The paramedics let Rimmer come along in the ambulance; mostly, he suspected, because they wanted to give him a blood test and make sure he wasn't infected as well. One of them had stayed behind at the brothel to check people over and look for any symptoms and the four medics remaining in the ambulance were all wearing surgical masks. Dave still hadn't come round.
Rimmer had never felt so worried in his life; not even over his various exams. He was all too aware that menfluenza could be – and quite often was – deadly. The onset was usually sudden and its spread through the body quick. Although the girl had told him that Dave had only started feeling sick the previous night, from the reports he'd seen on the TV Rimmer knew that the rash was a sign that the virus was fairly advanced. He wasn't afraid for himself; Dave had seemed perfectly healthy last time he'd seen him, which meant he'd probably contracted the virus sometime over the weekend and Rimmer was unlikely to have caught it. But the thought that Dave might be dying was more frightening to him than anything he'd ever faced before. He couldn't bear the thought that the only person he'd ever loved, the one person who had changed his life forever, might be about to be snatched away from him just as he'd thought everything was going to work out for them.
He held back his tears as Dave was given an injection of some kind of antibiotic. Lying against the stark white of the stretcher he looked so weak and frail; Rimmer wanted so badly to hold him, as if he could somehow squeeze the health and vitality back into him by virtue of his love. But instead all he could do was watch helplessly while the paramedics buzzed around him as the ambulance sped on through the dirty Mimas night.