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Following their successful retrieval of Red Dwarf's black box, the atmosphere among the crew was different. Cat no longer stalked around the ship or danced in the corridors - instead he took to spending most of his time snoozing in the mess hall, to rest his broken foot somewhere close to a food source. Dave stayed in his room, drank beer, and did a few more jigsaws, resting his own injury. There was little word from Holly as the computer set the ship back on its course towards Earth. Rimmer, however, was nowhere to be seen.
Dave supposed Rimmer was off sulking somewhere, and he supposed that was understandable. Though his intentions had been good, transferring the memory of a past love affair onto Rimmer hadn't been Dave's greatest idea. He could admit that he didn't exactly think it through.
At first, Dave appreciated Rimmer's absence and the peace and quiet it granted him. But before long - though he hated to admit it - Dave was starting to miss the smeghead.
A week had passed since the incident when Holly popped up on the screen in Dave's room.
"What's happening, dude?" Holly greeted in his familiar East London twang. "We're back on our old course for Earth. How's ya foot healing, Dave?"
"Fine, Hol." Dave pored over his jigsaw pieces. It was another space scene, which meant all the pieces looked just about the same - white stars, black background.
"Not too painful? Good, good."
"What do you want, Hol?"
"Nuffin'… just thought you might like some company, is all."
"Thanks."
"Not feeling up for a conversation, eh? That's awright. I'll talk and you can listen."
Dave nodded, eyes still on his jigsaw.
"Yep," Holly said. "You catch the zero-gravity football match last night?"
"Sorry, Hol, I'm really not in the mood," Dave replied.
"Right. Right, no worries, I understand." A pause. "Are you still in the dumps about what happened with Arnold? I told you not to watch that black box recording -"
"I know, I know, but we had to, didn't we?" Dave leaned back in his seat and took a swig from his mug. "Now Rimmer's gone walkabout 'cause he's still upset with me. How was I supposed to know it would mess him up like that? I swear, every time you try to do something nice for that smeghead he twists it around into a horrible ordeal for himself. This is just like that TIVG all over again."
Holly's disembodied head nodded solemnly.
"You know what?" the computer said. "Arnold made me keep his whereabouts a secret so you wouldn't go looking for him. But I'm getting rather fed up of watching the two of you stewing in your emotions like a pair of boiled potatoes. Why don't you go find him and sort this out? Give him a proper apology."
Dave sighed. "Okay, Hol. Where is he then?"
"Same place as always. Observation deck."
Dave could tell why Rimmer liked the observation deck so much. In the giant glass bubble, the vast industrial labyrinth of Red Dwarf felt a thousand miles away. Cat didn't know this place existed and there were no screens for Holly to reach. Just a staircase, a little platform to stand on, surrounded by a trillion lightyears of empty space.
Dave used to like stargazing, back on Earth. On camping trips sitting next to the bonfire, passing a blunt with a couple of friends, he liked to imagine what different worlds were out there, mysterious and unexplored. Back then, space had felt romantic, unreachable. Now stargazing had lost some of its charm. Earth, and its familiar constellations, were three million years away, and all his friends were dead.
Dave saw Rimmer standing there on the platform, as he climbed the spiral staircase.
"Hey, man." Dave said.
Rimmer didn't reply, only stared out at the cosmos, his back to Dave.
"Are you okay?"
"Mm," Rimmer hummed.
"Look, I said I was sorry."
"It's alright."
"No, it's not. You've every right to be cross, y'know. I really smegged it all up. I should have known better than to just edit your memories like that… I don't know what I was thinking."
"I know," said Rimmer. "I'm not cross."
Dave blinked.
"You sure?"
Rimmer finally looked Dave in the eye. His hair was unkempt, his tie loose, his face tired, but it was Rimmer nonetheless, and Dave felt a funny sense of relief, seeing his bunkmate's ugly mug once again after so long.
"Can I tell you something, Lister?"
"'Course. Anything."
The hologram turned his head back up to the stars, and sighed.
"I like to come up here because it reminds me of home.
"Io. Moon of Jupiter. There's no atmosphere - it's mostly airtight glass domes, you know. They used to call it The Tenerife of Stargazing, because the view was so good, and there were never any clouds. It was orginally settled as a tourist destination - lots of observatories, planetariums and such.
"'Course, the stargazing didn't really catch on, because more often than not, half the sky was covered by the biggest planet in the Solar System, big fat Jupiter and its big smegging acne scar. And since it was so big in the sky, solar eclipses were so common they lost their novelty. Not to mention nobody goes for stargazing any more - why would they? There's minimum-wage jobs that take you into space now. It's obsolete. So they turned the luxury Ionian resorts into properties and sold them off.
"That's were I grew up. In the lush alien gardens of Io, in a great big overturned fish bowl.
"Of course, my father, rest his soul, loved stargazing, the old smeghead. The man was fixated on space. He made us memorise the names of every star and constellation in the night sky, he'd drill it into us as some kind of preparation for officerhood. That was the one thing he taught us that actually excited me, really. I loved stargazing almost as much as he did. I studied hard. I memorised those names. I spent my free time just lying on my back in the garden. Somehow, when I was looking up at the stars, I started to feel less alone. Like maybe there was a place out there for me."
Rimmer paused, and continued, a little quieter.
"I was alone all my life. No friends. My mother shunned me, my father expected too much from me. My whole childhood I was well-behaved and hardworking and career-minded, but I had nothing to show for it. And I would tell myself that one day, everything would get better. One day I would be an officer. I'd fall in love, and die happy, surrounded by friends. I knew, somewhere out there in the great grand cosmos, it was waiting for me."
Dave stared at his shoes. "What if it still is, though? Don't lose hope."
"You don't have to say that to me, Lister. I know you're just being nice." He sniffed. "I'm not cross with you. I know you just wanted to help. But you have to understand, as I grew up I just wanted to find love on my own. I wanted to have that chance encounter, that first kiss, that first time, and I wanted it to be special. I wanted to stargaze with someone, and tell them all the names of the stars. I wanted to slow dance under the night sky. I appreciate what you did, I really do. But I can't accept memories from you like that. I spent my whole life working and I never once lived in the moment. I've missed my chance at love. I know that."
Dave was taken aback by Rimmer's impromptu speech. "Smeg. I'm sorry."
"It's alright, Listy. I've accepted it." The hologram sighed again. "I accepted it a long time ago."
"Well... I'm here if you need me. You don't have to be a big disciplined First Technician around me all the time, you know. You can talk to me about these things. I understand."
Rimmer chuckled. "No, you don't. You don't know what it's like to be alone."
"Yes I do. Smeg's sake, Rimmer, I know I'm alive and you're dead but we're in the same exact situation here! Look at me. I've lost - I've lost everythin'. Kochanski, Frankenstein, Petersen... All my friends, all my family. I know everyone's dead. I know I'll probably never live happily ever after with Krissie on a farm on Fiji. I know I'll most likely never live to see Earth again! But I have to hold onto that hope that maybe, just maybe, there's a sliver of a chance that someday I will.
"So - so what if you died alone? You might still find someone and fall in love. You might still become an Officer someday. And - smeg - maybe we really will find aliens who can give you a body. This isn't the end for you, it's only the beginnin'. And for now, you've got Red Dwarf, and you've got Cat and Holly, you've got a whole universe to explore, and you've got me. I'm not so bad, am I?"
Rimmer smiled - a rare, genuine smile. When he smiled, he almost looked handsome. Almost.
"Forgive me, Lister, but you're not exactly my first choice of person to be stranded alone in space with."
"Come on."
"Fine, Lister. You're all right. You're not my first choice, but you wouldn't be my last choice, either."
Dave beamed. "Come on, let's go back to the bunkroom. I've missed you, you know."
"Okay! You can shut up now!" Rimmer said brightly.
"And you know, if you ever feel like slowdancing sometime -"
"That's enough!"
They went back to the bunkroom together, soon falling back into their comfortable bickering. And for a second Dave almost reached a hand out to take Rimmer's, before he remembered that he couldn't.