3
Leia had barely slept.
Having allowed herself to begin to cry in the elevator, she'd been gasping in wrenching sobs by the time she'd reached her apartment. She'd been deliberately quiet in her movements, determined not to wake Winter, desperate to avoid being asked or made to talk about her night. Having wanted so achingly to banish it all from her mind, to expunge all traces of it from her memory, she'd simply collapsed onto her bed in the dress she had worn to the party and wept silently, waiting for sleep.
When it had come, it was fitful and restless.
Rising just before dawn, Leia had showered and changed into her favourite nightgown. In doing do, in discarding the dress and cleansing her skin under the scalding water, she thought that she could remove every trace of the trauma she'd suffered.
Not that she wanted to think of it in that way, a trauma. Leia Organa was not a victim; she simply would not countenance any situation where she would allow herself to feel that way.
But then she'd begun to remember things, vivid fragments of what had happened; strong hands gripping her shoulders tightly, clamping over her mouth; her upper back and shoulders colliding painfully with an unforgiving wall, over and over again; the awful feel and smell of warm breath against cheek, too close. Every flashback would chip away at the resolve she fought an internal battle to cling too, claw at her defences until her hands would begin to shake and tears would threaten to fall again.
She'd sat in the near-light alone and cried softly.
But then it had struck her, simply yet clearly; in order to cope, Leia realised that she would first need to conquer.
So, for a time, she'd decided to allow the bad feeling to creep in, to take hold, but only temporarily. Leia moved out on the apartment balcony, embracing the crisp early morning air against her skin, and letting the gamut of emotions she'd run through the course of the night churn in her stomach; anger, humiliation, sorrow, relief. She'd grit her teeth, clenched her fists, and endured.
And, then once the sun had fully risen, she'd simply decided that that was enough.
And she felt centred, restored. Having confronted all of the bad feeling, controlled and conquered it, now she could heal.
In the worst experiences, there were lessons. And Leia would learn hers; she'd been naive last night, needlessly careless. She should never have walked back to the apartment alone, should have commed ahead to let Winter now that she was on her way. That would not happen again. Never again would she allow herself to be in that position, made to feel so vulnerable. Her anger turned fully toward where she knew it should rightfully directed, toward that pathetic excuse for a human being that had attacked her; it was because of such monsters that she was so steadfastly determined to see this galaxy healed, made safer.
In the quiet and the calm of morning, Leia felt newly empowered, her purpose reinvigorated.
From her favourite cushioned chair on the balcony, she listened to the distant drone of Coruscant's traffic lanes, to the far-off voices of the building's other tenants that had ventured out onto their own balconies to savour this relative tranquillity that was so rare on such a cosmopolitan planet.
This was Leia's favourite time of day. Now was when she liked to think, to prepare. Whatever had gone before was past; ahead lay a new day full of opportunity and possibility. Here on Coruscant she would normally use this time to compose a speech she planned to make, consider how to approach a new motion in the Senate, strategise how she might best serve the cause of the Rebel Alliance.
Mornings were so much more sedate on Alderaan. She'd read on her bedroom terrace, venture down to the palace gardens, often enjoy breakfast with her mother. There, she didn't have to preoccupy herself with fulfilling the role of politician or rebel if she didn't want to; she could simply be herself for a brief time, a young woman who felt truly at peace amongst the natural peace and beauty of her homeworld.
She looked forward to being back there, to being home again.
Last night had been a truly awful experience. But as well as the worst of humanity, she'd also experienced the best of it.
Her thoughts turned to the man who'd come to her aid. She contemplated how fortunate she'd been that of all the billions of beings on this planet who could have witnessed her ordeal, it had been one prepared to act so selflessly. And afterwards, he'd been kind and compassionate; he'd offered a reassuring presence while maintaining a respectful distance, had insisted on seeing her safely back to her building.
As long as there were beings like that in this galaxy then Leia thought that there was still hope for its future.
She hadn't even thought to ask for his name. It had taken so much of her willpower not to break down in front of him that she hadn't trusted herself to speak. And he had not thought to introduce himself; he'd simply carried out his good deed and said goodnight at the building door.
Leia knew that the chances of ever seeing him again, of having the opportunity to thank him, were incredibly remote.
But whoever he was, wherever he'd gone and might end up, she would always be gratefully indebted to him.
She'd been thinking about him, curled up in the large chair and absent-mindedly running the tip of her manicured right thumbnail between her teeth, when the door to the balcony slid open and she was joined by Winter who was carrying two glasses that were each filled with a steaming amber-coloured liquid.
"Tea with Chandrilan honey," Winter announced, gently placing Leia's drink on the table and taking her own seat in the other chair. This was something of a routine for the two of them; they would usually awake at the same time but Winter would give Leia her time to herself, to be alone and think. Then she would make Leia's favourite drink to start the day and the two would sit together and talk, though there were some mornings that they were content to just sit in comfortable silence.
This morning, Winter wanted to talk.
"So," she began, "I take it last night didn't go well." At Leia's quizzical look, Winter elaborated. "I heard you crying," she explained. "I could tell you were trying to be quiet so I guessed you didn't want company."
So Leia hadn't been as discreet as she'd thought and hoped. Though she suspected that there was no way of avoiding having to explain everything that had happened, for now she simply shrugged her shoulders and remained silent.
"Was the party really that bad?" persisted Winter. "Did Hadlan do something?"
In truth, Hadlan and the party hadn't even entered her mind since last night. After leaving the function room she'd been lost in thought about things that were so much more important, the challenges facing her in both the Senate and the Rebellion, that Hadlan and the inconvenience of him being completely infatuated with her had faded into utter irrelevance.
She shook her head in answer to Winter's questions.
"Well something happened," said Winter as she blew softly on her own tea in an attempt to cool it. "You never cry."
That was mostly true. While it was wrong to say that Leia never cried, it did take a lot to force her to tears. Emotional impassivity was a strength in politics and Leia had adopted the attitude that it was better to deal with the things that angered or upset her through action rather than cry about them. The last time she'd cried had been upon hearing that her first tutor, a kindly elder woman who used to share mints with Leia during lessons, had peacefully passed away. And that had been months ago.
It rankled with her a little now that Winter seemed to think that a boy could bring her to tears. If she could engage in debates with the likes of Fordia Drask, endure the taunts and insults of rival senators who viewed her as little more than an overly idealistic upstart with a big mouth, then Leia could tolerate and deal with the unwanted attractions of Hadlan.
So Leia simply shrugged again, hoping in vain that Winter would let the matter go.
"Leia?" said Winter quietly, placing her tea back on the table and leaning toward her friend. "Leia, what happened?"
Leia could sense Winter's rising concern, the dawning realisation that whatever had happened was a lot more serious than she'd initially assumed. But it didn't lessen Leia's resistance to a discussion of it; as far as she was concerned, the incident was finished and, over the course of the restless night, she'd confronted and dealt with her feelings about it. It had been terrible but nonetheless could have been far worse had help not arrived when it had.
"Really Winter, I'm fine" she insisted quietly. She reached for her tea and as she did so heard a sharp intake of breath from across the small circular table.
"Leia, your shoulder!" Winter gasped.
Too late, Leia realised that she'd inadvertently exposed the purple and blue bruises caused by her being shoved repeatedly against the wall. The thin shoulder straps of her nightgown couldn't conceal them and she hadn't thought to put on a robe.
Sipping at her tea, savouring the sweetness of the honey, she tried to ignore Winter's alarmed expression. There was no avoiding this discussion now, though Leia was determined not to go into any great detail.
"It's nothing," she said quietly, her gaze fixed determinedly on the Coruscant skyline.
"That is not nothing, Leia," hissed Winter, pointing at the bruises. "What the hell happened at that party?"
"Nothing," replied Leia, beginning to feel agitated. "Nothing happened at the party."
They sat in a brief and silent standoff. Clutching her tea lightly in her left hand, Leia gently ran her right over her shoulder. She hadn't paid much thought to the physical marks left behind by the ordeal; she'd been too preoccupied with the emotional fallout.
Winter took a deep breath, as though steeling herself. She reached across to lay her hand on Leia's, gently atop her bruised shoulder.
"Talk to me, Leia," she implored quietly. "Please."
Her worry, her unconcealed fear, touched Leia. She could talk to Winter about this, knew that she should talk to her; Winter was so much more than a friend and senatorial aide. They'd been raised almost like sisters, had become each other's closest ally and confidante. Perhaps, Leia reasoned, talking out loud about the previous night would prove an important step in continuing to move past and forget it.
She sighed, almost in resignation, and felt Winter gently squeeze her hand, offering reassurance.
"I was on my way back here," she began quietly. "It wasn't too late so I decided to walk back, alone...there's been so much going on, so many things happening lately, that I just wanted some time to think. So I went to the gardens. I wasn't there long, I was so close to the building that I didn't think there was any point in comming you to meet me. But I knew someone was there, someone was watching me, but once I was back in the plaza I thought I would be safe."
By now, Winter's left hand had slowly and involuntarily moved upward to clasp the pendant on her necklace, a habit of her's in moments of stress and tension. Her grip on Leia's hand had tightened slightly.
"Honestly Winter, nothing happened, not like you're thinking," she insisted, turning in her seat to face her friend. She knew the conclusions to which Winter's mind had inevitably jumped and needed to allay them, now, before she continued.
"He grabbed me and pulled me into an alleyway," she went on. "I struggled, tried to fight back. But before he could do anything, really do anything, someone else got to us...they dragged him off and then walked me home. And that was it."
Winter shook her head, her mouth gaping and tears visible in the corner of her eyes. Having told the story in as concise a way as she could manage, Leia now just wanted to assuage her friend's concerns, to ensure that Winter knew and understood and, most importantly, believed, that Leia was okay and wasn't purposely hiding anything. That was something that Leia had a tendency to do in both her personal and professional life, leave out any details of a story that she thought might upset her family, closest friends and colleagues. But all it achieved was convincing those around her that there was always more to tell than what she was willing to say, that she was burying things beneath the surface. So they were always sceptical.
This time, Leia knew that she couldn't leave any room for doubts to persist in Winter's mind.
"Winter, I promise you that I am alright," she said in a voice so low that it sounded like a rasping whisper. "Nothing happened...I was crying when I got home but that was just because I was in shock, I've been up all night thinking about it, going over it all in my head, and now I am fine."
A single tear fell from each of Winter's eyes and Leia's stomach twisted viscerally. She wanted more than anything for her friend to believe her now.
"Winter, please," she implored, her own voice beginning to tremble with emotion.
Their eyes locked, hands clasped over the tabletop, and Leia silently beseeched Winter to believe her, to trust her.
Finally, after what felt like an age of tense silence in which much was communicated without a word being spoken, Winter simply nodded her head.
"Leia," she said quietly, her voice heavy with emotion. With their hands still clasped together, Winter softly ran her thumbs gently over Leia's knuckles. "Wha-how...how did it happen?"
"Because I was careless," answered Leia shortly. "I should have commed you or the security detail, either had one of you come to meet me or just let you know to expect me."
"Why didn't you?" asked Winter.
Leia shrugged slightly in reply, almost guiltily. "I didn't have a blaster with me either which is inexcusable...like I said, I just wanted some time to myself to think. And it was still early and I was so close to the apartment that I didn't think I'd need a chaperone."
"Who was he?" Winter asked urgently. "The animal that did this - did you recognise him?"
Leia shook her head. "No," she murmured. "He was an Imperial officer, that's all I know."
"An Imperial?" gasped Winter, her mind quickly calculating the implications of an Imperial officer attacking a senator that had been so outspoken in her criticism of and opposition to the Empire.
"I know what you are thinking," said Leia quickly, guessing the path down which Winter's thoughts were travelling. "And no, I don't think that I was targeted specifically - if that had been the case then I'd imagine that he would have attacked me in the gardens rather than wait until I was walking through the plaza where the risk was so much higher that he'd be seen."
Winter could see the logic in Leia's deductions and thought that they were most likely correct. The most probable explanation for what had happened was that it had been an act of despicable cowardice and opportunism; the scum responsible had seen a young woman walking alone at night and attempted to take advantage of that.
Thank the Gods that someone else had been there to witness it and go to Leia's aid.
"What about the person that helped you?" she asked. "Who was it?"
Leia shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know," she quietly admitted. "I never asked him for his name."
She felt increasingly frustrated with herself for not having done so. On another night she would have, she wouldn't have allowed herself to walk away from him without knowing to whom she owed such gratitude. Before her musings had been interrupted by Winter's arrival on the balcony, she'd had the stirrings of an insane thought that she should at least attempt to track him down, for no other reason than that he was exactly the sort or being that the Rebellion needed more of in its ranks. But such a thought wasn't one worth pursuing.
And given that the most distinctive physical attribute of his that she could immediately recall was that his nose looked as though it had been broken, she knew that she had no hope of ever finding him on this planet.
"That's not like you," said Winter, her voice still slightly shaky. "Normally you can't take a skycab without asking someone on boardfor their life story."
Leia laughed, the first time she had done so since the previous night. It felt good, something of a relief.
"There has to be something you remember about him," Winter went on. "I understand your emotions must have been all over the place at the time but if he walked you back to the building then surely you spoke to each other...you must have noticed something about him."
"What does it matter?" asked Leia. "I thanked him, it's not as though I'm ever going to see him again."
Winter reclined back in her chair in thought, seemingly relaxed enough now that Leia was okay to resume drinking her tea.
"I don't know," she said. "It's just, if it had been me, I think I would have at least liked to have known his name. It just seems...appropriate, you know?" She shook her head. "Perhaps not, maybe that's stupid."
"No," replied Leia quickly. "It's not stupid."
She strained her memory for something, anything she could remember about him. Everything had happened so quickly, her state-of-mind and emotions had been so tumultuous since she'd parted ways with him that it was almost like constructing a puzzle, trying to organise all of the broken fragments into the right order.
She remembered brown hair...brown eyes...broken nose. None of which were very helpful.
"I think," she said slowly , "that he might have had a scar...on his chin. It was dark so I'm not sure, it could have just been a shadow."
"What about his clothes?" asked Winter. "Was he in a uniform? Maybe he works in the political quarter."
Leia thought back. He'd worn a dark blue jacket, nothing remarkable. But then she did recall something.
"His trousers," she said. "I remember that they had some sort of...piping...running down the sides. At the time I might have thought that that was significant, that there was something familiar about it."
"Was the piping red or gold?"
"Gold."
"A Corellian Bloodstripe," deduced Winter. "That's a military honour, very rare and very prestigious - I remember them coming up in our studies a few years ago."
Leia would never not be grateful for her friend's holographic memory, Winter's unique ability to remember and recall even the most minute details of her past; if the Corellian Bloodstripe had indeed ever been been spoken about during the long hours of their shared education, and Leia didn't doubt the accuracy of Winter's recollections, then it had to have been only a fleeting mention, nothing that had gone into any great detail otherwise Leia imagined that she would have remembered it more clearly herself.
"So he's Corellian then," noted Winter.
"Well, that narrows the search," returned Leia in jest, smiling; Corellia was among the most densely-populated planets in the known galaxy and given Corellians' penchant for spacefaring, their population had spread throughout the universe. Leia would have wagered that there were tens of thousands of them on Coruscant, the cultural and political epicentre of the Core Worlds.
"If he has the Bloodstripe then it might," replied Winter. "Like I said, they are very rare. There won't be many Corellians running around the universe that have one."
Leia considered that for a moment.
"There was one more thing," she recalled. "He had a commlink, someone called him...this is going to sound ridiculous but he spoke with a Wookie and told me that they worked together, that the Wookie nagged him more than a wife would."
She'd remembered that because it had been one of the only real moments of levity that she'd experienced after the incident. It had eased the tension of the moment, even made her laugh in spite of the despair she'd felt at the time.
"He works with a Wookie?" asked Winter. "That's a...strange arrangement."
"That's exactly what I thought," replied Leia. "If I hadn't heard them talking over his comm, I'd find it hard it to believe myself."
"So he's Corellian, has done something that was brave enough to earn his planet's highest military honour, and he works with a Wookie." Winter smirked. "He sounds like a very interesting man."
"Who I will more than likely never see again," retorted Leia. "What does any of this matter, Winter? "
Winter shrugged as she finished her tea. "I don't suppose it does," she said as she placed her empty glass on the table. "But I think that, if I were you, I'd just like to be able to put a name to the face...that's all."
She stood and stretched. "You need to pack your things," she told Leia. "I meant to tell you last night that Antilles has got us a departure slot for just after midday - apparently he's just as eager to get back home as you must be."
Leia was relieved, both at having moved past the conversation about the Corellian and at the prospect of leaving Coruscant so imminently. But the realisation that she'd soon be back on Alderaan brought with it a fresh concern, one that she hadn't thought to consider until now.
Rising from the comfort of her chair, she gathered her thick hair into a long braid that she hung over her shoulder; she hadn't dried her hair following her shower and so it was still damp. Moving back into the apartment, she found Winter seated on the curved sofa, taking in the morning news bulletin that was being broadcast on the large viewscreen. Leia saw that the current story was detailing the previous day's debate in the Senate and watched as an image of herself gesticulated angrily while berating a political adversary.
"You made quite the impression in the debate yesterday," said Winter wryly without turning around. "So much so that Senator Ferrio is rumoured to be considering putting you under official investigation as an agitator."
Yat Ferrio was the spineless Neimoidian chair of the Senate Ethics Career. As corrupt a politician as there was on Coruscant, Ferrio was firmly in the pocket of the Emperor's inner circle and had taken on the task of ensuring that Leia's voice within the Senate was quieted, her campaign of resistance against the Empire quashed.
Without replying, Leia walked to the viewscreen and turned it off.
"Winter, there's something we need to discuss," she said.
"There's no need," replied Winter. At the quizzical look on Leia's face, she continued. "I know what you are going to ask of me." She left the sofa and moved into the kitchenette. Leia waited, watched as she retrieved a datapad and tapped at the screen.
"You want me to promise not to tell your father about what happened last night, don't you?"
So she had guessed what Leia would ask of her. It wasn't a surprise; the two of them had known each for so long, were so close, that at times it did feel as though they shared some sort of telepathic connection.
"You know how he is, Winter," she explained without confirming that Winter was indeed correct in her assumption of knowing exactly what Leia wanted to ask. "You know how things have been between him and I lately, he's worried enough about my involvement with the Rebellion...if he found out about last night, knew that I was out alone and unarmed, then that is only going to get worse."
"He worries because he cares, Leia," said Winter softly. "He is your father, he loves you."
"I know he does," said Leia. "But the last thing he needs at the moment is to be worrying any more about me than he already he is. He has enough to deal with, enough problems with the Rebellion, that it would be cruel to add to that.
Winter's nostrils flared in annoyance. "That's emotional blackmail," she warned.
"I'm just trying to get you to see sense, that's all," replied Leia. "You, more than anyone else, know how much the Rebellion means to me. If you tell him what happened, he will only try to push me further away from it."
"So are you asking me to keep this a secret for his benefit or for yours?" Winter snapped.
"Both," answered Leia. "The Rebellion needs me as much I need to be involved in it, Winter. But I really do not want to have to continue to fight with my father over it, not when we both have so many more important things that we should be focused on."
Winter placed the datapad on the black marble countertop and braced herself on its edge. She knew that the Rebellion had become a contentious issue between Leia and her father in recent months, that Leia's efforts to immerse herself more fully in the Alliance's insurgency against the Empire were being resisted to some extent by Bail. And while she saw Leia as a sister, she also regarded Bail as the father she'd never had; she did not want to be forced into siding with one or the other on the matter.
"I won't tell him," she finally said, but at Leia's visible relief she gestured with her hand to indicate that she had more to say and did not want to be interrupted. "But, should he ask me if anything happened while we were here, I won't lie to him...he trusts me, Leia, he relies on me and I will not do anything that might damage that trust."
Leia pursed her lips, biting back an angry reply. She knew arguing over this any further would be frivolous, that Winter's mind would not be swayed over the decision she'd made. And she understood her friend's position, she knew that it was unfair of her to ask Winter to keep secrets from Bail. So it was imperative that, once they were back on Alderaan, Leia did and said nothing that might lead her father to suspect that something was being kept from him.
Which would be far easier said than done.
"Fine," she said, moving off in the direction of her bedroom. "I suppose I'd better pack."
The relatively short journey from the apartment complex to the senatorial hangar in which the Tantive IV was docked had been a tense one.
Leia and Winter had spoken little since the contentious end to their discussion earlier that morning. Once they had packed their bags, the pair had made their way to the nearby skycab terminal in silence and, though they sat side by side on the journey, were each doing their best to ignore the other.
The skycab they'd boarded was relatively empty. Adelegation of Ongree politicians were locked in what sounded like a fierce debate in their native language at the back of the vehicle, gesticulating wildly and thumping each other's seats in agitation. In front of Leia and Winter, seated together on the opposite side of the skycab, Senator Makesta of Sembla and Senator Gilo of Rodia were conversing in quiet tones, their heads bowed conspiratorially.
The skycab's pilot, a portly Veknoid, seemed the short-tempered sort; he shouted angrily and shook his fists threateningly in the direction of any speeder that cut in front of him.
Leia thought that any pilot that was so easily enraged would be better off finding work on a far less chaotic world than Coruscant.
They had been stopped momentarily, made to wait for permission from a nearby traffic droid to continue on through an intersection in the hectic skyline traffic lanes.
The skycab hovered next to a massive platform in the upper levels of the planet, on which a popular outdoor market had been constructed. All manner of beings were winding their way through the dozens of stalls and vendors, perusing products items that had been imported from every corner of the galaxy. Normally Leia would enjoy being-watching, picking out species that were unfamiliar to her and wondering where they'd come from, what had brought them to the capital planet. But her mind was now preoccupied by thoughts of what might await her when she arrived back on Alderaan, of what might happen if her father intuited that she and Winter were hiding something from him.
The last thing she wanted now was another argument over whether or not she was ready to take on a more prominent role within the Rebellion but she knew that such an argument would be unavoidable if her father were to learn of the events of the previous night.
Thinking she might try to get some sleep aboard Tantive IV, make use of the short journey through hyperspace to Alderaan to relax her mind ahead of that reunion, Leia jumped when Winter suddenly reached across to her lap and grabbed her hand tightly.
"Leia," she whispered. "Look!"
She was sitting in the seat closest to the window and pointing to something that had caught her attention on the nearby platform. Leaning forward so that she could see around Winter and through the window, Leia quickly recognised what it was that her friend wanted her to see.
Meandering through the dense market crowds, easily distinguishable due to its height and appearance, was a Wookie.
Leia twisted in her seat, moving closer to the window.
She noticed that, as it strode through the crowd, the Wookie was inclining its head downward as though in conversation with a being that was shorter in stature than itself. And then, just as the traffic droid gave clearance for the skycab to continue on its way toward the hangar, Leia saw that the Wookie was indeed talking with a companion, one that was wearing a dark blue jacket, had thick brown hair and was walking with his head turned away from her so that she could not see his face.
The skycab moved on and the platform slid quickly out of Leia's sight.
"Well," said Winter quietly beside her, "he really wasn't that difficult to find after all."