The Angel's Last Gift

A/N: I wrote this fic about five years ago. Many English classes later, I was seized with a desire to revise it. Enjoy and review.


I n a sterile, white, windowless room, a woman lay dying.

The people who stood around the bed were in two distinct groupings. One consisted of a golden couple with a tiny dark child and the other of an elderly healer in white coat and his assistant.

The couple seemed out of place in the functional room, both golden and assured. The child also seemed out of place, too small and dark to belong to her companions. The man stood at the head of the bed, focused on the dying woman. He murmured softly to her as his female companion frowned. The child was also staring at the sick woman intensely, and the golden woman's attention was divided between the child and the man.

The medical monitors beeped irregularly and the elderly man moved towards the monitor, working it frantically. The woman with golden hair turned from the child and imperiously asked "How much longer?"

The elderly man stopped his work for a moment. "Not much time left" he said.

The pale woman on the sterile white bed shifted restlessly, her snarled long brown hair moving with a life of its own as she shifted on the bed. The tiny girl pulled her hand from the woman who had spoken and climbed onto the bed, hugging the unconscious woman. Her hair mingled with the hair of the dying woman. "No, momma" she whispered. "No."

The woman on the bed turned towards the girl, sighed and was still, a surprisingly serene smile on her worn face.

The monitors surrounding her started beeping abruptly and the girl started sobbing as though she would never stop.

The blond woman walked over to lift the girl off the bed, hugged the disconsolate child possessively and said "Hush Leia. It does not become a princess to cry over the death of her nurse."

Halfway across the galaxy….

Lord Darth Vader stiffened, his attention pulled from the officer who was standing in front of his desk.

He grabbed the desk he was sitting in front of, feeling light headed, and dizzy. His body throbbed, and it was as though his body remembered the pain of the lava pit. His flesh was searing off, he could feel it. It felt like the death agony, and he reflexively started choking the officer in front of him.

"My…my lord" the man said as he turned red and passed out.

The pain was not gone, Vader observed, bemused. He pushed away the lightheadedness and the stomach twisting nausea and felt himself through the Force. Nothing wrong. He wasn't dying.

The world was still shaking around him, and he could feel his bond to his body get looser.

Someone was dying. He felt it, felt the refusal to die, the panicked grip of the soul on the mortal body. He looked at his hands through his visor, and took a deep breath. He was not dying.

"Amidala?", he sent uncertainly into the void, to the mind of the person who was dying. She had left him a long time ago, but she was the only one he could think of whose death agony would suck him in. His anger flared. You would not be dying so far way from me if you had not left, he snarled mentally.

Her force presence recoiled, as if in fear, and he tamed his anger.

He felt a touch of apology from her and also…love? The brief, bewildering feeling of light and warmth encircled him for a moment and, abruptly, started to fade. Her death made her presence stand out in the force and he was able to locate her, though he never had before. Alderaan... he thought. Then her presence was gone, leaving him to slump forward on his desk, catching himself.

He spent the next two days in seclusion and waited for intelligence from Alderaan.

Three days after his wife's death Darth Vader, Lord of the Sith, boarded a shuttle for Alderaan. He was travelling incognito.

The pleasant featured, brown haired man cleared customs without any problems. The air around him shimmered for a moment as he lost his grip on the illusion he was projecting. He steadied it. When he had designed his costume to stand out, he had not imagined that there would be a time he would want to blend in.

He was still uncertain why he felt drawn to this world, but he had learned to trust the guidance of the Force. He needed to be here, he knew. He kept suppressing the ridiculous, barely articulated thought that perhaps she was still alive, perhaps that was why he had been drawn here. Her presence lingered in the air around him like an elusive perfume, unusually strong for a person who had died.

Vader felt the Force calling him and followed, confident that he was being led to something important.


At about the time Vader landed on Alderaan, Princess Leia was having breakfast with her adopted parents in the Dinner Room in the Viceroy's Palace. The Organas dined formally even in private and so the five year old girl deftly juggled forks and spoons and knives, unerringly choosing the correct utensil for each course.

She was a small girl sitting on a chair meant for adults and she looked quite lost despite the cushions which enabled her to reach the table. She was dressed in a heavily embroidered red dress and her long brown hair was looped around her head in an intricate braid. She handled her finely wrought, heavy crystal goblet with care, remembering the consequences the last time she had let her glass fall.

The Organas ate in silent splendor, the hush broken only by the tinkle of silverware and the noise made by the servants as they laid out the meal.

The meal served, the servants withdrew, and Celeste Organa's voice broke the silence sharply "Leia. Threepeo tells me you have been visiting Padme's grave"

"Yes I have, Mother" Leia said, her expression anxious.

Bail looked from Celeste to Leia, his brow furrowing.

"Well, I would like you to stop, darling" said Celeste Organa, her tone firm.

"Why can't I visit my Momma?" Leia asked confusedly.

"There were bad men looking for your Momma, dearest, and we don't want them to find you" Celeste said in a gentler tone. Her face softened as she looked at her adopted daughter "We would hate to lose you."

"Besides," Bail added kindly "your Momma isn't at the grave. She's with you right now, and she'll be with you forever."

Celeste Organa wrinkled her nose and continued eating.


She wasn't here, Vader realized, feeling a strong sense of unexpected disappointment. Surely, he had not truly expected her to still be alive. He picked up a fistful of soil from over the grave. Her presence lingered on Alderaan, but he could not locate the source. Perhaps it was merely a side effect of her death which would fade soon. This unremarkable spot in the Viceroy's grounds was obviously where she was buried.

He looked at the plain unmarked white stone that marked the place and felt furious all over again. Bushes surrounded it on three sides and apart from the stone there was no sign that a person rested there except for what looked like a ragged bouquet of flowers picked from the Viceroy's garden. A household pet would have had a better grave. His wife deserved a better memorial. If she had lived he would have taken her back to Imperial Center and kept her there, regardless of how she had felt about it. She had been his and Organa would pay for interfering between him and his wife.

He thought about seeking out the viceroy to strangle him and decided against it. Let him live and suffer. A treason trial ought to wreak Organa's storybook perfect life, He mused with dark amusement.


Princess Leia sat at her child sized dressing table as her nurse undid her hair. The child blinked back tears. This used to be her quiet time with Momma, when Momma brushed her hair and told her stories and sat with her so that she wouldn't be afraid of the dark. The door opened and Celeste Organa walked in.

She took the nurse's place behind Leia and said quietly "Dismissed." The Vicerene waited until the nurse walked out and began to brush Leia's hair. Leia looked in the mirror at herself and Mother. She felt slightly confused. Mother never did things like this for her, she seldom had time.

"You have lovely hair, dear" Celeste said. "The only thing wrong with it that it's too long. Shorter hair would be more appropriate for your age."

Leia felt helpless. Momma had liked her hair long, had said something about a family tradition. Momma had been her real mother. "I like it like this, Madame" she said formally.

"You'll like it cut too," said Celeste eagerly. "You have an appointment with my hairdresser tomorrow. Once it's cut, it will be easier to style, too. You can get curls like mine, or make small braids to hang around your face."

Leia sat small in her chair, feeling friendless. She could sense that this was an argument she was not going to win. Once Leia's hair had been brushed, Celeste tucked her in. Celeste Organa sat next to the bed and sat next to the little girl. Leia felt the gaze and saw her mother smiling at her, looking perfectly content. "Leia" she said firmly "I want you to promise me that from tomorrow onward you won't visit Padme's grave."

Leia refused to let herself cry and whispered softly "I promise not to visit Momma from tomorrow onwards."

"Good night then" Celeste said as she kissed her and left the room. She turned off the light as she left, drowning Leia in darkness.