fic: Just a Little Bit of History Repeating (Star Wars; Darth Vader & Princess Leia; gen)
Just a Little Bit of History Repeating
Star Wars; Darth Vader & Princess Leia; AU; g; 3,735 words
"I'm in charge of security, Your Highness," Vader said, haughty and automatic, and had to shove away a sudden onslaught of memories. It was this building, he thought, and the presence of a small brunette senator with a smart mouth. That was all.
Title & cut text from the Propellerheads. You know all those stories where Luke and Vader get stranded and have to work together and family revelations happen? This is like that except with Leia.
Or read it at AO3.
~*~
Just a Little Bit of History Repeating
Assassination attempts in the Senate decreased sharply after the Emperor came to power, at least the ones that took place in the actual Senate building. As such, over the years, when he was not present while the Senate was in session, security had become lax. Needless to say, it was a bit of a shock to everyone in the massive room the day half a dozen assassin droids spilled out of the vents and began shooting.
Darth Vader was, unfortunately, present, and able to make short work of the droids, even though he felt that the Empire would be better off if some of the sybaritic sycophants who served in the Senate were destroyed. He was no politician but he understood that it would look bad if they were murdered on his watch rather than at his command.
During the fight, he found himself in a repulsor pod with the new young senator from Alderaan, who appeared to be the main target of the assassin droids. Surprisingly for someone raised on such an allegedly peace-loving planet, young Senator Organa had deadly aim with her blaster. The blaster she should not have been able to bring into the building at all. Vader would definitely be speaking to the head of Senate Security when this farce of a firefight was over.
The senator seemed to have no regard for her personal safety, and it was with growing annoyance that Vader deflected blaster bolts aimed her way while she took out several assassin droids with her non-regulation blaster.
"Enough," he said finally, his limited patience having run out, and with a crushing display of the Force, he disassembled the remaining droids. "You must have powerful enemies, Princess, if they are attacking you here."
"Then I must be doing something right," she replied, brushing back strands of hair that had come loose from the complicated twists over her ears. She holstered her blaster and looked up at him without fear. Her mouth tightened, as if she were recognizing for the first time who she had been fighting beside, but otherwise she gave no sign of being frightened. "I suppose you think I owe you thanks."
He hooked his fingers in his belt and inclined his head. "I did save your life."
"I was doing fine on my own," she said. "I didn't need your help." There was a significant pause before she added, "My lord."
"I'm in charge of security, Your Highness," he replied, haughty and automatic, and had to shove away a sudden onslaught of memories. It was this building, he thought, and the presence of a small brunette senator with a smart mouth. That was all.
"Well, you're doing a great job," she said, gesturing to the scattered array of smoking droid parts surrounding them.
He glared down at her, using every inch of his height to intimidate, but after a brief flare of fear, he felt nothing from her at all except chilly annoyance. He reached out with the Force to probe her mind, and was slapped away decisively. There was no sign of what should have been tremendous effort on her face.
Someone had taught her that, and taught her so young that it was reflex rather than thought. She would bear investigation. Her father had been close to the Jedi, after all.
The repulsor pod brought them back to the balcony and he leapt out nimbly, then turned and offered her a hand. The gesture was complete before he had time to think about it, force of habit despite the lapse of many years, and yet again, he clenched his jaw against the memories.
Princess Leia glanced down at his hand before taking it with a frown of her own. Once her feet were on solid ground, she said, "Good day, Lord Vader," as if dismissing a servant.
His hand curled into a fist and he thought about teaching her a very public lesson, but a squad of stormtroopers was heading their way from one direction, and Mon Mothma was heading their way from the other.
"Hmph," he said, turning away as if she were beneath his notice. Which she was at the moment, despite her likely connection to the growing rebel alliance.
He excoriated the troops mercilessly but saved the brunt of his ire for their commander, and felt slightly better when the man paled and shuddered under his gaze.
He did not let himself brood on the princess and her unlikely resemblance to the woman he'd once loved.
*
The princess, he discovered, had been a war orphan, adopted into House Organa because Queen Breha had been unable to successfully carry a child to term despite several attempts. She had not taken the aptitudes, so Vader had no way of knowing just how strong in the Force she was, but then, her path had been laid out for her the moment the Organas adopted her. Empty politics and the meaningless pageantry of royalty. What a waste.
He had not been on Coruscant when she was presented to the Emperor, but the report that he had been delighted by her pretty face made it all too clear that she was not taken seriously. Even having spent only minutes at her side, Vader could imagine how poorly she had taken that. It was likely part of what drove her to her ridiculous crusades on the Outer Rim. She was, he learned, beloved of the holonet, though that was likely for her pretty face and pretty words, rather than for her visits to less fortunate worlds in an attempt to bring injustice to light.
He should have known his interest would not go unnoticed.
"You will accompany the young Senator from Alderaan on her latest mercy mission," the Emperor told him, voice dripping with scorn. "And make sure she returns to Coruscant by Empire Day, unharmed."
"She will have her own security force," Vader said. "I cannot imagine my presence to be necessary."
"It is not imagination but foresight that tells me it is," the Emperor replied sharply. "Regardless, you shall do as I wish."
Vader gritted his teeth, glad for once of the mask that kept his expression hidden, and swept into a bow. "Yes, Master."
"There was a time you would have jumped at the chance for such a mission, Lord Vader." The mockery in his tone was pointed. "Time alone with a pretty young senator."
A muscle spasmed painfully in Vader's jaw. "Those days are long gone, my Master."
"Yes, they are." The Emperor dismissed him with a gesture and Vader stalked away, irate and looking for someone to take his temper out on.
Traffic from the Imperial Palace to the Senate building made as fine a target as could be had, and Vader ignored all safety and traffic regulations in his sour mood.
*
The princess and a small three-man security force were in the process of loading her ship when Vader arrived at the hangar. It was a small Correllian cruiser that was fast and maneuverable but not new or showy enough to get her highness into immediate trouble on the Outer Rim.
"Your Highness," he said, and all activity ceased. "The Emperor has commanded me to accompany you in order to assure your safety on this trip to," he paused, caught out by his own ignorance for a moment, and then continued on, "whatever Force-forsaken rock has taken your fancy this week."
Leia's jaw tightened and her nostrils flared. There was a deep wellspring of anger in her; he could feel it, and it called to the rage always simmering within him.
Though he had trained many an Inquisitor, he had never once felt the desire to take an apprentice. He could begrudgingly admit, to himself if no one else, that he still had much to learn from his master. And the idea prodded wounds he'd thought long scarred over. But this slip of a girl, with her reflexive shielding, her anger at being dismissed, and her passion for hopeless crusades...She had the political acumen he disdained, and the will to use it, if she could just be honed and pointed in the right direction. He would have to meditate on it, but the Force was singing rightness in his mind.
"Lord Vader," she said, "I wouldn't want to take you away from your important duties here on Coruscant."
"Nothing is more important than carrying out the Emperor's orders," he replied.
She nodded grimly, as caught as he was in this absurdity of the Emperor's making. "Of course."
"You may dismiss your companions," he said, looking at the small honor guard preparing the ship and crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm sure you shall have no need of them while under my protection."
Leia swallowed hard but otherwise didn't let her dismay show. "Of course," she repeated and gave the nod to the head of her security force. "I'll be in touch when we land."
"Very good, Your Highness. We'll wait to hear from you." The three men bowed and left.
Leia turned to Vader and folded her arms over her chest. He wasn't sure the mimicry was intentional, but it amused him nonetheless. He waited with surprising anticipation for whatever cutting words she'd come up with next, but all she said was, "Let's go then." Another significant pause. "My lord."
"After you, Your Highness." He gestured in a way that once might have been courtly but was now simply impatient.
She stalked up the gangplank and he followed, biting back a sigh at the ridiculousness of the whole situation.
There was another awkward moment when they both moved towards the pilot's seat, but his superior bulk won out and he crowded her away from it. Bad enough he had to go on this foolish mission; he wasn't going to be ferried around by some chit of a girl barely old enough to have a pilot's license.
They were cleared for takeoff quickly and he settled into the pilot's seat. No matter how unfortunate the situation, flying always put him more at ease.
"Where are we going?" he finally asked as they reached escape velocity and left the atmosphere.
"Rattatak. The pirate infestation has worsened and there have been reports of both Black Sun and Zygerrian slavers taking advantage of the situation."
He glanced over curiously. "Slavers?"
"Despite the apparent legality of slavery within the Empire," she said, "it's still wrong." She met his gaze squarely and he had the sudden uncomfortable feeling that she could see through his mask to his eyes. "People are not things and shouldn't be treated as such." Her mouth curved in a mirthless smile. "This is the peace and order you enforce, my lord." She invested his title with venom enough to sting.
Peace is a lie, he thought, struggling to maintain his hold on his temper, as if mantras and meditation had ever helped with that. That this pampered princess chose to lecture him about slavery was outrageous.
"Yes," she said, as if he'd spoken aloud. "Peace without justice is a lie."
This time, his look was sharp and probing. He hadn't thought he was broadcasting, but the fact that she picked it up meant she was strong in the Force indeed.
He didn't have time to contemplate this revelation, though, as a sleek corvette jumped into space in front of them and began shooting.
Vader juked starboard and Leia grabbed the co-pilot's controls as if she thought he'd let her take over flying. He gave her an incredulous look, though sadly the effect was lost since she couldn't see his face. "Man the guns, if this ship has any. I will fly us out of this safely."
"I can fly," she snapped. "I thought you'd jump at the chance to kill something."
He ignored that in favor of more pressing concerns, as it was not necessarily untrue. "Have you ever flown in combat, Your Highness?"
She looked away. "I'll handle the guns." She unhooked her harness and headed into the gun turret.
A second, smaller ship joined the fray by also firing on them, and in a small, vague part of his mind not taken up with flying, Vader wondered if this whole thing had been a setup. It did seem like something his master would do, though to what end, Vader didn't yet know.
The princess was not quite as good a shot with a laser cannon as she was with a blaster, but that could also have been because he was keeping the ship moving in a non-standard evasion pattern, giving her little time to lock onto targets.
It would have worked too, had a third ship not dropped out of hyperspace directly in their path.
The navigation computer had not yet been programmed, and since Vader didn't know the coordinates for Rattatak off the top of his head--he wondered if the princess had intended to go there at all--he punched in the first thing that came to mind.
The princess destroyed the second ship that was attacking them and then turned her attention to the third. Unfortunately, that left their stern exposed to fire from the original enemy ship, and it landed a direct hit just as they jumped to lightspeed.
"Take the con," he said abruptly when Leia came back to the cockpit. "I will check to see what the damage was."
She nodded without argument, which was pleasing. She had a cool head under fire and she understood the circumstances well enough to work with him despite the discord between them.
Less pleasing was the state of the hyperspace drive. It had gotten them into hyperspace, but it was unlikely that condition would last as long as necessary to reach the destination he'd automatically entered into the computer. He tried not to think of all the ways past habits had come roaring back to life in the presence of the princess. And it was probably best if they didn't get to Naboo; surely the Emperor suspected it would be Vader's emergency destination of choice, and more of the same would be waiting when they arrived.
Because this had Sidious's oily fingerprints all over it. Vader might never have grasped the reasons for the Emperor's recursive plotting, but he recognized it easily after so many years of watching it play out.
To what end now, though, he wondered as he did what he could to ensure the drive would last long enough to put them down on a planet rather than leave them drifting in space. Had the Emperor sensed Leia's powerful connection to the Force, he would have taken her to train himself. Was it just her striking resemblance to Padmé? Was this yet another test of Vader's loyalty, or was Sidious simply amusing himself at Vader's expense? Or, he thought, more likely, it was some combination of the two. His mouth twisted in disgust. He'd never had much stomach for the labyrinthine machinations his masters preferred.
Leia raised an eyebrow inquisitively when he returned to the cockpit. "How kriffed are we?"
"Language, princess."
She laughed, and there was real humor in it this time in addition to disbelief. "My apologies, Lord Vader," she said, sketching an ironic bow. "I wouldn't want to offend your delicate sensibilities."
He snorted a surprised laugh, though the vocoder made it sound like more of a grunt. Which was fine; it wouldn't do to be caught laughing. His reputation wouldn't permit it.
"We won't reach our destination," he said, "but given these attacks, that's probably for the best. It will still be several days before we make planetfall, however, so I suggest you make yourself comfortable."
"And you as well," she replied, as courtesy demanded, more grudgingly than gracefully.
He glanced over at her. "I am never comfortable."
She raised her hands in mock surrender. "Then far be it from me to stand in the way of your misery."
He huffed, too softly for the vocoder to pick up on, for which he was grateful. She couldn't know she'd made him laugh twice in such a short span of time.
*
He spent his time in meditation in the cockpit. Sometimes Leia sat in the copilot's seat, datapad in hand as she caught up on whatever reading was required of an Imperial senator, considering it was a position with no real power and thus, no real reason to work.
It was almost familiar enough to lull him into imagining another life, but then she would say something sharp about the Empire, which allowed him to keep to the edge of discomfort.
On the third day, alarms blared loudly, waking him from the light doze that was all he allowed himself of sleep on missions, and they reverted to real space before he could do anything to ameliorate potential catastrophe. When he caught a glimpse of the planet outside the viewport, he thought it catastrophe enough.
Leia rushed into the cockpit, her hair a rat's nest of unravelling braids, her anxiety clear on her face before she smoothed it away. She would have been a formidable Jedi, he thought; she would make a powerful Sith, if he had his way.
"What's happening?" she demanded. "Where are we?"
The planet hung brown and gold beneath the light of its twin suns, and Vader grimaced beneath his mask. "Tatooine," he said roughly. "You'll find no lack of pirates and slavers here, Your Highness."
"I'm not familiar with it," she said, which was no surprise. Few people from Core worlds were.
"It's a Hutt-controlled planet," he said. "The spaceport is active enough that we should have no trouble finding the parts we require to fix the engine."
"Okay." Her hands moved deftly over her hair, taming it back into the braids that had come undone while she slept.
He watched, as fascinated as he'd ever been by the process.
"What?" she asked when he didn't look away. Her self-consciousness radiated strongly, reminding him that she was young, and not the woman he'd been thinking of.
"You remind me--" He stopped. The past was better left to the past, and the dead to the dead. It was one of the few things the Jedi and the Sith agreed upon. And yet, regardless of the Emperor's machinations, the Force had brought them here. "You remind me of a senator I once knew."
She leaned back in the chair, looking small and defenseless when he knew she was anything but. "I'm proud to remind you of my father."
"No," said Vader. "Not him." He drew in as deep a breath as his respirator would allow. He hadn't spoken her name in almost eighteen years. It wasn't spoken much by anyone outside of Naboo these days, and even there, only in remembrance of her death. "Senator Amidala." He said it as if it didn't feel like being set on fire all over again.
"Of Naboo?" Leia gave him a genuine smile. "She was a friend of my father's. I did a history project on her when I was a junior legislator, and I modeled my acceptance speech to the Senate after hers. She was a great woman."
"Yes." It was so low as to almost be subvocal but much too fervent for who he was now.
That won him a surprised look. And then she looked away, as if hiding some secret of her own. She gazed out at the planet hanging before them as if she were seeing something else entirely. "I used to dream of her."
Vader's breath caught but he said nothing in light of this confession. It might have seemed odd to some, but to him it was only just and right that people should dream of her, even so long after she was gone.
"She was so kind and beautiful and sad." Leia's voice was soft and faraway, as if she'd forgotten who she was talking to. "I used to dream she was my mother."
"What?" His voice sounded loud and strange even to his own ears.
Leia was jolted out of her reverie. "She died the day I was born," she said defensively. "I never knew my biological parents."
The Force thrummed around them, and if Vader had had any hair left, it would have prickled in warning. As it was, he shivered even inside the perfectly climate-controlled environment of his suit.
"I--" he began, and then stopped. Heartfelt revelations were not the province of the Sith, and it had been a long time since he had been anything else. Since he had wanted to be anything else. This could all be an elaborate joke by the Emperor. Vader would not put anything past him. But even he couldn't make the Force swell this way, make it ring with the rightness of truth. "When she told me she was pregnant," he said, forcing the words out before he lost the nerve, "I was sure she was having a girl."
Leia gasped, and when he looked over at her, her eyes were bright with unshed tears and her lower lip quivered slightly.
"I don't--I can't--" she managed.
"Search your feelings," he commanded her. "You know it to be true."
She blinked rapidly, then dashed at her eyes with the backs of her hands. So young and yet so wary of ever showing weakness. He understood that, as well.
"I'm not--I don't have the Force," she insisted, but he could tell by the light dawning in her eyes that she felt it too.
"You do," he said. "And together, we will overthrow the Emperor and remake the galaxy in Padmé's image." He clenched his fist around the stick so he didn't hold it out to her; he knew she wouldn't take it, and that rejection would hurt as much as her mother's had, at the end.
Leia laughed wetly, and then sobbed. Vader forced himself to sit still while she cried herself dry. She would take no comfort from his embrace, despite these revelations.
"Get us safely back to Coruscant," she finally said, after a few hiccuping breaths, "and we can discuss it."
He nodded and set course for Mos Espa. This homecoming would always sting, but the pain was lessened greatly by this new knowledge of the girl at his side.
The galaxy was hurtling towards another change, and it was only right that it should once again begin here with him, in the desert.
end
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Note: I'm not sure if it's canon or fanon that Anakin thought the baby was a girl? but I like the idea and it was useful here, so. *hands*
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Feedback is adored.
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Star Wars; Darth Vader & Princess Leia; AU; g; 3,735 words
"I'm in charge of security, Your Highness," Vader said, haughty and automatic, and had to shove away a sudden onslaught of memories. It was this building, he thought, and the presence of a small brunette senator with a smart mouth. That was all.
Title & cut text from the Propellerheads. You know all those stories where Luke and Vader get stranded and have to work together and family revelations happen? This is like that except with Leia.
Or read it at AO3.
~*~
Just a Little Bit of History Repeating
Assassination attempts in the Senate decreased sharply after the Emperor came to power, at least the ones that took place in the actual Senate building. As such, over the years, when he was not present while the Senate was in session, security had become lax. Needless to say, it was a bit of a shock to everyone in the massive room the day half a dozen assassin droids spilled out of the vents and began shooting.
Darth Vader was, unfortunately, present, and able to make short work of the droids, even though he felt that the Empire would be better off if some of the sybaritic sycophants who served in the Senate were destroyed. He was no politician but he understood that it would look bad if they were murdered on his watch rather than at his command.
During the fight, he found himself in a repulsor pod with the new young senator from Alderaan, who appeared to be the main target of the assassin droids. Surprisingly for someone raised on such an allegedly peace-loving planet, young Senator Organa had deadly aim with her blaster. The blaster she should not have been able to bring into the building at all. Vader would definitely be speaking to the head of Senate Security when this farce of a firefight was over.
The senator seemed to have no regard for her personal safety, and it was with growing annoyance that Vader deflected blaster bolts aimed her way while she took out several assassin droids with her non-regulation blaster.
"Enough," he said finally, his limited patience having run out, and with a crushing display of the Force, he disassembled the remaining droids. "You must have powerful enemies, Princess, if they are attacking you here."
"Then I must be doing something right," she replied, brushing back strands of hair that had come loose from the complicated twists over her ears. She holstered her blaster and looked up at him without fear. Her mouth tightened, as if she were recognizing for the first time who she had been fighting beside, but otherwise she gave no sign of being frightened. "I suppose you think I owe you thanks."
He hooked his fingers in his belt and inclined his head. "I did save your life."
"I was doing fine on my own," she said. "I didn't need your help." There was a significant pause before she added, "My lord."
"I'm in charge of security, Your Highness," he replied, haughty and automatic, and had to shove away a sudden onslaught of memories. It was this building, he thought, and the presence of a small brunette senator with a smart mouth. That was all.
"Well, you're doing a great job," she said, gesturing to the scattered array of smoking droid parts surrounding them.
He glared down at her, using every inch of his height to intimidate, but after a brief flare of fear, he felt nothing from her at all except chilly annoyance. He reached out with the Force to probe her mind, and was slapped away decisively. There was no sign of what should have been tremendous effort on her face.
Someone had taught her that, and taught her so young that it was reflex rather than thought. She would bear investigation. Her father had been close to the Jedi, after all.
The repulsor pod brought them back to the balcony and he leapt out nimbly, then turned and offered her a hand. The gesture was complete before he had time to think about it, force of habit despite the lapse of many years, and yet again, he clenched his jaw against the memories.
Princess Leia glanced down at his hand before taking it with a frown of her own. Once her feet were on solid ground, she said, "Good day, Lord Vader," as if dismissing a servant.
His hand curled into a fist and he thought about teaching her a very public lesson, but a squad of stormtroopers was heading their way from one direction, and Mon Mothma was heading their way from the other.
"Hmph," he said, turning away as if she were beneath his notice. Which she was at the moment, despite her likely connection to the growing rebel alliance.
He excoriated the troops mercilessly but saved the brunt of his ire for their commander, and felt slightly better when the man paled and shuddered under his gaze.
He did not let himself brood on the princess and her unlikely resemblance to the woman he'd once loved.
*
The princess, he discovered, had been a war orphan, adopted into House Organa because Queen Breha had been unable to successfully carry a child to term despite several attempts. She had not taken the aptitudes, so Vader had no way of knowing just how strong in the Force she was, but then, her path had been laid out for her the moment the Organas adopted her. Empty politics and the meaningless pageantry of royalty. What a waste.
He had not been on Coruscant when she was presented to the Emperor, but the report that he had been delighted by her pretty face made it all too clear that she was not taken seriously. Even having spent only minutes at her side, Vader could imagine how poorly she had taken that. It was likely part of what drove her to her ridiculous crusades on the Outer Rim. She was, he learned, beloved of the holonet, though that was likely for her pretty face and pretty words, rather than for her visits to less fortunate worlds in an attempt to bring injustice to light.
He should have known his interest would not go unnoticed.
"You will accompany the young Senator from Alderaan on her latest mercy mission," the Emperor told him, voice dripping with scorn. "And make sure she returns to Coruscant by Empire Day, unharmed."
"She will have her own security force," Vader said. "I cannot imagine my presence to be necessary."
"It is not imagination but foresight that tells me it is," the Emperor replied sharply. "Regardless, you shall do as I wish."
Vader gritted his teeth, glad for once of the mask that kept his expression hidden, and swept into a bow. "Yes, Master."
"There was a time you would have jumped at the chance for such a mission, Lord Vader." The mockery in his tone was pointed. "Time alone with a pretty young senator."
A muscle spasmed painfully in Vader's jaw. "Those days are long gone, my Master."
"Yes, they are." The Emperor dismissed him with a gesture and Vader stalked away, irate and looking for someone to take his temper out on.
Traffic from the Imperial Palace to the Senate building made as fine a target as could be had, and Vader ignored all safety and traffic regulations in his sour mood.
*
The princess and a small three-man security force were in the process of loading her ship when Vader arrived at the hangar. It was a small Correllian cruiser that was fast and maneuverable but not new or showy enough to get her highness into immediate trouble on the Outer Rim.
"Your Highness," he said, and all activity ceased. "The Emperor has commanded me to accompany you in order to assure your safety on this trip to," he paused, caught out by his own ignorance for a moment, and then continued on, "whatever Force-forsaken rock has taken your fancy this week."
Leia's jaw tightened and her nostrils flared. There was a deep wellspring of anger in her; he could feel it, and it called to the rage always simmering within him.
Though he had trained many an Inquisitor, he had never once felt the desire to take an apprentice. He could begrudgingly admit, to himself if no one else, that he still had much to learn from his master. And the idea prodded wounds he'd thought long scarred over. But this slip of a girl, with her reflexive shielding, her anger at being dismissed, and her passion for hopeless crusades...She had the political acumen he disdained, and the will to use it, if she could just be honed and pointed in the right direction. He would have to meditate on it, but the Force was singing rightness in his mind.
"Lord Vader," she said, "I wouldn't want to take you away from your important duties here on Coruscant."
"Nothing is more important than carrying out the Emperor's orders," he replied.
She nodded grimly, as caught as he was in this absurdity of the Emperor's making. "Of course."
"You may dismiss your companions," he said, looking at the small honor guard preparing the ship and crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm sure you shall have no need of them while under my protection."
Leia swallowed hard but otherwise didn't let her dismay show. "Of course," she repeated and gave the nod to the head of her security force. "I'll be in touch when we land."
"Very good, Your Highness. We'll wait to hear from you." The three men bowed and left.
Leia turned to Vader and folded her arms over her chest. He wasn't sure the mimicry was intentional, but it amused him nonetheless. He waited with surprising anticipation for whatever cutting words she'd come up with next, but all she said was, "Let's go then." Another significant pause. "My lord."
"After you, Your Highness." He gestured in a way that once might have been courtly but was now simply impatient.
She stalked up the gangplank and he followed, biting back a sigh at the ridiculousness of the whole situation.
There was another awkward moment when they both moved towards the pilot's seat, but his superior bulk won out and he crowded her away from it. Bad enough he had to go on this foolish mission; he wasn't going to be ferried around by some chit of a girl barely old enough to have a pilot's license.
They were cleared for takeoff quickly and he settled into the pilot's seat. No matter how unfortunate the situation, flying always put him more at ease.
"Where are we going?" he finally asked as they reached escape velocity and left the atmosphere.
"Rattatak. The pirate infestation has worsened and there have been reports of both Black Sun and Zygerrian slavers taking advantage of the situation."
He glanced over curiously. "Slavers?"
"Despite the apparent legality of slavery within the Empire," she said, "it's still wrong." She met his gaze squarely and he had the sudden uncomfortable feeling that she could see through his mask to his eyes. "People are not things and shouldn't be treated as such." Her mouth curved in a mirthless smile. "This is the peace and order you enforce, my lord." She invested his title with venom enough to sting.
Peace is a lie, he thought, struggling to maintain his hold on his temper, as if mantras and meditation had ever helped with that. That this pampered princess chose to lecture him about slavery was outrageous.
"Yes," she said, as if he'd spoken aloud. "Peace without justice is a lie."
This time, his look was sharp and probing. He hadn't thought he was broadcasting, but the fact that she picked it up meant she was strong in the Force indeed.
He didn't have time to contemplate this revelation, though, as a sleek corvette jumped into space in front of them and began shooting.
Vader juked starboard and Leia grabbed the co-pilot's controls as if she thought he'd let her take over flying. He gave her an incredulous look, though sadly the effect was lost since she couldn't see his face. "Man the guns, if this ship has any. I will fly us out of this safely."
"I can fly," she snapped. "I thought you'd jump at the chance to kill something."
He ignored that in favor of more pressing concerns, as it was not necessarily untrue. "Have you ever flown in combat, Your Highness?"
She looked away. "I'll handle the guns." She unhooked her harness and headed into the gun turret.
A second, smaller ship joined the fray by also firing on them, and in a small, vague part of his mind not taken up with flying, Vader wondered if this whole thing had been a setup. It did seem like something his master would do, though to what end, Vader didn't yet know.
The princess was not quite as good a shot with a laser cannon as she was with a blaster, but that could also have been because he was keeping the ship moving in a non-standard evasion pattern, giving her little time to lock onto targets.
It would have worked too, had a third ship not dropped out of hyperspace directly in their path.
The navigation computer had not yet been programmed, and since Vader didn't know the coordinates for Rattatak off the top of his head--he wondered if the princess had intended to go there at all--he punched in the first thing that came to mind.
The princess destroyed the second ship that was attacking them and then turned her attention to the third. Unfortunately, that left their stern exposed to fire from the original enemy ship, and it landed a direct hit just as they jumped to lightspeed.
"Take the con," he said abruptly when Leia came back to the cockpit. "I will check to see what the damage was."
She nodded without argument, which was pleasing. She had a cool head under fire and she understood the circumstances well enough to work with him despite the discord between them.
Less pleasing was the state of the hyperspace drive. It had gotten them into hyperspace, but it was unlikely that condition would last as long as necessary to reach the destination he'd automatically entered into the computer. He tried not to think of all the ways past habits had come roaring back to life in the presence of the princess. And it was probably best if they didn't get to Naboo; surely the Emperor suspected it would be Vader's emergency destination of choice, and more of the same would be waiting when they arrived.
Because this had Sidious's oily fingerprints all over it. Vader might never have grasped the reasons for the Emperor's recursive plotting, but he recognized it easily after so many years of watching it play out.
To what end now, though, he wondered as he did what he could to ensure the drive would last long enough to put them down on a planet rather than leave them drifting in space. Had the Emperor sensed Leia's powerful connection to the Force, he would have taken her to train himself. Was it just her striking resemblance to Padmé? Was this yet another test of Vader's loyalty, or was Sidious simply amusing himself at Vader's expense? Or, he thought, more likely, it was some combination of the two. His mouth twisted in disgust. He'd never had much stomach for the labyrinthine machinations his masters preferred.
Leia raised an eyebrow inquisitively when he returned to the cockpit. "How kriffed are we?"
"Language, princess."
She laughed, and there was real humor in it this time in addition to disbelief. "My apologies, Lord Vader," she said, sketching an ironic bow. "I wouldn't want to offend your delicate sensibilities."
He snorted a surprised laugh, though the vocoder made it sound like more of a grunt. Which was fine; it wouldn't do to be caught laughing. His reputation wouldn't permit it.
"We won't reach our destination," he said, "but given these attacks, that's probably for the best. It will still be several days before we make planetfall, however, so I suggest you make yourself comfortable."
"And you as well," she replied, as courtesy demanded, more grudgingly than gracefully.
He glanced over at her. "I am never comfortable."
She raised her hands in mock surrender. "Then far be it from me to stand in the way of your misery."
He huffed, too softly for the vocoder to pick up on, for which he was grateful. She couldn't know she'd made him laugh twice in such a short span of time.
*
He spent his time in meditation in the cockpit. Sometimes Leia sat in the copilot's seat, datapad in hand as she caught up on whatever reading was required of an Imperial senator, considering it was a position with no real power and thus, no real reason to work.
It was almost familiar enough to lull him into imagining another life, but then she would say something sharp about the Empire, which allowed him to keep to the edge of discomfort.
On the third day, alarms blared loudly, waking him from the light doze that was all he allowed himself of sleep on missions, and they reverted to real space before he could do anything to ameliorate potential catastrophe. When he caught a glimpse of the planet outside the viewport, he thought it catastrophe enough.
Leia rushed into the cockpit, her hair a rat's nest of unravelling braids, her anxiety clear on her face before she smoothed it away. She would have been a formidable Jedi, he thought; she would make a powerful Sith, if he had his way.
"What's happening?" she demanded. "Where are we?"
The planet hung brown and gold beneath the light of its twin suns, and Vader grimaced beneath his mask. "Tatooine," he said roughly. "You'll find no lack of pirates and slavers here, Your Highness."
"I'm not familiar with it," she said, which was no surprise. Few people from Core worlds were.
"It's a Hutt-controlled planet," he said. "The spaceport is active enough that we should have no trouble finding the parts we require to fix the engine."
"Okay." Her hands moved deftly over her hair, taming it back into the braids that had come undone while she slept.
He watched, as fascinated as he'd ever been by the process.
"What?" she asked when he didn't look away. Her self-consciousness radiated strongly, reminding him that she was young, and not the woman he'd been thinking of.
"You remind me--" He stopped. The past was better left to the past, and the dead to the dead. It was one of the few things the Jedi and the Sith agreed upon. And yet, regardless of the Emperor's machinations, the Force had brought them here. "You remind me of a senator I once knew."
She leaned back in the chair, looking small and defenseless when he knew she was anything but. "I'm proud to remind you of my father."
"No," said Vader. "Not him." He drew in as deep a breath as his respirator would allow. He hadn't spoken her name in almost eighteen years. It wasn't spoken much by anyone outside of Naboo these days, and even there, only in remembrance of her death. "Senator Amidala." He said it as if it didn't feel like being set on fire all over again.
"Of Naboo?" Leia gave him a genuine smile. "She was a friend of my father's. I did a history project on her when I was a junior legislator, and I modeled my acceptance speech to the Senate after hers. She was a great woman."
"Yes." It was so low as to almost be subvocal but much too fervent for who he was now.
That won him a surprised look. And then she looked away, as if hiding some secret of her own. She gazed out at the planet hanging before them as if she were seeing something else entirely. "I used to dream of her."
Vader's breath caught but he said nothing in light of this confession. It might have seemed odd to some, but to him it was only just and right that people should dream of her, even so long after she was gone.
"She was so kind and beautiful and sad." Leia's voice was soft and faraway, as if she'd forgotten who she was talking to. "I used to dream she was my mother."
"What?" His voice sounded loud and strange even to his own ears.
Leia was jolted out of her reverie. "She died the day I was born," she said defensively. "I never knew my biological parents."
The Force thrummed around them, and if Vader had had any hair left, it would have prickled in warning. As it was, he shivered even inside the perfectly climate-controlled environment of his suit.
"I--" he began, and then stopped. Heartfelt revelations were not the province of the Sith, and it had been a long time since he had been anything else. Since he had wanted to be anything else. This could all be an elaborate joke by the Emperor. Vader would not put anything past him. But even he couldn't make the Force swell this way, make it ring with the rightness of truth. "When she told me she was pregnant," he said, forcing the words out before he lost the nerve, "I was sure she was having a girl."
Leia gasped, and when he looked over at her, her eyes were bright with unshed tears and her lower lip quivered slightly.
"I don't--I can't--" she managed.
"Search your feelings," he commanded her. "You know it to be true."
She blinked rapidly, then dashed at her eyes with the backs of her hands. So young and yet so wary of ever showing weakness. He understood that, as well.
"I'm not--I don't have the Force," she insisted, but he could tell by the light dawning in her eyes that she felt it too.
"You do," he said. "And together, we will overthrow the Emperor and remake the galaxy in Padmé's image." He clenched his fist around the stick so he didn't hold it out to her; he knew she wouldn't take it, and that rejection would hurt as much as her mother's had, at the end.
Leia laughed wetly, and then sobbed. Vader forced himself to sit still while she cried herself dry. She would take no comfort from his embrace, despite these revelations.
"Get us safely back to Coruscant," she finally said, after a few hiccuping breaths, "and we can discuss it."
He nodded and set course for Mos Espa. This homecoming would always sting, but the pain was lessened greatly by this new knowledge of the girl at his side.
The galaxy was hurtling towards another change, and it was only right that it should once again begin here with him, in the desert.
end
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Note: I'm not sure if it's canon or fanon that Anakin thought the baby was a girl? but I like the idea and it was useful here, so. *hands*
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Feedback is adored.
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