My arms ache as I lie in bed that night, scrolling through my datapad while Aylee meditates on the other side of the room without a word spoken other than necessary. An increasingly familiar routine as opposed to the late night's we'd used to spend talking and laughing together.

"Oh my god," I breathe as a news article pops up and her eyes open as I hurriedly read through it unable to believe what I'm seeing. It's several days old by now but my heart stops as if it happened a moment ago.

"What is it?"

"The Populist candidate that replaced Mom as nominee for First Senator's been assassinated," I gape, not having known him well but he'd left an impression. "Tai-Lin Garr, he was the only person in that damn senate that defended us."

She sighs and comes over to me, gently lowering the datapad as she says "You shouldn't watch the holonews."

I actually splutter at her reaction. "Are you serious right now?"

"You can separate yourself from politics as Luke has," she says and I just shake my head, suddenly unable to stand her lecturing for a moment longer. "Hope-"

I'm already out the door and walking outside with my datapad in hand with R2 following, almost tripping over as I watch the security footage that's been leaked to the media, an assailant firing a blaster straight into the senator's chest before turning it on herself. But it's when I see Mom rush over to him that I could almost be sick, realising in horror that she was right there, that that blaster could have just as easily been turned on her.

That's enough for me.

"Ben- Ben!" I'm shouting out as I walk into his hut and shove the datapad in his face as he's jolted out of meditation. "Look at this."

He squints and pulls back, asking "What am I looking at?"

"The candidate for First Senator that replaced Mom was assassinated," I tell him and he blinks in surprise at the graphic footage until he sees Mom. "It could have just as easily been her, it would have been if she was still the candidate-"

"But it wasn't," he says as I find myself quickly being wound up in a panic. "She's alright."

I just shake my head, feeling sick to my stomach knowing how easily it could have been her, that she could just as easily be the one that's dead. "I should be there with her, protecting her-"

"Hope, she did her training too even if she quit," he says, failing to reassure me. "She's still a princess and still has credits, she can hire security, and besides you told me she'd wanted you to come here and train."

Reluctantly I confirm. "She did."

"So train, and let her deal with the politics," he says, not understanding the trust she's put in me and it's only because Mom wanted me to be here I nod in agreement. "Mom's fine alright, so try to get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow I want to take you off world to find another kyber crystal to build a second saber. You're making a fast improvement in your reaction times with the training droids but I want to advance you in your saber to saber combat." I nod numbly and he looks me over, despite everything obliviously asking "Are you alright?"

"No, I'm not!" I exclaim, tempted to slap him. "Did you just listen to a word I said! I'm worried about her Ben."

"I know, I know," he says, trying to calm me down. "But there's nothing you can do, just go and rest and I'll see you in the morning."

I shake my head in frustration as I find my way out, returning to the temple to find somewhere to rest that isn't in the room I share with Aylee and find Luke waiting for me inside.

Ben and I have said very few words to him since I returned, and I've done my best to avoid him cornering me but here we are.

"Aylee told me you were upset."

"Mom could have been assassinated," I state and he lowers his eyes as I let it out. "Don't tell me my reaction is out of proportion or that I should just separate myself from politics because I won't!"

He raises his hands in his defence and raises his eyebrows at me as he speaks slowly. "I wasn't going to, I was just going to ask how you are."

I can see him trying to extend a peace offering and cautiously I debate it. "Exhausted."

"Really? I hadn't noticed the way your brother's had you training from dawn til dusk every day like you're preparing for war," he says sarcastically but realises with my silence there are things I haven't told him. "Hope, this scandal and what's come of it is not an indicator of another war."

"But it is," I say and find my voice thin. "I've seen it Luke, in visions." He's listening carefully now as I tell him "I've seen myself shot and hiding behind cover with R2 my only chance of making it out alive from an enemy I couldn't see. I don't know what's coming, but I know something is."

He reaches for my arm and inspects the minor burns from the training droids. "And so getting shot at is your solution?"

"I can't afford to just get stunned, it knocks me out for too long when I could be training."

He nods in fond amusement. "Has anyone ever told you patience is a virtue? Because I know your parents sure haven't."

I can't find it in myself to be angry knowing it's true. "You know patience isn't in my blood."

"It's not," he admits. "And believe it or not it wasn't in mine either but I had to learn it as part of the discipline it takes to become a Jedi."

"But I'm already a Jedi."

"You are a Jedi padawan, yes," he says sitting down on one of the benches and inviting me to sit with him, and surprisingly enough I accept. "But not yet a Jedi."

"Luke, we both know I'm never going to be your type of Jedi," I tell him, fed up with trying to tone myself down to fit in when I know it's pointless. "I'll never be one like you, or Obi-Wan Kenobi, or even Ben." The words come without warning but they're the truth. "You've always known I'd be one like Anakin Skywalker haven't you?"

"I have," he says, but he doesn't say it like it's a bad thing surprisingly enough. "It's why I've exercised a degree of caution when it comes to your training, to not make the mistakes of those who came before me, but not all of us are gifted in seeing the past in the way you can."

"It's not a gift Luke," I say hoarsely and he listens as I let it all out. "I saw Darth Maul in the Palace of Theed, and then Vader standing over Padmé's grave. Her handmaiden warned me not to follow the path she had in investigating her death but I didn't listen. I went to Polis Massa where you and Mom were born and I- I saw her die." There's tears in my eyes as I remember her grief so vividly, as I feel it. "Bail Organa and Obi-Wan Kenobi stood there with Master Yoda watching it happen. I held her hand as her life force began to wane and for a moment I swear she looked at me, the same as Anakin did when I was in the temple on Coruscant, and then she was gone. I felt her life just slip between my fingers. You say in the texts they describe a white light before entering or exiting a vision, I don't have that it's- it all just feels real and I can't tell what is and what isn't." I hear the tears in my voice before I feel them on my cheeks, my breathing becoming strained. "I saw my grandmother die and then I walked through that temple watching my grandfather slaughter children Luke." His face is utterly grave. "And Padmé's last words were that there's still good in him."

Without missing a beat he says "Because there was." I turn my head away and he puts a hand on my shoulder. "I am sorry the force showed you such heartbreaking and horrific scenes, things I could not fathom seeing despite having known what occured, but it is the plain truth that there was still good in him otherwise I would not be alive."

"There was good in him when he strangled his wife with the force and murdered children?" I question and shake my head. "If so then I'm afraid to think what pure evil must be."

"Pure evil was the Emperor," he says and I lower my eyes. "The Emperor groomed him to be his apprentice and manipulated him I dare say from his conception until he broke free to save my life, because there was light."

"He driven to the dark side by love," I state, having seen enough to know the answer. "It makes sense that what drove him to it was the same thing that saved him from it. It just means he valued love above the power of the dark side, or whatever he believed love to be since it was certainly twisted. Light and goodness of heart has little to do with it, desperation would be a better word for it."

He's surprised by my response and for a moment doesn't quite know how to answer me. "They teach philosophy on Naboo then?"

"Yes but I never learned it," I mutter and lower my head as I try to rationalise my feelings into words. "Love for his wife was what drove him to the Emperor and to the darkside, he committed horrible evil acts in the name of it, so how does one good act in it's name balance all the evil?"

"I wish it was as simple as good and evil, light and darkness," he begins. "It's all a part of the force, one cannot exist without the other no matter how hard we try. That was the purpose of the Jedi, to ensure balance, that the darkness never overwhelmed the light. That is your purpose now. Training as you have been, relentlessly and brutally, is effective but it's exhausting isn't it?" I'm quiet, feeling the ache in my arms and the tiredness behind my eyes. "It gives way to drawing on anger and frustration to give yourself the power to persevere. But discipline and patience, these are for more sustainable practices to draw on in your training, they should be the very foundation of it. They are the key pillars of a Jedi's training, and they always have been."

"They were," I acknowledge and turn my head back towards Luke, haunted by what I saw on Coruscant. "Whole lot of good it did them."

"Hope-"

"I can promise you Luke, that all these things you preach... they did not matter when they were dying in agony," I grit out, my voice breaking. "Ben understands that. He understands that no amount of meditating can save anyone when Yoda himself couldn't even sense a Sith lord standing right in front of him. Ben is training me to survive, and I know he won't let me down."

His face is serious, as if he's finally realised how deep this resentment for the old order stretches after everything I've seen, and he changes tactics.

"That may be so, but multiple methods can be implemented at once," he treads carefully. "I've been watching and listening these past weeks, and even if you aren't aware he has been using discipline as the foundation of his teaching. Having you up at the crack of dawn and training relentlessly until dusk... I might not approve of his methods but it is a form of discipline even if it is not sustainable. Ben himself is still a learner trying to teach things he hasn't mastered himself, but I can see how hard he is trying to be a good teacher and do right by you. I might not agree with his methods or beliefs regarding some elements of the force, but I am proud of him, and of you." I'm quiet as he leans in, stressing his words. "You both make myself and your parents very proud, and I know how difficult this past month has been, but you can't shut the galaxy out because you have feelings you're struggling to face."

He gives me a comforting smile and I find myself finally regretting how I've been acting because he does know. "I'm sorry Luke I- I've been awful. Mom wasn't the only one Vader hurt and I shouldn't pretend that you don't know how this feels."

My words seem to ease something in him but it's still so heavy.

"It's alright, you haven't been yourself lately and that I too understand," he says and I feel his own guilt, the exhaustion leaving me too tired to argue. "It just about ruined me, I don't think I would have made it out of that darkness without Leia and I- I wish I could do the same to help her but as adults we both understand where our duties are. Just as you're now at the age where you're decided where your own are. You have an exceptional determination even if you aren't quite sure what to do with it yet, and a great love for your family, much like Anakin Skywalker had." He looks towards the entrance as he sighs "And as for Ben... he has dedicated his life to being a Jedi. I know I shouldn't be surprised, not when it comes to how protective he is of you, but he has surprised me with how seriously he has taken your apprenticeship and I know he's trying to prove both of you worthy of the legacy you carry, but that legacy is not what's important despite what he tells you. Being the best and the fastest and the strongest... that is not what is important. What is important is listening to the force and being one with it, instead of merely using it as a tool for your own ambitions."

"My own ambitions?" I repeat back to him and feel him grow hesitant.

"You did not come here because you want to devote yourself to the way of the Jedi," he states factually and I have no rebuttal for that as he asks "So what have you come for?"

My answer's automatic. "To finish my training."

"To do what?"

"I don't know," I answer truthfully. "But the force... it's showing me things for a reason, it's telling me to prepare and who am I to not listen?"

"Well, I suppose there's a first time for everything," he remarks and advises "Listen to the force, but understand that visions are not absolute and that the darkside has a way of twisting such things." He hesitates before saying "You saw something just before you returned didn't you?" I nod stiffly and his voice is grave. "What was it?"

"Shadows... voices," I manage to answer, my throat tight. "Of Vader, and-" I can't bring myself to tell him about Ben, I can't. "The Emperor... trying to- I don't even know."

He takes in my distress and puts a hand on my shoulder, deciding that's enough for one night. "I won't push you any further, you've had a long day. Go rest, I'll make sure Ben lets you sleep in tomorrow morning, you need it." I go to move but he senses my hesitation. "You don't want to see her."

"Every time we speak it's become a lecture about minding my emotions and forsaking all else to follow the Jedi path how she sees it," I lament to him. "It never used to be like that."

"Aylee has been devoting herself to the more traditional ways of the Jedi," Luke admits and tries to counsel. "As close as you two have always been, ideologically I doubt you'll find much common ground these days. So do as I've counselled her and put philosophy aside to focus on the living force that resides within you both instead of on your differences. That advice can be applied to most interactions, especially if you're considering politics."

I lower my eyes, remembering how I'd kissed Aylee goodbye the last time I'd left this temple, a silent promise that when I finished university and returned for good things could finally happen the way we wanted them to. Finally I begin to realise any dream of that's gone if she's devoted herself to the very ideology that caused the fall of the Jedi.

"The traditional ways got the Jedi killed so I don't see much use in them, and she's the one that's trying to force me to believe the things she does instead of stepping back to see the truth of it," I dismiss again, having seen the lasting legacy of tradition with my own eyes and this time he meets me halfway.

"Complacency instead of vigilance led to the fall of the Order," he explains to me, echoing what he's always tried to tell me. "As did the ignorance and arrogance that led them to believe that they were all knowing whilst Palpatine was right in front of them. Tradition was part of it, their refusal to evolve, but only a small part. The texts that I've collected that you've ignored are there for you to interpret thoughtfully so you can reconsider some of your points, although much like the Jedi of old you like to be arrogant in assuming you already know everything." I raise my eyebrows but he ignores me. "It's a Skywalker trait I know, but one generation has to get it right eventually, and as for your feelings..." he treads more carefully now. "It is natural to possess feelings for another person, but you must be mindful of the lengths those feelings will drive you to. For you must know by now just what feelings can do to a fully trained Jedi Knight."

He leaves me with those words and I sit there numb, asking myself the same question I've asked myself for weeks now. If Anakin Skywalker could fall, what hope do I have? Who am I to resist my own emotions? To resist the unbearable need to lose control.

To finally let go after years of repressing this emotion inside of me.

And so I return to my room to find Aylee sitting on the edge of her bed waiting for me.

I stand there in the doorway until she says quietly "I'm sorry, I- I shouldn't have been so insensitive."

"I'd use the word cold," I say, able to feel it standing here right now. "It's all you've seemed to be since I've come back." Somehow I find the strength to confront her, or perhaps I just simply don't care anymore. "You haven't looked at me the same and don't pretend it's just because you've gone and radicalised yourself with scriptures."

"Radicalised?" she repeats in disbelief before shaking her head. "I thought you'd be more cultured than to confuse devotion with radicalisation."

"I'm intelligent enough to see one leads to the other."

"Intelligent?" she scoffs. "You're a lot of things Hope but intelligent isn't one of them." I huff as she lets it free. "You're arrogant and egotistical and impulsive and hotheaded and everything a Jedi shouldn't be, but you're the one who has an insane amount of power that should never have existed!"

"Oh bring it up with the force then!" I return and actually laugh at how twisted she has it in her mind. "It created me, it created the man I came from, so if my existence offends you bring it up with the damn force! You can't devote yourself to something and then criticise it, that's not what the scriptures say is it? No, they preach blind devotion and lack of free thinking so if you're going to go and follow the old ways then do it properly. You might think I'm ignorant but at least I'm not blind!"

"Your existence does not offend me," she grits out and tries to balance herself. "The way you've been acting has. Like you can come back and suddenly master the force in a fortnight whilst contributing nothing to the temple or its upkeep. At least your brother instructs the younglings when Master Luke allows it and does his best to help, you care nothing for the other students or the temple. In fact I don't think you care about anyone but yourself with how you've galavanted around the galaxy whilst I sat here sending transmission after transmission because you were missing and not returning anyone's calls after you got yourself expelled from university and-"

"I'm sorry, I was a little bit too busy finding out my grandfather was Darth Vader!" I yell and that finally shuts her up. "Something you've treated like it's been nothing-"

"Oh I know it hasn't been nothing because you are not the same person that left this temple," she says and finally confesses what I've known. "We can all feel the shadow that follows you, it's suffocating me having to sleep in the same room as it."

And that hurts, it hurts more than I'd expect it to, but finally I have the truth.

"I'm sorry you're too weak to have to sense what I've lived with for years!" I yell, my anger finally showing itself. "This hasn't just come out of nowhere Aylee it's always been there and I'm sorry I'm so suffocating so go kriff of with your scriptures and bullshit if you can't stand me!" She panics as I raise my voice and reaches for me in an attempt to calm me but I swat her hands away. "No, you started this so you can finish it."

She swallows hard as she looks at me "I can feel the dark side in you Hope, we all can."

"Maybe I don't fear the dark side as you do," I finally say, having lived with it for so long, having unknowingly resisted it for so many years and now... it's breathing down my neck. I watch something akin to fear fill her eyes as I step closer. "What is it your scriptures say, fear leads to anger, anger to hate, and hate to-"

"To what you are," she finishes, her voice wavering. "Or what I know you'll become if you continue down this path. Just because there is darkness in you does not mean you have to embrace it as Vader did. Although sometimes I look in your eye and wonder if it's too late for that."

I search her own eyes, my closest friend, someone who's more than that, and yet in this moment she feels like nothing to me. Not anymore. After years of confiding in her, trusting her, caring for her... this is how it ends. With her looking at me as if I've already fallen.

It's spite that drives me to kiss her, spite that's only further driven by the way she physically recoils, something she's never done before despite the isolated kisses we've shared over the years.

Whatever darkness she feels in me... it's nothing compared to the darkness of Vader, darkness that's lingered ever since I walked into my grandmother's tomb. Someday she'll learn what true darkness is and know my own is nothing next to it.

"You have no idea how dark it gets," I warn her before leaving the room, marching through the halls of the dormitory and rushing out the entrance of the temple with R2 following. "R2 we're leaving."

He beeps in protest but I ignore him as make a dash to my ship, knowing only one thing and it's that I can't be here for a moment longer. We board and my movements automatic as I ready it for take off and only when I reach atmosphere do I realise why R2 was protesting.

Ben.

For a moment I sit there in silence, leaning back in my seat knowing just how mad he's going to be and I look at my accomplice as I press my mouth together.

"On a scale of one to ten-"

R2 beeps back the binary for ten and I nod in agreement.

"It would be mortifying though to land and have to go back after that though," I rationalise, knowing people in the temple certainly heard us yelling. "I mean I have to keep some dignity." I ignore R2's remark to that and try to talk myself into this. "Ben will know where to find me."

Well he'll know a couple places to check at least and I set course for Theron, he should still be there since the Five Saber's have only just finished and I should have a trophy to collect. As soon as I enter hyperspace I recheck my datapad to see if there's been any other news, only for a breaking news article to have been loaded and my stomach sinks.

Dramatic scenes as Leia Organa, disgraced senator and daughter of Darth Vader, rushes to the arrest of Ransolm Casterfo as he is charged with the Napkin Bombing.

"What the hell?" I breathe and a quick frantic scroll of the article only proves to me whoever was truly behind the bombing set him up to take the fall. He betrayed his party in defending Mom and now they've turned on him.

Which can only mean one thing. The Centrists were behind it, all of it. They were the ones funding the paramilitary, why else would they frame one of their own as a scapegoat for it? Something is coming and I'll be damned if I'm not there to see it.

And so I change course from Theron to Hosnian Prime.

~

When I arrive on Hosnian Prime it's a media shitstorm but thankfully this time I'm not in the middle of it. Not knowing if she's even retained her office in the senator's complex I head straight for home and thankfully find her there, having maybe ignored a transmission from Ben and instead sent a message to tell him where I'm headed so I don't have to get a verbal thrashing.

"Oh Miss Hope, this is a welcome surprise," Threepio says as I enter the apartment, frustrated to find there's no additional security. "Is Master Ben with you?"

"No, where's Mom?"

"In her office," he answers and I dash for the door to find her with her head in her hands, a familiar occurrence that only worries me.

"Mom?"

She breathes a sigh of relief at the sight of me before the questions start. "Hope? What are you doing here?"

"I saw the holonews, Mom you could have been killed-"

"I wasn't the target, or at least not the one that got a blaster bolt to the chest," she dismisses but her face is grave. "I can safely say I am retiring from politics after this in all official capacities that aren't advisory."

"Well that's a relief," I try to smile for her sake but quickly realise there's a double meaning to that. "Mom?"

"It's good you're here, I would have called you here soon anyways," she says and invites me to sit down. "Ben isn't with you? Luke told me he's been managing your training."

"I um- I left in a hurry," I say and she quickly reads through the lines.

"Was it Luke or Ben you fought with before you ran to your ship?"

"Aylee," I sigh and she's genuinely surprised. "She's- she's decided to go and dedicate herself to the old ways in the time I've been gone and looks at me like I'm Vader incarnate every time I feel any emotion other than pure bliss-"

"Oh honey," Mom says and reaches for my hand across the table. "I'm sorry, I know how close the two of you have always been, especially before you went back to Naboo for school earlier in the year."

"Yeah well, I thought we were pretty close too, seems not," I say and shake my head, finding myself upset. "Ben's been a good teacher and I've been able to talk to him about it but he just doesn't get teenage girls."

"Well it's hardly like he was ever around any aside from Voe when he was a teenager himself and that was only when they were arguing over who's better with lightsabers," she says knowing Ben hasn't been remotely successful when it comes to romance. "Although Luke never had any luck either so I suppose he's taken after Luke rather than your father."

I can't help myself. "Well Luke never had any luck aside from his own sister."

"I still want to kill your father for telling you that," she says shaking her head and reaches for a glass of whiskey, Corellian no doubt, and get's to business. "The Centrists turned on Ransolm for supporting the vote that allowed me to present the findings of Sibensko and framed him for the bombing, he'll likely be executed on his home world."

I give a stiff nod, having realised that until now I've never really known anyone who's ever been killed, but it's an ever growing number it seems. "So the Centrists are behind the bombing and using him as a scapegoat?"

Her mouth is pursed as she contemplates this. "Whatever involvement the Centrists have had... I can't see how they've orchestrated this. Framing a cartel for the bombing and then blaming this paramilitary for it, and now shifting that blame onto Ransolm... I have no doubt's you're right about this but I just can't pinpoint any particular senator who would have the motivations..."

A name immediately comes to mind. "Carise Sindian?"

"Carise?" Mom repeats in confusion. "What reason could she have to be behind this?"

"I don't know," I admit. "But I don't trust her, she was panicking throughout the entire presentation about Sibensko to the senate. If you can dig deeper do it, trust me on this."

"I trust you," she promises me but I can feel her pain so strongly. "And I will. There's been so much that even I can't wrap my head around it. Vader, you almost being shot, Tai-Lin Garr being assassinated just a few feet away from me, Ransolm... I don't think I've ever been this angry in my life."

I squeeze her hand tight and try to tell her "It's going to be okay Mom, we'll make it through this."

"We will," she agrees and asks me "How's your training been going?"

"It's been going well, it's been-" my com starts going off and I know who it is. "I might have forgotten to tell Ben I was leaving."

"Hope," Mom chastises as I silence it. "I know you like to think you're an adult but you need to let the people who have a responsibility to look after you know where you are."

"I literally went to Polis Massa and then to Theron before anyone even knew I was missing," I tell her and she can't quite argue with that. "I should have gone to Mustafar to settle into Vader's castle while I was at it, see what the dark side had to offer him that was so impressive."

"Still," she says, slightly taken aback but choosing to ignore the last bit. "Ignoring your brother and taking off because you had a fight with your girlfriend isn't a valid excuse to-"

"She's not my- fuck," I curse as the com going off again and she raises her eyebrows at my language. "Mom I blew up a whole underwater base and you're judging me for swearing?"

"For the love of the force," she mumbles and snatches the com out of my hands to answer it. "Ben you don't need to panic, she's with me."

I sink back in my chair a little, suddenly finding myself more than a little anxious considering what happened on Theron when I made him mad but thankfully at the sound of Mom's voice he just decides to sound like a smartass. "Who's this?"

"Your mother," Mom says, her frustration shifting to Ben.

"Sorry, I'd forgotten what you sounded like since you haven't visited Ossus in almost two years," he says and my jaw drops at that. "Not even to apologise in person for lying to me my entire life."

At the way she flinches I snatch the com back out of her hand and march out of the room. "Ben she doesn't need this shit right now."

'I'm sorry, I didn't need you taking off on me either but you didn't seem to care about that did you?"

"I needed space-"

"Half a galaxy's worth of space!" he exclaims and I have to pull the com away from me. "Hope you're going to get in your ship and come back right now so we can talk about what it means to dedicate yourself to your training and not running off at-"

"No," I decide spitefully. "You can come and get me."

"Hope-" he warns but it's past time he saw Mom.

"You heard me."

I hang up the call and turn my com off before going back into Mom's office where she sits with tears shining in her eyes and put a quiet hand on her shoulder.

"Your brother's right Hope," she says, guilt weighing on her. "I haven't gone to see him or Luke in almost two years. I hadn't even seen Han in more than a month before he rushed to my side. The only reason I've seen Ben at all is because you've always convinced him to come to Hosnian Prime for the holidays."

I can't ignore the truth to her words so I don't lie to try to comfort her.

"He is right, I don't think the four of us have even been in the same room in over a year," I admit to her as much as myself. It's then I take the datapad lying on her desk to send a message to Dad. "I'm fixing that."

"Hope," Mom says, a warning in her voice.

"No, you can all grow up and sit in the same room, especially Ben," I tell her, sick and tired of this back and forth and she doesn't have the energy to argue with me right now. "And you should be hiring security considering politicians are getting picked off like bantha fodder."

"I did do my training too you know," she reminds me. "Along with having fought an entire war I can assure you that while I might be getting old I am capable."

"Not capable enough," I state a little harshly and she blinks at me in offence. "I want you travelling with security until we know who's framed Casterfo because you could very well be next on their list."

"You're paranoid," she dismisses, hating being fussed over.

"And you aren't paranoid enough, and did you forget I saved your life on Sibensko?" I retort and go low. "You could have left me an orphan."

"Hope you aren't an orphan if you still have a father-" she cuts herself off and hangs her head as Threepio chimes in having entered the room.

"I can't help but overhear and I must agree with Miss Hope, or Princess Hope, yes it is princess now. Oh my it is difficult to keep up with recent events, I dare say there have not been this many since the early days of the New Republic," he remarks and for once I agree with Threepio. "I highly recommend you have security as the statistical chance of you being victim of an assassination attempt has not been this high since before the princess was born, actually it has not been this high since the year 9 ABY to be exact."

R2 beeps in agreement as well, leaving her outnumbered and she compromises as she stands to leave the office. "Very well then, Hope, you can be my Jedi escort."

"Fine," I agree and realise she expected me to argue since it was an order. "I'm your Jedi escort."

"Which means you can't leave the building when your brother and father start going at it, so enjoy," she says patting me on the shoulder as she walks past with her glass in hand. "You reap what you sow and you can do it sober because I sure won't be."

"I'm almost seventeen," I remind her, knowing that's practically an adult.

"Try again when you're eighteen," she calls out as she walks into the kitchen. "In the meantime how about a snack that isn't from Luke's garden?"

"Please," I say following after her, having missed home and her cooking.

~

It's the following morning when I'm woken by her hand on my shoulder in my own bed, more comfortable than I've been in weeks. "Mom?"

"I've figured out what Carise Sindian's guilty of and have made some calls," she says and I sit up in confusion. "I'll explain on the way now get dressed, you'll want to be there for this. Do you drink caf?"

"Yeah but can you make it so it doesn't taste like caf?"

She chuckles. "So cocoa powder and enough caf to get you moving?"

"Please, with sugar" I smile and she squeezes my shoulder with a comforting smile as she leaves me to get ready and I hadn't realised just how badly I've missed being home. I've spent my years since I was twelve split between Naboo and Ossus so being home on Hosnian Prime has always been a rare retreat and I- I've missed my Mom.

I've always run for home every chance I've gotten while Ben's stayed as far from it as possible. But maybe... maybe we don't have to be separated anymore. Maybe we can actually be a family again for the first time since I was a little kid, since they sent Ben away.

Half an hour later we're on our way to the senator's complex and I'm listening as she explains the situation to me in depth. That the blame for the bombing and Sibensko were placed on the assassin who'd shot herself as well as on Ransolm Casterfo and that we don't have the evidence to prove otherwise, and even if we did the senate would never vote to hear it, and that I can't get up there and shout it out without evidence or I'll be branded delusional and dismissed from the senate.

"So what did you find on Carise?"

"That she gave Ransolm the information about Vader," she says and I turn cold. "As Governor of Birren she was privy to their artifacts and found the memory box my father had left me. She effectively went against every oath she swore in revealing it so I've ensured she'll feel the consequences of it."

She doesn't elaborate as we reach the building and step outside the transport. I have one hand on the blaster at my side and the other on the lightsaber hanging from my other hip, debating if I should find a proper thigh holster for my blaster instead of keeping it shoved into the same belt as my saber.

Mom somehow reads my thoughts as she says "If you're looking for a better holster for your blaster I've kept one safe that I was given as a child by the woman who inspired me to fight against the Empire."

"Your Mom?" I ask but she shakes her head.

"My mother inspired me to fight with my words and policies, but this belonged to the woman who inspired me to pick up a blaster back when the Empire kidnapped me," she reveals and I realise how little she's gone into detail about the war itself, most stories having come from Dad. "It seems it's past time we start arming ourselves again and I've been making some additional calls to old allies about that as well, but first I want to deal with this self righteous piece of work so please refrain from any threats of physical violence and let me handle it."

"No promises," I say as I walk beside her, keeping a careful eye out but can't detect any danger, having been taught to anticipate an attack by reaching out with the force but I've never truly had to put it into practice until now.

I don't take my hand off my saber even as we enter the building, filled to the brim with security considering the assassination attempt, even if they believe the danger's passed since to their eyes the cartel, the paramilitary and the assassin are all dead and gone.

But I can sense more darkness within these walls filled with senators than I did within that tomb with Vader. It's potent as we come to stand outside Carise Sindian's door, although it could just as easily be her perfume. We wait for her until she makes her way around the corner and freezes at the sight of us.

"Princess Leia?" She clears her throat at the sight of me, eyes skimming over my blaster and lightsaber. "And Miss Hope, or rather princess as I should say now considering your mother's demonstration. I can't help but notice you're heavily armed, it's a wonder security let you in the door."

"Considering the circumstances one can't be too careful," I say and ignore the look from Mom. "I find lightsabers quite useful for deflecting blaster fire so it seemed appropriate."

She swallows, having felt quite safe tormenting me in the senate but there isn't a security guard in sight now in this offshoot of a hallway, out of the direct line of sight to any passersby. "And the blaster?"

"Well, I suppose we'll see."

"It's lucky running into you here," Mom quickly says with a hand on my shoulder. "I've been meaning to have a chat with you for some time."

"As you know, I'm always ready to hear from a member of the Elder Houses," Carise says, as if coming down from a personal triumph. It seems she certainly has had multiple, exposing the truth about Vader to the galaxy, framing Casterfo and I dare say far darker deeds. "Yes, let's catch up. What have you been doing these days?"

She still believes we don't know, I can practically feel her gloating but she grows more unnerved the longer her eyes study my face.

Mom smiles and I feel the anger behind it. "I've been getting in touch with some old friends. Including, as it happens, the most senior members of the Elder Houses."

"Oh, really?" She finally begins to sound afraid and I tilt my head with a sweet smile as she finally sees how much anger is hidden in Mom's.

"Yes. You see, there was a matter we very much needed to discuss, namely, the sanctity of the royal seal, as applied to the holdings of the supreme governor of Birren," Mom begins and I can feel her debating playing around and prolonging the suspense but she gets to it and Carise's mood immediately sours. "I imagine you thought I'd be too distracted to notice and to be fair I was for a while, but it didn't take me too long to realise that the keepsake chest could only have been hidden on Birren. Only the supreme governor could have had access to it. And the supreme governor, namely you, had been through weeks of rituals surrounding the inauguration, in which the governor-to-be repeatedly promises to uphold the sanctity of the royal seal, no matter what. You didn't even last a month."

Carise is at a loss for words, having actually believed she'd get away with it. "Well, I suppose... but I felt in such an extreme moral crisis-"

I cut her off with a scoff. "You? Having a moral crisis?"

Her face hardens. "And what is that suppose to mean, princess?"

"I'm a Jedi," I state, wanting to see just how I can twist her mind, what I can get her to divulge. The Jedi are myths and here I stand, she has no idea what I'm capable of and I'm happy to exaggerate the truth "Do you really think I didn't see straight through you?" Mom's silent, not knowing quite where I'm taking this but being curious enough not to intervene. "That I can't sense your thoughts?"

Fear quickly fills her and she swallows "I- I don't know what you're talking about."

I step closer and feel her physically bracing herself, finding myself delighting in the fear that suddenly grasps her. "Yes you do. You had to take care of Ransolm Casterfo to tie up loose ends didn't you? Unlike him and Tai-Lin Garr I don't intend for my mother to meet the same fate."

She turns sickly pale in a mere second and Mom's lips part in her own shock upon realising my suspicions about her involvement in this mess, this thread I'd grasped onto... it was true.

Her voice quivers as she asks me "And what proof do you have to support these allegations?"

"None," I say and feel anger quickly replace Mom's shock and something tells me if she had a blaster on her this would not have a peaceful ending. "But you and I know the truth, and there are many ways of extracting it more forcefully if you decide to tie up any more loose ends. You know better than most who I came from after all."

"You spawn of-"

"If I haven't been clear enough let me make myself very clear," I say, suddenly wondering if the attack against me on Coruscant was a rogue man seeking vengeance or something deeper. "One more attack, one more blaster fired and I will find you and I will remember every word you said of what I could become when I do."

I become conscious of Mom's hand over my shoulder as a chill settles over the room. I should be afraid of what I feel, I should be ashamed, but above all I crave the fear.

"Adding onto that," Mom says, her voice hard to decipher, still a mix of barely restrained rage towards Carise and shock, but there's a slight waver to it now. "The oath demands that the supreme governor uphold the sanctity of the royal seal unto death."

Carise's eyes widen and I sense her intention the moment before she tries to run from the hallway and before she can yell for security in a decision made in a moment of sheer panic I tighten her throat to keep her from drawing attention. I feel Mom's own panic loud and clear as she grabs my hand to force it down. "Release her Hope."

And I do, but not before I've done enough damage for Carise to drop to her knees. She clutches at her neck with a shaking hand, finally with nothing to say and I know I should be horrifed, but I'm not. She deserves worse than anything I could do to her here and now.

"You reap what you sow and now I advise you remain quiet," Mom says, stepping between Carise and I to raise her forcefully to her feet in case anyone were to walk by. "You should count yourself grateful Carise that despite my daughter's lineage I have raised her to be nothing like my father." I hear the warning in her voice towards me and lower my head. "And you should also be grateful I don't intend to pursue this violation of your oath to the fullest extent of the law. It was enough to contact the ruling members of the Elder Houses and convince them to finally pass a resolution, the first one they've bothered to pass in years. To be specific, they've stripped you of your royal titles, forever. The title of supreme governor of Birren will go to the next person in the line of succession and you are no longer a member of the Elder Houses."

Carise gawks at those words and quickly turns into a desperate creature, rasping out. "You can't. It's mine by right of birth. Nobility is sacred-they wouldn't take it away like that!"

It's now I see how truly pathetic she is and can't help but take pleasure in it.

"It's been a very long time since nobility was sacred to anyone but you," Mom says and I watch Carise slowly lose any composure she has left. "Hope's title is a formality to ensure an Organa will still have a voice in the senate, a voice you thought you could strip away, so this is such a small punishment. Both for what you did to me and especially for what I now know you did to Ransolm, and perhaps also to Tai-Lin. But it hurts, doesn't it?"

I've seen Mom angry, spiteful even, but never cruel like this. It's reassuring to know the qualities I've been condemned for come from a woman who's done more for the galaxy than they ever could. Qualities that come from the man who near destroyed it.

"It has to cut you to the quick. You've never been able to convince yourself you were superior to anyone except through an accident of your birth, which by the way is one of the saddest things I can imagine." She steps closer, Carise shrinking backwards into the wall. "Your mistake was involving my daughter in this, because what both of us have learned today is that she will be far more dangerous than I ever could be. You've rid yourself of me for now, but she's just as determined as I was at her young age, but unlike me she has far greater ways of fighting than with mere words or a blaster."

"Making your teenage daughter a child soldier," Carise begins. "Bail Organa would be so proud."

I jolt as she strikes Carise across the face without warning and I'm the one restraining her now as Carise clutches her face. Knowing she'll scream bloody murder I grab her by the throat with my bare hand to keep her quiet knowing there's no security cameras in this hallway, being careful not to leave a bruise.

This time Mom doesn't make me let her go.

"Stripping you of your title is the only punishment I have the power to enact anymore, I can't say the same for my daughter so while I have to content myself with hurting you this way know if there is one more single attack against my family you will face the consequences," she warns and her voice it utter venom. "I expect you won't breathe a word of this to anyone?"

She gives a muffled nod and I release her, but can't help but deal one final blow as I step back to Mom's side. "You know what Mom, I think I will accept the governorship." Carise somehow manages to gasp at that and Mom holds back a smile. "And dissolve it since it was all a lot of pointless nothing anyway."

Mom nods proudly at my decision and adds salt to Carise's wound. "Yes, I agree, it was a lot of pompous pointless nothing anyway." She takes my arm to guide me away. "Goodbye Carise."

She keeps her grip firm as we continue out through the building and I can feel her debating her words as she warns gravely "As proud of you as I am for defending me, I never want to see you use the force like that again."

"She deserved it," I state and she comes to a stop. "It's not enough to ruin her, she needs to be afraid of what else I could do to her if she thinks about tying up another loose end."

Her eyes are wide and I feel her apprehension but still she takes my hands in hers. "Yes, but you do not need to make a demonstration of it, not like that." Her face hardens now. "Making a point is one thing but enjoying it is another."

I have to battle a smile, truly feeling no remorse. "Why wouldn't I enjoy it? You did. How is enjoying stripping someone of everything they're worth and emotionally destroying them morally superior to choking them?"

"Because I'm not proud of it," she insists, even if it's a lie. "It is necessary, the bare minimum of what she deserves."

"And so was that," I counter holding her eye and feel shock reverberate through her as I walk past with my hand on my saber and we return home.

~

Leia POV

It seems all I've done recently is underestimate my enemies, not even knowing who that entails anymore. Yet it seems the person I've underestimated most is my own daughter of sixteen who has left me stunned at every turn for better and for worse.

I've always known she is talented at whatever she puts her mind to, at the age of almost seventeen now she is an expert pilot and beyond efficient with whatever weapon she has in hand, including none as it seems. While I knew she had a keen passion for justice I underestimated the keen political mind she has. If she had been born five years earlier I dare say the senate would be in a very different state to what it is now.

It had always been Ben I worried for, having ignored Luke's warnings about Hope and the darkness that he's long sensed in her, perhaps because it was so similar to my own. My sweet girl with her father's adventurous spirit and longing for the stars, who would look at me with eyes so similar to Luke's.

My father's eyes.

In these past weeks I have come to understand my father more than I have in a lifetime. Obi-Wan had once told me the qualities I'd received from my parents, qualities I would see in Hope more with each passing day. Even so, I'd never understood the comparisons people would make between Hope and Anakin, having been utterly bewildered when I'd heard one of Padmé's handmaidens remark on it.

Now I do.

She's always had a penchant for violence, or at least threatening it. It never concerned Han and I since we dismissed it as part of her melodramatics, but Luke never did. The most serious fights I've had with Luke in the past decade have been about Hope, defending my daughter against what I thought was his paranoia. I'd fought him to allow her to train since it's what she wanted so badly and I wanted my children together despite Luke's warnings that he'd lead her down a dark path. Ben had saved her life from the kidnappers who took Lando's daughter when she was just a child, exhibiting that darkness when she was under threat in how he dealt with the one who had grabbed Hope, in my eyes I could not fault it as much as it frightened me.

But something has changed, there's been a shift in the force. Something dark is coming and that darkness is irrevocably tied to Hope. I saw it today, I saw a glint in her eye that's left me shaken to my core and wondering just what she is truly capable of. Her powers in the force are one thing, but what she can emotionally bring herself to do with it is another.

And so I reach out into it as I did when I was pregnant with Ben to sense her future against everything I've ever been taught about visions.

I see conflicting images, fragmented pieces.

In one she's several years older than she is now, in her early twenties if I had to estimate, and donning a rebellion style jacket, laughing with a silver chain around her neck as she jumps down from an x-wing into a man's arms. It's cut short when I look down to see her in my arms as she lies on the ground writhing in pain, screaming between gritted teeth and then to something darker, standing in a dimly lit room before a hologram of her executing civilians at blaster point with stormtroopers at her back.

Just when I believe nothing could horrify me more I turn to see Hope on her knees. There's a shock collar around her neck, looking up at me with a tear strained face and deranged yellow eyes rimmed with red. Then I see it, a shadow on the wall behind her and feel a darkness I have not felt since I stood with Vader on Cloud City. I turn my head to see a masked man whose presence I would recognise if I was blind and beside him stans Hope, clad in black with a veil concealing her face.

I watch as they circle one another two red sabers igniting, and in my worst nightmares I could never have dreamed this and I hear four modulated words leave my sons mouth.

"There is no mercy."

Her voice... it is utterly broken. "You're right... there is no mercy."

She is the first to raise her lightsaber as they stand in a forest saturated by now, this time it is a shade of blue it's... it's Luke's saber? Our father's saber that was lost so many years ago. And I look upon my son's face to see the eyes of a man who's accepted his fate.

A man who believes he is about to meet his death at the hands of his sister.

She raises her hand and the earth itself breaks apart, her and the force one and the same, her pain alone threatening to tear apart the fabric of space and time.

Not a Jedi, not a Sith, but something primordial and yet so utterly consumed by darkness.

I feel so ill as I snap out of the vision that for a moment I truly believe I'm going to be physically sick and I'm grasping the edge of my desk for stability. The second I can gather my thoughts and move past the horror I force myself to remember that visions are not absolute, and as horrifying as they may be, that they are tainted by the dark side of the force. It is not real in a literal sense, no, it cannot be. But metaphorically...

If her anger feeds her power in the force the consequences could be devastating, but if I allow her to channel that anger, that need for a fight, into something productive I could shift the tide. I know visions are not absolute, and I know my daughter. I know she is good, I know she has an incredibly passionate and loving heart, and a sense for justice that while misguided can be redirected. I cannot condemn a child based on a vision.

I will not believe my own daughter is lost. If darkness is where the Jedi path will lead her then Luke cannot save her from it, Ben can't, but I can. She may curse me for it, but I'm her mother and I've learned by now that children aren't meant to be grateful for the things we do in their best interest. If Bail Organa could take the child fathered by Darth Vader and keep me from following that path then I can damn well do the same by the daughter I birthed and raised.

There's a knock on the door and I quickly compose myself before Hope comes in with R2 following closely behind her, never too far out of sight. Maker knows he's the most loved droid in the galaxy when he's with her and receives better treatment than most children. Hope cried from joy for about two days when Luke decided to pass the old droid onto her to give him a third chance at adventure as it would be.

R2 has kept Luke and I safe all these years, he would never let that sort of darkness befall Hope either. R2 is living proof of what my daughter's heart is truly made of regardless of the darkness that has tainted it. A heart that I know above all is good.

"I'm sorry Mom," she tells me now the moment's passed. "I shouldn't have done that earlier, it wasn't the Jedi way. If it was Ben who'd done that I'd have reacted worse than you did and I don't want to be a hypocrite. I just- there's been so many close calls and I don't want anyone to get hurt."

"I know how difficult it's been and I'm glad you can acknowledge you took things too far, even if it was a split second decision," I say, choosing my words very carefully and being even more mindful of my tone. "But I am proud of you for how you've handled something no one should ever have to deal with."

She was thrown into the midst of this in a way Ben hasn't been. I could blame Han for bringing her to Sibensko with him, but he trusts her capabilities and I have to as well. She's been through too much and yet I can't shake the feeling I only know the half of it and that there's more yet to come.

"Thank you Mom," she says, but I can feel how nervous she is. "I just- I just don't want to act like Ben."

I know pieces of what Ben's done since the truth came out, namely the fight he had with Han and Luke chasing them down to Coruscant and so I gently inquire "What do you mean about Ben?"

She begins to clam up.

"Nothing really, just trying to find an example," she tries to dismiss but I think back to her refusing to answer Ben's call, sitting there almost trying to hide back in her chair until she flipped and started attacking him instead. Something I've seen her do on occasion, a split second reaction to a threat, and she tries to steer the conversation positively. "He's been a good teacher, you should be proud of him too."

She said he was losing his mind when she came to me after the scene on Coruscant, but she seemed more angry than afraid. She's never in her entire life ever had any fear towards Ben even when he's had his moments, but something's changed.

I don't push her on it, not now at least, not wanting to upset her when everything is still so fragile, and tell her "We have a meeting to attend this evening, why don't I order us some food and you can have a rest before we go to it?"

She nods and gives a pained smile, only confirming my fears he's done something to frighten her, or worse harm her. He threw Han into a wall when the news broke and from Han said Hope was shaken up by that but there's more, I know there is.

And it's then I know in my heart what Luke's tried to warn me all these years, but I see it clearly. It isn't her Jedi training that will lead her to this darkness, no, but her master. I can't shake it, the fear that while I can still save one of my children... I've already failed another. But I remember Luke's words, if Darth Vader can be saved then my son can also be freed from Snoke's influence.

I have to believe that.

But until then I need to safeguard Hope before she falls under it as well.

"You've told me you want to fight, and it seems that day's coming," I tell her, Carise's words about making my daughter a child soldier souring with every passing moment, but at Hope's age I was no different. I wanted to fight, I wanted to do my part.

So who am I to stop her?

I was sixteen praying for someone to bring me into the fight against the Empire, praying for someone to trust me and I willing to do anything to prove myself. Hope is the same, except I fear we have yet to learn the truth of what enemy we will face now.

"I'm not sure what it is we'll be fighting," I warn her. "But if the Republic won't stand and resist it then someone has to. I've called what allies I have left from the Rebellion and I want you there beside me. If that is what you still want?"

"It is," she says without missing a beat and I see myself reflected back in her eyes, sixteen and hopeful, never able to imagine the loss I would face in my worst nightmares. "I want to fight."

And I'm terrified of what that may cost her, but I know if it's a life of adventure and adrenaline she seeks while doing what's right, or what she believes is right, then I'm powerless to stop her. She's Han's daughter after all.

Despite what Luke's tried to infer.

I just pray she's more Solo than Skywalker, but if I've learned anything in this ordeal, it's that the fighting legacy Bail and Breha Organa passed onto me will continue through her.

Yet as she meets my eye I remember the words Maz Kanata had once spoken to me, that if you live long enough you see the same eyes in different people. I never truly looked into the eyes of Anakin Skywalker, but somehow I feel as though I am right in this moment.

The force is strong with her, stronger than anything I have ever felt, and yet now after years of dismissing Luke's concerns I stand here face to face with her, unable to deny the simple truth that she has the capacity to destroy worlds with her anger alone.

After what I've seen I know I cannot let her fall into the hands of those who would turn her into a weapon. My own son included.

With a chill seeping into my bones I wonder if he already knows just how powerful she has the potential to become - if he's seen what I have.

All I know is that if I do not keep my children close then I will lose them both, and if I have to sacrifice one for the other... then I'll do what I must.

The Skywalker name may be cursed and our blood tainted, but I will never lose faith in the light that I know is in their very souls, even if they may turn their hearts from it.

If I was more naive I'd pray that fate could never be so cruel to bring to fruition what I've seen, but fate had taken everything I had ever known from me once before and I know it would not hesitate to take it again.

Although... something deep within tells me that Hope's will may yet be stronger than the will of the force itself.