Fic: Red Dwarf: Someone to Watch Over You
Title: “Someone to Watch Over You”
Writers: metalkatt and veronica_rich
Rating: NC-17 overall
Chars: Lister/Rimmer, Cat, Kryten, Kochanski 2.0, Holly, Ocs
Disclaimer: Don't own. Grant Naylor has that privilege.
Summary: Ace Rimmer may have waited too long to go home again, but with some help, he might just get the happy ending none of his predecessors did. Set in and after Series 8
A/N: Thanks to our betas missflibble, cheezdanish, and kahvi. Any mistakes or errors are still our own.
This is part 9 of 22. We still have a ways to go, yet.
Feedback and concrit: Yes, please!
The first three days, Kochanski and Rimmer talked only to decide where to go and how to split up survey duties. Things went smoothly, they were efficient, and did enough work that each ended up rolling into their bunks with something approaching satisfaction at jobs well done those nights.
But then she had to ask: “What is it about me that puts you off, exactly? That I’m a woman and outrank you?”
Rimmer shook his head, tapping his stylus against his mouth as he scrolled through the list they were working. "Hmm? No, not really. I've largely gotten over that."
For some reason, his reaction amused her, rather than offending her; she'd expected either protestations or a diatribe of some sort. "Only largely."
"Even after as long as I've been out there, some kneejerk reactions are still there. Takes me a few minutes, sometimes, to clear my head.”
"All right - that's fair." She leaned up over the side of a crate they'd worked the top off of, to gauge what was inside. "So what is it, then?"
"I spent six-and-a-half years trying to keep that man somewhat level-headed, and to get him to stop mooning over you, which always drove him into depression." He set the data pad down and leaned back against the crate. "I was just thinking I'd finally succeeded when I was called- no, when he kicked me out." A frown, and Rimmer shook his head. "Now, you're here, and though you don't quite have that same pinball smile as the one from our dimension did, it's obvious that he's mooned and depressed himself sober. I don't know if I'll ever be able to undo it, and if and when you finally flat-out reject him, I am not sure where to even begin picking up the pieces this time, if he'd even let me."
She hadn't counted much when he began, so she straightened up and turned to watch him as he continued talking. "I don't understand," she said, shaking her head. "Why do you think babysitting Dave is your job? How is this your business?"
Rimmer tipped his head. "Did he never tell you? Holly brought me back to keep him sane. He needs someone to prod him and anger him to keep him in balance. Upsetting me is what kept him from getting too depressed. It's why I kept needling him in the Tank. He was so maudlin that I couldn't be sure he wouldn't do something pointlessly self-sacrificing and stupid."
"Rimmer ... you can't be turned off on a whim anymore, right? Your existence doesn't depend on satisfying somebody else, or a computer, or anything, as I understand. Isn't your light bee powered by your own ship?"
"My light bee is powered by whatever electrical source I charge it into, or whatever chemical energy it extracts from food I eat." He shrugged. "It's a bit more upgraded than anything the JMC ever had. And, it's not that my existence depends on anyone else; far from it. I just can't bear to see the little goit break again. I put too much work into him, and even though I tended towards the yellow side, he always came back for me. I rather owe him."
She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "So, he's your friend ... in a weird, stuff-only-guys-are-like sort of way. You probably do know him better than I do," she conceded. "But I don't get your attitude toward me. He's really not that interested in me. Although, if you knew him that well, you'd be able to tell THAT." She couldn't resist the needle.
Rimmer snorted. "Don't buy a word of that. On the inside of his little pea brain, he's composing songs, crappy poetry, and trying to figure out the best way to Stockholm you into liking him. He is practically addicted to the thought of Kristine Kochanski, and you on his mile-high pedestal. He'll worship your toes for as long as you're around."
"No, really!" she protested. "He's had opportunities. I've given him - well, chances," she admitted with an embarrassed shrug at Rimmer's See? expression of self-satisfaction. "Look, you have any idea how hard it is to be out of your own dimension and not know how to get back?"
Rimmer's reply was serious. "Yes, I do. I spent a very long time until Nona and I figured out how to assign dimensional numerics and then work out the ties between people in those numerics."
"Well - yes, I rather forgot that- The point is, I don't want to stay here forever. We've been trying to work out a way to make the wormhole back to my dimension, but we don't know how. And, yes, I admit I'd wondered if maybe I should just accept that I'm stuck here and make the best of it with Dave. So I gave him chances," she repeated. "But - you know, he never took me up on them."
Rimmer sighed, and he looked away, eyes scanning the heights of the room as if it would provide him with the best words to get him out of it. Traitorous bastard; not even a letter hanging up there, made out of dust motes. "Once I get Nona back in shape, you'll only be stuck here because you want to be. However, what you do about that, and whatever choices you make are yours, and I refuse to interfere in said decision process in any way, shape or form. And as for the rest ... that is very unlike him. I half expected him to have charmed you; he's always wanted family, and he lost the two children he had."
"Yes, I know - he mentioned it once in passing; wouldn’t talk about it." She frowned at the memory of her efforts to get Lister to tell her more. "Maybe it's not as unlike him as you think. You've been gone a while; I just mean maybe he's not as dedicated to the idea of me as you think he is." Something niggled at her; she finally pinned it down. "Or maybe it's just the idea itself he was dedicated to. Besides," she added, shaking her head, "just because a man'd want something doesn't mean I would. I never envisioned having more than one or two kids with anyone. And I already had one.” She sighed. “Which … really, makes all this kind of moot, if he’s told you about that.”
Rimmer hadn't considered that. "Hmm," he noised, both eyebrows going up. "Perhaps it is the idea. I suppose you'd have to pin him down and poke him with something until he deigned to explain. As for children - he positively doted over Jim and Bex, before they had to be returned to their home dimension."
"Jim and ..." She trailed off curiously.
Rimmer gave her full details of the incident with the Holly-Hop Drive and the female versions of themselves, and the pregnancy that had followed. “Was a bit difficult for the delivery, but we managed. He was just sore for awhile as he healed up." A faraway smile touched his features. "I positively hounded Cat - no pun - to take care of the twins, as I couldn't even pick them up."
She didn't say anything for a moment. It was obvious the two children had meant something to Rimmer, too, but it wasn't as difficult to imagine him being avuncular as she once might have thought. "If it mattered that much to him, okay - I'll be crude: He would've at least tried to get me pregnant. He didn't." She pushed some hair behind her ear. "I don't think you have anything to worry about with Dave. He's better put-together than you think."
"He always has had a rather annoying streak of optimism. I used to push him with overwhelming gloominess just to see how much being perky he could throw back at me."
"So you're NOT this disgustingly pessimistic, then?"
"Well, I was never as bad as I put on, and much less now." He flashed her an Ace-like grin. "Pessimistic heroes don't get very far. Granted, sometimes it took me a minute to think of something, but I could always think of it."
She rolled her eyes at the word "heroes," but wisely said nothing. "It's touching you're so worried about him." So far as she knew, her Dave and his roommate hadn't exchanged more than a few words a week, always off in different directions while alive. "But maybe you ought to just ask him what he wants. God knows maybe you could tell me, then, since I don't know any better than you."
"I doubt the little zit-brain even knows, himself. He's never been exactly self-examinative. It took me telling him what a git he'd been to one of his old girlfriends for him to understand it." At her puzzled look, he gave her an even briefer outline of the incident with Lise than he'd given about the twins. "After I argued with him, he only then finally clued in to what an idiot he was."
She crossed her arms. "So, what do you have against me, again?"
"You don't belong here, and you're going to smash him into pieces somehow." He paused. "Yes, I know we just discussed this, but that's what niggles at my bee."
"That's it? Nothing more personal than that?" When he shook his head, she pursed her lips. "That's just shortsighted, Rimmer. You just admitted it's not my fault and it's not rational. I'm not looking to be bridge partners or anything; I'm just tired of being treated like I'm a boil on the back end of this team, instead of part of it."
"I never said it was rational, Kris. And, I didn't have this problem in the Tank." He shook his head, hands up. "I don't know why this is what bothers me; it just does. For no definable reason."
She inhaled sharply, doing a passable imitation of his nose flare without intending it. "Can you at least agree to stop riding my arse, then? We're stuck together; we should be able to work together with a minimum of animosity, wouldn't you say?"
He took a breath of his own. "All right, I'll do my best. If I start in and abruptly drop, it means I've recognized myself, and am shutting up." He ran a hand through his hair - when had it gotten that long again? - and exhaled, tossing her a sly smile. "At least I wasn't trying to Ace you. You'd either be delirious on top of a crate, or smacking me with a frying pan."
She scowled at him. "What is it with men and thinking women hit with frying pans?!"
Rimmer pointed to a crate. "We just inventoried some, remember?"
"Yes, and two days ago, we inventoried a crate of that Boing sex-aid stuff, too." She stared at him. "Your point?"
"The point is, if you wanted to attack, you don't necessarily have to scramble for a traditional weapon. You use what's at hand. And, if you remember, we used Boing as a weapon at the basketball game."
"Which is pretty much its only saving characteristic, as far as I'm concerned." She consulted her clipboard. "We're almost done with this quadrant; if we get going, we can be finished, have lunch, and move on to the medical crates this afternoon."
He nodded. "All right. You go down your side, I'll go down mine, and I'll do the collation at the end this time."
They finished their morning in peace, and over lunch, she thought of something he'd said. "What was that crack about 'Acing you?'" She tried to repeat it in his accent, not terribly well. "You know, where you assumed I was Alice Kramden with the pan?"
"Well, you remember the reaction when I first came aboard the 'Bug to get you a couple of weeks ago, yes? Three grown men acting like their biggest crush had stepped into the room? Well, one grown man, one grown cat, and one grown mechanoid."
"So they have a James Bond wannabe complex. How does that affect me?"
"There's something about the Ace persona that does that to them, makes them flutter and tweet - and it's not just them. When I act as Ace is expected to, it's like being a piece of walking flypaper. I get people - women and men - sticking to me all the time, wanting me to have sex with them."
She tried not to smile and stuffed her sandwich into her mouth to choke off the laughter.
"You think it's ridiculous, and it is. But I swear to Io, it's true. I don't understand it. Ace is the opposite of everything anyone should want in a parent - lord only knows how many bastards the biological ones have created. It's a scary thought to know that this nose will be inflicted on generations upon generations throughout the multiverse."
She laughed around her food, swallowing. "Classic bad-boy complex. I knew far too many women who thought they could change one. Then there's also the whole biological imperative of wanting to select a candidate to give children the most desirable traits for appearance, behavior, survivability, et cetera."
Rimmer sipped from his thermos before speaking, shifting on the crate to stretch his back. "Tell me how acting like a reckless, arrogant, oversexed git is any sort of desirable behavior."
"Dominant genetic traits." She ticked off on her fingers. "Tall, physically strong, reasonably attractive, brave by all appearances, presumable intelligence."
"Then, why does it work on men, too? It's not like they can usually bear children. You should have seen Lister when the first Ace was here. Talk about a bug to flypaper." He shook his head, and bit into his apple. "If that man had given the word, Lister would have been naked in bed and covered in curry sauce in under a minute."
"Well, my Dave is bisexual." She poked around for the grapes she'd packed as she spoke. "Makes sense he's not the only one."
"Don't tell Lister that. He'll have an existential crisis." He tried very hard not to think about the implications of her remark. Although many of the alternates he'd met in other dimensions had tweaked personalities and slightly different appearances, there was no reason for his Lister to butter his toast any way but up.
"Too late." She smiled. "And yes, he did, but it could've been worse." For the first time, it occurred to her their trip through the ducts hadn't been long before Lister's depression over Rimmer's absence had surfaced. She said nothing more, but popped grapes into her mouth to cover amusement.
"I am so glad I wasn't around to witness that," he laughed. "Oh, I brought you something." He tossed her a small container of cottage cheese, and went back to his box. "He likely would have kicked me out of my own bunk after learning anything like that about another him."
She held her breath and opened the container. Pineapple chunks! Her eyes lighted up. "See, now something like this might've gotten Ace some action out of me," she enthused - then thought about what she'd just said. "I don't mean seriously, of course …"
He waved her off. "It’s a peace offering. I actually do know that I've been treating you like smeg lately, for no rational, discernible reason. And, I'm doing my best to stifle it since it has no basis."
She eyed him dubiously as she worked through her cottage cheese, trying to reconcile this man with the one Dave had described in various incidents on several occasions. "Boy, I guess a century or so makes a difference ..." she murmured, and they finished eating in relative silence. When she finished, she checked her watch and held up her fork in silent thanks to him before packing it away. "We'd better get moving, we want to get more done today."
Writers: metalkatt and veronica_rich
Rating: NC-17 overall
Chars: Lister/Rimmer, Cat, Kryten, Kochanski 2.0, Holly, Ocs
Disclaimer: Don't own. Grant Naylor has that privilege.
Summary: Ace Rimmer may have waited too long to go home again, but with some help, he might just get the happy ending none of his predecessors did. Set in and after Series 8
A/N: Thanks to our betas missflibble, cheezdanish, and kahvi. Any mistakes or errors are still our own.
This is part 9 of 22. We still have a ways to go, yet.
Feedback and concrit: Yes, please!
The first three days, Kochanski and Rimmer talked only to decide where to go and how to split up survey duties. Things went smoothly, they were efficient, and did enough work that each ended up rolling into their bunks with something approaching satisfaction at jobs well done those nights.
But then she had to ask: “What is it about me that puts you off, exactly? That I’m a woman and outrank you?”
Rimmer shook his head, tapping his stylus against his mouth as he scrolled through the list they were working. "Hmm? No, not really. I've largely gotten over that."
For some reason, his reaction amused her, rather than offending her; she'd expected either protestations or a diatribe of some sort. "Only largely."
"Even after as long as I've been out there, some kneejerk reactions are still there. Takes me a few minutes, sometimes, to clear my head.”
"All right - that's fair." She leaned up over the side of a crate they'd worked the top off of, to gauge what was inside. "So what is it, then?"
"I spent six-and-a-half years trying to keep that man somewhat level-headed, and to get him to stop mooning over you, which always drove him into depression." He set the data pad down and leaned back against the crate. "I was just thinking I'd finally succeeded when I was called- no, when he kicked me out." A frown, and Rimmer shook his head. "Now, you're here, and though you don't quite have that same pinball smile as the one from our dimension did, it's obvious that he's mooned and depressed himself sober. I don't know if I'll ever be able to undo it, and if and when you finally flat-out reject him, I am not sure where to even begin picking up the pieces this time, if he'd even let me."
She hadn't counted much when he began, so she straightened up and turned to watch him as he continued talking. "I don't understand," she said, shaking her head. "Why do you think babysitting Dave is your job? How is this your business?"
Rimmer tipped his head. "Did he never tell you? Holly brought me back to keep him sane. He needs someone to prod him and anger him to keep him in balance. Upsetting me is what kept him from getting too depressed. It's why I kept needling him in the Tank. He was so maudlin that I couldn't be sure he wouldn't do something pointlessly self-sacrificing and stupid."
"Rimmer ... you can't be turned off on a whim anymore, right? Your existence doesn't depend on satisfying somebody else, or a computer, or anything, as I understand. Isn't your light bee powered by your own ship?"
"My light bee is powered by whatever electrical source I charge it into, or whatever chemical energy it extracts from food I eat." He shrugged. "It's a bit more upgraded than anything the JMC ever had. And, it's not that my existence depends on anyone else; far from it. I just can't bear to see the little goit break again. I put too much work into him, and even though I tended towards the yellow side, he always came back for me. I rather owe him."
She rubbed the bridge of her nose. "So, he's your friend ... in a weird, stuff-only-guys-are-like sort of way. You probably do know him better than I do," she conceded. "But I don't get your attitude toward me. He's really not that interested in me. Although, if you knew him that well, you'd be able to tell THAT." She couldn't resist the needle.
Rimmer snorted. "Don't buy a word of that. On the inside of his little pea brain, he's composing songs, crappy poetry, and trying to figure out the best way to Stockholm you into liking him. He is practically addicted to the thought of Kristine Kochanski, and you on his mile-high pedestal. He'll worship your toes for as long as you're around."
"No, really!" she protested. "He's had opportunities. I've given him - well, chances," she admitted with an embarrassed shrug at Rimmer's See? expression of self-satisfaction. "Look, you have any idea how hard it is to be out of your own dimension and not know how to get back?"
Rimmer's reply was serious. "Yes, I do. I spent a very long time until Nona and I figured out how to assign dimensional numerics and then work out the ties between people in those numerics."
"Well - yes, I rather forgot that- The point is, I don't want to stay here forever. We've been trying to work out a way to make the wormhole back to my dimension, but we don't know how. And, yes, I admit I'd wondered if maybe I should just accept that I'm stuck here and make the best of it with Dave. So I gave him chances," she repeated. "But - you know, he never took me up on them."
Rimmer sighed, and he looked away, eyes scanning the heights of the room as if it would provide him with the best words to get him out of it. Traitorous bastard; not even a letter hanging up there, made out of dust motes. "Once I get Nona back in shape, you'll only be stuck here because you want to be. However, what you do about that, and whatever choices you make are yours, and I refuse to interfere in said decision process in any way, shape or form. And as for the rest ... that is very unlike him. I half expected him to have charmed you; he's always wanted family, and he lost the two children he had."
"Yes, I know - he mentioned it once in passing; wouldn’t talk about it." She frowned at the memory of her efforts to get Lister to tell her more. "Maybe it's not as unlike him as you think. You've been gone a while; I just mean maybe he's not as dedicated to the idea of me as you think he is." Something niggled at her; she finally pinned it down. "Or maybe it's just the idea itself he was dedicated to. Besides," she added, shaking her head, "just because a man'd want something doesn't mean I would. I never envisioned having more than one or two kids with anyone. And I already had one.” She sighed. “Which … really, makes all this kind of moot, if he’s told you about that.”
Rimmer hadn't considered that. "Hmm," he noised, both eyebrows going up. "Perhaps it is the idea. I suppose you'd have to pin him down and poke him with something until he deigned to explain. As for children - he positively doted over Jim and Bex, before they had to be returned to their home dimension."
"Jim and ..." She trailed off curiously.
Rimmer gave her full details of the incident with the Holly-Hop Drive and the female versions of themselves, and the pregnancy that had followed. “Was a bit difficult for the delivery, but we managed. He was just sore for awhile as he healed up." A faraway smile touched his features. "I positively hounded Cat - no pun - to take care of the twins, as I couldn't even pick them up."
She didn't say anything for a moment. It was obvious the two children had meant something to Rimmer, too, but it wasn't as difficult to imagine him being avuncular as she once might have thought. "If it mattered that much to him, okay - I'll be crude: He would've at least tried to get me pregnant. He didn't." She pushed some hair behind her ear. "I don't think you have anything to worry about with Dave. He's better put-together than you think."
"He always has had a rather annoying streak of optimism. I used to push him with overwhelming gloominess just to see how much being perky he could throw back at me."
"So you're NOT this disgustingly pessimistic, then?"
"Well, I was never as bad as I put on, and much less now." He flashed her an Ace-like grin. "Pessimistic heroes don't get very far. Granted, sometimes it took me a minute to think of something, but I could always think of it."
She rolled her eyes at the word "heroes," but wisely said nothing. "It's touching you're so worried about him." So far as she knew, her Dave and his roommate hadn't exchanged more than a few words a week, always off in different directions while alive. "But maybe you ought to just ask him what he wants. God knows maybe you could tell me, then, since I don't know any better than you."
"I doubt the little zit-brain even knows, himself. He's never been exactly self-examinative. It took me telling him what a git he'd been to one of his old girlfriends for him to understand it." At her puzzled look, he gave her an even briefer outline of the incident with Lise than he'd given about the twins. "After I argued with him, he only then finally clued in to what an idiot he was."
She crossed her arms. "So, what do you have against me, again?"
"You don't belong here, and you're going to smash him into pieces somehow." He paused. "Yes, I know we just discussed this, but that's what niggles at my bee."
"That's it? Nothing more personal than that?" When he shook his head, she pursed her lips. "That's just shortsighted, Rimmer. You just admitted it's not my fault and it's not rational. I'm not looking to be bridge partners or anything; I'm just tired of being treated like I'm a boil on the back end of this team, instead of part of it."
"I never said it was rational, Kris. And, I didn't have this problem in the Tank." He shook his head, hands up. "I don't know why this is what bothers me; it just does. For no definable reason."
She inhaled sharply, doing a passable imitation of his nose flare without intending it. "Can you at least agree to stop riding my arse, then? We're stuck together; we should be able to work together with a minimum of animosity, wouldn't you say?"
He took a breath of his own. "All right, I'll do my best. If I start in and abruptly drop, it means I've recognized myself, and am shutting up." He ran a hand through his hair - when had it gotten that long again? - and exhaled, tossing her a sly smile. "At least I wasn't trying to Ace you. You'd either be delirious on top of a crate, or smacking me with a frying pan."
She scowled at him. "What is it with men and thinking women hit with frying pans?!"
Rimmer pointed to a crate. "We just inventoried some, remember?"
"Yes, and two days ago, we inventoried a crate of that Boing sex-aid stuff, too." She stared at him. "Your point?"
"The point is, if you wanted to attack, you don't necessarily have to scramble for a traditional weapon. You use what's at hand. And, if you remember, we used Boing as a weapon at the basketball game."
"Which is pretty much its only saving characteristic, as far as I'm concerned." She consulted her clipboard. "We're almost done with this quadrant; if we get going, we can be finished, have lunch, and move on to the medical crates this afternoon."
He nodded. "All right. You go down your side, I'll go down mine, and I'll do the collation at the end this time."
They finished their morning in peace, and over lunch, she thought of something he'd said. "What was that crack about 'Acing you?'" She tried to repeat it in his accent, not terribly well. "You know, where you assumed I was Alice Kramden with the pan?"
"Well, you remember the reaction when I first came aboard the 'Bug to get you a couple of weeks ago, yes? Three grown men acting like their biggest crush had stepped into the room? Well, one grown man, one grown cat, and one grown mechanoid."
"So they have a James Bond wannabe complex. How does that affect me?"
"There's something about the Ace persona that does that to them, makes them flutter and tweet - and it's not just them. When I act as Ace is expected to, it's like being a piece of walking flypaper. I get people - women and men - sticking to me all the time, wanting me to have sex with them."
She tried not to smile and stuffed her sandwich into her mouth to choke off the laughter.
"You think it's ridiculous, and it is. But I swear to Io, it's true. I don't understand it. Ace is the opposite of everything anyone should want in a parent - lord only knows how many bastards the biological ones have created. It's a scary thought to know that this nose will be inflicted on generations upon generations throughout the multiverse."
She laughed around her food, swallowing. "Classic bad-boy complex. I knew far too many women who thought they could change one. Then there's also the whole biological imperative of wanting to select a candidate to give children the most desirable traits for appearance, behavior, survivability, et cetera."
Rimmer sipped from his thermos before speaking, shifting on the crate to stretch his back. "Tell me how acting like a reckless, arrogant, oversexed git is any sort of desirable behavior."
"Dominant genetic traits." She ticked off on her fingers. "Tall, physically strong, reasonably attractive, brave by all appearances, presumable intelligence."
"Then, why does it work on men, too? It's not like they can usually bear children. You should have seen Lister when the first Ace was here. Talk about a bug to flypaper." He shook his head, and bit into his apple. "If that man had given the word, Lister would have been naked in bed and covered in curry sauce in under a minute."
"Well, my Dave is bisexual." She poked around for the grapes she'd packed as she spoke. "Makes sense he's not the only one."
"Don't tell Lister that. He'll have an existential crisis." He tried very hard not to think about the implications of her remark. Although many of the alternates he'd met in other dimensions had tweaked personalities and slightly different appearances, there was no reason for his Lister to butter his toast any way but up.
"Too late." She smiled. "And yes, he did, but it could've been worse." For the first time, it occurred to her their trip through the ducts hadn't been long before Lister's depression over Rimmer's absence had surfaced. She said nothing more, but popped grapes into her mouth to cover amusement.
"I am so glad I wasn't around to witness that," he laughed. "Oh, I brought you something." He tossed her a small container of cottage cheese, and went back to his box. "He likely would have kicked me out of my own bunk after learning anything like that about another him."
She held her breath and opened the container. Pineapple chunks! Her eyes lighted up. "See, now something like this might've gotten Ace some action out of me," she enthused - then thought about what she'd just said. "I don't mean seriously, of course …"
He waved her off. "It’s a peace offering. I actually do know that I've been treating you like smeg lately, for no rational, discernible reason. And, I'm doing my best to stifle it since it has no basis."
She eyed him dubiously as she worked through her cottage cheese, trying to reconcile this man with the one Dave had described in various incidents on several occasions. "Boy, I guess a century or so makes a difference ..." she murmured, and they finished eating in relative silence. When she finished, she checked her watch and held up her fork in silent thanks to him before packing it away. "We'd better get moving, we want to get more done today."