Friend In Need

Leia anticipated sleeping much better than she had before Lyn had pulled her away from the nightmare. Although she thoroughly enjoyed sitting in the spa, Leia promised that she would return to the throne before Jabba had awoken. As she became increasingly drowsy, Leia found it difficult just to keep her eyes open. As distasteful it was to be back with Jabba, the enslaved princess knew she couldn't afford to fall asleep in the spa. The last thing she wanted was for Lyn to get in trouble for the nicety she was extended... it was the very least she could do in return.

Drying herself off, Leia didn't look forward to putting herself back into that ridiculous slave bikini. She wondered if Lyn would still have wanted it if she knew just how uncomfortable the damned thing was. And it certainly wasn't easy to get back on. Leia nearly had a fit with the absurd outfit... there was nothing about the gold bikini she didn't hate.

Leia had only managed to fasten the bottom piece in place, a bit tighter than she had wanted; but at least she finally secured it properly around her waist. The brassiere was a bit more of a challenge. Struggling for a few minutes it, Leia didn't know whether to be glad or angry that Lando caught her by surprise. Hands over her breasts, Leia shot around and hissed at him. "Where the hell have you been?"

Lando leaned against the side of the door, his boyish smile mostly hidden behind the helmet he wore. Leia wasn't fooled, as she knew exactly the kind of guy Lando was. He leaned his head forward and slipped his head from the mask so they could speak face to face. "I was just about to ask you the same thing." Approaching the half-naked Leia, his eyes were drawn to the top piece of the outfit she had dropped a moment ago. He took the brassiere, examined it, and then offered it to Leia, gesturing to help with it. "I didn't find you in the throne room. How did you end up in here?"

Turning her back to Lando, he lifted the brassiere over her head and she set it in place while he tied it in the back. "Had a little help from a friend." She twisted her head around and complained about her attire. "I hate this thing. It's impossible just to put on."

Lando couldn't help taking some pleasure in making a boyish joke. "Well you know there's an old saying, Leia: beauty can be a curse."

She sneered at his reflection in the mirror on the wall in front of them. "Glad you enjoyed the show. Maybe you and me can arrange a little one-on-one later tonight. Just remember Jabba's first rule only applies to the slave. There's nothing protecting you from injury."

The rule of which Leia referred to was the only restriction Jabba explicitly placed on the treatment of his servants by invited guests. The first rule of a slave was to fulfill any of their wishes, so long as they didn't cause physical harm to the servant. Leia found it somewhat ironic that Jabba would allow his guests the freedom to torture the soul of any of his unfortunate victims, so long as their flesh was left in good condition.

It surprised Lando that she already knew the first rule, but he went on and teased her a bit. It was his way of lightening her spirit. "I don't know, Leia. A black eye... maybe a bloody nose might be worth spending an evening with the most beautiful thing in the galaxy."

Leia smirked and gestured to her outfit, of which he still hadn't started lacing anything in the back. "If you won't help me with this outfit, I'll give you some that advanced payment right here." Lando smirked in return and got to fastening the top piece where it belonged. Leia looked forward at herself and frowned at her garb and everything it stood for. "This is an outfit from hell."

"Only if you're a woman, I suppose. I think it complements your more... enduring features."

"That's only half the problem... I can stand being stared at. It's that this thing's extremely uncomfortable. I finally got this skirt-like thing to fit properly, but now it's clenching my waist..." twisting her head around, Leia gestured back with her thumb. "And those straps are on too loose. I know you're trying to be gentle, but I don't want this to fall off."

Lando seemed all too happy to comply. "Maybe I'd prefer to botch the job." From Leia's expression, Lando got the point and reset the laces as she had requested. "But I suppose there are some things not meant to be seen, and I can honestly say I saw the most beautiful thing in the galaxy today. I only wish Han could have had my eyes this evening."

Almost the instant he finished tying it, Leia let go of the brassiere and turned herself around to face him. Allowing Lando that brief moment to divert his gaze from her nearly-bare body to her eyes, Leia folded her arms across her chest. Eager to make her feelings about the previous night very clear, she maintained a calm, but firm tone. "That is not something I would have wanted anyone to see. Not Luke, not Han, and certainly not you." Before Lando could turn his head away, she took him by the chin and directed his attention back onto her. "But I don't hold it against you. Even if you did take a certain... perverted pleasure in it. And please don't turn your head away like that..." Leia took a few steps back so that Lando could get a full view of her. "...it doesn't bother me, so don't pretend like that this thing isn't some boyish fantasy of yours."

Lando stole a guilty moment to enjoy the magnificent view that Leia offered freely of herself. And then after getting his mind back onto the task at hand, he sighed and looked away. Although a pleasant fantasy that Leia might have been, her capture was something everyone wanted to avoid. "Maybe... but our plan certainly has taken a turn for the worst. What the hell were you thinking?"

Leia knew exactly what he meant. It was because of her personal feelings for Han that she got caught. Even she knew that she was responsible for what's happened. "I thought I had a clear shot at freeing Han and getting him away from this place. I felt I had to take it."

"Jabba had suspected, but couldn't be completely sure it was you who brought in Chewie. He was watching for you to make a mistake." Lando shrugged his shoulders and turned around to scold her. "But even if he suspected you to be a spy, you still would have been in a much better position to turn that to our advantage than..."

Leia became increasingly frustrated at being blamed for something which she believed was Lando's fault. Had he told her that Jabba was suspicious, maybe none of that would have happened. "Thank you so much for telling me now! If you knew something then, you should have let me know what was going on!"

Lando's anger clearly apparent, he didn't spare Leia's feelings on the matter of her incarceration. They had a mission to complete and Leia botched her part, which was why he felt the need to express his frustration. "I couldn't! Jabba only had his suspicions, but he wasn't about to accuse one of his bounty hunters of being a spy unless she gave him some damned good reason to take you! I assumed you were too good for that, which was why I didn't risk telling you. I thought you'd have seen it was a trap."

Leia might normally have shouted back and defended herself when scolded for 'being too good for that,' but she knew deep inside that it was her own mistake which lead to her capture. Had she not allowed her personal feelings to get in the way, Leia knew she could have seen such an obvious trap. Instead she foolishly went ahead and acted without thinking, hoping beyond hope that she could free Han by herself. It should have been quite obvious that Jabba wouldn't have let his guard down right as she was in a position to act... unless he wanted only to make it seem that way. It was too good an opportunity to be true, yet Leia allowed those warm thoughts of being in Han's arms again to overwhelm her judgment.

She sighed, closed her eyes, and nodded in agreement. "You're right. I should have seen it for what it was. I just thought... if it were a genuine opportunity, I just felt I had to take that chance. If it meant saving Han... I was willing to risk it."

As Leia collapsed onto a nearby marble bench, Lando slowly let out a deep breath. Leia's spirit couldn't have been any lower, yet he had more that needed to be said. "Leia, you're not the only one who's involved with this rescue operation. What has happened now isn't simply a matter of your life or Han's life, but it now complicates everything that was depending on all of us."

"I know; I made a mess of things... I've become a liability. The question now is where do we go from here?"

Lando sat beside her and rested his chin upon his wrists. He already had an idea in mind, but he needed some time to actually confront the necessity of their situation. Then he looked into her eyes and began. "I think we would all be in agreement that our first priority is to get you out of here. That's what Han told me he wanted. And that's probably what Luke would have me do as well."

Leia perked her head up, anxious to hear a familiar name. "Han? Do you know where he is? Is he all right?"

Lando exhaled sharply and nodded. "Yeah, but not for very long. Jabba is probably watching all of you very closely, so I couldn't risk more than a few minutes alone with him or Chewie. I also shouldn't be caught interacting with you, so we need to make this quick."

"Is Han all right?" she demanded.

Lando sighed pleasantly, almost chuckling. "You know, that's exactly what he asked me. 'Is Leia all right? What has that slug done with her?'"

"What did you tell him?"

He smiled grimly and looked her in the eye. "I didn't tell Han anything... but he figured it out. He then ordered me not to let Jabba do anything to hurt you. That if I had a means to free you, that I was to get you away from this place. I have to agree with him on that... we need to get you out of here."

Leia didn't know how to feel in that moment. It was heartwarming to know Han cared so much. There was some guilt mixed in, as she didn't wish to leave Han behind while she was allowed to escape a second time. There was also a sense of dread... she wanted to be anywhere but on Jabba's throne. But that collar around her neck had to go. "I was told that if I tried removing this collar, that it would explode. Is that true?"

"I'm afraid so. Only those with a key can safely disarm the explosive before unlocking it..." Reaching into his pocket, Lando pulled out a small device of which was exactly what she needed. "... of which I happen to have. Fortunately Jabba believes those collars are a fail-safe mechanism for keeping his servants in line. So once that's gone, the rest should be pretty easy."

Leia sighed in great relief and leaned her head back against the wall behind her.

But there was more that Lando knew she wasn't going to like. "Unfortunately without transportation, we've no chance of surviving a journey through the desert. A cargo skiff will be delivering supplies in a few hours... once it arrives, we can smuggle ourselves aboard... it'll take us back to Mos Eisely."

"Us?" Leia inquired.

Lando regret using that particular pronoun, but he couldn't take it back. Turning back to face Leia, he gestured with the key in his possession. "Unfortunately there's a catch. Every time that a collar is tampered with, it gets logged into a computer. If a particular servant should turn up missing for some unknown reason, Jabba can trace it back to a particular guard's key. That would most definitely blow my cover... we'd both have to make our escape at the same time."

Suddenly the prospect of escape lost all appeal to Leia. She stood up and shook her head. "Then you can't help me."

"Leia..."

"No! If Luke is to rescue us, he's still going to need all the help he can get. I may be a prisoner now, but I'm not useless. And I won't let you sacrifice yourself to help me escape. I am not leaving without Han... or the others."

"Leia, I don't think Luke or Han would object... considering the circumstances." Lando commented, gesturing to her slave bikini and what it represented.

"I don't care what either of them want. If Luke can't negotiate a way out of this, things are going to become violent. And if that happens, I would not want him fighting all Jabba's guard on his own... just so that I may be allowed to escape. Luke's counting on us... he'll be counting on you now more than ever." She put her hands on her hips and looked at herself in the mirror... horrified at the way she looked in that bikini. And although she found her own reflection quite distasteful from her point of view, Leia remembered what it was like to have so many eyes focused on her nearly-naked form. She didn't like the idea of spending a day wearing that, knowing it was bound to attract unwanted male desire. And despite how much she wanted to escape that horrible place, Leia recognized the necessity of her situation. She wrapped her arms around her ribs, trembling at the thought of what Jabba might do to her, and twisted herself around to look Lando in the eye. "You can't help me."

Lando took another moment to appreciate Leia's new outfit, a purely male-oriented dream gown designed solely for adorning the features of the fairer sex. Despite concealing certain areas that men tend to desire the most, he certainly loved the way the bikini complemented her exposed legs. The split-skirt thing, which draped over everything in front and back, he really wished were gone. But it did somewhat give the revealing attire the vague semblance of a gown. He also rather preferred her in the bikini over nothing at all, as the contrast between warm flesh and rigid metal seemed to make Leia's exposed abdomen all that more inviting.

Seemingly mesmerized by her beauty, Lando could only imagine what brushed over the minds of other men. He couldn't quite figure out whether Jabba really found scantily-clad human and twi'lek females arousing or if the bikini was just to humiliate Leia, but he was well aware that the Hutt enjoyed exploiting a woman's sexuality for his own perverted ends. If Jabba found Leia as alluring as he did, she was bound to be violated. Leia knew that better than he did, which was why he knew it was futile to argue any more with her.

Lando grimly nodded and then stretched his arm out to grab his helmet, which was resting on top of the vibro-ax, leaning up against the wall. Pulling it off the head of the ax, he knocked the staff off balance, it began leaning to one side, and then slammed onto the floor. Lando silently apologized to her for not catching it, having been trying to strap his helmet back on.

Leia wasn't quite ready either, as there was more to the outfit than just the bikini. Three hair pieces, two bracelets, and a pair of boots sat on the marble bench. She grabbed the boots and tossed them on the floor in front of her feet.

Finally securing his helmet and picking up the vibro staff, Lando watched as Leia struggled to slip the boots on while trying to slip the bracelet onto her right wrist at the same time. Lando knew she wasn't going to get the boots on without bending herself forward, so he just kneeled down to help her with them.

"Don't. I got it."

"Well since I don't have anything else to do. I might as well give you a hand with these."

Leia scoffed, but didn't refuse his offer. It certainly was much easier to slip a boot over a stationary foot, but that wasn't the reason he wanted to help. "I'll bet you anything you're just wondering what's under this... skirt-like thing."

As he took the left boot and presented it for her to step into. Smiling, Lando couldn't help staring at the gold plate hanging from her waist. "What can I say? If there's one good thing I can say about Jabba, for a species that doesn't wear clothes, he's got good taste."

It was then Leia decided that she'd had enough of Lando's cracks. After the humiliation Jabba put her through in the last few hours, she was not in the mood for his jocularity. After Lando slipped on the other boot, she grabbed him by the helmet and yanked him up from his knee to her face. Because the helmet had been strapped to his neck, she made no effort to be gentle. Once he was pulled to his feet and staring into Leia's eyes, the jocularity quickly turned to fear.

Leia maintained a very stoic expression, but her voice clearly indicated her true feelings. "Look, Buddy... you may not see it because I'm hiding it so well... But I am REALLY not in the mood for your overly boyish sense of humor. You have NO idea just how close I am of turning you inside out right here. Let's get something very clear. We're here because Han needs us... NOT so that I may be subject to your elevated testosterone levels." As she let go of Lando, Leia folded her arms across her chest and gestured to the doorway with her head. "I've got enough trouble just keeping that slug away from me. If you even think of being macho with me..."

Lando, somewhat shaken from Leia's reaction, continued trying to lighten her mood. Holding his neck and flexing his head around, he smiled again. "Hell, I'm thankful you didn't tear my head off just now. Believe me, nothing's more a turnoff than a beautiful lady who's either crying or demanding payment." He then put his hands on her shoulders. "I'm just letting you know that if you do need to escape this place... we'll all understand. Han and Luke wouldn't want you to risk being violated if..."

Leia dreaded the thought, which was why she didn't want to be reminded of it. "I am not helpless! Stop talking to me like I am!" Pausing a moment, she took a deep breath and calmly gave him her answer. "I know the dangers here, much better than you do. And I might very well need you to get me out if the situation does become that bad." Opening her eyes and looking directly into Lando's, Leia wanted to express her gratitude in a genuine way. "But not until it comes to that. And I ask you not to risk exposing yourself again unless I explicitly ask for your help. Please promise me that."

Lando smiled, his mouth barely visible behind the helmet's face-guard, and nodded. "And I'll also see if there's anything else I can do to protect you while we're here. Jabba's going to be busy most of today, so you shouldn't have to worry about what he'll do until later tonight."

Leia nodded and let her head down, a slight smile on her face. "Luke should be here by then and by this time tomorrow... we'll all be away from this horrible place." Looking back up to Lando, as if to assure him of her confidence, she smiled in anticipation of being in Han's arms soon enough. "All I have to do is get through just one day of this... how hard can that be?"