Han was gone all night and finally staggered into the sick bay early in the morning when the sun was coming up. Chewie had been vigilant all night and grunted in concern when he saw his friend, who looked like death personified. Whatever had happened last night, it had been bad.

"Chewie," Han Solo looked like he could hardly even drag himself along, but something drove him on as he made his way over to his friend, "Did she wake up yet?"

Chewbacca shook his head and snorted in answer, and added an inquiring grunt.

"Don't worry about me, I'm fine," Han answered.

Chewie didn't sound convinced.

"Yes I'm sure...it's over..."

The Corellian looked like he was about to collapse entirely, but he managed to stagger over to the side of bed and leaned over Charon, murmuring her name as he cupped her battered face in his hands as he kissed her on the forehead, then on the lips, something else that struck Chewbacca as odd since in all the years he'd known these two, all the times they crossed paths, he'd never seen them do.

Charon's mouth slightly dropped open as her eyes flickered, just barely opening as she looked up and murmured dazedly, "Han?"

"Well it's not Chewie," Han Solo answered, trying to sound like his usual cynical self but coming up hollow. "How're you feeling, Charon?"

Her eyes were open wider now but she didn't appear to be quite all there. She looked around the room and blinked several times to adjust to the light, "I don't know...still kind of numb..."

Han went around to the foot of the bed and grabbed the sheet where it was tucked in and pulled it up enough to show her feet.

"Can you feel this?" he asked as he ran the tip of his finger up the sole of her foot.

"Kind of," she groggily answered.

He tried with her other foot, "How about this?"

Her response was to kick him as she muttered, "Stop tickling me."

"She's feeling better," Han told Chewbacca.

Charon tiredly groaned and grumbled as she pulled herself to sit up in the bed. "Find out who took my clothes, I want to get out of here."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Han asked.

"I don't care if it's a good idea, I'm not staying here any longer than I have to," she replied.

Charon had just pushed her sheet back to try and stand up when a man in a medic's uniform entered the room, Charon pulled the sheet back up to her chest at record speed. "Who the hell are you?"

"I'm the doctor," he said simply.

"I don't need a doctor, I was already treated last night," she said. "I'd like my clothes so I can leave."

"I wouldn't advise leaving just yet. The pain blocker you were given has a long half life, in its final hours its effects can come and go and it wouldn't be unusual if you suddenly found yourself somewhere without the ability to move your lower body."

"I can't worry about that," Charon told him, "I have to get back to my ship, I can take it easy there."

"I'm going to need to do a followup exam before I can allow that," the doctor told her.

Chewbacca was picking up on the hostility in the room and he was ready to rip the doctor's arms out if need be, but while he waited to see if it actually came to that he saw Han subtly move to Charon's side and situated himself, absently grabbing her arm and draping his other hand over her shoulder, so the doctor would have to go through him to get to her if need be.

Charon was willing to cooperate, to a point. "Then I want the droids," she said, "they treated me last night."

"There will be some to assist with the examination but I'll need you to come with me," the doctor said.

"Where?" Charon asked.

"Exam room #8, it'll be more...private there."

Charon slowly moved to get up but it was obvious she hadn't fully recovered from the painkillers. Han grabbed her on one side and Chewie reached across the bed and grabbed Charon under the armpit on the other side and they got her to her feet, her first steps were wobbly but once she adjusted to being up, she found her equilibrium and was able to walk out of the room and follow the doctor down the hall, with the smuggler and the wookiee following behind her.

The door to the exam room opened and the doctor turned and stared at Han and Chewbacca and said, subtly trying to send a hint, "Patients are generally alone for this part."

"I am alone," Charon replied and gestured to the two men behind her, "These are my shadows."

"Understood, but most people would prefer privacy during these procedures," the doctor retorted.

"I have no secrets from these people," Charon pointed to Han and Chewie, "anything you have to say to me you can say in front of them, and anything I've got, they've already seen before, and then some."

Charon stepped into the middle of the room and took off her robe. Han turned his head and looked like he was unable to stomach what he saw, Chewbacca roared at the sight of the bruises that ran up and down her body, some covering whole sections of her flesh. Charon maintained a stoic expression as her injuries were measured and scanned by droids, who ran the data against the previous records from the night before. She appeared bored as she answered the doctor's questions, explaining she'd been given a dozen drugs the night before to ensue she didn't contract anything, infection or otherwise. She forced the exam to an abrupt end by making it clear she didn't care about any lingering effects from the pain blockers, any side effects from the pills, no followup exams, all she wanted was to get her clothes and get the hell out of here.

Han felt himself reeling as he and Chewbacca stood in the corridor after they'd left the room so Charon could get dressed in private.

"Chewie, I need you to do me a favor," he told the wookiee. "I'm going to take Charon back to the Falcon and I need you to hang back for a while."

Chewbacca chattered curiously and Han explained, "Believe me, buddy, as it is she isn't even going to want me around...it'd be easier if you weren't there for a while."

Chewie grunted in answer. Han told the furry beast, "Thanks for all your help, you have no idea how much I appreciate it." The word didn't seem to fit, there wasn't anything that could be 'appreciated' about this whole situation. The worst feeling about it all was that this wasn't entirely new, he and Charon had been through this before already, or close anyway.

They'd been together for a few months and were still perfecting the dual tricks of their trades to live off of. Han ran fixed card games to scam people out of their money, and if anybody got wise to his tricks, Charon came up, acting like he'd ripped her off, slapped him around a bit and when no one was looking, helped herself to the money in the pockets of his other marks who walked away satisfied the little bastard was getting what he deserved.

As it was they were currently down to their last 20 credits and not having any real foresight to consider they'd need to eat the next day or the day after that, were looking for something to do to break up the monotony of their everyday life and something fun to do. Seeking out easy targets to fleece of their pocket credits might not seem like much, but it could be tiring work. That night they hit on a break and found a village square that was setting up shop for a free festival, live music, street performers, a huge assorted crowd had turned out for the event and it looked like the perfect place to blend in with everybody else. Or so they thought anyway.

They'd been making their way through the crowd to get to the forefront of the main event, but the show had already started, and something had happened with the people in the front of the crowd and a fight had broken out. As was the universal nature, what probably started out as just being a scuffle between two people, suddenly snowballed into a mob brawl and got more and more of the surrounding onlookers involved, and it became an all out riot. If they'd gotten there in time to see it all begin, they might've jumped into the fray and taken sides, or better, opened bank on who would win, but by the time they realized what was happening, there were too many people involved and it was impossible to tell who was where or who was fighting with whom. It had become a bloodthirsty mob in a matter of minutes, and like a fire sapping up all available oxygen, it just kept spreading to engulf everyone who was present. It was like watching a swarm of locusts fly in and devour everything in sight, and the two young lovers quickly realized they would get caught up in it next if they didn't distance themselves from the insanity quickly.

They turned and ran but heard the screaming mob behind them, they took off in different directions figuring they'd have a better chance of escaping, but they both got caught in the middle of it. Han was knocked to the ground by five guys who were fighting with each other falling back against him, their weight pinned him down and he couldn't move, could only scream at their combined weight crushing him, Charon felt something grab her by the shoulders and screamed as she felt herself pulled down into a pile of bodies.

When Han woke up the next morning, his senses were assaulted by the odors of stale smoke, burnt wood, grass, and, he retched, flesh. The sun was coming up but it was so hazy from everything that had been set on fire overnight, the sky was full of a dark fog. The side of Han's head was killing him and he felt like he was going to throw up. He didn't remember much from last night, but the eerie quiet of the morning made him wonder just how long he'd been asleep. He rolled over on his stomach to push himself to his feet, and slowly looked around.

Obviously anybody who was physically able to had left long ago. The field was littered with a few bodies of injured and dead people who had been trampled or beaten to death in the madness last night.

"Charon?" Han looked around, none of the bodies looked familiar to him, but where was Charon? He stood up, or tried, but his leg went out from under him, he had to try again. His equilibrium was shoddy but he muddled along, looking every which way for any sign of Charon. She wouldn't have just left with that crowd...but what if she didn't have a choice?

"Charon?"

The sound of somebody moaning both terrified him and gave him hope. He followed the sounds and came to a clearing and collapsed alongside Charon, who was covered in blood, if it was her own he had no idea, and her clothes had been all but ripped clear off of her body. She moaned and groaned with every inch she moved as she tried to get up and was in much obvious pain.

"Charon, what happened?"

"I..." she shivered and stuttered as she gripped her hands over her arms tightly as she tried to answer, "I...d-don't, know...I d-don't remember..."

Han helped her to her feet and she groaned with every step she took. Something had happened but neither could remember what.

"Come on," Han said. "There's a med bay nearby."

That was part of the problem. By the time they got there they were stuck behind a whole bunch of people who had apparently wandered in after the riot last night. A lot of people were standing around waiting to be examined and treated, a lot of them all chattering at once. As they tried to push their way somewhere remotely near the front, several people turned around and all collectively started yelling at them and blaming them for the events that had taken place last night.

"Those damn Corellians are all the same, they shouldn't even count as people."

"Nothing like this ever happened until they started coming around."

"That's what they always do, they come to the good side of a planet and make life a living hell for everyone else."

"Thieves and pirates, that's all they are."

"It ought to be legal to just kill them."

It wasn't anything new to Han, he'd heard people the galaxy over say the same crap everywhere he went all his life. He'd come to expect it, for him anyway, because he actually was a Corellian. But he resented it for Charon, her guilt was only by association, people saw her with him and automatically decided she was one too. It never ceased to amaze him how people liked everything else that could be imported from Corellia, the ships, the liquor, that stuff was fine, everybody wanted them, but the people from the same planet suddenly became substandard garbage everyone hated and blamed for all the galaxy's problems. It also never ceased to confuse him how people could just seem to look at him and know where he came from, he looked like most of the other humans on any planet, but somehow they always knew he was a Corellian, and used that to condemn him before they knew anything about him. For that reason he decided they deserved to lose their money, because no matter what they said, most were still gullible enough to think they could beat him at his own rigged games.

He would've liked nothing more than to kill the whole lot of them and show them what a Corellian could really do when his blood boiled, but he knew if he did anything, they'd get thrown out and they needed the medics to examine Charon and find out how bad it was, as it was she was in so much pain already she was about doubled over. So he braced himself against the wall and had her lean against him for support, and they waited, for what seemed like hours, hearing the nonstop half whispering chatter about 'damn Corellian trash'.

"Han."

"Yeah?"

Charon turned to him and asked, "When I go in the exam room, will you wait outside?"

"I'll be in there as soon as the door opens," he told her.

The time finally came when they were moved along towards the back to get looked at. Along the way they looked in open doorways and saw several people being examined and treated by med droids. They were taken to a room in the back and were both essentially thrown in before the door closed. There were six exam tables in the room with no partitions between them for privacy. Human medics were working here, one of them shoved Han over to one table on one side of the room and Charon was marched over to another table on the other side of the room in full view of Han and told to take her clothes off. They shared a confused look, the medic examining Han berated him for not getting undressed fast enough. The medic tending to Charon asked a bunch of stupid questions, most of which didn't have anything to do with her injuries, but indicated that she'd done something to deserve them by instigating the riot last night. Charon got fed up with the thinly veiled accusations, and said, apprehensively, "I want a droid medic."

"They're all currently in use for other patients," the man told her.

Han's ears burned as he listened to the conversation, he had a pretty good idea just what separated those 'other patients' who deserved competent droid medics, from them, who got the oh so fallible, incompetent, god complex human medics.

Charon didn't comply with the medic's orders quickly enough and he called in another human medic to assist him. Charon stood her ground and told them, "I changed my mind, I don't want the exam."

"It's too late, we've already started the procedure," the first medic told her firmly as the two of them grabbed her, tore off her clothes and forcefully pinned her down to the table. Charon screamed and struggled and tried to break loose.

Han slipped out of the grasp of the medic looking him over and yelled defensively as he charged at them and jumped on the back of one of the medics and punched the other one in the face. Charon jumped up from the table, grabbed the sheet covering it and wrapped it around herself as she assisted Han in the fight by picking up a metal tray, sending the glass vials flying everywhere, and using it to hit one of the men in the face and over the head, all the while screaming at the two men to leave her alone. The ruckus brought several people running to find out what was going on, and a compromise was finally reached that a female medic would be brought in to examine Charon. Not as good as a droid, but they agreed to it.

A woman medic was slightly better but not by much, privacy still proved an obsolete concept and Charon was examined in full view of Han who didn't want to look, tried not to look, but their conditions were so cramped there wasn't much where else to look while his medic determined he had a slight concussion and some minor cuts and bruises. When Charon's exam was completed, the medic determined her injuries were consistent from being kicked and stomped, but little else.

"Are you sure?" Han asked. He knew he should feel some sense of relief and he guessed he did, but it didn't make him feel any better to know this was still deliberate, and he asked if it was possible she'd been trampled when the crowd knocked them down.

The medic was insistent, "The wound marks would make a different pattern and be less concise, these are clear enough to determine this was carried out by a few people, with precision."

Han and Charon exchanged a look, somehow feeling they shouldn't be too surprised. Charon asked for a pain blocker since they didn't have a speeder and would have to walk. The medic administered a mild muscle relaxant which actually did very little to ease her pain and they were promptly discharged. Charon collected her clothes but it was impossible to wear them again, the medics had torn them to shreds.

So now the two young lovers found themselves with a new dilemma, yesterday they were credit poor, today they were flat broke, hungry, had nowhere to go, and no clothes. They'd last about two seconds out on the street before Authorities stopped Charon for public lewdness. She draped the sheet around her like a cloak and asked Han as they left the exam room, "So, now what do we do?"

"I don't know, let me think," he wracked his brain for an idea, and one came to him, "I've got it, I've got it!"

"Well don't give it to me, I can't afford to get sick," Charon told him.

"Come on, I know right where to go," he told her.

They headed down to the med bay's incinerator where droids sorted through medical waste and discarded belongings from deceased patients to burn. They came across a heap of laundry that hadn't been touched yet and sifted through it looking for something that would fit Charon. She didn't look like much but she was actually a hard fit, she had broad shoulders and a back to accommodate them and her hips looked like they had been put on backwards, an actual physical trait among some races of people Han had known, somehow it made the female members even more alluring than it sounded.

Han pulled a long sleeveless white tunic out of the pile and held it up to himself. It'd fit him, he wouldn't be caught dead in it, but it'd fit, he handed it over to Charon and told her, "Try this."

She slipped it on and the fabric came down about to her knees.

"Obviously for someone taller," she said, but until they found something else she wasn't in a hurry to take it off. She looked at him, "Han?"

"Hm?"

"Would it have made a difference?"

He looked at her, able to pick up on what she wasn't asking.

"Yeah, it would," he answered, "I'd have to figure out who to track down and kill."

"That's not what I mean and you know it," she replied. "Would it have mattered?"

He looked her in the eyes for a minute before he took a step forward, closed the gap between them, clamped his hands on her shoulders, and kissed her.

"Does that answer your question?" he asked when they finally pulled away.

She nodded slightly and went back to rummaging through the clothes.

Han grabbed what he thought was a sleeve and instead pulled out a pair of black pants.

"Might be a little long but try these."

Charon took them and asked as she stepped into them, "See any boots?"

"Uh, yeah, but no two alike...who only loses one?" Han asked.

Charon reached in the pile and pulled out a set of white insulated overalls, the kind people wore so they didn't get burned by flying sparks, or for that matter, bitten by dinkos. She stepped into them and adjusted the straps, a little large but otherwise a perfect fit. "We seem to be getting closer."

Han rummaged through another pile and found a jacket that looked brand new and was just his size. He tried it on, it fit like a glove and he was taking it.

Charon found a couple undershirts and traded one for the tunic she had on. They finally found a pair of white boots in her size, and managed to scrounge up a couple more changes of clothes each.

"Talk about luck," Han commented.

Something occurred to Charon and she said, "Han? ...why are so many people our size dying in this med bay?"

Han slowly turned his head as this thought just registered for him, and he looked around at the piles of clothes and the floor they were on as if he expected an actual plague to come crawling out grabbing for them.

"I don't know," he said suspiciously, "but I think we're getting the hell out of here just in time."

They hurried out of the incinerator room and rushed out of the medic bay.

"Well, we took care of one problem," Charon said, "now we have to figure out where to go, and what to do for food and money."

Han absently scratched at the seam in his new jacket and he looked at Charon and asked her, "How're you doing?"

She looked at him and answered, "I'm fine." She crinkled her eyes and asked him, "What's wrong with you?"

"The seam in this jacket's bugging me," he said and opened it up to take a look. "Hello!"

"What is it?" Charon asked.

"A hidden fastener," Han unzipped it and found something inside, and he laughed victoriously, "30 credits, good thing we found this before the droids torched it."

"Great, now we can eat," Charon replied, "but where do we go?"

"Someplace we're appreciated," he answered self assuredly.

"Where's that?" she asked.

"Hell if I know," he answered in a more grounded tone, "but there's got to be someplace in this galaxy that doesn't treat Corellians like the scum of the universe."