Star Wars: Cross Paths Part 3
Thanks to Anon, Guest, Daisy, LOVEM, Elen, Sue, DirksTalia, RedLigth16, JediLukeSkywalker, Elen and Connors for reviewing. And to everyone who took your time to read it. You guys are great. Love you all.
Chapter 91 – Birthday Lunch
The clouds started to covered the sky of Coruscant during the afternoon.
Right now, everyone was in the Temple, having a Life Day lunch, but also to celebrate Bail and Ani 5th birthday.
At the moment, it was the middle of the afternoon and they just cut the cake of the twins, after singing Happy Birthday to them.
"I can't believe they are 5 now," Leia said looking at her boys eating a slice of their cake. "It felt like it was yesterday that I was giving birth to them."
"My dear daughter, time flies. Get use to it," Amidala smiled, kissing her daughter's forehead.
"I know."
"But sucks!" Ines replied making Amidala laughed.
Ken Sr, sit down next to his daughter and smiled when he saw the bracelet that she had on her right wrist.
"Someone loved her Life Day's present!" he said, smiling when Ines looked at her wrist and then back to her father.
"Yeah, it was a surprise, but a very good one!" she said glare at Luke, who winked at her.
Seeing his sister bracelet, Dan approached to see it closer.
"Wait, is that mother's bracelet?"
"No, sadly it is not son," Ken looked at him. "But there is a new jewelry shop in town and I told Luke about your mother's bracelet, and your brother in law decided to make a nice present to your sister."
"That's nice. I remember mother's bracelet and how much Ines loved it. Remember that?"
"Of course I do."
"What is the story about that?" Ahsoka asked her.
"I gave a similar bracelet to their mother on our wedding day. It is Alderaanian design, and my wife said that when we had a daughter she would give that bracelet on her wedding day. Sadly that never happened," he said sighed, thinking of his dear wife that he missed so much.
Sensing his father in law sadness, Luke stood up and pat his shoulder.
"Hey no sad moments, okay."
"So, you will keep that promise, Ines?" Hera asked her.
"If she does, she needs to make another cause…" Han said pointing to the girls who were watching their cousins playing with their new toys they got as birthday present.
"I know. I don't know what to do." She laughed.
"Well how about you give to the first one who gets married," Aurea suggested.
"Like I will allow my little girls to do that," Luke said right away, getting a look from all the women, who shook their head right away. "What?" he asked again.
"Fathers!" Gracy laughed.
Then they heard voices coming from the entrance of the Temple.
"Hello, May I come in?"
Looking back, they saw Mon Mothma with a young woman caring some bags.
"Of course you can," Leia said right away, as they walked towards them.
"Happy Life Day!" Mon Mothma said to all of them.
"To you too. Hope you had a great Life Day Eve," Amidala replied when the two friends hug each other.
"It was good," Mon Mothma answered and looked at young woman next to her and with a weak smile, she looked at them. "By the way, let me introduce you my daughter Lieda."
Lieda looked at them, and with a fake smile that made Ines glare at Leia right away, she replied with a simple nod.
Sensing the tension in the room, Amidala gave the biggest smile she could and hugged her.
"Nice to meet you Lieda. My friend, your daughter is very beautiful."
"Thank you Padmé." Mon smiled, but she glare at her daughter.
"To bad that she doesn't have the personality of her mother," Ines whispered to Leia, who look at her sister in law and nod.
"Stop you too," Luke whispered back.
"We are not doing anything," Leia looked at her twin brother right away.
"You don't have to do anything, I know that look well enough. From both of you," he replied.
Knowing them very well too, Aurea decided to speak and change the subject.
"But Chancellor, what brings you here? I thought you were with your family celebrating Life Day!?"
"We were and we still will do later on with dinner in my home, Aurea. But I know that today is someone 5th birthday, and we decided to come here to wish happy birthday to the boys and give these presents."
"We? You mean you, right?" Lieda said right away, making Mon Mothma very uncomfortable, but before Leia could open her mouth, the boys came running by the word presents.
"You brought presents?" Ani asked, making Mon laughed at him.
"Well is your birthday, isn't it?"
"You shouldn't have," Han said. "You already brought presents last night."
"Hey, Life day presents are not the same as Birthday presents, right boys?"
"Yes," Bail said and looked at his parents. "I like her," making everyone laughed with the exception of Lieda who rolled her eyes, which made Ines turned and face her husband.
"She is getting on my nerves," she whispered to him, which made Luke wrapped his arms around her waist.
"Breath babe."
"I will try, but I don't know if I can handle another rolled of eyes and that attitude. You know me."
"Oh yeah I do and that is why I feel in love deeply with you," he smiled and kissed her forehead.
Turning around again, she smiled when Mon crouch and hugged the boys, who were thanking her and happily started to unwrapped the presents, while Mon looked at them smiling kind of sadly, something that Amidala noticed.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh I just remember someone that I'm sure he would love to watch all of this."
"Who?"
"A good friend of my named Luthen. Someday I will talk about him to all of you."
"You mean one of your rebellion friends, to whom you almost put your own family at risk because of your stupid rebellion." Lieda said right away, which made everyone stayed silence, and leaving Mon very serious.
"Excuse me? Stupid?" Ines said right away.
"Oh boy," Luke and Han said at the same time.
"That stupid rebellion brought peace and democracy to this galaxy, in case you don't know. Besides you should be happy, after all you are the daughter not only of a great and brave woman but the chancellor of the galaxy."
"I didn't need her to be that. I already had a great life before."
"That's your problem. Your life was already great, but in case you don't know, not everyone had a great life. In many systems, people lived bad cause of the Empire. We did what we did, to bring a better life to them."
"And what cause. If you stayed quiet, your planet was still here and not blown up."
"Lieda!" Mon Mothma said right away.
"What? Did I say something wrong? Wasn't to protect your rebels that their planet got blown up. So maybe they should be quiet and continue to live with their lives. After all she was part of royal family and her father was part of the Senate."
"Leia…" Mon started but Leia shook her head.
"It is okay," Leia replied and looked at Lieda. "You are right. And there isn't one day that I don't remember that moment. But I know my family, if they were here, they would understand. And now that I'm a mother, I would do all over again. Yes, innocent people died and I will make sure they will never be forgotten, but to see my children being raise in a free galaxy, I know deep inside they would be proud of me and would agree with me, cause I know my father would do exactly the same thing, cause he raised me well. No offense, my friend."
"I understand what you mean," Mon replied.
"Besides," Ines said right away, before Luke could stop her. "We were not forced to marry with a boy we didn't love. We marry by love and our children are an act of love. Can we say the same thing about you Lieda?" she asked making Lieda stayed quiet. "I don't think so." Ines finished.
Looking at her mother, Lieda spoke in a harsh tone.
"If you want to stay with your friends, than stay. I have better things to do," and with that she left the Temple, leaving a tension in the air. Even the kids were quiet.
"How rude!" Padmé said out of nowhere, and the adults were force to laughed at the remark of the 5 years old.
"I'm sorry," Mon said.
"I'm the one who need to say sorry," Ines replied. "I shouldn't have said about the marriage, but you know me. I can't stay quiet in situations like this. Forgive me."
"You don't need to say sorry, Ines. After all you didn't lie about anything."
"You are a great mother, Mon. Trust me," Ken said making her smile.
"I didn't want to ruined the boys birthday."
"You didn't, look at them, they loved the presents." Hera laughed seeing boys happy with the new toys.
"Hey, today is a great day, so let's not talk about bad things. Want a piece of cake, chancellor?" Noah asked.
"Oh, I don't think I have time."
"Nonsense, of course you have. Come on sit down and eat a slice of cake with us," Gracy nod, grabbing a plate and cuting a slice of cake.
"I have to say, it looks delicious, so I can't say no," she said sitting down. "I'm surprise it is not chocolate cake!"
"That's because I don't like chocolate," Padmé said right away.
"You don't?"
"Yup, when she was little she ate something with chocolate that made her sick and since then she can't eat it," Luke said looking at his daughter smiling.
"You know, I heard you Papa love chocolate," Mon said.
"Tell me about it," the girl replied making Mon laughed at that, and eating the cake, they started to talk about the presents they got and Mon started to talk about Luthen and what he did for the Rebellion.
Lieda was not nice. What did you think of her?