Han waited until they'd put a few thousand miles between them and that miserable excuse for a planet, but he knew he couldn't stall the bad news any longer. He hated emotional scenes, and he wished he could tell Gwynplaine what happened without her falling apart on him, but he wouldn't give much for those chances, for one she was female and for another she was still a kid, so he could easily foresee this being doubly bad. He left Chewbacca at the controls and escorted the girl to the lounge, and would've preferred to be anywhere else but where he was. She was looking at him and it annoyed him, it was like she was looking right through him, waiting.
"There's no easy way to say this," he told her, "during the sandstorm the Krull crashed and there were no survivors. I don't know why they tried taking off but it wasn't that they didn't come back, it's that they died on impact."
He waited. And waited. He'd hoped to avoid an emotional scene, and somehow it looked like he'd gotten his wish. Gwynplaine didn't say anything, she didn't make any sound whatsoever. She just stood there, there was hardly even a glint of recognition in her eyes that she comprehended what he'd just said. The silence was even more unnerving, he'd expected some reaction, but there was nothing.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, she finally spoke. The words came slow, as if he was struggling to make sense of this. "So...now I have nothing. Now...I really am alone...why don't I feel surprised?"
He couldn't answer that, and he didn't try.
"Look..." his mind was scrambling to come up with some solution, anything, all he could offer was, "you can ride with us until we get this shipment dropped off, after that..." he couldn't even think after that, he had no idea what they were looking at, a breath escaped him with a sound like something deflating and said, "we'll figure something out. Did you ever hear anybody say anything about your family? Who they are, where they were, anything?"
Gwynplaine shook her head. "Nobody really talked to me...just at me."
Try as he might, Han couldn't fight down a question that was nagging at him, "And you actually wanted to go back with these people?"
She shrugged her shoulders, "I never knew anything else, if they left me, what would I do? Where would I go? I'd never had to think about it before. The last few days I've had to think about a lot."
The air felt thin, Han had to get out of there and back to the cockpit where he could think. "Get strapped in, if we're going to deliver our cargo on time, we're gonna have to go back through the asteroid field, and we'll be there soon."
It didn't really dawn on Han that he'd relayed everything he'd found out both from Mundo and Gwynplaine to Chewbacca during the flight. He actually was aware of his friend's replying comments, but he didn't actually put it together in connection with what he thought he was just mulling over to himself.
"Nothing about this makes any sense," he said for what was probably the 10th time, he was barely even aware he'd said it once so he definitely hadn't been keeping count. "Anybody who could sneak in here past both of us and stay hidden through the span of five planets, does not have something wrong in their head..." he sighed and added, "I can't dump her on some farming planet, she's too smart to be stuck there the rest of her life." His body slightly jerked as if a sudden chill ran through him, still remembering his conversation with Mundo. That guy clearly didn't think much of the doctor they'd pulled out of the wreckage, but after they talked, Han wouldn't bet money that the patrol agent was any better, just a different variety of scumball. He sighed again in frustration, "There's nowhere to dump her, I don't know anyone that can take her, and she sure as hell can't stay here."
He was getting another headache. It wasn't often he found himself questioning how he got stuck in a certain situation, most times he knew how it happened, though a lot of those times he tried to convince himself it was through no fault of his own even though a nagging voice in the back of his head, and a much louder wookiee howling at him, always said otherwise, but this one left him at odds looking for an answer. Any answer. Unfortunately none were coming to him. He was the kind of guy who could always figure a way out of a mess, but he was coming up empty on this one.
Gwynplaine moved back in her seat and grimaced at the food set out before her, "What's that?"
"Dinner," Han answered shortly. "You'll eat it, and you'll like it."
She made another face and responded, "I'll eat it, but I won't like it."
During the flight, all kinds of things had run through Han Solo's mind, about if he didn't find some way to get rid of this new passenger soon. The Falcon was usually stocked with two months' worth of food, merely having her aboard for whatever amount of time they did already cut into their supplies, and that was assuming nothing major happened. He wouldn't have had a problem if she was just going to be riding with them for a day, or two, but that didn't look too likely now. At any other time he would be only too happy to dump her the first time they docked somewhere, but knowing what he did, that was the one thing he couldn't do, and he hated it, and hated himself for it. He told himself he was not getting involved in something that wasn't his business, it just happened that as long as this kid was on his ship, she was a passenger, therefore, that made it his business, and that's all the more interest he had in it, finding some place to unload her...that didn't happen to involve farms or some shady back alley deal. That wasn't getting involved in something that didn't concern him, it was just common sense. He was a lot of things, but there were some things he wouldn't do.
He came out of his thoughts and watched Gwynplaine as she picked at the food, there was something strange about the whole thing as she broke it up into tiny pieces and put them in her mouth one by one instead of biting it, she hardly seemed to chew and constantly moved her hand over the corners of her mouth. He'd never seen anybody eat like that, but he was damned if he was going to ask any questions. All he wanted was to have this whole thing over with, deliver the weapons, get paid, find somebody who could take this kid off his hands, and get back to business as usual. He was a smuggler, not a babysitter.
Han heard Chewie grunt something and felt the wookiee jabbing him in the side with one of his fingers, it jolted him awake and he hadn't even realized he'd fallen asleep, he stammered half coherently "Who-wa-wa-wha...I can see where I'm going!" and jolted erect in his seat before his eyes even focused and he realized they'd already landed some time earlier.
They'd lost enough time running back and forth from one planet to the next that there was no way they were going to be able to drop off their cargo before the next day, and Han was too tired to try and prove otherwise, so they found a small moon to park on, where hopefully no one and nothing would bother them, least of all until they left.
It took a couple minutes for him to remember where they were, and while he tried to figure that out he yawned and asked Chewie, "Where's the kid?"
Chewbacca answered, and Han did a double take and turned in his seat to see Gwynplaine was asleep strapped in the seat behind his in the cockpit. He definitely didn't remember her being there before he fell asleep, and he was too tired to ask, but somewhere in the recesses of his mind he knew if she was strapped in they must've had a bumpy trip, and she must've fallen asleep before they actually touched down. He moaned quietly as he stood up and stretched his stiff legs, then stepped around to Gwynplaine's seat and shook her shoulder to wake her up, but she hardly even budged, it was only because she was breathing that he was even sure she was still alive.
"Hey kid," he tried again, "wake up."
The red haired girl moaned softly but wasn't roused.
"Hoo boy," he commented as he could easily see this being a barren source of amusement. He unstrapped her and pulled her to her feet and half walked, half pushed her out of the cockpit. The kid was practically a dead weight as he walked her back to the lounge and got her situated in one of the bunks. It was only then that she opened her eyes a slit and groggily asked, "Wha'happened?"
"Go to sleep," he told her.
She closed her eyes, then turned on one side, then her eyes opened again and she asked him, a little more coherently, "Whose bed is this?"
"Nobody's, go to sleep," he repeated.
Gwynplaine did as she was told, her eyes closed again and she rolled onto her back. Han turned to go, then he saw something and turned back to get a better look.
The angle of the light must've just been right because he'd been looking at the kid all day and hadn't noticed anything. Now he could see it, just barely, two pale lines that started at the corners of her mouth and worked their way back, curling up towards her cheeks. Scars. Old scars. Not like anything he'd ever seen before, but then again what did that prove? It could've been anything, it could've been from a rocket sled accident when she was little, those kinds of childhood injuries happened all the time.
He'd already forgotten about it by the time he returned to the room where their bunks were kept and promptly fell face first on his. He'd come across a lot of obstacles in his line of work, but he'd never had a problem like this. Two actually, first thing first he still had to get this shipment delivered and get the money he still owed Jabba for dumping his load, then he had to figure out what to do with that kid. Either of these on their own he could handle no problem, but both at the same time, just thinking about it was giving him another headache. There had to be an easier way for a smuggler to make a living, and this thought streamed through his head, as someone who had nearly gotten killed more times than he could remember. Right now he wished he was back in any one of those situations instead of the current one he was stuck in.
