Author's Notes: As usual, the soon to be irrelevant apology: my apologies for taking forever to get this up…again. What can I say? Being freshman in college doesn't leave much time for such mundane pursuits as sleep and writing. Anyway, here it is. Thanks for all the encouraging comments and suggestions, again, everyone. Here are the individual responses…oh, and I'm almost positive there was another one that I got in an email but isn't showing up on the reviews page, so whoever you are (I want to say PrincessDaisy for some reason, but I'm not sure) thank you and I'm sorry I can't give you a more detailed response!

Eileen B.: Yeah, I laughed for so long over the ridiculous-ness of the whole whuffa thing in the original that I felt this just wouldn't be a proper COPL rewrite without it. I really appreciated your comment about Han comparing girls to Leia all the time. I actually wasn't even doing that consciously, so I'm really excited that you picked it out as something spiffy. Makes me think that I can come up with halfway decent stuff every once in a while, even if I'm not watching myself like a hawk. Anyway, thanks!

Flaming Angel: Aw, thank you! I'm really, really flattered by your comment. And I definitely plan to continue. It may take me forever and a half, but I don't like abandoning things half finished, so it will get finished…eventually.

Ann: Thanks! And like I said to Flaming Angel, I definitely plan to continue. Stay tuned!

Stormygurlz: Now, is that incredible in a good way or a bad way? (About Leia's indecisiveness, I mean.) I'm not really comfortable with her character yet, especially in this situation since I've never been in a situation even remotely similar myself, so I'm never sure if I'm doing it right. Hm…well, I guess we'll see. And about that whole Isolder eavesdropping on a nightmare thing…do you have, like, telepathic abilities by any chance? Wow. I don't want to give anything away, but definitely come back and read the last few chapters of this when you get the chance. You'll know it when you see it…and I definitely wrote the scene I'm referring to before I read your comment, too. Very strange.

Anyway, here it is, everyone. Hopefully it's up to snuff!

Chapter 9:

Leia brushed a stray strand of hair out of her way and leaned in closer to the datapad on the table, cringing both at the soreness in her shoulders and the contents of the article she was reading. She reached both hands around to the back of her neck and rubbed a little, attempting to massage the tightness out of her muscles, a tightness that seemed to go all the way into her bones. Maybe even into her heart. Pushing that half-formed thought systematically out of her mind, she peered at the words on the screen, trying to bring them back into focus.

Saving her the trouble with a welcome distraction, Luke ambled into the room, his hair still disheveled from his sonic shower.

"Still working?" he asked, in a tone she hadn't heard in a long time. Not since before she had straightened things out between him and her and Han. No. She shoved that thought out as well; even thinking Han's name was no longer safe. She concentrated on Luke, instead. Well, we know that's not the problem, she thought to herself thankfully, but there're certainly more than enough problems to make up for it. So many that she couldn't be bothered to deal with it right now. I'm sorry, Luke, she apologized in her mind, I'm too centered on myself to help you with anything now, and I know it and I know it's wrong, but I can't help it. We can add that to my list of betrayals. Betrayals? When had she started using that word for it? It was no use, she decided, she simply could not get away from it.

"Yeah," she answered Luke, making one last effort to clear all thoughts of Han form her mind in order to at least attempt a halfway normal conversation with her own brother over breakfast.

"Well, sort of," she amended, "I'm reading the summaries of recent news shows from the 'Net." She allowed Luke to lean over her shoulder to read the headlines of the article she happened to have on the screen.

"Fairy Tale for a Rebel," Luke read, "The Galaxy's Favorite Princess Finally Gets her Prince." He raised his eyebrows, glancing at her and groaning inwardly. This could not be good.

"Despite her resistance fighter tendencies and penchant for smuggler pilots with questionable backgrounds, our own Princess Leia finally seems to have settled down with her very own prince, just like something from a tale of the Princess' native Alderaan," Luke continued, reading the first sentence of the article out loud.

"Smuggler pilot with questionable backgrounds?" he was about to ask before deciding that he would need to be a little more subtle in his approach of the "Han subject." Instead he looked at his sister.

"Do they say stuff like this all the time? Isn't that a little…invasive, or something?" Luke asked in the most diplomatic tone he could muster. Leia laughed wryly.

"Don't you ever watch the 'Net, little brother? Not only do they say 'stuff like this' all the time, but they say it about me and you and a good many of the people we know with enough variations of the truth to make me confused about my own life!" she said, reaching up to kiss Luke's cheek.

"So why do you read it?" he asked automatically, keeping himself in the conversation as neutrally as possible while he analyzed her last sentence. 'Confused about my own life?' Hm…on the first level, it could just be a joke. But then maybe she's trying to tell me she's confused about where her life should be going…and maybe even that she wants my help! Or maybe she's just trying to say that the media confuses everyone about everything…or maybe it has driven her crazy. He discarded the last idea immediately and a good number of the ones that followed. No, I'd better just stop being a Jedi Knight for a little while and just be an older brother. Or younger. Whatever she needs.

"Well, it's important to know what the media is saying about me for when I have to give public statements," Leia was explaining, "I mean, if some guy walks up to me on the street and wants to know about the time I was abducted by radical members of the Imperial Liberal faction, I have to be ready to tell him that it never happened. I can't just stand there and look stupid while he tells me about my own abduction."

"Your own abduction that never actually occurred but somehow made it onto interplanetary news. Well, it's creative; you have to give them that," Luke commented, eliciting a reluctant half-grin from his sister.

"Exactly. It's actually entertaining, sometimes, the stuff they manage to come up with. Once you get past the embarrassment and hurt, of course," she said, every last hint of that grin's existence swiftly disappearing from her face as she glanced at the screen of the datapad, taking in the bold headings. She scrolled down idly, not really knowing why. It wasn't as if she really wanted Luke to see all this. Except maybe subconsciously, where the burden was rapidly becoming too much for even Leia Organa to bear.

"Prince Isolder is 'gallant,' 'chivalric,' 'noble,' 'handsome,' 'rich,' 'aristocratic,' and 'a hunk,' said some of Galaxy News' watchers in Coruscant when polled just last week. Public opinion of the Princess' apparent choice seems to be rising with every passing day, and we can only hope that the Princess' opinion continues to do the same. Stay tuned for tomorrow's edition of our own Real Life Fairy Tale," Luke read the last sentence. Under it was a collage of holos of Leia and Isolder, all taken recently: a dimly lit dinner at a renowned Coruscant restaurant, a stroll through a park, Isolder handing her a bouquet of flowers and carrying her work case, even the two of them in conversation in the docking bay just before their departure. And all of these were arranged around a larger holo of Isolder bending over her hand, a gesture that had made him famous throughout the galaxy, particularly among unmarried women in their twenties and thirties…and some married ones as well.

I wonder if Han has seen these, flashed across the minds of both twins at once. Luke allowed the thought to run to completion, wondering about Han's reaction if he had, and hoping he was all right, wherever he was, and, most of all, that they weren't going to be too late. For what, he wasn't quite sure, but surely something must be salvageable out of this awful situation he'd let things get to. The possibility that it didn't really have anything to do with him barely occurred to him. A Jedi should be responsible for everything, especially the welfare of his own family. Oh, stop making this about yourself, Skywalker, and try to do something to help you sister for once. He looked down at Leia, trying to see her face without appearing too obvious about it. She had thrust the thought down with the rest of them. There must be a whole stack of them by now, she thought detachedly, all those unfinished thoughts. They'll explode soon, maybe. Too many of them up there…

"How about we go see what Chewie has been up to in the galley all morning and then you can get me up to date on their perception of the 'fairy tale'?" Luke suggested, hoping he didn't sound patronizing. Am I going to be like this forever? He wondered at himself, always doubting and always trying to balance things out? Not too pedantic and patronizing, but not too casual; not too close but close enough to really see people. Then a pause. There you go, making this about yourself again…he sighed almost involuntarily

"Huh? Oh, sure. Sounds good, Luke," Leia said, apparently coming back from her own world of thoughts, "Probably just about time, too. Something about those Dantooinian flatcakes smells a little strange."

"If he put that dried meat stuff he brings from Kashyyyk in there we are not letting him back in the galley," Luke stated firmly, trying to lighten the mood. Leia went along with his efforts,

"Deal," she told him.

"So," Luke began casually, after they had rescued the flatcakes from near-burning (and other calamities) and eaten quite a few of them, "what's going on with this whole fairy tale thing?"

"You should seriously consider being more in touch with the world outside of your meditations, Luke," Chewie rumbled with laughter, "it's been in the holonews for weeks!" The wookiee figured that if he was ever going to catalyze a confrontation between brother and sister about the near-engagement of who he still thought of as "Han's Princess" to that arrogant Prince, it might as well be now, while they would be stuck together for a few days more, which would force them to work it out before Leia faced Han again. If he's still alive, Chewie reminded himself. Then: he has to be. He performed some thought-repression of his own in order to follow the conversation.

"I'll overlook that one, Chewie," Luke quipped, choosing to keep the mood light. Good move, Chewie thought, maybe it will take longer for the Princess to get defensive about it, this way. Arguing with the Princess, he'd observed from the numerous times Han had done it, was sometimes more complicated and strategic even than the most delicate game of dejarik. Then again, arguing with Han was something like ramming one's head repeatedly into a chunk of especially hard transparisteel: you could see the right answer waiting calmly on the other side of the transparisteel, but you couldn't for the life of you get it through Han's stubborn head intact. He couldn't decide which he preferred. But hopefully I'll have plenty of time to observe them together and make a decision, he remarked to himself, praying that he wasn't being overly optimistic.

Leia sighed.

"I don't even know where to start, Luke," she said despondently, obviously going over her own pain-filled and turmoil-ridden memories of the past few weeks.

"You know the basics…or, at least, the truth of them. What the media has going on out there is quite another story," she paused to laugh dryly, "and even I can't keep track of that one."

"The truth? I don't know about that…I doubt anyone but you knows the real truth," Luke said, trying to play the subtle psychologist. It never would have worked on his considerably more experienced sister, had she not been so distracted. As the situation was, his statement had the desired effect.

Nobody but me knows the real truth? It's possible…but do I even know the real truth? Maybe no one does. Maybe there is no truth…just illusions…oh, shut up, Leia. You sound like some philosophizing hermit, she grumbled mentally. Then again, it's not like I've seen the truth anywhere around here lately. Maybe I'll just have to settle for the illusion.

"It does seem like a fairy tale," she sighed, partly to stop her thoughts, which she deemed pointless, and partly to continue the conversation, which suddenly seemed pointless as well. Chewie refrained from muttering something that might have been taken the wrong way and shoved a piece of flatcake into his mouth, chewing vigorously, as if that would help relieve the tension in the room and in their lives. When had things gotten tense between him and Luke and Leia, anyway?

Luke twirled his fork in his hand and pushed pieces of marginally soggy flatcake around on his plate, staring into it as if it were actually something interesting.

"Maybe life's not supposed to be a fairy tale," he mumbled, wondering how Leia was going to take that.

"Maybe," she said cautiously, not looking at him. What did he mean? And what do I mean? What seems like a fairy tale? Me and Han: the princess and the scoundrel turned good; or me and Isolder: the princess and her prince? And which one does Luke disapprove of? Suddenly, the conversation (as short as it had been) and the thoughts it brought with it were too much effort for her, and she dropped her utensils somewhat suddenly onto her plate with a clank that raised the other two heads in the room from where they'd been staring uncomfortably into their plates.

"I've got a lot of work to do, and I'm really tired," she mumbled, thinking as she said it that it had to be the most pathetically clichéd and unbelievable excuse ever known to the galaxy. She shoved everything into the washer quickly, almost clumsily, and almost ran out of the room. Inexplicably, her eyes filled with tears as she rushed down the short hallway to her bunkroom at the end of it. What the hell is wrong with you, Leia? She demanded of herself, can't you just do the right thing and stop questioning. And for gods' sake, stop crying all the time! She threw herself onto the bunk in a manner that she'd not done almost since she had been a young adolescent on Alderaan, frustrated with her life. Sure. No problem. Now who's going to volunteer to tell me what the right thing is? And the question she'd been torturing herself with for weeks now sounded so familiar and so overwhelming that it almost made her physically sick, so she cleared all rational thought out of her mind and attempted to will herself to sleep.

Isolder, alone in his Battle Dragon, happened to be thinking of Leia, but would have been completely shocked at the picture she now made. Well, perhaps "happened to be thinking of" was not the correct phrase. He'd been passing the long, lonely hours by imagining Leia, himself with Leia, Leia on Hapes, Leia as queen, and Leia as the mother of their children. None of those particular daydreamings involved a distraught Leia with a tearstained face and rumpled clothes, collapsed on a narrow bunk. The Leia of his imagination always smiled, was always radiantly happy and healthy, even after giving birth to their imagined children. He was particularly fond of that image: Leia with perfectly coiffed hair, lying in a sumptuous bed, wearing an equally sumptuous dressing gown, holding a perfect daughter in her perfect arms. The next ruler of Hapes. Now he just needed to figure out some names for their children (of course, they'd have many children) so that he could make the decision for once, without his mother butting in as she usually did. Well, maybe she'd have a little more respect for him after this, even if he was only a son. It wasn't every day one brought home Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan, of the Imperial Senate, and of the highest echelons of Rebel Alliance/New Republic leadership for ones bride.

He stretched his legs in the luxury of the comparatively roomy Battle Dragon. She'll be so glad to be a Hapan, he thought happily, even the ships are better there. Take an X-Wing, for example. Not nearly as much room for the legs, you can't move around at all, you can't make the chair lean back, and you can't preserve any decent food. And Hapan food is much better prepared than any other kind…and our scenery and riches could rival that of any planet…and our soldiers are the strongest and most skilled…and soon enough we'll have the galaxy's most beautiful Princess as our Queen Mother.

From Isolder's point of view, things couldn't get much better. But maybe that was because, as a son of the infamous Ta'a Chume, he'd learned to suppress self-doubt- or any kind of doubt, for that matter- better than most.

Right. That went well, Skywalker, Luke was berating himself, slowly putting his dishes into the auto-washer. I think it's safe to say you can cross off 'jedi-therapist' as a possible career path…damn it, but it's not supposed to take therapy skills to talk to your own sister! Well…there's always lunch…and dinner…and tomorrow…and all the days until we get to wherever-it-is. He attempted to reassure himself. Involuntarily, he glanced at the chrono mounted precariously on a shelf. Suddenly, it seemed to be going faster than it ever had before, and he saw the time he had to help Leia diminishing quickly, each second gone so quickly, and nothing accomplished in it. And his hope that the situation could be repaired was beginning to be just about as precarious as that chrono's perch.

That's right, Skywalker, always fix everything- that's the Jedi way. But maybe this is the first thing you just can't fix…too bad it's probably one of the most important…

He tried not to bang the dishes too loudly so as not to irritate the other occupants of the small ship. Chewie handed him his plate silently and clumped out of the galley to go take out his frustration on some unfortunate piece of machinery.

Han, for his part, was far removed, both physically and mentally, from the distress his would-be rescuers were experiencing. As he awoke with a pounding headache for the second time in two days (or was it two days? He couldn't really be sure,) he reflected that it was starting to feel familiar. That thought was closely followed by the observation that it didn't get any better for becoming a habit.

He didn't even try to move this time, knowing that it would only increase his discomfort. Instead, he concentrated on opening his eyes slowly, gently allowing them to adjust to the dim light before even attempting to look around. Right away, his smuggler's instincts of absorbing a situation within seconds taking over, he noticed that his present surroundings were markedly different from the one's in which he'd found himself upon his last painful awakening. For one, the ceiling, which was closer than before, was not the hard stone he'd looked up into last time. It seemed to be made of some rough fabric thick enough to keep the light out. And yet, it wasn't so dark inside wherever-he-was that he couldn't see. Deciding not to dwell on that particular phenomenon, he inched his head to the side ever so slowly to see what the walls were made of. When the waves of dizziness stopped crashing through him, he observed that they were made of the same material. And it was letting in a little light. Not that I really care. What I really need is to get out of here.

Continuing his careful study of his surroundings, he noticed that he was lying on a considerably softer surface than he had been yesterday (or that morning…or whenever it had been), and that he was covered with some sort of equally soft blanket. There was other furniture in the room, but he had only dimly perceived it when a part of the wall flapped open and the same girl as before (Teneniel Djo? Is that what she said her name was?) stepped through, along with a lot of light that made him cringe and groan.

"You just made my headache a million times worse, kid," he told her, remarking to himself that talking had about the same effect. Won't be trying that again unless I have a damn good reason, he decided.

"Food. You," the girl said briskly, setting down what appeared to be rather crudely fashioned bowl on a table next to whatever Han was lying on. (It couldn't quite be called a bed, in his opinion…maybe a cot.) He didn't think she would understand if he explained to her that even the thought of food or anything related to it gave him the urge to vomit rather violently all over her, probably exploding his head in the process, and therefore making for a somewhat messy cleanup.

"Food. No sick. You," she elaborated. The food won't make me sick? Or I'm not really sick anyway so I should eat it? Or it'll make me better? Or none of the above and she doesn't actually know any Basic? Within two seconds, it didn't matter anyway, because the girl had cupped the bowl against his mouth and was pouring a surprisingly large proportion of its contents skillfully down his throat, so that he forgot to comment sarcastically that this was actually drink, not food.

"Food fix whuffa bad," she explained to him, looking into his somewhat dazed face. Despite his headache and overall misery, he couldn't help asking for clarification.

"The food will fix the whuffa, which is bad? Or the food is bad and will make the whuffa bad? Or are you just blabbering about nothing? And what the hell is a whuffa, anyway?" he asked, half rising off his cot. He collapsed back as arrows of pain pierced through the waves of it that were already washing over him. The girl grinned slightly, a hard grin that didn't really have the lighting-up effect that most grins had.

"Whuffa…poison?" she said, as if trying out the word for the first time. Then, more assuredly, "food fix."

"Are you asking or telling?" he demanded acidly, reminiscent of the way some long-forgotten tutorial droid had done in his faraway childhood. He was rewarded by another stern grin and another volley of arrows through his head.

"Whuffa poison. You. Food fix," she said, piecing the words together and adding some pulling motions, imitations of what he had done with the white snake/rope thing what seemed like a long time ago.

Through considerable effort on both their parts, the girl finally enabled Han to understand that the white "snake/rope thing" was called a whuffa and was invaluably useful to their culture. Unfortunately, its skin was also poisonous to the touch- not poisonous enough to kill anyone, but poisonous to make them sick for a substantial amount of time. Which was why they usually used their slaves, which were all men for some inexplicable reason, to extract whuffas from the ground, as opposed to using more important members of society. And the reason there were so many of these slaves was that usually one couldn't pull a whuffa in its entirety out of the ground before fainting first, so it usually took a team, with each man taking over when his predecessor passed out. These men could later be revived by drinking a mixture of the grindings of a certain plant and of the whuffa's blood, which had to be drained out to make it suitable for use, anyway. Whuffa ropes could be used to lash prisoners, making them faint, or their hides could be ground up and sprayed on prisoners, also making them faint, or…well, a number of other uses that all involved whuffa hides and fainting and that Han was too annoyed to bother to figure out.

Or something to that general effect.

When these explanations were finished, the girl left the room- or what Han had decided to call a tent- letting another burst of light in that made anything of Han's headache that had diminished while they had been talking come back in a rush. He lay back gingerly and tried to doze off…to no avail.

It was only moments later when the girl reappeared with someone (a woman) who looked very official and ceremonial to Han's practiced eye- practiced from attending all those official ceremonies with Leia all those times…but he couldn't dwell on that now. Before I can get Leia back, I have to get out of this damned place…

"This: king," Teneniel Djo told him. Han didn't bother to correct her, knowing she probably wouldn't understand. "Teneniel Djo talk. You. King." She pointed to herself and then to Han and the "king" woman. Then the she said something in that rapid, harsh language of theirs. Both of them looked at Han for a moment. The woman talked for a long time, and then Teneniel Djo seemed to think for a minute. Apparently the woman's entire discourse could be reduced to:

"You…important good. Whuffa Hunter."

Han nodded, trying to keep his facial expression neutral. If this woman was the local big shot, it wouldn't do to be rude. Not if I want to get out of here anytime soon…all it would take was another whiff of that whuffa stuff…

The woman looked at him as if giving him the opportunity to say something. When it became apparent that he had nothing to contribute, she launched into another long tirade about something or other. Or, at least, it sounded to Han like a tirade. Their language was so hard-sounding anyway that for all he knew she could have been talking about the nice weather they'd been having lately.

"You…go to want…all where want," Teneniel Djo translated the whole dialogue into seven succinct (and cryptic) words. Han's heart rose hesitantly in his chest. Could they be setting him free? He pointed to himself and then to the door. Both women nodded enthusiastically.

"Much whuffa hunter. Important good. Go to want," Teneniel Djo reiterated. Han didn't hesitate this time, and got up, ignoring the pounding it caused in his head. Teneniel Djo held something out to him as he passed by her to get to the door. He looked down at the proffered package.

"Food," she explained, and he took it.

"Thanks, kid," he told her, "thanks." And then he flipped the portion of the wall that was cut out to be a door and savored his first moment of freedom by breathing deeply the scent of almost-fresh air and trying not to faint from the lingering effects of the whuffa poison and quick movements he'd just executed. That was easy, he thought to himself. Sort of.