Valia had no idea how much time passed but they finally untangled themselves and pulled their clothes together. Qui-Gon leaned against the trunk of the tree and Valia sat cross-legged leaning against him. They both stared off in different directions into the dark tunnels beneath the rows of freela trees, content to sit quietly.

Valia finally remembered one of the reasons she had left the house in the first place to talk to Qui-Gon. "Did you find out anything about where Jax might be today?" They had not had a chance to discuss their purpose for being here all day.

"No. But we did meet a lot of farmhands here, and those of the neighbors. We did a lot of scouting and now know the layout of your family's land and a great deal of the neighboring farms."

"So you are hoping he will stroll over here for dinner tomorrow night? What will we do then?"

"We, as in Obi-Wan and I, will wait and see what course of action we need to take at that point," Qui-Gon said. "Don't worry, we will avoid ruining your mother's dinner if at all possible."

"I could go over to the Dekkars' place tomorrow and see if he's there. I could make up an excuse that we need to borrow something for the dinner." She wanted to do something to help her feel a part of this, especially anything that would keep her out of the house.

Qui-Gon drew up a knee and absently rubbed it. The left one ached sometimes. "As long as one of us or your brother goes with you. It is my duty to see that nothing happens to you while you are with us. You have already greatly helped us, and done your part by getting us into your family's home," he said as he saw the beginnings of a sour look on her face. She did not care for being treated as the delicate miss who needed to be kept out of an imagined harm's way. "We will see what tomorrow brings, if we need to try your idea. This man is arrogant and confident, but may be desperate as well. We got the sense that all the workers here on these farms are linked by networks of gossip, so we did not even ask any of them if they had seen him, in case word leaked back to him he was being hunted. We want him to think he is safe and not being looked for here," Qui-Gon said.

Valia leaned back against him. What indeed would tomorrow bring? There was still a night before they had to think about that. "Come back to the main house with me and stay with me tonight, " she invited. She was envisioning more nights like those aboard the 'Diadem', and was reluctant to have to say good night to him.

Qui-Gon sighed and smiled down at her. "Tempting as that sounds, I think it would be best if I didn't. Your parents have extended their great hospitality to us, and I have no wish to snub it. We will stay where they have put us."

Well, it had been worth a try, thought Valia. Tired of sitting, she stood up and stretched. She reached over her head to pick a freela from the branch above her. She could feel its ripeness by touch alone.

"How is Obi-Wan? I didn't see him all day. I missed him too, although not quite as much as you," she said, smiling.

"He is quite well. He got quite an instructive lecture on harvest machinery today, one I don't think he was looking for, but got anyway from Mader Jenzan."

Valia's smile widened. "Get old man Jenzan talking about his machines, and you had better make yourself comfortable." She wandered in a small circle under the tree, slowly eating another freela.

"How much longer do you think it will be before Obi-Wan is ready to take the Trials?"

Qui-Gon studied her as she slowly paced beneath the tree. Her question seemed to stand alone, but no question came without other related ones. It was not Obi-Wan she wanted to talk about, that he could sense. Her body language alone told him she was getting her mind around some subject she wanted to bring up and wasn't sure how to do it. He resisted the idea of probing her thoughts. It would be intrusive, and she would tell him in her own way and time. They both were still learning to deal with his ability, and it had caused more than one discordant moment, either when she assumed he knew what was on her mind, or when he knew all too well what was on her mind. He answered her question as it stood.

"That is difficult to say," he said honestly. "At least another two or three years, I would think. And even if I think he's ready for them, the final decision will still rest with the Council."

"But you passed them when you were twenty-one."

"Yes, but that is a relatively young age." He leaned forward and crossed his arms atop his knees. "Every Jedi apprentice has his or her own unique strengths and progresses at his or her own pace. There is no shame if one needs more time than another to reach Knighthood."

Valia nodded and trailed her hands through the branches and leaves above her head, a picture of sensual grace.

Qui-Gon hesitated to bring up the subject because he was fairly sure it would spoil the picture before him. But he felt she ought to know what he had felt that morning. And a change in subject might give her more time to think about whatever she was struggling to find a way to speak of, whatever she was holding close to her.

"Did you see your father again today?" he asked.

Valia dropped her arms and faced him. "Tak? No." She prodded a root with the toe of her short boot. "Do we have to talk about him right now?"

"If not now, then at some point later. Did you know he is afraid of you?"

"Ha! Afraid? As in fearful? Of me? I don't think so."

"He is."

"He wishes I didn't exist, and despises me because I do. Or he wishes I was a man. How could he be afraid of me?"

"That, I don't know," said Qui-Gon, refraining from using the word 'yet'. "But he may have gotten the impression you hate and loathe him, so that might play a part in it," he said dryly. "I sensed a great deal of fear in him as soon as he saw you this morning. A guilty fear. As plainly as I could reach out and touch you right now."

"I don't believe it," she insisted, while knowing she ought to, and trust his feelings.

"There are many ways of masking fear, or covering it up, and both of you are quite good at it," he pointed out. Valia said nothing, not really able to deny it for herself because it was the truth. It was a natural reflex to crack a joke, push the fear away, deny it.

"I don't hate him," she said softly. "At least I don't think I do. I just...I just feel like the whole disinheritance is all a part of the past, and there is nothing I can do about it now except get over it. I have nothing to say to him, and I don't care how he feels, because I think he truly feels nothing. And I don't want you getting involved, trying to make peace between us. There are plenty of worse situations in the galaxy you ought to save your energy for."

Qui-Gon simply nodded and said nothing further on the subject. "How was your excursion into town with your sister-in-law?"

Valia rolled her eyes and described the outing.

"I am not sure what to make of her," Qui-Gon said slowly when she had finished. "Though she behaves anything but, I feel a strong insecurity in her."

"Insecurity? How in all that is green could that possibly be?" Valia's pacing widened and her voice became even more vehement than while discussing her father. "She's set for life! She has it all! Her husband is a respected member of the community. She's the darling of the family. She will always have her children, and some day her grandchildren and great-grandchildren to surround her. She will live until the end of her days in a grand, old, beautiful house. If it would even enter her head to do so, she will never have to wonder what her place in the universe is." Valia stopped short, listening to what she was saying. It seemed the words had come directly from her heart. She looked at Qui-Gon and found his thoughtful and knowing gaze fixed on her. Did he see what she herself had just realized, how much those words meant to her? Did he see her newly found hope and dream of marriage? Should she keep it to herself until she knew how to voice it, or should she bare her soul now to him? She looked away and tried to appear casual as if her words had not contained as much passion she had heard in them, and no doubt he had, too. She knew there was little she was able to hide from someone like him. Because she loved him, she did not. But right now she was torn between hiding her heart and waiting, or spilling herself.

"Perhaps she is insecure because of you. She may see you as a possible threat to that life. You arrive suddenly, and her thoughts may be that you want to claim back the right to the farm that was taken from you."

"But I don't," Valia said, planting her fists on her hips. "I don't want it! I'm glad Velk is going to inherit and run it all. I'm glad now things turned out the way they did, and I'm happy with my life. I know I sound jealous, but really, she is welcome to her life here. How can she think I want to take it from her?"

Qui-Gon shrugged lightly. "It's just speculation. Those who have much to lose may have just as great a fear of losing it."

"Well, she can rest easy, if that's what's bothering her." Valia said, speaking softly again. "And besides, if I had not gone to Coruscant and made my life there, I would never have met you."

Qui-Gon smiled. "I have a feeling that no matter where you were, we still would have met."

Valia laughed lightly, tilting her head back. "My, you are just full of romance tonight." She leaned with her arms on a low branch. "My big strong handsome hero, rescuing the damsel in distress, and then carrying her off to a most, ahhh, memorable tryst in the moonlight. Then speaking of fated lovers."

Qui-Gon spread his hands in a modest gesture. "You bring it out of me, I suppose. You make it easy for me."

Valia smiled and lowered her eyes. Then she turned to look down a long dark avenue beneath the trees. "Do you ever think of some day doing something else? Something other than...being a Jedi?"

A long thoughtful pause. "Do you mean, do I consider leaving life in the Order? No longer being a knight?"

"Yes."

Again, Qui-Gon felt bound to give her a completely honest answer. "It crossed my mind about seven years ago during a mission on Gala. Then I didn't think about it again. My duty has been clear since then. Every great once in a while, though, I wonder about the little things. What life is like as any other man. I see...men with their families, doing the small chores that make up an ordinary day for them, and I just wonder. It's a very brief curiosity."

Valia waited and listened, unaware that she had been holding her breath. Then she nodded and picked more fruit out of the tree above her and held it in her hand, feeling it slowly pulse.

"I sense a greater question behind all these other questions, my sweet," Qui-Gon said. "Come, sit down," He raised an arm toward her and gestured for her to sit in front of him.

Well, she had asked for it. No getting around it now. Valia sat down cross-legged on the grass facing him, and made herself look straight into his eyes. The moonlight took away their radiant color, but none of the love, kindness, or adoring patience she saw in them.

"I had a funny dream this morning," she said.

"Funny 'ha, ha', or funny strange?" Qui-Gon asked.

"Funny strange. I dreamed we got married."

Qui-Gon's face remained in exactly the same expression as it had been before she had answered him. It was a simple matter of long training subduing any outward expression of surprise. "You say strange, yet I have the feeling that it is not so strange to your thinking now," he said slowly. He quested her feelings gently, and found in her a fresh joy, a surprise at her self-discovery, and a hesitance to embrace it. And a sweet, endearing shyness about the whole thing in front of him.

"I must admit, the idea rather...grew on me all day long."

She had never mentioned anything like this before, thought Qui-Gon. In fact, he had gathered the impression she had no real wish for marriage. Only once before had they discussed the topic, and that had been when he had been explaining more of the Jedi code and traditions to her. The commitment of marriage and family required a Jedi to leave the Order and life as a Knight behind. There could be no divided loyalties.

Now here it was. This was why she had wondered if he had ever thought of leaving Jedi Order, and how much longer Obi-Wan's training would last. Why had he not seen this coming? Sooner or later it might have been something one of them would have brought up again, if only for discussion's sake. It had been, after all, three years since they had first met. But was this really what she wanted?

He realized she was looking at him expectantly while he had drifted off in his own thoughts. He had pressed her to know what was on her mind, and here he was now leaving her to wonder what was on his. And he found he had no idea what to say to her.

"The idea of marriage in general grew on you, or the idea of being married to me?"

"To you."

Qui-Gon rubbed a hand thoughtfully over his beard. Had Obi-Wan been there to see it, he would have immediately noticed the uncharacteristic gesture. "Now what would you want with an old wandering Jedi Knight for a husband?"

"You're not old, Jinn!" Valia playfully swatted his leg.

"I'm not exactly young, either."

"So?" She leaned forward and looked earnestly up at his face. "I don't see it as an issue. I tease you about our age difference, but you know I don't mean it. You've got a lot of living to do yet," she said. She laid her hand on his troublesome knee and rubbed it, warming it and soothing it. "I'd take good care of you," she added softly.

Qui-Gon's heart was pierced to the core by the total candor of her words. Nothing patronizing, nothing pleading. Just as honest-to-goodness as all the fresh air that surrounded them. This small and precious woman looking up at him and telling him, he who had been charged with the protection and welfare of so many others, that she would take good care of him. And in his heart of hearts, he knew she could, too. In all the ways that counted. It was some time before he could trust himself to speak. He reached out to stroke her cheek with the back of his fingers.

"I have no doubts that you would. That's not an issue, either," he said in a low voice.

He wondered why he felt the need to avoid this subject, if she would wonder if he was deliberately dancing around it if he put off any more discussion of it for tonight. He found himself in the oddest turmoil of emotions and thoughts that he needed time to sort out.

"Let's stay out and sleep right here tonight," suggested Valia, crawling to him and nestling against him.

"Lia, while it might feel warm enough now, the night is going to get cooler. You have a comfortable bed in a warm house, and I ought to be taking you to it soon." He wrapped his arms around her and tucked her close under his chin. As she fitted her warm, woman-scented curves against him, he struggled to make himself mentally re-list all the practical reasons why it would not be a good idea to spend the night in her bed.

"Not yet," she said softly, pressing her face into his chest. She nuzzled the plain fabric of his shirt aside and laid her cheek on his skin. "I feel warmer and more at home with you out here than I do there." She wondered why he had not asked more about her dream. He nearly always asked her to describe her dreams to him in detail. Maybe he would want to talk more about it later. She hoped.

"And we ought to explain what happened to that vine," he said.

Valia made a small groan of dismay.