Author's note: A note on Leia's aunts: in the EU / Legends, Rouge, Celly and Tia are Bail Organa's sisters, but in Kenobi, Celly is Breha's sister. I've decided to split the difference and make Celly and Tia Organa Breha's younger sisters, while leaving Rouge as Bail's. Leia's father in canon is Bail Prestor Organa, so I've made the Prestor family a minor branch of House Antilles, and Rouge and Bail the niece and nephew of Bail Antilles, for whom Bail Organa was named. Since inheritance on Alderaan goes through the female line, Lady Gretta Antilles (I invented her first name) is the head of her House, and Rouge is her heir.

Chapter 6: Family

I ought to be tired, Leia thought, far too tired to go for a hike in the woods. Nevertheless, eight hours of talk, explaining and re-explaining the destruction of Alderaan, had left her drained but somehow unable to rest. Meditation or a nap had been impossible, so she found herself outside, once again in her ill-fitting boots, walking toward the woods where she'd spent so many hours playing—and escaping from her tutors—as a little girl. The long summer days meant that even though it was early evening, sunlight filtered through the forest, and she listened to a buzzing insectoid chorus that she had not heard in thirty-five years.

She reached one particular tree, a favorite of hers, and looked up into its branches, remembering how she used to watch the skies, imagining herself flying away to the stars where no one would ever put her in uncomfortable clothes, or braid her hair so tightly that her skin ached, or force her to practice walking and curtseys and formal address ever again. If only I'd known, she thought.

"Are you going to climb up?" Leia heard the grin in her father's voice as he joined her at the base of the tree. "Or can jedi fly like birds?"

"Well, we can jump fairly high," she told him, "by pushing off of things. Power jumps is what I was told to call them. I was never very good at it. To be honest, I'm not much of a jedi."

"No?" Bail answered. "I find that hard to believe."

Leia dropped to the ground, and patted the grass next to her, "Come get your viceroy clothes dirty, Papa. It will give Mama something to tease you about tonight."

Bail sat next to her. After a few minutes, he nudged her shoulder. "Your mother is worried about you, Leia. There is a great deal you haven't told us about your life, and the memories you shared with the family are fading, all except the destruction of Alderaan. I think she's worried that we were bad parents, or that you regret that we were the ones who adopted you. You know why we chose adoption, yes?"

Leia nodded. "You didn't want to strain Mother's body with a pregnancy after her injuries during her Day of Demand."

"That's right. But we haven't made up our minds. The pressure to produce an heir is powerful, yet do we have the right to bring a child not of our blood into this family? To tie her to the throne and all of the responsibilities that entails? You've clearly suffered for our choices."

Leia was almost speechless. She hadn't anticipated this reaction. "Papa, no! You and Mama, you…you were the best parents anyone could have! I was…I felt…" she floundered. "Never in my life have I regretted my childhood. I believe I was loved, fully and completely, in spite of everything."

"Everything meaning your aunts' teaching you archaic lessons in royal behavior or trying to marry you off to a suitable member of the Elder Houses?" Bail asked.

"Well, that," Leia dismissed the restrictions of her youth. "Yes, that was annoying. I probably felt myself terribly abused at having to sneak out of the palace to drink illicit shots of whiskey or experiment with inappropriate boys. Typical teen nonsense. I knew I could always depend on you to get me out of any trouble I got into. Mostly." She grinned, "If you hadn't wanted me to push boundaries, you shouldn't have let me learn to fly a thranta when I was ten. I was happy, Papa. Overall, I was extremely happy as a child."

Bail breathed out slowly. "That's a relief. Making the choice to raise a child isn't an easy one."

Leia thought of Ben then, "No," she answered seriously, "nor should it be. Not everyone is suited to parenting."

"Thinking of someone in particular?"

She could not talk about her son. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But there were other family secrets. "My birth father, for one," she told him.

Bail was surprised. "You know who he is?"

Leia nodded. "Yes. I won't give you his name, not yet, but I will tell you this: when you adopted me, my birth mother was dead and my birth father was assumed to be dead. He wasn't. He was a former Jedi who turned to the dark side, betrayed the Order and became a Sith Lord. He was responsible for the genocide of billions."

"Not…Alderaan?" Bail was horrified.

"No, not directly. That was ordered by someone else." She turned to her father. "But he was there, Papa. He stood right there while it happened and never made a move to stop it."

She squirmed around to face him. "I've never regretted being your daughter, being a child of Alderaan. But I have worried over the years whether you should regret it. They blew up Alderaan to make me talk, and when I pretended to answer their questions, they blew it up anyway, to punish me for my betrayal and demonstrate their power. From a certain point of view, Alderaan was doomed the moment you placed me in Mama's arms."

"And if we had not adopted you, you think Alderaan would have survived? That a 3000-year old prophecy came to fruition because of that single choice?"

"Okay, when you put it that way…"

Bail took her hand. "The creatures who built this Death Star always planned to use it and to use it in a way to have the greatest impact on those who would oppose them. That is the political reality. If Alderaan was their target, then it was because it would hurt those they considered their enemies. A mouthy nineteen-year old princess was merely their excuse."

"Maybe," Leia conceded. "Maybe that's true."

"You cannot take on the burden of the loss of our people, Leia. That belongs to those who committed the crime, not to you."

"I appreciate that, I do. It feels good to hear you say it." She paused. "But if it's not my responsibility, then why did the Force bring me back? There were others far more suited, far more powerful than I am." She shook her head. "It may not be my fault, but it is my burden. I am not just an Organa; I carry the blood of my other father, and I carry his power in my cells. He helped destroy the galaxy, so it is my responsibility to fix what he has broken."

Bail looked at her in awe. "Leia, that's not rational. You can't take all of that on yourself!"

"I won't," she assured him. "Not this time; I will need help, a lot of help. I probably won't even live long enough to know whether or not I succeed."

"What?!"

"I'm supposed to be born in ten years. But if I do this right, my biological father will avoid repeating the mistakes of the past, and that includes a secret relationship that violates the Jedi Code. No relationship, no babies. No me."

"You think you will just, what, wink out of existence?" Bail was appalled.

"Probably," Leia admitted. "Or maybe I'll rejoin the Force. I have no idea." She patted his hand. "Don't worry about it. Remember I had a life, a full life, with friends and enemies, lovers and allies. I made my choices and learned from them. This version, this second chance, isn't for me; it's for the galaxy." She stood up. "Let's get some dinner. And maybe find Master Windu. I do enjoy teasing that man. He is so stolid."

Discussions the next day did not go well. Leia made it clear that she planned to return to Coruscant, that she felt the Force urging her to save not just Alderaan, but the Republic and the Jedi. But she was clearly too old to join the Temple, and even if she hadn't been, she had no intention of letting the Jedi Council give her orders. If she had looked a few years older, she could have been appointed as one of the Senator's aides, but no one would accept an apparent twelve-year old in that role. Moreover, House Antilles wanted Bail and Breha to immediately begin the search for another heir. They were firmly opposed to having a jedi on the throne, regardless of whether she answered to the Temple on Coruscant or not.

Frustrated, Leia and Breha sat on a terrace above the gardens, watching Tia and Celly play with Nial below.

"Did you know," Leia asked casually, "that someone else is spying on my cousin? He's hiding in a fir tree, half a mile away, watching them with a pair of binocs?"

Breha nodded. "Yes, that's Halagad. He's been here a few weeks. I've told the guards to leave him alone."

"You're hoping he has the courage to approach Tia and his son." Leia shook her head. "He won't. Not without a push." She narrowed her eyes. "Maybe I should give him one. I think I could make him fall out of that tree even from here if I concentrated hard enough." Fir trees are sticky, she thought, nasty and sticky. It would make an unpleasant drop.

"That might drive him away," Breha objected. "He's clearly unready to take responsibility."

"Or simply unwilling," Leia said. "I wish Luke were here. He's the one who researched all of the old Jedi. I'm sure he told me something about Halagad Ventor, something about…falling to the dark side and returning? He was always looking for stories like that."

"To redeem your father?" Breha asked. She had been fascinated by what Leia had told them about her twin brother. A farm boy from a desert planet who defeated the Sith lords and founded a new Jedi Academy. It was almost unbearably romantic, so much so that it was clear something terrible had happened to ruin the story, something Leia not told them about yet.

"Papa is my father," Leia said firmly. "The other, well, Luke thought of him as his father, and he insisted that he returned to the light side of the Force right before he died. I don't know; I wasn't there. But it was important to Luke. He needed to believe there was still light in him." She sighed. "Everyone feels that way, I think, when someone they love is lost to the dark."

"Is Nial Force-talented?" Breha asked. "Can you tell?"

"Yes," Leia answered. "He has the ability. I don't know how strong it is. So far he hasn't shown any unusual talents?"

"Apart from driving Rouge to distraction, no."

Leia smiled. "That used to be my job, driving my aunts to distraction. I'm glad there's someone else to take on the role, if they decide to kick me out of the palace."

"That will not be happening," Breha told her, "no matter what House Antilles wants. You are an Organa, and an Organa you will remain."

"Halagad Ventor didn't train on Coruscant, at least not for long," Leia mused. "Wasn't there somewhere else? An experiment?"

"An isolated temple on Almas," Breha agreed, "that no one is supposed to know about. But he didn't stay there. He can't seem to stay anywhere for long. Maybe if the Jedi Council had remained on Alderaan, all those centuries ago, they would have found him when he was younger, helped him learn to balance his passions."

That's right, Leia thought, the Jedi Council had been established on Alderaan once, before it had moved to Coruscant. She paused as several ideas came together. "Luke's Academy was on Ossus," she said thoughtfully. "I trained there. I am a jedi. But I am not a Coruscanti Jedi." She paused, thinking it through. "I represent a different Jedi Order altogether."

Breha narrowed her eyes, "You've found a solution, haven't you?"

Leia nodded, then paused again. "I think so. Maybe. I need to think it through. But, Your Majesty, what do you think of an Alderaan with its own independent Jedi Order?"

Her mother stared at her for a long moment. "I think that we have a great deal to talk about Master Organa, before we reconvene tomorrow morning. I will have the kitchens send up plenty of kaff." She rose and swept inside; Leia eagerly followed her.

After she nudged Halagad out of his tree.