Leia awoke early to find the skies threatening rain and her anxiety threatening a breakdown. She had not been awoken by news in the night or been kept up late by reports of some Imperial retaliation. That did not mean that she had slept easy. She had dreamed of that static image from the prison, a constant subconscious reminder of who she stood to lose, but when she awoke, she found that her nerves had been more restless than she would have guessed.
She had been aware of the risks from the start of this crisis. Her father had done his best to keep her away from the more sensational news sources, but avoiding the fearmongers didn't keep her from knowing what Vader did to those who opposed the Empire. She knew the names of the worlds where tens of thousands had been slaughtered for the crimes of a few. She knew the names of what her father called the Republic Martyrs, who had been executed for various crimes or had met with convenient accidents. She also knew that some Senators had been replaced mid-term by more loyal Imperialists when said politicians had simply disappeared in the night. Some, like Mon Mothma, were now serving in the Rebel Alliance, but that could not account for all of them. She was too young to remember the fateful day when Alderaan had been disarmed. It had kept Vader from wiping out the refugee populations, but the people had been divided on whether they blamed the Organas or the Imperials more for leaving them defenseless.
When she awoke the morning after Bel Iblis' arrival, however, she did not think of the murdered Falleen or the publicly beheaded Fang Zar. She thought of scenarios that were both abstract and horrifyingly likely. She avoided all mirrors in her quarters, not wanting to meet her own gaze while she contemplated the unthinkable.
When Father was on-world, the dynamic between the princess and her aide was very informal. Winter had her leave to enter her private quarters without more than a tacit knock on the door and could attend all meetings as her aide. With Father away-she could not bring herself to refer to him as gone-she was expected to maintain the dignity of his office as his representative. That meant that Winter had to wait for a summons to intrude on her schedule and could not attend many of her appointments.
Leia summoned her aide before requesting that the stewards bring breakfast so that they could share a few moments of the old informality before the demands of ruling intruded. It was one of her guards who showed her in and Winter curtsied politely, keeping her distance until told to approach.
"How are you?" Leia asked after beckoning her friend forward. "You look as though you slept better than I did."
"I'm well, Your Highness," Winter assured her. "If you would like to review your schedule for the day, I took the liberty of bringing it with me."
It was at this point that Leia would normally ask her to wait until after Leia had tracked down a stimulant to trouble her with her appointments, but they were not best friends in this meeting. They were High Princess and aide and that set a completely different tone.
"No, thank you," the Princess responded. "I would like you to accompany me to a meeting not on the schedule."
"With the Senator?" Winter guessed.
"Yes," Leia confirmed. "Please request that he meet us in the Antilles room in one hour and notify the guards that I would like him afforded the courtesy of an escort."
"Yes, Your Highness," Winter replied. "Are there any other alterations to your schedule that you would like me to make?"
"Once you have made those calls, I would Winter to join Leia for breakfast," she informed her oldest friend. "The High Princess will not object to that."
Winter smiled cautiously, but did not curtsy as she left the room. "I will see to it."
Winter returned ten minutes later, just ahead of the stewards and took the seat at the dining table near te windows. The rain had begun to spatter against the windows by then, but it was their usual venue for such breakfast meetings and neither of them objected.
"Have you had any word from your father?" Winter asked.
Leia promptly dropped her fork and took a moment to steady her hands before retrieving it from her plate. "None whatsoever," she murmured. "We know where he is, but not what progress he has made."
For all she knew, Winter already suspected that the reports of Senator Organa attending a conference on Corellia were a cover for an alternative agenda. The young woman was hardly oblivious to her father's sympathies, but she might take the conference at face value. Bel Iblis' visit was the only significant anomaly in the Palace in the last few days.
"I'm sure he is performing admirably," Winter commented.
Leia hated to think what that would mean in the current crisis. The Rebels would admire the man for not sharing their secrets. The Empire would be satisfied with breaking him first and dishonoring him later. Both parties would be satisfied if he died for his cause, though for drastically different reasons. Leia would not be surprised by any of those scenarios, but she would hate all of outcomes.
"Your Highness?"
In all but the best-case scenarios, there would be no seeing her father again. If Vader benevolently left House Organa in charge of Alderaan instead of putting he world under the control of someone like Tarkin, se would assume the throne under constant suspicion. She would not be able to plant arallutes in the Palace gardens without the Imperial garrison commander questioning her motives. She would never take her father's seat in the Senate because she would never be able to step out of her place between Alderaan and the guns of the Empire.
"Your Highness?" Winter repeated. "What is it?"
Leia consciously blocked that line of thinking as quickly as if she had slammed a door. "It's..."
She might have ended that sentence with 'nothing,' but she could not bring herself to finish the sentence at all. Winter reached over to clasp the hand that was not holding her forgotten fork.
"Is this why Senator Bel Iblis is here?"
"He is here,' Leia said in a slightly choked voice, "to offer the services of the Alliance."
Winter did not look surprised by this. No one who spent as much time in the royal court as she did would have doubted the Republican sympathies of the Organas.
"To what end?" she asked quietly.
"To the end of freeing an Imperial prisoner," Leia admitted.
Winter's eyelids dropped over her eyes and her grip tightened around Leia's hand. After another long moment, she blinked and nodded solemnly.
"Your father trusts your judgment and so do I," she said simply.
"That doesn't make my answer any more palatable to me," Leia said.
"I'm sure your father has felt the same way at times,' Winter commented.
That was a comforting thought. Her father's convictions had often given her the impression that he never doubted himself, but that could not be true.
"There have been no charges brought against my father," Leia stated. "By Imperial law, they are running out of time to hold him in such a state, but Vader won't be interested in those technicalities."
"Not when there's been no report of his arrest," Winter agreed. "Can the judiciary force them into line?"
"The judiciary serves at the pleasure of the Emperor," Leia shot back. "They won't act against Vader just because he may be sidestepping constitutional rights."
Vader was well-known for this practice. Some people said that the judiciary's primary function was to retroactively draft laws to legalize what Vader had already done.
"Who else knows?" Winter asked.
"The Alliance High Command and the Council of Thanes," Leia said. "We cannot pretend for months that he is having mechanical difficulties on Corellia. I have no way of knowing when the news holos will investigate his disappearance. I don't know how long he has to be missing before the Thanes can install me on the throne. I don't want..."
She found herself unable to speak again and pressed her fist to her mouth as the little food she had ingested threatened to rise in her throat again. Winter waited in silence for some kind of cue, her own food still untouched.
"Are you sure of your answer to Senator Bel Iblis?" Winter asked at last.
"I am sure that it is best for Alderaan," Leia said firmly. "I am simply unsure if my father will be able to survive that decision."