The media swarms the senate complex and the moment I arrive at its doors cameras are in my face yelling for me to confirm every mad accusation that's been mustered in the hours since the news broke. I don't even now how long I've spent on the floor of the Falcon ship with tears streaming down my face until my eyes finally ran dry.

I never knew shock to be an emotion that could bring one to tears, but as I kept replaying the revelation, Ben throwing Dad into the wall and the screaming match on board the ship, and then finally the glint of madness in his eye as he justified our grandfathers crimes against not just the galaxy, but our own family...

I realise I'm mourning, mourning a brother that I can feel slipping between my fingers, but he is Luke's apprentice, Luke's responsibility, and someone has to get to Mom.

The entrance to the senate offices is blocked by reporters who refuse to let me through, the cameras picking up every micro-expression on my face as I try to force my way through without resorting to violence, but they make it difficult.

"Move," I find myself ordering but it falls on deaf ears as they keep hurling questions at the sixteen year old girl that they tower over and neither I nor the media anticipate the aggression in my voice as I snap "Move!"

But as I'm pushed by the crowd my hand automatically reaches for the saber at my side, not to draw it, no not that, but merely for some sense of control but it's enough to cause further damage to this already burning ship my family's found ourselves on.

"She has a lightsaber!" a voice yells and suddenly the mob parts. I keep my head down as I push forward, coming to the wide doors only to find them barred shut, no doubt to prevent an attempt against her life and curse as I bang my fist against them before mustering enough strength to blast them wide open with the force, not caring for the screams of shock from the crowd and just as quickly slam them closed the moment I enter through them, having to push against journalists that try to make their entrance and security quickly run forward to help seal the entrance.

"Miss Solo," I'm immediately warned by the receptionist. "You're presence is not-"

I just spin around and look him right in the eye. "My presence is permitted and you will get out of my way."

Whether it's the mind trick or the bite in my voice that works I don't know and I don't care as security moves aside and I quickly find my way up to the floor that houses Mom's office, but the moment the lift opens I find the hallway filled with office workers and can't ignore their remarks as I walk past with my head down.

"I always thought the girl took after Leia but looking at her now she definitely takes after Anakin Skywalker."

"You mean Darth Vader-"

They fall silent as they catch my glare and I keep marching down the hall until I find Mom's assistant Greer, only to become sick as the pilot with her asks "Do you think Darth Vader assaulted Queen Amidala-"

"No!" I snap and they look at me, faces turning pale. "No, he didn't and you should know better than to make such assumptions."

"Hope-" Greer begins but I don't want to hear it.

"And how about you fact check that theory with some dates before you add to all the bullshit being thrown around," I snipe and her mouth falls open in mortification. "

In all this uncertainty I still know the truth of Anakin Skywalker, that my grandmother loved him and fell pregnant with his children even though it was forbidden. That she fell pregnant almost a year before the Republic fell, long before her husband became what he did. I know that she loved him enough to keep their marriage secret throughout the entirety of the Clone Wars before he turned because I've seen it. The last thing she would want is to be painted as a victim of such a thing, and Mom would certainly not want to be assumed to be a child of such an act when I know she was made out of love, even if that love had turned to something else by the time she was born.

Of all the things Anakin Skywalker is guilty of, that is not one.

It may be the only crime he isn't guilty of.

"Hope," Greer continues carefully, trying to keep me calm. "We thought you were with Han-"

"Where is she?" I ask them before either can get another word in but both look at me no longer as Leia's daughter, but as something dangerous, just as Ben promised they would. "I asked you a question!"

"In her office," Greer answers regretfully and I push past them, not knowing who to trust now since it was Mom's colleague who broke the news to the senate and I can't know that it wasn't her staff that leaked the information.

Hell I don't even know anything myself, I don't even know if I can trust my own mother.

And so when I walk into her office and find her with her head in her hands I don't know what to say to her. I stand there in silence until she looks up at me and I see fear in her eyes at whatever it is she must see written across my face.

"Hope-"

"Have you turned on the holonews?" I ask her, rage creeping into my voice and she looks at me in bewilderment at that question.

"Of course I haven't."

I take her datapad and do it for her, she opens her mouth but I raise a finger to silence her until I find it and all the colour left in her face is drained as she watches the scene outside of the temple. An attempted assassination against Darth Vader's granddaughter no doubt being the biggest headline in the galaxy right now, and she brings a trembling hand over her mouth, tears wetting her cheeks as she shuts her eyes.

"I- I never wanted this to happen," she quakes and my anger battles with the pain I feel at seeing her like this. Seeing my mother, Leia Organa, a trembling wreck.

"It's ironic that if I didn't have Vader's powers I'd be dead," I state factually and she only winces at those words, holding her head. "It's even more ironic that if Ben hadn't given me a recording teaching me how to do that without Luke knowing I'd never have known how to stop a blaster bolt mid air. Luke never taught me how, he held me back at every step. Which is why I would be dead right now if Ben hadn't taught me to protect myself. He always wanted me to be his apprentice after all, that was until he started losing his mind."

Her eyes finally reopen, filled with fear as she asks "Where is he?"

"Luke has him," I answer and find my voice strained, but if I thought I'd exhausted my anger in my fight with Ben I was wrong. "We were told Anakin Skywalker was our grandfather, the famed Jedi, the chosen one-"

"Luke told you that, not me," she says and I hear that same bite in her own voice despite the tears in her eyes. "I nearly killed him when I learned he was filling Ben's head with that nonsense, because he believes our father was a good man despite everything he had done to us. He tortured me, he likely killed my mother-"

"He didn't," I say and she stills. "He might have lost his mind and used the force to choke her when she was nine months pregnant but no, he didn't kill her."

"What?" she whispers, completely unaware of where I've been and what I know. "How-"

"It's funny how the force has a way of showing you things," I tell her and she realises my visions have shown me things they thought no one would ever know. "So a week ago when I watched Vader standing over her tomb, mourning her like he loved her, dark seemingly impossible thoughts came to mind but I thought no, that can't be possible, and if it is Mom and Luke couldn't possibly know. But then when I followed the trail to Polis Massa where you were born... it all fell into place."

Guilt crosses her face now and she can't look at me. "I should have known you would figure it out."

"I did," I say, my throat tight. "But I couldn't believe it, not until I felt Vader's darkness and realised it was the same as Ben's. I knew it, I knew there was only one explanation but I wasn't going to accept it until I'd seen it for myself. But after Ben had thrown Dad into a wall and dragged me to Coruscant I did see it."

She swallows hard at the mention of what Ben did to Dad and I see it in her eyes, the disbelief that he could ever hurt Dad. Hurt me.

"I saw Anakin Skywalker storming the temple and massacring children, but still Ben wouldn't believe his hero could do such a thing until we found the same security recordings Obi-Wan Kenobi had seen and do you know what Ben said?" She keeps her mouth closed, not wanting to know. "He justified it because his hero has only become more human to him, a hero seduced by a dark lord and suddenly every bit of darkness in him he could never explain, it all made sense."

She eyes me with caution now, and her voice is grave as she asks "What did he tell you?"

A bitter laugh escapes me now, anger resurfacing. "Snoke." At the sound of his name her head falls back into her hands. "How is it that despite Ben being tormented by some dark lord you never told him why? You left him in the dark thinking something was wrong with him when that darkness has been in our blood all along, and instead of telling him the truth you kept it from him until he's lost his fucking mind!"

For the first time I see Leia Organa, the rebel hero, the Princess of Alderaan, the relentless senator, I see her defeated. "We kept it from him for his own good-"

"And how has that turned out?" I ask her, my hands still trembling from Coruscant, still feeling the heat of the blaster bolt. "Because in his eyes he is Anakin Skywalker, the troubled all powerful Jedi betrayed and failed by his master, and now Vader... Vader is his new hero."

I feel her grow physically sick at those words, as she should, but if I had to hear it she can too.

She struggles to compose herself but she does. "Luke will deal with your brother." She reaches for my hands, putting her attention on me. "But you're my responsibility-"

I sharply pull my hands back as she tries to take them and tell her "No, you don't get to be the concerned mother after shipping us off so we wouldn't be your problem anymore."

"I sent Ben to train with Luke to protect him," she firmly argues just as if she were in the senate. "If Ben's told you about Snoke then it's clear we have failed him, because ever since I was pregnant I've tried to protect him from Snoke's influence and I thought we'd succeeded when we sent him to train as a Jedi so he would be stronger than the darkness, stronger than Vader was."

"And me?" I swallow, having no idea where I fit into all of this, remembering Dormé's words; that I take after Anakin Skywalker. "I did everything you asked of me. I kept my mouth shut and saved my tears for when I was alone when you sent me away to Naboo to a family I didn't know. It was bad enough mine was split in four different corners of the galaxy but thought if I could go and train with Ben then I'd at least have him if my parents were too busy with their lives but no, you took me away from him and have kept me from him and my training, was that to protect me too?"

"Yes," she says as tears fill both our eyes and I realise it was fear that led her to separate us. "Yes it was, Luke made it very clear if Ben took you as his apprentice only dark things would come of it. I didn't want to separate you but the visions-"

"Visions?" I repeat and actually laugh now much to her disturbance. "Do not talk to me about visions after what I've seen in that temple." I shake my head now, seething with anger that it was a vision that had me separated from Ben, that visions are the reason I've felt so alone these past years. "I thought Luke told us not to listen to visions of the future but of course he does, of course he's the hypocrite who-"

"Enough," she scolds. "You can attack me, you can scream at me all you want but you will not attack Luke. I made the decision to keep the truth hidden and I made the decision to send you to Naboo thinking I'd be giving you an opportunity to be raised as you might have been if Alderaan still existed, as you should have been, to receive an education-"

"I didn't want that, I wanted my family!" I finally yell, having been nothing but alone and angry since I was a child, ever since Ben was sent away and I was left alone in that house with only droids to mind me. "Considering you lost yours I would have thought you'd understand that!"

Immediately I know I've gone too far and her eyes widen now as she sees the anger I've harboured for so long, I open my mouth to apologise but she raises her hand to silence me and says "No, you're right. In trying to protect you I've done the opposite, that much is clear to me now and I'm sorry. I'm sorry Hope. I am sorry I sent you to Naboo. I'm sorry fear made me keep you from Ben. I was afraid the darkness that found itself in him would corrupt you if you were to become his apprentice. I am sorry I never told either of you where that darkness came from."

I swallow hard, having never seen her like this before, and ask "How long have you known?"

"The night of Endor," she begins, her face pale and her own hands trembling. "Luke told me the truth that he discovered in his confrontation with Vader, that we were siblings, who our father was. I was horrified to the core, your father didn't understand why but he held me and then later when he asked me to marry him I told him the truth. He never even blinked." I feel pain at that and wonder now if there'll ever be anyone who could look at me knowing what I am and not blink an eye, after this I know there won't be. "For twenty-four years I've lived with this knowledge. I was terrified to have children because I was afraid of that darkness touching them and it has. At first I told myself the day would come when I'd have to tell you and Ben the truth, even days ago I was telling myself that I would have to, but as the years have gone by I selfishly thought if the truth died with Luke and I then you would never have to know. That I'd be protecting you from the truth that's tormented me for half my life now. The only people who ever knew were Luke and Han, not even Chewie and Lando knew. That is how desperately I've tried to keep this from getting out."

I feel her pain sharply and know whatever anger I have that's begging to surface she doesn't deserve. I'm angry yes, I'm angry at Anakin Skywalker, I'm angry at Ben, at Luke, and I may just hate the enter damn galaxy. But I can't be angry with her. She's as much of a victim in this as I am. More than I am, more than Ben. More than either of us could ever be. She suffered at Vader's hands more than any other. At her fathers hands.

But still I'm only left with questions.

"If our family were the only ones that knew then how..."

"My father, my real father," she begins and there's no question as to who she means. "He left me a message in a music box revealing the truth. I dare say in case he never lived to tell me himself which he never did. Somehow the Centrists got hold of it and Ransolm decided to reveal my secret in the most public and damaging way he possibly could."

Finally I find a target for my anger and ask "What are we going to do?"

A shadow of her smile comes to her face and finally her and I see eye to eye.

~

Security doesn't dare stop us as we make our way to Ransolm Casterfo's office and I follow her as she storms in.

"All alone?" Mom says and see a rage within her come out, one I'd heard of time and time again but that I've never truly seen until now. "Except for your creepy Imperial Mausoleum I mean." My eyes dart to his Imperial relic collection that says enough about who he is. "I would've thought you'd be throwing the party of the century celebrating your success."

He's defensive up until the moment he sets eyes on me, dishevelled from pushing through the crowds and seething with the same rage as he stammers "I- I heard about the attack on Coruscant."

"It's ironic that I'd be dead for being Vader's grandaughter if I didn't have his powers isn't it?" I say, not hiding the threat behind my voice and he turns to my mother for protection at the sight of the lightsaber at my hip.

"Leia, I never meant for this to happen-"

"You never meant to put my children in the line of fire you mean?" she asks and I relish the fear in his eyes. "Well you did. You pretended to be my friend and then betrayed me to the entire galaxy. A political masterstroke. Except you forgot to factor in the collateral damage. If my daughter wasn't what she is she'd be dead and her blood would be on your hands."

"For that I am regretful but you have no one to blame but yourself for this and for you to accuse me of pretending?" He has the audacity to look sick at the sight of her, but his rage is no match for ours. "You hid your true identity from everyone for decades."

"This is my true identity!" she yells, sheer betrayal thick in her voice. "The person I've been all this time, the battles I've fought, the work I've done - that's who I am! My birth father has nothing to do with any of that."

"How can we be certain? How can we trust anything you say from now on?" he questions but neither of us could have anticipated the accusation that comes out of his mouth. "The Empire found rebel bases time and time again. The Battle of Endor was nearly lost because it was all an elaborate trap. Could it be that they had a highly placed source inside the Rebel Alliance- a daughter who would obey her father."

I watch Mom's eyes widen and for a moment I'm sure she's going to hit him, if she doesn't I might. "You're accusing me of being a spy? Did you forget the parts where I nearly died along with the rest of the rebellion during those battles? If so you're dumber than I thought."

"No, you're a fucking snake," I spit out and watch his eyes widen at those words. "What gives you the right to accuse her of anything when you and the rest of the Centrists worshipped the Empire?"

Mom doesn't pull me up on my choice of words, not this time, she's past caring and knows I'm right as he asks me "What do you know of the Empire's rule? What do you know of the suffering we all endured-"

"Nothing, and yet despite yours you're stupid enough to find yourself working with Imperials," I remark as Mom watches on. "Tell me, are you proud of what you've done? It's easy enough to stand in front of the senate and make your accusations but look me in the eye and tell me you truly believe she ever betrayed the rebellion because who the hell do you think you are for her to owe you anything?"

He looks into my eyes and doesn't like what he sees as his eyes glance at my saber. I just tilt my head in warning for him to choose his next words carefully. A warning he ignores.

"Well, it seems the apple doesn't fall far from the tree," he remarks. "I'd thought the reports from Naboo couldn't possibly be true, but well, Vader's blood runs strong."

Mom's face changes now and she does indeed hit him, her fist sends him flying back into the desk and I quickly use the force to slam the door shut before any security can come as she stands over him and finally then does he look truly afraid, but not of me.

"Attack me, but not my family," she warns. "So go on and spit it out, make yourself feel better."

"You must have thought I was a fool," he says, clutching his face. "I trusted you so quickly, because I told you the most painful and personal stories of my life, never guessing that they revolved around your father."

I look at her now, knowing whatever he suffered will never compare to the suffering she endured at her own fathers hands and look at him to see a weak man who could never know what Vader took from my family.

What he will continue to take as fate has proven.

"Only my birth father," she makes clear. "My real father, the only father I ever knew or wanted was Bail Organa of Alderaan."

Still he persists. "Well, Bail Organa himself thought the connection mattered didn't he?"

Bail Organa, a man I never knew, a man I've never truly thought of as my grandfather. Not when Luke had always told us Anakin Skywalker was who we claimed our connection to the force from, not when the Naberrie family always referred to him and Padmé as my grandparents. It's a fact that brings me shame now that I think of Vader as my grandfather instead of the man who actually raised my mother.

"That was a message recorded out of love," Mom says, her voice breaking but only for a moment as anger takes over all else. "And you used it against me. How could you? We were friends, or I thought we were. When you found out, however you found out, did it never occur to you to come to me, to ask me about it personally?"

"Why? So you could lie to me yet again?" Ransolm rages as if he has the right. "You knew how I hated Vader! You knew what he had done to me! How could you still keep your secret, knowing that?"

Mom shakes her head in disbelief and for the first time I see the open wound she's hidden these many years, stories I'd heard second hand but never from her. "What Vader did to you? Do you think that can even begin to compare with what Vader did to me? He made me watch my planet die. He froze Han in carbonite and sold him to Jabba the Hutt. He cut off my brother's hand and nearly took his life. And he tortured me, Ransolm." I look down at the floor, feeling shame now for my own outburst towards her. "He tortured me until I screamed and shook and thought I would die just from the pain alone. Did you bother to ask yourself how it might feel, to realize the person who'd done all that to you was your father? Can you imagine how terrible it is to realize all you'll ever know of your birth father is how much he enjoyed making you suffer? That's what I have to live with."

Tears come to my eyes now at her pain, a pain she doesn't realise I can feel due to our connection in the force, and realise the almost primordial rage I've always felt for the Empire that Ben could never understand... it isn't my own, but hers.

And yet Ransolm still had the audacity to say "It's all the more reason you should have told me."

"She didn't even tell her own children in order to protect us," I say and Mom's own anger rise as she unclenches her fists to put her hands on my shoulders, and I know it's only so she can't hit him again. "Why would she tell you?"

"My children have had to find out in the most horrible, public way imaginable, all because of you," she says and I force him to hold my eye, to inflict as much pain onto him as possible and indeed see him wince. I was always Leia's little girl in the eyes of her colleagues, he can't escape from that now. "Obviously I overestimated our friendship but you owed it to me to come to me with this information first. Even if you still felt you had to shout it out to the entire galaxy, you could have talked to me privately first. Given me a chance to speak with my children. Not even out of friendship—just out of common decency. But I guess you didn't think I even deserved that."

"You had your chances to speak to your children," Ransolm still insists but folds under my gaze, flinching in pain. "Your daughter is no longer a child, and your son certainly isn't. You could've told them at any point before this. Do you think you'd ever have had the courage to tell them the truth?"

"And what makes you think you are in any way important enough to even be speaking to her? You're nobody, you've done nothing aside from collect relics and open your mouth when you thought there'd be no repercussions," I say and get flashes, flashes of watching Vader strangle the life from a man through a child's eyes, his eyes. "I'm sorry you had to watch Vader kill someone, I'm sorry your family suffered like everyone else's and that you think you have the right to be upset over what my mother chose not to tell you, a person of absolutely no importance to anything."

His eyes widen now in horror whilst I feel Mom watching me in alarm "How do you-"

"Jedi," I answer and his eyes again catch the lightsaber at my hip. "But you knew that. I'm the blood of Vader after all and the apple doesn't fall far from the tree as you put it."

"And this Ransolm is why I kept it from my children, for their own good," she says, hands firm on my shoulders, keeping me firmly in place. "Or what I hoped was their own good, now we'll never know. But what you did to me, you did for your own benefit. Well, congratulations, Senator Casterfo. May you enjoy all the power you bought by betraying me, and keep on condemning me as the heir to the Empire while you sit here surrounding by all of this." She only lets go of me to grab the royal guard helmet from his Imperial relic collection and throw it into a display case in a momentary lapse of control, glass shattering on the floor. "Goodbye Casterfo, may you get absolutely everything in life that you deserve."

Finally I see that she isn't so perfect after all. That the perfect patient woman I'd spent my life trying to live up to I'd made up in my head, and I see the truth. I see the woman from the stories Dad would always tell me. That she is more like me than I could ever see until now. My greatest flaws, my anger, my lapses in self control, refusal to bite my tongue, they all come from her.

And she is not going to face this alone.

~

Together we return to her apartment on Hosnian Prime. It's always so strange being here. Once it was our home, it belonged to the four of us and yet now it's just an apartment with nobody to warm it.

Something I hope will change.

"What now?" I ask her quietly as a chill begins to settle over us.

"Now I address the senate to resign in disgrace," she answers bluntly and asks "Threepio, have you heard from Luke?"

"Yes Mistress Leia," Threepio says while R2 checks me over. "Master Luke has sent a transmission to let you know he has brought Master Ben back to Ossus."

I can't help the sigh of relief that escapes me, but fear lingers. Fear at what I saw in that temple, things Mom can't even imagine.

"You should go there too," Mom says to me. "You were right, I never should have put you in the public eye, you'll be sharing this fallout with me now because of it."

"No," I decide and she looks at me in surprise. "I'll be in the Senate with you."

She wants to argue, but instead she simply warns "It won't be pretty."

"Yeah well it can't get much worse can it?" I ask her and she reaches for my hand, this time I let her take it. "I'm not afraid of the Senate Mom."

"I know," she assures me. "But you are afraid for Ben. I'll be able to handle it on my own if you want to see him, I won't stop you. You aren't a child anymore Hope, it's past time you had the freedom to make your own decisions, although it seems you've been doing that already."

"I'll go to Ossus," I promise her, but remain adamant. "But not until after we've faced the Senate."

She nods and squeezes my hand tight, telling me "No matter what you believe, or what they tell you, the man who fathered me-" she stops herself and says his name "Anakin Skywalker."

"The handmaidens on Naboo, they told me I take after him," I tell her and can't quite read her face. "I don't know how much they knew about what he became, but I know they must have suspected it. They warned me against following my suspicions and now- now I don't know where I stand."

Only now all those little moments begin to thread together. The looks they'd exchange when they'd see me with my saber or when I'd have a slight of anger, their careful counsel and gentle guidance. It only leaves me feeling ill, that whoever Anakin Skywalker was when they knew him, they still saw him in me knowing what he'd become.

Mom nods slowly, while this is new information to her she doesn't seem surprised and chooses her words carefully. "Obi-Wan Kenobi once told me I had Padmé Amidala's qualities, that I was wise and discerning, kind hearted. You certainly have these attributes even if they might not be as obvious, but one that is clear is that you have the strength of the women in our family. A drive to say and do what you believe is right even if the words don't come out quite right. I suspect that comes from your father, you have my passion for justice but his temperament for it."

I can't help but smile to myself knowing how true those words are. "You aren't wrong."

But that smile disappears as she continues "And as for Anakin Skywalker, Obi-Wan told me long before I ever learned his name that he was passionate and fearless, forthright." Neither of us can deny just how startlingly familiar those ones are. "Those were qualities that frustrated me when I saw how Luke took after our mother despite following our father's legacy. He saw the good in our father while I never could." Sadly I remember Padmé's last words, her assessment being more accurate than she knows. "Slowly I began to learn that despite taking after her politically that I had Anakin's temperament. It's an interesting question, nature versus nurture, and whilst I like to say that the parents who raised me are responsible for who I am today, I cannot deny the traits that come from him." She reaches for my face and holds my cheek gently. "Perhaps I detested them until I saw them in my own daughter and couldn't help but learn to love them, and by extension begin to find a way to understand who he might have once been."

Tears fill my eyes now. "Mom-"

She suddenly leaves the room and I sit confused until she brings out an old holojournal and places it on the table before me. "You might be surprised to know that I did go looking for answers just as you have, and while they brought us to different places this might help you understand who he was before Vader, before he was a Jedi even."

I open it and find myself confused as I lay eyes on a woman, a woman who resembles Mom, until I realise she took after her grandmother more than either of her parents, a woman who shares the same brown-black hair as Ben.

"Her name was Shmi Skywalker, she was a slave on Tatooine," she says and I frown, having learned from Dormé how Padmé had met Anakin. That her handmaidens had tried to free his mother but that she could not be found. "As was Anakin Skywalker until he was freed by the Jedi but she was left behind. She made this journal in the hopes it would find itself in Anakin's hands one day, it seems it didn't. I made sure that since the chance to know Alderaan and the parents who raised me was taken from you, that you might know Padmé Amidala through her family and your study on Naboo. Now it seems appropriate for you to be able to learn of Anakin Skywalkers."

"She looks like you," I tell her and she wears a pained expression.

"Han thought so as well. She was a remarkably resilient woman who for the first time made me proud of my fathers side," she reveals and squeezes my hand. "I want you to remember that despite Vader, despite whatever is going to come, that you are stronger than the darkness. That this Skywalker blood, it's only a small part of you. You weren't born a princess, but you would have been if not for Vader and the Empire, which is why I want you to remember that you come from a line of women who were resilient enough to stand up and be braver than they ever should have had to be at such a young age." She wears a pained expression as she touches my face. "It seems unfortunately that legacy passes onto you now. After this there will be losses and I can't promise that attack on Coruscant will be the last, but that strength is something nobody can take from you."

Right now despite the darkness I know if she's survived all she has then so can I. I have to be braver than I have been. I have to face it instead of hiding from it as I have for so long and tell her "They can't take that from you either Mom."

With those words she hugs me tight and finally we both let the tears fall.

~

That night I sit in my bedroom, glad for the fact my replaced datapad is still on Theron and therefore I'm out of reach of anyone. The house is silent as I spend hours listening to the diary entries of an enslaved woman clinging to the memory of her son to get by and soon end up in tears, beginning to understand things differently now. She sent her son away to give him what she thought would be a better life, even at the expense of the family they had, I now know that Mom's decision to do the same with Ben was not unfounded.

That her decision to do the same with me was out of love, even if I hadn't seen it until now.

I find a grieving mother recalling memories of the young boy I'd seen in the hanger on Naboo, a young boy who liked to race speeders and tinker with mechanics. She's in so much pain and yet she smiles in every video entry, speaking to him, telling him in every single one that she loves him, telling him of how she met her husband and his son Owen, the man who would raise Luke.

Slowly all those missing pieces begin to come together, pieces Ben doesn't have. I can only pray that Luke can put them together for him, but I know Ben is past the point of listening. He was blindsided in a way I wasn't, I'd already known the truth even if I couldn't admit it, but he was utterly clueless to it. I try to reach out to him through the force, for some answer, some assurance he's alright, but there's none and I have to tell myself he's safe in Luke's hands.

But he never was, and he never will be.

~

The next morning we are both dressed in white as we prepare to face the senate. I sit as I would when I was a child as she styles my hair for me, in buns on either side of my head while hers is in the more regal style she's adopted these past years.

"Are you sure we shouldn't be wearing black?" I ask her and she laughs a little.

"Now that would certainly be a statement, but one we can make another day," she says to me. "I still have some business to attend to that I need the senate's co-operation with."

"What business?" I ask and she just gives me a look knowing I'd left her in the dark as to mine when I ended her call on Theron.

"Don't you worry your pretty little head about that, let's just get through today and figure out what comes next," she says as she fixes the final pin. "Before we leave I want you to know how proud I am of you for how you've handled this, I know how shocking this is-"

"It wasn't," I say quietly, feeling guilt for leaving Ben in the dark. "I just- I was just afraid it would be a shock to you. I wasn't going to say anything until I'd found evidence but it seems the Centrists beat me to it."

"They did," she says bitterly but is still defiant. "So let's show them that it takes more than that to destroy us."

I nod, but there's still something I need to make right. "Mom."

"Yes honey?"

"Thank you," I say, realising I've never said it before. "Thank you for everything you've done to give me the opportunities you never had living under the Empire. I know you didn't have a choice in the role you had to take when you were my age, but I do, and I want to fight however I can." She stills behind me and I go on. "I know what this scandal is going to cost you, what it's going to cost all of us, but I'm not afraid of what people will say and whatever I can do to make things right, I'll do it. I'll fight however I can."

She sets her hands on my shoulders and looks at our reflection in the mirror I sit in front of, determined in a way I've have been before and she sees that now. She looks more than slightly wary of that newfound determination knowing what fighting cost her, but she also knows there is no running from it. Not anymore, not when half the senate has declared war on our family and we're the only ones willing to stand up and face them while everyone else hides away.

"Then you'll fight."

And so an hour later we both stand before the senate dressed clad in white as she's called to speak and while she is usually met with applause the senate chamber is utterly silent, disgust and disbelief suffocating the room. I know the immediate assumption will be to believe I knew and worked with her to hide the truth, and perhaps I'd rather them believe that than the truth. I'd rather them believe I'd always known than to use it as another slur against her name.

"I come before you today to withdraw my nomination for First Senator. That's simple to accomplish—merely by speaking the words before you all, I've already ended my candidacy," she says, but she will not go silently. "But I would be doing the Galactic Senate a disservice if I did not take this opportunity to discuss yesterday's revelations about my birth father. The citizens of the New Republic have the right to hear exactly what I knew and when I knew it."

Just like that she has the undivided attention of everybody in this room, if people love to hate her then that means they're listening to every word.

"It has always been known that I was adopted by Bail and Breha Organa of the royal house of Alderaan. I was described as a war orphan - a story I myself believed until adulthood. As you heard yesterday, Bail Organa had not shared the truth with me when I was younger, and sadly the Empire's destruction of our world meant he never had the chance to speak of it later." The ache she feels at the loss of her parents is still sharp in the force. "My brother, the Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker, was the first to learn that we were twins and that our father was the man who later became known as Darth Vader."

A darkness washes over the room from his name alone and in my mind I see him storming the temple, I see the darkness etched across his face as he looked me in the eye. An image my mother will thankfully never see.

"He told me on the day preceding the Battle of Endor. As you can imagine I was shocked. Horrified." Mom briefly looks at me, knowing I don't have to imagine it. "I had never guessed that the truth behind my birth could be so tragic, or that my birth father could be a man I had such strong personal reasons to hate. My efforts to accept this lasted a long time. In a very real sense I still struggle with this knowledge and I expect that I always will."

I lower my eyes now, in the chaos having only thought of how this affects Ben, affects our family, and find myself at a loss to even begin to comprehend what this knowledge means for me. Perhaps it's easier to worry for Ben and Mom than to think of the repercussions this will have on myself once the shock passes.

"As many have known for a long time, and as you heard on the recording yesterday, my birth mother was also well known. Padmé Amidala Naberrie served the planet of Naboo first as queen, then as senator. My own daughter is a citizen of Naboo and has had the opportunity to know her through the Naberrie family and the legacy she left. Padmé Amidala was among the few who stood up to Palpatine during his rise to power, one of the only people who warned against the evils to come."

Dread fills me at the thought of the horror Sola and the rest of the Naberrie family must be feeling. They believed Anakin died defending Padmé from Vader, never knowing the truth nor the real reason Padmé's children were hidden from them by the Jedi. The Emperor told them Padmé and Anakin were killed by the Jedi during Order 66, and they assumed the opposite to be true, that it was the clones and Vader who killed them both. The handmaidens pieced together the truth and have dutifully hidden the truth for more than two decades now, or perhaps they too have refused to accept it until now

Suddenly I don't know how I'll be able to look Sola in the eye now I know the truth and why it was kept from her for all these years. The Jedi took from her the chance to raise Padmé's children in the name of protecting them from Vader and led her to believe they died with their mother. That is a cruelty that is unforgivable.

"My mother is every bit as much a part of me as my father. Her courage in her own political career has always informed my own role as a senator. And as for my father...I can think of no more powerful example of the dangers of ultimate power. That is why I have always identified as a Populist, why I have always warned against the concentration of political authority, and even why I agreed to run for First Senator - to keep such authority from ever being so poisonously misused again."

She's using what may be her last chance to speak publicly with undivided attention to push her cause one last time, it's admirable, even if I know she wants to curse his name and all of theirs as well. I find myself wishing I'd taken this more seriously before it all blew up in our faces.

But somehow it seems it can get worse as the moderator droid announces "The floor recognises Lady Carise Sindian."

Mom and I look at one another and I can sense the venom behind Carise's words as she says "On behalf of my fellow senators, I first wish to say that I appreciate Princess Leia's honesty...however late it was in coming. Yet something in her speech today has given rise to other, potentially more dangerous concerns."

She looks right at me and I only meet her eyes in challenge, but Mom is having none of it. "And what concerns would those be Lady Carise?"

"Why the heirs of Vader of course," she says and I feel Mom draw a sharp breath while spite festers in me. "Princess Leia spoke of her brother, the famous Luke Skywalker, who has been little seen in the public sphere for many years now. Perhaps her highness learned virtues from her fathers example, but can we say the same for her brother? If he uses his rumoured strength in the force for evil, how could we ever defend against him?" Whispers fill the senate chamber and she turns her attention to me. "Or against Princess Leia's own daughter for that matter since she has been accused of using her own strength to threaten others."

"Attack me, but leave my children out of this," Mom says with a harsh bite to her voice but slowly pieces begin to come together in my mind, that all of this could be a greater conspiracy than we thought. "And how dare you question Luke after everything he's done for the rebellion and the New Republic. Maybe Lady Carise has forgotten that he was the one who destroyed the first death star, or that he was responsible for ridding the galaxy of Palpatine."

"So Skywalker claims," Carise says and smiles cruelly. "But we have only ever had his word for what happened on the second death star and if his word is worth no more than yours has been these past several decades... well your highness, we hardly know what to believe, and as for your daughter ... Vader did begin as a Jedi didn't he?"

"That bitch," I mutter just loud enough for the sensors to pick it up and whilst Mom tries to pretend no one heard it they certainly did.

"What was that?" Carise questions. "Hope, sweet child, why don't you come forward and speak if you have something to say."

"Hope, you do not have to say anything," Mom quickly says before I step forward knowing there's no point in self preservation. If everything's blowing up I might as well add some more fuel to the fire.

"Carise-"

"Lady Carise," she quickly corrects and I smile to myself, her vanity exposing her so easily.

"Lady Carise, I was not aware Imperial sympathisers still hunted Jedi," I accuse and take glee at how those simple words cause havoc in the senate. Mom's eyes widen, but behind them I see pride. "Tell me do you wish to drag me before inquisitors? Because if so you'll be very much disappointed to learn they died with your Empire and may I ask what right you have to speak considering it was also a misfortune of birth that gave you the title that allows you to stand here and hurl accusations at the woman who brought the Empire to its knees."

She does not like being told the prestige she clings to so vainly is merely chance and rasps. "Miss Solo-"

"It's lady actually," I correct unapologetically and very quickly one of her last few allies moves to take the stage but before I can be interrupted I continue. "After all, you were only given the Governorship of Birren after I refused, so you should treat those higher than you in the rank of succession with a little more respect considering titles and whatnot matter so much to you. And as for your accusations, what could you possibly know of the force considering how ignorant you must be to make the assumptions you have? My mother has served the galaxy selflessly since she was my own age to defeat the Empire, the same Empire that some in this room would accuse her of secretly working for." I pause momentarily before deciding to drag every person involved in this down along with us. "Senator Casterfo, I believe you have been the most vocal these conspiracies. Having had the audacity privately accusing her of spying for Darth Vader."

He's cornered, knowing damn well the implications of what he said in private being made public. He remains decidedly silent, shaking his head in pleading but we're far past that. I dare sneak the briefest look at Mom and see nothing but pride in her eyes as she nods for me to continue.

"A daughter who would obey her father," I repeat for him, at no point does Mom attempt to stop me. "In case you've forgotten, but I doubt you have considering you did not just betray a friend, you'd merely shrugged and blamed her for the assassination attempt against my life that was a result of the sensitive information you exposed without warning."

"And for that incident I apologised-"

"Did you?" I question. "Because I seem to recall you telling my mother that it was her own doing and then damning me for the powers that are the very reason I'm still breathing after your own selfish actions. It should be also noted for the senate he shares Senator Sindian's extremist views regarding the Jedi and other unaligned force users, who not so long ago were systematically eradicated from the galaxy. Although considering his collection of Imperial artifacts it should come as no surprise he's not the moderate he has depicted himself to be, tell me Senator are those even legal to have in your possession per New Republic regulations around such things?"

He stammers for an answer but can't find one, hell I don't even know the answer, but it sounds bad and it's enough to have the room whispering accusations against him, just as they've whispered them about us. But I'm not ready to stop now.

"I will again remind the senate that the Empire did irrefutably orchestrate a genocide against the Jedi, no matter how badly some senators try to deny it. Sending clones to slaughter innocent children in the temple as they pleaded for their lives," I state and Mom looks at me in alarm, realising I've seen more than I've revealed to her. "And that was merely the beginning, so these remarks about the Jedi are nothing but the blatant spreading of Imperial age propaganda. As Senator Casterfo told me personally in regards to Vader, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, but I suppose that is the logic that was used to justify force sensitive children being killed on sight by inquisitors, to destroy a whole batch of apples because one was rotten? And now for Luke Skywalker's integrity to be questioned, the man who destroyed the first death star and defeated the Emperor? I do hope these remarks do not represent the views of your party, for surely if the Centrist faction were to set the precedent of condemning Jedi without evidence as well as discrediting the blood, sweat and tears of rebel soldiers in favour of conspiracies the effects of that would be detrimental."

Mom nods her head in approval when I look at her, and it's amongst the scandalised whispers that Carise speaks up "This is nothing but an absurd display by the adolescent daughter of a traitor and fraud-"

"You would do well to remember her political and military record surpasses that of any single person who has served in this senate," I interrupt, I might have always refused to consider a career in politics but it doesn't mean I didn't spend my life being trained for it, and if I've learned anything from studying my mother in the senate, it's how to tell someone to get fucked. "Senator Sindian, can you or any person in this room say the same for your own records before you start publically hurling accusations of treason against her or will you and your fellow politicians just make these claims in private where you cannot be held accountable despite many of you having personally and willingly served the Empire? In fact how many of your parents and grandparents were active participants in the Empire's tyranny? For if one senator is to be damned to hell for it then we should start an inquisition to ensure that every last person in this room with connections to Imperial leadership can also be put on trial alongside her."

Right then I know I've made an enemy for life in how Carise's mouth falls open and her eyes fill with poison, but I just smile as sweetly as she did knowing I'm the one with the innocent face as the senate turns into an uproar that the moderator droid fails to quash until Senator Tai-Lin Garr, one of Mom's few lasting supporters, steps in.

"Whilst young Solo's words could be phrased more eloquently she is correct in principle. I would say to the honourable Senator Sindian of Arkanis that we have no reason to question Luke Skywalker." Tai-Lin's tone condemns her words and I watch her squirm in her stand. "And especially no reason to condemn a sixteen year old girl, who has just survived an assassination attempt, for being a force sensitive individual as the days of hunting Jedi are indeed over. And as Senator Vicly of Lonera reminded us yesterday, the New Republic does not blame children for the sins of their parents, and especially not grandparents, and this is no time to begin. On behalf of the Populist faction, we accept Senator Leia Organa's withdrawal of her candidacy, and carrying on from her daughter's reminder of her service I wish to state that Senator Organa's exemplary record remains unsullied, and that she retains my personal friendship and political support."

I look at Mom and see determination in her eyes and as she looks to me I nod to assure her I'm alright, that we'll be alright. I'm not afraid of what they believe. I'm not afraid to say what no one else will. I'm not afraid to be the graceless daughter of a disgraced hero. I'm not afraid to be the heir of Vader. Perhaps Ben was right when he asked how I could act as if I was any better than him, any less violent, any less willing to take action against people willing to hurt my family. I'm not, and I won't pretend otherwise, not anymore. If anything I'm all the more determined to show them how thick that blood runs just to spite every person in this senate who believes we should still be hunted to extinction.

Mom stands in contemplation for a moment as she is given another chance to speak, and I can feel her debating what stance to take before settling on one without a single doubt in her mind, even if I cannot feel what that decision is.

"Thank you for your support. I am aware of the consequences of the choices I have made, some I regret and some I do not," Mom begins and I feel her eyes on me, a mixture of pain and pride and remorse. "But I wish to make one last declaration in this senate that I know I will not regret. May all those present bear witness as I name my daughter Hope Organa Solo as crown princess of Alderaan." My head snaps towards her now and I hold her eye as she meets mine, trying to hide the shock that overwhelms me as she declares to the senate "While Alderaan may no longer exist due to the actions of the Empire, she will speak for all remaining Alderaanians and their descendants, and all hereditary rights of House of Organa will be passed onto her effective immediately including my powers in this senate. What my parents stood for, the parents who created me and those who raised me, what they fought for will not die with me. What I have fought for will not die here in this room and the legacy of the rebellion will carry on through her. That I can promise you."

Those words are met with resounding dread and protest by the senate who now know that despite their best efforts Leia Organa's voice will not be silenced and I can only smile knowing that this is her revenge.

Me.

Disclaimer: Much of the above dialogue is drawn from the Bloodline novel by Claudia Gray.