By now, it had been almost a month since Leia had gone missing. It had been even longer since the last time anyone called her by her first name.
In her time at Fortress Vader, she learned to stop demanding the right to send a transmission. She stopped identifying herself as "Leia Organa, Princess of Alderaan." She no longer wore colorful Alderaanian clothing or the green coat that Ben had bought her on Daiyu. Now all Vader had to do was beckon her silently with his hand and she would follow him wherever he asked. Whatever discomfort she felt about being near him, she quickly suppressed it.
If anyone had dared to ask her, "Do you find him scary?" she would have kept quiet. Her entire survival now depended on several factors, but mainly Vader's opinion of her. If he were to find out the effect his intimidating presence had on her, he might use this against her and threaten her into actually giving up information about the Rebellion. However, she could not yell at him and hide in her room forever, as his patience was limited. Thus every day became a balancing game between the right amount of resistance and obedience in order to please him. Leia was already trained for interrogations and hostage situations. Before this whole ordeal, she would have proudly said that she was not like other ordinary children.
Now she found herself wishing that she could be more like them.
When Reva woke her up in the mornings, she dressed herself without resisting or complaining. When she ate with Vader, she reminded herself not to stare down at her plate. When Vader asked her to talk, she spoke, and when he told her to be quiet she stopped speaking. When he motioned at her to follow him, she swallowed hard and reached up to grab his robotic hand, feeling the black glove tighten around her mechanically. When they walked together, she forced herself to keep up with him while also being careful not to walk too fast or step on his toes.
Soon, she settled into a daily rhythm of waking up, eating her first meal of the day with Vader, then heading out with him to fly somewhere undetermined. It even got to the point that Reva began to question if she was really the same child that constantly defied her and gave her an attitude. But Leia no longer cared to fight with Reva over what she wore or what she ate for breakfast. None of that mattered anymore. All she cared about at the moment was not waking up in pieces.
On days where Vader was busy, she ate her meal in silence with only Reva to accompany her. She no longer tried to escape from her room (she learned the hard way that doing so would only result in being caught by the Purge Troopers, who would then be executed for having learned of her existence). She no longer tried to contact Ben and Ahsoka. Instead she would spend the day waiting for Vader to visit her, after which he would spend time asking her questions to which she did not know the right answers.
"What is the true intention of the Rebel Alliance? Where are they hiding? What role does Bail Organa hope to play within it?" he demanded over and over again.
At first, she tried to get away with not answering by playing a fool and saying things like "I don't know" and "What do you mean by 'alliance'? I thought the rebels worked by themselves?" But she quickly realized that the more she pretended to be stupid, the more Vader was growing impatient. After this, she switched to answering with what she hoped was just confusing nonsense.
"I'm not sure, but I think I heard rumors about a base in the Unknown Regions," she lied, trying to divert his attention to the furthest and most unlikely location possible. "I heard that they developed the ability to communicate using a strange Force technique, one that allows them to speak into each other's minds from miles and miles away."
She was not sure if such an ability even existed, but it sounded interesting enough to be plausible (at least, in her mind.) If nothing else, it would at least explain how the imaginary rebels in her tall tales managed to stay in contact while lost in the unmapped wilderness that was the Unknown Regions.
Vader frowned, clearly irritated by this statement.
"Is there a problem with that?" Leia asked cautiously. She wondered if her lie had gone too far and he would finally punish her for her dishonesty.
"If there is truly a base located there," Vader drawled, "Then that poses a multitude of difficulties for me."
Leia blinked. She had not expected him to take her fib seriously.
"I only personally know of one being who has traveled to the Unknown Regions and survived."
"Who?" Leia asked, eager to change the subject.
"A Chiss," Vader hissed, "By the name of Thrawn."
"Oh," Leia said. "How do you know about him?"
"I work with him."
Leia went silent. Vader's job was a forbidden subject between the two of them. He did not seem very comfortable speaking about it and she did not want to know about what atrocities he had committed while she was not there.
"Why did he survive?" Leia asked cautiously.
"His people have been doing it for centuries," Vader replied. "He is an envoy from the Chiss Ascendancy. Their planet lies right in the midst of the Unknown Regions."
"Oh. I see," Leia said slowly. She had never heard of such things. Her father had told her that the Unknown Regions were dangerous and that some of the civilians living there had struck up some sort of deal with the Empire in exchange for protection. The exact details of this contract, however, were unknown to her. "How...how do they do it?"
"Do you know what a sky-walker is?" Vader asked coldly.
Leia flinched. "No," she admitted.
"A sky-walker," Vader said slowly, "is a Chiss that has learned to tap into a small, miniscule part of the Force. Just enough so that they can navigate through the Unknown Regions and lead a ship to safety."
Leia blinked. "Wouldn't...wouldn't that make them a Jedi?" she asked, confused.
"No. They are not the same as Jedi. In their language, they are called ozyly-esehembo. Most of them are girls, anywhere from seven to fourteen. All of them either develop or have developed a small sensitivity to the Force at a young age. This small sensitivity allows them to see what others cannot and tap into a strange ability that eventually wanes with time. It is something that they call in their language, 'Third Sight.'"
Leia stared at him curiously. "And have...have you ever been an 'ozyly-esehembo'?" she asked, hoping that she pronounced it right.
Vader sneered. "Once," he replied. "During the Clone Wars."
He rarely ever spoke of the Wars to her. The only she knowledge she had of them came exclusively from history books or the stories that Ahsoka had briefly told her. Leia's eyes widened and she stared at him, eager for him to continue. But Vader did not elaborate. If anything, he seemed a lot more withdrawn now.
"Does Thrawn know that?"
"Yes."
Leia looked down, deciding to drop the subject.
From what she had gathered, it seemed that Vader did not like this Thrawn person very much. He would probably rather die than ever ask him for help, especially if it concerned his domain. She also imagined that Vader did not enjoy working with someone who was aware of his past identity as Anakin Skywalker.
The atmosphere in the room had shifted completely. She now could sense a great, dark wave of displeasure emanating off of him. Deciding to lighten the mood, she asked him to take her flying. That seemed to take his mind off of things.
For whatever reason it was, the only time where Vader seemed closest to peace was when he sat in the cockpit of his ship. At first, Leia had started asking him to take her off-world in an attempt to engineer an escape route. For a brief period, she had a fever dream of stealing his ship and escaping to Alderaan in it. However, she quickly realized that it would be impossible for her to pilot Vader's spacecraft by herself. The controls were extremely confusing and made no sense to her (neither did Vader's explanations, which left much to be desired). The fuel tank was a lot smaller than most and occasionally needed to be refueled. This was not normally an issue, except for the fact that a journey back to Alderaan would require several refills, none of which she felt confident executing given the volatility of the rhydonium that it used. Leia accepted with some disappointment that sneaking out and stealing the spacecraft was not an option.
Nonetheless, the flying trips they went on seemed to do a turn for Vader's mood. During them, he seemed a lot calmer and less prone to anger. Any questions she asked, he gave thought to and answered truthfully instead of treating like an annoyance and brushing her off. Occasionally he would even talk about Ben, who he normally refused to acknowledge (perhaps out of a desire to discourage her from requesting his emancipation).
"Why do you care so much about being better than Ben?" she asked one time. "You're not him, so I don't understand why you always try to compete with him."
Vader yanked the landing levers roughly and almost crashed them into an asteroid. "I don't care about Obi-Wan," he sneered. "He means nothing to me. I can kill him anytime I want."
"That's not true," Leia said. "Every time you talk about him, you only say bad stuff and then you ask me what I think of him. I'm not going to tell you that he's better than you, or that you're better than him," she said bluntly. "You're different people. There's no reason for you to compare yourself to him."
She did not say it aloud, but she also hoped that he did not actually mean it when he said that he could kill Ben any time. After all, from what she could tell, they had once been very close. Why would he want to kill someone that important to him? Wasn't he already sad about losing his wife?
On days when Vader did not have the time or energy to fly her around, she would ask him to play games with her instead. She had expected him to be too old and stuffy to know about holochess, but to her surprise he had already heard of it and knew the rules quite well. He even set up the demesne within minutes without any assistance from her end. This caught Leia off guard, momentarily stunning her.
As she gaze at him with shocked eyes, Vader simply looked up and made direct eye contact with her. "Are you ready?" he asked, looking expectantly.
Leia swallowed, feeling as if she might have dug herself into a hole. "Yes," she lied, forcing herself not to let her nervousness show as she sat down with trembling legs and watched him play the first move.
It turned out Vader was an excellent Shah-tezh player. She had expected him to be slow and easily confused, but he was neither of those things. He did not go easy on her either. It was completely different from when she played against her father back on Alderaan. Leia found herself sweating and panting and losing every round. After they had played five rounds, she panicked and desperately asked Vader to get something to drink for her.
To her surprise, he ended up agreeing. While his back was turned, Leia frantically used the Force to rearrange all of the pieces so that she had the slightest chance of winning. She felt sweat drip down her brow as Vader returned holding a cup of Mintea and sat back down across from her. However, he did not seem to notice that she had cheated and moved all of his pieces. He simply carried on, acting as if nothing had happened and beat her with a completely unanticipated killing blow to her Imperator. She flinched, thinking he would kill her for being such a terrible and boring player to compete against. But he simply stood up and walked out without another word, apparently satisfied with his wins.
After this, Leia asked Vader to play some more dejarik and Moebius with her. She did not dare to open a Shah-tezh board in front of him anymore. Thankfully, she had a bit more experience with dejarik and was even able to land a few (mostly) organic wins. Most times Vader would still beat her at Moebius, so she invented a new strategy of waiting until his back was turned to remove as many of his pieces as she could using the Force. When he turned back around, he never seemed to notice or get angry at her for cheating and just continued. One time he still managed to beat her despite Leia having knocked over more than half of his pieces. When he got up to leave, it was probably for the better as she could barely contain her annoyance with him and was on the verge of throwing the whole board at his face.
Does he seriously not get tired of this? she thought to herself furiously. I'm his daughter! He should have the decency to let me win at least once in a while, she huffed.
Nonetheless, Vader did not have any complaints of unfair play whenever she did manage to win against him. After a while, Leia worked up the boldness to ask him for a reward in exchange for beating him. She had braced herself for him to fly into a rage and snarl at her for making ridiculous demands, but instead he took her request seriously.
"Fine. What do you want?"
Leia was slightly taken aback. She had not expected him to actually accept her request.
Her tongue burned with the desire to say, "Free Ben and Ahsoka." But she knew that was completely off the table. There were some absurd requests that could be fulfilled, like asking for an extremely expensive and hideous Jakobeast fur coat that appeared in her closet only days after she sarcastically mentioned it. But there were also some requests that she did not dare ask of him, for they would spell her death.
"A droid," Leia found herself answering. "I want a droid. Not a service or protocol one. Just a toy droid, the kind for playing with."
Vader frowned, perplexed. If his daughter requested it, he could have an entire army of first-class droids specially manufactured just for her. He hunched over, trying to get closer so he could better hear what she was saying. Leia cowered in her seat, trembling as he loomed above her.
"A droid?" he asked. "You want me to buy you a cheap, mass-produced children's toy?"
Leia slowly nodded her head, feeling a chill run down her back.
Vader stood up, deep in thought. "Very well," he said. "It may take a while to arrive."
Leia shook in her seat, positive that he had seen through her plan. But nothing happened. Vader just strolled out of her room, same as always, and came back a few days later holding what she had requested. It was a new model that had recently gotten popular among Coruscant children. Unfortunately, none of the metal alloys that its parts were manufactured from were compatible with LOLA.
Leia swallowed, standing up and reaching out to take it from his hands.
"Thank you," she said nervously. Vader watched her as she held it up to the light and made a show of looking it over. She awkwardly looked back at him, expecting him to lose interest and leave, but he was still watching her. "Um...do you have something to say?" she asked awkwardly.
Vader stared back at her.
"Do you like it?" he asked.
Leia looked down at her feet, feeling sweat drip down the back of her neck under his heavy gaze.
"Yes," she lied, hoping that he would not see through her.
After that, she made a habit of challenging him to a game of holochess and asking for a new droid in exchange for beating him. Vader complied each time without any complaints, not even betraying a hint of annoyance. Once he gave her the new droid, she would bow to him to express her thanks then wait until he was gone so she could run to hide under her bed and dismantle it. Then each night she would get to work trying to transfer the new parts to LOLA.
She expected Vader to catch onto her plot but he never questioned her. Only once he asked her why she never requested dresses or candy or other things that little girls her age usually wanted. In a moment of panic, she told him that she was just very clumsy and kept accidentally breaking her droids by playing with them too hard. She expected him to fly into a rage and angrily lecture her about breaking his expensive gifts, but instead he just started giving her multiple models of each droid as a sort of preventative measure. He even had a small secret cubbyhole installed in the room where he worked, allowing her to leave her toys behind so that she would have something to play with whenever she visited him. She almost felt guilty, taking advantage of his generosity to go behind his back.
Remember, he's not your real father, she scolded herself as she fixed the screws on LOLA's plating. He's killed hundreds of other children. He's only keeping you here because he wants to use you to crush the Rebellion. If he didn't need more information about them, he would've also killed you a long time ago.
And yet, despite how many times she tried to repeat those words to herself, she found herself having a harder and harder time believing it.
She kept waiting and waiting for the day where Vader would finally grow bored of her, but it never seemed to come. He sure was taking his sweet time with killing her. After a while, he stopped asking her questions about the Rebel Alliance and let their breakfasts drift into vaguely companionable silence. He watched her eat, she watched him fly, and then they played games of holochess or flew around together. That became their new routine.
At night, she crawled into her bed and dreamed of stealing his ship so she could fly back to Alderaan, where her mother and father would eagerly greet her. Sometimes the dreams ended happily. But sometimes they ended with Vader angrily following her home and threatening to kill her parents. She often woke up in a sweat, begging the empty space in front of her to spare their lives.
The nightmares were scary, but they kept her on her toes. They reminded her that she had a home to go back to. They reminded her of her real family. They kept her from forgetting.
One day, she grew tired of playing holochess. She had nothing else to do to entertain herself. Out of boredom, she brought out two of the newest droids that Vader had gifted her from her cubbyhole and started to play with them the way she used to back when she was still a carefree child.
It had been a while since she had actually used a toy droid for its intended purpose. Leia became so absorbed that she hardly realized that she was being watched. When she glanced up, she saw Vader standing above her, watching silently. She immediately straightened up and started to put them, away, expecting him to tell her to clean up after herself. However, to her surprise she found two more brand new droids in her cubbyhole the next day.
Leia was puzzled. She had not broken any droids recently. She also had not beaten him at holochess. There was no reason for him to give her more toys.
Unless...he wanted her to play with them.
She thought it would be extremely uninteresting for him, but Vader spent hours quietly sitting and observing her without commanding her to do something else. It seemed that he was perfectly content to just sit there and watch her. This came to her as a relief, meaning that he was unlikely to stop purchasing them for her. Nonetheless she still needed to keep him from discovering her true intentions with them.
She needed to get him off her trail by requesting something else.
"You want a book?" Vader asked, looking down at her in a sort of curious way.
"Yes," Leia said, sweating. "To read with." She felt stupid, as if she had just told him she would like a hat to put on her head or a chair to sit on. Of course you're going to read it, idiot. What else would you do with it? Eat it?
Vader continued to look at her strangely. "I didn't know you could read," was all he said before whirling around and walking away.
Leia fumed with annoyance, ready to grab him by the back of his cloak and strangle him with it.
Her new books arrived shortly afterwards. Leia grabbed them from him with a combination of genuine excitement and dread, unwrapping them as quickly as her tiny hands could. She was eager to see what he had deemed appropriate for a child of her age to read.
...In retrospect, she should have known better than to get her expectations up.
Basic military theory...Ancient philosophy...An Olys Corellisi dictionary...A copy of "The Princess" by Pash E. Levanite. Huh, I guess I should have expected as much of him, Leia thought drily.
She realized Vader was staring at her with a sharp jolt. "What?" she asked, annoyed.
"You do not seem excited to read them."
Leia blinked. "Oh," she said, feeling her cheeks heat up. "It's just, I've read these already," she said, embarrassed.
Vader seemed a bit surprised. "I see," he said, recovering quickly. He reached out to take them from her, but she grabbed onto them tightly.
"No," she said, "I like them. I'll reread them," she said stubbornly.
Vader just withdrew his hand quietly. Leia blushed and brought the books with her to her room, where she could read them in privacy.
The next day, Vader started quizzing her on the new books' content over breakfast. At first, she thought that he was testing her to see if she had actually read them. Eventually she realized that he was interested in hearing her opinions on the books themselves.
"I think Levanite has some interesting ideas about people," she replied. "But he is so shallow. He just sees them as pawns to manipulate. He seems like he would be dreadfully awful to talk to."
After that, Vader told her to bring the books with her to breakfast. "Read them for me," he said imperiously and Leia resisted the urge to snap at him. Thinking that he would easily grow tired of it, she pulled out the driest one and began reciting out loud from one of its dreariest passages. However Vader just watched her and listened without interrupting her.
"You didn't read the last paragraph," he pointed out once she had finished.
Leia flushed bright red and read it all over again. "Is that good?" she asked.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "You got a few words wrong." He then made her repeat them until he was satisfied with her pronunciation.
Soon, reading became a part of their routine as well. Leia would read her books aloud to him over her breakfast. Whenever she reached a passage that was too long or had words that she didn't understand she would try to read it quickly or skip over it, but Vader usually caught her and made her repeat it from the start. Eventually, she became quite annoyed with him and started reading slowly on purpose. But the slower she read, the more easily Vader caught her errors. She began to suspect that he was secretly reading the same books during his free time and memorizing them just so he could call out her mistakes and toy with her.
On one occasion, she had been playing with her droids on the floor while Vader seemingly dozed off temporarily. He suddenly sat up straight in his chair and looked down at her. "Read for me," he ordered her suddenly, and Leia froze.
"Now?" she asked. "But..." There was no dining table for her to sit at or prop her books on. "Where am I supposed to sit?" she asked, confused.
Vader gestured impatiently at her. She hastily grabbed the book lying facedown next to her, thanking the Force that he had not noticed the way its spine was slightly bent. Her mother would definitely have reprimanded her for treating such an expensive tome this carelessly.
She looked around, trying to find a place to sit, but Vader seemed to grow more annoyed the longer she made him wait. The only idea she could think of was if she sat in his lap, the way she did when her father read bedtime stories to her back home.
But...this is Vader. I'm sure he'll kill me if I try that, Leia thought to herself. He doesn't like to be touched.
Regardless, she realized that there was nowhere else to sit. Taking a deep breath, she walked over to him and started to awkwardly climb into his chair. It was not easy considering that she had to lug the heavy volume with her. Worst of all, Vader made no move to help her and just sat still waiting for her.
I'm TRYING, she thought irritably as Vader silently watched her struggle. Why don't you hurry up and give me a boost, you stupid old cyborg?
Eventually, he seemed to get the hint. As Leia grunted and pawed at the hem of his cloak with annoyance, she felt two robotic hands reach down and grab her, lifting her into the air and depositing her into his lap. She found herself staring directly at the eyes of his helmet, now seeing them up close like she had never before.
"Ready?" Vader asked flatly.
Leia snapped out of it and looked back down at her book. "Yes," she said awkwardly. She tried not to squirm too much as she fumbled with the book, trying to find the page she was on. But no matter how hard she tried she could not find it. Her hands were all sweaty and her fingers could not get the pages to turn properly.
"Did you forget what page you were on?" Vader asked, close enough to make her almost jump.
"Y-yes," Leia admitted.
Two hands came out from behind her and took the book from her hands. Slowly, they opened the book and thumbed through the pages. His fingers were a bit awkward, only capable of limited robotic movements and covered in thick black gloves. However he persisted, and soon she found herself staring down at her own crumpled dog-eared page with a small Mocoa spill in the left corner.
"Does this look familiar?" Vader asked.
Leia swallowed, looking at the giant crease on the page and starting to understand why her mother got so angry about leaving books facedown. "Yes," she said.
"Good." Vader paused. "Continue."
Thinking that he might shove her off if she moved too much, she tried to sit as still as possible. Unfortunately since she was so concentrating on not moving she ended up making ten times as many pronunciation errors as usual. However Vader was unusually patient that day. He calmly pointed out her mistakes and recited each word for her slowly. He even explained some of the more confusing passages to her. Leia found herself weirdly appreciating his explanations and by the end of it, she had grown comfortable enough that she mostly forgot the awkwardness of being so close to him.
In their following reading sessions, she let him lift her up to either sit next to him or in his lap. It was easier this way, anyway, since he could see what word she was having trouble with and immediately correct her. She began to leave all of her toys and books in the cubbyhole instead of in her room. She only ever used them in front of Vader anyways.
As she grew more confident with Olys Corellisi, Vader also switched out her dictionary for a High Galactic one, then Togruti, then Dathomiri, then some unknown language that she did not recognize.
"I suspect you already know Droidspeak," he remarked, "Considering how many you've destroyed."
Leia blushed. She had actually finished repairing LOLA and no longer needed any more droid parts. But she was not about to tell him that.
"I know a little," she said shyly.
At night she still dreamed of flying home. But now her dream had changed. When she ran to her father so he could scoop her into his arms, she no longer saw his face.
Instead, all she could see was Vader waiting expectantly.
Leia woke up in a cold sweat, even more terrified than she was after the nightmares in which Vader slaughtered everyone she loved in a fit of rage.
"No, no, no," she whispered to herself.
She turned on the light and hopped out of bed, pacing around, looking for something. She fumbled around, looking for her toys, but they were all gone. With a pang, she remembered that she had left in her cubbyhole.
Frustrated, she started using all of her strength to try and lift up her mattress. She had drawn a few pictures of her parents in secret to remember them by. She had learned to hide her drawings, as most of them ended up disappearing from her room after she was done making them (whether this was due to Reva trying to keep the place clean or Vader burning all evidence of her bad art skills, she did not know). Quickly, she reached underneath and pulled out the crumpled papers. She squinted at the crude sketches, desperately trying to recognize her parents' faces.
No.
No.
No.
NO!
"This is so stupid!" Leia screamed angrily, crumpling up the paper and throwing it across the room. Tears streamed down her face as she stomped across the room, howling and bawling with a rage like she had never felt before.
Vader had taken EVERYTHING away from her. He took her away from her friends, her parents, her entire planet. He was the one behind all of this.
She hated him.
She hated him so, so much.
"I hate him, I hate him, I hate him!" Leia shouted it as loudly as she could at the top of her lungs. "I hate him! I HATE HIM!" She yelled until her face was red.
"But that's not true, is it, Leia?" The voice in her mind taunted.
Leia crumpled over and covered her face in her hands.
"No, no, no!" she repeated brokenly. "I don't like him! I don't! I want my father back! My real father! I want to go home!"
"No you don't," the voice insisted. "You can't go back home anymore. Do you know why, Leia? It's because you are not a good girl. You can't even remember what your father looks like."
Leia trembled, still afraid of the truth.
"He didn't forget you, YOU forgot him."
"I didn't!" Leia howled. "I didn't, I didn't forget him!" she cried. "I didn't mean to, I swear!"
"You're not his real daughter anyway," the voice retorted. "He'll probably just replace you, just like how you replaced him."
Leia wailed loudly and ran out, sobbing uncontrollably.
As she ran through the hallways and staircases of the Fortress, she barely paid attention to what was in front of her. All she wanted was to get to her cubbyhole and bury her face in her books and toys as quickly as possible. Eventually, once she reached the door to Vader's office she pushed on it hard until it swung wide open. Leia ran forwards in a rush to get her hands back on her books.
Instead, she bumped into a person.
Leia gasped and drew back, expecting to see one of the Purge Troopers. Her field vision was obscured for several seconds by a long black cloak. When she looked up, she made direct eye contact with two glowing amber eyes. She shrank back and watched in silent horror as whatever she had bumped into turned around. Now she could see the creature faintly illuminated by the strange light of a pod behind them.
This isn't Vader's room, she realized with a jolt. This is a monster's den.
She opened her mouth to scream as the monster turned to look at her. She stared up at its deformed face with ghastly, wrinkled pale skin and numerous scars running across it. Its bright yellow eyes bulged horrendously wide with fury. In the place where its mouth should have been there was a horrifying black apparatus, a sort of muzzle that emitted a strange and terrifying noise.
Leia screamed and drew back, realizing that it was looking at her, It was coming for her, reaching for her with its metallic fingers and screaming bloody murder with its horrible automated mouth.
Wait, no, she stopped herself. I know that sound!
It wasn't a monster.
It was Vader.
"You stupid little girl," he snarled furiously. "Now you really are going to die."
He grabbed her with his ungloved prosthetic hand. Leia snapped back to reality and screamed loudly, yanking her wrist out of his cold metallic grip. He tried to run after her but she was faster.
She flew across the hallways and stairs, feeling her veins pulse rapidly as a rush of adrenaline ran through them. She could hear Vader screaming and stomping after her but she did not turn around. She kept her eyes focused ahead of her as she obeyed her body's natural instinct and ran without stopping.
Vader cursed her name and kept yelling at her to stop, but she did not let up until she finally reached the door of her room and slammed it shut. She immediately ran to her bed and hid underneath it. LOLA faintly sensed her and activated, buzzing weakly to try and comfort her. Leia curled into a ball and clutched the small droid to her chest, trembling and shaking uncontrollably.
This is where it all ends, she thought to herself. I'm sorry, Daddy. I tried. I really tried.
Vader pounded on her door angrily, demanding that she open it immediately. But Leia covered her ears and refused to listen.
"I want my father," she whispered. "I miss him. I wish he was here."
Outside, Vader continued to scream and bang on her door.
"He wouldn't do that. He's nothing like this."
"COME OUT!" Vader yelled. "COME OUT HERE, NOW! OPEN THIS DOOR!"
Leia shivered and hid her face in her arms.
"LEIA, LET ME IN NOW!" Vader snarled. "DON'T MAKE ME WAIT!"
"Come on, Leia," the voice in her head told her. "Why are you keeping him waiting? You should let him in soon, if you don't want him to be angry."
"I'm just...so...tired," Leia sobbed. "I'm tired of trying to keep him happy all the time. I don't want him to come in! Make him go away!"
"You're being selfish, Leia. You know what happens when you're not good."
"I don't care! I don't like him, I don't want him to, I don't want-I don't want-"
"There's no use crying. You're already ten years old, you're too old to cry anymore. You're not a baby."
"But I'm so tired-"
"Leia, you know what happens when you're bad. You don't want anything to happen to Ben and Ahsoka, do you? What if they get hurt because you didn't open the door at the right time?"
Leia sobbed louder and louder as the banging continued. She covered her ears, too overwhelmed to think of anything. All she could hear was a loud ringing and the sound of Vader's screaming echoing in the back of her mind.
He's going to kill me if I let him in, I know it. I just know it.
Leia panted, fumbling around and reaching inside of LOLA's compartment. LOLA beeped anxiously and Leia immediately shushed her by closing a hand over her voicebox.
Please, I need something, something, ANYTHING that can get me out of here.
She fumbled with the small instruments hidden inside the compartment, pulling out the tiny buzzsaw.
"You can't defend yourself against Vader with that."
Leia wailed loudly and slammed her fist against the floor, cutting it on a piece of scrap metal. She could feel a little blood trickle down her hand, but she didn't care anymore. All she wanted was to be back home safe and happy again. Not pretending to be the long-lost pseudo-daughter of a psychopathic murderer that could kill her at any second.
"Leia?"
Leia froze, alert. Every bone in her body stood as still as possible as she listened carefully.
"Leia," Vader called out again, a little unsure this time. "Open this door, please." Leia buried her face in her arms again, trembling. "I won't hurt you. Just open it."
LOLA buzzed anxiously next to her. Leia pulled her close, hugging her tightly. She could feel the vibration of LOLA's mechanical heart against her own.
"Leia, why aren't you answering me?"
Leia inhaled shakily, feeling her heart palpitate in her chest.
"You know you have to do it, Leia. There's no other way."
"I don't want to."
"You don't have a choice."
"Daddy will save me. He'lll...he'll come for me and make him go away."
"No, Leia. He's not coming. Nobody is."
The pounding stopped.
"You're not a baby anymore, Leia. You can handle the truth. You know why your father hasn't seen anyone in a week to look for you. You know why it's been a month and you're still stuck here. You know exactly why you're here, and not back at home with Mommy."
"No," Leia gasped, trying to block the voice from her thoughts. "No, no, you're lying, you're lying-"
"It's because he's given up on you."
Leia choked out a sob. On the other end of the door, she could still hear Vader pleading for her to open it. She squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could disappear into the darkness underneath her bed and not come back.
"You can deny it but you can't hide from what you are. You're the daughter of a monster. You know what that means, don't you? You're destined to become a monster just like your father someday. You may hate him but someday, you're gonna be just like him, too."
"No! You're wrong! I am not! I'm not like him!"
"Leia, look at yourself. You already forgot your father's face. You let Ben and Ahsoka get captured and suffer because of you. You're bad, and you make bad things happen to other people."
LOLA buzzed again, trying to get her attention, but it was useless.
"There is only one person in this whole world who knows exactly what you are and still wants you," the voice hissed. "Do you really think your father will send for you now that he knows you are the daughter of his worst enemy? Think about what that would do to his reputation. He probably already realized the truth, which is that he's much better off without you."
Vader was still calling her name. She could hear it faintly, but she did not register anything else. She was too overwhelmed to process any sounds right now.
"You can't exactly be mad at him, Leia. After all, you failed him first."
Leia sobbed quietly.
"Now tell me, Leia. What are you going to do?"
The marble door to the room slid aside slowly. Leia walked forwards, feeling as if her limbs were made of wood. She watched apathetically as the tall figure knelt down and wrapped his arms around her. Before she could react, Vader grabbed her tightly and pulled her into a cold embrace.
She could faintly register him hugging her, like the way a child holds onto a doll that it refuses to share or the way that a dog guards its most prized possession. She could feel his robotic hands squeezing her shoulders and tangling themselves in her hair. It was all full of screws and scrap metal. In the past, she had been careful not to let him see her like this in case he might find out about the droid parts. Now she couldn't bring herself to care about it.
"Leia," Vader whispered hoarsely, sobbing quietly. "Don't leave me. Don't leave me again," he trembled.
Leia stared at him blankly. Her hand was bleeding, but she couldn't feel it.
"Leia, please, say something," Vader begged. "Don't ignore me like this. Say something," he shook her. "Why aren't you saying anything?"
Leia opened her mouth, feeling as if she was still dreaming. "I...hurt my hand," she said slowly.
Vader seized her hand and stared at it, horrified. She watched detachedly as he sent a wave of Force energy through her, trying to heal the cuts. Once it closed up, he turned and looked back up at her with the same desperate eyes.
"Say that you won't leave me," he begged, gripping her shoulders so tightly that she could faintly register some pain. "Say that you'll stay with me forever."
Leia stared back at him.
Nothing she could say would really make a difference. She might as well agree.
"I'll take you anywhere you want," he whispered. "We can go flying anytime you want, to anywhere you like."
Except Alderaan, the voice reminded her. Never Alderaan.
Leia closed her eyes, finally understanding her role.
Ben and Ahsoka couldn't protect her, but she could protect them like this. This way their suffering wouldn't be for nothing.
"Yes," she breathed numbly.
Vader embraced her tightly again.
This time, Leia slowly reached up and forced herself to hug him back.