Han's mouth curled into a wry expression and one eye squinted as the taste and texture of the cold dessert he'd just put in his mouth registered with his taste buds. He looked back at the sign offering frozen cultured cream, then turned to Charon, who had just put a spoonful in her mouth.

"What do you think?" he asked.

Charon's eyes popped as it hit her. The look on her face was a more uncertain expression as she said, not yet able to swallow it, "Well, it beats starving...also beats womp rat meat, though I guess that's not saying much."

It was hard to argue with that logic. They had a few extra credits than usual with him running his card games and they'd decided to take in the sights and smells of a small street festival. So many vendors offering so many foods from across the galaxy and so little time and money to try them out, so it had been very pick and choose.

Han scoped out the crowd as they made their way through, some of these people would be great marks for a card game, the trick would be getting them alone somewhere where he could work his magic.

He heard Charon inhaling like a congested wookiee and she asked him, "Do you smell that?"

"Hm?" he sniffed, and was hit by a particularly sweet aroma. He didn't have any idea what it was but it was making his mouth water. He followed the scent to a booth several spots down and they saw it was loaded with large, strange looking pastries.

"What's that?" he asked the vendor.

"Fried wookiee paws."

They both made a face.

"I hope that's just a name," he said.

Charon gave the man two credits for one, picked it up and pulled it apart.

"Fried dough and sugar icing," she concluded as she handed half of it to him.

Han shrugged and took a bite. His eyes doubled.

"Whoa," he said as he felt his brain's reward system light up like an electrical storm.

It would be very easy for him to inhale the rest of it in a few bites, but he reminded himself tonight was the only night they'd actually get to enjoy this stuff, and they still had a whole night ahead of them so they had to at least try and save their credits, or rather just prolong spending them. He looked over at Charon and saw she was tearing hers up into pieces, but she was still going to swallow hers whole just as quickly as he was.

"You know," she said as they walked along through the night crowd, "I wouldn't mind learning how to cook, of course to do that you need a stove, and a cooler, and food, and oh yeah, a home to actually keep it all in."

Han snorted in response. "When I get my ship, we'll have all of that."

Charon shook her head in amusement, "Cowboy, you know I love you, and I have total faith in you, but I've got a sneaking suspicion that we're both going to die from old age before you ever get that ship."

"I'll get it," Han insisted.

"Gonna have to be a good trick," she replied, "we got nothing to fall back on and most days our money barely keeps us in food."

"So it's a slow start," Han remarked defensively, "all I need is one big break, and I'll get it, somehow, somewhere, I will get it, and then we will be set."

"Hope dies last," Charon commented.

He squinted one eye at her. "What's that supposed to mean?"

She shrugged, "I don't know, it's just something people say on my planet. Seems appropriate though."

The wookiee paw was gone before their conversation even ended. Han looked at the lights and the people and felt disconnected to it all for a moment, like he was in a dark room watching a holofilm. It was true in all the time they'd been together, any attempts to actually build any money up were always dashed shortly afterwards, if it wasn't one thing, it was another: food and shelter usually took top priorities, also the cost of two blasters, an occasional item of clothing when one had been worn completely to shreds, hygienic supplies, a few bottles of brandy, the occasional batch of contraceptives, it all added up, sometimes quicker than they could scrape their money together. If the Corellian had a practical mind in his skull, they'd go back to the room they were renting and save the rest of their money, actually have something for later.

He looked around at all the other life forms who were also out tonight, enjoying themselves, and he knew unlike the two of them, most of those could actually afford it. This was just a casual night out for most life forms, an annual tradition, something to look forward to but in the grand scheme of things no big deal.

Han turned and glanced at Charon. They'd spent weeks running their scams, avoiding the local authorities, trying to find a place to live that didn't charge by the hour, this was the first night in a long time that they actually got to unwind, blend in with the crowd and act like they belonged there just as much as everyone else.

"So, what do you want to do now?" he asked.

"How much money do we still have?" she asked.

They'd actually taken in a pretty good credit roll that day. Han had set up a card game and lured in several unsuspecting marks, and one shill. After a few games where Han pocketed small amounts from his victims, Charon had come up and they played their perfected act of never having seen one another before. Charon then proceeded to beat him three times in a row, taking him for all the money he'd hustled off everyone else, to which Han had commented cynically, "Madam, by any chance are you a Hutt?" Charon pocketed the money and walked away, half an hour later Han caught up with her with another stash of credits, and when they'd come upon the festival, they'd decided to enjoy themselves.

He smirked at her, and borrowing a cue from Lando though he would die before admitting it, took her hand in his and leaned down to kiss it.

"Got enough for whatever you want to do," he said. Tonight they'd only focus on tonight, there would always be another tomorrow to start over again.

They walked along looking for the next thing to spend their money on. So many sights and sounds and colors and lights and aromas, it was a dizzying experience.

"Hold up," Han said as they came to a sudden stop, "What the hell is that?"

They stared ahead at a very bizarre looking ride up on a square platform that consisted of multiple silver colored ball shaped cars that rolled around the platform with the riders being turned upside down in them.

"Looks like a weird game of some kind," Charon commented. "What do you think?"

Han looked at it and had no idea what to make of it. The only thing he could actually think to say was, "Well...it's fairly ground level...should be safe, right?"

Charon reached to her pocket, "How much do you think admission is?"


The two young lovers were crammed together in the silver ball car, already naturally pressed tight against one another due to the confines of the ride's architecture, and pressed even tighter against one another as they screamed at the top of their lungs and held onto each other for dear life as the car not only rolled forward across the platform but also tilted to the side and spun on its axis, plunging them in every conceivable direction an orb could turn as they just narrowly avoided colliding with every other car on the platform.

Han wasn't even aware where he was getting the breath from to continually scream, he was only aware of the fact that the whole time they spun around in a car that contained no controls and barely even possessed any safety features, his mouth never closed and the sounds of terror coming directly from him never ceased even though he felt like he wasn't getting any air in him. He also wasn't aware when he closed his eyes, but after a while it felt like he couldn't open them again, and it wasn't until the car finally came to a stop, and they were rolled upright again and he realized they were still alive, that he discovered just why it was almost physically impossible to open his eyes to their normal size again. He realized the blinding pain pressing against his skull was a set of knuckles digging into his scalp.

"Charon!" he said through gritted teeth, his whole face a mask of pain as he was just barely able to squeeze his eyes open enough into tiny slits, "Let go of my hair!"

They'd been knocked into and against each other so much during the ride he couldn't be sure whose hands were whose until they finally stopped moving and could actually pull away from one another, except they still couldn't. He felt one of Charon's fists still clamped around a large chunk of his hair, her other hand had the collar of his vest in a death grip.

He could barely see anything because she was still gripping his hair tight enough to practically snap his head back, but he was able to see part of the problem was Charon also had had her eyes squeezed shut during the ride. He saw her left eye slowly inch its way open.

"Are we dead?" she asked.

Han tried to shake his head but it was too painful to attempt. "No."

Finally, finally!, he heaved a sigh of relief as she let go of his hair and he was able to open his eyes fully and turn his head to the side. Both of them sighed in relief as they were able to actually move their bodies in the confine of the ride.

"I think that was the scariest thing I've ever lived through," Charon said.

Han listened to the wheezing sounds of his own breathing as he waited for his heart to stop racing and responded, "Definitely the scariest thing I've ever done on the ground."

Charon sat beside him for a moment in a silent pause before she asked him, "Do we have enough to go again?"

"Sure," Han nodded and reached into his vest for the credits to pay another admission.