THE TALK – CHAPTER TWO

"What happened to her?" Riekeen asked the doctor from outside Leia's hospital room. She'd been unconscious for nearly four hours now but she was alive and there was no indication that that would change.

The doctor turns the chart and report to Riekeen, allowing him to read it for himself.

She says "Do you wanna tell him or shall I?"

Han was still trying to process everything that had just happened. He was leaving, there was shouting, then a kiss, a kiss from Leia and then suddenly he was in the hospital. Though it wasn't him that required medical attention – it was Leia. What happened? The monitor next to the bed showed her breathing to be steady and normal. He didn't know what to do. So he just held her hand, hoping somehow it might promote some vitality and she may wake up. Riekeen entered slowly.

"Solo."

"Riekeen. " He whispered. "So did you talk to the doctor?"

He looked down to the floor for a minute, not knowing how to form the words. "Yes, she told me everything. I don't quite know how to say this Han..."

Now extremely worried, "What are you talking about, what's wrong with her?"

"The tox-screen report shows that Leia has been drugged for quite some time."

"Drugged? With what?"

"A drug called sodium ranthol. It's commonly used by the Empire as a ... "

"As a what?"

He paused for a moment. "As a compliance drug."

It took a minute for Han to process his words. "A compliance d-drug? You mean someone drugged her in order to get her to do something they wanted?"

"I'm afraid so. Something that she would not have done in her right mind. The report shows that the first dose was administered about a month ago. The last was earlier today."

There was a long moment of silence as the elephant in the room slowly emerged. Neither one of them wanted to acknowledge the weight of this new information. Gathering his bearings, Han said:

"What exactly are we saying here, Riekeen?"

"I think you know Han."

"Someone drugged Leia so she'd marry Isolder."

"I afraid it looks that way."

He was stunned, they both were. Although they both knew how politics can be such a cut-throat career that involved plenty of corruption , the fact that someone went to great lengths to drug Leia in order to marry her, it disgusted the both of them.

"It was Mothma." Said Han.

"What makes you so sure?"

Han looked up at him, initial shock had now turned to anger.

"She wanted Leia to marry Isolder more than anyone," he said through gritted teeth. "She's always hated me and more so when Leia and I got together. You said yourself, Leia'd been drugged for a month. The Hapans didn't arrive here until two weeks ago. It would have to have been a member of the Alliance, someone who was in close contact with her."

Riekeen thought for a moment. Han did have a point. Leia and Mon Mothma were very close and worked closely together. And Mothma had openly expressed how much she didn't like the two of them together. Still, it was hard to think that someone he'd known for years could have been so calculating against Leia, especially as she was so well loved by the Organa family.

"Well, until we find out who the culprit is, I don't think you should publically say this Han."

"Why not? I want her to know the weight of what she's done, I want to publically humiliate her."

"Calm down, Han." Riekeen said, sitting opposite him in the chair on the other side of Leia's bed. "The truth will always find its way to us. But for now," turning to Leia and taking her other hand "Let's just concentrate on Leia's recovery."