Han didn't know when he'd fallen asleep but the next thing he knew somebody was clearing their throat loudly. He opened his eyes and saw they were still leaning against the wall and saw the ferryman standing over them. It was an old man in a long black cloak, he reminded Han of a school teacher he had for about five minutes before he got himself kicked out for disturbing the class.

"What is it?" he asked, still not quite awake.

"The ferry's docked."

Charon yawned and stretched where she was curled up across Han's legs.

"Where?" Han asked, trying to think.

"Dantooine. You can't stay here."

Han tipped his head back and yawned and asked, "Where's your next docking?"

"Hannix."

Han nodded, "Fine, take us there."

"This is most improper," the ferryman told them.

Han reached in his pocket, took out some coins, dumped them in the old man's hand and said, "There's our fare, we'll ride through to Hannix."

The old man grumbled, but he turned around and walked off.

Han opened his eyes wider and realized everybody else had gotten off, he murmured into Charon's ear, "Quick, the seats are empty, now's our chance."

"Why're we going to Hannix?" Charon asked.

"I need time to think."

"What about?" she asked as they sat down on a double bench.

Han looked at her and answered, "I need to figure out what we do next."

The trip from Dantooine to Hannix was a much longer trip, which felt like it went much slower than the first one. 150 people on the ship for 2 weeks, all of them very unfriendly. To keep from wearing out their welcome and being killed during the night, Han and Charon walked around the ferry frequently, and by dumb luck started getting acquainted with the crew running the behemoth. They made their way to the cockpit and watched the pilot and navigator work. It was interesting, but it also raised a lot of questions for the two young people.

"Where're the controls for the laser cannon?" Han asked one day as he looked over the controls and felt like he was missing something in plain sight.

"The ferry doesn't have one," the old man said.

"Doesn't have one?" Han couldn't have heard right.

"Where're your blasters?" Charon asked.

"We don't carry weapons on the ferry," the captain answered.

"Well that's stupid," she said with a roll of her eyes, "What if you get attacked?"

"Nobody attacks ferries."

"Why not? They're the perfect target, they're big, they're slow moving, they're full of people who all paid to be on it, meaning there's a lot of money aboard, and if they're carrying anything of value for the trip...that's a lot of bulls eyes for space pirates."

The old man who captained the ship looked at her with a displeased expression and told her, "Young lady, you imagine too much."

"I do not," Charon argued, "I don't have an imagination."

"It's true, she doesn't," Han added. She elbowed him in the side and shot him a look, despite both their attempts, they smiled at each other. It was the first time since they'd boarded the ship that that had happened.

"Nobody attacks ferries," the old man repeated insistingly, "They bother nobody, no one bothers them in return."

The two young lovers looked at each other and shared a mutual expression of disbelief and heavy skepticism.

A few days later, two of the crew members fell ill and had to be kept in the sick bay. Han and Charon spotted an opportunity and offered their services, which were initially denied on the basis they were too young, had no experience, and in general were no good. But the captain soon came to realize the impossibility of running a ferry short-handed. Han sat in for the co-pilot and Charon alternated between navigating and making the rounds to ensue none of the passengers tried anything funny and that all the equipment was working properly. It was only then that they started to notice some signs posted around the ship.

"What's it say?" she asked Han, who seemed to be studying it intently.

"It's some variant of Corellian," he said, "roughly translated it says no droids allowed."

"Why not?" Charon asked.

Neither of them had heard the captain approaching, the old man came up behind them and his voice bellowed through the hall, initially scaring the hell out of both of them, "Droids have no place on this ferry. This is a respectable establishment."

They turned on their heels and looked like a couple of kids who got caught red handed doing something wrong.

"What's that go to do with anything?" Charon asked.

"Droids are nothing but trouble, they're useless heaps of garbage," the old man told them.

"You better watch it, captain," Charon said, "you'll hurt their feelings."

"They're machines, they have no feelings," he told her.

"Maybe not, but they think they do," she replied.

"They're machines, they don't think," he practically yelled at her, "They merely do what they are programmed to do."

"That might be, but they think they think, and that's what counts," she insisted. "If you ever actually hung around any you'd know that, they have their own personalities, they're almost like people that way," she added condescendingly.

Han stood back and watched this in silent amusement. The truth was neither of them could give a damn about droids, but it seemed like a stupid rule to him too, if they couldn't ride with the other passengers they could at least be shut off and placed with the cargo below.

During the remainder of the trip they found plenty of things to raise questions about that didn't make sense to either of them.

One day in the cockpit Han looked over all the controls and asked the old man, "Why's this ship have to go so slow? Where's the hyperdrive?"

"Ferries don't have hyperdrive," he answered in a tone as if Han was a dumb child who asked a stupid question.

"Mine sure as hell didn't," Charon murmured from the side.

"What do you mean no hyperdrive? That's just stupid," Han said.

The captain was adamant, "Hyperdrive only works for smaller ships, ferries require too much time and room to maneuver, they'd hit a black hole or crash into the side of another ship or an asteroid."

"It'd work if you had the right pilot who could handle it," Han fired back.

It seemed they argued with the captain as much as they actually worked as part of the crew. They worked on the ferry until they finally docked on Hannix, the captain begrudgingly thanked them for their services but also advised them he didn't wish to see either of them on his ship again. The feeling was completely mutual.

Another day, another planet. Han had had a lot of time to think about what they were going to do next, and there was only one answer that made any sense to him, and it was one neither of them was going to like. He paid for a room at an inn for the night, and the two of them spent what was to be their last night together in the same bed.

Han had finally, with much regret, told Charon what he suspected was their best course of action. It hadn't dawned on either of them when they first fell in love that each had inherited the other's problems, and subsequently, any enemies they'd made in life. And they were both the kind of people who no matter what, just could not stay out of trouble, and so most likely would always have enemies. And since they couldn't kill all of their enemies, there would always be some who might come for them. And it was just easier for each to take their own chances with their own enemies, it would literally cut their risk of being killed in half. For that to happen, they'd have to go their own separate ways from here and never see each other again. It killed Han to say it, but he'd gone over every possibility in his mind for over two weeks and he just couldn't think of another way that what happened in their home would never happen again.

Charon hadn't said anything by the time he finished, she wouldn't even look at him. He lay beside her in bed and she lay facing the wall with her back to him.

They stayed like that for several long tense moments before Han finally asked her, "Aren't you going to say anything?"

Charon folded her arms tight against her chest and responded, "There's nothing to say...you're right of course...our odds of surviving are better if we don't have to get caught in each other's crosshairs."

"I'm sorry, Charon...but there's just no other way," he told him somberly.

"I know," she nodded. "When?"

Han sighed and explained, "It'll just get harder the longer we're together...so I think first thing in the morning we need to find separate ways off this planet."

"And go where?" Charon asked.

"I don't know," he admitted, "but neither can know where the other's going. We'll have less chance of running across one another that way."

Charon was quiet for several minutes, except for her breathing, which was slow and drawn out. Finally she said, still not facing him, "I want to hate you, you know that."

"Yeah," he nodded.

"But if this is the last time we're ever going to see each other, I can't."

She turned over and clung to him so tight she about choked him.

Han didn't know when but he was sure that Charon fell asleep sometime during the night, just as he was sure that he did not. He felt Charon's weight pressed against him, heard her slow steady breaths, but he still felt like he was completely alone. He may as well have been, now that it was quiet and still, he had plenty of time to think, and all the events from the past few weeks came crashing down on him all at once.

Three weeks ago their lives were perfect. They had a home together, they had a life together, they had plans to make a life, make something for themselves, children, he'd actually propositioned this woman to have children. What the hell was he thinking? He couldn't bring a child into this galaxy, it had become painfully obvious already he couldn't even have a life mate in this galaxy without it putting a target on their head as well.

For most of his life, Han Solo's only priority had been himself, and he had been fine with that. He didn't know what it was that came over him when he and Charon had first met, but suddenly it was like a switch had been flipped, and he was convinced he would be perfectly fine living as a pair, another person to think about, to take into consideration, to actually care if anything happened to them. It had felt like a smooth transition, but now he realized it was just because they had never been in any real danger. Oh sure, he could do the 'brave' thing, the 'right' thing, and take on all those risks together as a couple, convince himself that all that mattered was they were together, but he couldn't, he couldn't do any of those things. A sickening discovery had revealed itself in his brain that night. He jumped into a lot of situations without thinking them all the way through, it's what he'd done his whole life, sometimes he got lucky, sometimes he escaped by the skin of his teeth, but it was normal for him. It didn't matter a whole lot either way, if he ever got caught, and killed, well, it's not like he'd know it for long, and those were just the breaks. He realized he was okay with risking his life, and taking the chance one day he wouldn't get away, but he couldn't risk someone else's life the same way, not someone he proclaimed he loved, it sounded selfish but he didn't care, he couldn't be responsible for another person and have something horrible happen to them because of their association to him.

Every time he closed his eyes at night he still saw himself back in their home, and saw Charon on her knees choking on the blaster muzzle. He couldn't go through that again, as long as he lived he couldn't have something like that happen again on account of him, of something he did. Sure, if he'd been alone, he would've still been ambushed, and outnumbered, and probably would've gotten his arm dislocated out of his shoulder, and probably wished he was dead by the time they got done, but he could've dealt with that, he could've gotten out of it far easier without a second person in the room to worry about, to be responsible for if they lived or died.

Han groaned exhaustively and rubbed his eyes, holy wampas, how did anybody do this? How did anybody pair up with another person and assume all those risks and responsibilities? The answer was almost in the question, those kind of safe boring lives were for safe boring people who had legitimate jobs and didn't turn a profit running scams and dabbling in the illegal trades. Some might say if he was any kind of man, he'd be willing to do just that and take on a boring legal life so he could keep the people he cared about safe. But he couldn't. It was like training a medic droid to work on a farm, you couldn't just adjust the controls, you had to gut the whole wiring system and replace it with parts specifically meant for a farming droid. Robots were easy, they were made a certain way, they operated only according to their program, people were a lot harder and a lot more complex. They might've been predisposed to certain things based on a variety of factors, but they simply were what they were, and they couldn't change, not to that extent, it would be like trying to get through life without breathing. He looked over at the woman sleeping beside him and he knew Charon was the exact same way, her choice of work might have fewer inherent risks than his did, but it was still illegal, and he knew she couldn't change that for him either, and even if she could, she wouldn't. They were too much alike, so not only could neither change for the other, but it wouldn't do any good if they did.

He stayed awake all night and he knew Charon woke up sometime before the sun came up. The two of them lay alongside each other, neither moving a muscle except to breathe. Finally when the new day had started, Charon turned her head to look at him and said solemnly, "I guess there's no point delaying the inevitable."

Han merely nodded in response and they dragged themselves out of bed.

After everything they'd gone through, Han was at least going to see that they went out of this whole mess better than they went in. Neither would last too long in the galaxy hitching everywhere, it was simply too dangerous, and their resources were limited, so they had to protect whatever they had left. He took the credits they still had and went to a dealer and bargained with the man for an hour to get two one-seater ships so they could at least fly out of this hellhole of their own volition.

An hour later Han turned around and walked off back to Charon, who leaned against the gate and asked, "No deal?"

Han sighed and explained, "We're a couple thousand credits short to get two ships. The guy said if there was something we could take out in trade-"

Before Han could finish his sentence, Charon raised her hand and pulled a ring off her third finger and held it out to him.

Han felt like he'd been kicked in the ribs. "Charon-"

"Han..." she shook her head sadly, but her voice stayed strong as she told him plainly, "It can't do us any good now."

There were a variety of ways in which the two of them differed from one another. One was while Han had a tendency to go off on something half cocked without an actual plan, Charon had more of a tendency to hang back and come up with a logical idea without allowing emotions to get in the way, even though Han always insisted he had no emotions. That was one of the things he always loved the most about her. And now, it was the thing he resented about her the most, that she could look at this of all things from such a logical, businesslike point of view. The thing that killed him the most was that he knew she was right. Even though at that moment he would've rather cut off his own finger than do what he did next, he held up his hand and removed his matching marriage band.

Two years. They'd been married for two years. There had been no real planning behind it. He'd seen these rings in a pawn shop and they were a good price, and the right size. It seemed like as good a reason at the time, if you could get the rings, why not get married? It had been a very simple ceremony in a temple surrounded by a handful of people they'd never seen. And two bands of matching Corellian carbon, a credit a dozen on Corellia, but in other parts of the galaxy, a very rare find people were willing to pay through the nose to get their hands on. When he got them, he'd known the going rates they could get on other planets for them, more than enough to get his ship, one like he'd always dreamed of; but for the first time in his life he did maybe not the responsible thing, but the sentimental thing, and put the woman he loved first and once again made the temporary sacrifice of his ship for their future together. In that moment he'd rather have Charon and their wedded future together than his ship.

And now they had no future together, now, this was the ultimate proof that they would no longer be married, and it was almost more than he could handle. The fact that Charon had come to this decision on her own, with no prompts from him about their financial situation, no argument on the subject, was overwhelming to him. He was torn between three different voices in his head, one was telling him to kiss her, because this was the most selfless thing anybody had ever done for him, another was telling him to hurry and get the money for the rings before this opportunity slipped through his fingers, and the third was telling him to damn it all, stay together and take their chances. He couldn't get one idea to process over the others and because of that he couldn't move because he honestly didn't know what he was going to do, or which direction he would go. He took one step towards her and wanted to hug her, but finally he forced himself to turn around and go back, knowing if he did that, he wouldn't be able to leave now.

He hocked the marriage bands and walked away with enough credits to get both ships and keep them both in food and fuel for a while. He walked away from the dealer feeling like he'd traded in his own soul.

They'd both been able to keep up a good front all morning, but as they walked around the two ships Han bought and it started to become real, it became a lot harder to pretend this wasn't killing both of them. Han looked over at Charon and noted she wouldn't look towards him and from the movement in her neck he could see how hard she was swallowing.

"So..." he cleared his throat and tried to sound nonchalant as he asked her, "do you know how to fly one of these?"

Charon nodded, her head turned just enough he could see the sad forced smile on her face and one eye welled up with tears threatening to spill over.

Finally it came time to say their farewells, and it took every fiber in the Corellian's being not to kiss his wife goodbye, because he knew if he did, he'd never be able to let her go.

Charon looked at him and said, forcing her voice to be steady, "Take care of yourself, Han."

"Hey," he shrugged and tried to assume his self-sure attitude, "That's what I do best."

"Yeah," Charon choked on a small laugh as she gleamed at him and sarcastically added, "right, sure."

"Charon, I...uh, I...I..."

He tried but the words wouldn't come, he knew the reason why he was doing this, but he still felt like the biggest hypocrite that ever existed in the galaxy if he actually said what he wanted to.

"I love you too, Han," she told him.

He nodded, silently thankful that she hadn't made him spell it out. "I know...I mean..."

She laughed at his stumbling attempts to say what was on his mind.

"Be careful," he told her.

"I will," she said as she forced herself to take a step back from him.

Finally there wasn't anything left to say and the time had come to part ways. Han boarded his ship and as the generators kicked to life, he saw Charon already taking off. He gave it a few minutes before his ship also left the ground and flew off in the opposite direction, knowing in his gut that they would never see each other again.

He stopped once on a tourist site moon and stocked up on supplies and a batch of stimulants he took every few hours so he wouldn't have to stop, sleep, think, or feel anything. All he did for three days was fly, passing a dozen planets and nearly colliding with several asteroids along the way and not really caring either, the stimulants numbed him to his senses and his thoughts, but they were still there, still nagging at him, wondering where Charon was, if she was alright, if anyone had captured her, if she had found someone else. You spend two years married to the same woman, you assume there'd be a waiting period, but what the hell did he know? He'd never been married before, he didn't know how it worked. It slowly dawned on him how loud the questions were getting so he took another stimulant, and the questions got quieter, his mind felt fuzzy but his eyes felt sharp as he kept an eye out for his destination, wherever the hell that was.

After three days with no food or sleep he crashed from the overuse of the stimulants and he managed to land his ship on a small planet right before it crashed as well. He stopped in a cantina and drank the better part of two bottles of whiskey, then got a room at an inn and collapsed on the bed, curled on his side in a ball and just lay there for a few minutes doing absolutely nothing. Then he tightly pressed both hands against his mouth as a sudden bout of violent sobs threatened to break loose as everything hit him again like a ton of asteroids.

Finally the booze and the exhaustion won out and he fell into a dead sleep and didn't remember anything until noon the next day when someone was banging on the door because his stay was up. He tumbled out of bed, still exhausted, hung over, starving, and in dire need of a shave and a fresher, but he felt a little more clear headed today. All of that was the past now, and he had to focus on moving forward, and he'd remember this time not to get involved with anyone or anybody else's problems. His only priority was himself again, and he realized he was fine with that. It was easier when you didn't have to worry about keeping anybody alive but yourself.

It hadn't been a bad plan but it also hadn't lasted too long either, only until he found Chewie, and that was different. That was a life debt, there wasn't anything he could do about that, and he seldom had to worry about the wookiee's wellbeing in the face of danger. He knew the big hairy oaf would be at his side until the end, and it helped to have someone around who could rip people's arms out of their sockets if things started going south.

Han looked at Charon and realized she'd fallen asleep again in the sick bay bed.

God, that all felt like it was centuries ago. He knew in the years between then and now, they'd both lived several lifetimes over in fewer years than one could imagine.

He hadn't gone far from the bay since they'd moved Charon out of the tank. He slowly got up from the foot of the bed so he didn't disturb her, and parked himself in the bed beside hers and watched her. No matter how many years passed, how long it was before they crossed paths again, he still remembered what it was like when they first met. He'd been with his fair share of women in his life, most of them just a quick good time, nothing serious, but that woman in the next bed with her forehead stitched up was the only one in the galaxy who could make him feel so young, and so old all at the same time.