They each said nothing for half a minute, waiting for the other to speak first. Valia saw that he was either in the middle of one exercise or beginning something else. She saw that he held in one hand not his lightsaber but a very long metal blade. Then she saw the rope. A long silken rope hanging from the ceiling, its dark twisted length picking up the morning light that was beginning to come through the window. For just an instant her mind reeled, and her stomach clenched. But no, there was nothing sinister about it. It was only something for his kata.

"I...I knew it, I've interrupted you," said Valia. "I know we were going to get together the day after tomorrow, but--"

"Don't go." Qui-Gon spoke from his half turned position when it looked like she might leave again. "Please, stay. I would offer you a place to sit, but..." There were no chairs or seats to break up the starkness of the room.

"Then I'll sit on the floor," Valia said. The absence of comfortable seating in the Temple was nothing new to Valia, so she sat cross-legged on one of the exercise mats on the floor.

"This is a little early in the day for you," Qui-Gon commented.

"You could say that," Valia said. After a great deal of indecision the evening before, she had gone home and tried to get some sleep, telling herself she'd come here in the morning. A few hours later, she had woken and tossed and turned, finally dressing and making her way to the Temple in the dark. "Go ahead and finish what you were doing," she told him. "Unless it's too distracting having me here."

"No, it's not," he said. Yes, by all that was just, it was. But it was distracting in a good way. She was here. She had come here to see him. His heart was leaping at the idea, and at the sight of her. Until the thought occurred to him that maybe she'd come at this early hour to tell him she had decided it was better if she didn't see him any more. He studied her, quickly probing her mood and thoughts. No, he didn't sense any impending bad news. Did one more exercise really matter? Perhaps it did, if it would calm and center him, and stop this ninnyish worrying. He took a deep breath and nodded to her and turned back toward the window.

Qui-Gon began his sword drill, mechanically at first. Valia had watched him often enough to know he was not relaxed. But as the minutes went by, he seemed to achieve that state of harmony with the Force he sought, and now moved with a calm grace. The only sound in the room was the soft metallic whicker of the blade as it whirled over his head and around his shoulders. Valia became lost in admiring him, unaware of the passage of time. There was not a bit of sag to the flesh of his back. He looked even leaner and harder than the last time she had seen him without his clothes on. She thought this must be how poetry begins. If only she was someone who had the ability to capture in words what her eyes saw, the play of the light across his muscles, each bright, perfect arc of the blade.

Now he was bringing the blade within a hair of the rope after a sweeping series of moves. The edge stopped just short of the rope, not disturbing one stray silken fiber she could see glowing in the light of the newly risen sun. His moves became increasingly complicated, and after a time a light sheen of sweat began to appear on his skin. He paused, taking deep slow breaths. His face was calm and meditative, as though he had purged something from his mind with his exercise. He focused on the rope before him and raised the blade one last time. Valia's eyes could not begin to follow it, it moved with such speed. When she looked again, a section of rope lay at his feet in seven equal pieces.

Qui-Gon's broad shoulders relaxed and he turned to face Valia. She had noticed the folded towels in a basket in a corner and decided she could at least be helpful. She stood to bring him one. He took it from her gratefully and wiped his forehead. Valia cautiously eyed the blade in his other hand. He smiled and offered it to her, extending the hilt toward her. She hesitated. "Take it," he said gently. "Hold it for me." Valia cautiously grasped the metal hilt, which still radiated the heat from his hands. She expected it to be clumsy and heavy for her, but she hefted it, turning the blade to admire it. It was surprisingly light for its size and actually felt good in her hands. It was simply styled, the hilt and blade guard slightly curved to fit a hand. The blade looked frighteningly sharp, slightly curved as well, one side of the blade serrated with a several points like cresting waves. A deadly weapon from either side, but unusual and beautiful all the same. Valia had never seen this or anything quite like it. She had only been allowed to handle Qui-Gon's lightsaber briefly, and that had been strictly to hand it to him a few times. She knew it was an honor and privilege to be allowed even that. She had always been nervous handling it for even a few seconds. But this was different somehow. This was fascinating to her, and she wondered at its age and history as she turned it to catch the light.

She looked back up at Qui-Gon and found him watching her with a look of rapt admiration. She smiled self-consciously and lowered the blade. "It suits you," he said softly. He fixed his eyes on her, suddenly overcome by a feeling, an instinctive knowledge that indeed it did suit her, that something right clicked into place. The mists of the future seemed to part like a curtain, but still he could not quite see. Then he was left only with the strong feeling that it was right she hold this keepsake of his.

"Is it very old?" she asked, looking for some kind of mark or engraving on it.

"Thirty eight hundred years. Give or take a few," he said casually, draping the towel around his neck. Valia gasped and looked on it with new reverence. "This ought to be in a museum." Qui-Gon suppressed a chuckle as she looked around for a place to set it down and found none, other than the floor, and held on to it. "Where did this come from?"

Qui-Gon was doing some stretches with his arms. "It was a gift from a Lorrdian chieftain to a Jedi Knight who fought to free them from their slavery in the Kanz Disorders. Rather than seem ungracious, because the chieftain was so grateful, he simply accepted the gift. Over the years it has been passed down from Master to Padawan, until it came to my Master Rasig, who gave it to me." Qui-Gon's face became soft and thoughtful at the mention of his Master, as if he was lost in a memory. Valia noticed it. He had spoken of Rasig several times before, always with affection. "You were very close to him, weren't you?" she asked. Like Obi-Wan is to you, she thought, but without sorrow. Only fondness and admiration.

"Yes," Qui-Gon said with a smile. Still am, he thought. "He had many apprentices in his long life. It was the part he most enjoyed about Knighthood." He crossed the room to pluck his tunic from a hook on the wall. He draped it over one arm instead of putting it on. "I was the last apprentice he had. It just so happened to turn out that way, but on many occasions, he told me I would be his last."

"Oh. Did he have some strong premonition or vision?"

"No, I usually heard that when I'd caused him one kind of grief or another."

There was a pause as Valia thought about this. Then the wry twist in her lips eloquently summed up every comment and joke that had ever circulated through the Temple regarding the stubborn, willful, and over-empathetic apprentice Qui-Gon Jinn and his challenged Master. Qui-Gon saw it and answered with a smile of his own. Valia could not have known it, but in the last few minutes he had smiled more than in the last two months.

He gestured toward the sword. "If you would like, I can teach you a few basic moves some time."

She looked surprised, and then self-conscious and flattered at the offer.

"I think I'd like that. Very much," Valia said. "I have an uncle who collects ancient weaponry. He'd give about anything for just a look at this." She admired the blade again. "My friend Paccaia is going to be madly jealous if he finds out about this, though," she warned jokingly.

"Bring your friend, then," said Qui-Gon easily. Though deep down he hoped she wouldn't. "Come," he said, heading for the door. "There are much better places to talk than this room."

Valia handed the sword back to him and they walked out of the exercise room. He led her the other way down the corridor than the way she had come, further into the private residences of Masters. Toward his own apartment.

"Qui-Gon, I can wait for you back there--"

"That's not necessary."

"I'm really not supposed to be in this area anyway, and now after the message I got from the Council..."

"It'll be all right," he said. He extended his hand toward her. If he'd gotten the same message, and Valia knew he'd gotten that and more, he chose to blithely disregard it for the moment. She stretched out her own hand and found it enclosed in his large warm one. His touch chased her worries away. And made her acutely aware that they had not touched in two months. She walked with him in companionable silence to his apartment.

After their return from Nyme' and then Darat, Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had gone through the normal debriefings that followed a mission. Qui-Gon had gone through slightly more than that. He had spent an hour closeted with Yoda, and later the Council had called a special session. They had spent half a day debating what was the proper thing, if anything, to do about him and his particular personal situation. Some of the results of that session had reached Valia's ears through fellow surrogates, her friends in the Temple, and Obi-Wan. Valia felt a fresh case of nerves coming on as she remembered wondering if she would be called to stand before the Council to answer for herself and her personal involvement with Qui-Gon. But the summons had never come. In some ways it was worse than being called before them. At least when she was sixteen and standing before a board of fruit growers, fiasco that it had been, she had been able to speak for herself and Lommi. Even if she had been interrupted and dismissed. But this time, to be more or less ignored, to have no say on her behalf to those who met in their lofty tower...she did not know whether to be offended or relieved.

In the end, it had been decided that Valia would stay as a valued and much-needed surrogate in the nursery, with ten out of the twelve voting to keep her there. But Qui-Gon was not allowed to take her on any future missions with him. And they were forbidden from meeting on Temple grounds in any area other than the public ones. For the next half year, he and Obi-Wan would be accompanied by a Master without an apprentice. A third party to keep an eye on Qui-Gon, though it was never openly stated as such. As though he needed someone to watch him to make sure he didn't become involved in any rogue personal behaviors, or become involved with someone else. This, Valia knew, would be the one thing that would wound him to the core. He was essentially having his decisions and behavior watched. He had made his decision to remain the Order, and there was no solid reason to ask him to leave it. But for now, this is how it would be.

They saw no one else on the way to his apartment. As they passed through the entrance, one word came to Valia's mind to describe the Jedi Master's little used quarters: spare. And the place was small. The sitting room just inside the door was only large enough to hold a long couch and several small tables. A thick, dark blue rug was the only thing that adorned the floor, a practical flat weave that would not collect dirt. Not that it was tracked in very often. A few large, comfortable-looking cushions were stacked in the corners. There was a neat stack of data plaques atop a storage unit. A tall single window overlooked a small inner courtyard filled with trees. The tops of the nearest ones filled the window, filtering the light that came in. Their leaves were whispering in the slight breeze that entered the courtyard from above. A section of the window was open, letting the breeze in. It was an uncluttered, tranquil chamber of blue and green. And Valia had seen motel rooms that had more defining personality than this place. She saw the pegs on the wall that held his heirloom sword, and that would have been the only decorative object in the room. The man who occupied this apartment did not truly live here, or leave his mark here with many objects or things.

Qui-Gon took a folded cloth out of a drawer, and settled himself on the couch. He began attending to his sword, wiping down the hilt, guard, and blade.

"Can I get you anything? Tea?" he offered. Valia shook her head. It was still too early for her to think of eating or drinking anything yet. "No, thank you, I'm fine."

Qui-Gon gestured for her to sit down on the couch. He continued to clean the sword in an unconcerned way. Valia sank down on the cushions and wondered where to start. This hesitance and distance between them was terrible. But since she had left Nyme' the two of them had only exchanged a few messages and hurried greetings.

"I heard you had gotten back a few days early," she said. "I...I didn't want to wait to see you. It seemed silly all of a sudden, after I thought about it. So...so I came early."

Qui-Gon nodded. He said nothing, but his hands stilled from their methodical movements. Valia saw the backs of his hands and knuckles tighten and relax. Abruptly he put the sword on a table and the next second Valia found herself breathing in the bare damp skin of his chest. One of his hands held her head tightly against him and the other was wrapped around her back in a mighty hug.

"I'm so glad you did," he finally spoke into her hair in a low voice. At once all the distance between them melted away. Valia slid her arms around him and squeezed, returning his embrace. They held each other for long moments. Qui-Gon closed his eyes and pressed kisses into the top of her head and softly stroked the back of it. He had known a wild urge to touch her since the moment she had handed him the towel, and this only began to satisfy it. He felt something rekindle inside him, something he thought had died when he had listened to her message telling him she was leaving Nyme'.

Qui-Gon was the first to draw back, just enough to tip her chin up with a finger, and closely looked at her face. "You haven't been eating," he said with soft concern.

"Yes, I have. I've been absolutely buried in food. So to speak."

"Have you been sick?" He'd noticed a paleness and a slight narrowing in her face.

"No, no, no." She shook her head. Why did everyone think there was something wrong if she wasn't filling her face? "I've been really busy with that new restaurant partnership, and with all the other usual things with my fruit and juice bars." If there had been any sickness to speak of at all, it would have been worry and anxiety. And missing him.

"But you've been well?"

"Yes, I'm fine." She smiled and leaned her cheek against his chest. I am now, she thought. She was touched that he would notice the smallest of changes in her and care about their cause.

The embrace seemed to be the exact thing needed to dissolve the last of the tension between them. Valia asked after his health, and was eager for news of everything that had happened with Jax and the current debate over his sentencing, and all Qui-Gon had taken part in on Darat, in his own words. One of his hands found hers and they twined together seemingly of their own wills. Valia stared down at his broad hand and the strong fingers with their short nails, and the way it was joined with her own.

"Maybe this is enough," she said after a pause.

"What do you mean?"

"I just mean...maybe it doesn't need to be any more complicated than this," she said quietly, indicating their hands.

"By 'it', I take it you mean our relationship. And I take it this is the continuation of that discussion we put off so long ago."

"Umm, yes, about that." Valia leaned back and rubbed the back of her neck, sighing and remembering how uncomfortably that conversation had ended. "I've done quite a lot of thinking about that," she said. Qui-Gon shifted on the couch so he could give her some space, but still face her. And keep holding her hand.

"First of all, I have to say I'm so sorry for ahhh, dropping the question on you like that."

Qui-Gon leaned forward thoughtfully, his elbows on his knees. "Are you sorry for asking, or for how you asked?" he asked carefully.

Valia sighed. "Oh, both. I don't know what came over me. Marriage is a huge commitment and a major responsibility."

Qui-Gon nodded solemnly. "Indeed it is."

"Marriage partners really need to spend more time together than we do."

"That might be preferable, yes."

"You have your life, and I have mine."

"They do take us in different directions at times."

"And you really don't get to know someone and their habits until you live with them."

"Very true."

"We might very well drive each other mad inside a few months."

"Take off your shoes."

"Take off--what?"

"Your shoes. Take them off."

"What for? Was I supposed to do that when I came in?"

"Just take them off."

Valia shook her head and bent to remove her short, ankle-high boots. What was it she had just mentioned about madness?

When her feet were bare, Qui-Gon quickly bent forward and grasped her by the ankles. She yelped as he lifted her legs and placed her calves across his lap. She was forced to lie back on the couch. His big hands enclosed each foot. He held them firmly and said nothing for a long moment.

"Hmmm," he said thoughtfully. "It's worse than I thought."

"What are you going on about?" She propped herself up on her elbows so she could look at him.

"You have developed a very serious case of cold feet," he pronounced gravely, enjoying the way her dark gray eyes threw sparks up at him. And the feel of her legs against his thighs.

"Cold feet? Oh. Of course. Ha, ha," she said dryly, knowing he meant the common expression for fear.

"They really are cold. Did you wade through the reflecting pool by the entrance on your way in?"

"Oh, right. It's probably just the cold stone floors here. Would it kill you people to turn up the heat in this place once in a while?"

Qui-Gon smiled and gently pressed his thumbs into the arches of her feet. She gasped but he held her feet firmly. She let out a long unsteady breath as he began to rub them. More or less held prisoner, she sagged back on the couch with a sigh. But it wasn't an unpleasant captivity. Not at all. In fact, it felt pretty damned good. Valia closed her eyes and let herself enjoy his attentions, wondering why she had never had him or anyone do this for her before.

She was hoping he would never stop when he did. He gave her legs a friendly pat. "I'm going to wash up. Then we can go outside and walk in one of the gardens."

Valia reluctantly drew her legs and her now very warm feet off his lap and sat upright. Qui-Gon indicated his tunic next to her on the couch with a motion of his hand. "The laundry bin is over there," he said, nodding toward a basket in the far corner of the room.

Valia's eyes flashed at him. She picked up the tunic and flung it at him. It bounced off his chest and flopped into his lap. "Take care of your own laundry, you big Wookiee!" Qui-Gon's eyes sparkled teasingly as he stood up and simply let the tunic drop. He let it lay where it fell and smiled over his shoulder as he left the room through the doorway to his bedchamber and refresher station.

A disgusted growl followed him out of the room. But it came out of a smiling mouth. Valia shook her head and picked up the piece of clothing from the floor. She sat with it for a moment on her lap and then idly began going through all the pockets. A round, smooth stone had fallen out of one of them, and she picked that up off the floor. She wondered at the ingenuity of the tailors in the Temple, and how they managed to place so many concealing pockets and utilitarian pouches in the clothing worn by the Jedi. And she never ceased to marvel at the odds and ends that she would find tucked into Qui-Gon's pockets. The man habitually stashed things in his tunic and belt pockets. But no matter where he put these objects, he always remembered where they were.

Her searching fingers found several more stones. He would often rub them while he was reading or studying, his big hand moving rhythmically, a hand that looked as though it could just as easily break them. She found and removed a key, a small vial of liniment, and one long blade of grass. She smiled and wondered what he'd planned to do with that. She kept smiling as she remembered doing this was so much more fun when he was still inside the shirt, too.

She felt something in an upper pocket and reached in with a finger to free whatever it was. It was small and circular and was somehow attached to the inside of the pocket, because it wouldn't come out. Puzzled, she pushed the edges of the pocket apart and freed the cord that firmly clipped the object inside.

The fact that it was a ring took several seconds to register in her mind. She held it up in the green-tinged light of the room to closely look at it. It was an amazingly beautiful little thing. The slender golden band was interrupted in four places by small flat knots, as though the very metal itself had been woven and tied. Much like the grass knots he had given her. She passed her finger over the outside circle, feeling the smooth knots.

Qui-Gon reappeared in the doorway. His brown hair was freshly cleaned and it swirled around his shoulders and neck as he pulled it back and tied it in his usual style. He finished fastening the front of the tunic as he looked at her. The dark slate blue color of it and the matching loose pants picked up the exact shade of his eyes at that moment, as they went to the ring in her hand.

"Did you try it on?"

Valia stared at him. Try it on? She had experienced an unaccountable flash of guilt for going through his pockets and pulling forth this unexpected item, something that was obviously meant to stay securely inside his tunic. The idea of slipping it on her finger had not even occurred to her while she was wondering where it came from. The concept that it might be for her was only just dawning on her mind.

"Go ahead," said Qui-Gon, crossing the room and sitting down next to her. "See if it fits."

Valia slipped it over a random finger. She wasn't sure which one to try, but it fit nearly perfectly on a fourth finger. The inside of the ring was smooth, and she could barely feel it, even though she rarely wore any jewelry on her hands. But the light gleaming on its surface drew their eyes to it like a beacon.

"It's beautiful," she said softly.

"It's yours."

Valia looked up at his face. The strong, craggy features of it were softened by emotion. More emotion than he normally displayed when he gave her some small gift. Not that he brought her many things. It was rare for him to bring her something from the places he had been, so she did not expect it.

"Thank you," she said, deeply touched. "Where did you get this?"

"I had it custom made on Darat," he said quietly.

This really was unusual. He'd had it specially made for her. "Many fine arts survive, and even thrive on that world, despite the constant threat of war," he said. "Perhaps it is because of that threat hanging over everything that artisans put so much of their hearts into what they craft. In the faith that even should the worst calamity occur, something beautiful might last."

Even though she had never been there, Valia would probably never think of the world of Darat quite the same again. She turned to look at him again, at the blue eyes which had seen so much and made this observation.

He cleared his throat. His voice seemed to have picked up an odd bit of roughness. "I...understand among couples of many species, it's customary to exchange some kind of gift or token to mark the beginning of an engagement."

Valia eyes went round. "Wha...?"

"The Pydyrians exchange jeweled bracelets. The Falleen male gives the female beads to decorate her hair."

"Qui-Gon--"

"The Vor exchange small flutes of crystal. The Quarren exchange various jewelry made from shells..." Qui-Gon had adopted the voice and expression he had when giving a lecture, only he was lecturing to the wall on the other side of the room, not looking at her.

Valia laid a hand on his arm to stop him. For a man of few words, every great once in a while he could actually talk too much. "And Humans give rings," she said.

"They do. But the giving is only part of it. The acceptance is the greater part."

She smiled down at the ring on her hand. This was certainly the last thing she had expected this morning. Valia remembered which pocket she had found it in, and it came to her that he must have had it for weeks now. And worn it close to his heart the whole time.

"Well," she said at last, "It seems in the last couple of months we've had a meeting and then a passing of minds, somewhere along the line."

"Not so much the minds, perhaps, as the hearts. I had time to do a lot of thinking in the last couple of months, too." He reached for the hand she wore the ring on, and gently folded it in his own. "Then one day, during a rare quiet moment, I took the time to quiet my mind to listen to everything else. I missed you so much, and it was so needless. You are so much a part of my life that I...I cannot live without you in it. In my heart there was no conflict on that. It spoke very softly, but it was telling me that no path remains closed forever. That some day..." He didn't finish, and Valia clearly heard the tightness in his voice.

"I know you don't wear a lot of jewelry," he went on. She didn't, because it was impractical in her line of work, and she had never had much interest in baubles, earrings or other adornments. "If you like," he said in an offhanded manner, "You could have it made into a toe ring, if you would rather see it on your foot than your hand." Sometimes she did wear toe rings, something that he had never seen a woman do before he had known her. He found it both amusing and highly arousing, for reasons he couldn't quite understand.

Valia turned to him, and her face went through an entire spectrum of emotion. He closely watched her eyes, waiting and hoping in a strange suspended agony. Surprise, indecision over what to say, a trace of disbelieving annoyance at his lame attempt at a joke, pure joy, and then finally that smile of hers, delivered from a slightly turned head and shining eyes.

"I will do no such thing, Qui-Gon Jinn." She pulled her hand from within his to admire the ring. "I will keep it, and wear it on my hand, where it belongs."

Qui-Gon very slowly let out the breath he had been holding. She would wear his gift. She had accepted it. And him. His eyes rested on the dear curves of her face and the dark crescents of her lashes as she looked down at her hand. In half a minute or so, he would be able to speak again. It would have been rather difficult, with the annoying boulder that had lodged in his throat just then.

"There is one thing," he said after a while. "This marriage may not take place for quite some time."

"That's all right." Valia looked back up into his eyes. "It's going to take me a while just to get used to the idea."

"I mean it may be years, Lia," he said. "Not until I leave the Order." Did she know what he might be asking of her? All the words, all the things that had gone through his mind that he imagined might have been said at this moment came to him. He had more or less had a rough draft of a painful speech in his head about the difficulties of waiting, that should she grow tired of waiting for him, she was free to go. He would eloquently caution her about possibly wasting the bloom of her youth on him. But all the words suddenly died on his lips as he looked into her eyes, and saw the hope, faith and love steadily burning there.

"I asked the Council's permission to marry you and continue my duties within the Order until such time I can leave."

He what? At this Valia's jaw dropped. He had actually made such a brash request of the Council of twelve?

"Well, I'll bet that caused a bit of a stir," she said.

"It did," Qui-Gon said, rising from the couch and moving to stand before the window and look out of it. "They said no." As if it would have been any other way. That had been the only thing they had not debated and ruminated over. Valia shook her head. He'd done that for her. She wondered how anyone could stand before the entire twelve to be questioned by them, let alone make requests. Especially those that defied the Jedi code. She remembered how it had taken two weeks of gentle coaxing on Qui-Gon's part to get her to go to the Temple with him and be interviewed by only two of them for her position as a nursery volunteer, so intimidating had they sounded to her.