Author's Note: Okay, peeps, I was just so pumped from th last chapter that my fingers just flew through this one.And I know a lot of you 'knew it' -- but you gottah give me the credit of at least half-convincing a few of you ( - doubtful - ). ...Right? xD

Rouge: Lol, thanks. Well, here's more, you didn't have to wait that long. :D
PIP: oo; - glances nervously at Author's Note - Uhm. xD Well, yeah, I suppose you can have a montage in writing. If that's what I was doing. ;D
GreatOne: - innocent -0:)- snatches Hanny-bear - ...Mine. xD
Dovasary: Don't scare those poor children now... oo; Haha, but thank you. - pat - Uhm... I told you? I didn't really tell anyone but my sister... and it's not like she cares what I write. xD

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

If my mother had appeared faint before, it couldn't be any more different now. I felt a strong pull from the Force coming from her; she regained control of her legs, and her eyes focused almost unnaturally quickly. The fingers of her right hand jerk outward stiffly, and the lightsaber flies straight into it. She clips it to her belt, and I feel Tyl – Solo slowly straighten to his full height behind me.

Both are angry, and even more bewildered. I feel it more easily than I would the heat of Tatooine.

I'm having trouble digesting this all, myself.

I mean… how could it be? Well, I know how it could be, but…

They have all lied to me, this whole time. Luke, Mom, and possibly Mara: about my parents' marriage, how Mom and Han were just friends, they never bothered to tell me they were lovers, for some reason…

Tyl – I mean, Solo. Or Han. He made up a fake name, a fake history, an elaborate lie about himself, to avoid any confrontation with my mother or my family… '…there was a little girl, couldn't be older than four…' That was me. He saw me, my mother's child, my father's child, and decided not to intrude. Decided it would be better to stay dead, rather than become alive and hurt everyone in the process.

Too bad he didn't know my father and mother didn't love each other, it was a marriage of convenience…

"You!" My mother's hiss jerks me out off my thoughts, and everyone watches her close the gap between her and Solo. Then she shocks everyone – Solo most of all – by smacking him hard on the face.

"Leia!" Luke shouts warningly, taking a step forward. My mother ignores him.

"You coward!" she screams. "I preferred it when you were dead!"

Silence follows this.

That was harsh.

I look over at Han; his face is hard and tense, with a set, defiant jaw and dark, narrowed eyes. I already know how Solo is taking this.

"Glad to see you missed me." he replies coolly. "Let alone remembered; that's a shocker."

"What are you talking about?" she spits.

"Leia…"

"WHAT?" she screams at Luke, turning around and scowling at him as well.

Everyone looks at him simultaneously. He seems unperturbed.

"Calm down." he warns simply.

My mother turns away from Solo, taking a deep breathe. I try and swallow, but realize that this whole time my mouth had been as dry as a sun-baked Bantha.

He crosses his arms, his glare deepening as my mother starts to turn around.

"You." she repeats through clenched teeth, pointing a finger at his face but restraining from hitting him again. "You've been alive all this time!" she accuses.

"Obviously."

"You're incorrigible." She's seething and boiling over with rage, and wipes at an eye quickly. I feel her glance at Luke as he looks at her sternly, then she pulls from the Force to calm down. "You left me, alone and – "

"Leia!" Luke said loudly and hastily.

"What do you want?"

"Yeah, kid, can't you see she's tryin' to yell at me? Added plus if she gets a guilt trip." he adds nastily.

And that was the last straw for my mother. She does what I've never seen her do before.

She sits on the floor, a good four feet away from Solo and against the wall, then a stifled sob escapes her throat.

"Good job." I shoot at him, crossing the hall over to her. His mouth opens, but he's interrupted by Mara.

"Don't. We're all adults here… well, almost." she says, looking uneasily at me as I sit and comfortingly lean my head against my mother's shoulder.

"I am an adult." I protest.

"'Adult?'" Mom interrupts, almost in hysterics. Her pale face is ashen now, the sides of her face framed with loose, flyaway wisps and tear trails down her cheeks. I feel a pang of sorrow, and of regret; my mother is so strong, it takes a lot to unnerve her at this degree. "You call him an 'adult'? He did possibly the most childish thing he could!"

"Childish?" He asks, incredulously. "Listen, Princess, there was nothin' childish about the hell I called a life for the first six years!"

"Oh, yes, that's right, it's really hard to run out on me then avoid everyone until the rumors about your disappearance dissipated."

"Mom…" I suppose that I should interject before this turns into a yelling match that goes on for hours.

"Stay out of this. You don't know this man… and I don't either."

"I just spent the past two weeks in confined quarters with him, I know him a lot better than you'd think." I argue.

"I'm shocked he didn't just leave you to die."

"Two whole weeks?" he rhetorically asks me, in mock bewilderment. "Gods, I'm surprised she just didn't get a new daughter by then. It'd be a lot easier than waitin' for you to return."

I don't believe I'm included in this conversation anymore.

"Are you talking about Leo?"

"Lookie, Play-dumb Princess finally wizened up."

"…I hate you." she declared, standing and resolutely walking out, leaving all of us staring. I'm the first to look at Solo. He has his oh-so-stubborn air about him, leaving his persona depleted of any emotion other than sullenness and… stubbornness, except I notice his jaw is still clenched and I could tell through his eyes that he's upset; there's the same look in them as there was when he was first telling the 'Tyl Olos Disappearance Story'. Nonetheless, he looks nonchalantly at Luke.

"So, kid, how's it goin'?"