"What's your name?" she asked in that alleyway after they kissed.

Han laughed, usually it worked the other way around, you learn someone's name, and then you kiss.

"Han Solo."

"What kind of name's that?"

"Corellian."

"Where's Corellia?" she asked.

"Oh, it's a ways from here. What about you? What's your name?"

"Charon."

"Charon what?"

She shrugged, "Just Charon."

"What kind of name's that?" Han asked.

"Mine," she answered simply.

"Where're you from?" he asked.

"Styx."

"Never heard of it, where's that?"

She looked at him with a distant look in her eyes and answered, "A galaxy far, far away."

He snorted, "Isn't that the point? Every galaxy is far, far away, that's why they're galaxies. How'd you get here?"

"A slow ferry," she answered.

"A ferry?" he wrinkled his nose in disgust at the word, "Those things couldn't move any slower if they were hauled by frog dogs, the hyperdrive on them is a joke."

"Who're you telling?" Charon asked him. "It took two years just to get here."

"Are you serious?" The longest Han had ever ridden on a ship was 2 months getting from one end of the galaxy to the other. "Holy tauntauns. So now that you're here, what're you doing?"

"Besides getting fleeced by you?" she replied cynically. He drew back and glared at her. She turned the question back on him, "What about you? What're you doing here?"

"What I do best, sweetheart," he answered smugly, "looking out for myself."

"Amazing," Charon said.

"Thank you," he boasted.

Charon added, "That you haven't gotten yourself killed already."

He scowled at her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.

"Oh come on, cowboy, if you can't even scam me, how're you going to stand a chance against a real mark?"

He looked at her for a minute with his mouth just hanging open, as if he couldn't believe what she'd just said. Finally his brain functioned again and he asked her, "What did you call me?"

She shrugged, "It's a term they use in my galaxy."

"What's it mean?"

"Beats the hell out of me," she said with another shrug, "but it seems to fit you."

He didn't know whether to be insulted or not. He also couldn't believe how strangely attracted he felt to her. Sure, there were obvious differences, this lost-in-translation being a big one, but for the first time since he'd landed on this rock he felt like he was among his own kind again. There were all kinds of species of people roaming the planet, a lot of them even looked like him, human, but trying to talk with any of them was like trying to talk to a laser gate.

Despite his efforts he could only keep a mostly straight face as he told her, "You know...I don't know why, but I have a feeling this could be the beginning of something good."

Charon walked around him and looked him up and down a couple times before concluding, "We could both do worse."

The Corellian busted out laughing.

"Hey."

Han opened his eyes and realized he'd fallen asleep. He looked over to the next bed and saw Charon sitting up.

"What's going through your mind so hot and heavy?" she asked.

"Oh, nothing," he answered dismissively.

"Liar."

He smirked at her response. "Never could pull one over on you, could I?"

"Gee, ya think?" Charon replied mockingly as she adjusted the sheet. "Get me my clothes."

"I didn't take them," he said.

"I don't care, get them anyway," Charon said as she started to get up, "I need to get dressed, and get back to the cockpit-" she barely got to her feet before she started to sway on them.

"Whoa," Han hopped off the bed and was at her side in a second and eased her back on the bed and put her feet up, "that's not advisable just yet."

"Han, who is piloting the ferry?" she asked him.

"Oh don't worry, your replacement crew's doing a great job getting us to Hoth on schedule...of course it helps they've got two navigators to keep everything straight."

"Two?" Charon squinted her eyes in confusion.

"Chewie's helping them out for the time being," Han explained. "You're lucky, you know that?"

"How do you figure?" she asked sarcastically.

"That giant fuzzball would do anything for me, so subsequently, he'll do anything for you," Han told her.

Charon smiled cynically and commented, "It's so nice to be wanted."

Han shot up in bed, his eyes half open, a scream caught halfway in his throat. He got his bearings and realized he was in the sick bay, it was dark, he looked around and saw Charon sleeping peacefully in the next bed. Slowly he realized it was just a nightmare he'd had, and with a huge sigh of relief he fell back against the pillow.

No, nightmare wasn't the right term. What he'd dreamed of had actually happened, it had just been so long ago, he'd almost forgotten it.

He'd found out very early on that Charon hated the water and why. It was the first time their tag team effort to relieve unsuspecting dopes of their money hadn't gone as planned and they got caught. They took off running, and they were able to shake the man they'd tried to rob, but before they really looked to see where they were going they came across an antique stone bridge that hovered over a quarry, Charon tried too late to stop, the old stones gave way and she fell through and made a large splash in the water. Han had veered off to the side just before reaching the bridge, and the next thing he knew, he could hear Charon screaming from down below. He looked down and saw her flailing around in the water and he realized she couldn't swim. He'd seen his fair share of drowned bodies in his life on Corellia, never actually seen anyone drown though, until now.

Without thinking, he jumped off the bridge and landed in the water a few feet from her and made his way over to Charon to pull her back onto dry land. Unfortunately his efforts only got both of them about drowned when she wouldn't stop struggling once he got to her. The water went right in his eyes and temporarily blinded him and went up his nose and in his mouth and made it about impossible to breathe.

"Stop...fighting me!" he tried to yell at her as he finally managed to grab hold of her and slowly worked his way over to the rocky ground. By the time he got them both on dry land, he felt like he'd just went 10 rounds with a wampa. He flopped face down on the ground beside her and waited to catch his breath.

After a couple minutes when his breathing returned to normal, he turned and looked at Charon and asked her, "What...kind of idiot...gets to be your age and doesn't know how to swim?"

Thinking back, he had no actual memory of learning to swim, it just seemed to be something he always knew how to do, which had saved his life more than once, and it seemed like a basic concept if it was something he could figure out, it was no great mystery of the universe, anybody ought to be able to figure it out.

Charon gasped and wheezed as she recovered from the ordeal and wouldn't answer him, instead she turned on her side and faced away from him. Han sighed as he realized he'd put his foot in his mouth this time.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I...I didn't mean that."

He waited a couple minutes but Charon still didn't answer him, she wouldn't even turn over. He crawled around to face her and stopped and felt his eyes bug out. She'd fallen asleep. Han felt the air seep out of him and his body collapsed against the hard rocks in disbelief. Apparently nearly getting killed could really take it out of you. For that matter...he turned over on his back and stretched out and closed his eyes as he waited for the hot air despite the gray clouds blotting out the sun, to dry them off and in time fell asleep himself.

That had been a bad enough experience for Han Solo, but that was nothing compared to what came next.

They'd been married two months and had gotten into a bar brawl with some drunken tourists passing through. Three of them had grabbed Han and bodily heaved him clear over the bar, just as he got to his feet again he heard Charon yell but couldn't make it out. She got between him and one of the brawlers who moved to stab him with a broken bottle and instead slashed her arm wide open. Han grabbed a tablecloth and tied it up tight enough the droids at the sick bay would have to cut it off. Fortunately the planet they were currently staying on just happened to have a sick bay right across the street from the bar. How was that for a sign?

By the time they got in the treatment room, the tablecloth had been soaked clear through with blood. Charon set eyes on the bacta tank and she looked like she mentally checked out.

"In there?" she asked, and shook her head, "Uh uh, forget it." She took a few steps backwards before turning towards the door and tried to leave. Han grabbed her by her good arm and tried to talk some sense into her, but she was dead set against getting in the tank. So he did the only thing he could think of at the time, he grabbed a bottle of something from off the table and brained her with it. The bottle shattered, her scalp bled from the thousands of pieces of glass embedded in it, and she collapsed in his arms.

"Well that was certainly uncalled for," the medic droid commented.

"Well it worked," Han said as he propped Charon against the exam table and started removing her clothes.

Han had gotten a concussion and a couple cuts in the bar fight but the medic droid declared he was in good enough condition to leave. All the same he sat on the exam table and swung his feet back and forth as he anxiously waited for Charon to regain consciousness in the bacta tank. She'd been in there for half an hour and there hadn't been any sign of improvement yet.

Then suddenly amid the noises from the tank's machinery, he heard the garbled sound of somebody either trying to breathe or talk. He looked up and saw Charon's eyes were open, and she was looking around frantically from inside the tank, but didn't appear to actually see anything. She broke loose from the restraints that kept her body supported and ripped off the breathing apparatus and started beating on the tank with both fists, all the while, despite the sluggish way her body moved in the bacta, she looked like her whole body was going through a series of convulsions.

"What's going on?" Han demanded to know, "what the hell did you do to her?"

"Nothing," the droid answered, "this was standard treatment in accordance with her injuries."

"Well get her the hell out of there before she kills herself!" Han told them, and in that moment he truly believed she could do it.

It took three droids to extricate her from the tank before any further damage could be done, and as soon as she hit the tiled floor she tried to escape. Han grabbed the sheet off the exam table and tackled her and knocked her to the floor and used his weight to pin her down until she figured out where she was and started to calm down.

"That wasn't bacta," Charon said as she stood up, "It was water, they were trying to drown me!"

Han shook his head, "It was bacta, the only thing they ever put in those tanks is bacta."

"It-was-water," Charon said, every syllable an accusation.

Han grabbed a handful of the thick gelatinous substance that had gathered on the floor when she was removed from the tank and showed her, "This is what you were in."

"Don't touch me with it," she said warningly as she took a step back.

It didn't make any sense to him but he dropped the stuff back on the floor.

Charon scowled at him through half open eyes and she said also in an accusing tone, "You...hit me."

"Sorry."

"You-hit-me," she repeated, "over the head with a bottle."

Han merely shrugged, "It was the only thing I could think of."

Charon glared at him for a few seconds before asking, "Thinking's just not your strong suit, is it, cowboy?"

"Oh shut up," he told her.

"I come in here with my arm sliced open so you brain me with a bottle," she moved her arms to gesture and stopped when she saw the long gash in her arm was healed up and gone, "hey...what the hell?" she looked at Han and nodded back to the tank, "That did it?"

"Yeah, that did it," he answered mockingly, "That's why they told you to get in it in the first place."

She didn't comment further on it, but instead asked him, "What about you?"

"I'm good," Han answered, "they said I can leave any time."

"Great, then let's get out of here," Charon said as she moved to the table where her clothes were laying in a heap.

"No argument there," he replied.

Charon turned towards him and said firmly, "Don't ever let them put me in one of those things again. That was single handedly the worst experience of my life."

"Worse than our wedding day?" Han asked sarcastically.

Charon wasn't laughing. "Waking up in that thing's like drowning a hundred times over. Don't you ever do that to me again."

Han sighed and explained, "If I can help it, I won't."