Millis was stilling grinning when she came down for dinner. Her adoptive parents both gave her a strange look,
"What're you so happy about?" asked her father, picking up his fork.
"Jace is coming to visit!" Her mother raised a disapproving eyebrow.
"He is, is he?" Millis frowned slightly at her mother's tone.
"What's wrong with Jace?"
"Millisian, you already know exactly what is wrong with Jace. He's a smuggler, a criminal. You shouldn't be associating with that type of person, it will only lead to trouble!" She rapped her spoon decisively. Millis rolled her eyes,
"Mom, Jace isn't 'that type of person' and anyway, he's my only connection to Han. If I didn't stay in contact with Jace, how would Han ever be able to find me again?"
"Dear," her mother said rather impatiently, "you've got to give up this notion that you brother is coming back for you. It's more than likely you'll never actually meet him, and," she added under her breath, "it's probably just as well."
"What's that suppose to mean?" Millis shot back angrily, hands on hips.
"Now let's just calm down-" Millis's father began in an attempt to quell the beginnings of another mother/ daughter fight but to no avail.
"Do you really think he'd come back for you after leaving you on our front step in the first place?"
"He's my brother, so he'll come back for me. Anyway, he was fifteen! How was a fifteen year old supposed to take care of a five year old! Han dropped out of school so he could get a job to help pay for me!" Millis could feel the tears stinging in her eyes.
"He's a smuggler with a price on his head and in the same criminal category as that Jace character! Why do you think it's Jace who always comes and visits you? Your brother doesn't really care about you, or he'd come and visit himself!"
"NO!" Millis screamed tears streaming down her face. She ran back up to her room, dinner completely forgotten and sobbed into her pillow. She and her mother had been getting into fights with increasing regularity and severity usually for no apparent reason, but this one had been by far the worse. Millis couldn't understand why her mother had lashed out at her like that. What had Jace or Han ever done to her?
While Millis cried upstairs, her parents sat in an uncomfortable silence over the remains of their dinner.
"Why did you do that? You know that she loves it when Jace visits." Millis's father asked turning to his wife. But all she said was,
"Someday she'll thank me for this."
Leia hadn't realized she'd fallen asleep until a gentle knock on the cabin door roused her.
"Princess? If you'd like some supper, now would probably been the best time," Luke's voice called softly, "We'll be at Ord Mantell in about three hours and Han's made stew."
"Alright, I'll be out in a minute," she called and listened to Luke's quiet footsteps pad away. Leia rubbed an eye with one hand and yawned. How long had she been asleep? She couldn't tell. If she was remembering correctly, she had been dreaming in politically correct terms which, needless to say, were very confusing, even for a trained diplomat.
"Hey, your Worshipfulness! Hurry up! Stew's gettin' cold!" Leia ground her teeth. Han could be so irritating!
"I'm coming, Capitan!" Leia snapped. She heard Solo's chuckle through the door and then he was gone. The princess sat on the edge of the bed and glanced around the cabin for her data pad; she probably dropped it when she'd fallen asleep. Just as Leia caught sight of her fallen reader, she noticed the corner of something flat sticking out from under one of Solo's manuals. After a moment's struggle with her conscience, Leia reached down and tugged at the tantalizing corner. She was rewarded with a slightly battered 2-D holo of a little girl, who was about seven or eight at the most. The little girl had long, wavy copper hair, intense, gold-flecked hazel eyes, and a cheerful smile that light up her little face. Leia flipped the 2-D over to see if there was a name written on the back or some other means of identification. All that was written on the back, however, were the initials 'M.S.'
"Well, well, well, Solo," Leia said quietly to herself, "You are quite the mystery man."
