A/N

I DO NOT KNOW WHY I DID THIS

Okay, so, as someone who's owned a lot of cats I can tell the non-cat owners that before most cats die they crawl away to die alone. It's just a thing that they do.

He wasn't a sure what it was. An emptiness; a dull, heavy lead weight in the bottom of his stomach. It filled him up, gradually, until he wasn't hungry any more, wasn't excited the way he used to be, wasn't anything. A cold anxiety that spread from the base of his neck, down beneath his ribs, into the tips of his fingers and his toes, and it didn't matter how much he flexed them he couldn't coax the warmth back.

He started avoiding the others, his friends. Unease began to accompany their voices, even when they were warm and slow with concern. A lingering discomfort that he could not identify nor shake. It became easier to retreat down corridors when he heard their voices, to stay still and quiet when their footsteps passed by outside, to hunker down in dark rooms when they opened doors to look for him.

Everything was slowing - his reflexes, his mind, everything. It wasn't until he found himself heading for the elevator that he knew, though. Really knew. Once it had clicked into place everything suddenly became a lot easier, like that lead weight had been lifted. He pulled the handkerchief from his front pocket, briefly ran the smooth fabric between his fingers before letting it drop to the cold metal of the floor. He shrugged off his jacket, let that fall, too, then threw his shirt onto the pile of crumpled fabric. Seeing his clothes in distress like that would have devastated him before, but now it didn't mean anything at all. The cool air in the corridor was soothing against his skin.

Numbly, he pressed one hand, slightly shaking, against the wall, and then moved so the rest of his torso was against it as well, cheek and chest pushed against the cold metal. A smell lingered there, faint – the perfume from his spray bottle.

"Mine," he whispered faintly, breath fogging up the smooth, reflective surface.

"Uh, hey… Hey buddy… You okay there?" asked a concerned vending machine, but he ignored it. "Hey, hey pal… You alright? You lost your shirt there. Is that a problem? That seems like the kind of thing that might constitute a problem. Ain't ya cold?"

He'd been cold even before he'd taken off his shirt.

He kept pushed against the wall and he started to move down the corridor, breathing in the familiar smell, fingers prying into every groove he could find, like he was trying to keep hold of something he couldn't quite grasp.

"Buddy, you having some kind of break-down, here? Should I be… Should I be calling for help?"

He passed the vending machine, which bleeped at him forlornly.

"Pal, you want some coffee or something?"

He left it behind.

The elevator button was smooth and cold beneath his fingertips, and the ding of the cubicle's arrival sounded like the trumpets of Fuschal. He stepped inside and sat down, folding his hands in front of him on his lap and settling in to wait.

That level of the cargo bay hit him like a slap in the face. The cripple and the fool the old priest had called them, but he could still smell them in the air, and they smelt like home. The streets of small, boxy houses were all identical, but he knew exactly where he was going. The smells were faint now, the rest of his people had disappeared so long ago that he couldn't remember any of them anymore, but he knew which smell meant safety. He followed it down narrow, winding alleys, until he finally reached the spot, and heaved himself up six levels until he could crawl through the tiny door and curl up in the dark, warm space inside.

The scratchy, greasy blankets felt like heaven against his skin.

"Holly?"

"What's happenin', dudes?"

Lister flicked his dreads back over his shoulder. "D'you know where the Cat is? Rimmer and I found this moon, we think there's a GELF colony there, might be able to pick up some mango chutney."

"We are running dangerously low," replied Holly conversationally.

"Shut up and just find the smegging Cat so we can go, can we?" Rimmer snapped from the back of the control room, scratching irritably at his nose.

"What's up your arse, Rimmer?" asked Holly, the beeping from the control panel signalling a shipwide scan was starting.

"You know precisely what's up my arse, you gimboid," Rimmer muttered, and Lister sniggered and threw an empty lager can at him. He went to swat it away with a scowl before remembering too late that he was in soft-light mode and grimacing as it sailed through his torso. "There is exactly zero chance that this fun little mission Listy has decided to embark on isn't going to end with at least one of us knee-deep in GELF diarrhoea, and I can almost guarantee that the one of us is going to be me."

"Lighten up, man, just stay on soft-light and it'll flow right through you."

"Smeg off."

"Dudes, I don't mean to cause any alarm," said Holly, leaving an alarmingly long pause before he next spoke, "but I can't find the Cat."

They both paused and moved to the console screen. "What d'you mean you can't find him, Hol?"

"I mean, it looks like he's not on board."

"What about the bugs, Holly?"

"Both still where they should be."

There was a very pregnant pause, and then:

"Holly, do we need rub your sensors with lint-free rags again? Because last time the noises you made made me decidedly uncomfortable. Switch to hard-light mode."

Rimmer shivered and his uniform changed colour as he started to tap buttons on the console.

"No mistake, fellas. The last I have of him is…"

Lister and Rimmer looked up.

"Holly, what?" Lister eventually prompted.

"He took the lift down to the cat city."

"What'd he do that for?" Lister asked and Rimmer elbowed him in the ribs.

"What then, Holly? Where did he go?"

Holly blinked on the screen. He looked as though he would have been scratching his bald patch if he'd been in possession of fingers.

"He didn't go anywhere, he just… Oh."

"Holly, get on with it," Rimmer snapped, and Holly suddenly looked very uncomfortable.

"I think maybe you fellas should go and investigate," he said sombrely, and Lister and Rimmer glanced at each other in sudden dread.

"Sirs, if I may be the first to point it out, the Cat has been acting strange these last few weeks."

"Yeah, yeah, I'd noticed that too," said Lister. "I figured it were nothing, though. A weird cat thing, a phase or something." He shoved his hands into his pockets guiltily and took several deep breaths. "Jeez, what if he actually is…"

"You're being too sensitive, both of you," said Rimmer jovially, "I haven't noticed a thing. He's just being difficult, like usual."

"Rimmer-"

"Don't Rimmer me, you can guarantee that when we get down there he's going to jump out at one of us and we're going to have to pretend to be surprised. Then he'll do a little dance and go squealing off down the corridor."

"Rimmer, just… Just shut up, man. I'm worrying, here."

"He's a cat, Lister, that's what they do. Ridiculous animals, if you ask me."

"I do believe that might be classified as racism, sir," said Kryten innocently, and Rimmer rolled his eyes.

"Look, let's just find him and get this over with already."

"You're so insensitive, sometimes, d'you know that?"

"Oh, smeg off, Lister, I don't have time for his stupid games."

"What, sorry, Rimmer, did you have your to-do list for today or something? What could even be on that? Did you forget we're drifting in deep space? Oh, got to count all the frozen chickens again, mustn't forget to do that. Got to iron me underpants. Got to dust Lister's goldfish, got to go rooting through the female officers' underwear drawer – and don't think I don't know that you do that, Rimmer, because I do. The scutters told me."

"I would never touch your disgusting goldfish-"

"Sirs…" said Kryten's voice from further up the corridor. They froze with Rimmer's finger poking the centre of Lister's chest, and the expression on Kryten's face diffused the tension immediately. "Sirs… Come and look at this."

He was paused at the next junction, looking down at a pile of the Cat's clothing on the floor.

"Oh my God," said Rimmer quietly, and they all entered the lift, enduring the long ride down in silence.

"CAT?!"

"MR CAT?!"

"WHERE ARE YOU, YOU AWFUL SMEGHEAD?"

"CAAAAAT?"

"MR CAT, ARE YOU THERE?"

"WHEEEERRRE AAAAARE YOOOOOU?!"

"Oh, sirs, this is useless. We're never going to find him like this."

"If he's still even here. Maybe Holly's just fallen even further off his rocker than he already was."

"I heard that," boomed a voice from the speakers set into the ceiling, making them all jump.

Lister sighed and pulled his hat off, rubbing at his face dejectedly. "We should split up, we'll cover more ground that way."

"No way, Lister, not in a million years," said Rimmer, visibly starting to perspire. "What if something awful down here ate him?"

"Rimmer, you're a hologram, nothing could eat you."

"Actually sir," Kryten interjected, "something large enough could swallow his light bee."

"Yeah, but we'd only have to wait for him to come out the other end."

"That's lovely, Listy, thank you."

"Just shut up and get searching."

It had been hours of fruitless searching. The streets down here were narrow, each house simply one room barely big enough to accommodate one fully grown human – or cat, as the case may have been – and there was no lighting, leaving them peering into small, dusty rooms, all stacked one on top of the other with no visible method of ascension.

Rimmer stuck his hand into his thousandth cat-home and sighed when his fingers closed on empty air, reaching into the one on top and closing his eyes, leaning his head wearily against the thin walls of the house. That was when he smelt it, just a faint trace of the Cat's perfume.

"Cat?" he said hopefully, looking up in the hopes he would see the other male's brown eyes peering back at him. There were no eyes, so he hooked his foot over the threshold of the second home and pulled himself up, peering into the next one. Nothing, but the smell was stronger.

"Cat? Are you in there?" he said, doing it again, until he was looking into the sixth room up from the ground. Then: "Oh… LISTER! KRYTEN!"

The Cat didn't respond to the noise, and Rimmer reached in warily, laying a hand on the huddled figure of his friend. "Cat?" He shook his shoulder, but there was still no movement. The Cat's bare skin was cold to the touch, and he called out to the others again. The panic in his voice must have warned them, because as they sprinted around the corner Lister's eyes were frantic, and Kryten looked sadly resigned.

"Sir?"

"Rimmer, what you yelling for? Is he in there?"

Rimmer nodded dumbly, fingers fumbling to find the Cat's normally erratic pulse. There was nothing.

"Lister, I… Cat?" his voice faded out to a whisper. "Cat, old chap, come on."

Lister had hauled himself up the next pile of cat houses and peered through into the dim interior. "Oh, Cat, man… Is he…"

Rimmer moved his hand aside so Lister could check for himself, and then they were both left clinging to the side of the flimsy buildings in silence. Lister climbed down first, solemn, but Rimmer laid the palm of his hand back on the Cat's skin, numbly trying to shake some life back into his friend. The chill crept from dead flesh into his dead fingers.

"We could…" he stuttered, "We could bring him back… As a… As a… Like me." He looked down at Kryten hopefully, but the android's face was sad.

"Sir, Mister Cat was never a registered member of the crew. His personality was never uploaded into Hollly."

"Leave him be, man," said Lister quietly, his hat off his head again and pressed to his chest.

"We can't just… We can't just leave him here…"

Lister grimaced and rubbed at his face again, his expression pulled tight with misery. "Rimmer, how the hell are we supposed to get him down from there? I think we'll just have to…"

"We can't… He was all alone…"

"Cat's do this, man… Just sort of crawl away when they feel it coming for 'em. Wanna be somewhere safe."

Rimmer closed his fingers around the Cat's cold arm and pulled, but rigor mortis had set in and he couldn't get the joints to move.

"I heard someone say once it was because they didn't want their family to see them go. Maybe that was it, man, maybe he just didn't want us to see him go."

Cat was curled in on himself so tightly that Rimmer couldn't reach his eyes to close them.