Disclaimer: No I don't own Red Dwarf or Grant Naylor productions or anything else because if I did I wouldn't be posting fan fictions I'd be getting series 9 and the movie made - with an actual CAT based episode!

Right and here we are for the 3rd exciting instalment of...zzzZZZzzz J/K i'm sure you'll all find it enjoyable but if you want to complain about spellings or consistency errors please remember I copied this up at 2am this morning!

Laura: Ha! it's up! took a while but here it is - and you didn't even have to kiss my shoes... much...

Cas: Want more? Here it is! (obviously)

BFB: Glad you liked the Rimmer/Rosemary dialogue it was quite easy to write in the swing of things, anyway hope you like this now i FINALLY got the chapter up.

Wildfire: Ta for that - maybe all us RD fan fic writers are just good at torturing Rimmer, Rimmer angst, and Rimmer madness.

Alex: There! Now I hope this will get you off my case for a while as I didn't post Reflections part 3 up like I promised but I will soon!

Bex: Thanks for the review, and as we all know how reviews aren't your strong point you can just leave your usual 2/3 word review and i'll grill you on MSN!

And read on...

Strangers

Rosemary wandered out of the palace gates thinking of the curious person and the extraordinary claims he had made in his ramblings. It couldn't be true? Our race is strong it's pure… it's got to be…

She staggered down the cobbled street, glaring at the two weasily guards on duty, she quickened her pace to a run, not slowing down till she reached the civilisation boundary line, there she collapsed on a hill watching from a distance as the sun began to set and the hunts began.

She fiddled with her identification bracelet and thought about the other qualities the people he mentioned appeared to have: Consideration, nobleness, vanity, loyalty and many other things she couldn't describe, she tried to picture what these people and the others on that Earth place may look like, but she couldn't, she continue to mull on the thoughts swimming in her mind, till suddenly the sky lit up, stealing her attention as a small craft descended from the stars and seemed to land nearby, somewhere in the woods behind her.

The creator's people! It just had to be; Rosemary scrambled to her feet and turned in the direction of the crash, feeling desperate to reach them before any of her fellow Rimmerworld occupants. She crashed through the bushes and hedgerows, cursing as he dress and skin caught and tore, she winced in pain and grounded to a halt as she arrived in the clearing as the first few drops of rain from an oncoming storm began to fall.

She stared in a mixture of shock and doubt as she lifted her hood and moved slowly towards the figure who was huddled over a blue pod with some kind of hand held item and a bright lantern like nothing Rosemary had ever seen before, he was wearing a kind of uniform, but it was too dark to make out the colour, he heard her approach and turned to face her.

Rosemary gasped again and stood still a few steps away, taking in his lamp light illuminated features, his dark hair, his skin all looked so mysterious and different to Rosemary, she knew she should be revolted – but she wasn't, she smiled impishly to herself and stared into his piercing dark eyes, she felt like she would melt, so many unusual and extraordinary feelings enveloped her at once as the man put his head on one side and looked at her curiously.

He then turned away from her and pressed something on his strange device, it caused his pod thing to suddenly jump into the air and shrink into a small sphere which the man caught delicately and placed into a bag along with his scanning device.

At this latest event Rosemary gasped and fell back into the mud her feelings going from indescribable joy to fear. The man smiled at Rosemary's reaction and reached his hand out which she tentatively grasped.

"My name is Chris Mclaran, sorry for the inconvenience but I appeared to have made a slight error, I was supposed to be travelling forwards not back to the Roman age. – Betty must be malfunctioning again!" Chris smiled warmly as he pulled her to her feet before running a hand through his now soaking wet hair.

"B…Betty?" Rosemary asked confused.

"My ship and time machine she's a new 65th century model – bit temperamental you know?... Hey – looks like company!" He observed pointing at the army that was advancing towards them. Rosemary couldn't believe she had been so stupid as to forget about them, panic rose within her and she could feel the onslaught of an hysterical fit, she released her feelings by screaming in terror and at the decision she had to make, her eyes darted from Chris to her race, in the couple of seconds she had to choose between been a coward and dieing, betraying Chris and being a hero to her people or being a proper hero but still dieing anyway. She grabbed Chris's arm and began to pull him along through the mud and into the woods towards the waterfall the creator Rimmer had mentioned.

"YOU'VE GOTTA RUN NOW!" She howled as the army was coming closer but Chris was trying to stay rooted to the spot.

"Don't worry love, I'll just have a little chat with which ever emperor you've got at the moment, delete your minds, then be on my merry way."

"Are you fond of your head? Yes? Then HURRY UP!" She pulled at his arm and he relented the pair charging into the dense woodland.

"I don't remember Rome being quite like this or the ability for you to understand English!" He panted as he followed the strange being away from the rest of her town's people.

"RIMMERWORLD!" She cried and gasped as she slipped and fell face forward into the rain lashed mud.

"You WHAT?" He cried back through the sound of the storm as he once more helped her to her feet, the two then continued onwards, neither noticing the small band of gold that lay broken in the puddle of mud.

They seemed to have been running for hours but Rosemary knew it was only minutes, however she had never dared look back, the first sign that the army were closer than either had thought was as a javelin flew past her, narrowly missing impaling her left ear. Rosemary wanted to stop and cry but knew she mustn't - couldn't and carried on, barely hearing Chris yell as he turned just in time to duck from another javelin.

"FANTASTIC! I'm on the run from Romans with javelins in the company of an insane hooded woman!" He shouted as they turned into a more hidden part of the wood near the waterfall.

Rosemary scowled at the words, and wondered if Chris had meant to hurt her with them because they had, more than if she'd been stabbed in the heart by one of the javelins. She shook away the thought and once she was certain that the army hadn't caught up to them again she pulled him through the glistening water, they were met with the sight of a cave opening, reached through a medium sized opening in the rocks, almost like a giant cat flap without the flap, (not that Rosemary had the faintest clue what a cat or cat flap was of course) they dropped to their knees and climbed out of the storm and inevitable death and into the dry, dark and dank cave.