For the first time in the three years since he fell to the Dark Side, Lord Darth Vader felt Anakin Skywalker's impatience. As he waited for Bail Organa to arrive, his normally menacing presence of black armor and rasping breath mask had been rendered as nothing more than a small shadow against the brightness of Alderaan's palace.
A breeze gently stirred the leaves of a large plant that dressed one archway of the walled courtyard. Without knowing they did it, the Alderaani staffing the palace lifted their faces to it, feeling the warmth of the sun and an early summer in its touch.
Vader could not feel the breeze or smell its scents. All those pleasant things ended at his battle with Kenobi and his rebirth inside the armor. A sense of smell was not a necessary life function, so the respirator that gave him air never allowed for something as a warm, beautiful day. He saw the breeze sway the plants and heard its sound. But he was forever cut off from such a touch of life.
His breath hitched, and he cursed that he let the thing bother him. People's heads swung to stare at the harsh sound, suddenly silenced, with wide eyes and a swallow going down some throats.
Fear. He tasted the waves of it as if the breeze blew it towards him.
He spread the fingers of both hands and then clenched them into fists, making that singular creaking sound of leather tightening and being released. Some held their ground and feigned going about their business as if they didn't shrink from his displeasure. Others scurried from the courtyard through the columns and archways faster than they had entered. Most likely, they went to tell their viceroy that Lord Vader should not be kept waiting any longer.
Much better.
He had insisted the Viceroy come to him, robbing the older man from feeling secure in his court or his offices. That decision had proven to be a mistake. Instead of a Sith Lord making a subordinate hasten to him, he looked like an underling awaiting the Senator's favor. He had given Organa the power position, not taken it from him.
He fought not to pace. Darth Vader, who commanded the surety of the Dark Side, had aged in three years, but not matured.
No, that sounded like Kenobi's judgment.
Maturity... He knew power and had to use it. He had learned the affects of a held breath and flexed gloves. He commanded with mere presence. Kenobi was wrong. He had matured or he could not have brought the galaxy to order.
And the next time he met Kenobi -- and yes, he was certain ObiWan was alive somewhere -- he would show his old master just how much he had grown. All that he had mastered.
What was it Kenobi had said once? "I swear you will be the death of me"?
He had been right.
A commotion sounded behind him, and something slammed into the back of his leg. He got a blurred snapshot of a small brunette head on top of a fast moving little body that didn't even bother to look up at what it had hit. It just picked itself up, muttering something, and ran around him. It slowed down enough to scramble up on a bench and then, with no fear, nimbly climbed up to stand on the long seat's wide back.
A girl. A very young, small girl.
A pair of big brown eyes looked around Vader, back in the direction from where she had come. A huge grin brightened the tiny face. She was apparently pleased with whatever she saw -- or didn't see - behind him.
The girl was avoiding someone. She was either in trouble or soon would be. Whenever he and his friends had been in trouble at her age, they had the same look.
No, not him. Anakin! He, Vader, never carried the feeling of avoiding trouble.
She blew her bangs from her eyes and tucked medium length, dark hair behind her ears, the sleeves of her light blue and tan tunic slipping down skinny arms. Twin, small braids wrapped from her temples around to the back, crowning her head.
She noticed him at last. From her height standing on the back of the bench, her head didn't have to travel very far as she looked up and down him. He waited for her fear, for her to turn and run.
"Why are you wearing that?"
... No fear -- no panic. She had no idea, no concept that he could be dangerous to her. She just stood there, framed by the rows of trees and white stonework archways that wrapped around the circular courtyard...
...The way the younglings at the Jedi Temple used to greet him, no concept that the world held any threats for them.
...The way Padmé had been so shocked to find out the slave trade existed and held children in its ranks. Big brown eyes had stared at him, and her dark hair braided as she stood in Watto's junkshop in her simple blue tunic.
You're a strange little boy.
"Didn't you hear me?" Small eyebrows drew together in a frown, waiting and getting tired of it. "Why are you wearing that?"
He failed to see the resemblance to the way a slave boy, towheaded and blue eyed, had boldly claimed I'm a person and my name is Anakin.
He tried not to think of that boy. Or the younglings at the Temple.
But he remembered Padme's eyes.
Padmé... he had not said her name out loud since he had found out she was dead. He didn't like the sound of his new voice saying it -- he hated Palpatine saying it -- but in his own heart--
"Maybe you can't hear well because you're wearing that helmet." The girl thought about that, then hopped from the bench to its seat and then to the ground. She dashed across the yard like she had before (the girl pulsed with so much energy - so much life was tightly packaged in her small frame), and braked to a halt right in front of him. Now she tilted her head all the way back to see his... face. Those big, round eyes took a very long time to make it all the way up. Now would come the fear.
She drew in a big breath. "WHY ARE YOU WEARING THAT BLACK SUIT?"
She had a lot of volume too.
"ARE YOU COLD? IS THAT WHY?"
She just stood there, just looked up at him, the way the younglings had. The way his wife had when she first met... Anakin.
The child Padmé had been carrying could have been very like this girl. He and his wife might have had a daughter, someone with big brown eyes who would have looked up at him and had no reason to fear.
She looked the right age. If things had been different...
Another female with dark eyes and hair to smile him into doing her bidding. What started with his mother and then carried into Padmé could have gone another generation. From slave woman to Queen/Senator wife... to a daughter. Yes, one with Shmi's endurance under torturous hardship and Padmé's compassionate embrace as a leader. The huge amounts of love both had held in their hearts -- and in their dark eyes.
But his daughter would never have known hardship and pain. No... heartbreak. He would have seen to that. If life had taken different turns...
This girl tugged -- actually, tugged -- at his cape. "Hello!"
The child couldn't hear the weight in his voice or understand how his memories dragged at him. "I do not need to answer a child."
"Well, that's rude! They tell me not to be bad. You can't be bad either!"
He also failed to recognize the same expression when he used to taunt Sebulba or gave back ObiWan's lectures in defiance.
"Aren't you -- afraid?" Even though he didn't want someone with those eyes to look at him ever again in fear, he had to hear her say it. Because he couldn't believe it. No one ever just... looked at him anymore.
"Why? Because you're big?"
Who was she? Who produced such a child --
"My father's big and his voice sounds big too. I'm not scared of him, so I don't have to be scared of you. Even if you're rude and he's not." She stressed that last part, scowling at him. Scarred cheeks hidden inside his helmet almost -- almost creaked into a smile.
He hadn't been comfortable with children since...
Vader didn't allow Anakin's memory of three years ago, not of the Jedi Temple and the children running to him for protection and he instead igniting his lightsaber to--
No, thinking of that had no purpose. Neither did staring at some little girl.
Padmé had teased him that he wanted a son, but he hadn't cared. In fact... in fact, he would have liked a daughter who took after Padmé. Big brown eyes and long flowing hair. The way she tucked under his chin when he held her.
The girl's big eyes grew rounder. "Are you a stormtrooper?"
Now when she at last showed some concern, he didn't see it. With her no longer blocking the view behind the bench, he got a glimpse of the water hugging the palace's shores. The dam he had put around Padmé cracked, memories pushing faster through its fissures.
I want to have our baby back home on Naboo. We could go to the lake country. . . I know the perfect spot, right by the gardens.
The perfect place where they would be safe, she had said. Naboo would have been blessed with her daughter, who would have learned everything from her mother as she grew up in a setting like this, alongside lakes and gardens. Naboo would have had a new Queen, a new Senator, and he and Padmé would have watched in pride.
The way Shmi had looked at him, even as she died and he had come too late.
His gloves creaked again as his hands fisted once more, squeezing hard against themselves. The dam broke wide, Padmé bursting out from where he had buried her. His breath came fast and hard, the indicators lights on his chest flashing with his stress. The plants around him lashed under a nonexistant wind, and the bench trumbled like the ground as the Force reverberated his pain in invisible waves around him.
He couldn't stop it, couldn't control it. Nor did he see the girl's wide eyes grow dazed and her hand clutching his cape as she nearly stumbled. Her little mouth parted and her lips moved ever so slightly as if something spoke through her.
Padmé's quizzical expression as he asked if she was an angel; the gentle way she tucked in a lonely cold boy, and her smile at his giving her a necklace. The Queen Amidala revealing who she was as she humbled herself before the Gungans so she could win their support and protect both their peoples. Her surprise at seeing him grown when they met again years later. ...The miracle of her husky voice telling him that she loved him, her nervousness while she waited for his response about her being pregnant.
The way she had looked so many times as he had simply watched her.
But he had buried her for a reason, because these memories were always replaced with the last time he saw her. The tears falling down her cheeks, her anguish--
I don't know you anymore. Anakin, you're breaking my heart. ... you are going down a path I can't follow.
He had yelled at her, knowing she had betrayed him with Kenobi. He had squeezed her throat through the Force and choked--
"Lord Vader."
Breha Organa.
His breath stopped. Behind the mask, what was left of seared eyelids tried to blink as sudden reality intruded and broke the hold of his memories. He said nothing, but just stared at her. The mask hid his struggle, giving him, as always, the appearance of unbreakable command over himself and anyone he wanted bent to his will.
Breha Organa: another strong woman who shouldered the weight of serving a planet. She stood in her elaborate dress before him, unbowed even as she answered his demand to appear.
She reached a hand to the child that he just sensed was still at his boots. The girl ran to her, her face turned from him as she clutched at the woman. An Organa. The girl was an Organa. She belonged to Breha, not Padmé. To Alderaan as their princess, not to Naboo.
Because of him. Because of his choking Padmé and then throwing her, no line existed from his mother to his wife to a child. No sons and no daughters because of him.
No! Because of Kenobi! If he hadn't interfered, if he hadn't turned Padmé against her own husband, she would have understood...!
The girl turned to look once over her shoulder, dark bangs further blocking her face. But her stare held...
"I apologize if Leia has bothered you."
Leia. He noted the name, let it sink in. Leia Organa.
Not Skywalker or Amidala or Naberrie. Not Naboo's or Tatooine's. Just another child in a large galaxy, in a sea of millions of little girls with big brown eyes. They weren't Padmé's eyes. They weren't Shmi's. They just belonged to the Organas' brat.
With that as a weapon, he shoved Padmé back behind the dam.
Breha stood, neither kowtowing nor lifting her head in a battle for superiority. Strong and composed. No wonder her daughter had watched him, totally unflappable. The Organas were teaching their daughter well. "My husband or I would have greeted you upon your arrival had we known you were coming, Lord Vader."
He was grateful for his voice synthesizer now. It never sounded weak, not even after remembering a murdered wife. "My schedule does not require your knowing it, Your Highness."
She gave a mere bow of her head, acknowledging he was right. Still unshaken. "That is true. I only explain why we were away from Aldera when you arrived. Bail was settling a matter in the Raanera district, but his last communication puts him mere minutes behind me."
A deep, rich voice -- a big voice -- spoke from the garden's entrace. "Not even that."
Small Leia exclaimed, "Jera!" and leapt to Bail Organa, scrambling into his arms.
Jera: most likely some Alderaani word for Daddy. Anakin, inside Vader's helmet, turned from the sight and saw Breha step in line between he and her family. So similar to years ago... when he had spoken to Bail Organa in such harmony after rescuing the thenChancellor Palpatine from General Grievous, and found Padmé, framed by the space between her husband and Alderaan's Senator, waiting to tell him about her being pregnant.
Breha asked, "How may we help you, Lord Vader?" as her husband whispered to their daughter.
"The child should better disciplined." He was angry with the girl. He couldn't explain why.
Breha only nodded again. "I am sorry for her disturbing you."
He began protesting that nothing as insignificant as Leia Organa would ever cause a disturbance, especially to him or the might of the Emperor. The Queen, however, smoothly kept talking, giving him no opportunity to keep on about her daughter as she asked what business brought him to Alderaan.
She was a bulwark between he and the girl... and her husband. Firm, imperturbable.
Bail Organa sent Leia into the palace and Vader's unreasoning anger grew over being... cheated. Not at the girl, at... himself.
He squashed such ideas, and buried them with Padmé.
"Leia, do you remember your mother, your real mother?"
Breha Organa had been a very real mother to her, so Leia felt an instinctive temper at Luke's words that she quickly dismissed. He had not meant any insult.
"Just a little bit... She died when I was very young."
Very young. Bail Organa once told her that he had been there when she was born, and her mother had died mere minutes later, before she even held her newborn daughter.
"What do you remember?"
She shouldn't remember anything, not when she only had mere seconds before she was taken out of the delivery room by the droid who had brought her into the universe.
This was going in a much different direction than she thought it would when she came out here to him.
"Just images really...feelings."
No one knew why she had them; she didn't even know. Just as odd, she didn't seem to be in them. When she looked through her mind's eye at those memories, they didn't carry the weight of her being in that time and place. Like she looked through someone else's eyes.
Which didn't make any sense either. But the images were real, she hadn't dreamt them or made them up. Somehow, Leia had memories of a mother who had died when she was mere minutes old. It had made Breha and Bail nervous whenever she had brought it up.
Eventually she had stopped thinking about it, the way she had stopped asking about who that mother had been and where was her father. The Organas were her parents, and she was one of those adopted children who had stopped needing anything or anyone else.
Then one dark night, when she and Luke had sat shoulder to shoulder for warmth, two orphans staring out into a black, war torn future, he had told her all his lonely little boy's dreams of wishing he could remember his mother. And her heart aching, she had told him she understood what that was like.
"Tell me," Luke said.
He was so intense, he seemed to need to hear it so badly. She remembered when she had asked those sorts of questions. So she scraped together the memories that were just impossible for her to have.
The face... of an angel.
"She was beautiful--"
An angel who reached out to lonely children and a world of people.
"--kind--"
Who face cried with total, wrenching loss as if her heart was crushed.
"-- but sad."
Luke, her best friend in the world, wore that same lonely boy's expression from that dark night when they had last talked about this.
"I never knew my mother. I have no memory of her."
Leia always hurt when Luke did. Tonight was no different. Something was so wrong, something ate at him, and had been eating at him for months. She saw it, even when he smiled and everyone else thought he was fine.
Ask me again sometime, he had told her.
"Luke, tell me. What's troubling you?"
When he met her eyes, she felt frightened. "There's more. It won't be easy for you to hear it, but you must."
Something reared out of the shadows where it had been hidden, buried...
... something she had always known even though she shouldn't...
"– my sister has it," Luke said.
... the way she somehow had been given memories of her mother.