reddwarfslash | Double Trouble

I have finally realised that I have spent the last year working simultaneously on three major fics with the result being that I haven't got very far with any of them. Thanks to scary downpour of snow that you may have seen on the news I haven't been able to get to work today so decided to bite the bullet and start posting one of them in the hope that it will spur me on to complete it so I can focus on the other two. Of the three of them this one has the most complete story arc so far in that I actually know what's going to happen, so here's hoping I can see it through to the end!

Double Trouble – Part 1

“Hey, buds! Something coming into range on the scanners!” It had been an uneventful few weeks on Starbug, so the escape pod drifting into view on the Cat’s screen caused more of a stir onboard than it might usually have done. Lister and Kryten, both eager for a diversion, joined him from the mid-section to take a look. They had come across abandoned pods before; usually empty apart from a few basic supplies that they could pilfer. Very occasionally they contained the remains of some poor unfortunate who had escaped whatever fate had befallen their craft only to float aimlessly in space until those basic supplies had run out before they could ever reach the safety of an inhabitable asteroid. There had been one memorable occasion when a pod they’d brought aboard had contained a mutated spider that had grown larger than anyone was comfortable with. Kryten had swatted it with the largest frying-pan they owned and - at Lister’s insistence - both the pan and the squished arachnid were flushed back out into the vacuum of space.

“Any life signs?” Lister asked cautiously, slipping into his seat.

“It doesn’t appear so, Sir,” Kryten replied, squinting at his own view screen; “I don’t think we’ll have a repeat of the spider incident,” he remarked with a slight tone to his voice. He had been fond of that frying pan but no amount of scrubbing had appeased his master. “I’ll bring her in,” Cat started to key in the relevant commands to the system, “I’m getting low on hair gel. Maybe there’ll be some in there.”

“I doubt it, Sir. Most species don’t consider hair-gel a basic necessity to survival.”

“Maybe this pod belonged to a species that was civilised,” Cat remarked tartly, unperturbed.

Rimmer joined them as they went to the airlock, “What’s going on here?”

“Pod,” Lister filled him in simply.

“Who’s got the frying pan?” Rimmer asked with a shudder.

“No life signs,” Lister reassured him, “We’re just gonna take a look to see if there’s anything useful.”

They stood round as Kryten examined the surface of the pod, “Curious,” he remarked, “The external controls have melted. It must have come through some very rough weather.”

“It won’t open?” Lister asked.

“Not without help.”

“No probs,” Lister helped himself to a bazookoid, “We’ll give it a hand. Stand back.” He aimed a shot at the hatchway and after a few moments, the smoking door dropped off. “Good shot, sir,” Kryten said approvingly. Lister stuck his head through into the dark interior and leapt back when he came face to face with someone inside, “Aghh!!!”

The familiar man crouched inside stared up at him, white-faced and wide-eyed. “You!” he whispered hoarsely. “Rimmer?” Lister said, dumbfounded. The other crew-members standing behind him exchanged nervous baffled looks. “I suppose you’re going to kill me now,” the Rimmer in the pod croaked bitterly, his voice husky with disuse.

“What?” Lister looked down at the still smoking bazookoid in his hand, “Oh! No, no! You’ve got it wrong, man! We were just trying to get you out. Er...” He quickly handed the gun to Kryten and held out a hand to the cowering man, “We didn’t realise there was anyone...No life signs on the scanner, see?” he gestured to the H decorating the man’s forehead, “Here let me help you.”

“I don’t need your help,” the Rimmer told him icily, brushing him aside and stumbling out.

The Cat made a disgusted sound, “How come we always end up with copies of Goalpost-Head? Why can’t we ever find another me?” The two holograms eyed each other with suspicion as Kryten bustled forward. “You must have come through a wormhole, Sir. That would explain the condition of the pod. How long have you been in there?”

“Too long,” he replied shortly.

“I’d better run your light-bee through a health check. Follow me and we’ll get you seen to!”

A little while later, once Kryten had given the newcomer’s bee a thorough look-over and pronounced it stable, Lister and Rimmer joined them in the medi-bay. Cat had gone back to the cockpit after complaining loudly that he wished he’d never seen the damn pod. Rimmer hovered a cautious distance away while Lister took a seat beside the bed. The new Rimmer stared at him with a slightly unnerving expression which he tried to ignore. “So...um...what’s the story, man? How did you end up on your own in the pod?”

“Something hit us,” he said simply, “Tore a smegging great hole in the side of the ship. The others died on impact. I managed to get to the escape pod.”

“What hit you? Didn’t the scanners alert you at all?”

“If I knew what it was I wouldn’t have said ‘something’, would I?” he replied sharply, “Our scanners were about as accurate as a plastic watch out of a cereal packet.” Lister gave an involuntary shiver. He knew all to well how unreliable Starbug’s equipment could be. It was something he tried not to dwell on but it was hard not to feel that this tale of woe could so easily have been their own.

“I’m really sorry,” he said gently, “Was it...Was it much like here?”

“Yes,” the new Rimmer said, giving him a strangely bitter look, “Yes, it was.” Lister let it go. He didn’t want to rub salt into the wound by reminding the hologram of all he’d lost. He stood up, “Well, listen, if you need to rest or whatever then Kryten can make you up a room. You don’t have to...y’know...until you’re ready.”

“Fine,” he said shortly. Lister exchanged a weary glance with Kryten – I tried - and made to leave. He was stopped by the sound of their own Rimmer’s voice. “Why didn’t the impact kill you too?” he asked accusingly. Lister hesitated, watching the two Rimmers glaring at each other like a pair of cobras and wondered if he should intervene; but the other Rimmer spoke before he could. “Because the others were all together in the mid-section when the accident happened; right in the impact zone. And I was in my sleeping quarters. Alone.” He broke off his mutual scowl with his doppelganger and shot a look of pure venom at Lister. The words had been pointed enough but the look said it all. Lister swallowed hard, “Come on, man,” he said quietly, tugging at Rimmer’s arm.

They were a little way down the corridor before they spoke again. “I don’t like him,” Rimmer said.

Lister gave a weak smile, “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Have we ever met a version of you that you did like?”

“There’s something weasely about him.”

“Yep, that sounds about right.”

“You know what I mean, Lister. There’s something odd about him. You felt it too, I can tell.”

Lister shrugged helplessly, “What do you expect? The guy watched everyone he cares about die in an instant then spent god-knows how long floating alone in space. You’d probably be odd too. So would anybody.”

“Why are you sticking up for him?”

“Look, what are you saying to me? You want us to stick him back in the pod and flush him back out into space? Is that what you’d want someone to do to you if you were in his place?”

“No, of course not.”

“I’m just trying to give the guy a break,” Lister said, wondering why he felt so defensive suddenly, “I think he needs one right now. So try and be nice, okay? I know it doesn’t come naturally but just make an effort, for smeg’s sake. Things are bad enough round here without another Rimmer vs Rimmer smackdown going on. None of us need it – understood?” Rimmer looked at him in surprise,

“What’s got into you?”

“Nothing,” Lister deflated a little, “Just...what he said about the scanners. It worries me, y’know?”

“Hmmm,” Rimmer looked like there was more he wanted to say on that subject but, for once, thought better of it. “Listen, I’m going to go take my shift.”

“Okay,” Lister said wearily, “I’ll come and relieve you at nineteen-hundred. I need a nap.”

He headed to his quarters and lay down on the bunk but he knew there was no chance of sleeping. Because Rimmer, much as he hated to say it, was right. There was something odd about their new crew-member and it was bothering him almost as much as the idea of them all being wiped out because of a scanner fault. Lister was good at reading people and what he’d got from this new version of Arnie J hadn’t been the self-pitying bitterness he was used to – although that had been there too – it was anger. And it seemed to be directed mainly at him. To the others he’d been rude, disdainful and mistrustful but the looks he’d thrown at Lister had burned.

He shifted uneasily on his bed as he remembered the parting shot their new arrival had fired at him. They were all together in the mid-section and I was in my sleeping quarters. Alone. It wasn’t just his imagination, he was sure; there had been a blatant accusation in those words. He’d wanted Lister to get the message loud and clear. You shut me out. You all shut me out.

Lister bit his lip thoughtfully. Did their Rimmer feel the same way? No. No, he certainly spent plenty of time alone in his room but Lister had always felt that it was at least fifty percent voluntary. He certainly got peevish enough if they had the temerity to disturb him. Despite the squabbles and insults, Lister was confident that Rimmer knew he was part of the posse, even if he wasn’t the most popular. Okay, so sometimes he and Rimmer bickered, argued and bitched. If things got really bad then they shouted, threw things at each other or spent days in a chilly accusing silence; but there was always a thaw. He didn’t hate Rimmer and he didn’t need the natural sense of intuition he’d been blessed with to know that Rimmer didn’t hate him either. What if things had been different where this Rimmer came from? What if this Rimmer did hate him? He didn’t like the idea of spending the rest of his life trapped on Starbug with someone who actually hated him.

He would have to do something; that much was obvious. His knowledge of Rimmer-psychology meant he was well aware that any effort to improve the relationship was going to have to come from him. But where was he going to start?

Double Trouble - Part 1

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