Chapter 2 is up! I know this is short, but it's all I could muster for today . . . Thanks for the one lovely review I recently received. More to come . . .

***

He heard her weeping softly. It came through the intercom linked to his helmet.

Standing in the cockpit, Boba stared into the darkness of space and switched off the link. A sickening feeling that he could not name washed over him as his thoughts locked on her face and how hurt she was. He never thought it would affect him like this. He needed to treat her like his other prisoners. He needed to prove to himself he could do it, that he wasn't weak. It was a liability for him to feel this way about her. Love made people soft; love made people foolish. And he had promised himself he would never be affected by it.

But here he was, slightly trembling at the force of his conflicted feelings, angry that he could not overcome this – this weakness – for her.

How would she ever forgive me?

Boba Fett was, for the first time, taken aback by his own thoughts and feelings. Something hidden beneath the Mandalorian armor and unmistakably human had pushed its way into his guarded heart; it had come long before he even realized it existed. Angrily, he pushed the thought away and steeled himself for the inevitable. He would hand her over to Vader, and it would be over.

The thought made him uneasy, but he held tightly to it still.