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Rimmer was not a great Ace. It just...wasn't part of his make up. Of course he knew, in theory, that he was Ace, it was only a little divergence in the timelines that separated them. But somewhere between his childhood and the 3 million years since, something very un-Ace like had definitely set itself firmly into place.
'They all made it sound sooo easy' he seethed to himself, desperately trying to keep his ship under control as he was thrown around, trying to gain enough momentum to break through into another dimension. He should have known he couldn't do it, he should have stayed.
Lister probably knew all along he wasn't up to the job. They just wanted him to fail. Just wanted him to leave .
He was about to spiral into yet another bout of depression and projection based fingerpointing, but at that moment the ship put on a huge, violent burst of speed, almost throwing him out of his chair. Clinging on to the rim of the main control panel he managed to pull himself back into his seat.
"What on earth was that you ... computer?" he snarled.
"We hit faster than the speed of time Arnold," the disembodied voice of the ship's computer replied, with obvious distaste. Rimmer was sure that the ship hadn't called any of the other Aces 'Arnold'.
"Well, fine, just...find the ship alright."
It was a standard, garden variety type mission - tracking down a ship's distress beacon. The vessel was apparently disfunctional, stuck in deep space. A crew of one. That one being, to Rimmer's delight and horror, female.
That was another thing he hadn't gotten the hang off. He had the hair, the shades, the suit, the name, but still every woman he came across thought he was a shiny goit in a wig. Each time he would get excited, sure that finally he was going to rescue a smoking hot damsel in distress who would be very, very grateful. But in the end it was always the same look, as if he were wearing Lister's underpants.
As the blinding, impossible colors of the inter-dimensional tear they had punched through finally faded around them, the ship came into view. It was small, definitely not intended to hold a crew of more than 20, 30 at most, but it looked far more advanced that his own. Tentatively, he sent a request to land to the ship's computer, which was automatically accepted, and he maneuvered a perfect landing into the landing bay. That, he had mastered. It was only when he'd get out that they'd be disappointed.
"Hello?" he called out into the dark corridor leading into the ship, for a moment forgetting to do The Voice.
He'd been getting a lot better at staying in character, but there was something about dark corridors in abandoned space vessels that brought the coward in him right out. He coughed, and tried again.
"It's Ace here, Ace Rimmer. I heard your distress call and I thought I'd drop by to answer your prayers."
There was still no answer, but doing the Ace act encouraged him to step forwards into the gloom. After all, the woman might be watching. No need to bugger it all up before they even met face to face.
It looked like large parts of the ship had just been left to rot - there were exposed cables, rusted components and pools of probably vital mechanical fluids scattered all over the floor. The ship must have been in a bad way for some time. He wondered what had happened to the rest of the crew to leave only one...but that thought was answered with all the nasty things he had ever dreamed of - and encountered - in space, so he tried to concentrate on being sexy and charismatic instead.
That was when it all went tits up and he slipped in a pool of oil, smashing his left side into some kind of machine with lots of pokey out bits. His wig also went flying off into some dark corner.
"SMEG" he whispered, rubbing his elbow and looking around frantically.
"ARNIE?"
He looked up like a rabbit caught in the headlights. Someone had said his name. Not Ace, not Rimmer even.
He could hear boots running along the corridor in front of him, and he renewed his efforts to find his wig.
"You came back."
At the end of the corridor stood a woman, a little taller than him, quite plain, and oddly familiar. He was disappointed, but really, it wasn't like he was getting any other offers, so he might as well try his luck. But most of all, he was confused.
"I did?" he asked quizzically, pointing at himself, as if wondering if she were talking to someone else.
She stopped short, her face cycling through emotions at a million miles an hour. When she had come around the corner she had looked shocked, scared even, and then adoring. But as soon as he had spoken her face fell, crumpled almost. They stood in silence, looking at each other for a moment, and then she began to cry.
This was the worst any of his damsel rescues had gone so far. He hadn't made them sob hysterically at the very sight of him before.
Flustered, he tried to regain his Ace-ness and comfort her, but she shoved him away with surprising strength.
"Get lost you jumped up shiny, smegheaded, self absorbed, smeghead." she yelled, switching from tears to anger as quickly as she had gone from adoration to despair. This was, at least, more familiar territory for Rimmer. And speaking of familiar, the outburst suddenly made everything make sense. The fact she recognized him, the way she looked almost like someone he should know, but couldn’t place.
"Wait, are you a Lister…ina?" he finished lamely.
She sniffed forcefully, rubbing her jacket sleeve over her face in a distinctly Lister type way.
“Piss off.”
He tried to push down his urge to snap back at her, still trying to remember what and who he was trying to be.
“Look, at least let me help you.”
But she just turned on her heel and stalked off down the corridor, clearly not wanting to be followed. Well, whatever women’s problems she was clearly having that second, he was here now. He might be a smeghead, but he wasn’t going to leave her on a ship with soon-to-fail life support systems. And honestly, this wasn’t the rudest a woman had been to him as Ace, even if they usually let him rescue them first.
Given that she was clearly going to be of no help, he walked off down another corridor in hopes of finding his way to some kind of engine room or control panel, anything that he could plug his own ship into to run diagnostics. The first few rooms were no good - store rooms and what was presumably some kind of break room.
Then, quarters. But that wasn’t what made him stop. It was his own face looking back at him. Everywhere, it was him in one sense or another. Photos and drawings were pinned up on the walls, his diaries were on the bookshelf, even his stuff was lying around the bunk.There was even his old bear, Napoleon, lying on the top bunk of the bed, who had been lost along with Red Dwarf.
For a moment he considered taking him, but that was hardly an Ace kind of thing to do. But still, he couldn’t stop himself from taking a few steps inside, looking at the photos of another him, a stranger living an unfamiliar life but wearing his face. It might have looked like things he once owned, but this wasn't his stuff. The diary was barely filled, as if he hadn't been bothered to put the time into it. It talked about people whose names he didn't recognize, and places he hadn't been. He flicked through it, faster and faster, trying to find something familiar.
"Don’t break that," the Other Lister snapped from behind him, or rather, she was trying to snap, but there was a note of sadness and pleading in there too.
"Sorry. Though, it is my diary actually, in a way?"
"Just go" she said again. This time there was no force behind her words at all.
"I can't just leave you on your own, on a rotting ship!" he protested.
"You can. He did."
Ah he thought. It explained a lot, although at the same time not much at all. A part of Rimmer, the part that might, just might, have been Ace, didn't want to press it any further. But he had to know - had this Rimmer really been a failure too?
"What was he like?" he all-but whispered.
"A total twat. Awful taste in music, thought telegraph poles were riveting, and revising for our exams with him made me want to kill him with his own edge protectors."
They stood in silence for a moment, her vitriolic words at complete odds with the look of loss on her face. As if somehow the man she just described was someone worth mourning.
"I miss him."
He looked around the bunk room, at the photos on the wall, the belongings carefully kept on the shelf as if his other self was going to come back any minute. It struck him then, that for him to be here, that other Rimmer, her Rimmer, was dead. This woman had been waiting for a dead man, and his arrival had been a cruel confirmation of the fact.
"Your Arnold was an absolute smeghead."
"As if you didn’t do the exact same thing to someone else."
He thought back. The Cat had never liked him, and even if he had, he was too self centered to care about someone not being around. Kryten had never liked him either. And that left Lister. Lister who ate his toe nails and put onions on his cornflakes. Lister who had made his life hell, Lister who had built him up and shattered him again on that psi moon without caring. Lister who had wanted him to go and be Ace.
"No, I don't think I did."