Apologies for the long gap between updates, everyone. As many of you know, I'm currently expecting my first child (in fact, I've got about six weeks to go before launch), which has proven most distracting when it comes to ficcing! ;-) Therefore, I'm going to do my utmost to keep updating as often as I can over the next few weeks, and hopefully reach a decent cliffhanger/story middle-point before I go on 'ficcing maternity', as t'were.

I do hope you enjoy this latest chapter. As always, thank you so much to everyone who reads. Reviews are loved and hugged.


At first glance, it would be easy to mistake the short, growling figure in the doorway as some form of miniature Kinitowawi. Perhaps one that had stowed away, undiscovered, on the Wildfire for months - only now deigning to emerge from a make-shift den concocted of abandoned food crates and dust sheets.

Indeed, the explosion of knotted reddish-brown hair threw the face below into a mask of shadow that rendered identification impossible. A tired, rumbling yawn groaned from its depths.

Kochanski hadn't slept that badly since the incident with the noisy pipes back on Starbug.

Futile fingers combed through the tangles of her mane as she meandered down the corridor, somehow hoping to tame it back into some semblance of a pony-tail. Sleep had most definitely eluded her, she'd decided. Waived gaily as it buggered off on some unspecified business trip.

In its absence, her mind had outright refused to switch off for the night. Instead, it seemed far more intent on poring over the oxymoron of the man next door. The sarcastic hero. The gallant weasel. The man who was both Ace and Arnold - and yet neither.

The light from his doorway stretched weakly into the murk of the corridor; the darkness rapidly losing its claim with the morning's gradual arrival. Kochanski rubbed her eyes with an equal mix of confusion and exhaustion. Odd.

Keeping a light tread across the harsh metal-grating of the deck, she edged into the light to peer inside. And there the conundrum himself sat; the table before him littered with the glinting components of weaponry rather than the astronavigation revision notes that she had once been used to. The square shoulders of his military-grey jacket were now rounded in a hunch of concentration as he meticulously cleaned each gun part with a collection of cloths and brushes laid out neatly beside him.

It was like a visual trompe l'oiel that she'd suddenly solved. Now that she knew he was Rimmer, she could see nothing but. Despite the wig's uncanny ability to transform the once-spiky angles of his face, his characteristic rodent nose twitch as he focused on his fiddly work belied his true identity.

"If you're trying to be subtle, I can confirm that you're failing miserably."

Kochanski jumped at the familiarity of his voice. The smooth, dulcet tones that she'd once heard gliding like caramel from his tongue had now melted away. In its place came the return of the snide, nasal notes that snagged on her patience like fingernails on a chalkboard.

He hadn't even deigned to glance up at her. Instead, he placed his tiny brush with regimental precision in the reporting line beside him before selecting another for duty.

"Can I come in?"

Rimmer arched an eyebrow from under the bangs of his wig. To the outsider it would appear to be a dismissive gesture. To Kochanski, she knew it to be a begrudging invitation. She approached him slowly until she stood at the table.

"May I sit down?" she prompted.

Again, he didn't reply verbally or even acknowledge her request with eye contact. Instead, the chair in front her suddenly thrust away from the table in a wordless, screeching response to her request.

Kochanski prickled at his rudeness but sat down regardless. In the eerie, early morning silence that resonated in place of conversation, she allowed her eyes to wander across the unfamiliar sleeping quarters. Despite their initial friendly closeness upon her rescue and the late night heart-to-hearts that had followed, she realised that she'd never seen his quarters before. She'd never needed to. He'd always come to her - as if he could sense her need for reassurance and closeness.

Now she could see why. This was the only place in the universe where Ace and Arnold collided. Where two identities clashed together, fighting for some semblance of supremacy. The hero's brash and bold gallantry - reflected in the room's liberal littering of weaponry, star charts and tokens of gratitude from far-flung galaxies - had definitely been tamed by a familiar obsession with tidiness and order.

Kochanski raised an eyebrow at the double bunk. Of course. After all, what else did she expect? It had to be a bed large enough to house the man, his ego, and the latest participant in what appeared to be Ace's sponsored shag-a-thon through the known universes.

She blinked. It looked untouched.

"You've not been to bed."

"Super sleuth."

Kochanski regarded him with a reproachful frown that went unnoticed, but her brow soon receded as she studied his face more carefully. Despite their fixed concentration on his work, the tired, dark shadows under his eyes were more than evident.

"Couldn't sleep?" she ventured.

Still focused on his cleaning rather than returning her gaze, he expelled a protracted and deliberate sigh of irritation. "Things to do."

Kochanski rolled her eyes. Only he would be capable of becoming more angry after an argument, not less. Brooding over his grudge like a chicken hatching an egg. Well, if she had to be the more mature of the pair then so be it.

"I'm sorry I slapped you." Nervous fingers knotted in her lap before clasping together in an overly formal manner for someone attired in third-hand, make-shift pyjamas. Her voice adopted a rather starched approach that uncannily mirrored his. "But you lied to me and I was angry. I hope you understand that."

She shifted awkwardly in her seat as the flicks of his brush increased the aggressiveness of their strokes. Her polished reprimand had sounded uncomfortably like an echo of her mother's - the ever prim and proper lady who had worked tirelessly to shed the unwanted family inheritance that came with their Glaswegian roots and working class background. With a shudder, she deliberately extracted the harshness from her tone and softened her approach.

"But Rose explained that you were trying to protect me," she nodded gently. "After all, this is your -" she paused, searching for the right word, " - job now, I suppose."

The man beside her remained silent. Kochanski watched as he glanced experimentally down the gun sight before deciding upon another brush.

Her chest fluttered for a moment, recalling the unsettling ease with which he'd brandished those weapons in the name of protecting her. She wondered how many other enemies he'd regarded through the cold, unseeing eyes of those barrels.

A chill crawled up her spine. She wondered how he'd felt when he himself had stared into those very eyes. Staring his own death in the face - unprepared, defenceless and afraid.

"She also told me what happened," she ventured quietly. "What that simulant did to you."

It had been an act beyond humanity. How - in the final battle between the simulants and Rimmer's predecessor almost two years previously - he had been killed in cold blood. Just to stop what the simulants had thought to be the next link in the chain of Ace's successors.

Indeed, Rimmer's eyes winced closed, as if haunted by the echo of the fatal bullet. Kochanski bit her lip as she noticed his brush stop for just a moment, his brow pinched with a pained frown that he shrugged off quickly to return to his task.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. Whether she was offering a surreal formality of condolence or apology for treading one step too close for comfort, she wasn't certain.

Whatever the connotation, Rimmer's nostrils flared for a moment at her words before settling into position once more. Despite the stern look on his face, his fingers now resonated with a barely noticeable tremble that made the brush quiver.

She offered a quiet olive branch the only way she knew how. "You know, if you ever want to - "

"Kris!"

The suddenness of his outburst visibly startled her - but not quite so much as the terrible silence that followed when he finally locked his stare with hers. The hazel swirls of his eyes looked charged with the power of so many words unsaid.

Eventually, Rimmer's exasperated sigh released it. "Funnily enough, there's a reason why Hallmark don't do greetings cards that read - 'Sorry you popped your clogs - I'm here if you want a chat about it.'."

Plucking up one of the magazine cartridges from the table, he inspected it silently - counting and logging the rounds in neat copperplate handwriting on the notepad beside him. "In polite society, it's still regarded as a bit of a conversation-killer. Pardon the pun."

Riled by his sarcasm, her exhaustion, and what seemed like an eternal damnation of rudeness, Kochanski let forth a frustrated growl. "Then what on earth are you so angry about?" she snapped.

Slamming down the magazine, Rimmer's eyes suddenly flared with angered desperation. "That you're finding it so bloody hard to accept!"

Kochanski blinked quickly, startled by the direct nature of his accusation. She fumbled to feign ignorance. "Finding what - ?"

"Me!" he cried, barely allowing her to speak. "And him! I mean - " Rimmer's eyes screwed closed, as if even he were struggling to solve the riddle, " - me being him!" In the wake of her wordless reply, Rimmer continued to release the pressured build-up of steam that begged for release.

"Just tell me why it's so hard for you to accept," he demanded, his voice suddenly far harsher. "Why is it so smegging difficult to fathom that I might have changed? That I might have actually - I don't know - done something right for once in my life?"

Kochanski's eyes flitted left and right, as if to seek out the answer that she hoped would be hidden in his. Eventually, her gaze dropped to the deck. "I don't know," she whispered. It was the truth, and he clearly knew it.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Rimmer dragged his hands down his face, growling into his palms. After a thoughtful pause, he peeled off the - yes, it had been a wig all this time – to run long, thin fingers through his curls, teasing them back into life once more. No. Gripping them with all his might as his pained eyes fell closed.

"Course not," he conceded with a resigned sigh, his tone tumbling back into the familiar realms of bitterness. "It seems I should be used to playing second fiddle by now. A second-class Arnold Rimmer and now a second-class Ace." A dismissive snort jetted down flared nostrils. "How on Io could I expect someone like you to understand?"

"For someone like me to understand?" Kochanski echoed, suddenly feeling more riled than she'd ever been. She felt the full sickening injustice of his throwaway statement thunder through her being, and her aggressiveness quickly took on its power.

"Why is it so difficult for you to fathom that you might not be the only person in the entire bloody cosmos who feels like they don't fit in?" she snapped back. "You're not the only one who doesn't quite belong here, you know. You of all people should know that."

Ten years it may have been, but the memories of those post-Tank months aboard Red Dwarf still resonated clearly in her mind. Rimmer had more than borne witness to the increasingly tense and awkward frustrations that had developed between her and Dave as the relentless, empty days ticked by. The fact that he wasn't her Dave. That she wasn't his Kris.

"Yes, I get it - you've got some bloody big boots to fill," she nodded sharply. "But you really think that you're the only one living in someone else's shadow? Trying to fathom in your mind how the hell this twisted existence works?"

She hardly noticed as her tone shifted - from direct, questioning accusation to self-pitying reflection. "Trying not to feel like you're just a substitute for someone else," she mumbled. "Trying to ignore the fact that even though they're looking right at you, they're not quite seeing you." She blinked rapidly. "Being made to feel like the lowest of the low just because you can't feel the same way they do?"

Rimmer didn't reply. But she sensed that, this time, he was merely unable to find the words.

"So what gives you the right to sit there and decide that I couldn't possibly understand?" she demanded. "Not know how it feels - "

She stopped as the once water-tight seal of her tone finally cracked - raw, undiluted distress seeping through.

Kochanski could sense his eyes flitting across her bowed face; like a child struggling to comprehend the complexity of emotion resonating from the person before them. Clearly, for him, there were still lessons to be learned in this strange, intricate notion known as empathy.

Eventually he spoke, but his offering did nothing to dispel the immaturity of the image.

"Cos it's my ship."

She glanced back up at him. Although the tone had resonated his usual, pouting possessiveness, something behind Rimmer's eyes flickered with understanding. A sincerity that could only be expressed through his own limitations of mocking humour.

Kochanski reacted the only way a person with eight cups of sugary tea and two hours sleep to their name possibly could. Her face split helplessly, collapsing into giggles. She swiped at the tears that had begun to sting the corners of her eyes. "You arsehole," she managed.

Rimmer regarded her wordlessly for a moment. But rather than the scathing comment she expected in return, his face softened slightly in a manner she'd only seen when they'd been trapped together back on the SS Silverberg. As if this expression rarely had the chance to surface above the hard, stony façade.

"You know what?" he said, regarding her earnestly. "When I managed to rescue you, I was almost glad that you didn't recognise it was me. It meant that I'd finally done it. That I'd managed to change. Become him."

Rimmer's eyes dropped to the array of gun components spread before him, suddenly appearing painfully self-conscious. "Then the others arrived and smeg-for-brains out there blew my cover." He rolled his eyes wearily. "Full of the usual insults I just knew he'd come out with."

Kochanski watched as he wiped away an invisible smear from the zealously-polished handle of the gun that lay in silent wait beside him.

"The annoying thing is, Lister was right. I wasn't perfect at this hero lark." His voice carried a bitter tinge at the edges as he snapped the magazines into place. "Hell, I was making mistakes left, right and centre." He grimaced. "As Rose seems to want to remind me ad infinitum."

Dredging up as sincere a face as was feasible, Kochanski shook her head. "Now that's not true," she soothed. "Rose does not think you make mistakes left, right and centre."

Click. The slides snapped into place as Rimmer arched a disbelieving eyebrow.

"Okay, she did say you still make some," she relented.

Rimmer sighed, placing the loaded guns carefully on the table. "I lied to you, I admit," he nodded, reaching behind his chair to unhook the weaponry belt that had been slung on its back. "But it felt like if you believed the lie -" he paused to tear away his gaze, cheeks flaring red as his voice dropped to a mumble, " - it felt as if it was true for me too."

He slotted each gun with solemn reverence into their leather holsters, not able to look her in the face. Instead, his brow furrowed, pained.

"After two long smegging years, I was really beginning to think - " His mouth hung open, as if desperate to say the words. Instead he exhaled heavily, his tight-set characteristic frown making a swift return. "Forget it."

Kochanski watched as the hologram scraped back his chair before wandering dejectedly across to the bunk. She didn't seek for him to continue as he sank down to sit on the pristine sleeping bag; merely cast out her line into the ripples of thought and waited patiently. When he was ready to take the bait of silence, he would.

Indeed, he seemed to pause for a moment as if to seek the right words, before picking at the loose thread of a half-buried memory. A memory that - thanks to his nano-created existence - technically wasn't his, but clearly haunted him just as vividly.

"When I was about eight," Rimmer mused, "there was this horrible kid at school called Martin Riley." He shuddered almost imperceptibly at the mere mention of his name. "A real bully type. The sort of charming child who liked to ensure my head and the toilet bowl made acquaintance every morning at break-time."

"Oh, how awful," Kochanski clucked, although she wasn't entirely surprised. She could picture young Arnold - a lanky, pale specimen who was yet to grow into his awkward height and skinny face. A 'sitting duck' candidate for the butt of childish pranks.

Rimmer gave a dismissive wave of the hand. "Smeg happens," he surmised philosophically. "Anyway, once I was out of Io House, I told myself I was destined for greater careers than someone like Riley - a kid who was thicker than a banker's wad."

Kochanski curled back chilly bare toes against the metal of the deck, watching as he straightened with proud recollection. "I secured a sought-after spot on a mining ship, working my way up the chain of command. I was merely inches from becoming an officer, as you well know."

Biting back a smirk, Kochanski merely gave a slight nod. "Mm - " she added, non-committal.

Her amusement unnoticed, Rimmer continued. "So when I went back for the school reunion about six months before the accident, I was itching to rub it in Riley's face. And true to form, I overheard someone at the buffet table saying that even after fifteen years since leaving school, he was still pushing trolleys for a living."

Intrigue reeled her in. Snagged on her own line, Kochanski meandered towards him, hands tucked under her arms against the chill. "So did you speak to him?"

"I did," he nodded, although the conviction was no longer there. "But it was like the last fifteen years had never happened. I turned back into a gibbering wreck." Rimmer winced visibly, as if he could still hear the man's mockery. "He just laughed in my face and called me an idiot." His eyes sank closed with a ragged sigh. "God, I'd never felt so small in all my life."

Rimmer fell quiet for a moment. In the awkward silence that followed, Kochanski sank down to join him on the bunk.

"You go away and achieve so many great things," he muttered, as if to himself. "So many that you just know the people back home are going to be blown away by what you've become."

His brow pinched in resignation. "But when you're back?" Rimmer shook his head slowly. "It's like nothing's changed." His gaze dropped to the fingers tangled together between splayed knees. "It's like you're eight years old again."

Kochanski was no fool. She could read between the lines.

"Kris, I'm tired of playing him," he mumbled. "I want to be him."

"You are him."

Greeted by his trademark dismissive eyebrow as he leant back on the bunk, Kochanski released a sigh that teetered on exasperation.

"Look, you are a completely different person now," she asserted. "I can honestly say that the man who saved me from those GELFs was nothing like the one I used to know."

She could still recall the determination etched on his face as he single-handedly challenged the hooded tribe, head on. The fearless, yet calm and measured conviction with which he'd moved. How he'd reassured her through both words and actions, putting her instantly at ease. Making her feel safe when she'd needed it most.

"You'd become confident, and secure, and - " Kochanski fished for the word with open hands, " - caring."

Rimmer's startled eyes met hers. It was clearly an adjective he'd never heard used in previous descriptions of his personality. But sure enough, the flickered beginnings of another man sat intertwined in their depths, struggling to surface above the twisted mess of nerves and negativity.

"By asking you to get me back to my dimension, I didn't realise how much of a risk I was asking you to take," she explained. "Not just the dangerous, fool-hardy, 'ignoring inter-dimensional laws' part - " Kochanski fidgeted awkwardly, the heat of shame prickling the back of her neck. " - but the fact that I was asking you to choose sides. Decide where your loyalties lie." Biting her lip, her eyes flitted across the room, unable or unwilling to settle. "Hoping that Dave would never find out."

She could sense the internal struggle that raged behind his gaze as it sank to regard his boots. It was a choice he'd seemingly been able to make easily enough only hours before. But now it were as if the guilt of his decision had returned to haunt him in the curry-scented flesh.

"Thank you."

Rimmer nodded slowly. As before, his reply remained wordless.

"You are Ace." Kochanski's nod echoed his, the conviction developing slowly but surely. "I know you are."

Rimmer drew in a thoughtful breath before exhaling heavily, nostrils flaring wide. Eventually his eyes risked a sideways glance that she greeted with the flickering embers of a warm smile. She rubbed a reassuring thumb across the knuckles of the hand that rested on the bed beside her.

"But I get the feeling," she added carefully, "that it's not us that you have to convince."