Could you imagine being Bail and making that decision, though?
There he is, sitting on basically the last hope of the galaxy. Or rather, she’s sitting on him, because she’s two-and-a-half years old and her adopted father’s shoulders are the very best place in the world. They’re listening from Alderaan as Palpatine announces that the senate will be stripped of even more power, that the never-ending series of emergencies across the galaxy will continue.
Time feels broken, somehow. The planet rotates, the sun rises and sets, but the galaxy is frozen in a slow slide into oblivion.
Not yet, is all he can think. He’s working with the young Senator from Chandrila, spinning the wheels, trying to buy more time. Years and years more time.
There he is, introducing his family to a man with a black uniform and absolute control of the sector. Leia is six, and looks up at him suddenly serious, a far cry from her normal mischievous self.
“And my daughter, Leia,” he says, while his thoughts race between please don’t question her adoption and please get off my planet and the Jedi were insane to start training so young, she isn’t ready.
Bail has trouble sleeping. He’s waiting for a signal from Obi-Wan, that the time has come for him to give up his daughter. It doesn’t appear.
There he is, watching as his dark-eyed daughter hurls a datapad across the room in a sudden fit of rage. He’s tried to teach her peace and calm, she’s learned the watchful patience and silent stalk of a hunter.
She’s nine. He hasn’t beaten her at Dejarik in a year.
He takes her for walks, out into the parts of Alderaan where the downtrodden live and the refugees gather. He shows her what suffering is, what the Empire means. He tries to avoid thinking about her father. He tries to give her the education he thinks Jedi needed more of.
There he is, lying to Tarkin’s face as they walk through the halls of the palace. Leia, thirteen, is following them. Bail knows it. Tarkin does not.
See who he really is, Bail is wishing, even as he says words that toe the line of compliance with Tarkin’s demands.
The Rebellion is starting to rise. He keeps telling Mon Mothma he needs more time, that they’re moving too fast. He doesn’t tell her why.
There he is, welcoming his daughter back from Coruscant. She’s a rising star, already accumulating power as a junior legislator. She’s fifteen - one more year before she can run for Senate, and he knows she’s already planning it.
She has staff now, and her pretty smiles and polite manners almost perfectly hide the casuality with which she issues orders.
He’s not sure if she reminds him more of her mother or father.
Obi-Wan remains silent. Bail’s agents tell him that Tatooine is quiet, a backwater, no Imperial activity. He doesn’t find it reassuring. He waits.
There he is, talking to Mon Mothma. She’s laughing, charmed by his daughter, the Senator, the rebel. It’s a rare moment of levity - the Senate’s days are numbered, even as the token body it has become. The Empire’s stranglehold on the galaxy is unquestionable now.
And his daughter is nineteen. Her father had been a Jedi by now, roaming the galaxy and falling, falling towards the darkness.
The galaxy is full of darkness now, and Bail makes up his mind. Maybe it’s too late. Maybe it’s too early. He’s not Jedi, he doesn’t know, but it feels right.
“Go to Tatooine,” he tells his daughter. “Find Obi-Wan Kenobi. He can save us all.”
He thinks, but does not say, you can save us all.
