Originally this was part of my 'A Red Dwarf Story' chapter 3 but I just could not get it to work so here it is edited to make it a stand alone short story.

Dreams. By Garry2rs

It was the morning of the day after, that night Rimmer had told Lister just how many times that he had made love. Other details were still a bit sketchy to say the least and he had an odd taste in his mouth. At this moment though he was asleep and all those problems were in the outside world. He had crawled back to his bunk singing 'their' song, curling up into the foetal position, fell asleep and started to dream.

Vivid images filled his mind, old shipmates aboard Red Dwarf, some of who actually acknowledged his existence! Getting 'ahead groove factor five' even though he knew the most he could muster was a measly 2 and that was when he was really trying that time in the nightclub when he put all his effort in in a vain attempt to get Carol McCauley to even look at him without feigning putting two fingers in her mouth as if to make herself sick. In his dream his head dropped and he could see his hairy legs he was back at school, wearing the uniform! But he wasn't a child he was a grown man and taking part in the schools skipping team competition. Looking back up at the gathering crowd and there was his father seemingly towering over the other parents shaking his head in disapproval, why did he always turn up if he was always disappointed in me?

"I'll really be good".

But he wasn't. He started to turn the rope. First he was forgetting to jump and then when he did, his trailing leg would get caught and trip him, everyone's eyes were on him, watching over him, laughing, pointing, he could feel his father's eyes burning with distain. Again he trips forward and his school shorts disappear and change to long overly starched white pair of trousers with bells around the ankles.

The Morris Dancer hit him with his stick.

"Ow!"

The other dancers were forcibly making follow the routine, dancing and singing to 'that song' and he tried fitting in and copy what the others were doing. They were all people Rimmer knew, detested in some way, his brothers, The Cat, Lister and even Captain Hollister, they all took turns in having Rimmer pushed forward for the clash of sticks part of the dance that came around far to often, but Rimmer never had a stick, he was getting whacked on the head with every move. It was his brother Frank who pushed him forward, the Morris Dancer who sang, bopped with bells jingling towards him this time was his mother. With force she tried to drive the stick down on his already bruising head.

"No! Stop!"

Rimmer's hands lashed out blindly grabbing his mother's stick as she carried on with her attack. He pulled the stick as hard as he could, wrestling with his mother for control, twisting, turning, yanking, anything to get it from her grasp.

With one almighty effort, he had it, it had changed, he had changed. The stick was thinner and longer, he was wearing different clothes, he felt better but was still feeling alone.

Dreams are funny things, they fade and change like dreams often do, Rimmer was dreaming, he was singing 'Someone To Watch Over Me' in his own special way dressed as fashionably as his unconscious would let him, top hat n' tails, tight sock suspenders, the stick was now an elegant cane and for some reason unknown only to the flared nostriled one himself, he wasn't wearing the bottom half of the suit but he was singing his heart out, doing the best he can with that Gerswin number, dancing around an empty stage with only the dream recorder remembering what he was doing, documenting his every move, desire and nightmare keeping it in its memory.

But someone else was watching, editing his life with a keyboard, giving up part of their own life, their memory's for him, giving him the ultimate gift, the gift of love.

End.