AN: Again, many many thanks to everyone who continues to read and enjoy this story - particularly thanks to those who have been kind again to comment. It means the world to me to read your thoughts on this tale.

I wasn't going to post this so soon, bit I am probably going to be very busy during the next few days/weeks and may not have the chance. I am waiting for Kazlynh to beta the six interludes that take place after this one.

This one is a little shorter and again it focuses on one character...

All previous disclaimers still apply.

Uncertainty

Rhovan shrugged off his jacket and threw it over the back of his sofa. He crossed the lounge in quick strides to the drinks cabinet and poured himself a large measure of whisky. He placed the bottle down and lifted the glass to his lips. For a moment he savoured the peaty aroma, the rich malt fragrance, and he threw it to the back of his throat barely tasting it, just feeling the burn of alcohol as he swallowed.

He poured another and closed the bottle.

Holding the glass in his hand, he crossed to the window and looked out across the gardens, neatly set out several stories below him. The trees, the shrubs and the colourful flower beds seemed incongruous to the setting he found himself in. So much greenery, so much life, in a place of darkness and death.

He placed the cool glass against his lips once more, but this time sipped at the amber liquid. He welcomed the slow sear as he swallowed.

Four weeks.

Skywalker had been dead for four weeks... and for those four weeks, Rhovan had heard nothing from Vader, seemingly forgotten and abandoned by the Dark Lord of the Sith.

Four weeks of not knowing, of not fully understanding what was going on.

The news of Skywalker's death had brought mixed emotions for him. The first was disbelief.

He had been on his way to the hanger to welcome Vader and take possession of his prisoner. He had just stepped from the turbolift onto the deck when his comlink had chirped and Captain Piett had told him to return to his station to receive a new prisoner.

"Captain, I am already on the hanger deck. Lord Vader's orders were to…"

"Skywalker is dead, Major," Piett's voice sounded tight, scared and Rhovan had to wonder how many others on the ship were also frightened at that moment without really knowing why. Skywalker was Vader's son…

His son!

"Lord Vader has instructed that the hanger be cleared for his landing," Piett continued. "You will be given responsibility of Skywalker's killer."

Killer….

Responsibility….

Skywalker was dead.

How could this have happened? Security had been tight. Vader had allowed no Horaarns or Cusreans near his son. Only pilots with the highest clearance had been on that shuttle. Only Vader's own troopers had been used as escort.

What had happened?

How had it happened?

Then relief had replaced the disbelief. Relief for Luke: the boy wouldn't need to face yet another dark cell, another droid and more drugs and pain. Relief for the Alliance: it wouldn't need to fear the rise of yet another Sith Lord. Relief for himself: he wouldn't have to face Luke, he wouldn't have to look the boy in the eye as he killed him for Mon Mothma.

Someone had done that job for him. He had turned on his heel and returned to the ship's brig to await his new prisoner.

Another sip of whisky, the sound of his swallow loud in the silence of his rooms.

Four weeks of babysitting. Four weeks of watching the prisoner through monitors. Four weeks she had languished in the cells of, first, the Executor and then the levels below the Imperial palace.

He looked down at the gardens, at the tiny figures that strolled along the pathways and wondered if they knew what kind of place existed deep below their feet. If they knew of the Emperor's private prison block and of the things that happened down there while they enjoyed the sights and scents of the Palace gardens.

Except to her.

Nothing happened to her.

She just sat in a cell, in the dark, alone while he watched.

Rhovan closed his eyes and took in a slow breath, beginning to feel the alcohol filter into his blood stream.

She had been a surprise.

She stepped from the elevator surrounded by stormtroopers, cheek bruised, uniform dusty and dishevelled, her jaw defiantly set, and her eyes darting around taking in her surroundings like a seasoned soldier.

He knew her! He knew her face. She was…

She was dressed in the uniform of an Imperial Pilot, the rank insignia that of a Lieutenant Commander in the Imperial Navy and yet that wasn't how his memory saw her.

She was….

…. and he saw Wedge Antilles standing angrily over him. He saw Antilles' growing horror as he looked down at his friend lying beaten and bruised and unconscious on the floor of the shuttle stolen on Escaal.

"What did you do?" Antilles had asked. "What did you do to him?"

Rhovan remembered standing, remembered holding his hands up to placate the angry young man, he remembered Antilles taking a step forward toward him and a petite female infantry soldier had appeared by Antilles' side.

"Sir," she had said to the pilot, "this way sir."

Then he saw an image of a medical capsule being brought down the ramp of the Millennium Falcon carrying a badly injured solder. He had later heard she had almost died on Rai'mar, giving Skywalker time to reach his X-Wing and escape.

Then he was standing by the window of the medical centre on Adralii, his face throbbing after Skywalker and Solo's well landed punches, watching Skywalker being lead toward the Alliance's Guardhouse by the same female soldier.

He didn't know her name, hadn't thought her important enough, and yet there she was, entering the brig on the Executor and she was just as surprised to see him.

"Major Rhovan," her head had cocked in curiosity, her eyes flared in panic, but a smirk twisted her mouth. "It's good to see a familiar face."

"Lieutenant Commander," he had greeted with a bow of his head, acknowledging that he had recognised her. "Or, is it Sergeant?"

She had smiled, wryly. "Well, I suppose that's for you to find out."

He hadn't.

Rhovan finished his drink and turned from the window. It was beginning to darken outside, night crawling down the walls of the building.

He still didn't know her name. He hadn't been allowed to go near her, but he had also been warned her welfare was his responsibility until the Emperor deemed it otherwise.

She had been secured in the cell originally intended for Skywalker, and Rhovan had retired to his office, bringing up the security feed from her cell and watching her for long minutes. She was already stretched out on the sleeping platform, hands behind her head for a pillow and eyes closed. She seemed relaxed, seemed to be ready to settle into sleep, but Rhovan knew it was an act. She was breathing too quickly, her jaw bunched, she swallowed rapidly. She knew exactly what she was facing for killing Vader's prized Rebel.

Luke….

Rhovan had switched the monitor screen and brought up the holonet. The screen was immediately filled with the final scenes of Luke's life. He had sat for a long while watching the constant repeats.

The suddenness, the unexpectedness, of the shot within the shuttle was shocking, as were the few seconds of footage that showed Luke lying dying in the snow with Vader by his side before the transmissions were cut.

It was merciful death, he supposed. It was a quick death. Much quicker a death than the Emperor would have given him. It was a much quicker death than Rhovan would have been able to give him and two things suddenly struck the Major.

Firstly he was doing what the rest of the Galaxy was doing: accepting that Luke Skywalker was dead... And yet, he knew something that only two others knew: Luke was Vader's son. Could this have been a ruse? Could this have been an elaborate trick to protect Luke, to hide Luke?

If it was then surely the woman was Vader's agent – so why then had he almost killed her on Rai'mar? It didn't make sense… there was a piece of the puzzle missing.

If not a ruse, if Luke truly was dead, then had Mothma only sent him in as a back up to the sergeant, to act if she had failed? And, secondly, there was that look on the sergeant's face as Vader's men had taken her to the deck. That look was a mix of unbearable pain and utter relief, that look was one that Rhovan had seen before. It was grief.

She had cared for Skywalker, had cared enough to kill him – the same has he had done with his brother. He had killed Sam to protect him, had killed Sam to end his torture.

So the Alliance Sergeant had sat in the cell during the Executor's journey to Imperial Centre and had been transferred, with a hood over her head, to the cell under the palace on their arrival at Imperial Centre.

Despite Rhovan's half-formed conspiracy theory of subterfuge; Luke had stayed dead and Vader had left Imperial Centre after only a few days to continue cutting a bloody swath through the Galaxy: the suppression of the uprising on Antar IV, the quelling of riots on Dagelin Minor, the vicious invasion of Nadiem and nationalisation of the farming communities to feed the ever growing and greedy Empire.

Darkness crept into the apartment, creeping shadows lengthened across the floor. With a sigh Rhovan crossed his apartment and refilled his glass.

So here the woman stayed, and here he stayed, and Rhovan knew there was more to her than just her Alliance rank, knew that there was more to her role in all of this: just as there was more to his. They were unfinished business, both left in limbo and Vader had yet to visit either of them and, if truth be told, he feared what would happen when the Dark Lord finally remembered they were here.

ooOOoo

To be continued...