Title: "Recovery"
Characters: Lister and Rimmer, mainly
Setting: Immediate aftermath of s5x04 "Quarantine"
Disclaimer: All credit to Grant Naylor Productions, etc.

Summary: Rimmer is a git, and Lister is reluctantly sympathetic (against his better instincts)

"I don't know how you talked me into this, grease stain," the Cat said. "Red and white? With my complexion? I'm out of here." He spun off without his usual aplomb, probably in a hurry to get started on the grooming.

"Sir, I fear I don't entirely understand the need to dress this way," Kryten said. "Has it 'been a laugh', yet? I never know if I have missed the humorous—"

"Forget it, Kryten," Lister sighed.

"Very well, sir," Kryten said. He did something with his head, and said, "Forgotten. Do you need me for anything else, sir? The ironing must be piling up. I'm almost certain Mr Rimmer hasn't been laundering while we've been incarcerated!"

"It's fine, just go." Lister waved him off.

"Have you all gone completely mad?" Rimmer was demanding in the quarantine room. "Is this some kind of joke?"

"You've had a bit of a spell, mate," Lister said gleefully, leaning in to the screen. "You're going to have to stay in there for a bit til we're sure you're clean."

"What?" Rimmer went to sit up, blinked, fell back a bit. "What are you on about, you gimboid?"

"Not a breadbasket, though, eh?" Lister grinned. "See ya, mate."

He keyed off the screen. Rimmer wouldn't be able to see him, but he could still see the hologram. Surprisingly there wasn't much response from Rimmer, just a vague nostril-flare and some blinking at the ceiling.

"He's not fully recovered yet, Dave," Holly said, speaking from a screen to Lister's right. "You know that, right?"

"I'm not fully smegging recovered," Lister said. "He nearly killed us, Hol."

"Well, that's true," Holly said. "In his defence, he wasn't exactly in his right mind."

"Rimmer has a right mind?" Lister pulled off the dress he'd shoved over his jacket. "Could have fooled me."

"And he did try to stop it," Holly said. "A bit."

"Yeah? Wasn't very successful, obviously." Lister pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He glanced back at the screen, where Rimmer appeared to be blinking at his own hand, and frowned. "He's not going to go spare again, is he?"

"No, the virus is out of his system," Holly said, pacing Lister on a screen down the hall as he began to walk. "Mostly."

"Mostly?" Lister looked up, alarmed.

"The reboot cleared it, yeah, but some of the side effects have to work their way out. Confusion, image instability, that kind of thing."

"But no insanity, right? No more mind reading and hex vision?"

"Oh, no, they're gone."

Lister relaxed. "I think," Holly added.

"Holly!"

"No, they're definitely gone. I'm sure of it. But the virus nearly sapped his life force, Dave – it came close to destroying him. He's not going to be back to normal for a bit."

Lister grunted. "Serves him right. Hey, where were you when all this was happening, anyway? How come you only turned up in time to get him into the quarantine room?"

"I managed to lock him out of the quarantine room controls early on," Holly said. "Thought it best if you lot were in there while he was out here."

"He shut down the oxygen, Hol!"

"Yeah," Holly frowned. "I didn't think of everything, really." She blinked. "By that point he'd shut me out of the hologrammatic access codes. I couldn't get into the environmental controls either. They're isolated to that room, you know. Took me all that time to get through what he'd done."

"Rimmer? Shut you out?" Lister looked at her as he turned a corner in the corridor. Holly blinked back at him. He knew she was getting a bit more senile every day, but… "Rimmer can't even override the vending machine controls. He's completely hopeless."

"Bit embarrassing, really," Holly said. "Think the virus might have had something to do with it."

Lister shrugged. "I need some decent food," he said.

Holly didn't say anything for a bit. Then she said, "Are you really going to leave him in there, Dave?"

"The smeghead nearly killed us," Lister pointed out. "Yeah, I think I will for a bit."

"All right then," Holly said after a moment, and flicked off.

Lister went to find something to eat. He had to get the taste of smegging sprouts out of his mouth before he went spare as well.

He keyed for the last thing programmed in the food dispenser – some kind of fish meal; probably one of the Cat's. He washed it down with a can of beer. The Cat was off somewhere, probably spending time with his suits, and Kryten was in the service area. Lister was all too happy not to see either of them at the moment. In fact, if he didn't see them for a good week or two, he'd be just fine.

He found by his bunk the magazine he'd been reading before they'd gone down to the scientific outpost where Doctor Complete Nutter had been waiting. It was one of Rimmer's – Military and Might, issue 17. Lister climbed up to his bunk, thumbed through it, then sighed. He'd already drawn in makeup on all the generals months ago. Rimmer had flipped his lid when he'd seen it. That had been a good morning.

Lister flicked the magazine away. There were always his comics, but he'd read even the bad ones through at least a dozen times. Besides, he wasn't in the mood.

He lay back. The ceiling of his bunk was a bit dull, he thought – maybe there was a poster somewhere in one of the lockers he'd missed. Bit of colour, brighten it up. Maybe if he moved the other one around from the side—

"Ah, smeg it," he said. He shifted and jumped down.

"Everything all right, Dave?" Holly said, popping up on the screen.

"He's a smegging git, you know," Lister said. He pointed at her. "You owe me, Hol."

"Too right," said Holly. She blinked out, and was on the screen when Lister got down to the quarantine room.

"What's he doing now?" Lister said. He hadn't keyed the light, so Rimmer couldn't see him, but he could quite clearly see the hologram sort of wavering on his feet by the bed. Rimmer seemed to have one hand behind his back and was glaring at the door.

"Don't know," said Holly.

"He's not gone off his head again, has he?"

Holly's gaze went past him for a moment. "He might be a bit confused, but he's not mad. Well. He's still Arnold." She looked at him. "You know."

"Oh, I know," Lister said. He exhaled, then strode around to the door and keyed it open, stepping in. "All right, Rimmer?"

Rimmer blinked at him owlishly, then grimaced in something that was probably supposed to be a smile. "Ah," he said, walking over. "Listy. Listy, Listy, Listy. Knew it would be you. This is one of your little jokes, then, hmm? One of your funny little ha-ha pranks?"

Lister eyed him. His voice had that edge that generally meant Rimmer was only just clinging to rationality by his fingernails – it was usually followed by an explosion about Lister's socks or the misalignment of his chair or something. "You what?"

"My hand, Lister." Rimmer held up his hand.

Lister recoiled, in case it was a smegging puppet, but he could see Rimmer's fingers – "Oh," he said. Apart from the fact they were transparent.

"Yes, very funny," Rimmer said. "Fix it."

"It's not me, man." Lister opened his hands. "Holly said you might have a bit of – what did she say? Image instability. Nothing serious."

"Nothing serious? I can see through my hand!"

"Do you remember what happened?"

"What happened?"

Lister frowned. Rimmer's voice was distorted. He seemed to flicker, and his colour went – odd, kind of muted, like that old shirt of Lister's that Kryten had used industrial-strength bleach on. He missed those custard stains. They'd given it character, they had.

"Yeah," Lister said. "Remember the holovirus? Langstrom?"

Rimmer gave him a bewildered look. Then he turned the look on his hand, then the floor. "Can't—" he said, and fell forward. Lister went to grab him – pure reflex – but Rimmer fell through his arm and shoulder.

Lister blinked as Rimmer stumbled and righted himself. Rimmer gave him a strange look – startled and confused, vulnerability laid a little barer than normal for Rimmer – and rubbed his hand, or went to, but his fingers passed through his palm. Rimmer reacted with an even greater expression of horror.

"Er," Lister said. "Maybe you should sit back down." He backed up as Rimmer slowly went to the bench and winced as Rimmer lay down, but fortunately the bench gave the appearance of holding the semi-transparent Rimmer.

Lister rubbed his arm and shoulder. There'd been no particular sensation when Rimmer fell through him, but it felt like there should have been. He'd forgotten how weird it was. Apart from a couple of incidents back after he'd first come out of stasis, he tended to treat Rimmer as though he was solid, because it was just easier that way. He didn't even have to think about it anymore, really.

"Okay?" he said to Rimmer.

"Not really," Rimmer said, sounding more shaken than scornful for once.

"You were infected with a holovirus," Lister said.

"A what?" Rimmer's voice hitched an octave or two. "What does it do? Has it affected my light bee? Can I still leave the ship?"

"Holly says-"

"Oh, God, I'm dying," Rimmer said.

"You're not dying, man," Lister said in irritation. "The main symptoms are gone. Holly says you'll be fine."

Rimmer relaxed slightly. Then he squinted. "Wait a minute. Langstrom was that doctor you lot were going to replace me with-"

"-we weren't going to replace you-"

"-oh, shut up, Lister. Did you expect me to believe that time share rubbish?- she was the one chasing you around the base." Rimmer clicked his fingers. "Doctor Fruitloop. I caught that virus? The holo version of talking to trees and trying to eat your neighbour?"

"Wait," said Lister. He stepped toward Rimmer. "You heard us down there?"

"What?"

"We called through for assistance because she was trying to fry us! You were carrying on like you couldn't hear-" Lister thought back, then said, "Oh, you smeghead, Rimmer."

"Oh, please."

"For all you knew we could have been killed by that nutter!"

"Obviously you weren't," Rimmer said, in that smarmy tone of voice he used when he thought he was being reasonable.

"We almost were!"

Rimmer was sitting up now, and seemed to - for the moment - have forgotten his preoccupation with his transparency. "What was I supposed to do?" he said. "Hologram, remember? Dead, can't touch? It wasn't like I could have swung in to the rescue like that poncing smegging nancy from the purple dimension." He patted himself down, and looked at his hands dubiously, then back at Lister. "Now," he said, "more importantly, what happened to me?"

"You went nuts," Lister said. "Completely 'round the bend. The bend wasn't even in sight from where you were."

"No I didn't," Rimmer said uncertainly.

"Oh yes you did."

"How?"

"Wearing a dress?" Lister said. "Chasing us with a hand-puppet?"

Rimmer stared at him, wide-eyed. "That's ridiculous."

"Mr Flibble," Lister said, sing-song.

Rimmer stared at him for another moment, then frantically patted himself down again, as though feeling for lingering traces of insanity. "I'm fully recovered now, though," he said faintly. "Aren't I? I'm not going to suddenly go nutserooni? I feel a bit strange."

Lister narrowed his eyes warily.

"- like Aunt Edith, Mother always said she died in a freak accident but Frank said she was sent away after that incident involving the sheep -"

"Rimmer," Lister said. "Holly said that you'll be back to normal in a bit. The rest of us are still recovering, you know. Kryten's got an axe-shaped hole in his back thanks to you. Could have been me or Cat." He pulled a chair out from the side wall and sat, propping his leg over the bench. "You realise this is the second time in under a month you've nearly gotten us all killed? You're a real headcase, man."

Rimmer didn't say anything. Lister glanced up at him, frowned, and said, "Rimmer?"

"Is it?" Rimmer said.

"What?" Lister said.

"I don't know," Rimmer said. He stood, then stopped, wavering.

"You feeling all right?" Lister said suspiciously.

"Just - topping," Rimmer said, a bit distantly.

Lister peered at him. His power looked like it was on a downturn again, colours ebbing. Lister could see the dim shape of the light bee through the dusky red of his uniform. It created a strange effect as Rimmer sank back down against the bunk.

Lister scratched his chin. He leaned his head back, closed his eyes, shook his head. He hadn't slept properly, locked in here with the Cat and Kryten. His eyes felt gritty.

"It's just," Rimmer said, his voice indistinct, "my mind's all I have."

He sounded so unlike himself that Lister's attention was caught; he looked across, but Rimmer had his eyes shut. Lister stood and crossed so that he could see him properly. "You what?" he said cautiously.

Rimmer's eyes opened and he looked at Lister blurrily for a moment, then his eyebrows drew together. "Nothing," he said.

Lister bent down. "If that's all you've got, you're stuffed, man."

Rimmer looked at him in genuine annoyance. "Lister, can't you go away?"

"I've been in here five days," Lister said. "It's grown on me, you know. Feels like home."

Rimmer exhaled sharply.

"What did you mean about your mind?" Lister asked curiously, pulling his chair over to the end of the bench, side on with the bunk. He picked up one of the crocheted hats and eyed it. A piece of thread hung out; he pulled it, and it started to unravel.

"I didn't mean anything," Rimmer said. "Leave me alone."

"Come on," Lister said, turning the hat inside out. "You must have meant something."

"Well, it's true, isn't it? I don't have a body anymore. I can't feel or touch. All I've got is my mind to make me me."

"Yeah, but that's true for everyone."

"Not when my mind is the only part of me that exists, gimboid breath."

Lister strung the thread around his fingers as he considered that. Rimmer complaining about his hologrammatic existence wasn't new, though he did it less than he used to - and hadn't whined about being dead for a while, come to think of it. Even now he sounded more resigned than anything else.

"You had a physical existence on that holoship," Lister pointed out after a bit. "You could have stayed there." He looked at Rimmer as he twitched. "What?"

Rimmer shut his eyes. "Yes," he said. "Let's just leave that one be, shall we?"

Lister looked at him, truly puzzled, but let it lie, as he had in the past. Something about that incident seemed to tease out real emotion in Rimmer beyond the usual mess of neuroticism and ego, though Lister couldn't for the life of him work out what it was.

He eyed Rimmer as he lay there, but made his voice neutral as he said, "Whatever, man."

Rimmer didn't say anything else as Lister fiddled with the hat. When he glanced at him, Rimmer's eyes were still closed. He waited for a while, but Rimmer didn't move. His posture was the closest Rimmer ever got to relaxed, forehead creased, fingers spasming then stilling. "You'll be okay," Lister said. He added, "Smeghead," for good measure, and stood and left the quarantine room.

"Is he asleep?" he asked Holly outside.

"Yup," Holly said. She blinked. "You should be glad you don't have to see his dreams."

"No thanks," Lister said. He turned on his heel, and headed down the corridor.

"Shift him to the main bunk?" Holly said behind him.

"Yeah," Lister sighed. "Might as smegging well."

He went to find Kryten and see if he needed a hand with the axe-hole in his back.

-end-