Gwynplaine sat on the edge of Han Solo's bunk, kicking her feet together, when he entered the room. He'd told her to wait there for him, and despite the fact they were so limited on alternative places to go, he still felt briefly surprised to see she was actually there. He turned around and locked the door behind him.
Gwynplaine hopped off the bed, alert and suspicious. "What's going on?"
He turned and looked at her, and very carefully explained, "I have been trying to avoid having this conversation since the day we met...but I don't think I'm going to have any peace of mind until I know what the answer is."
"Answer to what?" she asked as she inched back towards the wall.
He looked her dead in the eyes and told her, "I need you to tell me what happened the whole time you were on that gypsy ship, what part you played in all of it."
She didn't physically move, but now he could see more than just a slight look of panic on her face.
"I can't tell you about that," she said.
"Oh yes you can," he replied simply, "Because neither one of us is leaving this room until I hear the whole thing."
Chewbacca was waiting in the lounge when he heard the door unlock and slide open, a moment later Han walked into the room, looking like he'd just come out of a war zone. His eyes stared straight ahead at nothing and were blank, his legs moved stiffly, mechanically, as if it was a bodily reflex and not of his own volition that was keeping him moving and upright. He didn't look towards the wookiee but must've seen him because he raised one hand in a gesture that let him know the smuggler wasn't ready to answer any questions about what happened. A series of small, barely audible sounds absently made their way out of his throat, they sounded involuntary, like he wasn't even aware he was making them. If the sounds could all be put together, it'd almost sound like he was laughing, only it wasn't a laugh, it was hollow, baseless, a phantom laugh, that said there was nothing funny whatsoever about the driving force behind them.
Han marched straight over to the liquor bar, picked up a bottle of something so strong it was banned in half the galaxy and only advisable to drink by the half glass, he popped off the top and drank straight from the bottle. Only after he'd drunk enough for a glass and a half did he finally stop and put the bottle on the table. Half of the contents he'd just swallowed threatened to come back up in a hiccuping choke, but he managed to keep it down. Only now did his eyes actually seem to register anything he was looking at. He turned and looked at his best friend, and from the look on his face it was obvious he wasn't even sure where to start.
Finally the words came, but not easily. "They didn't whore her out...they trained her to kill marks to rob them."
Chewbacca grunted in response.
Han blinked slowly as he all but fell in his seat. "It makes sense, she's small, she's quiet..." he remembered her standing over the body of the dead Pompeian and he knew her ability to sneak up on one of those things spoke volumes to how efficient she was, "and...nobody would expect a child to kill them...and when she got older..." he closed his eyes as his throat burned and the potent liquor threatened to come back up. If he actually told Chewie the rest of what Gwynplaine had told him, he would throw up.
When she got older, the rules were much the same, she was small and didn't look like much, nobody would suspect her of anything, but instead of just slipping up on unsuspecting victims, she'd been 'encouraged' to take a front-door approach instead. The gypsies were well aware of the underground market demand for kids her age and advised her to proposition herself to lure them in. They were a perfect target, willing to pay a high price and always had the money on them. She always killed them before anything happened, the gypsies got the money, and she proved her worth by providing for them.
Han was vaguely aware of the fact he was staring at the wall straight ahead, but not actually seeing it, his eyes focused on nothing in particular about it. The whole inside of his mouth and his throat burned from the remnant of that liquid fire he'd swallowed. It was the only sensation that kept him from feeling that he'd drifted outside of his body and was watching this all unfold from another part of the room. He sat there in a blank eyed stupid for a few minutes as he tried to figure out what to do next.
"I have to..." he wasn't even sure how to finish that sentence as he stood up, he gestured back to the door he'd come through, "She's still in there, I need to..." again, he wasn't sure what, but he knew he had 'to' something. He thought for a minute, and finally told his friend, "Alright, I'm going back in...if you hear any screaming, don't open the door."
Chewbacca howled in response.
"Yeah, I hope I do too," Han replied unenthusiastically.
When he returned to the room, he was surprised to see Gwynplaine was right where he'd left her, with her back to the opposite wall and her feet pushed out in front of her. To anyone else it'd look like she was just idling there, but the look in her eyes said different. He locked the door behind him, she didn't move, she didn't say anything, she just leaned against the wall and stared at him, awaiting whatever was coming next.
"So..." she finally said, and paused, and asked, "Now what?"
He wasn't expecting that. "'Now what' what?"
"Now you know," Gwynplaine said. "Now you hate me."
He blinked in surprise. "I don't hate you."
"Why not?" she asked defiantly.
There was a pause between them before he told her, "Come here."
Her physical demeanor didn't change, but Han noticed her pressing her shoulders against the wall.
"Get over here," he said again, not commanding, not ordering, not threatening, just simply stating.
A heavy air of dread was visible as Gwynplaine peeled herself away from the wall and slowly walked over to him. She stood her ground firmly but the expression on her face indicated she was bracing herself for whatever was coming.
"I got a simple question for you," he said, "the first night you snuck on here, were you planning to kill us?"
She blinked and took a step back, "Oh God no, how could you think that? I just wanted to get the hell off that planet."
"Alright, alright, calm down," Han said, actually amused with himself that he was able to get that kind of response out of her and jolt her out of her combative demeanor. "Listen, kid, I know you got a raw deal right out the gate, but nobody can help the situation they're born in, or the one they're raised in. What happened wasn't your fault."
"Yes it was," she replied.
"Okay, answer me this. What would've happened to you if you'd refused to do any of the jobs they put you on?" he asked.
She seemed to freeze at the question, except her eyes, when they changed over, the look in them told him everything he needed to know.
"I could've left," she said, "I should've, I should've gotten away from them the first chance I got. But I stayed because I was afraid what would happen if I was on my own."
"Trust me kid, most people would've done the same thing," he told her.
He'd spent the last three hours listening to Gwynplaine recap everything that had happened during her time with the gypsies, everything that she had had an active part in. Merely knowing all the gory details was one thing, that would've been bad enough, but as time wore on, he realized the truly disturbing part of it was that she didn't appear to lay blame where it was due, with the people who 'raised' her, but instead with herself for doing the things that were demanded of her. Now he knew why she didn't want to tell him, and now he realized why she had been completely void of any emotion when she learned about the ship's crash. Bits and pieces of things she'd told him since they met started to come back to him, and it painted a much fuller picture now. And the more he thought about it, he realized that sand storm was the best thing that could've happened to her.
As if she could tell what he was thinking, Gwynplaine explained, "After the sand storm...I spent days thinking they would come back...so I never went far incase I'd miss the ship. They were the hardest few days of my life. It was the first time I really, I had to think for myself and decide what I was going to do to stay alive, I'd never had to think about it before, there were always people, a lot of people around who told me what to do. That was my whole life, they told me what to do, I did it. And when that's all you know, you don't realize it's a problem...until they're suddenly not there anymore, and you're marooned on a strange planet with no one around to help."
"When'd you realize they weren't coming back?" he asked.
"5, 6 days, I'm not sure...felt like a century...at first I thought they'd come back when they realized I wasn't there, then I thought...maybe the ship broke down, they'd come back as soon as it was fixed...and after a couple more days I started to think that they'd just abandoned me, that I'd outlived my usefulness to them. And along the way, it felt like I just suddenly came out of this fog, for the first time I could think straight...well that's not exactly true, for the first time I was actually allowed to think...considering that I don't think I've done too badly."
That got a laugh out of Han.
"You definitely could've done worse," he replied.
The lightness of the moment passed and somberly, Gwynplaine asked him, "Why did I have to tell you all this?"
"Sorry, kid, but I had to know."
"And now that you know...what happens?" she asked.
Han shrugged, "Nothing happens. This doesn't change anything."
"Why not?" she asked.
It was a good question and the truth was he couldn't really explain it. He'd already come to the conclusion if she'd been a run-of-the-mill murderous little heathen, she would've already taken a swing at him in his sleep with her knife. He remembered the Pompeian, he remembered the droid on the pirate ship, after their escape from Alavak, she'd told him about the Vomanor who'd attacked her, and how she'd gotten away by stabbing him in the neck. He'd had no noticeable response at the time she told him, but inside he felt like a boulder had been slipped down his gut as he realized the odds were very likely that Gwynplaine had killed her own brother, the brother who had replaced her as the rightful heir to the throne, the brother for whom she had been deformed, disowned and exiled from her own family and subsequently her home planet. He couldn't even begin to appreciate the irony there, and he hoped the girl never found out what she'd done. But putting them altogether, there wasn't a single incident where what she did wasn't a justified killing.
"I know you don't want to hear this," he told her, "and I know there has been nothing ideal about how you grew up, but it's a safe bet that the training you got has already saved your life more than once."
And for that matter, his life too at least once. He felt his blood running cold again as he remembered the ghastly sight of the murdered Pompeian, and knowing that it was almost him dead on the ground, it still jarred his mind that this kid was capable of what she'd done, but getting past the initial disgust of it, he realized that it had in fact been a lifesaving skill for her.
As bad as the last three hours had made him feel, the look on Gwynplaine's face let him know that he wasn't even close to what she'd had to go through living it for over 10 years.
He remembered when he told her about the Krull's fate, and how much he was dreading what her reaction was going to be, and he remembered the surprise, shock and relief when there was none. Now however, it looked like he was close to finding out what that would've looked like.
Han had never been good with emotions, not with anybody else's, and...he had none of his own to speak of. He'd do anything to avoid someone falling apart and he had to be a witness to it, worse, had to actually do something about it. He liked to think of himself as a fast on his feet kind of person, he also liked to try and ignore all the times his short term plans blew up in his face, but right now he felt an answer come to him, it was only temporary but he'd take whatever he could get.
"Come on," he told her, "I've got a bottle of stuff out there that if you survive swallowing it, is going to make you feel a lot better."
To Han's surprise, Gwynplaine had been able to swallow the concoction, furthermore she'd been able to keep it down, and so far seemed to be holding it well, despite her small stature. After a short while, the liquor took its effect, her reflexes slowed to the point her equilibrium was shot, Han pushed her back on one of the bunks before she fell and cracked her head on the floor. She lay on the bunk with her feet in the air and stared up at the ceiling with a euphoric, almost entranced look on her face, her eyes could only stay half open and her mouth spread out to a tired smile as she moved her head one way and another, looking at something above her that wasn't there.
It wouldn't solve anything, but at least for a while the kid would get a break from everything that was eating at her. And as long as she didn't have to deal with her problems, that meant Han didn't have to deal with them either, and he was all for that. If it didn't go against his ethics, he'd keep the kid drunk to the gills for the rest of their trip. As it was it didn't take long for her to fall into a giddily drunken stupor of sleep. She might feel like hell once she woke up, but for right now it made him feel better.
A strained gasp escaped Han Solo's lips as he was jerked awake by a sudden sensation of something grabbing him and choking the air out of him. He tried to spring up in his bunk to see what it was, but was only able to pick up his head, something was weighing the rest of him down. The room was dark but he was still able to make out what it was that had attacked him. And what it was, was Gwynplaine, who had crawled into his bed with him.
"What the hell?" he tiredly grunted. "What're you doing in here?"
As his eyes adjusted to the dark he realized that she was laying right next to him and had her arms wrapped tight around his ribs. Every instinct in his body was telling him to physically, literally, kick her out of his bunk...but he didn't. She never said anything, she hardly made any sound at all, all he heard out of her was a small sigh as she moved over enough to press her head against his chest. Dumbfounded, he lay there for a minute until he could figure out what was going on, then it slowly dawned on him.
"Alright," he said in a disgruntled whisper, reluctantly conceding, "alright, fine, but just for tonight, and you better not breathe a word of this to anybody."
Why he said that he had no idea, there wasn't anyone for the kid to tell, except Chewie, who honestly had seen Han in far more compromising situations than this. Hell, as far as the wookiee was concerned, this wouldn't even count as the strangest thing Han Solo had done all week.
The kid wasn't big, and there wasn't much to her, but he had to pry her hands off of him so he had enough room to breathe. It didn't stop her from clinging to him again, albeit not as tightly this time. In a few minutes he could tell by her breathing that she was asleep. The smuggler quietly sighed in discouragement since he couldn't figure out where to put his arms, finally he settled for keeping his hands up above his head and after a while fell back asleep himself.
The next night Han found himself staring up at the ceiling in the dark, every inch of his body feeling like a lead balloon and an evergrowing sense of dread swelling between his head and his chest as he felt like he'd just made his way out of a mental fog that made it impossible for him to realize what was so obvious now.
He mentally kicked and cursed himself for being such an idiot. He'd done it. He'd gone and gotten involved, no, not just involved, he could live with involved, he'd gotten attached to someone else who wasn't connected to him or any of his business dealings, something he always made a point of avoiding at all costs. This realization came to him as once again he felt Gwynplaine's weight against him on the bunk as the kid slept on him and held tight to him in her sleep.
Things had been dead and quiet for a while, Chewie had already gone to sleep hours ago, so he'd decided it wouldn't do any harm to crack the bottle open again and they had a few drinks. The ludicrous strength liquor went to work before too long, and within an hour they were crumpled on the floor in a corner of the ship laughing themselves sick over they didn't even know what. He had his back pressed to the wall and she was seated on his lap with her arm slung tight across his shoulders to keep herself upright.
Intoxicated beyond belief, Han recalled several escapades he and Chewie had been on over the years that sounded a lot more amusing now than they were when they happened, he was just barely able to keep himself together to tell the stories though several stray chuckles escaped every few words, Gwynplaine all but squeezed her eyes shut, threw her head back and laughed like a maniac at his recounts.
After a while they both calmed down somewhat but were still laughing until they could hardly breathe, at one point Gwynplaine slid off his lap and landed beside him on the floor, her head pressed against his shoulder as she continued to laugh until she was about sick.
He wasn't sure if he blacked out for a while or not, but the next thing he was aware of, they were still in that same position side by side on the floor, but it was quiet now, except for the low sound of Gwynplaine crying. It was a slow cry, the kind that usually only occurred when you had too much alcohol in your system to keep your defenses up.
He himself had to be past his regular limit because his usual mantra of not getting involved, emotionally involved, didn't kick in. Even now he was very nonchalant as he asked her, "What's wrong?"
She slid down against the wall a bit more and to keep from completely crumpling in a heap, pressed her weight against him and pressed the side of her head against his chest and confessed over a small choked sob, "I want my mom...I wish I knew where she was."
No you don't. The words were booming in Han Solo's head and he felt his head shaking from one side to the other, it took him a minute to realize his eyes were closed while he did it. When he got them to open he realized that Gwynplaine hadn't noticed. However intoxicated he was however, he was able to resist the urge to spew that comment out. Instead, he pressed his head back against the wall, and said with a quiet sigh, "Yeah...I want mine too..."
After that he had absolutely no recollection between then and now. Despite this, the one thing he knew for fact was that the only boundary that had been crossed that night was his own about getting involved with anyone or anything that didn't concern him. But reexamining the events from the last several days, it slowly dawned on him that that idea was dead in the water as soon as they discovered they had a stowaway on board. If there'd just been someone, anyone that he could've dumped her on, and not have both of his consciences nagging at him the whole way back, this problem could've been resolved before it started. But there hadn't been anyone, and there still wasn't now, and though he would never verbally admit it to anyone, he didn't have any idea what he was going to do.
He knew what this was, and what it wasn't, and he knew the reasons why, and he didn't want to know, he didn't want to know anything about it, and yet here he was, stuck with this knowledge that did him absolutely no good.
Knowing what he knew now about the kid, over the past couple days he had suddenly found himself thinking about so many things that not only had he never thought of before, never would've had any reason to think about them, and could in fact have happily gone through the rest of his life never having to think about them. So many things that just went beyond having an underage passenger riding with them, instead things that he literally never had to think about applying to anybody in the whole galaxy.
Having heard Gwynplaine's whole life story, or at least a condensed account of events, it slowly dawned on Han that his own past, which he chose to dwell on as little as possible, was positively rosy by comparison, and he couldn't even think about that without a cynical roll of his eyes.
It hadn't taken long the previous night to realize why the kid had done what she did. For never having to think about things like that before, it all came together pretty quickly for the smuggler. He didn't have any kids, least of all not as far as he knew, but he still understood a little about the nature of them bonding, usually with parents whenever there were any, and when there weren't...
His head spun as he tried to actually visualize what it had to be like for Gwynplaine growing up on the gypsy ship. He could only comprehend what that must've been like in bits and pieces, but years, 15-16 years, even his imagination couldn't get that depressing.
Most of this had already dawned on him the night before, that was the only reason he didn't kick Gwynplaine out of his bunk as soon as she climbed in alongside him. He knew that sooner or later he was going to figure out what to do with this kid and they would likely never see each other again, so for one thing, there was no way anything that happened now could come back and bite him, secondly, as blaster-eating depressing as it was to think about, he realized he was the first normal interaction Gwynplaine had had with another human. That was a first for him. He was still poring over all this when he finally fell asleep.
When he awoke several hours later, Gwynplaine was still laying on him asleep, and while there might not be much to her, it was enough during that time to cut off the circulation in most of his body. He turned his head and saw Chewbacca had just gotten off of his bunk.
"Chewie," he called over and nodded towards the girl, "get her off me, I can't move."
The wookiee let out a small grunt as he went over to the other bunk and very easily lifted the kid off of him, and put her over in the other bed. Now that he didn't have her weighing him down, Han could assess the damage and quickly came to the conclusion that both feet, one leg, and one arm from his shoulder to his fingertips were asleep. He had to reach over with his good hand and grab the dead one and shake it until the blood started flowing again. By the time he could hold that arm up, he could also feel a thousand needles shooting through his feet and figured he'd be able to stand up and hold his balance, and he could. A little stiffly, he walked out to the cockpit, and was joined by Chewbacca a few minutes later.
All he said to the wookiee was a warning, "Don't-ask."
That, however, didn't stop Chewbacca from commenting on the situation. Han could handle the times the two of them argued, including the times he about went deaf from the wookiee's howling, but he didn't appreciate Chewie telling him it wouldn't be the worst thing he ever did if he actually got involved in what was happening with someone else.
"You are no help, you know that?" Han replied.
Chewbacca snorted in response.
"Oh shut up," Han remarked.
He shook his head and said, "It's like the answer's staring me right in the face and I can't see it. There has to be some place she can go." Someplace where she would actually belong. Some place where he wouldn't drive himself nuts afterwards wondering what was happening to her.
A cynical laugh escaped him as he said, "It's too bad the imperials wouldn't be interested in her, she'd probably make one hell of a stormtrooper."
He laughed for a couple seconds, then got quiet, and his eyes widened in realization.
"I've got it, Chewie," he jumped up in his seat, "I've got it!"
A/N: One more chapter to go!