The Princess and the scoundrel were regretful of their particular choice of a friend: one who had led them straight to hell, or so the Corellian ex-smuggler thought. Darth Vader stood cunningly at the opposite end of the table in a dainty, pleasantly lit dining room in Cloud City; and there the nastiest bounty hunter alive stared hungrily at Han, anticipating long-awaited revenge.

But Boba Fett was not half as important to Leia as was the dark-cloaked figure in the room. Lando repeated once more in her ear, "I'm sorry," but such an apology meant nothing to her now.

She and the Sith Lord were much passed apologies for bumping into one another.

"Sit down," urged Boba. Chewbacca groaned, his own understanding of the especially distasteful situation loud and clear. Han gave one glance at the Wookiee to shut him up. Leia proceeded toward the table in a graceful manner - much to both Lando's and Han's surprise - and quickly seated herself adjacent to Vader, who was at the head-seat. The head-mask abandoned its forward gaze and shot its focus on the woman. "You were advised to leave this place."

By now, Han had carefully secured a seat next to Leia. He was fuming at Vader upon the Sith Lord's remark. "Why don't you leave her alone, Vader?"

It had been a command. Boba hated Solo more and more for it, and claimed a chair opposite Han. "Our business is not with her. Lord Vader has need for you to be an experiment. You will also serve my purposes nicely -"

"Not another word -" spat Han.

"You must be silent," Lando argued. Vader watched the exchange unfeelingly.

But so did Leia, at least temporarily. She knew not yet what would become of the new man for which she cared - the one who had accepted her even after she'd explained her mistake back on Hoth - but she remained fixated upon the one person who had turned her hope into dust and ash. That person who had, for minutes, appeared to her on the Star Destroyer an actual human, one of a dark and most grievous past. And she had pitied him, yes, but such was but a former, wilted feeling now. Her vibrantly beating heart had turned to a frostbitten, cold heart.

Vader no longer meant anything to her.

Or did he?

She had chosen a seat nearest him, and as the bounty hunter and Han exchanged nasty remarks - Lando having to calm them down occasionally - she and that horrid, troubled father of hers refrained from looking directly at one another, nevertheless attempting to see the expression on one another's overcast countenances.

To snap Leia out of her dangerously addictive trance, the word "torture" had to strike her eardrums. And it had.

"The process will only take minutes," Boba was announcing. Chewie roared and tried to get up, but Han restrained his friend out of firm regard for their lives. Solo's head turned to find Leia, now awe-stricken, staring with the most concerned expression he had ever beheld upon her face. "It'll take minutes," he promised her.

What will? What's going on? questioned Leia internally. Cursing herself for having obsessed over the dark presence in the room, the woman piped up rather quietly, "What are they doing?"

"Princess, this smuggler is indebted to a Hutt in the Outer Rim, and I am in charge of his transportation."

I'm not "Princess" to you, screamed Leia inside. She retained a professional glare while making sharp eye contact with the other masked man in the room, and inquired, "Is a prelude of torture necessary?"

"Wrarrouuugh!" agreed Chewbacca, nodding his head almost hysterically. Han frowned at both the Wookiee and Leia, as if they were being stupid to consider him their friend. Angry at this façade with which Solo was betraying himself, Leia blurted to the traitor across the table, "You should be proud of what you've forced your friend into, Lando."

"He is not to blame."

At last Vader had spoken; his tone had been curt, but his intent had been pure. Leia swung her head back to face him, and assumed, "You are, then. What the hell would a Hutt's wishes mean to you?"

"More than you can foresee," responded the Sith Lord. "Solo will be the test; another will be the masterpiece."

"So you're going to risk an innocent person's life for the sake of your -"

"Please, Leia -"

"Silence, your Highness!"

"Hold your tongue!" Leia interjected. Her heartbeats were hitting her chest with such intensity that she felt her entire surroundings - Han, with his dead-pan stare; Boba, his blaster in plain sight; Lando, the coward in him fully revealed at the woman's sudden lash-out - were unreal. And then there was Vader: abnormally calm and appreciative of a good episode of another's exploitation of hatred for her circumstances. He infuriated Leia most of all. Upon recognizing him to be unfeeling of her frustrations and worries, Leia emerged from her seat. It was Han's turn to shout. "Don't, Leia!"

Though he hadn't the slightest clue as to what the ex-princess had in mind: then again, neither did she. Vader remained poised and proper in the comfortable confines of his seat. Boba had since stood with his weapon on the woman; this did nothing to alarm her, however, because Leia was beginning to realize how she hated to be in such a small space, cramped and closed off from the rest of the world.

Suddenly her mind told her that she was, once again, in that callous cell on the Death Star, about to receive notice from Grand Moff Tarkin that her presence was requested for the destruction of a certain planet.

She felt so alone, so invincible…

Reaching into her pocket, the ghost discovered a power greater than that for which she could have wished: a knife, the one from the kitchen in her room there in Cloud City. Without thinking, she took it into her hand, thus revealing it to the particularly cautious Boba Fett. He raised his blaster, preparing for any sudden motion. Han was too scared to shout.

Lando finally demanded that Leia hand over the weapon. "We don't need any more trouble," he reasoned. The woman was not listening.

She approached Boba one step at a time, and the hand that held the knife shook on account of her nervousness. When Leia had finally achieved the distance of a meter from the bounty hunter, Boba fired at her: just in time for Vader - who had sensed this - to deflect the blast with his outstretched hand. Han's eyes were wide, and Lando gaped. The scare caused Chewie to exclaim his own fright.

Leia, the ghost who had figured nothing would do harm to her, continued to believe that she was not present among the action that transpired around her. Others shouted, blasters were stowed away, some got up furiously from their chairs, and two - namely Vader and his daughter whom he had once denied yet now spared - remained face-to-face, wanting to exchange nothing but their gazes toward one another.

Why did I protect her? Vader wondered continuously.