A/N: Wow, it's been what - five years since I last posted here? I am going through a difficult time at the moment so I thought I would write a short piece of stand-alone fanfiction to get the creative juices flowing. And what better subject than the good old small rouge one :) This is not meant to be slashy, it's meant to be platonic (like all my fics), but hey, read into it what you like! This is meant to be a more angsty and thoughtful piece than a humorous one, but if you want humour, check out my other stories!
As always - all reviews are appreciated!
Afterwards
~A Red Dwarf Fanfiction~
Arnold Rimmer sat in a metal chair. The chair was of standard JMC issue, made on Europa, and was precisely sixteen inches tall, fifteen inches deep and eighteen inches wide. Rimmer, of course, knew this, having measured it in great detail to ensure that he maintained the most perfect posture possible for a man of his height.
To most people, this might seem like a waste of time. But to Rimmer, it was the usual way of things. Time, as a concept, seemed not to exist anymore – every day melded into the next, one long stream of consciousness with no real form or structure.
It had been this way for the last three hundred years.
A skutter bumped against his trouser leg, almost tenderly, beeping and booping as if trying to grab his attention. Rimmer glanced down at it and kicked it away with a grunt. Talking, too, had lost its meaning; there was something about holding a conversation with machines and computers that was somehow unsatisfying, empty. The skutter whirred, cocking its head inquisitively like a playful puppy.
Lister was the first to go. A part of him had always been convinced he would become the sprightly 171-year-old, grey dreadlocks and all, destined to die in a blaze of glory, ripping off a bra with his teeth. As it happened, he did go out in a blaze of glory – just not the one he would have hoped. Rimmer remembered the day like it was yesterday. The SS Intrepid, a small battle-cruiser crash-landed on an ice moon. A blizzard, the intensity of which he had never seen. And the unexploded bomb, sat in the cargo bay…
Rimmer laughed to himself at the thought. It was a rather pitiful sound, more a deep exhale than anything. Then, with a frown, he realised that he could no longer picture Lister in his mind. The man he had been confined with for so many years was just a memory now, a vague, distorted image, like looking at a face through frosted glass.
The skutter nudged against his leg once more, and once more Rimmer kicked it away.
The Cat was next. He was, of course, never particularly attached to the group, being as he was a creature of convenience. And, as old cats do, one afternoon he went and found a place, somewhere safe, dark and lonely, where he could spend the rest of his days. Rimmer never found out where he went (nor did he particularly care), but if he thought hard about it, he guessed he would have returned to the great cat city - the birthplace of his civilisation, deep in the bowels of the ship. He'd never said goodbye; it wasn't his way. But in a strange way, Rimmer missed him and his eccentricities.
Kryten, being a mechanoid, had suffered from a rather different ailment – progressive circuitry degeneration, more commonly known as droid rot. Having been through each of his spare heads (and for a short amount of time, even the unbearable Spare Head 3), he was now so far gone that he was capable of little more than folding laundry. This robotic dementia was depressing to say the least, and Rimmer found it difficult to speak to him nowadays.
So he sat alone, for hours at a time, perhaps reading the Astronavigation course book one more time, or creating a new timetable in his meticulous handwriting. Every now and again, he would patrol the corridors of the hulking red ship, noting down the areas that were due for a re-painting. It was, for all intents and purposes, a semi-existence, a life half-lived.
The skutter gripped Rimmer's trouser leg with its pincers. This time, the old hologram reacted. Standing up from the chair, he glared down at the blue, bulbous little robot and said in an agitated voice, "What do you want, you smegging little smegger?" He surprised himself with the sound; it was almost a shock to hear himself speak.
The skutter beeped, whistled, and zoomed off down the corridor.
"You," said Rimmer, waggling his finger as he strode through the ship, "had better have a good reason for dragging me all the way over here, miladdo." The labyrinthine passageways of the Dwarf stretched for miles – miles of drab, grey metal held together with drab, grey rivets. Had he not walked them so many times, he would easily have lost his way. By the time he realised where the skutter was taking him, he had already been walking for at least half an hour.
The Hologram Projection Suite was small, about the size of his old bunkroom, and the walls were lined with monitors. As he entered through the doorway, he noticed that the monitors were blank, flickering with white noise, and the air was filled with static. This tiny, claustrophobic room powered his entire existence, kept his life going. The skutter whizzed toward the console in the middle of the room and let out a long, deep whistle.
"Why have you brought me here?" Rimmer growled. Why was he always so angry these days? He paused in thought for a moment. "Are you trying to turn me off? Oh that's right, isn't it – snuff out the hologram, take the ship for yourselves. After all I've done for you lot! Those corridors won't paint themselves, you know." He sighed. Even Holly, with his rather diminished IQ and terrible sense of direction, would have been better company than this.
The skutter bowed its head. Rimmer's thoughts were spinning, swirling round his head like a whirlwind. He could not deny the fact that he'd had this idea before. But he'd never had the guts to go through with it. He had agonised over this, telling himself over and over that he was nothing more than the wretched coward he'd always been, to man up, just get it over with. But for a hologram, there was no possibility of any afterlife, any blissful chance at life after death – this mundane existence was his afterlife, a sort of endless limbo out of which he could never escape. Holograms didn't age; if they so desired, they could adjust the projection to simulate ageing, but Rimmer saw little point in that these days. It was rather surreal - three hundred years of experience in a body that looked a little over thirty.
"Maybe I should do it," he said to the skutter. "I outlived my brothers, didn't I? I've held command of this ship for centuries – that must make me some sort of admiral by now." The skutter beeped inquisitively. Rimmer continued, "I've survived simulant attacks, deep sea creatures, and a ship-eating virus – don't make me tell that story again. You know how it goes." The skutter nodded. "But no, I–" Rimmer buried his head in his hands, then after a few moments, made for the door in a quick, decisive motion, without saying a word.
The skutter didn't see much of Rimmer over the next few days. It trundled around on its little wheels, its little motor chugging round and round, stopping every now and again to recharge. It rather resented the common misconception that skutters were, to put it bluntly, dim-witted, domestic machines designed for only the basest of tasks. Nobody ever thought to ask it about its encyclopaedic knowledge of I Dream of Jeannie, or how to make the perfect bread pudding. When it did see the hologram, he was pacing around the ship, talking to himself, short of patience and short of breath. Its thought chip whirred. WHY. WON'T. HE. LISTEN.
It beeped in annoyance.
A week later, when the skutter had just about given up hope, he was surprised to see Arnold Rimmer sitting in the drive room. The hologram was hunched over a control panel, intently studying a screen. As the skutter trundled up to his feet, Rimmer turned to face him. His expression was strange, pensive but also resigned, and the skutter had never seen him look this way before.
"There you are," he said, with something that sounded like relief. "I've…I've made up my mind. But you have to promise me something. If anything happens, if anybody needs me – you have to turn me back on." Rimmer's tone, usually one of derision, had changed; it was calm, measured, but also carried a sense of desperation. The skutter lifted its pincers toward him, and Rimmer took them in his hand. Gently, they shared a most unusual handshake.
Rimmer sat in front of the console, gazing up at the row and row of monitors that covered the wall. Each monitor stared blankly back at him. It was an oppressive gaze, a stare that made him want to look away. On the console was a large, red button, which looked almost comical, the sort you would expect a dastardly villain to push while laughing maniacally, veiled in shadow. His finger hovered over it, then drew back. This process happened several times in succession, and each time his finger hovered longer, until it sat permanently over it, shaking.
Then, before Rimmer could do anything at all, a pincer rose up and firmly pushed the button. It was the little skutter, who beeped and jingled, watching Rimmer's expression change from fear to outright horror.
"I suppose this is it, then." He swallowed back a lump in his throat. This was the end. He was going gazpacho. And he closed his eyes and waited for everything to disappear.
Only, it didn't.
At first, he heard voices. They were muffled to begin with, like a bad recording. But slowly and surely, they became clearer, more distinct, and he began to recognise them. His own voice, somehow sounding younger, more alert. Then others. A polite, unassuming voice with an American twang. A hissy, screechy yowl of a voice with a bucketful of attitude. And a cheeky, cheery accent that sounded distinctly Scouse.
Rimmer opened his eyes. Light danced in front of him, and he saw then that each monitor had erupted into life. He saw himself, golfing on a forested moon, searching abandoned derelicts, sitting in his old bunkroom, all in incredible detail. There were his crewmates – Lister, Kryten and the Cat, just as they used to be. It dawned upon him then that he was not seeing recordings, but memories. And for the first time in three hundred years, Rimmer began to laugh.
"How did you get these?" he exclaimed. "I don't remember that–" he pointed at one of the monitors – "or that one, or that one. These aren't…these aren't all mine."
"No," said a voice to his left. "They're mine."
Rimmer turned his head. Smiling at him, with that same gerbil-faced grin he had last seen hundreds of years ago, was a hologram of Dave Lister. He wore a black leather jacket, the kind he always did, and a large curry stain graced the length of his t-shirt. "You never knew how to switch off all the non-essential circuitry, did you?" He folded his arms. "Well, Bob here worked it out. Remember, the Dwarf can sustain two holograms if it's powered down enough."
"Lister?" The name sounded foreign to his tongue.
"Don't seem so shocked, man. Y'know, Holly brought you back to keep me sane. Maybe Bob's trying to do the same for you."
Rimmer felt another lump in his throat. Before it could manifest itself, he quickly shook his head, trying frantically to extinguish any sign of emotion.
"What were you doing getting yourself blown up, you goit?" he croaked. "Honestly, the last human being in the universe and you have the nerve to go and do something like that!"
"Well one thing hasn't changed," said Lister, grinning. "You're still a smeghead. And I'm gagging for a vindaloo." He turned and walked out of the room.
Rimmer quickly followed behind him. "I'm still your superior officer, Lister!"
Bob let out a jubilant whistle, did a happy little spin, and whizzed off down the corridor.