Rimmer was elated. She had forgiven him! He had said he was sorry and just like that, she had forgiven him! Perhaps the whole sincerity thing was something worth while after all. He practically skipped his way back to his quarters, his mind lingering on her. He imagined himself touching her perfect blonde hair, kissing her hand... He burst back into his quarters and cried out, "Lister! You're not going to believe..."
Lister wasn't there.
Rimmer figured that Lister was still with Kochanski. He shrugged. For the first time, he didn't feel that twinge of jealousy that he felt when he knew something good was happening to another person. He didn't care, frankly, that Lister and Kochanski were making passionate monkey love while he sat alone in his quarters.
She had forgiven him!
He recalled how utterly charming she looked when she was ruffled and sleepy and dressed only in a bathrobe, put on his pajamas, and fell asleep. It was the best night of sleep that he had gotten in years.
"We are the knights who say... NI!"
"No! Not the Knights of Ni! Those who hear them seldom live to tell the tale!"
"The Saaaaaame."
"Oh, knights of Ni, we are but humble travelers, and but seek a path through your forest."
"NI!" "NI!" "NI!" "Shhh.. shh..."
"We want you to fetch us... A SHRUBBERY!"
"A what?"
"Lister!"
Lister turned his head away from the screen, which had the effect of pausing the movie he was watching. (Wonderful thing, technology...) Crouching next to him, in the aisle, was Kristine, who had a very concerned look on her face.
"Hi Kris. What's the matter?" He didn't show much enthusiasm, and had large circles under his eyes.
"I called your name twice, and you didn't answer. Did you get any sleep last night?"
"Not a wink." Dave turned his head back towards the screen and the movie resumed.
"Oh these are sad days for the people. Even I, a man who arranges and designs shrubberies...."
"Dave!"
He turned again to face his girlfriend. Even in the dim light of the empty cinema, Kochanski could see the anguish in his eyes, could see how scared he was. Their appointment with Marone and Captain Hollister was in fifteen minutes. She moved in and held him in her arms. He didn't respond.
Last night, after they had gotten their summons, Dave had said to her that he needed some time alone, and had vanished away. Kochanski had spent the intervening time tossing restlessly in her bed, searching for sleep. It had eluded her, except for a few brief, random snatches throughout the night. Around 7:30, she sleepwalked her way up to her duty station, mumbled a brief apology for missing her shift yesterday, and blurrily ran through the motions of her job. At 12:30, she told her CO that she was due in the captain's office in half an hour, and could she please be excused to freshen up? He looked at her strangely and said yes. She beat a hasty retreat, realizing that he probably thought she was sneaking off to see Dave again. She punched up on a remote terminal and asked Holly where Dave had hidden himself. He told her that he was alone in cinema three, watching some Chaucerian Knights movie. She ran all the way there. Dave was a movie fanatic, but his being alone in the theatre couldn't be a good thing. It would bring back too many memories of when he was all alone on the Red Dwarf...
"Dave, sweetie, please. Talk to me."
"I have nothing to say. You were right and I was wrong. I'm sorry. Off!" he snapped, and the paused picture vanished from the screen.
She pulled back, removing her arms from his shoulders. She looked into his eyes in the rapidly ascending mood lighting. "Dave, no. You were right. We shouldn't have hidden it. Now we're in worse trouble than before. I was incredibly selfish. Please, forgive me?"
"Forgive you?" wailed Lister. "Kris, there's nothing to forgive! You were only doing what you thought was in our best interest. It just frosts my cookies to have to hide the fact that we're together! I shouldn't have to hide the fact that I love you!"
They both froze. Kochanski felt as if someone had taken a fist-full of IcyHot and splooched it down her blouse. Lister felt like his eyeballs were on fire.
"What?" she whispered.
He stood there for a moment, staring at his feet. "I love you," he repeated finally. They stood there, staring at each other for what seemed an eternity. Lister had playfully said, "Love ya," on more than one occasion, but Kochanski had never once heard him say that with such intensity, such fervor. It nearly scared her. He sounded almost angry... She was so lost in the moment that what he said next caught her totally off balance.
"Well?" he prompted.
She blinked at him, at a total loss as to what it was he was waiting for. "Well what?"
"Well? Aren't you going to say that you love me too?"
Kochanski hesitated. It was barely a second, the time it took for her to breathe in. It was too long.
"I..."
"I see," he said quietly, all emotion drained from his voice.
Her brain finally caught up with the last 30 seconds, and she realized her mistake. "No, Dave, it's not like that..."
"No. Don't say things that you don't mean. I don't want to force it out of you. It's ok." Lister scooted past her, into the aisle and up the slope towards the exit. "You comin'?" he asked, not turning to look at her. "We need to be in Hollister's office in five minutes." Without even so much as a backward glance, he exited the theatre, leaving Kochanski alone in the dim light exclusive to cinemas.
She stood stunned for a few moments, then muttered, "Bugger," under her breath and ran out to the corridor to catch up with him. His retreating form was just down the way, and his step was missing it's usual bounce. She sprinted to his side, and walked silently with him to the captain's office.
It may not last much longer, but for the moment they were still together. Kochanski intended to savor it.
Rimmer was awakened by a few short, sharp, and extremely loud bars of Reville, in E sharp, for bugle. He sat up quickly, too quickly, and banged his head on the top bunk.
"OW! What the smegging hell...? OFF!" he snapped, swinging his lanky frame off the bed just as the cacophony gurgled and died. Automatically, he took off his jammies and pulled his trousers on annoyedly, pausing for a moment to stare at the clock. He almost didn't believe what it told him. It was 12:30 already. He had slept through the first three hours of his shift the day after his parole hearing.
The captain was going to go spare.
Wait, screw the captain. She was gonna go spare.
"Holly!" he bellowed, as he hunted around for the rest of his uniform. "Why didn't you wake me sooner?"
The computer's goofy face appeared on the wall mirror. "'Cuz ya didn't ask me to, you great wazzok."
Rimmer was about to launch into a monologe describing Holly's personal habits in comparison to a syphilitic potato bug, when the call-chime on his door rang out. It had been broken a while back, and now, instead of the usual melodious wind chime sound, it rather sounded like an oboe stuffed up the hind quarters of a mule.
Rimmer tried to imagine who it could be. It was probably Lister, his new CO for the Zed shift, coming to twit him about being late, and most assuredly putting him on report. Most of his nightmares recently had involved Lister writing him up. For some reason his subconscious mind just couldn't deal with the fact that Lister putting anybody on report was an absurd notion. Of course, Rimmer felt that he deserved it...
"Come in," he called out, trying to hide the shame and annoyance in his voice. He hoped it came out macho and suave, like an actor in a really bad spy movie. It sounded, instead, like a grown man trying his hardest to impersonate Richard Simmons.
It wasn't Lister at the door. It was Hippolyta.
He reswallowed his heart as he stared unabashedly at her. She was done up in a similar outfit as yesterday, only with more green and less of it total. The blouse was positively transparent...! He shifted his eyes to her face, trying his damnedest not to stare at her obvious support measures. Granted, he was wearing nearly nothing at all. A pair of rumpled trousers, and that was it. He hurriedly kicked his pajamas under the bunk, not wanting her to see the fluffy bunnies and kittens embroidered thereon.
He was so busy staring at her eyes, that he failed to notice the fact that her eyes were staring right back at him.
She, of course, recovered first.
"You're not at your duty station," she stated quietly, sounding almost dissappointed in him.
He stared at her stupidly for a moment, uncomprehending. Why is she telling me this? It's not like she cares about... Oh. Wait. Yes she does. She's my parole officer. Rimmer snapped to attention just a few seconds too late, throwing a Full Double Rimmer, the one where he stomps his booted foot full on the ground for an impressive, "CLONK" sound.
Of course, he wasn't wearing his boots. His bare foot slammed into the hard metal floor, and instead of clonk, he heard, "SNAP." He had, in a moment of stupid enthusiasm, sprained his ankle quite badly. Rimmer bit back the howl that was threatening to tear out of him, scrunching his face up in a rictus of pain and humiliation. He saw through a curtain of unshed tears that Hippolyta was staring at him again, her mouth half-open in surprise. A few moments passed, then he managed to grind out, "Permission to hollar like a banshee, Ma'am..."
"Permission granted," she said quickly. Rimmer did as he promised, yelling like a demon just out of hell on a Saturday night and looking for a good stiff drink. He slumped down onto his bunk, still screaming blue murder, clutching his offending ankle. It hurt so badly, Rimmer suspected that he may have even broken it. Already he could feel it swelling up tremendously.
Rimmer was so caught up in his agony that he failed to notice, at first, that Hippolyta had knelt at his feet and was trying to gently prise his fingers from around his ankle. He finally realized that she was touching him again, with all the tenderness of a competent doctor. Even through the pain, he felt that same electricity of contact, that shiver that ran up his spine when she touched him. Whether or not she felt the same thing, Rimmer couldn't guess. Her face showed no surpirse, only compassion and a slight touch of amusement. That amusement was at his expense, he supposed. God only knew that he deserved it.
She finally managed to get him to relax his death grip on his ankle, and gently prodded at it with her fingertips. Rimmer grunted. It hurt, but she was touching him. He didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She looked up at him, her nose crinkled in amusment. "Yeah, it's sprained. You goober, why'd you do that?" Her voice was thick with laughter, but there was also an undertone of compassion. She shook her head, and crossed over to the medicine cabinet above his sink. Her back was toward him, and he forgot his ankle as he stared at her bottom, which was swaying hypnotically as she stood on tiptoe to hunt along the top shelf. Rimmer shook himself. He had no right to be staring at her that way... he lowered his eyes. But only for a moment. His gaze was drawn back up to her, as she finished her chore in the cabinet and came back over to him. Sitting next to him on the bunk, she wordlessly motioned for him to put his ankle in her lap. He did as she wanted, feeling the incongruity of this moment. In her hands was a plastic bandage, which had certain chemicals in it to cool down an injury. He heard the little metal initiator disk inside snap, and felt the blessed coldness begin to wrap around his injury. Her hands moved swiftly, competently, as if she had bandaged a sprain millions of times in her life. Rimmer suspected, correctly, that her first aid training was 3 million years and a Girl Scout troop in her past.
"Thank you," he murmured, as soon as she dropped her hands from his flesh and he removed his foot from her lap.
"You're welcome," she said, just as quietly. They sat on his bunk for a few moments, not looking at each other, not saying anything. He enjoyed the silence. It was an anodyne to his bruised ego. Lister would have immediately started to hurl insults at him. Hell, he wouldn't have even helped him bandage it up. And he sure as hell wouldn't have said, "You're welcome." Especially not in that quiet, almost shy tone. He slid his lowered eyes over to her, seeing only her hands folded demurely in her lap. He wrestled with the urge to reach out and grab her hand. Is that what she wants? Does she want me to make a move? Rimmer debated internally. On the one hand, she had showed him great kindness. She had forgiven him last night. And she was beautiful. On the other hand, she was his parole officer. She could kick his ass from here to next Tuesday. And she was inquiring as to why he had missed his shift.
Not the best time to make a move, really.
Hippolyta, for her part, was fighting the blush that was threatening to burn her collarbone to ashes. She hadn't blushed in over a decade. Who did Rimmer think he was, staring at her hands like that? She could feel his gaze locked on her fingers, she could almost taste the tension radiating from his body, winding him up tighter than a cheap pocket watch.
Hippolyta was very confused. She had loathed Rimmer on sight two years (of her subjective time) ago. Now, within the last 36 hours, she found her soul singing when he looked at her, felt her heart pounding when they touched. Why? What was it about this trumped up little man, with all the inherent ability and charm of a malarial tsetse fly, that made her tremble when they were together? Hippolyta was flabbergasted. Her past love affairs had been unremarkable. Like soggy, burnt oatmeal. Totally unpalatable.
She had only made love once in her life. He had been a moderately handsome teenaged boy that she'd met on one of the rare sojourns from her school to the local strip-mall. His name was Anthony, and he worked behind the deli counter at the supermarket. He had offered her a free sandwich, and she had told him to meet her later that night. After a few weeks of passionate but clumsy kisses, they had made love under a pine tree that was in the forest outside the school grounds. She had expected fireworks, but instead received nothing but a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had been so unnerved by the act that she fled from him without even saying why. He did not come to meet her again. She was relieved. When she joined the corps, and began her stint on the Red Dwarf, there were plenty of men willing to jump into bed with her. She refused them all. Not because they weren't attractive, but because she felt that same, cold, empty feeling in her stomach when she thought about having sex with any of them.
Thus the nickname IronBritches. Those men called her frigid. They may have been right, but she never bothered to find out. She was almost afraid to find out. Her other passions burned so hot within her, that to think that she was incapable of loving scared her.
So why was it that the thought of getting all sweaty and moaning with Rimmer made her feel like she was in free-fall? Why was he so different? Why did the sight of him without a shirt on...?
Hippolyta suddenly jumped up from the bunk and crossed to the door. She couldn't stay here with him any longer. She had done her job, waking him up with the bugle call, asking him why he wasn't at his shift. Why stay? She knew that the longer she stayed with him, the higher the chances that something horrible would happen. Like... ew... actually beginning to like him.
She was almost to the threshold when she felt his hand grab her wrist. She spun around, knocking Rimmer off balance, and dislodging his grip on her. The door swooshed open in response to their proximity, but for some reason, she did not exit. They stared at each other.
A whole lot of her recent time was being spent on staring. This couldn't be a good thing.
He spoke first. "Why are you here?"
"The obvious reason."
"Which is...?"
"Obvious." She smirked at him. If she couldn't distance herself from him by being elsewhere, then perhaps a few verbal jabs would do the trick. He just looked at her. His hazel eyes were shining with conflicting emotions. Lust, fear, worship, pain from his sprained ankle... At least, she assumed that's where the pain was coming from. It didn't bear thinking about, that she might be the thing causing him pain. He continued in his silence, so she sighed and moved back from the door. It whooshed closed, and they were in private once more. She massaged the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. "Look, Rimmer. Why do you think I came here?"
He didn't say anything for a moment longer. He didn't trust his voice to work. Then, he said, "Because you wanted to be with me."
There it was. He'd said it. There was no backing down now. The silence raged onwards again, and they spent that silence looking deep into each other's eyes. Rimmer's heart was hammering against his ribcage. Hippolyta felt as if she was drowning, her breath coming ragged and thick.
"Why would you think that?" she said, forcing a modicum of light airiness into her tone. She had to keep her voice breezy, otherwise the moment would overcome her sensibilities and she'd be lost.
Rimmer was not fooled. "Because you feel it too. I know you do."
"Don't assume you know what I feel, Arnold Rimmer," she snappishly blurted out as she turned away from him. She sat on the bunk impatiently, tossing her hair out of her face. It wasn't what she'd meant to say, not at all. She wanted to tell him, Yes, I do. I do feel it. But a lifetime of being alone and lonely had shown her that nobody could understand her, or her feelings. The people that she had entrusted with her innermost desires had turned on her. Pushed her away. Sent her packing. Or, even worse, didn't offer her any kind of trust in return, as if what she valued above all else was utterly unimportant to anyone else alive. She did not want that to happen with Rimmer. So she got an early revenge, by doing it to him first.
Then, he surprised her for the second time in twelve hours by saying, "Don't assume that I can't." She glanced up sharply at him, still standing where she had left him. The look on his face was so heartbreaking that Hippolyta felt as if she would die from looking at it. She wondered what it was like to be on the inside of that face. The thought nearly made her cry.
Rimmer crossed over to her and sat down on the bunk, so close to her that their thighs were almost touching. He reached out and clasped her hand in his. Her first impulse was to snatch it away, but she didn't. A lot of parole officers would give their side arms for an opportunity to dig up this sort of dirt. But for some reason, it didn't feel... dirty. It just felt right. And that made her even more nervous. Hippolyta couldn't tell if that was her pulse or his thumping along their palms. She bit her lower lip, and leaned away from him imperceptably. Rimmer took a deep breath and said, "Don't tell me that you can't feel it."
He was surprising himself with his bold words and even bolder actions. Usually, his response to a woman was the "Wormdo" line. Or hypnosis. Or a million other cheap tricks. But Rimmer had no desire to do anything cheap around Hippolyta. Her presence inspired the exact opposite. He wanted to shower her with diamonds and jewels, put her on a pedestal, worship her. He suddenly realized the way to do this was to tell her about himself. Not to engender pity, or to drag her down into the muck with him, but rather do it simply, without embelleshment. Honestly. Open up to her, and share all of the things that made him... him.
Softly, quietly, he began to talk. He heard his voice speaking of his childhood, his school days, his family, what they expected of him and their disappointment when he hadn't delivered. He spoke of his time aboard the Dwarf, telling her what he had intended to do, what he'd ended up doing, and how that made him feel about himself. He told her about his psudeo-friendship with Lister. He told her, in short, everything.
Her breathing had wavered during his story, at times low and even, at others sharp and fast. Rimmer saw tears shining on her cheeks.
Hippolyta finally knew what it was about Rimmer that facinated her, and at the same time frightened her. It was his pain, and his conquering of it. He had seen pain, yes. He had made horrible mistakes. But he lived through it. He went on, unchanged by things that would have driven a lesser man to suicide. And if there was anything in this world that she admired above all else, it was the ability to keep your core self untouched by suffering. She had lived through her father's cruel punishment. She had survived a massive displacement and an equally massive loss. And she was still the same.
Rimmer was far more than a possible lover. He was a kindred spirit in survival. He was just like her. And, for one moment, she hated him again for making her discover this about herself. Catching herself, she closed her eyes and took a deep breath. What she was about to do would change her life forever. And there was no looking back. Well, if she really wanted a nice piece of revenge for her life to this point, Rimmer was ideal...
Hippolyta leaned toward him and laid her lips on his cheek, very gently, as if he was something unbelievably fragile. It was the kiss of a woman greeting her husband returning from a war. She kept her lips pressed to his skin for a second longer, then moved away from him. He turned to face her, not really believing what she had just done. They looked into each other's eyes again, falling into each other.
Then, she threw her arms around his shoulders in a firey embrace and kissed him full on the mouth.
For several seconds, Rimmer was too stunned to give back as good as he got. However, he soon had his arms wrapped around her waist, and was kissing her as passionately as she was kissing him.
She felt his tongue probe her mouth, and she tried to remain unmoved by it. She couldn't. This man was her other half, the one person in the entire universe made just for her. Oh, the delicious and painful irony. All thoughts of revenge left her at that moment, and she moaned softly in response. His mouth tasted faintly of morning, but it wasn't unpleasant. Quite the opposite, in fact. Rimmer tasted her for the first time, and even though there was the faint undertone of cigarettes, he could go on tasting her for the rest of his life. Hippolyta was amazed that the feeling of the flesh of her arms touching the flesh of his bare back could be so erotic. There was no emptiness left inside her anymore. She felt so full of fire that she almost couldn't stand it. Rimmer, for his part, couldn't think past this or any other moment. It was perfection, all contained in one kiss.
They were both very caught up in their kiss, but not so much that Hippolyta lost total control of her faculties. When she felt Rimmer's hand stray southward of her waist, she jumped, and pulled out of the kiss. He looked at her, very much like a wounded puppy.
"No," she whispered. "Not now. Not here. Anybody could walk in on us."
"Lock!" snapped Rimmer, addressing the door. She giggled. She couldn't help herself.
"No. Seriously. Holly can record us in here. And if I'm caught snogging with you, we're both in for it."
"Why?" he asked, perplexed.
She huffed exasperatedly at him. "Because I'm your parole officer...?" she prompted.
"Oh. Right. I'd forgotten," he said, blinking with the memory. She giggled again. Rimmer grabbed her about the waist, and started nuzzling her neck. "If you giggle like that one more time, I can't be held responsible for my libido."
She started to giggle for a third time, but it turned into a gasp of pleasure when he started licking her earlobe. She allowed herself that moment of pleasure, then...
"Seriously, Rimmer!" She squirmed out of his embrace. "We can't do this. We have to find a place where we can't be spied on."
He thought for a moment and came up with, "The cargo hold. Holly can't scan down there."
She wrinkled her nose at him in a moment of disgust. "Ick, no. It's dirty down there. Besides, now isn't good."
"Why?" he wailed, not able to control his lust any longer.
She raised an eyebrow at the tone that he used, and patted his head, like he was an errant schoolboy. "Because. You have to get to your shift. And I have a report to file with the captain. In fact, I'm late. I should have been there 10 minutes ago." She stood up, adjusting her naughty blouse as she did. "Rimmer, I promise. I'm not trying to lead you on. It's just that we both have jobs to do, and they come first."
"You could come first..." he whispered with a grin. She looked at him for a moment, then her eyes widened as she caught his double entendre.
"Rimmer!"
"Sorry."
She snorted with repressed laughter. "Meet me in Landing Bay 5 after you're off tonight. I have an idea."
"The landing bay? With all those people around?"
"Not in the landing bay. In one of the Starbugs. Holly can't scan there either, and I know for a fact that one of the 'Bugs is out of comission for at least another week. Trust me."
She leaned in and kissed him one last time, softly on the lips, and was out the door before Rimmer could protest again.
Rimmer sat on his bunk for a few moments longer, re-living the last 40 minutes of his life. Then, he got dressed and headed to his duty station, smirking all the way.
Lister and Kochanski sat outside the captain's office, fidgeting. It was now ten minutes after 1300 hours, and the captain showed no sign of letting them come in. His door was shut tight, and nobody had told them that the captain was expecting them. So they waited.
Kochanski turned to Lister and said, "Are you ok, Dave?"
"No," he answered simply. He was not looking at her, like he was afraid to. In fact, he hadn't met her eyes since they left the cinema. She'd had just about enough of that! She put her manicured fingers under his chin and tilted his lowered face up to hers.
His eyes were bright with unshed tears. Lister was not a crier. In fact, the only time she'd seen him get this teary was when he was slicing an onion for a particularly noxious curry.
This was not a good thing.
"Dave... darling..."
"No, Kris. Don't." He yanked his chin out of her hand and averted his face again, causing a few tears to involuntarily fly from his eyes.
"I love you too," she whipered softly into his ear.
He didn't say or do anything for a moment. Then, he raised his face back up to her, the tears finally running down his cheeks. "You mean that, Kris? I mean, really, honestly, with all your heart mean it?"
"Yes," she responded quietly. "I've always loved you. I'm sorry about what happened in the theater. I wasn't all there. I was a bit worried about..."
Before she could finish that sentence, Hippolyta Hollister rounded the corner, practically jogging and looking quite silly in her mostly see through outfit. She seemed out of breath, like she had run up the last 3 decks. She made her way towards the captain's office, at first not seeing Lister and Kochanski sitting on the bench right next to the door. Lister raised a sleeve and wiped the tears off of his face, and Kochanski straightend up. That was when Hippolyta noticed them.
"Lister? Kristine? What are you two doing here? Shouldn't you be at your work stations?"
Lister didn't trust his voice to be steady quite yet, so he let Kochanski answer for them.
"We have an appointment with the captain and Marone. Actually, it was supposed to start ten minutes ago..."
"Uh huh," replied Hippolyta. Her eyebrows knitted together in an expression of consternation. "Did they say why?"
"Yeah," blurted out Lister. "Because we're in love, and apparently that's not kosher. You wouldn't happen to know how they found out, would you?" Lister sounded like he was ready to jump up off the bench and clock Hippolyta. Kochanski surreptitously grabbed his elbow. She had heard the rumors, and knew that Hippolyta could easily kick Lister's ass.
Hipppolyta looked very surprised. "They called you in to bitch at you about your relationship? They can't do that. It's against regs. Even paroled prisoners have the right to snog if they want." She smiled quietly to herself and thought, Unless, of course, the person they're snogging with happens to be their parole officer...
Lister and Kochanski felt as if the entire night of tension just melted away. They couldn't break them up! It was against the rules! They could stay together!
Hippolyta noticed this and grinned at the two lovers, who had immediately grabbed hands and moved closer to each other on the bench. A thought occured to her. "Unless," she mused, "one or both of you breached other terms of your parole, like missing a shift or beating each other up..."
Their hands flew apart, and they sat up straight, a guilty look briefly passing over each of their faces in perfect synchronizaton. A guilt wave. Hippolyta noticed, and her eyes widened.
"You're beating each other up?!? Seriously, it's none of my business, but perhaps you two should see the ship's counselor..."
"No!" interjected Lister.
"We each of us missed our shifts yesterday," elaborated Kristine, a look of horror etched onto her face.
Hippolyta blinked at them, totally at a loss as to what to say. Then, the words hit her with perfect clarity.
"Oh. Holy shit."
They both chuckled morosely. They couldn't help it. It was gallows humor.
Hippolyta took in their forlorn expressions, and was galvenized. She couldn't very well let these two go back to Floor 13, not over something as utterly silly as a day spent making love instead of cleaning chicken soup dispensers. Not when she had the power to change it.
"Look, you two wait here. I'm going in to have a few words with the captain." She made words sound like "A horribly painful and excruciating eternity in Belgium." "Don't panic. I'll be right back." She marched briskly up to the door and knocked on it five times.
Lister and Kochanski watched as she entered the captain's office, wondering what they had done to deserve her compassion and tolerance. From what they had seen yesterday, and Rimmer's vague description of her, they had expected to be told, "Tough noogies, you're on your own, good luck!" Lister wondered briefly if Rimmer had something to do with this miraculous transformation...
Naaahhh...
Hippoylta crossed to the front of her uncle's desk, unsurprised to see that Marone and Cheboigan (Kochanski's matronly parole officer, a woman who could have been Brick's twin sister) were already there. Her uncle was looking at her with a mix of confusion, revulsion and anger on his face. She wondered if he had been at the bean and broccoli burritos again last night, and had gas as a result. She sat in the last available chair, which was dead center of the room, and flanked on either side by the two other officers.
"Letty," began the captain. "So nice of you to join us. Only ten minutes late this time. You're improving."
"Sorry, captain. Duty called."
"I just bet it did," muttered Marone under his breath. Hippolyta whipped her head around to shoot him a look. They'd always had a bit of a rivalry, due to the fact that she called him Moron to his face. In a loving, teasing way, of course. Like a brother and sister... sorta. He looked down, not daring to meet her eyes. She turned to face the captain again.
"Letty, dear," he continued, as she flinched at his nickname for her, "I'm rather... unsure how to talk to you about this. Why don't you just tell me what you're thinking, and then we can proceed from there."
"All right, captain. You shouldn't put Lister and Kochanski back in the brig. It was a first offense, they've been model prisoners, and I give you my word that it'll never happen again."
If she expected some sort of response to that, Hippolyta was disappointed. Instead of the nod of agreement from her uncle, (like he always gave her when she reported to him) she got a stony, perplexed silence. She waited for him to reply, not knowing what else this meeting could suddenly be about.
She got her wish.
"No, Letty. I'm talking about this. Holly. Play back the tape from 1300, 2566 point 42." That was today's date, and the time was...
Ten minutes ago, when she'd been in Rimmer's quarters...
A horrible, nauseous feeling started in her abdomen and moved right up into her head. She felt dizzy. She watched in horror as the kiss that she had just shared with Rimmer was played back for her on the viewscreen, in glorious Technicolor. She saw herself lean in and touch his cheek with her lips, then the look, then the kiss. She was kissing Rimmer, and he had no shirt on. She was embracing Rimmer, and he was stroking her hair, she was caressing his bare shoulders, he was pressing his body up against her own...
Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. She had nothing to say. What could she say? She heard her voice come out of the recording, saying, "Meet me in Landing Bay 5..." Then, mercifully, the recording stopped, and all that was left was the sound of her own voice ringing in her ears. She felt three pairs of eyes on her, and she turned her head to look unflinchingly at her uncle.
"So? So I kissed him. So what?"
"So what?!?!" exploded Captain Hollister. "You kissed Rimmer! Your parolee! That is so against regs, Letty! Do you know what you've done? It's RIMMER! Do you have any idea how disgusting that is? Well? What do you have to say for yourself?"
She shouldn't have been surprised by his revulsion. Hell, just forty eight hours before, she shared it. But now she saw red, and before she could control herself, she was up out of the chair, in front of her uncle's desk and was hauling him up out of his seat by his collar.
"He's not disgusting! And. My. Name. Is. Hippolyta!!!!" She punctuated each word with a sharp shake to her uncle. Then, as she reached her name, she pulled back a fist and let fly, hitting her uncle right in the nose. She let go of his collar and he flew backwards over the top of his chair, blood flying in every direction.
The other two officers in the room were so shocked at Hippolyta's violent outburst, that they failed to take immediate action. But when she hit her uncle, they leapt forward, grabbing her arms and wrestling her to the ground. She put up a hell of a fight, because she fought dirty. That had been ground into her by her father, and Brick and the other girls at school, and all the other Security officers who thought that they could take that snotty Hippolyta down a few pegs, if they only tried. She had managed to bite Cheboigan in the bicep and knee Marone in his groin when she felt something dash along her body. She had used it a few times on paroled prisoners, but had never felt it's sting herself.
A stun-ray. Someone had used a stun-ray on her. She didn't know who, but when she found out, they'd be quite, quite dead when she got her hands on them.
Of course, that was what her brain was thinking. Her body had slumped to the deck, in a most inconvienient and unconstructive way.
She was dimly aware that her uncle was towering over her, pinching his nose, trying and failing to stem the blood flow. His shirt was totally splattered with his own fluids, and his eyes were slightly crossed. She was glad. She hoped that he got a concussion from when he'd gone ass over tea-kettle into the bulkhead. She couldn't move any part of her body, not even her eyes. She had to look up at him as he looked down at her.
"Hibbolidda, I'mb dithabboinded in you." He could barely talk through his broken nose. She felt good about it. "You've banaged to croth the lime. You're hereby sendanced to dree years in the brig. For fraderniethation with your barolee, and athauld on your cabtain. Barone, Cheboigan, blease take her down to Floor Thirdeen."
"With pleasure, captain!" exclaimed Marone, as he and Cheboigan hauled Hippolyta up. They dragged her limp body between them, and out the door, Marone giggling maliciously all the way.
Lister and Kochanski sprang to their feet off the bench as the door to the captain's office opened. They had heard nothing from within, due to the heavy sound-proofing of the door. They expected to see Hippolyta and the captian come out, dismiss them, and be on their way.
To their horror, they saw Marone and Cheboigan exit, looking extremely dishevelled, dragging a comatose Hippolyta between them. They gawked in amazement. Lister started forward and asked, "Is she ok? What happened to her?"
"Sit down, Lister!" snapped Marone. Lister did so, surprised. "She is not your concern. The captain will see you in a moment." And with that, the two officers rounded the corner with Hippolyta and were gone.
Lister and Kochanski didn't have time to recover from their shock, as Captain Hollister came out of his office, shaking his head and holding a blood soaked hankerchief to his nose. He stared down the corridor, seeming to see where his niece was being led. Then, he glanced down at Lister and Kochanski.
"Oh. Thorry to geep you two waiding. Don't biss any bore of your shifts, ok? Dithmithed." And he turned and walked back into his office.
Lister and Kochanski exchanged a confused glance, and turned to look down the hall after the trio of parole officers.