By: Stephanie Watson (SLWatson)
Beta/Editor: Karen Walker (Serris)
Disclaimer: Red Dwarf and all characters therein belong to Rob Grant and Doug Naylor. This is utterly non-profit.
Note: You would have had to have seen "Out of Time" to understand this. If you haven't, you're missing something awesome. Further note, I have no idea how long it'll take me to finish Between the Lines, but if anyone has any suggestions, I'm definitely open to 'em.
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They were all dead, and he was alone. Emergency lights were flashing, and all over were the sounds of bulkheads collapsing, machinery failing, and complete chaos and anarchy. As he ran through the corridors, the bazookoid weighing a little heavy, he thought about what he was going to do, and in the back of his mind, he thought about how he was really and truly alone.
Up until a few minutes ago, Arnold Rimmer would never have dreamt of bravery. He never thought there would be a time when courage overrode his natural cowardice, or when something became more important to him than his own safety. He had assumed, up until this point, that he would always watch out for himself and the others be damned.
He had been wrong.
The first moment that courage shone through was mere minutes before, coming to the sudden realization that there were things worse than very permanent death... there was becoming warped and evil in the deepest sense of the words. Even at his most cowardly and spiteful, Rimmer was never evil. He realized, when he had said to fight, that he probably would die for the second and last time. It was better than the alternative.
The first serious blast took Lister. He hadn't really grasped that in that moment; confusion was running rampant and it was only when the Cat was cut down a moment later that he realized they were both gone. Fear had hit him then, but it wasn't fear for his safety... it was fear for them, and the fear of being alone.
Kryten offered hope a second after the confirmation that both Lister and the Cat were gone, and Rimmer jumped on it. But before the mechanoid could explain, he was dead too, blasted in the back. The fear got worse as Rimmer shook Kryten, desperation in his voice as he all but begged him to come back from the dead. After all they had gone through over all of the years, he wasn't sure what he would do without them.
Then hope in a real form, and the sudden realization. Fear was no longer an issue so much as determination, though the fear of being the only one left never fully ran. The hologram grabbed the bazookoid and ran instead.
A falling beam hit him in the back as he dashed frantically for the time drive, and flashed with a good amount of pain, but he made it that far. There was no hesitation as he leveled the mining tool at the machine that would cost all of them their lives, and no hesitation as he pulled the trigger. If this worked and he wasn't too late, then maybe it would all turn out okay. But even if it didn't... even if it took his life, he wouldn't be left by himself.
The blast took a split second. His thoughts took less time. They flittered through swiftly, some memories flash framed like pictures, and some unfulfilled hopes, and then the final was a moment of fear as the blast caught him and threw him across the corridor and into the wall.
The hull went a breath later. The fear was gone.
He was no longer alone.