You Were Never Meant To Find Out

Betaread by StopTalkingAtMe

Sequel to Just Wanted You to Know

Chapter One

Sitting on the table in the shared room of Dave Lister and Arnold Rimmer was a mail pod that had arrived the day before early in the evening. Rimmer was sitting at the table, piles of mail sorted for the crew despite being dead for a few million years and never would get the mail intended for them.

"Rimmer man, are you alright?" Lister asked his hologram bunkmate. "You've been looking at that mail pod for a long time. Did you even go to bed last night?" Lister noted that Rimmer hadn't sorted much more in the hours since he'd gone to bed.

Rimmed looked towards him, black beneath his eyes, clearly he hadn't gone to bed. Holograms were not meant to need sleep, but they'd found over the years that wasn't true for Rimmer. If he didn't get sleep he'd start to crack and act crazier than normal.

"Lister, this mail pod was sent for the ten year anniversary of the Red Dwarf radiation leak," Rimmer explained as if that should mean anything to Lister.

Lister took note of the letter in Rimmer's hand. Peeking over his shoulder to see what had him so shaken. He noticed who the letter was addressed to.

"Hey, that letters mine! Why are you reading my mail? Are you trying to get back at me for reading your diary?" Lister assumed.

"I opened this letter because it is my handwriting." Rimmer pointed to the handwriting in question. Lister could indeed see that it was Rimmer's handwriting. Rimmer continued on. "I don't remember ever writing this letter. Why would I write you a letter when we live together? How would I send a letter for the ten-year anniversary of the accident when I was dead on the ship and also not activated at that point. So I opened the letter to find out."

Lister took the letter from Rimmer and began to read out loud. "Dear Lister, I'm not ... sh-oore... if you ... will ever get this l-et-ter." Slowly, too slowly for Rimmer's liking. While Lister could read, it was a struggle for him to read anything out loud and fast.

Rimmer snatched the letter back. "I'll read it out myself. At this rate we will be here until Christmas, not that we really know when Christmas is anymore. It could be Christmas today for all we know." He cleared his throat before continuing where Lister left off. "As you know I was in preparations to leave for my father's funeral when you were put into stasis."

"Is this from another dimension?" Lister interrupted. "I mean you didn't find out your father was dead until after we'd been in deep space for a while."

"I know," Rimmer replied. "I thought that at first but one of the letters is from a few months after the accident talks about the stasis leak on floor sixteen and how we travelled back in time. It also talks about the second time we travelled back in time just before I stopped being Ace and had convinced Miss Kochanski to pretend to be your wife. It happened exactly as you described. If what these letters say is true and they are from this dimension. I survived, I got married and had a family."

"You married? She must be mad or you tricked her somehow. I bet she was ugly. Any pictures of your wife? I want to see what she looks like." Lister tried to go through the letters himself, to find Rimmer guarding them.

"You can see, but you're not going to like it and she'll be insulted to know that you thought she was ugly. "Rimmer pulled out a photo from one of the later letters and handed it over to Lister. He couldn't hide the smirk, knowing already how Lister would react.

Lister's jaw dropped when he looked. In the photo was Rimmer with a boy who looked to be between ten and twelve and twin toddler girls with red curly hair and the woman of Lister's dreams Kristine Kochanski who certainly wasn't ugly, he thought she was the most beautiful woman in the universe and that wasn't because she was currently the only woman in the universe.

"My children, the boy is named Michael, the girls Jasmine and Rebecca. Mikey, Jazz and Bec for short." Rimmer pointed to each child in the family before passing the next photo to Lister, a wedding photo.

"Is Yvonne McGruder holding your son's hand? Is she Kristine's bridesmaid? Didn't she die on the ship as well?" Lister asked.

Rimmer nodded. "She's meant to be dead. According to the letters, Yvonne survived because she was pregnant with Michael and had gone on maternity leave a few weeks before the accident happened."

"This has to be from another dimension. When the nano crew were resurrected you were with them as was McGruder. The only one missing was Kristine." Lister exclaimed he took a seat next to Rimmer trying to process everything that he'd just been told. Rimmer a father and married to Kristine? If it was Ace Rimmer he'd understand, but not Arnold Judas Rimmer.

"What was I missing from?" Kristine asked as she entered the dining room. She was not the Kristine whom Lister was referring to, this Kristine came from another dimension and had been stuck with them for a few years and biologically Lister's mother. "Anything interesting in the mail pod?"

"We're trying to determine if the mail pod is from another dimension or not," Lister explained. "Have a look at these two photos."

"Is that me married to Rimmer?" Kristine asked. "How in the world did that happen?" She looked like she didn't' believe the photos were real.

"Slowly," Rimmer replied. "They bonded during the enquiry about the accident according to the letter that version of me wrote to Lister. They kept in contact as friends and it was a couple of years after the accident that they became a couple. I spent all night reading them."

"It has to be from another dimension, I mean you died in the accident," Kristine pointed out.

"In your dimension, did Yvonne McGruder die?" Rimmer asked pointing to the bridesmaid.

"No," Kristine replied, taking a seat on Rimmer's other side. "She left the ship a few weeks before the accident happened."

"Do you know why she left the ship?" Rimmer asked, trying to determine the difference between their dimensions. In all the years he'd known Lister's mother, he never really spent time working out if there had been differences before the radiation leak. They'd just assumed that the timeline had been the same until just before the accident and the only difference being who went into stasis.

"No," Kristine replied once again. "It was rather sudden. I assumed that she got a transfer or something happened at home."

"What about me, did I die in your universe?"

"You'd left the ship for your father's funeral after I was put into stasis and before the accident," Kristine confirmed. "You were called to the office by Captain Hollister because he didn't believe your sister-in-law was your sister-in-law. I was meant to go with you to make sure you left the ship and didn't cause an incident while representing the JMC but I was found with the Frankenstein and put into stasis before you left. You ended up going alone."

Rimmer pondered aloud. "In these letters your other self and my other self left the ship together for my father's funeral, to make sure I didn't make a scene on company time. I wonder if the me from your universe went alone after you were put into stasis."

"I never thought to ask if someone else went with you when I was let out of stasis," Kristine admitted. "We can't really confirm what happened for my dimension."

"There's one way to confirm if the mail is for this dimension. Holly," Lister called out.

"What's up dudes?" Holly asked appearing on the screen.

"Holly," Rimmer stood up. "We have a mail pod," Rimmer said, pacing slightly in front of the monitor.

Holly nodded. "I know, I was the one you told you we had a mail pod."

"This mail pod was written by family and friends of the crew for the ten year anniversary of the crew's deaths," Rimmer informed the computer.

"That's a nice thing of them to do." Holly grinned.

Rimmer stopped his pacing and stared directly at the screen. "Can you tell me why there are letters written by me for Lister?" Rimmer asked. Holding up one of the photos of himself, Kristine and the children.

"Oh bugger, I never considered that the families would send letters after everyone was dead and that you'd send letters to Dave," Holly replied. "I mean ah it's not from you, it must be someone else. Another Rimmer who looks just like you Arn," Holly said not convincing anyone. The computer already knew he'd been caught in a lie as he tried to cover his tracks.

"Holly, what did you do?" Rimmer yelled out. "Did I die or not?"

"Yes you're dead, well now anyway," Holly replied. "Just not the way you thought. You didn't die on the Red Dwarf, you died of old age on Earth."

"Then why did you make me believe that I died on the Red Dwarf?" Rimmer shouted. "Has my whole existence been a lie?"

"I didn't plan on turning you on originally," Holly informed the three humans. "When I was going through the crew members who would be best to keep Dave sane I had two options. Yourself and Kristine Kochanski, both who were not on the ship when the accident happened."

"If Kristine was one of my options to keep me sane, why did you end up choosing Rimmer?" Lister asked. "Back then I would've preferred Kristine, still would."

"I had the scutters flip a coin to decided which one to turn on. The scutters were very upset that Arn won the coin toss." Holly replied. "I did want to turn both on and see if you ended up together Arn and Kristine, like your living counterparts. As you know at the time I could only turn on one of you."

"I'm only here because of a coin toss! So you've been letting me live a lie all these years!" Rimmer shouted. "I'm not even a real representation of the real Arnold Rimmer like I am supposed to be. I'm only the representation of him till the age of thirty-two. Do you know how it feels to know that I'm even faker than I originally thought?"

"That is why I made you believe Yvonne McGruder also died on the ship. I didn't want you to accidently find out about Michael." Holly explained. "It was for your own good and Dave's well-being. You would've ended up depressed and obsessing over the life you never got to live."

"Are you saying if I left the ship like I was supposed to I would've ended up with Rimmer?" Kristine asked in disbelief. She was still struggling to accept that she'd ended up with Rimmer in this universe or that any version of her would end up with Rimmer.

"It may not have happened like that," Holly replied. "Your dimension has other differences. We'll never really know since you ended up in stasis instead, we have no way of knowing what happened to that Arnold Rimmer and Yvonne McGruder."

"Our kids are adorable," Kristine sighed as she looked at the twin girls. She wanted children but when the only person she could have children with was biologically her son it just wasn't going to happen. "I wonder if I would've fallen pregnant to nano Rimmer if I'd slept with him when I had the opportunity. I seriously considered it while we were in the tank. Seeing these three looking so adorable, I wish that I did."

Rimmer and Lister shared a glance at Kristine. She didn't bring up the fact that she wanted children very often despite both men knowing that she wanted to be a mother, to have a family. They all wanted family. Lister and Rimmer since Jim and Bexley were born.

"I wonder if your Holly altered your memories like I did with Dave," Holly pondered. "I said that out loud didn't I?"

Kristine looked in shock at Holly, she'd never even considered that. "Why would she need to alter my memories?"

"The main differences between your dimension and this dimension has been that yours and Dave's roles were reversed. Do you really think that Hollister would send Rimmer to Io on his own? He didn't in this dimension so with you going into stasis he would've sent the closest person to Rimmer on the ship, that person is Dave Lister. At least that is what Hollister would've done for this dimension."

"Are you saying Dave, my Dave didn't really die on the ship?" Kristine asked in horror. "That he was like Rimmer and had a life without me."

She was pale thinking about who he could've possibly ended up with as she glanced between Dave and Rimmer. She suspected exactly who he would've ended up with if situations were reversed. But maybe they'd ended up with a similar relationship to the Lister and Rimmer she was currently with and not a romantic relationship.

"Oh my God, I've been in that dimension when I was Ace." Rimmer stuttered. He slumped into his chair looking pale. Lister looked on in interest, Rimmer never spoke about his time as Ace. Kristine was scared to know what the truth would end up being, from Rimmer's reaction it wasn't a platonic/sibling-like rivalry relationship.

"Well, what happened?" Lister prompted when Rimmer didn't go into a story like normal.

"I met Dave, the other me and McGruder well after the enquiry happened. They were all living on Earth, on a small Island. It wasn't Fiji, it was better than Fiji since they could afford more after the enquiry was over and with the combined pool of money going towards the property.