As they walked back from a particularly long and frustrating shift, not for first time Rimmer wished that he wasn't saddled with sharing a room with Lister. Rimmer wanted nothing but to lie down and take a power nap before his scheduled evening revision, but Lister was whistling in an exuberant manner which suggested he had something loud and annoying planned that would delay Rimmer's nap and obliterate his revision time. Rimmer could feel his blood boiling at the very thought of it.

There was a woman standing outside their room.

"Are you lost?" Rimmer enquired.

She looked straight past him to Lister.

"Alright, gorgeous," Lister said, going over to her and wrapping his arms around her.

The woman smiled and giggled. "Hello, you," she said, and stood on her tiptoes to kiss him.

The kiss seemed to go on for way too long in Rimmer's estimation. He watched in morbid fascination as the woman's arms snaked under Lister's jacket, and he almost knocked her hat off her head. Disgusting.

They finally parted and Lister glanced at Rimmer as the woman kissed him once more.

"Listen, Rimmer, me and Krissi could do with some alone time, yeah? So how about you make yourself scarce for half an hour?"

Now Rimmer realised who she was. Kochanski. Now there was a surprise. Lister had actually managed to snag the girl he'd been drivelling about for months.

"Half an hour?" Kochanski said, swatting Lister playfully.

"Oh all right, how about… two or three hours?" Lister said, turning back and smiling at her.

"Two or three hours?" Rimmer exclaimed. That would push his revision time into his scheduled sleep time. It was completely unacceptable. But Lister and Kochanski were already walking off into their room, chatting and laughing with their arms around each other. "Right. Fine. I was due for another power walk around W deck anyway."

Rimmer hoped against hope that the walk would calm him down. Kicked out of his room by a lower ranking crewman! He wouldn't have to deal with this if he was an officer. He wouldn't have to work with Lister, he wouldn't have to live with Lister. It was probably too much to hope that Lister wouldn't find some way to continue to torment him. The only way out of that was death. Now, there was a thought.

Rimmer turned on his heel and continued down a corridor he hadn't yet walked down. The coward's way out, that was what his father called it. It was humiliating for one's family to off oneself. Rimmer secretly thought it was quite understandable. There were many reasons why one might choose to speed up their shuffle off this mortal coil. Unbearable bunkmates being just one of them.

Rimmer increased his walking pace to try to rid himself of unhealthy thoughts as his father called them. He made three whole laps of W deck before the two hours were up.

Feeling exhausted, Rimmer tried to work out how many hours he had been awake. He had got up early for his morning run and callisthenics, then worked a whole shift. And then he realised he had agreed to cover an early shift tomorrow which meant he had - he checked his watch - five hours before his alarm would go off.

Smegging Lister and his smegging girlfriend!

Rimmer stormed back to his room, even more annoyed than before. When he got back there, Kochanski was still there, snuggled up with Lister in his bunk watching a film. Rimmer said nothing, grabbed his pyjamas and went to change in the bathroom.

He lay down on his bed and switched on his "learn Esperanto as you sleep" tape. He couldn't hear it over the film, so he turned up the volume. The volume of the film went up too. Two can play at that game, matey, Rimmer thought, and turned up the volume again. They reached a stalemate when both the tv and the tape player reached maximum volume.

Rimmer turned off the tape. He couldn't concentrate anyway. The volume of the film returned to a reasonable level. He shut his eyes and told himself to go to sleep. His mind refused. It wasn't the film that bothered him. It was the little sounds of movement from the bunk above, the low sounds of talking and laughing. Could the bunk safely hold the weight of both of them? Weight limit of bunks, that was something to check in the regulations tomorrow. Rimmer almost wished he'd walked in on them doing it. At least that would be over before long. This soppy cuddling might go on all night. Rimmer didn't usually think anything of having nobody to share his bunk with, but knowing those two were up there together made him feel oddly lonely, and almost… jealous.

Kochanski was the kind of girl Rimmer's family would be impressed by. They could talk about polo and horses all day long. But she was just a girl, same as any of the others on the ship. He didn't see why Lister idolised her in particular. And he certainly didn't see what she saw in Lister. Why would anyone want to cuddle up to Lister? Rimmer found himself imagining what that would be like, warm and soft unlike lying on this thin unyielding mattress. He quickly dragged his mind away from the thought.

All these feelings were making him even more agitated. He resolved to put them out of his mind. But they just came back in again like an unwanted pet.

I could get a date if I wanted one, Rimmer thought. Wait, no I couldn't. Oh there it was. There it was! Self loathing had reared its ugly head. Now he was never going to get to sleep. Smegging Lister.

It was a new record. Lister had been in a good mood for twelve days in a row. Twelve days of dating the complete and utter babe Kristine Kochanski. Finally he didn't regret the choices that had led him to signing up with the JMC. Finally it all made sense. Even when they weren't together, he just had to close his eyes and imagine her in his arms, and everything was all right again.

"Lister, how long is this going to go on?" Rimmer asked him, leaning against the vending machine that Lister wasn't helping him to fix.

"What?"

"You know what. Bringing that girl round almost every night."

Lister had been in a good mood. He gripped the handle of the equipment trolley tightly. "You just can't stand me being happy, can you?"

"It's got to stop. I've been very patient up to now, but I am now majorly behind with my revision," Rimmer said, completely ignoring him.

"You can't stand that I've got it all, can you? Me with my friends and my girl, and you, you haven't even got a single friend, have you?"

"I have friends, Lister. I have lots of friends."

"All right, name one."

"Well there's… too many to mention. Where would I even start?"

"That's because you ain't got none. Nobody wants to be your friend because you're a complete and utter git to everyone."

Rimmer stared at him for a moment. "That's it. I'm writing you up for insubordination."

"Oh, here we go again."

Rimmer was so angry he had to write out the report twice because his handwriting was illegible on the first try.

Lister was wrong. Completely wrong. He did have friends. There was the board game club, and the Morris dancers. True, he wasn't yet on first name terms with any of them, but he'd only been attending those groups for a decade or so.

Neither of them spoke much during the rest of their shift. Lister counted down the hours he had left stuck with Rimmer before he could see Kochanski again.

Rimmer busied himself with coming up with a full and proper explanation as to why he didn't have any friends. He was quite proud of his progress on the matter so far. He was older than the other crewmembers on Z shift. Well, some of them. So there was a generational rift. And he was busy anyway, he couldn't go swanning off down the bar or the rec room when he had revision to do. And he was destined for bigger things, the peons could probably sense this and were intimidated. Yes, that was it! Once he became an officer, he'd be surrounded by his people and he'd be way more popular than Lister ever was.

To Rimmer's relief, Lister went to slob about in Kochanski's bunk room that evening. He sat down at his desk and opened the textbook. He read one line, and then was struck by the silence around him. Wonderful, beautiful silence, he told himself. But he was also alone. It felt odd when Lister was out, even though he annoyed the smeg out of him. It would have been nice if someone invited him to join them in an activity, even if he had to turn them down because he was busy.

Rimmer felt loneliness creeping up on him. Lister really knew how to get under his skin. That comment about him not having any friends had ruined his day. Even the most socially incompetent among the crew managed to make friends with their bunkmates. Rimmer was destined for better things, but he considered that he could have made friends with Lister in the meantime at least. The trouble was, Lister didn't try. He was messy and loud and left dirty laundry and takeaway containers everywhere. Rimmer always did his best to be a courteous bunkmate, and did Lister appreciate it? Did he smeg.

Maybe he could go and make a whole group of friends and bring them around to play Risk or something. That'd really show Lister! He spent a while making a mental list of people easiest to befriend. Tomorrow, he would set out on his mission.

Lister came back to the room looking unbearably smug, and Rimmer realised that hours had gone by and he had only read the first page of the introduction.

Mission befriending was an unmitigated failure. Rimmer failed to make it more than a minute into conversation with any of his targets before someone interrupted them, or they walked away. He wondered if he should have led with the invitation to play Risk. Other people seemed to find it so easy to make plans to hang out. But the risk of humiliation if they turned him down was too great.

Surprisingly, Lister wasn't with Kochanski after their shift ended. Rimmer wondered if he set the board up, Lister would come and play with him. But then he remembered last time Lister had played Risk. Not only had he complained about how complicated it was, he also refused to follow the rules.

"Lister?" Rimmer said. "Fancy a game of cards?"

"Yeah all right," Lister said, climbing down from his bunk and joining Rimmer at the table.

"So, how was your day?" Rimmer enquired as he shuffled and dealt the cards.

Lister frowned. Rimmer was acting oddly. "What do you mean? You was with me. We were changing LEDs. Thrilling stuff."

"Now there's no need to take that tone. I was only being polite."

"Since when were you ever polite to me?"

"Since always," Rimmer said, looking down at his cards.

"Kochanski's having a night with the girls," Lister said, putting down a card. "In case you thought we'd broke up. Cos we haven't."

"I wasn't thinking that at all," Rimmer said, but Lister suspected he saw a hint of disappointment on his face. "I was thinking it was nice for the lads to spend some time together, like old times."

"Like old times?" Lister said, wrinkling his nose. "What are you on about, Rimmer?"

"Perhaps I've been unfair to you, Lister. It's not your fault you were assigned to share a room with a superior officer. It's difficult for us both. I think, from now on, we should try harder to make the best of it."

"Rimmer, did you hit your head on something by any chance?"

"No. Why would you think that?"

Lister played cards with Rimmer late into the night. It wasn't enormous fun but at least it took his mind off Kochanski. He couldn't help but feel like she'd seemed off with him earlier. Rimmer seemed to be trying to give off the impression that he was having fun. It was weird.

The next week was even weirder for Lister. Kochanski seemed distant, and they spent less time together. Whereas Rimmer was being suspiciously nice to him. Or what Rimmer thought was being nice, anyway. Lister wondered if maybe he'd got in trouble for filing too many insubordination reports again. That'd explain it.

And then came the bombshell. Lister and Kochanski never made it to their three week anniversary. She dumped him to get back with her ex. The whole world fell apart for Lister. He'd have been less devastated if the Red Dwarf had been blown apart.

His mates were nice to him about it. Even Rimmer made a hack job of being supportive. But Lister felt numb to all of that. Partly because of all the lager he drank to forget. And he remained numb, stumbling through life like a zombie, until somebody walked into his life and changed it forever.

The week after returning from shore leave, Lister delighted in smuggling bits of fish and meat and cream to his new companion. He thought it would have been harder to hide, to be honest. But he was pretty sure nobody had any idea what he was doing.

"Lister, where have you been?" Rimmer asked immediately as he returned to their room.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Lister said with a smirk.

"Yes. That's why I'm asking."

"I don't have to tell you where I am twenty four hours a day, you know."

"You've been out until late every night this week."

"Yeah, and? Maybe I've got myself a new squeeze."

"Have you?"

"No," Lister admitted.

"Then where have you been?"

Lister fiddled with the end of one of his locs, wondering if he should tell Rimmer. If Rimmer had noticed he was gone, maybe other people had too. But would Rimmer keep his secret? He'd been pretty buddy-buddy with him lately, but this was absolutely enormously against the rules and he knew how Rimmer was about rules. On the other hand, if Rimmer was that keen on finding out where he was going he might just follow him, and he might have no time to explain.

"Rimmer, I want you to meet someone."

Rimmer looked around. "What? Who? Are they invisible?"

"What? No. Come with me."

Rimmer followed him down the corridor, into a lift, and down several other corridors. Lister unlocked a storage room, and quickly shut the door behind them once they were inside.

"Mew!" a rather fat black cat said as it trotted over to them.

Rimmer stared at it in disbelief.