Title: Respite
Author: RangerGirl
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After Lister is falsely accused of murder and imprisoned in a maximum security penal colony, his friends try to reach him. R/L, but only slashy if you want it to be.
Notes: Although this was initially inspired by the RD novel 'Last Human', the plot bears little or no resemblance to anything in the book. I've taken huge liberties with Lister's sentence, the conditions in Cyberia, the timeline...In fact, I think you'd do better to consider the two things as completely separate, there's really no connection at all. The only thing I did take directly was the idea of Lister's plaits being cut off, and of course the name, Cyberia. The rest is borne entirely from my strange and twisted mind.
I like to imagine that this fic takes place sometime around series 5, but it could more or less happen at any time. Rimmer already has his hard-light drive, but y'know, we call that artistic license ;)
A/N: It has been brought to my attention (thanks, Involuntary-black-sheep) that I made a small continuity error - Lister did in fact admit to suffering from claustrophobia in 'Duct Soup'. My only excuse is that it's one of the very few episodes that I don't know well at all - to be honest I could barelybring myself to watch most of season 7. Red Dwarf without Rimmer is just not Red Dwarf! Thank God for Stoke Me A Clipper...and of course, Blue. Hehe. Anyway, apologies for that.
Disclaimer: Come on, you've all read tons of these before. No, they're not mine. Not Red Dwarf, not Rimmer, not Lister, not Kryten, not the Cat. All belong to Grant Naylor Productions.
Respite
"Kryten, I think I can say, with complete and total clarity, that this is the most utterly ridiculous plan I have ever heard. And that's including that incident with the psychopathic curry beast." Rimmer turned away from the frustrated mechanoid, dismissing him without words.
"Sir, I beg you to consider what I'm saying, however ludicrous it may seem to you now-"
"I have considered it. I've looked at it objectively, observed it from all angles, and I've drawn my conclusion. If you seriously believe that this plan has even the most remote chance of success, then there's even less going on inside that bizarrely angular head of yours than I've always supposed."
Kryten sighed - a tinny, oddly metallic sound - and turned to the Cat.
"Mr. Cat, sir, what's your opinion? Don't you agree that this plan could have a real chance of success?"
Cat regarded him thoughtfully. "I think", he began after a pause, "that this suit does absolutely nothing for my colouring." His eyes moved past Kryten to focus on his reflection in one of the many dress mirrors located around the drive room. "I mean, it's gotta be the silver trimming. It can't be the shade - purple's usually such a winner. Maybe it's the fabric..." He trailed off and continued to gaze fixedly into the mirror, utterly absorbed.
Rolling his eyes, Rimmer sidestepped the Cat and addressed Kryten once more.
"Kryten, what you're suggesting is insane on so many levels, I'm not sure where to begin. Do you actually have the slightest concept of just how notoriously high-security this prison is? I thought you were meant to be researching the place - surely you know that nobody has ever escaped. That there've only been a few cases of anybody trying to force entry, and that each attempt has ended in a rather messy and painful death? I've died once, Kryten, and I have no desire to repeat the experience."
"Sir, I have thoroughly investigated every security measure in place on Cyberia. All of their methods are reliant on the assumption that any intruder or escapee would be human. Your hologrammatic status, hard-light drive notwithstanding, gives us the distinct upper hand."
Rimmer frowned, unable to conceal his surprise.
"You mean, they've got no measures against holograms at all?"
Kryten affirmed this with a nod.
"For an institution of its kind, Cyberia's technology is surprisingly limited. You would find it very easy to gain access to the complex - after all, you are technically able to pass through any solid matter."
"All right." Rimmer had begun to pace the room now, subconsciously preparing himself for action. "Let's say by some miracle you're right. Let's say I do manage to penetrate this maximum security penal colony. Do you seriously think I've got a snowball's chance in hell of finding Lister in there? Forget needle in a haystack; it'd be like looking for a single helium nucleus in a black hole!"
"Y'know, I hate to say it, but goalpost head's got a point", Cat chipped in. "There's gotta be a lot of nasty, crazy freaks in the galaxy, right? I mean, we've met a lot of them ourselves! There was that Inquisitor guy, and the crazy chick with the holovirus, and those lower versions of us, and that big, nasty, squelchy face-sucking morph monster-"
"Polymorph, sir." Kryten supplied helpfully.
"Right, and then there was the monster made of curry, and whatever that weird octopus thing was that made us think we weren't real-"
"Cat", Rimmer interrupted. "I know you're making some kind of point here. Kindly get on with it, before I'm forced to pluck out every single one of those perfectly groomed hairs and choke you to death with them."
Cat seemed both affronted by Rimmer's threat and more than slightly alarmed by the image of himself with no hair.
"What I'm saying, grease stain, is that that prison's gotta be packed." He turned to Kryten. "How's he supposed to find Lister in there? One guy, huge place."
"Exactly. Not to mention how I'm meant to get him out of there unnoticed and in one piece."
"I won't deny, sir, the latter does present a problem." Kryten admitted. "I think that the most realistic plan of action for now is not to attempt to set Mr. Lister free. Our chances of successfully removing him from the complex are, as you say, very slim."
"So what are you saying, Kryten? I get into Cyberia, find Lister, but don't set him free?" Rimmer's voice grew slightly higher as he took on a mock cheerful tone. "'Hello Listy, nice to see you. Hope you're enjoying your incarceration in this maximum security hellhole. Must dash, I'm afraid.' That'd really boost his morale, wouldn't it?"
"Of course, our ultimate aim is to release Mr. Lister from the prison, but realistically, we need considerably more time to prepare for such a feat. Our priority - your priority, sir - for now should simply be to let him know that he's not alone. The chances are that at the moment, he's feeling incredibly isolated."
Rimmer's eyes seemed to cloud over at these words. He slowed in his pacing, his mind all at once filled with images of Lister. Attacked. Captured. Thrown onto a prison ship and charged with all manner of heinous, unspeakable crimes. Crimes that he would never have committed - could never have committed. Rimmer recalled their group hallucination, all those months ago - Lister's worst nightmare persona, the version of himself that he feared most of all, had been a ruthless, heartless mass-murderer. Guilty of the very crimes for which Lister himself was now imprisoned.
"Mr. Rimmer? Sir?"
Kryten's voice brought Rimmer out of his reverie with an unpleasant jolt, and he turned sharply to face the mechanoid.
"How do I find him?"
The question was unusually direct and to the point - there was no trace of Rimmer's trademark sarcasm. Kryten paused, apparently considering his answer carefully.
"As far as I can tell, the complex itself is fairly simple in structure. In most respects it resembles a human prison - the inhabitants are kept individually in cells, divided according to the severity of their crime. Charged with multiple counts of first-degree murder, I can only assume that Mr. Lister will be on A deck. The top level - reserved for only the most dangerous and psychotic offenders." Kryten's voice was tinged with something which Rimmer had never heard there before; some close approximation of anger, mingled with a deep sadness.
Rimmer was silent - inwardly, his stomach was churning and his blood was boiling. How the smeg could anybody with any brainpower whatsoever think that Lister qualified as a dangerous, psychotic criminal? How could they throw him in a cell and leave him to rot when it was so painfully, blindingly obvious that this man would not be capable of harming a housefly, let alone another human being?
"Sir..." Kryten began, clearly hesitant. "There's nothing I can say to convince you further. This is the only plan we have, and I truly don't see any reasonable alternative. The choice is yours, but I hardly need remind you that if you refuse, Mr. Lister will be-"
"I'll go."
Kryten regarded Rimmer with surprise - he had clearly expected him to require rather more persuasion.
"How long do you need?"
"I'll leave as soon as possible."
Rimmer's jaw was set, his eyes oddly bright; filled with a newfound resolve. Kryten gazed at him for a long moment, almost mesmerised by this sudden and almost unnerving change in his demeanor. Eventually, he nodded.
"I'll just need a few moments to prepare the teleporter."
How many days it had been since he had last seen daylight, Lister could not have said. After the first ten, he had given up counting.
In this place, darkness was eternal. He had long since lost track of the days and nights, the endless hours and minutes and seconds he had spent alone, locked in this tiny, musty, pitch black cell. He could not remember the last time he had spoken, and had vaguely begun to wonder if he still could. All he could be sure of, the only thing he truly knew, was that he had not moved from this tiny, dank room since the day he had first awoken there, confused and terrified in equal measures.
The size of the cell was, he was sure, what would eventually drive him truly insane. During his time on Red Dwarf, he had grown accustomed to living in minimal, enclosed spaces. Never in his life had he suffered from claustrophobia. And yet there had been moments, during his endless, senseless incarceration, where he had felt the walls begin to close in around him, choking the air, smothering and suffocating him.
He found that he was no longer able to distinguish one thought from the next, jumbled as they were in his despair-crazed mind. His emotions ran senselessly into one another, so that he was no longer certain if he was feeling pain or grief or anger or despair or hatred. His one constant was loneliness. A consistent feeling of isolation, the knowledge that he was truly alone, that everybody and everything he thought he knew had abandoned him, left him to suffocate here in the dark.
He had cried; he remembered it. Remembered the warm tears spilling down his face, the hopeless, aching sobs that racked his entire body, the salty taste of despair beyond any hope of salvation. He had cried with the knowledge that he would never escape this place – the knowledge that, for whatever reason, he was believed to be a killer. A vicious, psychopathic murderer, or so he had heard. His sentence had been harsh and instantaneous. No explanation, no time to ask questions.
He had long since given up trying to make any sense of the injustice. The fact that he was innocent, the fact that the mere thought of committing such crimes was enough to make him feel sick, barely seemed relevant any more. He was empty now. He was a half man, a shell, alive but barely conscious, absent in his own body. His only brief, fleeting snatches of something resembling life were the inconsistent, fevered dreams, coming to him in the rare moments when he finally achieved some feeble imitation of sleep. Dreams, visions, images; each one racked with the same overwhelming sense of loss.
He longed for them. Longed in turn for each of them, their faces passing through his clouded mind, taunting him with a hope he had long since abandoned. He longed for Kryten's comforting, bumbling presence, the Cat's boundless energy, even Holly's deadpan quips. Most of all he longed for the man who, for so long, he had been determined to dislike. The man who he had since come to realise he relied upon in more ways than he had ever imagined. Rimmer had been brought back to keep Lister sane after the death of the crew. And despite their differences, despite how petty and condescending and downright infuriating he could sometimes be, Rimmer had done exactly that. He had kept Lister sane. Kept him grounded, given him something real to hold on to, however much it had annoyed him at the time.
He dreamed of Rimmer the most. A thousand different scenarios, each one him and Rimmer together; some were memory, some fantasy, and some he could not be sure of because they were always so real in the moment. Every time he woke up to face reality, the blade sunk a little deeper into his gut, the pain became a little more real, and the loneliness, the utter despair, gripped him a little more tightly.
He found now that he could recall every detail, every feature, and he did so regularly, clinging to the memory of the man who was, once again, the only thing keeping him sane. He remembered the tall, lean frame; the tousled, unruly dark hair; the gently angled face. The voice that was so often raised in anger or contempt, yet was at other times so quiet, so tender. He missed him. Missed him more than he missed anything else; air or light or life itself. His memory of Rimmer was so clear, so vivid, that it had become possible for him to convince himself, however briefly, that he was not alone, that Rimmer was here beside him, touching him and soothing him and speaking words of comfort.
It came as only a slight surprise, therefore, when he saw Rimmer himself standing in the doorway. It was another level of torture in the dream; the dream that was now so real, it was indistinguishable from reality. Fevered, fragmented memories were no longer enough – now his mind was determined to taunt him with a tangible presence, presenting him with this utterly convincing, perfectly formed mirage. The sight of Rimmer before him could bring him no hope; he knew that this façade, however appealing, would only serve to make reality more painful. He closed his eyes, blocking out the dream. The sooner he awoke, the better – it would end then. There would be no more hoping, no more dreaming. Nobody was coming for him. He was alone.
Standing in the doorway, peering into the darkness of the tiny hellhole in which Lister was imprisoned, Rimmer found himself suddenly paralysed. He had focused so exclusively on the task at hand, on penetrating the prison complex and locating Lister, that he had barely even stopped to consider what he would do once he had succeeded.
Deciding that the first step forward would be the hardest, Rimmer moved further into the room, barely suppressing a shudder as he looked around. It was the most unpleasant, claustrophobic space he had ever seen – tiny, stuffy, pitch dark. Almost entirely bare, with no sign of a window, a bed, or anything that might provide the slightest comfort. Lister himself was hunched in a corner, arms wrapped around his knees.
Moving closer, Rimmer could not suppress a gasp as he caught sight of Lister up close. He was literally skin and bone, his skin pale as death, and with a pang, Rimmer noted that his braids had been cut off. His eyes were closed, but as Rimmer continued to move towards him, they opened, focusing on him. He froze.
How do you address somebody who, since the last time you saw them, has been through more misery and pain and despair than any human should have to face in a lifetime? "Hello" seemed fairly inadequate. There were a thousand things Rimmer wished to say in that moment, every one of which seemed utterly worthless and redundant.
Though Lister's eyes were now open, they might just as well have remained closed, for there was nothing to see within the coffee-coloured orbs. There was no sign of the characteristic twinkle in Lister's eyes, no trace of the vitality and humour which Rimmer had grown to rely on. Far more unnerving than anything else was the fact that, even when Lister had caught sight of him, and had acknowledged his presence, his expression did not change. There was no flicker of hope in his eyes, no hint of a smile or a word on his lips - no sign, in fact, that he recognised Rimmer at all.
Swallowing hard, Rimmer moved to Lister's side, crouching down beside him and looking for any response, any sign that Lister even realised he was there.
"Lister?"
Lister's head jerked round, his eyes narrowing in confusion as he took in the sight of Rimmer beside him.
"You're not real."
Rimmer frowned, confused by this statement. After a moment, however, his eyes widened in comprehension, and he felt a stab of remorse. Lister did not believe he was here. After weeks spent alone in this hellhole, with no hope or reason to believe that he had not been forgotten, he was simply unable to comprehend the idea that somebody was here, that he had not been abandoned. Rimmer found that he could not stand the thought of Lister believing that they, Kryten and the Cat and himself, his friends, could ever have deserted him. It had taken them over a month just to track him down, not to mention developing a strategy to gain access to Cyberia. Never, not for a second, had there ever been a question of abandoning him. Rimmer longed to tell him this, but Lister was not even looking at him any more. His eyes were fixed on the opposite wall, and he was trembling, from cold or from hunger or from something else altogether.
"Lister?" No response. "Lister, look at me."
Slowly, very slowly, Lister turned, his eyes once again focussing on Rimmer's face. Rimmer's heart almost broke as he looked upon the face that he knew so well, the face that he now barely recognised. He had not truly realised just how fond of Lister he had become - now he felt a rush of affection stronger than any he had felt before. Reaching out, he placed a hand on Lister's trembling shoulder, and felt him flinch, as though he had been struck.
"Listy", Rimmer said softly, "it's me."
For a split second, Lister's eyes shone with something like hope. Seizing the chance, Rimmer moved closer, so that his face was mere inches from Lister's. Trembling more violently, Lister raised a hand to Rimmer's face, tracing the curves, the bone structure, terrified to believe what he had longed for so desperately. Rimmer concentrated on maintaining eye contact, willing Lister to believe him, to believe that he truly was here and this was not some trick of the mind.
For a few moments that seemed to last an eternity, there was silence. Then, quietly, wonderfully, his voice cracking from disuse, Lister spoke.
"Rimmer?"
Rimmer's heart leapt, and he nodded silently. Lister was breathing very fast, both hands now moving frantically over Rimmer's face, running through his hair, tracing the H on his forehead.
"Rimmer..." Lister breathed. All at once, he was shaking more than ever, tremors racking his entire body. Immediately, almost instinctively, Rimmer wrapped an arm around Lister's trembling shoulders, pulling him close to rest against his chest. Lister let out a long, deep, shuddering breath, tears of relief and joy welling in his eyes as he leaned against Rimmer, arms wrapping tightly around the hologram's torso.
Feeling the tears, begin to soak through his shirt, Rimmer pulled Lister more tightly to him, rubbing his back. "It's okay", he whispered, as Lister choked out a sob. "I'm here, you're okay..."
"Don't leave", came Lister's muffled voice.
"I'm not going anywhere, Listy", Rimmer whispered, his own voice choked with emotion.
For what could easily have been hours, the two remained as they were, Rimmer holding Lister in his arms as sobs racked the younger man's entire body. When he eventually began to quieten, and his breathing became steadily more even, Rimmer drew back slightly to look into his face. He was fast asleep.
Rimmer smiled slightly to himself. In sleep, at least, Lister looked peaceful. Rimmer knew that when he awoke, there would be questions and explanations and painful words. He knew that he would, sooner or later, have to leave. He tried to imagine telling Lister that they had not yet come up with any way of releasing him, tried to imagine leaving him alone once again, especially after the promise he had just made.
Sighing, Rimmer closed his eyes. Tomorrow would come, and with it would come pain. For now, they had tonight. For now, at least, they were at peace.