A/N: I apologize for the delay in update, Christmas is a busy time work-wise for me. This chapter is a little shorter but I promise the next (and last) chapter will not be far behind. Happy New Year and enjoy!

Leia watched with a pensive frown as the Togruta walked around the base.

As soon as they had landed, she and Luke had disappeared together with the droids in tow.

All but Threepio had one thing in common: some kind of memory of Anakin Skywalker.

She was too tired to care much as they walked off without her but she had a long time to reflect in the refresher. She hated it but she felt inexplicably angry that they all seemed to share something she could not.

This woman was a stranger, yet as soon as Luke discovered her prior connection to their father he hadn't left her side. The entire trip back to Endor was the two of them sharing stories, mostly Luke asking questions, because as much time as he'd been spending with their father he was still so much of a mystery to them.

Thank the stars for Han who provided her with a distraction. She listened for a while as Ahsoka spoke but still struggled with connecting anything she said to the man she knew as Vader and at the very least Han shared her distrust of the man.

Once they arrived she knew precisely where they were going and it wasn't as if she wanted to go with them. As they wandered off without her though, it was just another reminder of the damage he had done to their lives.

After she washed and rested, she stepped out for a walk and spotted Luke and Ahsoka together again. They walked slowly, side by side as they talked. Their faces were more relaxed but solemn. Then Luke finally walked off and Ahsoka was left by herself.

She stared out the windows, hands behind her back, still and silent for a long time. Then finally she walked over to a bench and lowered herself down, her shoulders slumped as she buried her head in her hands.

Leia debated leaving her be but her curiosity got the better of her. She knew they had no doubt had a conversation with her father and she had disappeared down there for hours and then emerged clearly in distress.

Ahsoka's shoulders tensed as she approached and she slowly lifted herself up and turned around.

Her eyes were wet and cheeks tear stained but her face had pulled tight and even to hide her emotions.

"Leia." She smiled weakly and greeted her as if she were an old friend, or family.

Leia wondered if things had gone a different way, they might have been. As it were, she was just a stranger and the informal greeting left her a little unsettled.

Ahsoka wiped her cheeks. "Can I do something for you?"

Leia stopped in front of her. "I just wanted to make sure you were alright. I know you were going to speak with…" she trailed off and grew frustrated with herself. Why was it so difficult to name him?

"Anakin."

Leia's eyes narrowed slightly, her stomach twisting as the name easily left Ahsoka's lips. It was difficult for her because where she had her doubts about who he really was, Ahsoka, like Luke seemed to be more than certain.

"Yes." She cleared her throat and nodded. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to disturb you. I saw you were upset and I just wanted to make sure he hadn't hurt you."

Ahsoka's face tightened and she straightened up to her full height. "He wouldn't hurt me."

Leia frowned skeptically. She had countless memories of all those Vader had killed or injured. Yet again, like Luke, Ahsoka seemed to believe he was no longer a danger.

"I know what you think, Leia and I understand why you do."

Leia hardened defensively, her eyes narrowing. "You don't know anything about me."

"And you know nothing about me," Ahsoka responded quickly, "or my relationship with your father."

Leia flinched at the still unfamiliar term for the man.

"Anakin wouldn't hurt me." Ahsoka repeated confidently.

"And how do you know that?" Her question was asked out of curiosity but she couldn't help the sharp bite in her voice. "How do you know who he is right now?"

Ashoka smiled sadly. "I know my master." She explained quietly.

Leia didn't know Ahsoka well and hadn't spent too much time with her but one thing she did know was that it seemed she was well liked and well respected by those around her. She found it hard to believe that a woman like Ahsoka could have ever been trained by someone like him.

"I fought beside Anakin for years. And," she quickly added, as if she could sense where her thoughts were going, "I also fought against Vader. I've seen what it was like when he was lost to the dark side and that man down there..." she glanced off distantly, her smile fading into a deep, sad frown. She sighed and then slowly looked back at her. "He is lost but not to the darkness, not anymore. He's changed from the man I knew, of course he has, and I've changed as well but I can see my friend again and talking to him…" the corners around her eyes crinkled with pain. "To know all he's suffered…"

"All he's suffered?" Leia cut her off sharply. The heat rose to her cheeks as her anger flared to life and she took a quick step closer to her. "Do you know what he's done?"

Ahsoka stared her down seriously, unflinching. "Of course I know what he's done."

"Yet you sympathize with him?" she scoffed.

"I am not sympathetic to the man he became. If it was Darth Vader who sat down there he would not have my sympathy or compassion." Ahsoka's voice was firm and Leia knew she spoke the truth which really spoke to the fact she did believe he was no longer Vader.

"In fact...I had the chance to take down Vader once before and I would have killed him." She visibly flinched at this admission and Leia felt an odd stirring in her chest.

The loudest part of her said she would have liked to see the end of Vader but there was a small, new part of her - Luke's voice - that told her that perhaps he was a man worth saving.

"Why didn't you?"

Ahsoka took a deep breath in, then out and her eyes drifted upwards eyes as her mind drifted to a memory. "Our last encounter was in a crumbling temple, we were separated by the rubble before either he or I could kill the other."

Leia shoved that small voice back down as her hostility grew. "He was going to kill you."

Ahsoka looked back to her, her eyes calm on the surface but so much emotion lay beyond. "Darth Vader was, yes."

Leia sighed heavily. "I fail to see the distinction!"

"You never knew him as anything other than Vader but I knew Anakin and I…" she paused and a few emotions flickered over her face, until it once again finally settled on sad and serious.

"No, Leia, I do not sympathize with Darth Vader and I never could but how Anakin became him…" She closed her eyes tightly for a moment and then let out a hard sigh, her shoulders visibly slumping. "I can't say I understand or justify anything he's done but I also knew him before all of that and he was... amazing."

Ahsoka's head lifted, her face softened and her eyes lit up with awe and Leia felt her chest tighten. She had never seen someone talk about him in that way before, not even Luke. It was her first real glimpse at Anakin Skywalker from someone who had actually known him. He had always just been a story but for the first time she could see he had been a real person and a friend to the woman who stood before her.

"He was a rule breaker," Her lips turned up at the corners and she let out a small laugh, "but he was a good man." Her face sobered again and she looked at Leia seriously. "I know that might be hard for you to believe but he was. The best man I had ever known and to think what must have happened to turn that man I knew into…" her voice broke and she let out a shuddering breath. "It's unfathomable." She whispered, the despair evident in her voice and Leia's heart went out to her. Anakin was clearly someone who was very important to her and he had betrayed her as well.

"And I wasn't there for him." She slowly lowered herself down, closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around herself. "He needed someone and I left."

Leia's face softened in a frown, her anger releasing and she walked over and sat down beside her.

She sat in silence beside her for a long minute but as Ahsoka began to tremble she wrapped her arm around her shoulders. "It is not your fault."

Ahsoka turned tear filled eyes to her "I could have helped him."

Leia shook her head, her brow pressed down firmly. "It was his decision…"

"He was corrupted by a number of different circumstances. Yes, it was his decision but if he had someone to stop him before he made that decision…." She trailed off and looked off distantly. Her face twisted in sorrow. "I could have been that someone."

Her words struck Leia hard. She didn't know what had happened to turn the so called great Anakin Skywalker into the deadly Darth Vader but to her a decision like that rested solely on him and no one or nothing could have prevented it. At least, she imagined that to be so. If it was true that Luke brought him back after twenty years, maybe there was something that could have been done. She dare not place blame on anyone but him, however, especially not on Ahsoka. Still, it was his son that brought him back to the light, and made her wonder...

"How close were you to him exactly?"

Ahsoka laughed half heartedly and smiled weakly. "You and your brother think alike. He asked me the same question and I will give you the same answer. I am not nor have I ever been in love with him. What I have with Anakin...it's a difficult feeling to explain to someone who is not, or never was a Jedi. He was my master and that bond is almost unbreakable. He was my friend and brother. He was family."

"The Force connects you." Leia realized and Ahsoka nodded with a small, tender smile.

"I think I understand that. I share that with Luke, I was connected to him before I even knew he was my brother."

"Yes, Luke told me you were force sensitive." Ahsoka smiled at her, almost proudly and Leia once again had that sinking feeling in her chest. The feeling that she had missed out on something great. She wouldn't have traded her parents or her life with them for anything but the what if's were a constant, if subtle, tug at her mind and heart.

A brother is what Ahsoka called Anakin. If he hadn't chosen the wrong path, would they have all been a family? Despite being separated for over twenty years, Ahsoka still deeply cared for Anakin and took to Luke as if they were family, she looked at her like she was a proud Aunt. And what did it all mean for going forward? Would Ahsoka continue to stay around? Leia had the feeling she would judging only by how devoted she was to Anakin.

Ahsoka leaned in closer to her and lifted her shoulders. "You could have that with Anakin too, if you let it."

Leia scowled. The thought of sharing the same type of connection with Darth Vader as she shared with her brother sent a chill down her spine and caused her stomach to twist uneasily.

"You don't want to." Ahsoka keenly observed and Leia's dark eyes looked up at her quietly.

Ahsoka smiled weakly. "That's alright. I suppose I wouldn't want to start a connection with someone whose mind had been clouded by darkness for so long."

"Can you break the connection you have with him?" Leia asked. She didn't like the thought of connecting with him for the first time, she would hate to be in a position where she couldn't break an already forged connection.

"I can and I have." Ahsoka nodded. "For over twenty years it was broken though I don't know if that was his doing or mine. For a while I thought Anakin was dead because I couldn't feel him. He closed himself off to me, to anyone. Now that he's back, I reach for him and I can feel him again." Her eyes closed and she straightened up and a small, almost peaceful smile tugged at her lips.

Leia watched her curiously as she no doubt was connecting with him at that very moment.

Without really thinking about it, Leia prodded out and could feel Luke's presence. It was a skill that Luke was helping her to strengthen. She didn't want to use the Force in the same way her brother did, and the only person she was interested in connecting with in such an intimate way was Luke.

Her breath caught in her chest as she suddenly caught hold of another presence. Unfamiliar, yet familiar at the same time, muted but powerful, sad and chilling.

She quickly retreated from the feeling, severing any connection before it started, and a shudder rolled through her.

She had felt him, almost connected with him and she wasn't sure how she felt about it.

Thankfully, Ahsoka hadn't noticed. She was still sitting quietly, peacefully, lost in the power of the Force.

Leia took a few slow, even breaths to calm her racing heart. She continued to watch Ahsoka until she slowly relaxed her formerly straight posture, her eyes fluttering as she released herself from the connection.

"He's asleep now." Ahsoka said quietly. "That's good."

Leia didn't respond to that and knew Ahsoka was talking to herself anyway.

"You really think you could have stopped him?" Leia asked her quietly.

Ahsoka opened her eyes and looked to her. A frown reformed her face and she shook off the last of her distraction. "I'm not certain but I definitely would have tried. He told me what happened, the events leading up to it. He was afraid. So terribly afraid and the power the Dark Side offered him relieved those fears. He felt unstoppable when everyone around him was constantly trying to tell him how to live his life. His fear was fueled by his love for your mother and her protection was his top priority."

Leia scoffed quietly. "He told me the same thing. Her protection."

Her mind briefly wandered to Han. She loved him and would go through hell to save him but to sacrifice herself in that way, to surrender to darkness? She couldn't imagine going that far, even for Han.

"Anakin is very loyal and fiercely protective of those he loves. I've seen him risk life and limb for Artoo."

Leia's brow lifted at that. She couldn't imagine the man who could kill in an instant risking his life for a droid. That was the difference, she imagined, between Anakin and Vader and therein lay the distinction she hadn't seen.

"For his wife, for his children..." Ahsoka glanced at her pointedly. She frowned, her eyes narrowing - she did not want to be a reason for Darth Vader's existence. "...he would have done anything, including turning to the Dark Side." Ahsoka glanced away for a moment and shook her head slowly. "He clearly did not think of the consequences of those actions."

"No, he didn't." Leia said sharply and crossed her arms tight to her chest.

Ahsoka slowly looked back to her and then turned her body towards her. "You are right, Leia, I don't know you. I don't know what his actions as Vader has done to you. I am not saying you should forgive him either. If I were in your position I don't know if I would."

Her brow furrowed. "But you do."

"I do," she nodded, "because Anakin is too important to me to let him go when he needs me. When I left the Jedi, I was young and just wanted out. Your father did too but he didn't, maybe couldn't, bring himself to do it until…" she trailed off with another resigned sigh.

Leia's lips pulled into a thoughtful frown. "Luke said he felt trapped." She also remembered the words from his own mouth, telling her how his marriage to her mother was forbidden. No, not just their marriage but their love. His love was forbidden and yet he loved anyway.

Why didn't he just leave? She wondered. Why did he have to resort to the darkest of evils and in the name of love?

Ahsoka nodded quietly with a frown. "I knew he had issues with the Jedi, he told me he wanted to leave. The truth is that no one will know what was going on inside his head, I'm not sure even he knows. The Dark Side has a way of clouding one's judgement."

Leia slowly lowered her hands back down to her lap and then turned in towards Ahsoka. "Can you tell me what you see in him?" She needed to know from the perspective of someone who was not her brother. "And I don't mean in the man you once knew but who he is now. After all he's done, how can you believe there's still good in him?"

To her surprise, Ahsoka took no time to think and instead only gave her a small smile before she answered. "The answer is because I do see the man I once knew in the man he is now. When I last saw him, as Vader, it was as if his heart and soul was gone." She swallowed thickly and her shoulders shuddered. "We fought and I looked into his eyes and saw...nothing. Nothing but anger and hatred. That's when I knew that Anakin was gone."

Her voice broke, no doubt as her heart had done that day.

"Anakin was all heart. He appeared rough on the outside because that's what a Jedi should be, free of all personal attachments, but he cared so deeply, almost too much and certainly too much for a Jedi." She blinked away the moisture that started to form at her eyes. "I wasn't sure what I would find when Luke told me he was still alive. I was frightened to come here because I didn't want to have to face Vader again. But when Luke took me to him, I saw Anakin, I saw his heart. Leia," She startled as Ahsoka gently placed her hand on top of hers, "I see a man who is broken because of his own actions, a man who couldn't see, at the time, what he was doing was wrong but now is truly remorseful for what he's done. I see the man who cares too much, a man who wants to know the children he lost so much time with."

"It's his own fault." Leia hated how small her voice sounded. She wanted to remain angry at him and if all he ever was was Darth Vader she could be but Luke's belief in him and Ahsoka's knowledge of the man he once was and the love she still clearly had for him tore at her heart.

"I know that." She squeezed Leia's hand gently.

"Yet you and Luke think I should give him a chance."

Ahsoka pressed her lips together. "No one can force you into feeling something you don't feel. All I know is, he is your father and he loves you."

Leia shook her head. "He doesn't know me." She protested weakly.

"He doesn't have to. He's your father and all the darkness that consumed him for so long doesn't change that. He's capable of such destruction, yes, but he's also capable of so much love. He let fear and anger and hate rule his life for so long, now he just wants the love he was always denied."

Leia frowned skeptically. "You loved him."

"I did." She agreed with a small smile, "and I still do but as Jedi we couldn't acknowledge it and when I left he had no one."

"He had my mother, didn't he?"

Ahsoka smiled soft and sad. "Of course he did, yes. I won't lie to you, Leia...I knew your mother, and while I suspected something was going on between them I didn't know they were married and I don't know what their relationship was like. Nobody knew, I imagine, except them and Padmé …" She flinched and her face flickered in anguish. "Their secrets died with her and lay with him and his viewpoint cannot exactly be trusted. I knew Padmé, she was passionate and strong, like you," The corners of her eyes picked up with a spark of affection and Leia felt her heart jump. She didn't know much about her mother and it was the first time anyone had compared her to her. "...and I'm sure she loved him dearly but it just wasn't enough." Ahsoka sighed as her face fell. "The Jedi had forced this way of life upon him, forced him to stay quiet, forced him to believe he had to handle his fears on his own. I escaped that life and it allowed my heart to open again but he didn't and that was his downfall."

Leia sat quiet, allowing the words to settle. Finally she was beginning to see what had went wrong and while ultimately, it was his decision and his decision alone to become a Sith, there were heavy external factors that guided him there.

Her heart pounded and her mind raced with conflicting thoughts. Ahsoka broke through another piece of the wall she was refusing to see over, the wall that kept her at a safe distance from acknowledging the truth of her true parentage. If she allowed herself to connect to him, to feel for him, it meant she was accepting him and all he had done.

Leia shook her head stubbornly. "I can't love someone just because he fathered me or because he wants me to love him."

"I understand that, perhaps better than most. You see I also never knew my birth parents. I was taken into the Jedi order at a very young age and I first met Anakin at fourteen. If my parents had shown up to claim me, I would have no connection or attachment to them. Anakin, Obi-wan, the Jedi... they were my family and the only one I've ever known. I don't remember much of my past, especially of the time before the Jedi, but I do remember feeling alone. You weren't alone, not really, were you, Princess?"

The use of her title in that fashion almost would have been mocking and for a moment she felt a stirring of anger within her until it settled at Ahsoka's kind eyes. "You had a family," She smiled, "You had parents, great ones. I remember senator Organa and what a great man he was. No one can ever take that away from you, Leia, not even with their deaths."

Leia's jaw tightened to stifle the quiver she felt stirring up at the thought of her parents. She turned a sharp look to the ground, fighting away the sting of tears at her eyes. She missed them terribly and wished they were still alive so she could ask them what to do.

"You know you look so much like him when you do that." Ahsoka's voice was soft and wistful and Leia quickly snapped her head up, her eyes slightly wide.

Ahsoka gave a small, sad smile. "You don't have to forgive him today, or next week or at all. Your relationship with him cannot be compared to your brother's or my own. You have to decide what is right for you. I am glad you're here, talking to me and asking questions. You're angry, understandably so, but not apathetic. Maybe somewhere deep inside you, you do want to know him but you just can't get there yet."

Leia tensed and briefly wondered if Ahsoka could get into her mind as well. Despite having just met her, she seemed to know exactly how she felt. Her mind subconsciously reaching out for him spoke more to it than she realized.

She wanted to understand what it was about him that kept Ahsoka and Luke loving him and she wondered if connecting to his feelings would help her to do just that. She was afraid that once she made that connection she wouldn't be able to break it and she didn't know what she'd find in his head.

"He will be there if and when you decide you are ready. He wanted you, Leia, I know that and he would have been a great a father to you. It didn't happen so it almost doesn't matter but he wants you now."

Ahsoka gripped tight onto both of her hands and leaned in until their eyes locked. Leia almost couldn't breathe from the emotion that shone back at her through Ahsoka's eyes and her own damned emotions clogging her throat.

"Don't give up on Anakin Skywalker because I promise he will never give up on you."