InsaneJournal

Bail wasn't the type to make broad assumptions based on little to no information. He didn't like playing guessing games, and he was never a quick policy maker as some politicians he'd worked with over the years were. He blamed his current unease about his own future on the fact that he had been uprooted from what he was certain was a pivotal moment in his life. He was then brought to another place entirely only to then face certain death and be rescued, as it were, into a courtly, well, tea party, he supposed, for want of any other way to describe it. Those events coupled with what he had been learning as he got to know some of the people from his own future (who implied several times over that they had never had the pleasure of meeting him) and then Director Krennic's ominous-sounding request, well, Bail had questions. Several of them, in fact.

So he sought out the one person he knew he could trust in any situation on any day in any time: his daughter. He found Leia along the edge of the lake, and he gathered his thoughts for a moment, still, before walking over to her. "Leia," Bail said with a smile.

Leia let out a brief sigh both of resolve and relief when she saw her father approaching. And he was, and would always be her father in every sense of the word that mattered any to her. Without any pretense of preamble, she approached him quickly, taking from him the embrace that she wasn’t entirely sure that she deserved. For one brief moment, all the years that she’d been without him, everything that she’d achieved, and loved, and lost and loved again, seemed to wedge themselves into a footnote between this moment and that last that she’d seen Bail.

She wished that they could stay there. That she wouldn’t have to tell him what she’d done and what had happened to Alderaan. Leia wasn’t sure yet, which would be worse: if he blamed her for it, or if he didn’t. Because it was a responsibility that she shouldered, and it had always been the might behind the force that drove her onward. Her parents, the people of Alderaan, every breath that had been extinguished by the will of the empire deserved to be avenged. For Leia, victory for the rebellion was not only about peace and what was right for the galaxy, it was about justice for those that had suffered.

“I’ve missed you.” She said, muffled in the fold of his jacket. And she had, although, it was also true that she’d been intentionally slippery and avoidant in the jungle, trying to dodge him for long enough to work out what she wanted to say or do about the fact that he was here. It hadn’t worked though, she hadn’t really arrived at any conclusions.

Bail wrapped his arms easily around her, pressing his cheek down against the top of her head. Though it hadn't been that long since he'd last seen his daughter, it felt like it had been a lifetime ago. "Lelila," he whispered, then after a long moment stepped back to look down at her, searching her face. She said she missed him, and it was on the tip of his tongue to say that he had just seen her, not too long ago, but he stopped himself. It was entirely possible that their timeframes were different, and she came from some other moment when they had been apart for a while. He opted for something else, though similar. "How long have you been here, in this - experiment - before I arrived?" he asked.

He kissed the top of her head and motioned for them both to take a seat, right there on the lawn overlooking the lake. "I am so glad you're safe, or at least as safe as one can be here, in whatever all of this was." Safe from the Imperials that were peppered around. Safe from Director Krennic. Safe from that volcano. It didn't matter precisely, the semantics of the word safe in this situation, only that the relief he felt with having her here in front of him was immense.

Leia sat down beside him and let her black skirt spread out over the grass. She liked the clothing she was forced to wear here a lot better than her jungle ensemble, but thus far her clothing options in this place hadn’t given her that much to complain about. At least, not compared to Jabba’s palace, anyway.

“I’m just glad you’re here.” She admitted, putting her hand on Bail’s arm. “And I’m glad we’re out of that jungle.” She paused, about to mention that she’d heard stories from Luke about the humidity in the swamps of Dagobah, but that brought up too many questions she wasn’t sure that she was ready to answer. “So far, I’ve only been here a few weeks. Three, I think. But it’s hard to tell. Who knows how long we were all out cold between the jungle and this place. “

"How many different - scenarios," he used the word because he wasn't sure what else to use in its place, "have you been in? Besides the jungle and here. Someone mentioned the facility to me, as another location. Have there been more?" Bail had been trying to keep a mental catalog of everything he'd learned since arriving, anything that might allow him to better adapt to the environments and help others to do the same. He didn't like this feeling of both ignorance and uselessness that had overwhelmed him since his arrival.

But he wasn't going to stay away from the questions that had been cropping up over and over again either. He covered her hand on his arm with his own, smiling over at her. "I can't help but feel as though I've missed more than only a few weeks here in this experiment," he said quietly. Besides the presence of Luke Skywalker, there was Poe Dameron who spoke so highly of Leia from the future, and then also and Hux and Ren, whom Bail tried not to think about. He cleared his throat and looked out over the shimmering water. "Director Krennic has been making comments," he said a moment later. "He's been asking if I've spoken to you. About what, I'm unsure, but it feels very important." At the same time, it could very well be simply Imperial manipulation, but there was too much else feeding into that feeling, a sourness in Bail's stomach that said there was something else he wasn't being told yet.

Leia tilted her head as she listened to her father. There were a lot of things that he deserved to know, and deserved to hear from her, but that did not make the act of telling him any easier. She unconsciously tucked a loose end of her hair behind her ear to steady herself as she began to answer his questions. “The only ‘scenerios’ so far have been this place and the jungle you saw. I’m not sure if the facility is another world, or just the place the leave us when they’re finished.”

Leia spat out the last word. She had fought so hard against inequality, enslavement and the will of the empire that finding herself completely without agency at the mercy of some group of scientists was infuriating. It made her feel as though her hard work meant nothing. Not because what she had built had crumbled, but because their own lives and choices were reduced to something insignificant when some other force could step in and steal them from their own destinies and return the dead to life. The fact Bail was here made Leia feel guilty for feeling angry. As though she should be grateful to these alien forces for disrupting her life because the’d seen fit to bring her father to her. “As for whatever Krennic knows or thinks he knows, don’t listen to him. We destroyed the Death Star and the second one that they tried to build.”

There was so much more to say. She knew she couldn’t keep the fact that she knew that Anakin Skywalker was her father to herself for much longer, and she would have to tell him about the destruction of Alderaan before someone else did, but she had to set the pace somehow, else they both be overwhelmed.

He didn't like this entire concept any more than Leia did, if her tone was any indication. That and he liked to think he knew her well enough to know how she'd feel about it. How many years had he spent fighting alongside Padmé and others, as senator, then later with the Rebellion, to free the galaxy. This took them all, whether from their universe or another, many steps backwards.

"I don't put too much stock into what Krennic has said," he assured her. "However, the existence here of men from my future and, I suspect, your future as well, does beg the question of what happens. And I don't know if it's better to know or not know, in the end, however I also know I dislike feeling ignorant of events whether I have experienced them yet or not." He pressed his fingertips together in front of him and breathed out a sigh of relief. "I am incredibly pleased to hear that the Death Star is destroyed, less so to learn there was a second that needed to be destroyed as well." He looked at her. "I imagine you had a lot to do with those offensive strikes, am I right?" Pride even without her confirmation filled him. He had always known that, for better or worse, his daughter was destined for great things.

"I do have to ask, however," Bail continued after a moment, "about Luke Skywalker." He kept his tone even, quiet. He didn't know how to broach the topic without opening it up to so many other questions depending on her response. "Was he involved at all?"

Very slowly, Leia placed both of her hands onto Bail’s arm, gripping it tightly as she looked at him, with her wide brown eyes filled with sympathy and understanding. “Yes. My brother was very much involved, and I can’t explain it, but the man who is here, who is claiming to be Luke Skywalker, isn’t him. He isn’t the person I know. I thought it in the jungle, but I’m sure of it now. Poe Dameron - he’s, he’s a friend who knows me when I’m older, he’s told me that everything that person says doesn’t line up at all with what he knows of Luke.”

She spoke quickly, communicating the important point that she knew about Anakin Skywalker, and that she knew about Luke, while bracing them both to take it in. Leia didn’t want to hurt him with this news, and if he needed it, she’d spend the rest of their time together reassuring him that he was -- and would forever be -- the only person that she considered a father. But, now that it was out there, regardless of how either of them felt, it was no longer a secret and one less weight for them to carry.

Bail swallowed, hard, felt sick for a moment as his daughter looked at him and then the words she was saying finally set in. So she knew. She knew all of those things that he had kept such a closely-guarded secret for years. He breathed out, slowly, and closed his eyes. The added complication of this Luke not being the "right" Luke was something to touch on, worry about, later. But for now -

"I'm so sorry, Lelila," he said gently. "That I've even kept that from you that long." He turned his face away from her, trying to hide the guilt and shame he felt at the fact that he had never had that conversation with her. He supposed he did have it, eventually, which made him feel marginally better, that she knew, that that weight could be lifted from them both. He caught her hand in his and squeezed tightly. "I hope that you found it in you to forgive me for that, somehow."

“I was never upset with you for keeping in from me.” Perhaps, because of how she’d learned it. She’d befriended and loved Luke for years before it finally came to light that he was her brother, and when it did she’d realised that in her heart she’d always known that there was something familiar about him that she couldn’t quite understand but always felt. But knowing Luke meant that she could frame her family around being related to him, and keep her connection to Darth Vader as distant and irrelevant and it needed to be. “If I’d known, I might have -- Vader might have found me, I understand that the only way to keep me safe was not to tell me, it’s all right.”

But still she was fighting to keep her composure. Not because she was upset with him, but because she was heartbroken that she never really got the chance to talk to him about and of this, hear about her mother Amidala, or ask why he’d been so willing to take her in and raise her as his own daughter even knowing whose child she was.

“I sent a message to Obi-Wan Kenobi, I sent him the Death Star plans once we had them because our envoy was captured by Imperials, somehow Luke intercepted the message, recruited Ben and came to help me. He destroyed the first Death Star. He -- I knew him for years before either of us knew the truth.”

He couldn't help but feel that she should have been upset with him, but he was thankful that she wasn't. Leia (and Luke, too, he supposed) had every right to be upset about being kept from each other. "The last thing I ever wanted was Vader discovering who you are," he said, with a nod of agreement. The possibilities of that happening had haunted his nightmares since that first night he brought her home as an infant to Breha.

Bail smoothed her hair out of her face and smiled sadly at her. "I was on my way to talk to you about that," he said, "before coming here. I was sending you off to General Kenobi and I'm - glad that happened. I'm glad you and Luke came to know each other." He paused as her words caught up with him and he shook his head, only slightly. He realized that maybe he didn't want to know the answer to this question, even though he couldn't think of any reason he - or Obi-Wan - would have kept the truth from the twins once they were together. At least, no reason that he wanted to think of. "You knew him for years before …?" he repeated, working it out. He would have told her. He knew that. "Leia, what happened?"

This was an unnatural moment. There was nothing that could have prepared her for explaining to her father that she had watched him, along with their entire planet, be murdered. Her home and the people that she had been raised her whole life to govern had been reduced to nothing but ash and space rock because Vader wanted her to experience the power and terror of the Empire in her heart and the very core of her bones.

But this -- this was worse than any torture she could have experienced at Vader’s hands. It was worse than the depths of the jungle, the piercing cold of Hoth, or watching Vader torment her a second time as he dropped the man she loved into carbonite. Leia would never believe Luke when he told her that there was still good in Darth Vader’s heart. Maybe he had offered his son help in the bitter end, but a moment of grace did not make up for the deep, bloody wound he’d left on her heart, or the charred black remains of lives and hopes that he’d left in his wake. Vader was a monster, and she would never see him as anything more.

“The Imperials... once they captured me, they tried to get me to tell them where I’d sent the plans -- where the rebel base was. Darth Vader decided the best way to get me to talk was to threaten Alderaan... Which... which he then destroyed.” She broke. For the first time, recounting the events, her strength left her. If she hadn’t already been sitting on the ground she might have sank there, but instead she she just buried herself against her father, and hid her face in his chest to try and stop herself from shaking too badly as she started to cry.

It was as though Bail heard what Leia said inside of a vacuum. He knew the power of the Death Star. They all had known it, though they hadn’t yet seen it in action. It was one of those great fantastical horrors that one never wanted to imagine happening. To hear that Vader - (Anakin!) - had used it against Alderaan, when Alderaan had done nothing but remain neutral, pacifist in any of the struggles within the galaxy. Was it punishment for Bail’s own actions? Had he heard the rumors of Bail’s involvement with the Rebel Alliance? Did he choose Alderaan because of him?

Alderaan, destroyed. Just – gone, like that. He couldn’t picture it. He couldn’t even fathom it. He couldn’t really even feel pain at the loss because to him, it wasn’t lost and it never would be. He had seen it so recently, spoken to his wife via holo, prepared for a trip there to make their preparations for war. This wasn't war. This was annihilation. With the Death Star, Bail realized, they wouldn't have stood a moment's chance.

Bail’s arms went around Leia, held her tightly, close, like she was still the little girl who used to crawl into his lap and beg him to read another book before bedtime. “I don’t –“ He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what to think. The edges of his vision grew blurry, and Bail realized he was on the verge of tears, his wife’s name on his lips. Then, “Leia,” again. And a choked out “Alderaan” because even though it wasn’t a pain he felt from experience, it was an ache at knowing just what Vader and the Emperor were capable of, the extremes to which they could turn. And a hatred stronger than he'd ever felt before at seeing what it had to have done to Leia.

“He’s dead. Ben -- Ben Kenobi died rescuing me from the Death Star before we destroyed it.” Leia stammered, as though now it was better to say it -- say it all -- so this was never a moment they had to revisit. “I know how much --”

She knew how much Kenobi, and everyone else had meant to her father. She knew how desperately he’d worked to keep Alderaan safe, and how little it had mattered in the end, when a split second decision on the part of Anakin Skywalker had extinguished all their efforts. She breathed in deeply, letting herself take this moment of grief, and weakness that she’d been putting off for so long. With so much to do for the Rebellion and so many people counting on her to know what to do and lead them, she’d never been allowed to break down and experience the loss of her parents and the loss of her home. Even Grief was a luxury and a privilege that Darth Vader had denied her. “I never stopped. Vader and the Emperor were on the second Death Star when it was destroyed. I never gave up -- I kept fighting, I’m still fighting.”

He would take the time to mourn General Kenobi later, if he needed to. This moment was for Leia. He pulled back, slowly, just enough so that he could lift her chin and look at her. He wiped at her wet cheeks. “Of course you did, my dear,” he said. “I would have expected nothing less.” He and Breha hadn’t raised Leia precisely to be a rebel, but they had raised her to fight for her beliefs. He would have never doubted that she’d do that, no matter the circumstances.

Bail embraced her tightly again and drew in a sharp breath. “I have always believed you to be one of the strongest women I knew,” he said, “so much like your mother –“ And though Queen Breha was strong in many ways, as Alderaan's queen, he meant Padmé when he spoke of Leia's strength. He had seen so much of his dear friend in Leia as she grew up, and he saw her even more now. “And it’s good to know that I was right about that.”