have gone with Luke to the Death Star. He shouldn't have had to do that alone."

I had never heard Leia talk about Endor before. "I don't think Luke would have let you," I ventured, based on what Luke had told me of that night.

Her eyes flashed, "He couldn't have stopped me."

I hadn't had much interaction with her father in my time in the Emperor's service, but from our few brief encounters, I had a healthy respect for him. Gossip was rampant in the Imperial court and I remember wondering more than once how a teenage senator from Alderaan managed to consistently hold her own against the formidable dark lord. Looking into her determined brown eyes now, I understood.

"Maybe if I'd been there," she continued, sounding almost like a confession, "it would have been different. Maybe if both of us had talked to him. I knew him better than Luke. If we could have confronted him together, maybe-" her voice faltered.

"Maybe he would have turned sooner. Maybe he wouldn't have died. I would have liked to have seen him…to see his face."

I didn't say it, but even if he had been my estranged Sith lord father turned back from the dark side to save me, that whole removing the mask thing might have been a deal-breaker. I'm sure I could have found about ten other things I needed to do first before venturing beneath that helmet.

"Funny thing is," Leia continued, "I don't think Luke needed to see him. Somehow, he always saw through the mask."

As if on cue, Luke appeared in the doorway saying that Ben had something to show "Aunt Waya" in the garden. I waved them on – they needed to be together today.

She was right, though. About Luke.

It is his gift, to be able to look beyond masks and facades and see a person for who they really are. The obstacles of pride and pain and past do not intimidate him. Force knows, I had a whole barricade of them, but he still found me.

Just like he found his father.

I don't think I've ever admitted it to Luke, but it was one of the reasons that I held him at a distance for so long. I was not willing to give any quarter of my carefully constructed defenses or allow anyone access to my inner self ever again, or so I thought.

It was many years before I realized the beauty of Luke's power.

That when you finally let him remove the masks, it isn't frightening or humiliating, like you'd expect. And it doesn't hurt. He does not judge, for he has made his own mistakes. In his seemingly endless capacity for compassion, you feel safe…and free.

In his arms, you want to be more than who you were yet nothing more than what you are. The flaws you try so hard to hide become nothing more than irregular threads in the mantle of his love.

It is the mantle of Skywalker that he wears proudly in honor of his father, and our family.