Disclaimer: I don't own it; it belongs to George Lucas, yada, yada, yada.

That night, when Luke suddenly sat up and cried out, Aurora had had enough of indecision and soul searching and was there with him, kneeling in the dirt next to his thermal bag. She grabbed his arms, shaking him gently and forcing him to look at her. "Luke, stop! Wake up. It's a dream, just a dream." Slowly, his eyes seemed to focus on her, and she felt the tension seep out of his shoulders, leaving him slumped in her hands.

"Sorry." He mumbled, rubbing one hand across his eyes. "I didn't mean to wake you up."

"Don't be stupid." The words were harsh, but her tone was gentle, as were the hands still holding his arms. "Was it the vision again?"

Luke nodded. His breathing starting to slow again and the vision fading, he sat up straighter. "I'm sorry. I can't seem to stop it. I just keep seeing them there…and they're terrified and in so much pain! I just can't control the vision."

Aurora continued to kneel there, her hands still gripping his upper arms, staring into his face. Although she was looking at him, Luke had a feeling that she was seeing something else entirely. After a moment, he saw her bite her lip indecisively for a moment and then sigh, her shoulders slumping, almost in defeat.

"Alright, that's it." She let go of his arms and stood up. "Come on."

"Come on where?" Luke asked, rising to his feet, confused.

"It's obvious that vision isn't going to leave you alone until you resolve it, so let's go grab Artoo and figure out exactly where this city in the clouds is."

Luke gaped at her and then at the dark swamp around them. "Now?"

She tossed him a withering glance over her shoulder. "Did you have other plans?"

He shut his mouth and followed her to his X-wing.

Artoo was already snugged into his socket, recharging, so it was a simple matter of waking him up and having him bring up the files he had already accessed.

Aurora and Luke settled on the wing of the fighter to view the images that the little droid projected for them. It was slow and tedious work, since they frequently had to flip through several images of each city to make sure Luke hadn't just seen one section in his vision. Luke had never really appreciated how large the galaxy actually was until he found himself viewing image after image of various high altitude cities ranging from the Core Worlds all the way to planets hovering on the edge of the Unknown Territories; all of them suspended somehow in the sky.

Sometimes they were striking, such as one located on the planet of Listern which seemed to be made entirely of a nearly translucent crystal and built on a thin spire of rock holding it high above the rest of the continent. The images showed the planet's sun rising over the horizon and setting rainbows dancing through all of the crystal buildings. Others were incredibly ugly. Luke nearly laughed himself sick at one city that seemed to be constructed of some sort of squashy orange dough-like material, leaving all the buildings to resemble particularly unappetizing pastries.

After nearly an hour though, Luke was getting frustrated and had lost any sense of humor. They took a break for a moment, to rest their eyes. Aurora leaned back against the cockpit of the ship and rubbed her face wearily. "There's so many, this could take all night. Are you sure you didn't notice any other details?"

Luke frowned, thinking hard about the vision he'd had. "I think…it was floating." At Aurora's rolled eyes, he hastily continued. "I mean, I don't think it was sitting on a mountaintop or built in trees like Kashyyyk or anything like that."

His companion sat up, some energy returning. "Like maybe it's using an anti-gravity pod or something similar?" She turned to the droid behind them. "Artoo, can you add that condition to the criteria you have and re-sort it? Remove any planets we've already viewed."

There was a happy chirp of acknowledgement as the droid complied.

"That should take him a few minutes." Aurora replied, settling back against the cockpit again and closing her eyes.

Luke watched her for a moment. He wanted to ask her something, but wasn't sure how to do it or how the question would be received. He also wasn't entirely certain he even wanted to know the answer, but contemplating that lovely, familiar face, he suddenly decided that he had to.

"Aurora?"

"Hmmm?" Her voice sounded like she was on the edge of sleep.

"Why are you helping me with this?"

She smirked and raised one eyebrow, but never opened her eyes. "You'd prefer to do this alone? 'Cause I can go back to bed, no problem."

"No. That's not what I meant. I mean, why are you helping me now? You've been avoiding the whole issue for days and now suddenly you're in a rush to find the city. What happened to change your mind?"

Aurora sighed, and slowly opened her eyes. For a moment, she didn't look at him, but kept her eyes focused on the trees above them. When she did speak, Luke found himself watching her face for clues to what she was thinking, because her voice was devoid of emotion.

"You're right. I have been avoiding this – in fact, I've been avoiding you because I didn't want to discuss this."

He wanted to ask why, but he held his tongue, waiting for her to continue. When she did it was abrupt.

"Yoda told me if you go, you'll be in severe danger. He's foreseen it."

Luke thought about that for a moment, trying to decide how he felt about it. He couldn't really come to any conclusion. "Do you believe him?"

Now she did look at him, her eyes dark. "Yes."

A thousand questions flooded his mind, and yes, a shiver of fear worked its way down his spine, but Luke ignored it. "And Leia and Han?"

"He told me to choose between them or you."

This time the silence was particularly heavy. Luke wasn't quite sure what to think. Part of him was appalled that the old Jedi master would even consider asking someone to make a choice like that; to have to choose between your friends' lives was unthinkable. But a small part of him, one that he told himself he should squash immediately, couldn't help but thrill at the knowledge that Aurora held his life in such high regard that she'd actually consider abandoning three other beings, four if you counted Threepio. That must mean something, right? And how pathetic was he that he could even think of that right now? Still, he couldn't prevent the warm rush of feeling that filled his chest.

Trying to ignore it, he cleared his throat, forcing his voice to sound casual. "So, have you chosen?"

"No." Aurora brushed her hand against the smooth surface of the fighter, tracing patterns in the pollen that covered the ship as she watched his face. "I tried to. I spent days agonizing over it. Him or them, him or them. How could I make that choice? I certainly don't want to see Leia and Han die, but the idea of losing you…" She trailed off and quickly looked away, a slight blush heating her cheeks. Luke felt that warm rush again, but did his best to ignore it when Aurora started speaking again.

"Finally I realized something: it wasn't my choice to make. It's yours. And if I did what Master Yoda wanted and tried to convince you to stay, than I would be no better than the Empire trying to take away your right to make your own choices. All I can do is give you all the information that I have and support whatever decision you make." She looked back up at him again and tried a small smile. "And worry. I can do that too. Really well."

Luke smiled back at her, but like hers, he was afraid it wobbled at the edges. His voice was rough with emotion when he spoke. "That means a great deal to me, Aurora. More than you can know. Especially when I think you know what decision I mean to make."

"You're going after them. I know."

"Yes." He reached down slowly and touched the back of her hand with one finger. "Are you coming with me?"

The look she gave him was almost blazing with intensity. "Do you honestly think I'd let you go alone? Knowing that you're going to be in danger?" She gave a half laugh. "I mean more so than usual?"

It was at that moment, when she was doing her best to keep the situation light in an obvious effort to make him feel better; when she had just basically told him that she was willing to trust his judgment over her own, that Luke felt himself tip over a precipice he wasn't even aware he'd been balancing on, and fall. Hard.

Without a conscious decision, he was suddenly leaning forward, cupping her chin in his hand and tilting her face up to his. Aurora's eyes widened in sudden awareness and she tried to turn her head away, but his grip on her face wouldn't allow it.

"Luke, not a good-."

"Idea." He finished for her. "Too late." The last words were whispered against her lips and then he was kissing her and any thought she might have had of stopping him had been whisked right out of her head.

Later, when she replayed the incident in her head (which she would do – repeatedly) she could remember individual thoughts and feelings, but at the time, she was only really conscious of sensations: the feel of his mouth on hers, the movement of his hands against her skin, the softness of his hair under her fingers when she slid her hands into it.

There was no telling how far the situation would have gone; Aurora had no conception of how much time had passed, being completely lost in deep, drugging kisses and increasingly heated caresses, but when Artoo abruptly interrupted them some time later, they had somehow managed to slide into a horizontal position and various articles of clothing were decidedly awry.

The little droid's excited whistling had unexpectedly penetrated the sexual haze enveloping them, and Aurora found herself blinking dazedly up at Luke's flushed face and dark eyes; both of their breath coming fast and heavy.

"Um, I think he's done with the search." She managed.

"Yeah." Luke responded, but by the way his eyes were still fastened on her mouth, she had a feeling he hadn't really heard her.

"Luke?" She wiggled out from under him, ignoring the clamoring of her body that told her to stay exactly where she was and finish what they had started. "Artoo's done with the re-sort. We need to get back to the search."

She watched his eyes slowly come back into focus. "Right. The search." With a shake of his head, he sat up and turned towards the astromech, feeling mildly resentful that Aurora was apparently still capable of higher brain functions, because he certainly wasn't. That might have had something to do with the fact that most of the blood supply to his brain was currently…elsewhere. "Uh, go ahead and display, Artoo." Having made what he felt was a monumental effort at coherence, he then simply collapsed back against the wing, still breathing heavily and struggling for some form of control. The problem was, the source of his distraction was still sitting next to him, and he could still smell her skin and the taste of her was still lingering on his lips. He groaned and covered his face with both hands. Control, dammit. For Force sakes, Skywalker! Have some pride.

Aurora turned away for a moment. She couldn't help feeling a trifle smug that the little interlude had so obviously disconcerted him. Unfortunately, that feeling deflated somewhat when she realized how badly her own hands were shaking when she tried to refasten her shirt. Luke hadn't been the only one overwhelmed.

She wondered exactly how they were going to handle this change in their relationship. Was it going to be awkward from now on? Lots of weird glances and uncomfortable silences? Of course, from the way she was feeling right now, she didn't know if she'd be able to even talk to Luke without throwing herself on him. Her lips twisted with sardonic humor for a moment. Wouldn't that liven up squadron briefings?

And did one brief (alright, maybe not so brief) moment of passionate kissing and groping mean she had the right to throw herself on him from now on? How exactly did they define their relationship now? She had a horrified vision of herself staring enraptured at Luke during a briefing while the rest of the squadron snickered, and shuddered in reaction.

Too many questions, which was exactly why she had tried to avoid this exact situation previously. Of course, now that she had actually experienced what it meant to kiss Luke Skywalker, she wouldn't have given it up for anything in the galaxy, not even this agonizing moment of indecision and vague, undefined embarrassment.

Subjecting herself to a stern inner monologue that contained references to pride, cold showers, dignity and other nebulous concepts such as these, Aurora forced herself to turn back towards Luke and focus on the images that Artoo was displaying. If, in the process, she managed to avoid his eyes, no one else had to know it. But she couldn't help noticing that he was avoiding her eyes too.

There was no telling how long their mutual avoidance might have continued if Luke hadn't noticed that the images he was staring so intently at without really seeing, suddenly looked very familiar.

"Wait a minute, Artoo!" He exclaimed, sitting up abruptly. "Go back to that last one."

Aurora, carefully sitting a good foot away from, straightened. "What is it?"

"That one," He said, staring at the image carefully. "That's it! That's what I saw in the vision!"

Aurora leaned forward, reading the display information. "Cloud City, Bespin. That's in the Anoat System." She frowned. "What the hell are they doing there? That's a long way from the rendezvous point."

"It's Han and Leia. Do you really need to ask how they end up anywhere?"

"Good point." She conceded, smiling slightly at his dry tone, but she was still studying the small map embedded in the display. "This isn't too far from here. I think we can get there with only one stop for refueling, but we'd better leave today, because it's still going to take a while."

Luke was watching her profile. "And what about Master Yoda?"

She met his eyes. "I made my choice."

He watched her jump lightly off the edge of the wing and walk away, disappearing into the dark shadows under the trees. She'd made her choice, but did that refer to going after Han and Leia or to what had just happened between them?