"You and Kylo go to Ilum for a crystal and come back with a cohort of prisoners." Poe shook his head and flipped the safety shield back over his face. He leaned back over the engine of his X-wing. "Stars. Jedi."

Rey snorted and shrugged. "At this point, nothing ever goes to plan. I didn't think Phasma would be the one to completely mess with it."

Poe's cutting torch glowed bright blue and hummed, drowning out the noises of the city around them. Rey dug her fingers into the package of Arkanis nuts and popped one into her mouth. Her leg swung, making her foot bump into the box she sat on. She idly wondered what life would be like without the Force. Or even just without an attempt on their lives every few months.

Poe flipped the safety shield up again and admired his work. "Can you bring the glowlamp down?" Rey waved her hand slowly through the air, and the floating glowlamp dropped a few centimenters. Poe nodded in thanks and flicked his gloved thumb over the newly repaired connecting rod. "Finn thinks she didn't intend to confront you."

Rey chewed her lip for a moment, tasting the salt from her nuts. "She was trying to get us to surrender." She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, her stomach twisting uncomfortably. "And said she didn't want to see how a stun would affect Leia."

Poe leaned against the ship, playing with a hydrospanner in his hands. "I don't want to know that, either."

Rey shook her head and sighed. "No. I mean, yes, I agree, but that's not the point. She didn't want to kill us. She intended to capture us."

"Didn't you do the same?"

"But why not just kill us?" The image of Kylo standing with a blaster to his neck flashed through her mind, and her stomach twisted. She chewed on her lip again and played with the almost-empty nut wrapper. "We're probably in her way, whatever direction that is."

Poe set the hydrospanner down and put a hand over hers. "You all right?"

Rey gave him a grateful smile but shook her head. "She could've killed Kylo. Or severely incapacitated him."

Poe squeezed her hand. "But she didn't, and you guys won. I'm glad Jess and Sonzy made it to help." His face mirrored her own worry for a brief instant before he moved back to his X-wing. "When we found her in that rubble during the war, I didn't think she'd be such an incredible Jedi."

Rey smiled softly and crumpled her package of nuts. "I think Kylo did."

Poe's grin disappeared behind his face shield. The cutting torch flared to life again. Rey lifted her head to the sky, letting the Coruscant sun warm her face as she watched speeders race past. As much as she enjoyed living with their unconventional family, she wondered if Coruscant was the right place to raise her and Kylo's child. The city-covered planet did not offer much vegetation, not to mention the journalists that would follow them their entire lives.

The torch switched off, and Poe leaned against the X-wing. His face and tone gained a serious edge as he asked, "There were no crystals on Ilum?"

"None."

Disjointed images flashed through Kylo's mind. A blaster, a sandy desert, chrome armor, Hux. And then an image of Rey, her body limp and lifeless on a dirty ground. He pulled back, horror racing through him as he collected his thoughts and convinced himself the last image was not real.

"That all you got, Ren?" Phasma bared her teeth at Kylo from across the table. Her nostrils flared, the only sign of exertion from the past half hour.

Kylo had no idea where she had learned it, but he had to admit that Phasma's resistance to his mind probe was one of the best he had encountered. Especially for someone without Force sensitivity. He pulled on the Force, checking that she did not have anything that would hide Force abilities. Nothing. He and the Reformed Republic authorities had checked her and taken all of her belongings, and he would have known during his time in the First Order.

No, Phasma, quite simply, knew him. She knew what information to throw at him to force him to retreat. His mother's death, himself ordering the deaths of villagers, the imagined death of his wife. She fed him images of items she knew extremely well before throwing something to affect his emotions. He could not get far enough in to understand her plans, and the cronies they had captured on Ilum knew nothing to help.

He should have come with Rey.

He glanced at Luke, who stood in the corner dressed in beige Jedi robes. His uncle gave a small nod, and Kylo felt the Force concentrate around him as Luke lent his support.

Kylo flexed his hand and focused the Force, sending another probe into Phasma's mind. He met the same image of a durasteel wall he had met in every attempt on her mind. He pressed it, manipulating the Force to bend and break the defense once again. Images flooded his mind. The chrome armor. Stormtrooper cadets. A blaster. And just as he sensed another painful image, he threw one of his own at her. His memory of Phasma in glowing cuffs around her wrists and ankles being pulled into a heavily armored transport.

He did not have many other memories, or knowledge for that matter, of Phasma that would emotionally affect her, but it was enough. Her concentration wavered just slightly.

A flash of a long, pale face with black eyes. And a tree.

Rey adjusted Arian in her arms and knocked twice on the tall, dark door. "Kylo? Are you all right?"

She glanced down the short hall. The Jedi Academy was quiet. Dim lights illuminated the corridor and outlined the doors to Luke's and her own offices identical to the one she stood in front. She could sense sleeping younglings a few floors above.

Arian pressed a small hand to the door, and Rey grinned at him. "Your dad's in there." Rey knocked again and waved her hand. The door slid silently to the side, and she let out a soft laugh.

Kylo's head rested on the desk, his breathing deep and even as he slept. His right hand drooped over his hair as evidence of its failed job to bear the weight of the Jedi's head. His other hand rested on a datapad, causing the screen to continuously flicker a request to re-verify the user. A stack of Luke's old texts lay to one side while the rest scattered around the desk haphazardly. An open one served as a pillow to Kylo's forehead.

Rey considered just letting her husband sleep, but he would complain about his neck for a week if she did. Gently, she nudged his shoulder and pressed on their bond to let him know who was waking him.

Kylo sucked in a breath, his head flying up. He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh, Rey."

Rey pushed aside the stack of texts and sat on the corner of the desk, letting Arian sit next to her. "You know, the bed at home is much more comfortable."

A holo of Kylo and Rey standing by the Millennium Falcon not long after the war represented the only personal effect Kylo kept in his office. Arian leaned forward and waved his hand through it. Kylo gave the youngling a half smile and brushed some of Arian's dark hair from his face. "Why'd you bring Arian?

"He was crying when I got here and keeping his roommates awake." She raised an eyebrow at Kylo. "He calmed down when he realized I was taking him to you."

"At least someone likes me," Kylo chuckled softly. Arian beamed.

Kylo picked up the datapad and set it to a simple game before handing to the youngling to play. They watched him touch moving dots on the screen for a few quiet minutes until Kylo drew in a breath.

"You know that dream we've been having? Of the tree?" When Rey nodded, Kylo continued, "I saw it again. In Phasma's mind."

Rey froze halfway in her reach for a text. "What?"

"It was brief, but I don't think it was a fabrication. She knows that tree. And I think I've read about it." He gestured to the texts.

Rey grabbed the text on the top of the stack and flipped through it. "You think it's in these? Does Luke know?"

Kylo raked a hand through his hair. "He thought he did, but the book he checked didn't have anything. He's trying to see if he can get anything else out of Phasma right now."

Rey flipped another page and looked up at him. "Why didn't you call me to help? Or our young Jedi for that matter; they're alarmingly good at research."

Kylo laughed and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his neck again. "I couldn't find anything on the Holonet, and I admit I didn't intend to fall asleep."

Rey set the text on the desk and let out a slow breath. The chronometer on the wall read nearly midnight. "We can continue this in the morning, Kylo, once we're refreshed."

Kylo hesitated, torn between rest and knowledge. "Rey, this is important. We should've listened to our dreams and learned about this tree earlier."

Rey gave him a dry look. "You'll just fall asleep again, and so will I."

His shoulders sagged, and he nodded once, throwing up a hand in surrender. "Fine, fine. You're right."

"I know." Rey slipped off the desk and turned to the Arian, who had abandoned the datapad. "Arian, that's not a toy!"

She did not know if the youngling heard her, but he did not look up from the text. The pages ripped as he flipped them with quick, imprecise movements. Rey grabbed him under the arms and pulled Arian into her arms. The text flopped from the little hands. "Let's get you to bed."

"Rey." Kylo's voice was soft, and she almost missed it. When she turned, she saw Kylo kneeling over the fallen text. "Arian found it."

He stood and brushed dirt from the pages. A faded drawing of a magnificent tree covered one page, a small rip in the upper corner marring the once-brilliant green leaves. Handwritten words, some too faded to make out, hugged the design in nearly even lines.

Rey tucked Arian on one arm and ran her index finger over a few of the words. "Can you read this? I only can make out a few words that look vaguely like Basic."

Kylo shook his head and pulled his datapad into his hand with a small wave of his fingers. He tapped the screen to exit out of Arian's abandoned game and pulled up a translation program. A light flickered from the datapad as it scanned the page. The program flickered several times, and then a block of Basic text appeared.

The First Tree

Uneti trees – trees with deep connections to the Force – are descended from the First Tree. It is the belief of the Jedi Order that the First Tree was the first living organism to sense the Force at the beginning of the galaxy. Its roots grow vast and deep, imbuing both planet and tree with the Force. Like oxygen produced for a breathable atmosphere to many species, the First Tree seems to produce the Force. It nourishes the Force, sustains it for the galaxy. It is unknown if the Force will continue to connect all beings – or even exist – if the First Tree were to die. For this reason, the Jedi Order has kept the planet a secret from all but the highest Jedi Masters, who are sworn to take the location to their graves.

Branches of the First Tree were carefully removed. Some branches were planted and nurtured at major Jedi locations while others were cryostored in safe locations.

Rey patted Arian's back as the youngling squirmed. "We've been dreaming of this First Tree?"

Kylo made a soft noise of affirmation, his eyes flicking between the datapad translation and the text. "Why was it in Phasma's mind?"

Although Luke's voice barely more than a whisper from the doorway, it seemed to ring through the room as the Jedi said, "She wants to destroy it."