LL: Yo, homegirl. (I'm getting creative in ways to address you. Oh Holy NQLL-Author seems a bit over-the-top, wouldn't you say? Although, since you can't wear hats any longer, perhaps a crown would be a better fit? Jeez, this is getting more and more random as the year goes on, isn't it?) KR joins in Jig-like flailing. You know, we suck at this. We should probably just stick to writing. Oh, and I can't take credit for the hibridium - I looked it up in the unofficial encyclopedia on tfn. I'm not that good. :) And I'm also glad you find Han's actions and words semi-romantic - thank goodness it came across that way. I don't want him seeming like a wimp or un-Solo-like, and I thought maybe that's how his lines might come across. Good! That makes me feel better! Score!
Thanks again!
KR
Jillie Rose: Aw, thank you! I'm glad you like Han . . . he'll be around here soon, I promise. :)
GreatOne: Now, now - you said mean things to me at the JC, too! Be nice, Mary! Ha-ha.
dm1: Yeah, Leia's grammar has been completely lost. Poor girl can't use those long years of Princess-elocution lessons on this mission! Thanks for your kind words, they mean so much to me!
HSG: Hey, now! I've was lusting after Han when you were still speaking in half-sentences, young lady! Plus . . . we can share him. Right:)
Trout: Squee! I love you! You're my hero. And, once again, I'm going to see a movie with you in about an hour. How fun is that?
Peach: Thank you! Good to have you on board!
ccp: Glad you're enjoying! Thank you!
Ellina: Unfortunately, I had one teeny, tiny plot point that extended while I was writing it - I can't get Han and Leia back together yet. And I'm dying to write banter so bad,it's ridiculous! But my first priority is to get the plot out, human sections come and go as the plot develops. :) I'm so glad you like the H/L, though! Thank you for your kind words!
Dimonah Tralon: Yes, Leia's got it rough in this one. I'm glad you're enjoying!
Nebulia: Thanks for agreeing with me on the hit counter - that blasted thing is disheartening! And it did not take as long for me to update this time. Yay! My goal is to always have a very productive chapter to give when I update, and the last one refused stubbornly to cooperate. I'm sorry you had to reread, and I hope I never abandon it the same way again, but I'll hold my ground in that I needed my time towrite the best chapter I could. Thanksfor your kind words, though! I really appreciate you taking the time to comment!
Monja: Thanks for giving it a shot! I repeat this over and over again to my newer readers: the summary is off-putting. It seems like a newbie piece of work by the way it's presented. I completely understand that and don't begrudge the people who come in late! We love you here! Thanks for your kind words!
KariHP: Glad I made you happy! Thank you!
Ophelia-Eternal: Good Lord, the plot has gotten too intricate for me. I keep a dry-erase board to help me remember who's who and where their loyalties are and who they work for and . . . Thank you! By the way, am I safe in assuming you're a Hamlet fan?
MatrixSailorStarKnightZ: You have no idea how much I blushed when I read your pacing comment. That made my day, thank you! Glad to have you aboard!
Aladailey: Oh, bad retirement homes! Preventing you from reading! Shame, shame. :) Oh, Leia's thrilled to know about the hibridium, but she doesn't know some things that might not make her so happy . . . How's that for cryptic? Thank you!
Ana: Cringes Not for at least another chapter. I'm sorry. So, so sorry. This had to be written, though, or the H/L scenes wouldn't make any sense. Thanks for reading!
Reading Redhead: Thank you for reading! I appreciate it greatly!
Felicis: Glad I could make you remember the good ol' college days! Thanks for reading!
Linnath: Oh, thank you! Leia's personality is loosely based on my own, so I like that you liked it!
Clare: It's because LimeLight and I are actually the same person . . . we just pretend to be from two different countries. ;) I'm kidding of course, but that would be amusing still. Thanks!
Deesse-Selene: Ooh, French! You were fine, I can read it perfectly. :) Thank you!
Brittany: Mine, too! Thank you!
So, here we are. Chapter 16.
Thanks muchly to my reviewers . . . I adore reading them and they motivate me to write more, so thanks to you!
Special announcement! August 24 is my first anniversary as a fanfic author. Yay me! As for this story, we're getting into some serious stuff, but I assure you: the college stuff is not quite finished. As is Han/Leia. I will have them in the same room again. I promise.
Without further ado, may I present . . .
Leia found her roommate after twenty minutes of searching, sitting on a bench on the other side of the refreshment cabana, glass of water gripped tightly in both hands, knuckles whitening and the skin around her eyes tightening as Leia came closer. Leia didn't say anything, assuming that Ivoen would have her say and then she and Leia could sneak some more information out of another worker, or maybe a guest –
Well, sneaking might be considered a relative phrase here.
Perhaps, Leia reflected, she could have been softer in her hibridium discussion with Jakobi. Discussion? She grimaced. It was borderline interrogation. But it was a small price to pay for a hibridium lead, and he would get over it. No harm would come to him – he was a waiter, after all, and –
"Have you ever had this feeling that you were missing something?" Ivoen's eyes were glued to the floor, but her voice betrayed her anger. "Something huge, enormous, stellar. It's like right in front of you, and you can't see it because you're so blind you refuse to acknowledge it. It's so obvious though –"
Leia eyed her with growing unease.
"Look, I don't know what your deal is. I'm tired of hearing the same excuses for your, uh . . . subhuman behavior. You have this enormous intelligence, but you freak out over a few stormtroopers. You're so aware of everything around you, but one word about your family or past makes you shut down completely. And I don't get it. I don't see the connections here, Rims, and it's driving me crazy."
It's driving you crazy?
"I have this awful feeling like you don't trust me. But that's so ridiculous, because I've lived with you for three weeks now, and I can tell you how your socks are organized in the bottom left-hand drawer or . . . or how early you get up to get all that hair of yours up into that braided ponytail thing you wear it in, but I can't read you at all. Why is that, Rims? "
Leia was quiet, assuming it was all rhetorical. But inside –
How does she know? What does she know? I've been careful, I've been safe –
"I'm your friend. You can tell me."
Tell you? Right. Tell you that your father works for a company with whom I spent three months setting up a meeting?
"It's so infuriating!"
Tell you that if I don't get the ammunitions deal, the Empire might get it, the Empire I've been fighting far longer than I care to admit?
"And if today's any indication, I don't think I have any idea who you really are, anyways – "
Tell you that the being – not the man, the being – who tortured me, destroyed my home planet and everything I knew – is on-planet with a couple hundred minions, all with my name and holo fixed into their memories from the latest Imperial Wanted Docket?
" – how insensitive you can be – "
Tell you that I can't trust your father because he sacrificed an innocent professor to keep the Empire out of his business affairs?
" – so wrapped up in Introtropica and hibridium – "
Tell you that the man you think is my boyfriend is actually a smuggler who has been sitting on his ship for the past three weeks with a Jedi-in-training and the real Rimmas Stribur, waiting for a chance to get me out of here and back to my happy little Rebel Alliance base?
"So just tell me, whatever it is you think you're hiding well. Because you're not, and I'm tired of it."
"Ivoen." Leia kept her eyes on Ivoen's, even as the girl began an in-depth investigation of the wall behind Leia. "I'm not hiding anything – no. Listen to me." She waved off Ivoen's objection. "I know I'm messed up. But you know what?" Ivoen shook her head, eyes still on the wall. "I'm working on it."
"No, see that's the kind of thing that I hate, Rims. You explain everything away in that voice, like nothing I say is of any concern to you whatsoever."
Leia blinked. Since when do you pull your punches, Ivoen? "What do you mean?"
Ivoen squared her shoulders and brought her eyes back to Leia's. "Who was your father?"
"You know who my father was."
"No. What was he like?"
What the – "My dad? He was male and tall and he worked and paid taxes. And why do you care?"
"Because you always turn it around back onto me. I'll ask about your dad and we'll wind up talking about my family. Or psychology. Or the damn weather, I don't know!" She looked ready to shatter her water glass, right arm lifted slightly, eyes ablaze. Then they softened and her biceps stopped flexing and she suddenly seemed in control. "You're manipulative. And you lie, and – "
Leia furrowed her brow in frustration. "Lie? When have I ever lied to you?" That you know of, at least.
"Do you remember the first day we met, at the cafeteria? You left to talk to Jace and then met me back after? And I asked you how you knew about Coruscanti breadcake?"
Leia had a vague recollection of that day, most of which involved keeping an eye out for the man who had been tailing her at the marketplace. "Yeah."
"You said it was because you grew up next to a marketplace and that your mother bought it for you. She died when you were six, right?"
I mentioned that once. This is like fighting with Winter. "Yes. Can we please not discuss this?"
"No. So then your father picked up the pieces and raised you, all by himself, an architect with a big secret job, apparently, because you're convinced he was killed by the Empire."
"Well – "
"You told me all this the first afternoon I met you. But you have no quaint family stories or neat recollections to share." She blinked. "At all. The first thing anyone tells anyone is who their family is. I told you how annoying my mother was, where my father worked, all that. You didn't say a word. It's like you're constantly reading from a report someone else wrote about you."
Ice slowly trickled down into Leia's fingers. They bunched and made fists, and she could feel her back muscles slowly begin to tense.
"And then there're your nightmares that I ignore but can't forget. I can understand why you might be psychologically damaged enough to have nightmares, but you say weird things. Names. Whatever. And when I ask you about them, you blow me off and switch the subject."
"If you understand, then why – "
"And you have strange obsessions.
"What?"
"Come on. You know more about modern warfare than anyone else I know. I heard Tiregrem Sollew talking – you showed up the teacher on the first day of Contemporary Concerns. And you knew about Imperial troop movements when we were leaving the dorm." She blew out her breath. "That is not normal, Rims."
"It's my major – "
"No," Ivoen interrupted. "Political Science is your major, which you defend with your dying breath. History and Military Strategy are not."
"I have a good memory."
Ivoen, seeming to gather courage as the conversation progressed, snorted. "So do I. I remember things like your little interrogation session twenty minutes ago. Between your absolute need to know everything about my father and his company to your obsession with rare metals from Garos IV, I'm finding that I remember you defending yourself very little."
"What's to defend? I'm just strange." If I hail Han again, I've got maybe an hour before he gets here and I could hide for maybe –
"No. I'm weird. I know what its like to be odd. But being a psychological mess is not the same as that and hiding is different from a damaged psyche."
– or if I maybe stole the Sorreh's speeder I could meet the Falcon closer to – "Nothing from what you said proves that I'm hiding anything."
Ivoen shook her head and the flush in her cheeks settled back to her normal color. "I'm not trying to prosecute you here, Rims. I'm just worried that you're messing with someone or something that you shouldn't be."
No kidding. "I'm not part of a spice ring or an intergalactic smuggler's group, if that's what you mean."
"Yes. But maybe you aren't who you say you are?" It came out as a question, the tail end flipped up to show Leia how nervous Ivoen actually was to hear the answer. But Ivoen appeared determined to know everything anyway, which was not a possibility – Leia refused to compromise Ivoen's safety that way – but a persistent desire all the same. She'd be able to help. Obviously, Ivoen had a memory that was dangerously close to perfect, and Leia knew from experience how helpful that could be, how essential in moments not just of political importance, but undercover work as well. She could make this whole contract ten times easier for me, identifying Imperial Intel, board members, potential allies –
But involving Ivoen at the point would mean revealing her identity and telling her of her father's deception regarding Professor Nusorreh-Duil, which Leia felt completely unprepared to do. What's the best way to destroy someone's concept of her parent? And who knew where Ivoen's loyalties were anyway? Perhaps Ivoen was a willing participant in her father's scheming, in which case revealing herself would put a damper on her plan to at least live until she turned twenty. And while it was a far cry – imagining Ivoen at the center of Ganscorp's intricate political finagling was threatening to dispel the seriousness of the situation – it was a possibility Leia had better consider.
No, it was better to keep the secret to herself.
Leia sighed. "I'm not involved in anything." She paused. "And nothing I say will convince you of it, either."
Ivoen was silent a moment, focused on the water glass in her hands, turning it in the sunlight. When she spoke, her voice was delicate, as if it, as well as any confidence she'd ever possessed, would shatter with the effort of speaking. "I can't in good faith sit here for the next eight months and expect to find out from the news who you really are."
Leia exhaled and closed her eyes. She's caught me. If life before had been difficult, living with Ivoen now would be next to impossible. She remembers more than I thought. She'll figure out the details. She's halfway there now. And if Leia waited, there was the possibility that, when Ivoen discovered her true purpose at the university, she would tell her father out of a misguided sense of betrayal."Ivoen." She opened her eyes to see Ivoen staring over her shoulder. Han, better start running. And fast. "Perhaps there is something I should – "
"Excuse me?"
Leia's eyes widened as a melodious female voice broke through her explanation. Impeccable timing. I hate you already, whoever you are. She ducked her head, feeling a braid start to loosen as she turned toward the voice, catching a glimpse of bright blue eyes before the image coalesced. In front of her stood –
Oh, hell. This is going to get interesting.
Alrighty then. Reviews are fantastic . . . :)
KR