"What do you mean you lost him!? You can't just loose Ford!" Arthur ranted, waving his arms vehemently and looking thoroughly pissed off with the whole zarking universe.
"I don't know? It's just...he was there with you; I know he was because I saw him..." Zaphod paused for effect, "But then he wasn't. " Zaphod's face said 'I'm froody and I don't give a damn where my semi-cousin went'. Arthur's face replied with ... well ... A lot of things at once. But the easiest one to pin down was 'fuck you'. Zaphod obviously spoke face, as he'd had a lot of practice in his time – or his Babel fish was working overtime.
"Come on Arthur! You're a froody guy, right? Actually no...you're the most un-froody guy I've ever met-" At this point, Zaphod was about to go off on a tangent about how the Earth was the most un-froody place to have come from in the Whole Sort of General Mish Mash, but then it dawned on him how upset Arthur was getting over Ford being missing. Well, he chuckled mentally to him-self, wait till he finds out whom else is missing!
"Trillian and Random are gone too, y'know," Zaphod threw casually into the conversation, spinning on his seat to give his third arm an extra hand with The Heart of Gold's controls. Arthur was still trying to coherently voice his distress at the absence of Ford. This second and third blow knocked him off his feet.
"What?!" Arthur screamed, storming towards Zaphod "What on ... on ... on ... Earth have you done?!" He thought that using the word Earth like that was a nice way to use it. It was irrelevant, but hopefully still poignant enough to leave a mark. Zaphod, annoyingly like his semi-cousin, lacked a need to blink regularly and also lacked the decency to do so at the mention of the over-evolved monkey man's suddenly non-existent (in any plane of probability or likelihood) home planet. And that really hurt.
"I dunno," Zaphod said, shrugging. He couldn't have been more nonchalant if he had a cigar in one of his mouths. Arthur spluttered, he scowled and he even considered stomping his feet.
"But I'm supposed to be dead!" he wailed, "I've been to Stavromula Beta!" This was all far too much for poor Arthur. This all started far too many years ago when the Earth first got blown up and bloody Ford Prefect decided to save him because obviously having the last of an extinct race of over-evolved monkeys was a really froody thing for a hitch hiker to have! Zaphod grinned.
"Ah, you see, this is where it gets interesting! Because of your connection with The Heart of Gold, everything that happens to you may or may not be intervened with by the improbability drive," Zaphod explained, like he was informing Arthur of how to tie his shoelace. Arthur stared at the two headed ex-galactic president. His eyelid jerked.
"Can you fly?" Zaphod asked suddenly, as if changing the subject all together.
"Y-yes..." Arthur replied cautiously, "But what has this got to do with anything?!"
"It wasn't a very probable thing to happen! This is why it did! There you go. That's why you're still alive. Because the probability of you still being alive is infinitesimal," Zaphod concluded, looking pleased with him-self. Arthur had to sit down. This really was getting silly now. Every time he thought the end had finally, mercifully come, something happened that meant that miraculously he survived yet again.
"And Ford?" Arthur ventured, his brain nervous that Zaphod would launch into another brain mashing science lesson.
"Zarquon knows," Zaphod laughed, shrugging again.
"Oh," was all Arthur could come up with in reply as he sank further down into the chair.
"Y'see Arthur, because you and Ford were the only ones to survive the Earth's destruction first time round, it appears that you've managed to – by some perversion or other of the space-time continuum – survive it a second time," Zaphod seemed relentless in his mind mangling explanation of why Arthur was still alive. It was getting frustrating, because he still hadn't cleared up the whereabouts of Ford. Sighing, Arthur buried his face in his hands and wished very hard for a steaming cup of tea. Maybe spiked with cyanide or something similarly deadly. Arthur had half a mind to just jump out a window and die in the vacuum of space. He was sick and tired of surviving apocalypses. And he was even more sick and tired of being confused. His whole life has just been one huge confusing moment for poor Arthur. The only time he got a break was when he became the sandwich maker. He was very much craving a Perfectly Normal Beast sandwich, and a lazy evening polishing his sandwich making knife collection. To be honest, he felt perfectly depressed. Maybe he could go back to NowWhat and be the first to learn NowWhatian Boghog language. Maybe it'd kill him. Yes, that would be nice. There was a question nagging him. Why was he so worried about Ford? Arthur thought about it for a while. In the end he concluded that Ford was the only person other than himself in the whole existence of everything who knew anything about the Earth. Except for Zaphod, but you probably shouldn't trust a guy with two heads and an extra arm...
Just a quick update! I'll probably have chapter 3 up by tonight. I'm not sure if Arthur will be included in the main narrative until he inevitably runs in with Ford again. I just thought it'd be a better way of explaining how they survived than having to put it in the narrative BD I'm starting to enjoy dialogue a little too much ARGH SAVE ME ABJSBRKJDBD.