"I want you and Luke to join me and I want Obi-Wan to die a very painful death."

-Darth Vader to Leia, Chapter 10

Chapter 3: Have you ever heard...?

Day 1 - Primeday

"Tell me where the plans to the Death Star are hidden", Vader asked for what felt like the hundredth time that day.

The young woman grit her teeth against the rising pain building up in her brain as she refused to answer.

"I... won't... tell!", she grit out.

Well, she had gone from lying, saying she didn't know, to refusing an answer. If it weren't for that, Vader would've thought the truth serum was somehow faulty. But no, she did feel the pressure, she did feel the pain. She just ignored it.

Annoyed and now more than a little frustrated, Vader concentrated his power and attacked the mind of the young princess. Images flashed by him, of childhood memories, of beautiful gardens, of waterfalls - he drew back as if burned. The images merged with his own memories, of certain senator who even looked a bit similar, smiling at him in an equally beautiful garden...

Without thinking, Vader lashed out and hit the prisoner's face with his heavily armored gauntlet. Princess Leia was knocked down from the blow. She let out one little cry, more surprised than pained. She remained lying where she was at his feet for a few moments, her eyes on the ground. Then she spat blood and a single tooth to the ground and glared at him hatefully. Her nose was bloody and likely broken and in the morning there'd be a bruise forming on her cheek the size of Vader's fist. If she lived to see the morning, that is.

"Where are the plans?!" he asked again.

The Princess continued to glare.

Now despite himself with rage Vader lifted his hand but instead of hitting her again he lifted her into the air without physically touching her. Her eyes went wide and she started grasping at her throat as he slowly drew the air out of her lungs.

"Don't make me ask again", he growled.

"The plans... the plans", the Princess grit out between gasps for air, "you will never... get them... Vader!"

Vader snarled at her insolence and in his anger, his power flared for just a second.

Princess Leia let out one shaky gasp - then her eyes bulged out, the edges filling with blood and a moment later there was an audible snap.

It took Vader a few moments to notice what had happened. He'd been choking people for years and he was usually very good at controlling his power. But this time, he'd been so angry, both by her insolence and disrespect as well as the painful reminder her appearance and courage brought with it. He'd applied too much power.

Vader dropped the body and it fell to the ground like a bag of meat. Drops of blood were flowing down from her eyes and broken nose but she didn't even twitch anymore.

Dead bodies didn't twitch.

Vader chastised himself. He'd been interrogating the Princess for almost an hour and it was most disappointing that in all this time, he hadn't been able to get the information he needed. Now he'd killed her, which meant he would never get said information. He'd failed.

How, how could it be that he failed? It should've been easy to pick the information from her head, especially when she was under the influence of the truth serum. Yet he hadn't been able to. The Princess had build a wall of unimportant memories around her mind that he hadn't been able to penetrate. Had she done so intentionally, instinctively? Or maybe... This would explain it, maybe she had training in how to shield her mind? That would be an explanation. A weak one, yes, but any explanation for his failure was better than nothing when he had to report to his master.

The ability to shield the mind would only be significant if it was enhanced by the Force. Unfortunately now that she was dead he could no longer easily determine whether or not she might have a minor Force sensitivity. However, there were other ways.

Vader turned to the droid hovering next to him.

"Take a sample of her blood. Analyse it, test her for Force sensitivity."

The droid obediently lowered and stuck a three inch needle into the shoulder blade of the corpse.

Vader left the cell and ordered the troopers outside: "Clean up that cell."

One hour passed. Vader read through the reports of the ships blockading the planet the princess had sent her droids to. Apparently one ship had broken through the blockade and the droids were still missing. Great.

Later that night Vader checked upon the lap results of the blood sample. He was lucky, the midichlorian count was indeed higher than normal. Actually, it was a lot higher than normal.

Just so nobody could say he wasn't thorough, Vader scrolled through the rest of the result. The droid had automatically compared the sample with the Imperial database of known Jedi. Vader didn't expect there to be a match of course, she was too young to be a Jedi - which was why he stopped short in surprise, bordering on shock when he did find a match. Only it was impossible. The match showed up next to a familiar name - albeit a name he hadn't heard in a long, long time.

Anakin Skywalker.

Incredulously Vader opened the data window. The match wasn't exact, of course it wasn't, the DNA wasn't identical. But it was still a match. A 50% match.

He was looking at a positive paternity test.

Leia Organa was Anakin Skywalker's biological daughter.

Vader stared at the test result for a full three minutes. Shock contained his immediate reaction. When he was able to think again he ordered his men to bring the Princess to him - only to be informed that the body had already been disposed of. The body. He'd killed her. He'd killed... his daughter.

And that's when the explosion came. Vader was lucky he wasn't on a bridge or the power unleashed by his sudden spike of conflicted emotion probably would've destroyed the window and thrown him into space. Anger, denial, desperation, betrayal - and an overwhelming sense of self-hatred.

It could not be true. Organa couldn't be - she was an Organa after all!

But some digging revealed that indeed, Senator Leia Organa was listed as adopted into the Royal family. What's more, her birthday was on Empire day - the day Padmé had died.

And she looked like her. Force, he had noticed it, he had thought about it but somehow hadn't made the connection.

Organa - no, Leia - was his daughter. And he'd just tortured her to death.

Vader felt a wave of fresh anguish as that realization hit home and yet he still fought it. Even if she was his daughter, she was still a rebel, still a traitor. What would he have done differently had he known? Release her? She and her petty Rebellion were all standing in the way to order and peace in the entire galaxy. Imprison her forever? He imagined what Padmé would say to that and cringed. Try to turn her to the dark side, raise her as his own apprentice? Her spirit was incredibly strong. She would rather die than be broken. She could be convinced, maybe, but Vader had never been good with words and he could hardly stand up against a trained politician, especially not her daughter. Maybe his Master could have helped him out there. That is, if he didn't decide Leia made for a younger, stronger apprentice to replace Vader.

So really, there wasn't much he could've done to... to gain her trust or respect. But he could've done something to save her. Everything else was unimportant, he just had to save her!

...and he could.

Ever since Shmi Skywlker's death, Vader had been obsessed with finding a way to prevent his loved ones from dying. Sidious had promised him that knowledge in exchange for his service and he had kept his word. He could still hear the old man's voice when he first told him of this knowledge...

"Have you ever heard the legend of Darth Plaguis the Wise?

There was a technique invented by Darth Plaguis that could be used to reverse time and cheat death. It required certain preparations though because the technique was fuelled by the crossing over of a powerful Force Sensitive. Sidious had revealed to him around a year after the Empire came to be, that he'd used the technique himself several times, using the death of various Jedi in order to reverse time and live again through Empire day, changing time, rewriting history and trying to find a course of action that would allow Vader to live.

At first, Vader had been furious. It meant Sidious had known that Kenobi would ambush him on Mustafar, it meant he'd known that he'd killed Padmé. But the Emperor had explained that on the first try, Anakin Skywalker had sided with Mace Windu to kill Sidious and he'd been forced to defend himself and kill them both. On the second try he left enough hints for Skywalker to understand the need of siding with the Sith but he had burned to death on Mustafar and Sidious had not known exactly what had happened. It was only on the third try that Sidious had managed to both secure his position as well as save his apprentice.

The technique needed a simple desire, a simple order that once fulfilled, released the user from the loop. Sidious had reversed it until he was ruling the galaxy side by side with his apprentice. He'd had thousands of Jedi at his disposal then that could serve as a sacrifice.

That Vader had taken days to recover from his wounds and by that time Padmé was already dead and it was too late to use the technique again - that was hardly Sidious' fault, now was it?

Vader scowled as he remembered that particular discussion, one that had ended in him trying to kill the Emperor and being electrocuted for his trouble. It was too late now too. The technique had to be initiated while the sacrifice was dying. His daughter would've been powerful enough to serve as a sacrifice but her soul was already gone. If he wanted to use the technique, he had to do it now, today and there was no other Jedi readily available for him to use. Except for one.

With grim determination Vader locked himself in his hyperbaric chamber. One after another he ordered his droids to remove his helmet and breathing mask. Then he just sat there, breathing painfully, his cybernetic finger hovering over the switch that would turn off the air control system that flooded the chamber with clean oxygen. Once he flipped that switch to normal air composition, he had around three minutes to live. Three minutes to immerse himself in the Force and to the twisted flow of time and to tie it in a knot.

Of course, if he used himself as a sacrifice he couldn't be the one in the loop. He would forget everything that happened today. The day would restart but he, Vader, would not be aware of it. His daughter would though. That was all he could do, to give her a chance to somehow find a way to survive that day. He may not be able to save his child. But he may be able to give her the tools to try and save herself.

So Vader closed his eyes and concentrated with all his might on his one powerful desire - for his and Padmé's child to live.

Then he pressed the button.

XxX

Day 66 - Primeday

Vader strode down the corridor to the cell had held the Princess of Alderaan. It was time to interrogate her since Tarkin's overly incompetent staff hadn't managed to get anything out of her. As he came closer though, Vader was overwhelmed by a sense of hopelessness that creeped up on him out of nowhere. He suddenly felt so tired and even a bit… ashamed

But the emotions were not his own. It took him a second or two realize it because the only people whose emotions he had ever felt like that he'd long since killed or at least blocked out. But when he opened Organa's cell, there she was, a miserably little heap and her emotions of despair and exhaustion were flowing freely through what felt like a faint, fraying Force bond towards him.

Vader was astonished, shocked even. He hadn't even known she was Force sensitive, though now that he did it was easy to feel her power and he wondered how he'd missed it. But a bond like that, even a weak one, would need weeks, even months to build up and it sure as hell hadn't been there yesterday!

Suspicion rose in him, then anger. "Who are you?" Vader snapped at her harshly.

Leia slowly raised her head and blinked. "You know who I am."

Vader wasn't sure he did. She was so different. Now that he could so clearly read her emotions, even read her surface thoughts, he noticed a gaping difference to the indignant girl from yesterday. This woman looked older, haunted and had a darkness cling to her that didn't fit into his image of the innocent-looking but secretly idealistic, rebellious Princess.

Vader was at her cot with two steps and grabbed her by her dress, shaking her like you would a malfunctioning doll.

"How could your presence change this drastically in such a short time? What did you do?"

Leia just stared at him with empty eyes. He could feel her annoyance, her exhaustion.

"Speak!" Vader demanded and shook her again.

Leia didn't fight back but she didn't say anything either.

At last Vader let go of her and motioned the droid forward. "Fine then, I will make you talk."

Something like this was unprecedented. A Force-bond formed in a single day? How had she done it? Had she done it? Could she read his emotions like he could read hers?

The needle pierced Leia's skin and some short moments later she grimaced as the pain began to spread. Vader used her distraction to delve into her mind which was oddly open and inviting to him. But soon he discovered areas of her mind that he couldn't enter into, no matter how hard he attacked her shields. She shouldn't even have shields though, it wasn't like she was a Jedi! There was one part of her that was wide open though, recent memories from the look of it. He wondered briefly why she wouldn't shield this and a moment later had his answer – it was a trap. There was a hot bundle of agony inside her head, agony so thorough and so great that the mere echo almost brought him to his knees.

Vader retreated from her mind immediately but the pain stayed, his skin was burning and itching and – he croaked a command towards the droid who quickly injected the Princess with the antidote.

Slowly, the pain ebbed away.

Vader had retreated to a corner of the room, as far away as he could without actually leaving. He still felt that echo of pain as he struggled to erect his own shields around his mind to protect himself from her passive assault.

And the damn witch had the nerve to smirk at him.

"What's wrong, Lord Vader? Can't stand the taste of your own medicine?"

"What have you done?" Vader whispered with just a hint of fear which he quickly hid as he finally got his bearings and managed to block the bond.

"You have no right to ask that question", Leia hissed hatefully. "You, of all people, have no right!" She took a deep breath to calm herself and put back on her regal mask.

"Now if you don't intend to torture me further, I suggest you leave, Lord Vader. I have nothing to say to you."

Furiously Vader flared his power, though he didn't dare attack her mind directly. He knew he couldn't continue the interrogation. Mere pain obviously wasn't working on her and he couldn't dissect her mind without being subjected to her pain. Why in the name of the Force did she have so much of it stored away in her brain anyway?

"You have made a great mistake, Princess. From here on, it will only get worse." And it would. When he returned to Tarkin empty-handed, he was sure the Grand Moff would come up with a way to worsen her punishment. Vader just had to make sure to be far away from her when that happened.

Leia folded her arms in front of her, flaring her own power, sending out a wave of righteous anger, indignation and determination. How did she even know how to do that!?

"Impossible", she spat and Vader almost laughed – she'd barely been touched and already she was convinced that her treatment couldn't get any worse? Now naïve.

"We will see", Vader said menacingly. He motioned for the droid to fall back, then with a swish of his cape turned around – and left her cell.

He went to report to Tarkin, who wasn't overly concerned with his failure. He said he already had something in mind to make the Princess talk.

XxX

AN: This is by far the shortest chapter of the fanfic, but I really liked the idea of writing the same 'Day' from each of my 3 main character perspectives: Leia, Luke and Vader. Except Vader isn't actually part of the loop so I only wrote what happened on the first, original day and what happened on the last day, when Leia survived.

So yeah, Vader is totally the one who caused the loop for Leia. Luke got caught in it by accident just because of the vague way Vader happened to word his last wish.

Did any of you see that coming? You get a cookie if you did!

So now Leia survived interrogation, Vader doesn't remember a thing and Luke is on his way to Alderaan. We should be back in canon territory, right?

...Right?

Of course not, silly.

Btw, I will do my very best to upload every Monday. This story is already completely written so I only have to do editing. No beta though, we die like Leia did 65 times already! Please leave a review if you like the story and a fav&follow so you won't miss any new chapters!