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The first time she sees him, she caught a flicker of his fading blue ghost. Luke was deep in meditation, and she had found it sensible to interrupt him.
They locked eyes. He smiled, and she sneered. It told him enough, and he vanished. Luke had chastised her for it, lightly. But the rage never tempered.
The second time she saw him, he stood at the edge of a balcony in Naboo. His blue hue blended with the fog of the lake in the early morning. She watched him for a moment, his back turned to her overlooking the lake outside the Queen’s Palace.
He turned to meet her eyes, likely sensing her staring in the Force. “Leia,” he had said. “Vader,” she had replied. She never knew why she regretted it. Perhaps it was the look on his face. Or maybe it was what he had said next.
“I am a person. And my name is Anakin.” And she had hurt him, but there was no pleasure. His words had rung in her ears for many sleepless nights and dreams to come.
They stood there for a moment, until she left, her chin high without any emotion on her face. She owed him nothing, and he would do well to give nothing in return. He had done enough. Destroyed enough.
The third time she saw him was years later. A new smear campaign had seeped through the floors of the New Republic senate. The image of Darth Vader plastered across her own. She stood for hope, and they thought her a monster like her mechanical gene donor simply for existing.
He stood there, his hands resting upon the image of his true face. She watched him, rage etched into every wrinkle of her face. He bowed his head in shame, and destroyed the vandalism with the Force. She didn’t know ghosts could manipulate the living world. It did little to ease her worries.
He turned and found her again, shocked this time. Too focused to feel her near. Or perhaps her shielding was simply better. She’d have to thank Luke if that was the case.
“This is all your fault,” she said.
“I know,” Was all he could muster. And then he was gone. Leia stared the burn marks on the wall where their faces once were. For many years she would revisit that moment. The smoke that slowly withered away long after his departure. She had wondered why he chose to reveal himself. Did he expect her? She didn’t know.
The last time she saw him was on Tatooine. Remnants of the Hutt Clan had led her back to this forsaken desert wasteland. There was a twinge of guilt knowing Luke had lived here, and her on Alderaan. But perhaps that was better. The loss of her home was not a pain Luke deserved to suffer.
She saw him in the distance. The only blue in a desert of warm, horrendously warm colours. She didn’t know why she walked to him. He was far away. She didn’t need to. But she did.
He was kneeling in the sand, cleaning a simple gravestone and whispering faintly. It felt wrong to disturb him. What he was doing.. it felt sacred. She shouldn’t have come.
She read the name on the gravestone. ‘Shmi Skywalker, Child of Ar-Amu, Mother of Ekkreth, A Free Woman.’ A shiver of shame washed over her. She had never known, she had never visited.
“Her headstone was gone for many years. To protect Luke.” He sounded sad. There was no bitterness. She said nothing.
He continued. “I never came back for her. I never saved her. I should have. I could have. But I didn’t.”
Luke never went into the specifics of how.. their grandmother had passed. It had been brutal, she knew that. She never asked. She didn’t want to know. There had been enough death in her life.
“I couldn’t save your mother either.” You killed my mother, she wanted to say. You and your Empire . She holds her tongue.
“She was beautiful. You look like her, so much.” He smiles at her sadly, only for a moment, before turning away. Was it guilt? Shame? Or did she look too much like her biological mother like he said?
“The day I found out she was pregnant was the happiest day of my life.” She doesn’t respond. She never imagined Darth Vader happy. She didn’t think he deserved it. But still, the guilt remained, and she buried it deep.
“She swore up and down that our child would be a boy. Luke, would be his name. After, Lukka, the fury. The desert’s storm that cleanses the earth of depur’s grip. He who would remake the world, and remake the soul.” And she thought of Luke, the pilot, brave and fearless. The brother, kind and generous. The leader, strong and confident. And she thought of his eyes, and his heart that she had known forever even before they had met.
He kept talking, and she felt entranced. Pieces of a life she had never known but always dreamt of. “But I knew better. Our child would be a girl. And our daughter would be called Leia, mightiest of the Krayt dragons. The Great Dragon, Child of Ar-Amu, child of Shmi. And her song would be powerful, for it alone would free all of those under the depur’s fist.” It was then she wished she had truly never come to this planet. To this place. To him.
I am a person, and my name is Leia . And his words sung through her mind like the Great One in the desert. And her heart raged like the desert storm for a life that the universe had taken from her. And her eyes burned as she forced the tears down.
“I will never forgive you.”
She wished he had argued. She wished he had fought her. She would he would hurt her more now, in death. Because then she could live with her hate. But he didn’t. Whatever had been Vader had withered away.. A young man who looked nothing like the monster was all that was left. “There is nothing I can do to earn your forgiveness. In life or in death.”
He touched the gravestone again, tracing his hands against his mother’s name. He stood and faced her, determined. “No. I tell you this story to save your life. Hate is heavy. It is a tool of the great depur. The one that never leaves, the one that has no form. Let it go. Learn what I could not, Leia.” And before she can respond he is gone.
She had never seen him again after that. But his presence never left. It trailed after her every time she heard her name. In every mirror and laugh and silent moments of reflection. Many years later, she asks Luke of Ekkreth. The Sky-Walker, he says. The trickster who freed the slaves and led them into the stars.
When her son was young, she had brought him beneath the stars. Held him close, and whispered words she had heard long ago.
“Listen to me, my son. I tell you this story to save your life.”