When Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan met the Doctor, her son Ian, and their companion, Brother Gareth, she was eleven years old. "This Doctor lady," she said to her parents, Queen Breha and Viceroy Bail Organa, that morning as the three of them had breakfast together in the royal palace, "did she really rescue Aunt Olva and Cousin Meith from...what was it...a vampire?"
Breha and Bail both smiled as Breha replied "Apparently. That is why we honour her today as a hero."
Leia nodded, munched and swallowed her food for a moment, before asking her next few questions: "Where does the Doctor come from? Does she have the Force, like...Ben Kenobi?"
Her parents exchanged slightly troubled glances across the table, both no doubt recalling the traumatic events of the previous year, when Leia had been kidnapped, taken off-world by agents of the Galactic Empire; the terror they felt before their daughter - their only child - was returned to them, thanks to the efforts of Kenobi, the former Jedi and an old war friend of Bail's. Bail responded to Leia's queries: "We can't say, Leia, sweetheart. The Doctor and her friends were just in the right place at the right time." Leia did not ask any further questions that morning. Once breakfast was done, she had to go and endure the dreaded process of being made presentable for the arrival of the guests later that day. She stood attentively with Bail and Breha in the audience chamber when the main doors opened to admit her Great Aunt Olva and her second cousin, Meith, who smiled and bowed before Alderaan's rulers. And then entered the Doctor and her entourage.
Leia studied the new arrivals carefully. The Doctor was beautiful, in a kind of modest way,with jaw-length blonde hair and hazel eyes. The one called Gareth appeared to be a monk of some sort, dressed in a course wool habit; his reddish-brown hair was thinning slightly at the top, he had a short beard, and his face was friendly and kind. Ian, the Doctor's son, looked to be around Leia's age, his hair dark, his eyes the same colour as his mother's. Did they have the Force, Leia wondered. She could not tell. But she could detect something about them, particularly the woman and the boy. An aura, much like that she had felt around Ben Kenobi, though not quite the same. The three of them bowed their heads in unison, and Breha announced "Doctor, Ian, Gareth. All of Alderaan rejoices for the great service you have done. Please, accep the hospitality of our royal palace."
The ensuing celebration came with much tasty food, drink, laughter and music. The Doctor herself sung a few songs no one at the court had ever heard before - "Like A Prayer" was one Leia particularly liked. The Doctor said it was originally by someone called Madonna. Time went on, and as jubilant as the atmosphere was, as sweet as the Doctor was, Leia responded to the allure of the palace gardens, going outside, traversing the lawn, entering the small woodland and climbing a tree. She was sitting on a branch, leaning back against the bark and looking through the leaves at the clear sky, when she suddenly had a feeling she was no longer alone. Looking down from her perch, she saw the boy called Ian standing at the foot of the tree looking up at her as he said "Princess Leia? I hope I'm not, uh, disturbing you out here."
"You're the Doctor's kid," Leia said to him, keeping her voice neutral. Other children were not always her friends. She thought back a year, to another gathering, to her conversation with a cousin, her harsh - but true - words to him. Since that discussion, he had avoided her. Yet this boy, Ian...She instinctively knew he had a good heart, that she could trust him. "It's okay, Ian," she said. She smiled, and asked him "You want to come up here?"
For a moment Ian just kept looking up at her. Then he grinned and quickly scrambled up, straddling a neighbouring tree limb. "This is nice," he remarked, carefully reaching out to feel the leaves. "Everything about your planet is so beautiful," he continued.
"I like looking into the sky," said Leia. "Watching ships up there, imagining where they've been in the galaxy, what they've seen out there."
"Me and my Mum," said Ian, "It's...like we can look out into not just space, but time as well. Like we don't just see the worlds that are, but that the worlds that were and are now dust, and the worlds that will be, whose suns are only now being born."
In that moment Leia knew that Ian and the Doctor were beings unlike anything she, perhaps anyone in the whole galaxy, had ever encountered. They had experienced things incomprehensible. And it comforted her. So much so that she lost track of time as they sat there, neither speaking but absorbing their surroundings. They must have been basking in the cool and gentle summer breeze for quite a while before they heard two familiar female voices from nearby, one calling "Ian!", the other "Leia!"
The two children quickly scrambled to the ground in time to be confonted by their mothers. "Hi, Mom!" they both said, or in Ian's case,"Mum!"
The Doctor smiled dazzlingly. "Hey, you two! We were wondering where you both were!"
Queen Breha said "Oh, Leia, darling, you had me a little worried. Has Ian been keeping you safe out here?"
Leia approached her mother, wrapped her arms around her waist, while looking behind her at Ian as she replied "It's been great."
When the time came for the Doctor, Ian and Gareth to depart that night, Ian approached Leia, held out his hand, and said to her "Goodbye, Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan. You're sweet and brave and amazing, and I think when you grow up, you'll be even more so. I don't know if I'll ever see you again, we don't always know where we'll end up, but...I've loved this." Leia did not take his hand; she instead pulled him in for a warm, and very thankful, hug.