Second Life

Prologue

The stars above the gardens were dimming, fading ever so slightly as if acknowledgement that this was the final day for the two men who were lying in each other's arms, looking up at the stars above. They were both ancient looking, age was hard to determine. Both men had paper-thin their skin and wrinkles that sagged off them.

"We didn't get to spend enough time together." The healthier of the two men claimed. His voice not matching the exterior, sounding much younger than he looked. The voice of a healthy young man still in his prime.

The other man let out a raspy chuckle. "Arn, we've been together for over one hundred years." His sentence was long and drawn out as he struggled for every breath. "Just how much more time do you want?"

"Forever." The healthier man declared. His love for the other man gleaming in his eyes. "We wasted our younger years hating each other. I mistook my love for you as hate. I didn't understand what love was back then. We were already old men by the time we both got over ourselves and admitted that we love one another. We wasted so many opportunities to be together. Maybe we could've become parents. We wouldn't be here alone if we'd had children. Maybe we would've even had grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Instead, humanity ends with you. Dave Lister, last human."

"Arn, don't forget, you're human too."

"One who's been dead for the past three million years."

"Still human, no matter how much time passes."

The hologram's projection glitched at his life partner's declaration. "Don't you go fading on me before I'm gone, Arn, I want to spend my last moments with you. We are leaving this life together," Dave coughed. Arn helping him despite knowing he couldn't do much.

Dave was dying.

After a lifetime of adventure and near death, he was dying, and there was nothing they could do. Old age of all things, something neither man had expected but had wanted. Today was his last day in the universe as a living person. They all knew it. Kryten knew it was the last time he'd see either man when he'd moved Dave to the botanical gardens. All that was left to make him comfortable. Once the ship detected Dave's passing, Arn's programming would cease, killing the hologram.

Kryten has said his final goodbyes, crying as he left the two men, leaving him alone on the ship. Cat has passed away many years beforehand. Kryten had requested to change Arn's programming, something that Dave couldn't believe Arn had actually turned down, not even Arn could believe the 'no' that came out. When Arn was a younger man he would've tried to survived anyway possible. Now he'd come to accept his forever death, that this was the end. Dave and Arn did feel bad about leaving Kryten behind in life, neither man wanted to live without the other.

Arn ran his fingers through Dave's hair. He was leaving his life with a full head of hair while Arn only had a thin peppering of hair left around the edge of his hairline. "I have so much that I regret and that I'm sorry for. I'm sorry for how difficult I made things for you. I'm so sorry that I was selfish. I'm sorry that I didn't think to clone children for us when I got trapped on Rimmerworld. I'm sorry that I didn't find a way to keep the twins with us and that we didn't see them again after dropping them off with Deb and Arlene. I'm sorry that we never found Kristine."

"Arn, you don't have to apologise again. While I also regret never seeing our children again or finding Kristine, they are minor regrets, and I cherish the time we did get to spend together before parting. I'm sure that Arlene and Deb are having this moment with the boys." Dave's breaths were closer together. "Arn, I love you more than anyone in the universe."

A smile graced Arn's lips. "That is not difficult. No one else loved me before you." Arn placed a feather light kiss on Dave's lips. "I didn't even love myself before you loved me. You are the first person to love me, and the first person I ever loved. Thank you for showing me was love is, Dave."

"Love you forever," Dave declared.

"Love you forever," Arn agreed. Neither man said another world. Lying together in each other's arms. Dave's breath's becoming shallow until it finally stopped. Arn sat up, placed a kiss on Dave's lips.

The last sound from the room was a dead lightbee clanking to the floor.