Chapter Three
Despite having his own room on Starbug, during the day Arnold still spent most of his time in Dave's room when he was not watching the cockpit. Cat was on shift at the moment and Kryten was somewhere cleaning. Dave was alone, standing in front of the mirror, trying to pull nose hairs out with tongs.
Arnold tutted, seeing Dave in a pink dressing gown that Kryten had found the day before and washed up for the last human to wear. Sadly being on Starbug, they didn't have much in the way of clothes. Rimmer wore holographic clothing most of the time, so he didn't ruin the few uniforms that he had on Starbug. Why did he have real uniforms on Starbug when he'd been a soft-light hologram? Well, he wanted something in his room when they moved a few things in. This was only supposed to be a holiday home, not a permanent home. But when Dave was bringing things down to the ship, he'd insisted that he would have a wardrobe with clothes and shoes in it, taking up space that wasn't really needed at the time. Said clothing was old uniforms that he didn't really have an interest in wearing anyway.
Arnold's room was a lot tidier than the pigsty that was Dave's room. Probably sterile actually. It didn't really feel like a bedroom that belonged to someone on a permanent basis with no personal touch that said a person actually lived in the room. Even though Kryten cleaned every day, Dave's room was always a mess and being honest, it actually wasn't a pigsty anymore, especially not in comparison to their shared room on the Red Dwarf.
"What are you doing?" Arnold asked, watching Lister trying to pluck nose hairs out. Didn't he know that it would be so much easier if he used the tool that was invented to pluck out nose hairs, like real tweezers? They had a heap in the medi-bay, and yet Dave insisted on doing everything the hard way.
"Plucking nose hairs," Lister scrunched up his face as he successfully removed a hair, continuing on after the pain had subsided. "Woman have childbirth, and we have this, painful nose hairs. The most painful thing I have ever experienced."
"You'd know wouldn't you Listy, you've done both," Arnold teased from the doorway before deciding to come into the room.
The twins weren't mentioned much. Jim and Bexley were still a sore point for them both. They couldn't help wondering how things would've turned out if the boys had been normal and healthy, without weird ageing issues that resulted of being from two dimensions.
"I wonder how Deb and Arlene are coping with the boys?" Dave asked. Both silent for a moment, neither wanting to dwell on the painful subject.
Arnold moved the conversation back to common, comfortable grounds for them both. "Listy, Listy, Listy," Rimmer tutted. "What would the ladies think if they saw you in that monstrosity?" Teasing Dave for his choice in clothing.
"Hey, it's comfortable man," Dave defended himself, turning back to the mirror and attacking his nose hairs once again. "Not like there are any ladies around to see me. Anyone else other than the four of us for that matter. You're the only one that actually cares what I wear. Cat likes me looking worse than him, and Kryten's happy when I wear clothes that he's washed for me."
Arnold tried to pretend that he didn't care about what Dave wore, but the simple fact was he did care. He liked everyone to look presentable at least. Taking a seat, Arnold opened up the book he had about holograms. If he was going to be fixing holograms for Wildfire, he was going to make certain he knew everything about them. It was a nice change of pace from his astronavigation books and his engineering books. From being a hologram himself for years, he found that he knew most of what the book was talking about. It was so refreshing reading a book he understood. He actually felt relaxed while he was reading instead of the normal stress he experienced while reading.
"I wouldn't do that if I was you," Arnold warned in a teasing tone, noticing what Dave was trying to do now that he'd finished plucking his nose hairs. He'd broken the cap off his tooth earlier that day and had glued it back with wood glue instead of getting Kryten to put the cap back in properly.
"Smeg off Rimmer," Dave said, ignoring the warning as he proceeded to try and floss his teeth, only to find that he couldn't pull the floss free, it was now stuck between his tooth and his tooth cap.
In a sing-song voice, Arnold teased. "Told you so." Before going back to his reading, not helping with the floss.
- Red Dwarf -
Dave had been unsuccessful at removing the floss or finding anything to cut the floss. It was now hanging from his mouth out. The floss insisted on being stuck in his mouth and impossible to break. Arnold was ignoring Dave as he fumbled about the room and Kryten who'd come in to clean, the droid was also admiring how good the dressing gown looked on Dave. The droid was also no help in getting the floss removed.
They all looked up when Cat entered the room. "Hey guys, I found a weird thing with a capital wee, it's heading straight for us."
Being Cat language, that could've been anything. Something dangerous or something friendly or nothing at all. It could be actual wee for all they knew. Dave was asking for more information from the Cat, not getting anywhere with deciphering what the Cat was saying.
"Is it a wibbly thing or a swirly thing, sir?" Kryten asked, attempting to get closer to finding out what the Cat sensed coming towards them.
"I wouldn't want to commit at this stage and look like a fool," Cat exclaimed, getting more eye rolls from Arnold. "Come see for yourself."
Which is what they should've been doing for a start, reading from the console what was coming towards them instead of getting Cat to try and translate for them. While it was easier to understand Cat now then it had been a few years ago, it was still hard at times to understand him.
"What have we got?" Arnold asked, not understanding what was on the console just yet.
"It's an anomaly in space, and it's coming directly for us sirs," Kryten explained.
Arnold didn't like what his console was telling him now that he knew where in space he was looking. It was an anomaly alright, one that was big and fast and coming directly towards them like Kryten said. They could not outrun it. Arnold was a master at running away from things and knew when something could not be outrun.
"I'm going to outrun it," Cat exclaimed what Arnold already knew what was impossible
Arnold stood to his feet. "You have fun with that. I'm going next door, to hide under the table, because we are not outrunning that thing, whatever it is. Too-da-loo."
The other's didn't even turn when Arnold did exactly what he said. They didn't even call him a coward today, even if that was what he was. The anomaly read a little bit like Ace's dimension-jumping ship whenever they had an encounter with it, just not the same as the previous times they had anything to do with Ace. If it was Ace coming to get a light-bee repair, well he had another thing coming because he was not in a state to fix holograms at the moment. If the anomaly destroyed the ship, sitting under a table was not going to save him any more than being in the cockpit would.
It was a rough several moments, as the ship shook and turned. Arnold's head coming through the table on more than one occasion as he subconsciously put himself into soft-light mode. As quickly as the roughness started, everything stopped.
Arnold stayed put for a few moments, "is it over?" He shouted at the rest of the crew as they left the cockpit.
"There is a disturbance with space-time in the engine room sir. We are going down to check it out." Kryten replied.
- Red Dwarf -
They arrived in the engine room deck, there was something big blue and shiny in the engine room.
"What is that thing?" Arnold asked, most concerned if it was dangerous or not.
"It's a dimensional rift sir, to a parallel dimension," Kryten explained.
"So I was right when I thought that the bumpy ride felt similar to Ace coming into our dimension?" Arnold asked, wondering if this rift that they'd come across had been left by Ace. He'd been in the dimension just recently. Maybe jumping between dimensions left some type of damage?
"No way you thought that," Dave replied with an eye roll. No one believed him, even when he really was telling the truth. Arnold didn't argue the point. He was focusing on the fact there was a dimensional rift that was giving access directly to the ship. It probably chose this area to break through because of the enlarged cargo bay from when they'd broken the time stream by killing their future selves. It was close to the area that was affected the most.
"Let's have a goosy." Dave walked into the dimension rift without any protective gear. He didn't even know if there was oxygen on the other side. He was always so reckless. And Holly expected Arnold to keep that thing safe and sane? He was failing at his job.
"Are you mad?" Arnold shouted. Certain the answer to that question was yes. "You don't even know what is in that thing. It could kill you, or you could get trapped in another dimension, separated from me forever."
"Separated from you?" Cat asked, "why didn't you say so." He then rushed after Dave through the rift.
Kryten following after the pair making sure they both got through safely. Arnold paced in front of the rift, glaring at it, waiting for the others to return. He'd followed them down here because he didn't want to be alone and didn't want to be wondering what was happening and here he was doing exactly that. Taking a deep breath that wasn't needed, he took a step through the rift.
Arnold gulped nervously as he got a look at the blue tunnel that seemed to go on forever. He couldn't hear or see the others. He looked at a hole above him in the tunnel that just had black nothingness behind it. Not wanting to be alone, Arnold followed the rest of the crew. He didn't want to be alone. He'd just spend the entire time imagining the worst of the worst things happening. Those seconds of not knowing what was happening were horrible. Arnold could not handle five minutes on Starbug alone, how was Wildfire going to have him as Ace? He wasn't going to last five minutes in his first real battle if he accepted being Ace. He was glad that he turned the Ace offer down. Or what happens if this weird anomaly was Ace's way of getting him the light-bees and all the parts he would need to repair the holograms?
Walking slowly and carefully through the tunnel, not wanting to fall into a hole that entered non-space he hoped that the tunnel hadn't broken off and wasn't leading him to a different location to the location of the others. Looking back at the entrance he gulped. The tunnel seemed to be destabilising slightly.
Relief flooded through him when he finally heard Dave, Kryten and the other's talking. They were talking to another version of themselves. Kryten from the other dimension was gold in colour and better maintained to their own Kryten. Cat looked very much the same but wearing a different suit, thank God, they didn't have to listen to Cat complaining about being caught in the same outfit as someone else, even if that someone else was another version of him. The most intriguing of the group was a clean cut version of Dave. A Dave Lister who was a hologram which must mean that the final version of the group must be himself! A version of himself that had lived and was not Ace. He and Kryten might actually be friends in that universe because he was alive so Kryten had to respect him. It would only make sense that Holly would turn Dave on to keep another Arnold sane after all, Dave was the only one below him in rank that he had any authority over.
The excitement was immediately crushed when he saw that the living survivor of the Red Dwarf was not another version of himself, it was Kristine smegging Kochanski, the smegging Console Officer whom Dave had a crush on from the first moment he joined the crew. The woman who always made Rimmer sound like scum, something Arnold to this day still did not know how she did. Was probably the Scottish accent.
Arnold let out a heavy sigh, Dave was never going to get over his crush on Kristine, knowing that he'd been brought back to keep her sane, even if it was in another dimension. This Kristine was also a lot cleaner cut then the Kristine that he'd known. Looking like she did now, Arnold found her almost attractive. He tried to shake the feeling away, it was probably because she was the first woman he'd seen since - it had been a while but he believed it was the alternate versions himself and Dave from the parallel dimension.
"Remember coming back from shore leave on Mimas?" Holo-Dave asked Dave. None of them had noticed him or Kochanski yet, though he and Kochanski were eyeing one another off as they walked closer to the group.
"Yeah, that was a fun trip. Rimmer started a bar brawl, and on the way back to the ship." Dave smiled.
"So you didn't find Frankenstein?" Dave asked.
"I found Frankie, felt sorry for her. She was so helpless looking, so I get her vaccinated, where I found out she was expecting kittens and took her back to the ship planning to raise her and her kitten on Fiji when I had enough money." Dave replied, reminiscing about his mangy pregnant cat that he'd brought back. The one that Arnold knew about, but never said anything about. Why? He still didn't know.
"Frankenstein in my dimension was a kitten," Holo-Dave replied.
"Then where did all the cat babies come from to create Cat?" Dave asked the question that Arnold had been wondering himself.
"I'm not the only person to smuggle a cat on board," Holo-Dave replied, going into a story about how he'd gone to the planet to intentionally find a cat to get himself thrown into stasis after breaking up with Kristine. "Krissy found the cat when I got back to the ship. She didn't have the heart to destroy her and got thrown in stasis instead."
Dave looked like Christmas had come when his attention was drawn to Kristine who'd finally joined the group. He spent a few moments trying to pull the floss from his teeth.
"Listy, Listy, Listy what would the ladies think if they saw you in that monstrosity?" Arnold repeated the question from earlier. "You didn't care before, but you obviously do now. Kochanski and Lister never dated in our dimension," Arnold said from behind Dave, drawing everyone's attention to him.
Dave gave him a knowing look, knowing that he would've followed eventually and wouldn't want to be left alone. It took a lot of effort not to cling to Dave, he was still terrified that something was going to happen that would cause them to be separated from one another.
Holo-Dave looked intrigued by Arnold, while Kristine still had a surprised look from when she'd first seen him.
Holo-Dave turned to Dave. "Rimmer was brought back to keep you sane? How does that work? Does he keep you sane by driving you insane? Makes me glad to be the dead one and not stuck in your living hell."
"Rimmer's not that bad once you get to really know him," Dave said in reply. Arnold was surprised.
"What are you suffering from, Stockholm syndrome or something?" Holo-Dave asked with a laugh.
Kryten turned to Dave in a way that suggested he was about to start listing every one of Arnold's bad qualities. "Not that bad, are you forgetting it was only earlier today that he went and cowered underneath the table to hide from the dimensional rift before we knew what it was. And-"
Cat cut Kryten off before Kryten could list off more bad qualities. "Are we talking about the same Goal Post head?"
"Maybe I should have left when Ace gave me the chance," Arnold pouted. "Clearly I am not appreciated here."
"Kristine, you look great," Dave complimented, ignoring Arnold's self-pity.
"You look pretty amazing yourself," Kristine's suggested sarcastically. Arnold was surprised to hear a posh English accent that sounded almost Ionian and not the Scottish accent he was used to. "We've come to trade."
"We don't have much supply wise that we can trade," Arnold replied. Which was true, they were low on everything.
"Information perhaps?" She sounded doubtful that they'd have any worthwhile information when she made the request.
"I have records of everything that has happened to us since arriving in deep space," Arnold answered, trying to prove to the snooty officer that they did have something that was worthwhile trading for. "Including all the information from a parallel dimension that we visited that was the same in every way, except that everyone's genders were reversed in that dimension."
Kristine immediately dismissed Arnold's offer for information, writing off his records as useless before she'd even looked at them. Something that the officers had been doing all his working life. "There is something you could do for us." She turned her attention back to Dave. "I want to have children one day." Dave was getting excited at the prospect of having sex with Kristine to give her those children. Arnold smirked when it hit Dave that all Kristine wanted was a sperm donation.
- Red Dwarf -
The two groups of four were standing in the tunnel to say a final goodbye after supplies were traded. Arnold was hoping to prove Kristine wrong with the information he'd exchanged with them with his knowledge on hologram repairs, other dimensions and some of the other adventures they'd had over the years.
"Wish we could spend more time chatting," Holo-Dave said to the group. "You especially, Rimmer. It's nice to see after all this time that you're still the same smeghead that was my shift leader. You made me realise that I miss you a heap, man."
Arnold looked at his own Dave helplessly and confused as Holo-Dave hugged him. He didn't know what to do or what he did to deserve the hug. Awkwardly he placed his arms around the other man. Giving him a hug.
The hug was broken by an explosion and the tunnel destabilising. Arnold was pushed away by Holo-Dave.
Both Dave's calling out for Kristine as the blast ripped a while between them. Arnold jumped the gap that was between himself and his own group. He was not getting trapped in a strange dimension or no dimension. A yelp was heard from Dave as Kristine had managed to grab onto his floss, keeping Kristine on their side of the growing dimensional rift. Arnold gulped. If he had hesitated to jump, he would've been stuck in the other dimension with the clean-cut holo-Dave, Kryten and Cat. On second thought that was more tempting than his ragtag team. He could just not abandon them for better versions, no matter how tempting. This ragtag team was his family.
Arnold held onto Dave, keeping him from toppling into the hole after Kristine, kneeling over the edge, feeling dizzy at the non-space below them. Trying to ignore his natural survival instincts to abandon everyone and get back to the ship as quickly as possible. Trying to stay conscious as he leaned over the hole. He would topple them all in if he fainted now.
Arnold leant over the edge of the hole, leaning down, grabbing tightly onto Kristine's outreaching hand, pulling her up easily, overestimating the strength that he now had as a hard-light hologram as he pulled the woman up. Keeping hold of her as she called out for her own Dave, trying to jump the holes between dimensions.
"Dave," Kristine help her hands out, calling for her lover. Arnold not letting go despite her struggle. "Let me go, I need to get back to my Dave."
"It's too dangerous, you can't jump that. You'll die," Arnold scolded her. He had a high sense of self-preservation, he knew that the gap was now impossible to jump.
"Kris, it's too dangerous. Stay with Rimmer and the other me. I'll find a way back to you eventually. Stay safe. I love you." Holo-Dave called out to his girlfriend.
"Love you forever," Kristine called over the growing rift. Arnold carried her back to their side of the dimensional rift before it closed them in for good.
- Red Dwarf -
Arnold only put Kristine down once the dimensional rift was fully closed, which took just under an hour. She kicked and screamed the entire time, wanting to go through and find a way home. It was only when the rift entirely closed that she noticed their current location.
"This isn't the Red Dwarf. Where is it?" Kristine yelled at them, still upset and frustrated at getting stuck in another dimension. They hadn't gone into each other's dimension while transferring supplies.
"We sort of lost Red Dwarf," Dave sheepishly admitted.
Kristine screamed at them. "How can you lose a ship as big as the Red Dwarf. It's big, its red and the size of a small moon? How do you lose a moon-sized ship?"
Both men shrugged. Cat had abandoned them long ago not wanting to put up with the banshee screaming.
"You mean that I am stuck here with Pricilla, Queen of the Space Junk, a noxious waste of resources that should've never been turned on in the first place and two cheap copies of my other friends. There is no way I am staying here with you lot in this hunk of junk. We need to get the link way back." Kristine insulted the crew. Arnold was just happy that he wasn't the first one that she'd insulted.
"I know that you don't like being stuck with us. We don't like being stuck with you, either," Arnold crossed his arms suspecting that he was the only one that didn't like being stuck with her. He knew that Dave never wanted her to go back, Cat would warm up to her now that she wasn't screaming because she was a woman and Kryten would be happy about cleaning up after another person. "We need to try and make the best out of a bad situation. I don't know how long you will be stuck with us. Until you return, you can have my room, and I'll go back to sharing with Listy here. You should have a lie-down, it's been a long day for you."
"I'm going home to my own dimension, today. I don't need a bedroom," Kristine insisted. Sitting in front of the spot that the portal had been.
"Kris, Rimmer's right, you need to rest," Dave agreed. "I know that you want to go back to your own dimension, but that isn't going to happen while you're this exhausted."
Kristine came up with the next excuse. "It's Kochanski to you, we don't know each other. You are not my Dave. I wouldn't want to impose."
Dave tried to hide his hurt expression to Kristine's hostile tone to his name. "And you wouldn't be imposing, Rimmer spends nearly all his time in my room anyway. We shared a room on the Red Dwarf, sharing again is not going to be a problem."
"I'll even move all my stuff out now and remake the bed, so you have fresh sheets," Arnold headed towards the bunk, sensing that seeing a familiar face was hurting Kristine. Arnold turned to Dave, hoping that you would listen for once. "You should head to the cockpit and see if Cat can sniff out any more of those dimensional rifts."
Dave gave them a weak smile. "Yeah, I'll do that. Kris I mean Kochanski, I'll be in the cockpit if you need anything. It's just at the end of this hallway."
"Not like it will be hard to find with how small the ship is. Lister," Kristine stopped him in his tracks. "Thank you, I know you are just trying to help. I just need some time to myself, let everything sink in."
Arnold picked a box up on the way to his room so he could begin moving things right away. The first thing he did was strip and remake the bed. He knew that Kryten would get upset about missing out on the chore, but he at least had sheets to wash, dry and iron. Arnold would not take that away from Kryten.
"I know it's not much, and the pipes squeak. I just turn my hearing off when it gets too bad. Kryten knows how to rouse me when I do that. We'll try to find a way to fix the pipes if it gets too much for you." Arnold got nervous before he mentioned the next thing, that he hoped would not be out of line. "Miss Kochanski ma'am. I don't know how long you will be here for, but if it ends up being long term." He was turning bright red unable to keep the squeak out of his voice. "There are sanitary pads still in the medi-bay, hidden in the back corner of the cabinet on the far right. We never bothered removing them when we took Starbug over as our own, and they've been useful as a last resort when Lister's been injured, and we've run out of bandages."
Arnold turned away, not believing that he'd managed to tell her. He hoped that she didn't ask him to repeat that information. He could not trust Dave to remember that it was an item that Kristine would need and Cat was not human and who knew if woman's hygiene needs were still in Kryten's database or not.
"Do you know how many month's worth of supplies I have?" Kristine asked, slightly amused and slightly worried about low supply. "I never had to be concerned about supply on the Red Dwarf. Being the only woman, I have enough to last me several lifetimes with all the vending machines, woman's quarters and the medi-bays."
"I think we've got three months worth not sure how much you will use so that is a guess. And if your Red Dwarf is anything like our you'd also have a full cargo bay," Arnold added.
"With just me, I had no reason to touch that supply. How do you even know that?" Kochanski asked. Arnold thought it might be intrigue and not disgust.
"I inventoried everything on the ship, and when I say everything, I mean everything. That includes all sanitary items, condoms, other methods of birth control, pregnancy testers. There were a number that was not accounted for that I think we're getting stolen by the crew that worked down there."
The bed was made, and he had everything of his in the box. "I should have everything." Arnold stood to his feet with the box in hand. "If you need anything..." He said awkwardly before heading towards the exit for his former room.
"Arnold, thank you," Kristine said. "I know that it must have been hard for you to mention."
"We'll never talk about this again. If you end up staying with us long term, I'll make sure to add that to items that we take from the derelicts we raid." Mentioning what he just said he'd never mention.
As he left, he had a slight spring in his step, feeling a little happy that Kristine used his first name before she'd used Dave's first name.