Warning: Crack. Unabashed crack. You have been warned.
A/N: This started with my dear evil friend noting that Phasma is the only woman around Kylo. Thus came the realisation she is his sole source for advice of the "what do women want?" flavour. The rest is history. Poor Phasma. I am so sorry. You deserve better.

Not Your Regular Date Doctor

Such thoughts were certainly treasonous, but there were times when Captain Phasma wished Kylo Ren would get himself redeemed already.

It had little to do with wishing him saved, and everything with wishing him to just shut up. Or complain to someone else. Wasn't that what men had a mother for?

She still remembered the first time Kylo Ren had held her back after a meeting, ordering her to follow him and taking her to his favorite training room, where she had half expected to become the subject of his mind trick experiments.

What followed had been so much worse.

He had looked at her, mask ripped off and naked face looking haunted and pained, and asked in a more plaintive voice than she would have thought their fearsome dark Jedi capable of, "why does she keep refusing me?"

She. Kylo's scavenger.

It wasn't until their third talk that Phasma learned why she had been dragged into this mess. Turned out she was the closest to a female friend Ren had, and as such she was his obvious choice for feminine advice. She had been pleased that he didn't think her less of a woman for being a soldier, like so many other men did, and hadn't had the heart to tell him that women didn't have a secret magical hive mind. There was an alien species in Wild Space that lived by a very wise saying: no good deed ever goes unpunished. The following months would prove it right.

It didn't take months, only took minutes for Phasma to gather that Ren had no idea how to go about winning a woman's heart, though it took her much longer to figure out that Ren wanted the woman to be more than another Knight. It was far too outlandish to consider, Kylo Ren having a love life. Kylo Ren wooing a girl. It sounded like the beginning of a bawdy Stormtrooper joke.

"You might want to refrain from killing her, Lord Ren," she had said wryly.

The look she got was utterly wounded. "I've never tried to kill her! I want to teach her, I can't teach her if she's dead!"

"Of course not, Lord Ren," Phasma had said crisply, and been glad for her helmet. "But does she know that?"

There was a long, pointed silence, and she could have sworn she felt the gears turn in Kylo Ren's mind. Unlike General Hux, Phasma had never thought of Ren as stupid, or even particularly foolish. She had seen stupid men succeed by virtue of sheer brutality, and Ren wasn't one of them. Turned out he was just incredibly dense in matters of the heart.

"I didn't kill her traitor friend on Starkiller Base," he ventured tentatively.

Underneath the helmet, Phasma bit down on her bottom lip so hard that she wouldn't have been surprised if she'd drawn blood. It was incredibly hard to keep yourself even from thinking snarky thoughts, but with Ren you always got the vibe that he knew. "I'm sure she appreciates that," she intoned solemnly.

Ren dropped onto his training mat, shoulders slumped and head bowed amidst a sea of black fabric. The very picture of dejection.

When he remained quiet for long, tense minutes, Phasma had snapped to attention and briskly said, "I'm not quite sure how I can help you, sir."

He had stayed motionless for another few seconds, as if he hadn't heard her at all, and then he'd suddenly leapt up, face twisting into rage as he bellowed, "you can't! You're useless! Get out of here if you're no help!"

After said third talk, she had reviewed her memories of the first one and realized he had been blushing. That, too, had been too outlandish to consider at the time.

Now she let her gaze stray to the woods lining the battle site of this fight between First Order and Resistance forces. Ren's fight with Rey had taken him somewhere into the woods. Phasma wasn't particularly worried, he was capable, and with the sheer number of times they had battled without doing another serious harm, Phasma suspected Rey had no more interest in harming him than he had in hurting her.

She hoped this meant the scavenger-turned-Jedi was warming up to Kylo. Phasma's stash of Corellian whiskey was running dangerously low.

The rebels retreated, thwarted, and Phasma managed to catch a trip back on Ren's Command Shuttle.

It didn't take more than one look at the body language of this pest of a man who had somehow become her friend. Phasma sat down next to him. "So… no luck?"

He looked about as forlorn as you could look wearing a mask. "She hates me."

Secretly, Phasma agreed that this was still a distinct possibility, lack of any serious harm done aside. Or she might just not be interested. Kylo kept telling her they had a special connection, but it could be wishful thinking. Phasma had never seen them together, she couldn't tell.

She gave him a friendly slap on the back, which was as close to being affectionate as she would permit in public. "I'm sure she doesn't."

Kylo remained sullen and sad, and Phasma mentally changed her schedule to include a moping session, and some alone time afterwards with her Corellian whiskey.

Sometimes Captain Phasma really wished Kylo Ren would hurry up and get himself redeemed already.

The End

Thank you for reading!

Catch the token Star Trek reference and you get a cookie.

I had intended this as an one-shot, but now I'm tending towards continuing this silly little thing, so keep your eyes open for more chapters.