Author's Note: As usual, thanks so much to all who generously took the time to review! Keep reading, all!

Latebloomer04: Aw, thank you. I hope you enjoy the rest when you read the rest of it. As for the meeting between Teneniel Djo and Luke…grins mischievously you'll just have to wait and see!

TheRealLeia: Well, I'm updating as fast as I can…I'm going to be away for a month, so I won't be able to update, but hopefully I can get a lot of writing done for when I get back! And you definitely should read the original COPL- if only so that you can make fun of it with the rest of us!

Erinya: Aw, thank you! I'm glad you like it! And I definitely enjoyed writing the part about Chewie's reflections, too!

KnightedRogue: Wow, thank you so much! I'm honored to hear you say that my Han still reads like Han even while pulling out a whuffa. That is pretty high praise. Seriously, though, I'm glad you like my characterizations, because I'm still working on those, so it's good to hear. Oh, if you're ever bored, I'd love to hear what exactly you liked (and didn't like) about my pacing, because I'm actually sort of going at random with pacing. It's something I haven't figured out yet, in anything I write.

Ann: I definitely do plan to continue- keep reading!

Chapter 11:

"I think we'll maximize our efficiency in covering this area by splitting up," Leia explained to her brother, Chewie, Isolder, and Threepio. She had pushed her cup of kaff back towards the center of the table and replaced it with her datapad, and was now planning out their search efforts and waving her almost untouched energy bar illustratively in the air. Luke nodded,

"Sounds good. Threepio can stay here and watch the ship and the rest of us can split up into two pairs. Chewie was about to open his mouth to say he would go with the Princess when Isolder spoke, beating him to it.

"Leia and I will cover this area to the east and a little to the north," he said, leaning familiarly around Leia and her energy bar to point at the map on her datapad. Chewie cringed on her behalf and nodded reluctantly.

"All right. Luke and I can go more towards the northwest and cover that area…" he agreed, silently apologizing to Han for not ensuring his Princess' safety personally.

"Well, then, let's go," said Leia, standing up and wrapping the rest of her energy bar back into its packaging before tucking it into her pocket. Luke refrained from letting his jaw drop as she stood up, revealing the belt she was wearing around her waist. While he was well aware of how good a fighter she was, his mental image of her was more one of the peace-loving diplomat. The storm-trooper style belt that hung seemingly precariously on her slender hips and carried attached to it a blaster on either side as well as a basic medpac off center in the front, an emergency glow-rod next to it, and a pouch of ration cubes in the back.

"There're two more of these; I left them in the cockpit," she said, "Chewie, you'll be okay with your bowcaster and stuff, right? I don't think any of these are really your size."

Chewie nodded and Luke could see that he was stifling his surprise. Since Leia only understood his language to an extent, it wasn't as difficult for him as it had been for Luke. Isolder looked slightly uncomfortable at the idea of wearing two fully charged blasters on his person, a fact that Chewie did not miss and also did not bother to conceal his enjoyment of.

Leia barely waited until Isolder had buckled his belt on reluctantly before leading the way out of the ship. Despite the considerable advantage he had in the length of his limbs, Isolder had to jog a few feet to catch up with her so as not to lose her in the dense jungle growth. He batted some branches that Leia had hardly seemed to notice out of the way fractions of a second before they would have smacked his face. It was going to be a long day.

X X X X X

Isolder reflected, as they trudged back to the ship by the light of Leia's glow-rod, (his had run out because he'd lit it two and a half hours before they actually needed them to see) that even if he had been right about nothing else the entire day, he had been right about one thing. It had indeed been a very long day. Unfortunately, it had not been nearly as fruitful as so much trekking, sweating, and panting with exhaustion should have warranted.

He risked a glance at Leia, who was not in the best of moods. Her face was still the same mask of determination so fierce it almost bordered on anger, but some other things had crept into her expression, too. Worry was evident in the lines that creased her forehead. A headache manifested itself, Han would have noticed, in "that thing" she "did with her eyebrows". The dark circles under her eyes betrayed her tiredness for all to see; more than just the short sleep cycles and the discomfort of the crude bunk, it was a tiredness born of the nightmares that plagued the few hours she did allow herself for sleeping.

And Luke didn't look much better, Isolder decided as they finally came back within view of the ship. Luke, who had, Isolder guessed, sensed them coming, was waiting for them just outside the entrance hatch, a grim look on his face. Any hope that might have lit his sister's for just a moment disappeared as quickly as it had come.

"No luck, either, huh?" she asked, making herself be the one to say it first, to make it real. That way, she kept control over the situation and inflicted the pain of reality on herself instead of waiting for others to do it. Luke shook his head and put a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm sure we'll find him tomorrow, though," he said. She nodded her thanks for the kindness of the thought at him, and leaned into his supportive arm, just a little bit. Isolder ached with longing to be the one she (or anyone, for that matter) allowed herself to lean on. He sighed, forgotten, and followed the twins up the access ramp into the dingy but warmly lit main cabin of the little ship, where their wookie had concocted something that was apparently supposed to pass as food. Leia smiled thankfully at the wookie and told him it smelled delicious (it didn't) and so Isolder did the same, at least not earning himself any angry or disappointed looks from her, even if positive ones had yet to come his way for the day.

"Hey," Luke said, his arm still around his sister, "come have a look at these things Chewie and I found today. We figure they're some kind of sign-post, but Chewie hasn't let me turn Threepio on to see for sure yet." That elicited a slight laugh from Leia, and for that Isolder was grateful.

X X X X X

Luke glanced surreptitiously around the scene around before reaching furtively into the ration cube pouch of the belt nearest to where he was sitting. He couldn't be sure, but he thought it might be his. In any case, he was too hungry to care one way or another. The "stew" Chewie had cooked them had been just a little less than edible, even after Leia had taken it back into the corner that passed as a galley on this ship and suspended it over the cooker to compensate for the fact that the chunks of what everyone assumed was some kind of non-toxic meat floating in it were still bright red. Chewie had growled his assurances that he hadn't meant to disgust them; they really needed to remember that wookies liked their meat raw and obviously couldn't be expected to remember every time they cooked that humans didn't. During the course of the friendly disagreement that ensued, Leia had forgotten to remove the stew from the cooker, which resulted in the meaty component of the dish turning a color that more resembled carbon-scoring on durasteel than anything else. In order not to insult either of the chefs, Isolder and Luke had been forced to at least pretend to enjoy the stew. Chewie, for some strange reason, had actually ended up enjoying it and declared, much to everyone's consternation, that he was going to try this type of cooking on all of his favorite dishes in the future. Leia had rolled her eyes at this and then brightly exclaimed that she still had half her energy bar left from breakfast that morning, which made Luke a little suspicious as to her assurances that she had eaten something during the long and grueling march she'd subjected herself and Isolder to during their search efforts. Isolder had diplomatically eaten his stew. Luke, less enthusiastic about diplomacy, had been left pretending, which resulted in his current state of hunger. So he looked around the room one more time, wondering if it would be easier to just call a few ration cubes to his hand using the Force.

Chewie was happily tinkering with some part of the ship that he had extracted from its belly. Luke felt confident that he was so engrossed in that that he wasn't likely to notice anything that went on around him short of actual danger. Sneaking ration cubes didn't really qualify as danger, Luke figured. Isolder, thankfully, had retired to his ship right after dinner. Luke wondered if he'd really meant it about being tired, or if he just needed to throw up. No…remembering the look on his face when he had arrived back at the ship with Leia, Luke suspected that he really was just that tired. And Leia, characteristically, was bent over her datapad, her shoulders hunched with fatigue, and two fingers pinching the bridge of her nose as if trying to ward off a headache that he knew she already had; he'd seen her slip half of a painkiller capsule into her water at dinner. He sighed. Sometimes there were better causes than his own stomach to consider. He retreated his hand back into his lap.

"Leia, why don't you go to bed and get some rest now?" he said in his kindest big brother voice, even though they still had no idea who was older. She glanced up at him, straightening her shoulders self-consciously in an effort to prove she wasn't really tired, and making him glad he'd made sure his hand was back in his lap before speaking, as she took in his position with one sweeping look.

"No, that's okay. I've got work to do; you go to bed and I'll take first watch," she answered in a flat voice before going back to her datapad and letting her shoulders hunch over again. She had insisted on setting up a system of watch duties for the three of them so that someone was always in the cockpit, monitoring the comm frequencies in case Han tried to get into contact with them.

"Chewie's already claimed first watch," he told her, trying to inject a little humor into his voice, "and I was wondering if I could use your datapad to check my messager before turning in." Leia looked up at him, quickly reading his brotherly concern and affection in his eyes, and gave a little half-smile as she nodded.

"Sure. Planning search routes for tomorrow doesn't amount to much since I don't know the terrain of this place anyway," she told him, sighing as she closed the images of vague maps she'd brought up on her screen. She handed him the datapad and kissed his forehead affectionately.

"Don't stay up too late," she said ironically. At least her sense of humor was still intact. Unless she had completely missed the irony. Luke shook his head as she left the room and looked down at her datapad. Well, as long as it's here, I might as well check my messages for real, he thought, flicking the machine's controller towards the messager program's symbol.

Several moments of waiting and flicking yielded a notice that told him he had twelve new messages. None of them looked interesting, aside from one that seemed to be from Mon Mothma's personal secretary herself. Great, thought Luke grumpily. He wasn't sure he really wanted to deal with that right now, so he scanned the other messages idly, wondering where these random people managed to get him personal messager code from. He squinted at one of the message titles. It was one of those weird Luke-the-savior messages he'd had Threepio translate just before all of the Isolder business had come up with, but it almost looked a little like…hm…no, that would be too weird, Luke thought, peering even more closely at the strange script the title was written in.

"Hey, Chewie," he called softly, not wanting to wake his sister in case, by some strange stroke of luck, she'd managed to fall asleep right away, "can you grab those signpost things we brought back and come look at this."

Chewie growled an indication of mild annoyance at being interrupted, but exchanged the chunks of metal he was holding in his lap for the "signposts" and came over to stand behind Luke.

"Look at the script in this message's title and see if it looks like the script on these," Luke said, pointing to the message title and signposts in question. Chewie looked both over and shrugged. Anything other than wookie-script and Basic kind of looked all the same to him anyway. Luke flicked the controller to bring the full message into view and looked up at Chewie to see if had noticed anything.

"It doesn't look to you like the script on these, not even a little?" he asked.

Chewie looked closer.

"Maybe," he agreed.

"Well? Isn't that strange? I wonder what it could mean." Luke thought aloud, leaning his chin on his fists and looking back and forth from the "signpost things" to the datapad screen. Chewie sighed resignedly.

"I guess maybe you'd better turn Threepio back on after all. He can at least tell you if it is really the same script."

Ten minutes later, Luke was shaking his head. Threepio was still babbling on- had been, for the past seven minutes and counting- but Luke had become quite adept at pulling the crucial bits of information out of Threepio's overly eloquent deluges of words. The crucial bit of information here was that the two scripts did, in fact, match.

As if we didn't have enough to worry about, he thought, refraining from rolling his eyes. Really, now. We still haven't found Han. Even when we do find him, there'll still be hell to pay somehow, no matter what Leia ends up doing. And now these stupid savior messages turn out to be coming from people related to whoever lives or lived here…or maybe whoever lives here themselves. Well, Skywalker, this is what you wanted, wasn't it? You wanted to help everybody out. You've got it, now, buddy, he finally said to himself.

Chewie growled a query, reminding Luke that he wasn't the only one in the room. Somewhere during Luke's reverie, Threepio had stopped speaking, perhaps having sensed, for once, that no one was really listening, and now both he and Chewie were looking at Luke inquisitively. Or, as inquisitive as a protocol droid could look anyway, which, Luke would have thought had his mind not been completely occupied with other things, was pretty darned inquisitive, when you considered that they were made of immobile plasteel.

"Well, that sure is weird, Threepio," he said, figuring the droid deserved at least some modicum of recognition for his services, "I guess we'll have to look into that after we find Han, huh?"

Chewie nodded, "You get off to bed, now; I have first watch, remember?"

"Thanks. I'll do that. Call me if anything comes up and I'll come take over in three hours."

X X X X X

Leia lay back against her pillows, having finally slowed her breathing after her latest nightmare and glanced at the clock. Still Chewie's watch. She hadn't even been in bed for two hours yet, and she'd already had a nightmare. Great. Pulling the covers closer around herself, she imagined warm, familiar arms encircling her, keeping her safe. Gentle puffs of breath on the back of her neck. Her back pressed up against the heat of another body. And a contented smile on her face.

No matter how she tried keeping a frame of brown hair and a lopsided grin, even in sleep, on the face behind her, though it kept slightly changing into a smoother, younger one with a sparkling smile and blond hair. She shook off the imaginary arms, frowning in a mix of frustration and disgust, and wiggled to the other side of the narrow bunk, refraining from letting loose the angry wail that was building inside her. Honestly, if she couldn't even take comfort in her own private daydreams without him invading her space…

Fine, we'll try it that way, she grumbled mentally. She closed her eyes and pictured herself standing on an ornate dais in an even more ornate room, accepting a heavily bejeweled crown from an elderly woman who seemed to emanate power. The room was filled with people who resembled the strong, graceful man at her side. Except for one corner, which was occupied by people who resembled the man who had raised her, who had filled her childhood with joy. Now, in return, she had filled these people's hearts with joy- it showed in their smiling faces and in their eyes, bright with happy tears. She imagined a beautiful planet somewhere, filled with those people and their children and their thriving happiness. Perhaps herself, even, taking time from her duties as Queen Mother to visit her own people. Riding around in a speeder, most likely accompanied by several children with heads full of soft bond curls, all smiling and waving. Try as she might, though, she couldn't picture a real smile on her face in that daydream, not the kind that came all the way from down where she supposed her heart resided. Besides, this side of the bed was cold, anyway. Frowning, she moved back to the side still warm from the heat of her body, and back to her previous imaginings. This time, the brown hair stayed brown. The tiny scar remained on his chin. And the lopsided smile seemed to shine only for her. It was the only face she could fall asleep to.

She did so a moment later, having been only half-awake during the entire process. She never would have permitted herself such dreams had she been fully awake, after all. Even in the wake of her recent realization and acceptance of the fact that she could never be truly happy without Han, the issue still remained: was her happiness worth that of the entire population of Alderaan refugees, especially after the way she had failed them so horribly before?