Arnold Rimmer doesn't trust himself. He never has, and he knows he never will. Three million and four odd years from now, his holographic self will meet himself from another dimension. He will trust this other him as much as someone suffering from chronic paranoia will trust you to catch them, were they to fall.

And it is no different now. This Rimmer trusts his hologramatic self even less.

But... but this him doesn't want him to do anything. Well, nothing except check under his pillow.

And the pleading. The hurting, aching pleading that littered the man's voice. Arnold thinks there might be something important under his pillow, though he can not for a moment imagine what.

Can he really let such an important discovery go to waste?

He decides to make his so-called 'future' self happy. No skin off his nose, he'd have to look under his pillow sometime, right? Aren't his pajama's under there?

Incidentally, had he not heard the request, he would never look under his pillow again. Not while it still counted. He would change his sheets tomorrow, successfully missing the paper. And his pj's? Sitting folded pristinely on top of his pillow.

Arnold warily lifts his pillow. Under it is the brightly covered paper covered with a sloppy chick scratch scrawl. He opens it fully and reads.

For a few moments he doesn't know what to do, and so sits, staring, possibly re-reading the note over and over. Then a tornado of emotion hits him and he is torn to pieces and thrown in a million directions. He wants to cry, but lack of practice and years of emotional repression render him incapable.

He dry sobs, curling into himself, because he can't think of anything else to do.

The noises wake Dave from his well deserved slumber. He nimbly (for him) drops off the bunk and lands (miraculously) on his feet to check on his bunkmate. His bunkmate who hates him. Once awake enough to process exactly what is wrong he sits on Arnold's bunk and wraps his arms around him, cooing cooing comforting mono-syllables and nonwords. Like Arnold did when Kochanski ripped Dave's heart out and left it on the table. Arnold's arms find themselves clinging to Dave. He forces himself to speak in a voice shakey as a colts first steps.

"I'm sorry Listy."

a/n: One more to go.