First Birthday

The panicked voice of Rimmer came from down the hallway. "Lister, where are you?" The hologram shouted over and over. From where his voice was coming from, we was running up and down the hallways, yet his footsteps could not be heard. His footsteps could never be heard. When he stopped talking and breathing through his nose, he was impossible to track without sight. Being a hologram, he couldn't listen to the movements Rimmer made; being consisted of light and all.

Lister curled up hoping that the other man wouldn't think to look in his hiding spot. He just wanted to be left alone. Was one day without the Cat and Rimmer to much to ask for? He couldn't deal with whatever smeg Rimmer had for him today.

"Holly," Rimmer called out, his voice was on the other side of the door. "Where is he?"

"Where's who?" Holly asked lazily. Her voice coming from all the speakers in the area. She knew exactly who Rimmer was looking for. Not like there were many options.

"Lister you gimboid," the frustrated hologram shouted. Lister imagined the hologram was stamping his foot as he looked at the screen with his nose flaring.

"Dave wants to be left alone," Holly answered. Lister sighed, it sounded like Holly was keeping her promise.

"I don't care, Holly, I need to be with him." Rimmer whinnied like a child who wasn't getting his way.

"Well, that's not going to help much considering you can't touch him," Holly replied in her monotone voice. "It did take you long enough to realise your feelings for him. No wonder why Dave is hiding from you."

Lister almost gave his location away, snorting at Holly's comment. As if Rimmer would want him in the way she was suggesting. Rimmer screamed out in frustration, not even denying what Holly had just suggested.

"Do you even know what day it is?" Rimmer asked the computer in a tone that suggested she should be aware.

"Thursday," Holly replied confidently.

"No!" Rimmer screamed. "Yes it's Thursday, but that's not what this is about."

Lister listened, did Rimmer really know what today was? He assumed he did but didn't care. He didn't seem to care about anything unless it affected him directly.

"It's also been a year since I changed my gender."

"That's not for another week. Have you lost all sense of time in the last three million years?" Rimmer snapped, taking a deep breath despite not needing to breathe. "Today is Jim and Bexley's first birthday. This time last year, Kryten was slicing Dave open to deliver the twins. This time last year we were discovering that they were ageing too fast and you were trying to work out if sending them to the reverse gender dimension would make a difference or not."

Lister could not believe the emotion in Rimmer's voice. That he actually did remember and he really did care.

"Oh dear, no wonder why Dave is upset."

"So that's why he can't be alone today. Why I can't be alone today."Rimmer said in a whisper which Lister heard anyway despite being on the other side of the door Rimmer was standing near.

Rimmer sounded desperate as he asked. "Where is he?"

"He's sitting in the stasis booth. It's turned off," Holly said.

Holly had betrayed him, revealing his location. He knew that Rimmer would be looking at the stasis booth.

"Lister, I know you're in there. Open up," Rimmer demanded. Lister didn't have the energy to respond or open the door. "I'm coming in."

- Red Dwarf -

Rimmer walked through the stasis boot door finding that he did still project here. He hadn't been too sure since the projection system didn't work everywhere in the ship. Lister was curled up, rocking on the floor. He smelled or booze and cigarettes. His clothing was a mess, and he had bags under his eyes. He hadn't been sleeping well at all in the past year. Pretending that everything was fine and dandy when everyone knew it wasn't.

Rimmer sat on the floor next to Lister wishing he could hold him. What Lister need right now was a hug from someone comforting him. Exactly what Rimmer couldn't give and had never received himself even when he had been alive and needed one.

"I miss them too," Rimmer whispered in what he hoped was a soothing tone. "Not as much as you. You're the one who was pregnant with them. Gave birth, held them in your arms as they cried from how much pain they were in from growing so fast. I really do miss them. I keep wondering how different the past year would've been if we got to raise them. If we would grow up at all. Personally, I feel that we both regressed when we returned from the other universe."

Rimmer continued talking as he reminisced about how different their lives would've been with the twins around the past year. Watching the boys smile, laugh, talk, sit up, crawl, stand up and maybe even walk. Both of them trying to get used to the change in routine. How different some of their adventures would've been with two babies.

"Rimmer, can you write that all down for me," Lister asked. "What life would be like with the twins still here. I want to read it later."

Rimmer grinned, it was the first confirmation he had that Lister was listening to him.

"I can do that," Rimmer promised, and it was a promise he intended to keep.

Lister smiled a sad smile. Standing up and opening the stasis booth door."Let's go look at the boy's room."

- Red Dwarf -

They both wandered to the room, opening the door for the first time in just under a year. It was still set up for the newborn twins. With the cot, Lister had made when he first discovered he was pregnant. The knitted clothing and blankets also made by Lister. The toys they had raided from the gift shop and some of the crew's rooms.

"These are new," Lister pointed two photos.

"I had Holly print them, and Kryten hang them up for me just before we sealed the room."

A photo hung above each bed. One baby in a green blanket with the word James below it and the other baby in a blue blanket with the name Bexley. Taken before they had started aggressively ageing super fast. Lister had refused to go into the room before they sealed it, at the time being in too much emotional pain. To him, it felt like he was killing his own children if he'd gone back into the room.

There was a collection of photos on the two nightstands. One Lister had taken when they saw the future echoes, a couple of Lister when he was pregnant, and the rest of the three short days they spent with the twins.

"You're allowed to miss them, Dave," Rimmer said, using Lister's first name, so he knew what he was saying was important. "It's natural to miss your children and wonder what could have been. Next week we need to go back to living in the present and not living in the past."

"Why a week and not a day?" Lister turned seeing Rimmer's devastated face for the first time."A week it is." Lister agreed. "Thank's Rimmer, for caring and not letting me wallow in self-pity."

Lister wasn't the only one suffering. He wasn't going through this alone. It had not just affected him, it had affected the people around him. And of the ones around it had affected Rimmer the most. The one who had supported him from the first moment they'd discovered that the pregnancy was even viable in their own dimension. Lister picked up a picture of his newborns and hugged it to his chest. He would never forget his children and neither would Rimmer.