[fic] second chances (part the second)
In which I play with links, and in which we get back to Leia's part of the tale. PG-13ish. Follows all that's come before.
It’s classic Adarloni fare: wraps filled with lots of beans and rice and little bits of vegetables and meat. Leia bites into, feels the different flavours sting against her taste buds.
She watches her father (and god her father is Bail Organa and if not than it’s that monstrosity in black; it is not some smooth-faced kid who couldn’t even grow a beard if he tried) do the same.
She might be untrained in the force but even she can feel it rolling of him. The raw power. She can’t understand how no-one else notices; it so intense it has to reverberate in the physical world. The child sitting still and calm beside him should feel it, should be recoiling from him - and it’s not a child, it’s almost a woman. Emaciated, starved, and in desperate need of calories, but an adolescent female nonetheless. Her shaved head completes the look of refugee, but her lashes are tipped in black, so Leia has to wonder if this is some strange fashion statement. (And if it is, what does it say about a girl who so willingly sits by his side?)
Of course, the A’Daasha twins don’t know the horrible, twisted truth. They just see a cloned jedi: the Hero Without Fear, a kid whose genes did something great at the height of the Clone Wars. A kid who the Emperor’s geneticists had most likely tortured to see if the force really did literally flow through his veins.
They don’t know he’s Darth Vader.
As a child, Leia had always been sure evil had a face. That it manifested itself physically. After all, there had been the Emperor, scarred and wizened. And of course, there had been Vader: outfitted as a pre-Ruusan Sith battle droids, his lightsaber dangling from his belt, like a waiting hangman’s noose.
But now, gazing at the teenager who was - is - will be - the Emperor’s loyal fist, she wants nothing more than to be sixteen again herself. Back in her dorm room she shared with Winter at the University of Aldera. She wants the world to make sense again, like her professors - in their calm, rational lectures - assured her it would.
Instead, she’s here: at some little dive masquerading as a 24-hour, all-day breakfast diner. Her make-up and prosthetics feel tacky against her skin, the fake lekku hanging limp against her back. But she’s a politician; this is what she lives for, isn’t it? The backroom meetings where true politics happen rather than in the clean, bright elections. (And this is the part where she wonders if the New Republic is better or worse than the Empire because at least the Empire was blatant about it).
“You know why we’re here?” she asks. She stares the kid straight in the eye, refusing to consider how similar (oh, how similar!) those blue eyes are to Luke’s own.
The clone doesn’t seem to care about any of the clandestine meeting protocol, anymore than he seems to care about the state of his wardrobe. After wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he glances across the table at her. “I need to get to Byss,” he says. His voice is a strange mix of Outer Rim and Coruscanti-accented Basic, barely on the tail-end of changing, and nothing at all like the deep, mechanical bass of Vader’s voco-recorder.
She hears Han give a long, low whistle. “You don’t ask for much, do you, kid?”
“Byss is at the heart of Imperial controlled space,” Leia says, surprised at how even and - well - normal her voice sounds.
The girl beside the clone leans forward. She hasn’t touched a bit of her wrap. “Which is precisely why we need to go,” she says, her big eyes wide and her voice a perfect mix of sincerity and zealotry.
And it’s the fact that Leia sees something of herself in the girl that makes her hastily excuse herself to retch outside the diner’s door.
***
Later, as Leia blasts herself raw in the hotel’s sonic shower, she still wonders (with no small amount of disquiet) if that’s how she herself sounded, not that long ago but so very, very far away.
“What’s on Byss?” she asks, knowing Han can hear above the noise pulses.
It’s a question she’s asked both herself and him since they parted company with (Vader) the clone and his (accessory) companion.
“It was classified when I was at the Academy,” Han says, repeating - once again - the limited knowledge they knew. “Only certain generals had access to the coordinates.”
“The Emperor’s private retreat was on Naboo,” she adds. “But my fath - Ba - my father always said that his true heart was on Byss.”
“Well,” Han says, managing only a ghost of his obligatory leer as she emerges from the shower. “That doesn’t sound so bad. We all know the old bastard didn’t have a heart.” He’s leaning against the fresher’s sink, elbows up against the synthetic marble.
She knows he’s trying to make her feel normal. She and her psychiatrist have talked about this. Hell, at this point, Han’s probably talked to her psychiatrist about it. She needs normality. She needs a routine. She needs to know that her world won’t be blown to pieces in front of her (again).
She knows she needs to make herself feel normal. So she braids her hair and lets Han (normally) ogle her.
***
“Call me Padmé,” the girl tells her as they all (even Vader) board the Millennium Falcon. She’s still wearing the out-of-date flight jacket as an ill-fitting dress, and Leia is back to thinking it’s not a fashion statement after all.
It’s classic Adarloni fare: wraps filled with lots of beans and rice and little bits of vegetables and meat. Leia bites into, feels the different flavours sting against her taste buds.
She watches her father (and god her father is Bail Organa and if not than it’s that monstrosity in black; it is not some smooth-faced kid who couldn’t even grow a beard if he tried) do the same.
She might be untrained in the force but even she can feel it rolling of him. The raw power. She can’t understand how no-one else notices; it so intense it has to reverberate in the physical world. The child sitting still and calm beside him should feel it, should be recoiling from him - and it’s not a child, it’s almost a woman. Emaciated, starved, and in desperate need of calories, but an adolescent female nonetheless. Her shaved head completes the look of refugee, but her lashes are tipped in black, so Leia has to wonder if this is some strange fashion statement. (And if it is, what does it say about a girl who so willingly sits by his side?)
Of course, the A’Daasha twins don’t know the horrible, twisted truth. They just see a cloned jedi: the Hero Without Fear, a kid whose genes did something great at the height of the Clone Wars. A kid who the Emperor’s geneticists had most likely tortured to see if the force really did literally flow through his veins.
They don’t know he’s Darth Vader.
As a child, Leia had always been sure evil had a face. That it manifested itself physically. After all, there had been the Emperor, scarred and wizened. And of course, there had been Vader: outfitted as a pre-Ruusan Sith battle droids, his lightsaber dangling from his belt, like a waiting hangman’s noose.
But now, gazing at the teenager who was - is - will be - the Emperor’s loyal fist, she wants nothing more than to be sixteen again herself. Back in her dorm room she shared with Winter at the University of Aldera. She wants the world to make sense again, like her professors - in their calm, rational lectures - assured her it would.
Instead, she’s here: at some little dive masquerading as a 24-hour, all-day breakfast diner. Her make-up and prosthetics feel tacky against her skin, the fake lekku hanging limp against her back. But she’s a politician; this is what she lives for, isn’t it? The backroom meetings where true politics happen rather than in the clean, bright elections. (And this is the part where she wonders if the New Republic is better or worse than the Empire because at least the Empire was blatant about it).
“You know why we’re here?” she asks. She stares the kid straight in the eye, refusing to consider how similar (oh, how similar!) those blue eyes are to Luke’s own.
The clone doesn’t seem to care about any of the clandestine meeting protocol, anymore than he seems to care about the state of his wardrobe. After wiping his mouth on his sleeve, he glances across the table at her. “I need to get to Byss,” he says. His voice is a strange mix of Outer Rim and Coruscanti-accented Basic, barely on the tail-end of changing, and nothing at all like the deep, mechanical bass of Vader’s voco-recorder.
She hears Han give a long, low whistle. “You don’t ask for much, do you, kid?”
“Byss is at the heart of Imperial controlled space,” Leia says, surprised at how even and - well - normal her voice sounds.
The girl beside the clone leans forward. She hasn’t touched a bit of her wrap. “Which is precisely why we need to go,” she says, her big eyes wide and her voice a perfect mix of sincerity and zealotry.
And it’s the fact that Leia sees something of herself in the girl that makes her hastily excuse herself to retch outside the diner’s door.
***
Later, as Leia blasts herself raw in the hotel’s sonic shower, she still wonders (with no small amount of disquiet) if that’s how she herself sounded, not that long ago but so very, very far away.
“What’s on Byss?” she asks, knowing Han can hear above the noise pulses.
It’s a question she’s asked both herself and him since they parted company with (Vader) the clone and his (accessory) companion.
“It was classified when I was at the Academy,” Han says, repeating - once again - the limited knowledge they knew. “Only certain generals had access to the coordinates.”
“The Emperor’s private retreat was on Naboo,” she adds. “But my fath - Ba - my father always said that his true heart was on Byss.”
“Well,” Han says, managing only a ghost of his obligatory leer as she emerges from the shower. “That doesn’t sound so bad. We all know the old bastard didn’t have a heart.” He’s leaning against the fresher’s sink, elbows up against the synthetic marble.
She knows he’s trying to make her feel normal. She and her psychiatrist have talked about this. Hell, at this point, Han’s probably talked to her psychiatrist about it. She needs normality. She needs a routine. She needs to know that her world won’t be blown to pieces in front of her (again).
She knows she needs to make herself feel normal. So she braids her hair and lets Han (normally) ogle her.
***
“Call me Padmé,” the girl tells her as they all (even Vader) board the Millennium Falcon. She’s still wearing the out-of-date flight jacket as an ill-fitting dress, and Leia is back to thinking it’s not a fashion statement after all.