Title: Leaving - Chapter 4

Author: StarQuality, author of ye Fai... I mean... Leaving.

Disclaimer:
I have a fiver in my purse. Is that enough to buy RD? No? Well then, take it that I don't own the show. Actually, I don't even have that anymore, my friend borrowed it. He owes me a HELL of a lot of doughnuts/donuts.

Summary:
A happy ending?

Pairing:
Lister/Rimmer. Squee!

A/N:
Awww, you guys are the best for reviewing all the time, I love you! Yay! If I smile sweetly, will you review more? Anyway, I hope that after I've written this, I remember to go back and put the Summary in. If I don't, sorry, I'll re-post it. Maths isn't my strong point, so don't pick holes in it!
Time/date started: Friday 15th of April, 22:26.
Time/date finished: Saturday 16th of April, 00:06
Enjoy dudes, not sure if this is the last, we'll see when we get there.


For the week that Rimmer had been on his own planet, the only person he'd had for company was himself. Himself, and that little voice in his head, who he had deducted was more annoying than that smeggy Toaster. They say that if you talk to yourself, you get the right answers, that the voices in your head tell you what you want to hear. Not so, Arnold J Rimmer's voices. They leered at him, the more depressed he got, the more they teased and confused him. He sunk lower and lower, until one day he discovered something... amazing. Something so astounding that he could hardly believe it. He had to go and look at it a few times to make sure he wasn't seeing things.

A footprint. A human footprint.

Rimmer knew it wasn't his, because, even hard-light holograms don't leave footprints, so there was only one answer. Someone was on that planet with him. Being a natural coward, Rimmer didn't know whether to laugh or cry. On the one hand, it was a human... a human. On the other hand, it was a human, who would probably hate him, or try to kill him. On the other hand, if he'd had three, it was a mutant of some kind who happened to have the same shape of foot as a human. Rimmer quickly did some calculations in his head.

There was a thirty-three percent chance that it was a human.
There was a sixty-six percent chance that it was a human who wanted to do horrible things to him.
There was a sixty-six percent chance that it was a mutant who wanted to do horrible things to him.
That was a thirty-three percent chance of a good thing.
And a sixty-six percent chance of a bad thing.

As it turned out, it was a human who wanted to do horrible things to him, as well as a creature that evolved from cats, and a sanitation 'droid.
But that depends what your take on the word 'horrible' is.
To some people, horrible may be finding half a maggot in an apple, or, alternatively, it may involve sexual activities. You just don't know when you've been marooned in space for years.


Lister was that human. As the only one left, really, he was the only likely candidate. The first thing he noticed about the planet was the lack of breathable air. From the inside, it had looked a bit... well, more... human-friendly. But, as he stepped out of Starbug, climbed down to the surface and sucked in a lungful of toxins, he realised he was wrong. Choking and coughing, Lister scrambled back in, where Kryten was trying to figure out where they were. When he noticed Mr Lister was dying, he quickly fitted him with an oxygen mask and scuttled off to tell The Cat not to leave the ship without the same equipment.

After his brush with death, Lister shakily got to his feet, with one hand still holding the mask in place. He looked out of the window, and saw a footprint. Thoughts flashed through his mind, but, he realised that it couldn't be Rimmer, because even hard-light holograms don't leave footprints. And plus, it was his own. He sighed a heavy sigh, and took the mask off. Kryten came hurrying in with The Cat in tow, and started fussing around Lister, re-fitting him with the oxygen mask and such. Lister fidgeted like a four year old, he didn't want to go out there, he wanted to stay in the ship and mooch about, like he'd been doing for the past seven and a half days.

But, no, Kryten wanted him to get some fresh air, even though the air was anything BUT fresh. More... off. Lister made himself smile briefly when he thought that breathing the air must be like breathing yoghurt that's five years old. But then he remembered that he missed Rimmer, and he drooped.

The trio left the 'bug and began their search for something, anything that could fix the broken parts. Not likely, really, but they could but try, and they did. For two days, The three walked around the planet, desperately searching for anything that could help them. Eventually, Lister came across something, but he didn't tell the others. He wanted to keep it to himself.

It was an escape pod.

A Red Dwarf escape pod.


The day after he found the footprint, Rimmer found another. And another, and several more, all around his escape pod. He looked inside, someone had been in there, he could tell, it had a funny smell, and he wasn't sure if he liked it or not. It sort of smelt like... curry.

Curry.

Lister.

Rimmer's face broke into the biggest grin imaginable, he jumped six foot in the air, and he ran off in a Southerly direction. The total opposite direction to where Lister was. But, as a planet is generally spherical, this wasn't too much of a problem.

He didn't know where he was going, or for what reason, but he knew that somewhere, Lister was breathing the same air as him. Or, at least, would have been if it hadn't been so... poisonous. But, the fact that Lister was treading the same ground of him was enough, and Rimmer wanted to find him so badly. Not that he knew what he'd do or say when he saw him, but that wasn't the point, he would decide that when he got to him. Rimmer wasn't the slightest bit bothered that there was a chance that he was wrong, and that it was dome kind of monster that SMELT like curry... But for the first time in his life, Rimmer was actually 100 correct.

Lister was there, somewhere, and he was closer than Rimmer thought.


However hard he tried, Lister couldn't stop thinking about Rimmer. The fact that he had found the escape pod meant that Rimmer was either alive, and somewhere on the planet... or... no, the other option didn't bear thinking about. He was forced to tell the other two what he had found, and Kryten had gently persuaded him to let them demolish the pod for spare parts. Lister refused to help them with the task, so he just sat on a rock behind it and watched them slowly take it apart. As much as Cat had tried to convince him to help, claiming that the work was just too much for him - Kryten did most of the lifting, moving and general work - he still just sat on the rock.

All he could think of was that hologram. The man that had annoyed him to the extreme... But, hadn't he done the same? Rimmer had complained about his guitar on more than a thousand occasions, and did he ever take any notice? No, he played it more, just to annoy him. And what about the time Lister put that fake worm in Rimmer's bed? That was just to irritate and generally gross him out. Didn't work though, Rimmer just reported him. Again. He was such a smeghead... So, why did Lister love him? He'd been trying to work out the answer to that question for roughly twenty thousand, one hundred and sixty minutes and still hadn't come up with anything other than the fact that he had a nice arse.

There were so many tiny little things that Rimmer did that made Lister's heart jump. The way he organised his pencils so that they were all the same way up in his pencil holder. The way that he always wrote the first letter of his name in huge capitals, and the rest in his usual small, neat handwriting. The way that he gave commands that no-one ever took any notice of. The way he did a full inspection of Lister's bunk once a week, as if they were in the Brownies. The way that he was.

He tried to take his mind off of Rimmer for a moment, and looked over at Kryten and Cat. The mechanoid was carrying a metal pole up into Starbug, whilst the Cat was following, giving orders all the time. He decided that he should help them, took out a screwdriver, and began to undo one of the bolts that was connecting the door to the pod.

Then, a voice.

A voice that was cracked, tear-choked and desperate to be used to communicate with someone other than itself. But it was a voice that was relieved, an almost cheerful voice.

"Hey... what are you doing to my escape pod, you git?"


End?


Yep, I think that's it. Maybe I'll do more, but I doubt it. Might do a like... a thing, a um... you know...

Thank you to Jenn for correcting my grammar at one point, and thank you to Simon for giving me the line involving maggots. Oh, and thank you to Xyl/Miss McGruder for her support and stuff!
Love you all dearly :-)
And, if this is the end, I'd like to thank all of you for reading and reviewing, you made my day when I saw that I had reviews :-)
If it's not the end, then I'll see you in the epilogue. That's the word I was looking for, epilogue.

It may be the end of Leaving, but it's not the end of me and my slash fics.

Star
xx