For the disclaimer, please see the first chapter.

A/N: Okay, here's the final chapter of this fanfic! I really hope you enjoy the rest of it! It's slightly shorter than the rest of the chapters (I split my original chapter 3 into two as it became too long by itself) - but hopefully it'll hold its own! I've had a lot of fun writing this, and I really thank everyone for leaving such kind and supportive reviews. You're the best, guys!

Zombie Kitty: Thank you so much! Hehe, good luck with your mock exam! I know what those are like – nasty things! But I am sure you'll do great! Hope you like this chapter!

Alankria: That's what I love about the hologram technology – there's a lot left unexplained! What I meant by the bit you mentioned was that his light feed was being disrupted by the object. Hehe, I love to take artistic license with those things! But I'm really glad you enjoyed the chapter! Thanks for the constructive crit - I hope that you like this one too!

prepare4trouble: Thank you so much! Hehe, I thought someone else would have come up with the same idea somewhere down the line! I'm really glad you're enjoying the fic – I'd really like to know what you think of the ending!

Sunrise over the Tango factory: Thanks muchly! I'm so glad you think that about the characterisation – that's always what's most important to me! Hope you enjoy this next and final part!

reddwarfaddict: Wow, thanks for your reviews of all three chapters! I'm glad the story was addictive! This is the final chapter of this fic, but I have another fic I want to begin shortly and that I have a lot of ideas for! Hope you enjoy!

So, without further ado…

This is the First Day of the Rest of Your Death

--Chapter Four--

Rimmer was scared of death - which, being dead, was a rather silly concept - but he still felt it. He couldn't ask Holly to turn him off. I'll just have to stick it out, he thought. He needed a drive, something to keep him going. But what was there to do on a mining ship three million years into space? Perhaps, he decided, he could pick up Esperanto again. He could still listen to Reggie Wilson. Being dead wouldn't limit his Morris Dancing.

The lift hostess, a woman in a blue uniform with a smile permanently plastered onto her face, appeared on the vid-screen. "We have approximately two hours until we reach our destination," she beamed. "Thank you for travelling with Xpress Lifts." She disappeared, and the screen fizzled out to a rather plain corporate logo. Two hours, Rimmer thought to himself. Two hours in which to boost himself up, get some motivation. Surely he could do that.

He moped the rest of the way.

"Welcome to the Red Dwarf shopping mall," the hostess said cheerily. "If anybody in the lift is asleep, please do not hesitate to wake them up. Buckets of cold water are available on request." She motioned toward the left-hand side of the screen.

"Off," Rimmer yawned, getting up from his seat. The screen reverted to the logo. As he rose from his chair, Rimmer stretched, as if he had just walked out from the screening of a particularly long and boring movie. Sighing, he signalled to the skutters, "Come on, you two." As much as he would have denied it, Rimmer felt nervous. He wasn't sure why. It was the sort of anticipation that only comes before a meeting; the sort that erupts in one's stomach like a whole greenhouse full of butterflies. He stepped out of the lift and followed the overhead sign in the direction of the mall. The skutters whirred behind him.

The Red Dwarf shopping mall, with its neon signs and enormous advertising boards, was as intimidating as one of Earth's long-lost jungles. Benches, bins, dead plants that looked as plain as sticks; each was equally haunting. But what was worse was the silence. Rimmer wasn't overly familiar with the place. He'd been there once or twice, but it wasn't a regular trip. This was a foreign land to him. With a rather smug smile, he compared himself to Napoleon, embarking on a daring and dangerous campaign. True, Britain and Prussia weren't out to kill him. But it was the same sort of concept.

"Holly?" he called out, "Whereabouts is he?"

Holly's voice echoed through the mall's speakers. "Keep going straight," he said. "You'll reach him eventually."

Rimmer sighed irritably, "Can't you be any more specific?"

"I'd be lying if I said I could."

Rimmer narrowed his eyes and muttered something to himself. He turned to the skutters, "Keep up, you two." When he had turned around, the two mechanical service-droids beeped knowingly at each other. They hadn't taken orders in three million years. It was difficult to get back into the habit.

Eventually, and after a fair walk, they reached the edge of the gas cloud. Holly was right; it was impenetrable. Rimmer squinted. Through the thick, white plumes, he could see less than a few feet. After a moment of deliberation, he edged his way into the gloom. He knew it wouldn't affect him, and yet something warned him of a danger that didn't exist. It would, he thought, take him a while to get used to this. The skutters followed, setting their headlights to their full, red beam.

"How far now, Holly?" Rimmer asked after ten minutes lost in the smoke. It had become so thick that he could barely see a thing. He blinked repeatedly in an effort to see further.

"Not far," Holly replied. It was strange hearing a voice in the middle of such nothingness. "My scanners have picked him up. A couple of hundred feet at most."

"Right," Rimmer looked down at the skutters clouded in smoke, "you heard him. Stay with me." He took some more confident steps forward. As he got closer, he began to call out. "Lister!" No reply. "For smeg's sake, where the smeg are you?"

"There!" Holly's voice sounded jubilant as it reverberated about the room. "Found 'im. Twenty feet northwest." Rimmer waded through the smoke, which was now so thick that it resembled a blizzard, his head jerking from side to side in an attempt to spot his bunkmate. It was, after all, so murky that he could easily walk right past him. He was fed up, irritated and utterly frustrated, and this clearly painted itself in his expression. When he got back, he decided, he'd treat himself to that bottle of vintage champagne he'd bought from a collector but had never had the courage to open. Then he remembered he couldn't, and his scowl deepened further.

"Lister!" he called again. "Lis-" He stopped short as one of the skutters beeped somewhere in front of him.

Following the sound, he came across what he had been searching for all along - the fallen figure of his bunkmate. Even through the gloom, Rimmer could see that he was sprawled across the floor, his mouth hanging limply open. The shards of a broken bottle intermingled with his locks and lay scattered across the ground. What was left of a very strong whisky formed an amber-tinted puddle beside him.

So this, Rimmer thought to himself, is the last human being in the universe.

It had taken several hours to drag Lister's drunken body back to the medi-bay. Each skutter had taken tight hold of a trouser leg, and together they had made the difficult journey out of the snowstorm-like gas cloud and down to the medical deck. Lister lay on a stretcher in the middle of the bay. Through Holly's guidance and the help of the skutters, he was wired up to a complicated-looking machine, which beeped and buzzed worryingly every second.

Rimmer chewed on one of his fingernails, "How is he?"

Holly's face watched intently from the monitor. "It's looking good. I think he'll pull through."

"Hm," Rimmer grunted in reply. He looked at the figure sprawled out on the stretcher. He doesn't know how lucky he is, he thought. The goit. But beneath his cynicism, Rimmer was worried. Would Lister get so fed up with him that he'd ask Holly to turn him off? No, he consolled himself. Holly must have brought him back for a reason. There was no danger of that.

"Hold on a mo," said Holly, interrupting his thoughts. "I think he's coming around." Rimmer paced slowly to the side of the stretcher as Lister began to groan a long, tired groan. Rimmer sneered. The only man on the ship to look a full year younger than his actual age cut down in his prime, whilst this slob, (barely qualifying as human at all, he thought wryly), survived. But that was the way of things. It was always the way of things. He just had to make the most of it.

Lister blinked blearily, his head spinning for what seemed like an age. When the dizziness faded, he realised straight away that he didn't know where he was. What had happened? His head felt as heavy as a sack full of bricks. He glanced to his left. And that was when he noticed the man standing over him, looking down at him with absolute disdain. The man with the H on his forehead.

Rimmer?

Holly sensed Rimmer's misery. He smiled knowingly, and with a few tweaks to his program, gently placed a thought into the hologram's mind.

Maybe this was just the drive he'd been looking for.

THE END

A/N: Thank you so much for reading my fanfic! I really appreciate your interest in my writing!