a/n: Rimmerworld, such an awesome topic.
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mistakes of cowardice
On the first few days of his return, Rimmer had been a very near variation of the Rimmer they knew. He made at least one snide comment, and nobody thought much of it when for the rest of the day he didn't speak. The Cat and Kryten were fairly grateful when he didn't come out of his room for the second day, and on the third Lister began to wonder. He didn't worry, as one might have under the normal circumstances, but Lister did wonder. On the fourth day, when Rimmer didn't come down to breakfast, Lister's worry turned to unease.
"He hasn't come out in three days, Kryten," Lister said, as Kryten ironed a sheet in silent contentment. "I think Rimmerworld really knackered him in the head."
"Well, sir, you can't expect someone to take on extended vacation to their own personal Hell and come back grinning like Christmas. Besides, though in a human this sort of behavior would be considered dangerous to one's health, Mr. Rimmer is in no danger of becoming a 13 year old anorexic girl, sir." Kryten's rubber face pulled into a tight smile. "He's been running for almost seven hundred years after all, and is probably just enjoying some downtime."
Lister was not so easily satisfied. He shook his head, and massaged his temples doggedly. "I don't think that's it, man. Rimmer may be a hologram, he might be created from a computer, but he's not built like one, he can't just – you know, shut down and reboot when something bad happens. He remembers. I don't know how he lasted that long."
On the fifth day, Rimmer's door remained shut still, and soon everyone became suspicious. After all, it was not like Rimmer to stay in his room without so much as even one insult. Even the cat stood outside the door, pressing his ear to the center and listening for any sounds. Being a hologram, Rimmer didn't even need to breathe, so the room was silent. They even called into the door, and when nobody answered they wondered if he was even in there. Perhaps Rimmer had committed suicide, and deleted himself.
Lister pounded on the door long after the Cat and Kryten had given up on the sixth day, and finally decided to break in. Rimmer had long since changed the lock code to his quarters, but if there was one thing Dave Lister knew how to do, it was hotwire, though his first attempt had his fingernails singed, and the third heated his fillings up in his teeth and burned the sides of his tongue. He made it in, and when the door finally slid open he saw the lights had been left on.
"Rimmer, man," he said. "You in here?" It was a rather stupid question as far as stupid questions go, because Rimmer was on one of the bunks with his hard light form still activated, though his back was to Lister. The last human made for the bunk, and stopped short of it. "Are you awake?" he leaned over and saw Rimmer was awake – his eyes were open, but his face was closed, and though it is common knowledge that, unless specifically programmed, Holograms do not age, it was ultimately his eyes alone betrayed the years. Five hundred and fifty-seven of them, in succession, endless, and full of misery. Sometimes, when Lister would say his name or touch his shoulder, Rimmer would blink.
Lister gave up trying to talk to him at the end of the sixth day. And all through the seventh day, things passed on as they always did aboard Starbug. Poker night was quiet, and the fuzzy dice were removed from the cockpit. The eighth day went very much the same, but it was when nine days had passed since Rimmerworld, that Lister, in the middle of a curry and exactly his ninety-fourth viewing of Casablanca, decided he had figured it out.
He headed for Rimmer's room, and the door was not locked, as Lister had expected. Apparently Rimmer had not found it necessary to get up and lock it again. He stepped inside and didn't bother with the usual awkward set of questions, instead moving straight to the bunk and sitting beside Rimmer. The other man was still lying down, back to the rest of the room. Lister propped his elbow up on Rimmer's side. Lister felt him twitch in response – he was definitely awake.
"Rimmer," he said, and Rimmer only shifted his leg, and if he had to breathe, he might have inhaled sharply in annoyance. Lister kept his eyes on Rimmer's blank face, and sought some sign of expression. "Rimmer, I've been doing some thinking… and I think I know what's wrong with you." Rimmer didn't say anything, so Lister gently patted the slope of his side. "Could you breathe? It might make you feel better. I know you don't need it, but sometimes it just feels better to take in a lungful. Don't you remember?" He awaited a snide remark, but none followed. To his surprise, in fact, Rimmer drew in a deep breath into the lungs he didn't have, and let it out again.
Lister grinned, that irritating smeggy grin. "Yes! There ya go," he swung his legs up onto the mattress, and stretched out beside Rimmer, his left arm bent beneath his head. Lister felt part of him falling off the bunk, and he scooted closer to the other man. "Come on, eh, move over. Give us some room." Rimmer's hesitation was a long moment and a breath held, and Lister considered asking again. Then Rimmer shifted closer to the wall, and Lister moved in. "Much better, isn't it.." he said, and Rimmer was silent.
The sound of his breathing was somewhat of a small comfort to Lister. It was the way he used to sound, sleeping beneath the top bunk in old days of the Dwarf. Rimmer didn't give off any heat, of course, and didn't have a heart beat, that could at all be compared with the comfort of another human's heartbeat, but the light bee that hovered somewhere in his middle was always a little warm. Like the miniscule warmth of a battery in plastic.
Lister stayed quiet – he didn't mind the silence, really, it was actually kind of nice to be with Rimmer when he was just existing, and not engaging in one of his one thousand and one incredibly annoying habits. And he was warm, now, if Lister came close enough to feel it, and he did, leaning in almost all the way into the curve of Rimmer's spine. After long enough, Lister wondered if Rimmer had fallen to sleep.
"Look," he began, "We were all wondering what was wrong with you. Kryten says it was the trauma of Rimmerworld… I thought so, too, but then I got to thinking by meself. You spent almost six years completely unable to touch anything, to feel… you were, in a way, alone like you were on Rimmerworld, I suppose. When I thought about that, it occurred to me… that if you hadn't been driven insane by being soft light, then Rimmerworld couldn't have kept you down for too long, you know? You may be a hologram, Rimmer, and a chronic coward at that, but you're a lot stronger than you think you are, man. And I think even you might realize that, sometimes. But even knowing that, I had a hard time believing it… that you weren't depressed, and sick because you'd been alone in your own personal Hell for five hundred and fifty-seven years… that you were sick because conscience got to you, finally.'
'After five hundred and sixty three years, you finally felt bad for being such a bastard. It's weird, man. I mean, it took you long enough. It's like all those times you left us for smeg, I never thought you would have really abandoned us, you know? If you thought we were in a scrape we couldn't get out of. I always knew you were somewhere hiding in a box, but part of me always believed you would come back. But then, there we were, a gun to our heads with death staring us in the face, and you ran. After all we've been through, man. That was six years you took with you, Rimmer. When you left, you took those six years of our history and flushed them down the crapper. I'd have thought you had no conscience after that… but you had time to think it over. And it finally got to you. Got to you everyday for five and a half centuries. I thought, you know, that when I saw you again I'd really beat an apology out of you.'
'It hadn't occurred to me, even once, that you'd already been beaten – a few hundred times over," Lister stopped talking, and Rimmer didn't respond. He had stopped breathing, as well. The lights blared over the bunk, and the ventilation was the only sound, humming around them. Lister drew in a breath, and reached over to slap Rimmer on the shoulder, pulling himself to his feet. "When you think it over, you'll realize that getting a conscience on Rimmerworld is one of the closest things you've done in the past six years to being human," Lister watched him, and tilted his head to the side. He was breathing again, gently, and hardly moving at all. Lister wanted to say more, but he didn't. He turned, and let the doors slide open.
Rimmer said his name, once. "Yeah, man?" Lister didn't turn around
Rimmer shifted position, so he could lie flat on his back against the bright red mattress, and he kept his eyes head-on. Only the tone of his voice had changed. "I'm sorry," he said, and meant it.