SaberGirls: Yep, chapter six is here! And thanks for all the reviews! Means a lot, you know!

Limelight: Four-hundred reviews to one story? You betcha you're infamous!

Summer2004:Han's not the only one witha lucky streak, of course. Here, I updated!

Trout: Now, this story doesn't have anything to do with the French Revolution, eh? Thanks!

Leia woke up the next day five minutes before Ivoen's alarm went off, a skill she'd picked up somewhere in her past year with the Rebellion. She crawled out of the bed, about a half a meter shorter than her normal bunk back at base, and glanced at Ivoen, who was still sleeping soundly in her own bed. Padding to her closet, Leia glanced at Stribur's colorful ensemble of outfits that had been sent ahead of her. Convenient that she did that. I have a wide assortment of awful clothing from which to choose. Sighing, Leia grabbed a mess of colors and threw it on her miniature bed. She then grabbed a white towel and moved towards the communal refresher station, opening her door silently and glancing around the empty hallway. At least something's going my way. Leia padded barefoot down the corridor to the door and pushed through it.

Into the sights of a dozen busily primping girls.

Oh, fantastic.

She nodded quietly to a few of the girls and pushed through until she got to the refresher stalls. She looked at the hatches to the six 'freshers. Various items littered the floor next to each door, signaling the stall was in use. Towel. Towel. Towel. Shoes on the ouside. Towel. Underwear? Leia did a double take. There is apparently a reason my father had the professors come to me.

Obviously all six were occupied. Leia leaned against the wall and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Finally the sixth door opened and a tall blonde retrieved her underwear from the floor. She smiled gloriously at Leia and winked, slid away from the stall and collected herself near the mirror, already jam-packed with tall blondes.

Leia sighed, shook her head and entered the refresher stall. Immediately, the perfumed smell of flowery soap and various hair products assaulted her. She bent double and coughed, hacking away the powerful fragrance out of her system, feeling as though she might be sick with the heavy, heady, sweet smell. That's ridiculous. No one should wear that much perfume.

Leia decided that holding her breath was an entirely viable option. Waving back the fumes from her face, she entered the 'fresher and gripped the controls. Unintentionally turning it on, Leia's breath caught in her throat as she choked back another scream. The unexpected water – I set it to sonic, didn't I? – rained down on her, and at such a low temperature as to freeze the ditz's brain that had preceded her in the refresher. Turn in off, turn it off! She groped for the controls, unable to see because of the water stinging her eyes and coughing maniacally from the perfume fumes again. Blind and asphyxiated, Leia managed to switch the controls to sonic.

Feeling strangely averted to any more time spent in the stall, Leia's 'fresher was finished in record time. Drying herself off with her towel and redressing in her fatigues and tank top, Leia quickly left the room, avoiding eye contact with the laughing girls, and hurriedly made her way back to her room.

"So, Rimsie, d'ya got a guy?"

Leia almost spit up the mouthful of Coruscanti flatmeat she was previously enjoying. "What?"

"C'mon, ya can tell us, y'know." The girl Leia distantly remembered as a floormate batted her eyelashes innocently and nodded to the other three girls at the table. "We don't tell no one, swear to gods."

Leia wiped her mouth on an offered napkin. Her mind flew through an assortment of possible answers to the questions, each of them a blatant lie. A guy? She inwardly laughed. No one wants the Ice Princess, children. She shook her head. "No. No guy."

The lead idiot leaned in closer and displayed a dazzling set of teeth. "No way girl like you's missing out, eh? Hey, figure us in."

Did you not understand the words that I said? Let me dumb it down for you. "No, I mean it. I don't have a 'guy.'"

A second bimbo chipped in. "I bet he's older, huh, Rimsie?"

"No."

Girl Number Three threw her opinion into the bag. "Uh-huh. Older. He's gotta be, like, twenty-five, or somethin'."

"No!"

"Ooh! Thirty?!"

"No! No!"

The group all sat back simultaneously in horror. "Eew! Forty? Nuh-uh, no way. That's so sick!" The lead one seemed to have choked on her own shock.

And Leia realized that unless she got herself out of this predicament, there was no way she could feasibly incorporate herself into the college-student life. Unsure of how long her detention would be, and incapable of requesting back-up, her life might possibly be forfeit, up for grabs by the Empire. She shuddered. I can't be captured. I can't go through that again. Assimilation was the logical and pragmatic next step. Right? She shut down that dissenting part of her brain. I have to get the munitions contract. There was no way she could do that as an Imperial captive. And in order to keep herself hidden, she had to act the part, had to pretend to be normal, average.

Not a princess.

Not privately educated.

Not single.

She turned away from that last thought. Not everyone here has a boyfriend. I don't have to be committed. But the prospect was ingrained in her mind at this point. A relationship with an unknown other outside of the university would allow her to call the Falcon more regularly, disguised as some sort of romantic tele-rendevous. She might be able to distance herself from others without appearing to alienate herself. She could logically fend off the insane come-ons and ridiculous lines without too much trouble.

The more she thought about it, the more it appeared to make sense.

Okay. A boyfriend. I have a boyfriend.

"Alright, if you guys promise not to tell anyone – "

Girl Number Four put a hand to her heart. "Oh, we totally promise, right, girls?"

Leia took a deep breath. "'Kay, his name's Jace – "

"So he really is forty?"

Leia shook her head. I need to be inconspicuous. "No, he's, uh – " What's a good age? Who would I feel comfortable with?

Well, there's always –

No.

But maybe –

No.

C'mon. He'd never hear about it.

No!

He'd never know.

He'd never know? What? What wouldn't he know? That I think about –

Stop!

And his eyes –

Umm –

And that smile –

"Twenty-nine. He's twenty-nine."

The girls leaned in closer. "Ooh! Twenty-nine!" The leader was speaking again. "Is he, like, sweet and nice?"

Depends if he's picking a fight with me or not. "At times, yeah, I guess so."

"And cute?" The group all giggled.

If you only knew – "Yeah, he's, um, pretty tall. Dark hair. Kinda built strong, good arms, I guess – "

"Ooh! What else?"

Leia was losing track of who was shooting off the questions. She thought that last had been from Lunatic Number Three. "Yeah, he's got these great eyes." Watch it, Organa. "They change colors depending on his mood. And he has this wonderful smile – you don't see it much, but when you do . . . " She trailed off, and for once the quartet let her think before they began again. "But the best part is this scar he has – "

Leia's legs trembled as she crawled onto her very, very short bed and stared at the ceiling. Two hours. She had been discussing her nonexistent love life for two hours in as much detail as the group had requested. And they requested too much. She had regaled fictional stories of romantic getaways and sweet gestures, surprises she sometimes – no, never – fantasized including her – egotistical mercenary – friend. It was too easy. That was the frightening part of this charade. Somewhere in her tale, Leia had crossed her own line.

I put up that line to protect myself.

It was a situation she had hoped to avoid, throwing sarcasm and denial into her dealings with the incorrigible smuggler as much to scare him away as to protect her own somewhat fragile psychological composition. She had made a very conscious decision a year ago to ignore that tingling in her stomach when she saw him from far away.

And the occasional daydreams.

And the comforting presence his friendship sometimes allowed.

These were dangerous symptoms to an illness that would eventually strike her dead from the inside. Better to contain it than let it ravage her sanity. It had worked perfectly well thus far. She just needed to pretend the man she had described to her floormates was as fictional as the stories and tales. If only it were so easy –

Leia jumped up and smacked her right foot against the footboard of her bed in her shock as a loud piercing wail erupted in the room. The comm. Nursing her throbbing foot, she hopped up and slowly made progress to the desk, where she had stashed her comlink. She flipped it on and casually drawled out a greeting.

"Hey."

Han's deep voice issued from the comm. "Hey'a Rims. Thought you'd like to know 'bout these friends of yours. Jemmy's friends, the ones we ran into on Nivay, 'member?"

Leia nodded. "Yeah?"

"Turns out some of 'em came here for the same reason you did. They didn't catch ya at registration, but they're tryin' to hook up wit' you later. Have ya seen 'em?"

Her heart started to beat irregularly as she glanced toward the plastisteel window on the far side of her room. "Nope. Haven't seen 'em. Did they give ya a time ta meet or somethin'?"

"Nah, I haven't actually talked ta 'em. Kiel and I heard 'em talking at the dress shop, but we couldn't stay fo' too long. We got a call from the housesitter. He said that we had unexpected company, you know?"

"Any old friends, Jace?"

"Yeah, real old friends. Turns out Jemmy's dad's here, too. I think he was picking up some black shirts. That's what it looked like, 'tleast. They were real long, too. Looked kinda like a cape, or somethin'."

Oh, please, no. She forced a light, playful tone. "Hey, don't kid, Jace. Are ya serious?"

"'Course. I don't kid 'bout stuff like that."

"Jemmy's dad doesn't usually wear black. Do'ya know what else he might be lookin' for?"

"Dunno."

"Hey, has Jemmy told his dad that I'm here? I'd really like to see 'em before he leaves."

"I'm not sure, Sweetheart. Ya might wanna watch out for him, though. I guess he's hangin' a lot round the college. Ya could run into him, if ya lucky."

Lucky? "Yeah, I'll do that. Hey, ya'll let me know if somethin' else comes up 'bout Jemmy an' his dad?"

"Yeah. 'kay. Hey, ya know, you could come back home for a bit. I'm sure we can find Jemmy together, huh?"

If only it were that simple, Han. "Ah, no. Can't. Gotta get ready for classes and that big deal project that I got."

"'ts what I thought. Okay, talk ta ya later, eh?"

"You betcha."

As she shifted the comm back into the drawer and moved slowly and heartlessly back to the bed, Leia found her foot had ended its miserable torture.

Well, yeah. Compared to Darth Vader here on Itets-Enuzore, my foot is the least of my problems.

PS: I hate Pegatha and Toya. Please review!

KR