Nyssa had buried her face under Daven's chin and in the crook of his neck, seemingly quite content to silently outline little circles on his bare chest with the tip of her fingernail.

He was enjoying the sensation of her slight touch, he had to admit, and the only thing half his brain and the whole of his body wanted to do was warp his arms tightly around her and fall back into a pleasant sleep.

The other half, however, was not being nearly so cooperative. It was the side of his mind that told him to scowl when Nyssa drank, to only speak when spoken to, and to not make jokes in the middle of a lightsaber fight. And it was most certainly the part of his brain that reminded him of all those little rules – especially the one regarding Jedi and the opposite sex.

What have I done? He wanted to groan loudly and jump away from the bed, but he stopped himself. That would lead to a verbal explanation for Nyssa, and she probably wouldn't like what these rational thoughts would tell him to say.

It was forbidden. Plain and simple. Jedi did not form attachments, they did not feel passion, and they most certainly were not supposed to …

He had broken the Code.

The groan he was attempting to suppress burst forth and, even though his hand flew to his mouth to block it, the sound still escaped his lips, alerting Nyssa to his distress.

Her head snapped up and her green eyes met his, showing delight quickly mixing with worry. He blinked, wanting to look away, but knowing that she completely filled his field of vision.

"You okay, Jedi?"

Of all the things to call him at the moment, 'Jedi' wasn't helping. He felt himself starting to panic.

"I shouldn't have," he told her, unable to finish for fear of hurting her or saying something that even he didn't want to believe. He closed his eyes to avoid the look that would surely cover her beautiful face.

To his surprise, he heard her snort rather boorishly. "You weren't thinking that five minutes ago." She then laughed.

Daven grunted again and covered his eyes with his hand, as if it could provide him more protection than merely keeping them shut.

"It isn't funny, Nyssa." He wished momentarily that he could just die.

"No, well, maybe," she responded brightly. "I doubt you broke any laws by being with me, if that's what this is about."

He drew a ragged breath, trying to formulate his thoughts – trying, more so, to understand his feelings. He was enjoying the total darkness his hand was currently providing his eyes.

"Daven?" He felt Nyssa's fingers pulling at his hand, attempting to draw it away from his face. He held his grip firm. He couldn't look at her. Not yet. "Please, what's wrong? Tell me."

There was a long pause.

"I love you." He spoke when he imagined Nyssa was starting to become impatient. "Love is against the Jedi Code. Attachment to another is forbidden. What I feel for you is against everything I was taught. Loving you is wrong." He regretted it the moment he said it, knowing that it would hurt her. He had felt her love for him in the comms room – it was pure, innocent, magical even – and it had consumed him. His guilt caused the words to spill out of his mouth; it was his fault for allowing the relationship to proceed to this point.

She finally removed his hand from his eyes, despite his attempt to keep it there.

"Open your eyes, Daven," she ordered sternly. "Open your eyes and tell me face to face that love is wrong."

He did so and found her soft features unbearably enticing – the high but delicate cheekbones, the prefect arch of her eyebrows, the small and regal-looking nose. He bit his lip, unable to speak.

"I thought so." She smirked after giving him some time to answer her challenge. "It doesn't feel wrong to me." She gave him a light kiss and he found himself reflexively returning it, drawing Nyssa closer to him. She broke away and ran a series of small pecks across his chin and down his neck.

Daven felt his composure weaken and his mind lose rational thought as he began to experience once more the still relatively unfamiliar sensations.

"Is it wrong that I breached my hunter's contract to save you?" Nyssa asked, her tone heavy, laden with desire. Daven opened his mouth to speak, but found that his foggy brain could not process the question. "Is it wrong," she continued, "that I risked my life to rescue you?"

"No," he muttered. She sat up again, a wide grin upon her face. The green of her irises twinkled brightly with mischief.

"And is it wrong that I would willingly sacrifice my own life to spare yours?" Her gaze deepened into an intense stare.

"No," he returned as he felt the cloud lift from his thoughts. The realization of Nyssa's logic hit him the moment the word slipped out of his mouth.

"Would you do the same for me?"

"Yes." There was no hesitation.

So many times had he nobly offered his own life in exchange for others – a rebellious senator, an oppositional party leader, a young Twi'lek that had unwittingly witnessed an illegal dealing. It was the nature of his duty as a Jedi; an ability that should remain unquestioned.

"And does that feel wrong to you, Daven?" Nyssa ran a lone finger across his chest. He broke eye contact with her to watch it trace small patterns.

"No," he admitted with a sigh. There was, logically, no reason to feel this level of protection for someone like Nyssa. She was a ruthless bounty hunter, capable of taking a man's life in return for a monetary amount. She was supposedly swine, a piece of Bantha fodder stuck on the boot of galactic civility.

Yet he would do anything for her. Even become a smuggler, if that was what she wanted. His heart beat faster and his knees went weak when he even so much as thought about Nyssa. He was quickly becoming unable to imagine living without her.

And, for all the knots in his stomach that piled upon each other when she smirked at him, it didn't seem wrong. In fact, it felt quite right.

He pulled her face up to his and kissed her passionately. The Jedi Order was left in ashes, and nothing Daven Staver could do would change that fact now. The only thing he had left was Nyssa and this moment, which he was enjoying immensely.

He drew a short breath when Nyssa broke the kiss.

"It doesn't feel wrong," he told her honestly. "Not wrong at all."

The next morning, consciousness greeted Daven in a manner it rarely did – slowly and sweetly. He was warm, content, and his muscles and mind were both fully relaxed and calm.

He was half expecting the Force to abandon him after such a blatant transgression of the Jedi Code – after all, the legends told of Jedi-turned-Sith whose sensitivity was stripped due to their maltreatment of the gift. But the Force still flowed around him, embracing his heart and mind like it had always done. He didn't know if it was his own perception – given his experiences the night before – but the Force currents seemed unusually pleasant, giddy almost.

He rolled over and sprawled out on his stomach, burying his head in a pillow and not bothering to open his eyes. There was a slight whim lingering in the back of his mind that he tried to force away by physically digging his forehead deeper into the pillow.

Did he somehow want the Force to desert him?

Jedi as he was, it certainly wasn't a completely objectionable thought. He could change his name, stay with Nyssa, and join the rebellion, smuggle, or Force knew what. Vader wouldn't stalk a normal, boring, non-Force sensitive being, would he?

No, he wouldn't bother. And then perhaps Nyssa, since she already said she loved him, would agree to marry him and bear children …

He continued to daydream, hoping that it would soon lull him back to sleep before the cold reality of things struck him once more. He turned to his side, expecting to grab onto Nyssa lying next to him.

His hand found nothing but air and a vacant top sheet; she had already woken up and left for the day.

He allowed himself an annoyed sigh. The unpleasant reminders of where exactly they were and who was still hunting him assaulted his thoughts yet again.

The Force was still there and so Vader could still sense him. He still was a Jedi and duty bound. No matter how wonderful his night with Nyssa had been, it was still only that – one night, a moment in time incapable of changing the galaxy as a whole.

Daven grunted and got up. He dressed slowly, truly not wanting to deal with the life that awaited him outside the crew quarters. The guilt caused from his blasphemous thoughts regarding the Force continued to echo in his head as he stood and walked out to the main quarters of the Star.

He found Nyssa returning from the bridge, apparently on her way to the cargo hold. She was, to his amusement, humming a merry tune under her breath. She paused when she saw him and smiled brightly. Her cheeks were aglow as she threw down a hydrospanner and greeted him.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned against him. Her cheer was infectious, and Daven soon forgot his depressing thoughts. He allowed himself a few moments just to let his eyes absorb her loveliness once again. She was truly a sight, and he felt the emotion, which he could now positively identify as love, swell inside him.

"Morning, beautiful," he finally said as he gently cupped her chin in between his index finger and thumb.

"Morning yourself," she answered, kissing him playfully. "I went ahead and moved the ship; we're in the other dock now. It shouldn't take as long to load everything from here."

"You should have woken me," he grumbled with only a slight hint of disapproval. "I could've helped you navigate." This second hangar was much smaller than the one in which they had originally landed. It was probably used for planetary scout transports rather than ships. The entrance was much narrower, making it difficult to see from a few kilometers above the ground.

"You looked too cute sleeping, Jedi," she told him with a wink. "You're up now, though, and I need you now anyway."

Holding his hand, she led him down to the ramp, filling him in on the morning's events

"Those fuel tanks we saw the other day are full, thank the gods," she reported as they exited the Gray Star, "but they aren't equipped with a standard nozzle. I think they outfitted it only for the speeders here. It won't fit the ship."

"Great. Do we have enough already to get us to a civilized system?"

"'Fraid not," she admitted. "I figured they'd have some; it is a base, after all. I'm assuming that the nozzle is interchangeable, but we aren't going to find a tech droid to help us now."

Daven winced a little, knowing how awful she must have felt for making such a grievous error. "It's all right, Nyssa," he comforted as they both inspected the large fuel canisters. "Can we do anything?"

"I'm thinking I'll be able to rig something together," she said, finally clarifying why her voice hadn't held an air of complete glumness. "It'll take longer, though, maybe a few hours."

"That's fine," Daven shrugged. "I'll load up the hold with rations in the meantime."

The amount of crates they would need to survive in order to successfully reach the next inhabited system was minimal, and it was Daven's custom to only take what he needed. Nyssa had agreed, saying that she didn't want any rebels on her back for such an obvious theft.

After he had finished loading, he sat down to help Nyssa with the nozzle. She had even gone so far as to wield a blowtorch against a stubborn piece of durasteel. Having limited knowledge of mechanics or repair, the Jedi could only offer an extra hand or Force-enhanced strength when she required it.

Nyssa was cheerfully teasing him about his lack of engineering prowess in between his near catastrophes with manipulating various tools.

"I thought Jedi were supposed to have knowledge about everything," she laughed as Daven fumbled with a hydrospanner, unaware of how to hand it to Nyssa properly.

"I'm sure I had some courses in this stuff," he shrugged, "but I don't remember. I was sent mainly on protection mandates as a Padawan. There were always droids to fix things."

"What about your old man?" Nyssa asked. "He wasn't into tools?"

"Who?" Daven glanced up, confused. "You mean my Master? No, he was a lot like me, I guess." He shrugged.

"I mean your father."

Daven's mouth opened slowly in shock, exasperation, or some combination of the two. He couldn't honestly tell if Nyssa was that unfamiliar with the Order or if she had just forgotten that basic tenet for some reason.

"I never knew him," he admitted, wondering how Nyssa would react. "I was given to the Temple when I was still an infant. Most Jedi are." Actually, all except one, he remembered bitterly, but chose to ignore that thought.

"Never knew?" Nyssa raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Your mother, too?"

Daven nodded cautiously.

"How could you live like that? Never?" She shook her head as if trying to deny that such a situation could exist. "How could they live like that? If I had a child, I could never give it away to some stranger." She looked conflicted, possibly remembering her relationship with her own mother.

"It was the right decision," he countered. He had never doubted his parents' choice to give him to the Jedi. It was simply the only place where he belonged.

"The Empire wouldn't have placed a bounty on your head if they'd kept you," Nyssa pointed out logically. She grasped the clamp in front of her and yanked, forcing the durasteel to mend itself to the flexisteel hose.

"There's still a reward offered for Force-sensitives," he reminded her. "Just not as much. And without my training, I wouldn't have been able to defend myself as long as I have."

Nyssa reluctantly nodded in agreement as she withdrew the clamp and checked the fitting.

"So, are you going to try to find them now?"

"Why?"

They both looked up and stared at each other in bewilderment, trying to guess whose idea had been the strangest.

"Aren't you the least bit curious about them?" Nyssa finally prompted.

"No." The response was automatic, but Daven found himself questioning it as he spoke. "I don't know," he admitted. "I never gave them much thought, really." He paused to sort though his emotions. "But I have found myself thinking about more … domestic things since I woke up this morning."

Nyssa smiled almost arrogantly, as if she knew exactly what their encounter had done to Daven's concept of family.

"Perhaps I would like to meet them," he confessed more to himself than to her. His thoughts of taking Nyssa as his wife had become more and more frequent as their time together had increased – a very perplexing development. It was almost if the Force willed it. "I won't even know how to begin looking for them, though."

"Hello, bounty hunter here," Nyssa grinned triumphantly. "I can find anyone."

"Really?" He felt a sense of hope swell within him. Strange – before this moment he was never aware that he even cared about his parents. Perhaps he was merely trying to fill the void that the destruction of the Temple had left. He paused and rethought the idea. "No, it's too dangerous. I don't want the Emperor finding them." He shook his head.

"Yeah, good point." Nyssa nodded. She became somber and the two worked in amiable silence until the new nozzle was finished.

It was about as far from perfection as something could be and still work, but it did indeed work, which was the only thing Daven cared about right now.

Nyssa climbed the starboard side to attach the hose to the fuel intake valve. Normally such work would be done be a fuelling droid, but she had been unsuccessful in her attempts to reboot the one lying in the dock's far corner.

Daven watched, wishing that she had allowed him to go instead. She had merely laughed when he suggested it, reminding him that he wouldn't be able to figure out how to handle the device.

She reached the valve without incident and, after securing her footing, she proceeded to lock in the new nozzle. It wasn't a very good fit, and Daven could hear her swearing in various languages as she struggled to manhandle it in.

Her fierce jerking was making him nervous from his view nearly ten meters below her perch. He probably shouted "careful" more than once, but she had chosen to ignore his warnings.

After a particularly hazardous bout of tugging, Daven couldn't honestly say he was surprised when the Force prickled at his nerves. He jumped forward just in time to catch the falling form of his lover, still shouting cruses as she went.

She landed in his arms hard, causing him to loose his balance and begin to fall forward, leading them downwards to the rough floor and the inevitable, bruising consequences of such a destination.

He reached out with the Force instinctively to push him back up before his knees buckled fully. The familiar waves of energy wrapped around his body, stopping their descent.

His connection to Nyssa was strengthened by his near complete emersion into the Force. He felt her fear at her startling tumble, but it was mixed with a larger amount of annoyance. She had been angry slightly as well, yet the emotion was settling as she came to realize whom she had fallen against.

She showered him with love as if she knew he could sense it, and Daven had to bathe in it if only for a moment. His mind was relaxed as he bought himself to stand straight. He was about to speak, but a delicate wisp of something caused him pause.

It was warm and bright, yet beyond small. It lived, enveloped in the Force, but he could not sense it breathing.

He studied the … feeling? … as well as he could until the realization hit him like a blot from a blaster cannon.

Oh.

He stared at Nyssa blankly, trying to form some explanation, but his throat went dry in both shock and pure joy.

"Nyssa–" he started.

"Thanks for the save, Jedi," she interrupted, not noticing the stunned look on his face. "Got the damn thing in, though. So let's go." She jumped out of his grasp after giving him a sharp kiss, and walked back towards the first tank.

Daven sighed. He knew that his news could wait until they were safely off planet anyway. He didn't even know how Nyssa would react; best for her to have no other current obligations to worry about when he told her.

He turned to follow her, but something out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. He looked back and stepped a few meters closer to the ship, inspecting the underside of the hull. There sat a barely noticeable metallic disk no larger than the flat of his hand. A red light flashed tenaciously on the top of it.

His mouth went wide and he felt his years of training attempting to bring a Jedi calm back to his nerves. It didn't take a degree in mechanical engineering to know what that was.

"Nyssa!"

Pearlwriter: Thanks! Nope, chapter 5 isn't the end. ;) Got a little while to go yet. The JC is the Jedi Council Forums, the discussion boards of They've got a pretty big fan fiction section (boards. (no www. in front)). The fic tends to be of higher quality there, on average, than here, but its format makes it difficult to find characters and genres that you want to read. I have put some thought into starting back up on the sequel after I finish the fic I'm currently writing :)

reagan64: Thanks!