Right, everyone, the moment you've all been waiting for. The finale; wherein the status quo is restored in time for 'Back to Earth'.

There are a couple of personal references in this chapter, which I feel I should explain to you all. Khahkakakhakakhak's translated name is a genuine name, but in Hindi. In fact, it's the name of one of my 'bhabi's' or sisters in law - the wife of my husband's cousin who lives in Pakistan. Secondly, the Maori hakka reference is a tribute to my brother who lives in New Zealand, who I miss dearly.

I can see him dying.

I don't wanna do this anymore.

I don't wanna be the reason why.

Everytime I walk out the door,

I see him die a little more inside.

I don't wanna hurt him anymore.

I don't wanna take away his life.

I don't wanna be

A murderer.

- Rhianna, Unfaithful

Lister was in a daze.

The dark, abandoned corridors that snaked their way around the ship now mapped out the oft-beaten paths and half-forgotton memories of his mind, as he wandered aimlessly through the metal maze. As he trudged slowly on, fragments of old conversations and distant images flitted teasingly across his mind's eye of the many years that had passed between them. With the computer's instructions still echoing in his ears, he knew exactly what he had to do, but had a terrible fear of doing it. Clutching the small, battered laptop to his chest, he pressed on with renewed resolve, telling himself that everything would soon be back to normal. If it could dare be called such.

As the double doors to the Sleeping Quarters hissed open to let him through, Rimmer jumped visibly as he quickly swivelled to face him from where he stood at the bookcase grasping a book in Esperanto.

"Oh, hey!" Rimmer said quickly. He flashed a cursory, embarassed glance at the book in his hand before replacing it on the shelf. "Sorry, I was just - "

Lister interrupted him with a shake of the head. "No, it's ok, man," he assured.

It was disconcerting to see someone rifling through a dead man's possessions, but one could argue that the ghost before him was merely reclaiming what was once his. With a grateful nod, Rimmer turned his attentions back to the bookshelf, his fingers running across the worn spines that punctuated the far older chapters of his life.

Lister pulled up a swivel chair at the central table and opened up the laptop before him. Checking to see that Rimmer was still preoccupied, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small computer slug that Wildfire's mainframe had given him, and slotted it into the side of the laptop. The screen immediately illuminated with an eerie green glow as reams of text signified that the program was loading as it began the arduous task of connecting remotely to the Hologram Projection Suite. True to form, a series of error messages flashed before him, apologising for the poor wireless signal.

"Argh, stupid piece of JMC crap - " Lister muttered under his breath.

Rimmer glanced over his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

Lister gave an amused snort as if to mask his nerves. "I promised Holly I'd go through his database and delete some old trash files," he lied. "But the wireless connection is about as dodgy as some of Khakhkhahakhkkakhak's moves on our wedding night."

A smirk tugged at the side of Rimmer's mouth before an amused giggle spluttered forth helplessly. Lister echoed his giggle but with a distinct air of distant puzzlement, the joke seemingly lost on him.

"What? What's so funny?"

Rimmer shook his head apologetically. "Sorry," he laughed, as he replaced a book detailing 1001 Famous Chat Up Lines on the shelf. "But I'm fairly sure you meant Khahkakakhakakhak instead, right?"

"Rimmer, they both sound like inbred country villages in the lost Welsh lowlands. What's the difference?"

Rimmer folded his arms loosely and shrugged as he turned to face him. "Well, the latter means 'The Feel in the Air Before it Rains', which is probably her preferred name. The former intimates that you like to - " He smirked helplessly once more. "Well, let's just say I didn't realise you were that way inclined to swamp rats."

Lister grimaced at the cheap shot. "Smeg off, Rimmer. You always have to - " he paused as the realisation eventually filtered through the tangle of retaliating insults ready to fire. "Hang on. You speak Kinitowawi?"

The smirk drained from Rimmer's face as his cheeks flushed red. "Well, I guess. A bit." The tip of his boot scuffed at the floor, embarassed. "It's a programme in my light bee, which translates a small handful of GELF languages. Enough to get by. 'Where's the train station?' 'How much is this cup of tea?' 'Please don't skin me alive, I've come to help you.' You know, the usual stuff. Apparantly, I have a terrible accent."

Lister stared at him openly, taken aback at Rimmer's apparant display of modesty. "So did you meet my missus in this other dimension?" he asked eventually with a grin.

Rimmer nodded. "A rival GELF tribe had kidnapped her. I fought alongside the Kinitowawi in the battle to get her back."

"Really?" Lister was shocked. The old Rimmer would have run screaming for the hills at the first sign of a scuffle.

"A chance to experience the famous Kinitowawi morkhta first hand? I'd be mad not to!"

Lister's brow furrowed in confusion. "Morkhta?"

"A battle cry," Rimmer explained. "Like a cross between a Masai war chant and a Maori hakka." He thrust forth his arm across his chest as if holding a shield. "Si hata! Si morta! It is life! It is death!" he cried, first in Kinitowawi and then translating for Lister's benefit.

"Amazing - " Lister nodded absently, before turning back to the laptop and continuing to type surreptitiously. He knew that Rimmer was a huge war geek, and would once spend hours in the evenings aboard Red Dwarf playing Risk or reading war diaries. But it seemed incredibly disconcerting to know that he'd actually seen battle. And, slightly more worryingly, enjoyed it.

Rimmer beat his chest with his brandished fist. "Madha wat, seeh lathk do wat mort ha neh khoosa!" He raced excitedly behind Lister still sat in the swivel chair at the table and grabbed him playfully, pinning him with one arm across the chest. "Be afraid, for I am he who climbed to the sky and fought the sun - "

Lister's stomach plummeted as Rimmer tailed off, his grip on his chest slowly loosening, numb with realisation. A meek glance behind him confirmed that Rimmer had cottoned on to the reams of text that streamed on the screen before them, as he he stared mutely in shocked awe. Lister's gaze dropped to his hands knotting nervously in his lap.

"Rimmer - "

"Eta suway neh mehina bhatwa."

A sigh hissed through Lister's teeth as his eyes closed softly. "Please, just listen - "

"And I shall not fear what I see before me," Rimmer translated sadly, his gaze still locked with the screen in front of him.

Lister's eyes flitted suspciously between Rimmer, the screen, and Rimmer once more, before taking a steadying breath. "Do you know what this program is?" he asked carefully.

Rimmer shook his head slowly as he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the screen, and swallowed. "I was hoping the computer had forgotton," he said distantly. "She told me that there's only two ways to stop being Ace. Death, or - " He grimaced as a sharp bolt of pain lanced through his chest, so merely nodded towards the screen in indication. " - this."

Lister noticed that Rimmer was in pain but had the good grace to gloss over it to spare his embarassment. "You don't seem overly enamoured with it though," he nodded to the screen. "Don't you understand? This will cure you."

Rimmer sniffed as the pain subsided, replaced by a hot, dull ache once more. "Quod me nutrit, me destruit, Lister. By curing me, it's effectively going to kill me."

Lister sighed, exasperated. "Rimmer, it's not like that."

"Yes it is," Rimmer insisted. He glanced at the screen once more. "That program will wipe my entire memory of being Ace. I won't be me anymore."

"But your time as Ace has been so tough on you - "

Rimmer waved his hand dismissively. "But Lister, don't you see? I had to go through all of that. It's made me harder and stronger than I've ever been." He stood straight, hands proffered before him. "It's made me who I am," he announced proudly.

Lister was silent, his eyes searching the man before him before dropping awkwardly to the floor. Rimmer's confident smile slowly sank, his brow furrowing as he pursed his lips questioningly before stopping in realisation.

"But you don't like who I've become, do you?" he managed quietly, resentment bubbling under the surface of his words.

Unable to answer, Lister simply returned his accusing look and pushed back his question. "Do you?"

Rimmer gave nothing in return. The air between them hung stagnant as they stared openly at one another, the deep hum of the engines shadowing the silence between them. Eventually, Lister shook his head in disbelief.

"Back there in the Cargo Bay, with that simulant," Lister explained quietly. "I've never seen you look like that before." He searched his old bunkmate's eyes for a glimmer of recognition. "You were ready to kill him, weren't you? You looked so angry."

"Angry?" Rimmer echoed with a snort. "That doesn't come close to how I felt seeing Pizzak again." He tracked around the table, his dark eyes flitting in examination across the various notes and papers that littered its surface. "That piece of metal trash got everything he deserved."

Lister shook his head loosely in disbelief as he watched Rimmer pick up a book to examine its cover before discarding it just as quickly, taken aback at his chilling nonchalance. "That doesn't sound like you at all," he insisted.

Rimmer rounded on him, exasperated. "What's your problem? Why are you trying to paint me as the bad guy in all this?" He thrust his finger out beside him as if to indicate someone no longer there. "He's the one that slaughtered hundreds of defenceless people. I simply sought revenge."

Lister stared back hard. "Revenge for who? Them or you?"

For a moment, the accusatory finger remained hovering in mid-air as if frozen in shock, before dropping numbly to Rimmer's side. Open-mouthed, he blinked unsteadily, as if Lister's words had caused him physical harm. "That's not fair," he uttered mournfully, before his resolve and features hardened and he slammed his palms onto the table before him. "That is not fair! Those simulants destroyed everything!" Leaning across the table, he stared at Lister accusingly. "You really think that every choice in this universe is either 'good' or 'bad'? 'Right' or 'wrong'? That day, those simulants made me choose between a death sentence for you or the people of the Exodus - "

Lister watched as the anger drained from Rimmer's face, leaving in its wake the nightmares of the moment that had plagued his every thought since, before his head drooped forward with a ragged sigh, defeated. Although he felt terrible for what Rimmer had been forced to go through, a small part of him glimmered with a distant realisation that part of his old bunkmate had still survived.

"And you've not been able to forgive yourself ever since," Lister nodded, understanding. He paused awkwardly, remembering the computer's recollection of events. "Is that why you drink?" he asked carefully.

Rimmer's head raised slowly, returning his gaze through shadowed eyes before he pushed away from the table.

"Don't you dare judge me," he growled. "You don't even know me anymore."

Lister returned his hurtful stare. "No," he concurred sadly. "I don't."

Tearing his gaze away, Rimmer paced up and down beside the viewport window like a caged lion, his face like thunder. "Who are you to judge how I cope with it all, anyway?" he muttered angrily. "They'd practically killed me." He dragged quivering fingers through the curls of his hair and gripped hard. "I needed a few days to straighten my head out, that's all - "

"Rimmer," Lister cut in, emphatically as he crossed the room slowly to close the gap between them. "The computer said that you haven't been Ace for the last year now."

Shocked, Rimmer swivelled to face him, his face flushed with embarassment. "Wow, is there anything the computer didn't tell you?" he laughed nervously as he tugged harder at his hair. Suddenly, he doubled up in agony as a hot, stabbing pain lanced through his chest once more. He struggled to keep on his feet as he panted visibly, his shoulders heaving with effort.

Lister couldn't ignore it any longer. "Rimmer, can't you see it's destroying you?" he implored. "Wildfire's computer told me that the other Aces had an average survival rate of two or three years max. You've been doing this for almost ten years. It's wearing you down." He fell silent for a moment as he recalled the computer's explanation. "It's not a hardware problem, it's the memory data, it can't cope. It's the human equivilant of a breakdown." He extended an uncertain hand towards Rimmer's shoulder. "Let me help you."

Rimmer batted the hand away weakly. "Just leave me alone," he spat back, as with great difficulty he turned away to lean against the glass of the viewport window. "I don't need help and I don't need pity. Especially from you."

Lister stared at his back, incredulous. "You're being ridiculous, Rimmer. You can't keep punishing yourself like this." When no reply came, his voice dropped to a murmur as he regarded him sadly. "The computer says your lightbee is dangerously close to burnout. She's given you six, maybe seven weeks to live if we don't erase the affected memory data."

Rimmer snorted in amusement as he gazed out at the depths of space, his eyes flitting over each of the stars that twinkled silently back at him.

"When I left," he began quietly, "I thought we'd seen it all, you know?" He shook his head with a distant smile. "There's so much out there, you can't even begin to imagine. The things I've seen!"

The icy cold glass buzzed with energy against the slick, hot sweat that glistened his forehead, shaking loose a flurry of memories. Slowly, his look of contentment sagged under the weight of the dark nightmares that began to return; violent, black images that still haunted him.

"The things I've seen - " he echoed darkly.

"Rimmer - ?"

The hologram blinked slowly, feeling himself on the precipace between death and immortality. A memory, half-buried, half-forgotton, clawed its way to the surface.

"I'd only been Ace for a year or so," Rimmer recounted quietly, his eyes staring out into space, unseeing. "Wildfire was picking up an SOS from a GELF ship in the Blerios sector. They'd been attacked by simulants, many of them were dead. The few survivors were stranded with no fuel, food or water, so I picked them up and took them to the nearest survivor's colony." He blinked slow and steady. "The Exodus."

Lister's eyes closed softly in sympathy. "Rimmer, you don't have to."

Rimmer gave an empty, hollow laugh. "They were so grateful. They wouldn't stop thanking me for saving them." He swallowed hard. "Their names were on the list of the dead."

Lister remained silent as he slowly joined him at the window, their reflections in the window blurring together at the edges.

Rimmer's eyes pricked red. "I can't stop thinking about it," he said mournfully, the edges of his voice unsteady. "What if I'd have played it differently? If I'd have done something, said something different, I don't know." He screwed his eyes closed, pressing his forehead hard into the glass as if he hoped it would break. "It keeps going round and round and won't stop."

Lister heaved a ragged sigh. "Rimmer, I know in the past we haven't ever seen eye to eye, but I can't just stand here and watch you suffer like this," he said sadly. "No man should ever have to even make that terrible decision, let alone be left to deal with the aftermath." He raised a shaking hand to pat him reassuringly on the shoulder, but something about the act seemed so futile and beyond help that he let it drop heavily back to his side as he shook his head desperately. "Rimmer, please. You need help. We need you back with us." Lister's voice dropped to a barely audible whisper. "I can't lose you again. Please."

Lister watched as Rimmer stared at his reflection before his dark hazel eyes drooped closed in a pained frown. Wordlessly, he turned away from the viewport window, leaving a forgotton hand to streak down the glass before it followed reluctantly as trance-like, Rimmer staggered slowly towards the laptop and caught the edge of the table to steady himself. His fingers hovered uncertainly over the keyboard for a moment before they began to type, drawing up the information on the data deletion and rewrites, restoring the remote connection.

"I've asked Holly to copy elements of memory data from your nano self," Lister explained quietly as he followed him to the table. "Just some past events, not the personality, so hopefully you shouldn't feel too disorientated."

"I noticed." The edge of Rimmer's mouth twitched in a polite smile before dropping immediately. "Thanks."

Rimmer's stared warily at the laptop before him. It was a tiny device, but powerful enough to wipe everything he'd ever seen, he'd ever heard, he'd ever experienced, and ever felt for the last ten years from his memory. And something about that scared him far more than the hordes of murderous simulants and hostile GELFs he'd ever encountered.

"Wait!" he implored quickly. His eyes and hands scrabbled over the chocolate wrappers, empty Leopard Lager cans and status reports that littered the table until he located the copy of Astronavigation for Idiots. Opening the cover, he tore out the first page.

Lister started. "Woah, hang on. What are you doing?"

"I'm sure I can forgive myself," Rimmer replied with a dark, bitter irony. Grabbing a black biro from the ring of his revison folder, he began to write on the page he'd torn from the book. "Anyway, this is more important." He blinked quickly. "It's the most important thing in the universe - " His writing began to shake as tears gathered in his eyes, the pen falling heavy to the table in defeat as he finished. With eyes screwed shut, his chest quivering with restrained sobs, he slid the piece of paper across to Lister.

His entire body cold with shock, Lister's own shaking hands reached out to take the piece of paper from Rimmer's, his eyes not tearing away from the broken hero before him. When he eventually glanced down at the paper, he noticed that the writing was a far cry from the obsessively neat script Rimmer was usually capable of. It was the final scribbles of a desperate man.

Rimmer locked Lister in a frantic stare, his cheeks now flushed red as the tears began to tremble silently down his face. "I won't remember it. But it can't be forgotton." His face melted in sorrow as he shook his head desperately. "Please, don't let me forget it. Keep it safe."

Lister stared back at him openly with quivering eyes. Clamping his lips together, he nodded.

Rimmer's outstretched fingers on the table curled as his hand retreated back towards him, and he shifted his blurry focus back to the laptop screen. The reams of scrolling green text had now disipated, replaced with a single line.

Execute? Hit Return.

The irony of the words ran a chill up Rimmer's spine. His finger hovered nervously over the 'Return' key.

"For what it's worth?" Lister ventured sadly. "I think you were an amazing Ace." He tipped his head forward in a solemn, grateful nod, the tears now running unashamedly down his face. "Thank you for saving us."

A weary smile inched its way across Rimmer's face, warmth flooding his chest as he absorbed the words he'd been so desperate to hear for the last ten years.

"Worth it," he mumbled to nobody in particular.

Then he hit 'Return'.

The effect was almost immediate; Lister watched, transfixed with fear as with a sudden gasp, Rimmer's eyes rolled upwards into his head, his eyelids flitting quickly as if he were caught in the flashes of REM sleep. His face twitched and writhed in discomfort as he stood stock still, the odd meaningless word falling loosely from his mouth as the data files were called up then deleted, and his memory rewritten.

Rimmer felt the full, sickening onslaught as the Hologram Simulation Suite remotely wiped ten years worth of stored data from his mind. He was vaguely aware of someone calling his name, but the voice sounded muffled, as if it were calling to him through thick glass. Hundreds and thousands of images, memories and sensations flitted past his eyes before disappearing entirely. Some only appeared fleetingly in his peripheral vision before skittering away from comprehension, too swift for him to interpret. Others were as stark and real as the day he'd first remembered them; feeling like handholds that gave a glimmer of hope before giving way just as quickly as he fell freefall down the steep slope to the blackness he could sense below.

The last thing he saw was a face. Then nothing.

As the last dredges of the memory data frittered away, Rimmer's eyes blinked heavily as he grasped the edge of the table for support with a shuddered moan. Moving quickly and instinctively, Lister dropped the piece of paper clutched in his hand and scrabbled across towards Rimmer in time to catch him before he hit the deck, and buckling under the weight of the taller man, sank to the floor with him. Eventually, Rimmer's eyes heaved themselves reluctantly open, his pupils shrinking and dilating as he strained to focus.

"Rimmer, man, can you hear me? Are you ok?"

Rimmer blinked in surprise as his eyes took in his surroundings before eventually falling on Lister. A look of extreme discomfort and embarassment thundered through his face as his usual defence mechanisms kicked in.

"What the smeg do you think you're doing, you stupid gimboid?" Rimmer cried, apalled as he batted away Lister's hands.

Lister's face sank as he took in the old, snidy tone. "Sorry man," he mumbled emptily, his eyes dropped to the floor. "You collapsed and I was trying to help yer."

Rimmer's nose wrinkled in confusion. "Well, if there's a glitch in my projection, don't you think it should be Holly that looks into it rather than you? A man with less IQ points than a lettuce?"

"Sorry."

Rimmer's eyes narrowed as he watched Lister wipe the tears from his cheeks with the back of his black leather, studded glove.

"What's with you, you sappy smegger?" he sniped. "Been watching one of those god-awful romantic movies again? Or just caught a rather nasty whiff of your moonboots?"

Lister stood, drawing his hand across his nose. "Nothing, man. Just forget it," he murmured. Without looking back, he headed out of the door and towards the MediBay. "I will."

Rimmer hauled himself unsteadily to his feet, his long, gangly legs quivering under his weight like a new-born foal as he staggered across the Sleeping Quarters towards the mirror above the sink. His mind throbbed and pulsed hot, as if he'd just woken up with a terrible hangover, leaving his memories and recollections vague and strangely hued in black and white. Blinking unsteadily at his reflection, he realised why his eyes and cheeks felt so flushed and slick.

He'd been crying.

His eyebrows pinched in confusion as he swivelled back towards the doors of the Sleeping Quarters and then back to his reflection. He shrugged as he wiped away the old tears that stung his cheeks, telling himself it must be another glitch in his projection.

Rimmer swivelled on his heels to survey the sleeping quarters, an angry hiss whistling through his teeth. The place was a mess. Tutting and muttering incredulities, he began to sweep away the disgusting remnants of Lister's midnight snacking and re-stacked his revision notes. As he grabbed his open copy of Astronavigation for Idiots, he noticed that the first page had been torn out haphazardly.

He shook with rage. If Lister had used it for roaches in his roll-up cigarettes, he'd take the entire ship's stash of tobacco and flush it into deep space.

But it was then that he noticed it; the torn page detailing the theory on porous circuits lying abandoned on the floor. With an audible growl, he snatched it up and smoothed out the wrinkles on the table, only noticing after a few strokes the black scrawled notes written across the margin.

M.M.

357240

35.65.472

He blinked, puzzled. It was his handwriting alright. Although by the look of it, he must have had a few large drinks before scrawling this strange, cryptic code. Yet despite the fact it carried no logical meaning, something instinctive told him to keep it. So for years to come, he used it as a bookmark for his revision notes.

Indeed, it was the most important piece of information in the universe. At least it was for Arnold J. Rimmer.

For it detailed the initials, dimension, and co-ordinate location of his son.

The End.

Well I promised some of you a true head-f*ck of an ending, and I hope that I have delivered! But don't despair, I wouldn't dream of writing an ending like this without following through. I'm currently working on another Ace prequel called 'Blurry', so look out for that coming soon. Those of you who have read Doug Naylor's novel, 'Last Human' will know exactly who 'M.M' is...

Reviews would be much appreciated, I'd love to hear what you all think. Many thanks for your continuing support and kind words throughout this fic. It's been fun.