Padmé sat in the Jacuzzi, still stunned at where her life had taken her. In order to maintain her safety, Padmé was still posing as Aleia's apprentice. There was technically an ordinance prohibiting that, but since Aleia wasn't part of the Order and Padmé was familiar with Jedi behavior, the Council was allowing it. Chancellor Palpatine along with the rest of the Senate just knew Senator Amidala was taking leave of her duties until her assassans were caught. The Jedi Council knew their identity to be the Trade Federation and the Separatists, but Palpatine refused to do anything until it was a proven fact; in other words he was doing the same as Valorum had 10 years ago. Padmé regretted the worry she knew it caused her family, but it would scare them even more if they knew what she did with her time off.

Upon arriving on Coruscant, the group went to the Jedi Temple immediately. From the looks she and Aleia had been getting, Padmé gathered that they were possibly the only two in the entire building who weren't a part of the Order. Obi-Wan and Anakin had gone to report to the Council, and Aleia and Padmé waited for them in the swimming area.

"Watch that," said Aleia. The Jedi Temple had been built over a small lake on the planet. The swimming area was, contrary to popular belief, the natural planet environment. It was two stories high to compensate for the large cliffs and except for the paved areas around the edges and the Jacuzzi it was completely unaltered. The Younglings had to learn to swim and also practiced their maneuverability by doing dive tricks off the cliffs. Aleia had pointed out some instructors "demonstrating dives" (showing off).

"How do they do that?" asked Padmé as one performed a perfect swan dive.

"You're telling me that you grew up on a water planet and you don't do swan dives?" said Aleia doubtfully.

"I swim; I don't dive," said Padmé.

A cannon ball splash redirected Aleia's smart remark, which turned into a glare as she recognized Obi-Wan and Anakin. Aleia stood up and dove off the wall of the Jacuzzi into a deep part of the lake. Obi-Wan ducked underwater and went after Aleia. Anakin decided not to get involved and joined Padmé in the Jacuzzi to observe. Aleia had started toward the waterfalls without coming out for a breath, Obi-Wan in fast pursuit.

"They never quit, do they?" Padmé remarked.

Anakin shook his head with an amused smile. They saw Obi-Wan and Aleia chasing each other all over the lake, cutting across lap lanes and dive areas, getting out of the way just in time. Somehow the two found their way to the top of the highest rock in the place. Aleia smiled evilly.

"Ah, my friend," she said, imitating his accent. "You have endurance, but are you also daring?"

With that, she dove head first off the rock in a perfect sailor's dive and made almost no splash whatsoever, leaving Obi-Wan, Anakin and Padmé with dropped jaws. She popped her head up with a self-satisfied grin.

"I could do that," Anakin mumbled.

Padmé bit her lip, but couldn't manage to hold back an ear-to-ear grin. Anakin fixed her with a good spirited glare.

"What's so funny?"

"You sound like that little boy on Tatooine when he didn't get his way again," she explained.

"I do not!" he said and splashed her. Padmé would have splashed him back, but used her better judgment. After all, they were among a lot of high ranking Jedi.
Aleia and Obi-Wan were in the lap lanes now, hanging on the wall about ready to start a race. They took of doing front crawl but kept stopping to try to slow the other one. They tied nonetheless and returned to the Jacuzzi arguing over it.

"Like my dive?" asked the smiling Aleia.

"You're crazy, but it worked," said Padmé.

Obi-Wan mumbled an agreement. Anakin bit his tongue and looked away. Aleia grinned mischievously.

"Awe, is somebody jealous?"

"Try doing that into the sand off a flaming pod with an angry dug on your tail,"
Anakin said quickly with a faked smile.

Aleia raised an eyebrow doubtfully, but had an idea.

"I'll race you," she said smiling.

"What?" he choked. "Do the words 'I grew up in a desert' mean anything to you?"

"You think I had any better?" she snorted. "Come on, unless you're… scared…"

"Actually, you probably did have better…" Anakin said flatly; Aleia glared at him.

"I'm not walking into something knowing I'm going to make a fool out of myself."

"Oh come on, humor me at least."

Padmé could tell Anakin's patience was running thin and he was in need of a subject change. She would have obliged, except she didn't want to make a Temple full of Jedi suspicious about their relationship- especially in the gossip capital of the galaxy. Thankfully, Obi-Wan had also noticed Anakin's patience was going fast and brought up something utterly different; Anakin and Padmé didn't pay attention.

"We should probably clear out; they'll be closing up soon," said Obi-Wan, bringing Padmé and Anakin back to the present. Aleia cannon balled into the pool and Obi-Wan followed. Anakin and Padmé synchronized their surface dives and caught up quickly. Obi-Wan and Aleia had already left for the showers when Anakin and Padmé reached the waterfall covering the cove with the door to the showers.

"Creative," said Padmé. She dove under the falls followed closely by Anakin. He came up first and almost choked on his breath to see Padmé resurface. Her hair was floating freely around her waist in the water and she looked over at him innocently. He leaned in to kiss her, but Padmé smiled helplessly and sunk beneath the water. Anakin knew she was right, so he swam over to the exit and got out before he was tempted further.

Padmé swam over to her own exit trying not to let her emotions show, though she knew it would only be a matter of time until everything would be revealed. She knew they couldn't hide forever. Padmé resurfaced once more and looked past the clear, falling water. She wasn't sure where fate would take her next, but the look she'd just seen in Anakin's eyes made her certain that she didn't need to fear anything as long as Anakin was there.