Work Text:
Parties had erupted all over the galaxy after the defeat of the empire. While others were joyous, Leia only felt exhaustion. She had been fighting for so long, and now…it was over. But she would never get Alderaan back. She would never get her parents back. She was the only Organa remaining.
She was in no mood to celebrate. People patted her back as she walked by, but soon she had slipped, unnoticed, into the oblivious crowd. She walked behind the center building of Coruscant and slumped to the ground, crying.
She had told Han that she wanted to be alone, but now she regretted it. She longed for comfort. Anything to quell the defeat in her heart.
Just then, she saw a slight glimmer of bluish-white. Leia walked towards it, wondering what it was. When she reached the apparition, she went stock-still. It was a Force ghost.
Leia clenched her teeth. She knew who was coming, had known it from the moment Luke had told her who she really was. She braced herself for the cloak, the mask that she so despised. She was shocked to see a young whole man appear instead. He looked so much like Luke…
“Vader,” Leia said coldly. She wasn’t about to call him father, or even Anakin. He did not deserve such respect. She could’ve sworn pain washed over the ghost’s face before he spoke. “No. Just Anakin.”
“You will always be Vader to me,” Leia snapped. She clenched her fists so hard she could feel her nails piercing her skin. Wind blew rapidly around her, and she wondered if she was making it windy. She had never really done any such thing. She had been using the Force her whole life unbeknownst to her, but nothing flashy: it gave her an instinct around people. She just knew how they worked, what made them tick, from the first moment of meeting them. She had always thought it intuition, but it had always been more than that. Perhaps if she had been trained, she’d be able to do more.
Vader’s eyes were sad. “Leia. I have wronged you in so many ways that I will never be able to make up for.”
“Damn straight,” Leia snarled. She stomped up to his ghost, reaching up her arm to poke him in the chest. She really hated how short she was sometimes. “You destroyed my home. You took everything from me.”
Vader only continued looking at her with that sad expression. His silence only compounded her fury. “That’s it, then? That’s all you have to say? That you wronged me? You are pathetic! I hate you. I FUCKING HATE YOU!” Leia shrieked. Her body had risen from the ground so that she was now eye level with Vader. She was definitely using the force.
Vader looked away, like he couldn’t bear to meet her eyes. Leia’s fury doubled. “Look at me, you coward. Look at me. Why did you do it? Any of it?”
Vader looked at her then, and for a moment, Leia felt all of it: his entire life story, every inch of despair. His life as a child slave in Tatooine, working in that mechanical workshop, going home to his mother every day. The cuts and bruises he had endured from his master. The Jedi master who met him and took him away from his mother, who remained a slave. Padme. Meeting Padme in that shop as a kid, fighting with her, fighting for her, loving her. Losing his mother to thugs, destroying the entire community in revenge, Padme embracing him and letting him grieve. Marrying Padme, the hand holding hers one of metal. Fearing for Padme’s life, trying to prevent her death. Palpatine telling him there was another way. Killing and killing and killing just to stop what happened to his mother from happening again. The fight with Obi Wan, the fire, and he was burning, burning, burning. Learning of Padme’s death. Somehow, Leia got the feeling that Vader never stopped burning.
“So this is it, then? You lost everything, so you resolved to take everything from everyone else, too?” Leia hissed. “You broken, bitter, pathetic excuse for a man.”
“I was never a man,” Vader said. “I was only ever a man to Padme. To everyone else, I was a slave.”
“Even to Palpatine?” Leia crooned.
“Especially to him,” Vader replied. Leia blinked. Seemingly encouraged by her lack of response, Vader continued. “The suit he made for me was a trap. It was old, outdated technology, designed to keep me weak-powerless. But only after I died did I realize that it also made me vulnerable to his lightning. He used lightning on me constantly, to remind me of my place, to keep me angry. After Mustafar, I was more machine than man. I had lost much of my power. After that, he always planned on replacing me the moment something better came along- like my own son, young and whole. Not a bitter and broken and pathetic excuse for a man, as you said.”
Leia knew what it was like to be a slave. She had herself been enslaved to Jabba the Hut, forced to be near naked and endure his slimy touch on her skin. Until she killed him with the very chains he had bound her with.
Leia didn’t want to let go of her anger. Seeing her father had brought her anger back, her passionate hatred bringing an energy to her that had died after the Empire had been destroyed. She couldn’t help the venom that spewed from her lips. She couldn’t forget what he did to her. What he’d done to Luke. But somehow, incredibly, she was also hurt. That Vader had realized he was his son, but never that he had a daughter too.
“Why Luke? Why him? Why not me? Why did you not realize I am your child too?” Tears bit at the corners of Leia’s eyes. It was stupid, so fucking stupid to be upset about this. Craving the love of a monster. But Leia was just a girl, and girls wanted their parents to love them, to acknowledge their abilities.
Vader’s eyes were pleading. “You were hidden from me. I realized who you were after Luke revealed you to me. After that, I had planned on bringing you before me, to bring you to my side instead. I think…I didn’t recognize you because your Force signature…it’s so much like mine. When you were in my custody, I confused your signature with my own.”
Leia scoffed. “That is ridiculous. I am nothing like you.”
For the first time, Vader was smiling. “Aren’t you?” Leia tilted her head skeptically. Vader continued, “You are passionate, determined, resourceful, fearless, stubborn. You left your princess duties to become a general in the Rebellion. You wear your anger like armor. You are so much like me- the person I could’ve been if I hadn’t been tempted by the Dark side…” Anakin sighed. “No wonder my father did not let me meet you as my daughter. I did not deserve it.”
Leia raised an eyebrow. “Who the hell is your father?” Anakin grinned again, mischief sparkling in his eyes. “Your grandfather.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Leia answered, but there was no real anger in her voice. “It’s the Force, isn’t it?”
“Just as intelligent as you seem,” Anakin answered, which Leia took as a yes. “My mother had me, carried me, and looked after me. There was no father but the Force itself. It is why I was so powerful, and so dangerous in the eyes of the Jedi, who would not let me become a master…” he sighed. “Never mind. But you look so much like her. My mother, Shmi. I should’ve known you were my daughter. I was blind, lost to my bitterness and hatred.”
Leia didn’t know when she’d started crying, but her face was completely wet once Anakin had finished. She wiped forcefully at her eyes, sniffling. She had been the same the past few years. She had survived on that anger at the Empire, at Vader and Palpatine…and her love for Han and Luke. She hadn’t known how to let go of it now that the fight was over. She hadn’t wanted to admit it before, but she did see herself in Anakin. And she knew-she knew she had to let go.
“Luke looks just like you,” Leia said after a while. Anakin ducked his head. “True. But his heart…it’s Padme’s.”
Leia breathed out a laugh. “He believed in you when I never would’ve.”
“He was kind to me when I did not deserve it. But you, my daughter…you give me exactly what I deserve.”
There was no resentment in his words, but Leia could not help but feel a little guilty, which was ridiculous considering what Vader had done to him. Vader. Not Anakin. A broken shell of Anakin, what Anakin had become when the world had failed him.
“I won’t let it happen again,” Leia vowed. Anakin stared at her. She continued, “I will not reinstate the Jedi. Nor will I bring back the Sith. I think both were wrong in their own ways. We need to stop fearing it- the Force. Dark or light, the force is the force, and if we are to gain true mastery of it, we need to embrace both sides of it. And we should not take children from their homes. Children need their parents, their family. They need to be able to live and love. And I will end slavery on the Outer Rim. Only then can we prevent the Empire from rising again.”
Anakin’s face was filled with pride. “You are wise beyond your years. Just like your mother.”
Leia hesitantly smiled at Anakin. “Thank you…father.”
Anakin sniffed, overcome with emotion. “You called me father.” Leia blinked at the open display of emotion, raising a brow. “Well, you are my father, are you not?” He nodded. “My daughter. I wish I’d met you too…”
“I never thought I’d say this, but so do I,” Leia replied. And on that note, Leia walked away from the father she never got to meet, a small smile on her face. Without the anger suffocating her anymore, she felt ten pounds lighter. Letting go of the past, she went to go find her husband.