Missing and Presumed Dead

Family Quality Time

This was a disaster.

One he never would have predicted, but he should have.

It was obvious now that the truth was out, and again he was horrified by his inability to have found the truth for himself. He'd wanted to deny it, to laugh in her face and finish her off for such an audacious lie, but the truth sang in the Force. Just as it had when he'd heard Luke's full name for the first time.

Leia Organa--Leia Skywalker --was his daughter.

It was a disaster, and he didn't know how to even begin going about fixing it.

It wasn't that he didn't want another child, a daughter. The idea that he wasn't alone, that there was still a purpose to life, that he still had a chance to make things right in his family, should have brought him the same sense of single-minded purpose from before. On some level, it still did.

But Luke, at the time, had only a few close encounters with him. He hadn't done anything totally irreparable to him.

Leia?

He'd murdered her crew. Tortured her. Invaded her mind. Held her back as her entire homeworld was blown to smithereens, almost killed her numerous times, tortured her friends and thrown her lover into carbonite. Not that he regretted that.

He'd hurt her brother.

Kriffing hells . Leia was his daughter.

A disaster, a screw up, a menace. That's what he was as a father.

Artoo and Threepio were switched off, pushed into the cockpit corner. He no longer had his daughter-- his kriffing daughter-- by the throat, but he did have her pinned to the copilot chair as he guided the ship through the upper atmosphere of Dagobah.

He hadn't said a word. She'd shocked him into speechlessness. He'd simply moved on an instinct-- to protect. As much as she projected her deep loathing for him, he didn't care. He'd lost one child. He'd lost her mother. He wasn't losing anyone else.

Twins. Padme had had twins.

He remembered insisting to her that she was pregnant with a girl, and how she insisted the baby was a boy. They'd both been right.

Leia talked non-stop--or rather, gave him a piece of her mind non-stop. He didn't focus on most of it more than to get the gist; how she hated him, how he needed to unhand her, how she had important work to do, how the Alliance would want to know what happened to her...

All things he would normally have a snarky response for. As it was, he remained silently panicking until he brought the ship through the upper atmosphere and received an immediate hail from the Executor.

"Unidentified vessel, transmit your identification codes or prepare to be boarded."

In her chair, Leia bristled, as though she were about to turn her ire on the technician. He had the mental image of her reaching through and strangling the man despite the distance between them.

"This is Black Leader. I have commandeered this vessel. Get me Admiral Piett. Now,"  he demanded. He half expected Leia to shout, but thankfully she didn't. She remained silent, for once. He didn't know how he would explain bringing one of the most notorious Rebel Leaders aboard and treating her less like a prisoner and more like...well, his daughter.

"Right away, my lord."

He waited a moment while the comm was connected.

"Lord Vader," Piett's cool, collected voice greeted over the comm.