Rimmer came downstairs into the basement and found the room mostly empty. There was still that crack glowing in the wall like a crooked ethereal smile. Curious, he went a little closer and squinted into the light that was coming through it, trying to see what the source was. It was too bright to see anything.

Rubbing his eyes, he turned away and once again found himself face-to-face with the disembodied robot head. "Oh, it's you… er… 'Handles', right?"

"Affirmative," the head replied.

"Right, well… where's he gone, then? The Doctor?"

"He did not specify. It is believed he has 'stepped out'."

Rimmer rolled his eyes. He didn't want to deal with the town right now, so he settled for sitting down in one of the chairs. He settled into it, silently conceding that the head was less annoying than Kryten at least. He took in the bare walls of the room, appreciating the silence.

Still, he couldn't help but shake the feeling the crack was giving him. It felt like something was coming through it. Something that made him feel all kinds of uneasy.

Looking to the head once again, he spoke up. "What's that crack?"

"It is a crack in the skin of reality," Handles replied in his electronically fluctuating voice.

"… It's a what?"

"It is a crack in the skin of reality," Handles repeated dutifully.

"How can reality have a crack?"

"It is the result of an explosion so powerful that it split reality itself."

Rimmer looked at the crack again. "So… the universe has a crack in it?"

There was a creaking sound from behind him, making him jump, and he saw the Doctor was coming down the spiral staircase. "There were once many cracks, Arnold," he explained. "Now there's only the one."

Rimmer stared up at him, pulling out the worry balls and giving them a good grind.

"Still feeling tense?" the Doctor asked, slipping off his heavy coat and slinging it on another chair.

"You need to start wearing a bell," Rimmer grunted. He leaned against the wall as he began to relax again.

The Doctor simply tutted and sat down. "You're so tight," he remarked, reaching over and picking up Handles, hefting him in his hands. "What do you think of him, Handles?"

Handles whirred for a moment before responding. "Type One hologram, heavily-modified, hard-light drive – "

"No, no, I mean his personality."

"Personality is irrelevant."

"Oh, come on. He's not that bad."

Rimmer glared at him. "I don't have to take this, you know. Little twerp like you should respect your elders."

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "I'm over twelve hundred years old. Compared to me, you're still pre-natal."

Rimmer sneered. "You really expect me to believe that?! You look ten!"

"My people have ways of weathering the ravages of eternity."

"Your 'people'?"

"I'm not human, Arnold. I'm a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey."

It took a few moments before Rimmer's brain properly processed that statement. He looked the other man up and down, slowly realizing the implications. "You're… You mean… you're an alien?"

"In your terms, yes. In my terms, you're an alien."

"But… you look human!"

"No, you look Time Lord. There's a lot of humanoid life in the universe." He held out his arm. "Here. Check the pulse."

Rimmer raised an eyebrow but figured it was safe enough. He went as close as he dared and placed his fingers on the Doctor's wrist, feeling like you always do for a pulse – or as close as he knew how. He felt the distinct heartbeat. Then the Doctor took his hand and moved it to the other side, and to the hologram's surprise…

"… That can't be right."

"It's true."

"No…"

"Cross my hearts."

Rimmer looked the Doctor in the eye, and now that he was properly looking, he saw just how incredibly old they were. Just how ancient and tired and sparkly… He felt his jaw drop a little, and his arm fell limply to his side.

"You're an alien."

The Doctor waved a little. "Hello!"

Realizing the weight of the revelation, Rimmer took a step back, and then he did what he'd always wanted to do when he met an alien. He immediately got down on his knees and bowed down. "Oh, how might I serve you, my extra-terrestrial brother? As an ambassador of the moon Io of the planet Jupiter, I humbly offer peace and friendship!"

The Doctor stared at him in bemusement before tapping him on the shoulder. "Yeah, okay, great. Whatever. You're embarrassing yourself."

It took a few moments for Rimmer to realize this hadn't gone as he'd expected. He'd finally met an alien, and what had he done? Insulted him, yelled at him, avoided him and basically acted like a child toward him. The humiliation built up inside of him, starting out as a slow burn as he looked up at the Doctor, who hadn't even moved from his chair. It intensified until he put his fist in his mouth and screamed silently.

The Doctor tapped him with his foot. "Stop that. You'll hurt your fist."

But Rimmer was embarrassed at this point he didn't care. He just fell on his side and covered his face pathetically.

It was getting to be too much for the Doctor. "Arnold, for heaven's sake. It's not that big a deal."

"Oh, just leave me to die in peace…," Rimmer groaned from behind his hands.

"You're already dead. Knock it off."

The hologram just remained on the floor, rocking back and forth, consoling his once-again bruised ego.

Not sure if he was actually pitying him or not, the Doctor decided to just continue. "The cracks were all resealed a long time ago, but the scar tissue remained, and my people are trapped on the other side. That's why no one here can lie. The Time Lords are transmitting the truth field so as to determine whether or not it's safe to come through – if I say my name, they'll know I'm really here and welcoming them through."

Rimmer looked up, his curiosity overriding his humiliation. "… Why do they need your permission?"

"Because there's half the universe in orbit around the planet waiting to open fire should they try. They need to know if it's safe to return."

"Why's half the universe out to destroy them?"

The Doctor closed his eyes, looking as if he was remembering something very painful. Still, he steeled his resolve and spoke. "There was… a war… The Last Great Time War, fought between my people and a race called the Daleks."

"The Daleks?"

"Mutants that live in miniature armored tanks. You'll probably meet them at some point. They're up there, too."

"Oh, joy of joys, more murderous mutants," Rimmer grumbled. "Been there, survived that, bought the t-shirt."

"I highly doubt you've met anything like the Daleks."

"Probably not, but what I don't get is how you're going to be a one-man army for these people. That boy said you were planning to take on those aliens yourself."

The Doctor nodded. "It's my fault they're here. I owe it to them."

"So why not just whip these people up into an army? Train them? Take control of the workforce? That's what a real leader would do! A real leader would sit on the hilltop in the white tent sipping wine and directing the battle, not run about the battlefield on his own waving a glowy screwdriver around!"

The Doctor regarded him. "So you take the coward's path?"

Rimmer balked. "It's the honorable path! You don't understand how it works – officers are in charge, and when you're in charge, you delegate! You let some other sucker do the task of running around getting blown up while you do the difficult task of planning the battles and having the glory!"

"Arnold, I'm quickly getting the impression you don't know anything about how war actually works."

"Hey, I've played RISK hundreds of times!"

"That's a board game!"

"A very intense board game!"

The Doctor rubbed his eyes, quickly getting tired of this idiot. "You haven't had to live through any serious conflict in your entire life. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you strike me as the type who can't bear the thought of doing anything wrong, so he shifts the blame to others so you don't have to face the possibility that you wasted your entire life. Is that about the size of it?"

Rimmer almost opened his mouth to deny it, but then he glanced at the crack in the wall and kept his lips sealed. Unfortunately, this only furthered the Time Lord's contempt.

"I see… Never fought in war. Probably couldn't lead men in a line dance, let alone into battle."

Rimmer glared. "Oh, and I suppose you could do a better job?"

The Doctor simply leaned back in his chair, suspecting where this was going. "I've fought in a war. The Last Great Time War. And I led people into battle where they died pointlessly. I saw my people fall and burn, children screaming in pain, blood pouring, smelt the ash in the air, saw the fall of society, and I never once rolled any dice."

Rimmer was about to sneer, but the look in the Doctor's eyes told him not to.

"Anyway, the war was waged for centuries. And I tried to avoid it, because I couldn't bring myself to fight. I mean, I tried to help people caught in the crossfire, but I refused to fight. In the end, I became a warrior so I could find a way to end it."

"You became a warrior?" Rimmer interrupted.

The Doctor smiled sadly. "I met a gun fighter named Cass. Her ship was crashing. She was so brave, teleported out the rest of the crew while she stayed behind sending a distress signal. I came to help her, and she rejected me once she found out I was a Time Lord. And she died because of it. It was as if the universe itself had rejected me. Everything I stood for – it didn't matter anymore because all of time and space was burning. I had to end it. And in the end, I couldn't find another way… I thought I would have to press a button and destroy all my people – my entire planet – just so it could end."

The weight of those words had reduced Rimmer to absolute silence. The horror of the idea – it genuinely froze him with a fear unlike any he'd ever felt before.

But the Doctor smiled again. "But then… I found a way. It took a lot of work, but I managed to save my people instead of destroy them. And that's why they're on the side of that crack – I put them there to protect them and to save the universe. The rest of the universe is up there waiting to start that all over again. All that pain and misery and destruction – it will start again ten times worse than before, because it's not just the Daleks this time. Everyone is up there. And they don't want a universe with Time Lords in it."

Rimmer swallowed. "So… you're just going to fight them all off yourself?"

"Well, not completely by myself. I can call on the Mother Superious for help."

"Mother Superious…? Oh, you mean that Tasha woman in the floating church? She's on our side?"

"Sort of. She's really got her own side, but she has an army that could help us in a pinch if need be."

"And what happens if one of the aliens kills you and destroys the church? What happens then?"

The Doctor shrugged. "Well, the hostile life forces will swarm the planet, destroy it and all the people in an attempt to destroy the crack, which will most likely fail since the crack isn't actually in the wall itself…"

Rimmer hefted the worry balls in hand and let this new information sink in. "I can't even imagine…," he said quietly.

Sensing that things were turning to a more favorable conversation, the Doctor seized his chance. "So go on then – that's my story, or at least the relevant bit. What about you? Born on Io and…?"

Rimmer looked uncomfortable, but he had to admit – the Doctor had just confided in him, so he clearly trusted him. The idea that someone actually trusted him was weird, but he figured he could deal with it. Still, the idea that he wouldn't be able to lie about his past terrified him. It meant he was going to have accept that all his walls were down.

"… My father was a half-crazed ex-military failure, and my mother was a bitch-queen from Hell."

The Doctor blinked. "… That's as good a place as any to start."

"… My father wanted to join the Space Corps, but they wouldn't take him because he was one inch below regulation height. One inch! My whole life could've been completely different for one inch!"

"One inch. With you," the Doctor replied, simply nodding.

"So he bought a stretching rack, and my three brothers and I were always put on the rack. Stretched every day. And if we hadn't grown – back on the rack. And Mother didn't care. She was too busy bonking the brains out of every single male human on the moon. And my brothers – they got all the good looks, the lucky breaks and raced their way up the ziggurat, becoming captains and test pilots and got all their love and respect, while I struggled through every single exam and never got off the bottom rung, spending my days as a vending machine operative!"

Rimmer didn't realize until that moment that he'd started yelling. It wasn't the first time he'd gone on a rant about his failed life, but he still felt the intense anger it caused him.

The Doctor had just sat there, cradling Handles like a pet cat and nodding along with the story. "Squeeze the balls, Arnold," he said.

Rimmer grinded the balls, not to mention his teeth, and fought to continue talking. "And then… I joined the mining ship Red Dwarf… I joined a Third Technician and only made it as far as a Second Technician. Fourteen year on that smegging ship, and I only made it one rank! Every time I took the Astro-Navigation exam, I failed it. Every single time. The only medals I have are my long service medals. The only man I was ever in charge of was Dave Lister, the slobbiest imbecile in the universe, and it's just by fluke that he's spared the cadmium II leak, and I snuff it age thirty-one, reduced to an electronic ghost, forced to wander around, trying to maintain my position as senior officer on the ship, except nobody cares I'm in charge – they always go to Lister for help or Kryten – the cleaning droid – for command decisions! I'm the one who should be in charge! Me! And yet I'm the one who's always getting pushed around, insulted, mocked, derided and forced to go along with their ridiculous plans – always have to go with the caveman instinct! Always have to go running in to danger just to power the ship or replenish supplies! We only ever beat the GELFs and Simulants because chance and circumstance always save us! What the hell is so wrong with running away?!"

By now, his flared nostrils were only a few inches away from the Doctor's. They looked at each other for a long time.

"… Is that why you're here, Arnold? Because you ran away?"

Rimmer's expression sagged. How the hell did he do that? How did this square-jawed goit always somehow manage to get under his skin like this?

"I ran because…," he started, but then he stopped. The truth field was in his head.

He'd only been able to say everything up until now because he didn't think he was lying. He honestly believed everything he'd just said. The Doctor could tell – the truth field couldn't override self-delusion.

Rimmer swallowed. He'd come this far. He tried again. "I ran because… I'm a selfish, cowardly, gutless, gormless idiot who was too scared to even try and save my own crewmates."

"Save them from what?"

"A rogue simulant – basically a cyborg that hates all humans. We'd blown them up, and Lister was insisting that we raid their destroyed ship for supplies. Turns out there was one still onboard, injured and twice as deranged. It had the others cornered, but it didn't see me. I could've destroyed it with a bazookoid, but… I couldn't do it. It would've tried to kill me, so the only logical thing to do was jump in the nearest escape pod and run."

The Doctor raised a nonexistent eyebrow. "The only 'logical' thing to do?"

"Well, come on! What was the point in endangering myself?"

"You weren't in any danger. You could've saved them."

Rimmer walked away from him, unable to answer. He just stood near the opposite wall, glaring at it.

The Doctor continued. "Arnold, I'm not condemning the idea of running away from danger. In most cases, that's actually a very useful method. But to abandon the only people in your life when you had an opportunity to help them… What would you have done if they'd been killed and you'd gotten away with no wormhole to escape through? Where would you have gone? What would you have done?"

Rimmer stood with his arms crossed, determined not to speak, because he knew he'd have to face the fact that the Doctor was right. Everything he said was true, and that was making it harder for him to delude himself that he was guilt free. He'd really done it. He'd really abandoned them.

It wasn't like they were friends. Not even close. They were just three gits he happened to know and was trapped on a ship with. But he could still remember all the times they'd come back for him. The time he stole Lister's body and crashed Starbug with it. The time they'd gotten him out of the Justice Zone. The psi moon. The holo-virus. For one reason or another, they never abandoned him. And he was always set to ditch them at the slightest provocation. He could remember a time when the thought of Lister dying horribly delighted him to no end. He told himself it was bitterness at the fact he was dead while the other got to live, but on some level, he knew it was ridiculously horrible of him.

He heard the sound of the Doctor getting up from his chair behind him, and he braced himself for whatever came next, and he was surprised when a firm hand clasped him on the shoulder.

"Arnold, listen. I'm in no position to judge you. No one is. Only you get to decide what to do. I need you to understand, though. Those creatures up in the sky could descend at any time. We need to be ready to fight back. I might need your help. I won't force you to do anything, but it would be very good if you would help out whenever you can."

Rimmer was still reeling from his own introspection, so he didn't respond right away. After a moment, he glanced at the Doctor and simply nodded. Seeing the floppy-haired git smile appreciatively gave him enough strength to turn and leave via the spiral staircase. He needed some air.

Once he made it to the double doors of the tower, he stepped out into the cold and took in the town, still lit up with fairie lights. He knew he would have to get used to this place. Might as well go for a walk around a bit. He was just coming down the steps when he heard tiny hurried footsteps behind him. He turned and saw Tyrene running up to him.

"Mr. Rimmer!" he called out, out of breath. "My mum made something for you!"

Rimmer raised an eyebrow. "Your mum?"

"Yes! Because you said you liked her cooking!"

But he was still suspicious. "What is it?"

The boy held up the item in question. To Rimmer's surprise, it was a scarf. A simple dark grey scarf made of clearly itchy wool with tassels on the end. He was tempted to turn it away, but a sudden gust of wind came down the street, and it made him shiver. Deciding he'd been cold enough for a few weeks, he decided to swallow his pride and take the garment. He looped it once around his neck, and right away, he felt better.

"Do you like it, sir?" Tyrene asked.

"Yes, well… Thank you… boy. It's very nice. Yes… very nice… What's your name again?"

"Tyrene, sir."

"Tyrene. Well, Tyrene miladdo, it's… very nice. Your mother's… very good at this."

"I know. She loves taking care of people. Would you like to meet her?"

"Oh, er… Well…," he fumbled, trying to find an excuse not to, but the boy's eyes were so innocent and disarming that he couldn't bring himself to, and he felt something crumble away. "Certainly."

"Great! She lives up here! Come on!"

Tyrene grabbed him by the hand and practically dragged him away. Rimmer couldn't help but smile slightly as his energy.

As they hurried away, they didn't see the Doctor standing on the steps to the tower, leaning against the open door with an amused expression. He watched them depart around the corner and thought back to a little red-haired girl and wondered if the hologram's digital heart could be just as easily melted as his own pair had once been.