by obi’s girl
Genre: Viggie
Rating: PG
Summary: Bail spends a day with Leia and remembers the circumstances around Leia’s adoption seven years earlier, and wonders if it is time for her to know the truth.
Disclaimer: I’m not George Lucas, no money being made from this.
A/N: A little inspiration from John Mayer’s Daughters song. I didn’t use the song in the fic but I listened to it repeatedly while writing the rest of this.
Seven-year-old Leia giggled and screamed as her father spun her around that she saw the blur of the royal garden around them. Her father had been away visiting an old friend he said and just recently came back. Bail Organa cancelled all of his scheduled meetings that he was to attend that afternoon to spend time with his daughter. His daughter. He knew Leia wasn’t biologically his daughter but he was a father to her in every right. He was there when she made her first step and she said her first words.
Long ago, he accepted the responsibility to care for Leia as his own. When she was younger, he saw Padmé in her features, her eyes and smile. But as she grew older, he saw Anakin there. Bail barely knew Anakin Skywalker but he had heard of the young man. He knew that towards the end of the Clone Wars, he became a Knight and distanced himself from the Jedi. Then later as Padmé became pregnant, the Jedi found out about his secret marriage and expelled him from the Jedi Order, driving him closer to the Darkside.
He didn’t hate Anakin; he had never spoken of him in Leia’s presence but that didn’t mean she didn’t know. She had Jedi powers like her brother but Bail had decided that long ago that would not be Leia’s destiny. Her place was in the royal family, becoming a skilled politician like her mother. He couldn’t train her to be a Jedi, Padmé didn’t want that for her and he didn’t either. She had the potential to be a powerful Jedi but it was too dangerous and too risky.
Bail broke out of his reverie and stopped twirling, and walked her over to the bench, and she sat down beside him. Bail watched as Leia flattened out the wrinkles in her dress. After realizing the creases didn’t matter, Leia looked towards the sky and she seemed focused on a particular point Bail didn’t see. She always did that, looking to the sky when she was bored. The first time Bail caught her doing it, he passed it off as boredom but now, he’d catch her doing it more often and he realized that maybe she was looking for something, or someone.
He never talked to her about her adoption or the circumstances surrounding it. Leia was only a baby, barely old enough to remember what happened. Bail remembered, he remembered everything. He remembered how much Padmé didn’t want to part with Leia since she had already been separated from her son. But she still pleaded with him to take care of her and to be there for Leia. It was very important to her that he love her as much as he could, and that it was up to him to if he would tell her about what happened all those years ago.
Seven years later, Leia still didn’t know but maybe now was the time to tell her about it. Leia looked away from the sky, turned to her father and smiled. “How was your trip, daddy?”
“Wonderful, princess...Do you know about Naboo?”
Leia shrugged, fidgeting, “I remember you used to talk about Naboo...Is that where you went?”
“Yes,” he said, “You’ve never been there but it’s so beautiful. I’ve only been there once but the society and culture is very much like Alderaan. I visited a friend in the country side...This was the first time I stayed longer than three days.”
“What was your friend like?”
Bail smiled, “She’s like you, Leia.”
Leia frowned momentarily and then laughed, finding it hard to believe there was someone else out that was like her. “Daddy, that’s silly. Everyone’s different.”
“Yes, you’re right, princess,” he mused, “But my friend, she’s very much like you. She is older than you, about my age if not younger but her character and beliefs are like you.”
She looked again to the sky and then to her father. “Why did you visit Naboo, Daddy?”
“I went to see an old friend.”
Leia hmm’d and began to play with her dress again. “Aunt Tia said you went to Naboo because this ‘friend’ of yours is related to me but I know all of my aunts live here on Alderaan. Alderaan is my home.”
“She is related to you, Leia,...he said, paused and sighed, “There are a lot of things you don’t know that I should have told you before but I didn’t because I didn’t think you were ready to know the truth. The woman I visited was your birth mother.”
Leia frowned again and stopped fixing the creases in her dress. All her life, her father had never married but she assumed that was because he didn’t wish to be tied down, or hadn’t found the right woman. Handmaidens and nurses always took care of her because she didn’t have a mother, and she remembered vaguely when she did ask about her birth mother, her father said she died in labor. Leia was around four years old when she asked him about her but he never mentioned anything else about her. Now, Leia felt the need to know more about this woman who she thought had died who had sacrificed her life for her. “What...what was she like?”
Bail sighed, “The first two years of your life, she was very sad to be away from you but then I promised to her that I would visit when my schedule permitted and I would tell her about you,” he smiled and touched Leia’s cheek, “There’s so much of her in you, Leia.”
Leia turned towards him, forgetting about her dress. “Why is she on Naboo? Is that where I’m from? Who was with her? What’s her family like?”
He smiled, understanding her excitement. Leia had been motherless since she was a baby, but head taken on the role of both mother and father, caring for her. He looked to Leia, her excitement had died down but confusing thoughts and questions haunted her features. “What is it?”
“I don’t know if I should ask this...I feel silly about it because you raised me and I love you so much, daddy but if my mother, my real mother is living on Alderaan then how come we’re not with her?”
“It’s complicated, Leia...” Bail started and then noted his handmaidens were waiting to see him. “I shouldn’t have brought it up... ”
Leia nodded no furiously, “Please Daddy...Do you not love her? Why are you separated from her?”
Bail sighed, “I wasn’t her husband, Princess. We were colleagues. Your father...I can’t tell you everything that happened because you’re too young to understand but they separated. I shouldn’t have brought this up.”
“You’re not going to tell me anything about her, are you?”
“You’re not ready to know all the details but I promise to tell you about all of it when you’re older.” Bail smiled and kissed Leia’s forehead, “I promise, Princess, that one day I will tell you everything. I’ll tell you anything you want to know about her and your father, and where you came from. But not now. Now, you are my little Leia, my daughter and I love you.”
Leia smiled solemnly as she hugged him, feeling torn between her love for her adopted father and the parents she never knew. One day, she would know the whole truth and tomorrow, she would forget about this conversation and only that the man holding her now was her only family.
The End