It was raining, one of the warm storms that occasionally passed over their part of Yavin, and when Mara went looking for Luke, she knew she would find him outside.
He sat in the center of a clearing not far from the academy proper. The grass bent beneath the weight of the water, and the spattering of rain was loud as it pounded against the leaves in the trees only a few meters away. Mara wore a long hooded poncho and still felt the water slide beneath her clothes and across her skin, but Luke wore nothing but his robes, which were plastered to his body, and he gave no indication that he was bothered by the storm.
She stopped, and stood for a moment beside him, basking in the sense of peace he emanated. Then she said, loud enough to be heard but quiet enough not to startle, "Meditating?"
Not that Luke would have been startled anyway; he was too aware for that, even with his eyes closed. Though he did not open his eyes, a smile played across his lips. "No," he said. "Not meditating. Not really."
She knelt beside him, uncaring of the increased soaking on her knees and shins. "If you wanted to get wet, we have a perfectly functional shower back in our quarters," she said, though she knew it wasn't just the promise of water that chased him out here.
He laughed, quietly, a laugh soon swallowed by the pounding of the rain. "I prefer natural showers," he replied, and tilted his head back. Drops of rain trickled down his neck and disappeared beneath the collar of his shirt. Mara's gaze followed their progress for a moment, and then she blinked, and focused on his face again. One eye was halfway open, the blue glint barely visible, but then the eye closed again. His smile widened almost imperceptibly.
She raised an eyebrow; though she knew he couldn't see it, he probably still knew it was there. She opened her mouth to say something, but before she could even see his hand move, his finger was against her lips, stopping her.
"Listen, Mara," he said, softly. "Just listen to it. Feel it. Smell it." Now his eyes opened, and the blue pierced her, the rain seeming to emphasize the color rather than wash it out.
"Teaching again?" she asked, but with no real ire. That habit of his that had so annoyed her in the past, teaching even outside a classroom, rarely bothered her anymore. She understood now that it was just part of who he was, and appreciated the spirit in him that found so much joy in life and the Force that he wanted to share it whenever and wherever he could.
"You know me," he said, as if he'd read her thoughts. But he hadn't; even as she knew him, he knew her.
So she smiled, and closed her eyes, and shifted slightly closer to him. She felt the Force around her, an endless reservoir, but she didn't reach out and touch it. She didn't need to tap into it for her peace, not when she--and Luke--had another source right there.
The rain kissed her face, warm and strangely gentle as it splashed across her skin. She tilted her head up, and the hood fell back, exposing her hair to the downpour. She inhaled, welcoming the scent of the ground beneath her, the water around her, and the man right next to her.
"I would have given anything to feel this, when I was younger," Luke murmured from beside her. "To sit in the rain with nothing urgent to do, to let myself get completely soaked, to smell and taste clean water, without the metallic tang the vaporators frequently gave it. But until I came to this planet and saw my first storm, rain was only something I'd read about."
She opened her eyes again, narrowed for a moment against the drops that threatened to hit her eyes. "But that was twenty years ago," she said. "Surely the novelty has worn off."
He looked at her, the intense blue of his eyes still as mesmerizing as ever. Then he smiled at her, and took one of her hands in his. He examined it, his fingers brushing lightly across the back of her hand, running up and down her own fingers, tracing figures on her palm. She shivered, despite the warmth of the rain.
"Rain still seems a miraculous thing, even twenty years later," he said softly. His gaze met hers and held it, strong and gentle at once, just as he was. The contradiction this man represented still fascinated her, even after over a decade of knowing him, over half that of loving him, and over a year of having been married to him. That perplexing, wonderful contradiction...
The hand that he wasn't holding drifted upward to his cheek, and brushed away a drop of water that seemed to have frozen there. "I have to admit," she said, "it is kind of nice."
He leaned slightly into her hand. "A simple pleasure, perhaps," he murmured, barely audible over the rain, his eyes still gazing intently into hers. "But simple pleasures should never be discounted." One corner of his mouth twitched. "And I do like getting wet."
"I know you do," she said, and scooted closer, let her hand drop from his cheek to his shoulder, leaned her forehead against his. And she sat there with him, breathing with him, and did not stop her lips when they curved into a smile.