(no subject)
They say that pregnant women have a deep, subconscious desire to nest. To rearrange homes and rooms in preparation for a baby. If that's the case, Hips is one of the most half-assed nesters in the history of pregnant ladies. Oh, the redecoration is going on, certainly, transforming Ramon's enormous walk-in 'closet' (which was more like a dressing room) into a nursery. Hell, that 'closet' was bigger than her old room back at Mayfair. She felt no shame in putting her baby in there, at all.
The problem was that every time she tried to get decorating, something would distract her. Today's distraction was a photo album.
She'd dug up old photos of Ramon as a child, ages prior, when they had discovered that the Hands were actually cloned Plaga manipulations of Immanuel, Ramon's former butler. And, since she'd presented those photos to Ramon, they hadn't looked at them since. Too painful for him, perhaps, but still good to have on hand.
In spite of the fact that she'd memorized them when putting together the album, she cracks it open once more, flipping immediately to her favorite picture. The one of Ramon, age seven or so, furiously concentrating on playing his child-sized violin. And, right next to it, a picture of Ramon and his father, Miguel Salazar, in a semi-formal, semi-posed portrait. She could now even recognize the room it was taken in; the gallery where the portraits of their ancestors hung.
So much history.
And, for the first time, Hippolyta suddenly regrets that she has no childhood pictures of her own. Her family's past was gone. She didn't even know the names of her great-grandparents, where they had come from, none of that. She'd only ever met one grandparent, her father's mother, who was a senile old bat.
It was as if the pain of the Hollister family had sprung up, fully formed in Detroit, with nothing to anchor it to the past.
Her baby would never know his grandparents. And, on one side of the family, he'd probably never even know their names. Peter and Aphrodite Hollister would never, ever get even the smallest finger-hold into this family, if Hips had anything to say about it.
But she does regret that she can't even show her baby pictures of herself as a child.
An idea that had been gathering dust in the back of her head for years wiggled its way into her forebrain again. Her uncle, Frank Hollister, captain of the Red Dwarf, must have certainly kept a few family pictures in his personal files. Holly, the computer, would have them in storage somewhere in his bald noggin. The chances of Uncle Frank having at least one photo of her as a child were pretty high.
So why did she hesitate?
Because she was afraid the memories would overwhelm her. She had so much to look forward to, why look back?
She slowly closed the photo album, and placed a hand on her swollen stomach, thinking hard. Her sharp features were now well and truly blurred by the weight gain of her pregnancy. Her cheeks had filled out, she had a bulge under her chin, even her eyes seemed plump. So the thoughtful look on her face rather made her resemble a chipmunk with a severe case of constipation.
"Holly?" she asked into her PINpoint. The super computer was hooked in to it at all times, now, simply because Holly rather fancied the idea of a bigger screen to hang about in.
"Oi? Oh, hullo Hollister."
"Salazar."
"I'm sorry, I can't call you that. It's just not right."
"If I'd married Arnold, would you not have called me Rimmer?"
"Absolutely not. That's horrifying, that is."
"...True. Anyway! Look, can you do me a favor?"
"Oh, here we go again. Look, I'm not gonna help you get into trouble, I'm not helping you save anybody, the Nexus is off limits, I won't steal anything for you, and your husband can get his own lunches if he really is desperate. You're pregnant, you silly tart, stay home."
"Not like that! I just want you to snoop into Uncle Frank's files and see if he has any pictures of me as a little girl."
There's a long, long silence, as Holly chews on this favor.
"You sure, Hollister?"
She just shrugs. "It's not for me. Not really. I just want to have something to show the sprog when he asks. 'Cuz you know he will, eventually."
"It's on your computer in the next room," comes the quiet response, as quiet as Holly always is whenever doing something for Hollister that'll eventually bother her.
Hips smiles a tight smile and waddles over to her computer. It's been set up in a far corner of Ramon's room, where she's been spending all of her time, recently. Her tower is neglected, as she's terrified of falling down the spiral stairs in her delicate condition. The machine wakes up when she nudges the keyboard, and sure enough, the picture is already there on her desktop.
It's a picture of her, all right.
And Aphrodite.
And Peter.
The three of them are standing in front of a hedgerow, the one that circled her house back in Detroit. It was a sickly thing, sparse and browning, dying the slow death of pollution. It circled a yard that was only four feet deep, which abutted onto the front porch of their pre-fab house. There's a dog next to her, a sweet border collie mix with mismatched eyes. Her dog. The dog she cannot, for the life of her, remember the name of.
In the picture, Hippolyta's only about six years old or so. She's wearing a pair of jeans that are just a tiny bit too large for her, cinched in with a large, mannish belt. The t-shirt is torn at the sleeve, obviously second-hand, with an inappropriate logo on it, but clean. She's smiling shyly at the camera, trying to be seen in between the two planetary-sized people on either side of her. She looks like a little doll in comparison to them, but a doll already showing the hint of the big girl to come, with chubby fingers and a round face.
Her eyes go to her mother, first. Less painful. Hips is immediately shocked at the resemblance, especially now that she's carrying pregnancy weight. Hips looks almost exactly like her mother. It's like looking into a mirror, a wildly distorting mirror that makes you look fat. The only major differences are the hair, which on Affie is stick straight, and the eyes, which are brown. Hips now sees where her nose comes from, the enormous breasts, hell, even the way Affie is holding her hands is a direct copy of Hippolyta's gestures. The distance of the years and the memories of pain had distorted her mental image of her mother, making her less a person and more an object of pitiable loathing.
Then, she studies her father.
She's surprised to note that there's no immediate surge of fear, hate and panic. There's no feeling of desperately needing his affection and attention. There's nothing, really. Just a strange, blank indifference, as if she's looking at the picture of a perfect stranger. The years had not distorted his face. She would remember his face until the day she died. Every pock mark, every curve, the line of his lips, the way his ears stuck out, his eyes. She got his eyes, that blue-grey that she sees every day in the mirror.
He's smiling. The bastard had the temerity to smile for this picture.
Just one happy little family in Detroit. Complete with a dog.
It's then that her eyes catch the caption at the bottom of the picture.
Affie, Polly, Peter and Coco, September 23rd, 2337.
Coco. Her dog's name was Coco. How could she have forgotten?
The problem was that every time she tried to get decorating, something would distract her. Today's distraction was a photo album.
She'd dug up old photos of Ramon as a child, ages prior, when they had discovered that the Hands were actually cloned Plaga manipulations of Immanuel, Ramon's former butler. And, since she'd presented those photos to Ramon, they hadn't looked at them since. Too painful for him, perhaps, but still good to have on hand.
In spite of the fact that she'd memorized them when putting together the album, she cracks it open once more, flipping immediately to her favorite picture. The one of Ramon, age seven or so, furiously concentrating on playing his child-sized violin. And, right next to it, a picture of Ramon and his father, Miguel Salazar, in a semi-formal, semi-posed portrait. She could now even recognize the room it was taken in; the gallery where the portraits of their ancestors hung.
So much history.
And, for the first time, Hippolyta suddenly regrets that she has no childhood pictures of her own. Her family's past was gone. She didn't even know the names of her great-grandparents, where they had come from, none of that. She'd only ever met one grandparent, her father's mother, who was a senile old bat.
It was as if the pain of the Hollister family had sprung up, fully formed in Detroit, with nothing to anchor it to the past.
Her baby would never know his grandparents. And, on one side of the family, he'd probably never even know their names. Peter and Aphrodite Hollister would never, ever get even the smallest finger-hold into this family, if Hips had anything to say about it.
But she does regret that she can't even show her baby pictures of herself as a child.
An idea that had been gathering dust in the back of her head for years wiggled its way into her forebrain again. Her uncle, Frank Hollister, captain of the Red Dwarf, must have certainly kept a few family pictures in his personal files. Holly, the computer, would have them in storage somewhere in his bald noggin. The chances of Uncle Frank having at least one photo of her as a child were pretty high.
So why did she hesitate?
Because she was afraid the memories would overwhelm her. She had so much to look forward to, why look back?
She slowly closed the photo album, and placed a hand on her swollen stomach, thinking hard. Her sharp features were now well and truly blurred by the weight gain of her pregnancy. Her cheeks had filled out, she had a bulge under her chin, even her eyes seemed plump. So the thoughtful look on her face rather made her resemble a chipmunk with a severe case of constipation.
"Holly?" she asked into her PINpoint. The super computer was hooked in to it at all times, now, simply because Holly rather fancied the idea of a bigger screen to hang about in.
"Oi? Oh, hullo Hollister."
"Salazar."
"I'm sorry, I can't call you that. It's just not right."
"If I'd married Arnold, would you not have called me Rimmer?"
"Absolutely not. That's horrifying, that is."
"...True. Anyway! Look, can you do me a favor?"
"Oh, here we go again. Look, I'm not gonna help you get into trouble, I'm not helping you save anybody, the Nexus is off limits, I won't steal anything for you, and your husband can get his own lunches if he really is desperate. You're pregnant, you silly tart, stay home."
"Not like that! I just want you to snoop into Uncle Frank's files and see if he has any pictures of me as a little girl."
There's a long, long silence, as Holly chews on this favor.
"You sure, Hollister?"
She just shrugs. "It's not for me. Not really. I just want to have something to show the sprog when he asks. 'Cuz you know he will, eventually."
"It's on your computer in the next room," comes the quiet response, as quiet as Holly always is whenever doing something for Hollister that'll eventually bother her.
Hips smiles a tight smile and waddles over to her computer. It's been set up in a far corner of Ramon's room, where she's been spending all of her time, recently. Her tower is neglected, as she's terrified of falling down the spiral stairs in her delicate condition. The machine wakes up when she nudges the keyboard, and sure enough, the picture is already there on her desktop.
It's a picture of her, all right.
And Aphrodite.
And Peter.
The three of them are standing in front of a hedgerow, the one that circled her house back in Detroit. It was a sickly thing, sparse and browning, dying the slow death of pollution. It circled a yard that was only four feet deep, which abutted onto the front porch of their pre-fab house. There's a dog next to her, a sweet border collie mix with mismatched eyes. Her dog. The dog she cannot, for the life of her, remember the name of.
In the picture, Hippolyta's only about six years old or so. She's wearing a pair of jeans that are just a tiny bit too large for her, cinched in with a large, mannish belt. The t-shirt is torn at the sleeve, obviously second-hand, with an inappropriate logo on it, but clean. She's smiling shyly at the camera, trying to be seen in between the two planetary-sized people on either side of her. She looks like a little doll in comparison to them, but a doll already showing the hint of the big girl to come, with chubby fingers and a round face.
Her eyes go to her mother, first. Less painful. Hips is immediately shocked at the resemblance, especially now that she's carrying pregnancy weight. Hips looks almost exactly like her mother. It's like looking into a mirror, a wildly distorting mirror that makes you look fat. The only major differences are the hair, which on Affie is stick straight, and the eyes, which are brown. Hips now sees where her nose comes from, the enormous breasts, hell, even the way Affie is holding her hands is a direct copy of Hippolyta's gestures. The distance of the years and the memories of pain had distorted her mental image of her mother, making her less a person and more an object of pitiable loathing.
Then, she studies her father.
She's surprised to note that there's no immediate surge of fear, hate and panic. There's no feeling of desperately needing his affection and attention. There's nothing, really. Just a strange, blank indifference, as if she's looking at the picture of a perfect stranger. The years had not distorted his face. She would remember his face until the day she died. Every pock mark, every curve, the line of his lips, the way his ears stuck out, his eyes. She got his eyes, that blue-grey that she sees every day in the mirror.
He's smiling. The bastard had the temerity to smile for this picture.
Just one happy little family in Detroit. Complete with a dog.
It's then that her eyes catch the caption at the bottom of the picture.
Affie, Polly, Peter and Coco, September 23rd, 2337.
Coco. Her dog's name was Coco. How could she have forgotten?