***Entry in the Diary of Jen Moore***

Work was curious yesterday. Not nearly as terrible as I thought, but I'm not saying it was perfect. I met someone… His name is Rimmer. Arnold Rimmer. I don't know what it is, but he seems different then everyone else. I am not sure about this, but I think he may have been trying to impress me. Probably not, I mean why would anybody want to do that? I'm scum. I'm dirt. I'm nothing. Even if there is something different about this guy, he'll find out who I am and hate me like the rest. I'll be a joke to him



Jen threw down her pen. It was useless. No one would ever love her. Nobody even liked her. Jen hated rejection, yet she got it all the time. A tear streamed down her cheek. She laid down on her bunk holding her diary. Pretty much every entry had a put down to herself of some sort. Not even she liked herself. Jen threw the diary across the room. It hit the wall and fell on the ground.

Jen heard foot steps. It was probably her room mate. Jen quickly tried to wipe her tears away. She didn't want her new room mate to see her cry. There was a knock at the door. Strange, her room mate never knocked. She was in the room first, she didn't have to. It was pretty much her room. "Come in"

The metal doors opened. In the doorway he stood. It was Rimmer! Jen's eyes widened. 'what is he doing in my quarters?' she wondered. Suddenly she noticed how obvious it must have been that she had been crying. She began to feel mortified.



At The sight of her tears, Rimmer was as Embarrassed as Jen. What could possibly be the matter? Rimmer was never good around tears. He could never say the right thing. Jen seemed to be the only woman he knew who didn't want to puke at the sight of him. That wouldn't be true for long and he knew it.



Jen suddenly noticed the awkward silence. That didn't help her embarrassment one bit. "I'm sorry… please, come in." She managed to say.

Rimmer nervously took some small steps in. He began to fidget and look at the ground. "I'm sorry if I was… interrupting something."

"No, its fine." Now Jen couldn't look him in the eye. Strange things happened when she did. Things she didn't like. Things she wasn't used to. Her heart would beat faster, she couldn't remember what to say, it just wasn't good. But then again, it felt nice in a way. 'SHUT UP BRAIN, SHUT UP!' Jen urged herself.

"I…I just came to tell you I am starting the shift 30 minutes early tomorrow…so…so"

Jen managed to smile. She couldn't tell if it really looked like a smile or not, but it was an attempt.

Rimmer smiled, too. That made Jen feel better.



'Arnie, look at her, she looks upset. Now's my chance, I should say something… but what? I know, I'll ask her what's wrong… wait, she may not want to tell me, I know… I'll ask there if there is anything I can do… no, that sounds corny…' Rimmer argued in his mind. Finally he came up with. "Jennifer , is…is something wrong? It there anything I can do?"



He was sweet. He didn't just want to rush out of the room at the sight of her tears, or even worse, laugh at her. He didn't do that at all. He seemed… concerned! That was much more then she got from most people. He actually seemed to…care.

It was obvious Jen wasn't loved very much as a child. Parents split up when she was 6. They had a hard time deciding who got custody over her. She ended up just switching off over the weekends. At school she was a loner. She never got a boyfriend, she never had good friends. She was always made fun of for the way she looked. Sure, she wasn't ugly now, but she had been before. Or at least she always was in her mind, and the minds of the other kids at school. It wasn't even like she was focusing her energy on something else, she never got good grades, and she really wasn't good at anything. Even now, she was lower then everybody. She was a third technician. That meant pretty much third class scum! She often got rude looks from the crew, and she had only been here a few days! The only one so far who didn't was… Rimmer. That meant a lot to her, and he didn't even know it. He was probably just trying to be polite, but Jen was grateful for it. Otherwise she would have gone mad. There was only so much rejection one person could take! Jen couldn't think of what to say to him. Should she lie and say everything is fine, or should she spill what was wrong. She always had a bad habit of spilling her personal feelings to anyone who would listen. Often it lead to them using it against her. Jen knew Arnold probably wouldn't do that to her, but it just didn't seem like a good idea to let her feeling out now, or he might think she was a freak. "I'll be ok, thanks."

Rimmer attempted a smile. "You feel better. I'll see you tomorrow."

Once he was out of sight. Jen walked across her room and fetched her diary and pen. She wrote another entry in her diary. This was a short one. A three worder. All she wrote was "I LIKE HIM"





Jen got ready for work the next morning. She felt the need to do her hair a little better then usual. She spent a lot more time in the mirror this morning trying to just accept the image that stared back at her, but it wasn't easy for her. Finally she was as satisfied as she could be in the short amount of time she had. If she had spent any more time looking in the mirror she would have been late for her work, and she wanted to go today.

"Hello Gentlemen, and Jennifer… I've called you here early because 62 vending machines need to be re stocked, and we can't re stock that many in a normal work day. We certainly have our work cut out for us. Get on then, get stocking. Chop chop!" Said Rimmer. Jen kind of felt sorry for him, because after his little speech, about half the room was imitating him using fake accents. Sure his accent was really strong, and being from America on earth, she wasn't used to it, but she liked it. It made him different, unique. She didn't like people who tried to be the same as everyone else. Rimmer sure as hell wasn't one of those kind of people. He seemed to be very dedicated to his career, even though all he was was a second technician.

Rimmer had a list of the pairings for the day, and who would fix what vending machines. Jen skimmed for her name, There it was… She was with Rimmer again! Could that be a coincidence? What could it mean?





Jen stood next to Rimmer handing him food items from a cart to re stock the vending machines with, They were both silent. Jen broke the silence by asking a question she had been wondering for some time now. "Arnold, do you like being a technician?"

Rimmer sighed. "No, not really."

That was what she expected. She didn't like it much so far. Someone would have to be crazy to want to do this. "Well, what do you want to do?"

"What do I want to do? I want, more then anything, to be an officer." Rimmer replied, with his head in the vending machine.

"That's…That's what I want to." Said Jen quietly.

Rimmer took his head out of the vending machine and looked at her. There eyes met.

Jen continued, "I just want to be something for once. I am tired of all the rejection. I want to be someone important. I want to make things happen for myself. I want to be something instead of the…nothing that I am." There she want, spilling her personal feeling to him. She suddenly got embarrassed. Why had she just said that? "Sorry" She apologized.

"Sorry for what?" He asked. He actually sounded like he cared, It was deep. Not sarcastic.

"I am sure you don't want to listen to me go on like that." She looked down at the ground.

"That's really how you feel?" He asked.

Jen nodded shyly.

"wow" He said softy. That was curious… Jen looked at him again. Once again their eyes met.

"I…I've never met someone who… feels the same as I do." Said Rimmer. Now he looked very shy now.

"Neither have I" Said Jen. There was a long silence. Rimmer was the one to break that silence.

"Well, there are a lot of vending machines to re stock. We had better get to work." He didn't sound as perky and annoyed as usual. Jen wondered if that was her doing. She also wondered why this guy wasn't totally sick of her yet.