DEMONICANGELIC
***
"Eye Spy... with my little eye...."
Holly tried in vain to find something out of the view-port window that Rimmer might not actually get.
"Something beginning with...."
Rimmer sighed as he stared at the poem Jade had given him under the pink glow of his study lamp.
"S." Holly blinked, proud of herself that she might have actually beaten him already - it was a damn good word this time.
Another sigh ripped mercilessly from Rimmer's grated, hologrammatic throat. "Star. STAR! Just like the first round...second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and smegging eighth...everytime you've opened your stupid big pixelated mouth to play smegging 'I Spy,' it's been smegging 'Star'!!
A sly grin fizzled onto the computer's face. "No, actually...it wasn't 'Star'! It was..."
A pause and two sharp blinks.
"Okay...'Star'..." Another pause. "Look, you've been at that piece of paper for hours. The rest of the guys are downstairs... why'd you come up so early?" Holly crinkled up her nose in slighted confusion.
"No reason. Revision to do, sleep to be had..."
"And where's Jade?"
Rimmer's eyes shot to meet the back of his eyelids and his head collapsed into his bony hands. She was probably with Jack, wasn't she? Probably smegging was. She was with smegging Jack! The smegging smeggy smeg-head, Jack.
"I don't know where Jade is. And quite frankly, you senile, jumped up Filofax, I don't much care."
Holly checked up and down Red Dwarf regardless. Jade wasn't with the boys in the Copacabana.
"When was it you'd seen her last, Arn?"
Holly was beginning to annoy Rimmer now. His head darted to meet her stupid, blonde, stupid face and he glowered. "The last time I saw Jade was the last time I'll ever 'see' Jade again."
Holly's face was now crinklier than a ninety-six year old prune with a sunbed addiction. "But when?"
"About a night and a half ago, why?"
"She hasn't moved from there since then."
"So?" Rimmer thought to himself, surely she had some form of work to catch up on, or, of course, she was with smegging, HIM...
Holly studied Rimmer's reaction quietly. She knew why he was sulking. She knew why he and Jade weren't talking. What she didn't know, of course, was why Jade was refusing to leave her quarters.
And that was something she intended to find out.
~~~
"Three-thousand and one...two...three...four... five...six..."
An icy glaze had begun to form over Jade's eyes. Her crying had stopped, purely on the fact that she had cried all the tears she had to cry. She had eventually resorted to counting the stars out of the view-port window.
A friendly, familiar voice fizzled into earshot. "I spy, with my little eye... something beginning with... 'S'.."
Jade's mouth arched at the corners slightly. Despite her retched depressive mood, she had desperately needed a safe, friendly face around for comfort.
"Star."
"Oh, damn... how'd you get that, eh?" Holly grinned. " Hey Jade, whats goin' down? And what's with the get-up?!"
A thick, woolly jumper to rival a yeti's winter coat was slung over Jade's now gaunt-looking frame.
Jade's porcelain-pale face blushed. She gestured towards the jigsaw-like puzzle of broken shards of glass and frame on the floor beside her.
"Can't see to dress, y'know? Blind as a mole with no eyes, wearing a blindfold in the dark without my glasses on." She tried meagerly to grin, but Holly didn't.
"What happened?" The computer asked solemnly as her eyes took in the mess of the room around her. Bed sheets absent-mindedly dropped on the floor, pillows thrown, mattress edging up the wall, clothes scattered like seeds...
"But I thought you and Jack were, you know, apart? Didn't think you'd still be getting it on like Duracell Bunnies." She grinned, in waiting of a smile in return.
A wave of realisation swept through Holly's motherboard as a dejected Jade crumpled to the floor and wept.
"You are apart."
A nod.
"You weren't doing it together."
A shake.
"He was doing it to you."
Another shattered, breathless sob and nod.
Yet again, a wave of realisation sploshed around Holly's circuitry. "But Arn thinks -"
"I know. I don't want him to think... but, I also don't want him to know."
"What about the others?" Holly suggested. "Kryten might be able to help, after all, after me, he's the closest we have to another functioning woman on board...lacking in a certain department, y'know?"
"A mechanoid can't help me. Aside from turning back time so that I would never have met that monsterous animal, nothing can help this situation."
"But that's what I mean," Holly near-whined. "Kryten has been working in the lab with Jack, and they're just inches away from creating a time-drive device! When they finish, he can send you back to before you even joined the Space Corps. You could take a whole new direction in life... start again. You would never have met the man in you entire new-life! You could be whatever you wanted! You could become a dancer...a pediatrician....a dentist...a janitor...a member of the Czechoslovakian Government! A hippy...a banana saleswoman on the eastern side of Io!! You could meet someone who is actually worth something... and who actually loves you."
"I get the picture, Hol." Jade began to smile- properly. Holly continued to rattle off some more wacky occupations, then started explaining about the time-drive, it's functions and how long it would take for Kryten to finish it off with Jack. Three days, at the most, Kryten had told her just the other day.
"And, you know... you might not even have to go very far into time to find a bit of love..." Holly hinted.
Jade's face brightened slightly, her cheeks began to glow a healthy red. A piece of paper on the quarters' table caught her eye. A copy of her poem. The same poem Rimmer had requested her copy so he could read it "every night as I think of you", he had mumbled.
Sure, they were both slightly tipsy the night he had said that, but she was almost as sure as hell he might have actually meant it.
She was never going to use that Time-drive of Jack and Kryten's to re-start her life back on Earth. She was never 'not going to' join the Space Corps. She was never 'not going to' have landed on The Mining Ship Red Dwarf.
She was never going to have not met Rimmer.
Despite what had unfolded the previous night, Jade smiled broader than she had ever dared smile before.
"Thanks Hol."
Holly crinkled her computer-generated nose and nodded sagely in response.
"We'll have it all sorted soon, don't you worry. But first, I think there may be someone needing a teeny bit of an explanation..."
~~~
A thick, yellow, gluey, unforgiving crust of saliva had formed around Lister's snoring mouth. His snoring eventually woke his aching body up out of his drunken slumber. A groan clawed its way from the bottom of his charred lungs, doggy-paddled through his wilting vocal chords, scraped over his two last taste buds and slurped out past his gungy lips.
His pin-and-needle-ridden hand crept out from under his limp body to wipe the gooey mess from his face.
And so his hand became stuck fast to the super glue-like enzyme concoction he had unwillingly created in the few hours he had had to sleep off his insane consumption of Leopard Lager from the previous night...
Of course, there was that jippy feeling in his stomach and the thumping headache to remind him of that...
"Hangover." he announced to no one in particular.
***
"Eye Spy... with my little eye...."
Holly tried in vain to find something out of the view-port window that Rimmer might not actually get.
"Something beginning with...."
Rimmer sighed as he stared at the poem Jade had given him under the pink glow of his study lamp.
"S." Holly blinked, proud of herself that she might have actually beaten him already - it was a damn good word this time.
Another sigh ripped mercilessly from Rimmer's grated, hologrammatic throat. "Star. STAR! Just like the first round...second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh and smegging eighth...everytime you've opened your stupid big pixelated mouth to play smegging 'I Spy,' it's been smegging 'Star'!!
A sly grin fizzled onto the computer's face. "No, actually...it wasn't 'Star'! It was..."
A pause and two sharp blinks.
"Okay...'Star'..." Another pause. "Look, you've been at that piece of paper for hours. The rest of the guys are downstairs... why'd you come up so early?" Holly crinkled up her nose in slighted confusion.
"No reason. Revision to do, sleep to be had..."
"And where's Jade?"
Rimmer's eyes shot to meet the back of his eyelids and his head collapsed into his bony hands. She was probably with Jack, wasn't she? Probably smegging was. She was with smegging Jack! The smegging smeggy smeg-head, Jack.
"I don't know where Jade is. And quite frankly, you senile, jumped up Filofax, I don't much care."
Holly checked up and down Red Dwarf regardless. Jade wasn't with the boys in the Copacabana.
"When was it you'd seen her last, Arn?"
Holly was beginning to annoy Rimmer now. His head darted to meet her stupid, blonde, stupid face and he glowered. "The last time I saw Jade was the last time I'll ever 'see' Jade again."
Holly's face was now crinklier than a ninety-six year old prune with a sunbed addiction. "But when?"
"About a night and a half ago, why?"
"She hasn't moved from there since then."
"So?" Rimmer thought to himself, surely she had some form of work to catch up on, or, of course, she was with smegging, HIM...
Holly studied Rimmer's reaction quietly. She knew why he was sulking. She knew why he and Jade weren't talking. What she didn't know, of course, was why Jade was refusing to leave her quarters.
And that was something she intended to find out.
~~~
"Three-thousand and one...two...three...four... five...six..."
An icy glaze had begun to form over Jade's eyes. Her crying had stopped, purely on the fact that she had cried all the tears she had to cry. She had eventually resorted to counting the stars out of the view-port window.
A friendly, familiar voice fizzled into earshot. "I spy, with my little eye... something beginning with... 'S'.."
Jade's mouth arched at the corners slightly. Despite her retched depressive mood, she had desperately needed a safe, friendly face around for comfort.
"Star."
"Oh, damn... how'd you get that, eh?" Holly grinned. " Hey Jade, whats goin' down? And what's with the get-up?!"
A thick, woolly jumper to rival a yeti's winter coat was slung over Jade's now gaunt-looking frame.
Jade's porcelain-pale face blushed. She gestured towards the jigsaw-like puzzle of broken shards of glass and frame on the floor beside her.
"Can't see to dress, y'know? Blind as a mole with no eyes, wearing a blindfold in the dark without my glasses on." She tried meagerly to grin, but Holly didn't.
"What happened?" The computer asked solemnly as her eyes took in the mess of the room around her. Bed sheets absent-mindedly dropped on the floor, pillows thrown, mattress edging up the wall, clothes scattered like seeds...
"But I thought you and Jack were, you know, apart? Didn't think you'd still be getting it on like Duracell Bunnies." She grinned, in waiting of a smile in return.
A wave of realisation swept through Holly's motherboard as a dejected Jade crumpled to the floor and wept.
"You are apart."
A nod.
"You weren't doing it together."
A shake.
"He was doing it to you."
Another shattered, breathless sob and nod.
Yet again, a wave of realisation sploshed around Holly's circuitry. "But Arn thinks -"
"I know. I don't want him to think... but, I also don't want him to know."
"What about the others?" Holly suggested. "Kryten might be able to help, after all, after me, he's the closest we have to another functioning woman on board...lacking in a certain department, y'know?"
"A mechanoid can't help me. Aside from turning back time so that I would never have met that monsterous animal, nothing can help this situation."
"But that's what I mean," Holly near-whined. "Kryten has been working in the lab with Jack, and they're just inches away from creating a time-drive device! When they finish, he can send you back to before you even joined the Space Corps. You could take a whole new direction in life... start again. You would never have met the man in you entire new-life! You could be whatever you wanted! You could become a dancer...a pediatrician....a dentist...a janitor...a member of the Czechoslovakian Government! A hippy...a banana saleswoman on the eastern side of Io!! You could meet someone who is actually worth something... and who actually loves you."
"I get the picture, Hol." Jade began to smile- properly. Holly continued to rattle off some more wacky occupations, then started explaining about the time-drive, it's functions and how long it would take for Kryten to finish it off with Jack. Three days, at the most, Kryten had told her just the other day.
"And, you know... you might not even have to go very far into time to find a bit of love..." Holly hinted.
Jade's face brightened slightly, her cheeks began to glow a healthy red. A piece of paper on the quarters' table caught her eye. A copy of her poem. The same poem Rimmer had requested her copy so he could read it "every night as I think of you", he had mumbled.
Sure, they were both slightly tipsy the night he had said that, but she was almost as sure as hell he might have actually meant it.
She was never going to use that Time-drive of Jack and Kryten's to re-start her life back on Earth. She was never 'not going to' join the Space Corps. She was never 'not going to' have landed on The Mining Ship Red Dwarf.
She was never going to have not met Rimmer.
Despite what had unfolded the previous night, Jade smiled broader than she had ever dared smile before.
"Thanks Hol."
Holly crinkled her computer-generated nose and nodded sagely in response.
"We'll have it all sorted soon, don't you worry. But first, I think there may be someone needing a teeny bit of an explanation..."
~~~
A thick, yellow, gluey, unforgiving crust of saliva had formed around Lister's snoring mouth. His snoring eventually woke his aching body up out of his drunken slumber. A groan clawed its way from the bottom of his charred lungs, doggy-paddled through his wilting vocal chords, scraped over his two last taste buds and slurped out past his gungy lips.
His pin-and-needle-ridden hand crept out from under his limp body to wipe the gooey mess from his face.
And so his hand became stuck fast to the super glue-like enzyme concoction he had unwillingly created in the few hours he had had to sleep off his insane consumption of Leopard Lager from the previous night...
Of course, there was that jippy feeling in his stomach and the thumping headache to remind him of that...
"Hangover." he announced to no one in particular.