Broken Ties
[May 2001]
Fandom: Star Wars
Title: Broken Ties
PenName: Empress Vader
Character(s): Bail Organa, Leia Organa, Padmèè, Darth Vader
Paring(s):
Rating: PG
Summary: During his early involvement in the rebellion, Bail Organa brings Padmè to Alderaan under a false name and his wife fears Leia will figure out who her true mother is and that it will eventually lead to the truth about her father.
Notes: Obviously this was written before the conclusion of the prequel trilogy. Based on the fact Leia remembered her mother and Luke didn’t, before the conclusion of the prequel trilogy I always believed her mother lived long enough to know her as a child. I still think that makes more sense (and accounts for Leia’s memory) so this fic was written when I was still embracing that idea. This fic contains the photo manipulations that inspired it.
Warning(s):
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters created by George Lucas. No copyright infringement intended.
Prologue
He hadn’t seen Leia’s mother for almost two years now. And she had been so hardened by pain by then, Bail wasn’t sure if there was a glimmer of his friend in her. But plodding behind him, stepping in each footstep he made was her little girl Leia, his little girl now. Every time he looked at her he had this fear that her mother would come back and take her away and at the same time he wanted nothing more than to see Leia’s mother again. He had lost one baby already and that was more painful then he could have ever imagined. But ha had Leia and she loved him unconditionally, she trusted him with little thought to why. He sat down in the garden, in front of his wife, and Leia fell in his lap. She smiled, touched his face, and jabbered on in a language part basic, part gibberish. She hadn’t mastered all her sounds yet, but there was no denying the tot was smart.
Lady Organa was what Bail Organa’s wife was often referred to, but the title she really wanted was Mommy. Leia had ignored her for most of her life. She had looked through her, looked past her, pulled away or cried whenever her mother reached for her. Just earlier that day, she had asked Leia to come to her and grabbed her hand. Leia pulled away, clearly protesting “No”, and successfully broke away and ran to her father. Maybe this was because she already had a mother, Lady Organa thought, a mother who had held her and told her she loved her in her first seconds of life, but Bail was her first father. When she looked at Lady Organa she saw a replacement, a usurper, but Bail was just Daddy. Lady Organa herself still didn’t have the ability to look at this little girl love her without feeling the regret of the little boy she had to bury, her son.
Leia did sense the fear in her adopted mother, the pain. And as an infant it had made her cry. There was something her parents didn’t understand about force sensitive infants, how open they were at birth to this sixth sense called the force. Even with training, this understanding faded. Faded either because it wasn’t used or because the force sensitive sought to control it and concentrate it. The force sensitive infants didn’t seek to control it, they just felt it. So she felt that which her mother couldn’t put into words. The pain of the lost of her son. A pain that equaled the loss of Leia’s brother. It was only in secure hands, secure hands like Bail Organa’s, that the wound healed and she was able to forget what she lost and accept the life in front of her. Someone who felt so insecure made her insecure. Leia needed Bail, so she clung to him without understanding it.
Lady Organa looked at her husband and the baby girl. Leia laughed as her father swung her in the air. She was unafraid. Unlike when her mother picked her up. Yet it was her father who was putting her in danger, the one who might possibly reveal her to that monster that was biologically sealed to the child.
“Bail, you have to let this underground business go. For her sake,” Lady Organa told him.
He put Leia down, but she remained in his lap occupying herself with an Ewok doll.
“I can’t stand idly by and let the Empire exploit the galaxy. The republic was flawed, but at least people had a choice. The Empire leads through fear and tyranny. I can’t just sit around and do nothing.”
“You aren’t doing anything but participating in the underground holo-channels. You’re no more than a glorified journalist.”
“Informing people is the first step to empowering them.”
“If Vader finds out—”
“I’m willing to take the risk,” Bail snapped
“But–,” his wife began
“But nothing,” Bail insisted with uncharacteristic harshness.
Bail had always been angry more with Vader than the Empire. Deep down inside, as much as he wanted justice for enslaved populations, as much as he wanted fair trials for the Empire’s prisoners, as much as he wanted so many things, he wanted to hurt Anakin Skywalker. Vader, Anakin, by any name his friend had been the victim of this man. As much as he disagreed with everything that the Empire represented, it was the thought of the empty eyes Anakin had created in Padmèe that fueled his passions. He tried to halt his thoughts from running mad, because the little girl he loved more than his own life was a part of that man, that man who was now a thing. However, whenever he closed his eyes he saw that lost and alone young girl, his good friend, who only had a memory to hold onto, a memory of her children and a memory of the man she loved.
