Chapter Text
Tarkin had exacting standards for his military, demanding that they all remain completely composed, follow protocol to the letter, and be the perfect picture of the Empire at all times, even under the most stressful and dangerous of situations. There was only one, rare exception where he forgave them for falling below these standards: anything to do with Lord Vader.
At first, he had tried to get them to straighten up when Vader drew near. Tarkin was able to hold his own against the Imperial Navy’s Commander, but almost everyone else, even the most hardened of soldiers, shook and cowered like scared little tooka kits if Lord Vader so much as breathed nearby. He had tried to root out the brave ones or shape up the weaklings, but even for someone of his immense skill, it proved impossible. He had given up several years ago.
Still, he couldn’t help but narrow his eyes in displeasure when a cadet scurried up to him and reported in the fumbling manner of a small peasant child, “Sir! L-L-Lord Vader is—is k-k-killing everyone!”
He felt the other officers around him shuffle in discomfort at that prospect, but Tarkin needed more to go on. Lord Vader killed people fairly often, actually, something the Moff found annoying and inconvenient.
So, with strict, curt composure, Tarkin leaned forward just slightly and peered down at the whelp of an officer. “Explain.”
The cadet managed to get somewhat better control of his mouth, so the next sentence was slightly better put together. “He’s g-going through the halls killing everyone he crosses paths with.”
More nervous shuffling. Tarkin paused, trying to separate facts from panicked interpretation, when the communicator in his device began to buzz. He lifted it and skimmed the subject lines, which reported deaths across the station, from storm trooper security guards to technicians to Star Destroyer Officers. There were also a few photos from security feeds—Darth Vader storming down the corridors, leaving bodies clutching at their necks in his wake.
Interesting.
Vader was supposed to be interrogating the princess right now. Tarkin checked the status of the detention area; she was still in her cell, but the recent report stated he had just left. Curious. What could she have done to set him off so? Tarkin had seen Vader angry before, certainly, but never quite to this extent…
For a moment he was seized by the desire to find out. He couldn’t, of course, confront Lord Vader at the moment, but the princess was a viable option…
But then again…watching the death toll get higher by the moment, maybe it wouldn’t be such a good idea. He deliberated for a moment, before deciding that, this time, it would be best to stay out of the tangle of political blackmail and secrets. The princess would remain in her cell, alone, until Vader returned to her.
“Very well, cadet,” Tarkin said briskly. “Send a cleanup crew to these corridors.” He gestured to the feeds on his holo.
The cadet blinked confusedly. “…Sir?”
Tarkin narrowed his eyes. Most of the officers around him knew to follow his orders quickly and without question. “Is there a problem, cadet?”
The cadet stared at him, not seeming to understand the precarious position he was in. “Lord Vader, sir—”
“Is in charge of the security of this station,” Tarkin stated, allowing a thin smile. “Now, organize that cleanup crew. Why don’t you help them out as well? You can clean the corridor by Lord Vader’s quarters.”
OOO
It was several hours before Vader came back to himself. The blinding confusion, pain, rage, all swirling in the hurricane chaos of the Dark Side, had mellowed out into manageable levels, enough to give him coherent thought, at least.
He had a daughter.
A daughter who was still alive.
His lungs could scarcely bring in breath, and it wasn’t just because of the broken respirator. She had been alive all this time. Alive, and hidden from him. He had never gotten to hold her as a baby. He hadn’t heard her first words. He hadn’t nurtured her power, her power she inherited from him, and shown her the majesty of the Force. That had all been taken from him. She had been taken from him. His child.
Not a child, he remembered.
As stunning as it had been to realize she was a time traveler a mere few hours ago, suddenly that didn’t seem important at all. What did her age matter, when she was his child?
A child he had almost killed. A child he had intended to torture…a child he had tortured, in another life. The rage rose up, almost dragging him into the haze again. His fists clenched and the Force swirled around him, shaking the rubble and wreckage of the room. That was the fault of Kenobi. That was the fault of the Organas. That was the fault of Palpatine. They had all hidden her from him, hischild. His foolish alternate hadn’t seen her, and had put her in pain, failed to protect her, had left her to a future where she was chased by the Empire and her son was stolen from her.
He would not be so. He would never hurt her, he would protecther as fiercely as he would have protected Padme, and he would tear apart the future that had caused her such suffering, rip it out of time. If he had to reverse the orbit of the entire galaxy with his bare hands, he would do it for her.
She didn’t like him. She had made that very clear, her words and her mind spitting anger and hatred at him for the entirety of their conversation. But she only knew him as an enemy, and he no longer existed as that for her. He would change her mind, and show her that the blood they shared was something to be proud of, not to scorn. He would keep her safe.
She is in danger right now,he realized. She was a rebel traitor in the midst of an Imperial dungeon right this moment. He stood abruptly—Imperials often abused prisoners, were even encouraged to do so. That could not be allowed.
Any and all future plans, hazy and vague as they might have been, dissolved from his mind. His only concern was rescuing Leia from immediate harm. Now.
The door opened with barely a thought as he flew down the corridors back to the detention level. He shouldn’t have left her. In the hours of his blind wrath, he had left his precious newfound daughter in the hands of incapable, ignorant, untrustworthy Imperials, who would treat her like a lowly Rebel. He had feared hurting her with the outlashing of his fury, but he should have stayed in control. He would have to stay in control, with her.
He cast out his power through the mass of dim lives on the Death Star, but Leia’s mind was immediately recognizable to his touch now—how could he have not noticed her incredible power before, her similarities to his own? She was exactly where he had left her, and she didn’t seem to be in any pain.
The moment his presence grasped her own, though, her emotions spiked with rapid fear and panic. Her mere feelings, not even intentional attacks, dug into his own mind like the wild swipes of a trapped animal. He cringed, a step faltering for a moment, and tightened his shields, but did not retract from her. The blazes of her emotions were like the beating wings of a panicked bird, growing stronger and more frantic as he got closer. The potent smoke of her fear saddened him—she should feel reassured when he comes to her side—but he would prove himself, starting now.
He barely noticed how the officers fled from him more than usual, as he was focused on the presence of his daughter. She was unable to move physically from her location, but her mind was a whirlwind of possible solutions and escape attempts. He would have to guard her carefully until she learned it was best to stay by his side. If she was anything like him, she would find many creativeways to escape, and it would be up to him to counter them.
He didn’t say a word to the prison guards as he swept past them to return to his daughter. In these final moments, he felt her struggle to get her fear back under control, and manage marginally.
Outside her cell door, however, he found himself still. His daughter, his child he thought he had killed with his wife, was alive and on the other side of this door. But she hated him. Kenobi and the Organas had taught her to despise him. That thought filled him with rage, but now was not the time. Now, he had to do his best to change her image of him. Now was a time for new beginnings, and seizing this second chance the Force had graced them both with.
The door slid open, and his eyes immediately fell on Leia.
She was not standing in the center of the cell, waiting for him, straight and composed, like last time. No, now she sat on the bench, shoulders hunched forward, eyes stressed and watching him warily. Before, she had displayed herself as strong and indomitable, firm and ready to fight back. Now, she took on a defensive posture, and was ready to strike or flee at the slightest provocation.
He would have to be careful.
For a moment he just stared at her, this child of his and Padme’s, somehow surviving his wrath when she was only a baby, weathering the Empire both in her past and in her future, until landing here, in this time, before him. She looked hauntingly like Padme, and just as scared of him as Padme had been in her final moments. The memory made him shudder inside.
He could not take her outside like this. While the Empire would not question why a prisoner in his care looked frail and broken, he needed to make her somewhat more stable before exposing her to their eyes. Before making her even more vulnerable.
They needed privacy—he could not have anyone eavesdropping. So he stepped inside, circling Leia to give her a wide berth of space, and shut the door behind him. She flinched at the sound, even harsher than last time, but returned to watching him. Her expression was dull and tight, with a sort of defeat in the sullenness of her eyes. She had no better option but to wait for his move.
First, however, he had to make sure they were safe. The security camera in this cell had somehow miraculously survived the tempest outburst of his fury and was still functional, though cracked. All the cameras in these cells could be looped and likely were at the moment, but it would only take a flick of a switch to turn them back on. He could not leave such a vulnerability. He stretched out a hand, Leia immediately leaning away from it, and clenched his fist. In the corner of the ceiling, there was a burst of sparks and static as he crushed the camera with the Force. Again, Leia flinched, turning away.
He waited after that, for her to realize that he wasn’t going to lash out at her. But she didn’t move. Suddenly unsure of himself, he cast his mind about to think of a way to comfort her. He was long out of practice with such an act, but if he was going to change how Leia saw him, he needed to display an image of safety, not danger.
Perhaps he could begin by getting on her level. Vader was tall, was able to loom over most. Leia, however, had clearly inherited her mother’s height. His daughter, for all her strength of will and power, was remarkably tiny. Slowly, he bent one knee to kneel down, brushing his cape back behind him and leaning forward to balance the weight. Kneeling like this was hurtful because of the prosthetics, but he was long used to it after bowing before Palpatine. If he could do it for his Master, he could do it for his daughter.
She eyed him as he moved, but kept her gaze low and did not meet his eyes. He waited for another moment once he was level with her, but again she did nothing. He tried to catch something from her mind, but her shields were locked down tight as durasteel, and he couldn’t even get a general feeling of her emotions. Clearly, she was pouring most of her focus to keep it so thorough.
Then he froze. At this lowered angle, he could see her neck. And even with his red-tinted gaze, he could see the dark bruises starting to form.
He had done that. He had tried to strangle her, tried to kill her.
The room started shaking again as, for a third time that day, the Dark Side threatened to engulf him. But then Leia flinched and curled herself into a ball, clearly expecting all that anger to be unleashed on her, for him to lash out at her.
The shaking stopped as Vader clenched his eyes shut, but the image of her cowering was burned into his retinas. Control. He needed control. He could no longer lash out at the whole galaxy and not care about anything he hurt—Leia was not the whole galaxy. That meant he could not release his power thoughtlessly. He had to consider how it affected her.
When he achieved some sort of calm, he opened his eyes again. Leia was still curled up, hugging her knees, though not as tightly now. She watched him, looking unsettled.
He needed to teach her that she had nothing to fear from him.
“Leia,” he said, softly but with urgency and conviction, “I will not hurt you.”
Though he saw nothing in her expression and sensed only a vague shift in her mind, he distinctly felt that she immediately dismissed his statement as a lie.
He pressed on, determined to convince her. “I will never hurt you. I swear it.”
Her eyes narrowed a fraction, changing her entire expression into a glare, very clearly not believing his word any more than a Hutt’s. Of course, proof against his promise lay right there on her neck.
But he would keep it. He would not repeat the mistake he had made with Padme. He wouldn’t have hurt Leia in the first place if he’d known from the beginning.
Perhaps that was a subject that could open her up. “Why didn’t you tell me when I first came in?” He did his best to keep his anger out of his voice, that she would hide herself from him, and instead sound patient and understanding.
She looked at him like he was stupid. “To avoid this,”she spat, her words paired with a vibration in her shields of anger and resentment—and defeat. Crushing, aching defeat that led to a burden of exhaustion and hopelessness.
He paused to examine that. This wasn’t a defeat.This was a triumph.Despite all the horror he had discovered in the last few hours, he had found his child.And she was alive. He wasn’t alone anymore. He had a purpose again.
He would make her see that, eventually. They were together now, and it would stay that way.
“What exactly do you think ‘this’ is?” he hedged.
“It won’t work,” she cut in suddenly. She waved a hand at him like he was some jumbled mess. “This farce. This ploy. I’m not buying it.”
He blinked. That was not the answer he expected. “What?”
“It won’t work,” she said again. “You won’t trick me this way.”
“…How am I tricking you?” he asked, a bit lost.
“This,”she said again, pointing right at him, now a fierceness to her eyes. “What you’re getting at.” She leaned forward. “I’m not turning to the Dark Side. I’m not joining you, or your Empire, or helping you kill Palpatine. No.”
…She was several steps ahead of him. Which he supposed he should have expected. Even before he had known her identity, he had considered her a possible asset, one that could be extremely valuable. Now, the image of her mastering the Dark Side, flourishing under his teachings, showing her how to seize the power that rested within her, rising to join him on the peak of the Empire, seemed all the more appealing.
But first he wanted to know her. “I never asked you for any of that.” Not yet.
“Oh please,” she scoffed. “It’s obviously all you want.” She clenched her hands on her knees and her expression hardened. “I’m not turning. Save yourself the trouble.”
Wait. She thought—? She thought all he wanted from her was an apprentice? “Leia, there is far more to you than that.”
“Nice of you to notice,” she drawled, before returning to her point. “I’m not giving you the Rebel Base, either. In fact, I’m not giving you anything.”
Somehow, his daughter now seemed more enlivened and sure of herself. Believing that he was trying to manipulate her snapped her back into a fighting mood. Vader wasn’t sure how that had happened. But this wasn’t the place for such discussions, and she was no longer defeated. His child would remain in a cell no longer.
He stood. She drew back, not entirely out of fear, but more out of skepticism, as his movement wasn’t directly towards her. “Come. I am taking you out of here.”
Now he did sense fear from her. Her eyes widened, face paled, and her hands fell to her sides, flat against the bench. He looked down in confusion. What had he done now?
“Where?” she whispered.
“Out of this cell,” he said unsurely, because he hadn’t really thought that part through. He wanted to keep her somewhere safe where she couldn’t escape, but not in a prison. Maybe such a place didn’t exist. “My quarters,” he decided after a moment’s thought, because at least there they wouldn’t be watched.
“Oh,” she said, tension draining from her shoulders in clear relief. Then she tightened up again, this time in confusion. “What? Why?”
“To get you out of this cell,” he answered simply.
She narrowed her eyes, clearly skeptical and suspicious. He didn’t know what to say to her. Did she think he would have left her here?
“…I’d think I’d prefer to stay here,” she said finally.
He stared at her, aghast. “Why?” She didn’t answer, just stared at him. “Where do you think I am taking you?”
“Palpatine,” she answered immediately.
“No!”he roared suddenly, filled with possessive rage, causing her to jump back up on the bench. He stalked forward and leaned in, growling his next words. “I am not letting him anywhere near you.” The idea of Palpatine getting his cold, withered, rotton hands on Vader’s child chilled him to the bone. Vader had served the man for years, and knew that everything and everyone the Emperor touched was corrupted and destroyed. He would burn the galaxy down before he watched that happen to Leia. Leia was his, and Palpatine wouldn’t steal her from him.
The rage left him when he saw the fear in her eyes, fear of him, and he drew back immediately, berating himself. He hadn’t been around someone he wanted notto intimidate in a long time.
But he understood her fear from before now. He shuddered to think what Palpatine would do with his child. Leia was strong and clever, but Palpatine was far older and more experienced in manipulation. And that wasn’t even taking into account what she knew about the future. He had to protect her from him.
He would, he thought fiercely. He wasn’t going to lose her.
Shame filled him at her fearful posture, knowing he deserved it this time. He held out a hand to help her up. “Come.”
“I’m staying,” she said stubbornly.
“Why?” he asked, exasperated.
She leveled another glare at him. “I am a Rebel. You are an Imperial. We are enemies, and that means I stay in this cell.”
…This was surely the Force taking revenge on him for being so obstinate in his Jedi years.
Nonetheless, he wasn’t budging on this. Leia was his daughter, somehow survived when nothing else had, and he entrusted no one else with her safety.
“Leia,” he growled, and she lifted her chin at the challenge, “You will come with me, or I will call someone to sedate you and carry you out.” He hated to threaten her, but he wasn’t bluffing. He doubted he could knock her out with the Force with those shields around her mind, but he had other means.
That shifted her resolve. He watched her eyes consider the options, until finally, with clear reluctance, she stood. Pleased with himself (and feeling her annoyance only grow as she detected so), he turned and went for the door. He slowed his pace, knowing she was small, but she kept a far distance from him, trailing after him like an unenthusiastic tooka.
He stopped before the detention guards who watched him with absolute fear. In fact, they were surprisingly understaffed, considering the full crew for the Death Star.
“The princess is being transferred into my custody, effective immediately,” he instructed. The words were true in more ways than one. The guard‘s eyes widened in alarm, flickering back to Leia as she lingered in the dark hallway. Vader paused, then said, “And order a med droid to be sent to my quarters.”
He began to turn away, but the guard had the spine—or, more likely, foolishness—to speak out. “Milord—do you want binders? Or a guard?”
Vader paused. Both were standard for even the weakest of prisoners. And he suddenly found himself divided. The possessive, jealous side whispered that Leia would try to escape him, and he should keep her under top guard to keep her secure. But another part of him howled in anger at confining his daughter in such a way. He couldn’t allow her to leave—but she wasn’t his prisoner.
“I believe I can handle her,” he responded in as dry a tone as the vocoder would allow. He swept away, opening the lift and then turning back to Leia. She was glaring at him, and for a moment he worried she would put up a fight in front of these officers and he’d have to kill them after all, but then she clenched her fists and stalked into the lift. He followed after her, and they both stared back at the officers who were watching them as the doors shut and the lift began to move.
It was quiet, save for Vader’s breathing and the hum of the lift. He watched her back, finding himself unable to take his eyes off her now that there was nothing else demanding his attention. She had positioned herself as far as she could maturely be from him in the lift, and stared forward at the door. Some hairs had escaped her tight buns, and she looked stressed and weary. He had to resist the urge to reach forward and smooth a lock of it away from her face. He didn’t like seeing her so strained.
Of course she would be, though. He could only imagine waking up in the hands of one of his enemies of the past as she had. She must have been so scared at first, all alone, not knowing what had happened to her. But she had handled it with such strength. When he had first gone into that cell, she had treated the situation with nonchalance and calm control. But she had to have known the danger she was in, if Vader had proceeded to invade her mind as planned.
This time, he managed to keep the Force from physically reacting to the anger that rose with that thought, though he was sure the temperature dropped. He saw goosebumps appear on Leia’s neck, and she glanced at him out of the corner of her eye, no doubt sensing the emotion in the Force.
Thankfully the lift stopped to distract them both. She stepped aside to let him take lead. Only he knew where they were going, but he wished he could keep her close and in his sight, though he knew she wouldn’t allow that willingly.
As the officers and troopers fled the moment they saw him, he realized that this wasn’t the best place to keep Leia. Though Vader had authority over the entire Imperial Navy, the Death Star wasn’t under his direct control. This was Tarkin’s domain, and his Master’s. If he were on the Devastator, his personal Star Destroyer, the officers would be far more obedient and able to cope with his presence. Leia would be safer there.
But his current assignment was to serve Tarkin and protect the Death Star. Much as he wanted to, he could not whisk her away without his Master’s objections. He would have to watch her here.
Leia surprised him by picking up her pace so she was by his side. He detected a flare of irritation from her as she hissed, “Will you stop that?”
He assumed she was referring to how he was coiling his Force presence around hers. Though her mental walls guarded her thoughts well, he patrolled around them, swiping up anything that slipped through and likely overpowering some of her own ability to sense the Force presences around her. He hadn’t stopped for one moment ever since he had recovered from the Dark Side’s hold, and he had no intention to.
“No,” he said simply.
Her anger flared from her shields, searing his. He glanced back at her, still angrily pacing at his side, and decided he could compromise. The powerful anger of the Dark Side could be uncomfortable to those who weren’t used to it. He loosened his grip on her presence just a little, so that his own wasn’t as insistent.
She huffed beside him, her anger fading more into annoyed glowering.
The Death Star was an interesting mix of a battle station and a military occupancy. On one hand, the Death Star was meant to wage war against entire planets, but on the other, the occupants of it were meant to live here for years at a time. This meant that lounges, fair sleeping quarters, and recreational areas did exist within it. Emperor Palpatine intended to move here eventually, and a throne room and suite had already been designed for him, as well as luxury living areas for his closest advisors and politicians.
Vader, despite being second in command of the Empire and Chief Commander of the Imperial Navy, only required his life pod for his personal space, yet Palpatine had always insisted in giving him more. While Palpatine indulged in a fair amount of pleasures, all joy in Vader’s life had turned to ash nineteen years ago.
Until today. Now, every scrap of knowledge he gathered from Leia brought him happiness and delight.
But the point was, his quarters were in the same area as the other suites, right beside where Palpatine intended to move. He was grateful his Master had no immediate intentions of coming to the Death Star. Otherwise he would not allow Leia so close.
They were almost near it when Leia spoke again. This time her voice was dry as Tatooine. “I don’t suppose you’d care to explain why there are blood stains on the walls of our path?”
Vader slowed, turning his gaze side to side to see what she was speaking about. He hadn’t noticed at all until she pointed it out, but there were quite a few red marks across the corridors. Some were smears on the walls, pools on the floor, some dragged across as the bodies had been taken away, and some had been partially scrubbed before the task had been abandoned.
Vader had walked this exact path numerous times today. These markings must be the remnants of his rage earlier. It said something that his anger had lashed out so violently, leaving wounds rather than clean neck breaks or vaporized lightsaber marks. “They are irrelevant,” he said.
“Might I ask why?” she inquired, sounding like a princess yet again.
She had to be familiar with killing. She was with the Rebellion, and had survived the future that way. She couldn’t have done so without getting her hands dirty, or at least seeing it. He sensed from her not disturbance, but disapproval.
“They were in my way,” he said, increasing his pace yet again.
Yet Leia did not bother to catch up with him. In fact, she stopped, now radiating shock and disgust. “You killed your own men for no reason at all? Just because you were angry, not because they had done anything?”
He paused and turned to her, meeting her reproachful gaze. “Odd for you to care about Imperial causalities.”
“I’m not the one at fault here,” she shot back.
The one at fault here.There was plenty of blame to go around. But the only crime Vader considered himself guilty of was harming Leia—which he had only done because of her refusal to reveal her identity to him, and because Kenobi and the Organas had taken her from him.
“This is not the place,” he growled, knowing there were security cameras and even officers around them, though none in sight. He turned and continued down the hall, and she huffed again and followed him.
A few guards were stationed at the edges of the suite area, but Vader passed them easily. He walked the wider, brighter, empty and fairly untouched corridors until he returned to his quarters, Leia still at his side. The door slid open—
…He had forgotten that he had destroyed it.
The novelty of having a daughter was affecting his usual train of thought. There hadn’t been much in the main entry room to begin with, but now the chairs, screens, and datafiles were torn to scraps and scattered about the floor. Only his life pod, glistening like polished obsidian which only made the new dents more highlighted, had survived.
Leia caught up with him and joined him in the doorway, peering into the dark room. She stared at it for a minute, then at him.
“Well,” she said in a tone that anyone else he would have killed for.
“It is a temporary state of affairs,” he dismissed before entering. Leia didn’t immediately follow him and he turned, seeing her clearly hover unsurely in the doorway. He felt her deliberation beneath her shields. Would she try to run for it? Once that door was closed, he would lock her in again.
He debated giving her a final push with the Force when she finally stepped inside. The door shut, immediately taking the brightest light source of the room, and she gingerly stepped over the rubble.
“I see it is common practice for those of the Dark Side to throw tantrums like small children when they’re upset,” she said bitterly.
“Discovering your identity was…difficult to process,” he admitted.
She shot him a scornful look through the dark. “Now there’s a surprise. You overreacting to something you don’t like.”
He froze at those words, and then rushed towards her. She leapt back but he grabbed her by the arms. “This is not because of you, Leia,” he said firmly. “This is because of what has been done. The lies that were told to both of us, the time that was taken from us.”
“Let me go!” she shouted, struggling from his iron grasp.
He knew she hadn’t heard him, too engulfed in panic at her current position—again filling him with sadness and anger. She should feel safe and comforted in his arms, not afraid for her life. He released her and she immediately scurried all the way back to the wall.
He watched her, wanting to close the distance between them but knowing it would only startle her further. Her breathes were heavy and her Force presence pounded with her rapid heartbeat.
“Leia—” he began, not sure what to say or do—apologize? Explain? But he was interrupted by a beeping at the door.
His head snapped to it. How dareanyone interrupt them. He stalked over, ready to kill whoever it was, unleash his anger on them, flinging the door open—
Oh. It was the med droid he had ordered.
“Hello, sir,” the droid said with a calmness that seemed currently foreign to Vader. “I am 201-B. I was summoned to this location. How may I be of service?”
Right. Because he had injured Leia.
He stepped aside to allow the droid in. It waddled forward and turned its blank white eyes slowly about the room. Vader pointed to Leia. “There is your patient,” he said. “Give her priority one treatment.” He knew it was protocol for these droids to use the minimal amount of supplies on Rebels and prisoners, but Vader would accept no such practice for his child.
“Yes, sir,” the droid accepted, and approached Leia.
“Hold it,” Leia said, fisting her hands and regaining her composure from her fear. “Who said I accepted treatment?” She glared at Vader. “I don’t want anything from you.”
For a moment he stared at her in shock. Here he is, trying to fix his mistake, and she won’t accept his help? He sees the bruises on her neck, even from here. They must be causing her pain.
“Leia,” he said, reaching for patience. “Who do you think you are harming more by denying medical attention?”
She didn’t answer, only glared.
“What do you have to gain from resistance?” he asked, trying a different approach. “Causing yourself pain only to spite me? Would it not be easier for you to retain ease of speech?”
That one gets her. He sees the shift in her eyes, from stubborn resolution to thoughtful consideration. He waits, sensing her mind consider countless options and consequences. It is truly fascinating to feel—Padme would do that sometimes, when she was especially focused. The connection between them hurts as much as Leia’s appearance does. Finally, she relents.
“Fine,” she snarls, and paces towards the droid.
The droid, however, rotates its head in a confused circle. “Is there a place where the patient could sit down for treatment?”
Vader swiftly considers if his wrath reached the further rooms of his quarters or if he might have to swipe furniture from one of the other suites when Leia answers, “I can take it standing.”
The droid consents easily and begins to gently scan her neck, Leia lifting her chin for it and fiercely avoiding Vader’s watchful gaze. But the droid’s question brings a realization of his own.
A child, he slowly realized, was going to be difficult to take care of. While Vader required extensive surgeries to survive, the only personal item he needed was his life pod. But Leia would need quarters of her own, a bedroom, a living area, personalization. He would give it all to her, any gifts his daughter wanted and he had been kept from offering, but shifting from his sparce lifestyle to demanding the comforts she deserved would be…complex.
A beloved voice started echoing in his ears, murmuring about the color for the baby’s room and old toys to pass down. She had made preparations for the baby, imagined its future, but the Jedi had only wanted it to come.
He stared at his daughter before him. She finally had.
A warning flashed across his visor. His secondary respirator was now at twenty percent. Now that was dangerous. He hesitated, hating the idea of leaving his child out of his sight for any point of time so soon, but she was out of immediate danger. And she would only be a wall away.
He approached and lifted a finger at her. “Remain here,” he said firmly. “I will sense anything you do. Do not try to escape, or resist the med droid’s treatment.”
With that, he turned to his life pod, it hissing open for him. When it snapped closed around him and Leia was no longer in immediate reach, he compensated by tightening his Force sense around her again. He felt her shove against it in exasperation, but he did not back down.
He sat in the chair and leaned back as the mechanical arms activated and shifted to remove his helmet. As the ventilator was pulled from his mouth, the cooler, freshly purified air of the pod was allowed to fill his lungs. His breaths were no longer controlled, rhythm by rhythm. In this small, solid, airtight orb, he was granted a limited freedom.
He had a daughter.
Leia.
He closed his eyes and felt as if Padme were right next to him. There to help him through the trials of fatherhood, this difficult task that, though he yearned for, wanted to seize it with herhand in his own.
There was so much to do. Leia was a wanted prisoner of the Empire, and their only link to her Rebel base. She would never give in—of that he was sure, now that he knew of his stubborn blood in her—and he would not let anyone force her or punish her for it. But that didn’t mean he could just take her away. Tarkin would question him—the Emperor would question him.
He had to secure her in a way that severed everyone—Rebels, Imperials, and his Master—off her trail. Then he could worry about the future she knew, about the future they were destined for, about her son…his grandson.
But first, his ventilator. He summoned the tools to his hands with the Force, and began the repairs. As he opened the panel on his chest, he flinched minutely at the damage Leia had done. Wires pulled apart, metal detached from the power of her blow. She hadn’t even been trying, and she’d almost killed him.
He would have died without knowing her. Without protecting her. But if she hadn’t struck out, then he would have killed her.
He began to bend the pieces and call forward spare parts of what he couldn’t fix. The Force allowed him an extra level of precision that was essential to his suit—overwise, a droid would be necessarily to manage it. But he was able to bend and weave the slimmest of wires together without even touching them.
He worked quickly, finding himself restless to return to his daughter. Though he felt her only feet away, still grumbling with anger, he needed to see her. He feared leaving this pod and finding her gone, perhaps escaped, or attacked, or maybe a hallucination all along.
But he also worked thoroughly. Both of ventilators needed repair, and he knew that in the coming days, he might not have the time to do so. If he slipped—if Tarkin tried to take Leia from him, if Palpatine became suspicious, if any Imperial dared to speak against him—then he would have to fight to protect Leia. When defending himself, he didn’t care what injuries he sustained. But when protecting her, he had to be at his best.
He was almost done when his comm rang. He growled at the interruption and further delay, but that anger turned to wariness when he saw it was Tarkin.
This…would take some creative explaining.
He sent an acknowledgement—that he would be available in a moment—and then summoned his mask down upon him. It lowered down and locked in, twisting to connect itself and closing down upon him like jaws. When he was ready, he flicked his comm on.
Tarkin appeared from shoulders up, looking as displeased as ever.
“Lord Vader,” he greeted neutrally. “I don’t suppose now would be a good time for a report?”
Vader swallowed his irritation at being spoken to in such a way. “I have yet to find the location of the Rebel Base. Her resistance to the mind probe is…impressive,” he allowed, even though he hadn’t used the thing. “It will take time.”
Tarkin’s lips thinned. “And your little…outburst?”
Vader clenched his other fist. “There was one thing I discovered. She sent the plans to Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
Tarkin’s pale thin eyebrows went up. “Kenobi? Surely he must be dead by now.”
Vader thought quickly. “I sense she is speaking the truth,” he ground out. “The old Jedi now has the plans, and must be hunted down.” An idea occurred to him, and he hurried to use it. “Thus I transferred the princess into my custody to do so.”
Tarkin raised a thin eyebrow. “You intend to leave this base with her on a wild convor hunt?”
Vader narrowed his eyes, not liking the blunt disapproval with which the grand moff spoke. “The Death Star plans must be retrieved. I will depart with Her Highness in a few hours.” Surely the man wouldn’t be so foolish to try and stop him.
“I have my own idea,” Tarkin offered. “If your ways of interrogation will not work, then perhaps we could use this opportunity to test the strength of this battle station.”
Vader felt unease and fear crawl into his shoulders. “What do you mean?”
“We threaten her homeworld with this station,” Tarkin clarified, clearly pleased with himself. “I’m sure the Empire can survive without a weak planet like Alderaan. You can take her to hunt down Kenobi after I have the Rebel base from her.” Tarkin tutted. “It will take me some time to prepare. Bring her to the bridge in an hour.”
Vader’s throat and mouth felt filled with bitter poison, but all he said was, “As you wish.”
Tarkin nodded, and flickered out. It was only then that Vader allowed himself to crush the comm in his hand.
He opened the life pod with a wave and paced back outside.
Only to stop in his tracks to find Leia waiting for him, her expression decidedly neutral…and her mental walls sealed down tight.
“Oh, up from your nap?” she said coolly.
He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Where is the droid?”
“It finished its job,” she said simply, waving a hand to the bacta patches on her neck. Her words spoke truth…but were hiding something.
“What did you do?” he asked directly.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” she snapped.
He’d get no answers from her. Vader turned in a circle, his eyes scanning the rubble of his quarters, and noticed a path through it, like something had been dragged, displacing the scraps. He followed it, Leia’s shields at once spiking in fear, behind his life pod.
There was the droid, its neck twisted at an inhuman angle, its wires pulled out violently, and its arm torn open…where the medical knives would be.
Vader rounded back to her. She stood her ground as he paced forward but paled to the color of snow. “What did you do?”
She didn’t answer, just glared mutinously. He looked down at her hands, which were tight fists, but empty. Wait. He reached for her right arm, and she tried to slip away, but he snatched it anyway. She hissed in frustration at him, but he was careful not to hurt her. With caution, he pulled one of the med droid’s blades out from her white dress sleeve. The dress was long and loose, suited for concealing things.
Still holding her arm before him, he lifted the blade between them. “Is this the only one?”
It was remarkable how she was somehow able to meet his eyes even through the visors. The only others who could be so precise were his Master and, occasionally, a few of the Inquisitors or Jedi he hunted.
He could see the fire of fight in her gaze, an unsettling difference between one of his own expressions in the face of his wife and his mother. But there was also intelligence, calculation, and quick wit. He was so entranced by the rapid hurricane of her thoughts that he didn’t realize how much time had passed when it left her.
With much distaste, she admitted, “Another in my shoe.”
Without any prompting, she lifted one foot and pulled out another, smaller knife with her free hand. She didn’t bother to hand it to him, but rather dropped it unceremoniously on the ground with a clatter.
They stared at each other for a moment. Some sort of challenge, but Vader wasn’t sure of the stakes.
“What did you plan to do with these?” he asked finally.
Leia wasn’t breaking. He tried to think of her point of view; she wanted out, so she would go for the door.
He turned to look at the exit, which was still solidly closed and locked. He let go of Leia’s arm to walk over and look closer. The metal was still intact, but there were clear scratch marks around the edges. She had tried to force open the panel.
He felt his rage rise up. His daughter was trying to escape him, when she was finally where she belonged.
But now was not the time. He waved a hand, and the two knives as well as the droid lifted themselves and flew into his life pod. The pod closed them in, thus dimming the room.
“We do not have time for this,” Vader said, pacing back towards Leia. “Tarkin is about to use this station.”
The wave of horror in Leia’s emotions, breaking through those careful shields, cut him off. He froze as her eyes became distant.
“On Alderaan,” she whispered.
…How did she know?
“Yes,” he granted, “meaning we must sabotage it within the next hour.”
Her mouth fell open. “What?” she gapped at him.
“We need to find a way to sabotage the station,” he repeated. He summoned a data pad to his hands. “I do not have time to request the full schematics for the Death Star from Coruscant, but my rank does grant me access to partial ones. We can look for a mechanical weakness and edit it so the energy is turned on the station itself. It will look like a design flaw.”
He projected the plans throughout the room for them both to see. He looked up at Leia expectantly, thinking she would start sorting through this data she had worked so hard to steal, but her eyes were only on him.
He cursed himself. How could he be so ignorant? “Leia, I know it must scare you to realize your planet is in danger, but I assure you that Tarkin is not bluffing—”
“Not that,” Leia interrupted, still looking at him like he had somehow shapeshifted into a bantha. “You.”
A small thrill went through him at that—even though he had no idea what she meant. But at least she wasn’t looking at him with resentment or anger or fear. “What?” he asked.
“Why are you doing this?” she narrowed her eyes. “Is this some kind of trick?”
“We have to save Alderaan,” he insisted.
“I know that,” she said. “But why are you doing this? We are talking about the Death Star, right?” He stared at her, confused, and she pressed on. “The same monstrosity the Empire’s been pouring so many resources into? The whole pinnacle of Palpatine’s ruling-with-fear plan? The same Death Star your Empire has spent twenty years constructing? That you are supposed to defend?”
She waited for him to respond. So he said, “Yes, that one.”
“Have you lost your mind?”she spluttered.
No, I have only now just found it.
But they didn’t have time for this. “Do you want to save Alderaan or not?” he asked, trying to press her into action.
“Of course I do!” she shouted, throwing her arms out in exasperation. “But why do you?”
“Because you do,” he said simply, now finally catching on. And the realization at the root of her dilemma filled him with sadness. “And you are my daughter.”
The look of disturbance she gave him was almost comical. “So that’s it?” she said finally. “I’m your daughter, and I want the Death Star destroyed, so that’s what you’ll do? No matter all the investment it is for the Empire, no matter how much time was spent constructing it, no matter all your loyalty to your Emperor?”
She thought those things mattered to him? More than her? Never. “Yes.”
She lifted both hands to press at her temples and closed her eyes. “I forgot how crazy you are.”
…He wasn’t sure what his alternate had done that she defined as crazy, nor was he sure what he was doing now that she saw so. Yes, turning on the Death Star was a bold and dramatic move, but an obvious one and there was no question in Vader’s mind that he should do it. It was for Leia, after all.
“We have less than an hour,” he said. “We need to find a flaw, exploit it, and get you off this station in time.” He could transfer Leia to his personal Star Destroyer. Actually…this might be an opportunity to kill two Convors with one stone. If he moved Leia while keeping the record of her on the Death Star, then he could claim that she died when it was sabotaged. He could cut the Organas, the Rebellion, his Master, everyone off of her trail. He could keep her and no one would come looking for her.
He could see Leia’s hesitation, but in the end, her love for Alderaan won out. She turned and started reading the holographic images.
As he too turned to peer at them, plans began to crystalize in his mind. He could snag a disguise for her—a technician uniform or something—and bring her along when he sabotaged the station’s program. Then he could take her to his shuttle and they could leave for his Star Destroyer together, before the station exploded.
For the first time in many years, he had a direction. Things were still changing and developing, but as Vader peered at the Death Star’s plans, his daughter by his side, he felt a smile pull at the corner of his mouth.
He wasn’t alone anymore.