I originally wasn't going to put this one up, but then I thought, what the hell! Why not give
evidence that there's such a thing as a slash-less JB fic :)
Disclaimer: They don't belong to me, yadda yadda yadda
Author's Notes: This story is actually the first of a series I intended to write, and only wrote 3
stories for. Stories 2 & 3 follow this one as subsequent chapters. Both the 2nd and 3rd stories
feature an Original Female Character that is obviously a Mary-Sue. However, the first story
is capable of standing alone, so feel free to read this one and not the others.
His only consolation was Kochanski. She and Lister had been the only members of the crew not re-created. He guessed the nano-bots hadn't remembered that she was from a parallel dimension. It was probably for the best. Things would get pretty confusing if there were two Kristine Kochanskis on Red Dwarf.
For a moment, Lister was lost in thoughts of him and two Kochanskis.
The door opened and in came Rimmer. They'd been placed into the same room they'd always shared. Lister couldn't help but think at how their stay in prison had changed Rimmer. He was still a smeghead, but one without a purpose, without meaning. He'd stopped ignoring the bold print in his brain that tried to tell him every morning, "You will never be an officer. Get on with your life." The problem was, he had no idea what else to do with his life.
"Hello Lister," he said as he flopped onto his bunk. "Good night Lister."
"Come on Rimmer, snap out of it, man. You can't go on like this forever."
He got no response.
"Well, maybe you could, but you shouldn't, you know. You still have so much to contribute to this world."
"Like what?"
"Well...stuff."
"Face it, Lister. I'm a useless gimboid elk dropping with all the charm of a mosquito."
"Well, that never stopped anyone before. Come on. We're all the last human beings alive now. We all have to keep alive. We have to continue the species, you know."
"Yes Lister, I'm certain at this moment half the women on this ship are thinking 'Smeg, I shouldn't have told Rimmer I'd shag him only if he were one of the last men alive. What the hey.' I've already seen the future, Lister, and it's Rimmerless."
"That might change. You just see. Things always have a way of working themselves out, almost as if life is being written by some eternal optimist always in search of a happy ending. You'll get yours. I know you will."
They turned out the lights and went to sleep.
* * *
Kochanski couldn't sleep. How on earth did she put up with it, she thought. For two hours, she'd been trying to sleep through her new roommate's snoring. She'd been placed in the same quarters as the Kristine Kochanski of this universe, the one who was still dead. She was starting to miss the nurieeks, rotuts, and hernungers of her old room back on Starbug. She couldn't stand this Red Dwarf anymore. Sure, the emprisonment had been the worst of it. But even with that over, she still missed her Dave, her Cat and Kryten, and her universe.
She wondered if they could possibly miss her as she did them.
* * *
Kryten had entered 'sleep mode' with a smile on his face. He was in heaven. After his probation,
he'd been placed in charge of the ship's laundromat. Cleaning all those dirty clothes, day after
day... he couldn't be happier. There was only one drawback -- not only had he not been given a
room of his own, something he'd gotten used to in the 'old days', but he had been placed in a
room with the Cat. Sure, he was happy that they'd finally accepted him as a male (Archie had
played his part well), but he simply found it rather aggravating living in a room covered in
wall-to-wall mirrors. If he'd wanted to see that much of himself, he'd simply detach his head.
* * *
Captain Hollister woke himself out of his nightmare with a loud scream. It was the same one that had been recurring over the last year. He could never really remember the details of what happened, but he couldn't forget the two faces that even haunted him at night. Rimmer and Lister. Them and that smegging dinosaur...
He started at the sound of the intercom. "Captain to the bridge." He quickly dressed himself and went up to see what the commotion was about.
"You know better than to call me while I'm sleeping. Now what is it?"
"Sir, there is some sort of disturbance in space. According to our sensors, it is some kind of break in the space/time continuum, and any moment now something will be coming out of it."
True to form and only moments later, a sleek spaceship came out of the rip in space.
"Sir, we're being hailed."
"Put in on."
For a moment, Hollister thought he was stuck in another nightmare. There, on the screen, appeared the face of Arnold Rimmer -- only with longer hair.
"Hello, Skipper," the man started in truly heroic voice. "Long time no... wait a smegging minute," the voice continued closer to what Hollister was familiar to, "you're not Lister. I mean," it continued, gaining back it's heroism, "the name's Rimmer, Ace Rimmer. I can see things have changed quite a bit since my last visit. Permission to come aboard?"
Hollister hesitated. The idea of having two Rimmers aboard Red Dwarf bypassed even his worst nightmares. However, he was curious about this other Rimmer.
"All right. We'll meet you in the shuttle bay."
"Thanks, Captain. Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast."
For a moment, Hollister wondered if he'd made a mistake leaving his job as donut boy.
* * *
Ace hadn't taken long in explaining his presence. However, Hollister's explanation of the crew's took a little longer. When they'd finished, Hollister invited Ace on a tour of the ship.
"Sorry, me old fruit. Been there, done that. If you don't mind, I think it's time I met up with some old friends. You understand," Ace said with a wink.
Ten minutes later, he was standing in the middle of room 99Z, using smelling salts to wake the fallen Rimmer, who hadn't taken well to opening the door to see himself standing there.
He'd arrived at a good time for all but Kochanski. She was two hands away from winning everyone's money at the weekly poker game. The others welcomed the distraction.
"Hey Ace, my man. You don't have to do that. We all know he's better company that way." Ace couldn't help thinking Cat hadn't changed a bit.
"Welcome back Sir!"
"It's nice to be back Kryten." Ace paused as Rimmer was starting to come around. "How've you been Skipper, and who's the bird?"
"I've been fine, and the 'bird' is Kochanski."
Ace looked up at him. "Kristine Kochanski? But she doesn't look at all like her?"
"That's because she's from another dimension/universe whatchamacallit."
"Ah." Ace seemed to be lost in thought for a moment.
"And who the smeg are you," came a voice from the floor, "and what are you doing with my
face."
* * *
It took a few moments to explain Ace to Rimmer and Kochanski. When they were done, Lister invited Ace to join in the poker game.
"I don't think so, me old squid. However, I would like to hear about how Miss Kochanksi came to be in your company."
"Nothing much, just a little inter-dimensional accident while we were helping each other out."
"Just out of curiosity," Ace turned to Kochanski, "have you ever played a game called 'The Magic Flute'?"
"Yes! That's a game we used to play on my Red Dwarf, with my Dave." Lister rolled his eyes at the mention of 'my Dave'.
"Kryten, out of curiosity, what are the odds that what happened to Miss Kochanski has happened again with another pair of universes?"
"Why, that's three million, two hundred thousand and twenty four to one, Sir."
"Just as I thought." Ace smiled, leaned toward Kochanski, and looked her in the eyes. "How
would you like to go home?"
* * *
Lister was looking aimlessly out the window into space. He and Ace were alone in the room, and Ace was trying to cheer Lister up as Kochanski was out, packing for her journey home.
"This was your plan all along, wasn't it Rimmer."
"Come on Lister. I didn't even know that Red Dwarf and crew were back, let alone that Kochanski was here."
"You don't know how I'm going to miss her."
"Yes Lister, I do." Lister gave him a strange look that said 'yeah, right!' "Think, how did I know about that silly game she played in her universe? Because I've been there. That's how I can take her home, because I know where her home is. And since I've been to her home, I've seen what a wreck that Dave Lister had become since losing her. From what that Kryten told me, the only thing that brought him back was his anger once they'd found me."
"Found you?"
"Yeah. Apparently in that universe, my father lost his money after he'd had that microchip installed in my brain, the one that he gave my brothers. I don't quite remember the details, but I was on some kind of ship, and we all went into stasis. When the ship crashed, my pod was the only one that survived. So when I got there, they were more or less like we were back when you came out of stasis, except you're the hologram. Either way, we're still at each other's throats," Ace said, stifling a giggle.
"Yeah, I guess some things never change, smeghead."
"God, it's been a while since I've heard that. You know, I was kinda getting used to being admired and respected, but I can always count on a git like you to try and put me in my place."
Lister just kept staring out the window. "I'm really sorry, Lister. I know this is going to hurt, a lot. But it's the right thing to do. Plus, I promised the other Dave to bring her back if I ever found her. I keep my promises now, you know."
"Does that mean you're gonna pay me back the fifty big ones you owe me?"
"Smeg off."
* * *
Kochanski could feel herself start to choke up. Even though she missed 'her' friends with a passion, she also knew she was going to miss these guys. One by one, she gave them a hug and a word or two to remember her by.
Finally, she got to Lister. She knew this would be the hardest goodbye she'd ever had to say. She knew he loved her as he did 'his' Kochanski, and she felt she was robbing him of her.
"She's somewhere out there, you know. I believe she is. And one day, you will get to Fiji. But as long as I'm here, you won't find her."
Ace helped her into the cockpit of his ship. "Goodbye guys, I'll miss you all," she said as Ace started the take-off sequence.
"Goodbye fellas. Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast."
As the ship took off into space, and eventually into another rip created by Ace, Lister didn't know what to think or feel. He felt empty. He couldn't help remembering the movie Casablanca, when Bogart had to say goodbye to his one true love. He turned around and said, "Come on, Rimmer. Let's go."
Seeing Lister's state of mind, Rimmer felt something out of character -- sympathy for his roommate. He did the only thing he could think of doing. He put an arm over Lister's shoulders for a momentary hug, then pulled back when he thought of how silly he must have looked. He put his hands in his pockets and kept walking alongside Lister to their room.
I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Lister shook the thought out of his head
and seriously considered never watching another movie again in his entire life.