Here we go, another chapter. I'm sorry if this one and the last one seem a bit... Smeggy. I've had soem nasty writer's block getting from point in the story to another but it should be over now, fingers crossed :) Please review if you can, folks
Anneke sat in the centre of her room, the lights dim above her, hands lightly resting on her thighs. She'd been alone for hours. Taking a breath she leant forwards, toes curling as her feet touched the freezing linoleum floor. Cupping her hands she brought them to her lips, breathing into them. She heard herself wheeze.
"What are you doing?"
Anneke jumped, looking up to see Rimmer stood outside her window in his pale blue pyjamas.
"Just experimenting," she said in a low voice. "You're making a habit out of these nocturnal visits, Mister Rimmer. Where have you been?"
Rimmer rubbed the back of his neck, looking guilty. Where had he been? Hiding up on the Observation Deck so she wouldn't see him having a full blown hysterical fit at the thought of something happening to his one and only friend?
"There was a erm, a thing, in the drive room. With the thing. I was very busy," he stammered.
"Oh." Anneke got up, picking up a piece of paper from the square table and flicking it straight to read from it. The corners were dog eared, as though it had been read and re-read.
"Test results," she said. "Kryten sent them about ten o'clock this evening."
"What do they say?" Rimmer asked, a wedge of discomfort in his throat. He'd left her when she may have actually needed him.
"It's viral," she said softly, screwing the paper up into a ball. "A coronavirus." She threw the paper at the wall with surprising ferocity. The hologram took a single step back from the window, highly uncomfortable.
"What's that?" he asked tentatively.
"It's a specific sort of bug. Some strains just cause colds, but others…" The girl paused, rubbing her forehead with the heel of her hand. "We'll just have to wait and see I suppose. The medical computer didn't recognise the strain.I don't understand how this happened…"
"What can we do?" Rimmer asked, beginning to frown.
"Kryten's already started me on antivirals, though he doesn't think it'll do much. Maybe slow it down a bit. And more pills for the temperature. I suppose you'll have to be really red hot on the quarantine now," she rambled, rubbing her hands through her hair. "Thank God you put me in here. I could have killed Dave, and the Cat."
"I didn't mean all that medical stuff, Anneke," Rimmer said gently.
She looked up at him, wringing her hands together.
"I know," she said. "I just don't know what else there is to do…"
"I wish I could help…" The hologram looked through the glass at the girl miserably. She settled onto her chair, tucking one ankle behind the other as she looked up at him.
"You could carry on keeping me company?" she said. "Preferably without doing another vanishing act?"
Rimmer felt himself blushing, much to his annoyance. It seemed such a pointless thing for a hologram to do.
"Of course," he mumbled. "Sorry again about that."
"It's ok," she said. "You're quite shy really, aren't you?"
Rimmer's eyes widened, his face flushing even redder. Anneke smiled at him kindly, shrugging her shoulders.
"It's just an observation," she said. "Nothing personal."
"I suppose you have a point," he said, shaking his head, more to himself than her.
"There is one other thing you could do for me," Anneke said, pulling one leg up in her chair.
"What's that?"
"Do you think you could sort out some music for me? Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, some Rat Pack maybe?" She smiled, shrugging her slim shoulders. "I like old jazz."
The next morning Rimmer was chasing a skutter down the corridor to Anneke's room, the service robot clutching a stack of CDs in it's claw. When they arrived he spent some time trying to coerce it to drop the discs into the chute to the other room, Anneke kneeling on the other side expectantly, laughing when the little mechanical dropped the cases on the floor and flashed a frustrated Rimmer the 'V Salute'.
Eventually he got them in the drawer, trying to ignore it when Anneke coughed into her fist as she pulled them out. She rubbed her palm on her sternum as she stood, picking out one of the CDs and feeding it into a narrow slot in the wall near the vending machine and the miniature screen for Holly. A few moments later the mellow tones of jazz piano could be heard over the tannoy, along with the smooth, deep voice of Ella Fitzgerald. Anneke broke into a wide smile as she closed the case, joining in briefly under her breath;
"A lucky star's above, but not for me…"
She looked out of the window at Rimmer, tilting her head.
"She had a beautiful voice, didn't she? Thank you so much," she said.
"You're welcome," he replied, settling down in his holographic chair. Anneke turned away, looking through the stack of CDs and arranging them neatly on the table. Rimmer tapped his fingers on his knees, searching for something to say.
"Did you want to play chess today?"
"Honestly? Not really," she said without looking up. "I feel a bit tired."
"Oh. Rightio." He tried to hide his disappointment but couldn't help it. Why didn't she want him there?
Because you're a useless lump of sputum with all the charm and sophistication of a mollusc?
He stood to go, Anneke looking out at him with a quirked brow.
"I thought maybe we could just talk today instead?" she said, looking vaguely confused at his attempt at a sharp exit. "Unless you have more pressing matters to attend to?"
"Aah. Oops." Rimmer sunk back onto his chair again, Anneke grinning at him.
"You don't have to keep bolting like that, you know," she said. "If you weren't welcome I would say so. But I like having you around."
She pushed her chair closer to the window, leaning forwards with her elbows on the sill, chin in her hands.
"You do?" her companion asked, voice humiliatingly squeaky as he looked down at her, her dark blue eyes regarding him calmly.
"Yes," she replied. Rimmer swallowed, trying to maintain his composure as he felt an unfamiliar swirling sensation in his gut, fingertips tingling.
"Wh-what did you want to talk about?" he said, fixated on the white tips of her eyelashes.
"You," she said gently. "You practically sprinted away from me yesterday once we got onto the subject of your father…"
"There's not really much more to say on the matter," Rimmer sighed. "He was a git, my mother was a stone-hearted mare, my brothers spoilt brats with all the compassion of Oliver Cromwell… I emancipated myself from them when I was fourteen and that was the end of that."
"Except it wasn't, was it?" Anneke said, crossing her legs. Arnold let out a low exhale, shaking his head.
"No, it wasn't. This conversation itself is proof enough of that." He peered down at her through the window, biting the inside of his cheek. "Why the interest anyway?"
"We're friends, aren't we? I want to know about you. So come on, what happened after that?"
He opened his mouth, then closed it again, pausing. She'd said in black and white that they were friends. A wicked word hadn't passed her lips since he'd met her. He could trust her, couldn't he?
"Well, when I divorced my parents I had to find my own way in the world, starting with earning a living…"
A few hours later Rimmer sat in silence, arms crossed. Anneke had listened to him for ages, not speaking, she'd just let him talk. But then she'd started to flag, her coughing growing worse, until he had made her go and lie down. Now she lay on her side, curled up a foetal position, fast asleep. She looked clammy, her face crossed with shadows, fingers closed tightly around the sheets.
"Holly, what is Lieutenant Thorne's temperature please?"
"Scanning now, Arnold. Thorne, A, temperature currently thirty seven point nine degrees."
"She's getting worse," Rimmer said quietly to himself, rubbing his temples.
"It's only a small change, Arn," Holly chimed in.
"But it's in the wrong direction." Rimmer got up from his seat, pacing up and down the corridor. He wasn't used to this, to worrying about someone else's skin more than his own. It was a wholly unfamiliar feeling and he didn't like it.
Pausing outside the window, he looked in at her again, hands clasped together, index fingers steepled and resting on his lips. Ella Fitzgerald was still playing, a tad crackled as the music came through the speaker. When he realised which song it was, Rimmer felt his phosphorescent heart skip.
"Looking everywhere, haven't found him yet, he's the one affair I cannot forget, only man I'll ever think of with regret…"
"Oh my God, that's Gershwin," he breathed. Stepping as close to the glass as he could, he peered at the sleeping woman, jaw slack.
She's pretty, isn't she, Bonehead? Too pretty for you.
Shut up.
What do you think you're going to do, you pathetic, slimy, cowardly little man?
Shut. Up.
She wouldn't look twice at you, you walking waste of existence, you totally worthless twat! What the smeg would she want from -you-? A creature so thick, so selfish, so utterly repellent, so totally beyond affection? Never mind the small fact that you're dead! Oh yes, that's going to do you a smeg-load of favours with a woman like that, isn't it?
"Bloody buggering Hell!"
Rimmer's outburst jerked Anneke awake, but before she could rub the sleep from her eyes he was gone, fleeing the quarantine deck. She sat on the side of her bed, rubbing her burning face, her chest aching. Struggling to her feet, she stumbled to the dispensing machine, ordering a glass of ice water, sinking it within seconds. Her head was pounding, the halogen strip lights above seeming unbearably bright.
"Holly?" she called hoarsely.
"Yes, Anneke?" the computer answered sunnily.
"Would you turn the lights down please? And maybe dispense me some painkillers?"
"Can do, mate."
A paper cup shot out of the dispenser, two bright pink tablets rolling around inside it. Anneke threw them back as the lights dulled to a low glow, rubbing her eyebrows firmly.
"Lord, I feel like Hell," she groaned, falling back to sitting on the edge of the bed. "Where is everyone, Hol?"
"Dave's in his quarters, Rimmer's on floor four four nine, the Cat's in the cargo decks raiding the cans of tuna and Kryten's in the medi-lab," Holly replied.
Anneke slumped back on her bed, resting her head on the back wall. Clsoing her eyes she took a few deep breaths, trying to stop the spinning in her head.
"I think I've figured it out, you know," she mumbled, more to herself than to the computer. "I know where this came from. Two days before the Andromeda went up in smoke, the catering officer, Tony Capaldi, he kissed me. He was laid up in bed with what we thought was the flu. I took him a card and some orange juice, you know, as a silly something to cheer him up and he tried it on. After I smacked him in the nose he said he was delirious but I knew what he was like. He'd had more skirt that he'd made hot meals. I didn't think anything of it at the time, I'd had my flu jabs that year. He must have slipped me more than just a bit of tongue."
She laughed sardonically, then coughed a few times, rubbing her chest.
"Ow…"
"Anneke, your temperature just peaked thirty eight degrees," Holly said monotonously, still apparently oblivious to any need for concern. "Should I fetch Kryten?"
"No thank you, Holly," she said, crawling into her bunk and curling into a tight ball. "I'm just going to sleep it off, I'll feel better in the morning… Privacy on, please."