Luke knew something was wrong when Leia didn't call in like she was supposed to do when she went out alone for supplies. She was supposed to call in every hour to inform him and dad that she was still alive and that she was in good health, and not getting herself into trouble by entering Swoop bike races when she wasn't supposed to. Since, for Leia, getting supplies was a private thing because she was a girl and there were certain things only girls got and dealt with, and it would be embarrassing if he or dad tagged along, Luke was supposed to leave her alone until she called in. He told himself that he was worrying over nothing, and after a while, decided to ease his nerves by practicing a skill he'd recently discovered when he had been playing with one of his model ships. It had ceased to scare the shit out of his dad after the second time he did it.

"Luke, how many times have I told you to stop moving the damn ship, especially where there could be witnesses. Now put it back where I landed it in the first place, or I won't let you fly for a month." his dad yelled from somewhere in the inner workings of the hyperdrive."By the way, I have absolutely no idea how that modification you made to the hyperdrive works, by all rights, it shouldn't"

"Dunno either, something just told me it would work." Luke called back as he returned the Slave I to its original position as swiftly as possible. His dad always knew what punishments to dish out when he and Leia misbehaved.

"Did Leia comm you? She hasn't called in on the main line, and I've got a really bad feeling." He yelled when the ship was back to where it had originally been when it had landed at the out of the way spaceport his dad favored.

"Damn. Can you get any sense of where she is?" his dad asked as he ceased studying what his adopted son had done to the engines through the guidance of the Force, and became immediately alert. Leia was the punctual one, and if she was late, it meant trouble. Usually, it meant that she was getting herself into trouble, but on occasion it meant that she was in trouble. That, coupled with Luke's "Bad Feeling"...

"She isn't anywhere nearby." Luke said now extremely worried. Leia was supposed to stay near the spaceport, pick up her "necessary supplies", and grab something for their dinner, but she hadn't.

"What do you mean by not nearby?" his dad asked, sounding worried. They had all been a bit worried after that bit of merchandise had recognized Leia for who she used to be, but so far nothing had come of it despite the number of disturbing rumors they had heard.

"She's not on the planet or in the system!" Luke yelled in shock as he reached out for his sister and came up empty. How had he not sensed her leaving? Why hadn't he informed dad the moment that he felt something was wrong? Maybe if he had, they would've caught the scum that had taken his sister.

"Is she still alive?" his dad asked, now extremely worried and upset. If anyone harmed his Leia they would only live long enough to seriously regret their decision. If anyone touched either of his kids, there wouldn't be enough of them left to identify when he was through with them.

"Yes." Luke responded. That was the only good thing in this situation. Since Leia was still alive, there was a chance that they could get her back, and he was going to help his father dish out the punishment due to the asshole who had taken his sister.

"Do you know where she might be?" his dad asked. When they got Leia back, he would start getting his revenge by ripping out the guts of the person who had taken her. Nobody took what was his, Nobody.

"No." Luke said barely holding back tears. In the more than six years since they had been reunited, Luke had never spent more than a few hours away from his sister. The prospect of spending an indefinite period apart while who knew what happened to his sister frightened him.

"Then, let's go find out." his dad said as he climbed out of the hyperdrive and made his way to the cockpit. He would do whatever it took to get Leia back. They both would.

&!&!&!&!&

It had been Alderaani Royal Security who had taken Leia. No bounty hunter would dare go anywhere near "the kids that traveled with Fett", not even when offered an exorbitant amount of credits. A bounty hunter who had wanted to knock Fett out of the running during a particularly lucrative hunt had made the mistake of making a threat against the children. People who were in the know claimed that rangers were still finding pieces of the idiot who had been scattered across a nature preserve on an out of the way planet at the edges of the Outer Rim. Touching one of the children was pretty much acknowledged to be an automatic death sentence carried out by the toughest bounty hunter in the galaxy, and he could be pretty creative in that regard if even half of the stories they heard about him were true. Nobody wanted to know what the punishment would be for the idiot dumb enough to actually try and take one of them.

When Bail Organa got "his daughter" back, she was almost nothing like the little girl that used to think that he and Breha were the center of her little universe. Her universe had a new center, and she wasn't his little girl anymore. She was now a stranger called Fett.

He tried to hug Leia only to have her push him away, and give him a cold stare which he had last seen on Anakin Skywalker's face near the end, near when he had fallen and become Vader. What had happened to his daughter? What horrifying experiences had she gone through to make her this way?

"Leia, what happened to you? Did he hurt you? Did he touch you?" he asked praying that the answer would be no, but considering the kind of scum that killed for money, and the fact that the man hadn't tried to get money out of him when he had taken Leia...

"Unlike some people, dad never hurts children. Besides, I got enough of that here." Leia said coldly to the man who in her eyes had taken her from her family twice.

"What do you mean?" he asked dumbfounded, wondering what methods Fett had used to brainwash his daughter in order to keep her by his side, to keep her from getting help, to keep her from coming back home to him where she belonged.

"Not everyone in security..." was as far as Leia got before she collapsed.

He immediately called for a medical team who discovered the poison just in time to save Leia. Remembering Leia's accusation, had all of the security officers that had been near Leia since her return kept well away from her and investigated. After a long and frantic search for who could have possibly done this to his child, the culprit was found. The would-be murderer turned out to be one of his most trusted guards, one of the guards that had looked after Leia when she was younger. The guard named Dakir ended up confessing to all of his crimes amongst which had been the abuse of the young princess, and being sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the harshest punishment available on the pacifistic world of Alderaan.

While Leia slept, Bail consulted a well renown psychiatrist, hoping that she would know a way to help his young daughter, to bring her back to the precious girl she had once been before everything had happened. The reason Leia had been willing to call a virtual stranger father was that he had failed to protect his daughter as he should have, and the man who had taken her from him had provided her with a family and the promise of the protection that he had failed to provide. The boy she traveled with and called brother couldn't possibly be Luke. Master Kenobi had assured him that the boy was too well hidden, and the odds of someone finding him were astronomical to say the least.

"Trauma this great has no doubt permanently scarred her. She will need a great deal of therapy to get over whatever brainwashing the bounty hunter did to her if ever, as well as the trauma of the abuse she has suffered. Personally, I think it would be best for her to get a new start with a clean slate as it were." Dr Childri said in answer to Bail's questions about what should be done for his daughter. The poor girl didn't need to remember the undoubtedly horrible life she lived as a hostage of some opportunistic bounty hunter.

"Will it hurt her?" Bail asked concerned for Leia's well-being. Leia's well-being trumped all other concerns in this matter. It was long since time he did right by his daughter. If the procedure could harm her, he would find another way, any other way.

"If it is done properly, the procedure will be completely painless." Dr. Childiri responded. "I have no doubt that it will be, because I know a number of experts in the field."

Three days later Princess Leia awoke with no memories beyond going into the woods to get her ball when she was six, and some memories from before then gone as well.

"Daddy, why am I so big?" Leia asked, her wide eyes taking in her "new appearance" as she studied herself in a mirror.

"You got sick and went to sleep for a very long time." Bail said as he hugged his daughter close to him. He had his little Leia back, but at what price?

That night, as Leia went to sleep, she saw a boy with blondish hair and blue eyes as clearly as if he was standing right in front of her. Something told her he was important and that she should never ever forget him. She didn't know who he was, but she swore then and there to do whatever it took to find him. Maybe he knew where all of the time had gone away to while she was asleep.

&!&!&!&!&

Fett watched his son reach out in his sleep, trying to grasp something that wasn't there, probably with the Force. Now that Leia was gone, Luke was all he had left. He had been unable to live a normal life with Sintas, and after their marriage blew up he had left her and his daughter Ailyn whom he hadn't seen or talked to since she was a toddler. Hearing the boy's silent sobs as the object, or more likely sister he was reaching for continued to elude his grasp, he decided to do something he hadn't seriously considered doing in nearly seven years.

Upon entering the cockpit, he dialed a certain comm code and prayed the person on the other end wouldn't hang up the instant she saw him. After waiting half a minute, his call was finally answered.

"Sin, it's me." he said.

Edited on 3/13/2012