Saga More than a Holograph on the Wall (A Bail, Leia, and Breha Organa Family Oneshot)

Title: More than a Holograph on the Wall

Author: devilinthedetails

Timeframe: Set between ROTS and ANH when Leia is a little girl.

Genre: Family, General

Summary: Leia hangs up a holograph of Padme Amidala, and Bail is worried.

More than a Holograph on the Wall

Emperor Palpatine had abruptly put the Senate in recess, and Bail had returned to Alderaan. Breha had greeted him at the palace landing pad and they had shared the concerned whispers about the increasingly brazen tyranny this represented in a way they never would have dared by hologram that could be intercepted. Strolling hand in hand through the blossoming gardens, they pressed their cheeks close to each other as if murmuring love in one another’s ears when really they were whispering secret treason that could kill them both if anyone untrustworthy or loose-lipped overheard.

“Where’s Leia?” Bail asked in a slightly louder voice, because these were safe words, words he didn’t care who might hear, once he and Breha had come to the soul-sinking agreement that there wasn’t much more they could do to resist the Emperor’s ever-growing tyranny than they were by organizing the Rebel Alliance with Mon Mothma.

“In her quarters.” Breha’s face shifted into an affectionate, motherly smile. “Completing an assignment for her tutor. At least that’s what she’s supposed to be doing.”

“I’ll go greet her.” Bail planted a gentle kiss on his wife’s forehead, certain that his heavy heart would lighten several kilos when he laid eyes upon his beautiful daughter. He wondered how many meters she had grown since he had last seen her in person—since this latest session of the Senate had begun. Her astonishing growth was less apparent in hologram form than in life. “And check that she’s not getting sidetracked from what she’s supposed to be doing.”

“She’ll be happy to see you again.” Breha gave Bail’s hand a light squeeze. “As am I.”

“Not as happy as I am to see her and you.” Bail lifted his wife’s warm fingers to his lips for a kiss before taking his leave from her to visit Leia in her quarters.

When he entered the room lined with holobook shelves where Leia did most of her studying, he saw from the diligent typing on her datapad that she was indeed working hard on an essay for her tutor. Reluctant to disturb her focus, he hovered in the doorway, admiring her quick wit that made it possible for her to tear through assignments faster than a hurricane could sweep across an ocean. Perhaps even his presence, which he had tried to make noiseless, was enough to distract her because she looked up from tapping on her datapad to exclaim, “Daddy!”

In a single beat of Bail’s heart, she had risen from her kriin-wood desk and chair. Feet flying behind her, she ran to him, wrapping her arms around him in a higher spot than she had been able to reach when they said their farewells when he had departed for the Senate months ago.

“You’ve grown since I saw you last.” Bail stroked his hand over the plaited bun a fashion droid had twisted into his daughter’s thick dark hair. “Shot up like a blooming flower in spring.”

“Thank you.” Leia’s brown eyes glowed at the compliment as she gazed up at him. Then confusion began to overtake the glee at his reappearance and praise. “You’re back from the Senate early.”

“The Emperor declared a recess of the Senate.” Bail fought to keep his worry out of his voice and off his face. Forcing a levity and cheer he didn’t feel, he added, “So that means I have more time to spend with you.”

A perceptive girl, Leia still looked worried. Casting about for something to distract her and himself, Bail’s gaze fixed on the holographs she had hung on the wall above her desk. Most of the images were of him, Breha, and Leia: sometimes together, sometimes in pairs, sometimes alone but almost always before some stunning piece of Alderaanian nature or architecture. One that was different stole his attention.

His brow furrowing, he saw it was a holograph of a breathtaking woman who had died when the Empire was born. A woman who had been his friend and ally in the Senate. A woman he had admired for her commitment to peace, to justice, and to democracy—to everything that had evaporated in the galaxy since the last breath had left her body. A woman who had sat beside him as Palpatine proclaimed himself Emperor and whispered to him of how liberty died. A woman who had died giving birth to the vibrant child whose arms encircled him now. A woman, he thought with a tightening throat, who would surely have been proud of her daughter if she could see Leia now from where she was buried in state on Naboo.

“You’ve hung up a new holo, I see.” Bail tried to keep the sharpness out of his voice, because it was dangerous for Leia to have Padme’s holo on the wall. With Padme’s face so close to Leia’s, people who saw it would be tempted to make perilous comparisons, comparisons that might lead to questions of the official account that Padme’s children had never lived—had never left her womb.

“It was in a box of old holos in the library.” Leia shot him a baffled, almost wounded look reminiscent of a hunted animal’s that told Bail more plainly and painfully than words could have that he hadn’t been successful in preventing the sharpness from pervading his tone. “It had years worth of dust on it, Daddy. I didn’t think anyone would mind if I took it and hung it in my room.”

Bail felt a surge of anger and guilt at himself for reducing Padme to a box of dusty holographs in his library. Then his fury redirected itself on the Empire that made it impossible to hang holographs of her on the wall of her daughter’s quarters. This fury hardened into defiant determination to find a way Leia could have a holograph of Padme without endangering herself.

“I’ll have a special box made for you that you can hide that holo in and look at it whenever you want,” Bail promised his daughter, hoping she wouldn’t hear the tremble in his words.

That must have been a wasted hope, because Leia cocked her head at him. “Is the holo dangerous, Daddy? Who is the lady in the holo anyway?”

“You took the holo without knowing who it was?” Bail frowned, remembering that he had indeed been too afraid to label the box of every holograph he had with Padme in it with her name when he had hidden it in the library. The holograph on the wall was the only one he had of just Padme, he recalled suddenly. It was her attending a ball Bail and Breha had hosted at the palace. She was lifting a flute of Alderaanian white wine to her lips with one hand while her other delicately held a plate of what must have been her favorite canapes. Once Bail must have ordered them made in her honor. Once Bail would’ve had no problem remembering what her favorite canapes were, but it had been so many years since she had died that those details—those memories of her—were starting to fade away as if covered by the same dust that had clouded her shining smile in holographic form.

“I just thought she was beautiful.” Leia stared as if enchanted at the holograph, and Bail thought that even in death Padme had found a way to be captivating to all who beheld her.

“She was.” Bail cleared a clogged throat before continuing, “Her name was Padme Amidala. She was a queen of Naboo at fourteen and then a Senator of the Republic until her death when she was only twenty-seven. At fourteen, she freed her homeplanet from a Trade Federation invasion, and when she became a Senator, she advocated bravely for peace and democracy in a time when war and tyranny were conquering the galaxy. She was a great friend and ally of mine in the Senate, but she died shortly after the Empire was created. A pity for she would have been a tremendous help in the fight against the Empire.”

“Her story sounds incredible but sad.” Leia’s fingers rose to trace the static image of the holograph that strong Padme had been reduced to inhabiting. “To be a queen fending off an invasion at only fourteen would be incredible, but to die at twenty-seven would be unspeakably sad.”

“She accomplished more in twenty-seven years, even fourteen years, than most beings will accomplish in a hundred.” Bail knew that Padme wouldn’t want to be remembered by her daugher as a figure to be pitied. “She was a strong woman who would want to be remembered for her strength, not her sorrow, Leia.”

“Oh.” Leia’s fingers brushed against her mother’s shining hair that had been artfully arranged into the elegant pastry knots popular among Naboo women. “I had a dream she was my mother. It didn’t feel like just a dream but it must have been.”

“It was just a dream.” Bail’s veins went cold as the blood in them froze at the reminder that Leia wasn’t just Padme’s daughter, but also Vader’s. Vader had an uncanny Force sense just like Leia did. Telling himself that Leia was nothing like Vader, he laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. “Still sometimes dreams can come true in weird ways.”

“But she’s dead.” Leia gaped at him as if his wits had flown to the other end of the galaxy without him.

“Yes, she’s dead, but you and I can remember her.” Bail’s hand tightened around her shoulder. “She can live on in you and me, Leia. We can honor her memory in all the good that we do. In that way, she’ll be dead but never forgotten.”

Padme, he told himself, would be more than a holograph on the wall. She would live on in her daughter even if her daughter might never be allowed to be told that her mother was Padme Amidala, once queen and Senator of Naboo.

 

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha, as always, thank you so much for your kind comments! So glad that you found this piece beautiful and touching since in many ways I wanted it to be a sort of tribute to Padme Amidala, who I find to be a beautiful and touching character, so it is awesome to have you pick those adjectives to describe this story.

I really did want to capture sort of natural reactions and conversation between Bail and Leia, so it means a lot that you felt I succeeded with that here.

So glad that you could imagine this happening since I like the idea of Bail having a strong enough friendship with Padme that he would want to preserve images of her but also be politically astute enough to know the images were dangerous especially while he was raising Padme's daughter, so I came up with the idea of him hiding her holos away but then being shocked when Leia discovers them and feels a sort of instinctive connection to them.

It really warmed my heart to be able to write this missing moment between Bail and Leia, so I'm so happy you were moved by it as well.

@AzureAngel2 Thank you so much for your sweet comments! It's awesome to have you describe Bail as a thoughtful father in this piece because that's exactly how I picture him. Very loving and affectionate with Leia, but also smart enough to spot dangers and try to protect Leia from them as much as he can. I agree that it is fortunate that Vader doesn't find out who is daughter is until it's too late, but there is still that sense of menace overshadowing everything that adds a tension to Bail's efforts to protect her that can be so poignant to me.

I'm so flattered you found this a wonderful work and gem! Thank you so much for your generous support!