The flight had passed mostly in silence, the hyperdrive had made excellent time getting them halfway across the galaxy and away from Alavak, nobody had said a word for the longest time. Han kept his mind on piloting his ship, kept his eyes glued to the dark vastness of space straight ahead, anytime he checked the monitors he moved only his eyes, his head remained staring straight ahead.

Finally it was Gwynplaine who broke the silence by asking in a voice weathered and about broken, "Why did we have to go to that planet and see those horrible people?"

He blinked. His eyes burnt like he'd been up for days. He remained as he was, staring straight ahead, so he didn't have to look her in the eyes, all he was willing to say was a nonchalant, "It was a mistake."

Gwynplaine sat down in the seat beside his to look over at him and she asked him point blank but not accusingly, "Were you going to leave me there?"

Finally he turned and looked at her. He looked her dead in the eyes, and said with more conviction than he'd ever put into any lie, "No...of course not. Don't be stupid."

That was the whole of their conversation. Gwynplaine got up and left the cockpit, Chewie, who'd been standing by the doorway, took his rightful seat alongside Han.

"Don't say it," he warned the wookiee, looking around at all the monitors to avoid having to actually focus on the discussion.

Chewbacca grunted and chattered.

"Alright, alright, I was an idiot, okay?" Han turned and leered at his friend through one eye. "There's no way I could've known it would've gone that badly, or I wouldn't have done it."

He actually found himself at a loss for words for a moment. Whatever would've come out of him, his brain in that moment didn't seem able to process.

"Deno confirmed it...she was the rightful heir and they had that doctor butcher her and sold her to the gypsies to cover it up," Han explained.

He sat in silence for a moment as the whole thing rushed back to him. He'd heard and witnessed a lot of inexplicable things in his life, but this one took the crown.

"We spent all this time trying to figure out what to do with her, where to put her, turns out not only does she have an actual family still alive, it's a royal family..." He looked at Chewbacca through the corner of his eye, then turned his head to actually see the wookiee as he pointed out, "She's a duchess, she has this whole birthright at her fingertips, and they were ready to kill her as soon as they realized who she was. That..." the word stuck in his throat as he remembered the Grand Duchess screaming for Gwynplaine's execution, "Her own mother, that's just rich," he cynically grumbled, "That's just terrific...kill her own kid so they don't have to face what they did. That's just-" the Corellian expletive was drowned out by the sound of the smuggler actually banging his head against the control board, not even seeming to be aware that he'd done it as he sat up straight in his seat again, "perfect...ouch."


Han opened his eyes and shot up in his seat and only then realized he'd fallen asleep at the controls. He didn't know how long he'd been asleep, but as his mind cleared, an idea suddenly came to him. He checked their current location and felt like things were starting to fall into place.

Chewbacca entered the cockpit and Han inquired, "Where's the kid?"

The wookiee responded, and Han seemed pleased with the answer.

"I've got an idea, we're not that far from Flurm," Han started to say.

Chewie broke in with a comment of his own.

"No I'm not going to try pawning her off on that nurse, I've got a better idea. And I just know that come tomorrow I'm going to hate myself for it."


"What're we doing at the sick bay?" Gwynplaine asked the next day when she saw where Solo had landed the ship.

"After crashing that gate yesterday, we need to get checked out for any internal injuries," Han answered. "It's all routine, we'll be in and out quick."

"Oh-kay," she replied uncertainly, "If you say so."

"You ever been examined before?" Han asked her.

Gwynplaine shook her head.

"Well I'll go first just to show you there's nothing to it."


Gwynplaine lay unconscious on the medical table in the treatment room.

"You certainly have one hell of a way of making an appearance after two years, you know that, Solo?" the nurse asked Han as she glanced over the medical droids to make sure everything was status quo.

"I try," he replied. "So what'd you find?"

One of the droids beeped and chirped, the nurse hit it in the back of its head to get the readout.

"Magnifications are set at 50 plus," the nurse said as she gazed into the droid's optic scan, "You were right, two improperly healed incisions."

"You can fix that, right?" Han asked.

"Oh sure," the blonde woman said as she pulled back, "it's a common procedure."

"Really?" Han blinked.

"Well yeah, we get people who were in all kinds of accidents when they were younger, of course back then the tools to correct it weren't quite as advanced as they are now, so a lot of them didn't heal right," she explained.

"How long will it take?" he wanted to know.

"Oh the surgery's quick and minimally intrusive...but it will cost you."

"How much?" he grunted.

"How much you got?" she shot back knowingly.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, Han went with a seldom used approach, the truth, "I have 1,200 credits."

"For you," the nurse told him, "we can do it for 800."

"You're all heart, Zuri," Han sarcastically replied. "When can you start?"

"Now."


Han and Chewbacca stood outside the surgical bay and peered in through the window as the doctor started to work on Gwynplaine.

The wookiee made that whining but not whining sound and sounded sympathetic.

Han managed a grim smile and tried to downplay it, "It's alright, Chewie, it's not the first time I've been broke and it won't be the last time I've been broke, that's just the way this work goes sometimes, we both know that...I'll hold Jabba off for a while longer, and in the meantime we'll keep our ears open for anybody else looking for a big haul, something will come along, people always need something smuggled."

Chewbacca's next comment sparked a small but more genuine smile as Han resisted the urge to laugh.

He turned his head enough to look at the wookiee and told him, "You're a great friend, Chewie, and I appreciate you sticking around through all this insanity. Anybody else would've jumped ship a long time ago." Or, the other side of it was, if it had been anybody else, the two of them probably would've killed each other long before now, but if that thought hadn't crossed Chewbacca's mind yet, Han didn't want him getting any ideas now.

The sound of someone knocking on glass got his attention. Turning to the window again, Han saw the nurse standing on the other side in front of him, she rapped on the glass and signaled that the surgery had been a success. Han let out a sigh of relief he hadn't even felt building in him.

The doors to the surgical bay slid open and the nurse exited. "I told you, quick, minimally invasive."

"Great, how long until she wakes up?" Han asked.

"Not too long," Zuri answered.

"Any chance she'll remember this?" he wanted to know.

"Not at all," she told him.

"Any after-effects we need to know about?" he asked.

She shook her head, "Not at all, she's as good as new now."

Han sighed and shook his head in disbelief. 800 credits, 10 minutes, and that kid's whole life would've been different, instead of taking her whole life to become 'as good as new'.


Gwynplaine felt her heart starting to race in her chest despite her even timed breaths. It slowly dawned on her that she was asleep, with slight difficulty she got her eyes to open and saw Han Solo and Chewbacca standing over her, and slowly she came to the realization she was on the medical table.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"You fell asleep during the exam," Han told her.

A large yawn escaped her as her eyes tried to close again, "I'm sorry."

"Come on, get up."

Before her eyes were open, she felt a set of hands on her and felt herself being pulled up so she could slip off the table.

"Did they find anything?" she asked as she inched her way off and felt her feet land on the floor, then got her eyes to open again and stay open this time.

"Nope, everything's clear," Han answered, "let's get out of here."

"I thought you'd never ask," she said groggily but cynically.