Disclaimer: Still nothing. Maybe I should try writing to them...

Author's note: I really love this chapter. The last couple of lines are so sweet.

Rimmer spent that evening worrying. Not just about Lister and Nicole but...well, actually, it was just about Lister and Nicole. He really couldn't stand it when she was alone with Lister, it drove him insane. In a way, he wished that they had never rescued Nicole. He had preferred it when it was all of them sexually frustrated. He, Lister and the Cat. But now there was a woman on board, instead of releasing this immense pressure like they had always presumed, the stress had only increased. They were in competition with each other and it made them dislike each other even more, which put even greater strain on Kryten, Holly and Nicole. This had put the ship in jeopardy not long ago, when Holly, too addled with trying to sort out a minor problem between Rimmer and the Cat, almost hadn't noticed they were heading straight for a huge planet at top speed.
But what Rimmer hated most of all about this situation was that if Lister was with her, it meant he wasn't. And that's what he wanted more than anything; to spend time with Nicole. He loved spending time with her. She somehow made him feel completely at ease, and not just with the people around him, but with himself, too. He loved to talk with her, and not just the talking part of it, he also loved listening. Hearing about her past, laughing along when she talked about the good times, comforting her when she talked about the bad. And every time he dropped her off at her room, his heart broke just that little bit more.

That evening this feeling was so overwhelming he went to the supplies cupboard to talk to Kryten about it.
"I believe, sir," he began after Rimmer had explained his predicament, "that you are suffering from a hormonal imbalance induced by Miss Adler."
Rimmer stopped pacing and faced the mechanoid in confusion, "A hormonal what?"
"Imbalance, sir."
"What's one of them when it's at home?" He started pacing again as Kryten commenced his explanation.
"Well, put simply, sir," Kryten said, "it is an imbalancement of your hormones."
This didn't help Rimmer one bit. "What are you talking about, Droid-rot breath?" he whined, "I'm a hologram, I'm dead. I haven't got hormones any more, therefore they can't possibly be imbalanced."
Kryten was never one for disagreement, "You're right, sir. It can't be love. It must be another-"
"What?" Rimmer's head snapped round, "What did you just say?"
There was a detection in Rimmer's voice that made Kryten hesitant in answering, but he knew he was going to anyway. "I was just saying, sir, you couldn't possibly be in love if you have no hormones. I just assumed, in my idiotic android way, that your light-bee had some sort of hormone simulation unit."

Rimmer stared straight ahead. He had died; he had fallen out with his own clone; he had secretly been given 8 months of someone else's memory; he had watched Lister successfully pot a planet into a white hole; but this had come as a real shock. He had never been in love before, and he had presumed that he never would. That he never could.
"You have to have made a mistake," he said monotonously.
"Of course, sir." Kryten said simply. But he knew he was right. They both did.

A/n: OK, enough of Rimmer, there's a late-coming Cat scene coming up :) yay!