Wrong maiden in distress

Disclaimer: I do not own anyone, they all belong to Disney™ and Lucasfilm™, I think.

Once upon a time, when the wicked spider monster was slain, Rose Tico was preparing something nice for Ben Solo; not because she was sucking up to their leader, but because something else, some other reason, no doubt – but which one? Cough, and where were we?

Ah yes, the South American wilderness was discouraging in regards to fancy hair and make-up, but, still, Rose was inventive, (she was better than her sister was with machines and stuff for a reason), and so she created a very nice picnic basket and was currently reminiscing as to how she'd introduce the topic to Ben Solo.

And yes, there were bagels too, because reasons, because Rose Tico loved them, and everyone else enjoyed them, and if Paige didn't, well, Paige also dated Poe Dameron for a reason, and-

There was a knock on the door.

"Yes?" Rose opened it, half-expected it to be Ben, and sure enough, it was. He was looking down at her in a manner that was almost concerned, and certainly not judgemental. Oh dear.

"What's wrong?" Rose muttered in a tiny voice.

"Um, Tico – I mean, Rose," Ben looked and sounded authentically apologetic here. "Was it you or your sister who'd prepared Phasma's tree-climbing harness for today?"

"Um," Rose felt her panic attack subsiding, she knew this one. "It was actually Poe Dameron…" she trailed away, picked up her tools, and raced to the site where Phasma, (and Hux), was supposed to be today, studying toucans or some other South American tropical birds. Sadly, she was wearing her favorite sandals that were truly suitable only for indoors here, in South America, so of course she had stumbled when she got outside and would've fallen right onto her face, (and in South America that could've been worse than how it sounded), if Ben hadn't caught her in mid-air and all and just held her there.

…Actually, he just sort of began to carry her, with one arm wrapped around her mid-riff, parallel to the ground. This was demeaning, of course, not to mention politically retarded, and Rose opened her mouth to tell him that when Ben paused, muttered something that Rose did not quite catch, and put her onto his back instead. Since Rose was still not wearing appropriate footwear, she did not feel like objecting too raptly now. Moreover, she saw Hux approaching them, and the man was looking rather panicked now – which meant that he was liable to lash out at anyone that he could, so Rose decided to let their leader handle this.

"Where, where is this braggart?" Hux sputtered, only maybe it was not 'braggart' that he was saying – whenever he got really upset and/or angry, he would mix Italian and other languages with his English – and the Tico sisters really were not good with European languages that were not English.

Hux looked at Rose, his eyes gleaming.

"No, it wasn't her," Ben told the other man curtly. "It was Dameron, apparently. Find him later, or now, and rant. Me and her will go and help Phasma instead."

"Good idea," Hux backed down, some. "Phasma's so scared that she's angry enough to climb the tree herself-"

Rose remembered some of the trees of the South America's tropical forest, and blanched. "Hurry," she told Ben, (she would always deny kicking him while on his back), "this can end really badly!"

And hurry Ben did. They arrived just in time, as the frustrated Phasma was about to leave the relative safety of her harness and the rest of the tree-climbing apparatus, and begin to descend manually. Considering that she was basically stuck in the lower branches of a really tall tropical tree, this probably wouldn't have led to anything good, because climbing tropical trees without a safety harness is a bad idea, even if you are as athletic as Phasma was, and she would've been climbing down, and not up.

Instead… Phasma ended up being stuck in the tree for a while longer, but now Rose was working and rebooting her equipment, and since unlike Poe she knew how it all was supposed to go down properly, and so Phasma did not climb down by hand. In place of that, she and Ben yelled an exchange at each other via radio and not, because both of them could be that loud, and then Phasma observed her new toucan friends as they decided that she was worth their while after all, (or was just harmless – Rose was not so good with wild animals outside of a museum or a zoo), and so they hanged around Phasma, demonstrating their colorful plumage and bills.

And then, finally, Phasma was able to come back down to the ground, which she did…reluctantly. Apparently, now that she was not actually stuck up there, she did not want to come back down to begin with. Consequently, she and Ben got to shout at each other some more, until Hux returned to the scene and told everyone, including Rose, (and it was actually nice to be included, for some reason), that he had found Dameron. Phasma immediately came down, and together with Hux, she left to yell at Dameron instead. Also at Paige, but right now Rose didn't care much about Paige; plus by now she knew enough about Phasma to see that she wasn't going to be violent at Dameron's ass, and as for being yelled at… they were all grown-ups, technically, and so Rose had no intention of getting involved.

"Want to have a picnic, meanwhile?" she was asked Ben brightly.

The latter just blinked. "What's the reason?" he finally answered with his own question.

"For saving me from the monster-"

"It was a spider-"

"A monster spider then-"

"Fine," Ben decided to give-in on this argument. "So, you want me to make you a bagel with bacon, lettuce and tomatoes?"

"Yes please!" Rose said cheerfully, and this was what Ben did. More precisely, they did have a nice picnic together, and even though some of the toucans did flutter down, closer to the ground, to try and steal their meal, they failed to ruin it: Rose and Ben did enjoy themselves for the next few hours, while Phasma and Hux yelled at Poe, and Paige ran interference – but that was another story.

End