Breaking Point
Han Solo sighed contentedly as he stepped out of the fresher, he'd been working on the Falcon all day and finally reached a stopping off point and decided to get cleaned up. Now, once he got dressed, he was looking forward to going out, getting a hot meal and some cold imported Corellian beer. They'd landed earlier on Gorfnett, the perfect kind of planet to get lost in because there was nonstop traffic people coming and going of all species from all planets in the galaxy. It was a smuggler's paradise because there was always somebody who wanted something, who needed something, who would stop through to pick up something, and pay any price; Gorfnett had a booming economy and the Empire hadn't seemed to pick it up on their radar yet, meaning business would continue to boom for a while.
As the smuggler made his way down the boarding ramp and saw the streets were filled with the night crowd looking to go drink, dance, gamble, take in a holovid, or bet money on a droid fight, he stopped and noticed something further down the docking station. A large gray, five level ship, as long as 20 Millennium Falcons. Ferries were generally ferries the galaxy over, but he recognized Hades anywhere, meaning Charon was here. It had been, hell, he didn't even remember how long, since they'd last crossed paths, but knowing this, he felt a renewed sense of energy as he looked forward to seeing his ex.
A familiar wookiee howl made Han turn his head and he spotted Chewbacca making his way through the crowd of human and non-human people.
Han gestured towards the ferry, "Hey Chewie, check it out, Charon's-"
Chewbacca cut him off before he could finish, with a disturbed grunt.
Han's eyes widened at his friend's news. "Charon? ...the med bay...out of uniform? Wait a minute...the ferry has a med bay, why would she go to one here?"
The wookiee snorted in response.
"Hang on," Han felt the gears turning in his head, "did she walk in...or was she hauled in?"
Chewie answered in a series of small almost whining sounds. Han had a sinking feeling in his stomach, something wasn't right here.
"Come on," Han told him, "let's find out what's going on."
Han and Chewie ran all the way to the local med bay, it was fairly crowded given the traffic the planet had coursing through on a regular basis, but Han didn't have to wait long to find out what room Charon was in. He and Chewbacca took off down the corridors, twisting and turning until they came to the holding room where patients were kept until they were either assigned a room or discharged to leave. There were 20 beds lined up in two rows facing each other in the middle of the room, all with the exact same sterile white pillows and sheets. Most of the beds were unoccupied, but there were a few people spread out in them. At the end of the second row, Han spotted the ferryman sitting up in the bed, dressed in one of the bay's standard white robes. Charon had her arms folded over her chest and her head down and her eyes closed.
As far as humans went, Charon was usually pretty easy to pick out of a crowd despite a fairly plain appearance, her skin was a shade paler than most people's, Han guessed it had something to do with the planet or the galaxy where she'd grown up, not sickening, but enough that you noticed, and she usually accentuated it by wearing mostly black. Her complexion was now an entire shade paler than usual and she looked almost white, which made the black and purple bruises on one side of her face far more noticeable. Her upper body seemed to rock back and forth slightly in the bed, like she was waiting on something, or someone.
"Charon?"
Her eyes opened in shock at hearing her own name, and as she turned her head, even before she fully saw the two people who had just entered the room, her face scrunched up in an expression of disbelief and dread, and he could swear he heard her groan, "Ohhh-no" right before she yelled at him accusingly, "What are you doing here? How'd you know I was here?"
"What happened?" he demanded to know as he stood over her.
"Nothing!" Charon deflected, "I'm fine."
"You're not fine! Who did this?!" Han yelled at her.
"Nobody, just go away!"
A rage Han didn't remember ever feeling before rushed through his body and he grabbed Charon by the neck of her robe and demanded to know, "WHO?!" One eye picked up on the bruises that trailed down her neck and chest when he did it.
"Get your hands off me!" she sniped him as she pried his fingers loose. "LEAVE-ME-ALONE!"
Chewbacca stood beside both of them and watched the fight unfold. Ordinarily when the two of them started yelling at each other, even though it usually wasn't anything serious, he'd get in the middle and break it up, but this time he didn't. He knew this wasn't like any of their previous fights, it was much worse, and as bad as things looked, he knew the only way they were going to find any middle ground was to go at each other until they reached a turning point. If it actually reached a physical point, then he'd intervene, but until that, as hard as this was to watch, he didn't interfere. The fact that they'd known each other so long, and they'd never talked to each other like this before, meant things had to come to a head before they got any better.
Chewbacca knew Han was lying to him when he said that there wasn't anything to tell about his and Charon's past; Chewie didn't like being lied to, but he also knew Han had never lied to him about anything before, and if he was doing it now, the smuggler had to have a reason. Han had always downplayed his and Charon's relationship, but the way they were fighting now spoke volumes to what Han would never admit to. This much anger didn't come from a casual bond between two people.
Han's voice had lowered a few decibels and he asked Charon, "Where're your men?"
There was something in the question that got Chewbacca's attention. It almost sounded like an accusation. They knew the men who worked on the ferry, Chewie knew none of them could've, or would've, done this. If for no other reason than the mere fact they all knew she kept company with these two, and if Han didn't personally kill them himself, he'd be only too happy to let Chewie go at them and rip them to pieces, starting with the arms.
"They're on leave for a week while we're docked," Charon defensively answered, "I don't intend for them to find out about this."
"Find out about what?" Han demanded to know, "What happened?"
"It's none of your business!" she told him.
Chewbacca's ears picked up at that. He'd seen enough humans in his life to know when the silence that followed meant 'We're not together anymore'. Personally he never knew what that had to do with anything, but it seemed to mean something to the humans, that suddenly they weren't entitled to know what was going on with the other.
"Who was it?" Han persisted.
"No one, no one you know, no one you need to worry about," Charon said bitterly. "Now get out of here and leave me alone."
"I'm not going anywhere until I get some answers," Han told her. He sighed in exhale and seemed to come down a few notches as he asked her, "How bad is it?"
"I don't know," she answered, coming down several notches herself as she explained, "I asked them to give me something to knock me out. But they can only knock out either your body or your mind, and then only half of it...so they gave me something to make me numb...or paralyzed...I'm not sure which, but I can't move anything below my waist...obviously I won't be getting out of here for several hours."
"Where?" Han asked cryptically.
She shook her head, "I'm not telling you. I don't need you getting involved in this."
"I am involved in it," he replied.
"No, you're not, remember?" Charon sniped. "Now just go away and leave me alone, I'm fine."
"The hell you are-"
"I SAID GO AWAY!"
They started screaming at each other again and this time what broke it up was several medical personnel coming in to separate them and give Charon a sedative because her vitals were getting dangerously high. Han stood over on the other side of the room with Chewie and watched as the sedative worked quickly and within a few minutes Charon was asleep.
Han and Chewie went back over to the bed and when Han opened his mouth to talk, a strange wheezing breath came out instead and his whole chest seemed to spasm. It happened again, and again, and the spasms seemed to jerk his whole body. He tried to say something to Chewie but wasn't able to talk around the loud, long wheezing gasps, and it sounded like in a few minutes he'd be hyperventilating. He turned around and left the room, Chewbacca decided between the two, Han was able to take care of himself right now, and though sick bays weren't typically targets for attack, he stayed in the holding room to keep an eye on Charon until the smuggler got back.
They'd touched down earlier that day, and Chewbacca had gone out to make the rounds at the bars and cantinas, find out if anyone was inquiring about getting cargo hauled somewhere for a job. Han was still in debt to Jabba the Hutt for a load he dropped a while back, and though he acted like he wasn't worried, the wookiee knew the Corellian was anxious to find one big hit that could clear the debt before Jabba sicced his bounty hunters on Han. The problem with a planet that was a hot spot for smuggling transactions was there was a lot of competition, and so far nobody seemed to need anything hauled anywhere. Chewie had been on his way back to the Millennium Falcon when he spotted Charon in the crowd. She was wearing civilian clothes instead of her ferryman garb of a long black tattered hooded tunic and tall black boots and gloves, but he recognized her anywhere. He started to howl to get her attention when he realized that something was off. The dark haired woman seemed to stagger more than actually walk, and on occasion dragged one foot behind her, and walked with her head down and didn't actually appear to be looking at anything or anyone. Curiosity bit at the wookiee and he watched to see where she went and he saw her walk over to the med bay and kept her head low as she went in. He didn't know what had happened but he knew Han needed to know.
Despite the sedative the medics had given her, and whatever else they'd already given her to block the pain, Chewbacca heard a half audible groan pass through the woman's closed lips. One whole side of her face was bruised, some of them the right shape to be from someone punching her with their fist, and there were more bruises moving down the neckline of her robe. Chewie had once seen the woman get her forehead busted open during a fight with space pirates, and they'd rushed her to the bacta tank, not knowing if she would live or not, but he'd never seen her in a state like this. He chattered melancholically as he lightly ran one huge paw over her forehead, if she could feel it, it didn't show.
Over the years Chewbacca had gotten to meet several of Han Solo's exes traveling with the Corellian smuggler, and of them all he'd liked Charon the best; for one thing she held the fewest grudges against him for their breakup, for another she seemed to especially have a soft spot for wookiees, which put her heads above most humans where he was concerned.
"Chewie..."
The wookiee grunted and turned to see Han Solo reenter the holding room, he looked a shade paler than usual, almost as pale as Charon normally was, and he breathed heavily as he walked over to them.
"I need you to do me a favor," Han told the wookiee, "I need you to stay here with Charon incase she wakes up."
Chewbacca grunted questioningly.
"Don't worry about where I'm going, you just stay with Charon, and if she wakes up, don't tell her I'm gone," Han ordered him.
Chewie snorted skeptically.
"Tell her I went to get a cup of caf, I don't care, just don't tell her I left the bay."
Chewbacca grunted disapprovingly.
"What do you mean she won't believe it?" Han asked, "Of course she will, if I told her, she wouldn't believe it, but she likes you, she'll believe anything you tell her."
The wookiee didn't like it but he also knew Han was going to do what he set his mind to, and though physically he could stop the smuggler, he doubted it would do much good, so he snorted in reluctant agreement.
"I appreciate it, buddy," Han was already turning to leave, his hand reaching for his blaster holster.
Chewbacca watched his friend leave, not knowing where Han was going, having a pretty good idea even Han didn't know where he was going, and having a bad feeling of what was going to happen. He turned back to the unconscious woman in the bed who despite her temporary paralysis tried to turn on her side, but couldn't move much beside her head and her arms, one weakly flailed above her head, the other dropped over the side of the bed. The wookie slipped his paw under her hand, which looked tiny by comparison, to straighten her arm out on the bed, when the bright lights overhead highlighted the fact that the knuckles on Charon's hand were bloody and bruised and looked like she'd fought back against whoever did this to her. Given the condition she was in, maybe it hadn't done any good, given that she was still alive, maybe it had.