Naluma climbed out of the pool, dripping water everywhere. She snatched her towel but didn't dry off as she padded across the deck to the stairs to their private terrace.

Luke stood there, leaning against the balustrade and staring at the lake as the sun set behind it. In the dusk, fireflies danced by the waters. His sandals had left footprints across the marble, but his trunks were still dry. Only other thing that was wet were his hairy calves that he had paddled from the side of the pool a few minutes ago.

"Luke!"

He sighed. "Leave it, Naluma. I'm done." He didn't even turn his head.

She strutted across the terrace. "You can't even take a joke."

"You call that a joke?" He motioned his arm in the air. "Humiliating me in front of the other guests? Teasing me because I can't swim? What are they going to think about me?" He stared her down, his hands on his hips.

"They don't even know who you are, Luke, so don't spare a thought for the precious reputation of Grand Jedi Master Luke Skywalker."

She felt his eyes on her, running his eyes across her slim, muscled body, the aqua-and-yellow bikini leaving little to the imagination. "Traipsing around in your underwear for every guy to get his jollies?"

"I didn't wear this for them." Her tone softened.

"Don't lie. You were enjoying their reaction." His face hardened. "I could sense it through the Force, Naluma."

She stepped closer to him, invading his personal space, close enough that their Force-auras touched. "You think I do it for strange men to ogle me?" She grabbed his hands and intertwined her fingers. "Luke, I did it for you."

"If you actually had any idea of how it made me feel—"

She climbed on top of the railing and pulled his arms to her waist. "Then tell me. Show me."

"I—I—" He averted his crimson cheeks.

"Look at me, Luke. Eye to eye ... if you have the guts."

With a fire in his eye, he bored into hers. "I have a burning sensation deep in my center when I see you like this, Naluma, and it takes every milligram of self-control I can muster to keep myself from taking you right here, right now."

She leaned in and whispered in his ear, "Then take me ... here ... now." A wry smile graced her lips as the sounds from the pool carried over to them. Something about feeling the Force in the flora around them excited her.

Luke shook off her hands and stepped backward, but the railing stopped him like an ice storm on Hoth. "No." He crossed his arms but did not break his eye contact. "We've talked about this, Naluma. I cannot violate my vows to the Jedi Order—"

"You're full of Bantha poodoo, Luke, and you know it. Our vows said nothing about chastity."

"You think I could be intimate with you and not become so attached that I would sacrifice everything for you?" His blue eyes glistened.

"Can't you see that love makes us stronger Luke? Not weaker."

"I'm not rejecting you, Naluma. I'm protecting you. We would lose our entire being if we sacrificed the Order for ourselves."

"From where I sit, it sure looks like rejection. Every other man in that pool was ready to pull off my bikini, but not you. No, you ran away like a little boy, afraid of the bigger kids laughing at you." Her eyebrows stitched together. "Do you know how that makes me feel, Luke? It makes me think you can't bear to look at me—that I'm distasteful?"

"You know that's not true, Luma."

"Don't call me that. Either we are just colleagues and it is Naluma or Jedi Fau, or ..."

"Or what?"

"We acknowledge this Force-bond that is tying us both together, intertwining our souls, and give in to the compulsion to become one—" Naluma traced her hands down his jawline, the rough stubble prickling her fingertips. "One flesh, one soul, one spirit."

But Luke groaned in frustration. "I can't."

"You mean you won't."

He hesitated once more, this time longer before finally asking, "What if you get pregnant?"

Naluma spread her legs and pulled him between them as she ran her hands down his muscled back. "I want your child, Luke. I want to be a mother. I want to be your wife."

She clutched his glutes and drew him even closer. "I want to feel you inside me, uniting with me. Moving together. Becoming one. Bringing a life into the galaxy of you and me."

She walked her fingers up his chest and stopped at his lips, pulling down the lower one with her thumb. "You'll be a great father, Luke. You're so patient and compassionate, and yet you have this quiet reserve and backbone that sends chills up my spine."

"And what am I supposed to do when we get back to the academy? Sneak across campus at night to your quarters? You don't think the Padawan will hear us?"

She put her finger to his lips. "I'd live in your quarters."

"But a baby? Would it be fair to him ... or her? I'm never home. It would be worse than what Ben gets from his parents—they're always gone and he's stuck being raised by Threepio. Is that what you want for our child?"

"I'd be there for him."

"But we fight all the time."

"We only fight about this, Luke."

"And about the Order interfering with our quality time."

"Maybe I like to fight. Gets my blood pumping." She leaned toward his mouth. "Especially when we're fighting." She pressed her lips to his with a hunger she had never felt before.

Luke shied away once more. "You don't understand. You never will. You're only thinking about yourself right now, Naluma. What about the Order? We're both Jedi. We're both committed to it. Nothing else can come in the way." He turned and started for the slider to their suite.

Naluma hopped off the safety rail. "Luke, you're full of it."

He turned before he entered the room.

"You like to play the martyr. You pretend it's about your commitment to the Order, but you forgot one thing, Luke Skywalker. I can see the Force-tendrils around us. And your fear is overwhelming you." She crossed one step. "What do you fear, Luke? Me?"

"I—I can't tell you."

"Is it because you're still a virgin? Are you afraid you can't satisfy me?"

"This conversation is over." He stepped over the threshold into the darkened room with Naluma on his heels.

"That's it, isn't it?"

With his face away from her, he admitted in hushed breath, "Yes."

"You honestly think that uniting with me would be anything like I experienced with the molesters from my past? Luke, I never wanted to be with them. I fought against them every single moment, until I realized they just got off on it more."

"Did you dress like that and lead them on, too?" He motioned toward her dripping swimsuit. "Was it just like today in the shop? Showing yourself off, teasing them, and then running away?"

"How dare you!" She slapped his cheek, leaving red streaks where her fingers hit. "I was in the military, in utilitarian uniforms every single day. Those men didn't even get so much as a glance when I used the refresher."

"Then why do you think I want to see you showing off your privates—"

"My privates? They're covered, Luke. Open your eyes to everyone else here on Naboo. Those ladies have almost nothing on—barely a string holding teeny-tiny patches of fabric together." She smiled wryly as she pushed him onto the bed. "Or were you looking beyond the suit, Luke?"

He spluttered. "That's impossible. The Force doesn't give you X-ray vision."

She leaned over him and used the Force to propel herself on top of him. "Did you use the Force inappropriately, Grand Jedi Master Skywalker?" She ran her fingers through his hair and twisted a lock by his ear before leaning to his mouth and grazing his lips. "I can play naughty, too."

With a flick of her wrist, she plastered his arms to the bed, his hands on either side of his head. "Too bad I didn't bring the stun cuffs." She chuckled.

"Naluma, get off me, please."

"Why should I?"

"Because I asked."

She ran her mouth up his neck. "And how about all the times I asked for this, Luke?"

"Please, don't make me do something we're both going to regret."

She grinned and reached up to untie her bikini top. "I can feel that you're into this, Luke. Let go of your conscious self and act on instinct. Search your feelings, Luke. You know it to be true. You want it."

"I'm begging you no, Naluma. Please, no." He struggled with his arms against the Force before closing his eyes and grabbing her hands with the Force.

"Let me go, Luke!"

"You let me go!"

As Naluma tried to untie the threads of her bikini, Luke knotted them more securely, weaving in and out, twisting, and tying. 

"Aargh!" Naluma grunted as she gave up. 

Luke took advantage of her frustration and leveled a Force-blow at her torso, knocking her off. With a thunk, Naluma landed on the floor, hitting her head on the dresser. She rubbed it where a lump was already forming.

"I'm sorry." 

He barely got the words out of his mouth before Naluma hurled him across the room and against the closet door. It cracked with his weight, and he slid to the floor.

"Why you—" He rushed her, tackling her to the ground, pressing his body against hers and pinning her wrists to the floor.

Naluma giggled. "See, Force-play can be fun."

He rolled off her and kicked-up to a standing position.

She sprang up him from behind and wrapped her legs around his waist while she clutched his head.

He tumbled into a somersault, shucking her off in the process. With a quick turn, he thrust out his hand and tossed her onto the bed. Holding her with the Force, he said, "Enough. You know I can out-power you longer than you can fight me, Naluma."

"Not fair." She slumped and crossed her arms.

"You're the one that started it."

The Jedi Master adjusted his waistband and grabbed his wallet before heading to the closet across the room.

"Where are you going?"

"I'm leaving." He pulled out some tourist chits and left them on the dresser. "Here's everything: Otoh Gunga excursion, three nights at the haunted mansion on Lake Varykino, or do whatever you want to do. I'm done."

Not bothering to cover her naked torso, she sat up. "You're leaving?"

"It's over, Naluma. You want something I can't give you. Something I won't give."

Her voice came out in ragged breaths as she cried, "I thought you loved me."

"I do."

"Why run away then?"

"Because it's the right thing to do."

"The right thing to do?" Tears slipped down her face. "You're breaking my heart, Luke. You're tearing at my soul. Can't you feel the Force-bond between us slicing, burning?"

He turned his back as he grabbed his clothes and lightsaber out of the closet. Luke pulled his Jedi uniform trousers over his swim shorts and slid a tunic over his bare chest. He shoved his bare feet into the dress shoes he had worn earlier that day and stuffed his sandals in the suitcase. "I'll send the shuttle back at the end of the week."

Naluma stood up. "Don't bother. Wouldn't want to inconvenience you. Just run away, like you always do."

"I do not."

"Every time we have ever discussed 'us,' you've always ran away."

"That's not true. I was right there when you were on Koda Station. Stayed with you every night until they brought you out of that nightmare. Every decision I've made has been for you, Luma."

"Not this one."

"I'm protecting you."

"No, you're not. You're afraid of commitment. You're afraid of taking a chance. You're afraid of doing something that the Force hasn't given you an explicit vis—" She stopped mid-sentence. "Or has it?"

"I've got to leave." He turned back to her at the door.

They both froze. Through the Force, they heard it. Something they had always hoped for, waited for even. A calling. A calling for the Jedi. For hope. For help. But it wasn't words this time. It was the Colors of the Force, wrapped with emotion and being and thought.

Luke and Naluma locked gazes.

"I really can't stay, Naluma. I've got to go."

"And what about me?"

"He needs me. He needs me more than you do. Can't you hear him? Can't you feel him?"

The vibrations wrapped them in their soothing melody, lightyears more beautiful than the symphony when they'd arrived. Somehow this music was accompanied with a spectrum of color. But what was it?

She nodded and softened her face as the wonder of the being calling shot through her heart. "Yes. Of course, I do."

"He's in danger. He needs my help." Luke grabbed the door handle.

Naluma closed her eyes as a Force-vision hit her. A dark hallway with black droids and the light of Luke's green lightsaber slicing through them. "You need your X-wing. I'll go with you."

"No. Finish your R&R." He stepped through the doorway. "And get over me. I'll send the shuttle back for you."

Naluma stiffened her back and narrowed her eyes while saying through clenched teeth, "Don't bother. I'll manage on my own."

He waited one long moment. Naluma knew what he was waiting for. The common courtesy of one Jedi to another. Not the kiss and union she desired. As she spoke the words, she knew that this was all they would ever be to each other ever again. Just a Jedi.

"May the Force be with you."